Wow. I was absolutely floored by the response to the first chapter. Thanks guys you really made my day. So here's the next chapter.

Chapter 2- The Sum of all Fears

A/N- No, Denver is not going to get nuked.

"Sarah, hello Sarah, you okay?" Bryce said waving his hand in front of her face. He had been talking to her for a few minutes before he realized that she wasn't listening to him at all.

"What?" She spat.

"What's wrong with you? Normally you're pretty happy about going on a mission."

"Well normally the plane ride is better, we aren't stuck on such a boring mission, and I was looking forward to those days off." Ever since the turbulence they had encountered shortly after takeoff Sarah had, had a bad feeling.

"You were looking forward to time off?" A smile broke out across his face, "Who are you and what have you done with Agent Walker?" He said while pretending to reach for his gun.

She glared at him contemplating whether a violent or diplomatic solution would be better. She leaned up next to Bryce, her lips inches from his ear. "Now I'm going to go to the bathroom and when I come back you had better leave me alone." She said with a fake smile and a very, very dangerous tone.

"Sounds like someone needs to get laid." He grumbled as she left.

Unfortunately for him he didn't say it quietly enough and she whipped back around on him, "If I did need to get laid you would not be the one I was calling." Sarah made sure to very visibly finger her knives.

Bryce smiled, he knew he had her. She was very protective of her private life, what little of one she had, and he generally liked to push her on it. "So who would you be calling?"

The knife was out of its holster and imbedded in the seat between Bryce's legs before he could finish his ribbing. "One more word out of you and you won't ever satisfy another woman."

He knew when he was beat and with his usual arrogant demeanor retrieved a magazine and quickly began thumbing through it. Sarah stalked off disappointed that Larkin hadn't given her a reason to make him a eunuch.

When she re-emerged he ignored her and she simply moved off towards the back of the plane, far away from him.

***

Heathrow

Bryce sneaked a look at his partner, who had not moved since their fight, Sarah appeared to have calmed considerably. He figured part of that had to do with the fact that they were safely on the ground. Tossing his magazine on the seat next to him he got up and cautiously approached her, his hands positioned strategically in front of his genitals. "Sarah?"

She looked up from her book. She wasn't happy with him, but had sufficiently cooled off to not eviscerate him immediately. "Look Sarah I'm sorry I was pushing your buttons earlier. I know bumpy flights make you nervous, but I'm here if you need me."

She just looked at him strangely, unsure of what game he was playing at.

"Look I just need to know if you're going to have your head in the game. I'm going to go out on a dangerous limb here and say that there was someone you were looking forward to meeting back home and if you need to talk about that well I'm your partner." He wasn't the most emotional guy, but he had pretended to listen to enough girls talk about their feelings to get pretty could at pretending to listen and if it would help his partner even better.

She nodded not saying a word.

"Sarah do you want to talk about it?" Bryce said in a patronizing tone.

Danger returned to Agent Walker's eyes with a vengeance, "Do not speak to me like I'm someone who needs to be handled."

"Sorry, Walker, but I need you on top of your game and if talking about whomever the hell it is that's got you all hot and bothered helps with getting you back on the game then you better damn well do it."

Sarah continued staring at him, although the look of pure malevolence had lessened. "I'll be fine, besides this op should be easy we're stealing financial documents not Russian nuclear secrets."

"It's the Swiss, Russian nuclear secrets would probably be easier to steal."

Sarah gave a forced, awkward laugh glad for an excuse to try and break the tension. Bryce sensed that she was forgiving him, "We're moving now, wanna come back up?"

"I'll be fine here." Sarah had more or less forgiven him, but that didn't mean she wanted to set next to him for the rest of the flight. "I'm sorry about earlier, you know I can get uncomfortable on flights."

"Don't worry Sarah."

***

Monday Morning

Dr. Jill Roberts walked into her cubicle bright eyed and bushy tailed, until she heard a snore emanating from her friend's cubicle. She immediately cringed, "Oh, Chuck." As she walked over to shake him awake she remembered the last time he had woken her up. She smiled and headed back to her work station to retrieve an ice cold bottle of water. Returning to her sleeping co-worker she unscrewed the cover of the bottle and tilted it, pouring ice cold water into his messy, animal shape making hair.

He sprang up a second later in total disarray. When he heard her laughter and found the scientist standing next to him with a smug smile lighting up her face he realized what had happened. "What was that for?"

