A/N: We are in the home stretch of the story. This chapter, another full chapter and an epilogue left to go. Work is going to get crazy next week, so I'm trying to do a push to get the last parts up before then- although there are some significant revisions going on with the next chapter as I type this. While there is still some action ahead, the story starts to focus more on Chuck and Sarah. I'm not sure it qualifies as fluff, but it's as close as I can get (and the epilogue will be particularly fluffy).
Thanks again to all the reviewers.
Chapter 11: Chuck versus the Cover Story
As Chuck made his way to the freezer, walking daintily to try to avoid the larger puddles of melted frozen yogurt, he thought about Sarah's response to his reaction to the shooting of Shaw. He had been stunned, and in a dark corner of his mind his conscious mocked that he had secretly been thrilled at seeing Shaw shot. He also admitted to himself that he had flashed back to the Mauser shooting.
While intellectually he had accepted that the only way for Sarah to keep him, Ellie, Devon and Morgan safe from Fulcrum was for her to eliminate Mauser, emotionally he was still conflicted over the shooting of a man who was in the process of surrendering. He had always thought of the bad guy surrendering in terms of black and white-they stop fighting, the good guys don't hurt the bad guys any more.
And while Sarah was unquestionably one of the good guys, the best of the best in fact (not that he was biased), he occasionally had trouble remembering that she saw the entire world in terms of shades of grey. He acknowledged that the only way for him and his family to truly be safe from the very real threat of Mauser was for him to be eliminated. For Sarah that had been the only factor to her equation of keep or kill him.
He was also embarrassed by his reaction at the time to Sarah lying to him about Mauser going to prison. He had lost some of his naïveté after spending a couple of years in the spy world. He realized that not only was it ingrained in Sarah as a spy to withhold certain information, he also realized that Sarah had been trying to protect him by lying to him. At the time of the shooting, he hadn't been at a spot where he would have been able to accept the truth about why she had done what she had to do. She was trying to protect the innocence that he still carried with him.
Chuck also knew that Sarah was conflicted by many things that she had been called upon to do by the Agency. He had avoided deliberately flashing on her past missions, although some (like Alana Trufeau) can through anyway. It pained him to think that she had to perform such a deed on his behalf. From time to time, her concern that she wasn't a good person leaked through the hard shell that she projected to the world, and it physically hurt him to think that he had contributed to her (misguided) belief by the fact that her mission to protect him had forced her to kill an unarmed, surrendering enemy agent. The fact that she was willing to sacrifice of herself was proof that she was an inherently good person. Maybe not always as kind as he was, but inherently good.
He sensed that she felt that Chuck had put her up on some pedestal that she didn't deserve, but the truth was, she was already up on the pedestal when Chuck happened along. She had pulled herself up on that pedestal through hard work, bravery, intelligence and dedication. The very fact that she didn't feel worthy of being on the pedestal was proof to Chuck that she belonged up there.
He also knew that it wasn't just the casual application of violence that had scarred her emotionally. As he got to know her better, to pick up on her tells, he realized that when she had to seduce a mark or use lethal force, there would be a moment when those incredible blue eyes would cloud over with pain. It would only last a moment before the agent mask would fall back into place, and her emotions would be locked away. To Chuck, that moment of a window into her emotions was proof that she wasn't the Ice Queen, but rather an incredible human being who had risked her life on countless occasions and put the safety of the country before all else.
And then there were the lies. The childhood as the daughter of a conman, combined with CIA training and experience as a field agent meant that lying was pretty much ingrained into Sarah's DNA. But that DNA was changing-mutating if you will-as Chuck could see the tension in Sarah's face when she would have to lie to Ellie in order to protect the cover or keep Ellie safe. Chuck liked to believe that being around such open and honest people like Ellie, Devon and Morgan was rubbing off on her.
Chuck no longer counted himself in the group of "open and honest" people. Since the formation of Team Bartowski, the lies had come quicker, smoother. He still hated lying, but the words would now come out without hesitation. It was not the man he wanted to be.
What kept Chuck awake at night (at least those night when Sarah didn't sleep over) wasn't the killings, seductions or lies, it was the knowledge that on hundreds of occasions she had cheated death before coming to Burbank. If she hadn't killed the bad guy, or wound up a mark with seduction and lies to the point he didn't know which way was up, she could have easily been killed. He realized that there had been so many occasions when her life could have easily been ended, and that he never would have had the chance to meet this incredible person. That was what made him wake up in a cold sweat at nights, more so when she wasn't staying over on a "cover" date.
Chuck cut short his musings on Sarah and focused on the access panel next to the damaged retinal scanner. Opening the panel, Chuck spliced an auxiliary power module back together, restoring back up power to Castle. Using his wrist computer, Chuck was able to open the door to Castle bypassing the retinal scanner. With a puff of air, the sealed door opened up, revealing a dark opening with emergency lights creating a haunted appearance to the main bay in Castle.
