บท 59: 59. Chapter 59
Kate has to hold herself back from helping. Because, of course, helping would only be bossing around, and Dashiell has a tendency to rebel when she does it in front of people he's trying to impress.
And Dash has both Rafe and the little girl Maleah to impress.
They've all got wetsuits on, rented from the surf shop, and both Gene and Rachel are taking the group of them out for a surfing lesson. They got a short explanation about the boards, the way the ocean works; they got to practice in the sun, and how to lean with the curl of a wave, but now they're in the water, trying to patiently wait for waves to come in.
The adults, of course, are doing a better job of the patience thing. Rafe has apparently surfed before, and often, because Kate's pretty sure he wasn't listening all that attentively (most of the lesson he's spent watching Alexis with Ella, which makes Kate's heart beat too hard), but despite that, he's a natural on the board.
He's waded in beside Rachel and her son, Micah, to give them a hand with Dashiell. Kate sits on her board with her feet dangling in the water, palms pressed to the board for balance, watching them until she's sure Dash has control of himself, that there's not a fit in the making as he tries and fails. Tries and fails. He's not one to give up, but he does whine about it. So Castle.
And then that thought turns her eyes to Rick Castle, who's working with Gene to get up on his board. Kate hasn't had much trouble catching a few curling, small waves and riding them in - mostly crouched because she hasn't gotten enough motion to stand - but Castle keeps pushing it. Bigger and better waves, more dramatics, trying to show off.
Alexis is teasing him about it, good girl, and Ella has abandoned her kid's board to sit in front of Allie, her belly against her sister's board, fingers and toes in the ocean. Allie has a hand hooked through Ellery's life vest; the girl's chin is tucked down into the v of the vest, her cheek on the board. A wave will splash her every now and then, and Ella lifts a spluttering, happy face to see if anyone has noticed.
Kate shifts her attention back to Castle and laughs. Gene is in chest deep water, holding both hands out, saying something that Kate can't hear, but Rick is nodding a little too enthusiastically and he's shaking the board, giving him a precarious balance. He's wiped out more than once already today, but he comes up grinning, looking a lot like Ella, actually.
Kate's just hanging out in the ocean, at the edge of the group, not exactly on the outside of things, but definitely observing it all. As a detective, she adopts this role by default, a way of closing herself off to whatever intense emotion might be going on in the scene but still being able to witness it. The thing is. . .it's not them, not the kids or Castle or even Rafe and Allie that's done it to her, pushed her out.
It was a chance meeting in the parking lot. The family they've spent some time with was just coming back inside - Vickie and her kids and the husband, Austin. Everyone was friendly. Rick shook Austin's hand and said something to Claire; Dashiell edged around Tate to talk to Graham. They introduced Allie and Rafe, had a moment of just. . .chatting.
But there was something going on. A look in Vickie's eyes, pain shuttered away. Austin was too enthusiastic. The oldest kid was subdued, Tate his usual stand-offish self, and the little girl, Claire, just a little confused, as if she was too young to understand but she felt it too.
It triggered something in Kate. An instinct for grief in others. A way of sliding into that space and making room for someone else there as well, a place of dark comfort that she usually took victims' families to, dwelled with them there for the span of a case.
But why? Why did it come over her just then? Why can she not shake it now? She straddles the surf board on a beautiful day in South Padre, all her kids having fun and laughing, her husband like a little kid himself, and still - a shadow has passed over her.
So she's gently swirling her feet in the water, riding the swells, out far enough so the waves won't take her in. She needs a moment to gather herself, to ride out not only the water, but the weight of particular grief. She closes her eyes and tilts her face to the sun, lets the heat soak into her skin, down into her blood, hoping it warms the rest of her as well.
Kate feels a nudge against her board and her eyes startle open - thinking shark - but it's only Rafe. Her gaze tracks Dashiell who is still with the instructor, so she settles her attention back to the man in front of her.
"You all right?" Rafe asks, his eyes dark with concern. Grey-brown-blue swirls echoing the ocean. He looks five times as dark, swarthy, as when he arrived this morning. She knows he put on sunblock because Allie lathered it all over her fair skin and handed it to him, then chided him for trying to pass it on without using it. But it looks like the sunblock is barely making a dent.
"I'm all right," she says, and gives him a smile. "Just thinking about some friends." Are they friends? They spent a few days together. But the woman, Vickie - she and Kate had a connection, a love of Castle's books, and there was - is - something to that.
