A/N: Ya'll ain't ready for this. Hell, we aren't, but we're gonna do it anyway.
Disclaimer: We don't own Chuck. We aren't making money here.
He shivered, looking at the mess, aware of the implications. The Ring knew who Stromberg had given his briefcase's key to. They knew Hannah Liu had the key. They'd broken into her possessions stowed away in the ship's hold. They were a step ahead of him and Sarah.
"Do they have the key?" he asked in a whisper.
"I don't know. Stay here, I'm going to look and see if there are any more of her things that were separated and are nearby." He felt her fingers brush his for a moment and then she split away from him and disappeared off to his right, silent as a ghost.
He cursed to himself under his breath and walked up to the mess, kneeling down and peering at it. He was careful not to touch it, though. He'd seen too many shows on CBS to ever touch anything at a scene like this.
There were memories and mementos of Hannah's life in the U.S., along with pieces of art he imagined were worth quite a bit of money if she was taking them with her. There were a lot of valuable items, in fact, and they'd all been left here...which just underscored the fact that this had been the Ring looking for the key, not a thief.
Valuable jewelry, diamonds, gold, pearls, et cetera had been lifted out of a jewelry box, but only for the apparent purpose of looking under them for the key. But it had all still been left behind.
Chuck heard Sarah come up behind him again.
"They definitely know who Stromberg—" He stopped as he turned to look at her as he spoke, because the barrel of a gun was pointed right between his eyes, and it wasn't Sarah standing there, but another blonde, a male blonde wearing black pants and a dusty navy blue button-up shirt. It was a boiler room crew member… Or, he silently amended, a Ring agent who'd stolen a uniform. "Oh, hi. Is this the salon? I was looking for the ship's salon. Hair's getting a bit shaggy. I guess this isn't it, huh? My mistake."
He tried to stand up, but the Ring agent painfully prodded Chuck in the forehead with the pistol and knocked him off of his haunches onto his backside. "Don't fuckin' move. We were told CIA might be here, but I didn't think I'd have the pleasure of being the one to run into them."
"CI-what? I-I don't—"
"Shut up!" the Ring agent snapped. "I wanna know—"
Before he could get another word out, Chuck saw a flash of metal and the agent jerked to the side, his eyelids fluttering before he hit the floor just as quickly. He lay there, unmoving, as Chuck cast his wide eyes up at Sarah. She was quick to pounce as the Ring agent began to come to again after the blow he took to the head. And with deft hands, she took his pistol and searched his pockets, tossing another gun to Chuck, as well as a silencer. She pulled the leg of her pants up and slipped the knife she took from the Ring agent's belt into the knife holder strapped to her shin, letting the flowy material fall back to cover it.
Chuck shook himself a little and looked at the floor around him, spotting some coiled rope. He lunged for it, grabbing it and holding it up. When he caught Sarah's gaze, he tossed it to her with a "Here".
"Good idea," she panted, and he scrambled over to help her bind the Ring agent before he was alert enough to know what was happening. When his dark eyes snapped open and he realized his predicament, he opened his mouth as if to cry out for help. Chuck was quick to smother it by clamping his hand down over the man's mouth.
"Now," Sarah said, a smug look in her eyes that glinted with the threat she posed to this man's well-being, "you get to tell us what we wanna know." She slowly screwed the silencer she'd taken from one of the Ring agent's pockets onto the gun he'd also had and pressed it against his temple, making him whimper. "You try to scream for help, all I have to do is pull this trigger and you're gone. It'll make no difference to us. We've already done away with one of you and they'll never find his body."
The agent nodded a bit, sweating. Sarah gestured to Chuck with a subtle flick of her head, and he eased his hand away from the man's face.
"Did you do this?" She gestured to the mess around them. When he didn't respond, merely looking at her with defiance, Chuck decided he'd just let Sarah take the lead on this. The guy was toast. Truly. "I asked you a question," she said through a clenched jaw, pressing the gun to his temple even harder.
He whimpered and nodded.
"What did you find?" He didn't respond. "Did you find what you were looking for?" He shook his head, his eyes casting to the side to look at the barrel of the gun pressed to his head. "Were you sent here to go through her things?"
"Y-Y-Yes."
"By the Ring?"
He gulped, shut his eyes tight, and nodded. Chuck could almost hear the struggle happening in the guy's head. What was worse, being shot here in the hold of a cruise ship? Or having to face his superiors later and maybe get offed then for telling the CIA about the Ring's operations.
"Look. Look, man. We-We want to help you." Chuck licked his lips, ignoring the questioning look on Sarah's face. But she didn't cut him off or question him verbally. She let him go. "We're the good guys. We don't want to hurt you. How long has the Ring known who has the key to Stromberg's briefcase?"
The agent spat on the floor near Chuck. Well, that didn't work.
"Answer his question," Sarah growled.
"We just found out this morning."
"We? How many of you are there?" Chuck asked.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" And then he smirked. "Enough. You kill me, there will be more of us. We know who we're after."
"You know who but you still don't have the key," Sarah said, her blue eyes crackling in the dim lighting of the hold.
