A Common Spy Problem
A/N: Oh boy, time flies when you're busy (and/or lazy). I can't believe it's been four months since the last update on this. Thank you to everyone who had send me a PM enquiring whether or not this story was going to continue, as well as those who've nominated it for the Awesome Awards, I'm glad it was gone but not forgotten.
A big thank you goes to my beta, Nervert, who corrected my grammar and added his two cents (and some)'s worth. You can show your appreciation by checking out his current story, The Revenge of the Bartowski, and while you're there, leave him a review and nag him for an update.
Speaking of reviews – Three hundred and ninety times THANK YOU. I think I have replied to every reader at some point, unless the review was anonymous. If I have skipped someone, please feel free to let me know.
Now when we left off, Sarah had shot Mauser and lied to Chuck about it. She'd been avoiding him since Christmas, taking her frustrations out on Emmett, the punch dummy. Deciding that it was time to come clean, she suggested they take the night off, but Chuck asked if he could spend it with Morgan instead. At the Buy More, Tyler Martin was promoting his new CD, while Team Bartowski was playing hot potato with a grenade. Beckman ordered them to interrogate Tyler and Sarah agreed to lure him away from his security with a wink and a smile. Casey wanted her to flash cupcakes.
If, like Sarah, some ex-CIA douche stole your memories, you can download the story up to chapter 17 from Castle Inanity. Thank you, Frea O'Scanlin, for putting it up there. You're aces.
I don't own Chuck.
Chapter 18
Sarah envisioned tearing Casey limb from limb from limb as she conjured up another fake smile for the spikey haired rock star. They were down in the cage where she had led him after both her teammates were no-shows at the agreed napping point. Of course she blamed Casey. Chuck always had her back on missions, much to her frustration as that usually meant he disobeyed her order to stay in the car and out of harm's way.
"So," Tyler drawled, "are you a model?" He wiggled his eyebrows in a way that Sarah assumed was supposed to be a seductive manner. On Chuck it was cute, on Tyler, in his alcoholic haze, it was repulsive. "Actress?" Tyler asked again. Leaning closer, he moved a strand of hair from her shoulder. "Massage therapist? Acrobat?"
Subtle, Sarah thought. He swayed slightly, staring at her through hooded eyes. She was relieved that it had probably more to do with his intoxicated state than with lust. Tyler reminded her of Jeff Barnes, but at least he smelled better.
"I can be whatever you want," she answered, her tone a mix of innocence and hidden promise, a little too practiced to her ears but good enough for the heavily medicated rock star. Out of her peripheral vision she searched for something to knock him out with, should the need arise. Sure she could just use a fist, but that meant going for the face and the poor guy did have a concert the night after.
Tyler opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by a disgusted groan from behind a row of boxes inside the cage.
"Idiot." The grunt was barely audible, but Sarah didn't miss it. Her anger climbed a notch and she vowed to give Emmett a break next time she needed to punch something.
Tyler turned in the direction of the sound and went up on his toes in an attempt to peer over the boxes. "I think we've got a pervert."
Sarah briefly spotted brown curls peeking over one of the boxes and then heard the telltale swoosh of a tranq dart being shot. It hit Tyler in the neck, causing him to spin back around to face her. With an "Oh daisies" he passed out and fell forward into her arms.
"Nighty, night, Tyler." Casey finally emerged from his hiding spot. Chuck wasn't far behind.
"What the hell took you so long?" Sarah hissed, struggling to not collapse under Tyler's dead weight.
"Thought you could use the practice," Casey shrugged. "It's been a while, wouldn't want you to get rusty."
Sarah stared daggers at him, as did Chuck. She wanted to argue, but it felt like Tyler was getting heavier by the second. "Take him," she ordered.
"You heard your lady, Bartowski."
"What? Why me?" Chuck spoke for the first time.
"Walker lured him out and I tranqed him. You have to do some of the heavy lifting too." Casey gave an amused grunt at his own joke.
