Capítulo 18: 18. Chapter 18
"Why were you egging him on?" she hisses.
He stumbles through the doorway with a sleepy Ella, glancing at Kate in bewilderment. "Who? Dash?"
"No. Tate."
He stares at her for a second, then shakes his head and walks away. He pats Ella's back and drops her on the couch, thinking she still needs a bath after spending all day rolling in the sand and jumping waves with her mother.
"In case you missed it," he says quietly, coming back towards the hallway where Kate is directing Dash in taking off his clothes. "That kid was totally undermining me. And what do you care? He's not our kid."
He turns on the faucet to the bathtub and sticks his hand in the water, waiting for it to heat up, adjusting it a little.
"No, but he's autistic, Castle," she says, shoving on his shoulder. He topples back, catches himself on the side of the tub.
She pauses in the doorway, bites her lip. "Sorry. I didn't-"
He shrugs her off. "No one told me he was autistic. I just thought he was a punk kid."
She's still studying him intently.
"Yeah, you pushed me. Whatever. Get on with the explanation part."
She glances through the doorway to Dashiell, then steps in closer to him, coming between his legs as he sits on the side of the tub.
"You were right there when Vicki was telling us about - oh. No. You weren't. You were watching Graham and Dash boogie board. Ah."
"Yeah, so what is this about autism?"
"Tate has autism. He was overtired, overstimulated. He probably has some of the same issues with smell and touch and stuff that Dash does, but he can't articulate it."
"Dash isn't autistic-"
"No, but you know what Julie said."
Yeah. "So what? We're supposed to let Tate get away with being wrong? With making Dashiell gag?"
She lowers her voice, as if reminding him to do the same. "Dash did that to himself, and you know it."
"Yeah, but Tate didn't help. That is like the *one* surefire method we have to make Dashiell eat stuff that doesn't smell right or feel right, and that kid was gonna ruin it."
"Vicki apologized to me when you took him out. She was really upset about it."
"Well, she is my biggest fan-" he says bitterly, and Kate smacks his shoulder, harder this time, but he's got his balance.
"Hey."
"You deserved that one," she says, backing up. "You know what means to me-"
Shit.
"Kate," he sighs and stands up, reaching for her.
Dashiell bounds into the bathroom, stark naked, grinning. "Bath time! Where's Ella?"
Castle stalls, glancing from Kate to Dash.
Kate holds her finger out to him, points to Dash. Right. Dash duty. "Mommy's getting her." He hopes. "Let's get started so we can have your hair all washed before she gets in. Then you can play longer."
"Yeah!"
Dashiell climbs into the tub and plops down with a look of relief, closing his eyes. Castle glances to the doorway and watches Kate walk out, his heart heavy.
She sends Ella in alone. The little girl's face is intense, careful, and he knows she's reflecting whatever was on Kate's face when his wife got her ready for the bath. His daughter is like a little mirror sometimes. Ella touches his shoulder as she gets in, leaning on him for balance, and his chest constricts.
He's not afraid; long ago they realized that neither of them work well without each other. Not any more. But. He's angry at himself for his smartmouth, and he's angry at her for some reason he hasn't figured out yet, and behind that is sadness for hurting her, purposefully or accidentally.
He kisses Ella's little palm, strokes open her fingers with his thumb. She softens and smiles hesitantly at him, then wider, her knees up to her chin as she sits in the tub.
"Ready for me to wash your hair, little one?" All the terms of endearment Kate will never stand for, all the words he wants to wrap her in, sometimes they come out here instead.
Ellery glances over at Dash.
"I've already washed his. It's your turn."
She shrugs and turns her back to him, tilting her head. The knobby ridge of her spine sticks out, her scapulae poking like wings as she hunches over, waiting for the water.
He scoops the plastic cup through the bath, elbowing Dash aside as the boy eagerly starts to recount his toys' latest adventure to his sister. Rick seals his left hand across her forehead and starts to slowly pour.
"Ellery, you can be Spidey. And I'll be Batman. And Superman. Okay?"
She nods, and the water he's pouring slides out from under his hand; she gasps and blinks in the water, then giggles, giving him a look.
"Sorry, baby. Hold your head still." He uses his hand to loosen her hair, get it soaked through, then rinses it again.
She rubs her fists in her eyes and hunches her shoulders again. Rick pours the baby shampoo into his hand and suds it up a little, then starts working it through her hair, finding himself relaxing as he does, the nightly routine of hair-washing working out his tension.
He massages her scalp; her head tilts back, her eyes closed, her body getting heavy. Just like Kate. Dash hates it, abhors getting his hair washed, but Ellery just sinks right into it.
Rick removes his hands from her dark hair, holds her up by a shoulder as he fishes around for the plastic cup. "Sit up, sweetheart." She straightens and he puts a hand over her forehead again, her head angled back, those wide blue eyes watching him. He runs water over her hair, rinsing the shampoo out, and she blinks.
Totally trusting him.
He rinses her hair again, drops the cup to work his fingers through it, make sure all the soap is out. Then he grabs the lavendar-scented no-tangles stuff that Kate bought her, works that into her hair too. It's so thick that it gets tangled easily; this stuff helps some.
Ellery is patient, her knees drawn up as she sits through his hair washing, her eyes getting more and more sleepy. She clutches SpiderMan in one hand, watches Dash in his intricate water battle.
Dash makes all the noises too, explosions and whispered-screaming, entire conversations about where to move the troops, the evil laughs of the bad guys (this time two yellow ducks and a GI Joe that Kate used to play with, courtesy of Jim Beckett last year). Rick lets the detangler sit in her hair for a little while, squeezing out soap on his hands to wash the rest of Ellery.
