CarinaChuck10a

T/N: I'll try and get another one up tonight. Been busy and I have to run to the a/p and pick him and some wig up. REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW but thanks a bunch for all the alerts even if you didn't review. I keep track. u bin warned. There's a voodoo mere down the bayou who will put the evil eye on ya if ya don't. APR's Wife!

Burbank General Hospital

Chuck was sitting in her hospital room watching her get ready to leave after 16 days in the hospital but finally getting a clean bill of health. He hadn't been to the apartment yet. He wanted them to see it for the first time together. He watched her put on her mascara and eyeliner but something about the lipstick…

"Sarah, stop. Don't let it touch your lips. Close it up, put it down and wash your hands. Do it!"

She did as instructed seeing the strangely intense look on his face. He was on the cell to Casey.

"Lipstick. It's why Larkin never got sick. I'll bet if we check her hotel room we'll find it in her toothpaste too. It's the one thing they wouldn't share directly. OK, maybe he'd get lipstick on after kissing her but I'll bet it came off from just daily stuff. Have it checked out, OK?"

"I'll have a cleaner team go over that stuff. I don't think they looked at it. They were led to believe 'ingestion' meant food."

Chuck walked out to the nurses' station and pulled a small HAZMAT bag out of the dispenser and walked back in, turning the bag inside out and using the bad to pick up the tube of lipstick and her eye makeup. He pulled the sides of the bag shut and zipped it.

"No more chances, Sarah Walker. No more unnecessary risks, understand? Your job now is to be back in shape and ready to run missions as soon as possible. No more chances. Everything gets thrown out and you give me a list and I buy everything new from several different outlets. That includes tampons, Sarah, laundry soap, where you do your dry cleaning, everything."

She didn't say anything. He was right. He was also very sincere and she felt another frisson of something not unlike lust jolt her. She didn't know if 'decisive Chuck' had always been there, underneath the nerdiness or if somehow Carina brought it out.

He resisted the juvenile urge to carry her over the threshhold into their new apartment. Somehow he thought she wouldn't appreciate it. She hadn't said anything during the drive and now she was walking around looking and 'judging'.

They hadn't discussed the blown mission at all. Sarah didn't want to bring it up. The team had missed an opportunity to shine and it was all her fault, or at least she was the cause.

She didn't know that Carina had run the mission with Chuck in her place. She didn't want to talk about Carina with Chuck. "No, Chuck. I don't want to hear anything about you and Carina and what you have or haven't done, understand? It's not up for discussion. It's in the past, isn't it? You're done with her, right?"

Chuck looked at her in frustration, guilt and a little anger.

"I just wanted us to be totally honest with each other but I see that's a not in the playbook, is it? Fine. You go right ahead and think what you want, torture yourself with what might have happened as opposed to knowing what happened and it'll be another thing we drag in from outside. I got your list, Agent Walker. I'll be back in a couple of hours. Call me if you think of anything else."

He left. Welcome home, Sarah. Bullshit.

She almost went after him but couldn't bring herself to make the effort. He was different. He wasn't her Chuck. She was afraid he was someone else's now. He was right. She should have talked, gotten it out on the table but she didn't want to have to explain Bryce to him. Her damned pride drove a wedge between them when they had just gotten together. She took a quick shower and went to bed. If he woke her when he got back, fine. If he came back. She fell asleep kicking her mental ass for being exactly what she promised she wouldn't be.

She awoke disoriented until the present rushed in to fill the vacuum her sleeping mind had created. She was alone in bed and she'd been alone the entire night.

Someone had made coffee and the bags of stuff from her list were on the kitchen table with a note listing the items he wanted her to buy or specify the brand or style since he really didn't have a clue. For example, he'd written, there were 17 different kinds and brands of tampons. She smiled at that. So like Chuck to waffle on 'feminine comfort items' as he termed them.

There was also another note saying he'd gone into the Castle to 'practice'. She didn't know what he meant.

Castle

"You're in early. Figured you for 10ish not 6:15am. Anything you want to talk about, Bartowski? Trouble already? Let me guess. You wanted to be all upfront and honest and she didn't want to hear it. Am I right? I'm right. I knew it. Remember what I said, Chuck, some agents have pride issues and she's one of them."

"If that's the best advice you can give me, remind me not to bring a real issue to the table. Pride goeth before a fall. That's what you're saying, right? This thing we have will fail, won't it? Well, considering the assassination attempt, I'm cutting Carina lose. I won't risk her if this is some damned spy-vs. -spy thing. I know all about how little you professionals care about collateral damage."

"Chuck, that's not what I meant. As for Carina…"

"Take a page from the Sarah Walker Relationship Manual, Major Casey, ignore anything and everything that isn't the job, including the person you supposedly love more than the job. Don't talk out your problems and don't worry about honesty. Nope. Just go back to bed and let big Daddy Director or Granny General take care of everything."

Casey had the sense to keep his mouth shut. Sometimes not talking prompted the other guy to prattle on and on. Besides, he'd already done exactly what Chuck described with horrendous results. He had pride.

