Close Encounters 25

Castle saw the look James gave him as he carried the boy into the panic room, but he was ignoring it.

Kate, apparently, was not. "Get used to it, kid."

"Just until the threat level goes back down," he muttered.

He thought she ought to be more understanding; after that email, he couldn't imagine she wasn't freaking out a little too. To have a perimeter alarm go off on top of that last email?

He stuck his head out of the door and called for the dog, trying to cajole her inside with them. "Come on, Sasha, come here. Come."

The last command did the trick, and she slunk inside.

"Can we at least not close the door?" Kate asked, sinking to the narrow bed. He had already replaced the cot, thinking ahead, but she didn't seem too grateful for the mattress.

"Yeah, door can stay open." He shifted James to his other side and reached the security feeds, turned the monitors on. He couldn't believe he'd left so many of them off. He'd gotten complacent, what with Mitchell's crew right outside; he'd stopped focusing on outside security, so hung up on Kate.

"Check in with Mitch," Kate ordered.

He shot her a glance. "What do you think I'm doing?"

"Verbal check in," she muttered, rolling her eyes and flopping back on the bed. She wasn't happy with him. She'd been in the middle of her yoga dvd, plus he had remembered to bring the nasty green concoction the juicer had made. (But it was Logan and Carrie's own collaboration, and she was supposed to drink it to build up her muscle, so she could at least stop huffing at him.)

"Here," he said, nudging the drink towards her on the low desk. "Before James kicks it over and it ruins the equipment."

She wrinkled her nose but sat up and came for the vegetable and fruit smoothie. It had enhancements and supplements in it as well, though nothing regimen related. They were hoping to balance out her systems without using any of Black's elements, hoping she'd become her own close system. As she should be, as any normal person not on the regimen should be able to maintain his or her own systems.

Boyd kept warning them that it might be impossible, now that her body had been stripped by that advanced chelation treatment.

Still had to try. He wasn't giving up on that.

Kate started chugging, making a nasty face around it, and James chuckled his old man chuckle, watching her. She made an even more exaggerated face, and James laughed harder, leaning into his chest.

At least they were laughing. He thumbed the mic button, putting out two fast dashes to Mitchell, letting him know they were in a safe position. It wasn't a high threat level, but it was an unknown breach of the security perimeter directly around their home.

He didn't like that. But as Kate had said, could be just a raccoon. They were clever bastards and liked messing with the equipment.

Kate made a noise and choked down the rest of the juice smoothie, then slammed the cup down on the desk. James giggled and leaned out for his mother, so Castle let him go, watching carefully as Kate took him. Her arms trembled, but she was heading for the bed anyway.

"Castle?" came Mitch's voice.

He thumbed open the channel and sat down at the desk before the monitors. "Here. You get a read on the situation?"

"There's nothing now. Whatever or whoever it was - they saw the perimeter alarm and left."

"Saw?"

"Definitely been tampered with. But Kate's right - could be just a raccoon."

"And now?"

"Gone. We'll work at hiding these better. But I'd say something was interested in you guys. Just don't know if it was man or animal."

Or both. "Thanks, Mitch. We clear?"

"All clear."

He turned his head over his shoulder to repeat the message, but she was standing right there. He softened his voice, reached out for her. "All clear, babe."

Kate shifted into him, James in her arms, and he saw the worry had flattened out her eyes. He hadn't realized it'd been there until it was gone, and he was grateful at least for that. She didn't think he was crazy in his paranoia.

In fact, she leaned in and lightly kissed his cheek. "Thanks."

"Thanks? And all I get is a kiss on the cheek?"

She smiled a little, looked grateful for the humor too. "I just downed the most nasty, foul-tasting drink known to man. You want to share?"

"Oh, ew, no." He tilted his head back and mimed ducking away from her, and now she was laughing. "Keep those green smoothie lips off me."

James chortled too, getting in on it, and Castle eased back into her circumference, kissing her between the eyes. Avoiding her mouth, he trailed down the side of her face to that spot under her jaw.

Her knees dipped and he caught her and the baby both, chuckling.

"All right, all right," she breathed. "Proved your point. Take him. We're going back upstairs now."

Ryan called while she was standing in the kitchen trying to figure out how long a baked potato was supposed to actually bake. She'd been googling it on her phone, feeling both stupid for not knowing and also perversely proud that she was thirty-five and only now sucked down into things like cook times and ingredients.