"Since you're out here alone," Rafe starts. "I wanted to tell you-"
"Rick told me." Kate feels her smile return for real, thinking about Allie's unhesitating confession this morning out in the breezeway. "I think it's beautiful."
Rafe nods his head once and then brings his eyes back to hers. "Thank you. I wanted you both to know. It's important - you're important to her. More than just family. I don't know any girls who are best friends with their mothers."
Kate shrugs, but she glances over at Allie and Ella, long limbs and fair skin, dark head against copper as the oldest presses a kiss to the youngest's cheek. Best friends. She hopes Ellery thinks that of her too, one of these days. She hopes that for Alexis too - a little girl who will grow up to share so much. "Allie's. . .special. You know she's not mine, but she is. We made her mine, the two of us." Kate flickers her eyes back to Rafe to see how that goes over with him.
"My family is pretty big. And loud," Rafe comments. "I don't talk much - I don't get a chance to. But we're all family, good and bad, we love each other because we have to. But here. You've built something. You maintain it. I've never seen that."
Kate looks at him in surprise. "Your parents are. . .?"
"Oh no, my parents are still together. That's not it. It's a purposefulness I see here. An intentional living. You make certain of it, of Allie, of the kids, of him. I want that for us."
Wow. This kid - man, she corrects, this man - he's thought about this; he's analyzing their two families and pulling the best traits out of them. That is seriously impressive. And slightly intimidating. And incredibly romantic.
"I'm not sure how intentional any of this is," Kate admits with a laugh. "It kind of happened."
Rafe studies her for a brief moment, not an uncomfortable look, but definitely the look of a man whose intelligence has caused him to take apart his life, learn its inner workings, and rebuild it stronger. She's seen it in her father, in his sobriety; she's seen it in Castle from time to time; she's seen it in the mirror. And maybe that's what Rafe sees in their family as well - how to come back better.
"I don't think anything just happens. You choose it, or you don't choose it. And then you deal with what comes of it." Rafe shrugs back; Kate is stunned by the half-smile on his face, gentle and unassuming but not at all apologetic. Rafe is most definitely a force to behold. Allie has found herself a man who will stand up.
Kate gives him a nod back. Because it's true - she chose Castle, and then she chose Dash. She chose to build the relationship with Alexis, from the first, even if she wasn't very good at it then. "I chose it."
"I admire it," Rafe says simply, and his eyes drift out over the ocean to the rest of them. "And that's my promise. To you and. . .Allie's dad." He turns his gaze to her; Kate can feel it boring into her, so she turns her head back to look at him.
"Promise?"
"My promise. I'll never take Allie away from you. But I intend to give her the same thing you have here." Rafe's mouth curls. "If she'll have me."
Kate's shoulders ease; she leans forward on the board and reaches for Rafe's hand, squeezing it when he allows her the touch. "Thank you. I don't think you have to worry about whether or not she'll have you. She's already chosen you, hasn't she?" Her best friend. Not the boys that made her miserable, the boys that weren't good enough for her, the boys she didn't love. She picked her best friend. "She chose you."
Gone is the serious, studious man of a few moments ago. Rafe in front of her now cracks open with light, his face bathed with love. His eyes are on Allie's form, like he's drinking her in. Kate's seen that look before too - on Rick Castle. When she said yes. Relief and joy both, the certainty of reciprocated love after a time of unrequited yearning.
She's glad that Rafe is so certain of Allie, because the young woman seems equally certain of him. As she should be.
And thankfully, the clouds over Kate's heart have been swept away by this man's quiet earnestness.
"Rafe?"
He looks at her, his focus shifting slowly from Allie to Kate, as if coming back from a long distance. Kate grins to see it.
"Thanks. I needed to be shaken out of my head."
Rafe gives her that knowing smile back - a small lift of his lips, a serenity in his eyes. Kate's beginning to be able to read his looks, and that makes her pleased with herself. This man will be part of their family. Is part of their family.
"And Rafe?"
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Thank you for choosing Allie."
Kate slides off the board and begins swimming back in, ready to join the rest of them, ready to be here, no longer in her own dark space.
Castle peels out of the wetsuit while Dashiell still struggles with his. The changing room is a tight fit for both of them, but he manages to hang the suit back over the door, slide his swim trunks on, and then step into his flipflops.
"Need help, my man?"
"Yeah, Daddy. Can't get it." Dashiell sighs and drops his hands, baring his neck to his father.
He's already got the velcro tab undone and the zipper is pulled down a little, so it takes only a little effort to unzip him the rest of the way, trying to be careful not to catch his skin.