Chuck never said another word, just went about his daily training regimen of firearms training and then basic spycraft. Casey stood by to answer any questions but mostly because he felt sorry for the moron. The younger man was torn between what was right and what was necessary. Sure sucks to be him.

Chuck returned to the apartment at 6pm with a pizza, no olives, and a 6-pack of diet coke for her and a 6-pack of beer for him. He tossed the pizza on the kitchen table and put the beer and coke in the refrigerator and walked back down the hallway to the closed bedroom door.

He knocked lightly, not wanting to wake her and there was no response so he opened the door, took out his casual clothes and went into the bathroom to change. She was in bed, asleep. She was recovering. She needed a lot of sleep plus a side effect of the medications was drowsiness. He ate two slices of pizza and put the rest away for her. Nothing was on TV and he had no urge to just sit there watching the walls hold up the ceiling so he grabbed his cell phone and went to see his sister who wasn't exactly thrilled to see him at her door.

Casa Bartowski

"Ellie, I don't know what to do. She won't talk to me about anything. All she does is sleep. When I'm gone she might be up but there's no evidence she's done anything other than spend the damned day in bed. Is this natural?"

"Chuck, I think you need to talk with Sarah about…"

"She won't talk to me…not about anything. I bring up Carina and she clams up and tells me she doesn't want to hear it. It's like she's in denial. Hell, she won't even listen to anything we've done. How am I supposed to survive this 'relationship' when she won't even try?"

"Talk to her. But now, please, go. I'm having dinner guests and I don't want you here when they arrive, OK?"

"Next time I'll make a damned appointment. I still live here, y'know?" He stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door and walking to his pool car in the lot. He had no place to go and nothing to do. He never imagined that the life of a 'spy' would be boring but it was. He pulled away from the curb just as Carina pulled in and took his spot.

Ellie had invited Carina to dinner and just to hang out with a friend. She didn't want to put either Chuck or Carina in an awkward position running into each other.

"Ellie, I saw Chuck drive away. I didn't mean to run him off."

"No, he came unannounced and I told him I had a guest coming over and he needed to leave."

"Smooth, Ellie. He's hurting and the one person he relies on blows him off. I need to see him and settle this thing someday. Tonight would have been perfect since we'd have you to referee."

"Carina, he's miserable. Walker's in depression and he doesn't know how to deal with it. Give him some time, Carina. He knows what he wants. He just feels obligated now. He's dealing with new sets of emotions and he has no idea how to act. Has he called you at least?"

"No. It's OK, Ellie. I know what he's going through. I went through something similar with an NSA hard case but I didn't have an Ellie at the time and I really blew it with the guy."

"I don't know what to tell Chuck. I never gave him an opportunity to say much before I pushed him out."

Casey listened to the bugs in Ellie's apartment. As soon as Bartowski had shown up he'd activated them but when he saw Chuck leave and Carina arrive he left them on. This would be better if he'd brought popcorn.

He turned off the bugs when he heard 'NSA hard case'. He didn't want to hear anymore. He had his pride.

Chuck drove to Carina's motel but she was out. He had a brief and unkind thought but stomped it down ruthlessly. He had no right to be upset with her for living her life when he'd put 'their' life on the back burner. He was going to leave a note but instead he just left his key on her dresser and left. He could smell the smoke of burning bridges.

"Casey, secure."

"Walker, secure. Casey, do you know where Chuck is?"

"About an hour or so ago he was at his sister's place but she blew him off for a dinner guest telling him to 'talk to Sarah if you have a problem' and to leave. He blew out two of my surveillance mics when he slammed the door and left. Her guest arrived and I deactivated the bugs."

"H – has – has he said anything to you about…"

"Nope. He said he was taking a page from the Sarah Walker Relationship Handbook and just waiting for someone else to tell him what to do. He doesn't have a lot of faith in the Agencies, Sarah, and he told me he was cutting Hansen loose so she doesn't become 'spy-vs-spy collateral damage'."

"What the hell does that mean, Casey? He's changed. He's not the same guy as…"

"He spent 11 days and nights hovering over you. He's changed, yeah, because he had to. He's getting a double dose of our reality and he's trying like mad to adjust. He's committed to you and you can't even look at him or talk to him. You seem to think you're the injured party in this but it's him. Do I need to remind you that you blew off the cover date to play with Bryce – the guy you called."?

"Casey we've gone over that…"

"No, you haven't. You made up a bunch of excuses and laid them on me. Well, I'm not your Dear Abby so you need to decide on a course of action. I told you before. If you don't want Bartowski, go find Larkin but do it before he loses any chance with Hansen. They click, Walker. When you went down Chuck ran the mission with Carina and it was creative and flawless. He ran the mission to keep you out of trouble since when he left for Palm Springs we both thought you were still shacked up with Bryce."

"Can you check the GPS on his phone for me please?"

The beach was deserted, as he knew it would be this time of night. The offshore winds were picking up, as was the surf. He stripped down to his boxers and folded his clothes leaving his wallet, weapon, watch and cell phone on top of the pile and started for the surf line. He wasn't afraid. He had made his decision. Next stop Hawaii.

APR