Close Encounters 25

Rick Castle found himself writing the story in his head.

He didn't want to be doing it, but the words filled him up. He couldn't stop them, they needed to be gone, not inside him anymore, and he had to - had to do something about it.

James was asleep, had been when Castle had gotten home from DC, the boy already deep into his nap.

Still Castle held him. Couldn't let go.

But he stood slowly, so slowly, and eased open the door with one hand, crept down the hallway. He found the journal open on his desk in the office (she must have been reading it while he'd been gone and that terrified him in a really dark and desperate way), but he picked it up, and the pen, and he ghosted back to the baby's room.

James never even stirred.

Castle sank down in the rocker and awkwardly opened the journal on his knee, used his left arm to hold James against his chest and his right to hold his page. He flocked his thumb against the ink pen to push off the top, touched the tip to the blank space with a relief that scared him.

She never asks him, 'why can't you be like other husbands?' She never says, 'at least come to bed with me and pretend to sleep.' No. She kisses him in the studio, lips filled with a longing he can taste, and she glides right out, goes to bed alone, falls asleep alone.

While he sketches.

Endlessly.

He has no night. It is all brilliant day and the ache like a hunger, like an open mouth in him.

And then the sun creeps up the horizon and he looks up and she's standing in the doorway in just one of his shirts and looking at him like she's never seen him before, like she doesn't know who he is. He blinks and it's morning, there are five new sketches and a canvas he can't quite fully explain, slave to the regimented process of art.

She looks a little stunned. She doesn't come into the studio.

She turns her head as if she's heard a noise behind her and then she leaves completely, not even trying to come inside.

In that moment, the Artist wishes he had never picked up a pencil. He wishes that his father had never taken him, at only five years old, into his studio and put the tools in the boy's hands, impatient but unflagging, strict and dominating, so that the only recourse for the boy was art, art, art.

Art is freedom. But it is also chains.

She's gone and the Artist is alone but for lines on a page, the image of her smile like a cruel joke, like something that lives only in his head.

She kissed her father good-bye at the door and shook her head at the look on his face.

"I'll talk to him," she promised.

"You sure? I could-"

"No, Dad. You were supposed to be home hours ago. Thanks for staying."

"I'm just down the street if you need me, Katie."

She squeezed the hand still in hers and her father finally let her go. She closed the door after him and leaned against it a moment, gathering her energy.

James would wake from his nap soon and still Castle was up there with him, hadn't come back down. She had gone upstairs and watched him rock the boy in the glider, but he'd barely met her eyes.

He looked ashamed, and it hurt her heart to see it, but she wasn't sure she could make it better.

Should she go upstairs now to get it out of him, or hope he worked through it in that rocking chair, holding his son?

If he had needed her, he'd have stayed downstairs with her.

So Kate lifted up from the door and headed for the kitchen. Sasha was asleep in front of the basement door; the cool air from below coming in under the crack made it a favorite spot. Kate bent down and picked up the water dish, went to the faucet to refill it.

As the water ran, she got lost.

Lost in what they'd done, what had been done to them, lost in the wilderness of Paris and Cologne and never where they should be, lost in weakness and exhaustion and horror.

Being home was supposed to have fixed this. Fixed her. Being home should have made everything right again.

But everything was broken. Her normally independent boy kept circling back to her as if to check she was still in the room, and her husband was distant and angry and filled with such terrible grief. Her own body was breaking down at the worst times, and she just wanted it to be over.

Consequences. This life she'd chosen had consequences and she was reaping what she'd sewn.

Kate settled the dog's dish on the floor under the counter, and then she moved to the basement door and sank down beside her dog.

Sasha yawned and lifted her head, opened her eyes slowly to look at Kate. Another wide yawn and then the puppy was rolling over into Kate's lap, flopping all over her. Kate laughed, surprised enough that two tears rolled down her cheeks. She swiped at them and buried a hand in the dog's thick ruff, taking a deeper breath.

