I still don't own Chuck. I'm not sure who does at this point.
If you enjoyed this or any of the stories on this site, please take a second and send the author a review. It only takes a second – and it really, really makes a difference. That's probably more important than ever now that the series has ended. If you want to keep the Chuck fandom alive and continue to read about these characters, you really need to think about rewarding the people whose hard work make that possible.
Hello Trouble, Come On In
x-x-x-x-x
Sarah had to hustle a little to get to the meeting place that Jill Roberts had dictated on time. Her spy alarms were ringing off the hook. After all, Casey might be right. This might be a trap. But really, what choice did she have? Chuck was going to end this. He clearly was uncomfortable being undercover with Jill. That was sweet. But he was right in the first place. They could always arrest Jill, Berkshire, and his small gang of rather pathetic minor league hoods. That would be something of a victory. But there were bigger fish to fry here. They had a real opportunity to possibly nail Alexei Volkoff himself.
Naturally, Jill Roberts had something in mind. She clearly thought that she had Chuck controlled. But something was up.
And again, it was very possible that this was all just a steaming pile, an excuse to get her to surrender and turn her over to Volkoff. That was Casey's fear. He wanted to contact Beckman, get her horde of Agents in position to stealthily track her. But Sarah overruled him. These guys were clearly connected. They were able to escape Beckman's horde of agents already once today. If they suspected a trap now, who knew how they would react? Besides, if Chuck didn't see her by 10:00, he was going to contact them… with Jill Roberts in cuffs. So actually the risk of this was fairly low. After all, they wanted to turn her over to Volkoff alive, for whatever sick reason, Sarah was blocking from her mind. And Jill clearly had some 'plans' of her own. Maybe she wasn't having as good of a time keeping Chuck controlled as she imagined.
Their contingency if it came to that and Sarah didn't show up at the hotel by 10:00 was to get the necessary information to form a rescue operation out of Jill. Casey promised he would do whatever that took. Sarah smiled when she reminded Ellie that Jill didn't have testicles to threaten. She'd have to come up with another plan.
Casey insisted that she wear a wire. But Sarah was under no illusions that she'd be wearing it very long. Not with this crowd.
And she was right.
"Agent Walker," the man obviously in charge said as soon as she walked up. "We both know that you're wearing a wire. Hand it over right now and maybe we can avoid strip searching you."
Casey and Ellie were watching from a van down the road a bit. She turned to him not trying to hide her pure disgust. "Really?" she asked with a groan. "Strip search?"
"They wouldn't do that in public," Casey replied, clearly enjoying Ellie's discomfort. "They will probably settle for searching for weapons possibly hidden inside her bra."
In spite of the tense situation that got Ellie grinning. She was catching on fast to this spy thing. "The irony is that she actually does have weapons inside her bra," she said sarcastically.
"Two big ones."
x-x-x-x-x
Chuck noticed Jill's demeanor had changed the second she stepped foot back in the room. She was all business. Something must have happened that had her spooked. But he knew her. If he would just shut up and wait, she'd quickly enough tell him.
Sure enough, Jill immediately walked over to him, grabbed his hand, and led him to the sofa. Once they were sitting, she let out an audible sigh. "We have to talk," she said.
Chuck just nodded. He knew from experience that when Jill took that tone it meant that she was going to do most, if not all, of the talking.
"There is a little more to this situation than what I've told you," Jill started carefully. "You've actually been gone for a couple of months. They gave you some drugs to make you forget."
Chuck realized that she was expecting a response. "Okay," he said.
"We have to deal with Agent Walker," Jill continued. "If we don't, she is going to mess things up for us. She'd stop at nothing to capture you and take you away from me."
Chuck definitely didn't like where this was going. "How are we going to deal with her?" he asked.
"We might have to kill her," Jill said. Then she immediately responded to his look. "I know," she said. "You don't want to kill anybody. I get that. We don't want to kill her anyway. Our friend would like a chance to talk to her. She's actually very valuable, the very best at what she does. He'd like a chance to convince her to do the right thing and help us. Option B is for you to fight and capture her."
"How am I going to fight and capture a super spy?" Chuck asked in frustration. "I don't think I could fight and capture you."
Jill smiled for the first time. "You're very powerful, baby," she insisted. "You are the most powerful man in the world. You have to start believing that. You'd win easily." Jill took a moment and sighed. "But what we would have to do to get her out of the hotel would be very, very uncomfortable for her. You're too nice of a guy. You're not going to want to do that either."
"I don't," Chuck said flatly. "So where does that leave us?"
"There is a way," Jill insisted. "Please let me finish before you say no."
