Chuck vs. His Destiny

CHAPTER TEN: "Not What It Looks Like"

CAST (in order of appearance):
Captain John Casey – Adam Baldwin
Agent Carina Hansen – Mini Anden
Lieutenant Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi
Agent Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski

Author's note: This chapter contains some, shall we say, rather mature, though not explicit, content. Reader discretion is advised.

For three weeks, John Casey had been on edge. Three weeks of looking around every corner, of watching his back. Three weeks of praying that SHE wouldn't come hunting for him.

At first, he had thought that maybe, just MAYBE, he was going to get off easy. At first, she had focused her attention on Chuck Bartowski.

But he had rebuffed her not once, not twice, but three times. Casey wasn't sure how the young lieutenant had done it – it took some serious willpower to say "No" to Carina Hansen three times.

Now that Chuck HAD done so, however, Carina was angry and on the prowl. None of the men at what had been dubbed "Camp Omaha" seemed to feel safe when she was around. Colonels Valenti, al-Fahd, and Wainwright, along with Doctor Novak, always seemed to make excuses to not be around her – leaving Casey as the lone minnow in the pool of bloody water, trying to avoid the hungry shark from the DEA.

One warm April afternoon, Casey had taken refuge in the cockpit of Camp Omaha's EF-111. He thought that he'd be safe there, hiding fifteen feet above the ground, slouched down in the pilot's seat, reading tech manuals. He thought that there was no way she'd ever find him.

As he was refreshing his knowledge of the EF-111's radar-jamming system, he felt the plane shift a little bit – a clear sign of somebody climbing into the WSO's station of the EF-111. Assuming it was Chuck, he said, "You running away from her too, Bartowski?"

There was no answer for a moment. Casey set his tech manual down, and turned his attention toward the WSO's station. "Cat got your tongue, Bart – JESUS GOD IN HEAVEN!"

Carina Hansen smiled coquettishly at Casey. "Not quite," she responded sweetly.

Casey looked at Carina. She was wearing a flight suit, unzipped practically to her navel, and judging by the amount of skin Casey could see, she was wearing precisely nothing else.

Casey gulped, and willed a serious look on his face. "Just what do you think you're doing here?" he asked, cursing his voice as it cracked on the last word.

Carina looked amused at Casey's voice. "I thought now would be an opportune time for me to… question… you," she replied suggestively, raising an eyebrow.

"I see." Casey bit the two words off, trying not to let his voice betray anything further.

Carina leaned across the cockpit. Casey's eyes involuntarily wandered downward, looking down Carina's flight suit, where he could pretty much see –

"Captain Casey," Carina said in a low, sultry voice. His eyes snapped back up to her face, just in time to watch her lick her lips. "Have you ever… revealed any secrets of Project Omaha to anybody without clearance?"

Now Casey was just confused. His brain was having a very difficult time juxtaposing the damn sexy tone of Carina's voice and actions with the utterly serious subject of the question she had just asked her. "Uh…"

Her smile grew a little wider. "John," she said, reaching out a hand and delicately running a finger along his jaw, "if there's anything you know about the leak, you absolutely have to tell me."

Right at that moment, she probably could've convinced Casey to confess to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby and killing John F. Kennedy, not to mention telling her where Jimmy Hoffa was buried, but the truth of the matter was that he knew nothing about the leak. "It's not me," he croaked.

Carina's gaze turned from sultry to amused. "John, I didn't ask you if it was YOU," she said. "I asked you if you knew anything."

He shook his head and bit his lip, forcing himself not to look at the federal seductress – AGENT! "Nothing," he said shortly.

"How about Lieutenant Bartowski?" Carina asked. "He has proven a… bit of a tough nut to crack, if you will. And speaking of tough nuts…"

John's eyes widened, and he involuntarily shuddered. Looking away from Carina had proven to be a mistake, as her hand had found its way to his crotch. As she ran her hand over the outside of his flight suit, he bit his tongue and prayed for mercy.

