A/N: Much like Love Boat (First Class) you are going to recognize the characters in this arc, and the episode, but that's about it. Welcome back to Chuck vs The Nerds Rewrite.
This was bad. This was so heinously bad that it might actually be the worst and she'd only done it to herself.
She'd meant what she'd said. And every single rule she'd written. There was no going back. They were doing this. But she saw his eyes crossing a little the further she got down her list, and she just had this horrible feeling the gig would be up the moment they got in front of everyone.
It wasn't that she didn't have faith in him. He was good at spy work. He was brilliant. He was surprisingly good at thinking on his toes.
But he'd gathered her up in his arms before he finally left to go back to his hotel room Beckman had put him up in, and he'd kissed her a certain way. She'd unleashed a beast, in no uncertain terms. And she knew it.
And damn her, because she wasn't sorry about it at all.
But God, she was full of nerves in the worst way. Because she knew she'd be able to pull this off. She was good at pretending and especially good at lying. But Chuck might crumble. He might legitimately crumble. And when he did, she didn't know how she would handle Shaw. She didn't have even an ounce of trust in the guy. And she didn't quite know the reason, but she didn't need to.
She did trust Chuck. And she was going to keep trusting him throughout all of this. Trusting that he could play like what happened last night, and what would definitely keep happening...hadn't happened.
She fixed her blazer as she stepped into the elevator, thankfully alone when the door slid shut. She took a deep breath, running her hand down the blazer again, trying to make the annoying tingling in her fingers and toes go away by repeating the thought that what she was doing here was absolutely insane...but it was the right thing. She'd made this choice and she was sticking with it.
And now she'd gotten absolutely no sleep on top of everything else. Sex had usually been a relief for her, something that loosened her up and let her release some pent up energy. Even if it hadn't been necessarily good sex.
Last night, there had been a lot of really, really good sex. But she was a complete and utter bundle of nerves with Chuck lying half on top of her in a dead sleep. As much as she'd wanted to just stay there and cling to him, enjoy it for everything that it was, her mind was going a mile a minute and she knew she'd go absolutely mad if she didn't feed the nerves coursing through her.
So she had finally slipped out from underneath him oh so carefully, and she'd done the only thing she could do. What she always did when she was feeling like a ship being tossed in stormy seas. Diving in headfirst with Chuck, throwing away her fears and doubts and reservations as if they were nothing, and losing herself in him, in the way he made her feel, her absolute soul-deep need for his touch, hadn't been a mistake per se. It wasn't that. But it had seriously thrown her off in a massive way and as she'd stood there in the middle of her bedroom with nothing but her robe wrapped around her, she was frightened down to her bones. Because she had lost her grip on any amount of control over this situation with Chuck that she'd always thought she had. She'd had both hands on the wheel, and last night, she'd taken them off. She was careening every which way, and she didn't know how to get her hands back on the wheel again. Maybe that option was completely lost to her now that she'd slept with him.
It had taken her a good five minutes to move past that fact alone. That she'd just had sex with Chuck Bartowski, and not a single part of it was an accident. She'd done it with both eyes open, knowing full well what she was doing, even aware, at least at the back of her mind, that there might be consequences.
But then she'd decided to take that control back. And she'd ended up sitting at her desk with a notebook and a pen. Maybe it was just a way to settle herself down, focus her head on something. But really, she knew it was how she always dealt with that feeling of losing control. Whatever had happened, she needed to get her head out of the churning waters so that she could look down and see things clearly again.
Making a list of rules, provisos as it were, helped her hold what she and Chuck had done at arm's length.
It was a desperate, and ultimately failed attempt to control the situation. But she also wanted to get herself to a place where it felt like a mission so that she could pretend nothing had happened when she got in front of General Beckman and Agent Shaw.
She had no idea how that was going to go.
Because while she could control her own actions, she couldn't control Chuck's.
When she got into the conference room, Shaw was already there, sliding some papers together in front of him and then hitting them a few times on the desk. He turned and smiled at her. "Agent Walker. Good morning. Nice to see you."
Bullshit. She just nodded once. "Where's the General?" Then she added as an afterthought. "And Carmichael?"
"Ah. Yes. I don't know about Carmichael, but the General will join us in a moment. Did you sleep well in your old D.C. apartment?"
Sarah fought the urge to glower at him. She hadn't slept at all, actually, and there was no way in hell he'd ever know why that was. "I did. But I've grown accustomed to falling asleep wherever I end up. Part of the job."
"Of course."
They stood there awkwardly together, the air tense, and he looked like he was searching for something to say. She just kept staring at him, unblinking, because it made him so obviously uncomfortable.
Finally, the door on the other end of the room opened and General Beckman walked in at a brisk clip. "Agents."
"General," they both chimed.
"Where's Agent Carmichael?"
