A/N: We have a friend who's celebrating his birthday today and we'd like to wish him a very happy birthday. He knows who he is. This chapter's your birthday gift, dude. Thanks for being such a great supporter and reader! Stay safe and strong. We got your back.
Disclaimer: We don't owe Chuck. We're not making any money for writing and posting this.
He leaned his face against the doorframe, the wood nice and cool against his cheek, and he stared into the abyss. Aka his closet.
Even just a month ago, this would've been so easy. He'd step into the hallway, bellow out the same "Elliiiiiiieeee" in the same note he'd done it ever since high school. And she'd come to his rescue, a bemused look on her face.
He needed her now. But he couldn't go out into the hallway and bellow for his sister's fashion help like everything was okay and normal between them, because everything wasn't okay and normal between them. It would feel awful to try and pretend that it was, like nothing had happened. Like she wasn't upset with him still.
So he just stood there, staring at the row of ties, so completely lost as to how one paired a tie to a suit. This was a fancy get-together, and he assumed he'd be tasked with blending in. How would he do that if he picked the wrong tie? Which tie did he need? He was useless in this department.
God, what was he going to do when he lived alone at some point? Would they teach him this in the NSA? Was this part of his training? Maybe he could sign up for a Tie-Choosing 101 class?
He was losing his mind.
Over a tie.
Huffing, he stepped into the closet and grabbed a blue one, but then he changed his mind, picking the red. It had silk lines of an almost darker red running through it and it was nice and smooth. But it also looked like the sort of thing that was more tuxedo appropriate.
"Gah, whatever!" He snagged a tie with a blue and green plaid pattern and walked over to the mirror to put it on, tying it quickly and calling it a day.
He didn't give a shit anymore, he just wanted to go over to Casey's and get this mission over with.
Shoving his phone and keys into his pocket, he left his bedroom and headed down the hallway, meaning to go right through the front door, across the courtyard, and to Casey's apartment.
But as he emerged out of the hallway and into the living room, he saw his erstwhile fashion helper sitting at the table in her scrubs, a large mug of tea cradled between her hands.
She looked up at him, took him in, and frowned.
He stopped, turning to face her, and her eyes fastened on his outfit. She got the look.
Damn it. What'd he do wrong? What was it? Shoes? Socks? Tie? The whole ensemble?
Throughout his teens and his adulthood so far, whenever he was going on a date, he would emerge from his room and sometimes she'd get The Look. She'd take him in, and her face would go blank almost, and then she'd glance off to the side like she was trying to mind her own business. That part of it never worked. He saw it every time. And every time he did what he was going to do now.
He sagged a little and sighed. "What?" he asked dully.
Ellie raised her eyebrows and shrugged. "Nothing."
"Not nothing. What's wrong? What'd I do wrong?" He gestured to his outfit with a hand.
"I said nothing. Nothing's wrong." She shrugged again, sipping her tea.
He pushed a hand through his hair. "You got the look, Ellie. I saw it. I know you're mad at me but you can't let me go out there looking like a fool if I look like a fool. That's just mean."
She gave him a wan look this time, looking up at him through her eyelashes. "Come on," she said then, standing up from the table. "Let me help you."
He felt relief spill through him as he sighed. "Thank you. What is it anyway?" he asked as she strode past him, putting her hand on his shoulder.
"The tie."
"Damn it! It's too wild, right? Colors too bright?"
"Chuck, honey, it's just a bad tie."
"Fair enough."
She pushed into his bedroom and led him to the closet, stepping inside alone to rifle through his array of ties. "Take off the monstrosity and we'll fix this."
Chuckling, he untied the tie and pulled it off, tossing it to her so that she could catch it with that wry look on her face and hang it back up.
But before she could find him a better one, her body went tense, her hands froze on the hangers, and she dropped her arms to her sides, sagging a bit. She slowly turned around to face him and leaned back against the wall.
"Chuck, are you okay?"
