Author's Note: Due to TWOP's recent lockdown of their Chuck fan fiction thread, the Chuck writers have moved to the forum on this site. Many of the Chuck fan fiction writers routinely post there...
This story is in response to Brickroad's Angst Challenge. I expect 2-3 more chapters.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything except two pugs and a computer.
Chapter 1: Mis-Communication
It had been four months since Sarah had relented and admitted that she had feelings for Chuck. Her admission had come during yet another dangerous mission when she had lost track of Chuck's position for a few minutes.
Sarah had thought that she had lost Chuck for good. In those brief moments, she had cursed Bryce, the CIA and the entire government for involving Chuck in the espionage business. Bryce had initiated the whole thing when he sent The Intersect to Chuck.
Her beloved CIA had earned her anger because she knew that they were using Chuck in even a worse way. Sarah knew that Chuck could be an effective analyst from the relative safety of a secured CIA complex; just like the hoards of other analysts on the CIA payroll.
But the government didn't do that with Chuck. Instead, they ordered him out with Casey and herself into harrowing situation with no training whatsoever. It told her that the government didn't see Chuck as a long term asset. He was an acceptable loss; as long as no one else got their hands on him. This approach angered Sarah and made her all the more protective of him.
She wanted to complain; to point out Chuck's value and advocate for him to work in a secured facility instead of the field. But Sarah knew that her efforts would likely result in Chuck being placed in a secured underground bunker somewhere. She knew he couldn't handle that, and so she remained silent. She followed her orders without voicing her concerns.
However, their missions were becoming increasingly dangerous. It terrified Sarah to think that something could happen to Chuck. It had kept her from admitting her feelings for him. She knew that when she confessed, they would both plunge head over heels into a relationship. Of which, Sarah knew would make her incredibly happy, but would also impair her ability to accurately gauge the threats surrounding Chuck.
So Sarah kept him at bay.
But the few minutes of terror when Sarah thought she had lost Chuck decimated her resolve. It had destroyed her carefully built defenses. Searching frantically, Sarah had found Chuck hiding in a small maintenance room in the warehouse where their mission had gone awry.
A flood of emotion swept through Sarah when she saw his mop of brown curly hair poke up from behind a tool cabinet. Without thinking she pushed herself into the small confines of the maintenance room and threw herself into his arms and kissed him.
It wasn't like their first kiss which was full of raw animal instinct. This time their kiss was about showing her feelings. During their second kiss, Sarah stopped hiding her feelings for him and just did want she had wanted to do for months. She could not longer put him off.
The intensity of her kiss allowed Chuck to finally glimpse Sarah's inner workings. It confirmed what Chuck had always suspected about the 'thing underneath their undercoving thing'.
After their second kiss, Sarah no longer had the resolve to resist. She wanted a relationship with Chuck and they began to date.
Sarah was in Chuck's room waiting for him to finish his shower. It had been four months since they had started to date for real. They had taken it slow since she had professed to be 'bad at relationships' and had a tendency to frighten easily.
But after four months, Sarah was shocked at how uneventful their relationship had turned out to be. They just meshed. There was never any drama between them. There were lots of issues about the next mission and her duties to protect The Intersect. But there was never any issues between them.
The stability of their relationship gave something to Sarah that she had never experienced before. It was her 'safe place' in the brutal world that was a CIA agent's life. She also knew that she had grown as a person. She was emotionally stronger and more willing to share herself. Sarah had started to feel like a normal person again.
To Sarah's chagrin, they had mutually agreed to delay having sex. At the start of their relationship, it had made perfect sense to her. However, she now yearned to take the next step with him. She wanted to make love to Chuck.
She laid upon his bed, absently thumbed through his clean laundry that his sister had brought in. She was lost in thought and didn't hear the shower shut-off. She was pleasantly surprised when Chuck entered his room towel drying his hair wearing only a pair of sweats. Sarah smiled widely and coughed to let him know she was in the room. Chuck looked up and jumped back slightly at the sight of her on his bed. He stumbled a bit and but caught himself before smiling broadly back at her.