Sarah had no idea where Chuck was, but if he didn't show up soon, she was going to start getting worried. And she really couldn't handle that on top of how God damn frayed her nerves already were.
She'd made the decision to do what they'd done last night. They'd both made that decision. And now she was going to deal with whatever came from it as best she could.
If Chuck was able to remember at least two of the rules she'd established with him this morning, maybe they'd be okay. Just two.
Shaw made a face, rolling his eyes a bit, and then he huffed. "Perhaps we should have sent an agent to retrieve—"
But then they'd heard a quiet swiping sound, a deedle and a negative sounding bweedoop. And then another swiping sound, the same rejection sound.
Sarah heard a heavy sigh from the general as Shaw snickered. She wanted to bash her elbow into his nose for it. But before she could go open the door to let Chuck in, the swipe and deedle was followed by a positive beep, and he pushed the door open himself, stepping inside.
"S-Sorry," he said, holding his laminated I.D. card up. "I didn't realize you had to swipe it with this side facing up. It's, like, totally the opposite of how you swipe a credit card. 'Cause of the...stripe. The stripe's in th-the wrong. Right. No one cares. Got it." He cleared his throat and stepped up to wedge himself in between Sarah and Shaw.
It felt almost blatant and that, she thought to herself, was strike one. God, this whole thing was going down in a ball of flames.
They knew. They were going to know if they didn't already.
She'd had the tall drink of water that was Chuck Bartowski and she'd followed it up with a few really good chasers of Agent Carmichael.
Oh God, Casey wasn't even here and her awful brain was somehow channeling him. This was the worst.
And also the best.
"Glad you made it all right, Chuck," the general drawled with no small amount of sarcasm. "Let's get started."
"Uh, first...General." Shaw held up his pointer finger and cleared his throat. "I should inform both Agent Walker and Chuck about the, uh, slight changes in our plans."
"Changes?" Chuck asked. "Did we...talk about that?"
"Agent Shaw and I discussed it yesterday after I dismissed you two. As Major Casey is sidelined with his injury, we have a slightly unbalanced team here. And as Shaw has other duties, we decided we would bring in another agent we can trust for this mission. Of course, they won't be read in on the Intersect or Chuck's role with the Intersect. But you need a third member of your team. Two won't cut it. You barely made it out of that cruise ship alive."
"I thought it best we bring in someone Agent Walker is familiar with from past missions," Shaw said, and Sarah turned to look at him with the best spy mask she could muster.
She'd been doing a good job of repressing all of the Chuck tumult, keeping it stuffed deep down inside of her throughout the last few minutes, but then he turned and gave her a long look. To his credit, it wasn't that look, the one she'd banned in her list of rules. And yet...because the human brain was the most traitorous organ in the entire human body—or perhaps it was tied with the heart—she was assailed by the memory of looking down and seeing and feeling him press his lips to the inside of her knee, trailing them up her inner thigh...and his brown eyes lifting to meet hers, and the blaze that had crashed through every last bit of her in that moment.
"Agent Walker?"
She jumped a bit and turned to face General Beckman, who was giving her a purely weirded out look. "Yes, General?"
"Did you hear me?"
Sarah blinked. "I'm sorry, I was trying to think of whom this...third agent for our mission might be. Since apparently I've worked with them before."
"Ah. Well... yes." She looked a bit uncomfortable then, and Sarah thought nothing good could come from this. Especially considering it sounded like Shaw had made the choice.
And now she had this incessant pressure of her blood pumping extra hard, specifically in that spot beside her knee where Chuck had…
Dear God, she was unraveling.
And then the door opened.
And Sarah's worst nightmare strolled inside, a smirk on her face, her brown eyes blazing with hatred as she finally swept them over to take in the blonde.
"Oh. Fuck."
She could see in her peripheral as Chuck spun to look at her, obviously curious considering her reaction.
"Well, well, well…" Zondra Rizzo folded her arms at her chest as she came to a stop beside General Beckman. "If it isn't Agent Sarah Walker. Hiya, Sar," she sassed, batting her eyelashes.
It really couldn't get any fucking worse than this.
}o{
"Welcome to the team, Agent Rizzo!" Shaw practically chirped.
The new member of their team slowly peeled her glare from Sarah to eye the two by four agent with a dubious look. "Thanks. You must be the guy I talked to, eh? Agent Sham?"
Chuck bit back a sudden laugh, but not enough that he didn't attract the brunette's attention.
"Uh, that's Shaw. Agent Daniel...Shaw. It's…not important," Shaw muttered as Zondra nodded her head at Chuck.
"Who's this?"
"Agent Carmichael. Charles Carmichael. I'm—Okay, you don't shake hands. Noted." Chuck cleared his throat and pulled his hand back when she looked at it like it was the weirdest thing she'd ever seen someone do in her life.
