Not From Around Here
An AU story (real AU!). Rick and Kate are married, around the seventh season time frame, no Captain, no season eight. Rick and Kate are on their way to the Hampton's for a romantic weekend when their trip is interrupted by something not from around here.
A/N: This one is a bit out there, actually it's really out there.
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"Hey babe, what's with all the luggage? We're just going out to the Hampton's for an intimate romantic weekend. Not for the entire month."
Kate was surprised at the amount of 'stuff' that Castle had set by the door, not that it wouldn't be nice to stay out at the beach home for a month. But there was the little inconvenience of the expectation of her being back to work on Monday morning. Not that Rick wouldn't be happy if she quit her job and just stayed at home with him all day, every day. But that wasn't who she was.
It was true that her mother's murder had finally been put to rest, ant the vile creature responsible for all those years of pain and heartache was rotting behind bars for the rest of his life. But being a detective, and bringing closure to other families who suffered the tragic loss of a loved one, had become important to her for its own sake. And she knew that Rick understood that.
He shouted out to her from the bedroom. "I've decided to bring some clothing that I can leave out at the beach house. That way I won't have to worry about bringing suitcases every time we go out there. You should pull some of your summer things that you can leave out there for the summer too."
Kate worried her lower lip with her teeth. "That's not a bad idea, but I don't have quite the wardrobe volume that you have such that I can leave a bunch of clothes out there all summer."
He walked out of the bedroom and shrugged his shoulders. "We can always buy you more."
She walked up to him and grabbed his head by the ears and gave him a hard kiss. "That seems to be your solution to just about anything."
He smiled. "If we have the means, no reason to not use it." He returned her kiss. "Besides, I have to keep telling you that, as my wife, you have access to all my bank accounts and can use them anytime you want or need to."
Kate just rolled her eyes. "I'm not comfortable with that idea just yet." She shrugged her shoulders. "Actually, I'm surprised that you don't already have a completely stocked closet out at the Hampton's house already."
He smirked. "I normally do, but last fall I went through the summer Hampton's wardrobe and donated most of it. Now I have to restock the closet for the coming summer days. You should go through your stuff and bring some extra clothes you can leave out there. We can replace them with new stuff when we come back home."
Kate gave her too generous husband a Beckett glare, then with a sigh, she gave up. She shook her head and walked back toward the bedroom. "Fine, but you best remember that this was your idea."
With a few more suitcases added to their loading of the car, they were off for a romantic weekend. Just the two of them, in the big house with strict orders to the rest of the family and coworkers to not try to make any contact unless a world war broke out. And then only if the enemy were heading toward the Hamptons specifically. They'd not had much in the way of alone time in weeks.
Since Kate had had to work that Friday, they didn't get out of town until later that evening. The plan was to drive for a while, then stop for a quick hit and run dinner, then continue on to the house. They figured they get there a little after dark, if they were quick about their meal.
They had found a nice local café where they were able grab a quick bite to eat. They were in and out within forty five minutes, and well satisfied with their meal.
But when they left that café to get back in their vehicle they noticed a nasty looking storm front rolling in off the ocean. The wind was picking up. They both ran out to the car.
"I hope we get to the house before this storm lets go." Kate pushed her long hair out of her face where the strengthening breeze kept tossing it.
"We've only got about another hour until we get there." Rick glanced up at the dark clouds rolling in from the southeast. "I'm afraid it looks like we might get a little wet before we get there."
They both got into the Mercedes and Rick quickly had them back on the highway. They hadn't been on the road for more than twenty minutes when the storm reached the mainland.
A howling curtain of water drenching the landscape made visibility difficult at best.
"Do you think we should pull over and wait out the storm?" Kate asked while staring out at the rolling thunderheads coming in from the ocean.
Rick glanced out toward the crashing waves and shrugged. "I'm not sure that would help. I don't know if this will let up anytime soon. Luckily, this weather has kept most of the other travelers off the road. If we take our time, but keep moving, we'll get there eventually. I rather not be just sitting around waiting for it to blow over. It could take all night." He gave her a smile. "As long as I can see where I'm going, we'll continue on." He grinned. "Just not real fast."
They been traveling slowly along the roadway which hugged the rugged shoreline. Castle was very attentive of the rocky cliff sides that followed along next to the highway. Kate refrained from speaking so as not to interrupt Rick's concentration. There was always the potential of sliding off the road with just the smallest of mistake on one of the tighter curves that the highway had too many of.
