Spirits

A/N:
For those of you who are still here
because you, like me, can't quite let go of their love story.

This is set in the Juice Cups and Coffee Mugs universe, where last we left them, Kate was about to give birth. This story takes place eleven months later, on December first of that year.

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!"

-Charles Dickens, 'A Christmas Carol'

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1 December 1

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When consciousness finds her, her eyes are dried out, her lids stick to her eyeballs. It means she's seeing without seeing for a heartbeat, a white wash of hospital lights before finally his smile comes into view.

"You're smiling," she croaks.

"Hey, there," he says, stull with a smile. Offering a cup, a straw that he puts to her lips. She sucks and feels cold water hit the back of her throat, and she coughs.

She tenses, but there's barely a ripple. The slashing pain has gone, which was the point of the surgery to begin with, but she didn't expect the relief to be so great.

"Anethesia," he reminds her. He's already withdrawn the cup, his thumb swipes the water at the corner of her mouth.

She can feel the draggy edges of unconsciousness at the corners of her vision.

"I am smiling," he says, too enigmatic for her right now.

"What's the verdict? C-section?"

He huffs, still smiling though, leaned in over her on the bed. "She's optimistic. She said the surgery went well."

"But a c-section?"

"Kate," he chides. "You know it's wait and see. So long as you follow the post-op care plan and you don't trying picking him up, the muscles should graft-"

"Flaps," she mumbles, correcting him. She feels sick. The anesthesia. The water on her stomach. "Muscle flaps."

"Right, that," he whispers. "At least you're not in pain any longer, Kate. That's the most important thing. No more pain."

Is it though? Life is pain. And heavy. "I don't wanna fall back to sleep," she tries insisting.

He's stroking her forehead. No answer.

She opens her eyes. "Where's Car?"

"In the waiting room with Mother and Alexis and your dad."

"I feel bad," she admits, rolling her head on her neck to look away from him.

"I know you do."

"But next time," she tries again. "Next pregnancy, no c-section?"

"Kate, let's not worry about that right now. I just want you to be able to pick up Carter, hold him. I just want you to heal."

"But it's all my fault-"

"You were shot twice," he grumbles. He might be angry at her; she feels bad. Everything is sore, her chest, her stomach. Even her thighs. She must be on pain medication as well as the anesthesia because a heavy hand holds down the true agony. "Kate, you were shot, and instead of healing, you were in labor for twenty-two hours and tore pretty much every muscle and ounce of scar tissue around the gunshot wound."

"I'm okay," she parrots automatically. Parroting who? Who said it first, that she has to repeat it now all the time? I'm okay; it's fine; I can handle this.

"You're going to be," he says fiercely. Her eyes pry open, unzipping one lash to the next. His face is so weathered now, lines upon lines.

"I shouldn't have been picking him up," she admits. "Racing after him."

"Probably not every time," he hedges. Smiling again. "But she did say from the beginning you'd need surgery. She just happened to be right eleven months later."

Kate swallows past the dryness in her throat. Her eyes are burning. "It would've worked if I had - could've just nursed him longer. I-"

"No, we talked about this already. It's not true."

"But everyone says you get your stomach back when you nurse. I should've stuck to the schedule, expressed milk instead of running back to work-"

"Kate," he laughs. He's laughing at her? "Anesthesia has made you ridiculous. Nursing only helps you lose weight, which you don't have to lose in the first place. It has nothing to do with torn muscles, and you know it."

Oh, God, she's crying. She can't control it. She can't control anything. She's spinning dizzy on the earth, about to be flung off.

"Hey, it's okay," he says, crowding in close. He kisses her eyelid, and she feels his smile there. "It's just the anesthesia. You know it makes everything seem bleak. Just like after we were shot, remember? When you thought the worst no matter what they told you? That wasn't real and neither is this."

"I want my baby," she cries.

"Okay. Of course. I'll carry him in. He's entertaining the folks in the waiting room."

"I'm sorry," she gasps, trying to get a hold of herself. "This is - stupid."

"It's normal." His fingers stroke the hair back from her face; his lips are a feather. "Normal, Kate. They just threaded your muscles back together. It's kind of a big deal."

"I'm so tired."

"Sleep."

"Carter."

"I'll bring him. Sleep, Kate."

With his palm warm against her cheek, she really can't stop it.

She falls asleep.

x

Rick steps out of his wife's post-op recovery room and into the hall, closing the door behind him carefully. He has a hand in his back pocket to reach for his phone, but it's not necessary as he spots them coming down the long grey hall.

His not-quite eleven-month old son has the high-stepping gait of a baby who has only recently learned to walk - or rather, run - and is quite pleased with the whole production. Castle pushes his phone back into his pocket to watch from a distance, Alexis hurrying to keep up with the little imp.

Carter runs forward with those halting steps and then stops abruptly, peering down at the linoleum. (Let it not be another roach. Castle could have thrown up when Car stuck that bug in his mouth; Kate had to fish it out with her finger while Castle gagged.) Carter tilts his head and waves both arms, and Castle sees he's carrying his fox by the tail, poor thing bouncing and being flung around by all the excitement.