He blinked, pushing off from the doorframe and unfolding his arms from where he'd crossed them at his chest. "What? Y-Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Are you?"
Ellie took a deep breath and shook her head a little. "No, I mean, with-with everything that's going on. This new job with the NSA, the training, Sarah being one of your trainers, and...well, everything with Sarah in general."
"Um, it's…" He swallowed hard. "Not...Not really. The NSA part is going as well as can be expected. It's a lot of hard work. It's grueling, the training. But it feels like I'm...finally doing something of value, Ellie. For others. But for myself too."
She nodded, a small smile on her face. "I'm glad. I didn't...not think you were doing something of value before." Chuck sent his sister a flat look and she winced self-deprecatingly. "I know, I know. I gave you crap about needing to spread your wings before and I'm giving you crap now that you've spread them."
Chuck nodded significantly, widening his eyes, and she made a frustrated sound.
"You know where I stand," she said then, crossing her arms. She looked tired, drawn out. And he didn't think it was just from work. "I don't have to repeat any of that. But I need you to know that I see you. I see what you're doing, what you're striving for. I understand. And I'm trying to come to terms with it. I will. Eventually. As much as I'm worried something might happen to the only family I've got left." She gave him a significant look and he nodded, understanding. "But none of that changes how much I love you. And this?" She reached over and grabbed a silk, light blue tie. "This will never stop being a thing. I will always be here to help you not go outside looking like a doofus." She stepped up to him and slung the tie over his head, pulling it in tight around his neck to start tying it for him. They exchanged an amused look and he felt warmth in his chest. "I will always be here. For anything. Everything. Because you're my little brother. And I love the hell outta you."
"I love you back, El. You know that."
"I do. You just spent six months pulling yourself apart at the seams trying to protect me. I know you love me, whether I agree with your actions or not. I'll always try to hold you accountable when that's what I think you need, but I want you to know this one thing. I don't ever want you to forget it, okay?" He nodded, paying close attention as she finished tying his tie and fixing the collar. "You can rely on me for support. Whatever you need, whenever you need it. I'm here for you. I was before too, as mad as I've been about this. Even if I disagree with the path you've taken, I know this means a lot to you, becoming a spy, a good spy. So I'm gonna do whatever I can, whatever's within my power, to support you in this. Okay?"
He didn't respond. He couldn't. He was just so relieved that he dove in, wrapping his arms around her and hugging her tight.
She hugged back just as tightly. "And that goes for whatever is going on between you and Sarah right now."
Chuck let out a rough breath. "It's hard, and it's going to keep being hard, but I'm not—I'm not giving up."
She pulled out of the hug and poked him in the chest, a relieved and maybe even proud smile on her face. "That's my brother. Don't give up hope on that woman. Because no matter what she says with her words, I don't think she's given up hope on you."
Chuck felt a slow, warm smile pull at the right side of his mouth, and then he moved to hug her again. "Are you saying that I can whine to you about my love life or lack thereof again, sis?"
"Lack thereof, my ass. Your love life might be a mess of your own making right now, but it does exist." He chuckled at that. She pulled back again. "But yes. Chuck, yes. Of course. If you need to vent about Sarah, even if she is my friend, I am open to that arrangement. But you gotta be okay with a little blunt honesty, too."
"Ellie, come on. It wouldn't be you if it didn't come with a dash of blunt honesty. I can take it." He scoffed as he kissed her cheek and strode out of his bedroom. "Thanks for the tie!" he called over his shoulder.
"Hey!" He heard her following him down the hallway. "I don't know if you'll be back in time for dinner, but it's gonna be pot roast. If you're back from your mission or whatever you spies call it late, it'll be in the fridge."
"Sounds delicious." He squeezed her shoulder, saw a bit of worry in her face, and squeezed it again. "I'll see ya soon, Ellie. Trust me. I'm good at this."
"I believe it," she said sincerely. "Don't let anything happen to my friends, either!" She pointed at him in warning, turning on her heel and going to the kitchen.
