A/N 1:
So, we need to check in with Carina and Casey. This should provide some insights into all of the characters.
This Salvation Arc has covered a few weeks. Heart and Soul, this Interlude, and the upcoming chapter cover just a couple of days. Chuck talked with Carina last night. Sarah and Carina's talk happened earlier today, and this interlude takes place tonight.
I am intentionally vague about some things, to allow your imagination to provide the details that seem right to you.
A/N 2:
Apparently I need to improve my story telling, as I have confused some readers. You didn't miss anything, Chuck and Sarah still are not "together".
The last chapter, "Heart and Soul", was to clear Carina from the playing field so now they can work on being together.
I am not explicit about some things, as I expect conclusions can be drawn. Chuck collapsing next to Sarah, in the woods, doesn't require a lot of exposition, or descriptions about how Chuck is feeling. His actions demonstrate that. Maybe that is a bad writing style, but it is what I do, and I understand it can be confusing.
So let me attempt to clarify some things I failed to do in my writing, regarding my perspective on this. Chuck and Sarah are flawed, broken people the misstep a lot when it comes to their relationships. Chuck is extremely needy and Sarah is closed off. Their brokenness interfered with their getting together in Burbank.
However, they now know that their soul-mate exists, so when they went their separate ways, it broke them even worse.
They are back together, but still extremely broken and emotionally high strung with each other. So they have spent a couple of weeks, while Chuck is still busy working, just hanging out with each other, finding comfort knowing they are safe, even if they don't know where to start the conversation. They are so guilt ridden within themselves, that they can't even broach what they feel that they have done to each other. Stephen's speech was to help them get past their self guilt.
Now that they are starting to be healed, whole individuals, they can now start trying to be a couple.
Carina recognized that they are made for each other, so even in the current broken state of their relationship, she considers them to be together, and that is why when she spoke with each of them, she treated them as if they were together.
And even though they are still working things out, Sarah considers Chuck "Her Man", and was staking that claim with Carina.
Thanks to everyone for sharing their feedback. I hope this helps
A/N 3:
Don't Own Chuck, Don't Make Money.
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Carina Interlude
Be careful what you ask for, Carina thinks, amused, as she sends another report to DEA Director Simpson.
She reflects, Over the past 2 years my life has slowly changed, and in the past month or so, my life had almost been turned upside down.
I always said I wanted a life full of change, but it is coming at me fast, these days.
The past 2 years have been pretty terrific, especially professionally, but also having Chuck as part of my life. It has become comfortable. The past 2 years had been unlike anything I had experienced before. Having Chuck in my life is amazing, his presence a comforting energy, which I never knew I wanted.
And, professionally it has been amazing. The missions I get to participate in, the team I get to lead, the impact I am having, are far beyond where I imagined my career would be at this time. I am the Golden Girl. And I am loving it.
Success and accomplishment seem to be the norm with team Carmichael. And I had the benefit of being the face of the team, often receiving the accolades.
I make you nervous, Walker?, well back atcha.
You make me a little nervous about my professional situation, since you came back on the scene.
I love Sarah dearly, and hope that she and Chuck can get together, finally achieving some happiness, but to be honest, it also makes me nervous as to how this might change my professional situation.
Chuck is a special man whom I enjoyed sharing my bed with. But to be honest, that part is replaceable. As a professional partner, he is irreplaceable. I just hope getting the team together doesn't lead to the breaking up of the team. And, I do like having the team together.
Even though Sarah was completely occupied, with healing her body, and healing her heart, with Chuck, it is good to have her around as a friend. Just being able to chat with her about life brings me a lot of joy.
And it is cool having Casey around.
In the past our reckless natures got us in trouble with each other. But now there is a comfortable camaraderie. I enjoy working with him and appreciate how his professionalism makes the missions go so smoothly.
People have good points and bad points, and a good point about Casey is that he doesn't hesitate. Once he makes a decision he acts.
He didn't hesitate if he decided he needed to charge an enemy position.
He didn't hesitate if he needed to do a HALO jump, in the middle of the night.
