Thanks, everyone for being so patient. I'd hoped to have this chapter up earlier, but my creative juices weren't flowing very freely. I'm still not entirely happy with the exact point when they get away from the alligator, but that's actually a small part of the whole chapter, so perhaps if I get a brainstorm later, I can go back and change it.
There's also a reference to something that was said way back in chapter 6. See if you can figure it out.
(One note about the alligator thing: I'm basing this loosely on an experience that I had where I saw an alligator out where I didn't expect to see one, and my own POV at the time and afterwards. I didn't realize it was an alligator at first...I was kind of far away from it and I thought it was some other kind of strange animal, so I grabbed a couple of cameras and took off after it. And after I saw it really wasan alligator, I kept trying to get closer to get a better picture, not really thinking that duh...this is an ALLIGATOR! Luckily it was walking away from me. Later, when it was gone, I was thinking back on the situation and was amazed when I realized that I had just chased an alligator! So my point is...in an unusual situation, you sometimes do one thing at the time, but then you think back on it later and go OMG, am I insane? I can't believe I did that! Or, did that really happen?)
And of course, I will issue the appropriate disclaimers that I do not own any of the characters mentioned, except the alligator, and him only (thankfully) in a virtual sense. And I also want to give a very heartfelt thanks to those of you who continue to follow the story and leave those wonderful reviews. I truly love all of the emails that I get from all of you who follow it, review it and even mark it as a favorite. Amazing! ((Hugs)) to you all!
Kate and Rick stood perched on the fence as best as they could. Chain link fences were just not meant for people to stand on them comfortably for a long time. However, no matter the level of discomfort on the fence, it was better than the alternative of getting chomped on by the beast below them.
"I'm still waiting," Kate reminded Rick, "for you to write us one of your incredible plot twists to get us out of this without loss of life, limb, or tallywhacker." Rick shuddered and almost involuntarily tried to cross his legs as he imagined the implications of her last word in reference to the alligator's teeth, but then realized she was grinning. "Sorry," she continued, "I just had to say that. Levity for the situation and all that. And the look on your face was priceless."
Rick looked from her, hanging tightly to the fence, to the alligator on the ground who was sunning himself casually with little concern for the people hanging above it, back to Kate. "Much as I would love to also prevent loss of any bodily appendages, especially that one, I got nothing," he admitted.
"Why did you have to drag me over to that bench anyway?"
He leveled a conceited glare at her. "I didn't see you complaining too much until you saw Mr. Big."
She was silent a moment. "Come on, Castle, think. Don't you know how to be some sort of alligator-whisperer or something? Something you might have learned when you did some kind of up-close-and-personal training session with a female alligator wrangler?"
"Unfortunately, no. But that does sound like it could be very interesting..." Rick trailed off as he pursed his lips and looked off into the distance, imagining something that Kate didn't want to know about.
She reached over and thumped him on the head, much like Ginny had done to Billy, but slightly inhibited by the fact that she was hanging on the fence. "Castle, focus!"
"I still got nothing." But then he adjusted himself to brace his back against the palm tree next to the fence, while his feet were still stuck in the fence. "Good, that works. Now, both hands free, and...voila!" He produced his phone out of his pocket.
"Great. Who ya gonna call? Gator-busters?"
"Nah. But this does have a camera, and aside from being quite freaked out that there is an alligator literally below us, I still think it's really cool that I'm this close to an alligator and it's not in a zoo. And it's not eating me. I really need to take a picture of it," he explained.
"Seriously? You are seriously going to take a picture?"
"Well, yeahhhh," he said as he leaned around the tree and began snapping pictures of the gator. "There." Then he punched a few more things on the phone, and finally held it out in front of him, but turned around so he was taking a picture of himself.
Scratch that, Kate thought, finally realizing that he was now taking a video of himself when he started conversing with his phone.
"Hey, guys," he started. "It's me, Castle. In Florida. And here's Beckett," he said, as he turned the phone around to record her.
When she saw him turn the phone around to shoot her, she exclaimed "Oh, no you don't! Castle, turn that thing off or point it away from me, or I swear you will not know what gender you are at the end of today! Oh, my God, I cannot believe you're recording me on a fence..."
