Close Encounters

"Kate."

She floated up, slowly, though her body was so heavy she thought she might sink.

"Kate."

She couldn't quite surface.

"Sorry, love, but I need you to wake up."

And then a warm, wriggling body was in her face, wet mouth at her neck, babbling sounds in her ear. She automatically unfolded her arm to the baby, opened her eyes more slowly.

Castle had let James crawl across the blankets to her; he stroked the hair back from her face and traced the edge of her ear. "I know you're tired. But can you come with me for a couple hours?"

"We going skinny dipping?" she mumbled.

He chuckled and it made James try to copy him, a little echo. Echo. Her happy son babbling her name and worming closer.

"No, love. Not this morning. But it's eight-"

"Eight," she groaned. She should be up.

"And I need to talk to you about a new development."

Kate dragged her body upright through sheer force of will alone, clutching James in her arms as he hung from her like a sloth. He was cuddling again today too, though in fits and starts, laying his head against her shoulder for a moment before popping back up again.

"New development?"

"I talked with Colin. He's not feeling so great, but he answered some questions about the Collective."

"He - did?" She'd been working at him before they'd had to rush out of their home. She could have sworn that Colin Hunt hadn't had any detailed information about the Collective.

"We came to an agreement," Castle admitted.

She moved to try to stand - just a pallet on the floor last night and it had been comfortable enough with Castle as a buffer, but now her ribs ached.

"No, stay," he said, holding out a hand to her. "You're-"

"Gotta get off the floor," she winced. Castle reached for James and took him back, gripped her by the upper arm to help her up. She swayed once on her feet, but she got her bearings quickly.

"Want breakfast?"

"Coffee. And the couch. Unless one of the guys took the couch."

"I got your coffee made and the couch is free. James, don't chew on that."

She glanced over and saw James was gnawing on the leather strap of Castle's over-the-shoulder holster.

It was that kind of development? She had thought the island was safe-

"You're leaving," she croaked, coming to a halt right at the door.

Castle eyed her.

"You are not leaving me here alone," she told him. "Don't even begin to think-"

"I need to go back and see Logan and Boyd."

"You can fucking call them," she hissed.

"Kate-"

"No." She crossed her arms over her chest, felt the twinge in her side as she pulled at the gash. "I am forbidding it. I never - I usually am the very first person to head right back out there, but no. Not this time. Not you. The Collective-"

"Kate, will you just listen to what I learned from Colin before you decide?"

She opened her mouth to say hell no, you're not leaving but she'd asked him to listen to her and he was only asking for the same.

There's another way, he had begged her in Tunisia. She didn't have to throw her neck at the knife. And now if she wanted him to find another way, then she would have to listen too. She would have to give him his shot.

"Coffee first," she growled, turning around and yanking open the bedroom door.

Her back was killing her. They needed some damn furniture.

She stared down into her empty coffee mug and tried to fathom the abrupt change in perspective. New development, he'd said. Well, no fucking kidding.

James whined at her shoulder, gnawing on a teething ring. She couldn't process this. No wonder Castle was suited up and ready to roll.

"Shit," she moaned, tilting her head back on the couch. "Shit, Colin. I can't believe he did that."

"I can."

She struggled upright again, passed James off to his father. "I want to hear it from him. From the source. I want to see his face when he says it."

Castle didn't protest, just helped her to her feet and got her moving. She deposited the mug on the kitchen counter as they passed through to the back door, Castle still holding James against his chest.

"Should he-?"

"He's fine," Castle said. "I think Hunt likes him."

Well, that was two for two today. She'd thought for sure Colin had been annoyed by James. "Take my hand?" she asked.

"You feel that bad?"

"Um. Just. Trying to be proactive for once." For his sake, she was trying to be careful with herself. "The path between the houses is sandy and I'm tired."

"Sand is harder," he said, as if it had just occurred to him that trudging through the sand was work. "I got you."

"But don't pull on your shoulder," she told him, their fingers lacing as they came off the back porch.

"It's past that stage. Needs to be worked to keep the newly healed tissue from scarring inside."

"Oh." That fast. Wow. She knew but she also hadn't known. "You know, this is maybe the first time since we met that you've been consistently on the regimen as it was meant to be."

"Hate to say it, but I can tell," he sighed. "I feel - fuck - I feel invincible, and that should scare me, but it doesn't. You were right. I need it. It helps me."

She had to chew furiously on the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning.

"Don't get cocky," he grumbled.

