A/N: Hey, happy birthday tomorrow, Peter! Love, SC. (And David, but mostly me.)
Chuck tried to stave off the intense nerves that were coursing through him as he shrugged on his off-white blazer and smoothed his hand down the brown knit sweater vest he wore underneath.
"I get the layering out on the ocean where it's super cold and blustery on the deck and all that, but how did people back then wear this in, like, Arizona, for instance? What in the hell were they thinking?" he asked, feeling the nerves start to bubble up and spill out through his mouth. "They must have all had heatstroke all the time, huh? Thank God we've got, like...shorts now. And tank tops."
Sarah sat on the desk and smirked at him, before she grabbed the houndstooth newsboy cap at her hip and tossed it to him. "Final touch."
He caught it and winked. "Thank you." Plopping it on top of his curls, he thrust his arms out and did a spin.
"Hey… The only reason I'm not going with Valle to finalize this plan of his tonight for when we disembark tomorrow is because I have to make sure this transport is happening. Valle gave us the location of the dock where we're going to be pulling in, Casey and Shaw relayed it to the team, and we need to figure out where you and I go to meet them…"
"I know, I know. It's okay. I can handle this. I'll be with the ship's First Officer. What could go wrong?"
"Just because you're dressed like a nineteen-forties douche, don't get cocky, Agent Carmichael," she drawled. Her voice became quiet then, solemn. "And don't forget what happened earlier this morning…"
Hannah. He wouldn't forget. He just swallowed and nodded. "No, you're right. I'm going to be careful. We'll both—We'll both be careful."
"It's madness out there, what with everyone freaking out, angry, trying to figure out who it was that died and what happened to them." She huffed and shook her head. "When I went to get some ice earlier, these two women had come out of their respective cabins to talk about it. One of them was certain someone had jumped over the side of the boat. The other one said they've done a count of all guests and found multiple passengers were missing. Another guy said they found out that a few crew members were dead. Where they're getting the information, I don't know. There must be a lot of people going in and out of that bridge blabbing to passengers about what the officers are finding."
He nodded. "Yeah. It was only a matter of time. But—"
He was interrupted by a knock on the door. "There'll be so many people around, in the hallways and on the decks, trying to figure out what the hell's going on and what happens when we get to Fortaleza... " Chuck backed towards the door, knowing it was Valle as he checked his watch. It was close to eleven at night, the time they'd agreed upon, the First Officer's shift just starting for the night. "We're just going to blend into the insanity."
Chuck whipped the door open, only for Nicolas Valle to push his way in and shut the door behind him. He stopped and looked at Chuck, then turned to look at Sarah, then back again. Finally, he held up a crew member's jacket and hat. "Why you all spruced up?"
"I'm...Charles Villanueva. I'm on vacation. Taking a cruise with my lovely wife down to Rio de Janeiro to sit on a beach, preferably Ipanema, all day every day. This wasn't the plan? I even broke out the off-white suit…"
"It'd be a little strange if I was seen with passenger Charles Villanueva walking down in the fire room. This?" He lifted the jacket and hat. "A little more believable."
"Oh." Chuck felt a little stupid. "You said I'd be in cover and I just assumed… Right, I'll just change then." He ignored the way Sarah ducked her head as if trying not to show her amusement at the situation. He didn't much like the idea of being laughed at but he supposed he'd asked for it. He pulled off the hat and threw it at her face, but she whipped it out of the air just in time, glaring at him for that.
Shrugging out of his blazer and vest tossing those too, he took the jacket from Valle and shrugged it on. "It's...uh, a little tight in the back," he said, wincing and squirming. He could feel it pulling across his shoulder blades.
"Sorry. All I could get without being noticed. You'll only be wearing it for a bit. Hat." He lowered his gaze and shook his head. "We'll just have to make do with the pants. Hopefully nobody questions it."
"I can change—"
"Don't have time. My shift's already started. I can only put off being in the bridge for a half hour, tops, before the excuse that I went down to check on things in the fire room doesn't work anymore. It only takes a half hour to make the rounds."
Chuck's hair made the overly large hat fit not so horribly, at least. "Okay, let's get this over with."
Sarah walked to the door with them and twisted her fist in the sleeve of the crew jacket before he could follow Valle into the hallway. "Hurry up," she whispered. "And remember to be observant, huh? Be suspicious of literally everything that you see. Be paranoid. If something or someone doesn't look or feel right…"
"Okay, I got it." He nodded. Squeezing her wrist, he rushed into the hallway and fell into step with First Officer Valle, finishing buttoning the last button and pulling the hat a bit lower to disguise his face at least a bit.
They made their way down the stairs, down more stairs, even more… until finally, he felt a certain amount of heat rising up, the lighting darker, and finally, a red glow surrounded them as they reached the literal guts of the cruise ship.
"Do you know her measurements?" Valle asked.
Chuck raised his eyebrows, his step faltering a bit. "Wha-Uh, what?"
"Her measurements? Her waist, chest, height, shoulders?"
"Sarah's? Uhhhhhh...no. Should I?" Valle huffed and shook his head. "I mean, she's a little shorter than five foot ten maybe...in heels she's nearing on six feet or taller depending on the heels." Waist, perfect. Chest, perfect. Shoulders, perfect. But that wouldn't help Nicolas.
