I'm crazy. Totally and completely crazy. I have three AP classes, a Speech and Debate team to run, a quartet position to hold, and a job. Yes, a job. I'm as shocked as you are. So I'm starting a new story… yeah. All I can say is, and I'm so sorry about this, don't expect regular updates. It took me a week just to write this. But this idea has been in my head for a while, and it's all planned out, so I figured "What the hell?" (Back to the Future. Gotta love it.)

Anyway, I was inspired when my parents told me about their lives before me and my sister, and it turned out that they had both been married before they married each other. I just had this moment of "You guys had lives before you met? It wasn't always 'Mom and Dad'? There was a time of 'Mom and some stranger'? 'Dad with some stranger'?" It was a really strange moment, and they said "This is the family secret, now you know everything," and I thought "What if there's more?" So I related it to a family of secrets, and ta-da! This story was born! I hope you enjoy it!

Summary: Emma Bartowski knows her family has secrets, every family does, but is hers too much to handle? What happens when her parents past comes back to haunt her? Or when a certain someone comes back for revenge… again? (Crappy summary. My bad.)

Disclaimer: As much as it kills me, I don't own "Chuck".

Emma was dreaming. She knew it, she had to be. She was old enough to tell the difference between dream and reality- after all, she's a big kid now. With her fifth birthday a little less than a month behind her, Emma was already living up to her age. She picked up behind herself. She rinsed her plate and placed it in the dishwasher after meals. And, unlike her three year-old baby cousin Marty, she didn't come crying to her parents every time she had a bad dream. Because she knew the difference. Because she is five now.

After fully convincing herself that everything happening around her isn't real, Emma decided to try to figure out what was actually going on. She remembered her mommy coming into her room, picking her up, and carrying her to the car. The memory was fuzzy though, as it always becomes when you try to remember the beginning of a dream. As Emma was dozing off in her booster seat (yes booster seat, not car seats, because car seats are for babies. Booster seats are for older kids. Like five year olds.) she noticed that she wasn't in her mommy's SUV or her daddy's Nerd Herder. She was in a dark van, with one side lined with a table and computers and flashing lights, and the other side lined with a door and two chairs, one of which she was sitting in. Soon, the side had slid open and her mommy climbed in, carrying Emma's shoes and a jacket. After her mommy dressed her, she sat next to Emma in the other chair and stoked her hair until she dozed off again. Emma was later jerked out of her haze when the car suddenly lurched forward, and she realized that they had parked outside of a strange building, with her mommy still sitting next to her and her daddy sitting in the driver's seat. He looked around through the windshield, and then covered the window with a shiny material before her climbed over the seat to kneel next to Emma.

"Hey baby," He said softly, gently sliding his hand down the side of her head.

"Hi Daddy," Emma replied sleepily as she slowly closed her eyes.

"Chuck, I don't like this," Her mommy said softly, "I don't like using her, I thought we were out of the business."

"We are Sarah," Her daddy replied as he fiddled around with the computer equipment. "It's just one last mission."

"Never say 'one last mission'," Her mommy replied sternly.

"Sorry, but it will be. Besides, where else are we going to find the technology to finish the retraction device? And the security here is so tight; we need her to help us get past the coded doors. We need it."

"I know," Her mommy admitted in an almost defeated voice. Emma perked up a little at this. Mommy never sounded defeated, simply because it was impossible to defeat her. "But I still don't like it. She's only four."

Her daddy, noticing that Emma was beginning to wake up and pout, put on a goofy smile and said, "Five, honey, Mommy means to say that you're a strong five year-old who can handle this." The last four words were obviously aimed at her mommy.

"Good," Emma replied as she raised her fist and tried to rub the sleepy out her eyes. Her dream-self always ended up having hazy vision, and she was determined to not let that happen this time. She wanted to see everything that happens; this dream may be interesting.

