Casey Have I Loved
31 JANUARY 2008
CASTLE: GUN RANGE
07:45 PST
"And we're doing this really early because?" Chuck didn't quite put a whine in his voice, though he came close. He would have been perfectly justified. It was Monday morning, his weekend had been a hellbender of repeatedly running into brick walls of computer security, and he had only half of his morning routine under his belt. It really was quite inconsiderate of Casey to just grab him in the middle of a Tai Chi routine and yank him into the gun range.
Casey made one of the more guttural noises in his arsenal.
Chuck pulled up short. "Oh, no, no," he said when he saw the gun waiting on the shelf.
"Yes," Casey said, shoving him into the room and closing the door behind them.
Chuck crossed his arms over his chest, subconsciously hunching his shoulders forward to make himself a smaller target. "Seriously, can't I just keep training on the Sig? I have a good feeling about the Sig. We're almost friends—in fact, I feel like the Sig might accuse me of cheating if I shoot…that."
"Relax." Casey clapped him on the shoulder, but there was still a gleam in his eye that Chuck didn't trust. "You won't be shooting that."
Chuck deflated in relief. "Whew."
"You're going to disassemble it. And reassemble it."
Chuck stared at Casey, horror growing deep and stark in his chest. For several seconds, his mouth worked soundlessly, his jaw creaking. "You realize that she once threatened to chop off my fingers, and that was just because I borrowed her knives?"
"She likes her knives." Casey picked up the Smith & Wesson on the gun range shelf and checked the chamber. Sarah's Smith & Wesson. Casey nodded, pleased at the state of the chamber. He pressed the magazine release button and set the full magazine off to the side. "If she's anything like me, she likes her guns more. My advice? Don't screw up."
"Gee, thanks for the swell advice, Casey." Chuck felt a new ulcer join the first ever-present stomach pain. He took a deep breath. Casey had been teaching him, which meant that he did actually know how to disassemble and reassemble the gun…but he was very fond of his hands. He needed those to code, among other things. And Sarah would most definitely make sure he could do nothing of the sort if she found out what her partners were up to while she (hopefully) slept a few miles away. Chuck cast a desperate look at Casey now. "Why do you hate me?"
"We don't have time for that. If you want to get this assignment done, I'd get started. Walker'll be here any minute."
"Oh, God," Chuck said, sweat forming at the thought.
"One more thing." Casey's smirk broadened as he reached over and plucked something from the shelf. It unrolled itself to reveal a long length of cloth.
"A blindfold? You want me to wear a blind—are you kidding me? Seriously, Casey, are you kidding me right now? Because this is not nice. Not ni—hey! Hey! What are you doing? Stop that!" Chuck battled uselessly at Casey as the other man wrapped the blindfold over the top half of his face. "Oh, God, I'm going to die. I can see it now. Some unlucky stranger is going to find my cut-up corpse in a dumpster off of Sepulveda, and it's going to be your fault for what you're doing right now and—ow! It's tight enough already! Geez!"
"Should've brought a gag, too," Casey muttered. Chuck heard him step away, but which direction, he had no idea. He felt pressure against his back, pushing him forward until his midsection bumped something. The shelf containing the Silver Monster, he assumed. Indeed, he lifted one hand to feel around and yelped as his fingers brushed a cold, smooth groove of metal. He tried to jump away, but Casey merely increased the pressure against his back. "Guess what your task is, numb-nuts."
Chuck felt his stomach bottom out again. "You can't seriously believe that I can disassemble and reassemble this gun blindfolded, Casey."
"Believe it and expect it. And in three and a half minutes, too."
Something beeped.
Chuck's mouth dropped open. "Three and a half min—are you insane?"
"Three minutes and twenty five seconds," Casey said.
"I can't see anything!"
"You've done it enough that you should know it by touch. Get a move on. Three minutes and twenty seconds."
"What if I do it wrong?"
"Walker kills you, my job here is done, and I get to go back to fighting terrorists in the Khyber Pass. Even though I don't see the problem with that, move it. Three fourteen."
"But if I can't see anything—"
He heard the aggravation in Casey's sigh. "Sight is only one of the five senses, Bartowski. You've got a working set of hands there. Use 'em."
Chuck blinked against the blindfold. The cloth Casey had picked was so opaque that his eyes felt like they weren't real. Hesitantly, he felt around for the gun again, only to yelp and try to leap backward in surprise when his fingers touched it.
Casey's shove was a little less gentle this time.