"Last month when I fell asleep here trying to meet that deadline."

"I didn't pour freezing water on your head!"

"You screamed with a blow horn in my ear." Her smile left her face as he slumped back into his chair rubbing his face.

"Chuck, please don't tell me you spend your entire weekend here?"

"I didn't spend the entire weekend here." He repeated.

"Ellie or Morgan?"

"Ellie and Captain Awesome are in the Bahamas."

"Chuck there is more to life than work and video games." They'd gone down this road far too often in the past.

"Sometimes I could swear you and Ellie are conspiring against me." He said as he rubbing his eyes and preparing for another long day at work.

"We're not conspiring against you, Chuck, we're conspiring for you."

"Uh-huh, now can I get to work? I've gotta write a new program for—wait never mind."

She smiled at him, "Finally starting to get a hang of that classified thing." She leaned against the wall smiling. "So, who was the girl you were with on Friday?"

"Agent Sarah Walker." He said with a little smirk of his own.

Jill nodded a sly smile gracing her lips, "So you didn't just work here did you?"

"What?"

"Chuck that woman was obviously attracted to you and you were going to lock yourselves in her office for how many hours? Are you seriously telling me that you two didn't do anything? You could have at least made plans to meet up for coffee afterwards!" Jill was now towering over Chuck's seated form.

"Look it just wasn't in the cards, besides she's already gone on some assignment so it wouldn't have been anything." He answered defensively. Before leaving Ellie had been stepping up on him to get over Jill and find a girlfriend.

Jill nodded, "Can you talk about the DDO?"

He comically narrowed his eyes, "Why do I feel like I'm being interrogated?"

"Probably, because I called Ellie reported in and got my interrogation orders."

"Uh-oh, what else did she want?"

"Nothing, but you should know she told me that waterboarding would be allowed if you didn't tell me." Her smile was infectious and they shared a laugh.

"Seriously, Chuck, what'd the DDO want?"

"For me to fix Sarah's hard-drive."

Jill took a moment to process it. She nodded, smiling that her greatest fear—that Chuck would be sent into the field—hadn't been realized. She sighed in relief and slipped back into her cube, already planning out her email to Ellie.

***

3 Months Later

Mary Pat's voice was harsh. Walker may have been her favorite, but that meant that Walker was held to a higher standard, a much higher standard. "Agent Walker I want you back at Langley by tomorrow morning."

"What about me director?" Bryce asked, risking the wrath of DDO. Sarah could have kissed him for the momentary distraction, but she knew that would have given him far too many ideas.

MP's voice lost none of its edge, "You are going to continue monitoring the three institutions you have under surveillance. We have a Learjet waiting for you Walker, NOW!" She yelled slamming her finger down on the keyboard cutting the feed.

"Good luck." Bryce offered as he happily retreated back to the surveillance gear in the back of the room. He knew he had the luckier of the two assignments, he had to sit and watch surveillance video while she got to head back to Langley and get her ass chewed out.

"I hate you."

"Love you to Mrs. Anderson." She rolled her eyes at the cover. Normally it wasn't bad, like this time, but sometimes his advances were annoying to say the least. Sarah didn't waste any time and a few minutes later she was on her way to the airport.

***

After hanging up with her team in Switzerland Director Foley hit her intercom, "James I want you to get Mr. Bartowski up here."

"Yes ma'am, anyone else?"

"No that'll be all." She said relaxing back into her chair. She closed her eyes and allowed herself a moment to relax as her fingers began massaging her temples. She missed field work, hell she missed the cold war. The days of sneaking around Moscow balancing CARDINAL dead drops and her sons Transformers videos seemed so much more attractive then assigning others to do the work.

When the door opened a moment later she sat up ready to reprimand Bartowski for entering without knocking. When she saw who it was, she was glad she had looked before speaking. "Mr. President I wasn't expecting you." She shot up out of her chair.

"Relax MP it's an unofficial visit." He sat down in the chair across from her, "I had a meeting with Graham. So how's Project Blue going?"

The plan to get the CIA back into the human intelligence game had been the brain child of her and John Clark and fortunately President Ryan had approved it and delivered the funding. "Actually I have one of my agents returning right now."

"Problem?"

"Computer security system, I have an OST technician coming up here now and he'll go back with Walker to hack into the system."

"Who?"

"Charles Bartowski."

Jack smiled, "The next me? Good, get him some field experience."

