A/N: Finally back at this one. Serious Chuck withdrawal lol. I've surpassed my two year anniversary with this story (9/26)! Definitely in it for the long haul. I definitely let my other story distract me. This part of Season 3 gets rough. Lying, secrets...ugh. Not Chuck's finest moments. A few WTFs. Ellie and Devon have been in Africa for 2 weeks. So from the end of Honeymooners until the orange juice incident was two weeks. He asked her to move in after 2 weeks. No wonder she freaked out! I mean, yes, Charah, but Chuck jumped the gun there, no pun intended. I tried to explain Sarah parading around in her lingerie in front of Morgan. Why didn't they call the marshals from the hotel? Because story, duh. No sense there. They never explain what happened to the tiger's handler...just dead on the ground. Look for chapter 7 of Darkness very soon and the Tooth chapter this weekend (I love Dr Dreyfus, but hate that episode otherwise. Ugh.) Enjoy
I lived in that bubble, that dream-like state, for weeks.
Our new life took some time to solidify, and it definitely took some time for us to come to terms with the fact that it was real.
Chuck and I were together. To the world around us, the microcosm that was the Buy More and Chuck's little circle, nothing had changed. Chuck and I were back together, where we belonged, and all was right with the world. Ellie, unfortunately, was still part of that blissfully ignorant group. Devon found out second-hand, but he knew the real truth, just like Morgan and Casey.
Ellie and Devon were gone to Africa for Doctors Without Borders. Chuck missed her terribly. Us being together definitely helped him cope. The ridiculously giddy way we felt, truly happy at last, was like a drug that cured everything.
We were back from our fake honeymoon, but as with all things, the figurative honeymoon was also about to come to an end. It would get much worse before it got better, too. Our relationship would be tested multiple times in a short period. Despite all of the false-starts and miscommunication, and the hard times ahead, we were fortunate that our relationship had the strongest of foundations. It would certainly be tested.
But for now, about a month after coming home, everything was perfect, or as close to perfect as it could ever be. I still had my apartment at Maison23, but after a short time, it became like a glorified closet–a place where I kept my clothes only. Almost without exception, I spent my nights in Chuck and Morgan's apartment, sleeping in Chuck's room.
Morgan was extremely understanding about me being over there all the time. To be fair, they were roommates, and they were each entitled to live their lives in the apartment. They were best friends, which certainly helped. However, Morgan didn't have a girlfriend at the time, and I know it was a huge change for him, dealing with me like that.
To be fair, with the exception of a few months' time, Morgan thought Chuck and I had been together for years. But, for whatever reason, he thought we were always staying at my place. He did tell Chuck that now it was so obvious he didn't know how everyone didn't know that we were pretending before. For appearance sake to the outside world, I had only spent the night at Chuck's twice. Now I was practically living there, and we were always in Chuck's room with the door closed.
While Paris and the train ride to Switzerland had helped us "catch up" so to speak, we would soon find out that had been a false assumption. What ended up being true? Chuck and I couldn't keep our hands off each other. It's kind of silly to say it like that, like we were just two hormone-drunk teenagers…but that's probably closer to the truth than either of us would admit to. The train had been half a week of almost non-stop sex, but coming home only tamed it. The fire was still smoldering.
We were never inappropriate in front of Morgan, or even in the shower when he was home the way Ellie and Devon had done when Chuck lived with them. Of course, we took advantage of the empty apartment when Morgan was out. We definitely christened every room but Morgan's bedroom. When Morgan was home, we behaved. But what behaving meant was usually waiting until bedtime and then making love multiple times before we fell asleep, and usually once more in the morning before starting the day.
We were in love, and though I had yet to tell Chuck with so many words, I took every opportunity to show him my feelings.
An awkward encounter with Morgan, however, was bound to happen at one point. To be fair again, I was probably a little too…free with myself, considering Chuck did have a roommate. I was still a CIA officer, and that frequently left me unable to be modest or shy about my body. I had been in just my bra and panties more times than I could count in front of Casey, but also random marks or targets, even Jill Roberts, and even sometimes Chuck. I'm not still that way now, and not long after Chuck and I started spying as a couple, I quit that for good. I wasn't Carina. Chuck and I were together, and my body was for him. At least, that was how I saw it.