Now they were walking down a darkened hallway, her parents on either side of her. She remembered them using their phones to open a door and, in their words, "disable security cameras." Emma looked up at her daddy and studied him carefully. He was wearing a black shirt, black pants, black combat boots, and black gloves. Over his shirt was a vest that held various objects she was too young to identify, but she noticed a holster attached to his belt and began to form a vague idea of what may be inside. She noticed his curly, brown hair and smiled at a memory of when he said that he grew it out so if he ever got lost, people could easily identify her as his kid and return him to her. She had always thought it would go the other way around. Emma looked over at her mommy and saw she was dressed similarly, holster and all, only her blonde, curled hair was wrapped up into a loose bun. Emma also noticed the way they were acting and moving. They both looked around cautiously, with focused looks in their eyes, and their hands hovering over their holster. They almost look like spies, Emma thought to herself. She giggled. Mommy and Daddy aren't spies!

Sarah noticed her daughter giggling and smiled, a strange, sentimental feeling rising in her chest. Ever since the accident, Sarah took Emma's moments of pure innocence more importantly than before. She wondered what the child was thinking right now. Hopefully she thought this whole thing was just a dream, or else this would be very tough to explain in the morning. Emma does have a very creative imagination, so it wouldn't be too hard to believe. Maybe Sarah should take her to do something fun tomorrow, like to the Wavehouse (she had been asking to ride the rollercoaster, since she believes she's old enough now), or down the Hollywood Walk-of-Fame (as horribly tacky and frightening as the random strangers dressed as famous characters were, Emma always thought they were the real person, and she loved having her picture taken), or maybe to the beach (Chuck had been wanting to teach her how to surf)- anything, as long as it got Emma's mind off of the "dream" and made her forget about it, hopefully forever.

Sarah was drawn out of her thoughts as she heard Chuck ask about their latest obstacle. "What do you think, take the stairs up the fourteen stories or risk the elevator?"

"Chuck," Sarah began tiredly, "the stairs. Have you learned nothing from your past ten years of experience?"

"I know, I know, I just thought, since we have Emma and all…" He trailed off as he caught sight of the look on her face. "Okay, the stairs, let's go."

It was ten times more exhausting than Chuck thought it would be. His three years of "retirement" had left him totally unprepared for raiding a fully-guarded CIA base, but so did Emma's sudden accident. If he thought the hardest part of tonight would be the stairs, then he was sorely mistaken.

"Alright Princess, I hope you enjoyed your little pony-back ride. Now get off so Daddy can stretch." He crouched down as Emma slid off of his back, and then stood up quickly. Blackness spotted his vision as a sickening pop registered in his ears. His hand flew to his spine as he crouched back down. "Oh God! My back!"

"Chuck, Honey, are you okay?" Sarah asked as she soothingly rubbed his obviously aching back.

"Peachy," He gasped. "Common gang, we got a mission to accomplish." With that, he waddled down the hall, crouched over and hand on his back. Sarah rolled her eyes while Emma laughed with obvious amusement.

As they walked, Chuck straightened up with one fluid motion, but kept his hand in place. It still hurt badly, and he should defiantly consult with a chiropractor, but Chuck knew he wasn't going to get anywhere if he kept up that ridiculous walk. He frowned at what happened. He didn't think he was at that age yet. It seemed only yesterday that he was chasing criminals on rooftops and making daring leaps from one building to another. Now, his back breaks every time he stands up. Lovely. It's not as if he's surprised, he knew he'd have to get old eventually, but now? Is that what his life has come to? Are the exciting, life-risking days over? He looked down at Emma and smiled. They may be, but his new days are much better. Chuck knew that as much as he missed being the American Hero, he always has the memories, and he couldn't have asked for a better retirement.

Chuck's thoughts were interrupted when the trio came upon a heavy door at the end of the hallway. Sarah quickly scoped out and disabled the security cameras while Chuck inspected the identification pad.

"Do you think they'd reject our code? I mean, it's only been, like, seven years, so…" Chuck trailed off, knowing his argument wouldn't be enough.

Sarah looked up at her husband with partial amusement and partial impatience. "Yes Chuck, I think they'll reject our code."

"Well, then maybe we should use, you know…" He jerked his head towards where Emma was sitting on the floor, playing with her fingernails.

