Time to lighten the mood and bring out the handcuffs!

Disclaimer: Not mine but it's a pleasure to be able to play with these wonderful characters.

Chapter 13

Cuffed

Kate came into her apartment, put her motorcycle helmet down, hung her coat in the cupboard and collapsed onto the sofa. Well, the last twenty four hours or so had, to say the very least, been interesting and, if she was completely honest, fun. Could being drugged, handcuffed to your partner, locked in a basement and almost eaten by a tiger ever be considered fun? Hell, yes! Kate smiled to herself, this definitely needed recording in her diary. She knew her last couple of entries had been hugely emotional and felt the need to right the balance. Nothing like being handcuffed to Castle to lighten the mood.

The first thing I remember was the feeling of waking from a really deep sleep; gradually clawing my way to reality. It was a slow process. I was comfortable, snuggled up close to a wonderful source of heat. As I opened my eyes, I had to smile; the heat source was Castle and everything just felt so right. Okay so maybe I wasn't quite fully awake at that point. As soon as I was...what the hell? Why am I in bed with Castle? Why do I have no recollection of even getting here? A thousand other questions hammered at my rather dopey brain. I needed to talk to the man himself. He began gradually to stir and in what I have to admit was an extremely sexy voice suggested I shouldn't get up yet but stay in bed. I tried a bit harder to wake him properly. He opened those gorgeous blue eyes of his, smiled and said hi. This was aggravating to say the least.

I'd realised my left hand was attached to Castle's left hand with what looked suspiciously like my police cuffs. If Castle had done this I was seriously going to shoot him. As it was, though, Castle was safe because firstly I didn't have my gun (or badge or phone or watch or anything else remotely useful) and it quickly became evident that someone else was responsible for our predicament. We looked around and I have to say the place was pretty intimidating even in the dark, or maybe especially in the dark. Neither of us could remember what had happened, in fact the recent past was a bit of a blur. We had to have been drugged. I was aware of a spot around my lower back that was sore and asked Castle to lift my shirt. What was I thinking? My only excuse is that I had just been in a drug-induced stupor. Needless to say, he complied with enthusiasm. Upon examination, though, there was a needle mark. For a moment my heart stopped and my breath caught in my throat as Castle tenderly caressed my back; my imagination ran wild, naked bodies wrapped together, touching, exploring; or is that just now as I write this down. Focus, Kate!

I hastily brought us out of the moment and prompted a discussion about what we could recall of earlier events. We'd been at a seedy motel that rents rooms by the hour. Great, that helped so much. Then we got it. We were there about a dead body, an unidentified male with his fingerprints burned off.

I wanted to get up, move around and find out a bit more about the room we were in but I was soon to discover that being handcuffed to Castle did not make that an easy task and he had the audacity to accuse me of being difficult. Trying to recall events, it appeared Castle needed to go through everything in chronological order and I mean everything, relevant or not. We remembered the postal bar code which had led us to a house in Queens. We'd gone there and found a seemingly empty property. Then we'd heard a noise almost immediately followed by a faint voice,

"Help me!"

I'd led the way into a room where we were horrified to discover an old woman sitting in a cage. That was it; that was all we had. We got into an argument, then. Castle seemed to resent the fact that, as the cop, I'm the one that tends to lead us everywhere. Well, naturally, I'm the one with the gun. Although maybe I could let him go into the occasional elevator first; I'll consider it, anyway. One thing this taught me, Castle's cranky in the morning. I let him have his way and lead for once so I didn't have to put up with a full-blown Castle sulk but Castle, ever the gentleman, simply asked me where I wanted to go. Gotta love the guy!

We found a light switch but once illuminated, the room showed no improvement although, I suppose we could at least now see how bad our situation was. The door was steel, so no way through there; the walls were cinder block. Beyond the mattress, we then saw a large chest freezer. Castle, naturally, began with the wild speculations. I, on the other hand, just wanted to know if it contained anything useful, anything that would help us get the hell out of there. I reckoned we'd been out of it for a couple of hours because I was hungry. Castle offered me some beef jerky but I'd have to be pretty damned starving before I resorted to that. I'd hoped that Martha and Alexis would have realised Castle was missing by now but he said they were on a tour of colleges so they were going to be no help. Finally, I spotted a hatch high above us. There would be no way we could reach it unless we were able to stand on something pretty large and there it was, staring us in the face, the freezer.

