Chapter Twenty Four: The possibility of joy.
They sit quietly, wrapped a little around each other for a further twenty minutes or so until Castle checks his watch, and almost reluctantly gets up from the sunny grass. Reaching out a hand he pulls Kate to her feet, and then keeps her hand within his as he takes a further moment to quietly look at her.
"What?" she asks eyebrow quirked, eyes calm despite the endless ocean of deep sadness that they contain today.
The writer smiles softly, raising the hand that he's holding up to his lips. His bright eyes fall closed, the dark fan of his long eyelashes catching the sunlight so beautifully that it mesmerizes her. The warmth of his mouth brushing across the thin skin of her knuckles is also a distraction, but not for long.
"Castle?" she prompts.
He takes a moment more. She can almost see him gathering up his wits and when his eyes eventually open and find her gaze, he looks a little dazed. His expression is beautiful though, it harkens back to how he often used to look at her when she first met him. Back when there was this 'innocence' about him, despite the millionaire playboy she knew him to be. An innocence that she couldn't help but love, and Kate didn't realize until now how much she's missed seeing it. How happy this look of 'wonder' on his boyish, handsome face has the capacity to make her feel. How thrilled she is that he can still manage to find it, most especially today.
"Just . . ." He stops, for once uncharacteristically at a loss for words. So she raises her eyebrow and he grins at her sheepishly, and tries again.
"I guess I'm still getting used to having you here in my life again. I feel like I'm rediscovering myself, Kate. It's so strange but suddenly there's this deep reserve of strength inside me that wasn't there a week ago. I've felt so broken and so adrift for such a long time now that it had become basically 'normal' for lack of better word. That was 'normal' to me. God, being without you had become normal and now you're here and-"
Kate pushes up onto her toes and silences the words by kissing him - just the firm press of her lips to his. It's effectively eloquent. Speaks volumes of their love, their new commitment to each other, tells of atonement, and looks forward to life. It's what he meant to say but didn't quite know how and yet this simple action, one that they've shared with each other a thousand times before manages to convey it all. She breaks the kiss and sighs gently, the warmth of her exhale softly caressing his face. Cupping his cheek with her free hand she tells him, "I feel exactly the same way."
Smiling at each other they turn their heads in unison to take a final look at the marker of their son's grave, at least for today.
"We love you, Jack." Kate whispers softly. Castle adds, "You're always with us little one – everyday." He frees his hand from Kate's and kneels right next to the white stone for a moment, she can hear him murmuring words but then he straightens and returns to her side, immediately reaching out and taking her hand again.
Kate looks up at him, eyes asking, but Castle shakes his head and begs off quietly, "Another day. Okay?" He looks relieved, unburdened even, so Kate nods once and lets him leave the explanation for another time, letting him off the hook by looking away. Straightening her shoulders she takes a moment to absorb just how much strength she draws from his loving presence beside her, and then tugging on his hand she leads him away.
Heading them back towards her cruiser, Kate pays close attention as she winds a path through the graveyard towards the exit. She commits every detail of it to her memory so that by the time she pushes the gate open she knows in her heart that she'll never again need to ask the way.
The look of concentration on her face makes her husband smile and tugs on his heart at the same time. He can't help it when he holds onto her fingers just a little tighter – he hopes that it's reassuring.
At the car she releases Castle's hand reluctantly; taking a deep breath she turns to him and says, "I'm ready to meet them, Rick. And I know I told you earlier that I was, but I feel I have to confess that I wasn't totally certain when I said it. That I wouldn't balk, I mean." Her eyes are anxious, but in his she sees nothing but calm.
"But now you're sure?" he asks.
She nods, "I won't lie and tell you that this isn't going to be hard, Rick. I mean this whole year has been about me having to cope with this alone - about me being unable to get past my own grief, my own failures. It's time now for me to learn about how you've gotten through. How you found a way to cope. And these people – they've all been there for you when I wasn't, when I couldn't be. It's massive – the debt I owe them, Rick, for all the ways in which they've been there for you. So I want to meet them. I need to meet them."
Castle nods. "Alright, if you're certain then. Besides, there is one person in particular that I would like you to meet, Kate. Seeing you, see us together - I have a feeling you can't know what a difference you might make today. How much hope you might be able to bring."