"All right, we'll just have to do our best then."
"Do our best how? With what?"
A crew member burst around the corner, then, halting only to salute to his superior, and then bustled on again. Valle turned to him when they were alone again and hissed, "I've only been on one ship where something like this happened before. Then it was just...some rich passenger's jewels were stolen. Routine stuff. But they kept the ship in dock for a whole day, swept the whole ship, checked it up and down, wouldn't let a single soul to disembark. Except for a few crew members who were needed to help with the docking procedures."
"Ooohhh," Chuck muttered in a sing-songy voice. "That'll be Sarah and I, then."
"Exactly, you walk off with the crew to help, then slip away unnoticed. But we need to make sure you have the right uniforms and that we can smuggle you into place."
"And our luggage?"
"I have an idea for that, too. Come on."
Chuck followed Valle into the long hallway just outside of where the engines were roaring, and even if they'd wanted to have a proper conversation, they probably wouldn't have been able to it was so loud. So instead they signaled.
Chuck picked up enough to know the lockers were their goal, and that there were probably uniforms in said lockers. He realized belatedly that they were right next to a laundry room, as one of the staff pushed out of a door with a massive basket of what he assumed was clean laundry.
He stepped back and sent the woman a smile, folding his hands behind his back, acting as nonchalant as possible, but she didn't seem to give a crap either way, rushing past with a grimace of effort.
"Hurry!" Valle hissed near his ear, and he began to open the closets and rummage through the cleaned and pressed uniforms. Chuck figured out why the other man had brought him here. The suits and uniforms were cleaned and ironed here. They'd have a bevy of things to choose from.
It took them a few minutes to find everything they needed and then they shoved it all into a laundry bag, which Valle handed to Chuck to shove under his arm.
They were out just as fast, walking calmly and determinedly out of the belly of the beast and up through the stairwells and hallways again.
"Follow me. You're going to have to remember this tomorrow." Chuck got the hint. He'd have to take lead. Their getting out cleanly and safely would rely on him following instructions. He nodded solemnly.
They rounded to a level that was just under the first deck level, nodding at a few passengers, some crewmembers, before Valle pulled him to a stop at a door with "Crew Only" painted on it. "This is the door you need to go through tomorrow. Can you find your way to it again?"
Chuck nodded. He'd been paying attention.
"Okay, let's go." Valle opened the door and walked in, shutting it securely behind him. Thankfully nobody seemed to be in the place at the moment, and they followed the portholes along the wall until they pushed through another door, into a much airier room that, again, had no one else in it.
"This is the hatch they'll open up for the crew to quickly make their way onto the dock and start working with the land crew to secure the Arosa in port." He put his hand on what looked like a massive hatch they most likely used to get the biggest of their passengers' belongings out without clogging the passenger gangplanks.
"I'm in charge of this process, so I'll be here an hour before. I'll come to you, I'll take all of your luggage down to here and make sure it's labeled properly so they think it's part of the imports they'll need to check on the dock." He pointed towards the crates stacked there. "Pharmaceuticals," he explained when Chuck raised an eyebrow.
"So we're passing our belongings off as...drugs."
"They're legal," Nicolas said, rolling his eyes. "Medications. Focus."
Chuck nodded. For a guy who had no spy training whatsoever, and for someone who'd just found the woman he loved dead in her cabin not twenty four hours earlier, he was doing a way better job at this than Chuck was. He inwardly kicked himself and stood up a bit straighter. "Sorry. I'm good. You're right."
Nicolas nodded back. "You'll be putting them on dollies and rolling them down the planks onto the dock for inspectors. But if you just keep walking, they usually have cargo boxes, like for trains, stacked right near where the cruise ship will dock. If you can get behind one of those without being noticed, you can take your stuff out of the crate and get the hell outta here to...wherever it is you're going."
Chuck swallowed. "Okay. Yeah, I got it."
"You got it? Just remember to take a crowbar. I won't be able to get the top on the crate super well in the small amount of time I'm gonna have to do it in, but if it isn't at least part of the way sealed, it'll fall off when you're going down the plank and the gig'll be up." Nicolas led him back out again. "Let's get back. I need to get to the bridge."
"Right."
Chuck repeated what they had to do in his head over and over, memorizing it, implanting the way everything had looked in his brain. It all hinged on him getting this right. Sarah would do exactly what he told her to do, but he had to tell her the right thing to do.
They got back into the hallway outside of the main lobby when one of Nicolas's fellow officers came around the corner. "Officer Valle. You're needed on the bridge," he said, saluting. "Captain received a message from land and we have orders for tomorrow, sir."
"Thank you, Henderson." He turned to Chuck. "Continue the rounds. Report back to me later."
"Yessir!" Chuck rushed, saluting him. He wasn't sure if he did it the right way or not, but he got some sort of salute off. But it was as he watched the First Officer rush down the hallway after Henderson towards the bridge that he felt it… something. The hair raising on the back of his neck. Sarah's voice came back into his brain, telling him to be observant, be paranoid even. He needed to pay attention if things felt wrong.
Something felt wrong.
He turned to look down the hallway just in time to see that someone had been watching. That someone quickly ducked back around the corner out of sight. But he'd been watching. Someone...he didn't recognize… He definitely hadn't had time to flash on him, either, whoever he was.
