A/N Maximum Charah, with a few plot elements thrown in for good measure.
"He's dreaming."
"Careful with the hands, Chuck."
"How did I lose two days?"
"Hi, Chuck."
Be gentle, she says. This about a woman who'd promised on three separate occasions to eat him alive. "Hi, uh, Carina. So you're handling my briefing?" Hadn't Ellie said something like that?
She smiled a little, winced a lot, and said, "No, I'm just here to tell you what happened yesterday."
She didn't call him 'Chuckles'. She didn't leap on the straight line. She looked like she was…dithering. "All right, who are you, really?"
She ran her fingers through her hair. It didn't look that bad, did it? "Chuck?"
"No, I'm Chuck. You, on the other hand, appear to be some outer space alien doing a poor Carina Miller impression." He pointed his finger at her. "You kidnapped her, didn't you? You kidnapped my friend and took her to your mother ship to do all sorts of probing under anesthesia, which, let me tell you, is a waste of good anesthesia–"
"Chuck, please."
He shut up. Maybe that last bit was a bit over the top…He stuck a piece of lettuce in his mouth.
"Did you just call me your friend?"
Did lettuce even qualify as food? "Well, yeah. You're Sarah's friend, therefore you're my friend." He scraped through the foliage in the tray. Maybe if I try a bunch at once…
She watched him chew in silence. "Do you really think it's that simple? Some sort of…cumulative principle of friendship?"
He chuckled. "Commutative," he corrected, and she cursed. "A commutative principle. Only in this case it's transitive, not commutative. And why not, it usually works."
"Says the guy who used to work in a Buy More." Probably the only one who did.
"I said usually, not always. Of course, now that I think about it, an enemy of an enemy is also a friend, so the math may be more–"
"You must live a charmed life."
He looked at the door. "Not until recently, no."
She looked too, as if either of them could see Sarah out there, and hung her head. "Sorry. Put my foot in it again." She raised her head to look at him, cleared her throat. "I…haven't a good friend to you lately."
"So I gathered."
Who told? "From what?"
"My sister. You've met her, the towering colossus of medicine outside. Let me tell you, she's got a bedside manner to match. It's a good thing her patients are usually unconscious, although I can't tell if that's a cause or an effect…"
Outside, something made a loud noise.
"Keep it down out there," Chuck yelled, "We're talking! Where was I? Oh, right, so when she passed the buck on the way in this afternoon, I figured it had to be something big, something pretty bad, and you were at the center of it."
Carina pointed to the door. "You realize she can probably hear you?"
"I hope so, kind of a waste of good material if she can't. You don't suppose they put 'stand-up comic' in with the rest of the skill sets–?"
"Chuck! Can you be serious for one damned second! I betrayed you to the Ring two nights ago and it's not funny!"
Chuck scraped the last of the salad out of the tray, watching her as she stared at him, panting. "No," he finally said, dropping the tray on the table with a clatter. "It's not funny, and I'm glad you feel that way. But admitting it was a lot easier than you were thinking it would be five minutes ago, wasn't it?"
Sarah lifted her head from the speaker they were eavesdropping through. "Wow, that was good!" That was her Chuck, the one she liked to hear, over the speaker or any other way she could. Say anything.
Ellie turned the sound down. They weren't saying anything she didn't already know. "He actually got Jeff and Lester at the Buy More to do some work. Now you know how."
Sarah pulled on her shirt, her clothes suddenly tight. "Is it me or is it hot in here?" She looked around at the walls of the Intersect room. "Doesn't this place have any A/C?"
Ellie laughed. "Uh-huh. And a treadmill, and a stairmaster. None of which are the cure for what ails you. Don't worry, I'll let you take him home just as soon as he's done." She took a sip of her water.
Sarah squirmed in her chair. "Wouldn't want to argue with a towering colossus." The timing was perfect, water everywhere.
Ellie was too busy choking to notice the flashing light, indicating someone trying to call her. Fortunately Sarah was there to answer the call for her.
"Hello, El-what's the matter?" asked General Beckman.
"Nothing, General," said Sarah brightly, as Ellie fumbled. "Just a little water down the wrong pipe."
Beckman looked over their shoulders. "What are you two doing in the Intersect room? I wasn't aware of any repairs scheduled for today."
"Nothing like that, General," answered Sarah, rubbing Ellie's back. "We're being craven. Carina's in there telling Chuck what happened, and somebody–" She patted Ellie a little harder than was strictly necessary "–got the brilliant idea to listen in."
Beckman frowned at the both of them. "There's a speaker in her office."
"Yes, there is. That's why we're being craven now. It seems somebody might not be as suited for stakeout duty as they thought."
"Erm," rasped Ellie, giving Sarah a dirty look. Beckman's mouth twitched. "What can I do for you, General?"
"You mentioned the other day that you would be going over recent events with an eye toward any Carmichael involvement. I'm calling for an update on that search."
Ellie had to think about it a bit before she recollected foolishly making that comment in front of a superior. Of course said superior took a vague idea and turned it into a task for her, one she hadn't followed up on. "Nothing to report yet, General, recent events being what they were. I'll have Manoosh gather up the relevant cases for analysis."
"Are you sure that's wise, Ellie? We've kept him from seeing Chuck all this time."
"I don't think there should be too much trouble, General. Many of our conversations about Carmichael didn't have Chuck present, for obvious reasons, and for the events where Carmichael was present I'll give him access to Chuck's own recordings, where Chuck himself doesn't appear. And besides, you promised to put him on salary, which means he'd have to take all sorts of oaths."
