" O, how ripe in show
Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!"
November 2015
Her fingers fluttered to her lips, stunned, eyes fluttering and the quietest gasp drawing his attention away from the stacks of wood. Castle moved to her side, her free hand landing on his lower back and fisting in his shirt with a silent command that he stop moving.
He did.
If it wasn't for the soft, firm, insistent pressure from her fingers, the surprise on her face alone would have held him silent and still. At their feet the piles of firewood he had amassed lay forgotten, dawn creeping through the trees, and Castle followed her line of sight right out across the clearing into the aurora glow.
"Kate?"
"It's a baby," she whispered. Dappled golden light on the leaves and bushes where Kate's gaze was focused. Sure enough, when he could tear his eyes from her and once more look out into the wood a tiny deer appeared, stumbling into sight on long, thin and spindled legs that wobbled and shook with every measured step it took.
Kate was silent in her admiration, thumb sweeping his back as her fingers curled and released in his shirt, absorbed in the emergence of the fawn. Castle followed her lead, losing all will to speak, taking the silence, pulling it inside of him and making it his own. Their own.
He took her hand as she half stepped into his side, looped their entwined fingers around her waist and drew her into his chest, their movements slow, steady and deliberate so as not to disturb the little creature.
Their hands rise from her hips, land over her heart, the steady beat erupting under their skin and becoming the melodic rhythm that keeps them swaying in silence as they stare.
It nudged at a bush with the blackened tip of its nose, sniffed and poked a leaf or too. The wind picked up, shifted the trees and the bush, sending an eerie sound through the branches that unsettled the fawn. It opened its mouth letting out a sound that made her grip tighten.
Castle felt his heart sink the longer they stood there, the longer they watched the fawn nose around and bleat and call out in confusion. Kate turned into his chest and where her face rested, beneath his chin, he became aware of the dampness of her tears, cold grief seeping into his clothes.
Kate was crying and he knew why.
"He's lost." Castle stated quietly and he felt the shudder roll through her, he pulled her silently closer, feeling the nod of confirmation.
"He's calling his mom."
Though she said it on the tail end of a sigh, everything around them seemed to freeze at her words. The wood beyond the house hushed as if lulled by the sound of her voice, one motherless creature in sympathy, at painful peace and in sync, with another.
The fawn's head cocked, ears back and suddenly both big brown eyes focused on them. In his arms Kate exhaled slowly and another shudder rippled out over her skin, the strain of keeping tears at bay quivering through her body.
It watched them for the longest moment, eyes blinking as the sun finally broke the darkness of the night and sent out flushes of warmth across the sky. It watched as though trying to assess them, understand them, find it within its own tiny little body to be afraid of the people that stood on the other side of the clearing
Castle half hoped it would bolt, dash off through the undergrowth calling as it went for a mother he wasn't sure it would find. Instead it opened its mouth and called again and another slightly larger head appeared in the bushes
"Oh!" Was all she could say. Oh, and the grip of her fingers over his heart. Oh, and the fresh dampness of her face on his shirt when the relief exploded through her that someone else wouldn't be motherless and abandoned, unloved and lost.
Oh, and an under her breath laugh, thankful and awed as the mother stepped up and nosed at the fawn as if reprimanding it. Where have you been, my baby? And, what have you done? Why didn't you tell me you were leaving? All there, all visible in the parental act of inquiry and the admonishing stare of it's darker eyes.
A great, shrill mewl rent the air, both mother and child froze and then exploded into movement disappearing into the wood once more as the people standing watching from the clearing turned their backs on the woodland creatures, towards the sound of their own child.
His fingers tightened at her back and she rose up, kissed the edge of his mouth slipped her arms around his neck and hung on.
The sound came again, louder this time, and Castle laughed, drifting warm hands down her back, detaching her from his body and pushing her towards the house. "I think someone else wants their mom too," he smiled and her response was watery, eyes alight with knowledge and fear, but she went.
It faded into nothing and she woke with a startled breath.
In the darkness of their bedroom Kate sat up, awareness coming at her fast even as the vividness of her dream gave movement to the shadows in the room. The door became a tree trunk and the chair cast limbed branches out above her head so that it took a few good seconds of steady breathing to find her way back to reality, and to become aware of the tepid pool of water she sat in.
Another sharp tug, insistent and startling, rippled through her abdomen and Kate's eyes widened in shock, her dream perhaps more of a portent than she knew.
Hand darting out to grab her husband, the other still firmly over their unborn child, their dream kiss still warm on her lips, Kate woke him with the one sentence guaranteed to have him upright in seconds.
"Castle, the baby's coming!"