Her brow furrows, but she doesn't ask him to explain that, instead she just says, "Let's go then."
Once they're in the car she looks to him for directions.
"Where are we headed?"
The question turns his focus inward, and something both warm and intensely private sweeps across his face. Instantly Kate knows that her husband is not only looking forward to seeing these people today, but that he needs to see them as well. It shakes her just a little. It makes her feel grateful but also uncertain, unworthy even. There is still so much about their time apart this year that she doesn't know, a whole period of his life, his finite existence that she shunned. And this moment she hates herself for that alone. For squandering time with him that no matter how much she might want to, can never be reclaimed. It will always hurt regardless of how pointless it is to dwell.
She sighs, pushes the useless thoughts away because she's here now, and she waits for his reply which comes, soft and fond, "Amsterdam and 99th, St. Michael's."
The church is really beautiful.
It's quiet in the after lunch-period and Kate's stomach rumbles despite the crazy riot of nerves she's feeling. It seems silly to her to be frightened. To be suddenly so anxious, but from the moment that they stepped inside it was like a thousand butterflies erupted within.
High, stained glass windows catch the bright sunlight as it streams through, scattering color in vivid splashes across the grey flagstone floor. Kate takes a moment to appreciate the beauty of it, the simplicity. She uses the rainbow display as a focus for her breathing as she deliberately slows it down, forces it to be even. Years of training tells her that will help to combat the adrenaline that's now pumping thickly into her veins and sending her heart racing. Once she's a little calmer she reaches for his hand again, knows that connection will steady her further, she moves close enough that she can tuck her body into his side, into his shadow even.
It's even easier to breathe then.
He grounds her, and his steadying presence offsets the niggling feeling that she's an interloper here somehow. That's she's got no business being with him. Of course that's silly, this is a support group for bereaved parents after all, but she can't help but worry about how these people will react to her. She wonders about what he's told them? How in her obvious absence they've judged her? Even as she knows it can't possibly be any harsher than how she's judged herself.
Castle's voice startles her out of these unhelpful musings.
"We meet in the hall," he says, tugging her forwards. "It's downstairs."
He steps through the doorway at the foot of the stairs ahead of her, as it should be, Kate doesn't know where she's even going. The hum of several voices is audible already though, people are here and her free fist clenches for a moment, she lags at the end of his arm for a short pause before she can follow him. Swallowing back nausea, she digs deep for resolve which she suddenly needs in spades when Castle lets go of her hand in order to greet someone ahead of him. The breathless way his name is spoken in greeting pierces her, almost reduces her to tears.
Someone sounds so relieved to see him, and it hits Kate again that these people already know everything about what's happened to them. They know what date this is, and they're happy to see her husband, happy and relieved that he's sought them out on this terrible day.
The feeling of inadequacy is huge, silly perhaps but it swamps her.
She has to force her feet to carry her onwards and into the room, because there is no way that she isn't seeing this through for him. Kate stands in the doorway though, fighting with her courage as she plays observer to him for once. Giving him the freedom to greet his friends as he would have if she wasn't here.
It's so much harder to do than it would appear.
He always planned to come to a meeting today. He planned it months ago, not long after Alexis found the support group for him in fact, and he'd witnessed first hand how the anniversary of SIDS related death could go. Parents who were among the longest standing members of the group, the ones most helpful, most supportive of him when he first appeared – reduced to ghostly apparitions of themselves drowning beneath a veil of tears.
He'd seen how much strength was yielded from sharing the burden once again. How much the group rallied around a parent busy caught up re-living the horror of that terrible day. Yeah he'd definitely assumed he'd need to be here.
But now that he is, it feels more like he's doing it to let them know not to worry about him anymore. Like this is a way for him to give back, to show Pete, or any other new member that you can triumph over grief, over loss. Even on a day like today when it might be more usual for a desperate need for support to have driven him here – it isn't that, it isn't that at all. Not for him, not in the end, because he's a different man when his wife stands beside him, and this is a difference experience now than it would have been.
And Castle is excited to share - something Kate had once taught him about that he'd long ago lost sight of. Something he's only just realizing that she's taught him yet again.
That even on the worst days there is the possibility for joy. This is a horrible, a dark and a terrible day for him, but the joy he finds in her loving presence, in loving her – it's enough to light the way.