Close Encounters 28
Back at the house, Kate glanced over at Logan and he met her eyes easily, not commenting. She chewed on the inside of her cheek and sighed, letting it go. He was too, apparently.
"You've always managed to be front and center for some of my worst moments," she muttered.
"Lucky that way."
She shook her head and then glanced up as Castle brought James by the hand into the room. They had set up on the couch for this, and at least it wasn't being stuck in bed with the needle in her arm.
"Hey, look, JP. There's Mommy."
James was chewing on the end of his bottle - a sippy cup really, only Castle thought 'sippy' was a stupid word and wouldn't use it. She held out her hand to her son and he rocked on his toes, let go of his father's hand, and came running for her. She gathered him to her side, kissing his cheeks.
"Hey, my little wolf. Is Daddy call you a jungle parasite again?"
James lifted his bottle and chucked it towards her lap, which Kate managed to catch at the last second, a laugh spilling out of her lips. She sucked in a breath when Logan pierced the inside of her elbow with the IV line, glanced over at him.
He raised an eyebrow and she nodded; it was fine.
James was crawling into her lap after his bottle, fisting her shirt as he settled with her. She kissed his cheek and leaned back against the couch, cradling him with one arm as Logan taped the IV down.
"Did you tell Daddy you're not his little tapeworm?"
"Bot fly," Castle said, sinking onto the couch with them. "He's our bot fly."
"You guys are so weird," Logan chuckled. "Aren't they, Echo?" He leaned in and rubbed the top of James's head, winking at them. "You're all set, Kate. An hour. Four off, then another hour's worth."
"How much did you make?" she said, narrowing her eyes at him. "You stuck his thighs."
"All the same really. Faster there, that's all. When we used the soles of his feet, I had to keep massaging-"
"Don't worry about it," Castle cut in, a glance to Logan that Kate already knew the meaning of. It had gone a lot worse before. "Kate, he made enough for a full infusion-"
"That's too much-" she gasped, glancing down at her poor little boy, how he wilted against her.
"It's what you need," Castle insisted.
"But James shouldn't have to-"
"Kate," Logan interrupted, laying his hand on her shoulder. "Listen. Say we'd only gotten enough for one round, two rounds maybe? You'd have gotten a boost for a few days, felt pretty good for at least a week, maybe two. And then you'd start pushing it a little more, wearing yourself out, and within that two week period, you'd be back to this again. And we'd be taking another donation from your son."
She clenched her jaw, cupped the back of James's head. He'd abandoned the bottle, had merely curled his arm around it and laid his cheek at her shoulder, snuggling in. Squishy. Tired.
"But this way, we give you a full infusion, six rounds over a 24-hour period, a concentrated push to get you over the hump. And then we don't have to do this again. You have what your body needs to rebuild itself without exhausting your reserves. One and done."
"I understand," she said tightly, brushing her lips against the sweat-curled hair at James's temple. He mumbled and rubbed his face into her shirt, dropped down to lay at her chest. She cuddled him, breathing in the scent of his skin, the ever-present ocean. She wondered how long that would last once they got back to New York.
"Kate?"
"I'm okay," she told Logan, lifting her IV-d hand to curl around his arm, a squeeze of reassurance. "I've been pretty ungracious, Logan. Thank you for this."
Just then, James gave a big, stuttering sigh, fell asleep against her shoulder. Kate smiled against the top of his head, shared her smile with Logan. He winked back, patted her knee, and stood up again.
At her side, Castle shifted to put his arm around her, drawing her back against him. She tilted her head into his shoulder and slowly brought her IV arm into her body, her fingers unfurling against James's round thigh.
He was okay. He was tired, but yesterday had been a long day too. He was warm, his fingers were tangled in her hair, and he was asleep - already recovering.
She closed her eyes, thought maybe she should join him. A nap sounded like heaven.
Castle dipped his mouth close to her ear, nuzzling until he said, "Not too long. Want you both to sleep tonight."
She couldn't help but laugh.
Castle rubbed his fingers over James's back, watching the responding flicker of eyelids or lips as the baby slept, dreamed. Kate wasn't quite asleep; he thought she was in and out, skimming the surface of sleep. James was wiped. Castle was afraid he'd have to wake the boy soon, just so he'd sleep tonight. Couldn't go back to days and nights being switched.
Two warm bodies pressed against his, the relief of having his family close. Castle - if he hadn't been augmented by the regimen - could probably have fallen asleep as well, safe as the panic room out here, their little island.