Foley was shocked that Ryan was aware of the rumors, but he was a top CIA analyst so it shouldn't have been all that surprising. "Yes, want to meet him?"

POTUS turned to his secret service agent, "Andrea do I have time?"

"No, we're due back shortly."

"Well I'm sure I'll meet him eventually."

"Goodbye, Mr. President."

"We have a briefing scheduled for the end of the week, I'd like a list of the top five agents you could stand to lose." He said walking out of her office. As his detail opened the door a tall lanky man stepped through. Chuck looked confusedly at the agents both inside and outside the Director's office doorway.

"Uh, who are—" Chuck froze when he saw the reason for the USSS agents; Chuck had no idea how to react to the president. He swallowed nervously, but didn't say anything or move.

"Charles Bartowski?"

"Uh—Yeah that's me. It's an honor to meet you, sir—Mr. President."

Ryan cast a quick glance over his shoulder to Andrea a smile on his lips. "So you're the one walking in my footsteps." He apprised the analyst quickly before offering his hand. "Goodbye, Mr. Bartowski."

Chuck babbled an incoherent response, before regaining some modicum of self-composure. "It was an honor, President Ryan, goodbye."

The awestruck CIA employee proceeded into the DDO's office.

"Mr. Bartowski, please have a seat." This time the Deputy Director was alone, but that didn't make her any less intimidating. When Chuck had taken a seat in front of her desk she slid a file over to him. "Open it, that's your next assignment."

"My next what? I'm an analyst, not a spy." He hoped he seemed calm, because in reality he was shaking in his boots. He did not sign up to be sent into danger, he didn't even know how to fire a gun!

Mary Pat ignored him, "How are your computer infiltration skills?"

"I can hack a computer from here." Chuck pushed the file back towards her.

"These don't have remote access; you're going to have to go onsite and hack into them from there." She said pushing the file back at him.

"What? I'm not trained! How am I supposed to sneak into some building in—"he looked at the file for the mission location. "In Switzerland and hack into one of their computers?"

The former spy laughed. "I imagine that if you were supposed to infiltrate these buildings you would be dead within five minutes. I have two agents to escort you in and out."

"Are you sure I can't just tell them how to do it? I could sit in the safe house, or a van, or I could stay here."

"You'll be fine, they'll keep you alive." Mary Pat smiled she knew she had him. "Study that file and be back here in twelve hours."

Chuck wanted to complain about the ungodly hour he was due back at, but considering the person ordering him back could get him sent out into the field more thought better of it. "Yes ma'am."

"Hold your questions until then." She looked back down at the paperwork and he took that as his queue to leave.

***

Twelve Hours Later

Chuck opened the door to Director Foley's office. Neither of the two blondes inside reacted to the door opening, until he was behind the seat. "Nice of you to join us Mr. Bartowski."

At the words Mr. Bartowski the blonde with her back to Chuck spun around. Seeing who it was Walker's eyes went wide with a mixture of emotions Chuck couldn't decipher. After a moment Sarah remembered where she was and removed any trace of emotion from her face. Like a child with her hand caught in the cookie jar she turned back around to face her boss.

"Take a seat Mr. Bartowski."

Sarah avoided looking at him. So far she hadn't felt anything apart from shock, but she didn't want to tempt fate.

Mary Pat noticed the strange behavior between the two, "Do you two know each other?"

They nodded in assent.

The director racked her brain for a minute and then remembered that the pair had met in her office months earlier. She remembered their interactions and Walker's actions made sense.

Sarah was still refusing to look at Charles. "Agent Walker, you are to escort Bartowski to Geneva, protect him while you infiltrate the targets, and guard him while he accesses the information you require; furthermore you are responsible for his personal protection, do not let him out of your sight. Is that understood?"

"Yes, ma'am." Sarah knew that meant round the clock protection. She was being ordered to sleep with him and of all the aspects of being a spy that was her least favorite; she hated the feeling she got in the morning after such missions. However, this was different; the idea of sleeping with Charles brought a blush to her cheeks and sent her temperature into the stratosphere. The idea of sleeping with him didn't make her feel dirty, but excited. The one problem she had with the orders was that she did not want to start a sexual relationship with him because of orders; if they became intimate Sarah wanted it to be because both of them wanted it, not because they had to.

Despite the emotional problems brought up by that order there was still another more pressing problem. "Director, won't that conflict with my cover?"