"Hey, You are here early," remarked Chuck as he tried to casually hide is bare chest with his towel.
Sarah's smile grew as she took in his shyness. Her eyes roamed over his bare chest and just showered appearance. She felt a tingling in her stomach. She stood up and walked to him with an outstretched hand. When she reached him, she reached up and grasped the back of his neck. Silently she pulled his head down and kissed him while she used her other hand to explore his bare chest. It made them both shiver.
When he responded sufficiently to her embrace, she let out a sigh of contentment and pulled him deeper into her kiss. After several minutes, she pulled back to catch her breath and watched as Chuck tried to regain his equilibrium. Having difficulty catching his breath, Chuck asked, "What was that for?"
"Can't a girl miss her guy?" inquired Sarah with her most seductive look.
Chuck tightened his embrace around her waist. "No problem here." He recaptured her mouth with his and began to kiss her again while he nudged her backwards towards his bed.
They continued to kiss until she felt the bed hit the back of her legs. Sarah returned to reality. She stopped kissing him and laid her head against his chest. "This isn't the right time," sighed Sarah with frustration.
Ignoring her remark, Chuck began to nuzzle her neck. Sarah groaned in response which made Chuck double his efforts.
After several long moments Sarah breathlessly commented, "You're getting me all wet."
Chuck growled wolfishly and Sarah laughed at his response.
"That's not what I meant. I was talking about your wet hair getting my shirt wet."
He chuckled and she affectionately thumped him on the chest as she pulled away from him.
"Come on. I want to have dinner before we meet Casey and Agent Hunt for our mission tonight. We will have plenty of time for this later."
Chuck grimaced and released Sarah clearly showing his disappointment. Complaining incessantly, Sarah watched as Chuck rummage through his clean laundry on the bed looking for a shirt. Watching his hands she couldn't help but miss the feel of them holding her. She sighed.
Trying to lighten the sexual tension in the room, Sarah remarked, "Wear the dark blue shirt. You'll be less noticeable in case you have to get out of the surveillance van."
Chuck made a face at Sarah but she chose to ignore it.
Sarah shared his disappointment but knew that their jobs came first. It was selfish really. The continued success of Team Chuck was imperative in order to keep the government from reconsidering Chuck's current living situation.
Thinking about Chuck's precarious status made Sarah shudder. She distracted herself by watching him dress.
Her eyes were glued to him as he put his dark blue oxford shirt on. She had never imagined that his bare chest would look so good. She smiled as her thoughts turned to what their first night together would be like. She began to imagine how he would react to the nightie she had just bought for him.
Her daydream was interrupted when her cell phone rang. She looked at the caller id and saw that it was Agent Hunt. He was a new CIA agent that had been assigned to her and Agent Casey to assist with miscellaneous surveillance activities. Hunt had no idea of Chuck's importance. Instead, he was told that Chuck was a computer genius of sorts and needed governmental protection while he helped out on missions.
She and Chuck were to meet Casey and Hunt later that night. Seeing Hunt's name on her caller id made her frown. It was against protocol for Hunt to call her before a mission. Telephone calls made phone records that could be used by an enemy to connect personnel assigned to a mission. The enemy could then use the information to thwart an objective.
In this case, the mission was a surveillance job with a limited potential for dangerous elements to arise. However, Sarah was a top agent because she always followed protocol. She did not like this break in standard operating procedure.
Sarah answered her phone with annoyance. "Walker, here."
"Agent Walker this is Hunt. I know I shouldn't be calling. But I needed to report a possible foreign national contact with our other surveillance job. The second shift agent reported that Bo Peep met with a foreign enemy agent."
Sarah face contorted in disbelief. She looked up and saw that her response had caught Chuck's attention. She quickly schooled her expression and told Hunt to hold the line.
She turned to Chuck and smiled widely to hide her anxiety. In a playful voice, Sarah said, "I'll wait outside and take this call. I know you don't want me seeing something I'm not supposed to." She lifted her eyebrows seductively.