And the only reason someone would've ducked back like that would be if they were watching him...didn't want to be seen to be watching him. And—he tried to settle his brain to keep it from going a mile a minute—if they'd been watching him, it meant they were suspicious of him. Who else would be suspicious of him but someone working for the Ring?
Shit, and now Valle was nowhere to be found, gone already to do his duty as ship's First Officer.
Chuck turned to look back in the direction of the Watcher, and stood up a bit straighter. He'd just have to figure out who in the hell that was himself. Taking a deep breath, he muttered, "I'm really about to do this," to himself, then took off with measured steps, sneaking around the corner.
A couple was at the end of the hallway, laughing as they turned the corner and stepped out of sight, leaving Chuck alone.
Had the Watcher been watching him? Or Valle? Or both of them? And if the Watcher was from the Ring, did the rest of his comrades know to be watching them, too?
Chuck took a few, slow, sneaking steps, lifting his fists, wondering if he should start opening doors and looking inside for the perpetrator. There was no way he could've gotten down the hallway without Chuck seeing him...Chuck had pursued him too quickly and the hallway was too long. Which meant he was hiding behind one of these doo—
He heard a click behind him.
But before he could react, a thick, muscled arm wound around his neck and gave him a hard yank that lifted him right off of his feet. He felt his back hit something hard, and he crashed to the floor in a small utility room.
The door slammed and he looked up to see an incredibly terrifying, large bald man with the most shit eating grin he'd ever seen stretching slowly across his face. "Well, hello there. Who might you be?" the man asked in a tone that was both sickly sweet and a snarl. Somehow.
"Who are you? What do you think you're doing, assaulting a crew member—?"
The man reached down and grabbed Chuck by the throat, yanking him up to his feet and slamming his back hard against the opposite wall. He leaned his face in close. "I'm not playing any games with you, ya piece of shit. Who you workin' for? You the CIA bastard we've been looking for this whole time?"
"C-CIA? The hell are you—? Ah! Ow! Shit!" The Ring agent—he had to be Ring, Chuck was sure—had slammed him into the wall again, except harder this time.
"I said no games. I'll get the truth outta you eventually, so might as well just tell me."
And in spite of the terrifying situation he was in, that all-too-human survival instinct kicking in, he thought about finding Hannah on the floor, the blood, the way she'd been so vibrant and full of life out there on that pool deck. He thought about the First Officer, Nicolas Valle, and the fact that he'd had to find the woman he loved lifeless on the floor of her cabin. A life snuffed, a life together snuffed. Chuck felt anger, a righteous anger, rise in his chest.
"What'd the Ring send you here for?" he asked, panting, but keeping his gaze on his attacker's. "Hm? To kill a few innocent people? Murder some crewmembers? Someone who was making a delivery for your side?" he hissed.
"She wasn't supposed to die!" he spat, pulling Chuck back from the wall and pushing him. His foot caught on something and he flew back, landing hard on his shoulder and wrenching it. But as he groaned in pain, he looked up to see that his head had nearly missed the edge of a shelf… It all clicked.
"You…" he breathed, and he spun to look up at the Ring agent. "You killed her. You killed Hannah Liu."
"Maybe if the bitch hadn't walked in on me, she'd still be alive. She wouldn't get off'a me so I pushed 'er. Wasn't my fault."
White hot rage went through Chuck and he lost any semblance of sense of self-preservation. He just kept thinking about the woman they'd found on the floor, a puddle of blood under her head. And the family, the loved ones, she'd left behind...blackmailed with the lives of her family to do a terrorist organization's bidding only to be murdered by them halfway through her journey…
Chuck sprang up from the ground and leapt onto the other man, his fists flying. They connected a few times with the Hulk-like bastard...and did absolutely nothing. Instead, a fist curled in the front of his jacket, giving it a tug. He felt and heard the back of it rip right down the middle as he was bodily lifted off the ground.
Just like that, a fist as hard as steel cracked into the side of his face, once...twice...and a third time...the last time sending him crashing to the ground.
He was bleeding. From his nose...definitely. And he thought the edge of his lip was probably split too, because he could taste the blood against his aching teeth. He coughed and rolled onto his back. "Ah… shit…"
"Nobody told me I couldn't kill you, ya CIA fucker," he snarled. And he reached down to lift Chuck by the front of his jacket again, slamming him hard against the floor. And again. And again.
The man seemed to be getting a lot of glee from beating the shit out of him. And Chuck was verging on disoriented, his vision swimming from his head smacking the hard floor.
"Always wanted to snap a fed's spine in half…" He grabbed Chuck and lifted him again, this time slamming him against the door and grabbing him by the throat, actually squeezing this time. Oh God, this was it. This was how he was going to go. Sarah was going to be so angry. Ellie would be furious. But Sarah…
"Pl-Please...I'm...aggghhh…" he tried, but his windpipe was closing…
There had to be something. He flailed, trying to hit at the larger man's arm to loosen his grip. But nothing would deter the maniac.
Shit, the guy didn't even have hair he could pull.
