A/N: We continue with our current arc, Past into the Present.


The Missionary


Chapter 26: The World, the Flesh, and the Devil


Sarah was frustrated and angry.

On her return — when Murphy saw her in the Marshall building lobby, when he mentioned seeing a redhead who might have been Sarah's sister, a mention followed by a low, long, whistle of appreciation for the redhead — Sarah had clamped her teeth and shook her blonde head hard. "Not. My. Sister."

A moment later, she tried to smile at Murphy, to soften her headshake, but her vehemence confused him, as did her attempted smile through clamped teeth.

One of his eyebrows lifted a bit and then his shoulders followed in a slow-motion, shallow shrug. He turned and pulled a rag from his pocket and resumed polishing a decorative brass urn on a stand beside the elevator.

Damn you, Carina Miller.

Sarah hurried onto the elevator and finger-stabbed the button for the fourth floor with lethal violence. If the button had been alive, she would have terminated it then and there.

The errand to her apartment had been a blind.

Godddamn it.

Two nights ago, Sarah had asked permission to take a file home to study it — something in a bit of chatter about the Sinaloa cartel that meant nothing to Chuck had nonetheless struck Sarah, but vaguely. She could not bring it into focus or make any precise sense of it. Graham had granted permission to take it home. But then, Graham called her this afternoon, asking that she retrieve the file; he was worried about it being in her residence and not in Appocalypse's safe.

Sarah had agreed to do it, despite being annoyed by the seemingly unnecessary errand. The safe in her apartment was adequate for a document that almost certainly contained no useful information. And besides, if Graham was worried about the safety of the file, he should never have let Sarah take the damn file home.

But as she left the office to run the errand, it occurred to her that Graham might be intending to surprise her with Carina.

Graham occasionally did things like that, little, strange bursts of whimsy that Sarah never understood, that seemed to please him. He had once done that with Bryce, surprising her by sending Bryce to make contact with her on one of her solo missions. She didn't like the surprise, but that made Graham like it more.

So, she had hurried home, unsure if she was just retrieving a file or receiving a visitor, but betting that she was doing the latter.

But she had been doing neither, as it happened, even though now she had the file in her purse. The errand had been a blind, but not the one Sarah thought.

It had been Graham's way of ensuring that Carina would find Chuck alone.

And Sarah knew what that meant.

It meant Chuck confronting a barely dressed, up-or-down-for-anything, take-me-right-here-right-now, do-you-know-how-wet-I-am? unadulterated Carina.

Sarah's reddening face grew redder, and a regretful blush added color to the color of her anger. She knew what that meant because she had been party to Carina's games in the past.


Sarah couldn't seem to establish herself on solid footing with Chuck.

Each time things seemed like maybe they were working out, some fresh hell opened beneath her feet, some new personal or professional abyss.

The elevator dinged simultaneously with a light bulb going off in Sarah's head.

If Graham is involved in isolating Chuck, then there is more to Carina's visit than Carina said. Talking about Tyger, about CJNG was supposed to be her purpose, but that talk should have been with Chuck and me.

Sarah gritted her still-clamped teeth.

Graham's checking up on Overlook; he's sent a spy to spy on the spies, infiltrating his own op, using my friend against me.

She rushed to the door and opened it, her mounting anger making her footfalls, habitually catlike, heavy.

Sarah stopped dead.

Carina was seated but leaning far forward, the collar of her blouse hanging open, her skirt, nearly nonexistent to begin with — a mere afterthought of snug fabric — was bunched on her thighs, showing her seductress stockings, their lacy black tops hugging Carina's exposed white flesh. Her legs were spread as she leaned forward, elbows wide on her wide knees, offering Chuck a second, lower invitation to his eyes.

Carina was like a cat in the grass, its predatory eyes fixated on an obtuse bird, the cat's tail moving slowly, hypnotically.

Every inch of Carina was focused on growing every inch of Chuck.

Chuck looked dazed, his legs crossed in a gesture of at once self-defense and attempted self-control, unaware of Carina's hand inching along his knee, headed toward discovery.

The office door banging behind Sarah froze the entire scene for a moment.

Sarah was already motionless.

Finally, Carina turned to face Sarah with deliberate slowness and smirked — Carina's victory smirk.

Sarah's surging rage was mixed with a strong, jarring experience of déjà vu.

She had lived a less-fraught version of this scene many times, and not just as an observer but as a participant.

Her anger quickly shook the past away and Etch-A-Sketched the present in her mind.

You are not allowed to touch Chuck, Carina, especially not there!

Sarah had touched him there on their date, she could still feel him beneath her hand, and she realized with visceral certainty that she would allow no one to ever touch him there again but her.

