Close Encounters 28: GoldenEye

as always, for Jessie
who threatens to chain me up in her basement if I don't keep writing her spies
why does that sound perfect?

Castle groaned at the high-pitched, insistent whine in his ear. His eyes tugged open to alert readiness - care of his now-regular use of the regimen - and his hand snaked out to grab the phone.

Fuck. It was the Director.

Castle jerked upright as he answered. "Sir."

"Agent Castle."

The bed was empty. Castle blinked in the dim half-light, slid his feet to the floor. "Yes, sir."

"Agent Castle. When - exactly - did you plan on reporting in to me?"

"Sir," he said, shifting to stand. The covers fell away and dropped to the floor; he moved through the empty bedroom searching for his wife. "I was waiting until I had a handle on-"

"You were hoping to sweep this all under the rug before I ever found out."

Castle winced and opened the door. The island house was quiet, early-morning light leaking through the floor-to-ceiling windows along the back hall. "No, sir. I had no intention of hiding any of this."

"This being the royal fuck-up you've caused?"

"I... royal?"

"Diane Jolin was fucking French royalty, Agent Castle."

"French royalty," he gasped.

"DGSI," the Director said shortly. "Counter-espionage. And no - I don't mean she's related to fucking Louis the Sixteenth. I'm talking - she was off-limits. Hands-off, Agent Castle."

"Sir, she came after us." Castle growled and stalked down the hall to James's bedroom. Empty. "And look, I know it's no excuse. But we were never informed that she had any actual intelligence services status."

"Well, she does. And while it was news to me too-"

"News to you?" he hissed. "Then it's bogus. She wasn't DGSI. She was a contract researcher in the Collective, competing against John Black's own programs for years."

"Competing or walking hand-in-hand into the damn fucking sunset?" the Director grumbled.

"Yes, sir," he said carefully. "Might be that. Doesn't matter. One of our assets came to us at our own home-"

"Highly dangerous," the Director grumbled. "An egregious-"

"Yes, sir, I've explained that to him."

"Your asset should never have even known your address. Your city."

"Yes, sir," he said, taking the heat for it. He opened the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the deck, glancing down the slope towards the beach.

"This asset. Is he going back?"

"He's being rehabilitated at the moment," Castle hedged. "But that is the hope."

"Diane Jolin came all the way to New York for your asset."

Castle could hear the doubt in the Director's voice, but the regimen absolutely couldn't be part of this. No one could know. "Yes, sir. He had sensitive information about the Collective."

"This is all a fucking shitstorm, Agent Castle."

"But sir, we think we can limit the damage. With Jolin definitively deceased, she's out of the picture. She can't tell her story, but our asset - he can. He has no one to counter his version of the story."

"Better be coming up with a damn slick story."

"Yes, sir." He thought, faintly, he recognized the speck on the beach as his son. Which meant that Kate wasn't far behind. "We have a good story."

"Why does that make me suspicious?" the Director muttered. Apparently rhetorically, because he went on. "Fine. Just keep me in the loop. I don't hear from you every week - every week, mind you - then I'll be coming down on your heads."

"Yes, sir," he said, sighing. "You'll hear from me."

"And Agent Beckett. I want her voice on this phone. Not an email you could've coached her into writing. I want her voice on this phone. You understand me, Richard?"

"Yes. I understand you."

Kate pushed sand through her toes, pointing and extending her leg. She nudged James with her foot and the boy laughed, glanced up at her and put his hands together, clapping.

"Yeah, wolf. I'm so impressive."

James was unappreciative of the unsteady sand, wouldn't walk. So he crawled off until he found another tide pool and plopped down in it, beaming back at her. He kicked his feet and splashed, showing off for her, but she soon lost his interest as his attention was caught by creatures swimming around him in the shallow water.

Kate turned her eyes back to the horizon, her toes thick with wet sand. The ocean was tumultuous this early in the morning, low tide an hour before the sun rose. James had been awake for awhile now; he wasn't sleeping on schedule.