"Agent Carmichael, this is Agent Zondra Rizzo with the CIA. She and Sarah go way back," Shaw provided, gesturing between the newcomer and Sarah, who still felt totally rigid next to him.
"Not way back," Sarah said, her voice brittle with tension.
"In spy years, way back," Zondra corrected. "Five years is a long time, Sar. What've you been up to, hm? Throwing your partners under the bus? Sticking knives in their backs?" She was standing closest to Chuck so she reached out and grabbed his shoulder, yanking him to turn so she could pointedly glance at his back for a moment, before she let go of him again. "Hmm...nothin' yet. Consider yourself lucky, kid."
Chuck frowned at her, wondering how he wasn't literally catching fire from the blistering looks between the two women. And what was she talking about with sticking knives in backs?
"Me? I'm the one with a knife? You're the knife sticker, Zondra. Not me!"
"Whoa, whoa...Whoa, now. Ladies. We have a briefing," Shaw tried, holding his hands out and moving Chuck out of the way so that he could step in between them.
This guy was even stupider than he looked, Chuck decided, willingly stepping in between these two and then calling them 'Ladies'? He was crazy! Then again, Chuck wasn't about to stop him. Let them tear him apart. He'd pop some popcorn and kick his feet up to watch.
"ENOUGH!" They all snapped to attention to look up at General Beckman. Chuck noticed how exhausted she looked, and just annoyed, frankly. "Agent Shaw, move Agent Rizzo onto your other side and keep her there. Carmichael, put Walker there…" The two women agents stepped into line appropriately without either men having to bodily move them, thankfully. Neither man would survive that. "Now can we get to the briefing?"
"Yes, General. I was going to start the briefing earlier and—"
"I don't care, Agent Shaw." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Are we all finished with the time wasting?"
"Yes, General," they all chimed in together.
"Good. The Lius are being held in a heavily guarded compound. It's a mansion that's a few centuries old in the heart of Prague. The Ring moved in on the location and obtained it for this exact purpose. It's remote, surrounded and hidden by trees…" She switched to a drone photograph of the mansion from above. "This is where the Ring is holding the Lius."
"Are we sure they haven't already been killed after what happened to Hannah Liu? They were a bargaining chip to get someone who's now dead to do what the Ring wanted. Can't imagine the Ring will find them necessary to keep around," Shaw reasoned.
"We're going to take the chance that they're still alive. Last we heard, they're alive and well. Although we know nothing about the conditions the Ring agents at the mansion are keeping them in. So we need to carry this out as quickly as possible." Beckman leaned in. "We've managed to get the name of someone who works on the inside. Someone the Ring hired on contract to handle their analysis, computers, tech. He isn't an agent, and his background makes us pretty sure he'll be very easy to handle."
She tossed a folder onto the desk and it slid over towards Chuck. But before he could reach out to take it, Zondra leaned in and snatched it up, opening it and slapping her hand down on the picture.
"Yep. That's him, all right. Little prick."
Chuck raised his eyebrows and looked at the photograph of the guy. He was unassuming enough. At least he looked that way. "Who is he?"
"Manoosh Depak. I've been after this sonofabitch for a while. Hacker. Causes a lot of freaking trouble. Doesn't surprise me a bit his opportunist ass decided to make some money off of his crimes and hop onto the Ring train." Zondra huffed, shaking her head and crossing her arms. "It'll be a pleasure, General, to go in there and drag him out on his ass."
"Slow down, Agent Rizzo. The plan is to get him to help us find the Lius and get us inside to extract them. He can't know you're with a government agency. As Zondra so colorfully explained..." she sent Zondra a look and the other woman didn't look a bit contrite, "he's been on the run from the CIA, the FBI, the NSA since he was practically a teenager."
Chuck shifted his weight uncomfortably. He knew full well that it could very well have been him in Manoosh Depak's place if he hadn't gotten his head on straight and focused on Stanford and not getting kicked out for hacking shenanigans. And then Bryce had gotten him kicked out anyway. The jerk.
"So we take him under our wing," Chuck said, shrugging.
"Don't shrug like it's such an easy thing, Agent Carmichael," Shaw said, turning to him. "You're new to the game, I know, but you have to take a mark like this seriously. Even if it looks like it might be a piece of cake. Never underestimate your opponent."
"Yeah, I'll, uh...write that down," Chuck muttered, withholding a roll of the eyes.
"Guys like this? They're losers," Shaw continued.
Zondra snorted. "Big time loser. The guy probably hasn't had sex since he was...Nah, that's giving him too much credit. I doubt he's been laid ever."
"That seems...a little harsh," Chuck interrupted, making a face. "I mean, just 'cause he's good with computers?"
"Oh, come on, that's a stereotype that's true," Zondra said, gesturing to the file. "These guys have their heads shoved so far up a computer's ass, they can't talk to a woman unless she's a fuckin' circuit board."
