At this hour, New York-Presbyterian is far quieter than the daytime hours, but still, there are enough visitors and staff passing through the atrium to make for interesting people watching. Castle nurses a cup of Starbucks from the cafeteria kiosk and observes the visitors and staff come and go in the wee hours of the morning. Across the way, a young couple whispers, huddled together on a bench, silent tears streaming down the young woman's face. Just outside the double sliding glass doors, a man Castle's age is chain smoking and arguing on his phone. An elderly woman is perched on a bench by the elevators, working the New York Times crossword, reading glasses perched on the end of her nose.
If he was more alert, Castle would be writing their stories in his head; imagining characters and crafting plots. As it is, he barely feels the coffee. It's been a long, strange day, and if he could, he would be sleeping. Kate's labor went on for a little over 21 hours, and in the end she bled a more than anybody was happy with. But she's good now, asleep in the awful hospital bed. Alexis is snoring on the sofa under the window in the hospital room, and a strapping nine-pound boy is sunning under the UV lamp in the nursery down the hall. Slight jaundice, nothing to fear as long as they deal with it now. Alexis had the same problem when she was born so the second-time dad isn't worried.
As Castle drifts with his thoughts, he feels himself sway with them in the hard, vinyl chair. Punchy. It's the only word he can come up with. Everybody in their little clan, at the moment, is just a little under rested and overdone. Martha, who waited out most of the hospital drama at home, had the good sense to show up an hour after Ethan was born with a pepperoni pizza. She stayed long enough to eat just one piece, kiss everyone, fawn over the baby, and go right back home.
Kate's video chat with Lanie was brief, and her best friend took one look at her and promised she'd be by in the morning – way, way late in the morning.
Just before Kate asked for lights out, she sat in the bed with baby Ethan in her lap and Castle and Alexis each at a hip; three goofy, grinning idiots who hadn't slept at all the night before, because counter to the expectation planted by the nurse running the birthing class, one's water can indeed break at the onset of labor. Just ask the Flokati area rug on Kate's side of the bed (dumpster) and her favorite slippers (likewise).
Now, the night duty nurse comes in every couple of hours to check Kate, and while the exhausted new mother didn't even wake the last time, Castle hasn't slept a wink in the squeaky vinyl reclining chair. And so now he's depositing a half a cup of cold coffee in the trash and about to start wandering the halls again. There's so much bouncing around in his head; he wants to be still, but can't manage it. He wants to rest. He wants to lay his head down and dream of his wife and his daughter and his new-born son. Sheer exhaustion will hit him eventually, but for now, he walks.
Just down the hall, the door of the main hospital chapel stands open, banked on both sides by lovely stained-glass panels. They glow faintly with the lights within, thanks to gentle up-lighting, with a few candles burning brightly down front. Castle shuffles up and leans in against the door frame. The room is all warm wood and soft benches and the air smells faintly of sandalwood and lemon furniture polish, and it's completely inviting and peaceful. Best of all, it's empty, and he slips into a seat, melting into the worn, burgundy upholstery.
Nothing about this room is like a hospital room. There's no sterile white anything here, no antiseptic smell, or wires and tubes. Maybe that's it, the root of this jittery restlessness. He's had his fill of seeing Kate in a hospital gown, all he cares of the sight of her blood, even for the best of reasons. With his first lungful of air, Ethan wailed, announcing himself to everyone in the room. The day-long blanket of tension fell away from Kate in that moment, as she collapsed back on the bed with a breath of laughter on her lips and tears streaking from the corners of he eyes. She couldn't see how much blood there was, and the doctor didn't want to alarm her, but Castle saw it, keeps seeing it, even now.
The doctor was hovering and the nurses were doing what was necessary to slow the bleeding. They gave her a shot in her IV for the pain and another to encourage her uterus to clamp down. Castle crowded low at the head of the bed and stroked his wife's sweaty hair and told her about their beautiful boy and how he's so proud, and she smiled through her tears and believed him when he told her how wonderful their first Christmas as home was going to be.
Castle missed his son's first ten minutes, barely noticed as the nurses fastened the tiny hospital bracelet around his ankle, ran his Apgar score twice, bathed him, and dressed him in a little onesie Kate had packed in her bag. They will go home soon and when that happens, surely the knot in his chest will loosen.
Kate is fine. She's fine.
He's said it to himself roughly every few seconds since the placenta was delivered and the bleeding slowed to a trickle and stopped.
Kate had told one of the nurses they could let Alexis in. Only when Alexis froze in the doorway at the sight of the linens that were being cleared away, did it finally dawn on his wife that Castle's shaking hands weren't just the excitement of a second time father. The look Kate shot him, full of understanding, threatened the wreck the grip he had on his composure. It would be a while before he could tell her about it.
"It's all right, pumpkin," he'd assured his daughter with more certainty than he actually felt. "It was a little...interesting there at the end, but everybody is okay now."
Alexis' eyes grew glassy with tears. She had slipped right past her father and fell on Kate's neck and told her in a shaky voice how glad she was that Kate was okay. Not for the first time, Castle was so grateful for what the relationship between Alexis and his wife had become. Sure, Kate would never be the young woman's mother. But what Kate and Alexis had was vastly better than what Alexis knew from her own mother-daughter relationship. It did not go unappreciated. By any of them.
He knows it goes a long way toward explaining why Alexis is scrunched up on the sofa in Kate's hospital room instead of her comfortable bed in her college apartment across town, and why Kate wouldn't have it any other way.
Castle's phone beeps in his pocket, a weak protest from the nearly-dead battery. He fishes it out of his pocket and pages through the new pictures. Kate in the hospital bed, still pregnant and looking annoyed. Alexis sitting on the foot of the bed distracting Kate with ramblings about graduate school. Much later, Kate, the relieved smile of new motherhood gracing her features. Martha nose to nose with her grandson while Kate looks on. Ethan snoozing in the bassinet, a little fist under his chin. The nurse took one right before Kate went to sleep - three adults huddled together on the bed, looking adoringly on the sweet, sleeping face of a newborn son, a baby brother. Again, so much to be grateful for.
For the first time since Castle entered the chapel, he can hear footsteps out in the hall. Maybe he's not the only one who needs a little perspective at 3:45 in the morning. Whoever it is, they stop just outside the door. Over his shoulder, the wavy outline of his visitor lingers on the other side of the stained glass. A man. Who is apparently of two minds about whether to enter. The man starts forward, but rocks back on his heel, never clearing the door frame. After about ten seconds observing the newcomer, Castle thinks it might be better to mind his own business and not be staring when and if the man enters.
