Close Encounters 27

Time for the infusion.

They met Logan on the dock, all of them, Hunt included. Kate had been insistent on that point; Colin had to know what was at stake, feel invested in this. She stood beside him, in between them really, while James rocked on his feet and clung to her shorts, excited by how the floating dock rippled with their movement.

Castle had said this morning when he'd taken the boy for a swim, James had dunked himself under the waves, repeat performance, clearly enjoying it. They were going to have to watch him now, aware of how he wanted to go under. He had the rudiments of swimming, a baby's natural movement, byt she wasn't excited by the idea of him intending to drown.

"Ooh," James cried out. The boat was coming in, a hired speedboat from Nantucket that chopped at the waves. Kate was't excited with that either, speedboats in their waters, but Castle had firmly shut her down when she'd protested.

She needed the infusion sooner rather than later, he'd said. He didn't want to waste time getting the houseboat over there and back.

James tugged on the hem of her shorts and she dropped a hand down to brush the top of his head. He was bouncing a little, rolling with the movement of the dock, head bobbing, and she spared him a glance, smiling.

Sasha came slinking past, the whole family here now, and James reached out and grabbed a fistful of fur, went lurching after his packmate. Sasha went still and good, the dog in her smoothing out the wolf's sly instincts, and Kate noticed Castle pick up on her arrival. He glanced back to her, chin nod to the dog who had become harder and harder to catch.

Kate nodded back. The boat docked and thumped, the rope came spinning out and landed in Reese's hands. Colin swayed beside her, and she had to resist the urge to reach out a hand and catch him, help him; she was no better herself.

Actually, he was probably fine, completely. He swayed because the dock floated and he was finding his balance, because things were happening and beginning to start, while she was the one who was still not recovered.

It might be like this.

She didn't want that to be true; she couldn't face it.

She was a CIA agent, she was Castle's partner, and this couldn't be her life. Part of her longed for the damn infusion because at least then she'd be equal.

Her secret life.

She would be equal to the role, equal to her husband in the field they'd chosen together, espionage like a drug in her veins, and she could never be rehabilitated.

She didn't know what she did if she wasn't a spy.

If she wasn't his.

Those thoughts were too dark for today, for Logan's easy smile as he jumped down from the boat and strode across the dock for them. Castle got him first, that back-thumping embrace, and then James was scooped up into his arms and seriously talked with for a moment, settled back down right where he'd been, but now the baby was beaming up at him.

And then Logan came to her and gripped her by the arms, leaned in for a hug she was surprised to find herself flushing through. "Hey, there, Kate, my island beauty."

"Don't let your wife hear you talking like that."

"She knows, and she agrees. She thinks you're hot."

She laughed and hugged him back a little tighter. "And goodness knows, my husband doesn't care. Let's get this on."

Logan had a devastating grin for her when he pulled back, all of his old charm winking brightly in the sun. She remembered, suddenly, how much of a lifeline he'd been at Stone Farm, when Castle had been running away from her, running around on her with her mother's case, and Logan had given her that daily dose of scandalous encouragement.

"Let's get this on," Logan repeated. "Castle? James ready?"

"He's ready."

"Fuck," she whispered, closing her eyes against it.

Logan squeezed her arm, very tightly, and her eyes popped open. She saw then the concern riding at the back of his endless teasing, and she resigned herself to it.

"Castle's been loading him up with eggs," she sighed.

"Good. He knows how to take care of you, Kate. You let him."

"You were much cuter when you were flattering me."

Hunt sat at the kitchen table, witness to the events unfolding, while Kate Beckett was center stage - a role Castle knew she hated. Still, she sank into the couch cushions with minimum griping, even though Castle refused to let her hold James while he got his foot stuck with the needles. Instead she tried making faces at the boy, laughing him up.

He had his usual chuckling, hands wrapped around his feet and tugging so that he toppled backwards in Castle's arms, and Kate thought it was like he knew. He knew he was getting all the love this morning for a reason, and he was soaking it up, giving out his shy smiles and flirting eyes.

Logan knelt on the floor before them with his kit over his shoulder, reached out a hand and laid it on James's belly. He had a smile and that interactive voice, slightly higher, pitched to invite James's attention, and he waved the stick pen in front of the baby's eyes.