He pressed his thumb into the material of the boy's t-shirt, something soft and cotton, the blue of the sky. His son was completely relaxed against Kate, the ultimate trust of abandonment. Nothing could happen to him while his mother held him, a belief so intrinsic and essential, and look how easily it came to James. How simple a thing it was to love, to trust.
And with Kate, who wouldn't? But Castle saw every day now, every little thing, just how much had been taken from himself, stolen, his early years made unreliable and unpredictable by his father, his childhood crushed by the machinery of his father's program. His core self, his essence, had been warped by the dearth of moments like this.
He'd had no mother he could trust with total abandon, no father to model the liberty found in love. But James had those things, James got them, and no matter what events came, how many times the boy might need to have blood drawn or to be shaken awake so he slept at night, the foundation now of them, their family, their love - that would put everything to right.
He shouldn't let Kate sleep for long either.
Castle checked the time on the stove from his spot on the couch, sighed to himself. After all that work and suffering of staying awake yesterday, he hated to ruin it now. He lifted his hand from his son's back and stroked the edge of Kate's cheek with the backs of his fingers.
She stirred, rousing to his touch.
"Kate, honey," he murmured, "time to get up."
Her lips parted but she didn't wake. He turned his nose into her temple, nudged his scratchy cheek against the smooth plane of her face. She twitched and jerked, but he had the baby contained; he wouldn't let her drop him.
"Hey. You 'wake?"
She made a muffled noises against his chest, yawned. "What time?"
"Nearly eleven."
"Hell."
"Best if you got up though."
"I know," she muttered, turning her chin down to the top of James's head. Her arms circled the baby a little tighter as she shifted, her body becoming taut with awareness, no longer sleep-slack. "Yeah, time to get up, JP."
"See? You call him jungle parasite too."
She smiled at him over the top of James's head, shifted to sit up. "I do. And wolf. And Jay. Or James Beckett, which is one of yours - your scolding."
He grunted, shaking his head at her, but James was beginning to wake now, called forth from oblivion the second Kate had said James Beckett. Maybe he did use it to scold.
"Yeah, hey there," Kate murmured to the baby. "We both gotta wake, I know. Mean daddy."
"Hey, now."
"Telling it like it is," she said, chuckling as she sat forward with James in her arms. She was trying to peel him off her chest, his body that perfect fetal curl, his sweat-damp cheek sticking to her skin. She laughed and Castle had to help, his hands cradling the boy's head while she fixed her shirt and slowly pulled out the IV.
"James," he called. "Hey. Come on. I'm sorry but you can sleep after lunch, promise. We'll get some more juice too. Want some?"
He held James away, preventing the boy from snuggling back down, and after a moment, James's eyes came back open and he stared up at them, uncomprehending.
"I know. It's so cruel," Kate laughed, leaning on Castle's shoulder, draped at his back as she watched the boy. "We're so mean. But you'll thank us later, when you can sleep, and you're not cranky tomorrow when Uncle Colin has to leave."
James blinked and then his mouth split wide with a yawn.
"Look at that. He says he couldn't care less that Uncle Colin is leaving," Castle grinned. He dropped his face close and rubbed noses with his son. "That's my boy."
Castle forcing her to stay awake all day should have helped. The infusion's full dose should have helped. And she really was exhausted, so much that she fell asleep the moment her head touched the pillow - despite the lurking excitement of tomorrow's leave-taking. Their little island group would be split up, and that meant she and Castle were that much closer to leaving themselves.
But instead of a full night's rest, she woke from a strange confluence of nightmares, as if two or three of the worst ones had teamed up on her. The men on fire in the house in Copenhagen had morphed into burning bodies running through the woods in New York, everything they touched going up in flame, their anguished screams echoing. When she had tried to run, she was chasing Castle in the Congo, and lightning struck, and there had suddenly been rain, and a flash flood had crashed over them, sweeping Castle back, away from her, and into the hungry flames.
She had woken to his screams.
But he was asleep in the bed, sleeping deeply on his stomach, his face mashed into the pillow so that he reminded her of James. Must be somewhere in the middle of his miserly four hours. His regimen-enhanced four hours.
She let out a breath and tried to control the still-mad thump of her heart, but she felt suffocated by the bedsheets, and the night, and the dream. Kate slid her legs out of bed and stumbled upright, swayed as her knees refused to lock for a moment. When she had her bearings, she headed for the bathroom.
Her t-shirt was sticking to her, her pajama shorts creased with sweat. She yanked everything off and ran cool water in the basin, splashed it over her face, trailed wet fingers at the back of her neck. When the chill of the night permeated her dream-drenched body, she began to shiver and look for clean clothes.
