832. Chapter 832

After Cuffed.

Episode 4.10

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle and it isn't GRRRREAT! Rating: K Time: See above.

"You can't be serious."

"Of course I'm serious. Have you ever known me not to be serious?" Even Castle realized that was the wrong thing to say, so he quickly added, "Okay, on occasion I'm not serious. But I am one hundred percent, totally serious on this."

Beckett shook her head. "I am not going to spend my vacation visiting a tiger that almost ate us. Why would I…Why would anyone, in their right minds go visit a sick tiger?"

"Toni the Tiger is part of the reason we're married." Castle said with a smile.

Beckett raised an eyebrow. "So, at some point Toni said to you, "Castle, she's the one for you? Marry her?" I really must have missed that."

"No, after we got back to the precinct, I said that if I ever had to be hitched to anyone, it would be you."

"And you promptly said you had said nothing of the sort. You said cuffed. You said you said cuffed and not hitched."

"I don't remember that at all." Castle lied. "That was the first time I ever told you that I was considering marrying you. Besides, I do recall you saying that the next time we were cuffed together, we'd do it without the tiger."

Kate smiled at the memory. "That was quite a night, wasn't it?"

Rick smiled back. "I didn't say "apples" even once. I never even thought about apples."

"You know I still have my cuffs. We could…"

"Now you're trying to change the subject, Kate. And besides, Lilly wants to go see Toni. She told me so."

Kate narrowed her eyes. "Oh, Lilly told you so." She pointed towards a stuffed toy tiger sitting on the couch. "Did she tell you that after you told her another story about Lilly and Hobbes?"

"Of course not. In fact, she told me a story about Lilly and Hobbes. It was all about how Lilly and her friend, Hobbes the Tiger went to see a sick friend. She's really smart for a toddler. She's already reading. She takes after her mother, brainy and beautiful."

"That's a low blow, Castle." But Beckett was smiling. "Okay, Tiger Boy, when do we leave? We need to make a flight reservation and get a hotel room and…." She stopped and looked at her smiling husband. "You've done all of that already, haven't you?"

"And Lilly has her things packed and she even has Hobbes' things packed."

Kate looked at Rick slantendicularly. "What sort of things does a stuffed tiger need?"

"He likes to wear a red scarf sometimes and he loves books, so he always has some so he can read to Lilly."

"A scarf? Does Hobbes realize that the zoo we're going to is in Miami?"

Rick nodded. "Maybe we should buy him a little pair of swim trunks, an aloha shirt, and shades." He said thoughtfully.

Rick had bought Toni after the tiger was no longer evidence against the Spurlock family and donated her to the National Zoo in Washington, DC. But, she had been transferred to a large and very animal friendly zoo in Miami. It had become one of Rick's favorite charities.

"Mr. and Mrs. Castle?" The young man said in the zoo's office. "I'm Redmond Barry, but everyone calls me Red, in spite of me being Black. And I've heard every possible joke, so please don't try to find a new one."

"I never even considered it. "Castle said, mentally scrubbing several jokes he'd thought up. "What's wrong with Toni?"

"Cancer, I'm afraid. She wasn't raised in the most sanitary of conditions in that place in Texas and she was probably exposed to a lot of carcinogens when she was a cub."

"What's the prognosis?" Lilly asked.

Red looked down, a bit surprised to get that question from a toddler. "Not good, I'm afraid. Her condition is treatable but not curable. Now, all we can do is keep her sedated and wait until she…..goes."

"You're not thinking of…." Castle stopped, not wanting to say the rest of the sentence.

"No. She'll pass peacefully, when the time comes. We have her heavily sedated."

"Poor Toni. Can we see her?" Lilly asked.

"You can see her in her hospital room, but you can't get close to her, I'm afraid."

Red Barry led them through a maze of corridors until they got to a white, sterile looking room with a pane of thick glass at one side. On the other side, on a comfortable bed was a sleeping tiger.

"Toni has been amazingly popular, in no in small part because of her connection to the Castle family and the Nikki Heat books. She has her own Facebook page and Instagram account. Plus we've had numerous TV interviews and there's a closed circuit TV that broadcasts 24/7, mostly to schools. She's gotten thousands of get well cards, mainly from children. It's a shame to see her go."

