CarinaChuck10
T/N: I'm giving ya'll TWO tonight and ya'll better review twice as much or that's it until 7/10.
His cell phone rang and he stopped and cursed. He turned back and opened his phone and saw it was Walker calling.
"Bartowski, secure."
"Walker, secure. Chuck…" She didn't know what to say. No, she knew what to say she didn't know how to say it.
"Are you still there?" He thought he'd lost the signal.
"Yeah. What are you doing at the beach at this time of night?"
"I was going to go for an impromptu swim."
Again, dead air. He waited a moment then repeated his earlier question.
"Sarah, are you still there?"
"You have a cast on your hand, Chuck. It'll be ruined and have to be replaced if you get it wet."
"What do you want, Sarah?"
Another long pause and a sigh.
"I don't know anymore. I thought I had it all but now I don't know. The job…"
"You still have your job. You're still agent Sarah Walker, CIA. Your life is complete. Why did you call me?"
"I'm lonely. I want you to come home, Chuck, now."
"Is that an order, Agent Walker, ma'am?" Home. Home was…he realized he really didn't have a home.
"No. And quit calling me Agent Walker. I understand you're angry with me, disappointed and probably resentful. You think I waited until you and Carina were together before dropping this 'live together' situation in your lap, don't you?"
"You tell me, Agent Walker. I'm the last one to find out my disposition. I had to find out we were moving in together as a sidebar to WWIII between Beckman and your boss. No one asked me. I was told."
"I thought you wanted a relationship, something not under the cover, Chuck. I thought…"
"I did. Then you told me there could be nothing. I was the asset. You were the agent/handler. You told me it was your job, nothing more. You told me that countless times. Guess what? I finally believe you. Larkin made a believer out of me. You two should be together. You're like bookends. I was just unfortunate to be a book between you."
"Chuck, you said you loved me. Don't you love me anymore?"
"Of course I love you. I can't not love you just because I don't like you. I'll be fine though. I'll get over you. I'm young, flexible, resilient. I won't break. Not any more. I'll just bend with the Combine's winds. I'll still be able to flash, Agent Walker, so don't you fret about your job. Besides, this is a hell of a learning experience. Get the intersect and learn to live a lie, surrender your free will and don't you dare become emotionally involved with anyone. It might get in the way."
"Chuck…" Her voice broke and she started to cry. He'd become so bitter and alienated and it was her fault.
"I'll come back to the apartment in a couple of hours, Agent Walker. I just need to feel free one last time, that's all."
"This is Carina Hansen." She knew who was calling but not why. Did she call to gloat? They'd been very competitive as friends. As enemies, she wondered just how far Walker would go to win.
"Carina, this is Sarah. Chuck's…he needs you. He's on the beach where you two went, down from the hamburger joint. I don't know what else to do. He's so bitter and angry. It's not like I have any choice in the matter."
"I'll go check on him. I'll get him home. He's…adapting and he's not accepting his new reality well at all and you're not helping him one bit. You shut him out, won't talk, sleep all the damned time and could care less how he's coping."
"He's talked to you? He won't talk to me but he talks to you?"
"No, asshole. He talked to Ellie and blurted it all out. Not about the agency but just about you and your 'pity me' attitude. He's never been anything but respectful…well, except for the time Larkin answered your phone and he caught your lie. He should have a tattoo that reads 'Handle with Care'."
"He tried talking but it was about you and I didn't want to hear it. Everyone seems to think you're the greatest thing for Chuck and I'm so kind of wicked spirit trying to destroy him."
"I'd better get going. I'll bring him home to you. You don't know how damned lucky you are, Sarah Walker. I would have told all of you to go fuck yourselves if I were in his shoes. Might as well bury him alive. You've taken his spirit."
Chuck was angry with himself. He'd worked up the courage and lost it when he answered the call from Walker. He'd have been dead by now or so close to it he wouldn't have cared. He was a coward. He couldn't kill himself and now he was afraid to live. There was no middle ground.
He redressed and started the long walk up the beach to the lot where he'd parked his pool car. He finally had a car – if you could call a Taurus a car. Someone was parked next to his car. He reached behind him and pulled out the 9mm he'd begun to carry.
Carina had watched as he dressed and walked toward his car. Unless he asked, she'd seen nothing. Better to allow him this last shred of privacy. No. She wanted this time with him. She would not waste a single moment.
Chuck saw Carina get out of the car and his steps faltered. He wasn't ready to put her out of his life but he had no real choice in the matter, not if he was to keep her safe.
She ran to him and put her arms around him and buried her face in his neck. She was crying already and he hadn't even told her to leave yet, that it was over, but she could feel it coming.