Her mother would have rolled her eyes at Kate for it.

They'd have laughed at Kate's ornery personality, her penchant for playing devil's advocate, her stubborn refusal to submit to stereotypes. In the nineties, when that was a thing, Kate had been cognizant enough of her womanhood to now feel proud of transcending the 90s woman, to be more than one version of the typical mother or the typical feminist.

An enlightened woman ought to know how to bake a potato, she could hear her mother scolding.

True. She should.

But her phone rang in the middle of googling baked potato. It made her jump and drop the damn thing, and of course James raced over - scooting for speed - to grab it. He put it in his mouth before she could snatch it away, and thank God the screen hadn't cracked. She squatted down to grab it.

"No," she insisted, answering the phone as she held James off. She was hunched on the floor with him, phone pressed to her ear with her shoulder, hands filled with dream-deferred boy.

"No?"

"Oh, sorry. Hey, Ryan. You know - the kid."

"I do know. Sarah Grace is maybe not quite as active as yours though."

"He's - actually," she murmured, softening as James crawled into her lap. "He's not bad at all. He picks his battles. We do too, don't we, wolf?"

"Mama."

She kissed his temple and set him on his feet, standing herself. He trailed after her into the living room, crawling nearly on her heels, and let out a shriek when he saw Sasha, made a beeline for her.

"Not bad at all, huh?" Ryan laughed. He'd heard the shriek, no doubt.

"Yeah, he's got his own mind, but he goes with the flow. Which is a good trait to have with us."

"No kidding. Hey, I'm calling about the email."

"Yeah, I figured," she sighed. "It's impossible-"

"No. Not impossible. I scrubbed it. Took some fancy footwork, but I figured out how it was self-replicating."

"You're shitting me."

He laughed on the line. "Shit you not. Easy once I cracked the code."

"Ryan." She was choked up. Damn. She was a little moody these days, being cooped up in the house. She wanted to go for a run, so badly, but after that nasty email and the perimeter alert, Castle had asked her to please not go outside.

She was really trying here. He better be big time grateful tonight.

"Yeah, yeah," Ryan scoffed. "No big deal. And I remote-installed the program I used onto Castle's server, so next time you connect to the CIA network, it's there for you."

"Thank you, Ry."

"Any time, anything. Give that wolf a nose rub for me."

"Nose... rub?" she said faintly. She was watching James as he tried to climb the dog; she was poised to intervene if Sasha kept standing there, letting him. James would still rather walk with Sasha's aid than on his own.

"Yeah, like an eskimo kiss. We do it all the time. It's our thing."

"You have a thing with my son. How did I miss that?"

"Don't know, Beckett. You must not be looking," he snarked.

She laughed and reached out, gripped James by the back of his jeans to keep him from successfully scaling their poor dog. "No, you little miscreant. No riding Sasha." She kneed off the dog, pushing Sasha to make her escape, but the dog circled back around. "Ryan? You know what. I think it's time we all got together. Dinner here, since Castle won't let me out of the cage."

"Yeah, dinner. That - sounds really good. We've missed you guys. Suspension is almost through, right?"

"Right." She grinned into her son's peeved face, picked him up carefully and turned to deposit him on the couch. He giggled as he bounced, and then he rolled over onto his belly, feet up and kicking. "We've missed you guys too. Talk to Jenny and find a time that works. I'll talk to Espo and Lanie."

"Yeah, awesome. Just the precinct folk?"

"Just the 12th," she promised, sinking down beside her son.

Oh, fuck. The baked potatoes. She forgot.

"Ry? I gotta go. Dinner is burning."

He laughed even as she hung up on him.

"Time to get you dressed," he said softly. "Everyone will be here soon."

Castle pulled the kid out of the high chair but at that moment, Kate came slinking into the kitchen with the dog, slipped in front of him. She smelled like honey and flowers, her hair was - shit, what did she do to it? - and Castle was momentarily stunned.

"Wow," he got out.

"What?" she breathed. "I'll take him. He's clean, right?"

"Just finished eating," he said mechanically. "Yeah. Yeah, I cleaned him. Wow. Kate."

"What?" She took James from him and cuddled, cheek brushing the top of the boy's head. "Oh, a sleepy wolf. Daddy got you all full and happy, huh?"

"Kate. Fuck. You look hot. Why are you so hot?"

