Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or any intellectual property related to the Chuckverse.
Chuck vs. The Morgan Door
Chapter 3f
"You're alive?" Morgan's tone is both probing and adulating. "After my intrusion yesterday I thought you might not live to tell the tale."
Chuck's smile is amused, "I think the only one in danger was you little buddy."
"Honestly, I never noticed how scary your girlfriend could be…and considering that Anna's my leading lady, that's saying something."
"Your leading lady?" A half-smile threatens, "Does that mean you've managed to work things out, because Big Mike will be annoyed if my team performance drops off. And whenever the two of you are in a funk, Anna's skill levels fall back to remedial."
"Really?" Morgan revels in this fleeting position of power, "Well, I was inspired by your display and I just told Anna that we could work through whatever the problem was."
"That's very mature of you Morgan."
"Then I kissed her and distracted her with sex whenever she started to talk about anything related to color schemes and design options."
"So your tactical plan for dealing with the whole apartment situation is diversion? What happens when the entire apartment is decorated like a tea shop?" The horrified expression on Morgan's face verifies Chuck's suspicion that he hadn't properly thought this through.
"He's right you know," Casey's low rumbling cadence startles the pair, "Offer no opinion and you're liable to spend the next 3-5 years staring at floral wallpaper, while playing Xbox on a toile upholstered sofa."
"What's twall?" Morgan's fear is palatable in that phonetically mumbled whisper.
"Toile," Casey enunciates, "is a decorating pattern consisting of white or off-white background and depicting a repeating complex pastoral themed scene." The slack jawed response this elicits forces him to elaborate, "What?? My Nana was partial to toile."
Chuck nods his head in concession…all Nana's are partial to toile.
"This is bad, like code black bad." Morgan hops off the Nerd Herd desk and walks towards the cage, "I've gotta talk to Anna."
Once Morgan is out of ear-shot Casey grabs Chuck's elbow and begins steering him towards the front doors, "Castle; now Bartowski, we've got a situation."
Chuck pulls his arm out of Casey's bruising grip and tosses back, "Were you just messing with Morgan in order to make a break for it? Because toile is nothing to joke about…those kids in straw hats pushing a wheel with a stick are just plain freaky."
"I'll keep that irrational fear in mind in case I ever need to torture you in the future, but right now, shut up and follow me."
Chuck shakes his head in mock sadness, "I feel our progress from yesterday has fallen off." Casey turns back to face him, some dark emotion contorting his face, but it's not anger or annoyance…Chuck is far too familiar with those visages. If he had to describe it on anyone else, Chuck would attribute it as anxiety or concern, which makes Casey's next words all the more devastating, "It's Walker."
Bang, bang, bang!!! "Sarah, open the door." Chuck continues to assault the stubborn wood frame with a white knuckle fist which hasn't unclenched since his meeting with Casey this afternoon. He takes a deep breathe, leans his forehead against the door, and tempers his voice to a more soothing tenor, "Sarah…please open the door. We need to talk about this."
When the door flies open, Chuck stumbles across the threshold and into Sarah's personal space. She steadies him at the elbows, their forearms connected along their length. Chuck quickly regains his bearings and straightens up to his full height, never letting her drop his awkwardly formed embrace. "Hi." The soft unsure greeting seems completely bizarre compared to his battle for entry, and he can tell she thinks so too when her lips quirk up into a half-hearted smile.
It fades all too quickly, "What are you doing here Chuck?"
The CIA operative curtain has fallen across her face, but over the tenure of their relationship, the fabric of that curtain has changed from opaque black to translucent gray. He can see the shadows of Sarah Walker beneath the agent veneer and sometimes, the woman herself even steps out center stage. Chuck can tell by the tension in her body that she's fighting to stay hidden, and maybe that's best. It's certainly best for national security, but he knows it's killing them and Chuck is not one to let things die….especially whatever 'this' is between them. "From the moment I became the Intersect, I've done my best to help the NSA and the CIA because I felt it was my patriotic duty. I've been shot at, dangled off roofs, poisoned, captured, and saved more times in the past year than probably all my fake video game experiences combined. General Beckman, and even Casey, seems to be laboring under the delusion that the reason I've been able to successfully complete all of these missions is because I've got the Intersect in my head." He pauses, drawing in a shaky laugh, "I could not have done any of those things without you, Sarah."
