This is just a fluff piece that has been rattling around in my writing journal for a few weeks and just now busted it out. Feel free to comment, review, tell me I suck at writing.

And I don't own Castle, Jimmy Buffett, or WDW.

What would Nikki Heat Do?

By Ausiewanab

"What would Jimmy Buffett do?" Richard Castle asked as he held up his coffee cup in the air for an imaginary toast. Detective Kate Beckett looked up from her paperwork and rolled her eyes. His toast would've been perfect had they not been stuck at the precinct during the worst blizzard ever. She would rather trade the snow for a warm sandy beach. Cold margarita's instead of the lukewarm coffee she had been nursing for the last hour, and she would kill for the bright orange sun to tan her skin instead of basking in the incandescent glow from the indoor lighting that made everyone in the precinct look a pale shade of green.

"You know you don't have to be here." Beckett said as she continued typing on her computer, working on her paperwork.

"And miss out on all the blizzard fun?" He said motioning to the empty precinct, jabbing in the fact that most of her fellow detectives had already gone home to bunker down during the impeding winter storm of doom. The only sounds that could be heard in the quiet bullpen was the keys on Beckett's keyboard clacking, and the white noise of the TV's that were positioned in the upper corners of the room, forecasting the 12 more inches of snow that had yet to fall on the already 10 inches on the ground.

"Besides you are the only one here, might as well keep you company." He said as he propped up his feet on the side of her desk, which she quickly swatted down without even looking away from her computer. She could feel his eyes staring at her, burning holes into the walls she had put up to protect herself. She felt her face get hot and stopped typing. She glanced out of the corner of her eye to glare at him.

"Your staring at me, again."

"Nope. I'm just imaging how Nikki Heat would handle a situation like this."

"Then wouldn't it be 'What would Nikki Heat do?' instead of Jimmy Buffett?" She asked as she leaned back in her chair to face him.

Castle scrunched his face and shook it. "Doesn't sounds as good as Jimmy Buffett." Beckett laughed as she could hear the song being sung in her head with the replaced lyrics. She agreed, didn't have as good of a ring as the real version did. They quietly stared at each other. A peaceful stare, not one with laced with malice, one that said everything with silence without saying a word at all. A smile crept in on her face, a grin on his. And as fate would have it, their quiet moment was interrupted, not by a fellow detective, this time it was the sound of her desk phone ringing.

Beckett cleared her throat as she reached for the phone. "Beckett." She reached for her pen and jotted down a few notes on her post-it-note pad. "Okay thanks." She stood up and reached for her jacket on the back of her chair. "A snow plow uncovered a body from the snow on Amsterdam." Castle quickly got up and put his jacket, and scarf on. He put his gloves on as they walked towards the elevator. When the doors opened the two of them piled into the empty elevator.

She quickly pushed the first floor button and the close door button. She wasn't normally in an anxious mood, but she would be lying if she had said she wasn't just itching to get out of the eerily quiet precinct. They stood quietly next to each other as the elevator slowly descended downwards. The numbers above counted down from four, then to three and as it left the number three the lights flickered. They both looked up as a loud whiny sound vibrated off and the elevator walls, and then suddenly stopped, forcing the writer and his muse to brace themselves against the walls of the elevator preparing for the unknown. The lights flickered out as they stood there in the dark and the elevator. The floor dropped a few feet suddenly and then jerked to a stopped. Beckett could feel her knuckles turning white from gripping her fingers into the grooves between the paneling along the wall. She released the air she was unconsciously holding in and her heart raced. She groped in the dark feeling for his arm, for a hint that he was okay. When she finally felt the edges of his jacket, he quickly clamped her hand around is arm.

"You okay Castle?" She asked in the best non anxious voice she could muster.

"That is the last time I ride Tower of Terror." He said as he placed a hand over his heart, which felt like it was going to beat out of his chest. The low level emergency lights flashed on and hummed. The two quickly looked at each other, both being plastered against the wall. When Castle looked over to her hand that was still clamped around his arm, she quickly released her grip and looked down.

"What do you think happened?" Castle asked breaking the silence and the tension in the room.

"The snow storm probably knocked out the power." She took her phone out of her pocket and slid it open. "Do you have a signal?" She asked. Castle took out his phone from his jacket pocket and unlocked it. He held the phone up above his head and circled around in the small rectangle box.

"Nope." He stopped in front of her. "Wait a minute...nope it just went away." He walked back to where he was and slid down the wall to sit on the floor. "The concrete elevator shaft is probably blocking the signal."

She reached over and pushed the emergency button on the control panel, even though she figured it wouldn't do them any good at this point with the power probably out all around. She paced back and forth in her tiny corner. Touching the back wall, turning around, walking three steps and touched the front doors. She continued like this for a few minutes. Castle watched her bounce from one wall to the other like a pendulum on a clock consistent in pace and time.