For several long minutes they stood and watched as Toni lay quietly on her side, occasionally moving a leg and once lifting her head up just a bit. Finally, Castle decided that they'd seen enough. He was afraid that Toni would die right there in front of Lilly. "Come on, we should go. If you're good girls, I'll spring for ice cream for dessert after lunch, but only if…." Castle stopped, finally noticing that Lilly was no longer in the room with them.

"Lilly!" He yelled. "Where are you, sweetie! Lilly?"

Beckett went into full police mode at once. "Where could she have gotten to from here?"

Barry shrugged. "Once she's inside the zoo office and administrative spaces, she can get into almost anyplace, but the animal enclosures are locked from the outside. She can't get in to one of them."

"You don't know our daughter." Kate thought furiously. "Okay, we need to know where the dangerous animal cages are from here. If she got into the tropical butterfly enclosure or something similar, she'll be okay, but…" Kate did not want to think about what came after that.

"It's not just animals. Creeps hang out at zoos and places where kids hang out. She could have been grabbed." Castle added, unhappily.

Barry went to a desk and began calling on the phone and working the computer. "Okay, I've notified security to be on the lookout for her and I have some people checking the video from security cameras for her and anyone…suspicious."

"Where could she have gotten from here that could be dangerous?" Kate asked again.

Barry turned to a map on the wall. "You're right here." He pointed at a place marked with the words, "You Are Here." "I have smaller maps for you. Mr. Castle, you should go along this corridor here. Those are primate habitats, then hippos, then lions, tigers and finally our Cape Buffalos. "I'll take this corridor, and if you can take the corridor to the right as we leave, Mrs. Castle, that's alligators, bears, birds, including eagles whose talons can be…nasty, then elephants and rhinos. If she got to the gate here, a guard would have seen her and stopped her. Okay?"

"Kate, I'm so sorry. I'll never…"

"This is not your fault. Now go look for our daughter."

The three left, each taking a separate corridor and checking everything carefully. Castle cursed the modern and animal friendly design of the zoo. Instead of the cages that old zoos had used, they had as close to the natural habitats of the animals as they could manage. Which mean that the primates were in a jungle like environment with dozens of places a little girl might hide, or be hidden. He was tempted to open the door, but he could see the lock was a combination lock. He breathed a sigh of relief.

He was trying to check the murky waters of the hippos' enclosure when he was met by a young lady from the zoo coming the other way.

"Mr. Castle?" She asked. "She's not back there and if she went all the way to the end, she would have had to walk through an office full of a dozen people. We should look…." She stopped when Castle's phone rang.

"Kate! Did you find her? Please tell me you did,"

Kate laughed. "I did. Can you come to the bear enclosure? I'll be right outside with Mr. Barry."

"Outside? You mean she's inside."

"No. Just come, babe. You'll see."

"I can take you." The woman said.

Castle found his wife and Barry standing outside and office looking in. Kate put one finger to her lips to tell Castle to be quiet.

"What is it?"

Kate pointed. Inside the office was a little girl, a stuffed tiger and a tiny bear cub, not even as big as Hobbes, all sound asleep.

"That's Curly. He was burned in a forest fire and brought here. We have a pretty good veterinary program here, so we took him in."

"We should get our daughter before she persuades my husband to adopt the bear."

Kate knelt by Lilly. "Honey, it's time to wake up. Are you okay?"

Lilly opened her eyes. "I am, but the little bear was crying. So Hobbes and I came in to keep him company. We fell asleep, I guess. Will the bear be okay?"

"The bear has been injured, which is why he was crying, I suppose." Barry told her. "But he'll be fine."

"Good. Can we give him some ice cream after lunch?"

"We'll leave some with Mr. Barry so Curly can have some when he's better." Rick said.

And so, after lunch, an interview with the local TV station about Curly and the little girl who wanted to comfort him, the Castle's headed back to New York. Sitting with Lilly on the flight, was a little stuffed bear with a small bandage around his head, a gift from the zoo.

"I'd better get busy." Rick said, pulling out his laptop as soon as the aircraft reached cruising altitude.

"Busy doing what?" Kate asked.

"Writing a story about a little girl, a tiger and a bear."