John Casey had never been more relieved.
Heart pounding, breathing ragged despite all his attempts to resist the anxiety crawling through his veins, he all but sprinted back toward Chuck's room, and the escape the open window offered.
The gun in his hand felt as heavy as a rock, and he was so eager to leave that he almost knocked over the lamp on Bartowski's desk in his rush to the window as he holstered it at his hip.
Le'kayor was waiting for him on the ground, hidden in the thick bushes that bordered the courtyard that was shared between their houses. She hadn't gone in with him, the window too high for her to jump or climb. But even if she'd been able to, she wouldn't have.
The growl that had started before he'd even went in was still rumbling low in her throat, part anger, part terror.
Mostly, it was anger.
"The beta project was destroyed." He hissed as soon as his feet touched the ground, one hand going out to snag the scruff of her neck to keep her quiet as he ducked down behind the bush she was hidden in, "Bartowski's the only one with access again. They need him."
Specifically, they needed him alive.
Which meant they didn't need John Casey to murder Chuck Bartowski in cold blood anymore.
Le'kayor began to tremble, the sudden loss of adrenaline leaving her weak-kneed and exhausted. John wasn't faring much better himself, but he knew they needed to get back to their apartment before anyone spotted them.
"Come on." He growled, getting down on his hands and knees until he was practically hugging the ground, "Walker will be on the lookout."
He lead the way as they belly-crawled along the small tunnel the bushes formed against the wall, the tarp that had been put down to keep weeds from growing keeping them from getting covered in too much dirt. He knew that his daemon's fur would be covered in cobwebs by the time they reached their basement window, there wasn't much way to avoid it. Crawling along the ground as they were, she was taller than he was, which meant that all of the spiders that had learned to make their webs only on the upper branches of the bush were now having all of their hard word destroyed.
She usually stayed behind when he went to spy on Bartowski, but not tonight. Tonight's mission was too important, and once it was completed, there wouldn't time for him to come back to get her.
The basement window came into view, and he pushed it open and, letting out a slow breath, crawled inside.
It was funny how he didn't consider this weird anymore. Coming in through a window at the ceiling, and crawling headfirst onto a metal shelf before jumping to the floor.
It was easier for Le'kayor than it was for him, since when she went head-first, she already had her feet pointed at the ground.
He sat down on the bare concrete where he landed, and Le'kayor nudged her head under his arm once she had joined him, and let her head rest in his lap, the rest of her body curling around him so that the warmth from her fur enveloped him entirely.
He pulled the gun from its holster, and held it up so that they could both look at it.
"So glad I didn't have to pull this trigger." He whispered.
Le'kayor nodded. She didn't have anything to say that they both hadn't already thought.
John Casey grunted in agreement to the words his daemon hadn't spoken, and began disassembling the gun.
If Beckman ever found out which gun he'd brought with him to terminate the Intersect, he would be the next one on her list.
And he got the feeling that whatever assassin she sent after him wouldn't be planning to take him on an extended holiday to another planet.