Usual disclaimer for the land of Litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed.
It had been an eventful few months since Jack's visit, and much of it was quite trying. Chuck had been constantly waking up from nightmares about the men he shot, and especially about the man he killed, but the worst nightmares were the ones where it was Sarah he saw laying on the ground with half of her head blown away, he had a hard time getting back to sleep after those ones. The nightmares seemed to be giving way to an escalating series of sex dreams, though, and Chuck felt rather guilty about those because it seemed so disrespectful of Sarah to be dreaming about her like that.
The thing was, the guilt that Chuck was feeling about those dreams wasn't as much as Sarah was feeling, she was torn up about the terrible nightmares he was having, she could hear enough from his mutterings in his sleep to know that it was about the men he shot rescuing her father, and more to the point, her, and she knew that they all ended one of two ways, either him looking at the man he'd killed to save her, or looking at her when he didn't manage to save her, and his grief as he wept when he thought he was looking at her dead body ripped her heart out. She'd found that he relaxed a little from the nightmares a little when she was kissing and holding him, and the more she did, the more relief he got from them. She told herself that she was doing it to stop him hurting himself with those nightmares, and in truth that was the prime driver for it, but it was also her way of expressing her feelings for him, she desperately wanted to make love with him properly, when he was awake, but there was no way that they could do that, especially after that bitch Forrest formally reported her for being involved with her asset on that Fulcrum operation where they had to work with a larger task force of agents. The General had dismissed that report with an explanation of circumstances, but it was on file, and if anything else came out, she didn't think there was any hope that she could avoid being reassigned away from Chuck, and she couldn't handle that. So she told herself she was helping him with his nightmares and tried to avoid going too far, though that was so hard when he was driving her wild with his lips, his gentle, loving hands, and the feeling of him pressing against her. Chuck thought that they both must have been having explicit dreams, the times that they woke up flushed in the morning (and though he'd like to think it was him, he didn't really want to think about who Sarah may have been fantasising about), but as long as he wasn't waking up at the sight of the man he'd killed, or even worse, Sarah laying there dead, he'd take the frustration and guilt of the sex dreams.
They'd also achieved a lot in the last few months or so though, they'd managed to finish taking down Fulcrum (other teams were involved in some operations, but it was mainly their work, and Casey got his promotion to Colonel in recognition for his contribution), Fulcrum's Intersect research had helped the NSA's Intersect project along after they'd captured it, and Ellie and Chuck had worked with their father, Laszlo and the NSA's Intersect team to develop a far more advanced, improved version of the Intersect, Chuck had loaded the latest version, and it performed far better, and with less side effects than the earlier version, it also added all sorts of physical skill sets to the existing knowledge databases. Some of the elements that had been incorporated into the Fulcrum version, but which hadn't been removed by the NSA scientists who were doing the integration of the two databases were things that Chuck definitely didn't want to know, like the enhanced interrogation methods, hundreds, if not thousands of methods to kill and maim, a vast database of the effects of given drugs and drug combinations on the human body, databases of sex acts etc. There were also other skillsets in the integrated database that were a little uncomfortable if undeniably useful, like the medical and surgical skillsets. Some didn't make much sense to him but he found quite fun, and useful, like the culinary skill sets that effectively made him into a master chef, as well as being able to play just about any instrument and the like.
One major problem with the Intersect was that they still hadn't found anyone but Chuck who could handle it, even more restricted versions than the one Chuck had destroyed the brains of every volunteer who'd tried to load them, so when Bryce Larkin tried to steal the intersect for the second time and killed himself when he blew up the facility again (due to his ego, he'd been certain that with the latest Intersect he would be able to take Chuck down and assume his rightful place on top of the heap, so he broke in, set the charges and then loaded the intersect, but as he was just twitching on the floor when the facility blew up they presumed that he'd managed to burn out his brain trying to load the Intersect, which unfortunately meant that his passing was probably easier than that of the security guards he killed with the explosion), the powers that be decided not to fund the Intersect project any further, Stephen and Laszlo kept up the updates for Chuck, but any further development of the Intersect was shelved.
