A/N: Its a shame that I seem to have lost most of the readers of this fic before the end. Though I'll admit I mostly wrote it for myself, and I did hope it'd get more readers/reviewers. Ah well, nevermind. My thanks to those that have been reading and reviewing throughout. Here's the end of the Casey/Marie tale...

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 10

"I am sorry for the loss of Agent Clarke" said Beckman, though her facial expression barely altered, as always, "She did her job admirably and died in the line of duty. We'll see to it she gets a fitting send off" she told the assembled Team Bartowski, "I'll arrange for her to be picked up this evening"

"What about the Fulcrum assholes that did this to her?" asked Casey with barely disguised anger, though he was doing his best to keep it together in front of his boss.

"Thankfully they won't be giving us any more problems" Beckman assured both him and the others too, "From the intel you gained earlier in the mission, we were able to track them down after they left their warehouse base. They were all captured by a team just outside of town, including their leader"

"Justice is served" said Chuck quietly, glad to know that those who had callously allowed a member of his team, a friend in a lot of ways, be killed so needlessly were being brought to account somehow.

Beckman was gone from the screen in a moment, leaving Team Bartowski alone with just each other. None of them really knew what to say for the best, not least because Casey looked ready to commit murder at any second. Sarah was sure if she or Chuck so much as breathed wrong he was going to hit the ceiling, and though that would be wrong and unfair, she did understand. When she lost Bryce, or rather when she thought she had, Sarah was sure she had never felt such pain and loss. Her heart was broken, and though she had often wondered if Casey even had a functioning heart of his own, there was no doubting that he was overwhelmed by how much he felt right now.

Though she was sure he was trying not to do it, his eyes kept drifting to the back room where they had laid Marie's body. It seemed wrong to talk about her that way, but the facts were what they were. Getting shot, that was sometimes fixable, more often than not for agents like them, but the impact of the explosion seemed to have been too much for Agent Clarke's body to take, knocking the life clean out of her. Nothing they could've done would have brought her back, not a thing, though Chuck had named every possible way he could think of from every conceivable medical drama he had ever watched on TV and a few more besides. He was struggling too, unable to cope with the fact a friend and co-worker had been taken in such a way. When the bad guys went down you didn't think about it much, just congratulated yourself on getting out of a situation alive. This was so very different.

"C'mon, Chuck" said Sarah quietly, standing behind his seat and putting a hand to his shoulder til he looked around, "Let's go get some air" she said with a look that told him what this was really about.

Casey needed some alone time, maybe just to think, perhaps even to cry over his loss. Some people felt the need to say goodbye to those they'd lost, even though it was obviously too late. Whatever the big guy needed, Chuck wanted him to do it and so didn't say a word as he left with Sarah. He had a hundred things he would've liked to have said, but every single one sounded stupid even in his own head.

Alone at last. Casey felt strange just thinking those words. He wasn't completely alone, albeit Marie wasn't exactly here either. They had been here earlier, right here, enjoying the pleasures of being together. It was oddly comforting and at the same time overpoweringly painful to remember and Casey closed his eyes tight shut trying to push it all out of his head. On finding the task impossible, he finally lost his cool, spinning round and sweeping stacks of files, papers, and more off the counter behind him. An almost inhuman growling roar escaped his lips, as tears he damned to Hades for being there dared to well up in his eyes.

In the silence that followed, Casey just concentrated on breathing and being calm. He had to find some kind of peace in him, had to let all this anger and sadness go. There wasn't time to be sentimental, he wasn't going to turn into some sap like Bartowksi would. There was no denying that losing a person from your life that meant something to you was going to hurt like hell, but he'd known this day was coming from the start. Marie was going to leave, if not today then very soon, and the likelihood of him ever seeing her again was less than zero. It shouldn't matter that nobody else was ever going to see her alive again either, but it did. It hurt so much he could scream, and yet through all this twisted agony, Casey was still alert and aware. He was hard-wired with agent training, and so when a clattering sound came from the back room he was immediately headed in that direction, a gun in his hands and ready for whatever came next - at least that was the idea.

