Christmas Island

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Merry Christmas to all of us who don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: An AU Christmas.

Captain Kate Beckett's feet hurt. She was getting the mother of all headaches. She was sweaty. She was tired. She was very unhappy.

New York City was suffering through the eleventh day of a heat wave that saw temperatures above 100 degrees each day. In addition, a transit strike had been in effect for eight days. There was not a city bus or subway running in the city. That meant that every cab in New York, every car service, and every private car, were out on the streets, and every one of the million commuters who came to the city every day were using their own cars. The result was gridlock.

Kate had been able to ride her Harley for the first three days of the strike until some moron with out of state plates had trashed her ride. Luckily, Castle knew a guy, but it would take time to fix her '94 Soft Tail.

As the precinct's captain, Kate could have had a police motorcycle take her to and from work, but the force was so overworked due to the strike that Kate wouldn't do that.

So, she walked to and from work.

At last, she turned onto Broome Street and saw the loft straight ahead. She gratefully walked into the air-conditioned lobby and waved at Eduardo, the doorman. Then she went up in the elevator and walked to her front door.

There are some things that you don't expect to see when you walk in your home. There are some things you do expect to see. One thing that she had become expected to see in her living room were three seven-foot-tall wolflike extraterrestrials, lounging around like they owned the joint.

Kate did notice that they were not wearing their usual clothing, dark, double breasted suits with black shirts and white ties, with fedoras pulled down over their eyes and suspicious bulges under their left armpits. Rather they had on flip-flops, Bermuda shorts, very loud Aloha shirts, aviator sunglasses and white Panama hats. Each had a drink in one massive hand.

The three shot to their feet.

"How's t'ings. Miz Castle?" Asked Buggsy.

"Everyt'ing copacetic?" Enquired Muggsy.

"Youse is lookin' good." Said Puggsy.

She rolled her eyes.

"Guys, because of the transit strike I had to walk home. I'm hot, sweaty, my feet hurt, and I have a blinding headache. Whatever you want can wait until I recover."

"What is the matter with you three?" Said another voice. The speaker came out from the kitchen, dressed much like the other three, except that her Aloha shirt showed a great deal of cleavage. She had three pairs of hairy breasts.

"Oh, dat's me little sister, Huggsy." Buggsy said.

Huggsy rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"Didn't you hear the lady? Were you all raised in a barn?"

At once, Kate was picked up and whisked to a comfortable chair. Buggsy took off her shoes and began massaging her feet as Muggsy massaged her neck. Puggsy disappeared into the bar and came back with a drink for Kate.

"Dere youse goes, Miz Castle. I got youse a Vorlag margarita, made wid 250 proof Vorlag tequila."

"Puggsy, that's not possible. A 250-proof margarita would be 125% alcohol." Kate said, tasting the drink. It was good.

"Mebbe fer youse humans, but we is Vorlags."

Kate thought about that. Vorlags were renowned as the galaxy's biggest party animals. You could usually tell when Vorlags were around by the aroma of Vorlag alcohol and the sound of bass voices singing, "Who Let the Vorlags out? (Woof, woof.)".

As the famous human astronaut, John Chrichton, had once said: One Vorlag is a problem; two Vorlags are a party; three Vorlags are a Mardi Gras; four Vorlags are a riot; and five Vorlags are the end of civilization as we know it.

Kate was surprised that in spite of the Vorlags' massive hands, the massage of her feet and neck was quite gentle and effective. The drink also seemed to be curing her headache. She was feeling much, much better.

"So, what are you doing here in New York?" She asked.

Before she got an answer, Buggsy began sniffing the air.

"Youse's main squeeze is jist enterin' da lobby. An' he has youse's mudder in law an' Alexis wid him."

Quickly, Puggsy headed for the bar to make more drinks. He came out with a tray of three Vorlag margaritas just as Rick, Martha and Alexis came through the door.

"We made youses' some drinks." Buggsy said as Puggsy handed out the drinks.

"Pumpkin, you shouldn't be drinking." Rick said.

"Daddy. I'm an adult. You know I drink."

"Yeah, but Vorlag alcohol is especially…"

"Good." Martha finished for him.

Rick knew when he was beaten.

"So, what are you guys doing in town?" he asked.

"Da Boss, Don Vorleone sent us."

Don Vorleone, the Vorlagfather, was an entrepreneur to the very tips of his well-manicured claws. Upon discovering that Earth ice cream was a luxury product on the other side of the galaxy, he immediately made…um, arrangements, to procure a source. Alas, all did not go well with the good Vorlagfather's business. Some governments put up unfairly high tariff walls to protect their own very inferior ice cream industries and some even forbade the sale of ice cream. This made Don Vorleone very sad. This was not the free enterprise system as he understood it.

Worse, the good Don discovered that the enforcement of these very unfair rules was put in the hands of scandalously underpaid civil servants who could hardly afford bad, locally made ice cream, let alone experience the luxury of genuine Earth ice cream. Feeling sorry for these poor people, Don Vorleone generously arranged for their salaries to be topped up to a reasonable amount. In addition, the good Don made his deliveries in specially built, very fast ships known colloquially as "ice cream boats." Occasionally, some sort of miscreants would try to stop the ice cream deliveries, but Don Vorleone's boats always outran them.