She had everything she'd wanted. Justice for her mother, after a fashion, and a life of her own, a family, a good man, their happy little boy. Even the dog, the house. Even the friends who surrounded her like family. Her father's sobriety.

She had it all.

But she felt wretched.

She didn't want to do this any more. She didn't have the strength.

She just wanted it to be over.

Castle came down the stairs to start on dinner, carrying James in his arms. The boy had woken only a few minutes ago and he'd changed the kid's diaper, put him in a fresh clothes, figured it was time for them both to join the land of the living.

The journal was safely back on his desk.

He'd held James for an hour, writing what he could, and it had at least made him feel marginally less shitty. He was here now, he was trying to be a good father, but it couldn't erase those moments in Cologne when he'd told her he regretted this.

The wolf tattoo beat at his heart. His son's little hand patted him as if in reassurance, and his sleepy, heavy body cuddled close.

Castle settled a hand at James's back, stepped off the last stair, and mentally reviewed what ingredients he might have available. He'd have to pull something out of the freezer. He should get to the grocery store soon.

Damn it, he was exhausted just thinking about it.

He stopped short in the dining room, his mind clicking over from dark rumination to the sights and smells that assaulted him in the kitchen.

Kate was at the stove, barefoot, hair pulled back in a spiky pony tail, wisps framing her cheeks. Stuff smelled good and his stomach growled in response and she was turning to him with a little smile.

"Good nap?" she said, winking.

Winking.

God, what...

"Yeah," he got out. "Good."

"I'm making chicken and dumplings. Tried to cut down on the salt, but I figured we could use some comfort food."

"Comfort food," he echoed.

She made a face and shifted from the stove, came to him and kissed James's cheek. "Yeah, comfort for me anyway. My grandmother made chicken and dumplings. It's her recipe. Called my dad for it."

"Oh. It - smells really good. I was... I wasn't sure what to do for dinner. Now I don't have to think about it."

"Everything okay?" she murmured then. Her lips moved to brush the back of his hand and she gave him a beautiful, shy smile. "How's my guy?"

"Yeah, he's fine. Little more clingy than usual, but I just - I held him the whole time."

"Meant you, baby. Come sit down." She guided him into the kitchen and through the wonderful scents and boiling things and the taste of salt on the steam. He sank down at the kitchen table with James rousing, lifting his head to look.

"I'm okay," he told her. "Just - you know - it was a rough week. Now that we're home and safe - I think I'm just crashing a bit. It's not you."

She stroked her fingers through his hair, kept a grip at the back of his neck. "We're not gonna be these people any more. Okay, Rick? We're not. We've got everything we wanted, right here, and we've gone through hell, we really have. But we're through the nightmare. I don't want this festering between us-"

"I know," he interrupted. "Me either. I called King."

She stood up straight, eyebrow lifting; her mouth opened but nothing came out.

He nodded and settled James on his lap, facing out to see the kitchen. "Yeah. We gotta get ahead of this. Because you're right. We're not these people."

She sucked in a breath and let it out again. He could see Sasha curled up in front of the door, head on her paws, watching them. Even James had grown still.

"I feel guilty as hell," he started. "And I said some terrible things about - about wishing he'd never been born. And you died. You died at least twice and I'm not sure I can ever get over that. But I made you a promise, Kate, and I won't go back on it."

"What - which promise?" she whispered. She hadn't even commented on that thing about the baby. "There are so many."

He sighed. "I just - I love you. That's a promise too, you know. And even though parts of this just - shift around in me, make it feel unsteady - that never is."

"I know," she said fiercely. "I know. I don't doubt you."

He nodded. He doubted himself though. "I'm gonna try not to bully you, order your life around fear, to be brave, right? I'm going to work on that. But just - just don't forget that I love you, Kate, and my - my heart feels so..."