Sarah's certainty surprised her. She had given herself a mission to protect Chuck and keep him from physical harm. Suddenly, it was apparent to her that her mission was more involved than she realized, maybe a lot more.

She did not try to make the involvement clear, she just accepted it.

"Put your paw down, Carina, or I'll tear it off your arm."

Sarah spoke in a feral purr, far more threatening than a growl.

The sound made Carina snatch back her hand as if scalded. She dragged a barbwire glance across Sarah, and then leaned back, regrouping, considering, and then her mouth unconsciously formed an 'O'.

The victory smirk returned, Carina's eyes held knowledge. She licked her lips at Sarah while glancing at Chuck.

Sarah knew she had miscalculated, her anger, her territorial ferocity, was revelatory. Carina knew that Sarah was involved.

Shit.

Chuck's head whipped back and forth like a dizzied spectator at Wimbledon, and he suddenly jumped to his feat. He immediately clasped his hands together in front of him.

He turned beet-red as if Sarah's redness was a contagion.

"Um…she said she was your old friend and I remembered…" he stopped, and Sarah knew what he was not saying.

Carina's in the Intersect.

That did not surprise Sarah; in fact, she had been careful not to mention Carina by name around Chuck in hopes of preventing the Intersect from spitting her up, and, with her, the history she shared with Sarah, a history that Sarah knew was only partially captured in the Intersect files. Much of it only Sarah and Carina knew (well, the two of them and a mixed assortment of men), but almost all of it now shamed Sarah.

Carina slowly put her legs back together, checking to see if Chuck watched the closure.

He didn't.

Chuck was still facing Sarah, eyes on her, still red-faced above his still tightly clasped hands. Carina gave Sarah another look, this one begrudgingly impressed by Chuck's wondering but not wandering eyes.

"Hello, Sarah. Imagine seeing you here, finding us like this." Carina shifted from Sarah to Chuck. "You can drop your hands. Sarah knows my effect on men. She's often…"

"Carina, shut up," Sarah said sharply, "none of that matters. I assume Graham sent you here to…interrogate…Chuck. Without me."

"Without you, or with you, your choice, and his, I guess, just like old times." Carina's chasing chuckle seemed to come from deep inside her, heated and suggestive. Chuck did then swivel his gaze toward her, then back to Sarah, a question forming on his lips.

"Later, Chuck," Sarah said in a clipped tone that routed Chuck's questioning look and sent it into frantic retreat. But Sarah could feel the blush burning on her face; it would not cool, it would not leave.

Sarah walked to Chuck and grabbed one of his hands from the clasp.

Without speaking, she pulled him toward and behind her and stepped between him and Carina.

Amused, Carina watched Sarah lead Chuck in the short dance. The new placement of the group, Sarah now impeding Carina's access to Chuck, was not lost on Carina.

"You, Sarah, a square dance? Since when were you a cockblock?"

Sarah did not respond. She lunged toward Carina, reaching for Carina's forearm. Sarah's hand snapped closed on it like a vise grip.

"Shit, Sarah! That hurts! Jesus! I know you're a fucking Amazon; no need to prove it to me!"

"Leave, Carina." Sarah's tone made disagreement impossible. "I need to talk to Chuck. Go to my apartment — I'm sure you know where it is — and wait. Chuck and I will be there in a little while."

Carina shook her head, tears welling up in her eyes. She tried to blink them back and succeeded.

Sarah let go of her arm but a red imprint of her hand remained, a shadow of pain. Carina shook her arm, glaring at Sarah.

"Bitch. I thought nothing was ever personal for you."

"Times change, Carina. People change. Get out."

Carina rubbed her arm as she turned to Chuck and let her eyes linger. "This isn't over," Carina whispered as she faced Sarah again.

Sarah nodded once, sharply. "It sure the hell isn't."

Carina stomped out, chin forward. The door slammed. Chuck winced but Sarah stared stonily at the shuddering door.


Chuck was aroused and confused. Carina was having an effect on him despite his Intersected knowledge of her history and despite the patent nature of her attempted seduction.

He knew what she was doing and he was not going to give in to it — and yet he could feel the effect she was having on him, the tightening of his jeans around his groin. The reaction was wholly physical, the result of her heady perfume, her revealing clothes, her come-hither posture. Carina was the world, the flesh, and the devil all in one, soft-core pornography promising to become hard-core.

The inwards of her blouse were visible, the delicate lace restraint keeping her breasts from a full response to gravity, but not keeping her nipples from fully responding to what she was doing. Chuck vaguely knew Carina's legs were spread, open, that her pale flesh was on deli-display between her skirt and the tops of her stockings. She was self-objectifying, a bodily promise of sex, edgy, raw, and decidedly non-missionary, so non-missionary.

