AN: Guppy asked - maybe two or thee more chapters? My quandary is that I've had an idea that didn't make the first draft at all, and I'm warring with myself, not sure if it's a rabbit I want to chase. Hmmm...

As ever, thanks to all of you who are reading, following and reviewing, you're the best. Special shout out again to Ducky, who has been cheerleading tonight. I am so grateful!


There's nowhere to sit. This is a hospital, for crying out loud, people visit all the time, loads of them. And the hallway is void of furniture in both directions. Castle looks back through the wide, plate glass window into the nursery. There are three rockers in there, but Charles doesn't have a wrist band so the nurses won't let him in. And Castle's pretty sure there will be a riot of he tries to drag chairs out into the hall.

Charles smiles slightly at his son's sleep-deprived reasoning skills. "If you can count on one thing, the floors in a hospital are usually pretty clean." With that, the older man slides down with a small grimace, settles with his back against the wall under the nursery window.

Castle, a little shocked but unable to come up with anything better, cradles the baby against his chest with one hand, and uses the other to guide himself awkwardly to the floor. The knee that Maddox tweaked sings a little song of protest at the odd angle of his landing, and he growls as he forces it to full extension. Castle settles Ethan in his lap, turned so the boy's grandfather can see his sleeping face.

"That the knee that got injured in the stairwell?"

Rick studies his father for a moment, pondering not for the first time that Charles probably knows the events of that day, and the whole case, almost as well as he does. "Yeah, partially torn MCL and a couple of bone chips. I had it tuned up a couple weeks after it happened, and did rehab, but it's never been a hundred percent right. The doctor wants to scope it again, but I've been putting it off until after the baby. It swelled up like a basketball last time."

Charles nods in sympathy but says noting, so his son prods him along. "Kate said you have a bad knee, too?"

"Just wear and tear, the cartilage is shot. My doctor's been bugging me to do something about it."

Castle pulls back the blanket so Charles can get his first good look at the burly little fellow within, smoothing back a shock of unruly light brown hair with the palm of his hand. "Ethan James," Rick offers.

"Middle after Kate's father?"

"Yes."

"Ethan James Castle. I like it."

Rick can't help but feel pleased as he tucks the blanket back around his sleeping son. It's quiet between them for a few minutes, the both of them waiting for the next topic to present itself. There's no rhythm to it, no familiarity. No reason there should be, after all.

After a while, Charles lifts a careful hand and grasps the little foot poking out the bottom of the blanket, running his thumb up the tiny instep, and smiling as Ethan's toes curl reflexively. "He's built like you," Charles observes, and chuckles as the little boy grunts at the tickling touch and pulls the foot back so it almost disappears into the folds of the blanket.

Castle takes a long, sideways look at his father before replying. " He sure didn't get it from Mother's side of the family, or Beckett's. They're all built like marathon runners. If he's built like me, he's built like you, too."

The older man draws a deep breath and closing his eyes, rests his head against the wall. "It doesn't escape me that you're being a great deal more generous tonight than I deserve. Thank you."

"Don't be too happy," Castle qualifies. "There are things I need to say. Tonight just doesn't seem like the time."

Charles nods. "When you're ready."

"Thanks."

"Sure."

Rick squirms against the unforgiving floor and wonders if Charles is as uncomfortable as he is. Or as tired. Maybe his spy father has just cultivated four decades worth of ninja-level patience that allows him to endure things like stilted conversations and cold tile floors. "How long are you going to keep working?" Rick finally works out of his mouth.

Charles claps his hands together, albeit lightly, in deference to the sleeping baby, and says with noticeable relish, "Turned in my paperwork last week. Ninety days to go."

It's been killing him for three months, since the letter, wondering what this will all mean. The disappointment of the ten-year old boy who didn't have a dad on career day creeps up and on him without warning, and Rick is forced to clear his throat before asking. "Uh, so...does that mean you're going to be around?"

At least his voice isn't shaking. Or if it is, Charles has the courtesy to act like he doesn't notice. His reply is quick, and tells more than Rick expected.

"I have a couple of good buddies who live out in Jersey. Fellow travelers, if you will. Guys my age who I don't have to lie to, because they've been where I've been. I have a little sailboat, so I'm trying to find a house out there that has easy access to a marina. We all like to sail and fish, so I'll be spending some time with them. But I'll be an easy drive from the city."

Wow. It's not profound, but it's all Rick can think. Just...wow. After 44 years. "Ninety days, huh?"

"Yeah. I've been done with field work for a few months. You may actually find this interesting, being a storyteller. When you've done my job as long as I have, you develop a team of people around you. I'm the oldest among my group, and I've spent the last year passing down a sort of oral history to the younger employees in my circle of influence."

