Title: Chuck vs. the Instinct
Author: KittyGoddess415
Characters: Chuck/Sarah
Chapters: 1 of 3
Summary: Chuck is assimilating the new Intersect, and the missions just keep on coming. Songfic, check out Jason Mraz' "We Sing We Dance We Steal Things". This one is set to "If It Kills Me". Let's call this AU, since it's set after the season finale.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: If I owned 'em, Charah would've happened, and Season Three would be in the bag. Feedback good. :)
Chuck sighed as he suited up for the raid on the latest bunker linked to the Ring. It'd been a month since he'd uploaded the upgraded Intersect, a month spent assimilating new information until the downloads were practically instantaneous. His transformation into Agent Carmichael was well underway. It would be perfect, except...
Hello
Tell me you know, yeah you've figured me out
Something gave it away
And it would be such a beautiful moment to see the look on your face
To know that I know that you know now
Sarah. His eyes drank her in from across the room as she strapped on her throwing knives. She remained an enigma, unanswered questions bombarding him whenever she was near. Every so often he'd catch a look in her eye, which almost had her reaching out...
And baby that's a case of my wishful thinking
You know nothing
Cause you and I, why we go carrying on for hours on end
We get along much better than you and your boyfriend
Their cover remained the same, which was excruciating. Those stolen moments on the hunt for Orion were all they had, and Chuck held them close to remind himself why he was pushing himself so hard to control the Intersect.
For her. For himself. To prove he could take care of himself, that the Asset didn't need a bodyguard but a liaison. A beautiful blonde liaison, who sometimes looked at him like her heart ached for him as his did for her.
Well all I really wanna do is love you
A kind much closer than friends use
But I still can't say it after all we've been through
And all I really want from you is to feel me
As the feeling inside keeps building
And I will find a way to you if it kills me
If it kills me
He could confront her, he knew, but he also knew that doing so would end in nothing but heartache. Like gentling a wild horse, he had resolved to keep his approach slow and easy. He was mounting an assault on her defenses with special smiles just for her, a lingering touch, and more kisses in front of the newly-wedded Drs. Awesome. She couldn't turn away from him then, and his life was measured in the moments between feeling Sarah's kiss turn from cover to genuine want and need. Pushing the envelope wasn't something Chuck did often, but Machiavelli had nothing on him when it came to fighting for Sarah.
How long can I go on like this?
Wishing to kiss you before I rightly explode?
And this double life I lead isn't healthy for me
In fact it makes me nervous
If I get caught I could be risking it all
Baby there's a lot that I'll miss in case I'm wrong
Casey checked his guns and grunted for Chuck to do the same, finally breaking his reverie. Sarah glanced up and caught Chuck's gaze with a tightness to her face. He'd come to recognize that mask -- he had to, or his heart would break over the distance in her eyes. He knew better than to believe she felt nothing for him, but he also understood why she acted that way.
That kind of worried him.
Chuck still saw the Intersect as something he hadn't asked for, but now he used it to his advantage. He was starting to learn the spy game, and starting to play it, too. He'd never wanted that, was scared that he would lose himself in it. He often wondered when he'd start having casual sex to get access to people, or when assuming and shedding identities would become as natural as changing his underwear.
All I really wanna do is love you
A kind much closer than friends use
But I still can't say it after all we've been through
And all I really want from you is to feel me
As the feeling inside keeps building
And I will find a way to you if it kills me
If it kills me
But as he loaded into the van, he knew without a doubt he'd keep doing it, so long as Sarah was by his side. She made it worthwhile. Every mission kept her close, and got them a step closer to a real life after the Ring.
If I should be so bold
I'd ask you to hold my heart in your hand
Tell you from the start how I've longed to be your man
But I never said I would
I guess I've gone and missed my chance again
And this time, Chuck swore to himself, he'd ask her to run away before the debrief, before her new orders. And he wouldn't take no for an answer.