She would allow him to know parts of her Chuck had never before known with any woman.

She promises, without words.

He crossed his legs, and a moment later he felt Carina's hand on his leg, her hand's destiny obvious to him and to her.

It had been a long time since Chuck slept with a woman. A long time. The only recent time he had gotten close had also been a time he had gotten cheek-to-cheek with death. He did not know what Carina was offering beyond sex but, even though he had no intention of yielding to her, his body was proving compliant.

Sarah's first-night, unfinished seduction of him in the backseat occupied his mind more than Carina's currently climbing hand, but that memory was aiding Carina's present attack.

The door slammed. A moment later, Sarah, scowling fiercely, stood in the office, staring at Chuck and Carina.

A bunch of things that Chuck could not quite understand passed between the two women when Carina finally turned her face to Sarah.

"Put your paw down, Carina, or I'll tear it off your arm."

Chuck tried to keep up with all that was passing, failed, then he jumped to his feet. A split second later he regretted it and crossed his hands in front of his groin.

The situation was what it was; he was in the condition he was in. He knew any attempt at explanation would be disastrous. "Um…she said she was your old friend and I remembered…"

He wanted Sarah to know that he not only knew who Carina was, but that Carina was in the Intersect.

Sarah seemed to understand him, but her face was red — with anger but with something else too. Chuck was unsure what that something else was.

"Hello, Red. Imagine seeing you here, finding us like this." Carina spoke to Sarah, then to Chuck. "You can drop your hands. Sarah knows my effect on men. She's often…"

Sarah's eyes narrowed. She cut Carina off, clearly not wanting her to say whatever she intended to say and that Sarah knew was coming.

"Carina, shut up, none of that matters." Chuck was less sure none of it mattered than Sarah seemed to be. She went on I assume Graham sent you here to…interrogate…Chuck. Without me."

It hit Chuck then that Sarah was angry. Not just professionally, about…interrogation…but about Carina being there, in Appocalypse, with him.

Sarah Walker was red.

She was jealous. Or Chuck believed she was.

Chuck wanted to consider that but Carina spoke.

"Without you, or with you, your choice, and his, I guess, just like old times." Carina's line, spoken through a throaty chuckle, seemed like a clunky line from an X-rated film. Chuck looked at Carina for a second, then at Sarah, trying to decide whether his belief that she was jealous was correct or just a bit of self-flattery.

Sarah saw his look; she seemed to think he was going to ask her about what Carina said, but that was not what was on his mind.

"Later, Chuck." Sarah's snapped, her voice like the opening of a switchblade.

Chuck's face went slack. But Sarah's red deepened. She stalked to him and pulled his clasped hands apart, then she pulled him toward her and behind her at the same time, stepping between him and Carina.

"You, Sarah, a square dance? Since when were you a cockblock?" Chuck was trying to process what Carina meant by 'square dance' when Sarah attacked Carina.

It happened in an instant, a blur. The next thing Chuck knew, Carina was yelping, whining, calling Sarah an Amazon.

Sarah responded, a hissing whisper full of graves. She had never sounded more like an assassin, like Death's assistant. "Leave, Carina. I need to talk to Chuck. Go to my apartment — I'm sure you know where it is — and wait. Chuck and I will be there in a little while."

Sarah's voice seemed to suck the life from Carina. Near tears, she nodded. Sarah released her arm, Sarah's red handprint on it like a colored tattoo.

"Bitch. I thought nothing was ever personal for you."

Sarah shrugged. "Times change, Carina. People change. Get out."

Carina summoned up her courage as she rubbed her arm. She looked at Chuck, her gaze a long, slow kiss, one Carina made sure that Sarah saw.

"This isn't over," Carina whispered, the whisper making her threat seem louder, more inevitable.

"It sure the hell isn't." Sarah's answer was equally quiet, equally threatening.

Carina raised her head as if to signal No Defeat, and she left the office, slamming the door behind her. Chuck winced at the sound but Sarah stood like a statue.

After a moment, she turned to him. "So, that's Carina."

"Um, yeah, I gathered."

Sarah raised an eyebrow and dropped her gaze to Chuck's groin. "You over her?"

"Sarah — !" Chuck began.

Sarah put up her hand, stopping him. "It's okay, Chuck. When Carina turns it up to eleven, and what I saw when I came in, that was eleven, she can rouse dirt into a stalagmite."

Chuck was about to protest — that comparison somehow seemed unflattering — but Sarah laughed, the anger draining from her, although discernible anxiety remained.

"Sit down, Chuck. We need to talk."

And then Chuck felt anxious too.


A/N: Not a long chapter, I know, but I'm easing my way back into the story. Drop me a line!