Sarah snorted. "Just because you've had bad experiences, Agent Rizzo…"
Zondra leaned forward to look at Sarah critically. "Uh uh. No. You don't get to say that crap to me. I don't sleep with my partners."
Chuck's jaw dropped and this time he had no choice but to stick his arm out and stop Sarah from murder. He definitely wasn't getting a chance at a real relationship with Agent Sarah Walker if she ended up in prison for murdering a fellow agent, whether it was deserved murder or not.
"Um. Getting back to the task at hand," Shaw said, clearing his throat. "Agent Rizzo is correct. While we can't allow ourselves to underestimate Manoosh Depak—after all, he does work with the Ring—we have enough evidence to believe he has a soft spot for beautiful women." He shifted some of the papers in the file. "And he's lived a very secluded, lonely existence." Shaw turned to where Chuck was still trying to make sure Sarah didn't break his hold and beat the shit out of Agent Rizzo. It was a low jab, speaking of knives in backs, and he really wanted to know what in the hell the history was between these two.
"Sarah...Agent Walker...You've done this before. Your objectively arresting beauty is a major asset that we can use here, Agent Walker." Boy, this guy was a real charmer.
Sarah stopped pushing against Chuck, freezing, and instead he felt a different tension in her. He let go, still feeling the prickling of said tension in his fingers. He turned to frown at Shaw, already figuring out where this was going. "Manoosh is an easy enough target for a seasoned professional like you. He'll be putty in your hands. You get him to take you back to the mansion and we have our in."
The ease with which Shaw announced his idea made Chuck clench his fist. One move and he might have Shaw on the floor. Keyword: might. He still only had a bit of training under his belt and he had been having nightmares about what had happened to him in that closet on the cruise ship because of his lack of full combat training.
"And then what?" Sarah asked in a scarily quiet, calm voice. "Say I'm able to get him to take me back to the mansion, if we're even able to pinpoint where this guy is and where I can approach him in a way that doesn't feel or look like a set-up… Great, now what do I do when I get in?"
Shaw shrugged. "Knock him out, find the Lius. Get them out. If you're with Manoosh, the guards that might be stationed outside will just assume...well...you know. They won't even think twice about what's going on in the mansion and you can get the Lius out the back."
Zondra hummed. "Not that I don't relish the thought of Walker being stuck inside a lion's den, but since it's kind of my job not to get my fellow agents killed…" She gave Sarah a pointed look. "I have to point out that they're keeping some pretty important people hostage. They're gonna have more than, like, two or three guards standing outside of the building. They're gonna have guys living there, swarming the place, inside and out."
"She's right, Agent Shaw," General Beckman said.
"If we get Walker inside, Rizzo and Carmichael will be around for back-up. We'll have three agents on site."
For someone who had just reprimanded Chuck for "underestimating" a mark, Shaw was really acting like this whole thing would be a lot easier than it sounded even to the junior member of the team.
As the rest of the team argued about the merits of Shaw's idea, Sarah—the one who'd be dropped into the middle of both a seduction mission and a lion's den of Ring agents—being eerily silent through all of it, Chuck grabbed the file and pulled it closer, going through it. This guy wasn't just a hacker…for a while, he'd been in the upper echelon of hacking royalty. Chuck recognized a few of the marks on the guy's record. When he'd been in that world, he remembered not exactly approving of the criminal shitstorms Manoosh had caused, but being impressed by the style and intricacy of the hacks he'd pulled off.
And just like that, everything clicked.
"No," he said, lifting his head from where he'd been stooped combing through the file.
Everyone else quieted down, Shaw and Rizzo both looking at him in surprise, as if not expecting him to have any kind of valid input here. He pushed the stinging sensation to the side as Sarah asked, "What?"
He could tell by her tone that she thought he'd flashed on something in the file. He met her eyes and gave her an imperceptible shake of his head. She furrowed her brow.
"Nobody's seducing anybody else," he said, purposely inserting a tone of finality into it. That got Shaw raising an eyebrow at being usurped by a brand new agent still in training. Chuck didn't much care. "This guy's a hacker. Agent Rizzo, you've been tracking him this long, you know as well as anyone… Guys like this have a—I dunno, a sense of ego about the stuff they've pulled off. They have a need to talk about it, brag about it, whatever." Zondra shrugged in agreement, not seeming to get where he was going with this. "We don't have to go the seduction route. That's not what he really cares about. He just wants to connect on this level…" He tapped the dossier on Manoosh with his finger. "This. Computers. Technology. You said he's lived this secluded life… What if the guy is just lonely? Somebody comes around wanting to talk about this record he's got, they build up his ego… They give him some sense of connection and-and understanding."
Shaw just gave him a blank look. "You're proposing he'd rather have...a friend...than have sex with a beautiful woman. Does that really make any sense to you?" He shook his head. "Put yourself in his shoes, Chuck. Would you rather have a fascinating, beautiful woman approach you? Or somebody you can connect with over...computers?"
