Sunlight squeezed in the room through the gaps in the curtains, straining to fill the darkness, the tiny embers of light seemed to bounce off of the walls and gradually began to illuminate the room. Just when it was about bright enough, the alarm clock sounded like a drum, every second it seemed to increase in volume, a deep groan was audible from the bed.

"Baby turn it off." Sarah mumbled from her face in the pillow.

Chuck didn't move.

"Chuck!" Sarah said louder this time.

He removed his arm from Sarah's waist and slammed his fist down on the bane of his existence.

"Morning, babe." He said, his voice heavy with sleep, he heard her weak reply, he moved his hand back down to her waist and pulled her close, burying his face in her hair, waking up next to her made the early mornings more than worth it. He shifted his head slightly and kissed her neck gently, that certainly woke her up. Just like that morning in Barstow, her head turned and her story-telling icy blue eyes met his loving, warm chocolate ones and like ice hitting fire, something explosive happened deep inside of her.

She moved her eyes to his lips. "Hey." She was suddenly wide awake now.

"We'd better get up." Chuck grumbled, "we have to meet Morgan down in Castle in less than an hour."

Sarah sighed and propped herself up on one elbow, and with the other, gently stroked his face. "Surely five more minutes wouldn't hurt?" She eyed him suggestively.

He knew her expression oh-so well. "Sarah, no, that would make us really late." He protested meekly.

"Okay." She closed the gap between them and kissed him slowly and sensually, as though her lips were made of silk as they moved against his, then she kissed him harder, more urgently, her tongue dancing with his, she bit his bottom lip softly.

"Maybe five minutes won't hurt." Chuck panted.

"Make that ten.." She replied.

"Or fifteen." He pulled the duvet over them as Sarah giggled.

A little while later, a freshly showered Sarah pulled up a seat opposite to Chuck, and tucked into her cereal. She grinned at him from across the table.

"We're half an hour late now." He pretended to sound grumpy.

"Don't pretend like it wasn't worth it."

"You're right, it was definitely worth it." His grew playful and her expression mirrored his.

"Chuck, stop it!" She growled.

"Stop what?" He questioned, his mouth rising into that cute half smile that he always did.

"Being so irresistible."

"Well," he raised an eyebrow, "I can't really turn it off."

She laughed and carried on eating as they chatted about their day ahead over their breakfast, and then lightly argued over whose turn it was to do the dishes. They decided they had better get going after ten more minutes, they dashed out to the car and headed to Castle. Chuck pressed on the radio whilst Sarah's eyes were focused on the road, he knew she didn't like music much, especially first thing in the morning, but he was working on it.

"Ugh, Pendulum at this time in the morning?" She shook her head.

"Arcade fire? Oasis? The Black Keys?" He tried to compromise as he scrolled through his iPod.

"How about some good old Nina?" She suggested.

"Ah, our good friend, Ms Simone." He put her album on and they shared a knowing look, they had spent many a night under the duvet covers with her soothing voice tinkling in the background.

When they finally graced Castle with their presence and sheepishly glided down the stairs, Morgan greeted them with his arms folded, and the newest addition to their team with the same stance standing behind him.

"Sorry, Morgan, Sullivan." Chuck turned to the others sitting behind the computers and nodded as a form of apology. "We, um, woke up late."

"Of course you did." Morgan frowned and then shrugged. "We have a new assignment. Casey sent us some intel on his travels with Virbanski, he needed some outside help, which by that I mean us."

"Yeah, well just tell us what we need to do." Sarah sat down and pulled Chuck with her.

"No need." Morgan replied, scratched his beard and turned on the big screen in front of them. Casey's unusually tanned face appeared on the screen and he gave a small smile, the way only a Casey can.

"Casey! How are you finding sunny Cairo?" Chuck piped up.

"This ain't a social call, Bartowski." He grunted, with a slight glint in his eye. "There's some big drug smuggling operation going down here, an anonymous source has tipped us off that it's going to be travelling straight to America - it's being transported in animals."

"Gross." Chuck wrinkled his nose and elicited a smile from his admiring wife.

"Agents have died trying to prevent this from happening. But Gertrude and I have found that the organisation is called Grud -"

"Hey.. That's drugs backwards." Morgan said slowly.

"Thanks Captain Obvious. Anyway, Chuck, we need you to hack into their server to try and find some intel, Sarah can you run some names on some of the suspected rogue agents and find out their whereabouts - and Morgan, send over an agent or two. We could do with a few extra pair of hands."

"On it, Casey." He said, already thinking of who he was going to select.

"Sarah, I've emailed you the details, I gotta go." With that the screen went blank and everyone set about their tasks, Sarah let herself appreciate for a second how much she loved how they ran things here, and how she and Chuck were able to live a more normal life by not being out in the field with their lives in danger, but yet they were still able to act as spies, but from behind the scenes, that was how Carmichael Industries worked for them.

For the next few hours that led up to lunchtime, Sarah looked up every so often and affectionately looked over at Chuck, driven and focused with his headphones in as he hacked into Grud's system, she felt her heart give a loving skip and it grew heavy whilst she thought about how much she loved him, it ran deeper than her heart, further inside herself than the ventricles in her heart, right to the depth of her soul she loved him as violently as a passing storm, as fiercely as an erupting volcano and as naturally as the rain that fell from the sky, loving him was an instinct, a necessity in her life.

She easily found the intel before lunchtime and sent the details over to Casey, she ran over to Chuck and wondered if he wanted a lunch break, he hastily agreed.

"What do you feel like?" Chuck wondered.

"Hmm." She pondered that thought. "Subway?"

"Sure." He looked over to Morgan who was on the phone to Alex. "Buddy, do you want anything from Subway?"

He laughed. "Do I want anything from Subway? Why bother asking? I'll have the usual thanks." He grinned.

"I'll have the usual, too." Sullivan said.

"Me too."

"Me too."

"Oh and me!" Several voices piped up.

"Oh for God's sake, Chuck." Sarah hissed as they crossed out into the daylight, "now we're going to need a trolley to get that many sandwiches back to Castle, you shouldn't have asked."

"Don't get grumpy cause you're hungry, babe, sorry, I had to ask." He shrugged helplessly.

"I know, it's because you're always the nice guy." She hugged him in apology and kissed him lightly on the lips, she let the stress of work escape her as they strolled hand in hand in the sunshine.

Before they knew it, their Monday was over with, and they crashed through their front door and tumbled, exhausted onto the sofa. She curled up into him as he flicked on the TV and rested her head on his lap, she looked up at him and her eyes sparkled. "I love you."

"I love you too." He loved the little ways in which she came out with it every day and every time they uttered it, it never became any less significant than the first time they had exchanged those words to each other. He kissed her lovingly and pulled her onto his lap, she pulled her arms around him and melted into his embrace.

"What do you say to ordering a pizza tonight?"

"I say yes. I'm too tired to cook." Sarah agreed.

Chuck?"

"Yeah?"

"Can we watch Die Hard?" She pleaded.

"Again?" His eyes crinkled with amusement.

"Yeah, I just love it so much."

He sighed while smiling. "Okay."

"And then.. Maybe we can do a round or two of baby-making."

"My, my, Mrs Bartowski, aren't we ambitious today?"

She hit him playfully. "Shut up and order the pizza."

A/N: Hey, I know I don't really post stuff anymore apart from the odd prompts I write for tumblr. I stick mainly to one shots because I don't want to start something I can't finish, I'm not the most consistent of authors to be honest, but, hey maybe one day when I'm not non-committal and seventeen – I might. Please review by the way