Well all I really wanna do is love you
A kind much closer than friends use
But I still can't say it after all we've been through
And all I really want from you is to feel me
It's a feeling inside keeps building
And I will find a way to you if it kills me
If it kills me
If it kills me
I think it might kill me
They rolled up to the storefront and made their final surveillance checks. Casey's eyes barked a warning to Chuck, as always. He nodded an acknowledgment as he pulled his mask down, and pulled his gun from his holster. Sarah was all business, only briefly glancing at him. Chuck had quickly become accustomed to her avoiding looking directly at him on these missions. For the first time, he understood the need for a 49B, to keep that last bit of distance.
The van door slid closed silently, Casey motioning for Chuck and Sarah to go for the door while he covered them. Sarah went to work picking the lock while Chuck disabled the first level of security. He had no illusions that this raid would even remotely be easy. Three levels of security before they actually breached the entrance to the Ring's bunker, and as far as he could tell, anything could wait on the other side of the bank vault door they used to secure it. Intel showed that there was no one in town who'd need to use it -- it was basically a safehouse. The hope, though, was to install Chuck and Orion's latest venture -- a microchip bug hybrid, undetectable and indistinguishable from any other microchip. Find a piece of electronic equipment, get it in, and get out.
Simple.
But simple was never simple in the spy game, Chuck had learned, and he was hyperaware as they entered. Casey and Sarah fanned out ahead of him, giving Chuck cover to consult his wrist computer to confirm the layout was accurate. With a nod, he moved to the next security panel to get entrance to the back room where the bunker entrance was. Orion's programming had turned Chuck into a human codebreaker as well as a fighting machine, and that skill had quickly proved invaluable on missions. Door #2 was breached quickly and as they entered the storage room, Chuck peeked at the computer and gestured down to the floor. A pallet of Ring Pops in the corner caught his attention, and he approached warily, Casey and Sarah at his heels.
"Under here," he breathed. Casey nodded and while Sarah covered their backs, Chuck helped him slide the pallet over until they saw the corner of a door in the floor.
"Wait," Chuck warned. Casey paused with a questioning grunt, but Chuck was already examining the pallet, suspicious of a booby trap once the pallet was moved too far.
He found what he suspected -- indications of a pressure trigger. "We've got to flip it on its side," he whispered. "And fast."
"Are you sure there's no way to disarm it?" Sarah's voice came through his earwig and he indulged for a brief second, imagining other things it could say.
"I don't think so, I think the fact you can turn it on its side quickly is how to disarm it -- you don't, and if anyone tries to follow, they trip it." He gestured at a thin metal pole, resembling nothing more than the prop rod under a car's hood, hanging off the side. "My guess is the only place to disarm it is down there."
He got Casey's grunt of approval and indulged in a small smile. If there was anything that remotely competed with Sarah's approval in the spy game, it was Casey's.
They flipped the pallet smoothly, keeping the weight on the trigger, a panel so small that had Chuck's instincts not been augmented by the Intersect, no one would have seen it. The bank vault door was thankfully small, narrow as the entrance to the con tower of a sub. As it was, the three of them had to heave the door open together and lunge through, quickly and carefully guiding the pallet back down. Casey and Sarah dropped down first, covering both directions. Behind them was a dead end, but a wide hallway with a number of doors lay ahead – never a good layout when trying to infiltrate enemy territory.
Chuck dropped down and immediately assumed the monkey in the middle spot, as was customary. The trio slowly inched down the hall, watching for doors opening, any sound out of the ordinary. Nothing. Chuck started to feel a little paranoid and even more aware of every inch of ground they covered. As they reached the end of the hallway, Sarah and Casey covered the opposite ends of the fork they hit.
And so it was Chuck who was the only one who heard the gunman come out behind them, and the only one who spotted the red light of the targeting laser appearing on the back of Sarah's head. The Intersect-inspired instincts were irrelevant in that moment – the instincts that took over were all his. Chuck jumped at her, and as he felt a white-hot piercing pain, he heard Sarah scream out "Chuck!!" before his world went black.
And all I really want from you is to feel me
It's a feeling inside that keeps building
And I will find a way to you if it kills me
If it kills me
If it kills me
It might kill me