She stands up when he asks so he can get her legs; she holds her hand out for her own soap to do the rest, smears it on her neck with a grin at him, then down her front, her little belly sticking out, her chin touching her chest. She smiles at him in pride and finishes washing up; he dumpes the cup of water over her shoulders, then sits her back down.
"Good girl. Now let me rinse this out of your hair." She tilts her head back and scoots closer, one of her little hands coming up to cling to his forearm as he protects her face from the water. The conditioner rinses out slowly; he has to dump a couple cupfuls of water over her head to get it all out.
She holds on to him, her eyes closing.
He gently releases her, brushes a hand down the side of her face, his thumb smudging her cheek, wiping a few stray suds from her chin. "Okay baby. All clean."
She opens her beautiful blue eyes, smiling at him, and he smiles back, his heart full.
Dashiell crowds her, handing her another action figure and giving her instructions. Castle lets them have at it, leaving the room to search out his wife.
His pissed-off, probably hurt wife.
The possibility for six is fading fast.
"Kate?" he calls, but she's not in the kids' rooms, and their pajamas aren't pulled out yet either. So he does that first, just to make the transition smoother (more behavioral therapy tricks), then heads into the kitchen.
Not there either, although the light is on. He pulls out a sippy cup and a camelbak bottle, fills them with water, twists the lids on them. Castle brings their waters back into the bathroom, sets them on the counter, pulls out toothbrushes and their toothpaste from the travel bag Kate left in the floor.
Now for his wife.
He checks the bedroom, the master bath, but she's not there either. He stands in the darkness of the living room, lit faintly by the light spilling from the kitchen, and then sees her.
On the balcony, in the darkness. She's closed the door behind her, drawn her knees up to her chest, her chin resting on them. She looks like Ella.
He sighs, watches her a moment, tries to remember why he was so ticked off, why when she apologized for pushing him did he feel the need to lash out at her verbally anyway.
Trapped. That's why. He feels trapped. She's done it to him again, and this little misunderstanding about Tate being autistic has just highlighted how it usually works with them. Kate gets all the information and leaves him in the dark until she's got a perfect plan, a surefire way to work things out, and *then* she comes to him and expects him to fall in line.
Damn it.
He *wants* to be at the 12th. He just didn't want to be blindsided with it. He wanted to work out a solution with her, not have his kid taken away from him.
He sighs. She's not doing that. Still.
He closes his eyes in the darkness, the sliding glass door separating them, listens to the shrieks of his kids as they play in the bathtub. Their kids. Unbidden, that image that ghosted her earlier, the smiling and sun-lightened Kate walking down the sidewalk, her hand to her stomach, that image haunts him again behind his closed eyelids.
The woman who loves him.
Ah, he's an ass.
He opens his eyes, reaches out and slides the door open; the sounds of the ocean immediately wrap around him, susurration that echoes and repeats through the moonlit night. Kate doesn't turn her head; her eyes are closed.
"I'm sorry," he says. "I know what it means to you."
She lifts her head, opens her eyes. Still not looking at him. Watching the waves maybe, far below. Or the moonlight over the far-reaching water. He really hopes, damn he hopes he didn't make her cry. That would just be par for the course today.
"It was just an expression before. It's not now. I know that. Still I was using it like an expression. I wasn't thinking."
He waits, but she still says nothing. Twenty minutes ago, he might still have had his head so far up his own ass he'd mistake her silence for punishment. Instead he sees it for what it is: hurt. Kate trying to struggle past her hurt, to speak without her voice breaking, without showing him how hurt she is.
Damn, damn, damn. He hates himself a little.
Still, he knows the only thing that makes it better is. . .him. Weird how that works. He sighs.
Rick moves in front of her, the tall cafe-style chair at the perfect height for him to wrap his arms around her too-thin frame, her small, hunched body. He kisses her temple despite the stiffness in her shoulders, presses his cheek to the top of her head, her knees a barrier between them.
"I love you, Kate. You. I know you know that."
She stays like that, but she doesn't push him away. He figures there's more words to be said; he just needs to find them. She's always taken in by his words.
He goes for the truth.
"On the boardwalk, when we were all coming back from the beach, and you turned around to me? You pressed your hand against your stomach and said you were hungry." He waits for a sign that she's following him, but she's still silent. "But before you said it, all I saw was your hand against your stomach, and all I could see was that day outside the bookstore, pulling out that picture book about the magic castles, and looking up and seeing you exactly like that-"
And that does it; she uncurls and wraps her arms around him, rising up a little to put her face into his neck, her breathing shaky. He kisses her cheek, squeezes her harder.
"Exactly like that." He reaches between them and presses the back of his hand to her stomach, brushes his knuckles over her belly button, remembering. "That's how you told me you were pregnant."
She sucks in a breath, her lips against his jaw, her mouth soft and warm as she kisses him. The fist around his heart eases a little.
"I never want to hurt you, Kate."
She nods and kisses him again.
"But I keep doing it. I don't want to, but I keep doing it-" And then it's his voice breaking, and he captures her mouth with his, raw and desperate, wanting it to be different, knowing it won't because it's just how human beings are, how relationships work. You have to be this vulnerable to someone to really love them, to let them really love you too.
She cradles his face and forgives him, kisses the line around his mouth, the scar at his eyebrow, his eyelid. As silent as his daughter.
"Say something, Kate," he groans.
"Are the kids in bed?"
He chokes on a laugh, a dizzying relief of a laugh, kisses her mouth again. "Not yet. Playing in the tub. Give me five seconds-"
"Wait," she whispers. "In the tub is good for now. All we need." She reaches for him, tugs him closer in the darkness of the balcony, her legs spreading open and hooking around his hips. "Rick."
Oh, when she says his name like that, when she's wrapped around him-
"I love you, Kate."
"I know."
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