She didn't know what to do. He was sleeping like her, but he was also sleeping like Castle.

Augmented. Special. Or just a little insomniac?

She was desperate to get him to sleep.

Kate turned her head back to her son playing in the water, watched him slap his hand against the pool, dip his fingers inside when that proved not to work. He was fishing, she thought. In his own way.

Solemn little boy, despite the chuckling and the clapping. Solemn when those eyes turned to her.

"JP," she called, an urgent need in her throat.

He didn't turn; he stared into the depths of the tide pool.

A tide pool had no depths.

"James."

He turned his head, his surprised face, both eyebrows raised and mouth in an 'o'. She let out a breath and shook her head, ran her hand back through her hair. She felt sand shower down to her shoulders.

"Mama?"

"Yeah," she muttered, turning now and moving quickly to the tide pool. She was about to scoop him up, but she stopped, stopped still beside her son.

James pointed a finger and stuck it into the water; she didn't know what she was doing. Didn't know why she was awake at five before the sun when James didn't mind playing alone in his crib until they came for him. Didn't know why she felt restless and agitated and jittery, like there was something she should be doing but she wasn't.

Kate sank down to her knees, traced her fingers down his little arm until she touched the water as well.

He laughed and lifted his eyes to her, that shy smile.

"Oh, wolf, why won't you sleep?"

"I could ask the same of you."

Kate lifted her head and turned to see her husband standing there, hands pushed into his shorts pockets. Behind him was the sloping ridge to the house, still in pre-dawn shadow.

"I never sleep," she sighed.

"You should be though. You both should be." Castle pulled his hands out of his pockets and came to sit beside her, his shoulder against hers. He leaned forward and tugged James's ear. "You hear me? You're keeping your mother up."

"No, he's not," she muttered, leaning her cheek to his shoulder. "Don't listen to him, wolf. I don't sleep well either. I'm napping during the day anyway."

"So is he," Castle muttered. "You ever think that's why?"

Kate startled up, glancing over at him. "Castle, what-"

"No, never mind. The Director called. Woke me up."

"Shit."

"Uck!" James shouted, straightening up.

"Not quite that bad," Castle chuckled. "He wants you to report in."

"Me?" Kate said. "Shi-" She glanced at James. "Crap. Why me?"

"He doesn't believe me? That's my guess. He wants your status update, a report on what went down. France is claiming Jolin as one of theirs."

"One of - theirs? Counter-espionage? She was a researcher. But maybe she was in development for them?" She was trying to pull James out of the tide pool so his feet would dry before their walk up.

Castle took the boy from her. "Well, I don't know through what channels, but that's the information the Director's getting. I don't believe it, but now we've got to maneuver in that framework."

She rubbed her forehead as James tried to lean out of Castle's arms. This wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. "All right. I'll call him."

"Next week is fine. We can work on it, what we'll say."

"Yeah," she sighed.

James was struggling now to escape, climbing Castle like a jungle gym. "Hey, JP, look at me, kiddo. I know you're endlessly fascinated by the water, but we're all going back to bed. Come on."

Castle stood up with James, curling his nose at Kate when he got wet swim-trunks against his shirt for his trouble. Kate only smiled, standing up with them and scratching James's back. She put a kiss to the damp skin between his shoulder blades - he smelled of sunscreen - and she took Castle's free hand.

"All right," she murmured. "Back to bed for all of us."

She was willing to play along.

After a handful more days, Castle knew it had to stop. While his own sleep schedule was a consistent four hours, and he was set, Kate was still lying awake at night. He'd been hanging out while she attempted to sleep, staying in the bed with her just to keep her there longer, but it didn't seem to help.

This morning, she was actually asleep and he was zealously guarding it. He'd turned off the baby monitor entirely, certain he'd hear James if there was a problem next door, and he wasn't even going to move for fear of waking her.