MP smiled, "Looks like you'll be having an affair Mrs. Anderson."

That got Chuck's attention, "Wait your ordering us to sleep together? I'm not having sex with her just for some cover—I'm sure she's great, but I'm sorry I have principles and I just won't; I'm sorry, but you'll have to find someone else."

Sarah physically recoiled away from him; she was hurt by his statement. The movement went unnoticed by Chuck, who was wrapped up with his own problems, but Sarah's mentor caught it and gave Sarah a quick smile before turning to the frazzled analyst, "Relax Charles I literally mean sleep there's no need for you two to actually follow through with the cover." That calmed him down, but the blonde mother wasn't done yet. "Unless you two want to."

Sarah snuck a quick peek at her new "lover" and saw that he was beet red; that gave her a small measure of comfort.

"Any questions?"

They shook their heads.

"You leave at four PM. I suggest you go home and sleep."

Sarah groaned she hadn't planned on spending the night and now how an additional problem, "Ma'am my lease ran out last month."

Mary Pat laughed, "Mr. Bartowski would you mind spending an extra night with Agent Walker?"

"Uh—No ma'am."

"Are you sure? I could go to a hotel, that's what I had been planning to do for my normal leave."

"I have an extra bedroom and really it's no problem." Chuck said with his usual genuine smile.

"Have a goodnight kids and try and try to get some sleep." The director called with a smile as they left her office.

***

"So why don't you have an apartment?" Chuck said as he searched his keychain for the right one.

"I'm here for what? A couple weeks a year didn't seem necessary."

He found the right key and opened the door. "So what do you do for those weeks?"

"I was going to rent a hotel room." She said sadly.

Chuck nodded and pointed Sarah to her bedroom. "Ummm." She said biting her lip.

"What's up?"

"Do you have anything I could uh sleep in? I wasn't planning on spending the night."

Chuck nodded and headed to his bedroom to retrieve something for her to wear for the night. When he returned with a pair of his boxers and a t-shirt she smiled. "Thanks."

"When you're done give me your clothes I'll head down and wash them."

She gave him a smile and retreated to her temporary bedroom. After he disappeared to take care of her clothes she slipped into bed and buried her nose in his shirt. She had wondered what he had smelled like and while she couldn't put a name on it, their were quite a few smells that had mixed together, she knew she liked it.

***

Chuck was violently returned to the land of the wake by screaming coming from his spare bedroom. He bolted out of bed and sprinted to the source. By the time he arrived it had stopped, but the source was unmistakable: Sarah lay there wiping tears from her face with a look of absolute desolation on her face.

"Sarah?" He asked advancing on her cautiously.

Her reaction was immediate and violent: a knife was lodged in the door frame centimeters from his kneecap. While the action was violent her voice was not; in fact her voice contained no malice or ill will, but desperation and vulnerability. "Get out, now," she implored.

Looking at her, Chuck knew that he couldn't just not do anything "Hey Sarah, I hope this isn't too much of an imposition, but do you think we could uh practice for the cover?"

"Uh—What?" She asked, shocked by his request. Here he was looking at her at her most vulnerable and he wanted to ask about their cover? Then she realized that he was trying to help her while making sure they both saved face.

"Well if we have to go through with this cover I don't want to mess it up when it matters."

The shop talk allowed her professional face mask returned, "Yeah, good idea."

Chuck headed back into his room and collapsed onto the bed. A few minutes later Sarah followed him back in and climbed in next to him. She spooned up against him, "Uh Sarah? What are you doing?"

"If someone has surveillance in the room they need to see us acting like a couple. Hold me." She instructed and when he complied she relaxed back into him with a contented sigh. She had a number of different nightmares, but that one was always the worst. It had plagued her for years and she just wanted someone to hold her and remind her she was alive and safe.

***

"Wow, so is this how the CIA always send us around the world?" Chuck commented as they boarded the Learjet.

"Not always this nice, but being a spy has some perks." She said pouring herself a glass of scotch.

Chuck gave her a disapproving look, "Don't like flying?"

"No." She answered quickly after downing her drink in one gulp. That was all she had intended to say on the matter until she saw the look on his face. She could tell he was going to take full advantage of their long flight together to interrogate her on the previous night. She decided that volunteering a small amount of information would be better then dealing with a slow painful interrogation, "My parents were killed in a plane crash. I get nervous about flying. That's what last night was." She said it with practiced stoicism.