Of course, whenever they removed one obstacle, like Fulcrum, it only revealed the next one, when they took down Fulcrum, the discovered that it was only a part of a wider organisation, called the Ring? So now they were hunting them instead of Fulcrum.
Things got interesting when Sarah got a call from Carina to say she was in town and wanted to catch up. When she was leaving to go clubbing with her, Chuck had to remind her again about her wedding rings (it was like a flashback to the night she went to dinner with her father, "Oh yeah" walking back to him to hand him her rings, rising on tip toe to kiss him with a "Thanks" before she smiled and headed for the lift again). In the club, Carina noted that Sarah was a little distracted so she thought she'd feel her out to get the story out of her, and her reactions were interesting. "So, why are you still here, how long could you possibly have to protect some doofus at a stereo store?" "I really don't want to talk about work." "Ah, so you're sleeping with him?" We have a very professional relationship." "Oh" "What?" "Nothing, you're just really into him, that's all." "Look, can we please not talk about Chuck?" "Oh my god, Walker." "What?" "You broke the cardinal rule of spying, didn't you?" Sarah turned away to avoid letting her see the answer, only to see Chuck at a table across the club, she quickly told Carina that she needed to go to the ladies' and headed over to him via a roundabout route. "You know you can't watch over me all the time to keep me safe, don't you?" He didn't look at her "I can try, can't I?" She put her hand on his shoulder to make him look at her. "I know what makes you wake up at night, sweating, but it didn't happen, you saved me, and I'm safe enough having drinks with Carina." He reached out to take her hand. "Every time I think of losing you like that, it terrifies me."
At that she stepped in to wrap her arms around him, but after they'd only had a short time holding each other, she heard Carina's voice behind her "How did he save you exactly?" Sarah jumped back and Chuck blurted out "Hi Carina, long time.", but she had a shit eating grin on her face as she played it up "Wow, what a nice surprise." They didn't have a chance to say any more as someone came up behind Carina then, picking her up and kissing her. Sarah didn't miss the way Carina spun the ring on her finger so that the massive rock was now on display behind the man's back as she was kissing him. Turning back to them, Carina said "I'm so glad you're both here, this was I can tell you our great news at the same time, this is my fiancé, Karl." Sarah put on the appropriate face as she said "Wow!", then Carina made the introductions, "Sarah Walker, my best friend, and Chuck, her boyfriend." Karl actually seemed excited as he said "Great to meet you guys, it really is." Sarah responded, "It is really great to meet you, you're exactly how Carina described you." "Thank you, love really has made me a better man." He stopped to kiss Carina and asked "What about you Chuck?" Chuck looked at Sarah, and just said "Definitely." Karl smiled quickly and then said "I really hate to cut this short guys, but I've booked a romantic dinner for two?" Chuck just said "Sure, yeah." Karl turned to Carina saying that he'd meet her at the ballet, kissed her several times, said it was nice to meet them and left. They turned to look at Karl as he waved, walking away, and Chuck flashed on a scar on his arm, turning to Carina he said "Carina, sorry to be the one to tell you this but Karl is not who you think he is, he's a" "An arms dealer? Yeah, my mark, what, do you think I'm an idiot? It's the cardinal rule (looking at Sarah) Spies don't fall in love, welcome to your new mission."