But then he managed to get one of his legs up just enough to give a hearty shove of his knee against the Ring agent's chest, which made him let go and stagger back just enough to drop Chuck. Gasping for air, Chuck yelped as the beast charged towards him, lifting up both of his legs and slamming him in the chest with both feet as hard as he could, landing crooked and hard on his back.
The Ring agent staggered back again and slammed hard into the shelves against the other wall. There was a snapping sound, wood cracking, but he just stood up as if a feather had tapped him, an absolutely evil glee on his face.
Chuck saw a knife then, glinting in the Ring agent's hand.
This was the moment. This was the moment Ellie'd talked to him about, the moment she was afraid of. This was the moment Sarah had feared, the one that had made her so angry about his decision to become a spy. He was about to die.
Chuck whimpered and covered his face, throwing his hands up and shutting his eyes.
"I'm gonna gut you like a fi—" THUNK!...Thump!
The floor shook...and there was silence... Chuck lowered his hands and snuck one eye open, wondering how he didn't have a knife in his gut.
The Ring agent was awkwardly leaned back against the shelves, draped halfway on top of them, out cold.
"What the—?" Chuck scrambled up to his knees, choking a little and holding onto his own throat. God, that still hurt...a lot.
Chuck carefully crawled a little closer… it was a can of paint. The Ring agent had cracked the top shelf, upon which a stack of paint cans sat, and one of them had tipped over the edge and onto his head. "Oh my God," he breathed, still gasping for breath. He was the luckiest bastard in the universe.
Hurrying to stand on shaky legs, he pointed at the knocked out Ring agent. "You just got Home Alone'd, mother fucker!" he hissed. The reality of what had almost just happened to him hit then and he let out a soft, "H'ohhh...oh my God. Shit. Shit shit shit."
Rushing out of the closet, he shut it tightly behind him, breathing, "Stay...please stay...please…"
And then he spun on his heel and sprinted down the hallway, wiping at the blood on his face, his mouth and nose, to try to look a little less like he'd just been nearly killed in the utility closet. He checked around the corner, saw it was empty enough for him to maybe get away with going through.
He tried to hide his face as he rushed past, and even when he heard another passenger's, "Hey! Are you okay?" he just kept going.
Knowing he just needed to get back to his suite and tell Sarah what had happened, which was a lot more important than trying to move about the ship under the radar at this point, he decided to just get there as fast as he could.
It didn't take too long before he took his key out with a shaky, blood-covered hand, unlocking his door and pushing into the suite as fast as he could, slamming it shut and locking it behind him.
He spun around to sweep the room for Sarah. "Sarah? Sar—?"
She walked into the living room from the bedroom, halting the moment she saw him. She had her phone against her ear. "Casey, I have to go."
Lowering the phone, she rushed for him, dropping it on the couch along the way. "Oh my God, what happened?" Her hands were on his jacket, unbuttoning it, pushing at it to get it out of her way. "Are you okay?"
He nodded as she grabbed his hand and looked at it, as covered in his own blood as it was, considering he'd used it to wipe the blood from his face.
"Jesus Christ! Are you shot?" She pushed his jacket all the way off of him, pulling at his shirt to check for a wound.
"No, I-I wiped my face."
"What happened?" she asked again, her hand gently cupping his cheek as she looked at his face.
"I got attacked."
"Yeah, I figured," she breathed, shaking her head. She took his arm and pulled him to the couch. "Here, sit. Talk. Now." She made him sit and then she rushed to her bag, grabbing a First-Aid kit out of it, before rushing to the bathroom. "I said talk!" she snapped.
"Valle—"
"Is he okay?" she asked, stopping in the doorway and spinning to face him.
"That's the thing, Sarah. He's—He's fine. He's okay. He wasn't there when I was attacked. But we have to act fast," he called into the other room.
She came back a few moments later, cloth in hand. "Act fast?" She sat down on the coffee table in front of him and cupped his chin as she began to clean the blood from it. He hissed. "Chuck, talk to me."
"I'm trying!" he exclaimed. He could feel his eye swelling, his lip swelling, and his nose hurt so damn bad, but he still had a duty to do. "One of the officers came down from the bridge and told Valle he had to go back to the bridge immediately because they have orders from land. He went, and I turned to see someone...I dunno, watching. He was watching me. He ran away when he realized I saw him and I followed."
"Chuck," she huffed in exasperation.
"I know! I know it was stupid! I know that now but I just...had this fear that it had to be a Ring agent—why would anybody else be tailing me?—and if he was watching me, he knew I was the federal agent on board. Or maybe he knew Hannah and Nicolas were lovers. And that information was gonna be seriously dangerous for us until we get off of this deathtrap!" He shook his head. "I know I shouldn't have gone, but I did. He got the jump on me, pulled me into a closet—a-a utility closet or something like that. And he did...all of this." He unconsciously reached up to touch the still sore welt at his throat from the Ring agent's hands strangling the life out of him.
Sarah leaned in and grabbed his hand, pulling it away, and something came over her face. She frowned deeply, her eyes quivering, and she gently let her fingers brush over what must be the visible signs of being choked nearly to death. "Chuck…?"
"Yeah, but I got outta there. I knocked him out. I did that, Sarah." He decided not to tell her it was pure luck, that he'd been this close to getting a knife stuck in him. That he'd been so close to dying before he even finished his full training.