Chuck nodded.
"This Sarah Walker," Jill said slowly. "For the past couple of months, she was been trying to get you to fall for her. That's her plan, how she was going to control you."
"Are you saying that I cheated on you?" Chuck asked warily.
"Of course not," Jill replied. "I'm just saying she tried. But that backfired on her. Now she kinda thinks that she's in love with you. We can use that."
Now Chuck was confused. "You want me to cheat on you?" he asked. "I can't do that."
That got Jill grinning. "Baby, stop worrying," she said. "I know that you'd never, ever cheat on me. Loyalty is your biggest strength. But it's not cheating if I say that it's okay, right? She's very pretty."
"Where exactly is this going?" Chuck asked impatiently.
Jill placed her head on Chuck's shoulder. "I know," she said softly. "You're uncomfortable with this. I'm not crazy about it either. But I'm going to set my jealousy aside. This is important. You wouldn't be cheating. You'd only be playing a role. You could control her just like she tried to control you. She'd do anything you asked."
Jill lifted her head enough to allow him to see the tears streaming down her cheeks. Chuck knew that she had just dropped the big one. Ten years ago, there would have been no way for him to watch her cry. She didn't play the card often. But she could get him to do anything she wanted… and they both knew it. Now he had to fight down the genuine disgust.
"Please, baby," Jill sobbed. "Do this for me. She has this coming. She's really not a nice person. Don't allow her to fool you. She can pretend to be one. She can act like the sweet innocent girl next door when she wants to. But she is anything but sweet and innocent. Don't worry. I'll be right here with you the whole time. You say that you don't want to hurt anyone. Well, that's the guy I love. But it's either this, or I have to get rough with her. You'd actually be doing her a favor."
"What exactly do you want me to do?" Chuck asked with a sigh. "How far do you want me to go? Sex?"
Suddenly Jill's tears were gone. "Thank you, baby," she said. "I knew I could count on you." Her face quickly displayed a sly smile. "I think you might be taking the narrow view here," she said. "I get that maybe we're a little conservative when it comes to sex. Maybe it's time for us to loosen up a little. Wait until you see her. She is incredibly beautiful. Most men would jump at the chance I'm giving you. I get that this triangle situation with two girls isn't something you would ever do. Me either. But as long as we are in this situation, I say let's make the best of it. Trust me. She's anxious to prove to you that she loves you. She'll eagerly do absolutely anything you ask. You officially have my permission to enjoy making her prove that to you with zero guilt okay? Have fun with her. I will if you will. It's really the only way."
Chuck's head was quite frankly spinning. His fake girlfriend was asking him to be fake with his real girlfriend. That was messed up enough. But now he had to pretend to be loyal to his fake girlfriend by playing his real one. Jill had just given him permission to cheat on her with a beautiful woman. And who knew what other kinky things she had in mind? Jill hated Sarah, clearly wouldn't mind putting her in some very uncomfortable positions. And he knew Sarah. She wasn't jealous. In fact calling her jealous was the immediate start of a fight. But the truth was, she was incredibly jealous, always had been. This was going to be complicated. But there really wasn't another good option. At least Sarah could end the mission if it got too ridiculous.
"Okay," he sighed with his head in his hands and his reluctance suddenly genuine.
"I'll do it."
x-x-x-x-x
Ellie was on her first, honest to goodness, solo spy mission. Casey was clearly very nervous about the situation. His near panic was Ellie's tip off that Sarah had been exactly right earlier. In his own emotionally stunted way, Casey loved Chuck… and Sarah too, just as much as she did. That fact alone made his stock rise about a gazillion points in her book.
He desperately wanted to know if the suite was bugged. Walker would need to know how open she could be with Chuck. This would be a lot easier if Chuck and Sarah could communicate away from Jill's ears without worrying about who else might be listening. They might even be able to plant something themselves. After all, if they could hear what was going on, they could be in a position to assist if things went south.
Unfortunately, the hotel was almost certainly being watched. And they would recognize Casey in an instant. So it was only natural when Ellie pointed out that they wouldn't recognize her, that Casey had to reluctantly agree. Of course that wasn't even totally true. Jill would recognize Ellie in an instant. So if that happened, it meant the end of the mission. But Casey eventually concluded that it was a risk they had to take.
Ellie wasn't even nervous, at least not in a bad way. Casey had spent the better part of an hour warning her that this was not a game. It was deadly serious. And with his incessant jabbering in her earpiece, who had time to be nervous? He was certainly right about some things. Telling that housekeeper that she was playing a practical joke on a friend and asking for her help probably would have worked all on its own. Those two, hundred dollar bills was just icing on the cake. It quickly sealed the deal and they were trading clothes.
