Medieval Madness

A Fantasy story around the season five time frame. What happens to Rick and Kate when they decide to attend a Renaissance Festival? Sounds like it should be fun, but things never turn out to be as expected.

All normal disclaimers apply

A/N: Haven't posted anything in a while. This just kind of happened, and just kept growing. It was supposed to be something short and quirky. Didn't happen that way. It's ten chapters and an epilogue. Go figure

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CHAPTER ONE

Rick Castle was bored. Kate was at work, but it was a paperwork day so there was no case to demand any of his attention. Yes, he had edits to work on for the latest Nikki Heat book, but he wasn't in the mood. He needed some excitement.

He got up and walked into the kitchen to find a snack to distract himself from what he should be doing. With a Popsicle in his hand he moved into the living room and grabbed the paper off the coffee table where it got left earlier.

He sat on the couch and flipped through the entertainment section because he was hoping there would be something in there that might allow him a justifiable reason to not be working.

Since Kate knew he had edits to do he didn't expect her to drop by after work this evening which caused more than a small pang of wanting. Now that they were in an acknowledged relationship he found it that much harder to be without her.

For him, his feelings for her hadn't changed at all. But it was nice to have her around more often and not trying to hold him at arm's length while she fought her own demons and fears.

Once he knew how great things could be together he found that whenever they weren't together it felt like he was missing something. And he was, her. It was like he always knew it would be. Together they were incredible. It was that simple.

He flipped the pages of the paper as he finished off his Popsicle when suddenly his eyes were captivated by a large advertisement.

"All right, this is perfect!" He leapt to his feet.

The ad stared up at him from its place on the table while he fist pumped his luck. In bold print was an advertisement "The Renaissance Festival. Find your inner medieval knight and princess" the headline proclaimed.

Rick hurried to his bedroom and threw open the closet door, but then stopped. A frown came over his face. His sword collection was now kept down in the storage room, buried behind a lot of boxes of seasonal clothing that had gotten moved to make room for Kate to keep some of her stuff in his closet here at the loft.

He closed the closet door. He'd decide on that later. Maybe he'll use the trip to the Festival as a good reason to get a new sword, and maybe one for Kate too.

His mind went immediately to whether it would be a tough sell to get Kate to want to go. Would she have the time? The Festival would be set up at the old fair grounds for two full weeks, so she must have a day or two off during that time.

Suddenly the opening of the front door catches his attention. He's surprised because he wasn't expecting either his mother or his daughter today. And it definitely was too early for Kate to drop by on her way home. He hadn't even been expecting her at all.

Castle stepped out into the main room in time to see a tall woman with long dark curls flowing down her back close the door. She was startled when she turned around.

"Ah, hi." She blushed a cute pink burn to her cheeks. "I'm sorry to disrupt you when you have so much work to do, but I couldn't help myself."

A huge smile creased Castle's face.

She began to move toward him. "Call me a sap, but I just had to have a hug and a kiss from you before I went home to spend a boring night in my apartment."

They met in the middle and said hello to each other without words, but both were short of breath once they'd stepped back. Also, both had big grins on their faces.

Rick put his arm around her waist and directed her to the couch. "Not a very exciting day I take it?"

Kate rolled her eyes. "A whole new definition of boring." She leaned her head on his shoulder as they navigated sitting down on the couch. "We had all our paperwork caught up before lunch, and so I pulled some cold case files to occupy ourselves for the rest of the day."

She nibbled on his ear. "I hope you're day was more productive than mine."

Rick didn't want to admit that he'd been day dreaming much of the time so he avoided any actual answer.

"It was okay."

Kate smiled. "That's good because I have some possible good news."

He returned the smile. "Good news is always appreciated."

"Because we are all caught up, and things are a bit slow right now, Gates gave us the next two days off."

"Really!"

She nodded. "And I was just thinking, that if you've gotten caught up enough, I thought we might do something together those two days."