"Are you okay? Is there anything I can do for you?" he was on his knee holding her hand in supportive gesture before she even had time to considering what she had said.

"Never talk about it again."

He nodded and moved from his position on the floor to the seat next to her.

"My dad ran out on me and my sister when we were younger and our mom—" he stopped, a lump forming in his throat. "She was already gone." He managed to choke out as she handed him a drink.

They lapsed into an awkward silence. Sarah was already planning on hunting down and finding Charles's father, while Chuck was hoping to find some way to distract her during the flight.

***

Someplace over the Atlantic

"This your first mission?" Sarah asked Charles after deciding that sleep wasn't going to be kind enough to visit her that morning.

"Yeah, where was your first one?"

"Moscow, but I can't say anymore." She knew that in reality she shouldn't have told him that she'd ever worked in Moscow, but she wanted him to like her.

"Oh that was your first mission? Where you stole that intel on their fuel interests in Eastern Europe?"

"What! How do you know my mission?" Heads were going to roll back at Langley if he didn't have the correct response.

"I got the security plans of the plant and their offices for you, and I was part of the team that established you cover ID; I usually help out with the online part of those."

"Did you help build my ID in Morocco?" She questioned with a dangerous glint in her eye.

"No, you were in Morocco?"

"Good." Sarah had absolutely hated that cover ID.

"It wasn't a good cover ID?"

"Nope." That was the one cover ID that had almost gotten her to quit. It wasn't even necessary for the mission, but someone at Langley had decided she'd use it.

"Sorry, wish I could have helped."

"I'm sure you had more important things to do, like going out with your girlfriend?" Sarah realized the question was rather stupid, she hadn't told him when she was in Morocco so there was no way he could actually know what he was doing when she was there.

To her surprise he laughed, "No I haven't really dated anyone since college."

A million thoughts ran through her head, "Really? I find that hard to believe."

He laughed at her again! "Yeah, well we're not all spectacularly sexy super spies."

They both blushed at the compliment, "So you do think I'm attractive. I was beginning to think you might be gay."

"What! Why?" It wasn't that he was a homophobe; he just didn't want rumors spreading about him.

"Well we spent the night in the same bed and you didn't try anything."

"I didn't think you'd appreciate that." He admitted quietly.

Sarah felt a flash of desire course through her entire body. That just confirmed what she had already suspected, Charles was the kind of man that her dad would have wanted her to end up with; The kind of guy who would respect her and not simply treat her like a piece of meat. Sarah's thoughts drifted to the mission, it should be pretty simple and then she could ask the Director for permission to take Charles on a trip to the Alps to help him calm down from the mission. Of course she hoped that all of him wouldn't be down. "Charles there is one thing you should know about the mission."

Chuck felt his stomach drop, "What?" His voice was filled with dread.

"My partner, he uh likes to flirt with me."

Chuck was confused by her sudden confession, why should he care about her and her partner? "Ok, so is that going to be a problem for our cover?"

"Our cover? No."

"Then why does it matter?"

Sarah was flustered, was he really not sensing the other thing? Was she just imagining the whole thing? "Uh, I just didn't want you to think that we were you know…"

The puzzled look he gave her told that he did not know.

"That we were more than professional partners."

"Oh, thanks." He gave her a small smile.

Sarah didn't like how he didn't seem to care about the situation at all, but she hoped that he was simply nervous about the upcoming mission. "Do you know how to Ski?"

"No, why?" Chuck had been caught off guard by the seemingly random question.

Sarah smiled, she looked forward to teaching him how to ski. She planned to be a very hands-on teacher, "Well Charles, I thought maybe we could go skiing when the mission's over. I'll teach you, I can be a very good teacher."

"Oh Sarah?"

"Yeah?"

"Call me Chuck."

Sarah's heart rate spiked, her temperature shot up faster than the space shuttle, and she felt desire course through every vein in her body. It took every ounce of her self-restraint and training to keep herself from jumping him right then and there and for the first time in her life she almost wished she hadn't undergone the training that allowed her to resist that temptation.

***

As Jill walked into work and headed to her desk the next day she realized that Chuck was missing. "Finally." She said out loud to no one. Jill was quite happy that he had gone out and met someone the previous night. It would take her several hours to realize that he wasn't satisfying that desire, but instead her greatest fear. Chuck had gone out on a mission.

A/N- I 3 Reviews.

Well I don't think the next chapter will be up as soon as this one, I'll do my best.