Charles is speaking in a hushed voice, carefully avoiding any word choices that would reveal his vocation to anyone eavesdropping. A querying look from Charles prompts Rick to nod in understanding. His son gets it.

Charles continues. "There are, of course, written records related to the work, and some of them are softer resources, like psychological assessments of the people we encounter. But the bulk of it is operational. The science, if you will. The real art of it, the ability to read a person, impressions you form about an organization, a...an employee from a competing company, is largely undocumented. So much of what I know is experiential, and when someone like me leaves, what I know leaves with me, unless I purpose otherwise."

"So, you tell stories?"

"Basically, yes. I've spent a lot of time reading over my old after action reports. It's been really eye opening for me, realizing that the way I'm retelling events now probably doesn't resemble at all the way I would have described a given event 30 years ago. For all I thought I knew then, time really has been the greatest teacher."

"I don't think I write the way I did 25 years ago, so that makes sense."

Charles just nods, and out of nowhere, Ethan startles and begins to cry.

"He's got to be hungry," Rick says. "I hate to wake Kate, it wasn't an easy day."

"What was-?" Charles checks himself, shakes his head. He has no business asking.

But Rick jumps in and replies, swaying as he lifts the baby on his shoulder. "She, uh...there was just a lot of bleeding after. It took them a while to get a handle on it."

The whole thing bears down on Rick again. He's forgotten to remind himself for the last few minutes, occupied as he's been, that Kate made it through okay. "She's fine, now," Rick asserts, as much for himself as for Charles.

For about 25 minutes, he's managed to be with Charles and not flash back to it. Blood, in small amounts, newly shed, is like little smears on a bandaid - bright red, like a Sharpie marker or syrup on a cherry snow cone. But when it pools in one place, it's much darker than you'd expect. He's seen it before, at a fresh crime scene, beneath the body of a victim, dusky as molasses, the cloying metallic tang of it hanging in an enclosed space like fog.

Ethan's birth wasn't all that dramatic. But the thin but persistent stream of blood must have gone on for 20 minutes. He's seen it, her blood, before; pooling on the gurney under Kate's body, turning as dark as her uniform blouse, squeezing out between his fingers, and then Lanie's, with no end in sight. Not sure how to pray, since she lost blood at the rate her heart was beating but the blood would only stop flowing if her heart ceased to push it along. Just like Kate, running herself on empty, never quitting until-

"Are you married?" Castle asks it before he knows it's coming out, but he's grateful for the interruption in his current train of thought.

"No, never. Came close once, but she called it off before we started mailing out invitations. Nice girl, agency girl. She wasn't in the field, but she knew all about it. Then I was a week overdue coming home from a zero-contact assignment overseas, and that was the end of our engagement. Can't blame her. I was a wreck, so I can't imagine how bad it was for someone waiting for me. I'm not saying that it's necessarily right or reasonable, but it's not a vocation that makes many allowances for matters of the heart."

Which takes them full circle, back to the letter Charles handed to Kate in the park three months ago, to the part Rick knows he'll have to make peace with in order for this to work. Once the curiosity wears off, will he be able to get past the knowledge that something else was more important to his father than being a father? He'll have to stop thinking about it in those terms if this is going anywhere. But it's a struggle. Rick, admittedly entirely due to his own choices, became a father under less than ideal circumstances. Even so, he can't imagine what it would have taken to keep him apart from Alexis.

Rick hopes it's deliberation rather than desperation that brings Charles here now. Kate has taught him something about that, the beauty of choosing. Kate's natural inclination is to be a solitary creature, but when she chooses to love, and it is a conscious choice for her, she does it beautifully. Her circle of loved ones is small, but being inside it makes the object of her affection feel precious, set apart. Admittedly, for years, the only relationship Rick pursued with real purpose was with his daughter. It's safe to bet all your chips on someone who's completely dependent on you. Not to cheapen what he has with Alexis, which is positively vibrant, but it's true. Just as it was true for him and Martha. You can count on someone who needs you as badly as you need them, when it's as valuable and necessary as breathing. But there's something absolutely breathtaking about being chosen.

Ethan, who has been as reasonable as a six-hour old can be, lets out a tiny, newborn-sized wail. "He's not going to stop fussing until he eats something," Rick says with certainty. A beat passes, and with that, holds his newborn son out, over to Charles, laying him in the hands that reflexively reach up for him. Shaky and a little unsure, as hands go, or at least as surprised as is humanly possible. Rick watches for a moment, as his father bounces the boy lightly in the air, a few inches above his lap, and satisfied, says, "I'll be right back."