He then turned the camera back around to face himself, and continued "Yes, that was Beckett, on a fence. And she's not too happy now, because we've been 'fenced' by our friend, Mr. Al E. Gator on the ground here." At that point, Rick pointed the phone toward the alligator on the ground, who must have some acting genes in it's reptilian DNA pool because it picked that moment to yawn and show it's teeth...perfect for Castle's video. Kate continued to mutter threats in the background at Rick. Still filming the alligator, Rick continued, "I would say 'treed', but I think 'fenced' is more appropriate in this case because we're on a fence, not in a tree. So since this fence is getting just a tad uncomfortable, if any of you know how to scare away an alligator, send me a text or give me a call back. Otherwise we're probably gonna be stuck here for a while." Then, after he pointed the camera back to record himself, he said in a stage whisper, "And as you can hear, Beckett is getting a wee bit testy because for some reason she thinks this is my fault, and that's almost more scary than the alligator."
He clicked off the video and leaned back against the tree. Then he tapped at the phone a little more, waited a few seconds, and said "There. All done."
Kate groaned and closed her eyes. "Please do NOT tell me that you sent that to someone." When she heard no response from Rick, she opened her eyes, glared at him and said "Well?"
"You asked me not to tell you that I send it to someone. So I didn't tell you. Really, Kate, if you want me to tell you something, then don't tell me not to tell you the very thing that you want me to tell you."
She rolled her eyes at him. "Who did you send it to? Please tell me this isn't going to be on Youtube. And so help me, if you twitter about this, that will be the last tweet you tweet!"
"OK, I cantell you that. No Youtube or Twitter. I sent it to Ryan."
"Castle, in case you haven't forgotten, I work with these people. They do not need to see me...fenced, as you say, by an alligator. My God, I will never live this down. Somewhere in the hordes of weird people that you know, is there not one reptilian biologist? Or a zookeeper? Or someone that you can call to find out how to get away from a hungry alligator?"
"I could find the name of the complex and call the management and have them rescue us."
"And get arrested for trespassing? I'm a cop, Rick! No, thank you. Maybe someone will walk by on the way to the beach and the alligator will get scared. Let's just wait a few minutes."
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Meanwhile, back in New York City...
Ryan was sitting at his desk, catching up on paperwork and generally being thankful that he wasn't anywhere outside. The three inches of new snow wasn't much, but it was enough to bring out the idiot drivers and enough to make everything just a little messier and wetter.
He was entering some data into a cross-referencing program when he heard the beep from his email program that signaled a new message. Grateful for the diversion, he popped over to his email and a smile immediately formed on his face. "Hey, Esposito, get over here. I got a message from Castle."
"From Castle? Hey, how come he didn't send me one?"
"Just shut up and get over here. Hey, it's a video. You think it's a vid of some hottie in a little thong?"
Ryan clicked 'play' on the video, and they watched as they saw Castle introduce himself. But then he moved the camera to show...Beckett on a fence? Beckett in shorts and a frilly tank top, but on a fence? Both guys looked at each other, eyebrows furrowed as they saw their boss hanging onto a fence for dear life. But then they saw and heard her yell at Castle, and both winced when she made the comment about Castle not knowing his gender by the end of the day.
"Well at least he's still alive," Ryan observed.
"For now, anyway," Esposito clarified.
Then as the image changed to the alligator sunning itself, and it opened its mouth, both detectives' jaws dropped open.
"Damn, bro," Esposito muttered, staring at the monitor. "You really stepped in it now."
The video ended and the two detectives just looked at each other. "What do we do now?" Ryan asked.
"Uh...Why are you looking at me? Aren't you the one who has all of that weird stuff floating around up here?" He tapped Ryan's head. "Don't you have any alligator factoids in there somewhere?"
Ryan thought for a moment. "No. Well, not yet anyway." And he flipped some screens on his computer and started typing. "Ah, here we go."
Esposito had gone back to sit at his desk, so he leaned back in his chair and asked "What're you doin'?"
"Drawing from the collective brainpower of the world..." he replied, tapping a few keys. He looked back at Esposito. "Uh, web search. Yup, here we go...oh, huh..."
Esposito asked "What did you find?"
"Did you know that an average of 150 people per year are killed worldwide by falling coconuts?"
"So maybe a coconut will fall on the alligator and kill it? You trying to do a Castle imitation of going off on tangents or something?"
"Remember who Castle sent the vid to, dude. It wasn't you. Remember that," Ryan finished as he got out his phone.
Espositio muttered something under his breath as Ryan began texting, looking at his computer screen a couple of times for reference. When he was done, he snapped his phone shut, leaned back in his chair and glared at Esposito with a smug smile on his face. Esposito glared back, then got out of his chair and grabbed his jacket. "Come on. It's time for lunch. And you're buying." Ryan grabbed his coat and followed him, wishing he was in Florida so he could see how Castle got himself out of this mess.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Rick's phone beeped, indicating a new text. He was still leaning against the tree, and Kate had even grudgingly admitted that it wasn't a bad idea, and had done the same leaning act with the tree that was a few feet away on the other side of the bench. The alligator was quite comfortable and seemed in no hurry to move.
