Note: This was written for a prompt at comment_fic livejournal.

Coriander

Eleanor Fay Bartowski, M.D. 31. Chuck Bartowski's sister.

That's all she was. His target's sister. Harming her should be avoided – civilians are to be protected – and the only reason why he was even informed of her existence was because she happened to share an apartment with Bartowski. The sad excuse for a man who'd downloaded the Intersect into his brain. The man he had to capture.

It should've been an easy, short mission. Just find the guy alone – away from his sister, because Eleanor Fay Bartowski, M.D. had nothing to do with the mess her brother had gotten himself into – and bring him back to the General. Easy. He'd killed Bryce Larkin; capturing a lanky nerd would only take him five mintues. Tops.

And then everything started to go wrong. Walker – the CIA – got involved, Bartowski helped them defuse a bomb, and suddenly Major Casey found himself on a long-term mission as his former target's handler. Wearing a green polo shirt for his cover job at the Buy More. Living next door to Bartowski, his sister and her boyfriend (Devon Christian Woodcomb, M.D. 31), and spending all his waking hours looking at the security cameras in Bartowski's house. His only consolation was the fact that he wasn't the one having to sell wieners.

The family dinners started shortly afterwards. And he wasn't too thrilled about them, not when they meant spending even more time with Bartowski and Grimes. But those dinners involved some of the best homemade dishes he'd ever tasted, friendly conversation and a false sense of normalcy that he found almost appealing. Almost. And, before he knew it, the family dinners became the highlight of his week (gunfights excluded), and Eleanor Fay Bartowski became Ellie. Major Casey wasn't completely sure which of those two developments came first.

He told himself he was just doing his job. Walker seemed to be perfectly content with keeping a close eye on Bartowski at all times, and someone had to protect the civilians. That was his job. He put his life on the line to save people. Killed – or thought he killed but then realized spies sometimes liked to come back to life – the bad guys so the good ones could go on with their lives. It was his job. So he stayed home and made sure nothing happened to Ellie. Watched the security tapes in case some Fulcrum bastard dared to sneak into the apartment when she was alone inside.

And it's not that he didn't want to keep Woodcomb safe – he never became Devon or even Awesome, he stayed Woodcomb for him – or that he thought he didn't need protection, but for some reason Major Casey didn't pay such obsessive attention to the cameras when Ellie wasn't around. Or when Woodcomb was with her. Maybe it was because he didn't want to risk another close-up of Woodcomb's sweaty behind while he exercised in his spandex shorts, or because he felt like a creep for watching a young couple in love doing what couples in love do on the living room couch. Or maybe it was because he realized that the more he watched, the more he wanted to shoot Woodcomb in the face. Either way, he preferred to do his surveillance work when it was just Ellie in the house.

He couldn't pinpoint the exact moment when things shifted and he realized he was almost as bad as Walker and her "professional concern" for Bartowski. It may have been when he lost Ilsa once again and the only thing he wanted was for Bartowski to come knocking on his door to tell him there was a family dinner going on. He would even have been grateful for Grimes being the one to invite him. Or maybe it was when he found himself wondering whether Ellie would like a little more basil on his mini quiches, or if she'd like coriander instead. Then again, it may have been when he felt a tinge of sympathy for Grimes after Ellie rejected him once again. He couldn't be sure.

Whenever it was – however it happened – the truth was things had changed. It was personal. She wasn't just the asset's sister anymore, and she wasn't even just that nice woman next door who made his mission a little more palatable. She was Ellie, and it was personal. He understood Bartowski's reluctance to lie to her, and his concern for her safety. Most of all, he understood his fear of being taken away from her. Because Eleanor Fay Bartowski, M.D may have been a brilliant doctor – he supposed he treated her patients with as much care as she did her soufflés – and an upstanding citizen, but Ellie was more than that. Ellie had a gift – like Bartowski's computer genius or Walker's impeccable knife-throwing technique or his own flawless aim – to make everyone around her feel safe. Even if they were fully aware of all the dangers out there. Even if they were a seasoned NSA agent who'd seen what most people could only have nightmares about.

For a few hours a week, Ellie made everyone in her life just a little bit better. Grimes tried to behave like a normal human being, Woodcomb was reminded of the reasons why he was the luckiest man in the world, Bartowski realized what he'd lose if he didn't give the mission his best, and Walker put even more effort on keeping Bartowski alive. And Major Casey? Every Friday night, Major Casey found a new reason to put on that green polo shirt and risk his life to save his country. Not that he didn't have enough reasons before – he loved his country, he was a man of honor and he believed in what he did – but knowing Ellie was one of the people he was saving made it just a little bit easier.

And that thought – the thought that the country he was risking his life for had Ellie in it – was what kept him going. Through easy missions made hard by Bartowski's incompetence, through the partner he'd grown to respect going soft-core rogue on them all and running away with Bartowski, and through having to attend Ellie's wedding to Woodcomb. She was also the reason why he didn't put a bullet into his own head when he realized Bartowski had downloaded yet another Intersect into his brain, and that he would be needing him to be a babysitter once again. At least he still had the family dinners.

----

"Hey, John. You made it." And he doesn't kiss her because she has a husband that's not him and Colonel Casey is a man of honor, but her being the one person in the world who is allowed to use his first name may just be even better.

"I brought mini quiches." Because she loves them and they make her smile and close her eyes and let out a little moan in pleasure when she takes the first bite. And he'll settle for that if it's the only way he can make her moan. "New recipe."

He watches her take a bite and close her eyes to concentrate on the taste, and tries to suppress the urge to pull a Walker and ask her to meet him in Prague and run away with him. "God, John." Sometimes he really wonders if she is aware of their as yet non-existent affair and she's trying to drive him insane. "I didn't think these could get even better, but the coriander was the perfect touch. You have to come over some time and teach me how to make them."

And because she noticed it was coriander, and because she smiled – bright and warm and just for him –, Colonel Casey thinks he may just accept her invitation one of these days.