Kate laughed, and James laughed with her, tossed his teething ring off into the sand. She shook her head at him. "Too bad for you, little parasite. It's gone now. You're gonna regret it."

"I brought Colin some toast," Castle shrugged. "Probably still there. He can chew on that."

They both stepped right over the sand-caked teething ring, kept moving. James grunted and leaned out in Castle's arms, but Kate put her mouth against the boy's reaching fingers, gobbled on them until he giggled.

"You brought Colin breakfast?" she said then, just now realizing.

"Ah."

"That wonderfully unhelpful noise of yours," she muttered, rolling her eyes. "Why, exactly, were you so nice to Colin Hunt?"

They had arrived at the front door of the cottage, and Castle opened it for her, smiling softly back. "Unhelpful on purpose. I didn't want to worry you, but Colin woke asking for peanut butter last night. It occurred to me that maybe he should be getting eggs. A lot of eggs. So no, Kate, I wasn't being nice. I was shoving eggs down his gullet as fast they'd go."

She laughed, surprised, a little touched, though she shouldn't have been. Castle was a good man, tender-hearted in all the ways his father had tried to break him of, and she loved him.

"Eggs and toast," she said, touching his chest as she moved inside the cottage. Len was there, but the rest of the place was empty.

"They're coptering in some meds for his infection. He's going to be fine. But I thought the proteins couldn't hurt."

"Is that why you want to leave?" she asked, turning to look at him as he entered behind her.

"No." He scowled furiously and she knew it was because of her question. But that wasn't how she'd meant it. She didn't mean, Castle, leave us here to save Colin Hunt's life, because like fuck she wanted him to leave at all. She just wanted to know what Castle was thinking.

The medic on their security team was rising from the kitchen table, looking at them expectantly.

"Len, he awake?" Kate asked, nodding towards the bedroom.

"In and out. Fever is steady. Drugs should be here in an hour."

"Good," Castle said, shifting James to his other arm, the weak arm - but it needed exercise, he'd said. "We're going in to talk with him again. When the meds get here, let me know."

"You got it," Len nodded, sinking back down to the table.

Kate led the way down the hall, her son leaning out from Castle's arms and trying to touch her, so close was Castle following. She felt the little fingers in her shirt, clinging, and she turned at the door to kiss his palm.

"I can hold you when we sit down. Can you wait?"

"Mama."

"That's a yes," Castle said, nudging her with a knee. "Come on. Let's go. You need to hear it, so let's hear it."

She opened the door to Hunt's room.

He was awake on the bed and waiting for her.

Castle wondered if she kept James in her arms as a buffer, or maybe simply as a reminder. James was being good, keeping still in his mother's arms, cuddling and chewing on toast, though he kept looking to Castle as if to make sure.

You're doing good, Castle thought. Proud of you.

His son was nine months old; he didn't know what proud meant. He didn't hear the words Castle thought his direction. He was hitting milestones in advance of most babies his age, but it wasn't a reason to worry. None of it was worry; it was just - a development.

They would take it as it came, and they'd learn to be what he needed.

"Colin, Castle said you lied to me."

Well, fuck, she had gone for the soft underbelly, hadn't she? He hadn't been expecting that.

Hunt closed his eyes, nostrils flaring. All of them in the room together, wasn't that what Colin had said? A fucking headache.

"Colin, she wants to hear it from you."

He opened his eyes and turned a weary look on Kate. "I wasn't particularly forthcoming, no."

"And now you are?" Kate snapped. Castle realized it had hurt her, Colin's lies. She'd known the man hadn't given them everything, but maybe she'd been more willing to believe than Castle had known.

"Now I am," Hunt sighed. "What I told Castle is the truth. I was with them in New York."

"With them," she stated flatly. James laid his hand on her arm and patted, and fucking hell, how could Castle think the kid didn't know? He knew something, if only that his mother was tense, and he felt that at the very least.

"I was with the Collective agents and Diane Jolin in the city," Colin said. "I was playing both sides. Black and Jolin. CIA and Collective. Well, until Black got booted from the CIA."

"For what purpose?" Kate cried out. "What did you think you were doing?"

Hunt's eyes slid to his, and Castle blinked once. They had agreed to keep James out of it.

"They're my bloody parents, Kate. What do you think? I've had my own brand of specialness," Hunt snorted. "But not as they wanted; they passed me back and forth - damaged goods. All I got was side effects of this fucked up blood that Jackson Hunt - that's your John Black - he never cared to follow up on. She was doing the research, and using my blood as her failure."

