Kapitel 92: 92. Chapter 92
"You're burned," he says, pointing at her chest.
He watches Kate glance down and hiss at the pink tinge to her skin. "Da - darn."
Rick already has the bottle of sunblock out because he was re-applying on the kids; he nudges Ellery away from him. "Go play, cricket. You're all done."
Ella pops up off the towel and runs back to the sand creatures she and Dash are building with Rafe. A few minutes earlier, Alexis walked back up the boardwalk to buy them all milkshakes; Castle is alone with Kate on their towels, so he gives her a look.
"Want me to-?" He waves the bottle at her, lifting an eyebrow.
She smirks at him. "That wouldn't exactly be appropriate, Rick."
He grins back. "Darn."
She takes it from him, squeezes a glob out onto her palm while he watches. She smears it across her chest, up her neck, around her shoulders. He breaks his gaze and instead meets her eyes - laughing at him, of course. She's not even teasing and yet - it's a tease.
Alexis walks into his line of sight with a drink carrier, plops down next to Kate on the towel. "Ooh, Mom, you're burned."
"I know. I think the sunblock washed off when I took Dash in the ocean."
"How's your back?" Rick asks, taking the milkshakes from his daughter just as Ellery and Dash sprint towards them, clamoring.
"Ooh, me, me. That's mine."
Castle silences Dash with a look, turns back to Kate.
Her mouth twitches on a smile. "Mm, I thought the salt water would hurt, but it actually made it feel better." She catches Dash as the boy dances around his father. "Whoa, sit down, wild man. Let's slow your roll."
Dash giggles but drops down beside her, leaning against her arm to reach for the vanilla and peanut butter milkshake. Castle hands it over, wraps an arm around Ellery and pulls her into his lap. She gets her chocolate, cradling it against her chest, so he gives Kate the two strawberries. She passes them on to the older kids.
Rafe sits with his back against Allie's, sips his strawberry shake as Alexis laughs at him about something. Castle averts his eyes, then can't figure out why he should, and studies them again.
Rafe doesn't seem any different - now that he has a ring. Which is probably good, but-
"Rick."
He startles but looks at Kate, the warning in her eyes, and he sighs. She reaches over and takes her own milkshake from his fingers, sucks at it.
"Oh, Allie-" She turns and gives a one-arm hug to Alexis, reaching over Dash to do so. "You got me coffee flavored?"
"Yup. Dad's is too."
"So good," she grins back at Castle. "Try it."
He leans over and kisses her, swiping his tongue in her mouth quickly, just a taste, and pulls back. "Mm, good."
He hears Rafe and Allie laughing, Dash too - as if the kid has any idea - and Kate is giving him a narrow-eyed look that belies the smirk and just-kissed smudge of her mouth.
Ellery squirms in his lap, wet and sandy, and he glances down at her. She peers up at him, then reaches up and grabs his milkshake. Before he can stop her, she sucks it down, eyes opening wide.
"Uh-oh, wait a sec. That's Daddy's," he says, reaching for it. Ella's teeth are clamped around the straw and it pulls out as he takes the milkshake away.
Castle laughs, tugs the straw out of her mouth, and puts it back in his milkshake.
"I want some more, Daddy."
He glances to Kate but she shakes her head.
"I don't think so, cricket. It's got coffee in it. That's for Mommy and Daddy. Yours is chocolate. Don't you like it?"
"I like yours too."
He glances back to Kate, lifts an eyebrow. She sighs at him.
"Okay, baby girl, just a little." He hands it back down to her, holding the cup. Ellery takes a longer sip, mouth pursed around the straw. When she's finished, she smacks her lips and grins at him.
"Good."
"Yeah? Now it's my turn."
"You started something," Kate says. He glances over and Dashiell is drinking her milkshake as well.
Dash looks awestruck. "This is amazing."
"It is?" Kate laughs.
"I like it. Vanilla and peanut butter is better, but you could mix some of yours in mine, Mommy, and we could both have vanilla and peanut butter and coffee. All the good ones."