She let out a rough breath and hung her head, her eyes shutting. "Where's this utility closet?"
"Are you gonna kill him?" he asked.
Sarah clenched her jaw, then pushed the cold, wet cloth against his face. "I have to take care of this."
"Sarah, he's built like a tank. There's no way one, or really even two people, can drag him. Why d'you think I look like this?" He wouldn't say that he'd practically busted his knuckles trying to punch the guy and he hadn't even blinked. "He's a monster."
"Shit!" she hissed, pushing a hand through her hair. He saw an idea come to her, her eyes widening for a moment. She bit her lip thoughtfully. "I'll be back soon. I got some ice while you were gone. Hold some of it on your neck where he…" Her voice faltered and she stood up, scooting around the table and going back to her bag.
"Sarah, what are you gonna do?"
"Improvise." She grabbed the diagram of the ship they'd been using during this whole trip and came back to him. "Where's the utility closet you left him in?"
Chuck scoured the map, then pointed. "And if he's already woken up? If he's gone?"
"Then we're fucked. Let's hope you hit him hard enough." She grabbed a small zipper pouch and opened it up, setting it on the table.
Chuck moved the cloth from his eye and turned to face her better, trying to get a look at what she was doing. "Is that a syringe?" Then he watched her attach a needle, a very large needle, and he felt weak. "What're—?"
"There's enough tranquilizer here to knock a horse out for a week. If you say he's big, I'll need about this much."
"We're...just gonna leave him in that closet?"
"What choice do we have, Chuck? We can't just carry an unconscious tank of a guy all over this ship! We just have to hope nobody needs anything out of that closet before we get off of here."
"Like paint…" he muttered.
"What?"
"Nothing."
She fixed the skirt she was wearing, sticking the syringe back in the pouch, zipping it up, and hiding it in her purse, before she went for the door. On second thought, she doubled back and rushed to his side. "Chuck, seriously… are you okay?"
He nodded. "I got my ass beat, but I'll live."
"Keep icing the things that hurt the worst. I'll be back soon. Wash the blood off in the bathroom maybe, before it dries too much. And please, Chuck, whatever you do, do not open that door for anyone, okay?" She took in his face, his throat, and then she was gone, sending him one last look before she swung out into the hallway.
He groaned and pushed himself up, miserable in more ways than one. Everything hurt so badly he thought he might die from pain. But he was also hit with the realization that his partner was out there risking her own safety to clean up the mess he'd made, when he hadn't needed to.
Chuck couldn't help thinking about what might've happened if he hadn't pursued the Ring agent and knocked him out, though. Every Ring agent on this ship would know what at least one of the intelligence agents on this cruise liner looked like, and he'd have a target on his back. And First Officer Valle would have a target on his back, too. He'd had to stop the guy before any of that happened.
He hobbled into the bathroom to wash his face, groaning in agony at how terrible it all looked before leaning down to splash water on himself.
He let the water run over his hands, washing away the blood, revealing the rough, scraped skin over his knuckles, and he could see it starting to bruise already. At least it wasn't gushing anymore.
He patted everything dry as gently as he could and made his way back into the bedroom. So much had happened in such a small amount of time, he was floundering to try to make sense of any of it. He'd nearly been murdered in the broom closet of a freaking cruise ship, and now Sarah was cleaning up after him. Everything hurt.
But he was alive.
And Hannah wasn't. Not only that, but she'd been blackmailed into all of this, her family's safety used to force her to transport the key safely. She'd failed and she was dead now, which meant her family was potentially in some serious danger.
What he knew for sure was that she'd been a large part of the plan for Ring and she'd now paid the price. How much would what she'd done for them so far factor into their future plans, and also what happened on this ship with their agents failing to obtain the key?
He knew there was ice around here somewhere and Sarah wouldn't be happy about it if he didn't do as she asked before she went off to tranquilize the human tank.
But he found himself going into his suitcase instead of getting the ice. He peeled his clothes inside back and out of the way, then slipped his fingers in the groove cut into the bottom of the bag, pulling a tiny little notebook out, rushing over to the desk to grab a pen. He opened to the next empty page and quickly scrawled a few notes.
It had been some time since he'd been around someone he could practice the language with. Considering Morgan couldn't even speak proper Spanish to his family after living with them speaking it around him his whole life, this language just wasn't in the cards for the beard.
Chuck finally scrawled down a few phrases he would understand later to mean: "Hannah—killed. (Where's her family?)"
He paused, turning to look at the doorway that led out to the main room. And then he looked down at Sarah's suitcase, neatly packed, not a single thing out of place, ready to run whenever she had to.
He turned yet again to look at the bed they'd been sharing while they were on this trip. Things had snowballed on this mission. They'd found more and more Ring agents surrounding them, they'd discovered that the key was being transported by Hannah, who was in a relationship with a high ranking officer on the cruise ship, and now she was dead and her family was in trouble, wherever they were.
And somehow in the midst of all of that, he and Sarah had come so, so damn close to having sex.
Maybe in some super cool flashy suave 007 movie, that wouldn't be such a big deal. Sex meant nothing in those movies. It meant nothing to Bond.