"Captain Casey, do you really not know anything?"

"I… I don't know anything," Casey gasped. Carina's hand had not moved from its position, but was rather making a slow, circular movement that – Oh GOD, Casey thought, willing himself to preserve his last modicum of control.

Carina frowned and pouted, sticking her bottom lip out. "Damn," she said. "This whole trip has been a waste of time, then."

Casey, grateful for the removal of her hand from his pelvis, leaned his head to the side. "What do you mean, the whole trip has been a waste of time?"

She shrugged, the pout still on her face. "I mean that if you don't know anything, there's no point in me trying to seduce you."

Thank GOD, Casey thought, exhaling – and then stopping himself short as a smile made of pure evil painted itself on Carina's face.

"Of course," she purred, "I could just seduce you for the hell of it."

"Aw, crap," Casey uttered. His mouth opened to say the word NO, but before he could get it out, Carina had slipped the flight suit from her shoulders, leaving her sitting across from Casey, topless.

"There's just too much space between us," she said, shifting across to the pilot's seat. Facing Casey, she sat on his lap. "Oh MY, Captain Casey," she gasped in mock surprise as she sat in his lap. "It seems that PART of you wants to tell me something…"

Oh, I am so screwed, Casey thought, gritting his teeth. I need to tell her to stop. I need to tell her to get off of me and get out of my airplane. I need to tell her…

But Carina unzipped Casey's flight suit to his waist, and he knew the battle was lost. "Just, no handcuffs this time, please," he moaned.

"Oh, but WHERE is the fun in that?" Carina shot back, reaching a hand inside his flight suit.

"Pleeeeeease…"

Chuck Bartowski strolled across the flight line, Sarah Walker at his side. He had promised to explain to her the workings of the EF-111, in exchange for her teaching him how to shoot – "Well, I would say, not like a girl," he had said with a smile, "but I think you might object to that."

She had agreed to their deal, although she had mock-seriously made him promise to never denigrate the shooting skills of women again. "I will have you know that I can field dress a moose in ten minutes," she told him.

Chuck rolled his eyes. "Like THAT skill will ever come in handy."

But right at the moment, thoughts of guns were put aside for a seven hundred million dollar aircraft that was completely unarmed, save for its electronics. "Okay," Chuck said, "this particular EF-111 actually started life as an F-111B prototype for the Navy. When the Navy decided that the F-111 would never work as a carrier aircraft, they parked it at the Boneyard for a couple years."

Sarah frowned. "The Boneyard – that's in Arizona, right?"

"Davis-Monthan Air Force Base," Chuck confirmed. "Where all military aircraft – good and bad – eventually go to die. But not this one. The Air Force started the EF-111 conversion program in the seventies, they rapidly ran out of airframes that weren't actually being used as fighter-bombers, so they pulled this and another Navy test article out of Davis-Monthan for conversion."

"So, is there really a difference between this one and one that was converted from an Air Force model F-111?" Sarah asked.

Chuck shook his head. "Not really, although according to Captain Casey, this one can actually safely take off from and land on an aircraft carrier."

"Might be a useful skill," Sarah suggested.

Chuck laughed. "If I was ever in a situation where my choices were land on an aircraft carrier or ditch, I think I'd choose the latter," he replied. "The thought of landing an aircraft on a thousand-foot long steel postage stamp makes me want to curl up in the corner and cry."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Wimp."

Chuck sighed. "Yeah, well. I might not have a choice if I'm going to keep flying ELINT missions for Project Omaha – this is the last active EF-111. They're all being replaced by modified F/A-18s."

By now they had reached the Raven. "You climb up into the pilot's station," Chuck said to Sarah. "I can explain everything to you from the wizzo's side."

"The what now?" Sarah asked, crossing under the old aircraft to the ladder going up to the pilot's station.

"Wizzo," Chuck replied. "It stands for W S O – weapons systems officer."

"I thought the EF-111 didn't have weapons," Sarah said, starting to ascend the ladder.