"Remember how hard it was to put on?" Castle murmurs, sliding his hand down between the suit and Dashiell's arm. "Gene said we had to tug on every part of it to make it snug. So it's gonna be a little rough getting off too."
"I'm okay, Daddy."
"You like the wetsuit."
"It squeezes all over."
Hmm, yeah. Good point. "And it was warm."
Dashiell grins. "Gene said - Don't pee in my wetsuits!" The boy starts giggling again, even as Castle maneuvers his arm out of the tightly clinging neoprene. "I didn't pee in it, Daddy. But it was warm."
"It's supposed to be."
"What did Rafe say? The life. . .awk- ok -"
"The Life Aquatic."
"That means life in a' ocean. Right?"
"Basically. Aquatic means pertaining to the water." Castle starts peeling the other sleeve off of Dashiell's skinny arm. He has a huge bruise on his shoulder. Maybe from falling at the McDonalds?
"Pertaining. . .I like that. Perrrr - taining. What's that, Daddy?"
"It means. . .related to."
"So, aquatic means. . .means. . .being a family of the ocean. I already got a family."
Castle hides his grin behind a hand and smothers a laugh by clearing his throat. "Yeah, you do. We'd hate to lose you to the ocean."
"Me too." Dashiell yanks his arm out and bounces on his toes, making the top half of the wetsuit flop around at his waist. "Do mermaids and mermen have Halloween?"
"I don't think so." Castle stills him with a hand on his shoulder, squats down to get at eye level with his son. "Lift your foot, kiddo."
Dashiell shifts from foot to foot, evidently unable to decide which one first. Then he plants his right foot on Castle's thigh and hops around, trying to regain his balance, swaying backwards.
"Whoa, whoa-"
Castle grunts on a laugh, clamping a hand down on the boy's ankle, then grabbing his arm. Dashiell swings back, giggling, but he stands still so that his father can start working the neoprene down over his hips.
"Tickles, Daddy!"
"Sorry, man. Just let me-" Castle tugs from the sides and manages to get the wetsuit down to the boy's knees. Dash shakes his hips, looking down, and laughs.
"Hey, Daddy, my pee-"
"Hush, Dashiell. Let me do this." Castle rolls his eyes at the boy. Kate has gotten onto him more than once about allowing Dashiell to talk about that in public. The changing room at the back of the surf shop isn't exactly public, but he can hear Kate and Alexis's voices drifting over from their side.
"Hey, my man. Do you talk to Ellery about this?" Castle peels the last of it over Dashiell's foot. "You know how Mommy-"
"Ellie said she wished she could do my pee-pee dance too."
Ha. Okay. "Well, girls have different parts than boys."
"I told her that." Dash puffs out his chest like the proud older brother he is. "She's a girl. She can't do the dance."
"Uh, I don't think girls usually. . .right. No. You're right." No use explaining. Just like when Dashiell was two and a half years old, standing up in the tub to swing it around, laughing and calling it his pee-pee dance - Kate had been appalled, but Castle. . .it's just what boys do. No matter what he said, he hadn't been able to explain it to her either.
He really should change the subject. Otherwise, the pee-pee dance will be on Dash's mind, and he'll come out of the changing room and say something to everyone. And then Kate really will kill him.
"I've heard you calling Ellery by a new name. Did you pick that? Ellie?"
Dashiell gives him a clueless look. "It's her name."
"Ellie is her name?"
"Yeah." He lifts a foot so Castle can get his swim trunks on him, then lifts the other foot. "My sisters. Allie and Ellie."
Huh, maybe it's as simple as that.
"Ellery calls you Dashy sometimes, doesn't she?"
Dashiell wrinkles his nose and his eyes meet his father's. "It's silly."
"It is, a little bit."
"Girls do that," Dash sighs, and his face is still screwed up like he's smelling something rank. "Girls are weird."
"Girls can be weird, yeah. But they're still pretty great." Castle pulls the boy's shirt off the hook and stands him up on the bench so he's not hunched over the kid so much. "Arms up."
Dashiell raises his arms (he's really too old to be getting dressed by his father, but Castle will do anything to hurry this along).
"What's pretty great about girls?" Dashiell grunts.
"They smell good."
Dashiell wrinkles his nose and rears back, looking at his father like he's been betrayed. "They smell like girls!"
"Mommy smells good." Castle tugs the shirt down over the boy's head.
Dash pauses, eyebrows knitting together in the narrow lines of his face. "Mommy. . .smells like Mommy. She's. . ." He trails off as he slides his arms out the arm holes, pulling his tshirt down.
