Tempted Ch 14
Spoilers: series
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: of course these characters don't belong to me
Here's chapter 14 (we're finally getting near the end!); now that John has saved Ellie's life, there are decisions to be made. There's moping, and coping.
Chuck was there then, trying to hug her; and Ellie returned his embrace frantically, feeling she would never be able to get her limbs to stop trembling now that they’d started. Images of the past few minutes fired in sharp flashes through her brain; her brother with an unfamiliar countenance of desperation and fear. Sarah Walker’s hands creating a rope knot around a man’s wrists. John Casey’s blue blue eyes over the business end of a gun barrel.
But he wasn’t, none of them could be, the bad guy. The intense desire to believe that burned through the numb haze of shock clouding her brain. As insane as the last - was it only fifteen minutes? - had been, nothing would be right in the world if she had to think that John Casey or Chuck Bartowski might be on any side but the right one.
Hers.
Ellie turned in her brother’s arms. John - was that his real name? - was kneeling over the man he had shot; he shook his head and held up one finger to Sarah (true name also uncertain), who was speaking into something strapped to her wrist that was obviously not a watch. Ellie’s brain, still on that remote setting that was making her notice insignificant details, zeroed in on the handcuffs attached to one of the dead man’s wrists; one metal circle hung open and empty, signifying that he’d been restrained and gotten out of the cuffs somehow.
Standing numbly, staring down at John Casey’s large, hard hand patting carefully over a dead man’s pockets, Ellie decided that she’d had enough of being defensive and reactive. She pushed firmly against Chuck’s chest; he resisted but she insisted, wordlessly, and he let her go. He stood close, though. Maybe it was a good thing; she wasn’t steady on her feet, not by any stretch of the imagination. Possibly being proactive could wait just a few more minutes.
Apparently there wasn’t anything interesting to be found on the dead bad guy; John stood to mirror Sarah by talking to his wrist, saying things like ‘mission complete’ and ‘clean-up’. He was smooth, efficient, businesslike. Every competent movement murmured ‘professional’. It was screamingly obvious that this was his true vocation.
Shooting people.
Her heartbeat was slowing its rate, but it kicked back up as she watched the calm mastery with which John went about his job. He was in command, of himself and the situation. Whatever this was that he did, he was good at it. He was also, Ellie realized slowly, not looking at her. He didn’t send one glance in her direction; not a gleam, not a flicker. He had no questions about whether she was well.
Chuck was different. “Are you OK? Did he hurt you?”
For a moment, Ellie was hazily unsure which ‘he’ Chuck meant. All those long months that her eyes and John’s had seemed to be magnetized to each other, and now there wasn’t anything, not a gleam, not a flicker. She’d wanted it gone, that unwilling, unwitting connection - and now that it seemed it was, she wanted it back. Desperately.
Sarah had ducked inside and came back out with a plastic trash bag - Ellie recognized it as one from under her sink - which she wrapped around the dead man’s head. Then she and John hoisted the body and carted it proficiently in through Ellie’s door, as though they’d done such a thing dozens of times. Maybe they had. Ellie watched this bizarre procedure in bemusement, vaguely noting that John was favoring his left arm; he didn’t use it to lift.
She allowed her brother to tug her inside as well. As John and Sarah dropped the body near the wall, it became clear that the trash bag was to protect her floor from leaking fluids. Ellie stepped across her threshold again and stumbled over the handbag she’d dropped there a few minutes, a lifetime, ago.
Her phone was in there. Pro-action, she reminded herself, instead of reaction. Batting off Chuck’s support, she bent and picked the bag up. But before she could open it, a large hand - John’s - appeared and pulled the bag from her.
“Can’t let you do that,” he said, and nothing else. He rooted one-handed through her bag, removed her phone, and slipped it into his own pocket as she watched in silent anger.
“We’ll give it back,” Chuck placated. John cast him a look Ellie couldn’t interpret and turned away to talk to Sarah. Ellie heard him remark sarcastically about men Sarah cuffed not staying cuffed. A low-voiced argument erupted from their direction, but Chuck distracted his sister by tugging on her arm.
“Ellie, please sit down. I know - I know you have questions.”
What else was there to do? Ellie sat where her brother gestured, her couch. Such a mundane object, a couch, to be present and solid beneath her when her world had gone insane. Questions? She had more than questions. She had ... she didn’t know what she had.