"Yeah, because blowing a dart is so labor intensive," Chuck retorted.
"A little help here," Sarah groaned to get their attention back on the mission, but when neither man made a move to take the unconscious rock star from her, she pushed up on her legs and let Tyler fall backwards, aiming for Casey. For a second she thought he was just going to let him drop to the ground, but at last second he stepped forward and caught the smaller man under his armpits. With his hands full, Sarah reached into Casey pants' pocket and retrieved his keys. She jingled them triumphantly in front of his face. "I'll go warm up the car."
"Don't you touch my baby," Casey growled.
"Payback's a bitch." She gave him a sardonic grin before grabbing Chuck's hand. "C'mon. Casey knows the way."
"You owe me a new gearbox, Walker," Casey complained when he hauled Tyler out of the backseat.
"Get over it, Casey, it happened once." Sarah rolled her eyes. "And I said I was sorry," she added begrudgingly. After the stunt he'd pulled, he owed her the apology.
"No one asked you to drive," he pointed out.
"You had your hands full."
"You didn't even give me a chance to load Martin, let alone get in the car myself."
Sarah waved him off, knowing it would agitate him more than any verbal comeback. Without waiting for a response, she glanced down the street before crossing it. She hastened through the gates and did a perimeter sweep of the courtyard before bringing her watch up to her mouth. "Clear."
Casey appeared seconds later with Tyler in a fireman's carry and Chuck on his heels. He hadn't spoken two words since they'd left the Buy More and Sarah wondered if he was upset that she had to actually flirt with Tyler. She huffed out a breath. That was his problem. He hadn't stuck to the plan either.
As if reading her thoughts, Chuck shot her an apologetic smile, but it wasn't enough. She held him back once Casey had disappeared into his apartment. When he stopped, she dropped his wrist and folded her arms across her chest.
"What happened back there?"
Chuck held his hands up in defense. "He forced me." The words came out in a rush. "Blackmailed actually. He blackmailed me. He said if I didn't co-operate, footage of us doing…" He made a vague gesture. "You know…he said it might 'accidently' be included in the files he sends to D.C., and sometimes the analysts kept copies for themselves, or uploaded…"
"Chuck," she cut him off. "That's bull."
He shook his head. "No, I promise that's what happened."
Sarah squeezed her eyes shut, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger in an effort to thwart off a headache. "Not the blackmail part," she explained, "I believe you."
"You mean he won't send the footage?" Chuck asked.
"No." She opened her eyes again and met his gaze. "I double check everything before it leaves Castle. Beckman said to keep this low-key and I'm not taking any chances."
"Oh." His expression was a mix of relief and embarrassment. "I'm sorry, I didn't know."
"It's okay." She ran a hand from his shoulder down to his elbow. "I'm just sorry I didn't scratch his gears harder."
His eyes widened. "You did that on purpose?
She ignored his question and tugged on his hand. "I think we better get inside."
Sarah was bored out of her skull. Chuck and Casey had returned to the Buy More to work the rest of their shifts and she was stuck watching Tyler. The latter was slumped over in Casey's easy chair, his head lolled to the side. He hadn't moved in nearly six hours, and the shallow rise and fall of his chest and the occasional snort were the only signs that he was still alive.
She reclined on the office chair in Casey's living room, crossed her feet on the desk and blew a stray hair out of her face. She grabbed the file next to the computer and flipped through the pages again, but she knew the contents by heart – a picture from the Buy More parking lot showing the car belonging to the suspect, a Google Earth printout of the building currently under surveillance by the backup team and a short, but disturbing résumé of one Achmed Gambir. Sarah sighed. She and Casey should have been out there tracking him down, but according to Casey, Emmett was keeping a close eye on Chuck and there was no way they could sneak out without raising suspicion. In the meantime the surveillance team reported in every half hour, but so far there had been no sign of movement.