Her emotional base feels like quicksand, sieving away between her toes. His conviction is devastating because she knows that it's powerless against the rising tide. "Chuck, the new handler will be…"
"Not you." Chuck cuts her off emphatically, "And that's simply unacceptable. Listen to what I'm saying, YOU…you, Sarah Walker, not the CIA's finest spy, but Sarah-Jenny-Walker-Burton," he pulls her closer until she feels the words reverberate from his chest, "you are the catalyst." Her brow furrows at the chemistry reference, "Chuck Bartowski and the Intersect work together because you've given me the confidence and the kick in the ass," to which she smiles, "to realize my full potential."
"Casey…"
"Casey views me in terms of the Intersect more than an individual. But Sarah, you treat me like Chuck Bartowski who just happens to have the Intersect in his head…and that makes all the difference."
Sarah swallows a deep breath and pulls on all her training to force the next repellant sentence from her lips, "Which is exactly why the General was right to order a transfer." An unstoppable tremor wracks her body and she drops her eyes from his in apology, "I lost my objectivity."
Chucks tone is beyond exasperated, "You closed your eyes for a second, since when is that a capital offense??"
Sarah lifts her gaze to meet his, steel melding into her voice, "From the moment I got so caught up in the way you kiss my neck that I compromised your safety." She can tell by his expression, that Chuck expected her to downplay his influence over her senses. But there's nothing to be done to change things now, and Sarah doesn't intend to spend their precious remaining moments deceiving Chuck or herself. "I closed my eyes, allowing for the approach of potential hostile…"
"It was Morgan!"
"Today…what about tomorrow? Or next week? What if I'm so distracted by your hand on my forearm that an assassin is able to get off a shot at Ellie?" Chuck drops his fingers from her elbows as though burned.
She turns her face away when he releases her embrace and Chuck realizes, too late, that he's just confirmed her worst suspicions. "Sarah," he gently cups her face in his right palm, "I trust you. You are a competent and thorough agent and most importantly I know that you would never intentionally let anything bad happen to me or my family."
Sarah wraps her arms around her waist, self-conscious but earnest, "I would never forgive myself, if anything happened to you. Which is exactly why Casey and Beckman are right. I can't be here, Chuck, it's not safe."
"Where is?"
She laughs at his feeble joke, but stutters when his finger lands over her lips.
"I'm serious. We've seen Fulcrum operatives with access to the highest levels of government intelligence…even if I was put in a bunker, I doubt I'd ever really be safe, would I?"
"No," she concedes in a whisper, "probably not."
"The kind of safety you're talking about is an illusion Sarah. It's not realistic until the Intersect is out of my head. The best I could hope for is to have someone by my side that I trust unequivocally, that makes me feel safe. That way, I can overlook the myriad of daily dangers, and focus on being a useful piece of military intel. And no offense to Casey, but he's more of an anxiety source than a calming influence."
Sarah smiles conspiratorially, "Casey doesn't have a calm center…he's more of a twisted knot of anger and…" they say the last word together, "pain." The resulting shared smile is fleeting, "But Casey is a good agent, and he'll help you transition to your new…" she can't bring herself to say girlfriend, and opts instead for, "handler."
Chuck's shoulders deflate at the resignation in her tone. Sarah is being the dutiful soldier, accepting her orders without complaint and a small part of Chuck is angered by that, and Chuck is not easily prone to ire. He focuses on that gnawing pit of sadness and fear, feeds it a sliver of indignation spawned by their team's success rate, until the bile can no longer be contained. "No."