As he stepped into the courtyard, shutting the door behind him, he paused, her words settling in his brain suddenly. Friends? Plural?
Oh God… Carina.
}o{
"Drive faster, Casey. What are you, a grandma?"
Sarah bit her cheek to keep from letting Carina see the threatening smirk. She could hear Casey's threatening snicker, that "I'm going to murder you later, just wait" snicker he was so good at.
Chuck snorted however, and she really needed to have a talk with him about not encouraging the DEA agent in her constant needling of people. Like a child, when she got a reaction, she continued doing the annoying thing. Or the destructive thing, as was often the case.
And, right on cue, Carina Miller leaned across the seat of the limo and set her hands to Chuck's tie, smoothing her fingers down the length of it while fixing a knot that hadn't needed fixing. Chuck smacked her hands away and gulped. "Stop it," he snapped.
"What? I'm just fixing your tie, Chuckles. So sue me for helping."
Sarah rolled her eyes. They all knew she wasn't just fixing his tie. She was playing her typical Carina games. "Look, we know where to find the case, so you need to make sure Stromberg and his goons stay in the main room with the rest of the party."
"Yeah, yeah, I got it, Blondie. Thanks." Carina sighed and glanced out the window. "I've already talked the guy into a state of supreme confidence that he has nothing to worry about. Regency Security is the best security firm there is, don't you know?" She smirked cockily. "He's lowered all of his defenses and is letting me pick up the slack."
"Congratulations, but we still need to get into the actual vault," Sarah said. "It's not exactly smooth sailing."
"Well, you two need to figure out some believable reason for leaving the room together so that you can find the vault and break into it in the first place."
"Easy. A perimeter check." Sarah shrugged.
"Together?" Carina asked. "Both of you leaving in the same direction?" She leaned in then, fixing them both with a perfect smirk. "How much easier would it be if you two set up the pretense that you wanna jump each other's bones?" She scoffed then. "Pretense…"
"Carina," Sarah warned through a clenched jaw.
"See, that's just stupid. What kind of a professional security firm hires people who'd sneak off to...I'm not even repeating what you said, I refuse." Chuck crossed his arms and shook his head. At least they were on the same page about something, she thought to herself sourly.
"It's not like I'm trying to get him to hire me again. Who cares? Two young kids like you sneaking off for some private time? It's perfect."
"It's straight out of a mid-90s spy romance," Sarah groused. "We're not doing it. We're checking the perimeter and that's final."
"You're no fun. It's a trope, yeah, but I'll have you know it works every single time," Carina said in a sing-songy voice, shaking her head with a "tsk tsk".
"We're here," Casey said from the driver's seat, pulling the limousine up to the roundabout and hurrying out from behind the wheel. Sarah watched as he buttoned his suit jacket, fixed his apparent earpiece, and came around to open the door for them. "Miss Appleton," he said, helping Carina out of the limo.
Sarah followed, and Chuck clambered out behind her, reaching up to take his sunglasses off and sticking them in the inside pocket of his own suit jacket.
Their identification was checked at the door.
"Mr. Stromberg would like to see you immediately, Miss Appleton," one of the men waiting in the foyer said.
"Of course. Take me to him. Everything is well in hand. I have my men stationed outside."
"Yes, ma'am." The tall, broad-shouldered man walked them back through the throngs of people until they stepped up to a sharply dressed fellow that looked like he was straight out of that Goodfellas movie Chuck had made her watch all those months ago.
Karl Stromberg turned and grinned at Carina, taking her hand and bringing it up to his lips. "Miss Appleton, welcome to my humble abode. Again."
"Call me Ginger, Mr. Stromberg." She took her hand back and stepped to the side. "These are my associates here to assist in making sure this night goes according to plan. With us here, you have absolutely nothing to worry about."
Stromberg sent Chuck and Sarah a semi-polite, disinterested nod. "Good. I feel safer already. Thank you." He leaned in close then, a bit of a threat in his face suddenly. "Make sure I don't regret choosing Regency over the Newman boys. ...Ginger."