"I'm sorry," Chuck said. "I can't do it. I don't know how, and if I screw it up, Sarah's going to kill me, and it's not right. Can't I do this with the Sig? And my eyes? I've got 20/20 vision. It's one of the greatest things about me—"
"Bartowski," and Casey's voice held plenty of the menace that had been missing of late, as he'd started to relax around Chuck, or at least it had seemed so before this little lesson in terror, "if you don't get your ass in gear and disassemble the damned gun, Walker is going to be the least of your problems."
Chuck's hands started shaking.
"Three minutes," Casey growled.
"Casey, I don't think I—"
"I said field-strip the gun! That is an order, soldier!"
Maybe it was the volume. Maybe it was the perfect drill instructor cadence. Either way, something inside Chuck's head seemed to click. He jolted forward and his hands immediately leapt to the gun, fingers questing. A few quick movements, and he'd checked the chamber, suppressed the buttons on either side above the trigger. He pulled the slide back, squared the frame off on the shelf in front of him so that he would be able to find it again, popped the guide rod and spring out, pulled the barrel assembly loose, and set it on the shelf. One tap against the shelf edge to show that he was done. Pick up the slide. Tap. Put the barrel back in, tap, fit the guide rod and spring. Tap. Select the frame, line up the slide. Tap. Put it back together.
Reach over.
Grab the magazine.
Slide it into place.
Chamber a round. Unhook the safety.
"Bartowski, what—"
Take aim.
"Are you—"
Fire.
Something exploded. Or at least that was what it sounded like. One moment, Chuck had been completely engrossed to the point of almost feeling outside himself, and then something punctured his concentration. He jerked backward, automatically clapping his hands over his ears in case the explosion came again.
Only to clobber himself in the head with the side of the gun.
"Ow!" Chuck reached up with his free hand to yank the blindfold down around his neck. "What the hell?"
Casey didn't answer. He was too busy staring in shock at something along the gun range wall.
"Casey?" Chuck carefully set the gun down on the shelf—in addition to the fact that it was Sarah's and dangerous because of it, he didn't want to have to touch a gun for longer than he had to—and moved to wave a hand in front of Casey's face. "What are you look—ack!"
Casey snatched his hand, twisted, and suddenly Chuck found himself pushed chest first into the gun range shelf, his arm pinned behind his back.
"What the hell," Casey said, his voice deceptively quiet, "was that, Bartowski?"
"What are you even talking about? Geez! Ow!"
With his free hand, Casey pushed on the back of Chuck's head. He probably would have grabbed a handful of curls to manipulate the other man's head, but Chuck had shaved it all off again the night before. Still, Casey managed to point his head toward the silhouette barely lit up along the far wall.
It bore a single bullet hole right through the heart.
Killshot.
"I said disassemble the gun. I said reassemble the gun. I did not say fire the gun!"
"Sorry!" Chuck tried to squirm, but Casey knew his stuff when it came to pinning people. Chuck couldn't move at all. "I don't know what came over me! You—you just sounded like a drill instructor, that's all, and it took me back, and I must have gotten carried away! I did go to Basic, remember?"
Casey stilled, apparently thinking. Sometimes it was best to let him mull things over, but right now, Chuck figured his best defense was the thing that usually led to trouble: diarrhea of the mouth.
"And that shot? That shot's not a big deal, it was a fluke, that's all it was, I swear. It should've gone into the ceiling or something, but instead I got that guy's heart, and I'm sorry. It won't happen again. I'll stay in complete control next time, I promise."
Though he probably had enough verbal ammo to babble for years, Chuck was grateful when Casey finally sighed and loosened his grip, allowing Chuck to scramble away. The other man remained silent as he picked up the Smith & Wesson, checked the chamber, and pulled the magazine out. He set the unloaded gun on the shelf and gestured at it. "Prove it."
"Wh-what?"
"Do it again. Prove to me that that shot was a fluke. Take the gun apart, put it together, and shoot. But keep the gun pointed at that wall, for all that is holy." Casey handed over a set of ear protectors, donned a set himself, and crossed his arms over his chest.
Chuck swallowed and reached for the blindfold, but had so much trouble maneuvering it around the protectors that Casey scowled. "Just keep your eyes closed. Don't peek."