She laughed, lifting her eyebrow and swaying a little with James in the middle of the kitchen, somehow both his son's mother and a fucking-hot covert agent.

"Why am I so hot?" she drawled slowly.

"I meant. I was - you're just - you're always sexy, but this is like - fuck me." He groaned and scrubbed both hands down his face. "I have to get dinner finished. They'll be here in an hour. Why are you so damn hot, fuck."

"Uck!"

"Oh, shit," he groaned. He dropped his hands from his face and cupped James's cheeks, leveled a look on him. "We talked about that, Jay. No repeating the bad words. Your grandfather might kill me."

"Nah," Kate chuckled. "Not for that." She gave him a slow smile and reached out a hand, closed it around his tie. "Especially not when you're complimenting me with all those bad words."

"Seems wrong, doesn't it? Cursing at you is a compliment?"

"Seems very, very right," she murmured back, tugging on his tie. He dipped but didn't have to go far; she was wearing knockout heels tonight too. His mouth touched hers and lightly glazed-

"Damn. I gotta do the glaze," he whispered against her lips. She hummed and kissed him again, not releasing him at all, and he framed her hips with his hands, bumping the baby only to get bumped right back.

"Daddy," James stage-whispered, croaking it right under Castle's chin. "Daddy, Mama. Uck, uck."

"You read my mind," Kate grinned, eyes sparking on his. Castle laughed back, feeling breathless, and brought his hand up to brace the boy, ducked his head to smack his lips against James's cheek.

"Kiss for you too. Now go with Mommy. She's gonna dress you up for tonight." He caught Kate by the elbow before she could turn to leave, let his eyes caress her long and slow so she knew. "You look beautiful, Kate. Happy. You glow with it."

And she did. She lit up for him, lit up the whole world, dressed only in a simple black sheath and a little eyeliner, short hair brushing her neck, carrying their son in her arms.

It had been a while since merely breathing made him feel like the luckiest man in the universe, but tonight, he'd been struck all over again by just how beautiful she was. Not just her health, not just being alive, but her. Kate Beckett, this woman who had married him and hadn't given up on him and gave everything to have this moment with him in their kitchen.

"Kate."

"Hey," she smiled. "I love you." Her mouth came in and touched his, her hand lightly skimming his cheek. "I love you just the same. Don't get sappy. You'll make me cry and I'm not redoing my mascara."

He laughed, and James laughed too, chuckling like he knew exactly - he couldn't possibly - and Castle released her. Finally let her go.

She took the baby and carried him to the living room where he saw that she'd left his clothes on the coffee table.

They were still avoiding the stairs, but it was turning out to be a really good week.

It didn't feel right not including Jenny in the conversation, but Castle was insisting that was up to Ryan. So Kate asked Jenny to take James with her as she went upstairs with Sarah Grace, gave her son over to Ryan's wife.

"Mama?"

"Night-night, wolf. Daddy will come upstairs to kiss you in a minute." She smudged his lips with a kiss and he gave her a shy smile, dropping his tired head to Jenny's shoulder. Sarah Grace was already upstairs, asleep in Castle and Kate's bed, surrounded by pillows.

Jenny winked at her and carried the kid off, and Kate turned back around under the pretense of dishing up dessert. Everyone was mingling in the kitchen anyway, refilling wine glasses, laughing, having a good time, but Castle quickly called them to order.

"Ry, up to you what you do with this info. Leave her out of it, or tell her everything - your discretion. Lanie, you know parts, Espo, man, sorry. You know almost none of this."

The kitchen stilled and dropped into absolute silence. Esposito shot Castle a scathing look and then turned to her. "You think I don't know this?"

She opened her mouth, closed it.

"What. You think I wasn't a detective? John Black -his asshole father - makes life fucking hell for you, and you think I wouldn't notice?"

"Okay," Castle said, stepping in front of her like she needed protection. But Kate got her hand on his back and moved him aside.

"Espo. It's not about you. It's about James. Who we tell, what we tell - it's to keep his name out of it. You know that. Don't be angry about that."

"I'm furious," he growled, rounding on her. But Lanie was there, Lanie who had been so mad at her as well, back when they'd discovered why James was small and not growing.

Lanie put a hand on Espo's arm, drew him away. "Javi. Shut up and listen to them."

Castle was giving Esposito a measuring look, but Kate fisted his shirt, nudging him out from between her and Espo. "We don't have a lot of time before Jenny comes back down - though James might take a while to convince."

