916. Chapter 916

After XX and XY

Episodes 8.01 and 8.02

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: You couldn't give me these episodes of Castle. Rating: K Time: See above.

Author's Note: And so we start season eight. I think there'll be a lot of AU going around.

Captain Nikki Heat walked out of the loft she shared with her husband, ruggedly handsome, two time Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Jameson Rook.

As she walked to her plain brown wrapper, as unmarked police cars are called, she was accosted by a short, grubby, bearded man. She immediately handed him a ten dollar bill. "Now please don't spend that on illegal substances or alcohol, my good man. Get a good meal."

The man grabbed onto her arm and Nikki seriously considered shooting him. Panhandlers in New York were getting so brazen.

"My name is Bumsrush Thibodeau, and I have a Dewey Decimal problem, code one thousand."

When he said that, Nikki's blood ran cold. "There's a problem at the New York City Library?"

Bumsrush nodded. "Your mother was an undercover agent for the Library, she went by the code name, Dolly Parton, on account of her…." Bumsrush looked at Nikki's 44DDs. When he began drooling Nikki sprayed him with Mace. Once he stopped screaming, Bumsrush went on. "She tracked down the worst that the Library ran into. People who moved and kept the books they'd checked out, people who wrote the name of the killer in the front of mystery books, under aged kids who'd look at paintings of naked women in the art books, even people who'd write, "For a good time call 555-3211." in the men's rooms."

Nikki blanched as she recognized the phone number of Detective Sharon Schrodinger, who was always going on with some nonsense about pussies and boxes. I really will have to have a little chat with her later. Nikki thought.

"Your mother was on an assignment when she….disappeared."

Nikki nodded. "I know, I gave up my dreams of becoming dental technician to become a cop to find my mom, but I never could. But what could you have found out now, after so many years?"

"Three books that were on the list that Cynthia Heat was looking for were anonymously returned to the Library, just dropped in the overnight book depository. But, inside each book, on the flyleaf, was one word. The three words are "Cynthia Heat is."

"Cynthia Heat is what?" Nikki wondered. "Or is it, Is Cynthia Heat? Cynthia is Heat? Or the reverse?" Nikki's out of the box thinking was working overtime.

"It's little known outside of the highest level of the Library, but someone has been stealing old books for years. First editions, rare books, valuable books. I think that your mother figured out who did it and was silenced for her trouble. No one ever told you this, but after she disappeared, her purse was sent to us and in the purse was a dead squirrel."

Nikki knew what that meant: Cynthia Heat sleeps with the squirrels. Everyone knew that Central Park was the perfect place to get rid of a body. At night it was overrun with addicts, pushers, muggers, hookers, pimps and thieves. But they cleared out at daybreak when the park was filled with the scum of the Earth: Lawyers, bankers, brokers, hedge fund managers; Hipsters pretentiously drinking fair trade coffee, bee counting fruitarians and middle aged career women trying to jog their way back to their twenties.

"I have to go get my husband and go to the precinct. I'll borrow a tank from the National Guard if I have to and go into Central Park."

Bumsrush grabbed her arm, but then let it go when she grabbed for her can of Mace. "You can't. We don't know how high the rot goes. These people have been stealing library books for decades, they could have made millions by now. And if they'd tangle with Cynthia Heat, they're dangerous and ruthless."

At that very moment three young men on skateboards came around the corner. Nikki thought that they were very wise to have mounted machine guns on their boards, since New York City was a tough place. Then they began shooting at her. Nikki quickly drew the flamethrower she always carried as a backup in case she lost her 105mm howitzer and burned them to a crisp.

"We need to run." Said Bumsrush. "They'll just send more."

Nikki noticed that she had broken a nail. "I need to get that looked at."

"Captain Heat, we have to go now?" Bumsrush screamed.

"You have your priorities, I have mine."

Nikki stopped at a nail salon in Spanish Harlem that she knew was a front for selling bootlegged Jimmy Buffet concert DVDs. After pulling her gun to move to the head of the line, she had her nail taken care of.

The sound of sirens outside of his building woke ruggedly handsome, two time Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Jameson Rook. He went downstairs and found Roach, the mashup for Detectives Raley and Ochoa, surveying a grim scene.

"Ohh! Crispy Critters." Rook said grimacing.

"Right." Ochoa muttered. "It almost looks like Captain Heat's flamethrower, but isn't she at One PP this morning?"

Then Rook saw something that made his blood run cold. (There's a lot of that going around, isn't there?).