It was harder this time, maybe because his hands were still shaking from Casey's attack and the surprise shot. Chuck squeezed his eyes shut the whole time as his fingers worked to field strip the gun and assemble it, carefully. There was still the fear of Sarah coming down on his head to contend with, after all. He slid the slide back into place, pushed the magazine in, took a deep breath. His hands shook even harder as he squared off in a shooting stance and pointed at the target. He took another deep breath, imagining the silhouette in his head though he didn't have an ice cube's chance on Arrakis in hitting it, counted to three.
The gun jerked. It seemed to recoil harder this time, vibrating up his arms in a way that made Chuck wince at how unprofessional it must look.
Slowly, fearing that he'd put a bullet into the ceiling, he opened first his left eye and then his right. Casey moved up to stand next to him. They stared at the silhouette.
Casey was the first one to break the silence. He clapped Chuck on the shoulder and let loose a belly laugh. "Turns out you can hit the broad side of a barn, Bartowski. You just have to close your eyes to do it." He slid magazine out and stuck it in his back pocket. "Clean that and get it back in Walker's stash before she figures out it's missing. Heh."
With that, he left Chuck alone with the Silver Monster and the silhouette that bore two bullet holes. One in the heart, and one in the head.
31 JANUARY 2008
CASTLE: DOWNSTAIRS
13:58 PST
"Okay, something's up," Sarah said as she came into Chuck's office.
Chuck dropped his pen and swiveled in his chair quickly. Too quickly. He nearly overbalanced and sent himself crashing to the floor. "Is it a mission? Do we have a mission? Is it something to do with the data we grabbed on Kohlmeier?"
"What? No." Sarah's eyebrows drew low over her eyes and she turned her head slightly, still watching him with her eyes, something she only did when she was suspicious of him. "I was going to say something's up with Casey, but I don't think that's just the case anymore."
Chuck hoped the fact that he had begun to sweat was obvious only to him. "Wh-why would you think that?"
Sarah merely folded her arms over her chest. It made Chuck look down, and notice that she was wearing the pink blouse again, the one he really liked.
He forced his mind to focus by reminding himself that he was dating a lie-detector-trained-assassin. That usually helped. "So nothing new from the data I pulled off of those hard drives?"
Again, Sarah didn't answer. She strode over to his desk and sat on the edge, so that she was looming over him. It was a little close, but it wasn't quite to the level of impropriety between coworkers that would have to be explained away on the Castle security footage later. Even so, it hardly mattered. Chuck would have felt that quietly threatening stare on him even from ten feet away.
"Want to tell me what's going on?"
"Uh, nothing." Don't think about her gun, don't think about her gun, don't think—
"Are you sure that's what you want to say?"
Chuck reminded himself that they were still being watched by Castle's security cameras, which was why they had been extra careful at work since they had returned to Burbank. Therefore, it would be messy to explain if Sarah suddenly put him in a sleeper hold.
Of course, he would have to leave Castle sometime.
"Something's up with Casey, and now you're edgy around me—well, edgier than normal—you won't meet my eyes, and you're starting to sweat." Sarah ticked points off on her fingers. "Any one of those things alone would be suspicious, but add them up and…"
Chuck winced.
"So what is it?"
"It's nothing, I swear. Everything's fine."
"Uh-huh. Not buying it." Sarah poked him in the arm. "Out with it, Bartowski. Did you flash on something in my file again?"
Chuck blinked. "What exactly is in your file if you're so worried about me flashing on it?"
"I'm not sure what's in my file," Sarah said, frowning. "It's been awhile since I had Dave hack the database and find out. But since you freaked out last time you flashed on me—"
"It was only for a little while! You looked really pissed off when you shot that security camera. I was scared."
Sarah rolled her eyes. The incident had occurred on the day after Christmas, and Chuck figured Sarah was still a little upset about it. She had worn a ring, something he hadn't seen her wear before, and something in the pattern of the ring had inspired a flash. If there was ever a time he didn't need reminding that he was dating a cold-school ninja, it was while sitting next to her on the couch watching The Exorcist.
And he had since apologized for it multiple times.
"So what are you hiding from me?" Sarah asked, switching topics with the subtlety of a sledge hammer.
"Promise not to kill me?"
"Chuck…"
"Casey made me disassemble and reassemble your gun this morning before you got here." The words tumbled out in a rush right as Chuck shoved his foot against the floor, sending his rolling desk chair backwards and out of Sarah's reach. He hunched forward into the sitting form of The Morgan, remembering her face when she had given him the pocket knife and told him never to touch any of her knives again. "Please, if you're going to cut off my fingers, do the left hand. I use the right hand for the Wii."
