This part is short and I am not entirely sure it isn't too OOC, but it's what I've written and hopefully the next part will be written soon. Thanks for all the reviews, I really appreciate them. They keep my muse happy.
As soon as Shaw and Chuck left the barn, Casey walked out of the stall ignoring the food and water and headed for the doors. Sarah followed him.
"Where are you going," she asked.
"I am going to see if I can't hear what they are saying," Casey said as he exited the barn. He noticed immediately that the gate was shut and locked. He stamped a hoof in anger when also realized that the fence was too high to jump and too strong to break through. He followed the fence until they were directly behind the house, but strain his ears as he might, Casey could not hear inside the house.
"Can you hear anything," he asked Sarah.
Sarah shook her white head. "I am sure that Chuck and Daniel will come out and tell us what they learned."
"For all we know it was a trap."
"Chuck said it was safe. They can take care of themselves." Sarah tried to sound confident, but it was falling a little short.
Luckily for their nerves, the back door opened and Chuck stepped out onto the porch. He saw Casey and Sarah with their heads peaking over the fence and waved at them trying to be reassuring. Daniel Shaw stepped out beside Chuck and looked over at their partners.
"How are we going to tell them," Chuck asked Shaw.
"We just tell them. Casey isn't going to believe it. I am not entirely sure I believe it. But when the fourteenth night comes, we need to be ready just in case." With that Shaw walked over to the fence with Chuck following him. Once at the fence, Chuck and Shaw climbed the rails and settled themselves on the top rail. Casey immediately stamped out a question in Morse code.
"He wants to know what we learned," Chuck translated.
Shaw looked at Chuck, then took a deep breath. Finally he began to explain everything that Harrington had told them.
Sarah was in shock from the explanation. She didn't know how to react. Casey, on the hand, had a very violent reaction. He shook his massive head and stamped out a 'NO' in Morse code, then turned and galloped across the field. Sarah was shocked by his reaction.
"Sarah, please go after him," Chuck asked. Sarah nodded hearing the worry in Chuck's tone. She turned and galloped after Casey.
She found him at the other end of the field peering over the top of the fence.
"Casey are you alright," She asked as she moved to stand beside the stallion.
"I am fine." Casey answered roughly.
"Are you?" She wasn't convinced.
"It's all bullshit anyway. We won't change back to human form. We should just take Chuck and Shaw into town. They can find work and we can leave."
"Where would we go?"
"Into the hills. It doesn't matter just somewhere far away from civilization."
"And what happens if we do change back to human form. What then?"
Casey stamped a hoof and shook his head, "If you want to stay, that's fine, but I am leaving."
"Casey what is wrong. Why won't you stay until the fourteenth night? If we don't change then we can move on, and if we do then at least we have a chance at surviving."
"If we change it won't matter, at least not to me. I can't...I won't...just don't ask me to allow that to happen." Casey turned away from her and began walking along the fence his head down in a miserable pose.
Sarah hurried to walk alongside him. "Casey you can't mean to just give up and let yourself die. That's not the soldier I know."
"You don't know me that well."
They walked in silence for moment. Sarah tried hard to come up with some way of getting Casey to open up. She knew Casey, like herself, had used his body to get the job done before. Male or female, it didn't matter as long as the job got done and the safety of the country was at stake.
"I was tortured once. That was why I was in Washington when your ex-partner Bryce stole the Intersect. I had been released from the hospital a week before, and Beckman was still trying to decide where to send me. I was supposed to take Bryce in alive, but I got a little trigger happy. It helped take away some of the anger and pain. It was why I was so intent on killing you. I was enjoying it a little too much. I am not sure I wouldn't have just killed you both and left you to rot on the roof if Chuck hadn't flashed."
Sarah listened saying nothing. This was the most Casey had said since she had known him.
"They wanted information, but they wanted to punish me as well. They knew I had assassinated one of their own. They wanted me to confess to killing him on tape so they could broadcast it, to prove that the American government had sanctioned it. Beatings were nothing. I had taken worse from my old man. Told them my grandmother hit harder than they did. Electrocution is an old tried and true method. You can't control your reaction while its happening, but you can ignore the pain afterwards. You just make your mind realize that you can't control your body's responses. Don't let it humiliate you when you lose control of your bladder."
Sarah pressed her body against Casey's trying to comfort him with arms to hold him. She felt proud of him when he leaned back against her seeking that comfort.
"The first night after a long day of beatings, and electric shock I was thrown into a dark cell. I tried to sleep, tried to marshal my strength for an escape when two of the guards decided they would have their own kind of fun. Fun that if they had been discovered enjoying would have gotten them beheaded."
Sarah didn't have to ask what had happened. She had been trained like all other agents had that rape was a possibility when captured, and that gender didn't matter.
"Beckman had sent in a team to get me out. I was there for five days, and every night those guards..." He trailed off. Casey had said as much as he was planning to. Instead he stood there in his powerful horse body leaning against his partner.
They stood there for awhile, neither saying anything. Sarah didn't know what to say. Casey was her partner. The first and only partner she had whose partnership hadn't been compromised by sex. She remembered the beginning when she had told Graham that Casey was a burn-out. She never knew why or how that rumor had started. She had heard it when she had been in DC. She knew later that some of it was because he had lost Ilsa. Now she knew that losing Ilsa had only been part of the reason.
"Casey, Chuck would never. Chuck wouldn't hurt you like that."
"It doesn't matter. I can't roll over for anyone. I did it before, for nation security reasons, but I told Beckman after what happened that I could never do that again. She accepted that."
"Casey, you'll die." Sarah said.
"Then if that's what has to happen I can accept it. It's still my choice, Walker."