But this wasn't a 007 movie. It was real life. His life. And after so much struggle, so much battling, reaching, clinging, and then pushing away… This was the closest Chuck had ever felt to having some kind of semblance of an answer to a question he'd written down near the beginning of all of this, when Sarah had only been in his life for a short time, when he already was feeling something raw and exciting and warm between them.
He flipped towards the beginning of the notebook, quickly scanning, turning pages, until he found it. He recognized Sarah's name in Klingon. And underneath, scrawled out with the spaces and apostrophes in between letters that would make no sense to over ninety-nine percent of the human population, he'd written what amounted to: "What are her true feelings? Do we have a chance?" He licked at the corner of his lip, tasting blood, and that was okay. It was all okay, because for the first time, he was able to write: HIja'.
Yes.
He winced. He wrote a question mark after it. Just in case.
Chuck hid the notebook again, flattening his clothes over it, tossing the pen back onto the desk, and he went straight for the ice.
}o{
It took everything in her not to just turn around, go back in there, and wrap him up in her arms. Her hands were shaking a little now that she wasn't with him, and she let them shake. Just for a moment. While she was alone.
A Ring agent had gotten Chuck alone, in a closet, and had tried to murder him. She hadn't been anywhere close to nearby, not enough to be able to do anything about it. She saw the finger marks on Chuck's neck, the horrible bruising that was already starting.
When she'd walked in from the bedroom and saw the blood all over his face, his lip busted, jaw blue, nose cut, his eye swelling, and his hand covered in blood, as though he'd been shot in the arm or something and it was dripping down… God, her heart had seized. She hadn't been able to take in a full breath.
He'd somehow overpowered the apparent behemoth of a Ring agent, though, even without enough proper hand to hand combat training. And now she was tasked with cleaning this up as best she could.
She didn't mind cleaning up. She'd done worse clean-ups before. And she understood that Chuck had felt it necessary to pursue the man who'd been watching him in case their identities were in danger, or Valle was in danger. But she was furious, seeing him so beat up. There was a voice inside of her head that wouldn't stop repeating that he easily could've died in that closet. And that would've been the end of it, everything. Not just the Intersect Project, but...God, everything would've died with him.
Sarah found herself shaking even harder as she made her way through the corridor and finally turned the corner in the hallway right near where the main lobby was. The fact that this had happened so close to where so many people were boggled her mind.
Licking her lips nervously, she neared the closet door he had pointed out on the map. "Here goes nothing," she breathed, looking both ways to make sure she was alone, before she grabbed the handle and whipped it open.
"Holy shit!" she hissed, eyes wide. She stepped in quickly and shut the door behind her, gaping down at the unconscious man on the floor of the utility closet. Not that she thought Chuck was lying but… the man was as thick as a redwood, each of his arms alone like tanks, let alone the rest of him.
She took a deep breath and pressed her fingers to her forehead, completely gobsmacked, and equally terrified out of her mind. The chances of Chuck getting out of this situation alive couldn't have been more than maybe ten percent, and that was high-balling it. She wasn't even sure she'd be a match for him, and she had a decade of experience and serious training under her belt.
"Jesus Christ, Chuck," she whispered, her voice quivering. God, he must have been so scared staring down this monster.
But she had a job to do. First, she decided to check to make sure this guy wasn't just playing dead to catch her off-guard. She poked him hard in the thigh with her heel but he didn't budge. He'd have a bruise there later, most likely. Oh well. At least she knew she was safe.
Pulling the pouch out of her skirt, she unzipped it and took the syringe out, flicking the needle a bit and taking a deep breath.
They were really taking a massive chance leaving the Ring agent here until the next day when they could get CIA to remove him, but there was no other choice. She and Chuck wouldn't be able to manage to get him to their suite. He was too heavy, and it'd be too obvious.
She pulled her phone out and dialed Shaw's secure line. He answered after a few rings, right as she jammed the needle into the Ring agent's insanely thick neck. "Shaw, secure."
"We have a situation," she said. "A Ring agent attacked Agent Carmichael. We think he ID'd him as a federal agent and was tailing him. He knocked the Ring agent out and we've got him tranquilized in a closet. He'll stay like this for a while, but we need our guys to get on this ship when it docks and get him out of here. Trust me when I say guys, plural, he must be two-sixty and it's all muscle."
"Shit. How the hell'd he ID him?" Shaw asked.
"I don't know how. But Carmichael's sure he was watching him. He doubled back to check it out and was attacked."
"Wait…" There was a long pause. "Chuck…? Chuck knocked a guy who was two hundred and sixty pounds of muscle out?"
She knew she should be a little offended for Chuck, but she was incredulous about it, too, so she supposed she'd give Shaw this one. "Yeah. He did. I just pumped him full of a shit ton of tranquilizers. Should do the trick. But you need to get guys on here and you need to tell them where. I'll send you the diagram of the ship with the location of the closet we're leaving him in."
"You're just going to leave him in a clos—?"
"I know!" she snapped. "But we don't have a choice. He's too big to move." Jesus Christ, what was so hard to understand about this?
"All right, Agent Walker. Sarah. I'll have it done."
"Good. Transport is still a go?"
"Solid. I'll tell you where to go tomorrow."
"Okay."
"Hey… Be careful."