This up all night, sleep all day stuff had to stop. She needed real sleep, restful sleep, and this was turning them inside out. If he could help it, she was going to stay in bed until at least seven.

So he saw the moment his phone display lit up and he snagged it off the bedside table and hopped off the mattress. He answered in a low voice even as he was disappearing out the bedroom door.

It was the Director. Fuck. The man couldn't give him a week?

"How are things, Agent Castle?"

"Doing well," he said, truthfully enough.

"What's the status report on Agent Beckett's injuries?"

He grit his teeth and headed through the living room to the couch, slumping down into it. A necessary, small lie. Beckett hadn't been injured so much as exacerbated her original injuries, but they'd decided on gunshot wound after Paris and now-

"Agent Castle?"

"Seems to be healing," he said finally. "Sir, thank you for giving us this time."

"I understand. I do. And your division seems able to run itself."

If Castle detected a trace of sarcasm in the Director's voice, he had only himself to blame. He'd set up his department to run fairly independently of himself for this very reason. He wanted to be able to be home with his family when they needed him.

"I have shift reports, daily summaries, and weekly reviews. If something does slip past me, Reynolds and Esposito are already on it. My team of analysts-"

"Under Beckett's supervision," the Director interjected. "And how much supervising is she doing?"

"More than you'd think," he said. If the Director detected bitterness in his voice, then fine. Let it be to Beckett's credit. "She and Ryan are in daily communication. She's up on the Crimea situation as well."

"Ah, that's good," the Director murmured. "Still. I want a summary from you, Agent Castle, of the entire breakdown of authority and responsibility. What duties lie with which people? This is important."

"Yes, sir," he answered, rubbing a hand over his chin. "That should be easy. It's how I run my division whether I'm there or not."

The Director made a noncommittal noise. "God knows you're better than your father."

Ah, and there was the point of this conversation.

The Director went on. "Anything on that front?"

"The Joint Task Force is still operational, under Denver from NSA," Castle pointed out. "He could give you a more precise briefing."

"I call Denver and I get the NSA's special brand of assholery."

Castle grunted. "Yes, sir. I understand."

"Give me an update, would you?"

"Yes, sir. We have operators in Rome, Paris, and Normandy doing daily surveillance of known locations, but Black doesn't stay long enough for us to assemble a team."

"It's sounding more and more like a kill than a capture," the Director muttered.

Castle sighed. "I'd really like that," he muttered.

But Kate would kill him. And they had a deal. He snitched to his father and his father kept feeding them medical data on the regimen.

"All right, son, we'll leave that for another time," the Director said. "Send me your status reports, include something about the JTF, and don't forget to keep me in the loop. When do I hear from Agent Beckett?"

"She's asleep," he said fiercely.

"I'm giving you two more days."

And then the Director hung up.

Castle woke her at eight, dragging her out of what looked to be a heavy sleep.

She rubbed her hand down her face. "Castle." It was a warning.

"We're trying something new."

"Fuck."

"Uck!"

Castle dropped the boy down to the mattress and let him crawl up to his mother. Kate winced and cracked open an eye. "How are you awake?"

"I got him up too," Castle admitted. He lowered the laptop to the bed with much more care than he'd done the baby, and then he snagged the ends of Kate's falling-down pony tail, tugged. "Something for you to read first. Give you a chance to wake up. James. You're with me."

The boy had gotten to his feet unsteadily on the mattress, bounced it with a slow-spreading grin. "Uck."

"Not really in this case, no," Castle told him, leaning in to scoop him up. "Try again next time. Kate? I'm serious. Wake up."

And then he left her to it.

Let her read his story.

He has a secret life.

She knows it's not important, that beyond herself, he of course has interactions with the whole wide world that do not concern her. But it's the secret life she wonders about.

What did he do before he met her? He never speaks of it. He has whole chunks of decades missing from her inventory of him, her husband, and she wants to know.

The secret life.

Could he sketch them all, and might she then understand?