"It doesn't," Chuck admitted. "It's just a holdover from the original F-111s. They never thought of something quite as snappy to call – GOOD GOD!"

Chuck and Sarah had reached the level of the cockpit at the same time – just in time for them to share the experience of a truly horrific sight.

There was Captain John Casey, sitting in the pilot's seat of the aircraft, his flight suit around his knees. On top of him, completely naked – "and bouncing up and down like a Pogo stick," Sarah would remark later – was DEA Agent Carina Hansen.

"Aw, COME ON!" Chuck groaned.

"That's… exactly… what I'm trying to do… here… Bartowski," Casey grunted.

"IN THE PLANE, CAPTAIN?!" Chuck said, horrified.

"You… could've prevented all this, Lieutenant!" Carina moaned. "But you wouldn't give in!"

"That's it," Chuck snapped. "I am SO out of here."

He scrambled back down the ladder, reaching the ground just as Sarah did. "Unbelievable!" he said, shaking his head in disgust.

Sarah, on the other hand, was giggling like a little girl. "I cannot believe I just saw that," she replied.

Chuck looked at her curiously. "Aren't you a CIA super-operative? Trained to use sex if need be?"

"Hah!" Sarah laughed, making a face. "It's a tactic of last resort, Chuck! You've watched too many Bond films!"

And as much as Chuck wanted to counter Sarah's argument, he had no comeback. "Fine," he grumbled. "So now what?"

"Well, I believe you still owe me an explanation of the EF-111's systems," Sarah replied.

Chuck stopped on the flight line and turned to look at the CIA agent. "In case you missed it, there's an Air Force captain and a DEA agent wildly copulating in the cockpit of my bird," he grumbled.

Sarah shook her head. "And you don't have any tech manuals, any stuff on your computer that you can use to explain it to me?"

Chuck raised an eyebrow. He hadn't even considered that. "Yeah," he said. "I actually could explain everything to you."

"Then let's GO," Sarah ordered him, marching off toward the barracks.

Chuck sighed. "Okay," he said to her back, running to catch up.

In his quarters, Chuck pulled up identical tech manuals on both of his laptops. "Okay, this may seem boring at first, but I've got a simulator on the Mac that you can play around a bit with," he told Sarah.

"Sounds good to me," she replied.

Forty minutes later, Sarah was looking bored. Yeah, everything she had learned so far was interesting, but there was only so much geeky techno-babble she could take. "I would never make it through this stuff," she groaned.

Chuck smiled. "I've got a secret," he replied. "I cheated a bit."

Sarah narrowed her eyes. "How so?"

Chuck grinned broadly. "I got Doctor Novak to encode every op order and manual for the EF-111 as subliminal data and then upload it to me."

Sarah couldn't believe she had just heard the Air Force lieutenant admit to short-circuiting procedure, but she couldn't help but be a little impressed by the initiative he had taken. "That's probably not entirely within regulations," she told him, a note of reproach in her voice.

Chuck rolled his eyes. "Rules and regulations were made to be broken. I'm sure you've broken your fair share, Miss CIA."

Coming from most people, that would've offended Sarah. But coming from Chuck, it for some reason just amused her. "I have NO idea what you're talking about," she replied, mock-snootily, sticking her tongue out at him.

"Did you just stick your tongue out at me?" he asked her, pretending to be shocked.

She didn't say anything, just sticking her tongue out further in response. "FINE," he growled. "But you should've prepared yourself to face the consequences!"

Chuck leapt out of his chair and much to Sarah's surprise, started tickling her. She shrieked and tried to back away, accomplishing nothing but knocking her chair over backward. She shrieked even louder as she started to fall, but only made it about halfway to the floor before Chuck reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her upright.

"Sorry about that," he said sheepishly. "I'm not quite sure what got into me."

Sarah shook her head. "That was a bad, bad idea, Lieutenant Bartowski," she told him in a stern voice.

"Oh yeah? And why might that be?"