Carina took it in stride, confidence spilling through her. "Mr. Stromberg, we've been around for years now, and we've never had a complaint. You will not be our first."
Little did he know…
"You two, blend into the crowd, huh?" Carina said then, gesturing to them. "You know the drill. Nobody needs to know what we're here to do. Keep your eyes peeled for anything suspicious." Carina gave Sarah a very pointed look when the two of them just stood there staring back at her.
Wanting to punch the freaking redhead for this, Sarah instead wrapped her hand around Chuck's bicep and gave him a wan smile. "Let's go."
She heard him sigh, before he draped his hand over hers on his arm and led her away. "Was this necessary?" he asked out of the side of his mouth.
"To Carina? Yes. She gets bored easily and needs to find ways to amuse herself."
"She ever try card tricks?"
Sarah couldn't help but choke back a snicker at that. "Just...deal with it. We're fine. We're both professionals, right?"
She could feel his hesitancy and she wondered if he believed her.
"When is he gonna do this whole toast thing we're apparently supposed to be waiting for?" Chuck finally asked, snagging a glass of champagne from a waiter's tray.
She reached over to grab it out of his hand and took a long sip of it. She needed it, damn it. She ignored his offended look he shot in her direction. "You realize she just took away my perimeter idea, don't you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Checking the perimeter, Chuck. She's just ordered us to blend in as if we're guests. That's our job now. We're supposed to be clandestine Regency agents. We can't just announce we're checking the perimeter and walk out there." She huffed. "I swear to God, she's only this quick thinking on her feet when it comes to evil. If she's ever just...doing her fucking job, she's a God damn sloth."
Chuck hummed. "Is this the part where I say I'm glad she's on our side?"
She scoffed back at him. "Is she on our side, though?" she groused.
He had that quietude about him then that made her nervous, like he was about to launch into something she really didn't want him to launch into. "Okay, listen. Sarah. It's just us and we have to wait for this toast while we awkwardly stroll around this party. And I would like to try and explain what I did, so you understand. I know you don't agree with it, but there's something you need to know..."
"Chuck, now isn't the time. Actually, this is literally the worst possible time," she said, cutting him off quickly.
"No, I know. I know. I just…"
"If you know, why are we still doing this?" She turned around to face him and moved onto her tiptoes, glancing over his shoulder. She spotted the master bedroom where the vault was. "Master bedroom access point is at your six o'clock. All we need now is for him to start his toast."
Chuck turned to look over his shoulder, pretending to stretch. Nobody had taught him that...because neither her nor Casey would ever teach him that. "Okay. Okay, okay. Got it. Good. Yeah. Sarah, I miss you."
Her stomach dropped to her feet. "Chuck…"
"I miss this. Just...us...hangin' out. No crap hovering over us, no dark cloud. I'm sorry. I don't know how many times I hafta say it, but I'll say it as many times as it takes, okay? I just want us to be okay again, and if-if that means we're just buddies, pals, hangin' out, that's okay. I'm okay with that. I just miss you a lot, and I need to say that. I need you to know that."
She turned her head away from him, swallowing the lump in her throat and watching as Carina nodded her head, eyes wide. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. It fucking sucked. But she put a hand on Chuck's chest and let out a breathy giggle, biting her lip.
Chuck gave her the most incredibly confused look.
"The cover, Chuck," she explained through her teeth. "I'm going to kill Carina."
His brow furrowed and he nodded a little, moving in close. His hand landed on her arm and she forced a smile on her face, ducking her head a bit shyly. "I'm going to help," he said. But then he kept going. "What do you think, Sarah? Can we at least...talk? Can I just explain? And then maybe things can get-get back to normal."
"Chuck, can we please focus on the mission? Please," she begged. She couldn't do this right now. She giggled again and nibbled on her lip, peering up at him in blatant invitation.
"This sucks," he breathed.