"You know they say it's best to sit down so that when the elevator starts back up you don't get hurt from the sudden movement." She glared at him. After a few more minutes of pacing she sighed loudly and in defeat she sat down against the back wall, landing a few feet away from him.

They sat in silence. Both staring at the front doors. Castle waved two of his fingers to the side and said, "You will open." When nothing happened he tried it again. "Open." Again nothing happened.

Beckett rolled her eyes. "What are you doing?"

"I'm trying out my Jedi Mind Trick." Castle replied. Still waiving his fingers in front of the door.

"I don't think that will do us any good if you do get the doors open." She said in a matter of fact voice.

"Why?"

"I have a hunch we are stuck between the second and third floor."

"Ah. We could climb out." He said motioning towards the emergency exit above them.

"I'm fine waiting here."

They continued sitting in silence, staring at the doors. Minutes went by like hours. "So what would Nikki Heat do?" Castle asked breaking the silence. His question went unanswered so he repeated it again. "What would Nikki Heat do?"

"I heard you the first time."

"I know, I'm just trying to figure it out myself. Thought I would repeat it again." He said, both still staring at the doors. "So what would Nikki Heat do?"

She loudly sighed. "She'd probably be doing the same thing we are doing, sitting here waiting for help."

Castle nodded his head as he thought about it. "You're probably right." He thought about it some more. "Although if Rook was stuck with her, they could be making out."

"Or she could be beating him up."She said with a smile. They both laughed. They went back to sitting in silence. Castle reached for his phone and when he unlocked it, the screen lit up, brightly lighting the dimly lit room.

"You have an app on that phone that will help us get out?" Beckett asked as she leaned over to see what he was doing.

"Nope, but that would be a great one to create." He said as he touched the screen and ran his fingers along opening different programs. He then moved his thumbs around on the screens keyboard. "Oh I have a signal." He said and picked up his pace with his typing.

"Good call dispatch and let them know we are stuck in here." She said as she reached for her own phone and held it up in hopes of finding a signal.

"And I lost it." She banged her head against the back of the wall. "But I think I got the message out."

"What message?"

"I put it on Twitter that we are stuck in the elevator and to send help."

"You put it on Twitter?"

"Yeah. I figured that was the quickest way to reach the most amount of people. Over twenty thousand people follow my tweets." He said as a matter of fact.

"Yes but how many of those people can actually do anything to help us?"

"Uh...um," he stuttered.

"My point exactly."

"Well on the bright side, twenty thousand people know we are stuck in an elevator." She rolled her eyes. Oh how she wished she was back under the green incandescent lighting drinking lukewarm coffee.

He continued to play with his phone. After a few minutes he passed the phone over to her, "Your turn."

She took the phone from his hand and looked at him with a puzzled look on her face. "Tic Tac Toe?" She asked as she examined the screen which had the four lines, two going down, and two going from the side, and a "X" drawn in on the lower right of the phones touch screen.

"I thought that we might as well entertain ourselves while we wait to be rescued."

She continued to study the screen and made a circle motion with her index finger in the middle of the screen. "Wow Castle, I would've pegged you for a middle of the board sort of guy." She passed him back his phone.

"Everybody knows that you don't go for the middle first." He placed another X in the top left corner this time and handed the phone back to her to which she placed a circle in the lower left corner and raised an eyebrow at him as she handed the phone back to him to which he answered by drawing an X in the top right corner and once again passed it back to her. She scowled when she saw that she had a no win situation. If she moved to block his top attack by putting her circle in the top middle, he'd just place his X in the middle left, or vice versa if she reversed her actions. She took a different approach instead and placed a O in the lower middle spot instead and passed the phone over to him. He laughed when he saw what she had done and finished the game. He shook his screen and it cleared off like an etch-a-sketch.

"So what do you think Nikki Heat would really be doing if she wasn't stuck in an elevator?" He asked once again.

"Oh I don't know, maybe taking a hot bath and reading a good book." Beckett said looking over at him.

"Is that you or Nikki Heat you are talking about?"

"Both."

"You know if this was a clichéd stuck in the elevator situation, you'd be pregnant and going into labor."

"It's a good thing this isn't a clichéd moment then."

"Yes because clichéd is so over done." Castle said with a smile. The minutes went by slowly with the quiet of the elevator. "You know what I think Nikki Heat would do?" Castle asked.

"No, what?"

"I think she would be out there helping people making sure everyone was safe." Beckett blushed knowing that he wasn't just meaning the character he had created in her image, but he was also meaning her. "And then she would have sex with Rook." He said ruining the quiet sweet moment. She laughed and scooted closer to him.

It was beginning to feel like hours since the elevator had broken down. They both knew it had probably only been at the most an hour, but the dead silence and the near pitch black feel like it was dragging on.

Castle felt her head rest on his shoulder. He then wrapped an arm around her waist, and decided to break the silence. "Have you ever been to Walt Disney World?"

The question took Kate Beckett by surprise. "Um, yeah." She stumbled. "I was 11 when my family went."