"Because you just uncorked a BIG can of whupass!" Chuck's jaw dropped, and then Sarah tackled him, knocking him backward onto his bed.

"Son of a bitch!" he uttered, as Sarah launched a tickle attack on him that seemed to Chuck to be an inordinately disproportionate response for what he had done. That thought fled from his head, though, as the tickling started to get to him.

Before long, he was laughing hysterically. "Uncle!" he shouted. "Mercy! Whatever! CIA rules!"

Sarah stopped and stood up. "And don't you EVER forget it," she shot back.

Chuck shook his head. "God," he moaned. "I think you broke me. I can't move."

Sarah laughed and rolled her eyes. "Awww. The poor wittwe baby. Does you need your mommy?"

Chuck stuck his tongue out at her. "NOW WHO'S BEING IMMATURE?!" Sarah shouted gleefully.

"Oh, BRING IT," Chuck shot back.

"Yes, absolutely," Sarah said, "because we're fourteen."

"Oh, THAT'S IT!" Chuck roared, leaping from the bed. Sarah squeaked and jumped backwards – and found herself with her back to the wall. Chuck cornered her, putting an arm on either side of her. "Nowhere to go, Agent Walker!"

Sarah, though, had lost her train of thought. She realized that Chuck Bartowski was very close to her. EXTREMELY close to her. His face was scant inches from his. As she watched, the mischievous smile dropped from his face, replaced by an odd mix of confusion and desire.

This is an extraordinarily bad idea, her brain told her. And it was a very, very bad idea. But Sarah Walker didn't care. She saw the look on Chuck Bartowski's face – the desire, the need.

And when she placed a hand behind Chuck's head and pulled him in to kiss him, he didn't object. Rather, he put his hands behind Sarah's back, and pulled her as close to him as he could.

Chuck kissed Sarah, and then moved downward. He gently kissed her neck, up back by her ear, causing her to arch her neck and moan softly. He kept moving downward, kissing her collarbone, kissing her chest, unbuttoning her shirt as he went.

"Oh my God," she moaned. "Yes, you can certainly keep doing that."

Sarah shrugged her now unbuttoned shirt from her shoulders. Chuck kissed her stomach, right above her navel, as he reached up to unclasp her bra. "Goddammit," he muttered against her stomach as he struggled with the clasp.

She giggled as his lips vibrated against her stomach. "That tickles a little bit," she said softly.

Chuck didn't say anything, but Sarah could feel his lips move upward into a smile as the offending piece of lingerie came undone and fell off her body. Chuck began to move back upwards.

When he came back to eye level with Sarah, they kissed again, and then she reached down and unbuckled his belt. Pulling it off, she began to undo his uniform pants – and then she felt his body go stiff.

"What's wrong?" she asked, her voice breathy, her eyes fluttering open.

As she watched, the confusion returned to his face, accompanied by a look of disappointment in his eyes. "I – I'm sorry," he said, backing away from Sarah. "I just – I can't."

Sarah closed her eyes and sighed. "Trish?"

Chuck nodded, looking uncomfortable, and turned away. "Yeah."

Sarah bit her lip, forcing herself to not cry out in frustration. She didn't say anything, just reached to the floor and picked up her discarded bra and shirt. She put them back on, and then, without another word to Chuck, walked out the door –

Only to run into Carina Hansen, who was strutting through the hallway with the rumpled clothing and mussed hair that were clear post-sex indicators. She froze on seeing Sarah emerge from Chuck's quarters, and a look of awe and amusement painted itself on Carina's face.

"Well, Agent Walker, I guess you were able to do what I could not," Carina said, sounding impressed.

Sarah shook her head and sighed. "It's not what it looks like."

"Of course not," Carina replied with a laugh. "It never is with the CIA… is it?"

Carina began to walk away, and Sarah stared after her. "What the hell does that mean?" she asked angrily.

Carina shook her head, but didn't look back. "You'll figure it out, Agent Walker. You'll figure it out."