But at the beginning, I was slowly coming to this conclusion. I thought nothing of walking around Chuck's apartment in very skimpy pajamas or even some pieces of lingerie. Morgan just wasn't used to it, I'm sure. I wondered, but never asked, if Morgan had ever interacted with Chuck and Jill before she was a spy. I'm certain she would never have paraded around in front of him that way.
I'm surprised Chuck never said anything to me, but, then again, I know why he didn't. He would never say something like that with the chance of upsetting me or making me feel like I wasn't normal, or at least, normal enough for him. He accepted me completely, just the way I was.
Morgan definitely said something to Chuck after Morgan and I had a middle of the night meeting at the refrigerator. I was in the middle of grabbing a quick drink of orange juice, in a revealing camisole and panties, when Morgan strolled out into the kitchen. He thought I was Chuck until I stood up. I know I embarrassed him, because he was babbling and accidentally made several gaffes about my breasts, one after the other, until I walked away.
I walked in at the end of the conversation…just in time to hear Chuck telling Morgan he was going to ask me to move in there with him. Morgan saw me before Chuck did, and he took off pretty quickly, to give us our privacy.
Chuck was beet red when he turned around to see me standing there with my arms crossed, waiting. Sheepishly, he told me he was going to surprise me and take me out to dinner to give me my own key. But he just blurted it out right there, and asked me if I wanted to move in with him.
He wanted to live with me. A huge, important step that real couples dealt with. I remembered Ellie telling me she had dated Devon for over two years before they decided to live together. Chuck and I had been an official couple for about three weeks.
He really freaked me out. I felt like we were in a car with no brakes heading down a steep incline, headed for a brick wall. Why was I so scared?
For all the pining away I did for Chuck for so long, for how much I know this exact thing was the only thing I ever wanted for years and years…it's hard to explain. Well, hard to explain to normal people. Chuck loved me anyway, but he was definitely right about me not being normal.
All of my life and all of my experience had been one way…and now it was the exact opposite. I was in a dream world, but that's just it. People wake up from dreams. I was accustomed to loneliness and isolation, no matter how much I longed for the cure. The cure was now in my hands, but I was afraid to drink it. At least before, I was protected. Now my armor was gone and Chuck was inside my walls, albeit still maneuvering through the maze he found there.
I wasn't frightened of loving him, or of living with him, or sharing my life with him. I was frightened that, somehow, even now, something would happen. I would say something, Chuck would see something, learn something…and how he saw me, how he felt about me would change. The closer to him I was, the easier it was for him to see my flaws. That was where I was coming from.
And of course, just saying that would have fixed almost everything, right away. But I had no idea how to put that in words to tell him. Chuck was extremely insecure too, for some of the same reasons, and was equally afraid to tell me, though his eloquence was more developed than mine. He feared losing me, and my reticence exacerbated the anxiety he had. Not very far into the future from here, he would become so desperately anxious about us he would start to hide things from me, even lie to me, which sounds horrible. It was. Knowing all of this is why I could forgive him.
This exchange, so simple, is a perfect example of how my insecurity undermined his confidence. Downward goes the spiral, with the both of us in it.
He asked me if I wanted to live with him…and my response was, "Why would we do that?"
I know I crushed his spirit with those words. I walked away from him, suddenly nervous.
He stayed relatively calm outwardly, explaining that I was there almost every night anyway. Practicality. He was appealing to practicality…because I shot him down. But I was still internally freaking out, and I continued to step on his hope. I told him we weren't normal, so why would we pretend to be a normal couple and have a normal life?
Those exact words, like an insult hurled at me, coming out of my own mouth. Deflection. Pushing something away from myself that I wanted more than anything rather than admit that I wanted it, that I needed it, lest he decide to take it away at some point. Without his anxiety ratcheted up, Chuck would have figured that out. He was always very good at figuring me out, even if that wasn't fair of me to expect it. I would learn to stop doing this over time, but here was too soon. But he was defensive, so he missed it this time.
Instead, he fixated on me saying we were pretending. He didn't just sound anxious, he sounded hurt. I looked up at his face and saw his eyes and I felt it, like a needle in the center of my chest. I had enormous potential to hurt him, didn't I? Because he loved me so much.