He didn't hesitate if he needed to pick me up and wrap me around himself, and pound me into the wall.
I really like that about him, too
He seems less tightly wound, a little less stuck in his head, since he joined the team in August.
It's enjoyable hanging around with him in the evenings, especially now that Chuck is completely busy with either his parents or Sarah.
You know, Casey is a friend whose benefits I need to start exploring.
She got up from her desk, and headed out into the hall, towards his room. I wonder what he is up to tonight. Did he end up going out tonight? If not, he won't be alone for long.
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Casey Interlude
Well that was some "Good" that was pretty great. Casey thought, with a smirk, as he steps out onto the balcony of her room.
A gentleman takes his cigar outside, after, and Casey did try to be an Officer and a Gentleman. Although, she would never know about the Officer part.
He takes a sip of his Glenfiddich, the 21 year old whiskey befitting a successful salesperson, like he is pretending to be. Although she could easily have assumed some kind of military background, his bearing and manner of a type. And, when finally unclothed, his prosthetic foot offered another clue. It wouldn't have been unusual, International sales people were sometimes pulled from ex-military who had been posted overseas.
Looking over the Italian coastline, boat lights dotting the sea, he takes a deep breath.
A guy could get used to this, he thinks, a Costa Gravas Presidente Cigar in one hand, a glass of fine whiskey in the other, and a grin on his face.
He hears her rustle the sheet, entwined around her body, full and solid, befitting a woman in her prime, her body fit from being active, like snow skiing. That was an activity she mentioned, as they shared a drink, in the upscale, hotel bar he had decided to prowl that evening. Her comment was wrapped in a subtle invitation for a possible future rendezvous, to follow up tonight's fortuitous meeting.
If Casey's appearance was of a type, so was hers. Fit, Middle Aged, Professional, with a job in Sales, PR, or a handful of other professions populated by the more attractive, and demanding frequent travel.
Casey sits his drink and cigar down, and quickly and quietly moves into the room, grabbing the duvet, which had been unceremoniously tossed aside, in their initial flurry of lust filled gymnastics.
He pulls it onto the bed, and over her, summoning a soft mewl from her lips, as the rest of her body burrowed into the new found bedding, never fully awakening from her well earned slumber.
He watches over her for a moment, making sure she is settled, and enjoying the feminine energy radiating from the bed.
He takes his masculine energy, which is crackling after the evening's activities, back into the cool breeze on the patio. He gathers up his cigar and whiskey, as he steps to the rail, rolling his neck, then shoulders. A slight shudder ripples through his body, Damn It feels good to be alive.
He ducks his head to light the cigar, then looks back out at the Mediterranean before him. Never would have guessed this, in a million years, he admits. If I would have been asked, back when my ass was squeezed in the walls of that Costa Gravas' palace, this wouldn't have been conceivable.
Despite the crap I give Bartowski, I can't deny he has developed into a force for good, beyond what any of the yahoo's running the intersect development ever projected. He is a smarter man, and a better man, than their jaded brains could envision.
He was the Chuck bomb that fixed things instead of breaking them. And he has a blast radius that you want to be within. He embodies hope, and the redemption that hope makes possible.
He reminds you that you could make a positive choice, right now, in this moment, disregarding any crap that may have occurred before. The opportunity to believe that maybe, just maybe, tomorrow won't be a shit storm, and if you do something positive, right now, you might help make that happen.
And his luminous burst makes visible the greater good, the lives benefited by all the hell you went through, as a warrior for your Country.
The Bartowski bomb blew the mind of this Marine. Opened my eyes to life and living, after too many years of death and killing, assignment after assignment, awash in the evil, blood, and darkness of that world.
I would never shirk my duty, and am proud to have answered the call, to get my hands dirty, so our national family back home could stay clean. But it wears on you, and it coats you in its filth, and distorts your vision of the world.
You begin to both think about, and not think about death.
You are always thinking about it, either in bringing it to your assigned target, or in avoiding it for yourself, as you seek to complete your assignment.