"Neither do you…" He frowned then. "Do you?"
"No."
"Wouldn't you like to kn—Seriously?" Sarah groused at Chuck as he answered truthfully simultaneously with her attempt to beat around the bush. Chuck winced. Woops.
"You won't win. We'll find the key. You're amateurs. Especially him."
"Shut up," Sarah snapped, and it almost felt like she was sticking up for him. He was going to think of it that way. "You're talking about your one hope of surviving this run-in with the CIA. He cares about the sanctity of your life in a way I definitely don't."
"Then kill me, Blondie." When she jammed the gun into his head, her finger twitched, and he was rendered whimpering again. "D-Don't, no no. No. Please…"
And then there was a quiet snapping sound, and the Ring agent's arm swung up from under him, the ropes severed, a knife they hadn't found on him before clutched in the man's fist. Sarah was quick to lean back, but the knife clashed into the pistol she held and knocked it out of her grip.
Chuck tried to pounce on it, but the Ring agent got there first.
Before he could bring it up to sink a bullet between Chuck's eyes, a knife sliced through his upper arm and pinned him to the crate behind him.
Chuck tossed the extra gun across to Sarah and she snatched it out of the air, but before she could get a shot off, the Ring agent tore the sleeve, and maybe even some of his arm, out of the grip of the knife that had pinned him and dove behind a row of containers.
"Chuck, take cover!" Sarah rushed, and Chuck didn't think twice about diving behind the nearest crate. There was a soft fwip fwip and the crunching sound of bullets hitting wood, sending chips falling down onto his hair.
Chuck yelped, ducking even lower.
There was a crashing sound then, a struggle, the fwip fwip of the Ring agent's gun going off again, the sound of Sarah grunting, and then nothing. Silence. Terrifying silence.
"Sarah?" he asked as loud as he dared.
"Chuck, are you okay?"
"Are you?" he asked, scrambling up from behind the crates and rushing around them. He turned the corner and found the agent splayed out on the ground on his back, one of Sarah's throwing knives in his chest. He coughed one last time, a splash of blood appearing on his lip, and then his body seemed to almost deflate, his eyes dimming. He was dead. "S-Sarah?"
"Behind you."
Chuck spun to see her leaning back against Hannah's trunk, slumped a bit, relief in her face. He dove down next to her and grabbed her shoulder with one hand, cupping her face with the other. "You okay? Did he get you? Are you shot? I heard him—"
But she was shaking her head. "He missed. He's a shit shot. Ring getting recruits from the bottom of the barrel apparently." Her quivering lips twitched a bit at the ends. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and just hold her, he was so relieved.
He didn't. He just raised his eyebrows and tilted his head, stroking his fingers down her face a bit reverently. If she noticed she didn't show it, instead just gesturing with her chin past his shoulder. "We have to hide that body and hide the evidence that anyone was in her luggage. And then we need to get back to our cabin and regroup."
"Right. You think we need to worry about them getting into her cabin?"
"Not right now. They think their man is down here finding the key as we speak. And we need to make sure they keep thinking that for as long as possible. They don't know we're on this ship for sure. The only two agents who've made us are dead."
"And they don't have an Intersect to identify us the way we do to identify them," he said with a bit of a crooked smirk.
"Exactly."
They were quick about it then as he helped her to her feet, noting she was a bit shaky standing at first. And he wondered what went through her mind every time she killed someone, if it screwed with her head, if she felt sick. Even though he knew she'd done it dozens of times before, he couldn't imagine someone like Agent Sarah Walker was unmoved by it. She was just good at doing her job, good at appearing unfazed, good at focusing to complete the mission. But when she was alone with her own thoughts… What happened then?
They picked the body up and carried it along the wall, carefully stepping over pipes, before Sarah gestured over to a dark corner behind a large generator. "There," she panted, and she grunted with the weight of the Ring agent's legs as they quickly carried him over and dropped his body unceremoniously wedged behind it.
"How long until they find him?" he asked as she reached in and carefully plucked her knife from where it had stuck itself in the enemy agent's chest.
"Probably the end of the trip. If we're lucky, we'll be off of this deathtrap and long gone before they do." She used the dead man's shirt to wipe her knife as best as she could, then slipped it into the holster at her shin again.
He nodded and gulped, feeling a sick lump in his throat. He willed the sensation away and followed Sarah back to Hannah Liu's trunk, helping shove everything back into it.
"Is the lock salvageable?" he asked as they swung the trunk shut again and Sarah picked the padlock up to slip it back in place. She pushed at it and seemed to stay.
"It's not locked, but it at least won't look like it's been tampered with at first glance. You'd have to tug on it."
He nodded. And then they moved back to the crate to shove everything back in place and carefully lift the plank that had been pulled away to close it again.
"What do we do about this?" Sarah asked. "It won't stay. This ship is constantly rocking, especially down here. It'll just fall open again. The nail's busted."
Chuck pushed his free hand through his hair thoughtfully. "Here. Let me try to wedge it a bit. They won't even notice if they're walking past. Move for a sec."