That love gave me, the recipient, power. Spy training that I needed to forget, turn on its head. I needed to surrender to it, let it rule me. We were doomed unless I at least gave it a shot.
I was quick to apologize. I told him I didn't mean it like that. I took his hands in mine. I told him I loved being with him and I loved working with him. That I didn't want to mess with a good thing. I don't think that put him at ease at all, but I kissed him and told him we could talk more after work.
I went into the sofa storage case to retrieve my firearm. Now Chuck freaked out. I told him my gun was still in my hotel room, and about the 30 foot rule, which referred to how far at maximum an agent should be away from back up protection. Chuck kept his government issued firearm in Castle, never used it, in fact, never even checked it out. He certainly wasn't keeping anything in his apartment where his friends could find it. I accepted that about him…but all the more reason why I needed guns.
I reminded him if he wanted to live with a spy, he had to live with guns. I smiled and dashed out, but I know I hit a nerve. And I was acutely aware of how…abnormal…our morning had just become.
We didn't talk at all on our way to Castle. We greeted Casey and awaited a briefing from Beckman.
She informed us that she was assigning other agents to oversee us. It came as a shock until she explained further. The team she was assigning was the Turners, Craig and Laura. She said it like we should all know who they were. We didn't, until she started listing off their aliases. They had an epic career with the CIA. And they were a married couple.
I asked Beckman what that had to do with anything, my ire rising. I had a feeling what she was going to say. She continued, and confirmed it.
She wanted to send someone to 'train us" because Chuck and I were in a personal relationship and continued to be partnered agents. It was true, married couples were a rarity in the CIA, for good reason, as we were about to be shown up close and personal.
A little aside about the Turners. I honestly don't know what Beckman was trying to accomplish with this stunt. I never asked her and she never explained. She knew Chuck and I were a good team after this long…and as she had told us so bluntly not that long ago, she knew how we felt about each other, almost from the start. Did she really have qualms about us? Or was she trying to tell us something, something she knew herself (concerning Roan Montgomery, but that's for later)?
I will state for the record: you cannot be a good spouse and a good CIA agent. It works the same for parenting…it works for almost everything. Sure, with balance and a lot of love and understanding, you can accomplish a lot, and knowing where your priorities lie prevents misunderstandings. But the best CIA agents have no ties to anything…the way I lived, the way Casey lived. I had told Daniel Shaw to his face that sometimes it helped knowing you had something to lose. It's true. But to lose who would lose you, that is devastating.
In the CIA, missions come first. These two people knew that, obviously. They had done miraculous things, important things…by putting the missions first. Before their marriage, before each other. Good agents, lousy spouses.
And while Casey was sent to train Morgan, the Turners were about to teach Chuck and me just how…unusual we really were.
Chuck was in a tizzy, as Casey would say, running around his apartment like the queen was on the way. We greeted them kindly, but not before Chuck whispered to me that was us in 30 years. I kept smiling, but he freaked me out again.
We sat and got acquainted over drinks. Mostly Chuck and I just listened. They went on and on about their past missions while I struggled to look interested. He went on and on and she grumbled about him being boring. He complained about the drink Chuck fixed for him, pining for their glory days long ago. Apparently, Mrs. Turner was a recovered alcoholic, or at least, that was my impression. A lot of older agents were, it seemed.
We also found out they had been married three times…divorced twice. Odd.
They informed us about the mission. It was to be that evening. Otto Von Vogel was having a party and we were going to crash it, in order to steal software he was developing that could undermine CIA security. Chuck was a little too eager, but I excused it.
We were dressed to the nines when we arrived for the party. Mrs. Turner told us to avoid security and to pose as their niece or nephew if anyone asked.
We stood back to watch them mingle. Chuck was in awe of them, going on and on. I had to tell him they weren't that great. He thought I was jealous. I just don't think he knew what I meant, like, the whole package. Good spies…bad couple. Chuck and I were a good couple. And we were good spies. Where did that leave us, then?
In the midst of that conversation, Otto definitely noticed us. The Turners intervened like the professionals they were.
Chuck tried to give me a quick peck. I was kidding, but I said, "You're not going to ask me to move in with you again, are you?"
