A/N Carina is one of my favorite characters. I like to write bantery dialog.

Chuck made no move to get closer and Carina made no move to get further away. "You're an awfully long way from home, Chuckles. Your mother know you're staying out this late?"

"No, I, uh, I live—we live here now. Sarah and me. Us. Together."

"You must be better in the sack than I thought you were, for Sarah to play finders keepers like that." She took a step closer to him and the door. "I always favored the catch and release method myself."

He grinned, a sickly sort of thing, but he didn't back up. "That's…certainly…why are you here, exactly?"

"I'm not allowed to visit my nearest and dearest? You know how it is, another successful mission, time to kill, yadda, yadda. So I swing by my bestie's place and find she's moved, and without sending me a forwarding address."

"We only just got into town ourselves. But I'm sure if you go check out some of your blind drops in Jakarta, you should find an update—"

"You're cute, Chuckles. Not bright, but cute. How long are you in town for?"

Chuck raised his left hand before she could make an offer he'd have to refuse.

"Oo, the ring ploy. Bold move, Walker. Usually we save this sort of thing for marks. I just got married for the seventh time, myself."

"Congratulations, we'll send a toaster. Just don't call her Walker. She's kinda touchy on the subject." He wiggled his finger, as if she might have been talking about some other ring. "It's Bartowski now."

"Sure it is, Chuckles, sure it is. You did make sure she signed her real name to the certificate? No wait, that's right, you don't know her real name, do you?" God, that look, if I could just bottle it… "You must be such a Boy Scout. Usually the ring ploy is a guy's—"

"I, uh, I have to go to work now, Carina, not that it hasn't been a blast, because it really hasn't…"

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Chuckles," she said in low tones. "You've got squatters outside."

"That's just our detail…"

She poked him in the chest. "I knew you guys were on a mission! No way would Walker be here in the boonies with a Boy Scout and a watchdog when she could be having drinks with a Sultan."

"No." Chuck's face fell, his voice flatlined. "No drinks, no Sultans. Just us." He turned toward the empty room. "Sarah, your bestie's here." He stepped around his unwelcome guest and went straight to his car.

She watched him go, feeling vaguely like she'd kicked someone's puppy. That didn't go like I'd hoped. He drove away as fast as a residential speed limit would allow, the carload of squatters following. What? The detail was for him—?

Sarah came out of their room, belting her robe tightly. "Chuck?" She knew her man, his voice, and whatever wasn't right was most definitely wrong.

Carina sauntered through the open door. "You just missed him, Blondie. He and his detail just left." Carina took in her hostess' appearance. "Or did you? You go back for seconds or just keep going after firsts?"

Walker went around and slammed the door. It had already let one pest inside. "What do you want, Carina?"

"Geez, Walker, what's got your panties twisted? I would have waited for you to put 'em on straight."

"It's Bartowski now, I know Chuck told you." Because he told everybody.

"Go on, pull the other one, Walker."

Sarah made a fist with her left hand, and held in front of Carina's nose.

"Crap, you're serious."

"As serious as cardiomyopathy. What…did you say…to my…husband?"

Nothing that she would care to repeat to his for real wife. "Nothing, just chatting. I was wondering how come you guys were out here in the sticks—"with a detail "—and I may have put my foot in it, as usual. You know me."

"Yeah, I know you, Carina." Enough to know that wasn't all she said, and enough to know that that was all she'd admit to. She dropped her arm, unclenched her fist with some difficulty.

Carina circled her, looking for…something. "So?"

Sarah pivoted, unwilling to allow anyone, especially Carina, at her back. "So, what?"

"So what are you doing out here in the sticks, Walk-Bartowski? Makes it hard to just have a girls night out."

Sarah smirked. "I'd rather have a boys night in."

Carina grinned. "Oo, he has been good for you."

"You don't know the half of it."

"No, I don't, so tell me all about it." Carina threw herself into the nearest chair. "Last I saw, you two were making cow eyes at each other over the Grand Canyon of CIA regulations, and now here you are married so fast my invitation hasn't even had time to arrive in the mail!"

Sarah chuckled. "Talk to Ellie if you want an invitation. She was a bit…upset…that Chuck and I got married in a Nevada border town with some professional witnesses. I think she's going to hit us with a surprise church wedding just so she can have pictures."

For a second Carina lost herself in a vision of herself as a bridesmaid, but shook it from her head. Focus, Red. "Why so fast?"

