Follow the Orange Brick Road
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: Even if we were in Kansas, Toto, I still don't own Castle. Rating: The occasional M. Time: Following I, Spy.
"I don't think even House could help with being knocked out by pricking your finger on a magic quill pen." Castle said. Then he thought of something. "Have you tried kissing him?"
"Gag me with a spoon! Ewwww!" Cried the Red Princess, making retching sounds. "Daddy hasn't brushed his teeth in seven years. Gross!"
"Do you think that'd help?" The Queen asked.
"You are the Queen of Hearts." Castle said, but quickly added. "But you might want to use some mouthwash or something on him first."
"Oi suggests ye wash his mouth wi' some foine Irish whiskey, Your Majesty."
"I'll try anything, I suppose." The Queen headed for her husband's sleeping chamber with her daughter, the Red Princess, and all the rest following her.
Richard was laying on a massive bed, covered by a silk sheet and was snoring loudly. Rick noticed that his beard appeared to be even shaggier than the one the Queen had temporarily given him.
"No change, Your Majesty." Said a palace guard, standing in the shadows.
"P'rhaps a wee bit of the creature now?" Declan said, holding out a flask.
"Or you could have some of mine." Harvey said.
"A little of the hair of the dog?" Roy asked.
"I have some here on the nightstand by my husband." The Queen picked up the decanter and swabbed Richard's mouth with it. Then she leaned in and gave him a kiss that should have aroused the dead. Nothing happened.
"It was worth a try." She said, sadly.
"Wait a minute." Castle said quickly. "We're missing something. We have the beautiful queen, the kiss….We need some magic words. What should we use…..Queen…..Kiss….Magic." Suddenly he smiled. "I know. Get ready to kiss him again when I start singing."
"When you sing?" The Queen asked, a bit confused. But Castle had already begun.
"Is this the real life?
"Is this just fantasy?
"Caught in a landslide
"No escape from reality
"Open your eyes
"Look up to the skies and see
"I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy
"Because I'm easy come, easy go
"A little high, little low
"Anyway the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me, to me."
As Castle sang, the Queen gave Richard the most passionate and loving kiss she could deliver, and could she deliver. Then, as Castle continued to sing, Richard's arms began to move. Kate, forgetting about her stage fright, began to sing with Rick.
"So you think you can stop me and spit in my eye
"So you think you can love me and leave me to die
"Oh baby can't do this to me baby
"Just gotta get out just gotta get right outta here."
"Ooh yeah, ooh yeah, "Nothing really matters,
"Anyone can see,
"Nothing really matters, nothing really matters to me,
"Anyway the wind blows."
Richard flipped the Queen over on her back and began to kiss back.
"Daddy!" Screamed the Red Princess. "You're awake!"
He stopped and looked around him. "Awake? Of course I'm awake. I just…."His hands went to his beard and shaggy hair. "Maybe I was asleep for longer than just a nap."
"Everybody out." The Queen ordered. "My husband and I are going to bathe and then I'll shave him and then….We'll do other things. Out. But, stay nearby. You need to be rewarded for this."
They were wined and dined in the palace for two days before they saw the newly crowned King and Queen again. The Queen looked a bit tired and sore, but happy. The freshly shaven and shorn King looked happy and content, and very wide awake.
"You have brought my husband back to me. Ask for anything you want and I shall grant it."
Before any of the others could speak, Kate answered the Queen. "We need to see the wizard to get him to fix Katie here." She pointed to the woman who still floated in the air among them.
"Of course. We'll take you to the wizard and have him drop everything to do as you wish." She turned to her husband and her daughter. "Both of you come with me."
"So, Alexis is your daughter?" Castle asked as they walked through the luxurious corridors of the palace. Everywhere there were rich carpets on the floors, paintings and murals on the walls, and great crystal chandeliers above them. The corridors were filled with uniformed flunkeys, who prostrated themselves when seeing the King, Queen and Princess, and colorfully dressed members of the nobility who bowed as royalty passed.
"Of course. Oh, it took a bit of magic to get her just the way we wanted, but she's lovely, is she not?"
Castle decided not to mention that she had wanted to turn him into a frog.
At last they came to a great, green room which opened onto the gardens of the palace. At one end was large desk with a bookcase behind it. A man was seated at the desk, but was faced away from them, looking through the books.
"Should we look for the man behind the curtain?" Rick asked.
"There is no man behind a curtain." The Queen of Hearts said, somewhat confused by the reference.
"Wrong wizard, I guess."
As they walked towards the wizard, the Queen spoke. "Wizard, we need your services."
The wizard turned in his chair. As soon as he saw his visitors, he smiled. "Kit Kat, is that you?"
"Rogan? Rogan O'Leary? You're the wizard?"
"In the flesh. Now, what can I do for you?"
"I need Katie here to be made well."
"Sure, no problem, but I'll need a favor from you."
"Wizard!" Said the Queen sternly. "You will do what the lady asks and do it now."
"Oh, I see. Okay, maybe you can do me that favor later, Kit Kat. And, hey, I see you brought Man Parts with you."