"Oh no," Ryan said, shaking his head. "She's the baby whisperer. You watch. I'm betting you got - oh, ten minutes starting now."

Kate laughed, appreciating his attempt to lighten things, but she knew Ryan was also the one of their group who had the most pieces of this puzzle. She sobered quickly, trying to organize her thoughts; they had both agreed she'd be the one to do this. Her 12th Precinct family.

"Okay, here it is. Plain facts. John Black started a program nearly fifty years ago designed to create a more perfect soldier. It's possible he was thinking only about covert ops - a made-to-order super soldier who could go behind enemy lines fearlessly. He was his own guinea pig, injecting himself with a variety of serums to alter his body chemistry."

Lanie had her arms crossed over her chest; this was old news to her because she was included on their medical team reports. But Ryan's mouth had dropped open. He hadn't known it went back so far.

Kate glanced to Castle and he took over - this was his part of the story anyway. "We've put this together based on things I was told, things Kate has been told, and then we corroborated it with second parties - Saber, Boyd, Eastman when he was alive, Carrie, and finally those documents we rescued from the Congo installation. What we're telling you tonight is valid information."

She watched her friends, studied them as they absorbed the scope of this project.

"He had to stop using the program on himself when he joined the CIA, but by that time, he'd developed a rather extensive and complicated set of supplements. He took that research with him, and the CIA began funding human trials. At that time, they were doing a lot of strange stuff - ESP tests, telekinesis, even LSD trials. My appearance on scene was - well, considered to be a mistake, most assuredly. He never meant to get a woman pregnant. We have some indications that John Black was having attacks - either health scares or well-"

"Fugue states," Kate corrected. "I'm almost one hundred percent certain. He's mentioned a few things, plus we've decoded pages which have to be his earliest medical records. He was experiencing lost time."

"Not alien abduction?" Ryan piped up.

They all gave out smiles, trying at least, and Kate went on. "Black kept Castle's existence on his radar; he seemed rather appalled it had happened at all. But when Castle didn't show any signs of getting better - allergies as a kid, lots of illnesses, poor growth - Black began dabbling with Castle's own body chemistry."

"When I was five, he gained custody of me. The program began then."

"Shit," Lanie said, shaking her head at them. "That is awful. Rick Castle - that is awful."

Kate smiled at her friend, but her heart was soaring a little for her husband, because of just how good and strong and kind he was despite his upbringing. Despite who had raised him.

"It's - it was just my life. I honestly didn't know there could be better. I grew up on the training field, grew up the new guinea pig. By the time I'd hit adolescence, I had one injection a year and pills I had to take. By the time I was in the CIA, doing ops, it was a full course of the regimen after every major injury, and a maintenance plan in the off season. He had regimen support teams nested across the world, so that no matter when or where, I had access. He had access."

"Hurry," Ryan said suddenly. "Jenny just texted me - she'll be on her way down soon." He held up his phone and showed them a photo Jenny had taken - it was James, completely conked out in his crib.

"Shit," Kate said, laughing a little. "She really is the baby whisperer."

Castle was smiling down at the photo; he released the phone back to Ryan and sank against the kitchen counter. "Real fast then - here's the lowdown: the CIA stopped funding human experiments, but here I was, needing the regimen regularly, dependent on it. So Black went to outside sources for his money and a sympathetic lack of morals. That group is known as the Collective. Allies of the old world, including the Russians who have started to undersell to the Chinese."

"The Chinese," Esposito said, narrowing his eyes at them. He jabbed a finger in Castle's direction. "That why you came to my house in the first place?"

"That's why he was at the 12th, yes," Kate answered quickly. "His father had to run missions on both sides of the blanket. He had to get Castle to do what was necessary to provide the Collective with their blood, but he also had to work against them with the CIA. It's - impressive - that he deceived us all for so long. Not even Castle knew that he was working against the CIA at times."

Castle grunted as they heard footsteps on the stairs. "All this to say - my DNA is fucked up. James inherited it - whatever it is - and if you want the medical side of it, you can ask Lanie or Logan. The Collective wants what they think is theirs, my son, myself, the program. They don't know we exist, at least not that we can tell. So what it means for us is that we're working on two fronts here - against the Collective to hide the human program, and against the CIA itself to keep us hidden and off the covert intelligence radar."