"I haven't been alone practically my whole life like he has. I mean, this guy isn't just a loner. It says here, he lived in foster care. Yeah, maybe he'd appreciate a beautiful woman giving him some attention, but this is where we get his trust. And trust seems like it'll get us a lot further than...freakin' sex." Chuck tapped the folder again. "I know a lot about computers. I can talk to him about this stuff. I can get his trust."
"No, he-he has a point," General Beckman chimed in. "You have a point, Agent Carmichael. Keep talking."
That shut Shaw up, but Chuck realized once his inward gloating dimmed a bit that he didn't have much more of an idea than just getting Manoosh to trust him by sharing hacking stories with him. When he was silent long enough, Sarah finally spoke up.
"I think I see where you're going with this. If I may…?"
He cleared his throat and nodded. "Uh, be my guest. Agent Walker."
Sarah swept in to finish his idea. "The guy's working on contract with the Ring. Like we've already noted, he probably isn't the most moral guy out there...and why should he be with the cards life has handed him?" she reasoned, crossing her arms and leaning her hip against the desk. "So we appeal to his crappier nature. Is there anything in this dossier that tells us he'd be loyal to the Ring?"
"Nothing," the general said, the corner of her mouth tilting up.
"So we get him to turn on them. He walks us right in. We literally have someone on the inside of the mansion where they're keeping the Lius if we manage it. If Agent Carmichael manages it." She paused and then said. "And he will."
Chuck swallowed hard and was careful not to look at her. One of those rules Sarah had given him said something about not giving her any of those particular looks of his. And he knew if he looked at her right now, he wouldn't be able to hold back. It'd be all over his face.
"What Sarah said. That was...yeah, right along the same lines as what I was thinking. You explained it really well, thank you." He cleared his throat. He could see her barely hiding an amused smile in his peripheral.
"And how do we do that?" Shaw asked.
General Beckman lifted her chin just a bit. "I might have an idea on how to do that…"
}o{
Beckman was the first out of the room, a bit of a skip to her step, as exhausted and annoyed as she'd seemed at the beginning of the briefing.
Shaw slipped his phone back into his pocket. "We've got your transportation at the ready. You should be in the air in an hour. We'll tie down any loose ends once you three are on that plane."
Then he nodded to all three of them and strode out of the room, leaving them behind.
"Got yourself a nice little team here, huh, Walker?" Zondra started in the moment Shaw disappeared. "Meanwhile, the brass yanks me around, back and forth between teams like a fuckin' placeholder."
"Maybe if you got along with people better…" Sarah raised her eyebrows.
"Maybe if I was a cute blonde with blue eyes, I'd get away with being a trai—Oh, okay. Can't handle the heat, huh? Bye, Blondie."
Sarah had turned on her heel and walked right out of the room, removing herself from the situation altogether.
Chuck spun to watch her leave, standing in the quiet room awkwardly. He thought he probably shouldn't follow Sarah, that it would look a certain way. And then he decided that he'd never seen Sarah like this before. Even in her arguments with him, she'd looked him right in his face and argued, standing toe to toe, nose to nose.
Shaw and Beckman were gone. He hedged his bets and he cleared his throat, lifting a finger. "I, ah...I'm gonna...she…'kay."
Zondra smirked at him as he followed after Sarah. He had to practically jog once he got out of the room, seeing the heel of her boot disappearing around the corner down the hallway.
"Sarah!" he hissed, but she was already out of sight.
He rushed down the hallway and busted around the corner. Sarah stepped into another room, the door shutting behind her. He followed her and whipped the door open.
She turned to snap at him, a bullet-proof vest in her hand, but when she saw it was him, she eased a bit. "Oh."
"Sarah, the hell is going on with you two?" he asked without preamble, shutting the door behind him and crossing to the table where she was starting to stack things for their mission.
"I appreciate you shooting down Shaw's crap idea that threw me under the seduction bus." She rolled her eyes and snorted. "Objectively arresting beauty," she mocked in Shaw's droll voice. "Sooo charmiiiing," she drawled sarcastically.
"I feel like Manoosh probably has more game than that guy," Chuck added, making her giggle, sending him a look, a bit of a sparkle in her eye.
"You'd know."
Chuck's jaw dropped. "Oh ho ho, okay, Agent Walker. You sure there aren't bugs or cameras in here?"
"One camera pointed at the door. No bugs." He raised his eyebrows and she gave him a flat look. "I've been practically living in this building since I was a teenager, Chuck."
He shrugged. "Okay, fair."
But then she gave him a long look, smoothing her hand distractedly over the front of one of the vests she stacked on the table. "You were looking at his file. Manoosh's file. You came up with that idea for the mission pretty quick once you made Shaw look like a damn fool in front of the General…"
Chuck tilted his head, smiling slowly. "You like that?"
