736. Chapter 736

After Meme Is Murder

Episode 7.05

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: You can just Google it. I don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: See above.

"I'll get the door." Rick said, getting up from the breakfast island in his kitchen. He opened the door to find Paula, his agent, suddenly in his arms.

"Rick, I absolutely love you." She gushed.

Castle pushed her away. "You know I have a fiancé, right?' He pointed to Kate, who was sitting at the island with an unhappy look on her face.

Paula immediately ran over to Kate and threw her arms around the startled detective. "And I love you, too, Kate." Paula released her, and stood there smiling at both of them. "I admit I was wrong. When Rick told me he was passing up the Bond books to write more Nikki Heat, I said he was wrong. He could write more Nikki Heat books anytime, but the Bond books were a once in a life time opportunity. Okay, I was wrong. I was totally wrong. And what you did just proves how wrong I was and how right, and how very good at this you really are, Rick."

Castle smiled. "Flattery will get you everyplace with me, Paula, but is there some reason you had to rush over to tell me how great I am first thing in the morning?"

"It's your webmercial. It's not just gone viral, it's….a phenomenon."

Castle's smile faded away to nothing. "Oh, that." He said grumpily.

"Yes, that. Do you have any idea how many hits you've gotten in just three days?"

"I'm sure hits are nice, Paula, but having a lot of people watch me looking foolish isn't my idea of something to celebrate."

Paula whipped out her phone. "Then how about the sales for Raging Heat? As you can see, the sales for the hardback edition are up only slightly, but look at the downloads of Raging Heat! They're up over four hundred percent, and that's yesterdays' figures. I haven't got everything for todays' yet, but the e-books are being snapped up and the dollars are pouring in."

Castle felt a little better. "I'm glad people are enjoying the book. I just want to everyone to see my lovely and brilliant fiancé, as I see her."

"A fictionalized version of me, of course." Kate added. "But, this is wonderful. This is really good, babe."

"And there's more. Look at this." Paula turned on her phone and the Raging Heat webmercial began, except it wasn't Castle's voice they heard.

"Those are girls' voices, not mine."

"Those are the Jerseys singing your part."

Castle frowned. "The Jerseys? You mean those girls from that awful not at all real reality show?"

"The same. And this is all over the internet as well."

"Wait! What was that?" Kate said angrily.

"That's you." Rick said. Indeed, it was Kate walking down the street towards a crime scene they had been at a month or so ago. Kate was wearing tight, skinny jeans, and through the magic of photo shopping, she was shaking her ass to the beat of the music.

"I never did that." She growled. "I'll sue. They can't do that."

"Kate, you're a public figure. Everyone knows you're the real Nikki Heat and Rick's fiancé." Paula explained. "They'll claim it's a parody which is allowed by law. And they posted it on a free internet site. They're not making any money directly off of this. Just you aren't making any money directly from Rick's video."

"I'm not making any money from Rick's video in any way." Kate protested.

"Honey, you do indirectly. Remember, right after I got back from….where ever I was. We signed some papers? I wanted to make sure you'd be financially okay if anything happened to me before we got married."

Kate had vaguely remembered signing some things, but she'd been so upset and at the same time so happy to have Rick back, she'd forgotten all about it. "What were the papers?"

"You own half of Nikki Heat. Not just the books, but the movie, any future movies, and any Nikki Heat merchandise, if there ever is any. Everything. Nikki Heat action figures. Nikki Heat clothing. Nikki Heat lunchboxes, if they ever have them."

"Rick, you didn't have to do that."

He leaned over and kissed her. "Well, I did."

"And there's more." Paula announced.

"I own more? Of what?" Kate asked.

"No, more to the wonderful webmercial. The Drive By Five want to do a Nikki Heat based music video."

"The Drive By Five?" Kate said, unhappily. "They're a bunch of gangsters. We can't work with them. They're drug dealers and killers."

Paula blushed. "I represent them, too. And actually, they got their start singing while going to school at Princeton. I'm afraid they don't deal drugs, shoot people or actually do anything illegal. We paid some people up in Spanish Harlem to say that Dead Bones and the rest were really tough gangsters. It's all just PR. They really love Nikki Heat. Will you do it, Rick? Take a look at the offer." Paula held out a contract.

"I refuse to appear in the video and if I see any parody involving me, Dead Bones and the Drive By Five will be history." Kate said coldly.

When Rick, Kate and Paula went to the studio to see Dead Bones and his crew, Kate saw he had a 1911A1 Colt stuck in his waistband. She grabbed it. "Do you have a permit for this….What is this?"

"It's a replica firearm. Absolutely safe. It can't be fired." Dead Bones said. "But I have to look the part." The rest of the singers handed over their "weapons" which proved to be replicas as well.

"Allow me to say how much I enjoy the Nikki Heat series." Said one of the singers. "Oh, I'm Hassan the Assassin, but you can call me Reg. My dad is a cop, so I really appreciate how realistic the series is."

"Your father's a police officer?" Kate said, managing to hide her disbelief.

"New York State Police. He's the commander of B troop, in upstate New York."

"And you became a gangsta rapper?" Castle asked.

Reg just shrugged. "It just sort of happened. One day we were singing in Princeton and the next thing we knew, we're gangsta rappers. But the money should put me through law school."

"Hey, our Nikki Heat is here."

The faux Nikki was tall, slender and a brunette, but otherwise looked nothing like Beckett. They went through a rough cut of the video, which even Kate had to admit made Nikki look like a kick ass detective. Contracts were signed and Rick and Kate left.

That night over dinner, Kate asked Rick a question. "I'm going to be famous, aren't I?"

He nodded. "I'm afraid so. But I know how you value your privacy, so I'll do my best to keep the press as far away from you as I can manage."

Kate thought for a second. "Who knows? I might like being famous. As long as it's me and not a photo shopped me."

Rick smiled. He wanted so badly to show the world just what Kate was really like.