"Absolutely not!" Sarah hissed back.

"Oh come on!" Chuck whisper-shouted with exaggerated arm motions. "It's the whole reason we brought her!"

"We brought her so we could get that thing out of her head! Not so we could use her! She's only five, she's not a sp-" Sarah was cut off by the sound of shoes squeaking against a freshly-polished floor. Ice poured across her veins, and her eyes immediately darted to the direction of the sound. Someone was coming.

Oh God, oh God, oh God, Sarah chanted to herself as she bent down to sweep up Emma. With one hand clamped firmly over her daughter's mouth, she sprinted over to the first door she saw, a janitor's closet, with Chuck close on her heels. Peering closely around the dimly-lit closet, she saw a rack against the wall opposite the door. There was an open space in between the floor and rack, and she quickly wiggled into the cavity with Emma still held tight in her arms. She looked up and saw Chuck up against a corner. A second later, he vanished behind a rack of emergency suits. And not a moment too soon, for the footsteps had stopped in front of the door.

Sarah silently cursed as she held Emma tighter against her chest. "Baby," She whispered softly into her ear, "I'm really, really gonna need you to not make a sound until that man leaves, okay? Can you do that for Mommy and Daddy?"

Emma looked up at her mommy. This seems like one of those situations when children of her age would disobey out of spite. But Emma was a good kid, and she could tell from the pleading look in her mom's eyes that this was something she really needed her to do. Emma nodded twice and buried her head into her mommy's neck. Sarah smiled. She had a good kid.

The sound of a door crashing against the wall and a sudden light that blinded Sarah quickly drew her out of her thoughts. A pair of feet slowly dragged into the room with some sort of four-wheeled bucket behind them. Sarah realized this must be the janitor. In one stealthy, Sarah-like move, she rolled Emma over her stomach so that she was facing the wall and Emma could block her daughter from sight. She then turned her attention back to the situation.

At this point the feet had stopped right in front of her, so close she only had to stretch her fingers an inch to touch them. She looked over at the corner to see that Chuck was still well-concealed behind the suits. The only thing that stood out was his exposed feet, but they were aligned with the shoes set in a row beneath the safety suits. Sarah smiled. It was almost comical, her husband's hiding place. Suddenly, the janitor knelt down to fiddle with the lower shelf, and Sarah receded back until she was almost squishing Emma against the wall. She wondered what Emma has been thinking about all of this.

Emma didn't like her situation. This was the part of the dream where her vision got especially bad and blurred and she couldn't see anything or what was going on. It seemed different this time. It almost feels like how her vision gets blurry when she's extra tired, or when she's been in the dark and someone turns the light on. What makes it worse is that now she's hiding. Emma hates hiding in her dreams, no matter what she does or how well she hides herself she's always found. And she doesn't want to hide! She wants to keep running around and doing things. She wants to know what's behind that big metal door. Emma wiggled a bit in anticipation. It's time to get this dream going.

Sarah held on to her daughter and rubbed her back to calm her down. Emma was getting restless, not that she could blame her. It was frustrating, getting trapped like this. It was painfully obvious that Chuck and Sarah had been out of the spy game for a while; all they've managed to do was expose their five year-old daughter to a life they never wanted her to live and get cornered in a janitor's closet. Sarah had known it would be hard to jump back in, but she didn't think they'd be making this many amateur mistakes. If she was five years younger, she would have knocked the janitor out, stolen his passkey, and slipped into the room to retrieve what they came here for, all while Chuck was gaping at her with that same fondness in his eyes. Sarah switched from rubbing Emma's back to finger-combing her curly brown hair. She didn't think it would have been so easy to go from International Spy to Soccer Mom. This was proof that those days were obviously behind.

Chuck started as the footsteps passed dangerously close to his hiding place. He pressed his back as far against the wall as possible. Please leave, please leave, please leave, Chuck prayed silently to himself. And just like that, the lights turned off, the footsteps retreated, and the door closed. "Oh yes!" Chuck whispered silently to himself.

Sarah wiggled out from under the shelves, Emma behind her, sprinted over to give Chuck a hug. "Are you okay? He didn't see you did he?"