"We didn't want you guys in the dark any longer, because you're our family. It matters what happens to you guys, and it might mean your lives - your being aware of the larger picture. It might - it might mean James's life."

"Hey, wow, you guys are super quiet. Good job. James is totally asleep and I checked on Sarah Grace too."

They turned as a group towards Jenny as she came through the dining room and into the kitchen. Kate hadn't even started to plate the dessert. Jenny came to a slow stop beside Ryan and glanced around.

Ry cleared his throat. "Got something to tell you."

"Oh no," she whispered, a hand to her mouth. "Who died?"

The room broke into disjointed laughter, and Jenny flushed. Ryan shook his head.

Beside Kate, Castle shifted, taking her hand and lacing their fingers together, his grip strong, sure. In the beginning he hadn't been at all happy with her, with the way she kept bringing people into their circle, but she knew now that he was - well - overwhelmed by the support of their friends.

"No one died," Castle said finally. "And we're going to keep it that way."

Jenny was sitting down at the kitchen table with Castle's wife, but she had both hands pressed to her mouth, her eyes riveted on Kate with horror. The events at Paris were a lingering malaise in the atmosphere of the room, and Castle felt it most of all.

"But Castle was there," Kate finished up, turning her head to look at him. He stood in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen while Ryan had taken a seat with Jenny at the table. Esposito and Lanie were standing with their backs to the windows, and Espo had his arms crossed and his chin tucked into his chest, not happy.

"Not that I was much help," he said, trying for lightness. But it came out bleak, and everyone in the kitchen heard it.

Jenny dropped her hands and pressed them to the table. "So you had - you're still sick with this?"

"I'm getting back to normal."

"You weren't shot?" Jenny went on, a flick of her eyes up to Esposito that told Castle the two boys had talked.

"She wasn't shot," Castle said firmly. "But she needed the time off for this recovery, and it lined up for us."

"And your father, this John Black, where is he now?"

Kate snorted. "He's gone to ground, wherever that is. He emails me, trying to - well, I guess keep him in the thick of things? He won't let us forget that he saved my life."

"He won't let it go - the program," Castle said, shaking his head. "Before Paris - the whole reason we were even in Paris was because he was blackmailing us. Of a sort."

"Blackmailing you," Jenny echoed. She turned another glance to Ryan and the man nodded, as if in go ahead. "Is that what Kevin's been doing? Helping you guys in the CIA with all this computer stuff."

Kate rubbed her forehead. "I tried not to pull any of you into this - I tried. I just-"

"We're in this," Esposito said hotly. "We're already in this. Who busted you out of that embassy last year? Got the doc out?"

"Embassy?" Jenny asked, shooting Espo a bewildered look. Even Lanie hadn't been in on that one, and Espo glanced around, realized he'd said too much, just like that. That fast, and state secrets had been exposed.

"Yeah, okay, the embassy," Castle muttered. "A doctor on our medical team was kidnapped and we went in and got him back."

Jenny blinked. "Who - why - kidnapped?" she echoed faintly.

"The Collective," Kate sighed. "They were systematically going down a list."

Jenny turned to Ryan. "Are you on this list? Who's on this list? Why-"

"No, no," Ryan said quickly, but then he blanched and looked at them. "There's not - I mean, there's no list really, right?"

"There's no list of - no, not support personnel."

"That's not reassuring," Jenny choked out.

"The Collective has focused their attention on the doctors, the scientists, the medical side of the program. They don't care about agents in the field. They don't even know Castle exists," Kate said quickly, leaning in to clasp Jenny's forearm. "We're not telling you this because we think you're in danger. We're telling you this because you deserve the truth if you're going to be involved."

"Involved. What if - but the Collective sounds like they're just outside the door. They were after you in Paris. They took a doctor-"

Castle stood up straight. "And we got him back. We protect our own. We won't leave a man behind. No matter what."

Jenny didn't seem to be consoled by that thought, though Esposito was giving Castle the head-nod, a sign of respect that Espo had been withholding since Paris.

So Castle pressed forward, moving to stand behind Kate at the table. "Jenny, there's no list. The CIA Office is one of the most secure areas that Ry could be, and the Collective is looking for science experiments - not IT guys."

Ryan flashed him a look that Castle ignored, but he hoped the man understood that it wasn't a slight. There was a difference between being forthcoming and being inflammatory. Better that Jenny be assured of her husband's security rather than scared about what he might be doing on any given day.