That was all well and good but the freezer was in totally the wrong place and when we tried to move it we discovered that it was way heavier than the little old lady whose body we'd considered might have been in there. We pushed at it, tried to use the wall as leverage, all to no avail. We couldn't get at the right angle so Castle came up behind me to help, his lower body way closer to my ass than would normally be acceptable. I told him that he'd better not be enjoying it; fact is, I was thoroughly enjoying the sensation and, after a moment, I was very well aware that, in spite of my warning, so was he.

We couldn't shift it, though. Castle was convinced he could open the combination lock. He'd studied with an expert safe-cracker when writing Storm Rising. Of course, he had, why should I be surprised. I settled at his side, against the freezer, while he worked on the lock. Now patience is not usually Castle's strong suit but in this instance, mine wore out first. He'd been at it for ages and getting nowhere. My left arm was pulled across my throat and my shoulder was aching. I'd had enough. He gave me my hand back so I could relax for a bit while we discussed our predicament. Even the ever-optimistic Castle was struggling to come up with a happy ending but as soon as he realised that I was beginning to lose hope, he reminded me that they guys at the precinct would be looking for us by then. That was enough for me so I figured it was time for Castle to get cracking again. It's really strange how I seem to be picking up Castle's habits, including coming out with terrible puns!

Well, what do you know, he actually did it. He opened the lock. I think he was as surprised as I was when he pulled down and it clicked open. The next question was, did we really want to know what was in there? If we wanted to move it, we needed to empty it and in order to empty it, we'd just have to suck it up and open the damned thing. We'd both seen plenty of dead bodies and countless gruesome sights, how bad could it be?

As it turned out, pretty bad. Not gruesome, bad, just hellishly scary, bad!

The body of the freezer was packed with chains and manacles, while the inside of the lid held a vast array of bloodstained knives. Frankly, it looked like a torturer's tool box and served as great motivation to get the hell out of there.

Once we'd emptied the freezer and moved it into place below the hatch, it was obvious that we'd still have to get creative but we'd been in this same situation not long ago during the Ghostbusters case. (Yeah, I know it was Ghost Wranglers but that's just how I think of it!) As I suggested climbing on Castle's shoulders, he didn't appear too impressed with the prospect and pointed out that we'd not been handcuffed together the last time. Well, okay, so that did create an added complication but I was confident. He wasn't overly impressed by my footwear, either; last time I'd been wearing sneakers and, yes, this time I had on a pair of my favourite heeled boots. I really don't know what his problem was, he only need to ask me to take them off. As it turned out, taking a pair of boots off while handcuffed to another person, is not easy and I needed Castle's assistance which led to more fantasizing on his part, of course; the thought of Castle lifting my shirt and taking off my boots may just have been creating fantasies of my own as well, but I'll always deny it if asked!

Okay, now the first time I tried getting up on his shoulders was an unmitigated disaster. We had to find an easier way. I thought if I tried it from behind, that might work better. I really must think before I open my big mouth around Castle – oh, God, even that sounded wrong – because, naturally, he manages to find sexual innuendo in what I intend to be perfectly innocent comments. Maybe my comments are not always so innocent, but in this particular case, it was.

The second attempt proved much more successful and I managed to reach the hatch with my fingertips, just enough to realise that it was actually unlocked. Unfortunately, at that precise moment, the hatch opened, which was enough to upset our precarious balancing act and, before we knew it, we were both flat on our backs on the floor having, very luckily landed on the mattress. We stared up at the man who was, I guess, our jailer but he just looked down at us and grinned. The bastard grinned.

Castle tried to use one of the knives to cut through the cuffs but that was a none-starter, NYPD cuffs are only designed to be opened with a key, they'd be pretty damned useless otherwise. I was more than a little perturbed when he suggested cutting my hand off, hopefully he wasn't serious. What the hell? He'd better not have been.

At that point, we heard footsteps and voices beyond the door. As we listened intently, we could tell someone was speaking what sounded like Arabic, or some similar language. They seemed to be talking as though they were trying to do a deal to sell something or someone. That was it! They were human traffickers. It appeared they had someone else in the next room, a young girl by the sound of it and I felt an urgent need to help her; to let her know that we were there and that she was not alone in her ordeal.