Maybe nothing. No Devon. Perhaps not a brother, because it seemed she knew nothing about who he really was. She certainly didn’t have John - or whoever he was.
“You’ve been living a lie.” That was what she chose to say, sitting with her fingers curled into her palms, her confusion and fear and anger audible. Her chest felt quivery, and she felt she had a right, damn it, to some answers. She had just been a hostage, a gun had been held to her head, over whatever Chuck was mixed up in.
And John Casey had saved her. She didn’t know what that meant, but it meant ... something.
Chuck winced and collapsed down beside her. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Ellie watched him, wondering. This was her brother? He opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling, and his face suddenly appeared older than his years; weariness sat on his shoulders like a cloak. Ellie frowned, concern for him rising out of old habit and a sister’s heart.
“I never planned out what to actually say to you, if it came to it,” he murmured. “I imagined you knowing the truth a hundred times. I just never ... I never expected it to happen like this.”
Despite her anger, Ellie couldn’t take his pain - she’d never been able to. “Why don’t you start,” she returned sternly, but reaching out to clasp his arm, “with what the ‘truth’ is?”
“Chuck,” snapped a voice from behind them. Those two seemed to do that a lot, the snapping. This time it was John, from where he stood with a good vantage point - and line of fire, Ellie supposed - over the two restrained but still living men in black who were on her floor.
“Are you kidding me?” Chuck shot back at John, sitting up, his voice laden with derision. “You can’t possible be thinking we’re going to come up with a story to cover this. Face it, Casey. Our cover’s blown, all to hell. It’s time to tell the truth.”
John snarled. There was no other word for it, and Ellie flinched. Sarah moved in to lay a hand on John’s forearm; Ellie eyed that and flashed back to her earlier suspicions about those two. Sarah and Chuck weren’t at all lover-ey, right now, and so it seemed that relationship had been part of the lie. Were John and Sarah together?
Appalled at herself, she shoved that question aside. Her brother was involved in something dangerous, something big, something life-threatening, and here she sat trying to guess who was sleeping with whom? Priorities, woman.
Bartowski began to tell his story to his sister, and John let it happen. Flash-boy was right, after all; there was no pulling this one back in. Sarah made sure he kept it minimal, though; the Intersect was a code name for information Chuck possessed, Chuck was a national security asset, and he, Sarah, and John were a team. That was enough, for now, and even that was more than Ellie ought to know, for her own safety and that of others. Her having this knowledge meant decisions had to be made.
Casey watched Ellie’s face out of the corner of his eye. Her hold on her brother’s arm became a clutch, and she interrupted a few times with a rather frantic catch to her voice. He watched the tale sink in, watched it hurt, watched her fear. Seeing that was worse than the pain from his no-longer-numb left shoulder. He had to consciously relax his jaw.
This was all too much for any person to absorb at one time. Casey knew that. So he hadn’t approached her after shooting the bastard who’d held the gun to her head; he’d just watched out of his peripheral vision while Chuck did what John wanted to. She didn’t keel over, she didn’t lose it - he’d half-expected some form of hysterics, but though she came close it didn’t happen. Tough stuff, Ellie Bartowski.
He quickly squelched the sensation of pride that rose from his gut. She wasn’t his. Now more than ever, that was an outlandish idea. A relationship with a spy couldn’t be what Ellie wanted out of life. Thanks to Devon, John knew how she felt about people she cared for involving themselves in life-risking activities. Well, he risked his life for a living. So it was pretty clear where they were going: nowhere. He ignored the way his chest tightened at the thought, and he pretended to ignore her. For now.
But as he covertly watched her absorb the truth (the parts of it that Sarah allowed) about her brother, and saw the worry and concern play over her features, he also came to the realization - partly because of that tight feeling in his chest - that he couldn’t wimp out without a fight. Every fiber of his character rejected that idea. And now that Woodcomb was out of the picture, it would be a just fight. He wanted to give her - give himself - give them, dammit - a shot. One try. Even though it went against policy, even though spies weren’t supposed to form attachments, and even though he knew there was not a chance in hell.
Ellie stood from her seat to face her brother and roughly reprimand him for keeping secrets and putting himself into harm’s way; but in her gestures and expression were all the familial care and concern that John had come to expect from her. That was what Ellie Bartowski was all about - caring. Especially for her family.