The drive for the next several minutes was a white knuckle adventure, but it seemed that the extreme nature of the storm was lessening. The wind had abated somewhat, and the ferocity of the rainfall had begun to moderate a little, but it was still a pretty heavy downpour.
Rick turned toward his stoic wife and expelled a big breath of relief.
"I think the worst is past. We shouldn't have any real problems the rest of the way."
"Look out!" Kate shouted.
Rick's head snapped back forward just as a bright glowing orb filled the front windshield as it bobbed just a few yards ahead only a few feet above the road.
Rick's instinctual reaction was to jerk the steering wheel to the right to avoid a collision with the blindingly bright globe. Unfortunately, there wasn't any room for the Mercedes on that side of the roadway.
Immediately the vehicle slid along the narrow strip of gravel right next to the pavement, then slammed into the rocky ledge. The momentum of the car was enough to allow the vehicle to ride up over those initial rocks and small boulders and then plunge down the cliff toward the waters below.
Even with both of them belted into their seats the ride down the cliffside was a rough one as the car bounced and twisted its way down toward the ocean. The Mercedes bounced and rolled down the cliffside until it finally came to rest half way into the waves.
Castle was groggy from being slammed around but was able to retain his wits. He was hanging from his seat belt and harness not quite upside down. He reached down and after a bit of a tussle was able to release his belt. He fell against the junction of the ceiling and the car door.
He shook the cobwebs out of his head and did the best to ascertain any injuries he might have suffered. He ached in a lot of places, but the absence of any decent light didn't allow him to make any visual examination of his condition.
He looked toward the passenger side of the car. He could see the dark shadow that had to be Kate. She was hanging limply from the confines of her belt and harness.
Rick called out to her. "Kate! Kate, can you hear me. Are you okay?"
There was no response and the chill of fear joined the cold of the temperature of his surroundings making it very uncomfortable. He tried to make his way toward the blob of shadow that he knew to be Kate when suddenly he was blinded by an incredibly bright light which encompassed the entire vehicle.
That was the last thing he remembered as he lost consciousness.
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Rick slowly came back to consciousness. His eyes took a little time accommodating to the blue green ambient light all around him.
He was laying on a padded table of some sort. It wasn't comfortable enough to be called a bed. It was more like a gurney, something one might find in a hospital. He wondered if that was where he was, a hospital.
He remembered seeing a bright orb floating above the highway and his reaction which put the car off the road to crash into the ocean waves that lapped against the cliffside. He had seen Kate, still buckled into her seat belt, but she seemed unconscious. Then a blinding light overwhelmed his senses and that was the last he remembered.
Now that his eyes had cleared he could see he was inside some metallic looking structure. He was in a narrow room lying on some sort of table. The walls, the ceiling, and what he could see of the floor all seemed to be formed from one massive sheet of some smooth metal. It was like it had been formed as a single piece. He couldn't see a seam anywhere. Not even the wall jutting out fairly close to his left showed any seamed connection.
Out of the corner of his eye he noticed some movement. He turned his head and nearly fell off the padded table he was on. Moving slowly toward him was…
"Ohmygod, it's an alien! It's, it's, one of those Greys that the UFO guys are always talking about."
He wanted to jump off of the table he was on, but he could feel his body being held by some invisible force. It was like he was a piece of steel being held down by a magnet. Strangely enough, it only affected his body, he could move his head back and forth with no resistance.
"Are you feeling better Mr. Castle?"
Castle's mouth dropped open. He would've sworn that the alien creature spoke to him, but the oversized head had no mouth that he could perceive. It was like the words just formed in his mind.
Rick stared at his host. The being was only about four to four and a half feet tall. Its head was as wide as his shoulders. It was bipedal with two thin arms and two skinny legs. There were only three fingers and an opposable digit on each hand. It was holding something like a tablet of some kind in its hand.
The forehead and the cranial area was large but the head quickly tapered into a small stub of a neck. And like all reports given over the years, it had two large round eyes which were completely black in color. No lids, no lashes, in fact there was no hair of any kind on the entire body that Rick could see.