"Maybe. But getting back to the topic at hand…" She gave him a bit of a look and he cleared his throat. "Did you see some...small similarities in there, maybe? Not that you're a criminal or anything," she said, barely touching his wrist before pulling away just as quick. It made him suck in his breath almost violently. And he let it out again gently.
"What, me and Manoosh? Yeah. Sure. A couple." He diverted his gaze, squirming a little. "I mean, the guy never knew his parents. I wasn't a foster kid, but only 'cause I had Ellie. I was lucky like that."
She just watched him for a few more seconds. "And you think you would've ended up like him if you didn't have Ellie."
"Possibly," he muttered.
"I don't think you would've," she said, looking at him steadily. "No matter what you're capable of when you get in front of a computer…" He eyed her warily at that. "I saw the stuff he did. You wouldn't have done that, and you wouldn't have joined the Ring for anything." She shrugged. "We've had this discussion before."
"Okay, sure...but I can't help feelin' like the guy just needs someone to...see him."
Sarah smiled, getting back to work. How she could have such a sweet and soft look on her face while checking the slide of a gun...it somehow got him in his chest. Straight in his chest.
"He needs someone like him to see him," Chuck continued, watching the woman he loved slowly lower the gun and furrow her brow at him in question. "Because I basically was him. You're right, I wouldn't have done the things he's done, but I...was there...when he was. I saw the shit he pulled. I could've. Would'a been easy, too. I just...didn't. I was definitely a pain in the ass, but not anything that ever put people's lives in danger, and I did not steal. I just...played around...in places I...definitely wasn't supposed to. I was more of an...inconvenience." He wrinkled his nose.
"Chuck…? What are you talking about?" She eyed him closely.
He bit his bottom lip and stepped in a little closer. Sure, the camera was apparently pointed at the door only, and he trusted Sarah knew what she was talking about, but he still resisted the urge to put his hands on her arms. Just in case. "Sarah, what if I told you that I, um, have a bit of a reputation…?" She merely raised her eyebrows. "No secrets, no lies," he added. "They used to call me the Piranha."
He winced.
But she just seemed to melt. She put the gun down on top of the vests, framed his face in both hands and moved up onto her toes to kiss him. It was completely unexpected, but he just went with it, sliding his arms around her and pulling her in even closer.
When she pulled back, she was smiling up at him, the deep frown and genuine upset in her face when she'd stomped out of the conference room gone now. Just like that.
He blinked. "Uh… I… Thank you."
She giggled, running her hand down his collar, probably to straighten it. He didn't know. He didn't know anything right now because he'd just told her his hacker alter ego, and that he'd done things he could've easily been arrested and put in prison for. Well...kid prison. He'd been a teen for a lot of those hacking stunts he'd pulled. And instead of arresting him on the spot or freaking out or even being a little angry with him, she kissed him.
"I'm…" He cleared his throat. "What about the camera?"
"Oh, don't worry. I've erased tape in this building before," she said with a shrug.
"Wah...For wha—? You know what? I don't need to know that."
"Um, probably not," she said, shaking her head.
"Is it weird I find it hot, though?"
"Maybe, but I'm okay with it."
"Oh, good... Um also why aren't you more pissed at me?"
She sighed and pushed her hair back from her face, sobering up a bit. "Look, Chuck… Casey told me after I came back to the team, you know, after my solo mission…"
"After I pissed you off?" She just nodded. And he realized what she'd just said. He straightened up. "Wait, he told you...about Piranha?"
"Yeah. He did."
He felt a little dizzy. "Shit, that must have pissed you off so much more that I kept it from you. It was just that—"
"Chuck, wait. Hey…" She grabbed his arm, which immediately settled his antsiness and made him look at her again. "You told me now. When you really didn't even have to."
"But no secrets, no lies," he breathed, shaking his head.
"Right. Yes. And we're going to follow that rule. And it means a lot to me that you've told me about your sketchy past," she said, a bit of a teasing tone at the end. "But I get why you'd keep that from federal agents."
"Morgan's the only one who knows. And now you and Casey."
She raised her eyebrows. "Not even Ellie?"
"You kiddin' me? If she'd known her fifteen year old brother was playin' around messing with the ICE Field Office in LA, she would've murdered me. She'd still murder me now. It's just not something I think she, um, ever needs to know about." He winced. "I feel bad but I also…"
"No, I get it. She's probably scarier than a federal agent." He widened his eyes in agreement. She smiled a little and framed his face with her hands again. "I was going to keep it to myself honestly, that I knew. Until you brought it up."
"Why?" he asked, shaking his head.