Chuck smiled half heartedly. He knew that she was trying to mask her sudden anxiety. Sarah turned away before seeing the look of concern on Chuck's face.
Sarah exited Chuck's room and closed the door firmly behind her. In the hallway, she let her anxiety surface.
She snarled into the phone, "What do you mean Bo Beep was contacted by a foreign agent?"
"During routine surveillance of Ellie Bartowski, she was seen talking to a Venezuelan national with known ties to a Salvadorian terrorist organization."
Sarah tensed. Ellie Bartowski was routinely monitored as part of the security protocols established for Chuck. It was the government's method to assure that his family members were not used as leverage against their assets. It was standard procedure.
However Chuck was so off-grid, Ellie should never have made anyone's radar.
It was her professional duty to pursue this potential security risk to assure The Intersect's continued safety. But it did not bode well for the young doctor.
Sarah had long ago begun to consider the Bartowski siblings as part of her family. As such, her professional duties were at odds with her personal concern for the doctor. She needed to be suspcious of Ellie but at the same time she wanted to disbelieve that Ellie could ever have any interactions with such an individual.
If it was true, it placed Ellie in danger not only from the terrorist organization, but from her own government. She knew that her superiors would act brutally in order to maintain the safety of The Intersect and assure that no one could use Ellie to get to Chuck.
"I want 24-7 surveillance put on Ellie. We need to get to the bottom of this immediately. We need to confirm that she is not a threat," barked Sarah.
She heard Agent Hunt hesitate. "We have the other surveillance job going tonight. Resources are going to be scarce," explained Hunt.
"Don't give me excuses," remarked Sarah icily. "Just make it happen. Chuck and I will see you in two hours. Do not bring this subject up in front of him. Casey and I will discuss this issue with you alone after tonight's mission."
The agents discussed a few more specifics about Ellie's heightened surveillance detail and terminated the call. Once off the phone, Sarah let out a deep breath. The conversation had upset her. She didn't believe Hunt's report. However until the truth was revealed, Sarah would need to protect Chuck and his family against any rash decisions made by the government.
She took a deep breath to calm herself. Sarah didn't want to alarm Chuck. She knew that he would 'freak out' if he knew that his sister was in any type of danger. Rallying her professional demeanor, Sarah put on a happy face before she entered Chuck's room.
"Are you ready to go to dinner?" inquired Sarah, as she smiled brightly at Chuck.
Chuck shrugged non-commitedly. After staring at her for a moments, she sighed.
"I'm always ready as long you are on my side," stated Chuck seriously.
Sarah's was puzzled by demeanor, but her anxiety over Ellie's situation made her disregard his comment without considering its meaning. Instead, she focused upon finding comfort in his arms.
She went to Chuck and embraced him. She looked up into his eyes and said, "I'm always on your side."
Chuck gave her a half smile and kissed her tenderly kiss upon the lips. Chuck's soft kiss and loving expression calmed her. Sarah closed her eyes and savored the moment. After a few seconds, Chuck broke the kiss and she laid her head upon his chest.
"Is everything okay," inquired Chuck with concern. "The phone call seemed to upset you," remarked Chuck quietly.
She opened her eyes in surprise. Chuck had startled her by being able to read her mood. It annoyed Sarah. A good CIA agent was not supposed to telegraph their true feelings. Not ever.
As a matter of professional pride, Sarah attempted to diffuse his inquiry. "No, everything is fine. It was Casey. He was firming up what time we are going to meet him and Hunt."
Chuck pursed his lips and nodded.
Sarah decided to change the conversation altogether. She grabbed his hand and led him out of his room. "Come on. I'm hungry. We better go eat before our mission tonight. Who knows how long the mission will last."
Chuck allowed Sarah to lead him out of his room. Chuck stared at the back of Sarah's head with a mixture of hurt, distrust and betrayal in his eyes.
Sarah did not see his expression harden. If she had, she would have known that Chuck had overheard her phone conversation.