The next day, Carina turned up at the Fish Palace for the briefing, as instructed she asked for Sarah Carmichael, and was told to wait and Mrs Carmichael would be with her as soon as possible. Only part of the glass doors into the Piranha Security & Technology offices was clear, but that was enough for her to see Chuck touch Sarah's arm and say something to her, so she turned and fumbled, handing something to him with a kiss to the cheek before they proceeded to the door with Casey. When they stepped out of the elevator into the base, Chuck waved around and said "Welcome to the Dungeon." When the General came on screen, she launched straight into the briefing, "Agent Miller's been working undercover for the CIA, playing the girlfriend of suspected arms smuggler Karl Stromberg." Carina took over "We've learnt that ten million dollars was recently wired into Stromberg's account, we don't know what it is, but someone is willing to pay a lot of money for it, my engagement party is today at Karl's house, Sarah and Chuck will be attending as my best friend, and her boyfriend, the cover they established at the club, and Casey (slapping him on the shoulder) will play my father." Casey glared at her, saying that he'd play her brother, giving Carina the opening to make a crack about "That's a bit of a stretch, Colonel." The General cut in at that point to say "Colonel Casey, you will assume the identity of Agent Miller's Uncle." then Carina took over again, "Karl's storing the weapon in a gold case in a vault room adjacent to his bedroom. During Karl's toast , Sarah and Chuck will slip out, break in and apprehend it. He keeps the access keys in his pants, which I can easily access." Casey made the obvious response to that but was ignored. "Karl also just installed a state of the art security system in the vault room, so I hope the two of you can handle anything you find there." Sarah and Chuck shared a look, and Chuck looked nervous, but Sarah said "There won't be a problem." Carina looked at her coolly, saying "Better not be!"
After the briefing, Carina pulled Sarah aside, demanding to know what the hell was going on here, and what was with MRS Carmichael? Sarah asked her to wait and she'd explain. When they headed upstairs, Sarah asked the guys if they could handle things without her for a while, and Chuck nodded as they got off, then Sarah took Carina up to the penthouse. Carina looked around, taking in the place, not missing the nerd touches that screamed Chuck. When she opened her mouth to speak Sarah grabbed her arm and dragged her to the workroom, holding up her hand when she went to speak again as she entered the code to secure the room before turning back and saying, "Now it's safe to talk. This whole place is our cover, and yes, that cover has Chuck and I as Mr and Mrs Carmichael, the owners of Piranha Security & Technology." She looked at Carina for about thirty seconds before she went on "As for the question that you're dieing to ask me, yes, I am, but I haven't even told him that and if it got out officially I'd be disappeared so fast my head would spin, we haven't done anything about it because he knows that I'm worried and he's leaving the call on what we do up to me." "As for your question in the club before your "fiancé" crashed the party, my father turned up again recently, and he dragged us into a bad situation with Sheik Rajiv Amad. He got himself captured and I went to rescue him but I was in trouble by the time Chuck arrived, so he saved both of us, the first one he took out was the sniper who was about to blow my head off and now he has nightmares about that, about killing a man, and what would have happened if he didn't." Carina stared at her, asking how Chuck could have done that, he was an analyst! Sarah looked at her and quietly said "Not Exactly." as she took her by the arm and led her to the wall where his certificates and pictures were. Carina was confused as she looked at the certificates, but when she looked at the pictures of a very young Chuck with the other SEALs she spun to Sarah, shouting "Are you trying to tell me that Chuck is fucking Mowgli?" As her answer, Sarah tapped on the picture that showed Chuck with the one who'd talked about a competition between her and Mowgli, because Carina had been there when he was saying it. Carina just stared at her, asking "How?" Sarah looked away, telling her that she couldn't tell her any more, and she shouldn't have told her this much because if she revealed anything that had been said she'd destroy both of them, but Chuck was very special.