"Chuck," Sarah said, and there was laughter in her voice. "Don't be absurd, I'm not going to cut off your fingers."
"You're not?" Chuck peeked through his fingers. "But I thought you said—"
"You didn't damage it, did you?"
"Well, no, but…"
"I've got seven Smith & Wessons. I can always get another."
Chuck lowered his hand entirely and blinked at her, sixty percent sure she wasn't getting him to drop his guard so that she could attack. "Isn't that a bit excessive?"
"Possibly. So how'd you do?"
"What?"
"With the disassembling. Casey didn't mention the Gun Club Lessons had started up again."
"Oh." Chuck scooted his desk chair back to the actual desk, frowning. "Well, he blindfolded me. And then I made a killshot. Well, two killshots."
Since he was looking at Sarah, he got to see the color drain out of her face as she stared at him. "What? Casey let you fire while blindfolded? Is he insane?"
"Well, the first time was kind of an…accident."
"What? What the hell is Casey doing giving you a loaded weapon while you're blindfolded?" Sarah surged to her feet. "I'm going to go kick his—"
"Hey, whoa, wait a second!" Chuck sprang to his feet and lunged halfway across his own office to cut Sarah off at the door. There was a brief temptation to deploy The Morgan again thanks to the look on her face, but he stood his ground. "The gun wasn't loaded when Casey gave it to me, I swear. I just…Casey sounded like a drill sergeant for a minute, and I flashed back to Basic Training. I assembled and disassembled the gun faster than anything Casey's ever seen, he says. And then I chambered a round and fired it. That was all."
Sarah's face still hadn't gained back any of its color. "And it was a killshot?"
"I know, weird, right? Casey couldn't believe it. So he had me do it again, and it turns out that if I have my eyes closed, I'm an expert marksman."
"Oh, that'll come in handy," Sarah said, and her hands were shaking as she pushed them through her hair. "I can't believe Casey let you anywhere near a live weapon while blindfolded."
"The rounds were set off to the side and the safety was on the whole time." Chuck frowned. "Well, it was until I switched it of—oof! You have got to give me a warning when you do that!"
Sarah just squeezed him tighter. Cautious, Chuck removed his hands from the doorjambs and wrapped his arms around her. "I'm glad you didn't shoot yourself in the foot," Sarah muttered.
"As am I, though they're big enough targets."
"Well, you know what they say."
Chuck's face abruptly went red as Sarah stepped back, sending a furtive glance toward the security camera in the corner.
"How are we going to explain that one to Beckman and Graham?" Chuck asked, moving quickly away from the doorway and back into his office.
"They don't comb all of the office footage," Sarah said, but she sounded doubtful. "And coworkers hug, don't they?"
"Why are you asking me? I don't know."
"You've held more normal jobs than I have."
"And how many have you had?"
"Conman's daughter, spy. That's it."
"Oh. Then I guess I have." Chuck wrinkled his brow as he thought about it. "I guess coworkers could hug. We could tell them it was a birthday hug."
"Whose birthday?"
"Uh, Morgan's," Chuck said, though it wasn't for another week.
"Okay, that was a Morgan's birthday hug."
"Sounds good to me."
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to find Casey and kick his ass."
"Wait!" Chuck blinked. "What for?"
"For letting you anywhere near a gun with a blindfold on." Sarah's tone said what her words didn't: duh.
"Eh, how else would we have known about my lights-off expert marksmanship, then? You should let him live. I'm fond of the big guy." Chuck looked over when his computer beeped and brought up his email program. "Oh, fun."
"What is it?"
"My data dump of the day." Chuck double-clicked to open it out of habit more than curiosity. He turned to flash a grin at Sarah. "You know, as a coworker, I think it would be perfectly normal if you stayed awhile to keep me company while I sift through this."
"Oh, it would, would it?" Sarah pulled over the spare desk chair. "I suppose I could take a break from the paperwork for a few minutes."
"That's the spirit."
"You wouldn't happen to be distracting me so I don't go kill Casey, would you?"
"Me? No. Is it too much to enjoy the pleasure of your company?"
"Uh-huh." Sarah propped her feet up on the desk and folded her arms over her chest. "How long does it take you to get through these?"
Chuck was already scanning the first of the airline passenger lists. "Not too long unless there's a lot of people in the—"
One name jumped out at him so much it practically glowed red. Chuck blinked mid-sentence and let the Intersect smack his brain around.