It's a deadly whisper that prickles the skin on the back of her neck. Chuck steps back from her, breaking all connections and leaving her cold, but the aching emptiness in his eyes has been replaced with an alarming fire of resolve. Suddenly she's afraid for him, "What are you planning to do, Chuck?"
Chuck looks at her, not accusing, but certainly challenging, "I'm going to fight, Sarah."
Beckman won't look kindly on Chuck copping an attitude and aggression on his part could provoke her to pull him underground, so she says the first thing she can think of to dissuade him, "You'll lose."
Chuck explodes, hands thrown to the sky, "Well at least I'm trying, which is more than I can say for you!" The slap she administers is fierce, but Chuck holds his ground determined to finally get some type of emotional response from her.
Sarah's eyes are shining daggers, "How dare you? You have no idea what I'm feeling!"
"Because you won't tell me!" Chuck grabs her shoulders gently, her posture tenses and she squirms defiantly but Chuck holds firm, in contrast to his soft voice, "You're not my handler anymore Sarah."
The words paralyze her body while her mind races to catch up to the implications. He's too close, clouding her judgment with the sweetness of his breath just inches from her mouth.
"Do you want to leave?" he asks.
He's trying to keep the doubt and sadness from overtaking his eyes, but she can see them clearly in his face. She closes her eyes, exhales deeply, raising her hands to rest upon his chest, and replies without thought or censure, "I wish I could stay here forever." His lips brush across hers, "But I don't have a choice," he pulls back abruptly, leaving them both bereft and uncertain.
His hands slide down her back before trailing to hold her wrists, "Do you know what makes me good with computers?" The question catches her completely off guard, but Chuck continues without waiting for her reply, "I'm good at finding solutions that are unconventional. It's not about navigating the way the system allows, it's about designing pathways that haven't even been conceived."
Chuck drops her hands and backs away until he's poised at the slightly ajar door, "I have to do something." He deflates a bit; the dejected posture that plagued him when they first met is seeping back into the curve of his spine. His eyes touch hers, and Sarah can see her own raw pain reflected in those warm brown empathetic pools. His next words shatter the defenses it's taken her a lifetime to hone and refine, "I just can't stand to see you so unhappy."
That gives her pause…what would make her happy. It's not a question Sarah Walker has ever really taken the time to consider, and certainly not one anyone else in her life ever bothered to concern themselves with…until now…until Chuck. I'm not scared of a new assignment or even a new career…what I'm most frightened of is the fact that if Chuck walks out that door and makes an appeal to Beckman, I know that this is the last time I'll ever see him. She also knows that Chuck won't be dissuaded in his quest, delayed perhaps, but eventually he'll go to Beckman and the situation will escalate. This, right now, is the calm before the storm and for once in her life; Sarah Walker is content to put her happiness ahead of the greater good. "Do you really want to make me happy Chuck?" Her voice sounds breathless, as the anticipation of each of their interactions floods her sense memory.
"Yes." Chuck holds her gaze and watches as an anguished smile graces her face. She's struggling with herself, the agent and the woman battling for dominance.
A single tear falls from her lashes as she steps toward him, "Then close the door and come kiss me."
Author's Note: First off, sorry for the posting delay but the holidays have been demanding this year. However, X-mas at my Aunt's house was the inspiration for the great toile debate at the beginning of this chapter…so at least something good came of it…for the record, toile freaks me out too!
Second…the NEXT CHAPTER rating may change to M, depending on what you good people decide. Please cast your votes for the rating for Chapter 4, decency (T rating) versus debauchery (M rating), by submitting a review or sending me a PM. Polls close Friday 1/2/09 at midnight…that gives me the weekend to write up the 4th chapter.
Third…thank you to all the reviewers of chapters 1&2 and all the lovely people who listed this story as a favorite or put it on alert status. Knowing that your work is appreciated and anticipated is a tremendous motivator.
As always, hugs for reading, kisses for reviews. Cheers and Happy New Year!