Carina nodded and then asked just how good Chuck was? Sarah looked at her "You know how good Casey is? (Carina nodded) Well he can't match Chuck, but the time he saved me was the first, and only, time he's killed a man, and he's been having nightmares ever since, unless I distract him." That brought the old Carina out as she grinned at her, but Sarah glared back "We haven't had sex, but getting him a bit worked up while he's asleep is the only way to break him out of his nightmares, and it's more than I can afford to do when we're awake, because if we get caught I'll be gone!" The anguish on her face made Carina remember that this was the friend who'd saved her so many times from herself, and her demons, and she stepped forward to put her arms around her as she cried. When she'd recovered a bit, Sarah asked Carina if she had what she needed to get ready for the party in her car? When Carina nodded, she said that she may as well bring the car inside and get ready here, Carina said that she was just going to get a room, but Sarah smiled and took her by the hand to lead her into the master bedroom and show her what they had in the ensuite there. Carina looked around and agreed that this was better than she'd ever find anywhere else, so they went to bring her car into the secure parking. When they came back up, they put Carina's gear in one of the other bedrooms, and checking out the ensuite, Carina commented that even that one was better than most hotels. Something occurred to her then and she asked if she could have another look in the workroom, Sarah took her in and she went straight to the pictures on the wall. Sure enough, not all the pictures or certificates were Chuck's, Sarah had actually retrieved and put up some of the (very few) pictures and certificates that she'd hung onto from her own training, missions etc. Carina stared at Sarah, to the very few people who knew her, this was a clearer sign than anything else that to her, this was her home, with Chuck, the Sarah she'd known would have never shared something this personal with anyone, so the fact that she'd put herself out there this way was mind boggling. Carina smiled at her, saying "I REALLY have to get to know this guy now, he's turned you into a different person, well I suppose he WAS the only guy to turn me down, three times no less."
Their sweet moment died there, as Sarah asked "What?" in a voice that implied bloody mayhem was about to follow. Carina was taken aback, but decided she owed her the truth. "The last time I was here, I called him over to my room on the Nerd Herd number, I was down in that sexy red lingerie that no other guys have been able to resist and was starting to remove that when he stopped me, and he wouldn't do anything, even after I dropped the bomb about Bryce being your boyfriend." The murderous look returned, stronger than before. "Look, you know how much I need to win, but I wouldn't have done that if I'd known what he actually meant to you, you mean more to me than anyone." The fire in Sarah's gaze abated a little at that. "Anyway, there were two other times I saw him that mission when you two were on the outs that invited him back to my room for a bit of fun and he shot me down then, too, there was no way that he was going to settle for anyone else, even if he didn't think he had a chance with you."
After that, Sarah took her down to show her around the office, stopping off in her office to make a mysterious call, then it was time to get ready for the party. Chuck got what he needed and headed into the workroom, leaving the main ensuite for Sarah as usual, and Carina had her shower in the other bedroom where her stuff was. The girls were in the ensuite doing their hair and makeup, and Chuck ducked in a few times to get the things he needed, but he didn't look at or talk to them when he did, Carina thought that was Chuck being shy, but Sarah was looking worried about it. Carina asked her what was up, and she said that they'd hardly talked since the club when SOMEONE made a point of laughing about the idea of spies falling in love, because only an idiot would do that. Carina tried to say that he wouldn't read anything into that and she turned on her "His mother left him when he was nine, his father left him when he was twelve, seven years ago his soon to be fiancé dumped him and jumped into bed with Bryce fucking Larkin, my ex, when he got Chuck kicked out of Stanford, on top of that I haven't been able to tell him or show him that I love him or give him any hope that I'll stay with him, because I could be ripped away from here on ten minutes notice, why WOULDN'T he believe that love is for idiots and I'll be the next one to leave him?"
Carina stared at her, then turned and walked out of the room to the living room in lingerie and heels, grabbing Chuck by the hand to drag him into the room that she was using. When she shut the door Chuck started to say angrily "How many times do I have to tell you no?" when she cut him off, saying that it wasn't about that, she struggled with the words for a sec and the started "What I said in the club about spies falling in love, I was baiting Sarah because she HAS fallen in love, with you, she hasn't told you or shown you that because of all this shit hanging over her head, because she's afraid of being taken away from you, I can't imagine falling in love, but I can assure you Sarah already has….. Look, come with me" She grabbed his hand and pulled him to the workroom, impatiently waving at him to open it up. Pulling him over to the certificates and pictures, she tapped on Sarah's records, and the pictures that she'd put up, and asked him how many people he thought had seen these, other than when they were on the wall here? He shrugged, saying "Her friends?" She looked him in the eye "No-one! Remember what I told you last time about spies not wanting anyone to know about them? These are the most real information that exists about Sarah Walker outside of her official company record, I knew about half of these only because I was there, Sarah has never willingly told anyone about any of this before, let alone putting it up on display, she trusts you more than she's ever trusted anyone before, and that's because she loves you! Now, will you stop giving her the cold shoulder and punishing her?" He looked at her, stunned, his first inclination was to tell her that he wasn't giving Sarah the cold shoulder but he realised that, to a degree at least, he was, so he turned and walked out the door.
