583. Chapter 583

After Sleeper

Episode 7.20

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Never in my wildest dreams have I thought I owned Castle. Rating: K Time: See above.

Author's note: This is a really bad episode. Really not an episode, just a giant plot hole. Please see chapter 423 for details. I thought for a bit that I wouldn't write another chapter on this episode, but I did.

Rick and Kate snuggled down to sleep, both happy that some of the questions about Castle's two month long disappearance had been answered and that he could at least move on with the knowledge that he had helped to save thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of lives.

Or did he?

Several days later, Rick Castle sat in his office, checking everything that he knew, or thought he knew, about his disappearance. If even a day was too long to wait, why have me have Vinnie the Scar destroy the Escalade and why have me personally handle the payoff? And the trip to Montreal? That's not on the way to Thailand. This makes no sense.

After thinking for a very long time, he copied his findings onto a memory stick, printed a copy of the information, and then used a very sophisticated program to erase the file from his laptop. He then took a burner phone from a secret compartment in his desk, dialed a number and said, "Turkey trots to water.", then hung up. He placed the memory stick and the phone back in the secret compartment.

A day later, a man who looked nothing like Agent Grey of CIA sat next to Castle on a park bench. When he left, he had the hard copy of Castle's file.

Kate Beckett waited until Gates was out of the office and the other detectives were away from their desks. She quickly dialed a number in Washington, DC. "Agent Shaw? I need some help, if you can. You know about Rick's disappearance? I think there's more to it than we know. We have some answers, but I hope you can help us."

"What do you need, Kate?" Shaw asked.

"I have a file with everything about his disappearance that we know. I want to send it to you and have you check everything out. Can you do that?"

"I can, but I need to know something first."

"Anything."

"Okay, Kate, I have you on a voice stress analyzer so I'll know if you're lying or not telling the whole truth. Now, why didn't you sleep with that wonderful man that night he was at your apartment?"

Kate blushed, but had to answer truthfully. "We were in bed together. We'd been screwing like demented rabbits since our first case, but we had to keep it quiet. Demming, Josh, Ellie Monroe, Jacinda and all the rest were totally fake to throw people off."

Jordan Shaw checked the stress analyzer and nodded. "I thought so. I'll see what I can find out."

While supposedly looking for an apartment, Martha Rodgers went to a bank where she had a safe deposit box under an assumed name. She retrieved a sophisticated satellite phone and asked to use the ladies restroom. She made a phone call from there. "Jackson, this is Martha. Why the hell haven't you found anything yet about Rick? This is important and if you're sitting around guzzling beer with your CIA buddies, Rita and I will kick your ass." She hung up without waiting for a reply.

Alexis met with one of her professors at Columbia, a charming old man from someplace in Mittle Europa. As soon as she closed the door, her smile changed to a frown. "Look, Professor, if your little friends at NSA think I'm going to keep cracking ISIL's silly little codes for them, and not getting what I need, forget it. I'm going to need them to do something for me and do it now. Get something on what happened to my father. I know you can hoover up all the phone calls made in the world while he was gone and match them against certain key words. I wrote the freaking program for you. Understand?"

Alexis left a very shaken professor behind.

Lanie Parish loved the ballet. Every chance she had she attended the ballet. Swan Lake had just begun when a tall, slender blonde sat down next to her. Lanie surreptitiously slipped her a note. If it had been run past one of Alexis' code cracking programs, it would have been shown to say, "If you want me to keep certifying that all of these terrorists all died of heart attacks and falls, you'd better get me something on where Castle was. Pronto."

The woman left and Lanie sat back to enjoy the ballet.

Kevin Ryan was sitting in a nondescript coffee shop when a man sat down across from him. "You remember me, don't you, boyo?"

Kevin was shocked, but replied, "Bishop Wolfe Tome D'Amato, of the Pope's Swiss Guard."

"The Special Forces of the Swiss Guards, boyo. You've been doing well, Kevin. We in the Vatican value your work highly, but we need to know everything about Rick Castle and what happened to him during those two months. As soon as you get something, send it on to us the usual way."

"But Jenny is getting suspicious. I've been to confession twelve different times this week at five different churches. Mrs. O'Toole over at St. Brigid's is telling everyone that I must be crooked or cheating on Jenny to have so much to confess."

Bishop D'Amato smiled coldly. "We'll take care of Mrs. O'Toole." Then he was gone.

Javier Esposito was working out as he always did after work when an acquaintance started lifting weights to next to him. "You're doing well, Sergeant Esposito. Keep playing the devil's advocate with Castle. He knows you think of yourself as Beckett's big brother, so he'll want to convince you that what happened to him did happen. As soon as we confirm what he was doing, SOCOM will strike. We have everything from a Delta Force team to the whole of the Ranger Regiment standing by, ready to go when we have what we need. We know you can count on you, son."

"You can, sir." Esposito said to the man as he walked away.

Tom Demming sat in one of the sleazy strip clubs he frequented when a very attractive woman sat down next to him. She was far too attractive to be working there.

"Looking for a good time, big boy? My place is just around the corner. I'm lonely tonight and I really need a man."

The walked out arm in arm, but when they got to her place, he was grabbed by two large men. The woman snarled at him. "Your mission was to keep Kate Beckett away from Castle for good and you failed. I'm afraid we won't be able to get you the operation you wanted to become a woman, but I can do the next best thing. I'll remove that little impediment right now. Starting from you neck and working down."

Dr. Joshua Davidson was walking towards his hospital in Kenya when three men grabbed him. "You know the price of failure." Said one of the men.

"But I did my best. How did you expect me to compete with Rick Castle?"

"You failed."

The lions ate well that night.

He was brought into what had once been an Armenian Christian church in Raqqa, Syria. The heavily bearded man smiled at him. "I have wonderful news." He held up a suicide vest. "In spite of the fact that you failed with Alexis Castle, you will be allowed to become a martyr, Hadj Pi. Allahu akbar!"

Hadj Pi honestly didn't know how to thank the man.

Rick and Kate snuggled together after making love. "I can't believe I waited a whole two days after we met before letting you take me to bed." Kate said.

"Those were the worst two days of my life. Even if I do find out what happened during the two months I was gone, it can't compare to those two days. I fell in love with you at first sight and had to wait two days to have you. We really should have gotten married that weekend."

"I know, Castle, but the wedding in Las Vegas was so nice, it was worth waiting the extra week."

"Do you think I'll ever find out what happened?"

Kate shrugged. "I don't know."

However, people around the world were wondering about that as well.