"He's my husband." Kate leaned forward so she could whisper in Rogan's ear. "And I will do you a favor. I won't have my good friend, Rollo the bear, tear your arms off and beat you to death with them."
"No need to get grumpy, Kit Kat." He turned back to the bookcase. "Let me just get out the old book of magic spells and….." Rogan pulled out a book and read it. "Got it. Now if you'll step out of the way? I've got magic to do."
As they stepped back, Rogan knelt by Katie and whispered a magic spell. Instantly, she opened her eyes and raised her head. "Where am I?"
Declan stepped forward. "Yer wi' us, Katie. Me an' Rollo saved you."
"With some help from some others." Rollo added.
"God, I'm starving." She tried to stand up, but fell back. "And my muscles are sore and have lost their tone."
"I'll have the Royal Chefs make some food to make you feel better." Said the Queen. She motioned to a uniformed footman and gave him orders.
"How did you ever get here, Rogan?" Kate asked. "And what ever happened to Tildy?"
"Tildy?" Rogan actually blushed. "We didn't see eye to eye on some things."
"So, how much did you steal from her?"
"Kit Kat. I'd never steal from the woman I love."
"And that's me." The Red Princess said, walking up to Rogan and kissing him.
"You're with her?" Kate asked, disbelievingly.
Rogan nodded. "I was out in the woods in upstate New York when Red here rode up on a unicorn. She said it was love at first sight for her." He quickly caught himself. "For me, too, of course. She told me to get up behind her and we'd leave."
"There was some awful monster coming." Red said, kissing Rogan again. "It was black and white, made an awful howling sound and shot colored lights all over. It was horrible."
"Imagine a monster like that chasing Rogan."
The Red Princess apparently didn't catch the sarcasm in Kate's voice.
They were interrupted by Sam Spade. "Sorry, folks, but I need to be going. My girl Friday, Effie, just called me on the old Ameche. I've got a client back in the City. Some dame wants me to find a jeweled bird."
"It's not the Maltese Falcon, is it?" Rick asked.
Sam checked his notebook. "No, it says here that it's called the Algerian Penguin."
"Is the dame named Brigid O'Shaughnessy?"
Sam again checks his notebook. "No, she's named Helga von Wittenberg."
Rick held out his hand. "Here's looking at you, Sam."
Sam laughed and shook Rick's hand. "You're good. You're really, really good."
"And be careful with the dames."
"I never met a dame yet that didn't understand a slap in the kisser or a slug from a .45."
"Woody Allen?" Rick said, surprised.
"Who?"
"Never mind, Sam. See you around."
As Sam walked away he was suddenly surrounded by fog and Rick heard La Marseilles playing softly.
"Magic." Kate whispered in his ear.
It took another day for Katie to be well enough to talk to her new friends. She sat on a couch with a blanket over her with Rick, Kate, Simone, Declan, Rollo, Harvey, Roy, Ann, and the King and Queen sitting on chairs around her.
Castle suspected that Rogan was off doing something with Alexis, the Red Princess, that he wouldn't like, but since she wasn't his Alexis, he didn't see that he could do anything except pray that a giant eagle would swoop down and carry Rogan off.
"You all want to know what happened to me and how I got here." Katie began. "I guess it starts with the election of 1936. The election was won by the American Nationalist Party. President Schiller was a huge admirer of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Anyway, there was no election in 1940 since Schiller had set up his dictatorship by then. Schiller died in 1973, but the Nationalist Party stayed in power."
"They were still in power when you, um, left?" Rick asked.
"No. When I was nineteen, a man by the name of William Bracken overthrew the Nationalists in a coup and promised to restore the old constitution as soon as the last of the Nationalists were rooted out and things were back to normal. I joined the Constabulary when I was nineteen." Seeing the blank looks, she explained. "All of the state and local police were made a part of the Federal government. They were called the Constabulary. I rose quickly through the ranks and was eventually assigned to the Internal Security Department. We were looking for traitors and Nationalist hold outs."
Kate suddenly smiled and looked at the ceiling. "Then I met Rick Castle. He wanted to write a book about an IS agent and he chose me as his muse. Before we knew it, we were lovers. And then things changed. Rick started showing me that Bracken wasn't doing things that would bring back the old constitution, but was consolidating his personal power. He intended to rule just as the Nationalists had. We fought about this, but eventually I had to admit he was right. But neither of us had any idea what to do about it."
"Then something awful happened. We raided a meeting of a dissident cell, four people. Three of them were captured but one got away, the cell leader. But I recognized her. It was my mother. She was safe, for the time being since the three other cell members didn't know who she really was, just her code name and had never even seen her face."
"As soon as I could, I talked to my mother. She told me that three associates of hers had been arrested by IS. They were convinced one of them was the cell leader. They executed all three. My mother was very afraid. She told me that if she was caught, both I and my father would be executed as a warning to others. Three days later she killed herself. My dad didn't approve of her dissident activities and had started drinking heavily before she killed herself. After she died, he fell apart. He walked out of a bar in Manhattan at 2 AM in December, was too drunk to get home and froze to death."