She found Castle's ubiquitous black t-shirt and a pair of loose plaid pajama pants that had been his - but cheaply made, bought in a supermarket if she remembered right, and they had shrunk so much that they barely hit her ankles. She tied the waist and rubbed her hands down her arms, but stopped short at the end of the bed. Staring at her empty side and the rumpled sheets only made her want to run.
So she did.
Kate didn't bother with shoes; it wasn't that kind of running. She was aware enough to know that if she went for a run in the middle of the night, she'd spend the next morning exhausted and short-tempered, after being exhausted and short-tempered all day, and the day before, trying to stay up just to keep that from happening.
Instead of going for a jog, she let herself set out.
She nudged open the door to the baby's room, peeked in on him, asleep on his back with both arms up, elephant tossed on the floor. Sasha no longer slept in the house, and Kate missed seeing her shadow under the crib, keeping watching at night. Kate moved softly inside, picked up elephant, and placed it gently in the corner for James to find when he woke.
She closed his door nearly all the way, and she left the house.
She didn't know where she was going, only that the moon was full and her legs restless and her head still being jerked around by images. The nightmare sweat dried quickly on her back and neck, the creases of her thighs as she walked, and the grass against her bare feet was cool.
She found herself walking in the meadow between the farmhouse and the caretaker's cottage, wandering. The dew clung to the cuffs of the pajama pants, so she bent over and rolled them up to her knees, let her calves be kissed by the long blades of grass. In the white-grey moonlight, she could see the wild flowers that still bloomed, even this late in the summer, the black eyes of the yellow buds, the white lace on those tall, regal stems, and the delicate violet that James liked to pick and pile in her lap in the morning.
She came sideways up to the cottage, not looking at it, but her restlessness was mirrored, she knew, by the man inside.
Wanting to be gone.
Kate glanced up, her fingers caught by a trailing vine blooming too far from the trellis, and she saw his light was on, and not only that, but he was standing in the window watching her. She sighed and turned her back on him, putting her face towards the path.
But she couldn't go back to bed and meet the fire waiting for her in dreams. And if she laid down beside Castle and stayed awake, it would almost be worse, and she would wake him in her need, and Castle needed his four hours. He had to have at least that.
She heard the tapping on the glass, and she turned, and Colin was opening the window with a crank so that the horrible screech echoed through the night and made the foxes yip and call from the beach below.
Kate stayed where she was, waiting until Colin Hunt stuck his head out, and then she wished she hadn't.
He was grinning, leaning one hip against the sill, and he nodded towards the dock - and the boat beyond. "You haring off?"
"No," she said. "Walking off a dream."
"A racy one, no doubt. I'd say I'd meet you in dreams, but I'd much rather meet you here."
Kate rolled her eyes.
"Should I come out? We could lie in the meadow and-"
"No, Colin," she sighed. "Stick your head back inside." Inside your ass, she thought to herself. Nightmares never made her charitable. His smarminess didn't help.
"Can't sleep either," he said with a shrug. And then his eyes twinkled. "For thinking about you."
"I'm sure," she muttered. She moved to go, but he had suddenly leaned over the casement and snatched her by the wrist. "What the hell?"
"Come here, Kate."
She wavered only a moment, but it was long enough for him to forcibly haul her into range. She'd paused to consider which self-defense move to make - if she would break his elbow or his wrist (and would that make his story look good or worse to the Collective when he arrived?) - but the pause had been her downfall.
He was too close, and the moonlight was playing tricks on him, and the sleeplessness and exhaustion were pushing her desperation too close to the surface.
And maybe he thought that desperation was for him rather than about him, because he touched his mouth against hers.
He tried, anyway. He tried to kiss her.
Kate flipped her wrist and twisted his arm around, shoved him roughly away from her. His head smacked the window casement and he groaned, staggering, his hand going to the back of his skull with a wince. "Bloody hell."
"I hope it is bleeding," she growled. "You deserve it."
Her lips felt strange, and she unconsciously rubbed the heel of her hand against her mouth.
"Well, that's encouraging," Hunt scowled. "Can't wipe it off, Kate."
"And you can't push yourself off on women, Colin. Especially not ones you're related to."
"We're not related, darling. We're-"
"No," she snapped. She was standing barefoot in the grass outside the cottage, for goodness sake. What the hell?
Colin touched his head again and winced as he pulled his fingers down. No blood, but he was having trouble standing upright, kept knocking his shoulder against the window, and she was afraid she'd made his concussion worse.
No, not her. Him. He'd done it to himself.