IVAN FYODOROV.
A shot of a wooden stairwell from below, tastefully lit at sunset.
EX-KGB, considered DANGEROUS.
Suspected involvement in Commuter Train Bombings, Paris, France, 12 November 2002.
Surveillance footage of a burly man in a turtle neck and sports blazer talking on a cell phone outside a train station in Italy.
Suspected involvement in disappearance of CIA Operative White Rose. Last time on American soil: 13 January 1989, Chechen national.
A dossier, several lines redacted. A final shot of the same stairwell as before.
"—Intersect." Chuck blinked again and shook his head a little to clear it. With a swipe of his hand across the control tablet for the computer system, he brought up the CIA database on another screen.
"Got a hit already?" Sarah asked, leaning forward a little in her interest.
"Ivan Fyo—Fio—"
"Fyodorov," Sarah supplied. "Who is he?"
"He's a piece of work. Ex-KGB, hasn't been here since the eighties."
"Any idea what he's doing here now?"
Chuck shrugged. "None. He's on a passenger list of a plane flying in this afternoon. And if he booked a car or hotel in L.A., it'll be in the—oh, there we go." He scooted his chair over to the new monitor, which displayed the database. "Oh, swanky. Our cold-war ex-spy and general baddie is staying at the Grand Saville. Very nice. Guess the black market pays well these days."
"Go figure. Is he flagged?"
"Not officially." Chuck input the name into his in-Castle database and added a case number before he tagged the car rental and hotel information to the file. "Think he's connected to Krolik and Ezersky? They're both Russian, after all."
"Yes, because Russia is such a tiny country," Sarah deadpanned.
"We've come across bigger coincidences," Chuck said, turning back to the database. He clicked a few times.
"What are you doing?"
"Pulling up the Grand Saville's guest list. Maybe Fyo—Ivan the Terrible over here was meeting somebody, and they might be in the Intersect." Chuck bounced one shoulder up and down. "It's a long shot, but—oh, crap, not again."
A shot of an old, abandoned gas station.
DMITRY SILJAK.
CIA briefing, several lines blacked out. Pictures of what looked like a gun store of some type with semi-automatic and automatic weapons on shelves like merchandise at the dollar store. Surveillance of Siljak, well-armed and glaring at something out of the view of the camera.
ILLEGAL ARMS TRADE.
A military intelligence report.
The gas station again.
Chuck blinked and scrunched his face up for a second. Flashing twice in a row was never pleasant. "Well, there's definitely another Russian at—oh, geez, what the hell?"
There were ten flashes, including Siljak and Fyodorov. By then, Chuck wanted to put his head down and moan. Russian and Eastern Bloc arms dealers, ex-KGB officers, and, his personal favorite, two freelance assassins.
"The Russians are having a douchebag convention and nobody invited us?"
"Are you saying we're douchebags?" Sarah asked as she kneaded his shoulders.
"Point." He lifted his head to look back at her. "And what are you going to say when Beckman or Graham asks about this?"
Sarah gave a pert little shrug. "You're the Intersect. This is all for your health, which comes first."
"If you haven't got your health, then you haven't got anything," Chuck said, running his hands over his face. He sat back in the chair and wearily clicked to the next page in the Grand Saville Database, afraid of what might be awaiting him. He scanned half of the list, mercifully, before the flash hit.
ILSA TRINCHINA.
A CIA dossier, TOP SECRET.
A shot of a beautiful woman of Eastern European descent.
SUGAR BEAR.
A letter, handwritten. Sugar Bear, I have missed you today. I kept thinking of the security of your arms when you hold me, the wonderful flutter in the pit of my stomach…It was signed with a kiss and Love, Ilsa.
A map of Chechnya, with the words SUGAR BEAR once again flashing over it.
Surveillance of Ilsa Trinchina making out with a man—Casey? Ilsa making out with Casey in what looked like a fancy hotel lobby…with plenty of tongue.
The same shot of the sunlit stairwell from the other flashes Chuck had seen.
Chuck's back hit the chair, nearly crushing Sarah's hand between his shoulder blade and the seatback. And then he began to shake.
Sarah was instantly on her guard. "Chuck? Chuck, what is it? Is it the Intersect? I'll call Ellie—"
"No, no, wait," Chuck said, and an actual snort escaped as he continued to giggle. Even though he wanted brain bleach to forever wipe the memory of Casey macking on an Eastern European national, Chuck couldn't help it. The laughter just flowed out until he was bent forward at the waist, gasping as he laughed.