"Please, Sarah, no!" Chuck replied with an 'isn't it obvious?' look on his face. "I gotta know, why didn't you grab his passkey though? He was right there!"

Sarah froze. Why didn't she grab the passkey? "I… I uh… I didn't want to risk exposing my location! We have Emma with us; we have to be more careful!" Yeah, that's a good excuse, he'll buy that.

"Sure, okay Sarah." Chuck replied with a grin. "Well we need to go, I gotta get to bed if I'm gonna wake up at five in the morning for work." He stopped when he heard himself. God, he has grown up.

"How are we going to get through the door?" Sarah asked as they exited the closet and checked the hallway.

"Let me try this." Chuck replied as he pulled out his phone and hooked it up to keypad. Sarah tried to keep up but failed as he rapidly punched in codes and opened new windows. Her heart sunk to her stomach when the red "Access Denied" banner flashed across the screen. Her panic rose as a timer starting from sixty seconds started to count down.

"What is that?" Sarah asked frantically.

"Dammit," Chuck said softly as he punched in new codes. "We only have sixty seconds to enter the correct password, there's no way to hack into this one."

"What'll happen in sixty- well, now fifty seconds?" Sarah asked, dreading the answer.

"An alarm will sound and guards will be here within the new minute." Ice poured over Sarah's veins as she looked desperately at Emma. Chuck shared her gaze. "I think it's time."

Sarah looked back down at Emma. Did she really want to expose her baby like that? Make her use that horrible curse?

"Thirty seconds."

"Come here Baby, Mommy needs you!" Sarah cried as she pushed Emma in front of the keypad. "Just, look here."

Emma looked at the keypad and immediately froze. Her eyes fluttered and her vision was replaced with images. A butterfly, a rock, a pencil, 384920485. She started as the keypad materialized in front of her. Before she could stop herself, her hand reached up and slowly entered the numbers. 3…8…4…9…2…0…4…8…5. A click echoed down the hallway and the door flew open.

"Well done honey!" Chuck shouted as he swooped down to kiss his daughter's forehead before sprinting into the room. "Sarah, stay there!"

Emma was dazed. What just happened? That's never happened to her in a dream before! "Mommy?"

"Yes, Baby?" Sarah asked as she knelt down to her daughter's eye-level.

"Mommy, what happened?"

"Uh, well…" Where to start? Sarah mused. She was saved by the sound of the metal door slamming shut. "Oh my gosh, Chuck?"

"Sarah, go!" She heard her husband's muffled cries from inside the room.

"I'm not leaving you! I'll get you out!"

"Sarah, we have Emma with us. You need to go, I'll be okay!"

"But… but Chuck-"

"Go!"

The sound of footsteps pounding against the tiled floor kept her from shouting back. As much as Sarah hated to admit it, she had to go. "I'll come back for you. Come on Emma."

This was the running part of the dream. The part that Emma was never good at. She either was never fast enough, or she was too fast and she'd run past her destination, or she just couldn't run. Luckily, she had her mommy with her. Her mommy kept Emma's legs moving and her urgency to run very much alive. She had never seen her mommy panic, and still hasn't, but this was the closest she came. Sarah had this look of both desperation and determination in her eye, and from the way she kept stealing glances at her daughter to make sure she was keeping up, Emma knew this wasn't the time to ask questions or fall behind.

Soon, she heard shouts and footsteps behind her. Emma quickly peeked over her shoulder, then snapped her head forward and applied more energy to her legs. There were approximately ten "bad guys", clad in black, chasing after them. Emma checked behind her again. They had guns.

Her breathing hitched, and she began to panic. She never dreamed off guns before, and she never wanted to again. Normally, Emma would try to wake herself up, but she was too interested to end it now. She resorted to the one person she knew would save her.

"Mommy!"