Castle watches him a moment, enjoying this conversation. "Mommy is a girl."
"Yeah, but-" Dashiell shakes that off, tries to get around it. "But Mommy is Mommy."
"You think Ellery stinks?"
"Yes!"
Castle takes his own shirt off the hook and hurriedly pulls it on over his head. "Oh man. Then you do too, kiddo. You guys use the same soap, and you bathe together. So-"
"Ew, gross, Daddy. Girls stink like. . .like 'Boo girls!'"
Castle laughs, runs a hand through his wet hair, then shakes the water off on Dashiell.
"Hey!" Dash tries to do the same, flicking his fingers up at his father, but it's pointless. They're both still relatively wet. Then his face gets serious. "Daddy, don't tell Mommy that girls stink."
"I'm totally telling."
"Daddy, but I said Mommy isn't a girl!"
"But she is a girl."
"But she's a Mommy. Don't tell her," Dash whines.
Castle wraps an arm around the kid and hikes him up, then turns in the small space and opens the door, kicking the boy's sandals out into the more open area. Kate is there, alone, an amused expression on her face.
"Don't tell me, huh?" Kate steps closer; Castle has seen that look on her face a handful of times - predatory. It's sexy as hell, but she's leveling it on their son. "Oh, Dash. . .so girls stink?"
Dashiell shrieks, even as Kate is reaching for him, her fingers going to tickle his knees, squeezing hard so that the boy shrieks again with laughter, writhing in Castle's arms.
He holds the kid tighter, clamping an arm over his reflexively kicking legs, trying to keep from Kate getting bruised by little feet. She grins and steps in closer, lifting his tshirt with one hand to lay a raspberry on Dashiell's belly.
Dash giggles so hard that he practically wheezes, his head thrown back against Castle's shoulder, hands out and wrapped tightly around his mother's wrists. He tries to clutch at her ears, but Kate keeps his hands out of the way, blows raspberries up to his neck, then kisses his cheek with a loud smack, abandoning the torture.
Dashiell's laughter breathlessly fades, his head lifts, and he gives them both a round, blinking look. "Oh," he says with a sigh. "Even though you're a girl, I love you, Mommy."
Kate rocks back, her eyes flickering to Castle's as if in confirmation, then she wraps her arms around them both, kissing Dashiell's cheek again, softly, then moving her mouth to Castle's, sharing the love, her lips soft and tender.
Castle untangles an arm from his son and wraps his hand around Kate's neck, tugging her upwards, letting the kiss remain light, all too surface, but aware of Alexis and Rafe and the instructors somewhere in the store.
He saw Kate during their lesson, hanging out at the edges, always the one hovering close but not quite able to step all the way in. And then it disappeared, whatever it was, and she was laughing at him and messing around with Dash and trying to surf under Rachel's guidance.
"You okay, Kate?" he murmurs, brushing his thumb over the pulse in her neck as they break apart.
She nods at him. "Tell you later. And you-" She drops another kiss to Dash, being careful to avoid the stitches, now unbandaged and open to the air. "You, little man, have more than made up for that 'girls stink' comment."
Dashiell perks up, reaching for her. Kate takes him but puts him down on the floor, tells him to put on his sandals. When she straightens up, Castle reaches out to cup her elbow in his hand.
"Tell me later," he insists.
She nods. "It's ok. Vickie and Austin. Something. I don't know." She sighs, shakes her head and gives him a better smile, a smile of release. "A feeling, Castle. That's all."
"On!" Dashiell pops his head up, sandals on crookedly, and reaches out for Kate's hand. "Come on, Mommy. I wanna show Ellie that store we found yesterday. Can we take everyone there?"
"Store?" Castle asks, following Dash's lead as he tugs Kate towards the front of the surf shop.
"Halloween store," Kate murmurs.
"Ooh, fun. My kind of place." Castle wriggles his eyebrows at her and drops his hand to her hip, pleased when he sees the amusement enter her eyes again. "Come on, babe. Let's shop for Halloween decorations. I need some fake blood."
"Fake blood! And vampire teeth!" Dashiell drops Kate's hand and races for the front, heading for Ellery and Alexis, yelling out an excited greeting as he also tries to explain where they're going next.
"Tell me later, Kate," Castle insists softly, squeezing her hip so that she looks at him.
She nods, reaches a hand up and brushes his neck, almost like she was aiming for his cheek and missed. But she smiles at him, and that's good.
"Later. I promise."
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