He adjusted his feet in the fence a bit, and then unlocked his phone to read the text. "Good, it's from Ryan. Oh...oh," he said as he read the text to himself.
"What does it say?"
He began reading: "Nice vid. To scare gator u mst be big n loud-yell scrm jump dance sing. And if u dance n sing have beckt take vid of u."
Kate got an evil happy smile on her face. "You heard the man, Castle. Hand over the phone."
He handed it to her, but then said with an evil smile of his own, "It won't do you any good. It's locked-password protected."
She gave him a 'Give me a break' look, complete with raised eyebrows, for a full five seconds, before easily typing in his password. She held the phone up to show him the now-unlocked home screen and said "I can't believe you would underestimate me. Have you learned nothing since you've been around me?"
"I stand corrected," he muttered, wondering how the heck she'd gotten his password. He'd have to be more careful around the obviously resourceful Detective Beckett. He looked down at the ground and took a deep breath. "Well, here goes nothing," he said and jumped down to the ground, to the right side of the bench but still several quite a few feet from the alligator. The alligator didn't move, but it did twitch its tail a bit.
"Well, don't just stand there, Rick. Be big and loud, just like Ryan said."
"Why me, anyway? Why don't you do it? You scare people for a living."
"Think about it, Rick. Do you really want me to have to tell people that I scared the alligator away while you just hung onto the fence and watched?"
"You're the one trained in all sorts of weird hand to hand combat stuff."
"Castle...really?"
"Fine." Rick waved his arms up and down a couple of times like he was flying, and he said "woooo wooooooo". The alligator barely moved.
"Lame, Castle, really lame. Are you trying to be Casper the Friendly Ghost or something? Now, come on, think big, think loud, think scary. Oh, wait a minute, I might have just the thing." She bit her lower lip as she concentrated on his phone, tapping it and sliding her finger across the screen. Finally, she smiled. "Found it. Perfect. This should do the trick," she said as she tapped the screen again and Justin Bieber's voice began singing the lyrics from 'Baby'. "If you can do it in front of a bar full of peole, then you can do it for one little alligator. Now move it, Rick!"
"Uh...Beckett," he said through the sounds of the music, "in case you haven't noticed, that is not a little alligator.
"Channel your inner Bieber. Now, Rick."
Rick closed his eyes and extended his arms, shaking them a little bit to loosen them up as he listened to the music. As the music played out of the phone, he 'sang' along with it, but after a few lines turned back toward Beckett, while still keeping a keen eye on the gator.
"Beckett, I'm just not feeling it."
"Feel the Bieber, Castle, that's an order."
Just then, the alligator chose that moment to yawn again, of course showing its teeth as it did so. Castle was so shocked by the gator (and the fact that he was now in much closer proximity to those teeth) that he yelled and jumped up and down, and then started waving his arms while singing 'Baby, baby, baby' in an odd tone that had a decided quivery and desperate tone attached to it. For several seconds, several very long seconds, the reptile just stood there, but then it must have decided that the spectacle of human 'talent' in front of him was just too much to bear. Both Beckett and Castle watched in astonishment as the large beast turned and started ambling off in the other direction, not out of the gate that it came in, but nevertheless, away from them.
Beckett climbed down from the fence and attempted to shake some circulation back in her feet after spending all of that time perched on the fence. Rick grabbed her hand and started hauling her toward the open gate. When they got to the gate, Kate pointed to the sign that they had neglected to see when they first came through it, because the gate was open and faced away from them; a sign that said "Keep gate closed" with a picture of an alligator below it.
Rick shrugged his head at it. "Would have been nice to know that before we came in."
"Guess they didn't count on trespassers, " Beckett said dryly.
Rick aimed a pithy look at Kate as he continued hauling her out of the private complex. "Hey," she realized, "Didn't you want to go look around?"
"To be honest, Al kind of spoiled my mood," Rick confided.
He continued hauling her over the bridge to the beach, and then he pulled her off behind some tall beach grass and bushes, out of the way of any beachgoers. He pulled her into a tight embrace and buried his face in her neck. "OK, even though that was just kind of weird, I'm also starting to realize that it was also really scary. And I have to say that I am so incredibly glad that you're OK."
Beckett stood there, wrapped in his embrace, surprised but definitely not minding it at all, and thinking that despite how unbelievable the situation was, what he'd said was one of the sweetest things she'd ever heard. She felt a little flutter in her belly at his words, and at the tone of complete and utter sincerity she heard in his voice. She hugged him back, as it started to sink in that they had just been cornered by an alligator. A real wild alligator, with real teeth. As strange as that sounded. She pulled away a little to look at his face and she saw kind of a dazed expression on it, a lot like the expression that she guessed she was probably wearing.