After a few seconds, Sarah sank back into the other chair. She reached over and handed Chuck a tissue for his eyes, which had begun to stream due to the laughter. "Feel like sharing the joke, Chuckles?"
"Casey's got a girlfriend!" Chuck knew he was acting like a middle-schooler, but: "She calls him Sugar Bear!"
"What?"
"I know, I always thought he was like a Ken doll downstairs, but apparently he's got a romantic history." Between fits of laughter, Chuck managed to fill Sarah in on the contents of his latest flash, describing the hotel lobby make-out in a great deal more detail than necessary. If he had to live with those images for the rest of his life, it seemed only fair that Sarah should share a portion of his pain.
"We need to look her up immediately," he said. "The Intersect's got, like, nothing on her. I want to see what kind of woman would win the heart of a man who communicates better with wolves and wolverines than most humans."
"He does growl a lot," Sarah said, "but I'm not sure that justifies reallocating CIA resources, going behind Casey's back, and violating this woman's privacy."
Chuck just looked at her. "Feel better now that you got common sense out of the way?"
"Much. Let's look her up." Sarah slid over to grab the second keyboard and access the second set of monitors in Chuck's office. It only took a few strokes to pull up the CIA database. "Ilsa…Trinchina, right?"
"Right."
"Ooh, she's pretty."
"You say that like you're surprised," Chuck said. He checked over his shoulder to make sure Casey had not sneaked into the room. "I mean, he may not be my type, but you have to admit that the man is handsome."
"Mm-hmm," Sarah said. "Hm, doesn't say much here. Name, birth date, she's got a college education. Photographer." She pulled up a few pictures and a swipe of the hand sent them spinning over all of the monitors. "She's got a decent eye. Use of negative space could use some work."
"Could it now?" Chuck blinked.
"What? Don't look at me like that," Sarah said, hunching her shoulders. "I took photography as an elective in college. I thought it would help to have a better eye for detail, and I picked up a thing or two along the way."
"So many hidden pockets."
"Looks like she and Casey were both in Chechnya, your flash backs that up. Casey was there posing as an energy consultant and…" Sarah's voice trailed off.
"What? What is it?"
"Ilsa Trinchina was killed in a bombing in Groznyy in 2004."
"What?" Chuck sat up straighter despite his still-aching head. He immediately began typing. "That doesn't make any sense, she checked in at the Grand Saville last night."
"I have her death certificate here, Chuck. And Casey's reports of her death, actually, if he's the NSA undercover agent whose name has been redacted from this file."
"Then who's at the Grand Saville?"
Sarah shrugged. "Probably somebody traveling on a stolen passport. It happens all the time in Russia; people die and their personal info gets recycled."
"Oh." Chuck's stomach sank. All of the excitement that Casey had been human, that he had had a relationship and a human side, faded to sadness and sympathy. Casey had looked genuinely happy in those surveillance pictures, and to have lost the woman he loved in a bombing…Chuck didn't look at Sarah. They'd only been dating a month and a half, and he couldn't imagine even a tenth of what Casey must be feeling.
"So should we tell Casey about this?" he asked.
Sarah was silent for a moment, and he could tell she was considering all of the angles. "He's a big boy, Chuck, he'll be okay. And if there's a concentration of Russian and ex-Cold War scumbags on American soil, Graham and Beckman need to be notified. Go ahead and finish your report, and I'll brief the others while you see Dr. Anton."
"What?" Chuck looked at his watch. "Oh, crap, I'm going to be late unless I leave right now."
"I recommend hurrying, then. I'm going to go up and finish some paperwork." Sarah rubbed her hand over Chuck's shoulder on her way out, but he could see the same sympathy in her eyes that he felt.
31 JANUARY 2008
DR. ANTON'S OFFICE
15:42 PST
"And, if you don't mind me asking, how are the nightmares? Are they still occurring?"
"Hmm?" Chuck looked up from where he had been staring at his hands, not really seeing them. He was remembering the happiness on Casey's face from the flash, if he was going to be honest with himself. He wasn't used to that sort of emotion connected to Casey. The man lived the ultimate bachelor life. He had his work, his cigars, his gun club buddies, and now his video games thanks to the fact that Chuck had bought him a subscription to X-Box Live Gold for Christmas.
"The nightmares?" Dr. Anton wore a gray sweater today. He looked as pleasant and mild-mannered as ever. "You had mentioned recurring nightmares about the man you call Leader?"