"I remember the first time I took Alexis to Walt Disney World. She was five and we had saved MGM Studios as the last park for us to attend. We had stayed at one of the resorts where we could take the boat to the park so we didn't have to get on the bus to get there. And the whole time we were on the boat she kept asking me what we were going to ride." Castle explained. He leaned his head to rest on top of hers. "We had a book with us and I was letting her pick out rides she wanted to go on. Of course she was excited about seeing Kermit the Frog with the Muppets, and going on the Star Wars ride. But it wasn't until we got to the park that she saw the Tower of Terror ride. Her eyes got big and wide." He said while holding his free hand up to mimic her eyes.

"I was a little hesitant about letting her ride it, but she of course had to go on it. She was barely tall enough to ride it, but that wasn't going to stop her. She just had to ride it. While we were waiting in line, she asks me 'Daddy do you think this is going to be a scary ride?'"

"What did you tell her?"

"Well I danced around it. I didn't want to ruin the surprise of the ride for her, but I also wasn't sure if she could handle such an intense ride. So I told her the truth. 'They don't call it the tower of happiness.'" He felt her hand smack him in the chest.

"You gave her a sarcastic answer?"

"It's the truth."

"But still. Did she end up riding it?"

"Oh she rode it, when they strapped us in and the ride started she gripped the side of arm as tight as possible. I think at one point I lost feeling in it. She wasn't too bad as we went upwards but when the first drop came, she screamed louder than I had ever heard. Then she was quiet the rest of the ride. When we got off I asked her what she thought of the ride."

"What did she think of it?"

"She loved it. She told me, 'Daddy, they should call it the Tower of Happiness.' We had to ride it five more times that day. We joke around each time we go back to Walt Disney World about riding Tower of Happiness." Beckett laughed.

"That ride wasn't there when I went. MGM had just opened and wasn't a whole lot there yet." Beckett added.

"You've only been once?"

"Yeah. My family wasn't big on the whole summer trip aspect. My Dad wasn't a big fan of traveling so most of the traveling we ever did revolved around going to baseball games."

"You will have to go the next time we go. You would have a lot of fun. We ride all the rides."

"I'll pass Castle."

"No. You can never say no to a trip to Disney World."

"Yes I can. Besides I'm not a kid anymore."

"You don't have to be a kid to have fun at Disney World."

"Why, are you going to start planning a trip just because I haven't been in a long time?"

"I can."

"Don't."

"Come on, when was the last time you had a vacation?"

"That's beyond the point Castle."

"Come on Beckett, we can go next month. Think about it, warm Florida temperatures, no lines for the rides, bright sunshine, and Mickey Mouse."

Beckett turned to face him so she could quash his banter about going to Walt Disney World when the doors started slowly peeling open. They both looked over at the doors, which were wide enough they could see that they were stuck in the middle with half of the floor showing above them with the elevator shaft showing below it. When the doors finally fully opened they could see Esposito and Ryan crouched down with flashlights in their hands and shining them their way.

"Are we interrupting?" Esposito asked.

"Yes." Castle said.

"No." Beckett replied at the same time as Castle.

"If you would prefer, we can leave you two alone for a few more hours." Ryan asked with a huge grin on his face.

"Just get us out of here." Beckett replied as she stood up and walked over to the doors and raised her hand and let the two other detectives help pull her out of the elevator onto the second floor. They proceeded to do the same thing and helped pull Castle out. The lights were still stuck on emergency lighting in the hallway and the flashlights were still needed to fully see.

"How did you two find us?" Beckett asked as they walked back up the stairs to the fourth floor.

"When you two didn't show up at the crime scene we started to get worried." Ryan said.

"So we checked Castle's twitter update to see if we could figure out where you two were and Ryan's twitter account had over a hundred messages on it telling us to go save you two."

"See I told you someone would read my tweet and save us." Castle said smugly.

"How did you know which floor we were on?" Beckett asked.

"We used our master detective skills." Esposito said.

"We tried the third floor first and saw where the car was." Ryan said blowing their master detective skills cover, and they all laughed.


It had taken over five hours for the power to come back on after they were rescued from the elevator. Five hours that Kate Beckett couldn't catch up on the case she had missed out on while stuck in the elevator. Five hours that She had spent at home, snuggled under her grandmothers quilt by her fireplace. When she got back to the precinct that morning, she noticed a coffee mug full of warm coffee sitting on her desk next to an envelope with Kate Beckett wrote all over it. She looked around to see if anyone was looking as she opened the envelope and pulled out a plan white card that read: "What would Nikki Heat Do?" When she opened it and a business card size dropped into her hand. It was red and had a circle in the middle with a picture of Tower of Terror on it and said, "Happiest Celebration on Earth." She read then read the card:

"Nikki Heat would go to Walt Disney World and enjoy a few days off and have some fun."

He gave her Walt Disney Tickets with a no excuse or way for her to say no.