51. 52: Tuesday

52

"Did you put on some of Alexis's sunscreen?" she murmurs, slipping onto the seat next to him in the boat.

"Yes," he grunts and rolls his eyes.

She presses a finger to his exposed shoulder, watches his skin flush pink. "Because you look-"

"I just reapplied, Kate."

She tries a different approach, leans in close to him as the boat dips and rocks in the water. "Castle," she murmurs, being sure to let her lips brush his ear. "If you end up too sunburned for sex. . ."

She feels him straighten up under the touch of her hand. "Alexis. Hey. Can I see your sunblock again?"

She smiles to herself and sits back against the boat, pleased.

When they're all in the water, outfitted in the mask, the tube, the flippers - she finds it's easy to maneuver, easier than she expected, and that there's a strange affinity that falls over her when she gets going.

Kate separates from the rest of them, even from the two guides who came with them, but she's careful to avoid the coral. It's protected; one of their guides, Freddy, explained that touching the coral kills it, and they don't want to damage the reef which is the second largest in the world.

Also, it's sharp as hell, and Kate already has a slice on her elbow where she cut herself while she was swimming in front of their place on the beach. It stings like crazy.

The boat went out for a while to get them to this spot, but it's still not deep in the cay. She can't touch of course, but it's not that far down. She glances around and sees Alexis and Rick with their heads together, snorkels up, peering down into the clear depths. Martha opted out of the trip, staying behind for the delicious frozen daiquiris.

Kate could go for one right now, actually. The banana ones are amazing. . .oh but look at that.

Kate draws her feet up, treading water slowly, watches the sting ray undulate below her. She catches her breath and takes a shallow dive, paces the devil ray as it floats like a shadow, skimming the bottom.

After a few seconds, she realizes she's still holding her breath and takes a cautious suck on the mouthpiece. When she gets air, the strange sensation of breathing underwater makes her feel claustrophobic for an instant, and then that clears when a school of fish swim right around her.

Kate kicks with them, watches their yellow tails, their dark darting bodies. Yellowtail damselfish, if she remembers right. Young ones, protected by the reef, hundreds of them.

The water is so clear, so blue, and the sandy bottom is interrupted with a landscape of coral, brownish in color with spots of hard white or sudden plumes of a strange purple-pink. Fish move in and out of the reef, some investigate her hair as it fans out from her head, some dart away the moment she gets close.

The sting ray comes back again, or it's another one, and she keeps still for a moment, awash in the strange silence of being underwater, her breath echoing in the tube and her heart in her chest, the water warm and silky along her skin.

To think she might have missed this. She might never have gotten here. The day before was the moon and the stars and the deep, unending night, and now this morning there is the rippling blue water, the otherworldly life that exists just past her feet.

The devil ray fans its wings and glides off.

Kate lets herself bob back to the surface, shallow as she is, and lifts her head out of the water, pulls the face mask off.

The sun is brilliant and unmerciful, but the ocean tempers the heat, makes the day alive and glowing, but not unmanageable.

She sees Castle swimming for her, a grin on his face. "He's got sharks, Kate."

"Who?"

His hand comes to her shoulder in the water, drifts, skims her waist, pulling himself in a little closer. "Our guide, Pedro. He has sharks. You want to touch one? I touched one."

"You touched a shark?" she gasps.

"I scratched its belly."

She narrows her eyes at him, but he's not kidding. He's got the biggest, goofiest, proudest smile on his face and his cheeks are red with sun, but he's totally not lying.

"All right. Let me at the sharks."

She's touching a shark.

It feels. . .wet.

It feels like a strange, unearthly beast is just below her fingertips.

"This is the nurse shark," Pedro says. He's holding the nurse shark by the dorsal fin, flipped over on its back so that Kate can stroke its belly.

"It's awesome," Castle breathes at her ear.

She catches Alexis's eye and nods to the shark, lets her have a turn. As Kate moves back, rising with every swell of the water, she feels Castle's arm around her waist, tugging. She lets herself go with him, their legs tangling for an instant, and then he drops his hand, treads water at her back.

"This is amazing," Alexis says, lifting a bright smile to them. "It's a shark."

"A nurse shark," Pedro says again, as if reassuring them that it's not a great white or anything.

Brown, about four feet long, white belly. "So how big can these get?" she asks.

"Fourteen feet."

Whoa. "Is this one a baby?" Alexis asks, pulling her hand away from the shark.

Pedro flips it back over in the water, lets them see it. Apparently Pedro's touch is paralyzing, because the thing doesn't try to move or get away, just drifts there, pumping water through its gills, small eyes definitely shark-like, nurse or no.

"Baby, yes. This is a baby nurse shark. See the spots? They fade as they get older. They usually sleep during the day in groups of thirty or so."

"Thirty?" Kate asks, and then, yes, oh my God, there she comes. The baby's mother.

Castle yelps behind her and there's a man-sized brown shark heading slowly their direction. Pedro lets the baby go and it snakes off, the mother is diverted, and the two settle under an overhang of coral.

"Holy shit, that was a shark," Castle murmurs.

Kate turns around to look at him. "Scared?"

"Hell no. Were you?"

"I knew you had my back."

He grins wider. "Ya think Pedro will go get me another one?"

"Why?"

"So I can punch it in the face."