She stepped away and he grabbed the wall of the crate that had been opened, shifting it, then jamming it in a way that wedged the corner inside. It didn't look great but it wasn't terrible.
"That's good," Sarah said, nodding satisfactorily. "Good work."
But as she moved away from him, he slipped his fingers around hers and held on. She glanced back at him over her shoulder, blue eyes widening in question. "You saved me," he said quietly.
"You don't have to thank me every time," she said with a small smile. He saw the warmth in her eyes. He quashed the urge to hug her again. Or to say something, anything, that made any of this easier. But he just nodded and let her go. "Come on."
But as they neared the doorway back to the stairwell, he heard voices, and the tell-tale sound of boots hitting the steps.
"Shit!" he heard Sarah breathe. But she'd frozen. They were out in the open, and in two seconds, they'd be caught.
Chuck glanced around, spotted a nook in the wall behind a tangle of red water pipes, and didn't think twice. He grabbed Sarah with both hands on her waist and swung her out of view, slipping behind the pipes into the darkness of the nook so that his back was pressed to the wall, and tugging her front against his.
"I heard it down here. I'll take a look. You check the fire room."
"Sir."
They would be seen here. The crew member was coming in closer. Sarah was tense in his arms. She knew it too. He could feel it. They would be found. They were both sweaty, frazzled… There was nothing more suspicious than their presence here where passengers weren't supposed to be...except maybe their appearance.
He had less than a second to act. The shadow of the crew member loomed large on the opposite wall.
Chuck tightened his arms around Sarah and spun them around, pinning her back to the wall and covering her lips with his. She let out a surprised gasp, her hands up by her shoulders. And as he opened his mouth against hers, the shock melted away from her figure, her hands grabbed at his face to yank him in, and her tongue swept over his. He distantly felt one of her legs wrap around his waist and give him a strong tug so that his body pressed harder into hers and he moaned quietly into her kiss.
He dragged a hand down to yank at the silky blouse she wore, pulling it out of her high pants and belt, letting her feel his hot, clammy fingers against her soft, cool skin above her waistline, and she whimpered.
Chuck heard the footsteps stop, and the beam from a flashlight swept over them. Sarah gasped and pulled away, bringing a hand up to cover her face. Chuck blinked and glanced over his shoulder.
"Oh… Uh…"
"What the hell you two doing in the hold? Passengers can't come down here!" the man with the bushy mustache said in a stern voice.
"S-Sorry, we're sorry, sir. We didn't know. Nobody was… Uh…" He pulled his hand out from under Sarah's shirt and stepped back a little, keeping Sarah close nevertheless. "We wanted to make out and our cabin is on the other side of the ship, so we saw a staircase and … We're sorry, we didn't know."
"There aren't any signs," Sarah squeaked in a small voice. She was breathing hard. And as he snuck a glance, he saw that she had her fingers covering her forehead.
"This-This is my wife." Chuck cleared his throat, not really sure why that had been his response.
"Sure, pal. Look, I don't care what is going on in your personal life. You can't be down here, so if you'd please...get back up there and go back to your cabins."
"Right. Sure. Of course. We're—We're just really sorry."
"Won't happen again, officer," Sarah chirped as they snuck out from behind the pipes.
The crew member rolled his eyes and shook his head. Chances were, he wasn't an officer of any kind, but Sarah was really good at playing innocent and dumb. She was also really, really good at kissing, and how was he even getting his limbs to work?
He was going to be in a lot of trouble, he knew. But then she'd also grabbed him back. Her fingers had gone into his curls at one point, and she hadn't shied away from using tongue, either. Then there was the thing she'd done with her leg to pull him in closer…
"Sorry!" he called over his shoulder again.
"Yeah, yeah… Don't let me see you in here again, or I'll be taking down your names and we'll have problems. Got it?" the crew member called after them.
"Yessir!"
"Got it!"
Chuck held onto Sarah's hand tightly as they rushed up the stairs. And another crew member met them at the top. He lifted a finger to speak to them but Chuck cut him off with an "Ahoy!" and a salute, before they hurried down the hall and continued around the corner.
There was a lot happening inside of him. And he didn't know how to properly address any of it. They'd just had a run-in with another Ring agent who'd been searching Hannah Liu's luggage. Sarah had killed him in a gun fight with a throwing knife which just… he wasn't going to think to hard on that lest he lose his entire God damn mind. They'd stuffed his body in a corner behind a generator. And they'd almost been caught. They had been caught, but he'd acted quickly and he'd pulled Sarah—Agent Sarah Walker of the CIA, the woman he'd been in love with for a year—into a kiss that he could still feel the effects from. The feeling of her lips on his, her arms around him, fingers in his hair… He could still feel the pressure of her leg wrapped around his waist. And he had the soft whimper she'd emitted emblazoned into his brain.
He took a deep breath.
There was a dead man in the hold of the ship. A dead man who'd tried to kill them. The Ring was a step ahead of them, but they still didn't have the key at least. They knew about Hannah Liu, however, which compounded on the pressure of this mission.
And that kiss had lit a raging fire inside of him.