"Yeah." She hung up, rolling her eyes a bit, then put the syringe away, having emptied it all into this bastard's system. And because she couldn't help her curiosity, she looked for a wound, anything that might tell her how in the hell Chuck had knocked the guy unconscious for this long. There were no wounds, though, nothing but the massive knot on top of his…
"Head," she breathed, narrowing her eyes as she stepped over him and looked. There was a knot the size of a golf ball on the operative's head. That was when she saw the can of paint lying nearby, a huge dent on the bottom ring from the guy's skull...and she put it all together.
"Oh, Chuck," she breathed, shaking her head. The reality of what had happened, and the implications of it, crashed down on her head like the paint can had crashed down onto this guy's earlier.
She peered up and saw the shelf with the cans, the crack in the wood that must've shifted the cans enough that one of them had fallen off of the top and cracked the guy's head, knocking him out cold. Chuck really had been so close to death. If it weren't for pure fucking luck…
Sarah let herself plop down to sit against the door for a moment, letting out a harsh breath and pressing her fingers to her lips, trying to stay composed. She knew spies didn't get luck like that often, once in a very blue moon. Chuck wasn't even a full-fledged NSA agent yet, and he'd used up his moment of pure luck already.
She swallowed hard and pushed a hand through her hair, scared, relieved, shaken up. She couldn't imagine how he felt.
But then the glint of a blade caught her eye, sticking out from under the Ring operative's leg, and she crawled closer, tugging it out. This wasn't Chuck's. He didn't carry knives or guns. She shivered violently, imagining finding Chuck here after he'd been missing for hours, with this very blade buried inside of him.
Fighting down panic, she picked up the knife and hid it on her person, then searched him for any other weapons. He, himself, was a weapon, so he didn't need more than this, she supposed.
She left carefully, shutting the door behind her, hoping against all hope the next person who opened the closet would be an intelligence agent working on her side once they docked tomorrow.
Then she rushed back to the suite.
Chuck was where she left him, only he was holding ice wrapped in a cloth against his eye, his other hand clamping another cloth full of ice against his shoulder.
"What happened to your shoulder?" she asked, rushing to his side.
"Oh, I-I, um, I must've wrenched it knocking him out. I...punched him. Really hard."
Sarah gave him a long look as she sat on the coffee table in front of him… Something inside of her melted, and she thought of the knife, how big and menacing that guy had been even passed out, and the fact that Chuck had just had a horrific brush with death. She gently took the ice from his hand and held it against his eye for him so that he could rest his hurt shoulder.
"I'll have to teach you the correct way to punch somebody so that you don't hurt yourself doing it next time, hm?"
"Hurt him more'n me."
Oh, Chuck. She lunged off of the table and moved in to hug him gently but tightly all at the same time, careful of his shoulder, but needing to feel the living warmth of him against her.
"He was giant and I'm just glad you're okay," she breathed, pushing her hand that wasn't holding the ice through his curls at the back of his head and squeezing him a bit tighter. He hugged her back just as tight. And it felt like he'd needed it more than she did so she let him dictate the terms of the hug.
"He was as big as I said, right? You...took care of it?"
His hand moved gently against her lower back, rubbing, and it felt good.
"I took care of it," she said with a minute nod. "As long as no one goes in that closet, he'll be knocked out in there. I spoke to Shaw. We'll have agents sneak on to arrest him." She needed to send Shaw the diagram indicating where the closet was. But not right at this moment. Chuck needed her right at this moment.
"Can we make a pact?" she asked then as he finally pulled back. She allowed herself to smooth his hair back before she sat in front of him again. He didn't look quite so bad with the blood washed off of his face. His nose looked red, a cut on his nostril, and his lip was swollen. He'd also have a black eye and a bruise on his jaw, and she put the ice back on it as gently as she could. But there wasn't blood everywhere anymore, and her heart wasn't in her throat. Still, she felt it throbbing hard.
"Yeah," Chuck said, nodding.
"Can you try not to make guys who're over two-hundred pounds with necks like a fucking rhinoceros's angry?" She smirked as he chuckled, wincing as it hurt his busted lip. "By all means, be a spy, join the NSA, be a huge pain in Casey's ass, but don't piss off guys like that. Okay?"
He wrinkled his nose. "I make no promises. I mean, I can't help it if guys who look like that tend to join terrorist organizations. I feel like Casey's the exception."
She scoffed, going into the first aid kit to start actually patching him up. "I could take Casey with one hand tied behind my back. That guy? I honestly don't know about him. I don't know how you managed it." She raised her eyebrow.
Sarah didn't miss the way his cheeks went pink and he diverted his gaze. Her insides warmed. She could see he was having a hard time keeping up the act that he'd lucked out with the paint can falling on his opponent's head. But he gulped and shrugged. "Guess I hit him in just the right spot."
"You must've," she said, smirking. She was going to let him have this, and she rubbed his shoulder. "Congratulations on bagging your first bad guy, Agent Carmichael."
The look on his face was worth covering up a bit of a white lie. He'd survived, which was the most important thing, and their enemy had ended up unconscious. It was a double win. And that was really all that mattered… along with the relief and thread of pride she saw behind the bruises. He'd earned some pride after all.
}o{
"You sure about this?"
"Yes," he said, leading Sarah to the door that said "CREW ONLY".