"That's part of Nikki's fingernail. She paints them with little copies of the Pulitzer Prize, interspersed with a verse from the Kama Sutra that we use…"

"Too much information." Raley said.

"We just got a call." Ochoa said. "Captain Heat didn't have a meeting at One PP. They have no idea where she is."

As Raley and Ochoa went off to brief the troops on the latest development, Rook decide to get a fair trade coffee at a little place across the street. As he jaywalked across the street, a hot brunette shoved a gun into his ribs and then tossed him into a van.

He woke up in an abandoned warehouse, and knew that he was in trouble. Nefarious villains operated out of abandoned warehouses, which is one reason that property prices are so high in New York City.

A man and the hot brunette were watching him.

"Mr. Castle, I am Dr. Nefarious and this is my underling Ms. Hot Brunette. In case you're wondering, I'm not a medical doctor, I have a PhD in applied villainy from City College of the New Jersey Pine Barrens. I'm afraid I need to know where your wife is. And if you won't tell me willingly, I fear I'll have to use sterner methods."

Rook had often laughed in the face of danger. A bit odd, that. "What will you do to me? Burning bamboo under my fingernails? The old spiders in a bag trick? The bastinado?"

"Much worse for you, of course. You're quite the wordsmith, aren't you, Mr. Rook? I seem to recall that you threw a fit when then-Detective Heat split an infinitive in a report. We'll, we have something much worse for you." Dr. Nefarious took out an old cigar box.

Rook smiled. "I don't always smoke cigars, but when I do, I smoke Cuban cigars."

"You're a most interesting man, Mr. Rook." Said Dr. Nefarious. "But there are no cigars here. What I have are fan letters written to Justin Bieber by some of his pre-teen female fans. Let me begin.

"Deer Beebs.

"U R so QT. Me an my frends think U R the coolest and has greet tats. I play your albims all the time and my Dad goes all freakazoid, an Mom just takes pils."

By then Rook was screaming.

In fact, Rook was screaming so loudly that neither Dr. Nefarious nor Ms. Hot Brunette heard the ominous sound of a 105mm howitzer being loaded behind them. As Nikki pulled the lanyard, she screamed "Get some!" And that was all for Dr. Nefarious and Ms. Hot Brunette.

"Nikki, thank God you found me." Rook screamed, his poor mind still reeling from the ungrammatical assault he'd been subjected to.

"Rook I have to go, but remember, I love you."

"No-o-o-o!" Rook screamed as he saw Nikki's perfect ass disappear.

Although sobbing from having to leave Rook behind, she joined Bumsrush in a borrowed M-1 Tank and headed for Central Park. When they got to the park, what they saw there made their blood run cold. (Okay, maybe chilled them to the bone would be a better metaphor?).

"It's quiet." Whispered Bumsrush.

"Too quiet." Nikki said.

Then they saw it. From all over the park, tiny little furry heads poked up from behind hills and peeked out around bushes.

"Squirrels. Zillions of them." Said Bumsrush, his blood…..Oh, you know what happened to his blood.

"One of them is coming towards us." Nikki said.

"Maybe he wants to talk." Bumsrush said hopefully.

Nikki popped the hatch open and looked at the approaching squirrel. "He's big, so I'll bet he's the leader, the alpha male. And he has some sort of branches tied to his head, I think." (In their defense, both Nikki and Bumsrush were native New Yorkers and not familiar with any animals other than rats and pigeons.).

The leader spoke." Greetings, Captain Heat. Your mother was here many moons ago, but left alive to go to a reading by some mystery author or another. No one important. But one of our own was killed in an attempt to throw you off the trail."

"Well, that's it. Toodles."

And the fierce denizens of Central Park disappeared into the vast and mysterious reaches of the park.

Nikki backed the tank up, accidentally crushing some people who were demonstrating for human rights for the undead.

"I need to go and find my mother, Bumsrush. And I must go alone. Adios." She said as she fired Bumsrush's ejection seat, regrettably neglecting to open his hatch first.

Once back at their loft, she found her husband, ruggedly handsome, two time Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist, Jameson Rook. "Hi, Nikki." He said. "I'm making your favorite, blackened crawfish tacos. Then I thought we'd do a little cosplay in the bedroom. Our Han Solo and Princess Leia slave girl costumes finally arrived."

Nikki knew that what she was about to say was going to the hardest thing she ever said. "Sounds good to me, lover." She said with a smile. "Sorry, Mom." She muttered under her breath.