Absolutely nothing could have prepared Agent John Casey for the sight that met his eyes when he entered the room where he had laid Marie down just a couple of hours before. Instead of a quiet peaceful figure of a woman, Agent Clarke now looked far from done for this world. Pulled up on her knees, she was slamming her hand against the bed, coughing like her lungs were coming up and looking mostly like she was about to heave.

"Son of a..." Casey muttered in shock, holstering his gun without a thought and rushing over to the side of the bed, "Marie?" he checked, almost unable to believe this was happening, half wondering if he was losing his mind.

"For the love of all that's holy!" she gasped, flipping onto her back, before a further coughing fit took her over, "I am gonna kill the lab rat that gave me that stuff!" she seethed, and though she was clearly suffering and very angry, Casey couldn't help but smile.

She was alive. Marie Clarke was very much in the land of the living and it made a kind of joy explode in Casey's heart that he never thought possible. It didn't make sense, and his over-riding need to get an explanation out of her would kick in soon enough, but right now he was just basking in the fact she was here, she was breathing, she wasn't dead.

Breathing evenly at last, Marie turned her head to stare at John Casey and the goofy smile still on his lips. She doubted he realised he was grinning like an idiot and she wasn't about to tell him. She preferred the happy to the anger she was doubtless going to face before long.

"Hey, Johnny" she said with a smile of her own, albeit a shaky one, "You miss me?" she asked, as if she'd just been gone to the store too long, or lost in the woods, not gone from this mortal coil as she had appeared to be just a moment before.

"What? You mean you went somewhere?" he asked, making her want to laugh but when she tried another cough came out instead.

"Geez, they tell you about the after effects of this stuff but, seriously, ow!" she declared as she sat herself up some, trying to get her breath, "Well, I guess it's time for the truth, huh?" she sighed as she glanced up at Casey who had now got to his feet and was fetching a chair to sit on by the bed, "I didn't die, not really, but then I guess that's obvious"

"You took something" he guessed, "One of those drugs. Poison that suspends body functions, makes you seem dead"

"Give the guy a coconut" Marie joked, pushing her hair out of her face, "If it's any consolation, I feel like death" she added, only realising then that she was shaking some and pulled a nearby blanket around her shoulders.

"So, you got out before the building went up" said Casey, "How'd you know they were going to...?"

"I didn't" she interrupted, knowing that men had been shot for lesser crimes than that when it came to Major Casey and his temper, but she wasn't a man and she'd taken enough chances in her life so far, one more wouldn't hurt, "I was one step ahead in a lot of ways though. I knew they thought I was the Intersect to start off with. Knew they'd use me somehow but ultimately that I had to get away..." she tried to explain but every so often her head would spin violently with the after effects of the drugs and it was all she could do not to throw up, "I'm sorry" she said, with her eyes closed and her head leant back against the wall, "Sorry I had to lie and let you believe I was gone"

"I still don't understand why you did that" Casey shook his head, "You could've trusted me"

"Hey, come on" she replied, her eyes popping out and she looked just as angry as he did, "You know I trust you" she said definitely, "Probably more than I should actually" she admitted, "but I couldn't trust myself" she sighed.

Casey still didn't get it. As smart as he was what she'd done couldn't be quantified in his head and Marie knew he needed a real explanation from her. This was actually the exact conversation she'd wanted to avoid, and yet it was not to be.

"I hate goodbyes" she told him simply, a sad smile on her lips, "I have to do them a lot, but they don't get easier, and walking away from you a second time..." she shook her head, "Yeah, that was gonna be a real doozy, but it wasn't just avoiding the sweet sorrow of parting ways" she went on, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders as she shivered involuntarily one more time, "Too many people know who I am, on both sides of this divide. Fulcrum and the Asset and Walker... My cover has gotten so blown, I was pretty much gonna be no use for the job I was born to do"

"So you fake your own death, get a new identity, start over a long way from here" Casey finished for her, sure that was what she was going to say.

Immediately, Marie nodded that he was correct.

