Age of Foolishness

Happy Birthday, Julie

They walk hand in hand from his loft in Soho to the Battery Conservancy; the day is warmer than she expected, and her thin sweater is more than enough with the brilliant sunlight on her skin. She rolls the sleeves up and scrapes a hand through her hair to keep it off her neck. His plaid shirt is soft as it brushes against her forearm and she plays with the tips of his fingers, strokes up inside his palm, eases her thumb around his.

Castle is relaxed; she hasn't seen him so at ease in ages.

She didn't know he hadn't been completely at ease until just now, seeing him happy and grinning and his hair lit with the sun. She wonders what else she's missed-

But no. No. Not today. Today she's going to have fun. And so is he.

When they cross the street, the Battery is rippling with purple wildflowers and autumnal flora; the trees are just beginning to shed their leaves due to the mild weather, their lacy reds and oranges dappling the path while a tired green still clings to the branches.

Castle pauses at the sidewalk, just on the threshold.

They stand together for a moment, wordless and replete with the sight, the clear-sky day, and then she laces her fingers slowly through his, one by one, and draws him forward.

He doesn't expect it when it comes, but it just tumbles out of his mouth. A story that aches to be told.

"I was packing," he says quietly, hearing leaves crunch under his shoes. "I packed a bag for Alexis and I went back to my bedroom to get my suitcase."

Her stride breaks, but she uses the moment to step closer to him, doesn't stop walking. He has to admit the press of her body against his side is a help. It is.

He didn't want to talk about this today, but maybe he did.

"Tyson was waiting for you," she says.

He knows his voice sounds hollow when he replies; he can do nothing to stop it. "He was waiting with the taser."

He's grateful that she doesn't make a sound, grateful she doesn't lead him to a park bench to sit, just keeps on going. Her pace has slowed somewhat, but that's okay. He feels like taking his time with this story.

"When I came to. When I opened my eyes, he wasn't there. My hands were tied behind my back to my feet. So that - every movement pulled. It was-" He swallows and can't help but feel that phantom pressure against his throat.

Her fingers are suddenly there, brushing at his neck, back and forth, her arm heavy at his shoulder. He takes another slow breath and the sense of swollen flesh eases.

"He put the heel of his shoe on my thumb. I was lying in the floor on my side, trussed like a turkey, and he came into my bedroom and laughed, that weird laugh, and then he eased his foot over my hand, slowly, each pound of pressure, one by one."

Her fingers don't stop, rhythmic, soothing, and he doesn't stop either.

"And then he dug in. I heard my thumb pop out of joint the split second before I felt it."

She presses her cheek against his shoulder, her mouth moving to his neck, kissing softly that spot where her thumb rests. They are barely walking now, but they're still moving, still going forward. He can't stop now.

"And then he sat me up, propped me up against the bed or wall, I don't - that's not - it's not clear anymore. I was laughing. Hysterical I think, going into shock, but it just seemed so hilarious, the mental image I had of Jerry Tyson as he pitched a fit like a two year old and stomped on my hands, again and again, screaming, spit flying out of his mouth and on the back of my neck."

Her fingers still for only a moment and he falls silent, watching a dark flock of pigeons against the sky.

"And then." She's prompting but that's okay. He doesn't need the push, but maybe she does.

"And then I passed out. My fingers were - my hands felt like dead things past my wrists. Like meat. Throbbing and thick and painful meat."

She draws in a shaky breath at his side, but he goes on. Their feet are tangling as they attempt to keep walking.

"At some point, he strangled me," he says then, reaching up past her fingers to touch the line at his neck. The collar of his plaid shirt hides most of it, but the scar remains like a necklace, a dark blood blister. "I have no memory of when. Maybe I was unconscious. Maybe the pain in my hands blinded me to everything else. I don't remember much besides my fingers getting broken."

She hums something, her thumb briefly glancing across his along his neck and he drops his hand.

"Castle. How'd you get to your study?"

"The gun," he says immediately, shakes his head to get the story right. "I woke at some point and he'd gone to get. . .I don't know. I thought - I have a gun in my safe. In the study. So I inchwormed-"

A huff of breath from her, something like a laugh, and he can smile at that. It feels good to smile at that.