So Ellie quickly enough found herself in the elevator dressed as a hotel housekeeper. The electronic device Casey had given her was very easy to operate. She had been there for only a few seconds before Casey pronounced the area bug free.
There was only one thing left to do. Blend in to the surroundings… and wait for Sarah.
x-x-x-x-x
Sarah was really grateful when they were finally at the hotel. The half mile trip took over an hour… and it seemed more like ten. They were clearly going to great lengths to make sure that she wasn't double crossing them by having somebody follow and learn the Intersect's location. They even changed cars twice. Without aerial support which would have been visible there was no way to tail them. So not only was Sarah anxious to see Chuck, these creeps were not the greatest conversationalists. But to be fair, what they lacked in conversational skills was more than made up by their prowess at constantly staring at her chest. They were world class at that. They had obviously put in lots and lots of practice.
The only good thing was that they obviously didn't want to cause a scene. So they un-cuffed her before they got out of the car. That gave her the opportunity to deliver a stinging slap from the top of her boots to the face of the pervert that had groped her while she was helplessly cuffed earlier… when Ellie was clearly watching. They also couldn't let Chuck see them, so they parted company in the elevator. They basically pushed her out when they got to the penthouse floor and told her the room number. But where was she going to go anyway?
Sarah looked around carefully, assessing the situation. She quickly concluded that there wasn't much situation to assess. There was only one other person in the hall, pushing a housekeeping cart. It actually took a long moment to realize that the hotel worker was the very last person she expected to see, her best friend… grinning evilly.
"The room's clear," Ellie said as she handed her the wire and earpiece.
It was… bizarre. Just like her brother, it seemed like Ellie could make her laugh on demand. Here Agent Sarah Walker was in the middle of a tense mission… and she couldn't keep the grin off her face. Spy wise she immediately recognized that this was actually brilliant. The bad guys had taken her wire, thought she was clean, and now wouldn't suspect anything. "Some pretty impressive spy work," she said approvingly. "Please tell me that no sex was involved."
Ellie's eyes sparkled. "Well," she said. "There was that one Neanderthal searching for a Stinger Missile inside of my bra for ten minutes," she said. "Oh, wait. That was you."
Sarah couldn't keep in the wet laugh. "Very funny," she said. "I'm surprised that Casey would allow you to do this. He's usually sort of a sissy about these things."
"Like he had a choice," Ellie said mockingly. "I would let you be in the middle between Chuck and Jill and not be able to listen? No way. I expect to be thoroughly entertained. Otherwise I'm going to have to take out my disappointment on poor Casey."
"Don't do that," Sarah said as she finished putting in the earpiece. "I'll never hear the end of it."
Ellie's smile faded a little. "Maybe go a little easy on him," she said as she pushed the cart toward the elevator. "The boy is in a tough spot."
"I'll tell you what," Sarah said as she turned towards the door. "I'll go easy on Chuck if you'll go easy on Casey."
That got Ellie's grin back in full force. "Poor Chuck," she sighed.
"I tried."
x-x-x-x-x
Sarah knocked on the door. She had no idea what to expect once she was inside that room. Jill was clearly prepared to have some sport rubbing her face in the fact that she had Chuck controlled. And with Chuck being forced to protect the cover and play her game… well, Ellie was right. The boy was in a tough spot.
Chuck had always been very sensitive towards the idea of making her jealous. She bristled at the idea. It was more than a little annoying. She wasn't jealous. She prided herself on not being jealous. She was protective, maybe. But it wasn't possessive. His suggesting otherwise had been the source of more than one fight between them.
But when the door opened, Sarah was forced to look past Chuck to where Jill Roberts was sitting in the hot tub. She was making no attempt to hide the fact that she was, at least, topless.
Sarah turned to a clearly nervous Chuck. "Is she naked?" she asked under her breath. Normally his pathetic half nod would have struck Sarah as funny. Not today.
"Agent Walker," Jill called with a pure evil smirk. "You're just in time. Chuck was getting ready to join me in the hot tub. Lose the clothes and maybe you can join us."
Sarah recognized the look on Chuck's face… pure panic. Normally in this situation she would have found some way to make this easier on him. This wasn't his fault. Maybe in time she'd be able to see the humor in this. But right now she found that she simply couldn't do it. Her glare could have cut thru steel.
"This sucks," Chuck whispered under his breath as he moved aside to allow her into the room.
Sarah couldn't help but agree. This did suck. But she did have to grudgingly admit one thing.
She was definitely jealous.
x-x-x-x-x