"I set the whole thing up with Beckman" she explained, "and I know I could've told you about it, John, but honestly, I thought this would be easier. If you thought I was gone, the real definite kind of gone... I don't know, I just thought it would be easier" she repeated, not loving how sentimental she was feeling right now, knowing he must be even more uncomfortable with the fact they were talking about emotions and such.

These were things that agents weren't supposed to have. The cardinal rule was that you never fell, and yet here they were, her knowing that on some level she was in love with this guy, no matter how hard she tried to fight it. Without wishing to be presumptive, she could easily imagine he felt the same about her. He'd never say it, but she doubted at this point he could deny it and she'd believe him.

For Casey this whole situation was pretty surreal and the honest truth was he wasn't sure what he was supposed to say. He wanted to be mad at Marie for trying to keep a plan as big as this from him, but he could see her reasons and he understood them. He wanted to tell her what he really felt about her, but he wasn't great at verbalising that kind of thing. Besides, that kind of declaration would only make it harder when she had to leave, and she did have to do that very soon.

"I wish you'd told me the truth" he told her with a look, "Also wish you were in a fit state for me to kiss you goodbye" he added in a moment of odd truthfulness and with a smile that even Marie had only seen a few rare times since she'd known the guy.

"Give me a minute, I'll get there" she smiled back, unable to help herself, "I guess you're gonna miss me, huh?" she asked, her grin widening.

"Don't get cocky, Clarke" Casey advised though he was still smiling just the same as he moved to sit next to her on the bed, leant back against the wall just like she was.

"I'm sure gonna miss that name" she sighed, pushing her hair back out of her face again, and wincing some as her body protested at being moved at all.

Casey looked at her a little oddly then, perhaps too caught up on all that was happening to realise what Marie really meant by that.

"I meant what I said" she told the man she'd played the part of girlfriend to for a while and loved it, "Marie Clarke has to be dead for me to do my job. The new ID's already being made" she explained what Casey ought to have already realised, "Hi, my name's Jane Linderman" she told him, looking all perky and innocent as she held out a hand as if to shake on an introduction, "You think it suits me?" she asked, with a sadness in her eyes that made a liar out of her smile.

John Casey had always been a man of few words, preferring actions to verbalising anything much. Still, this whole thing was enough to make even his usual brief comments all but disappear. He didn't know where to begin with her, in all honesty he never really had, and he certainly didn't know how to end things. His hand slipped to the side of her face, pushing her hair aside, cupping her grazed cheek.

"You'll always be Marie to me" he said, too softly for his own liking but his voice was as out of his control as everything else right now.

"Where's that kiss I was hearing about before?" she asked, sure her own words were going to fail her before long, as well as her resolve not to cry.

When his lips covered hers then, they knew this was it. This was where the journey ended and they went their separate ways. They would part, he would have to walk out of this room as she succumbed to a second dose of whatever she had taken the first time around. Marie Clarke's body would leave the Castle and be delivered wherever she needed to be. Jane Linderman would be the phoenix to rise from her ashes, but this man she clung to now would never meet her.

Finally forced to part, it was clear neither Marie nor Casey wanted this to really be over, but they had jobs to do and that mattered more than whatever they were feeling, at least that was what they would tell themselves, today and every day that followed.

"I can't believe I'm ever going to forget you" she said, blinking hard to keep from crying in front of him, "You're a hell of a man, John Casey" she told him, her fingers lingering at his cheek, running down his chest as he made himself stand up and turn away from her.

Reaching inside her clothes, Marie pulled out the second pill she had secreted just in case this very situation occurred. She stared at it in her hand a moment then glanced toward the doorway in which Casey stood, his back to her now.

"I'd ask if you're gonna remember me too" she said, making him look back at her one last time, "but I know you will" she smiled, committing his face to memory as he returned the look.

A minute later and Marie Clarke was gone, as John Casey walked out of the room, then out of the Castle completely.

Life was never going to feel quite the same from here on out, but he still had a job to do, and that was what he lived for.

- The End -

A/N2: So there you have it. Any thoughts on the ending? I would love to hear them! :-)