He took it in stride this time, with a smirk. "Well, not now, maybe later," and kissed me softly.
Not long after that, however, Chuck and I lost track of the Turners. We found Mrs. Turner throwing back alcohol like it was water. When we approached her, she smelled like alcohol and was acting tipsy. When we asked how things were going, she raged over her husband's blatant flirting with a younger woman.
She drunkenly staggered away, then tripped and fell. Her husband came running, and threw out his back. They made a ridiculous scene in front of everyone. This was the best the CIA could do for married couples?
Chuck and I decided to go upstairs and get the software before the mission went any further awry.
Be forewarned–they were better than we gave them credit for. In fact, we played right into their hands.
We snuck upstairs and into the master suite unnoticed. I bent down next to the bed, looking for the safe, when Chuck found a leather whip curled up on the bed. He was playing with it when I saw the closet door open.
A Bengal tiger was watching us. Well, at least it explained the whip.
The tiger emerged from the closet, growling and showing its teeth to us as we stood in the room. It jumped up on the bed and we backed away. Chuck flashed on the tiger's collar–apparently, the software was there. He told me that after we ran and barricaded ourselves in the closet. Perfectly protected. Which complicated everything.
I took out my gun and Chuck immediately objected, not wanting me to harm the tiger. I asked him if he had any better ideas. He actually said he was thinking what the Turners would do. Hadn't we just seen what they could do? Not much.
While Chuck and I were arguing in the closet, apparently the tiger fell asleep. We could hear it snoring. We exited the closet. I told Chuck to get the collar. We argued, because he wanted me to do it. I had to tell him I was better with a gun than he was.
Eventually, Chuck got the collar off, but he sneezed (Chuck is allergic to cats) and woke it up and it came charging after us. We ran out of there just in time.
We left the party, not able to find the Turners inside, only to be caught by them. Mrs. Turner held us at gunpoint and demanded we turn over the software.
Chuck was genuinely shocked, even as Mr. Turner reiterated something I had lived by for a very long time, but perhaps had forgotten. Trust no one.
It was all a ruse, an act, to get us to steal the software for them, because they were rogue, double agents, turning against the CIA.
We reported the issue to Beckman in the morning–and she didn't believe us. She thought there had to be an explanation, and that we needed to find it.
Chuck was very upset. He felt betrayed, rightfully so, and frustrated that they had made us look bad on our first mission as a real couple. He started doing the dishes, which I learned after this, was something he and Ellie both did–stress cleaning, it's called.
I tried to calm him down, but he raged over his disillusionment. He let it slip that he thought, because of all that, I was never going to move in with him. Was that why he was so eager? He thought this would prove something to me?
I had to remind him that we were not the Turners. Now that I knew them, what they were like, I knew they were nothing like Chuck and me. Nothing. Whether that was good or bad, I wasn't sure. He admitted he had hoped we could become them. I wasn't sure yet.
For now, we had to find them. I remembered the conversation we had had, about the cherries at The Grand Ambassador Hotel. Chuck wasn't sure they were still in Los Angeles, but I surmised they might be if they had a buyer for the software. It was a place to start anyway.
When we got there, we went straight to the bar to check the room service orders. Twelve Manhattans was a dead giveaway. Chuck and I very easily accessed the computer in the lobby and found out what room they were in. We faked a room service delivery and climbed in the window from the terrace of their room. It was a beginner's mistake…which surprised me, but we apprehended them without any issue.
We told them to get dressed and then we handcuffed them and brought them back to Chuck's apartment. I called the marshalls to take them into custody.
It was when they started to argue with each other, each blaming the other for going bad, that really got under Chuck's skin. He screamed at them to be quiet as they bickered. The idea that they could betray each other was what bothered him so much.
Mr. Turner was bitter. He told Chuck after 30 years, the CIA could do more harm than good. He wasn't wrong. I knew that; Chuck was still a little starry-eyed when it came to reality. But Chuck was rattled, there was no doubt.
What we thought were the marshalls we called ended up being Otto…with his tiger. I made a cursory inspection of the collar and realized it had a tracking device.