"What do you mean?" Kate croaked. She turned a flashing glance back to him. Castle had only gotten through that first point - that Hunt had been with the Collective when he'd run from them and wound up on their doorstep - when she had insisted on getting it straight from the horse's mouth. "What is he talking about, Castle? What side effects - what's wrong?"

"It's not anything wrong," he told her firmly. "He just experienced a lot of the regimen without Black as his guide. It was Jolin - keeping track and... keeping secrets from Black."

"And I've had other issues come up," Hunt said then, drawing Kate's attention again. "But Diane Jolin - she was the one who shared her findings, she was the one doing the research and asking questions Black never cared to know."

"Black never-?"

"Never," Hunt growled, lifting a hand to stab a finger towards Castle. "He got everything. I got nothing."

"Oh, Colin-"

"But La Lune. She wanted to know. So I did as she asked. I went to Black and spied."

"Your mother. You didn't tell her about - about Castle, did you?" Kate sighed, her face bleak. "Please tell me you didn't give her all our secrets."

"No," Hunt said. Castle believed him. If only because no one with Hunt's - abilities - could ever trust a research scientist even if the woman had been his own fucking mother. "No, Kate, I never told her about Castle, never told her that Black had a favorite. It was - my mission, my own mission. I wanted answers that Black wouldn't give me, and this was the only way."

"But he knew Diane was doing her own experiments, didn't he? That she was using you."

"He did. And he used that to his advantage - and I used him. He had the other side of things, you know? He had been successful in his human experiments - he had Castle. So I played them both. Have been playing them both."

"For answers," Kate whispered. "I - understand."

Castle had known that would resonate with her. "Go on, Colin. Tell her about the Collective."

Hunt was struggling to sit up straighter, though his face was still a mask of tight control. "The Collective has always been this precarious balance of war-mongerers and hippy scientists. The hawks want to take Jolin's research to the next level, but the leadership has always been against it. They've been in charge. Largely because of Diane Jolin."

"She was leadership? Black told us she was one scientist of many."

"She was their leading scientist," Hunt said, shaking his head. "But she was so good that her developments were enough to keep the war-birds appeased. John Black has told me straight to my face that some of those 'developments' were things he fed her. God knows they never thought I was of any use to them."

"So Black was doing his best to keep the Collective peaceful, unthreatening even," Castle filled in for her. "Manipulating everyone in sight, just to keep it all to himself."

Kate flashed him a look. "And keep you safe."

He didn't comment. He had serious doubts that Black's motives had been so altruistic, though his own continuing existence was definitely part of the plan. Castle was Black's greatest achievement, unparalleled, unrivaled.

"Jolin fed the Collective breakthroughs in sleep-deprivation-study and mental acuity, as well as rudimentary limb regenesis. She kept her bosses happy and they in turn funded her more out-there research. They ignored me."

"Out there?" Kate murmured. Hunt gave Castle another look, but this was all fair game. He didn't want to keep Kate in the dark, he just wanted this shit about their son staying well clear of it. She did not need to think that James was next on some fucking program. No. James was out of this.

Colin cleared his throat; he looked sweat-drenched with fever but he was trying. Castle had to give him that. The man shifted on the bed. "Diane Jolin was almost exclusively interested in the paranormal aspects of the regimen."

"The... paranormal?" Kate asked, voice tailing up at the end of her question. She gave Castle a fast, incomprehensible look.

"I don't glow in the dark," Castle muttered.

Kate's laugh was a little breathy but her hand came out to grip his knee. "I would have noticed that by now."

"Kate," he started, wanting to do this part himself. Be damn sure that James never entered her mind. She was already so hellbent on him getting every last resource, even if it meant killing herself to do it. Castle didn't want to give her one more reason to think she needed to wreck herself for this.

"You sound like you're delivering bad news," she said tightly.

"It kind of is," he apologized, grimacing. "Diane Jolin was interested in telepathic powers, moving things with the mind; she wanted to 'awaken' these characteristics in the human genome, and well, within herself as well."

"That's..."

"Crazy," Hunt muttered. Though he was proof to the contrary, at least a little. "She was fucking insane, Kate. She'd been taking the regimen for years, small doses, trying it out, trying to open her mind, she said. She wouldn't on me - she said I'd already failed, but she shot up her own veins. At first it was nothing, but when Castle wounded her in France, she had her research assistants bring the serum to her in the hospital."

Kate groaned. "She took it. I knew it. She took the regimen."