"Carina Hansen, I don't know what we're going to do. I'm between the dog and the fireplug and I'm afraid you'll be dragged into this mess or worse, hurt because of me. Tell me what to do, baby. I'm so confused. A month ago this is what I thought I wanted, me and Walker together. But it's not. It's not who I want. You're who I want. I'm sorry, Carina. I've been such a shit to you."
"Hush, Chuck. Let's get back in the car. This wind is cutting through me like a knife. I don't know how you could stand to swim in this cold but I'm glad you didn't. You'd have frozen to death, baby." There was an implied rebuke in there somewhere.
"I'm glad too. I'd have missed this moment."
They got in her car and she was on him in a second, straddling his legs and kissing him with a sense of hungry desperation, her skirt riding up on her thighs as she rocked against him. He returned the kiss with a passion and feeling he'd never felt before, tickling her lips with his tongue and lowering his arms until he was cupping her ass. She broke off the kiss. Her words rushed out of her mouth like bullets.
"Chuck, please, don't send me away. We can work something out. I'm falling so hard for you, Chuck. We'll keep it under wraps, find time to be together, I don't care what anyone else thinks. Please, Chuck. Please stay with me. Walker doesn't want you like I do. She has her job and Larkin and it's all she really wants. The job and someone to scratch the occasional itch."
He was nibbling her ear, his lips sucking the lobe and then slipping down to attack her neck. He nipped her where her neck and shoulder met and then licked and kissed any pain away. She was his now.
His casted hand held her close to him while his left hand was deftly pulling her blouse out of the top of her skirt and she helped him, unbuttoning it and popping the front clasp of her bra as she twisted out of the long sleeved blouse. In the growing darkness he could still see her marvelous breasts and her tight nipples begging for attention.
He ran the flat on his tongue over the nipple and then blew on it. It immediately tightened even more and became rigid. Her gasp and subsequent whimper as he sucked on the nipple sent a shiver down his spine and he attacked the other nipple not wanting to ignore it.
"Oh, Chuck, this is incredible. Hang on, baby. I'm dropping the seat back." She pulled a lever and the seat reclined and she pulled his Henley over is head and returned the favor by attacking his nipples. He couldn't breathe. All he could do was hang on to her while her mouth turned his torso into an erogenous zone. Finally satisfied, she opened his belt and pants and pulled them and his boxers down around his knees freeing his erection.
"Chuck, no condom. I had my tubes tied. Nothing comes between us. Not the job, not people and certainly not latex."
She ripped her thong off with a victorious giggle and threw it into the back seat. She mounted him and sank down, moaning and asking him to wait just a minute.
"Oh, it's been a while and…Chuck, I know you wanted it to be special our first time but honey this is so special. I feel 17 again."
"Take your time. It's been a while for me, too. But never have I wanted anything like I want you. God, this is as perfect as I could imagine. It's honest and real and I can't let you go, baby. It would be like losing a part of me. We'll work something out. "
Chuck rolled down the window to get some fresh air. The air inside the car was steaming, he was sure. He'd made love to Carina and it felt better than he could ever imagine sex to be. It was making love, not fucking.
"Let's get dressed. Follow me to my place and you can shower me off you, Chuck. No sense rubbing Walker's nose in my satisfied scent." She started to laugh and he asked her what was so funny.
"Walker called and asked me to bring you home. I don't think this is what she had in mind. Chuck, I want this. I want us as a couple. I don't know how we'll do it but between us we'll figure something out. I've been looking for you all my life and I found you and I'm never letting you go. We'll leave, get lost in the wilds someplace and start over if we can't be who we want to be here. My agency could care less. Your Combine is the problem."
"Yeah. I think maybe it's time to tell Beckman to reassign Walker. She said she'd do it if this became 'tedious' and it will become tedious as soon as I walk in the apartment door. Three weeks have changed my life. You've changed my life."
"Follow me, Chuck. You stink like sex and me. I wish I could bottle the smell and spray it in my office at work to keep the wolves away."
"Maybe you should just let them see how I marked you. You're mine now. I'll come by tomorrow and piss a circle around you. The wolves will get the idea."
"You big goof. Drive and be careful. I have a vested interest in your bones, baby."
Her car wouldn't start. The battery was good, she said she had gas, it just wouldn't start.
Chuck finally got it to start but it was running rough and the 'Check Engine' light was on and he didn't want her driving it. He rolled down the window and handed her his keys and told her he'd follow her but not to lose sight since the piece of crap pool car he was driving might die at any moment.
They were almost into the city when a big black SUV cut in front of Carina's pool car and began to slow down. Another SUV pulled up beside it and the passenger window was rolled down and the muzzle of an automatic weapon emerged and began to spit fire and bullets all through the passenger cabin.
Carina started to panic and then pulled her cell and dialed Casey.
"Casey, secure. What's up, Carina. The moron's at the…"
"Casey, he's driving my car and someone's just shot the shit out of it. Two SUVs with government plates. He's off the road in a ditch at mile marker 16 on Topanga Canyon Road just before it merges with North Hollywood. Send help, Casey!"