Sarah shot out an arm, blocking Chuck from stepping out onto the stairs leading down into Castle. There was no sign that the Ring had penetrated Castle's defenses, and Shaw's presence in the OO supported that belief, but Sarah also knew how Casey would react to an attack on his base. Chuck was thinking like a friend, concerned for Casey's well-being. While she loved that about Chuck, she was in mission mode and knew that Casey would be as well.
"We need to contact Casey before we just stroll in there," Sarah said to Chuck, not attempting to keep her voice quiet. "I'm sure he's got some surprises set up for any hostiles that might try to breach Castle." Sarah opened the door all the way, sweeping her gun out in front of her to make sure there were no Ring agents on the stairwell.
Before setting foot into Castle, Sarah called out loudly, "Casey, you secure?"
"Roger that," came the response, in Casey's gruff voice. "Authentication?"
"Morning glory," Sarah replied, knowing that Casey was just following protocol but still slightly disgruntled that he would believe there was even the possibility that she could be captured.
"Dammit, this was just about to get interesting. I'm guessing the nerd is with you?"
Sarah led the way down the stairs, with Chuck cautiously walking behind her. "Interesting? Seriously Casey? You've got the stairwell booby-trapped with anti-personnel land mines, a six barreled machine gun trained on the door, the world's biggest handgun strapped to one leg and your usual Sig strapped to the other leg, a baker's dozen hand grenades on your combat vest, and…What is that? Is that really…A microwave and a week's supply of hot pockets? A well rounded arsenal, but your rations lack any nutritional value. That is just not healthy my friend."
The sneer on Casey's face intensified at the slight of his food choice, "Hey, have you and Beckman been talking?"
As Casey and Sarah set to dismantling the booby traps and securing the weapons back into Castle's Armory, Chuck headed over to the computer terminal. As she watched Chuck power up the computer and re-establish the secure link to the outside world, Sarah knew that the Piranha was about to go to work and track down whoever it was that had shut down the Reaper drone. To be able to do that discretely meant someone very high placed, but Sarah had complete confidence that her boyfriend/elite hacker was going to find that mole. She just hoped that she would get the chance to exact some justice-or just plain old fashioned revenge. She was good either way.
As she and Casey entered the main room to Castle after securing "Betty" (with much bellyaching from Casey about still not having the chance to use her in an op), she heard Chuck on a link with Beckman revealing who the mole was that tried to ruin their rescue attempt. As Beckman begrudgingly congratulated Chuck on his skills at penetrating the supposedly impenetrable NSA systems, Casey turned to Walker with a confused look.
"What was that about?" he quietly asked.
"New development. Turns out Chuck has even more skills than we knew," Sarah responded with pride ringing through her voice.
"I don't want to know about any 'skills' Bartowski may have that you learned about," Casey said with a grimace.
"Get your mind out of the gutter," Sarah snarled, touchy as always at any slight directed towards Chuck, which provided an endless source of amusement for Casey. "When Castle went offline, so did all the recon satellites we have aloft that could have provided realtime images of the Plaza. As it happens, Chuck used to be a world famous hacker who managed to break into a Russian satellite to see what we were up against."
"I don't want to hear that any part of our victory here was due to the commies," Casey growled.
"Relax. If it makes you feel better, Chuck did it without their permission or knowledge. And he fried a North Korean satellite in the process while tricking the Russians into thinking it was the North Koreans who had hijacked the satellite."
A single grunt was the only reply she received, but, like Chuck, Sarah was now well versed in Casey's grunt language and correctly interpreted the grunt as "well, that's ok then but
I'm not going to thank Chuck for using commie tech to help out the mission."
Chuck and Casey had to enter the Buy More through the loading dock, as construction was still underway to repair the damage to the front of the store following the Ring attack. Big Mike had called all the employees in to make sure that all the product and displays were ready for the grand re-opening. Closing the store for several days meant that even the usual sluggish sales income wasn't there, and Big Mike worried about corporate shutting them down. He dreaded the thought of getting transferred to the Beverly Hills store and being forced to work as a green shirt under their store manager Barkley.
"A mix up on the location for filming an action movie scene? Is that seriously the best the brain trust at the NSA could think up? There's no way that anyone…could…" Chuck tapered off as Lester sidled up to them, attempting (and failing miserably) to be discreet.
"Did you hear Charles? Word is that some big-shot Hollywood director screwed up and trashed the Orange Orange and half the BuyMore Plaza by mistake! This could be the big break for Jeffster if we make it on the big screen. Jeffrey's trying to find out which studio was behind it so that he can 'acquire' the footage. Or at least that's why he said he was heading to his office to search on his computer. Come to think of it, I'd better make sure what 'footage' he's looking at. Big Mike is on the warpath and Jeffster isn't bring in enough cash for us to be able to afford to ditch the day jobs."
As Lester hustled off in the direction of the employee bathroom to get Jeff in his "office" stall, Casey turned to Chuck with a smirk, "You were saying, numb nuts?" He then stomped off in the direction of the grills to make sure that his beloved Beastmasters weren't damaged in the attack.