With another sigh she dropped the folder back onto the desk. Her eyes roamed around the strangely furnished apartment looking for something to do. She'd already gone through Casey's book collection, but she had no interest in the biographies of any of the war heroes. It had been painful enough learning about them in eight grade history. His DVD collection was even worse – he owned several World War II documentary box sets, no surprise there, but his copy of The Sound of Music had caused her to do a double take. She imagined he'd heard it was about Nazi's, only to discover that in actual fact, the film centered on a singing nun and seven children. Or maybe he liked to let his inner choir boy loose in a sing-a-long.
Sarah snorted at the thought and it was immediately answered in kind by her unconscious charge. Her head swiveled back in his direction, but he was still out like a light. Her eyes travelled to the stairs behind him and an idea started to form.
She rose slowly and crossed the room. With her hand braced against the wall she leaned forward, twisting her torso to stare up at the second floor. She stood undecided for a moment. She'd been upstairs once, only as far as the bathroom, to catch her breath and slow her heart rate, or as she'd put it at the time, fix her lipstick. Her lip curled in indecision. She really shouldn't be invading Casey's privacy like that.
She was still debating with her conscience when a growl broke the silence. She spun around, but a quick glance assured her it wasn't Tyler. Then she heard it again and almost laughed as her hand ghosted over her stomach. It was almost four in the afternoon and the last thing she ate was literally two bites at breakfast.
Abandoning the idea of checking Casey's closets for possible skeletons, she headed for the kitchen.
The fridge door was bare, no pictures, grocery lists or magnets adorned it, which came as no surprise. Unlike the fridge's contents. On the top shelf, a carton of milk was flanked by two cans of beer. She moved it aside and discovered a lonely egg. That was it.
No wonder he's always so eager to accept a dinner invitation from Ellie, Sarah mused. She moved on to the cupboards, opening and closing the ones with dinnerware, cleaning supplies and bonsai pruning equipment until she found the food stash. For a second, she was speechless. Twenty four cans of tuna salad were neatly stacked, labels facing forward, like marines ready to march. Sarah tilted her head and blinked. Not only were the various flavors grouped together, they were also arranged in alphabetical order.
"Wow," she whispered to herself, "that's disturbing." Nonetheless she grabbed a tin.
She started to close the door and stopped. Technically she still owed Casey for blackmailing Chuck and forcing him to witness her flirting with another man. She swung the door wider and crouched down. Within no time, she had the cupboard unpacked. Then she moved on to the next one. Half an hour later, nothing was where she'd found it. The mugs was stowed in the cupboard furthest from the coffeemaker, his dishes next to the stove, the cleaning supplies where the food used to be, his tumblers and Johnny Walker Black under the sink and the tuna in the cutlery drawers. The knives, forks, spoons and pruning scissors were cooling in the freezer box.
Satisfied with her handiwork, she took her lunch into the living room, sank down on the couch and crossed her feet on the coffee table.
"What's got your boyfriend's panties in a twist?" Casey asked as they stalked down the hallway towards Gambir's apartment, weapons drawn.
"He's disappointed that his plans got cancelled," Sarah replied. She understood where Chuck was coming from, but his outburst had been totally unexpected. That was not like him. She didn't voice her concern however. Instead she glanced over her shoulder to check that she and Casey weren't being followed.
"National Security doesn't care about that. You should teach him to be more like you," Casey suggested. "Duty before all else."
Sarah let the remark pass. She wouldn't give her partner the satisfaction of confirming that he was pushing her buttons. "He deserves a night off, Casey. He hasn't had a break from us since this assignment started."
"That's what you get for dipping your breadstick in the company's cheese sauce." Casey held up a hand when they reached the front door, effectively ending the conversation. Then he rapped his knuckles on the wood.
"Really?" Sarah whispered sarcastically, both in response to his lame remark and the knocking bit. She slipped her Smith and Wesson into the back of her pants and pulled out a lock pick kit. Seconds later the door swung open.