More than the raging fire, however, it was her response to the kiss that was at the forefront of his thoughts. She had responded. She'd definitely responded and even took it to the next level.
He wasn't sure how to deal with that. He didn't know if it was best to just pretend it never happened or to broach the subject. Granted, they were on a ship with the top of South America on the horizon and he knew there was nowhere Sarah could really run to if he brought it up and it freaked her out. No human being could swim that.
He shook himself a little. What in the hell was going on in his brain? She wasn't going to physically run. But she could shut herself away. Those walls he was so used to with her would close up around her and he'd never be able to get her to lower them around him again. That might happen.
God, he was a mess. That had been so good and he was a complete and total mess.
"They don't have the key," Sarah said. "That's the biggest thing we need to take away from what just happened."
Was it? He wasn't so sure. He took another deep breath and let it out slowly. "That and the fact that they know Hannah Liu is Stromberg's key mule."
"Yeah, that's bad."
When they got to their cabin door a moment later, they stopped. And they both seemed to realize at the same time that their hands were still clasped tightly together. Chuck slowly turned to glance down at their hands, their fingers intertwined. Their knuckles were white from how tightly they were clinging. Was it the passion from that kiss spilling over that made them hold on so tightly? Or was it a need for reassurance, comfort? Chuck had a feeling it was both. Maybe she was drowning just like he was. In fact, as he slowly lifted his gaze to meet hers, he could see it all swirling in her eyes, like a maelstrom in the middle of the bluest of seas. There was no maybe about it. They were both completely lost at sea—no pun intended.
They let go of one another's hand at the same time and he cleared his throat, looking down at the floor at his feet.
"I've got it," Sarah said, stepping in front of him with her key in hand, unlocking the door and opening it wide.
They both slid into the room and turned on the light, and as she shut the door behind him, the telltale thunk of the lock being securely fastened, he was hit with an onrush of fear.
When he spun on his heels to face her, she jumped a bit at the suddenness of it and looked at him with wide eyes. He knew immediately that she was terrified he would bring up the kiss. Her body went tense, her shoulders pulled up as if she was bracing herself for impact.
Any idea he might've had about asking her what the hell that kiss was melted away. And instead, he huffed and pushed his hand through his hair. "What is our next move here? Do we alert the captain and make sure Hannah has protection? Someone guarding her room, making sure some 'accident' doesn't befall her?" he asked, tossing the air quotes up with his fingers.
Sarah eased back and leaned into the door, relief in her face. It made his chest feel constricted and empty all at once. "We can't alert the captain or any of the crew about any of this. The CIA isn't supposed to be on this boat, and honestly, we don't have any authority here. There are different rules and regulations—maritime law or whatever."
"So what you're saying is if we bring this up to the captain, he could decide to have us tossed into the brig."
She gave him a flat look. "Something like that. No, we have to figure this out without alerting the ship crew, and without alerting Hannah herself. And especially without alerting the Ring. We've taken out two of their agents now, and hopefully that's helped keep them from knowing we're here for sure."
"We know they think we might be."
"Yes. But that 'might' is what's saving us for the time being," she said, and then she hurried over to the window and untied the curtains so that they flopped shut to cover the window. "We just need to find that key and, as callous as it may sound, not worry about what might or might not happen to Hannah Liu." She paused and turned to give him a long look over her shoulder. "Do you think you can do that? Are you okay with it?"
He thought for a moment, his brow furrowed. "This has nothing to do with my run-in with her, but I hate the idea of prioritizing a mission over someone's life. It doesn't matter who it is. We don't know her story or why she fell in with Stromberg. She might be innocent. Letting the Ring get to her while we search for a stupid freakin' key doesn't sit well with me. I just want to get that out there."
The corner of her mouth turned up a bit, and he wasn't sure but there was maybe some relief in her face. But it was gone just as quickly. "Your feelings are noted…"
"But that's still what we're gonna do, huh?" he asked quietly, resigned. "Find the key, screw what happens to the maybe-innocent person caught in the crosshairs."
"I'm sorry, Chuck. All I can do is make a promise that I'm going to do everything I possibly can to make sure what we do doesn't directly put her in danger of being harmed. We have to assume she knew what she was getting herself into, otherwise she wouldn't have hidden this key so well. She knows the danger and seriousness of her task. She knew the risk when Stromberg gave her the key."
He nodded. "I know. I'm not mad at ya. For the record. This just feels…"
"Wrong. Yeah. But a lot of this job is about—"
"I know, I know," he drawled, sighing and plopping down on the arm of the couch in the middle of the room. "The spy life means having to do stuff like this that isn't going to feel like the right thing. I know. I made the decision to join the NSA. And maybe I didn't know the full scope of what I'd have to do, but I'm learning."
Sarah was quiet. "Chuck, there are some things you're going to have to learn in order to survive out here in the field." He hung his head a little. "But… there are also things you don't have to learn." He lifted his head again and gave her a long look. She glanced away, swallowing hard. "I'm okay with you not learning to accept these moments where we have to put a mission ahead of human lives. Just...for the record. Especially if that life is your own. Okay? You, um, you don't have to lose that in order to be a good spy."