She was wrapping her arms around him, a little sob in her throat that he hadn't meant to put there. The baby trapped between them and her cheek pressed so tightly to his that he didn't know if they were his tears or hers. She clung to him.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," she chanted. "I don't want to keep hurting you, but I'm - I seem to be so good at it."

He broke out with a laugh, lifted an arm from the baby to wind it around her neck. He closed his eyes and breathed, forehead to forehead with her. "We both can do some damage. We know that." He swallowed and lifted his head from hers, looked at her.

She sank to her knees before him and James whined and tilted down, fell into her arms. She held him against her chest, but Castle got him under the arms and did the heavy lifting. Kate's cheek came to his knee and against his inside thigh, and he put James on his other leg, not proud that he'd sent her to the floor.

"We're gonna be okay," he told her.

"I know. But this part sucks."

He laughed back, a plosive from his mouth and not much else. "You died, and I'm so grateful you're alive, but I'm having trouble, Kate. I'm not - I've never cared enough to carry this kind of guilt and now it's eating me up. I have nightmares, dreams. I look at James and I love him so much it tears me up, because it feels like a choice. You or him."

She jerked her head up, mouth open-

"No," he gritted out. "No, don't say anything. I know - know what you'd say. I know what's right. I'm just trying to get there."

She shifted her eyes to James but thank God, at least she didn't try to take him. She seemed to get it, what he was doing, how he needed his son close as a reminder.

Kate lifted up and pushed her hand in against his chest, his heart pounding away under her palm. "Does this help? The ink."

"Yeah," he admitted. "Every night, every morning."

She nodded. And then her lips quirked and her fingers curled. "It would be no hardship, Rick, if you had to walk around shirtless for three months. To remind you."

He laughed. Fuck, wow, that - felt good. He laughed and just that he could laugh, that he could watch her eyes spark with mischief as her fingers trailed expertly down his shirt and hooked in the waistband of his jeans-

"Woman."

"After dinner. Put the kid in the jumping swing. You and me and that ugly couch."

"Yeah," he croaked. "But-"

"You'll make sure I don't have to lift anything," she murmured, another smile.

He let out a breath and found himself finally smiling back. There was no quick fix, but this always helped. "Sexual healing," he murmured. And now she was laughing too and sliding up to sit on his free thigh, her arms around his neck.

James gave them both looks like they were crazy and he reached for Kate.

"I'm right here, baby. You don't have to worry. Daddy's got you."

They got a phone call from Mitchell first.

Kate took it. Castle was standing up at the counter with James against his chest and trying to eat his third helping, so Kate just plucked the phone right out of his back pocket. James followed her movement with his eyes and leaned out after her, but Castle chided him and tilted his body, and the dumpling on his fork went sliding right off.

Sasha had it vacuumed off the floor before either of them could move, and then she was an entirely happy dog, tail wagging and her nose nudging up against the counter for more.

"Down, Sasha," they both commanded. Kate frowned and hesitated even as she saw Mitchell's name on the caller ID, but she took the call and put the phone to her ear, hoping Castle had the sense to check the dog.

Were dumplings bad for dogs? They never fed her people food; it had to be the smell of the chicken.

"Beckett?"

"Mitch. Sorry. What's wrong?"

"Uh, we have an authorized visitor approaching."

"Authorized? Why are you calling then?"

"It's your therapist."

Kate let out a breath and lifted a hand to her mouth, trying not to laugh. It wasn't funny, but it was. "Mitch, I really appreciate the head's up on this one."

"Yeah. He's within the second tier security framework right now. I could-"

"Let him pass," she scolded him. "But Mitch?"

"Yeah?"

"I sleep better knowing you're out there."

"Holy shit, Beckett. Save that for the damn therapist."

And then he hung up.

Kate chuckled, pressed her lips together as she turned her eyes to Castle. He had James on one hip and was kneeling in front of Sasha, feeding the dog a few scraps of chicken.

"Castle!"

"It's cooked. We used to feed her cooked meat before."

Before James. When they had the time.