And that was, very suddenly and very fiercely, what John wanted. So even though he couldn’t get out of his head the image of her hands raised before his own gun, and even though hard anger still curled his innards into knots at the memory of the bastard Fulcrum agent’s revolver pushed up against her forehead ... even though he knew it was completely pointless, he was going to try. Later - when she’d had a chance to absorb it all, when she’d gotten some perspective - he was going to make a try for her. Once.
And then he’d walk away.
Ellie lost some of her numbness and a lot of her jitters as Chuck told his story - his insane, incredible, but patently authentic story - in characteristic disjointed fashion, with occasional guidance from Sarah. John contributed nothing, occupying himself with keeping an eye on the two living members of the crew that had broken into the house.
Ellie couldn’t help noticing that John’s attention seemed to be everywhere but on her.
So he was a hero. A big damn hero, Major John Casey, every day of his life. Her last remaining valid reason to not want a relationship with him crumbled away, to be replaced by gloom, because any evidence that he might want her was gone, too.
She forced herself to face the possibility that his attraction to her had just been a part of his cover. But after about ten seconds, she gave it up. She couldn’t make herself believe that all that smoldering heat had been feigned. So, what was it, then? She was confused. Given the morning’s events, now was probably not the time to be trying to figure out another person’s feelings toward her. But she was having difficulty redirecting her thoughts.
It wasn’t long before the clean-up crew … the sweepers … whatever they were, Ellie couldn’t remember the spy-speak label Sarah had used … arrived. They carted off the body and the two living men, somehow had the bloodstain gone from the courtyard in a matter of minutes and even mopped up the coffee spill inside her front door that had been pretty low on Ellie’s list of priorities. One of the crew stopped at Sarah’s elbow with a nod in Ellie’s direction and said something not meant for Ellie’s ears. Ellie sat up straight from where she’d been wearily leaning against the couch back.
Sarah replied with words that were inaudible to Ellie, but short and stern. The man left.
“What was that about?” Ellie demanded. Because whatever it was had definitely been about her.
“Never mind,” Sarah said hastily. Ellie parted her lips to press the issue. John’s voice pulled her up short.
“Just tell her.” His voice was low and rough. He was standing behind Ellie’s couch; when she turned her head, she saw he was in his classic guard position, feet shoulder-width apart, spine soldier-straight, arms folded - though the right arm was clearly supporting the injured left. Well, now she knew where that came from. That guarding posture was real, as real as the gun he currently wore openly. Should she be distressed that now, knowing he actually was responsible for the safety of a large number of people, her heart curled tightly around the image of his on-guard stance and refused to let it go? Probably she should, but she decided rashly that that was just too bad. Whatever he was feeling, her own emotions toward him were the same.
Except stronger, maybe. Which was going to be a problem. Ellie stifled a groan.
“Ellie.” Sarah was evidently nominated to deliver the bad news, whatever it was. Ellie felt a need to be on the defensive, and so stood with her arms akimbo. She was pleased to find her legs were steady.
“This isn’t information you were supposed to ever have. Now that you do, you’re a liability. To us, to the mission, and to Chuck. You’re going to be … of concern, to the CIA, the NSA, Fulcrom, and others. It’s not a tenable situation, as things stand.”
Ellie squinted at her irritably. What was the girl trying to say?
“Spit it out, Walker,” John snapped from behind Ellie, giving voice to her thoughts.
“We have to discuss this with General Beckman,” Sarah snapped right back. Ellie felt a grudging amusement and respect, that she didn’t let her partner just bulldoze over her. “We can work something out.”
“Like what?” John grunted, moving around to the front of the couch until he was facing Ellie, and meeting her eyes for the first time since saving her life. Their impact sliced at her soul like lasers, painfully, and Ellie swallowed. It wasn’t any easier to hear what he said than it was to meet his eyes. “You’re going to have to be handled so as to minimize the danger you present to this team and to national security.”
I’m a threat to national security. Ellie felt a bubble of highly inappropriate laughter welling in her throat and swallowed again to keep it down.
“Relocation to a secure facility for an indefinite amount of time is most likely,” John finished, “for both of you.” Short and sweet and to the point, that was John. Or whatever he was really called.
“What, no memory wiping drugs?” Ellie muttered sarcastically. John met her gaze squarely.