Castle couldn't tell if the entity was wearing any clothing of any kind. The skin he could see on its face and hands and arms were of a mottled grey color, not unlike that of an elephant or rhinoceros. But as one followed down past the midsection the coloring got darker. Whether it was a natural skin color change, or was some sort of protective covering that couldn't be distinguished from the skin Castle had no clue. There were no obvious bulges that might be sexual organs showing.
"I can understand you?" It had taken Rick several moments to adjust, but he had finally managed enough composure to function.
"Yes, I can communicate directly with your brain. I believe on your world you call it telepathy."
"Okay." Rick took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself. "So, what happened?"
The alien being stepped a couple more steps closer. It seemed to mess with his iPad thing and Rick found that he was no longer being held by the table.
"I'm afraid that the atmospheric disturbances caused me some trouble. My craft was struck by an electrical charge created by it. The powerful discharge caused me to lose control for a short period of time. During that time my craft came very close to your ground vehicle which I assume was the reason why you lost control of your vehicle."
Castle sat up and swung his legs over the side of the table. "So you rescued us from the wreckage of my car… er, vehicle?"
"Yes, I transferred you to my craft. I'm afraid your vehicle is no longer functional."
Castle took a step toward the alien. "My wife, my wife was in the car. Is she all right!" He began to panic.
At no time since they started communicating had Castle see any facial movement that would indicate any sort of emotion, not did the voice in his mind come across as anything but monotone.
"I assume you mean the female that was in the vehicle with you." Castle nodded quickly. "Your injuries were mostly minor and I was able to have the damage corrected fairly easily. The woman… your wife, was much more severely damaged and is still being healed by the Central Intelligence of my craft."
For the first time, Castle allowed himself to make a quick check on his own physical health. He knew he'd been slammed around quite a big when the car tumbled down he cliffside, but he felt no lingering soreness or pain. In fact, he hadn't felt this good in years.
"Apparently you did a bang up job fixing me up."
"Bang up?"
Castle blushed. "That just means you did a really good job. I haven't felt this good in years."
"Well, you didn't require any replacements for damaged or worn out parts. The worst the C. I. found in you was an old injury to your knee, so those parts were repaired also. So you shouldn't have any trouble with that knee going forward."
Castle was shocked. "Ah, thanks. But what about my wife?"
The alien checked his device and moved his fingers across the screen as if checking through several pages of information.
"Your wife should be finished soon. Apparently she had a lot of old damage in several places within her that required repair or rebuilding to bring them back to peak function. Thus it took longer than with you."
Castle's mind immediately went back to all the physical injuries that Kate had suffered over the years since he'd known her. He wondered. Did this congenial alien 'fix' all of Kate's old wounds and even repair all the damage that had been done to her when she was shot at Montgomery's funeral?
Aside from the scars she had from that shooting, and other punishment she suffered at the hands of killers like Cole Maddox. He knew that Kate had suffered injuries many times in the years she was the 12th's best homicide detective.
To think that all that baggage from the past being wiped away in one fell swoop. If how his knee now felt was any indication. He was going to have trouble keeping up with Kate. She already was a decade younger than he was.
"Can I see my wife now?"
"Certainly, if you will follow me." The alien walked out of the area where Castle's table had been and turned a corner. Rick hustled after his host.
The interior of the alien's craft was remarkably larger than Rick would have thought based on the brief view he'd gotten when the bright glowing globe passed in front of him. He just shook his head. He didn't really want to know.
He followed the Grey down a short corridor, then they turned left into a room similar to the one he'd woken up in. There laying on a similar table was the love of his life. She looked peaceful.
Castle moved to the end of her table and took her hand in his. He could see her chest moving up and down so he knew she was alive and breathing.
"So, you're telling me that she will be good as new when she comes out of whatever she's under?"
"She should actually be better than new as you say. While our C. I. worked on her it was noted that her 'life force' as we call it was very weak. So it was decided to give her a small infusion of our life energies. It worked and was able to restore her to a state even more healthy than would be normal for a human. I would estimate, barring any future injuries she should be able to enjoy another four to five hundred of this planet's revolutions around your star."
Castle nodded, then stopped his eyes got real big as he turned toward the alien. "Do you mean four to five hundred years?"
The alien passed his finger across his tablet. "Yes, I believe that 'years' is the correct designation used by humans."
Castle looked down at his sleeping wife. He ran his hand through his hair.
"I'm not telling her."
FIN
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