Kate laughs and shoots Castle a look, winking at him. "So you kids like coffee. Why am I not surprised?"
At the showers positioned along the ends of each boardwalk, his family stops and holds things up. It's well past lunch time and Dashiell has moved from whiny to irritated to miserable, while Ellery has zipped her lips and sulked at everyone.
Ella doesn't want a single person to help her wash off the sand from her body, and it's all over her body, so she's got a line forming behind her. Kate sends Dashiell in to help, since she'll sometimes let her older brother do it for her, but Dash isn't in a good enough mood to help nicely.
He gets a slap on his arm, and then Castle - who is closer - grabs her by the wrist and jerks her away from hitting her brother a second time.
"No hitting, baby girl."
Ellery's face is somewhere between livid and mutinous, and she squirms out of her father's grip and gets back under the spray of water. A group of three teenaged girls are waiting behind her, while Kate uses the second shower to carefully wash salt water off her back. Allie hops in with her, uses the bottom spigot to spray down her feet, and then gets out as well. Rafe tries to help Dash use the spray hose while Ella uses the overhead shower, but Dashiell keeps twisting away, growling at him.
Castle seems to be hurrying Ella along as best he can, so Kate calls Dash over to her, giving Rafe an apologetic smile.
Of course, Dashiell's feelings are still bruised from getting hit and he gives his mother a petulant look as she uses the hose to spray down his swimming trunks, get all the seaweed and ocean life off his skin. Bent over awkwardly like this, the overhead shower hits her back and makes it sting.
"I'm not helping her no more," Dash fumes. "She's being mean. She's always mean, Mommy."
"No, she wasn't being very nice. You know you guys fight when you're tired."
"I'm not tired. I'm-"
"You are, baby. You need a nap. Turn around. Let me get your back."
"Mom-my," Dashiell whines, shaking his whole body, making his voice waver as he bounces. A massive, fall in the floor fit is likely to follow.
"Dashiell."
"I wanna-"
"Lady, will you hurry it up? This is getting ridiculous."
Kate lifts her eyes from her son, an eyebrow raised, meets the gaze of a put-out, lobster-faced man a few people behind them in line. He has his hands on his hips, his girth speckled with sand, and a kid at his side looking like he'll be taking after his father - fat and rude.
She straightens up.
Castle steps in front of Kate with Ellery in hand; she only sees his back, can't see his face. But she can hear the smooth, low timber of his voice.
"We're getting the kids washed down. It will only be a moment more." Castle releases Ella's hand, pushing her back towards Kate, takes a few steps down to the man, looming close.
Kate snatches Ella's shoulder before she can follow her daddy, watches him as he says something else to the fat, sunburned idiot.
She only hears a snatch of Castle's words.
"If you ever talk to my wife like that again-" And the man's face, even more florid than it was, in a tight line of either disbelief or simmering anger.
When Castle turns back, he takes the hose out of her hands, nudges her away. "Take Ella up to the condo for lunch. We'll be right behind you."
She stares at him a moment.
There are all kinds of things she wants to say - she doesn't need a protector, it's not smart to challenge people in this day and age, she had it handled - but instead she leans in and kisses him softly.
Because it's easy to make a man fall to his knees for you, but it's harder to make a man get to his feet and defend you.
Because he loves her enough to do both.
Nap time. Ahh. . .
Kate comes back into the room, brushes her hand over his arm as she heads for the shower. "Got interrupted earlier, so I'm gonna wash the salt off. Starting to sting."
"You okay?" He lifts his head from the bed and watches her through the doorway. She pulls off the cover-up, twists her back to him as she unties the strap of her bikini top.
"How's it look?"
Castle gets off the bed and heads for her, bringing a hand to her back, brushing his thumb over her shoulder blade as he looks at the scratches. "This one looks irritated."
"I think my swimsuit was rubbing it."