Rick kissed the side of her head. "We can start right now with a little fooling around, then dinner, then more fooling around, then a good night's sleep because I have the perfect idea for the first day you have off."

Kate leaned back and gave Rick a suspicious look. "Did you get your edits done? Or are you just looking for an excuse to procrastinate doing them."

He nodded. "Yes."

She frowned. "That's not really an answer to my question."

"Sure it is." He grinned his little boy smile. "I got some edits done. And I was looking for an excuse to get you to go to the Festival with me sometime." He grabbed the paper and unfolded it to the advertisement he'd been perusing just a few minutes ago.

Kate looked at the ad and a slight frown came over her face.

"I'm not sure that I'm the right girl for stuff like this. I don't really identify with historical stuff. I've always been more interested in the future." She grinned. "I'm more space ships and blasters, then I am with swords and castles."

She quickly gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Well, except for one certain Castle." She smirked.

Rick tossed the paper back on the coffee table and quickly hustled into his bedroom. Kate just frowned as he disappeared from her sight. Fortunately, Rick was back in mere moments holding a key on a large key chain.

"Follow me." He didn't wait for an answer. Rick just went to the front door and was already down the hall and in front of the elevator by the time Kate was able to shut the door behind them and had caught up with Castle.

"Where are we going?" She asked as she stepped in next to him.

"You'll see." He just smirked back at her.

The trip to the basement garage level took less than two minutes. They exited into the loft's tenet parking. Kate spotted the red Ferrari parked next to Castle's Mercedes. He ignored both of them as he made a beeline toward a hallway set in the middle of the back wall of the garage. Once through that doorway into the hallway Kate could see multiple padlocked doors along each side.

Castle walked up to the last door on the right side of the hall and used the key he'd brought with him to unlock the padlock. He pulled the lock off and flipped the latch. The door opened with a simple twist of the door knob.

Kate knew that Castle had storage space in the basement garage but was surprised at the size of his storage space. This was New York where space was a precious commodity. She could only imagine what Rick had to pay to have storage space this large.

The room was a typical concrete block rectangle, but she was used to the closet sized storage that was rented for exorbitant prices in this city. Castle had to have over a 100 square feet of storage. She could only imagine what he had to pay for it. On second thought, she couldn't imagine what he had to pay for it.

Castle avoided the many boxes that were stacked everywhere someone might look and moved directly for a nice wooden cabinet tightly nestled in one corner of the room. Rick walked up to it and spun a combination lock on the front of the cabinet.

Just for fun Kate tried to guess what the combination Rick dialed from the movement of his hand. She couldn't be sure, but she would almost bet that the combination was her birthdate.

He pulled open the two polished mahogany doors and reveled several swords hanging on the back of the cabinet. She walked up behind him and goggled at the number of swords he possessed.

"Wow, Castle, I knew you and Alexis used to fence when she was younger, but I never knew you were so obsessed with swords." She leaned against his back as she looked over his shoulder. "Are any of them collectible pieces?"

Castle gave Kate a grin. "Most are recreational fighting swords, but I have a couple that are considered collectible pieces." He pulled one off its hanger. "This rapier was made in the late 1300's by a renowned sword smith." He shrugged. "I'm afraid to have it appraised because I don't want to find out how much it might be worth."

"Why not? She frowned. "I'd think you'd want to know."

Rick shook his head. "It would destroy the fantasy that the sword represents." He chuckled at the confused look on her face. "If I knew how much it was worth as a collectible it would no longer be one of my cool swords. Instead it would become part of my investment portfolio."

Castle's gaze took in all the steel hanging from their individual hangers. "There's probably one or two more than would fetch a good price at an auction, but I'd never sell them unless absolutely necessary."

Kate stepped closer and gave Castle's collection a good perusing. "I have to admit there is something pretty cool about them, babe."

"We should cross swords sometime. It's really pretty good exercise." Castle smirked.

Kate shook her head, her mane swinging back and forth. "I think I'll pass. I was never a blade person. I was pretty good with the baton during my police training but I never used a knife for anything except cutting rope or twine." She shrugged. "I was also pretty good with the long staff that was mostly used for crowd control."