Chuck went looking in his sofa for my back up, only to find it empty. I had cleared it out while he was getting ready for the Turners to arrive that first day, thinking about how upset he was that I had put that there without telling Chuck.
"No guns, no flash. Honey, darling, would you mind telling me what you've done with our small cache of weapons?" He was chuckling nervously, using a syrupy fake tone
"I got rid of them, sweetheart." I was sarcastic. I only called him sweetheart when there was a problem, something he would later point out to me.
"You actually listened to me?"
"I can't quite believe it myself."
"What have you done with the gun that you had at the hotel?"
"I left them in the car."
"Why would you…?"
"Because you told me to!" I was hissing at him by this point. We had never bickered before. It felt strange.
I moved the Turners to the bathroom and handcuffed them in there while Chuck answered the door.
We played dumb. We played party crashers.
Otto believed that Chuck's apartment was a safe house. That Chuck and I weren't a real couple. And that we were spies. Only one for three…usually the bad guys are better than that.
We continued to play dumb. I did my best dumb blonde and Chuck started talking about James Bond films. I think he called me Octopussy…anyway…it didn't work. Otto pulled a gun on us.
We turned to have a whispered, private conversation. Chuck wanted to hand them over. I disagreed. We had to be better than them, we had to be the spies we were. Chuck actually said maybe we would end up as traitors too. I asked him, seriously, if he really believed that. He looked at me, his eyes full of trust and honesty. And love.
"No."
No, we were better than that. We were different. We could just be Chuck and Sarah…and everything would be ok.
The tiger found them just as Otto was about to fire. The tiger's handler removed the animal and Otto went into the bathroom to get the Turners. But they were already gone, escaped out the window. Otto threatened us again…and the Turners came in through the side door to rescue us.
It turns out Morgan and Casey were left to deal with Sasha, the tiger. Morgan actually led the tiger inside Ellie and Devon's apartment and trapped it in there. Casey was quite impressed with Morgan's bravery, even if it was a little foolhardy.
It was the tiger that distracted Otto, just in time for Chuck to flash and us to get the upper hand in the confrontation. We were left in a standoff with the Turners. I told them we had to bring them in. I wasn't sure what they were going to do.
Chuck let his guard down first. He put his gun away, reminding me that they had saved us. It was like Mr. Turner realized what he was doing after Chuck did that, and told his wife to stand down. They came here to teach us…but we did, after all, teach them.
Love was stronger than anything else. Maybe they had forgotten that along the way. Maybe I had started to doubt it, worrying about silly things that didn't matter. Fortunately, Chuck reminded me of that.
The marshals that had been on the way for the Turners ended up taking Otto and his men, and they called for someone to remove the tiger.
Chuck was in the process of putting in a good word for the Turners when I stepped in. I maybe stretched the truth a bit, like Casey had done for me right after he had been promoted, when I ran with Chuck instead of letting him get bunkered.
We weren't like them. We were better. Because we loved each other, and nothing, nothing was more important than that.
The Turners retired. They recommended Chuck and me as a quasi-replacement. It felt nice.
We left Castle and went straight to Ellie and Devon's once we realized Morgan had left the tiger inside for that long stretch of time.
Chuck was freaking out, hoping to fix Ellie's apartment before they got back. It was completely destroyed. It was quite a task. Hopefully, the CIA would pitch in some resources.
I took the opportunity to tell Chuck I wanted to focus on decorating our place. I definitely shocked him. I coyly asked him if his offer to move in still stood. He just smiled.
The first thing I did was take my framed photographs, all of them, even the ones I never displayed in my hotel room, and place them on the mantle shelf.
"I'm sorry I freaked out when you asked me to move in with you. It's just, you know how I grew up. I spent my life living in hotel rooms under fake names." With my father and the CIA. "I've been trained to survive a thousand different situations in the field, but nobody ever taught me how to have a normal life."
"Well, I hate to break it to you, but I don't think we're ever going to live a normal life." Those words were like a caress–always his way of telling me he only wanted me as I am, normal or not. That I was enough for him, just me and all my faults.
"Well, I'd like to have something to fall back on when our spy life is over." I was no word smith, but he had to know, I was all in, regardless of anything else. I was trying to let him know that.
He just smiled and kissed me.