Castle leans forward and kisses the back of her neck, touching his tongue to her skin and tasting the salt from the ocean water that she didn't manage to get off. His chest still feels tight over that confrontation down by the boardwalk - he's always been the kind of guy to smooth things over rather than make threats. But he made some threats.
Her hand lifts and ruffles his hair as she moves away. "Let me shower, Rick."
"Yeah, yeah," he murmurs, reaching past her to turn the water on. "Shower. I'm gonna sit out on the balcony and read."
Kate turns, looking surprised, brushes her hand down his sternum. "I thought you were going to join me."
He laughs. "You didn't exactly look like you wanted me to."
"Hm, your choice."
Castle brushes a kiss to her forehead. "I feel bad about the scratches, Kate. Not gonna shove you up against cold tile-"
She laughs, presses her fingers to his mouth. "I'm fine. Besides, maybe I do the shoving this time?"
He kisses her fingers, wraps his arm around her waist. "You can shove me up against anything you like - after my sunburn heals."
She sighs, trails her fingers softly against the back of his neck. "Yeah. Darn. I'll shower and come find you on the balcony. It'll be nice."
"You say that like you're expecting to be drawn and quartered. It'll be nice."
She lifts on her toes and kisses him again. "My bad. It'll be hot and sexy."
He grins at her, tugs at her swimsuit bottoms. "Get going, Beckett. Before I change my mind about the cold tile."
"Shower heats it up-"
"Tease."
"Trying to," she shoots back.
"Kids in bed?"
"Yes, and you seriously are ruining the mood, Rick Castle."
He grins at her, kisses her again. "Trying to. Now. Shower, be good."
Allie and Rafe are out on the balcony when she steps through, both of them snuggled up on a lounge chair, Rafe playing with Allie's hair. Castle is in one of the chairs, casting them pained looks, so Kate steps in front of him, stands between his knees with her arms draped over his shoulders.
He looks at her, sighing.
"Gonna have to cheer up, Daddy," she murmurs, leaning in to kiss him softly.
She feels his fingers on her waist, stroking under her tshirt. "Yeah."
"You better be smiling when it happens," she whispers into his ear. "Or I will hurt you."
He laughs at that, tugs on her jeans. She pulls her head back to look at him, sees the sly smile across his face. Much better.
"Scoot, Castle." She nudges on his knee and turns around, wedges her hips next to his and sits with him in the chair. He laughs in her ear and shifts to one side, lifting his arm and putting it around her shoulders.
"What're you not reading?" she says, tapping the book lying over his thigh.
"Almost finished with Goon Squad."
Kate feels him tense and glances over to the happy couple; Rafe has just kissed Allie's ear, strokes a finger down her jaw.
"Castle," she warns, rubs her thumb at the top of his thigh.
"Yeah, I'm okay. I really am. I just - it's gonna take some time?"
"Not too much time." Kate smothers a yawn and leans against his side. "I could take a nap."
"Go. Leave me here all by my lonesome."
"Poor baby. Come nap with me."
"Eh-"
She tilts her head on his shoulder, kisses his neck. "We could - you know."
"Snuggle?"
Kate laughs at that, brushes her hand over his chest. "Sure. Anything to take your mind off the lovebirds."
"Don't remind me."
"You really need to get over this," she says, sliding off the chair. She winces at the tug on her back and heads for the sliding glass door. "Come nap with me."
"But I'm not tired."
She lifts an eyebrow at him. "You really gonna make me beg, Castle?"
Castle glances once more to Allie and Rafe, who - Kate sees - are now both looking at Castle, smirking. He sighs and follows her back into the condo. She reaches out for his book, drops it on the coffee table. "Grab your laptop. You can write. Take your mind off things, since you're not tired."
She doesn't wait for him, heads on into their bedroom knowing he'll follow. He does, of course, coming inside while she closes the curtains across the windows to the balcony. She watches him get settled on the bed and then stalks over, crawling up beside him.
"You lock the door?"
"No." Castle lifts his hand and brushes it through her hair, making her close her eyes. "Sleep, babe."
"You're really not letting go of that, are you? Babe," she growls.