"Making things suck for everyone around her is Carina's bread and butter," she replied.
"Everyone? I'd like to make a toast please!"
That was their cue. She pulled back from Chuck a little and cleared her throat, straightening her dress a bit, and as people slowly started moving towards the stairs, she grabbed Chuck's hand and started maneuvering them both through the room in the opposite direction.
She raised her eyebrows at him and he gave her a dreamy grin, before they both quickly ducked into the room and made their way around the back way through the house to the stairs that would lead up to Stromberg's bedroom.
Sarah let go of Chuck's hand. "En route to the bedroom now," she said into her watch for Casey and Carina to hear. "All clear."
"Yeah, they're all out here for the toast. Regency's got the place guarded, after all," came the quiet, cocky voice of the DEA agent taking point on the mission.
"Sarah, I know this isn't a good time still. You've made that clear, but please, at least let me explain," Chuck tried again. And she was about a half second away from spinning around and strangling him in frustration.
"No time," she said over her shoulder. "The mission, Chuck." They finally got to the door of the master bedroom and they stepped inside, Chuck shutting the door behind them.
"This is my cue now, huh?" he asked, going into his pocket and taking his phone out. Sarah stood off to the side and watched as he took a cord out as well and fitted it securely into the panel that kept the heavy door shut and locked securely. "Ha haaaa it fits."
"Was there a chance of it not fitting?" she asked in a hushed voice, sending him a wide-eyed look.
"Ummm...do you wanna know? Really?"
On second thought… "Uh, no."
"Yeeah, that's probably for the best." He winced and went back to his phone. She had no idea what he was doing, if he'd flashed on the schematics of the system, or if this was really him about to unlock this heavily secured door so that they could head into the vault and get the briefcase.
But then his fingers paused and he slowly lifted his brown eyes to fasten on hers. "My-My brain is...I mean, it is really hard for me to do this right now knowing that you're probably still mad at me, Sarah."
She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. "Clear your mind, Chuck. Don't get caught up in anything else. Just focus on unlocking the door, okay? You can do this." She put a tentative hand on his arm.
"I know. I know, I know. Just...maybe if we sit down and just talk, maybe if you let me just tell you where my head was at, why I chose this path instead of the one...the one I said I wanted to be on these last months."
"Okay, Chuck, look…" She full-on grabbed his arm and turned him a little so she could force him to meet her eyes. "We'll talk, okay? We can talk. You can tell me. We just don't have time for it right now. But I promise we will. After this." He didn't say anything, but his eyes softened a bit, the corner of his mouth turning up. "Okay?" she prompted.
"Yeah." He licked his lips, determination in his face, thank God. "Yeah. Okay. Sorry. I'm...on it."
Chuck went back to his phone, and she heard something in the panel beep, the numbers on the pad lighting up, and then UNLOCKED flashed on the screen above the number pad. She heard the lock in the door disengage and it shifted, opening for them.
"Oh my God," she breathed. She looked at her watch. They'd maybe only been standing there for thirty to thirty five seconds. "Was...that a flash?"
"No," he said, grabbing the door and pulling it open, and all she could do was gape at him. What the hell? He'd done that without the Intersect, with some weirdly shaped smartphone he'd taken from Castle for this purpose. How did he know how to even do that? It would've been insanely impressive if trained, seasoned agents had done what he'd just done.
But then she had to shake herself, stepping up beside him to peer into the room. He shifted to step into the room and she flattened her hand on his chest with a thump, holding him back. "Wait."
Damn it, she was breathless. That had just been so overwhelmingly impressive—something she'd never seen any other agent do before, especially not so effortlessly. And he'd just acted like it was no big deal. She'd read the briefing. The security on the door was top level, government-status. She'd been prepared for a flash and then a few minutes of him toiling at it.
"What?" he asked, furrowing his brow at her as if he hadn't just done that.
"We don't know if there's some extra line of defense in here."
