Missing scene from Ep 3.8.
Warnings: violence, language
Spoilers: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR 3.8

After they are safe, after Sarah is alive and they are all breathing, Chuck stands up.

Shaw is still kneeling by Sarah, and Chuck doesn't look at them, doesn't want to.

He walks over to the window, barely flinching as he steps over the body.

"No, Chuck, stay away from the window-" Sarah says.

"It's okay," Chuck answers quickly as he looks outward at the distant tower of a building, and gently sets his finger on the bullethole in the pane. The heat of the shot is still there, almost burning, but Chuck doesn't move his hand. He just looks straight into the distance, to the source of their rescue, and says, "Only Casey...."

And Chuck knows that Casey can see them, is listening to them right now, but Chuck says nothing else aloud, even as he keeps looking at where Casey must be, his stare saying thank you and holy shit and you will catch me every time all at once.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chuck goes back over later to help Casey get rid of the bodies. He forgets when this stopped being a horror and started being a nice thing to do as a team player.

Casey is fussy. About everything: all the details of the cleanup, doing things right, leaving no trace. Chuck's used to it by now, but it had taken him a while to understand how all that fussiness could co-exist in a man whose fists and guns and angry eyes could make him seem like a wild animal. Eventually Chuck figures it out, and it doesn't seem so crazy.

It seems like being good at a job.

As Chuck triple-checks the floor for hairs or blood or other bodily fluids associated with dying, Chuck realizes that this should seem strange.

It doesn't.

It should also feel strange that he is saying nothing, just busily doing his work as his mind tries to work through one of the most confusing moments in his life, tries to calm himself after the adrenaline rush and the crash after, tries to figure out how he should feel about Shaw and Sarah and death and life and all of it. It should feel strange for Chuck to swallow everything he feels and everything he is, hiding it like it's too precious or foul to meet the air. But it doesn't.

And it doesn't even seem strange when Casey puts his hand on his shoulder and says, "I'll handle the rest of the cleanup, go home, Chuck," and he doesn't even say it with derision or disgust.

And it should be terrifyingly strange that Chuck thinks of Casey as the one he can turn to, the only one he can be honest with. But it feels right, and so Chuck looks up from where he has knelt on the carpet and says, numb, almost matter-of-fact, "I think somewhere along the line I went crazy."

Casey grunts. And Chuck knows this one, knows that Casey is saying that that there's nothing wrong with thinking that, that the secrets and blood of the intelligence world lurking within and behind the everyday workings of normal lives -- that the reality -- is crazy. Casey gives this to him, this commiseration as almost-equals: a reward for Chuck speaking his insanity as an accepted truth, not as a complaint or a refusal or a plea.

And Chuck knows it should feel strange when Casey kneels beside him, right on the cleaned-up bloodstain, and takes the back of Chuck's neck in his hand, when Casey kisses him on the lips and fills him up with heat and comfort and forgetting.

And it should be strange that Casey is soft. His lips are soft, even the motion of his tongue is soft and steady and careful.

Casey parts and looks at Chuck and says, slow and focused, like when he explains something that could save Chuck's life: "Look, you can either find a way to let off steam or you can go crazy. That's just the reality, Chuck."

Chuck nods and goes back to his work. He doesn't look at Casey, even though he is flushed almost red, and Casey stands, backs off, doesn't even look offended.

It should be strange for Chuck to hear himself say, "I'll stop by your place later tonight." He says it casually, like it's not even a request, like it's a fact.

Casey doesn't think it's strange. He grunts, and Chuck knows it means "Don't be late."

AN: Written for comment_fic, inspired by the prompt "Chuck/Casey, reality is the crazy part"