Kate sighed. "Give me a second. I'm coming in." She had a moment's thought for going in the window, and then she banished it entirely - they had security measures that made that idea stupid, and she moved around the side of the house for the front door. She opened it onto the kitchen but the man sitting at the table wasn't startled - at all. He just gave her a look.
"I might have damaged him," she told the security agent. "I want to be sure he's not concussed."
The team member's lips quirked; she knew then that he had probably heard, and maybe even seen everything.
Kate moved down the hall to Hunt's room and opened the door. Colin was leaning far out the window, hissing her name, but he spun around in confusion at her entry.
"Oh. You're in my bedroom," he said, sounding stunned.
"Sit down," she muttered. He sank down against the window, and she figured that was better than the bed.
Kate moved close enough to study his eyes, and she held up a finger. "Track," she demanded, and he did, and she thought it was fine. No lag. Focusing. "You're not brain damaged at least."
"Kate," he said softly.
She shifted her gaze to encompass the whole of him, and she realized he was lifting his hands to her waist, his eyes dazed even though not concussed. Kate caught his fingers, gently, and stepped back.
"No," she said, carefully. Clearly.
His eyes slammed shut and his head bowed. He shook off her touch and scrubbed both hands down his face with a growl - and in that moment, he looked the splitting image of her husband.
And she hurt for him. "Colin," she started, feeling too lame for the conversation but she had to. "Hey, I'm-"
"Don't say flattered," he growled.
She sighed. "I wasn't. Because I'm not flattered. You just make me feel bad-"
"God."
"Bad for you." She frowned. That didn't really cover it, but she felt like it had gone on long enough, the unsaid stuff, and even if she and Castle were doing this on purpose with Colin, she had to say something. "Can I tell you a story?"
He glanced up. "What?"
"You should probably go back to bed," she told him, "so think of it like a bedtime story."
One eyebrow raised.
She shrugged. "I'm pretty good at it," she lied. "James adores my stories." Another lie. James liked her to sing to him, and Castle was the one who told their stories. But that wasn't for Colin to know. "So lie down before you fall down."
He opened his mouth and she knew already the comment that would come out - smarmy and charming in equal degrees, much like Castle himself - but she shoved on his shoulder and pushed him towards the bed.
She stayed where she was by the window and sat in the chair. Hunt rolled his eyes but he winced and sat down on the bed, putting his back to the headboard. Good enough.
"This is my story," she said, starting it badly, she knew. "There was a time when I was obsessed, and I let one event overshadow my whole life. It made me razor sharp, but it made my insides - dull."
"What are you even-"
"Shut up and listen. Please."
Hunt sighed, but she saw that his hands were in fists on the bed, like he was trying to gear himself up to say something to her.
She desperately did not want him to say it. She had to say this first.
"I was angry and explosive and very damn good at my job. Scary good. But everything inside was blank. That obsession had eaten it all up, so that it was - it was a hungry mouth, and I was just raw. And then one day I met Castle."
"I don't want to hear this."
"Or he met me," she kept going, ignoring him. "And - well - that's the end. Colin, I am obsessively, desperately in love with him. All that hungry and terrible part of me - raw - scary - all of that somehow lifted its feral head at the scent of him and ran. Ran straight to him. I never did that before. I usually went clear the other direction. As I think you've discovered. I usually am so confounded by the attraction, the spark, that it's like a foreign language I can't begin to speak... I think I'm mixing metaphors. I don't know. I lied. I'm terrible at stories."
Hunt huffed. "I couldn't tell."
"The story goes like this. I fell in love with him the moment he kidnapped me from the road. And life isn't supposed to work like that - love isn't supposed to work like that - but for a very long time, my life didn't work at all. And love wasn't real. So maybe that's what it took, and it took a man like him doing it - but what happened is that all the wildness in me, all those ragged edges and desperate seeking and chaos of me - found center. And then once I had that center, it channeled me and funneled me in the right places. Center is us. Me and Castle. Having this man in my life made my life, put things to right."
Hunt wouldn't look at her. She wasn't sure it was coming through. She was terrible at this but it kept spilling out now.
"I'm desperately, woundedly, viciously, wildly in love with him. To hurt him would be carving out my heart. To go anywhere else would be death. Anything you see in me that is good or right or lovable comes because of the center I have in that love. In Castle and me together."
Kate let out a long breath and stood up. Hunt didn't answer her, but she wasn't even looking at him. She wanted only the door, and the path back to their house, and her husband asleep in their bed.
It was done. She had said it, given the truth, and now it was done.
She was suddenly and inexplicably exhausted, and she knew she would sleep like the dead.