Sarah looked down and quickly swung Emma off the ground and into her arms. She staggered a bit, and after adjusting to Emma's weight she tried to get back into the rhythm of running for dear life. And her daughter's life. Shouts of "stop!" and "halt!" registered in Sarah's ears but she didn't dare stop. She could sense that they were growing impatient with her non-response; her suspicion proved true as the sound of bullets pierced the air. Emma screamed and covered her ears with her hands, but Sarah didn't dare react. The door was just a few short feet away. It was bullet-proof, and unless guards had come by, which it looked like they didn't, their device should still be there. All she had to do was make it through the door and lock it, and they'd be home-free to the van. Just a few short feet…

Suddenly, one command hit straight through her walls and almost caused her to stop; "We have your accomplice!" …Almost. Sarah knew they had Chuck, and she would never forgive herself for it, but now her main priority was Emma. Responding with only a look over her shoulder, Sarah ran through the door and dropped Emma safely on the ground. She then spun on her heel, closed the door, and smashed the "Reset" button on the code panel. It would take them at least five minutes to open the door.

Using the time, Sarah quickly scooped Emma back in her arms and ran the rest of the way to the van. Emma remembered her mom climbing into the driver's seat and tossing her in the passenger's seat. She took a quick look around; no one seemed to be coming, but her mommy didn't look satisfied.

"Emma, sit on the floor, underneath the dash." Her mommy ordered, and with that, Emma's view of the outside world was cut-off as she obeyed. She felt the car lurch forward, and thought she heard distinct shouting, but the noise quickly faded as they continued their journey. Emma wondered what was going to happen next, what other adventures she'd take with her parents, if she would remember this remarkable dream when she woke up. However, as the ride continued, and Emma remained in the darkness, she felt a considerable heaviness on her eyelids. After all, she had been running a lot. Maybe it wouldn't hurt if she closed her eyes, for just a second…

Light filtered into Emma's second-story bedroom, and birds pierced the once-quiet morning. Her fists pawed at the sleep in her eye, and she slowly sat up in her bed. Once her eyes were cleared and her sight was returned, Emma looked over at her clock. Nine o'clock. Emma quickly jumped out of bed and padded down the steps to the living room. She missed her six o'clock cartoons! What did she do that made her so tired as to sleep in so late? She never sleeps in! As Emma rounded the banister and prepared to jump on the couch, remote already in hand, she stopped herself as she saw her mommy asleep on the couch.

Her mommy wasn't wearing the black outfit from her dream; instead she was in her normal dark blue-patterned pajama pants and "I Heart L.A." T-shirt. Her cell-phone was clutched in one hand, and a tissue in another. Deciding not to bother her obviously-distressed mother, Emma settled on the floor and turned on the television.

The day went on as normal, except that her daddy wasn't here. When Emma asked her mommy, she said Daddy was on an "emergency business trip" and wouldn't be back for a couple of days. Emma ended up spending two nights at Uncle Morgan and Aunt Alex's house, and when she came home her daddy was waiting for her. He started asking her weird questions, like "Have you had any headaches?" or "Have you had 'visions'?" or "Do you know things, and don't know where you learned them from?" For some reason, she thought back to that dream she had. That was the only time something like that had happened. Emma told him about the dream she had, and he seemed to think for a while.

"Emma, I know how to keep those dreams from happening again." Chuck finally said.

"How, Daddy?" Emma asked. Her dream was really interesting, but it scared her. It scared her a lot.

"Well, I got these pills from an old friend of mine. It won't take the dreams completely away, but it'll repress them." He explained as he held up a small orange tube of pills.

"How long would I have to take these?" Emma wondered.

"For the rest of your life, Baby," Chuck answered sadly as he rubbed his daughter's back. "Or, until I can find a better solution."

"Daddy?" Emma said as she fingered the bottle. Pills were medicine. Medicine is something sick people take. Sick people had something wrong with them. "Am I sick? Is there something wrong with me?"

"No! No, Baby, you're…" Chuck trailed off as he thought of the right words. Suddenly, a grin broke his face and he brought his daughter in for a hug. "You're special."

I'm so sorry if there are typos, I just don't have time to proof-read it and I really want to post it tonight. If you see anything that needs to be fixed, let me know and I'll revise it! Please, please, please review!