"Oh, right." Chuck wanted to shudder. A couple of weeks and a long discussion with Sarah had helped him cope, somewhat, with the fact that the knife he had thrown had nearly killed Leader. It still gave him a bad moment or two, though and never when he expected it to. He'd had a flashback to the lobby of the Heartbrake Hotel while running out to pick up milk for his cereal a few nights before, and once waiting in line at the movies with Morgan.
In his latest nightmare, Sarah hadn't shown up in time. Leader had bled out from the knife wound. He hadn't stopped until his blood covered the disgusting shag carpet, and Chuck was up to his ankles in it.
And Fidget, the doomed safe-cracker, had been there with the guard that Bryce had shot in the warehouse. They had been sipping tea while the blood had risen, completely unaffected.
Chuck had woken up gasping.
"No," he said now. "I haven't had that nightmare this week." Yet.
"And what have your dreams been like, then?"
Chuck fidgeted uncomfortably. "You're getting into dream analysis now, Doc?"
"I find that at times the subconscious can speak quite clearly through our dreams, yes."
Chuck felt a desire to ask him to analyze the dream he'd had about playing Pooh Sticks with Master Chief, then. Master Chief had won. Of course, that was the tamest dream he could remember from the past few weeks. The rest were just a little…R-rated. Well, far beyond that. He imagined Sarah wouldn't mind, as she always seemed pleased whenever he noticed her in any physical capacity, but he didn't exactly want to relate to Dr. Anton exactly how much Sarah hadn't been wearing in his latest dream.
"Maybe," Chuck said. "But I don't really want to talk about that, if that's okay with you."
"It's perfectly fine by me, Chuck. We can talk about whatever you wish to talk about, you know that."
"I know that."
"Perhaps you might feel like discussing what is on your mind?"
"Say what?" Chuck asked, looking up quickly. "I don't have anything on my mind."
Dr. Anton took his glasses off to give Chuck a patient look. "Maybe so, but pardon me for the observation that you seem especially distracted today."
"I do?"
Dr. Anton raised a brow. It had taken a few weeks of therapy for Chuck to establish any rapport with him, and he still felt uncomfortable around the psychiatrist, but he had to appreciate Dr. Anton's forwardness. It wasn't Casey's tactlessness or Sarah's forthrightness, but the psychiatrist did have a habit of calling it like he saw it.
"I stumbled across some intel at work today," he said. "It's partially classified, but I did find out something that..."
"What was it about? Or can you say?"
"It was about Case," Chuck said, using Casey's code-name for Anton, though he was positive he had slipped several times and referred to the man by his full last name. "More specifically, about a woman he…loved."
"You seem surprised."
"I am. I never really thought of Case as the, ah, amorous type." And now, thanks to the Intersect's memory retention abilities, Chuck would never be able to think of Casey any other way. He pushed past that right now, though. "But I guess it makes sense, wouldn't it? I mean, he's not a robot. He had a life before I met him."
"He hasn't spoken to you about that life?"
"Not in specific terms." He'd mentioned things like the Khyber Pass, and other things that had spoken of being a career soldier. But like Sarah, Casey hadn't mentioned any family, any connections. Chuck had simply begun to assume he had been hatched or perhaps assembled at something like a real life G.I. Joe factory.
"So you don't know what happened with this woman?" Dr. Anton asked.
"She died in a bombing in Chechnya, almost four years ago." Chuck twisted his left thumb around with his right hand. "Case was there with her, since he was stationed there at the time. I can't say what he was doing."
"Understood."
"But I can't help but think that, wow, that happened to him. He fell in love with somebody, and he lost her." Chuck's frown deepened. "I lost everybody in my life for five years. Sometimes I have a hard time with that, thinking about everything I missed, or when my sister mentions something that happened in that time that I should know about but I don't. I've been handling it okay, though, you know? And five years...five years is nothing compared to gone forever."
"Unfortunately, loss is part of life, Chuck," Dr. Anton said, his voice gentle.
"Only two things are assured in life, right? Death and taxes," Chuck said, forcing a smile onto his face. "I guess I should be used to that by now. Or I need to get used to it."
"Why do you feel you need to get used to loss?"
"I work with life and death situations, don't I? My partners carry guns and I'm now licensed to carry a concealed weapon all over the country, which means my bosses are going to expect me to start carrying a gun soon." Technically, he'd been licensed for over a month, but until he received Casey's Gun Club membership card, he wasn't going to shake that particular beehive.