She thought for a few moments. "Compensation, maybe?" He frowned, confused, and she slid her hands down to his chest. "I'm not...good at this, you know. But I'm gonna try anyway. Chuck, you really blindsided me. Right from the get-go. I was not prepared for how...just...good of a person you are. And it hit me so hard and you got under my skin really quick. I'd never met anyone like you before, so I put you up on a pedestal in a lot of ways. Like this altruistic superhero of moral excellence and...I don't know, I saw you as this guy who constantly did the right thing even if it was sometimes...kind of foolish, or rash." Chuck winced.
"Sorry. I'm trying to be honest." He nodded, smiling, still confused. "And I saw you as this guy who never ever did wrong, and it made you so...unattainable I guess. You know, for someone who'd done a lot of bad. It also made it so that I wasn't at all prepared for your decision. Like dropping a beautiful, perfect rose into a vat of poison or something. I don't know, I'm terrible at metaphors." He chuckled and she gave him a look, shutting him up quick. "You get what I'm saying, though, right? I saw you as always doing the right thing and I wasn't allowing you the room to be...a human being, or make mistakes here and there. As close as you are to it, you aren't perfect. And I wasn't giving you the room to have imperfections, or...skeletons in your closet. Lord knows I have enough. And maybe that's it, too," she added, huffing in frustration. "I pitted you against me and there's just no way I'll ever stack up to be the kind of person you are, have always been. When Casey told me about Piranha, it made me feel...a little closer to you. If that makes sense at all. And now I've reached this new plane of understanding who you are as a human being, not the guy on the pedestal. It's helped me, Chuck, knowing about Piranha. It's helped me come to terms with your decision, as long as it took me." She gave him a self-deprecating glance. "It was so hard, knowing I might have to watch my sweet, altruistic guy join an agency that might make him...into a monster. Like me."
Chuck frowned. "Monster…" He scoffed at her and shook his head. "You call yourself a monster after everything you just said? After you were willing to keep my secret about my...sordid past...to yourself? Sarah, you're no monster."
She smirked when he said 'sordid past', but she was sober again as she stared at his chest. "It was unfair of me to do that to you. To expect perfection, to expect you to step right every time you took a step. And it was stupid, too, because it caused me to lose my mind when you joined the NSA. Granted, you did keep it from me for way too long," she said, pointing at him.
He shook his head. "I did. I definitely did. I take responsibility for that. I'm sorry. But Sarah, come on. You said it yourself, you weren't ready for a dope like me." She gave him a chastising look at that and he shrugged. He was a dope. It was the truth. "You aren't the all-knowing goddess of human emotion, Sarah. None of us are. We react how we react in the moment. You spent your whole life surrounded by spies. Give yourself a break."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I did that. I appreciate you giving me a bit of a break on this, but I'm still sorry." She moved to wrap her arms around him and she squeezed tight.
"Really wasn't expecting this when I followed you into the armory," he muttered against her hair, squeezing her back just as tightly. "I understand now. And I forgive you. I forgave you before, but thank you for making me understand it now. And also, thank you for calling me a superhero."
She giggled, shaking her head at him. They stayed that way, silent, for a little while longer, and then she mumbled, "Hey, you're doing a really good job with all of these rules so far, Agent Carmichael."
He grinned. "Yeah, technically, you're the one who broke a rule first. Kissing me by the Kevlar wall. For shame, Agent Walker."
She snorted. "You're right. I'll take the pink slip for it." She paused then, and he felt she had more to say, so he kept quiet. "Chuck, this is uncharted territory for me. I made all of those rules for that reason. We need to keep to them. And I need...you."
"It won't be easy, but we've got this. And you've got me."
She nodded, tucking her face in against his neck.
But then the reason why he came in here in the first place reared its head in his mind and he sighed, still holding onto her tightly because it felt so damn good. "Hey, who is this Zondra Rizzo character and why are you two at each other's throats?"
Sarah tensed in his arms. Her muscles turned to cold stone against him, under his hands. That good mood he'd put her in? Yeah, well … he'd wrecked it by mentioning Zondra Rizzo. Damn it.
But he really wanted to know.
"I don't really want to talk about her." She pulled back out of his arms, send him a quick, mute smile, and turned back to start shoving things into a duffel. He just stood there watching her, waiting. He could feel the anxiety spilling from her, could see it in her movements. And anxiety wasn't exactly a typical Sarah Walker trait. Fear, sure. He'd seen her afraid. But never anxious. She huffed and moved to grab a few more guns, shoving the ammo in the side pockets. "I don't trust her at all. And the thought of going on another mission with her makes me crazy nervous. Especially a mission with you… I don't trust she won't throw us to the wolves while we're in Prague, Chuck. And we'll have no back-up whatsoever." She shook her head, obviously stressed. "Something's not right."
"Are you thinking Shaw picked her on purpose? To throw you off?"
"Absolutely I am. He knows my history with Zondra. I'm sure of it, since he knew we'd worked together before."
"Well, what happened?" he asked, thrusting his hands out, palms up.