"Hey, James. Long time, no see, kiddo. Mommy's here, and Daddy's here, and you know what comes next when you see me, don't you? You're relaxed, you're just fine, and look, here's Sasha to play."

Kate had never seen Logan do this before, now that she thought about it. He kept switching the stick pen between his hands like a magician, peeling the sterile paper, switching to the other hand, peeling down the other side, switching hands again. James's eyes skipped between Logan, the pen, the dog, his mother, a shy, slow smile spreading across his face, entertained.

Logan kept talking, Castle held him so that the boy's legs were spread on top of his thighs, in easy reach, and slowly, slowly, the stick pen was revealed. James put a fist into his mouth and smiled around it, tilted his head back to look at Castle as if checking in, and then his eyes came back to Logan.

A fast confusion of hands back and forth and then Kate realized Logan had a second stick pen in his hand, peeling the paper as he went on with his magician's trick. The first stick pen went into James's thigh - his thigh! - not his foot, and Kate stiffened but James only went still and blinked and followed Logan's hand, perhaps a little more dazed, but no less interested.

The stick pen was withdrawing blood, filling up the thin ampule; Logan had withdrawn a second ampule from his bag, and now his hands passed the second stick pen and the second ampule back and forth, his voice chipper and teasing and light and friendly, just as it had always been, the blood being drawn from James's thigh. No one looking at it, the elephant in the room.

"You said foot-" she started, but Logan pressed her shin with his knee, shutting her up.

Don't ruin the magic.

She watched as he jabbed James with the second stick pen, his other thigh, Castle's hands now clamped high on her son's legs to keep him still, and this time something got through, some prick of feeling. James's lips twisted, as if he was thinking about it (was it her fault? for speaking and breaking the spell), but Logan got his attention once more, slipped him further away from the things happening to his legs.

"Hey, hey, James. Yes! Good boy, look at you, helping out your Mommy, sitting so still for Daddy. And here's Sasha, waiting for you to get down and run. Such a good runner, aren't you? Daddy keep him still, please-" And then, sleight of hand, the first ampule was filled and switched with the second.

How much blood were they taking from her son?

Her palms were clammy, but she didn't dare move. She watched James as his eyes tracked Logan's ever-moving hands, studied her son for signs of anything unpleasant, distasteful, but he was giving them all his shy smile, as if uncertain of why he still held their attention. Her heart was breaking with every feint and misdirection.

And then the second stick pen had filled its ampule and now it too was switched out, Logan secreting the two filled ampules up his sleeve or down his pocket, somewhere. James was beginning to look - blanched, she thought first, but no, just aware - aware, and his eyes traveled over to her.

"Mama?" His first word all morning.

"Kate," happy warning from Logan.

"Hey, my big bad wolf. Your shy smile. Are we okay?"

He was waiting on her; he was taking his cue from her. She leaned in and cupped his face, that hesitant, is something wrong face, and she kissed his nose, angled her chin to bat her lashes against his cheek. He gave a breathless little sound, startled and adoring, and she pulled back enough to rub her thumb over the bruise at his forehead.

She had thought that bruise had disappeared last week, but here it was again. The blood being drained from him or was it new, from swimming this morning with his daddy?

"That's new," Castle said quickly. "That's new, Kate."

She released her own breath, but it was too late. She'd already panicked. James clamped his hands around hers, moved like he might arch out of Castle's lap and lunge for her, unhappiness in his eyes. She darted her hands down to his hips and kept him still, surprising herself and him as well - he didn't move, stared up at her, confused by her panic and yet her willingness to keep him there.

"It's a game," she said brightly, working fast to whitewash her own heart. Compartmentalize, Beckett, you're good at that. "A game, wolf. Sit very still. Like we're statues. Like we're Sasha in the woods."

James brightened, his eyes tracked to his dog, and the wolf came up, ears forward and stiff, attuned to the tension in the room just as much as the rest of them. Or more.

"Can you be so very still? Even if... I squeeze your fingers?" She took over the job of distraction, her voice pitched in the same tenor as Logan's had been, but her son's attention was riveted. Even without it. She squeezed on his little hands, varying the pressure, just the fingers, just his palms, and his smile came back to flirt with her.

"Okay," Logan said. "Okay, we're done. We're done."