"Did we really just get cornered by an alligator?"
"I think so. Is it me, or does that whole thing seem kind of surreal now, even though it was just a few minutes ago?"
"Surreal is one way to put it." She laid her forehead back down on his shoulder, but couldn't fully stifle a laugh. "Rick, why is it that you seem to attract the oddballs, even animals? I mean, why did an 8 foot long alligator have to wander over to check us out? Why couldn't it be a furry little puppy or something?"
"Well, if I recall, the first thing I 'attracted' this morning was you." He kissed her cheek. "But then it all went to hell from there. Old geezer..." he finished, remembering what Billy had called him.
"Well, look on the bright side. For an old geezer, you did a pretty good job of scaring away the gator."
"He probably just didn't like Justin Bieber." Reluctantly, he released her and they started walking out to the beach. "Come on, I really need a stiff drink."
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Back at the house, they walked into the house and Rick plopped down in one of the chairs. Without missing a beat, Kate walked over to the bar, poured him a couple of shots of brandy and handed him the glass. He downed it and then gave an all-over shudder, right as his phone beeped. He looked at the screen and smiled, then motioned Kate over to the chair. She settled down on his lap and leaned back against him as he showed the message to her.
The message was from Ryan, "You guys still alive? txt me bck. if ur dead im gonna sell vid as last vid of Castle n make millions."
After she read the message, Kate got a determined look on her face. She told him "Get it ready. We're sending him another video. Call it proof of life." Rick got to the necessary window, tapped the screen, then held the phone out in front of them. "Go," he said.
"Hey, Ryan, and hey, Esposito, since I'm sure you're watching this too. Yes, we are alive. Rick and Justin Bieber scared the gator away." Let them stew on that for a while, Kate thought. Rick, his head right next to hers, nodded like he was a cocky Captain America saving the world from rogue alligators. "But let this be your warning that if anyone on the face of this earth-living, dead, animal, vegetable, or mineral-if anyone else sees that alligator video besides you two yahoos, you will find that you will live to regret it. You will spend so much time looking over your shoulder that you'll forget which way is forward. Any revenge you can imagine I would exact on you will only be the tip of the Beckett iceberg. You have no idea." Rick stopped the recording and sent the video to Ryan's email, smiling as he imagined them taking her words to heart. Nothing in the world could make you imagine various forms of painful and uncomfortable punishment like the stern voice of Detective Beckett could.
When that was done, Kate hopped up. "Let's go, Castle."
"Where?"
"Haven't you looked in the fridge lately? The food that you ordered when we got down here is dwindling considerably. We need to do one of those domestic things you were talking about a couple of days ago and go grocery shopping. I'm feeling like I need some spaghetti and meatballs tonight. So get your baseball cap and let's go."
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
As they exited the house in Florida, Ryan returned to his computer to find another message from Castle. "Aha!" he exclaimed. He held up a hand and snapped his fingers. "Esposito, got a message. Get over here."
They started the video, eyebrows furrowing briefly at the Justin Bieber comment. But then they looked closer at the screen and their jaws dropped almost in perfect unison as they realized what they were seeing.
"Man, you see that?" Esposito asked.
"Holy...she's sitting on-" Ryan started.
"-his lap!" Esposito finished.
"And he has his arm around her!"
"And she looks...she looks..."
"comfortable!"
The two detectives turned and stared at each other for a moment, before breaking out in huge grins and high-fiving each other. "It's about damn time, bro," Esposito said to the absent Castle, as he opened his wallet and slapped a twenty in Ryan's hand.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
As Kate and Rick shopped for groceries, they had no idea of the buzz that the video had created among their closest friends and coworkers at the precinct. Since Kate had made the threats against them for showing the alligator video, they creatively surmised that even though it was by omission, she'd never said anything about showing the second video to anyone, which of course they happily did. Montgomery merely sniffed and walked back into his office, but Ryan thought he did see a small grin tugging at his mouth. Lanie, however, had a reaction similar to Ryan's and Esposito's, complete with a shriek and a "Damn girl is holding out on me" comment. Luckily, the detectives went down to the morgue to show her the video, so the only audience to her reaction was already dead.
Lanie sent a text to Kate that simply read "Ur holding out on me...need the 411". Of course, Kate had no idea about the level of familiarity that she and Rick had unconsiously displayed in the video, so she just filed it to respond to later.