Rick cocked his head. "I've never heard of the NYPD using a staff."

Kate chuckled. "It's not generally considered part of the typical officer equipment. It's basically a six or seven foot oak staff, about two inches in diameter that was usually only used to help control mobs and angry crowds." She grinned.

"I got to use one a couple of times when I was on riot duty and had to help contain a horde of drunken college kids who decided to protest about something I don't remember, and I doubt if they did either. Things got a bit out of hand and we were called in to defuse the situation." She nodded her head. "I got pretty good at swinging that long pole around and forcing unruly drunks away from their intended targets."

Castle grinned. "I can just imagine you standing your ground with a six foot oak staff and trying to calm the crowd before things got out of hand."

He put his arm around her shoulders. "What do you say to going to the Renaissance Festival with me tomorrow?" He gave her a squeeze. "It will be fun." He began to flail his hand around to emphasize his words. "There will be a lot of cool stuff there, not just swords. There will be re-creations of all sort of medieval times. Stuff like how they lived, and what the different classes of people did. From the farmers and their implements, the merchant class, all the way up to the nobility and the opulence they flaunted."

Kate had a sly smile on her face. "Oh Castle, I don't know. It sounds kind of boring to me." She bit down on her lip to hide her smirk.

"We'll be able to watch a real jousting match!" He gave her his best puppy dog pout. She almost laughed. "If they have any sword fighting matches, I can show you my prowess with the blade."

Kate hid her smile as she rolled her eyes. "And you want to do this tomorrow?"

"Yes!" He was like a kid wanting to go to the circus. "Here's what we can do." He took a deep breath. "You run home and pick out some sturdy casual clothes. The kind you'd wear at an outdoor picnic. Something you could see yourself doing physical things in." He gave her a big smile. "I'll even teach you how to sword fight."

She raised her brow.

"Then you can come back here, and I'll make us a nice dinner after which we can go to bed early so we are well rested before we go in the morning."

Kate laughed. "You really think that if we go to bed early that we'll spend that time 'resting'?"

Castle locked the storage room door, then turned and took her hand. "Well, whatever we decide to do. I'm sure we'll enjoy it."

He led her to the elevator and they headed back up to the top floor.

Once they were in front of the door to the loft. Kate stopped them.

"Well, if I'm going to get home and find the necessary clothes for tomorrow and then come back for dinner. I'd best be going now." She leaned in and gave him a sweet kiss. "I'll be back in about an hour."

He nodded his head. "Perfect, I'll have something hot and ready by the time you get back. And I'm not only talking about dinner." He waggled his brows.

She rolled her eyes then turned back toward the elevator. "When I get back I'll be expecting to be treated like a princess, and be waited on hand and foot for the rest of the evening."

Castle bowed deeply. "Your wish will be my command, milady."

Kate chuckled and shook her head as she stepped into the elevator that had just arrived.

"I'll count the minutes until you return." Rick placed his hand over his heart.

Kate stuck her head out before the doors could close. "I'd rather you worked on preparing our dinner."

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Kate finished stuffing the clothes she planned to wear tomorrow in her overnight go bag. It's not like she didn't have any clothes over at the loft, but she didn't have what she wanted to wear to the Festival currently there.

She wanted something comfortable but could handle a day of wandering around hard packed dirt and the occasional patch of uncut grass. So she checked the weather report which was favorable. Mostly sunny with temperatures in the upper sixties, and modest breezes.

So she packed one of her favorite pairs of jeans. They were worn to a comfortable softness, but hadn't yet worn through anywhere. She also packed an old T shirt that she'd had for some time but hadn't worn in years. Considering that they were going to a medieval festival she thought that her shirt would be appropriate since it displayed the sometime Marvel Comics Avenger, Dane Whitman the Black Knight.