Casey led the way, giving her time to retrieve her gun. He flipped the light switch and they scanned the room. Surveillance pictures of Tyler Martin covered the entire back wall while two adjacent tables held various components used for assembling bombs.
"We got a real fan boy, huh?" Casey was paging through a file filled with even more pictures of the rock star.
Sarah picked up a bottle and read the label. She shook her head. "No, there's something wrong here. This is too neat, too orderly." Exactly like Casey's apartment, Sarah thought and almost smirked.
"Beckman was right. We're dealing with a pro." Casey took another look at their surroundings and then returned the file to the table. "I guess we should bag and tag this."
"Get a cleanup crew to do it," Sarah suggested. If they left for Burbank now, she or Casey could take over tongue watch duty for Chuck and save what was left of his planned game night. Apparently Casey had read her mind.
"Anything for the boy toy." He must've been grateful to get out of evidence gathering because his tone wasn't nearly as mocking as Sarah had expected. She decided to take advantage of the situation.
"I told him you'd turn off the bugs."
Casey grunted. "I always do. Going blind is below my pay grade."
Sarah rolled her eyes at him. "His plans don't include me." Casey raised a knowing eyebrow. "Morgan needs him," she quickly added to avoid any uncomfortable questions. "You can keep the outside cameras on and we're right across the courtyard. How much trouble can he get into?"
"You just had to go and jinx it," Casey grumbled when his eyes fell on the empty lounger.
Sarah ignored him as she fished her phone out of her pocket and dialed. The call went straight to voice mail. Not waiting for the beep she ended the call and activated the tracking software, praying that Chuck's watch wasn't at the bottom of the fountain again. Stepping outside while waiting for the software to load, she checked and found his phone. She forced down a wave of panic which disappeared when the red dot on her own phone started to flash.
Casey stepped out of his apartment and turned to lock the door.
"I have a trace," Sarah informed him as she pocketed Chuck's phone before Casey could spot it. She would report that should the need arise to do so.
The drive from the hotel back to Echo Park was tensely silent, aside from an occasional snore from the once again unconscious rock star. Sarah heard Chuck shift on the backseat but ignored him. The anger that had started to gnaw in her gut since identifying his location at the downtown nightclub had reached boiling point. Not only had Gambir made and escaped her and Casey, but Chuck had managed to land himself in the middle of a very dangerous situation because he couldn't follow a simple order.
"Uh, guys, do you think you could turn the heat up…just a skosh?"
"No," Casey grumbled. Sarah echoed him in her mind.
"C'mon, Casey," Chuck complained, "you're the one who said we didn't have time to go back for my clothes. I'm cold and this is very embarrassing."
"You didn't think it was all that embarrassing when you pulled your King Kong act."
"I've explained that. Those women had very sharp knives and there was nowhere to run."
Casey grunted. "I think Walker would be more interested to know how you lost your pants."
Sarah shot Casey a stay-out-of-it glare and punched the climate control button in the hope of ending the conversation.
"Thanks, honey." Chuck moved forward in the seat, his fingers gripping the back of Sarah's. His knuckles brushed against her shoulders as he craned his neck to try and look at her, but she kept her eyes trained on the road. "Look, Sarah, I should've explained earlier…the assassins stole my pants."
Sarah's jaw tightened. Coming from anyone else it would sound ridiculous, but apparently it was just the sort of thing that would actually happen to her boyfriend. But that did not explain what he was doing with two brunettes in Tyler's suite in the first place.
"You don't really think I would cheat…" Chuck continued but Sarah cut him off.
"Not now, Chuck." They were going to have a long talk after they'd secured Tyler. In private.
Thankfully Casey pulled into his parking spot before Chuck could say anything else.
"You better make a run for it, Bartowski," Casey advised sarcastically. "If you're fast enough, the neighbors might mistake you for Awesome." He turned and gave Chuck a once over. "On second thought, probably not."