She felt the walls collapsing in her chest, but she snagged her son and drew him into her body, even as she felt Logan pressing band-aids to the boy's skin. She hugged James fiercely, unable to help it, her kisses buried in his neck until he was giggling tiredly.

"Kate, don't," Castle was saying. "Don't, honey. You'll make it harder. He's fine. He barely felt it. He's fine, just tired."

"Shut up," she choked out, closing her eyes. "Shut up. Don't tell me what to do."

She stood shakily with her son and carried him away from the couch, away from Logan, realizing the second she did exactly what she was doing.

It was so hard to breathe around her heart's jagged edges. "Castle," she called back. "Castle."

He came, even though, God, she'd treated him awful; he came and touched her shoulder and she pushed James into his arms and pressed down the boy's hair where it had mussed from her handling.

"Kate?"

"I need to walk. I'm sorry. Please just - I need to get out of here."

"Okay. Of course." His head turned, James held easily in his arms, and she started to move, but Castle called out sharply. "Sasha. Now. With Kate."

And then the dog was her ghostly, if perhaps reluctant, companion.

She knew better than to refuse.

"Should someone... go after her?" Hunt spoke up.

"No," Castle snarled, bit it back with a sigh. Tried again. "No, Colin, definitely not."

Hunt didn't look happy with that, but hell, no one was happy. Fuck. James was unsettled now too - Kate's theatre had made that worse - and now he struggled in Castle's arms a little, grunting to get down or go after his mother.

"You should know better by now, too," he murmured into James's ear. "Give her a chance to get it together. She doesn't like to break apart in front of people. Even us."

James strained, but Castle kept him close, walking slowly back to the middle of the living room where Logan was already setting up his equipment on the coffee table. Jim was paying attention, which Castle felt grateful for - someone else should know how to do this - but Hunt was staring at the back hallway like he could see through it to the back door and the path to the cliffs.

"I can go after her," Hunt said then. "I'll talk to her." He standing up now.

Castle stepped into him, James in one arm, and he pressed his hand into Colin's chest. "Sit down, Hunt."

"She's upset. She didn't want to do that to him; she was against it, but you made her."

"If it'd been to save my life in the balance here, she'd have been the one holding him down. She'd have kept her perspective; she'd have gotten this over with weeks ago."

"You're an asshole. You practically made her cry, and now you're acting like she just needs to toughen up."

"You don't know her," Castle snapped. Immediately he relented, got it under control, lowered hsis voice. "You don't know how it is for her. She feels responsible; she knows she's made it worse - her own issues made it worse. She's not looking for outside reinforcement; she needs to do this alone."

"Outside reinforcement. You're a fucking cold bastard, you know? Just like him."

"Right, because I want my wife to be strong on her own, to stand up without my help - that makes me a cold bastard?"

"What do you think John Black did to us?" Hunt snarled, pushing in. "Isn't that how he made you? Sink or swim, Ricky."

"You don't know me; you don't know her. You think you're in love with her and it makes you hurt to see her not get her way. Well, guess what? That's not love. Love is doing the hard thing even when it hurts. She has to figure this out - alone - because that's who she is. You chase after her, you make it worse."

"Who the fuck died and made you-"

"Her mother died," Jim said, cutting coldly into their argument.

Castle sucked in a breath and gripped James, eyes darting over to her father. He had stood up now as well, but he remained before his chair, not moving.

Jim placed his hands carefully on top of the chair. "Her mother died, and I drank myself near to death, and we cut out every leg she had to stand on. We chopped her off at the knees. So she's like this. She has to do it alone, and Castle is right. It will rip your heart out, but if you go out there and try to drag her back before she's ready, you'll make it worse. You'll rip her heart out. Leave her alone. Just. Leave her alone."

Colin Hunt was breathing hard, like he'd lost a race he'd pushed himself flat out for, a race he'd neglected to do the training for and now was suffering.

Castle didn't fucking care; he didn't care when Hunt stormed out of the house and walked back to the cottage, and he didn't care even when the room took on that drained and empty feeling that came after an argument.

He didn't care. He turned back to Jim, James somehow quiet and subdued in his arms now. "Jim."

Her father sank back to his chair, wiped a hand down his face.

"Jim. You're right, but you're wrong."