Or ever, if he could help it.
"That's a very fatalistic approach," Dr. Anton said.
Chuck moved a shoulder in something approaching a shrug. "Is it fatalistic or simply realistic? We face armed foes a lot and it's too much to expect that every single one of them graduated from the Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy."
"I'm afraid I don't know what that means." Dr. Anton fiddled with his glasses as he wrote something on his legal pad.
"Bad shots, Doc. It means they couldn't even hit the Death Star, even from a hundred feet away." When Dr. Anton still looked puzzled, Chuck cleared his throat. "It's a space station the size of a small moon."
"Ah."
"And I hate the thought of the bunker so much that sometimes I can't sleep," Chuck went on, deciding that the man's lack of Star Wars knowledge wasn't even the worst thing about the doctor, so there wasn't any point in attempting to educate him. "Seriously. My hands start shaking if I think about even losing so much as six months the way I lost all of those years. And if five years is nothing compared to forever, six months is really nothing. But it happened to Case. It could happen to me, too. It just takes one bad guy with too-good aim, and maybe she's having an off-day, and she's gone forever."
"She?"
Chuck's head snapped up. "Or Case," he said quickly. "It's far more likely when you think about it—sorry, Case, please don't kill me—because, you know, him being so brawny that he's a bigger target. Sarah's tall but the woman has, like, no body fat. She was probably a skinny kid, don't you think? God, I was a skinny kid. I was like a twig with curls."
Dr. Anton was silent for a moment, simply watching Chuck in a way that made the taller man want to keep babbling. Chuck just twisted his thumb harder. He'd made a pact with himself after talking to Sarah in the guest house in DC, when he had made grilled cheese for them both, not to let Anton know about his relationship. The government didn't need to know about his love life, or Sarah's, and that included a government-paid psychologist. It was probably stunting his psychological and emotional growth to keep his feelings for Sarah to himself, but he frankly didn't give a damn.
However, that didn't help much when he slipped up like he just had.
"Mm-hmm," Dr. Anton finally said. Thankfully, he didn't scribble a note on the legal pad. Chuck nearly sagged back with relief, but self preservation kept him upright. "Well, Chuck, can I give you some advice?"
Chuck bit his tongue over a question very much like, "Isn't that your job?" Instead, he just nodded.
"You can't borrow trouble."
Chuck waited, but the psychiatrist had finished. "That's it?" Chuck asked, just to be sure.
"How fulfilling a life do you think you will lead if you spend every second of it preparing for the worst to happen?"
"But shouldn't you be prepared? Especially because of the aforementioned bad guys with guns?"
"There's a difference between being pessimistic and being prepared, Chuck." Dr. Anton adjusted his glasses once more. "Yes, you are in a line of work that could lead to fatalities and casualties. So an amount of caution is warranted, certainly, but not to the detriment of your everyday life."
"And where would you say the line is?"
"That's for you to determine."
Chuck scowled. "You couldn't have given me a definitive answer to that one?"
To his surprise, Dr. Anton smiled. "I know, it's a pain in the ass, isn't it? Unfortunately, we'll have to continue this on Thursday, as your time for today is up. Perhaps, if he's amenable, you could try talking to Major Case about his lost love. He may say some things that surprise you. Or he could simply use a friend."
"Yeah, I'll do that. Thanks, Doc." Chuck shook Dr. Anton's hand and let himself out, nodding politely to the receptionist as he always did. Because he had driven himself over, neither Casey nor Sarah was waiting for him in the waiting room, and it felt strange to simply walk out the front doors and into the late afternoon sunlight.
Of course, he'd thought that too soon, Chuck thought. There was a large black van parked in the parking lot, with Casey in the driver's seat. Sarah was waiting on the hood, wearing a black and white dress that made Chuck's steps falter for a second.
"How'd the appointment go?" she asked, hopping down as Chuck approached.
"Oh, you know, same old, same old. I depressed Dr. Anton and he gave me somewhat helpful advice." Chuck climbed into the van before Sarah could, willingly taking the middle seat. "What's up? We got a mission?"
"At the Grand Saville," Casey said.
Chuck gave him a cautious look. "Oh. Are you, uh, are you okay, Casey?"
"I'm fine. Don't ask me again."
"Got it."
"We brought a change of clothes for you, in the back," Sarah said, climbing in behind Chuck and closing the door. "And we'll explain on the way."
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