He stared at her for a long time, waiting, and when she finally, tentatively, lifted her blue eyes to meet his across the room, anything that he might've said in response to her fluttered out of his brain altogether. So that the thing that came out of his mouth wasn't planned at all. "Is that something you've learned to accept, Sarah?"
She looked incredibly uncomfortable. "I...don't know."
That wasn't true and they both knew it. Chuck nibbled on the inside of his cheek for a moment. "Sarah, you can tell me the truth. I'm not going anywhere and you know it. Even if I tried to, I'd have to be Aquaman to reach Venezuela without drowning." That didn't have the desired reaction. She just stared off to the side, blinking a lot, as if she hadn't heard his quip at all. "Sarah," he tried again, and she swung her gaze back to his. "Have you learned to accept it?"
"How am I supposed to answer that, Chuck?"
"With the truth," he said, shrugging as if it was the easiest thing in the world. "Knowing that when you tell me the truth, I'm not gonna judge or think you're as terrible as you think you are."
Her eyes widened at that, and she eased away from the door, slowly crossing the room, and she carefully lowered herself to sit on the coffee table in front of the couch, staring straight ahead. She looked numb. "I've been doing this for over ten years, Chuck. I've had practice, a lot of it, and now I guess I've learned how to...prioritize a mission over… whatever might happen to people along the way. Including myself." She swallowed hard. "There. Is that the truth you're looking for?"
There was nothing hard or sarcastic in her last words. So he nodded and shifted his weight so that he was still sitting on the arm of the couch, but facing her better. "Yeah. And I'm still sitting here. And I still think you're a good spy and an even better person."
She scoffed and shook her head. "You make it sound so easy, and it just isn't, Chuck. Like you can sit there and say it's okay and that makes it...okay. It doesn't."
"Sarah, I can only speak for myself. I don't know or-or care about what anybody else might say about it."
"You aren't like this, Chuck," she interrupted, pressing her fingers to her chest "You aren't like me. You aren't like Casey. Or Shaw. Or any of the spies I've met in the last ten years. You don't accept the concept of prioritizing a mission over someone's life, even when you don't know them or know if they're even innocent."
He just sat there quietly, not really knowing what she was getting at. She pushed a hand through her hair and sighed in frustration.
"You say that it's okay with you, but what if it isn't? Let's stop beating around the bush, Chuck. You have feelings for me. You-You put me up on a pedestal in spite of the shit you saw in that flash all those months ago, in spite of what you've seen with your own eyes since then. I just threw a knife into a man's heart and forced you to help me hide his body." Chuck fought back the shiver at the reminder. "And now I'm telling you to put the success of this mission over the safety of someone you obviously liked a little—don't try to deny it, Chuck, you're very transparent." He ducked his head and frowned. Maybe he did find Hannah a little likable, but not enough to have flirted back when he'd had every opportunity to do so. "Chuck, your feelings for me have made you look past... a lot. And those feelings have been a catalyst for some...big decisions you've made, especially recently. Don't try to deny that, either."
Shit. He couldn't. He couldn't deny that last part. But the first… "Sure. Okay. Maybe I did join the NSA…" He changed his tack. "You were a big part of my decision to become a spy. I won't deny that. And yeah, sometimes when you...care about someone...in the way I care about you...you tend to get blinders, you don't see the bad stuff. But that's not what this is. I promise it isn't," he added in a rush when she looked incredibly dubious. "Look, Sarah, I know—maybe more than anybody else in the world knows—that it's crazy unrealistic to expect perfection from anybody. The world isn't perfect, none of us are perfect. I don't think you're perfect and I don't expect you to be. Because I'm not perfect, either. Just in...different ways."
She gave him a flat look. "Chuck, come on. I kill people. Yeah, it's… Greater good and all that shit. But stop acting like that's the same as...I dunno, having a bad habit of biting my nails."
He didn't know how to respond. So he just rubbed his hands down his pants and sighed. "So what is this, Sarah?" he asked finally when she didn't say anything either. "Because I kissed you down in the hold to save our asses from being caught, but you kissed me back."
"Chuck, don't do that. Not right now."
"Don't do what, Sarah? I initiated the kiss, but everything else was you."
"Chuck…"
"There was tongue involved, too. A lot of tongue."
"I know," she said, cutting him off with her voice a little raised. She shut her eyes and sighed, pushing her hand through her hair again. "I know. I lost control. Okay? I'm human. It happens."
"If you hadn't wanted to kiss me back, you wouldn't have."
"Of course I wanted to, but that isn't important!"
Chuck pushed himself off of the arm of the couch and got onto his knees in front of her, feeling a desperation rise in his chest. "Yes it is. It is important. If we both want something, why can't it happen? Why aren't we letting it happen?"
"Because it can't happen." He felt his heart sink and it must have shown on his face because she reached down and laid a hand on his shoulder. "I made my decision to stay on and help you with training, to be the best partner I can possibly be for you. I made a promise to protect you; the fact that you're an NSA agent now isn't going to change that. I'm going to stay here and get you through all of this, but I can't keep slipping like this."