She also grabbed her zippered hoodie which she could leave open or zip it up if the breeze became too cool later in the day. She'd wear her high top tennis shoes over a thick pair of socks. As far as underwear or anything like that, she already had those at the loft.

Kate made sure that she had any kind of make-up she might need, but she doubted she'd really need much. She could just restock what she had in the en suite bathroom. It was just a one day casual date of sorts. If it didn't rain she'd be fine, and there was no forecast that would indicate that rain would be a problem.

Satisfied that she had what she needed, Kate grabbed her keys, stepped out into the hallway, and turned back to lock her door behind her. As kitschy as this outing was going to be, she was actually looking forward to it.

Of course, she liked doing things that were just her and Castle.

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Rick had pulled the door open before Kate had time to put her key in the lock.

"What? Do you have a camera outside your front door now?" She shook her head.

He grinned. "No, nothing like that. I had the doorman ring me when you got into the elevator. And since I know exactly how much time it takes for the elevator to reach this floor, I was able to know exactly when you'd be outside."

Kate rolled her eyes. "You stood there with your ear on the door listening for my footsteps didn't you."

Rick smirked. "Of course." He put his arm around her, took her bag and set it on the coffee table, then led her over to the kitchen island. "Dinner is almost ready, have a stool."

Kate plopped down on one of the stools and let her nose give her a clue as to what was on the menu.

"So we are eating Italian tonight?" She grinned at his surprised look.

"How'd you know?" He asked, but she just tapped her nose.

Rick shook his head. "I guess I'm never going to be able to surprise you on anything, am I."

She chuckled. "That's fine with me. Remember I don't like surprises."

He just glared at her as he dished up the lasagna. She got up and made herself a cup of coffee, and pulled a beer out of the fridge for Rick.

They ate in silence for several minutes before Kate broke the quiet.

"So, what is this Renaissance Festival that you want to drag me to?"

A big smile grew on his face. "You're going to love it. It's kind of like walking through a middle ages mall. There will be all sorts of shops and establishments that either sell or show off many of the things that one would find in a typical medieval community."

Kate frowned. "So this a just a middle ages flea market?"

"No." Rick waved his hands. "Well yes, there will be small shops that sell medieval foods and several craft booths."

Kate rolled her eyes. "Maybe some that sell swords?"

"Yeah!" Castle bounced on his stool. "But it's not all just commercial. There will be examples of various forms of entertainment, such as music and songs, or plays from that era or contests of strength or skills."

She leveled Rick with a hard stare. "Like perhaps, sword fights?"

He just grinned. "I'm hoping that there might be some jousting matches. And there might be some chances for attendees to show off their own skills."

Kate nodded knowingly. "Like sword fights?"

"Sure," he nodded. "But there are often other things. Like archery contests, and mud wrestling."

Kate had to purse her lips. "As much as I love a good mud wrestling match, I think I can skip that. Unless you want me to cheer you on?"

"I think I can skip that." He smirked. "But what about you? Maybe they'll have some contests with staffs?'

"I think I'll stay away from anything where I could become concussed." She returned his smirk. "It's been quite a while, but one summer when I was in junior high. I went to camp and we had archery contests. I got pretty good with a bow during that summer."

"See!" Rick pointed at her. "You could show off your skills with a bow."

Kate raised a brow. "It's been more than a few years since I pulled back a bowstring."

Rick leaned over and put his arm around her shoulders. "I guarantee you'll find something that will tickle your fancy."

A feral like smile creased Kate's mouth. "Oh, I can think of a few things that we could be doing right now that would tickle my fancy." She nipped at his lower lip.

Castle slipped off his stool, reached out and lifted Kate into his arms. "We'll worry about the dishes in the morning."

With his arms full of chuckling female pulchritude, Rick hustled their way to the bedroom.

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All Readers are Appreciated, Review if you wish

A/N: I have to make a confession right at the start. I do own two display swords which hang on my walls. One is a smaller fancy looking sword. Something that a noble might wear at a party of some kind. The other is a facsimile of Excalibur, with the sheath, all four feet of it.