Kate took up the thread of the narrative once more, folding her hands in front of her on the table. "What this means now is that John Black is out there. And the Collective is out there. And we're here, working to make sure that no one ever hears about our son. About the measures we took to give James what he needed."

"The CIA can't know that Kate went down in Paris because of the regimen. If they know, then the Collective will know," Castle said. "So you're going to hear some lies, you're going to have to remember the official story. As friends of ours from my wife's 12th Precinct days, you might even get asked by reporters about what we've been doing, how the non-profit has been."

"So what am I supposed to say?" Jenny cried out. "That you - you got shot, Kate? Or you were sick? Or-"

"For the cover out there, Kate was sick. The thing about the cover is that it's so close to the truth, we won't have to worry about keeping track of all these different lies. Kate got bacterial meningitis while we were abroad for a holiday, her father took care of the baby for us. Don't offer up James's name, if someone should ever ask."

"How am I supposed to know who's a good guy or who's a bad guy?"

"Don't worry about figuring that out. If it's not someone in this room, or Logan and Mitch - you know them from Kate's birthday party, right? - then you treat them like an outsider. If they're not with us now, they're not one of us."

Jenny nodded, a frown creasing her forehead. He hadn't wanted to bring her into this; very few people were as strong and resilient as Kate Beckett, and as a wife, he was certain that no one could be what she was. Jenny was a school teacher. She-

"All right. Got it. And what about John Black? He's still contacting you. He's still trying to blackmail you. And now that Kate has suffered this - setback - from picking and choosing what elements of the regimen to take, Black's not going away, is he? It's worse now, isn't it?"

Well. He had to hand it to her; she was smart. And faster than he'd expected.

"Good point. I don't know about worse. I think it shows that we have to be a lot more careful about the regimen. Like you said, no picking and choosing. I'm on it regularly now, going to keep doing that, and the regimen team is focusing now on replication. As for Black, he's going to want to get to me somehow. Get to us. That will be ongoing."

"But he's working with us, he thinks," Kate interrupted. "He's working with us. And not the Collective."

"And you're telling us all this because we might be collateral damage," Jenny supplied. "So we'll watch out."

Castle opened his mouth, closed it. He didn't know what to say to that. He didn't want it to be true, but it might be.

"No," Kate sighed. "Not with Black. He's - not interested in anyone else. It wouldn't occur to him to use you guys as bait to get to us because he doesn't understand how anyone can have meaningful relationships with other people. His are always a means to an end. He gets that Castle and I - he thinks I've hooked Castle somehow. He sees that I - his words - I control him - but he doesn't get it. Not at the root. So honestly, you guys don't have much to worry about from him. It's the Collective we need to be careful of."

"The Collective. This group of agents from various countries - including the Russians who in turn sell to the Chinese - they want Castle." Jenny shook her head. "This is - like something out of a movie. You're Jason Bourne."

Kate laughed, but Castle was coming up blank. He shot her a look, questioning the reference, and she turned her head to look at him, as if she knew he had no idea. She laughed harder, reached back to take his hand with hers, squeezing.

"It's a movie series - books first. I'll make you watch it with me. And yeah, there's a kind of Bourne Legacy vibe going on here."

Okay, well, he was lost. Another pop culture reference, he was sure. At least not a former agent he had somehow forgotten.

But Jenny was smiling now, and the whole table seemed more relaxed, and Ryan was holding his wife's hand and giving her these reassuring looks, so whatever it was, it had worked. Jason Bourne, then.

They still had a few points to go over, but he thought it was clear. The Collective was their biggest threat, and his father was just - Castle's own problem. One that he would take care of, when the time was right. When the medical team had a handle on this and the whys of how it worked.

And if that never happened, well, Castle was going to give James the best life he could; he was the boy's father, of course he wanted his son to grow strong. But he wasn't going to put his son's mother at risk any longer. He wasn't going to put her life in jeopardy for a maybe, for a just in case.

Besides. In Paris, Logan had seemed to think that James's system was self-correcting. That his mitochondria had worked to heal the problem of the unfettered regimen, had worked to right himself without any help. It was why the infusions had worked in Kate too.

Which meant they had absolutely no need of John Black.

Castle would be on the program as he always had been, the team would replicate the serum, and that was it.

Black was done.