When he walked into the ensuite, Sarah was trying not to cry as she put on her makeup. Walking up behind her he put his arms around her and whispered into her hair "I'm sorry, It's going to be alright, I love you." She turned in his arms and looked at him, saying "You can't promise that Chuck." "I can promise that I'll move heaven and earth to do it, and that the American government won't get a thing out of me if we aren't together." "No, they'll kill you!" "Luckily I think they need me too much to do that." Leaning in he whispered in her ear, "and we have ten million in untraceable funds if you think we need to run." She looked at him, wide eyed "From?", he nodded "How?" "AJ." Her eyes were shining with unshed tears as she wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered in his ear "I love you!", then with an effort she pushed him back, telling him he was going to make her late, but pulled him back in for a quick kiss before giving him a final nudge for the door. When he came out, Carina looked a question at him and he nodded with a smile, kissing her on the cheek on his way back to the living room.
Things went fairly well at the engagement party, Chuck and Sarah were the picture of a loving couple unable to keep their eyes or lips off each other, Carina handed off the access card to Sarah and went up to stand with Karl for his speech. As soon as attention was elsewhere, they headed upstairs as quickly as they could without being noticed. Sarah notified Carina when they'd reached the vault, and then used the access card to open the vault (what they didn't find out until later was that Karl's "speech" actually went for less than a minute, so Carina had to drag Casey up to keep it going long enough to cover for them). When Chuck saw the lasers (roving, not fixed beams), his first thought was "Oh, shit!" looking at the case on the other side of the lasers, he couldn't help channelling Mal in Serenity "Hard to get to, that's a fact!" Sarah looked at him and said "You can do this!", which got a smile as he said "I appreciate your faith in me, even if it may be displaced." while talking off his suit jacket and handing it to her. He took about thirty seconds memorising the laser movement patterns and then got moving, using a mixture of gymnastics, dance and parkour moves to avoid the beams on his way to the other end. When he got there, he examined the case carefully before opening it and extracting the "weapon" (it didn't look like any weapon he'd ever seen), making sure that there was nothing else in the case before he resealed it and positioned it exactly as it had been. Then he slid the "weapon" back across the floor to the door of the vault, and after watching the beam movements again to get the pattern, got himself out of the vault, too. After they'd resealed the vault, he slipped the "weapon" under his shirt and put his jacket back on, and they slipped back downstairs to the front door. Sarah made a show of asking Chuck to wait there and rushing over to Carina to tell her that they were sorry, but Chuck got called in for a work emergency and they had to rush back "Damn computers, they never sleep so they play up at all hours.", passing back the access card when she grabbed Carina's hand to apologise for leaving. They headed straight back to the Fish Palace and Carina slipped away to where Casey was waiting for her about an hour later.
The debriefing was quick, (they got what they were after and Stromberg didn't know it was gone yet, the mission was a success), and then the General went on to other matters, asking Carina to stay, she started. "Agent Walker, with regard to your request (and your threat, she added to Chuck) earlier, we have come up with a solution which we hope will be satisfactory, the paperwork that Colonel Casey will bring over is for your resignation from the CIA, and forms for your instatement with the NSA, exclusively attached to the Intersect Team, so you can't be re-assigned elsewhere arbitrarily. As far as getting around the potential dangers of a 49B situation, we have considered two options, which don't have to be exclusive of each other, hopefully one or both will be acceptable to you. First, you go to Las Vegas to get married before we process your paperwork to instate you to the NSA, so you will join the NSA as the wife of Charles Bartowski. We can use that as an argument to prevent you being transferred away from your husband, the other option is that Chuck becomes an agent of the NSA, which removes the asset/handler issue, we can use the fact that he has already been proven in combat on a formal mission to waive the red test requirement, this option, of course, would take longer."