He sat down on the couch, glanced to Logan and even though the guy was good at making himself invisible, a fly on the wall, quietly concocting the infusion, he jerked his chin towards the kitchen. Some space. Logan gathered it up and relocated.

"Jim, I need you to look at me."

Her father chuckled dryly and finally turned hollow, empty eyes on Castle.

"It's not that," Rick said clearly. "It's not because you abandoned her, or because I did - and you know I have. I let her think I was dead, Jim. It's not that. It's who she is. It's how she copes. And I said all that because this is how we work it out in therapy, not because she's broken."

Jim rubbed his hand down his face, but he stalled out at his eyes, kept his hand covering them.

"She's not broken," Castle insisted, "or if she is, we're broken all together, right? She's not broken. This is just life. We work it out."

"I know, son," Jim said finally. "I know."

Castle took a breath, slowly rubbing James's back. He needed to get the kid a bottle of juice, replenish his sugars. But Jim first. "She made it worse - she's making it worse - because she's got this idea in her head that she's got to be enough, got to be perfect or right, whatever that means."

"Whatever that means," Jim echoed.

"She had an idea of what this was supposed to look like, and it wasn't this. Was it? That's on me, the whole damn regimen, but instead she takes it on her. And so now she thinks of it like a failure, a personal failure - she can't be enough to even recover from the thing she did to herself."

"She had to," Jim muttered.

Castle laughed, an ache in his chest. "Yeah, you and I both know that. She had to for James. But to her - another thing she failed to do, to provide, for us. So-"

"She'll get there," Jim said, face rising from his hands. "She'll get there; she'll figure it out and-"

"I know," Castle said easily. "I know she will. Or she'll always have this thing, this ache, and that's good with me too, Jim. You know? Because the ache means we're alive."

Her father drew in a long and crooked breath, like it took him such effort to get it done, like air itself was working against him. "Yeah. I know now. Used to - try to escape it as much as I could. But I know."

"I never felt like this before Kate," Castle said. "Never had the chance to feel - anything. Even when she cuts me up, it's good because it's there; bleeding means I bleed. I'm built that way, I guess. I love her. It won't change."

"Thank God for you," Jim rasped. "You don't know how..."

"I know," he said, sober. "And when she gets back from - wherever in her head she's at - she'll know it too. You don't have to worry about Kate when she's with me."

And there was Jim's first honest smile, cracking the weathered, worn-in grief of his face. "Yeah - that I do know. I'm not worried. Why I told off Colin Hunt."

Jim stood and came to them on the couch, cupped James's head and patted it. Castle watched him move back towards his own bedroom, and then Castle stood too, heading for the kitchen and Logan and the infusion that would make this all a lot better.

James's cheek was dusting the top of his shoulder, his body heavy as tiredness overtook him. And no, it didn't feel great, putting needles in his son. But give James twenty years and he would make the same choice himself, to save his mother, to give back what he'd unwittingly stolen.

It was okay; it was going to be fine.

"Let's get you some juice," he murmured into the top of his son's head. "You'll feel better once you've had a bottle. And Mom will be back, and she'll want to hold you and let you nap on top of her, I'm sure. Our brave boy. You did good today. I'm proud of you."

Kate leaned over, hands on her knees, gulping fast to get air in her lungs, sea air, clean and salty and sun-drenched. She heaved in another breath and dug her toes in the sand to keep from shifting as the waves dragged at her.

What was she doing down here, running on the beach like she was being chased? Fuck, she was losing it.

She had lost it; she was tired, pushed out beyond her control. Obviously, she needed something, something to get her over the plateau she'd hit the last few weeks in her recovery. She'd been so close to normal when Colin Hunt had shown up in the park that day, and then they'd gone through hell, and she had been ground down to nothing.

She was worn down. She felt every hour here like a rock she carried, piled inexorably higher, grinding and shifting and rubbing her raw. She had nothing left; she couldn't carry it.

Sasha barked and came running up the beach, splashing water. She'd gotten to be a wild thing these last few days, her fur had grown out, clumped with mud and seaweed and knotted with salt. She rarely came to them, followed James only when he was outside, didn't like to come through the doors; she had morphed into a wolf.

Kate had done something similar, hadn't she? Become a wild thing, unused to people, unwilling to be inside the walls. Letting herself go to the wolves.