And so, all were happy. Well, except for a few upper-level bureaucrats, but when are they ever happy?

"What does Don Vorleone need?" Rick asked. "I see you're dressed rather informally."

Da Boyz, as they were known, were customer relation experts with Don Vorleone's ice cream empire. If there was a problem someplace, Da Boyz straightened things out. Usually horizontally.

"Da Dapper Don is getting' ready for his annual Children's Christmas Party an' he thought he might hold it on Earth. Someplace kinda quiet. We wuz thinkin' maybe in Kokomo."

"Kokomo?" Rick said.

"Like da song." The three then began to sing.

"Aruba, Jamaica, ooh, I wanna take ya,

"Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama,

"Key Largo, Montego, baby, why don't we go-

"Off the Florida Keys,

"There's a place called Kokomo,

"That's where you wanna go to get away from it all."

"We thought dat would be perfec' if you'se could help us out." Buggsy said.

"Guys, I'm afraid Kokomo is fictional. It's from a movie called Cocktail. "

"Really?" Said Buggsy, obviously disappointed.

"So, we kin go to me first choice." Puggsy said happily. "Margaritaville."

Rick spoke before Da Boyz could start singing again.

"I'm afraid there is no Margaritaville. It's just in a song, although there are Margaritaville restaurants. But you guys would kind of stand out."

"We din't have no third choice." Muggsy said.

"It's okay. We have more than six months until Christmas."

"We got two weeks." Buggsy said.

"Two weeks? How is that possible? Is the Vorlag calendar that different from Earths?"

"No, we jist liked Christmas so much dat we have one every t'ree months. June Christmas will be here in no time. An' da liddle kids will be so disappointed."

"Don't you know a guy?" Kate asked Rick.

"A guy who can find a place for a bunch of hard partying Vorlags? I'm afraid that's even beyond me."

Kate just smiled.

"Luckily, I know a gal. Can you go get your satellite phone?"

"Who are you calling?"

"You'll see."

Rick got the phone and Kate called.

"Simone, are you still on your island?"

"Oui, Kate. Would you like to visit?"

"We had more than that in mind. Do you remember Sam Spade Vorlag, the private eye from San Francisco?"

"The Vorlag? Oh, yes. He is such a droll fellow. Does he need help on a case?"

Kate explained to Simone what they needed.

"Oh! A Christmas party for young Vorlags? But of course. They can come to my island, and you'll come as well along with your family?"

"I doubt that I'll be able to come. As the precinct captain I'll be too busy, but everyone else will be there, including Don Vorleone and his peeps."

"How will you get here?" Simone asked.

"Curly can use the transporter on the Aluminum Corvair." Buggsy answered.

In a few minutes the arrangements were made.

"Your friend Simone has her own island?" Rick asked.

"Sure." Kate replied. "She's richer than we are, Castle. She's a three-hundred-year-old vampire and is very smart and has invested wisely her whole life. Every once in a while. she just needs to be by herself. So, she bought an island in French Polynesia. She has a lovely home on it and I'm sure Don Vorleone can provide anything else we'll need."

"Da Boss will be happy to oblige." Buggsy said.

"There really are vampires?" Huggsy asked. "I thought that was just some Earth legend."

"There are and many of them are bad people. Luckily, there aren't many vampires and Simone is the nicest, sweetest person you'd ever want to meet. There's one thing, though. She looks a lot like me. Some people can't tell us apart."

The next day, Curly, the teenage genius Vorlag, arranged to beam Kate to her job.

"Are you sure this will work, Curly?" Kate asked. "You're all the way on the far side of the Moon at Don Vorleone's base there?"

"No problem, Mrs. Castle. I already beamed a tiny drone to an alleyway just around the corner from your precinct. As soon as no one's around, I'll beam you there."

"I sure hope…" Kate began but didn't finish the sentence since she was in the alley.

She got to her office feeling fresh and happy. Then she began her paperwork.

"Beckett." Espo said, sticking his head inside her office. "It's the Arliss brothers."

"Damn it. Which bank did they hit this time?"

"The three of them just stumbled into the police garage downstairs, dead drunk. They have cash from their robberies on them and weapons, although all of them are unloaded."

"They staggered into the 12th Precinct drunk?"

"We're taking them to holding as we speak." Espo said.

"That's got to be the oddest bust we've ever made." Kate said.

"I may be able to top that." Ryan said. "A patrol car heard shots and found some guy holding a pistol and a bunch of shot up garbage cans behind a deli. They took him in and ran his prints. Guess who we got?"

"No idea." Kate said.

"Eugene Tedesco."

"The fugitive financier who ran off with five hundred million dollars of his clients' money ten years ago and disappeared. No way?"

"Way." Ryan said. "And he was carrying ledgers which seem to indicate where all of his ill-gotten gains are parked."

"That's the weirdest coincidence I've ever heard of." Kate said, beginning to wonder if this was coincidental.

It just got more bizarre.

"Beckett, we got another one." Roz Karpowski said.

"What is it now?"

"The Hotel Rapist has been caught. He used a stolen master card key to get into a woman's room at the Sandler, tied her hands and blindfolded her. Then for some reason he took off all of his clothes and took her downstairs in an elevator. Hotel security grabbed him at once."

TBC