"Oh...Oh! Oooo!" Excitement lit up his face. "You mean like invisible lasers or motion detectors or something? Cooooooool—er, I mean, it—uh—oh no," he finished meekly. It just underscored the fears she'd been drowning in since he told her he was joining the NSA. Everything was COOL, like in the movies he grew up watching.
"Just… Look at the way the briefcase is sitting in the middle of the room like that, on that podium. There's no way they set it up like this without something…" She shook her head, grabbing her small purse and rifling through it.
"Yeah, it's definitely the lasers. We need the cool Chinese acrobat from Ocean's Eleven."
Sarah ignored him, finally finding what she needed and pulling it out. "Ah…" She bit her bottom lip and held it between her teeth as she took the cap off and shook it a little.
"Perfume?" he asked, confused.
"Nope!" She then sprayed an even mist in front of them into the safe room, and what she thought they might be dealing with revealed itself. Thin, dim red lines stretched across the room, at the height of midway down her thigh.
"You were right. Holy crap. I could'a walked right into those and lost, like, the entire bottom half of my leg. Like walking into a lightsaber."
Sarah rolled her eyes. "They aren't going to hurt you. It's a security measure. You walk into it and it sets off an alarm." He blinked and she shook her head. "Look, I'm shorter than you. These aren't moving at least, so I can just crawl under them, get the briefcase, and bring it back here."
But before she could step out of her heels, he took her wrist. "No. No, I'll do it. You're wearing a dress." She gave him a look. "Not-Not that you couldn't do it in a dress. I know you could. But it'd look pretty suspicious if your nice dress was all rumpled and dusty."
Considering what they'd apparently been sneaking off to do, according to the rest of the guests, she didn't see how it wouldn't just help with the cover story. But she just pulled her wrist out of his grasp and nodded. "Fine. But be careful. Stay as close to the ground as possible, and be extra careful when you get to the podium."
"Right. Got it. Right." He disconnected the phone that was still attached to the panel, pocketed it, and wiped his hands on his pants. "Wish me luck," he breathed.
She didn't say anything at all, just watching as he crawled down onto his knees and flattened himself on his stomach, starting to military style crawl along under the lasers like they were barbed wire on a boot camp training course. It was something she'd done many times at the Farm.
Chuck wasn't going to the Farm. He wouldn't get anything close to it. She didn't know if it was better or worse that way. There were things she'd learned there that she didn't want him learning, lessons she'd like to keep him away from. But then how would he last out in the field with just an NSA agent and a CIA agent training him? She'd only trained one or two newbies before, but it had been too much exposure for her and Graham had pulled her as an instructor, instead keeping her just as a weapon he kept in the shadows.
Could she teach Chuck enough to keep him alive if he was ever on a mission without her? She didn't know. And that was terrifying.
"This looks a lot easier in Private Benjamin," he grunted, still crawling. His ass was sticking up a bit too much for her liking as he scooted along and she needed to figure out a way to tell him that without it sounding like she was paying that much attention to it.
But if any part of him touched those lasers, they were royally fucked. And so were Casey and Carina.
Before she had to say anything, thankfully, he must have felt it himself and he lowered his bottom half closer to the floor, still scooting along until he finally reached the briefcase, saving her from the conundrum altogether. He grabbed onto the podium and slowly eased himself up so that he could snag the briefcase. For a split second, she feared moving the briefcase might set off an alarm. But it didn't.
And instead he eased himself back to the floor and began scooting back to her.
"Just slide the briefcase to me," she said. "It'll be easier for you to crawl without it."
"Oh. Duh."
She stopped the briefcase with her foot as he slid it across, crawling towards her a lot faster than he had on the way to the podium.
When he got to her, he climbed to his feet, sweeping the briefcase up off of the floor in his hand, relief on his face. "Good," he breathed. "Now that that's over with, I can tell you about—"
But as he spoke, his arm swung back a bit, the very tip of the corner of the briefcase hitting the nearest laser. She gasped and staggered back as an alarm sounded and the door slid shut, locking Chuck inside.