Kate dragged her feet through the sand to the sea grass spotting the shore, sank her back against the cliffs. She was still breathing hard; she'd barely run a mile.

She was fucking weak.

She wasn't enough; she had failed them.

She knew these were lies, to some degree or another; she knew that her physical endurance had nothing to do with her ability to be a good mother, a partner to her husband. She knew what they had wouldn't be damaged or broken by her poor health.

She just didn't want to be like this; she was fucking tired of being tired. She wanted only to run the beach with her dog, carry her son down the island path, make love with her husband and not be fucking winded, not need to sit down.

"Damn it," she growled.

She'd made her son miserable, hadn't she? She'd made it worse, her own damn issues. James had been fine. If he'd been sick, if they were taking samples of his blood for something to do with the regimen - or even just Castle - then she'd have been the first one to volunteer him.

What a fucking hypocrite.

Sasha came running to her, spraying sea and sand with her speed, salt getting in Kate's eyes. She grunted and wiped the corner of her t-shirt over her face, reached out and ran her fingers through Sasha's fur.

"Oh, wolf," she sighed. "We should've reined you in, huh?"

Sasha wriggled out from under Kate's hand and went bounding off.

"At least that's one of us," she murmured.

Kate closed her eyes.

Had to face them all, had to fucking get it over with. Apologize.

"Kate."

Her head jerked up, body struggling to straighten. She let out a breath. "Rick."

He came down the last few feet of the cliff path and the sand shifted so that he slid to a stop beside her, a quick breath of laughter. "Hey."

"Shit," she muttered, pressing her hand over her face.

He bumped her shoulder with his and she couldn't help the groan that deflated her chest.

"Not that bad," he said, chuckling a little.

"It is. It is that bad. I'm a fucking-"

"Gorgeous, intense, stubborn woman," he interrupted, another bump of his shoulder. "And I'm smitten."

"Smitten, huh?"

"Completely."

"Your loss."

A kind of vicious punch to her shoulder that made her yelp, squinting her eyes against the sun as she looked at him.

"My fucking loss?" he said. "That's my wife you're bashing. And I'm sick of hearing it. You measure yourself by the most fucking ridiculous standards, Kate, and yet you let the rest of us get away with shitty-"

"I'm sorry," she rushed out. "I'm sorry."

He went silent, and she gulped down another breath of that crisp, clean air but it didn't seem to do her any good.

Castle wrapped his arm around her shoulder and dragged her down into him, pressing his chin to the top of her head. She fought to stay, to not shrug him off and slink away like the wolf.

"I'm sorry," she said again, wishing she meant it the way she wanted to mean it.

He didn't say anything to that - he probably knew better - and she finally stopped struggling with herself. She just sat with him, watching the ocean waves come in and be dragged out again, always another wave to take its place, scouring the beach clean.

Her footprints were long gone. The wolf was bounding back up the trail towards the birch forest, leaving them to it.

"James okay?" she said then.

"Yup."

"Did he get juice or-"

"I gave him a bottle. Taken care of."

She felt like shit.

His fingers played at the sleeve of her t-shirt. "Logan's almost finished with the infusion. Be better soon."

"Hopefully."

"Your enthusiasm is underwhelming."

She laughed, completely involuntarily, and she knew he was smiling, the insufferable-

"I had an idea." Castle scraped a fingernail against her arm and she shivered.

"Yeah?" she murmured.

"James was awake when I left, drinking his juice, but I bet he'd really like to take a nap. You could - you know - hold him, cuddle him, baby him while the IV-"

"Shut up," she muttered, sinking into his side.

Castle brushed his lips against her temple, stopped talking. His fingers slipped under the collar of her shirt, dusted the slope of her shoulder, inching her shirt down. "Quickie on the beach?"

"I hate you," she snorted, elbowing him off even as she turned and slid into his lap.

Castle was grinning as she hooked her arms around his neck. He planted his hands on her hips and slipped in under her shirt, stroking her ribs now. "You do, huh?"

"Hmm."

"Heavy makeout session on the beach?"

"We'll see," she hummed, leaning in to find his mouth.

At the last second, right before their kiss connected, his honesty rubbed against her lips. "I love you. Love you, Kate. As you are."