Sarah tuned them out. Of all the voices in the room, she knew which one she wanted to hear the most, and bent her head to the speaker.
"You're not mad?" asked Carina.
"Do you want me to be? 'Cause to tell you the truth, Carina…I just don't feel it. I believe you and everything you said about what you did, but…I wasn't there. I'd be willing to be mad at you on Sarah's behalf – you did almost leave her husbandless – but she's probably got that covered and would hurt me if I tried to steal her thunder."
What the hell? "So you're just gonna leave me hanging? Everybody else was willing to beat me up, why aren't you?"
"Because if what you say is true, then I'm just as much to blame in this as you are. I knew how us getting together would bother Morgan, but it never occurred to me to wonder what it would do to you. I'm sorry I was so thoughtless."
Carina looked for the nearest wall.
Sarah sat up suddenly. "Um, excuse me. I've got to go somewhere," she mumbled, pushing herself away from the table.
Ellie and Beckman watched as Sarah didn't quite run to the door and let herself out.
"What was that?" asked the General. "Is there a problem?"
"Shouldn't be, there's a bathroom in the corner. Something she heard, maybe?" Ellie turned up the volume.
The sound of rhythmic pounding. "You're killing me here, Chuck…Oh, I get it!" The pounding stopped.
"You're killing me with kindness, aren't you? Torturing me by not torturing me! That's a lot nastier than I ever would have expected from you, Chuckles."
"Uh…you're welcome?" The sound of a door opening. "Oh thank God, Sarah! Carina and I were just talking about what—Sarah, what are you doing?" The sound of bedsprings, or in this case gurneysprings, creaking. "Watch the hands! Cold! Cold hands! Ow, you're pulling on the–" The sound one or more machines shrieking electronically. "Well, that's one way to—are you quite comfy now?"
The sound of aggressive snuggling. "Mm-hmm."
Ellie turned the sound down again. "Now you see why we were hiding in here?"
"Turn it up," ordered the General.
Sarah lifted her head. "Oh. Carina. You're still here." The hands weren't as cold as that tone.
Carina grinned. No way Sarah would get out of there to kick her out or anything else. "You bet, Blondie. I wasn't done, uh, briefing your husband, but it looks like you're ready to begin the debriefing any time now."
A soft sigh and a whisper as Sarah deflated. "Boxers."
Chuck turned red.
Carina didn't. "And that is really more than I needed to know."
"What?" said Beckman, "What's more than she needed to know?"
"I don't know, General, I couldn't make it out either." She upped the volume.
Carina forced her eyes to look at something else. "Casey was right, it's like reality bends around you. I'm getting out of here before I get sucked into your–" Two thunks! sounded as one, and only the fact that they were on either side of her head enabled Carina to tell them apart. She couldn't move her head far enough to either side to see them, but she could feel the handles of Sarah's knives poke her cheeks when she tried. "Geez! I'm going already, Mrs. Bunny Rabbit." She left the knives where they were and left the room.
The outer office reeked of bacon. The only food she'd had since last night's Chinese was this afternoon's French fries. She moved toward the bag.
Sarah would kill her if she stole her husband's lunch. She took a step away from the bag.
There she stayed, trapped in her own evil orbit of loser-dom around a sandwich, when she heard Sarah's voice. Not through the door but from the speaker on the desk.
"I thought she'd never leave."
"Not to sound complaining here, but you couldn't have snagged the cheeseburger on the way in?"
Carina rolled her eyes, and picked up the bag. Once through the door, she stopped and pulled the two knives from the wall before going to the bed. "Here."
"Thank you, bless you, thank you." Chuck didn't wait for her to leave, and she couldn't stop watching as he tore into her–his–lunch. "Did Casey really say that reality bends around me?" It didn't sound like something the big man would say.
"No, he just said you gave her a larger pond to swim in–" nitwit "–where words like 'ninja' and 'cuddle' can be used in the same sentence." She watched as Sarah snaked her arm out from under the blankets and took back her two knives, without looking to see where they were. "General Beckman made a smart decision, letting you two stay married."
"She'd have gutted me like a trout if I hadn't," said Beckman calmly. "And then taken Chuck off to God knows where. Don't look so shocked, Ellie, you know it's true. That landslide was inevitable. The trick isn't to stop a thing like that, but to make it happen at a time and place of your choosing."
"Preferably with your enemies under it?"
Beckman sighed. "Are you sure I can't talk you into taking the colors, Ellie? You really do have a command mentality."
"I suppose that's one of the things they teach you in General School," said Chuck, trying to avoid dripping ketchup in his wife's hair.
Carina mustered her courage. "I should be going." She could get her own lunch on the way home.
"Yes, you should," said Sarah. "Then Ellie can come back in and we can get this ball rolling."
Chuck and Carina both started coughing.
Sarah looked up. "You know what I meant!" She elbowed herself up and kissed her husband, ketchup and all. "I can't wait to get you home, Mr. Bartowski."
Suddenly Chuck's heart monitor started beeping wildly.
Sarah looked around wildly. "What's the matter?"
"Don't even joke about things like that!" said Chuck. "It's like saying 'just one last mission, Chuck'. We all know how well those turn out, don't we? Do you remember what happened the last time you said that?"
"' I can't wait to get you home, Mr. Bartowski'?" Sarah repeated. "No idea. I would hope something good. What happened?"
"Yeah, Chuck," said Carina, "What happened?"
Chuck's head fell back to the pillow weakly, and Carina snagged the sandwich before it hit the covers.
"We got married," he groaned.
A/N2 Do tell.