"Are any of these options or proposals acceptable to you, and if so, how do you choose to proceed?" Sarah asked to have a word in private with Chuck and the General nodded, so they went off to one of the containment areas in the back. When they came back, hand in hand, everyone there knew at least one of the options that they'd chosen, and they weren't that surprised when the answer was "all of the above". Sarah asked Casey and Carina if they'd come to Vegas that night to be their witnesses (with Ellie, and possibly the others), and of course they agreed, Chuck called upstairs to ask who was coming to Vegas for a wedding, and the answer of course was everyone. The General adjusted the orders for the G5 that was waiting to take Carina and the weapon back to Langley to deliver it to the CIA to do a round trip to Vegas first, but before they did that there was another item to be raised, she turned to Carina and pointed out that the changes with Agent Walker's status would make her less suitable for certain types of missions, and the workload with this team had made the addition of another experienced agent a priority for some time, but finding a suitable agent who was trusted by the relevant parties had proven impossible in the past. She told Carina that one part of Sarah's requests earlier was to consider inviting her to join all aspects of their team. She did advise her that all personnel in the team were also attached to the DIA in a different capacity, and the agencies that their "public" roles were with were unaware of that in any official capacity, so the question on the table was, "Are you prepared to be reassigned to this team on a semi-permanent basis, and adopt additional roles with the DIA in a clandestine capacity?" Carina looked at Sarah, Chuck and Casey before looking back to the screen to say, "Yes General." The General nodded, thanking her and waving to Casey to give her the paperwork that applied to her, so Sarah signed all her paperwork (confirming that this was the version that said she was married to Charles Bartowski), Chuck signed his (checking his marital status as well) and Carina signed her's, when they were done, the General had one more point to address, turning to Chuck she said that he'd been demanding answers about the Carmichaels from the start, she pointed out that part of it was that a professional married couple with strong qualifications made the business look better, but a bigger part was that she'd set it up in hopes that this (indicating the wedding they were about to have) wouldn't be too far down the track, so it just legitimised their cover life. Chuck and Sarah smiled (well, Chuck grinned), and Chuck said "Thanks Auntie D", which of course got a "WHAT?" from Carina, as they had to get going, Sarah said "We'll tell you in the car, short answer (pointing to the screen), Godmother." With that they stuffed the "weapon" and all the completed paperwork into two secure briefcases (one for Langley and one for D.C.) and rushed upstairs to pile into the cars, at least the four of them were already dressed up for the party. The General lodged another amendment to the orders for the G5, for it to take Carina to D.C. after Langley, and then back to L.A.
They got to the airport to find the G5 waiting and ran on board, waiting until they were in the air to lock the briefcases in the safe. When they got to Las Vegas, there were cars waiting to take them to the chapel where the marriage certificate and paperwork were waiting, so they were only there for an hour, the certificate etc were added to Sarah's and Chuck's paperwork and the briefcase put away in the safe again. When they got back to L.A. they said goodbye to Carina for a few days and headed home. While they were on the plane, it was agreed that Carina would move into Anna's apartment (or rather, she'd take over the master bedroom in Anna's apartment).
When they settled into bed that night, Sarah looked at Chuck and asked if this had really happened? Six hours ago she'd been terrified that she was going to be taken away from him at any moment at the whim of some malicious bastard in the CIA, now she was married (in real life as well as the cover), she'd moved from the CIA to a safer role in the NSA, and she was in bed with her husband, what was happening? Chuck grinned at her, saying that he wasn't complaining, she smiled back, saying "Me neither." One thing that they didn't have, though, was the energy to do anything but sleep, so they just cuddled up and drifted off.