When she was certain that Castle slept, Kate slid out from under the heavy drape of his arm and off the bed. With her bare feet soundless on the floor, she walked lightly down the hall to her son's open door.

There was no moon, but the dog was lying below the window and her head came up when Kate entered, her animal eyes circles of orange in the darkness. Kate went to Sasha first, kneeling on the floor to stroke down the dog's back, cupping her ears before smoothing her ruff. She leaned in and kissed the wolf between her eyes, the softest fur right there over the hardest skull.

"Thank you," she murmured, not sure why she kept attributing super powers to her lone wolf-dog. Watching over her family, keeping James company while his parents were detained and at risk, herding the boy even when they weren't or couldn't. "Good dog. Good wolf. Both."

Sasha was both wild and tamed, predator and pet. Maybe their Sasha had always appealed to Kate so keenly because she was an animal whose nature was constantly at war, just like Rick Castle.

Just like Kate herself. When Castle had met her, she had thought he was the one in civil war, but she had been too - her mother's case, her mother's death had been the demon possessing her. And then when she'd entered into this man's world, she'd been both CIA agent and NYPD detective, and the two sides were always in conflict. To protect and serve or to secure the nation using any means necessary. Kate at war with her nature; Castle at war with his nurture.

"You fit right in with us, puppy," she murmured, releasing to dog to stand once more.

And then she didn't keep herself from James any longer; she went straight to the crib and her sleeping son.

Only. He was awake, and he was watching her in shy silence.

Kate's breath caught, not sure why James was awake or if tears would come now that he knew she'd seen him. But there were no dramatics, no climbing the bars to get at her, just his bashful, slow smile as their eyes met.

He lifted a hand and did his gimme gimme, that opening and closing of his fist, wanting her.

Kate reached in and caught his wrist, rubbed her thumb into his opening palm. "Hey, sweetheart. Why are you awake?"

James didn't answer, of course, but he did roll over and pull himself up by the bars, rest his little cheek on the top railing as he looked at her. "Mama."

"Yeah, wolf, that's me. Hey, sweetheart. You awake for any special reason?"

Kate smoothed the hair down on his head, felt the damp curl of heavy sleep. So he had been asleep at one point tonight; maybe he had woken when she came in the room and disturbed the dog.

"I'm sorry, Jay. Didn't mean to wake you. Want to lie back down?"

"Ma-ma-ma," he chanted, lifting his head from the rail and reaching for her.

She took him, unable to help herself, and cuddled him against her chest, where he seemed perfectly willing to go. Still tired then, and drowsy even as he laid against her, and his little fist clutched her sleep shirt. He was wriggling down against her, melting to her skin.

She kissed his sweaty neck and the side of his face, the scent of the lavender bath soap and his mild shampoo in her nose. His pajamas still held that clean from the laundry smell, and she took a deeper breath, relishing it.

She hoped she remembered this moment, twenty years from now when he was a young man away from them, ten years from now when he thought it wasn't cool to have his mother kiss him, five yeas when he was getting in trouble and asking a thousand questions. The feel of his heavy body against her and the way he grounded her to the here and now.

How good it was, to steal a moment with her baby in the dead of night and know they were safe, and loved, and everything was going to work out in the end.

Even if she had fears, even if she had doubts, even if she and Castle fought and couldn't see clear, in this moment tonight, she believed. It was going to be just fine. It was going to be beautiful.

James was falling back to sleep.

His head sank heavy against her shoulder, his fist loosened.

She swayed there a little while longer, not even sure why she'd been awake, not sure why she'd come into his room tonight at all. Except she'd felt it in her, like a calling, a need for him.

She loved this boy. This beautiful creation. His life wouldn't be easy and it would be restricted by their secrets, by his heritage, but he would have what neither she nor Castle had ever been able to fully capture - he would have two parents in his life who loved him and each other beyond words.

"Okay, sweetheart," she whispered at his ear. His hair was soft where it brushed her chin. "Back to bed. Daddy would say it's not fair that I got up to hold you when I made him stop."

James didn't stir as she lifted her heavy boy back down to the crib. She found the corduroy elephant in the corner and tucked it into his arm, and then she pulled the soft satin square over his shoulders where he liked it. Finally, she took the thin baby blanket and draped it over him like a cape. Protection against the drafts, a cover for dreams.

"Good night, James."

She went back to bed.

The End of Close Encounters 25: Role of Honor

Stay Tuned for CE 26: Licence Renewed