At the same time, the constant awareness of its possibility for yourself, and the repeated exposure to its claim on others, inures you to it. It's like rain; try not to get caught in it, and in the meantime, "you want to grab a coffee?"
I was burnt out. I was so tired of it, I no longer could feel that I was tired of it. Death in my past, death in my present, death in my future, until it claims me. I wasn't on a dark path. I was already at my destination. Death's door.
Then they sent me to Burbank, a land of sunshine, not darkness. I was feeling kind of pasty, I snarked to Beckman, upon receiving my orders. Pallid, would have been more appropriate. Corpse-like is just too morbid. And then my dark shrouded, pasty ass of death, ran into someone alive.
Someone who was living every moment of his life, as he underachieved and wallowed in mediocrity.
Despite his circumstances, allowing for human imperfection, he found happiness in the moment. Whatever he was doing, he found joy in it.
Casey shook his head. It's not like he doesn't get sad, he just carries on and then finds joy in something and forgets to be sad.
He's a freakin' 3 year old, exuberantly discovering the world, in the 6'4" body of a grown ass man.
Take his parents away. That's a body blow, but he eventually shook it off, and learned, again, how to feel happy.
Take his best friend and college degree away from him? He reverts to a world of familiar mediocrity, but excels in it.
Take away his girlfriend, by the supposed best friend, and that pretty much took the wind out of his sails.
He might not have the bliss that a storybook love was supposed to bring, but he was happy. Happy to be with his ragtag family, and his friends, finding joy in moments together.
Broke. My. Brain.
Hijack Chuck's brain? He's still smiling.
Threaten him with termination or imprisonment, and he finds the absurd in it.
It's like a magic power.
And when burnt out, jaded, cold school Casey was exposed, it was alchemy. I was transformed. Over time. And with additional inputs, like Walker.
And, she's a charter member of the "Kill them All and it Eventually Includes You" club.
She had been intentionally warped, intentionally forged, inflamed and beaten into a tool to please our bosses.
And she was on her own path to dissolution, her metal made brittle over time, and the constant activity, driven by denial, would eventually lead her to shatter.
Bartowski didn't just change Sarah, he began healing her.
I have to admit I treated her pretty crappy when we started this assignment. I was so jaded about life, women, and especially the women in this business.
I don't know whether it's a reflection on the agencies, or on the male marks themselves, but the agencies are so willing to turn to the Honeypot option when it presents itself, and then all the disdain and degradation that comes with that ,wasn't reflected back on the leaders or the marks, but instead was put on the women who were dutifully following orders.
It was a messed up situation, that gave you a messed up viewpoint of life. I got to the point where I agreed that the only valuable thing a woman had was between her legs, and the way that she used the tools nature gave her, were never to be trusted.
They weren't an agent, they were just a skirt. What an ass I was.
And it's amazing, the grace that Walker had, in putting up with my crap. She was a damn good partner, capable, smart, loyal, and always had my back. I hope that I have earned half the respect from her, that I feel towards her.
Man, that kid turned our world upside down, just by treating us like people, and insisting that we treat others like people.
I'm damn proud of the kid.
Of course I can't let him know how much he has changed me, or at least not too much, or he won't jump when I say boo. Can't put the fear of Casey in him, if he thinks I am getting too soft.
Casey turns back to face the bedroom, seeing her silhouette in the shadows, thinking and that's a person that I want to serve, again. He smiles. Do my duty.
I'll find new ways to be of service. Because, they sure do seem to like the service. They love an evening of attention and passion, with just a little bit of mystery and edginess to it.
Roan didn't understand that being boldly stoic, quietly dangerous, and taciturnly mysterious, can be a turn on for some women.
He returns to the bed to join her in some companionable slumber. Perhaps I'll have one more chance to serve that greater good, before I leave in the morning.
Praise Chuck! What a life.
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A/N 4:
Go check out the Chuck Fanfiction FBook page. You can pester me about the story there, in addition to leaving a review here. If you want.
And shout out to Awesome Casey, who has been letting me bounce ideas off of him, helping me keep all of the characters, and especially Casey, Awesome.