They made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, and then later took a long walk on the beach, holding hands, sometimes stopping to kiss, or trying to alternately dodge the waves or push the other one in the water. The moon was almost full, so it gave off a good deal of light for them to see where they were going. Kate had forgotten to put shoes on, so when she came to an area with a lot of shells, Rick picked her to carry her piggy-back style, making a comment about how Billy should see him now, muttering something else about old geezers.
They talked about nothing in particular, but it had an easy familiarity that belied the amount of time they had really been 'together' in romantic terms. Rick was the one who first broached the subject of their new feelings and the outward expression of them.
"You know, all of this feels so new, but in some way it feels so normal too."
"The beach in the middle of winter?"
Rick gazed sideways at Kate with a reproachful look in his eyes. "Come on, Kate, you know what I'm talking about. This," he clarified, holding up their joined hands. "Us."
"I know, I know. I just love messing with you. But you know how people have always looked at us and thought there was more going on, so I got in a habit of either ignoring or denying. With all of the kinky cases that we've had, sometimes I just wanted to hang a sign around my neck that said 'no, we're not involved'." Then when he didn't say anyting for a few beats, she asked "Or were we?"
He looked at her. "I don't know, honestly. You amaze me...you've always amazed me. We work so well together, not including the times you threaten to shoot me of course. I never thought in terms of being 'involved' with you, not on a realistic level anyway, because you are so different. You always shot me down, and then you started dating other guys..."
"Hey, you had other girlfriends too."
"Yes, but none lately. I think I'd been unconsciously comparing them to you, and I lost interest in everyone else that wasn't you. So even though you made it clear that you weren't going to be a...what did you call it? 'A notch on my bedpost'...I still couldn't help but revel in the fantasy. And the attraction. But you know, don't you, that you could never be a notch on my bedpost?"
"The thought that I might be more than a passing fancy is starting to get through, yeah."
"Yes, there's that...if you were a passing fancy, I would have been gone a long time ago, not being totally and completely consumed by being around you as I am lately."
Kate didn't know what to say to that. What do you say when a man has just admitted to being totally and completely consumed by being in your presence? That fluttery feeling that she'd felt in her belly after the alligator incident was back in full force.
Rick continued, a somber tone to his voice, "But there is another reason why you could never be a notch on my bedpost." She looked at him expectantly. With a serious look on his face, he continued "I have a metal bedframe, and it simply cannot be notched."
She looked at him for two very full, very long seconds, and at the end of those two seconds she saw the corners of his mouth start to turn up into the beginnings of a smile. As she realized what he said, and the joke he was making, she said "Ohhhh...youuuuu..." as he took off running back toward the house. She made it seem like she was going to chase him, but then she stopped and returned to a slow walk. Let him tire himself out thinking that she was chasing him. But she did now realize, metal bedframe or not, that she would be more than a notch on his bedpost. And darned if that fluttery felling wasn't back in her belly again.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
It was close to midnight, and Kate was laying in her bed, still thinking about how quickly things were happening since they came down here. It had taken them over two years to get to this point to touch freely, let alone kiss, and now their romance-wow, that still sounded weird to say-was progressing at warp speed.
She was distracted from her thoughts by her phone beeping, alerting that she had a new text message. She grabbed the phone. From Castle? Why was he texting her? He was just right down the hall.
"R U awake?"
"Yes. whats wrng?"
"nothing"
"Y R U txting me?"
"I told u I would keep in cntct if I had battery life lft in my phone. So hi."
She laughed, because she did recall him telling her that. She just didn't think it would extend quite this far, when she had just said goodnight to him and he was just down the hall.
"So u did. Hi."
"What do u want to do tomorrow?"
She thought for a moment, then got an evil little smile on her face.
"go for a long run b4 it gets too hot & then go see billy & ginny. Maybe double date?"
It was about two seconds after she pushed 'send' that she heard a scream coming from his room. Her phone beeped.
"No way. please tell me you're joking."
"joking"
"you're evil, detective."
"and you love it."
"Sweet dreams, Kate"
"Ditto, Rick"
They both placed their phones on their respective nightstands and settled into contented and peaceful slumber.
Once again, sorry it took so long for this chapter. Thanks so much for sticking with me and the story!
A note about the 'tallywhacker': I heard it on an episode of 'Cops' once...the cop arrested some drunk guy and the guy had his pants unzipped and...um... So the cop says "Sir, you got your tallywhacker hangin' out there. Put your tallywhacker in and zip your pants." I just about fell off the chair laughing. It was so unexpected, and the word was great. So I just had to resurrect it.
Anyway, thanks for reading, and please review! I love to read what you think, what you like, and what you don't. Thanks in advance!