Kate closed the lid on Castle's last chapter, for chapter it was, novel it was, no longer some sweet scene that touched something private about them. It was an entire book he was writing, and not just for her, but for the artist and his muse as well.

Her husband, the spy. Kate laughed and rose from the bed with the laptop cradled in her arms, moving for the door. The island house was spread out along a patch of two mowed acres, the caretaker's cottage behind it on the back half of the property. Their master bedroom finally held a king-sized bed, a simple dresser, and a chair they often used to slip the boy into or out of clothes or sleep.

Their son whose life revolved around them, whose life was them. They did everything for him, and he didn't have a thought separate from them.

Well. Did he?

The secret life.

She'd seen his face when he peered down into a tide pool, how absorbed and otherworldly he seemed then. How she called his name and it took him a moment, as if traveling a long journey. Maybe the secret life began then, the thoughts coalescing in a boy only ten months old.

"Kate?"

She stopped still in the hallway and saw her husband sitting at a brand new kitchen table - bewilderingly displayed in the middle of the living room, nowhere near the kitchen. She still had the laptop cradled against her.

"The secret life," she murmured. And then walking towards him, "When did you do all this?"

"Do what?"

"Anything. All of it. The book. The island."

Castle shrugged and stood up, and she saw that James was coming through the wide open living room, the morning sun on his dark hair and lighting him up. He ran to her and she dropped to meet him, holding the laptop away, using one arm to hug her son.

James wriggled in close a moment, a strange noise in his throat, before he wriggled free again and kept running. Heading down the hallway towards the open door of his own room, disappearing inside.

Castle had moved to meet her, took the laptop from the crook of her arm, dusting a kiss to her temple. He went back to the kitchen table and put the laptop down on its surface, and she followed, lacking any real direction.

"The island," she said. "For a start. When did you even think of it?" It was difficult to see past her own exhaustion.

"Kate, I get maybe six hours of sleep? Usually four. On the regimen. Have been for about four months now, so there's time."

"Time for the secret life," she murmured, sinking down to the kitchen table in a chair that was also new. And all set up in the living room.

"I'm not... it's not like that," he muttered, coming to stand beside her chair.

"No, I know," she reassured, reaching out to take his hand. He was tall, a broad man, strong. But she held his hand. "It just occurred to me, suddenly, that you have a secret life."

"I don't-"

"It's me," she laughed. A soft laugh, a little apologetic. "I'm your secret life. This."

He jiggled her hand - flicking his wrist to bump their clasped hands against his thigh. Like he was thinking. He came and sat down in the chair perpendicular to hers, laid her hand on the table. "You're not the cover," he said quietly.

"No," she sighed, leaning in and wrapping her arms around his neck. "I know. That's not what I mean, sweetheart."

He embraced her back, an arm tight at her shoulders, and then she leaned away, her fingers smoothing the hair at his temples.

"Even when you have hours where I'm asleep and your thoughts are all your own, when you could do anything, be anyone, you're still... you. This you. You're buying us an island and writing a story you share with me, and giving our kid breakfast or plotting ways to get us home. This is your secret life; there is nothing more hidden and precious to you than us."

"Nothing," he echoed, staring back at her, promising.

She tilted her head and leaned in and kissed him - very softly, didn't want to jostle anything in him that seemed to be clicking into place - and then she leaned back.

He was smiling. Smiling with his eyes. "The secret life," he answered. "Everything else is the cover."

They had a moment, just the two of them with eyes communicating, a shared knowing, as impossible as it sometimes seemed to know anyone at all, but they did. They knew each other.

And then Kate turned her head to look back down the hallway. "It's awfully quiet."

"He's always quiet," Castle said immediately.

"Well, I'm all for letting him have his own secret life," she murmured, turning back to him with a smile. "But for a while yet, let's be in on it?"

Castle grinned. "A while yet."

She rose from the chair and headed for the boy's room, knowing even as she did that James had nothing in there to make trouble with. But she went anyway.

For a while yet, she wanted inside on her son's secret life.