Sarah nibbled on her lip and stopped, pushing a hand through her hair, fidgeting. "I'm not gonna tell you the specifics of the case, okay? Because I-I don't want it coming back to haunt me and have something happen to you because of it. But we were on a team...me, Zondra, and…" She paused. "A few other women agents. The mission went south. Our target found out we were coming for him and he managed to escape before we could arrest him. We didn't know how he could've known but then I found a transmitter hidden in Zondra's heel. Pretty sure she was a double agent and feeding information to our target." Chuck gulped. "I called her out, she denied it, and the CIA cleared her with a lie detector test." Sarah rolled her eyes. "She tried to say I planted the transmitter there because I was the double agent." She scoffed. "Bullshit."
Chuck understood the immediate animosity now. Sarah didn't just thoroughly dislike the other woman. Zondra was now headed to Prague with them, the third member of their field team, the only person they'd have to back them up, and Sarah was absolutely certain that she'd been a double agent who'd fed information to the guy they'd been trying to arrest years ago. The idea that she might not have changed in that time was understandably making Sarah anxious.
"Oh. Oh shit. Do you—Do you think she'd…?"
"What? Work with the Ring?" She shrugged. "I don't know. She says she's been after this Manoosh guy for a while. Are they maybe more aware of one another than she's leading on?" She shrugged again.
"You mean, maybe she's talking to Manoosh right now and telling them that I'm gonna make friends to get him to two-time his bosses?" Chuck felt a spike of fear go through him. "Oh my God, what if we've misjudged this whole thing? Sarah, he's gonna see me comin' a mile away and when I finally get there, he's gonna shank me. I'm gonna get shanked."
"No, we're gonna take this nice and calm, Chuck, okay?"
"What do you mean, nice and calm? She's supposed to have my back, your back, and she might be a double agent?" he hissed. "That's very bad, Sarah."
"Listen." She grabbed his arm. "I have your back. And you have mine. No matter what shady shit Zondra might pull. Right? We're going to work together. We're partners."
"Right. Yeah. Okay."
"Now get ready to go. You heard Sheriff Seduce-Obsessed; in the air in an hour," she mocked in her Shaw voice again.
He choked at her nickname for Shaw. "And you say you aren't funny."
"You like that?" she asked, bringing back his words from earlier. He loved it.
"Gaaahhhdd, this whole keeping it secret thing is going to be tough."
"Go on," she said, obviously pleased considering the look on her face. She gave him a push towards the door. "And don't worry about Zondra. I can handle her. Easy."
"Right." He paused at the door and turned back before he opened it. "You don't think maybe you...made a mistake? That maybe she didn't feed the, uh, the target info?" She gave him a look. "No, I know. I'm not questioning you found the thing in her heel, but what if there's another...Okay, I'm going. I'm going."
She smirked as he left. And he went back through the hallway to grab his bag from the conference room and sling it over his shoulder. But just as he walked in, Zondra came in through the other door.
She raised her eyebrows and smiled. "Oh, hey there."
Chuck cleared his throat. "Hi. Hello. Again. Hi. I'm… My bag. I've got my—You know, for the trip. Welcome to the team I'm gonna go."
"So she told you, huh…"
Chuck froze halfway back to the door, then slowly turned on his heel, a pained look on his face. "Told me...what?"
"It's cute how bad you are at this lying thing. You must be a super new recruit. Don't really get why they stuck you with Walker, considering how seasoned she is." She looked thoughtful then. "Probably should've picked someone who's actually loyal to the U.S. government to train a kid straight out of the Farm."
"I'm not—No, I'm not a kid. I'm...I did...other things. For the CIA. Before. I'm just new to the field. Being out in the field. That's all it is. And Sarah—Agent Walker is loyal. She's the most loyal partner I've had. To the U.S. ...government."
"Look, you don't have to be so nervous," she groused, rolling her eyes. "I'm an asshole, but I'm not a double agent, or whatever she told you. She's a fuckin' liar. She's always been a liar." Chuck felt his hackles rise. "And you'd better watch your back too, kid. She'll get you next. Plant something on you, frame you as a double agent."
"She wouldn't do that."
"Like I said. Cute. Kinda quaint." Zondra dropped the act and looked angry then. "Just remember…you can trust me more than you can her. She tried to play like I was on that Gaez bastard's payroll. When it was her the whole time."
Chuck wasn't prepared for the flash to hit him so violently. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear the spots. Oh, boy.
"It wasn't either of you."
"What?" she asked, giving him an annoyed version of the what the fuck look.
"Uh...nothing. Nothing. I'll see you on the plane. I've gotta…" He was out of the room like lightning, but General Beckman caught him before he could get back to Sarah. And he didn't see her again until they all climbed onto the plane that would take them to Prague.
A/N: Well she's fun.
Also fun? Leaving us reviews. Thanks for reading. ;)
-SC and DC