"Inchwormed?" she murmurs then, evidently seeing his smile. "Oh, I see. Because your hands and feet were tied behind your back. Oh, God, Castle, that must have hurt."

He nods. Understatement, of course, but there are no words for that agony.

"So you got to your study."

"I was inchworming on the floor and he sees me - oh, I think - yes. He said before that he wanted you to find me dead like that and I couldn't - at least you weren't there. That's what I first thought, at least Kate isn't here for this."

"Cas-"

He turns finally and looks at her and she closes her mouth, takes it. She takes it.

He can tell her the rest now, easily. "I didn't want you to find me like that. So I went for the study. I thought I'd get my letter opener and cut through the rope, or at least manage the floor safe where the gun is, was-"

"Was?"

"Now it's in the bedside table."

"Oh, Rick, I-"

He presses his lips together to keep the growl out of his voice, reaches up to his neck to snag her hand. She quiets but she doesn't stop walking, draws him deeper into the Battery, their hips bumping, knees clashing, feet tripping. Too close but he can't move her away, doesn't want to not feel her.

"I can put the gun back now," he says finally. "I can - it should go back in the safe."

She says nothing and he nods softly to himself, glad to be able to choose that, finally, to have that done.

"He saw you going for the study before you could get to the safe?" she murmurs then.

"Yes. And I couldn't stand, couldn't even think of - so I just rolled in front of the door to block it, and he was furious, and that helped."

"Helped?"

"I liked pissing him off."

She startles out a laugh and he grins back at her, a little life trickling through his veins again.

"And then?"

"I don't know," he says honestly. "And then you. You called me. You had me. I don't know. It hurt and I don't - I wasn't conscious for everything. And then I remember being in the hospital and them saying I had surgery. Or that I needed heart surgery? I don't know. It's a mess."

"In your study, your heart. . .I had to - and then the EMTs got a rhythm but in the ambulance you died. Castle. When they shocked you, you opened your eyes and you-"

He glances over at her, surprised by the streak of tears down her cheeks. "Hey. Okay, it's okay. I'm okay."

She nods. "Just hard to watch," she gets out.

"I don't remember the ambulance."

"You begged me not to let Tyson taser you again. When they shocked your heart."

"Oh," he whispers.

"It was. . ."

He takes her hand up again and kisses the back of it; he's forgotten that this hurt her too. Forgotten she has scars on the inside when his are so obvious on the outside.

"It was bad," he agrees. "But it's not now."

She gives him a watery smile and then ducks her head. "It's not now."

Castle pauses and draws her into an embrace, right there in the middle of the sidewalk path, her body both soft and strong against his. She presses her nose into his neck, breathes out against those rope lines circling his skin, moist and warm, before she kisses him there. Soft. Delicate.

"We'll be okay," he assures her, cradling the back of her head in one hand. With fingers that work. That are no longer mangled. "We'll be just fine, Kate."

"When?" she sighs.

"Soon."

She lets them wander for a while because she's not quite sure where this thing is located, only that she assumed there would be signs. Castle seems content to stroll, the silence between them making up for all those words.

She's glad she knows now, glad he told her, but it still broke her open to hear it.

The quiet is good for them.

He's steering them towards Battery Park, and she thinks it's in that direction, so she lets him unconsciously lead, the warm light against her cheeks and the specter of crisp fall brushing against her senses.

They stay hand in hand, sometimes leaning out against each other's hold, sometimes settling in close enough to trip each other up, but mostly establishing a pattern and rhythm that doesn't falter.

They are approaching just fine, they are coming up on okay again; she can practically see it. Like that castle, she thinks, and grins at the sight before them.

"Did you know that's Castle Clinton?" he murmurs, and even as he says it, the edifice comes completely into view.

She grins and glances over at him, catches his sparkling eyes. "I did."

"Used to be called Castle Garden - it was a theatre. Mother still calls it that."

"It hasn't been a theatre since. . .forever," she laughs. "I'm sure your mother wasn't alive-"

"No, no. She's just making a statement. Not since the late 1800s? Something like that."

"And it was an Emigrant Landing Depot, before Ellis Island. And the Aquarium."