"Slipping? Sarah, you're—"
"Chuck, I can't see a path that includes us in that way that won't end in your destruction, in the destruction of everything that makes you great. Look around you. We're on a ship surrounded by Ring agents. You just had to hide a dead body. You were shot at. You wouldn't be here right now if you hadn't made a decision based on feelings you have for me."
"This is the spy life," he argued. "I knew things would be dangerous. I was shot at before, when becoming an agent wasn't even slightly on my radar and I was just a guy who worked at the Buy More and had a super computer database in his head."
"Chuck, this isn't up for negotiation."
He slumped and shook his head. "You think I'm putting you on some pedestal, Sarah, but the reality is you're doing that to me. I'm no saint. Yeah, I believe in doing the right thing, but not everything is black and white. And I understand that. And I care about you. You. Not some idealized unrealistic personification of a blond Emma Peel. I accept everything that comes with that. That's my choice to make. Not yours." When she didn't respond, and instead just watched him quietly, her lips pressed together in a thin line, he sighed and reached up to squeeze her hand. "But you've made yours, I see. For now."
He couldn't help adding that last bit. And she'd noticed it, he could tell. She arched an eyebrow just a bit. But he wasn't done with this. He wasn't going to push anymore, not tonight. But he wasn't going to let her keep deciding what was right for him. He was a grown man and he'd decide for himself.
He squeezed her hand one more time and stood up, walking into the bedroom and grabbing his pajamas from his suitcase to take a shower.
She was right for him. She even wanted him. That was all he needed to know for now. Sooner or later, they were going to fix this together. He'd get through to her, as stubborn as she was. Because he was stubborn, too.
}o{
She hadn't felt safe about them falling asleep without doing more than just bolting the door. So they'd worked together to jam the couch up against it as well, wedging the back of the couch under the doorknob in case the Ring had a crew member with access to guest cabin keys in their midst. It wasn't hard to imagine the Ring agents on board were working overtime to get that key, and to eliminate anything that stood in their way. And while that meant Hannah Liu, it also meant the federal agents that were also most likely on board the cruise ship.
True to his word, Chuck hadn't broached the conversation from earlier again. But he was quieter, more contemplative. He'd studied the layout of the ship at their table while she took a long bath and eventually emerged in one of the long silk robes, tied tightly around her figure.
Chuck pointed out where Hannah Liu's cabin was on the ship, then surmised it was really the only place where she could've hidden the key. And perhaps it wasn't hidden at all. Maybe she simply locked it away in a safe in her cabin because she figured it was the best way to protect it from getting into the wrong hands.
She'd agreed with him, and they'd decided they would try to break in the next day.
Now Sarah was curled up in bed, her back to him as she heard his heavy breathing—not quite a snore—behind her. He was fast asleep. She couldn't sleep. Not a wink. Because there were Ring agents everywhere. The one who'd tried to kill them in the hold earlier may or may not have been found by the ship crew, or by his fellow agents, by now. And if that was the case, they'd know CIA had done it. She figured it was only a matter of time before they figured out who the spies were. And when they did, it'd take more than a heavy couch and a few flimsy antique locks to keep them out.
She didn't want this nineteen-forties themed cruise ship to be where she died. She wasn't ready to meet her maker yet. She hadn't been before, and she especially wasn't now. And damn literally everything, but it had a lot to do with the look on Chuck's face as he'd knelt in front of her, insisting that they were both imperfect as if she didn't know that, beseeching her to consider the idea that they could be together even with those imperfections. Listening but dismissing her when she gave him what she thought was an incredibly good reason that a real relationship between them would end in the ruination of Chuck Bartowski. He'd become NSA Agent Carmichael, the nerd all but replaced by a killer, someone who put the mission first, ahead of everything else. The way she did. The way Casey did. At worst, he'd be killed because his feelings for her would cause him to do something stupid out in the field.
As he let out a deep sigh and shifted in his sleep, stilling again as she braced herself, she let her eyes shut and she turned her face into her pillow. She squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could and pressed her lips together in a hard line, gripping her pillow in a tight fist and twisting it. Her chest ached. Her body was sore from earlier. And she hated herself for wanting to just turn over and wrap herself up in his embrace for some semblance of comfort.
The same comfort she'd felt sitting on that coffee table, feeling his gentle, large hand close over hers and squeeze reassuringly. When he'd relented understandingly, after telling her point blank that he was choosing to care about her, choosing to believe she was a good person...and that it was his choice, not hers. But he'd climbed up from his knees to his full height, his warm hand surrounding hers, and then he'd let her be.
That …
The fact that he'd given her space after giving her a piece of his mind, removed himself from the room altogether, was more jarring than most of the rest of it. The calmness with which he'd left her alone to brood, combined with those two words he'd said before he'd walked away, made her feel like something was about to happen. And it would have little to do with the Ring.