"'The Grand Canyon of CIA regulations.'" Sarah sketched air quotes. "We'd finally gotten past it, could finally begin to think about being together, and then life came along and put it back in front of us again."

There had to be a very large and probably very classified story behind that. "So you carpe'd the diem, so to speak."

"Middle of the night, actually. We had only a few hours, the most Casey could give us, before he had to report to Beckman. That town in Nevada was the best we could do."

"So you really married him? Whose brilliant idea was that?" Maybe the ring ploy was Chuck's, and he wasn't such a Boy Scout after all.

Sarah rubbed the ring with her thumb."You want some coffee? This is my third time out of bed this morning and I still haven't had any." I really can't have this conversation without coffee. She walked toward the kitchen.

Carina leapt from her chair and followed. "Oh no you don't, Sarah Walker Bartowski. You don't get to use sexy banter to deflect my questions."

Sarah yawned. "What sexy banter?"

"'Third time out of bed.' First of all, good work. Second of all, quit stalling."

"Stalling about what?"

"Walker!"

Sarah spun in fury, just as good as coffee in its own way. "Bartowski! It's Bartowski, now and forever, until the day I die!" She held up her hand. "I wasn't forced into this. I wasn't tricked. I may spend parts of each day in sheer terror now that it's done but do not think for a moment that I am not completely on board."

Carina smiled, her needling having had its desired effect. "Good to know. So it was his idea, then?"

Sarah shook her head, suddenly aware of what she was saying again. "No. One life-altering decision per year is enough for any man, and Chuck was over his quota that day, believe me. Made up for lost time in a big way. There was…someone else."

"Not Casey…"

Sarah looked at her friend like she'd grown an extra arm. "Casey? A wedding?"

Carina's face went as red as her hair. "Okay, not my best theory…"

"You've had worse ideas, but mostly because you were drunk," said Sarah. "Maybe you need this coffee more than I do."

"Stalling again."

Sarah stared into the coffee canister, scooping up the grounds and pouring them back out again. "We panicked, we were totally freaking out, both of us. Everything slipping through our fingers like sand because Chuck had to be in the wrong place at the wrong time—"

"And do the right thing." Carina sighed. "No good deed goes unpunished. Maybe that's why I do so few of them. So this 'someone else' got you moving toward matrimony?"

"We certainly weren't coming up with plans of our own, and really who'd believe it? My best idea was to get in one good real solid non-cover kiss before the roof fell in on us! I couldn't even say 'I love you' to the man and I'm going to marry him?" Finally she put the grounds in the cup where they belonged. "I don't even believe it somedays."

"Hence the terror. Word of advice, don't tell Chuck."

"Do I look stupid?"

"In that robe?"

A phone rang, not either of the ones in the bedroom. Sarah ran for her purse. Carina moved to follow but a firmly pointed finger from Sarah kept her planted in the kitchen. "Walker, unsecure."

Carina turned on the water in the sink and finished making the coffee. "Insecure too."

Sarah heard the water and stepped a little further away. "I'm secure now."

"Telescope, this is Lensman. We're your husband's backup for his sudden trip."

"Go on, Lensman."

"We're outside your residence now but we don't see your vehicle."

"You're what?" Carina turned off the water at her shout, and Sarah turned to her. "You said Chuck left with his detail!"

Carina didn't shrug. "He left, and he said it was his detail."

"Did he look at them? Observe them in any way at all?"

Why on Earth would that matter? Confusion and the look on her best friend's face left her hesitant rather than aggressive, her usual façade. "He was, um, he was, sort of, glaring daggers at me at the time." Sort of like what Sarah was doing right now.

"Lensman, do you have his frequency?"

"We do, Telescope. Commencing tracking."

"Keep me informed."

"Will do, Telescope."

As Sarah closed the phone, Carina asked, "Frequency?" For once she wasn't talking about sex.

"Bio-chip. I'm getting dressed. Make the coffee. Don't cause any more trouble than you already have."

A bio-chip in an analyst? "What the hell is he?"

"Don't ask," said Sarah from her bedroom. "This assignment has been above God's pay grade from the beginning, and if you're lucky you'll walk away knowing nothing more than you do right now. It'd only serve you right if I read you into this mess but that's not my call."

Flashing lights drew Carina's attention to the front windows. "Uh, Walker?"

"Bartowski!"

"Fine. Bartowski. You've still got a policeman standing outside your door."