}o{
"Sarah, I don't like small spaces!"
His voice was muffled through the thick metal door. She hit it with her hand a few times, as if that would do anything, and then she quickly screwed her head on properly again and moved to the pad beside the door. She hit the open key over and over and over, then hit enter. "Just keep breathing!" she yelled back to him. "You're gonna be fine, okay?"
She glanced around the room, looking to see if there was anything she could do to maybe force the door open again. He'd taken away the phone and wire, even though she knew she wouldn't be able to hack this door open again even if she had those at her disposal.
There was a distant hissing sound and she froze.
"Gas!" he yelped then from inside the vault. "Gas, gas, gas! Sarah, there's gas in here now! Sarah!"
Shit. She had no idea what sort of gas was flooding the vault, but knowing Karl Stromberg, it was liable to be something really horrible, something no living creature should be breathing.
"I'll be taking exclusively short breaths from now on!" Chuck's panicked voice yelled through the door. Maybe he could start by not talking?
Gas… Gas was flooding the vault. If she could stop the gas, then she could work on the door maybe. Gas came through some sort of ventilation system, usually, and...There. She looked up and spotted a vent. Bracing her foot on the door handle, she lifted herself up to push the vent grating out of the way and bodily lifted herself into the vent.
"Sarah! Sarah, I don't want to die in here without having told you everything I need to tell you!"
Not right now, Chuck. "Hold on, Chuck! I'm gonna get you out of there!"
He kept talking but she couldn't hear, not once she got all the way into the duct. Scooting herself along, she could faintly smell whatever it was that was flooding the vault Chuck was currently trapped inside of. And she did her best to hold her breath. Thankfully, she spotted a large canister with "CAUTION" stickers all over it, attached to small pipes leading down out of the duct, not ten feet away. Hurrying, she scooted all the way to the canister and found a gauge with a valve attached to it. Once she got close enough, she propped herself on her elbow and used every ounce of her strength to try to shut it off. She grunted in annoyance when it didn't budge. Then took a deep breath and grabbed it again, bracing her knees a bit to put more of her strength into it.
Chuck's voice was still drifted up through the vents, but she couldn't hear the actual words, just muffled sounds. And as frustrating as it was that he was wasting precious oxygen to talk when she wasn't even there to hear him, at least she knew he was still conscious down there.
It finally shifted just a little, and when she let out a grunt and squeezed, putting her shoulders into it, she began to turn it, and she kept turning until the hissing sound stopped and it wouldn't turn anymore.
Rushing back towards the vent where she'd crawled in, she was forced to stop when she looked down into the room and saw that two of Stromberg's security stood in the room outside of the door. They were looking at each other and at the door with perplexed looks on their faces. And she figured out why… Chuck was still blabbing in there. About what, she didn't really know.
She needed a distraction so that they didn't see her coming, so she went in her purse and grabbed her lipstick. She took a calming breath, and then let go of it, watching it clatter to the ground at their feet between them.
The moment they both looked down at it in confusion, she swung herself out of the vent and slammed the closest one in the temple with her heel. He was unconscious before he even hit the ground. And as she landed cleanly, the other spun to bring a fist up, but she cracked him in the face with her elbow and send him to the ground. When he tried to scramble back up to his feet, she grabbed the door and she bashed him right in the face with it. They both were splayed out on the floor, down for the count, and she nudged one with her foot just to make sure.
Spinning towards the pad again, she saw that one of them had unlocked the door. The screen flashed "Press Enter"... Smirking at how well that had worked out, she hurried to the door and pressed enter.
The door slid open and she saw Chuck standing there, gas swirling around him but slowly dissipating. "Sarah…" he gasped. Before she could ask if he was all right, he swayed a bit on his feet. And then…
"I love you."
He slumped forward, like a fallen tree, crashing into her. She braced herself and caught him, doing her best not to stagger under his weight. But it was more than just his weight that was causing her knees to buckle.