"Who was that?" he said. "Mitch?'

"Yeah, he wanted to warn us we had an authorized visitor approaching."

"Authorized?"

"Dr King."

Castle actually paled. His face went white and his smile dropped right off his face. Sasha scarfed the last of the chicken from his fingers and ran off with it, and Castle just stayed there, hunched over with James kicking his feet into the cabinets in amusement.

"Rick." She offered him a hand, thinking to help him up, on his feet at least, but he laced their fingers together and leaned towards her instead. She caught herself on the counter and wrapped her arm around his head, buried him against her stomach, his body at her thigh. "Hey, Rick, honey, it's okay. It's going to be okay. I'm glad he's coming."

"I told him it was fine until tomorrow."

"Well, if you sounded like you do right now, then it's no wonder he came early." She gripped his shoulder and lifted her hand to his ear, stroked its softness. "Stand up, babe. We're going to be just fine."

Castle tried to stand, but James was crawling out of his arms and down to the floor. Castle let him go, rising up beside her to draw his arm around her waist as James got to his cabinet and yanked it open. It was the only one they left unlocked, the only one not baby-proofed, because James had destroyed those first locks only two days after Castle had put them up - but leaving him one of his own had earned the kid's respect. He never touched the locked cabinets any more, and they'd put more complicated locks in place.

"What do we do about him?" Kate asked, nudging Castle's bicep with her chin.

"Let him stay?" Castle said. "I need him to stay with us."

Needed him to? "Okay," she said slowly. "Okay, but I don't know what we can possibly get done."

"We'll figure it out," he rasped. For a moment, he watched James drag plastic tupperware out from the cabinets and pound on them like drums. And then Castle turned back to his plate on the counter.

Kate went back to storing leftovers, quiet now in the clamor of their son's noise, and she was glad King was coming tonight.

She didn't know what was wrong with Castle, but she was pretty certain he didn't either.

King hugged them both around the neck; he wasn't tall enough for it, but he did it anyway, and James let out a mewling noise from amidst them. King laughed and pulled back, cupped James's face in his hands and kissed his forehead.

"You too, James."

Kate didn't know what to do, stuck in the middle of an embrace with a man who had always been steady, reserved, unflappable. And now he was taking their son right out of their arms and James was giving a little spurt of applause and clutching his hands together at his chest, beaming at them all.

King laughed. "Wow. What an empathic little boy you have. You're happy too, James?"

He spoke to James like an adult, a little adult maybe, but still old enough to know. James squirmed in pleasure in his arms, grinning his shy grin, hands still clasped together.

It was the most smiling she'd seen from their son since they'd left. And she knew Castle saw it too, saw the way he beamed for Dr King.

"Shit," she muttered, scraping her hair back behind her ears and ducking her head.

Castle sighed. "Yeah."

"Nothing wrong with a boy who picks up on the emotion in the room," King said to them. He was still holding James, an entirely incongruous picture - their therapist and the baby together, King in his dress pants and jacket and James in a green onesie that set off the blue in his grey eyes.

They shifted more and more towards blue every day, actually.

"He's been fussy and waking up at night," Castle said, frowning. "And that's us, isn't it? Our fault."

"Not your fault. He wanted you when you were gone and now that you're here - well, of course he's going to test the limits. It's fine to spoil him a while, Rick. Hold him during his nap rather than putting him down. But don't make it habit."

Kate gave her husband a pointed look, but he only rubbed both hands down his face, didn't look convinced. She glanced back to King but he was pushing right past them towards the living room, sitting down with James on the floor of all places, and offering the boy a teething ring as James crawled all over him.

"It's all right, it's all right," King said quietly. "Come sit down. I'm not here to give you homework. I'm hear to listen."

Kate let out a breath and moved for the couch, but she had to stop and wait on Castle to follow her lead. When he didn't, she reached back and took his hand, pulled him after her to the floor with their son and their therapist.