"I'm just saying, a mix up over what fast food store was slated for demolition sounds pretty thin, to anyone with a lesser degree of paranoia than Jeff and Lester. In other words, the rest of humanity may not particularly believe the excuse. I mean there are bullet holes in the BuyMore!"
"Chuck, my man," Morgan came scurrying over. "All these years of living in Southern California and I had no idea, none, how realistic movie sets were. When those FBI guys came down from the roof and started shooting the bad guys inside the BuyMore I needed to change my shorts 'cause I thought it was real bullets. This is great though, the BuyMore gets a facelift and we get paid to not work. Well, we didn't really work much as it was, but now I don't even have to use my work avoidance skills. I just get to sit around and rake in the money. At least I would if we were actually making money."
"You really buying that line about some movie studio screw up?" Casey interjected, shocking Chuck by threatening to expose what really happened. "I heard Barnes saying that the guys with the guns were goons hired by Large Mart to take down the OO because it was cutting into the profits from the Large Mart food court," Casey said out of the side of his mouth to Morgan, while conspicuously scanning the store as though some random person might be listening in on a conversation in a temporarily closed retail electronics store.
"Whoa," Morgan's eyes grew huge. "Seriously, you think it was actually Large Mart? Man, I've got to find out what Jeff knows." That said, Morgan ran off in the direction of the employee bathroom.
"What just happened here?"
"Relax, moron. Barnes won't remember not saying something. He rarely remembers what he actually does say. Now all of the BuyMorons will be chasing their tails, debating between a movie studio screw up and corporate greed. Nobody will bother trying to figure out the truth."
As Casey started to inspect possible damage, frowning as he looked closer at a scuff mark. "Casey, what is up with you and the Beastmasters? I mean, it's a grill."
"It's not just a grill. It's a top of the line grill, made in America, sold in America to Americans to make all American food like burgers and steaks. What's not to be proud of with something like that?" Casey responded with a hard glint at Chuck, who started to appreciate just how dedicated Casey was to his cover job.
Just then Fernando ran up to Chuck, "Chuck, man, have you heard? It may not have been a movie scene. I heard that Large Mart tried to shut down the OO. It is true?"
Casey walked away with a very satisfied smirk on his face as Chuck looked at his co-worker and tried to wrap his head around the insanity that was parading as reality within the confines of the BuyMore. He opened and closed his mouth several times as he tried to come up with a response to Fernando that would keep the ludicrous covers in place while not demeaning his co-worker. He was saved from his dilemma by the sound of a very familiar, very welcome voice from just behind him.
"Hi, mind if I borrow my boyfriend for a moment or two? Thanks!" Sarah shot a full wattage smile at Fernando, who, like the rest of the BuyMore employees, was stunned anytime Sarah spoke directly to them. It was now Fernando's turn to have his mouth silently open and close with nary a sound being heard beyond a whispered "meep". Taking that as his consent, Sarah pulled Chuck by his arm in the direction of the home theatre room.
It was a statement to Sarah's universal appeal that absolutely no one even thought to wonder why she was inside an electronics store that was closed for remodeling due to the "incident" that had completely destroyed the portion of her shop that the general public knew about. Even Big Mike was so accustomed to her presence in the store that when he saw her talking to Chuck off to the side, he just shook his head and muttered, "Lucky bastard" before heading off to have his third glazed bear claw of the morning.
"You know that it's hardly fair to turn the full Sarah Walker charm on poor Fernando. You know how overwhelming that is for everybody."
"Everybody, Chuck? Are you including yourself in that group?" Sarah replied with a laugh.
"Most definitely," Chuck responded while performing the Bartowski Eyebrow Dance (patent pending).
Sarah gave Chuck a PDA kiss that was for far more than the cover. It was a testament to Chuck's growing spy skills that he didn't jump through the roof when her right hand slid down out of the view of the surveillance cameras and gave his right cheek a little squeeze. She laughed at how he twitched, trying to control his natural impulse. She laughed harder at his shocked expression, although she wasn't sure if he was embarrassed at potentially being seen by surveillance or by his co-workers.
"So, Chuck, we have a briefing from Beckman on a new mission."
"How are we supposed to run an op while Castle is being renovated?" Chuck griped. " Can't Beckman give us a break? I mean we just put down a full scale attack on the base."
"Well, we'll just have to see what she has in store for us," Sarah responded as she slid her arm through his and led him out of the store towards the back of Orange Orange.
Fifteen minutes later, Morgan approached Casey inside the store. "Hey, big guy. Have you seen Chuck? I've been looking for him everywhere. Any idea where he could be?"
"Probably rounding third," Casey grumbled as he watched the NSA cleaner team restore to the BuyMore to its former glory, or at least back to its former condition. "Enough questions, I need to go find some brain bleach."
A/N 2: My apologies to baldcoder for the bit in the armory, but don't give up hope!