Agent Sarah Walker also couldn't stop thinking about the way Chuck had so willingly admitted to her that he hated the idea of finding the key and letting Hannah Liu be dangled as bait for the Ring in the meantime. He might've liked the key smuggler when he'd first met her a little; and it irked her that she felt a spike of ire about that. But she knew it wasn't Hannah personally, as much as it was just that she was a human being who could be in serious danger. Even the mere possibility that she was innocent made him want to protect her from the Ring operatives on board.
In spite of the training he'd received from Major John Casey of the NSA, the distant mentorship of General Beckman, and the lessons Sarah'd been teaching him herself, Chuck's altruistic nature was still intact. For now. Would it last? If so, how long? It had to falter eventually.
But what if it didn't?
What if Chuck was strong enough?
And that was what kept getting stuck in her brain, the roots growing further and further into her chest, curling and tangling in her ribcage, surrounding her heart. He'd stepped onto a dangerous—perhaps even deadly—path because he loved her. And he was obviously set on staying on said path. And she realized as she laid there with his warmth just inches away from her that she wasn't so sure he was continuing with all of this because he wanted to prove he could be a spy to Casey, Beckman, his family...to her, even to himself. The way he'd studied the blueprints of the ship without being tasked with it, how analytically he was approaching the problems, the way he was putting his all into this—it wasn't just survival, it wasn't fear. He was being an agent—a good agent. He was as good at this as she'd admitted to herself he would be—an admission she'd made early on in this operation, when he was just a supervisor of the Burbank Buy More's Nerd Herd. He was as good at it as she'd feared he'd be.
The fear was ebbing now, though, because he was a spy, or at least he was deep in the midst of training to be a spy, and there was nothing she could do to change that. And the better he was at this, the easier it would be to protect him. It was a lot less work protecting someone who could protect himself, and that was a fact.
And Sarah couldn't help wondering—thanking whatever godlike entity was up there that Chuck Bartowski couldn't read her mind—how letting herself act on the deep and intense feelings she had for him, the way she'd slipped in the hold when he'd pressed his lips to hers, might change the job she'd tasked herself with. Would it be easier or harder to keep him safe if they were...really together? That had never been something she'd had to agonize over before. Bryce had been...whatever. And sex had always just been sex. There'd never been strings attached to whatever connection she'd had with men before.
How would it change things if she allowed the strings to take hold and sneak under her skin, inside of her, the way she knew it would with Chuck. It was just how things went with him. Nothing was easy, nothing was surface level. It was all complicated and came with multitudes of layers when it came to Chuck. Everything felt intense and unlike anything else she'd ever experienced in her life. She was so out of her depth. She was confused. She was still hurt. And, frankly, she was afraid. She was always afraid with him...and maybe it was because she so often caught herself slipping into a state of comfort and safety with him. That in and of itself was frightening. How easily she ceded control, lowered her guard, when it was just the two of them.
There was just so much that could go wrong. And he would end up getting the worst of it.
But she still wanted him so badly it hurt.
Sarah shifted onto her back and opened her eyes, staring at the ceiling in the darkness. And then she turned her head to look at Chuck, sleeping soundly in spite of the dangers surrounding them, in spite of the Ring being a step ahead of them. Almost as if he had faith in her, in their partnership.
Or maybe he was just tired. She silently scoffed at herself and unconsciously reached over to push one of his curls away from his forehead. He didn't budge thankfully, and she let her arm flop back down to the mattress with a huff.
She fell asleep that way a few minutes later, exhaustion catching up with her in spite of her mind racing and fretting about so many different things. The least of which being the man sleeping beside her, and whether the things he'd said to her were merely just what he believed...or if he was right.
The implications of that settled in her mind as she drifted off, the fingers of her right hand brushing against the back of his left hand as she went limp with sleep.
}o{
She wasn't sure what ultimately woke her up.
If it was the extra weight over her midsection, the extra warmth that no mere sheet or coverlet could provide, the feeling of the hair at the nape of her neck fluttering in the soft, wispy breath escaping his lips as he slept.
She wasn't even sure if she was awake or if she was trapped in some dream, half-asleep. If this was real or not. She was afraid to move, afraid to open her eyes. Because if she did, the pure and unfiltered comfort flooding her might go away. And she didn't want it to.
Her eyes still shut, she finally shifted, sighing as her movements naturally pushed her back even closer into his front. His even breathing caught in his chest as if he was waking up...but even in his half-sleep, his arm that had been draped over her body wound tighter around her torso and pulled her in even closer… Perhaps he was reaching for that comfort she felt immediately upon waking up. Or he was just reaching for her.
She slid her hand out from under where he'd draped his, too groggy to think of the implications of it, that he'd taken hold of her hand at some point during the night. But instead of pulling away from him altogether, she simply covered his hand with hers instead and threaded their fingers together.
He moved against her and she knew he was awake. She felt the hitch in his breath, his chest pressed flush against her back, his body freezing as if afraid to move, that if he moved she would shove herself away from him, roll out of the bed, and run out of the room altogether.
But she merely held onto his hand even tighter, squeezing. Wordlessly, he slid his leg that was trapped between hers up a bit, and she felt his hips nudge her backside.