"Not in the near future."
She opens her eyes again, lifts her head up to watch him open his document, his fingers resting on the keyboard but not typing. She shouldn't add anything more to his melodramatic air, but-
"I think I spoke too soon," she says, propping herself up on her elbows so she can touch his thigh with a finger.
"What?" His eyes find hers, blank with confusion.
"I don't want to retire. I - I don't-"
He laughs, grinning at her, shutting his computer. "Yeah, I figured you couldn't let that go either."
She grunts at him and sits up. "It's not that it's never, it's just that I don't think I can - I mean, I love my job. The further I get away from it, the more I want to go back. And quitting now-"
"Hey, babe, seriously. I don't mind. You do what you want to do."
"Stop with the babe. Just for a second, okay?"
He lifts an eyebrow.
"I don't wan to quit. I don't want to stop. But - it's dangerous. And-"
"You're arguing with yourself, Kate."
She lifts her eyes to his, sighs. "I don't know. I'm not any good at talking this stuff out. I just think. I need to think."
"So think. I told you I'd let it go. You're the one who brought it up."
She lies back down beside him, curls a knee up, lays her hand over his thigh. There's more, but she can't find words for it.
"All right. What else?" he says, sliding his laptop to the bed and then sinking down next to her. "What's the rest of it, Kate?"
"I need to do less."
"Or just be better about time management."
She lifts her head, surprised that he agreed. But why should she be? It's true. Rick - out of everyone - knows her terrible schedule, the late nights, the cases she gets sucked into, the bad habit of missing dinner, the black hole of her weekends.
"Yeah," she says finally, swallowing hard, lying back down.
"You always tend to go for the extremes. You don't need to do that. It's not have a job or have a family. It's not quit or be a workaholic. There's a way to balance things out, ba- uh - Kate."
She gives him a twitch of her lips for that, then sighs. "I've been trying that - to balance it."
"Not very hard."
"What?" She sits up again.
He shrugs at her. "I spend a lot of time enabling you. Covering for you when you can't get home or don't make a karate meet. The kids are fairly independent, and yeah, they've got me there, but they do miss you, you know."
She gapes at him. "Why - why have you never said this before?"
"Because it's really not that important. They miss you, but you're still here. You show up. You make it to the next one or you have three days off in a row or we all head to a baseball game. It's just different; it's not 9 to 5, so it looks different."
"I can't tell if you think this is wrong or not."
"Because it's not about being wrong or right. Our family isn't going to be traditional - it can't be. Honestly, Kate, you taught me that early on. I'm a best-selling writer and you're a detective. And then we're also Mom and Dad. And you can't be one without the other, I don't think. You're not just a mom or just a detective anymore."
She's not sure that's any good either, but he's so convinced. He's so relaxed and certain looking that she's not sure how to argue with that?
"Remember when Dash was first going through that sensory stuff? And we were getting him tested and researching therapies?"
Kate nods. She remembers how hard he took it, how he spun off into his overactive imagination and thought the worst and panicked a little.
"You reminded me of something. You said that this was our family and we would do this however we had to do it to make it work - for everyone. Not just me or you, but Dash too. Ellery too. Still holds true, Kate. We make it work. You are vital to this family, and you know that. But you're a detective." He grins at her slowly. "You're you. And I think trying to change that would only mess our family up, not make it better."
She lets out a long breath, passes a hand over her eyes. She - she feels relieved. Like a massive responsibility has been lifted from her shoulders.
"Yeah," she says finally. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. You think all you want. If you truly want to switch jobs, that's fine. We'll make it work. If you would rather find a little more balance in what you do now, then Kate, I'm up for that too. I'll do whatever it takes to make that work. Because it makes us work."
She kisses him softly, her tongue making a lazy nudge at his lips until he sighs and opens for her. She kisses him because - once again - he has her back. He always has her back.
"Love you, Kate."
props to Lloyd (featuring Andre 3000) 'Dedication to My Ex' (clean version) for the next to last line in the second scene
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