Without waiting for a reply, Casey got out of the car and opened the passenger seat to haul out Tyler.
Sarah turned in her seat, facing Chuck for the first time since they'd left the club. He opened his mouth to say something, but she stopped him with a raised palm.
"Stay here," she ordered. "I'll go get you some clothes."
He gave her an appreciative grin. "I promise to stay in the car."
His quip did not alleviate her mood. Instead the words came tumbling out. "What the hell were you thinking, Chuck? You put yourself in a dangerous situation where I couldn't protect you."
"You told me to keep an eye on him and I did. How was I supposed to know we were going to be attacked by two sexy brunettes?"
Sarah's jaw dropped in disbelief and Chuck threw his hands up defensively. "Objectively speaking. They were…not my type. I swear, the whole pants thing…they forced me. I flashed on one of them and I had to play along for Tyler's sake. Nothing happened."
"You were supposed to stay at Casey's apartment."
"Well it's kind of difficult to subdue someone without a karate chop or a tranq gun."
"Didn't it occur to you to call me?" Remembering his drowned phone in her pocket, she added "There were at least three payphones outside the club."
Chuck's eyes darted from hers as a look of guilt crossed his face. "We were…" He cleared his throat. "We were actually having fun," he admitted reluctantly.
Sarah forced herself to stay calm. "I know you were looking forward to your games night with Morgan," she spoke evenly, "but whether you want to be or not, you are a spy, Chuck. The mission has to come first. Always."
Chuck fell back against the seat and folded his arms across his chest. With his head tilted to the side, he studied her for a moment. "I am not a spy," he pointed out. "And no offense, but I don't want to be one. For as long as the Intersect is in my head I will help this country in any way I can, but the minute it's out, so am I. There are things in this line of work that I will never get used to."
"You wouldn't have to get used to any of it if you just listened and stay in…" Sarah's eyebrows jumped when she was cut off by a slamming car door. Chuck's exit had been so unexpected that she was too stunned to stop him. She followed suit, showing a little more respect for the Crown Vic than Chuck had. "What are you doing?" she asked as she followed him across the road, barely looking in either direction.
"It's late. I'm tired, cold and I really need to p...I had a lot to drink. I'm calling it a night." He increased his stride, making it difficult for Sarah to keep up without her heels creating a racket on the cobble stones. She finally caught him just before he could climb through the Morgan door. Grabbing his arm, she spun him around.
"Don't you dare walk away from me."
"I'm not." He shook her hand off and took a step back. "I've done quite the opposite, in fact. I have given you opportunity after opportunity to…" He cut himself short, pursing his lips as his gaze dropped to the ground.
"Opportunity to do what?" Sarah asked.
Chuck sighed and shook his head before meeting her gaze again. "You know what? I don't want to fight. A couples' first fight sets the tone for all future fights and we're standing in the courtyard and I'm in my underwear…" There was no humor in his voice. He actually sounded defeated and Sarah didn't know why, but that worried her.
"We're not fighting," she offered a truce. "We're having a heated discussion in hushed tones to not wake the neighbors."
When he didn't respond with as much as a hint of a smile, Sarah's shoulders slumped. She had a feeling they were no longer talking about the disaster of their current mission.
"Chuck, are you mad at me?" She felt like a hypocrite for asking, but she still had no idea how to broach the topic of Mauser.
"No, Sarah," he answered honestly, but she didn't miss the underlying disappointment in his tone. Realization hit her square in the chest and it felt like she couldn't breathe.
He knew.
A/N: So Chuck and Sarah are having a 'hushed, heated debate', but hey, at least they remember each other. Besides, communication is key for a successful relationship.
The first half of this chapter was written months ago, hence the Sound of Music reference. I'm sure you've all read it by now, but if you haven't, check out quistie64's page. She's got some other amazing stories there as well.
See you back here in a couple of days for the next installment of It's a Wonderful Cover Life.