169. Chapter 169

After The Fifth Bullet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I'm sure you know what I'd get if I claimed to own Castle. Rating: M Time: See above.

She woke up because she could sense that she was now in bed alone. This had never happened before she was with him. Proof, she thought, that they were meant to be together. She slid her hand over his side of the bed. It was still fairly warm. He hadn't been gone long. She slid out of their bed and walked out into the living room. She smiled when she saw the dim light in his office. He was writing. She glanced at the clock on the stove. It was 3:12 AM. What had prompted him to write at this hour?

She walked barefoot across the living room and peeked into his office. He was staring intently at his laptop and was typing.

"Have a sudden burst of inspiration?" She asked.

He didn't slow his typing, but he smiled. "Just had an idea in my sleep. It woke me up and I decided I'd better get the idea down before it went away."

"Does that happen often?" She asked. "I don't like you sneaking away from me like that."

He looked up at her, his smile broadening. "I don't like to be away from you at all. And this only happens every couple of years or so. I think the last time it happened was when Alexis moved in with what's his name."

"Pi." She said, laughing. "You do remember his name was Pi."

He nodded. "Back then, I had this great idea for a fruititarian international terrorist. He was going to fall into an industrial strength blender and become a smoothie."

She made a face. "Sounds gross."

He shrugged. "Yeah, somehow I didn't like it myself."

She walked over and sat on the arm of his chair, allowing her thigh to slide along his arm. She was wearing only an old tee shirt of his. "What are you writing?"

"It's something for a Nikki Heat book, but I don't know where it'll go yet. There's no place for it in the current book and I have some ideas for the next one, but I don't see where it'll fit there either. I have a lot of these. Story ideas, little vignettes, scraps of conversations, situations and what not. A lot of them never make it into any of the books, but I write them down just in case."

"What is it, then?" She asked. Looking over his shoulder, making sure her boob rubbed against his shoulder.

"It's based on an old case of ours. Nikki finds this woman walking around near a murder scene. She's suffered a really bad blow to the head and has amnesia. She has no ID and has no idea who she is. But she has a dog with her. The dog is the only one who knows who she is, but he's not all that good at communicating."

"Jeremy Prestiwck, from the Victor Fink murder case. I remember that one."

"That's why you make the big bucks as a detective."

She leaned over further and read what he had written.

He loved her more than anything. More than life itself. He would do anything that he could for her, but he didn't know what to do. He could tell that she was upset. She was more upset than even the time that the human male had tried to hurt her. He remembered growling at the male and making him run. He knew that it had been recently, but his grasp of time was not good. All that he could do was to lay his head on her leg and push his cold nose against her hand. He wished he could do more. Mostly he wished he could leave this place, and, although the people seemed nice, he knew he wanted to go home. He was a good dog and he wanted to go home.

"You have one friend, at least." Detective Heat said, patting the dog lightly on the head. "There's no dog tag, but he has the name Sweet engraved on his collar. Does that ring a bell?"

The woman shook her head. "Sweet? No, I can't say that it does. But I almost feel like I know him. Like he's not a dog I'm taking care of for someone else. Then again, I just don't know."

Rook smiled at the woman. "So, you think maybe he has a chip embedded in him? A lot of dogs do. Maybe animal control can try to find one."

The woman held Sweet closer. "I don't want him to go to some animal shelter. He's all I've got.'

Rook smiled. "That's not all you've got. You have Detective Nikki Heat, the best homicide cop in all the world on your side."

Kate smiled. "Aw, Castle. That's sweet." She kissed the top of his head. "But I'm surprised that Rook doesn't speak fluent dog. He should have this solved by now." She teased.

"I'll have you know that Rook speaks fluent German Shepherd, but Sweet is an Irish wolfhound. We'll have to get Raley to come in and see if he can translate."

"What's this?" Kate asked, pointing to a file called "bedroom scenes." She tapped it and read.

I slid my tongue into the hot, wet cave that is Kate's mouth. One hand lightly twisted her nipple into hardness and the other stroked her perfect ass. She moaned into my mouth. "Now, Rick. I need you so badly." I took my hand off of her boob and slid it through her curly pubic hair, finding her erect…"

"Castle!" She said angrily. "What the hell do you think you're doing? What goes on in our bedroom is not for public consumption! Delete this and delete it right now."

"Honey! It's for a scene with Nikki and Rook. I just use our names to get into the proper mood. You know no one turns me on like you do. I think…"

"I think you should delete it right now!" The tone of Kate's voice told Rick he had no choice.

"Deleting now." He said, deleting the file.

"Do you have any other like that?" She demanded.

"No. Of course not."

"What's this?" She demanded.

"Nothing!" He squeaked, pulling the laptop away from her.

"Castle, I want to see it. Now."

He opened the file.

"What is it?"

"Every year there's a Bad Imitation Ernest Hemingway Writing Contest. I was thinking of entering a while ago." He grimaced. "Please don't read it."

"If I don't read it, Castle, you'll have trouble remembering what my curly pubic hair feels like."

"Okay." He said, defeated.

Kate smiled. She read.

Kilimanjaro is a big mountain, 19,410 feet high, and that's not counting the TV transmitter. The summit, marked by a single welcome mat, is called "Mmble-Br!nxp," the Stepladder to the Attic of God. Close to the summit are the frozen remains of an Impala. No one has explained why anybody would drive a gas guzzling sedan up a mountain. Tourists!

He had come with the woman to Kilimanjaro to gather ideas for some dirty limericks he was writing. The woman had suggested, in the aristocratic manner of the rich, that living on a diet of dried bark and dirt would toughen something inside him that had gone soft and prevented him from creating. Instead it softened him further, and now he was dying of severe acne complicated by writer's block.

"Why is he waiting there?" He asked. The figure had been there for days. "Does he smell the stench of death?"

The woman said, "More likely he smells your poetry."

Bongo, the faithful gun bearer, said, "It is the nature of the Perlmutter to come to death."

"Bongo. Get the Mosin-Nagant. I will shoot the Perlmutter. He will die well."

Bongo sighed. "There are no bullets for the Mosin-Nagant."

"I obscenity in the Mosin-Nagant." He growled. Then. "I remember the lions."

"The Lions of Detroit?" She asked.

"They played the futbol well." He said sadly.

"In the rain." Said the woman.

"In the rain we were strong." He said.

"Viva Espana!" Said Bongo tersely.

Kate couldn't read any more from laughing. "Castle, this is terrible."

"It's supposed to be terrible. If I'm required to write terribly, I can write more terribly than anyone else."

Kate kissed him. "I think you need to work on some curly pubic hair."

"Now you're talking."

"As long as you don't write about it."

Author's note: We may be finally getting to the summer hiatus I mentioned after After Watershed. I have family coming in for a few days and I probably won't have time or writing. But, I'll be back. Say that would make a good line for a character.