She hung up the phone and ran to her bullet-riddled car. He was slumped across the steering wheel and when she pulled open the door he groaned and then leaned back in the seat. The air bag had deployed and his nose was bleeding and so was his lip where his teeth had cut the inside of it.
"Chuck, can you hear me? Where are you hurt? Does it hurt to breathe? Chuck, answer me, please!" She was panicking. She was a trained agent and she was panicking. She carefully unfastened his seatbelt and put the seat back unconsciously mimicking the way she'd lowered the seat when they were making love. She was all over him looking for bullet wounds. When she cupped the back of his head her hand felt warm and sticky.
She tore a sleeve from her blouse, her strength trebled by adrenalin, formed a compress and pressed it against the back of his head.
"Chuck? Chuck, baby, please say something. Please, Chuck. Don't you dare die on me, Chuck Bartowski. I love you, damn it!" She could hear sirens in the distance. She reached behind him and removed his 9mm. No sense adding to their problems of security with a weapons charge. She had her ID out and then froze.
The SUVs both had government plates. They shot up her car. They didn't know he was driving. It was an assassination attempt on her and they got Chuck by mistake. Her cell rang and it was Sarah Walker.
"Carina, where the hell are you? Where's Chuck. Wait a minute, it's Casey. I'll call you right back and you'd better be ready to explain yourself. Chuck's not answering his cell phone. I want to know what's going on."
Her cell rang again. It was Casey this time.
"Carina, helps on the way. How badly is he hurt?"
"I don't know. He bleeding from the nose and mouth and there's blood all over the back of his head. I can't find any bullet wounds in his chest, legs or arms. I don't want to turn him and risk a spinal cord injury."
"Keep it together, Carina. You said two SUVs with government plates sprayed your car but Chuck was driving? Why was he driving your car?"
She told him about the starting problem and then the first of the emergency vehicles arrived. She disconnected and went to meet them, her pistol in one bloody hand and ID in the other.
"I want to see some ID NOW! Nobody touches him until I have some ID. I'm DEA and he's a…a government witness. ID's now!"
Casey arrived a few minutes later. He had stopped and picked up Walker on the way. He looked at Carina's pool car and shook his head. There were at least twenty bullet holes in the body, the windshield had shattered and the driver's window was just gone.
"Hansen, explain what happened here." Walker was uberprofessional, glaring at anyone and everyone who met her eyes.
"He was driving my car because it was acting up and I was following in his. He was following me back to my apartment and then was going on to his own. Two black SUVs with government plates passed me and one pulled in front of Chuck and slowed down and the other pulled up along side and started spraying automatic weapons fire into the passenger cabin."
"What's the cover?"
"He's a government witness for the DEA. It will be all right. I'll plant the paper work tomorrow. It was the only thing I could think of. He's going to be OK, Sarah. He's got to be OK. He's bleeding from the nose and mouth and the back of his head. I couldn't find any wounds in his chest or neck."
"We'll see. He better be. Black SUVs with government plates. Sounds fishy to me, Hansen." She glared at the DEA agent. She could smell her and knew she and Bartowski had been having sex. She hated Carina Hansen more than any other woman she'd ever met.
"Screw you, Walker. If you'd been half a human being to him it would be me in that car and he'd be home safe, not running from a failed suicide attempt on the beach."
"Wha…what?"
"Yeah. He was stripped to his boxers and planning on swimming to Hawaii. What the hell did you think he was doing out here? Exposing himself to little girls? Think, Walker. He told me no one swam there because of currents and water temperature but he comes here for a casual swim?"
An EMT pushed a gurney past the two agents. There was an oxygen mask on Chuck's face and one EMT was holding an IV bag high over his head.
"Carina, go with him in the ambulance. Walker, get on the phone and see about any operations involving a sanction on a DEA agent or witness. There are stoplight cameras all along here. Let's get back to the Castle and see if we can get plates on the two SUVs."
"Casey, he's my asset, I'm going to the hospital with him. Hansen can…go home or whatever."
"Walker, we need to secure the operational environment as it affects our asset. Get in the car. Agent Hansen's presence will enhance the cover story. He's her witness and she's responsible for him. Start thinking, Walker, about the asset and his cover. It's your job since you weren't anywhere around the asset protecting him. This is another colossal fuck-up on your part, Walker. I warned you." He dug the knife in and then twisted it. She needed to go. Sick leave or not, if she hadn't driven Bartowski mad with her antics he'd have been in the apartment with her, not in an ambulance unconscious. She had to go.
He had a sudden thought as he heard Chuck's voice again: "Spy vs Spy…" First Walker and now Hansen? Spy vs Spy? Agency vs Agency? Oh, crap! A civil war.
APR