Charina - The Mission - August

It has been a quiet mission-less week, so Chuck was starting his morning fairly relaxed. He was in his seat, firing his workstation up, with a cup of hot cocoa at hand, Casey is firing things up down in the shooting range, and Carina fires up the room, just by walking in, several newspapers in hand.

She would regularly start her morning sprawled across a couch, reading through several foreign language newspapers, honing her language skills and feeding her own data base of knowledge and events. Her beauty causes people to under appreciate her better than average intelligence. She may not be the genius that Chuck is, and she would make an argument that Sarah was a genius too, but she read and put effort into expanding her knowledge. Even if she did know more than necessary about what is going on in the tabloids. Whut Whut!

Chuck is sipping on the steaming cup of cocoa, as Carina crosses the room to stand by his side. Taking in the scene, she smirks, fluffs her hair and leans toward him in a cleavage displaying pose. Licking, and then pouting her lips, she seductively asks, "Do you have anything I should blow on?"

Chuck tilts his head up and to the side, his eyes settling on hers, and flatly replies, "You know that's just a euphemism. You actually should suck." He winks and continues, "Thanks, but I think I'll just sit here and enjoy my cocoa."

Carina straightens up and offers a full throated laugh, shaking her head. He can now give as good as he gets.

Suddenly his phone rings. He glances down and sees that it is his Dad. That's odd, haven't heard from him in a while.

"Carmichael, Secure," he answered out of habit.

"Charles?"

"Yeah Dad, how are you?" He casually greeted, and with light curiosity asked, "What's going on?"

He could now here the frantic tension in his Dad's voice, "Charles I need your help. This is serious. I need you to drop everything. Can you do that?"

Chuck sat up straight, his dad having his full attention. "Dad, what..yeah of course, I'll help out ..how? What's going on?"

"It's your mom."

Chuck went cold, But mom is dead? "Wh…wh.. what do you mean, dad? I thought she was dead?"

"Son, I know this is a shock, and I'm throwing it at you out of nowhere, and I can only ask you to trust me. For the time being, set aside you questions, and get your emotions under control. Can you do that for me Charles?"

Charles stiffened in response. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and squared his shoulders. Chuck Bartowski, may be on the verge of mental meltdown, years of suppressed emotion suddenly uncorked, but Charles Carmichael can do this. Charles Carmichael didn't have a history, he had missions. Life and death missions, which required the suppression of emotion, a focus on logic, as you attempted to put your thumb on the life side of those scales. Chuck tried to channel Spock, Worf, and Casey, to allow Charles Carmichael to be a spy who wouldn't get killed in the field. Who wouldn't get his partners killed in the field.

Charles Carmichael wasn't exactly a comfortable fit for Chuck Bartowski, but neither was body armor. However, they were both necessary for survival. Chuck hoped that one day Charles Carmichael would fit as comfortably as a broken in pair of leather shoes. He wasn't there yet, but this situation required that he suit up.

"What do you need, Dad?"

"Son, we need to go into Russia and save your Mom. I'll give you all the details later, but for now, just understand that she has been a deep cover agent, all of this time."

Chucks head was spinning, his understanding of reality shaken, so he gathered himself and got into mission mode.

"What's the plan? What do you need me to do? What do you need me to bring?"

"Son, you need to know that this has been off the record. So, this isn't an officially sanctioned mission. I can't guarantee how all of this is going to turn out with the Powers That Be."

"Dad, you said it was Mom. We will have whatever you need. Don't worry about the Powers That Be. Right now I'm very much in their good graces, so we'll worry about fall out later. After all, I am Charles Carmichael."

First, What do you know about Alexei Volkoff?

"Well, he's on my big list of baddies. I never had a mission that was directed specifically at him, but he was often indirectly connected to many missions."

"Check your computer and see what happened today," his dad directed.

Turning to his computer, Chuck finally took notice of his surroundings and saw that Casey had entered the room and he and Carina were staring at him, trying to put the pieces together from what they heard of Chuck's side of the conversation.

Chuck pulled the phone away from his ear, acknowledging their presence, he indicated for them to come closer. "OK, short version, it's my Dad, my mother's in trouble (he widened his eyes, indicating his own surprise at that pronouncement, knowing that they knew his family history), so I am grabbing some gear and it looks like I am going to Russia."

Carina interrupted, as she and Casey had been nodding along, taking it all in, "We"

"Wait, what?"

"She said we, Moron. If you are going, we are going, too." Casey stated, no argument allowed.

"But, guys, this might turn into a mess, and it might end up pissing the bosses off."

"Chuck, you said Charles Carmichael could handle the fallout. We're here to remind you that Team Carmichael can handle the fallout." Carina pointed at herself and Casey. "You lead, we follow. So put your Dad on speakerphone and let's get this show on the road."

Chuck nodded his head in acceptance, his heart swelling in appreciation of his partners' loyalty. Refocusing himself, he turned his attention back to the computer.

"Huh! Hey Dad, it looks like there is some kind of alert here about Volkoff."

Stephen's voice came out of the phone's speaker, "I'm not surprised, You guys need to take a moment and look at that, then we can plan from there."