"And it fucking fried her brain," Hunt muttered, rubbing a hand through his hair and tugging on the ends. "I - I wasn't trying to - she wanted to hunt you down, Kate. She thought you had - done it - done it telepathically. She said you didn't have the musculature to have beaten John Black like he'd been, and that you must have tossed him around with your mind."

"Holy fuck," Kate whispered.

"She lost it. I came with her to New York because I thought - thought to keep her from getting to you. I thought I could convince her. But she got worse; she was obsessed, stalking you, and I knew I had to get away and warn you. Both. Warn you both."

Castle swallowed hard, realizing too late the big thing they hadn't told Colin Hunt since arriving on the island. Fuck. How could he have forgotten? "Hunt. Colin," he started. Kate was looking at him, horrified. But he had to. "Brother. She's dead."

"I felt the bloody concussion, didn't I?" Colin snapped. "I know she is."

"No," Kate said. "No, Colin. Not in the truck. She was the one hunting us in the woods."

"What."

Castle clenched his fists. "She was the one who lured us - it was Diane Jolin in the woods. I shot her. I killed her man and then when she came after him, I shot her and I killed her."

Colin stared at the mattress beside his hand, pressed flat to the bedding.

James squirmed in Kate's arms and wriggled up to stand on her thighs, hanging on to her shirt with little fists, his face right in hers. "Mama?"

Castle's heart flipped. He reached out and took James from her unsteady hands, cupped the boy's head to kiss him. He felt like shit; he knew Kate must feel worse. "Give Mommy a break, wolf. You can sit with me while Mommy talks with Uncle Colin."

"Colin," Kate murmured. "You were stabbed-"

"She did that. And. Her goons tried to get me as I escaped."

There was a long moment of silence. Castle thought it didn't really do Hunt any good to remind him of how fucking crazy his mother had been - it was still his mother. But Hunt finally lifted his gaze and looked at them each in turn.

As if trying to decide. "That's not the important part," Colin said. "Castle. Tell her."

He took a slow breath. "Kate, it's not just that Diane Jolin was experimenting with telepathic powers - as insane as that is - it's that the Collective's leadership used to believe in her."

Kate sat up stiffly. "And do they still? Did they at all? Because she knew me."

"No," Colin said from the bed.

Castle glanced his way, a wry grimace on his lips. Apparently Hunt wanted to be the one to give her the good news - just not the bad.

Colin ignored him, eyes on Kate. "No, they didn't believe her. They saw she'd lost it, that she had taken her own deadly medicine. The leaders of the Collective were cutting ties, abandoning her, because sticking with her meant they had sided with the losing team. Every scrap of information she sent back to them - it didn't get through to anyone in power."

Kate was studying Hunt rather shrewdly, Castle thought. And then she narrowed her eyes at Colin and said, "And how do you know that, Colin? Why did her men attack you as you escaped? If you had truly been on her side, then her men - men who were not crazy - wouldn't have thought they needed deadly force. Not on someone they thought was on their side."

Whoa, shit. This was not what Colin Hunt had been telling Castle.

"Colin," she called. "Did the Collective ask you to keep tabs on Jolin? Did the Collective ask you to make sure she didn't cause them any trouble?"

"Uck!" James shouted.

"Fuck is right," Castle growled, standing up in the chair. "You didn't tell me you were fucking around with the Collective."

Colin Hunt looked so damn furious - and so amazingly defeated. He was helpless in a bed and he'd been caught out lying to them again.

"Fine," he tried to yell. But his voice was weak and thready. "Fine. Fine, I was fucking with the Collective too. I had to be - just to get anything at all, just to stay bloody well alive and ahead of the game. John Black is going to murder me in my sleep one of these days, don't think I don't know it, and I needed allies."

"Well, fuck you," Kate snapped. "Fuck you for not trusting me. I told you I'd come back for you, I told you that you were fucking family, and you're still fucking with me?"

"Not fucking you the way I'd like."

Castle reached out to hurt him, but James crawled up his chest, arms and legs digging into his ribs and collarbone, babbling for attention, excited by the heightened tension in the room. Completely halting Castle's progress.

Damn it.

"You're right; you need allies," Kate was hissing. "And that's us. We are your allies. You keep lying like this and it makes it damn hard to convince my husband to stay your ally. Do you not get that?"

"I have no one," Hunt growled. He was struggling upright, trying to look a little more in control. Castle, just because he could, just because it would show Hunt up, leaned in and helped him sit up straighter. Hunt's whole face flushed deep crimson and he looked like he wanted to fucking punch Castle.