He turned to glance at her over his shoulder and felt a little ridiculous. She passed off as a young man well enough with her hair pinned up under a floppy workman's cap, her clothes baggy and fitting her loosely enough to hide her breasts and curves, the gloves she wore to cover her hands. And in spite of their harrowing situation, he allowed himself to muse on just how cute she was dressed like this, a look of thoughtful consternation on her face.
"Okay, well…" She huffed. "It isn't like I don't trust you. But the idea of pushing one of those dollies onto the dock and just walking away with a box that's supposed to be full of pharmaceuticals doesn't sound like something we'll be able to get away with."
"We have to be cool about it, that's all," he muttered, pushing through the door and leading her down the hallway.
They walked into the room with the hatch which was already open, the plank being carefully unfolded and fastened against the dock where they'd make their getaway. More importantly, he spotted First Officer Nicolas Valle in the corner by the crates, waiting to receive the dock manager who immediately came onto the ship with a clipboard and pen in hand.
They shook hands as Chuck and Sarah stepped into the group of loitering work hands. He couldn't hear what Valle and the dock manager were saying to one another, but he kept his gaze on the officer. He watched as he subtly put his hand on one of the thankfully smaller boxes on top and Chuck saw the mark on it. A triangle, just like Valle told him.
"That's the one," he muttered out of the not busted corner of his mouth to Sarah. She pressed in close to his side and he felt more than saw her nod. She'd seen it. And she knew the plan.
"Gents." Valle whistled and gestured to the boxes, then stepped to the side to make room for them to get to work.
Chuck made a beeline for his and Sarah's box, taking one side as Sarah sidled up to the other. "Ready?" he muttered and she grunted in a deep voice. God, it took everything he had not to laugh at how similar it was to a Casey impersonation. They lifted together, set it on a dolly that already had a few other boxes on it, and they immediately stepped into place to push it down the plank carefully.
"Careful, boys!" the officer down on the dock called up as they eased it down, Chuck backing it down in the front as Sarah pushed from the back. Another dock hand whistled and gestured to an area near the train cargo boxes Valle had alluded to.
He let himself feel a pang of regret, knowing he'd seen First Officer Nicolas Valle for the last time, after everything they'd been through, but he kept his focus and rolled the dolly over to the spot where they'd stack the cargo.
Chuck exchanged a look with Sarah as they worked together to unload and stack the boxes, careful to make sure the box with the triangle was all by itself behind the stacks.
"Make them tall," Sarah muttered, and they strained to stack the boxes high, staying behind as other crew members took their dolly to reload from up top. When there were enough boxes and everyone's backs were turned, Chuck felt Sarah grab his shoulder, trying to ignore the way it absolutely ached from the strain of lifting heavy crates, and she yanked on him.
Behind the stacked boxes, their luggage sat hidden in a crate just like Valle'd said it would be. "Get it," Sarah hissed, and they grabbed the box, rushing as fast as they could towards the nearest cargo container, not stopping until they got behind it.
"Crowbar," she demanded. "Hurry. We don't know that we weren't seen." Even as she spoke, she tore her hat off, her hair falling down around her shoulders, unbuttoning her jacket and yanking that off too.
Chuck stuck his hand down his pants and tugged the crowbar up, pulling it free with a "Ta da!" before using it to pry the lid off of the box. He reached in and grabbed their baggage. "Remember how I said I'd be your very own baggage handler?" he asked, stacking it all beside them as she shoved her disguise inside of one of the duffel bags. He got a wry look for that.
"Gimme the hat and jacket and let's get the hell out of here," she breathed, grabbing both from him as he made quick work of it, shoving them in with hers before zipping it back up, standing, and swinging the duffel over her shoulder.
They grabbed everything and hobbled away, keeping close to the train containers, looking for anyone who might be suspicious, and they didn't stop until they finally made their way out onto the road.
Chuck whistled for a cab, seeing a few of them approaching, and when one of them slid up against the curb, he tossed everything in the trunk, taking what Sarah had as well, shut it, and climbed into the backseat after her.
Sarah spoke in Portuguese to the cabby, and he had no idea what she'd said to him, nor did he really even care as he slumped down in the seat in relief. Sarah could take it from here, he decided.
He felt her hand grab onto his arm and squeeze. He just nodded, covering her hand with his. They'd done it. Somehow. And now they were on their way to the airport where the plane that would take them to Langley awaited. Their transport was ready. They'd gotten word early this morning that it awaited their arrival.
As the taxi made its way through the streets of Fortaleza, Chuck peered out of the window, watching the scenery go by.
"You think Nicolas will be okay?" he asked finally.
There was a long silence and he heard Sarah sigh. "I hope so. I really hope so."
He nodded, swallowing hard, allowing himself to wonder what was next, not just for him, for Sarah, the key, and everything else, but what would happen to the First Officer who'd done so much to make this mission a success.
This would always be a part of the job, he realized as he sat in the silence of the cab. Wondering about the people they left behind, the people with gaping wounds, both physical and emotional. He'd always wonder. No matter how deep into the agency he got. He'd always wonder.
A/N: More coming very soon. We're excited to be back! Thanks for being patient with this fic. And please, as always... review. It means a lot to both of us.
-SC and DC