She didn't know what to do. She'd never seen her husband like this, shoulders up near his ears, elbows on his knees, head bowed. James had crawled over to him and took hold of the pant legs of his jeans and was now pulling up.

"Da-da-da?"

"Hey, kid," he said roughly. His hand came out and cupped the back of James's head. His eyes were so tired that Kate ached for him.

But she didn't know what to do.

She glanced to King and he was watching her, and that surprised her. He smiled at her though and nodded to Castle. "Other side of things, huh? Hurts, doesn't it."

"What?" she scraped out.

"Watching the other one beat themselves up for something they really had no control over. For feelings they've had. For events. For life. Sucks, doesn't it?"

Castle lifted his head sharply, staring at her. She gave a ragged breath and nodded; she really didn't want to cry right now. She'd had a couple of tears and the dog had whined in her lap, but she'd made dinner for them and she'd felt like she was getting a handle on it.

"Yeah," she said finally. When she could. "Yeah, sucks."

"So, Rick."

"Fuck, I'm not ready for this," Castle grunted. He winced as James's little head came up, teething ring in his mouth. He dropped it to mimic, "Uck?"

"Nope, nope," Castle said, shaking his head. "You didn't hear that, Jay. Not at all. Mommy, remember? Say mommy."

"Mee."

Kate laughed, surprised again, and both her boys looked up, glancing at her. James grinned and tried it again, belting out mee as he slapped his hands against the tops of his daddy's thighs.

"You're so adorable that I'll let you get away with that, JP."

"JP?" Castle said, giving her a look.

"You started it with the Jay stuff."

"Like, the single letter J. Not like... some backwoods hick-"

"Shut up," she laughed. "Not that. Jungle Parasite. JP. I thought that's what you were doing."

"Oh, shit," Castle groaned, but there was something like amusement in his eyes. "I can't believe we've nicknamed his nickname."

"Hey, James. You like JP?" King said, tugging on the boy's onesie to get his attention. "That a good name for you?"

James wrinkled his nose and hammed it up, such a little dramatic thing. Kate had never seen him like this, working the emotions in the room, ducking behind his father's hand. Castle ran his fingers through the hair that still stood up like a mohawk on top of his head, petting it down.

James dropped to his knees again and grabbed for the teething ring, squealing meee around it as he moved around the room. He always entertained himself and now that he'd entertained them as well, he was content to move rubber blocks from the basket near the television over to the floor behind Castle's feet, one at a time.

After a moment, the quiet in the room seemed unnatural and Castle sighed. "Fine. I'll start. We went to Paris to meet a contact of my father's. Kate had been taking the pills - you know about that whole mess with her foot and James - James starving?"

"Da-da-da-daddy-"

Kate laughed, unable to help it, and Castle gave the boy a slow, warm smile. But there was something behind it that spoke of pain.

"Hey, James. I hear you. Not starving now, are you, kid? Growing boy."

"You sound resigned," King said to that. Quiet. Purposeful.

"Yeah. You know. Shit happens. We had to - make some hard choices, and these are the consequences. But he's fine. He's fine, right? I mean, you could tell if he-"

"He's fine," King said soothingly. Kate kept quiet, recognizing the master therapist at work. He always managed to guide her straight to the painful heart of things with what sounded only like a conversation. He was doing it to her husband now.

Castle was nodding thoughtfully, his eyes on James. The boy came back to him with a red block and held it up, and Castle took it.

"He's fine, Rick. Do you see something we don't?"

Castle lifted his head and the desolation in his eyes rooted Kate to the floor, breath knocked clean out of her.

"I don't think I can do this," he husked.

"Castle?"

He wouldn't look at her; he stared at James. A breath came in and went out and the words chased after it like Castle couldn't bear to hold them in any longer. "There's something wrong with me. I don't - love him-"

"Castle."

"Like I should." He turned terrible eyes on her. "I just love you, Kate. I can't - don't make me choose."

Oh, God.