"Oh, yeah. I'd forgotten it was the Aquarium." Something flashes across his eyes; she can see him reaching for a memory and she wonders if he's beginning to remember their destination, if somewhere back there he's thought about going himself.

"The Aquarium was closed in 1941," she says slowly, watching him for that telltale flicker of awareness. "It's part of the history of this place. They like to hold on to their heritage here."

"And then they opened the Aquarium on Coney Island," he finishes, smiling at her.

She presses her lips together and then sees it, just past the castle in Battery Park, and her heart flips. "But in honor of that attraction," she starts, leading him by the hand towards the park.

And then they can see it - the whole massive structure.

"Kate," he breathes.

"Sea Glass," she announces. "An aquatic carousel."

Sea Glass.

"It's shaped like a conch shell," he murmurs, excitement beginning to make his voice hoarse, like it always does now, since the rope. "Look at that, Kate. Wow. When did they do this? Why haven't I heard anything about it?"

"It opened this spring," she says. "It's been in the works for years now, but - I don't know. I think I remember you telling me about it, actually."

"I don't remember this. I'd remember this," he rasps, glancing back to her with eyes that are as blue as the ocean, his words an eerie echo of a few hours ago.

"You wouldn't necessarily remember," she says, easing her way into it. "But that's okay. Because I remembered for you."

He shrugs off the association, glances back to the carousel. "Are we riding this?"

"We're riding this," she says with a twist of her lips. Because it's fun. And they need it.

"We are so riding this," he laughs. And then he drags her to the line.

The carousel is ethereal and magnificent and amazing. The ride rotates within a chambered nautilus, like a conch shell standing up with a carousel inside it. The spiraling sides are actually projection screens displaying sea life, mystical and gorgeous. The whole thing has that light-on-the-water refraction as it slowly sinks down darker and bluer and deeper until the screens are swimming with fish.

The hush of water and whales echoes in the vast reaches and up to the sky while the main turntable rotates, the sea creatures moving up and down and circling themselves like a slow dance.

At first, Castle can't decide which one he wants to ride - the leaping dolphin, the sea turtle, the hammerhead, the strident sea horse.

But he chooses the angelfish because they can sit together inside its belly, and Kate crawls in after him, nestled at his side with her hand in his. Children are running for their favorites, a few fathers have toddlers in front of them, a mother sits alone in the lip of a conch shell looking serene and mermaidesque. Kate's fingers play against his thigh as they wait for everyone to get settled.

The music starts and the sea anemone that acts as a focal point begins to unfurl in bioluminescent colors, the ocean life spinning around it. The slow slide of the carousel drifts them easily into an otherworldly existence.

It's flying and it's swimming. It's beautiful.

Kate lays her head against his shoulder and he can't even look at her. His eyes are filled with the ripple of water overhead and the dance of sea life, the sway of the creatures around them and the easy pulse of lights.

Dolphins swimming above, the faint glow of plankton, the shimmer of tiny fish, and the rhythm of a sting ray all swirl around him, swallow him, drown him deep in an ocean peace. The music is haunting, the depth and range of the vast water in its sounds, and he finds himself hypnotized.

It's only when her fingers caress his cheeks that he realizes he's crying, that he has been crying all along, but she says nothing, simply draws the tears away with her thumb, the soft heel of her hand drying his eyes. He kisses her palm and can't look, but she doesn't ask for it.

The ride goes on in undulations of an angelfish, the skin and scales glowing with blue light, pink, that soft purple, and finally a watery green. The glide and slip of fish in the water, the darting schools, the graceful waving motion of dolphins, all lull him down into a dream.

The music fades, soft and ghostly, a whisper of salt air on his face, across his lips, and he takes a last, deep breath as the ride slows to a stop.

Kate's knees press into his thigh and she leans in so gently, tenderness shaping her eyes, and she kisses him, that brush of lips that makes his heart falter and then steady on, stronger for it.

"We okay now?" she whispers.

"We're okay."

He closes his eyes and leans his forehead against hers, sapped of everything, curiously filled up for being so emptied out.

"I love you." Their words meet in the warm air between them, touch each other, and a flicker of a smile lights her face.

"Jinx," he whispers, and then he leads her off the carousel and back on dry land.