Once the traffickers had left, I tapped on the wall, trying to attract the attention of the girl. While doing so, some of the brickwork fell away and revealed stucco tile. Now that was something we might be able to break through. Castle was dubious about the benefit of breaking from one prison to another but when I asked him what he'd do if it was Alexis on the other side, he was with me one hundred percent. We started attacking the wall.

Having worked with knives for a while, we figured we'd be able to make better progress with our feet. Castle and I have always worked well as a team and this was no exception. After a few minutes concentrated kicking, we broke through. Castle gave me yet another moment of sheer pleasure when he told me he'd always liked my legs and now he respected them. Come on, it's a great feeling when the guy you're in love with tells you he likes your legs. I made a joke about doing the three-legged race at the next police picnic which he was very quick to agree to, what a surprise!

We got no response from the next room so Castle, after checking if I wanted to go first, an offer I was willing to decline for once, managed to get his head through the hole we'd made. Then disaster struck. He backed out of the hole quicker than I've ever seen him move before, leaving me a clear view of the problem – a fully grown, extremely hungry-looking tiger. Yep, that's it, a tiger.

So there we were, we'd just made a hole into the next cell which we now discovered held a tiger. At least the hole wasn't tiger-sized. Or so we thought. As it turned out, a hungry tiger can make a hole tiger-sized pretty quickly. At least we now knew what was going on, not human trafficking but trafficking in endangered species. Sometimes answers are not particularly helpful to the situation and this was a case in point. We now do know that tigers like beef jerky. Castle threw the jerky into the other room to try to buy us some time. It worked – for about five seconds.

Yes, I admit it, I was terrified. I can face down an armed villain with no problem but this, this was beyond scary. We tried to push the freezer across to block the hole but there was no way we could get it there in time. We needed another option. I'll give Castle his due, he was very cool under pressure and also very protective. I appreciated that. His final plan, though? It did buy us a little more time at least. We managed to man-handle the freezer onto its end and climb on top just as the tiger made it into the room. I'm still not quite sure how we found the strength to do that but it's amazing what an incentive imminent death can be.

The tiger seemed to be enjoying the game but we knew it wouldn't be long before hunger took over; nor would it take the cat long to topple the freezer once it decided to do so. We had one option left. We screamed for help as loud as we possibly could. Suddenly, the hatch opened and I have never been happier to see Ryan and Esposito. However, as quickly as they noticed our predicament, the hatch slammed shut again. We had no idea what had just happened but it appeared that rescue was not immediately to hand after all. The situation was now desperate. Castle was holding my hand so tightly. He was out of ideas but I had not survived a bullet to the heart to be eaten by a tiger.

Just as the tiger gave its final leap to knock over our refuge, we grabbed for the bars just above our heads and by the time Ryan opened the hatch again, we were hanging, like a couple of monkeys fifteen feet above the prowling beast. The boys helped us out and we watched as the traffickers were rounded up by Gates and the back-up officers. The ordeal was over but not quite the story.

Back at the precinct, Agent Martinez debriefed us about the case, after which it was finally time to go home but not before Castle and I had a very interesting conversation. I am certain Castle said,

"After that experience, if I ever have to be hitched to someone, it would be you."

Now there's an interesting thought. Naturally, he tried to backtrack, deny that was what he'd said, but I know what I heard and I can't say the idea doesn't have its merits. I had the perfect comeback, though. After all, I've always known how to tease Castle.

"For what it's worth, if I ever have to spend another night handcuffed to someone again I wouldn't mind if it was you, either."

That was okay as far as it went but I just had to add the next comment,

"The next time, let's do it without the tiger."

As I walked away, I heard Castle say,

"Next time?"

My implication was slowly permeating. I gave him my best enigmatic look, trying desperately not to laugh although, truth be told, I wasn't actually joking.

Kate put the diary down and grinned as she suddenly had a very vivid picture in her mind which involved a certain ruggedly handsome writer, a damaged but rapidly healing NYPD detective, a bed, a set of handcuffs and very few clothes. She headed for the bathroom and a shower, a very cold shower.