“They’re generally unsuccessful when the knowledge the subject possesses is tied to strong emotion, as it is in your case, since a close family member is involved.”
Oh. Ellie rubbed her palm over her eyes, not bothering to explain that she’d spoken facetiously, thinking such drugs were no more than science fiction. John knew that, and was doing what he could to orient her to the truth - the harsh truth - about her new situation by treating the question seriously. She didn’t know how she knew this, but she did.
And she was oddly grateful for the respect his action paid her intellect and her character, in that it revealed his expectation that she would be able to handle the truth. Memory-wiping drugs existed. Chuck Bartowski was a government spy. John Casey killed people.
John Casey saved people.
Chuck, apparently, didn’t have quite the same amount of respect. “We have to talk to General Beckman first,” he insisted. “We can figure something else out.”
John eyed him sideways. “And if not, you’ll what? Threaten to quit?”
Chuck pulled his shoulders back and met John’s eyes, managing only to look awkward and out of his depth. When he spoke, though, there was a steely certainty in his voice that Ellie hadn’t heard in … ever. She watched her brother’s face. There were definitely depths to him she hadn’t suspected. She’d hoped to see him grow as a person. She wasn’t sure she liked the way he appeared to have done it.
“Castle,” John finally barked, breaking eye contact with Chuck and ceding something - Ellie didn’t know what. He headed out the door without further ado, still favoring that arm, leaving Chuck to collect Ellie at Sarah’s direction and herd her along.
“Where are we going?” she demanded. Chuck flashed a grin over his shoulder, the first she’d seen from him today. Ridiculously, it lifted her spirits.
“Secret spy base,” he returned in a deep, phony television announcer’s voice. Ellie rolled her eyes.
He hadn’t been kidding, though. They blindfolded her - blindfolded her, like they were in some B-rated spy movie - and told her it was for her own protection. And it worked; she found after the ride that she couldn’t later direct anyone to the secret spy base, even under torture. She stared around at the gleaming high-tech surfaces of the facility as they stowed her behind a see-through door. She put her hand on its jamb before it swung shut, causing Casey, who’d been in the act of closing it, to pause.
“I’m a doctor, you know,” she asserted, trying to ignore how her heart leapt whenever she caught his attention, frowning face or no. “Keeping secrets is part of my job, and the last thing in the world that I would want to do is endanger my brother or, or y- you.” She’d been thinking of him and Sarah both, the pair, but it came out sounding differently and she paused at that unintended confession. His eyebrow twitched; she rushed on, not giving him a chance to say anything. “You don’t have to put me under lock and key - I just won’t tell anyone anything. No talking about what I’ve seen, or what you’ve told me today.”
John’s expression morphed into something very still. “The thing about torture, Ellie,” he told her, his voice low and almost gentle, “eventually, everyone talks.”
He stood there for a moment, watching her absorb that. She had no words, and he dipped his chin. Once by one he lifted her fingers from the jamb, and then closed the door carefully. He left her standing there, enclosed, rubbing her thumb over the fingers he’d touched.
She could see the three of them, Chuck, Sarah, and Casey, but not hear them as they conducted the meeting with General Whoever. Sarah did much of the talking, to begin with, while Chuck stood with his arms crossed and his face growing more and more unhappy. Ellie moved to sit in the single chair provided in her tiny clear-walled space. Her brother finally burst out determinedly, disregarding Sarah’s attempts to quell him, and began to talk rapidly. John never said anything; he just observed all from under a lowered brow, his right arm casually clasping his left, leaning back against a wall. That arm was getting more painful; Ellie could see it in the tightness of his posture whenever he shifted.
His attention was trained on Chuck’s interchange with the monitor that Ellie couldn't see. Frustrated by her forced inactivity and helplessness, she hopped up from her chair to pace around the little, call it what it was, cell. The motion drew John’s eyes; and before he could glance away again, Ellie stomped down the quiver of hopelessly mangled fear and attraction that the eye contact engendered to gesture at him. She put every ounce of imperious doctor-ness into the arm wave that she could; she might not be able to take part in the discussion of her own future, damn it, but there was one thing she could do very well. And it would give her something to think about besides relocation and lock down facilities. John looked away to Chuck and Sarah, and then with a rueful twist to his lips he levered his torso off the wall and came to her.