Alexis snags the fox before it can go flying, tucking it under her arm as she tries to hold out an appealing hand to the baby. Carter ignores her in favor of lifting a foot and setting it down again, back and forth with each foot, investigating the sensations on his bare soles. True to his nature, and his name, the baby has a matchbox car in his other fist, a much tighter grip on it than he did the poor stuffed fox.

Castle smiles and props a shoulder against the wall outside Kate's room, clears his throat to call his son. "Car-ter." Those big brown eyes lift, and his wide mouth lets out a cackle. Castle laughs back. "Come here, Car. Mommy wants to see you."

The baby rocks on his toes - he's pulled off his socks and shoes again, it seems - and pops up and down as if he's about to jump. He squats, babbles to himself, but merely bobs his torso.

"Crazy kid," he says. "Come on." He resists the urge to pat his thighs like when he calls for Chaplin, their dog, and instead straightens up, holds out his arms. "Zoom, zoom, Car."

Carter shrieks and throws up both hands, lifts a knee and then jolts forward. He's not really walking so much as running everywhere these days, and the hospital corridor is no exception. Castle stoops to meet that oncoming rush, and then he swings the baby up high and into his arms.

He cups the back of Carter's head, because he's learned from experience that the kid likes to immediately arch his back and throw himself out of his arms, and he nuzzles Carter's neck until he squeals.

Alexis approaches at a far more sedate pace. "How is she?"

"Groggy," he smiles, clutching his squirming kid. "How was the little monster?"

"Perfect zombie," she grins back. Alexis leans in and smacks a kiss on Car's cheek. "Weren't you? He's been awake all day, like you said. He's so tired he's been racing around here like a crazy person."

"He has Mommy's insomnia," Castle coos. He hears himself, the babytalk, but he really can't stop it. He's stopped trying to stop it. It's pointless. He's hopelessly in love with their high-engine racecar monster. "Or he just likes the attention. Did he take the bottle-"

"That kid does not pass up feeding time," Alexis snorts, rolling her eyes. "Callie even managed to get him to lie down with her, but he has a terrible aversion to naps. I need a nap after this one."

"Don't we all," Castle chuckles. "But thank you. You're a big help, pumpkin." He opens an arm to her and gives her a tight side hug, but she wriggles out of his embrace.

"I want to see Kate. Is she awake?"

Castle huffs. "Well, I know when I'm not wanted."

"Carter's been asking for her too," Alexis defends, pushing on his shoulder. Gently, even though his wound has long been healed. Old habits die hard. "Besides, Dad, she's my family too."

Castle grins ridiculously and he knows it. He turns and captures his son's waving fist before he can get knocked in the eye and then he kisses that sticky hand. "Let's go in and see Mommy. What do you say, Car?"

"Mama!"

"Yeah, she'll be so happy to see you."

x

Kate drags her fingers down her sleeping baby's back, petting him like she would the dog. Poor Chaplin. She can't remember what they've done with him; details of her past few days are fuzzy.

Castle sighs and leans in against the hospital bed, moving slowly to keep from jostling her. She appreciates just how attentive he's being, how much he has to bend over backwards for her right now.

Rick traps her fingers and brings them to his lips, kissing the tips softly. "You have the magic touch. He wouldn't sleep for the girls."

Her eyelids are so heavy that it's hard to keep her eyes on him. "He's just that far past exhausted, that's all." She withdraws her fingers from his and drops her hand back to the baby. He's sweaty-warm with sleep and the weight of him resting at her hip somehow makes her feel better. "This might have been a really stupid idea."

Castle chuckles. "Your dad said you'd say that."

She wrinkles her nose.

"It needed to be done. Once the anesthesia is out of your system, you'll be feeling better." He rests his own hand at the inside of her arm, stroking the faintly purple skin around the IV at the crook of her elbow.

"But the holidays," she sighs. "Our track record sucks." She isn't going to cry. She promised herself before surgery that she wouldn't let the drugs run her down, tug at her emotions. "Last year pregnant and so swollen and pissy and I was mean to Callie and your mother-"

"They both deserved it. Callie had broken up with our oldest."

She breathes out, her best substitution for a laugh right now. But that felt good, his indignation, his defense of her in there somewhere too. "She's back now," Kate sighs. "Oh, and the year before that we were shot. Had been shot. That's when Callie first met us. I can't believe she didn't stay away for good. She didn't mind Carter running around?"

"Literally running? No, Alexis said she actually likes him."

"Tell me this wasn't a terrible idea, surgery four weeks before Christmas."

"It's the only time you had available, Kate." He leans in over her and kisses her forehead. "And think about this, now we have five weeks off, just our family, together for Carter's first Christmas. No work calls, no pressure, just us."

She lets out her breath and lifts her eyelids to meet his gaze. He's smiling, gentle, but she sees behind the consolation the idea that he's desperate to have her alone with him, the three of them, safe.

She bites her lip, drags her hand up his arm until she can brush the backs of her fingers against his clean-shaven cheek. "I feel like I'm letting you guys down, ruining Christmas."

"No," he says softly, trapping her hand. "We're gonna be okay. This was worth it. And Christmas is most definitely still on."

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