"You have no one?" Castle said. He wanted to do more than punch Hunt. "You have - for reasons I don't understand - managed to get my wife on your side, Colin. You think that's nothing - that she's no one? You have so little regard-"

"No!"

"Then don't act like a craven fool," Castle said. His voice was deadly calm, but he would gladly break this man's bones to prove his point. "Kate is being entirely too generous, and she trusts - she trusts you when she trusts so very few. Be worthy of it."

Hunt looked like he was struggling for air, struggling, just - struggling in every way. Castle stepped back, releasing the man, and he shifted James higher in his grip.

He turned to Kate. "I'm going to take him out. Needs to be changed. You do what you can with this one."

She blinked, entirely taken by surprise he saw.

Castle reached out his free hand and cupped the side of her face, leaned in to touch his mouth to hers, James snuggled between them. "Be careful, love. He's not who he seems."

"I know who he is," she whispered.

He wasn't sure that was as encouraging as she'd meant it to be.

By the time Hunt had finished telling her everything, the medicine had arrived. Len came into the room with the needle and Kate lowered Hunt's hand back to the bed, stood from her spot in the chair. She touched Len's shoulder as she left. "Let me know how this works, would you?"

"Castle said to update him-"

"I know you're reporting to him. But me as well."

Len looked confused but he didn't argue with her, he just moved to the bedside to administer the injection. Which apparently went in the ass.

So Kate left him to it, shutting the door behind her. Castle wasn't in the kitchen, and she assumed he'd gone back to the house.

She was tired.

Kate sank down to the kitchen table, laid her head on her crossed arms, closed her eyes. This wasn't a good tired. This was the kind of tired she'd had in Europe after nearly dying. Whatever recovery she'd managed had been wiped out yesterday, her reserves zapped to zero again, and being upright was beyond her.

She should call Castle. He wouldn't like it if she kept trying, pushing.

She lifted her head and studied the command center that had once been a perfectly nice kitchen table. There was a phone just within reach and she grabbed it, not caring whose it was, surprised when it allowed her to make an emergency call. Most of the CIA phones didn't allow unauthorized calls.

Castle answered on the first ring. "Len?"

"No, it's me," she sighed.

"Kate. You need me at the cottage, babe?"

"Please."

"I'll be there in thirty seconds."

She laughed softly. "You don't need to run."

"I'm not far," he said, his voice rich over the phone line. "James is with your dad."

"Okay," she sighed. "Wake me when you get here."

She was just so tired. She laid her head back down on her arms and closed her eyes.

He really would have to wake her.

Castle crouched before the kitchen chair, reached up to softly stroke the hair off her face. Kate looked exhausted, and he had no doubt yesterday had been beyond her.

But she'd done it anyway, still standing after many had fallen.

He leaned in and kissed her, lightly, gently, waiting for her eyes to struggle open. She sucked in a stuttering breath when she saw him and tried to lift her head, arms reaching for him.

Castle took her embrace, rocked on the balls of his feet as she pitched forward into him. "Hey, honey. What's wrong?"

"I feel like shit," she mumbled, her body compacting smaller and smaller.

He cupped the back of her head and arranged her closer, got an arm under her as he stood up again. She mewled something he couldn't understand and his heart twisted. He sank into the chair she'd abandoned, cradling her.

"How bad?" he asked. "Too heavy to breathe?"

"I can breathe," she promised, but she sounded so sad.

Oh. Damn it. Colin Hunt. He'd betrayed her trust, he'd hurt her because she had made the decision for their whole family to trust the man, and she was already so far past exhausted that it had wrecked her. Castle could kill his brother with his bare hands for hurting her.

"You want me to take you to the couch? You can sleep."

"Yeah," she cried, arms drawing around his neck. "I feel so bad." She had her face pressed against his neck and now he felt her tears. She wasn't crying exactly, just a few tears squeezed out. But he was really going to make Colin hurt.

"Oh, Kate," he whispered. "It's gonna be okay, honey. You'll feel better after you've had a few days to recover."

"I hate feeling this bad," she moaned.

"I know."

"I want to go down to the beach."

"I know."

"I want to be me again."

"You are you," he promised, stroking the hair back from her neck. "You're all we need. James is squishy and now you're squishy too and we can all be squishy together."

"You won't leave."

Fuck. But- "I won't leave."

"You'll be safe here."

"We're all safe here," he hushed. "We're safe. I'm safe."

She shuddered out a long breath and he realized she'd fallen back asleep. He stood as carefully as he could and he began the long walk back to the house.