And when his nose brushed the spot just under her ear, his lips resting softly against her neck just under her hairline, there was a moment when every fear she'd ever had about this man, about how he affected her, about her loss of control, the raw emotions he awakened in her, rushed to the surface. And just as quickly, it was all gone. As if it had never been there in the first place.
He pressed a real kiss to her neck and she squeezed his hand again, shutting her eyes tight. And then she snapped them open and twisted her body so that she could turn her head and look up into his face.
His brown eyes were fully awake, flashing with the same warmth that had always been there when he looked at her. But there was something else there too...crackling at the edges of his golden irises. She felt the same something inside of her come unhinged.
And before she could say or do anything about it, he dove in to kiss her, his lips fervent and wanton immediately. All she could do was lie there as he rolled half on top of her, her hands up by her shoulders in shock and surrender.
All Chuck had to do was slide a gentle hand in to cup her face and the shock slipped away, the surrender morphing into utter desire, desperation even. His other hand draped over her hip, his fingers slipping under the hem of her camisole she wore, so cool against her warm skin.
The clouds parted. Her brain was lit with an electric current, and as it spread through her body, her hands came to life...every last bit of her came to life.
Agent Sarah Walker of the CIA, Graham's Wildcard Enforcer, wrapped one arm around Chuck Bartowski's shoulders and slapped her other hand over the back of his neck to pull his face in even closer to hers, kissing him back hard.
Any and all thoughts she'd had in her head flew out the window and got lost to the sea.
When she twisted her fingers in his hair at the nape of his neck, he let out a soft whimpering sound, his desperation for her lighting a fire in her stomach. And all she could do was hold onto him even tighter as he pushed his arms around her, one winding around her lower back, the other around her shoulders. He cradled her so close, opening his mouth over hers, and she just clung to him, letting herself bask in the safety of his tight embrace, feeling any and all walls she'd had up through this entire mission crack and buckle under the weight of his...God, just everything. His everything.
He was forced to break for air and she gasped into his lips, their noses brushing. She stroked her hand down his face and cupped his chin, trusting herself to open her eyes and look up at him. What she saw in his face, his furrowed brow, the passion in his heated gaze, made her breathe a quiet, "Chuck…" Her voice caught in her throat…
And then she lunged for him, aching to taste him as she pushed her tongue between his lips. His leg that was bracing against the mattress between her own legs, lifted and nudged her left thigh so that she had to wrap it around his waist. And because she wasn't willing to relinquish all of her control, she let go of his shoulder and pushed her hand against the bed, forcing her weight against him and swinging him onto his back. He caught himself with his elbow against the mattress, his lips smiling for just a moment under hers, but then he pushed himself to sit up, one hand sliding up her back under her top, the other stroking her hair out of the way and just holding her face against his as they kissed ravenously.
Sarah situated herself onto her knees over him, letting him catch all of her weight against him as she draped her arms around him and leaned into his chest. When the hand that wasn't up her top slipped down to her bare thigh, squeezing her there in a way that made a shiver wrack her body, she felt herself give in to him again.
And as she went limp, her body tilted to the side. Even as he kissed her with everything in him, he caught her, a steady, safe arm oh so slowly lowering her back to the mattress and leaning down with her, never once breaking his lips from hers.
She wrapped both of her legs around his waist and clung harder to him than she'd clung to anyone ever. She held onto him like all of this might end at any moment, taking every last drop of himself he offered to her, and giving all of hers back in a rush of adrenaline.
Grabbing his hip, she pulled his front hard into hers, wanting his weight on her, feeling his warmth, the heaviness of his lithe body pressing her into the mattress. And as his hands closed around her waist, his fingers gripping her hard, he thrusted himself against her. She threw her head back with a whimper, breaking the kiss. Which afforded him prime access to her neck, and he didn't let the opportunity pass him by, letting her feel his lips and tongue against her pulse point.
He kissed up her jaw and slammed his lips against hers again, simultaneously thrusting his hips into hers once more. She pulled back from the kiss, gasping, and he pushed himself up onto his elbows, hovering over her, looking down into her face. There was awe there, and then a slow, heated, purely ecstatic smile pulled at his lips. She smiled back at him, taking a deep, necessary breath and letting it out in a huff.
Chuck seemed as if he might just stay like that forever, grinning hard at her, so she leaned up and grabbed his face, smashing her lips into his again, falling back against the pillows and dragging him along with her.
She wanted more of him. She wanted all of him.
So she reached down with both hands and grappled with the hem of his shirt, twisting her fists in the cotton and yanking it up his back, feeling his heated, smooth skin beneath, spurred on by the groan he emitted.
And as he leaned up, desperately grabbing at his shirt to pull it up to his shoulders, she saw as it caught on his chin and nose, stalled by his wide shoulders…
She laid her hands on his abdomen, her fingers stroking feather light touches along his muscles there.
And then there was a piercing, ear-splitting sound that shattered the air around them.
A/N: It's gettin hot in here! *Feels SC glaring at him.* Too soon?
Please review. Thanks, folks!
-SC and DC
