A/N: The second chapter: an extended visit to Barstow! Sincere thanks to those who are reading, and to those who took the time to review the first chapter. I should warn you that there will be no cliffhangers in this chapter. But there will be a song by the Smiths, because what visit to Barstow would be complete without a little piteous yodeling from Morrissey?

CHAPTER 2 Whatever Interruptus

Sarah ended up behind the wheel. Chuck, although he made it to the car just fine, began to feel dizzy when they got there, so he threw the keys to Sarah and got in the passenger side. Sarah was putting the old Toyota through its paces. Chuck realized, as his stomach lurched, that he might have been better off driving after all.

They sped through the darkened streets for several minutes in silence. Sarah spoke just as Chuck did, and he asked the same question.

"What just happened?"

Sarah was shocked for a minute, as was Chuck, and then she started to laugh and he followed. The laughter dispelled the tension-or most of it, anyway-from the car. Chuck looked at Sarah, inviting her to go first.

"Chuck, what happened? How did you do-whatever it was you just did? Only Casters, people like me, have powers."

Chuck considered the question silently for a little while.

"I honestly don't know. I saw you two start to...fight, and I was afraid. And then it happened. But I don't know what happened, or how it happened. I don't know what I did. It was like I was and I wasn't in charge of my own body, my own voice. I wanted the fight to stop. And it did."

Sarah glanced from the road to him, considering him and what he had said.

"Well," Sarah said, "whatever you did wasn't exactly aggressive. All I knew was that I couldn't move and that I didn't really want to move. I just felt peaceful, calm, at least for as long as you held me...that is, held me in the spell."

Chuck looked at her. He seemed to be weighing what she had said, pauses and all. Sarah couldn't hold his gaze, and not just because she was driving. She knew she was blushing again. It seemed like she had been blushing all night. She had to find a way to stop that, and to stop her mouth, which seemed to want to seek out Chuck's and to share everything she was thinking and feeling. She forced her face into a neutral expression and tried to reacquire the firm hold on herself that was her normal condition. But nothing about this night, nothing about Chuck, nothing about her reactions to him, was normal. She breathed out a long sigh.

"Me, too." Chuck said, laughing weakly.

Sarah considered where they should go. Graham's House kept secure locations all across the country, but most tended to be outside the large cities. Sarah knew of a couple in LA, but she worried that Beckmann might know of them too. Beckmann had been in the city a long time-and she was a crafty, cagey old bird. Sarah knew of a mostly unused location in Barstow. That was about two hours away, and it seemed unlikely that Beckmann would have found out about it. Actually, it had seemed unlikely that Beckmann would attack any House of Graham secure location, but after tonight, Sarah was unsure what Beckmann would do. Best to find a place that she almost certainly knew nothing about.

Sarah pushed the accelerator down as she entered the freeway, heading to Barstow. The safe house there seemed their best bet. She had been watching behind them to see if anyone was following. No one was. She had Chuck. For now. But what was she going to do with him?

Sarah expected Chuck to interrogate her, but to her surprise, he sank into his seat and looked glumly ahead. She had no idea what he was going through. No one, so far as she knew, had ever gone through it before. No mortal had, or could have, power. But Chuck did. Did that mean he was no longer a mortal? No, Sarah could tell when she was in proximity to another Caster; Chuck was not a Caster. So he was not a mortal and not a Caster. But, in Sarah's experience, those categories were not only mutually exclusive, they were jointly exhaustive. Every person fell into one or the other, not both, and no one failed to fall into one or the other. But where did that put Chuck? Chuck was not a mortal, not a Caster, and he was not not a mortal and not not a Caster. He was...no one, nothing.

That was clearly wrong. There he sat, staring through the windshield, glumly, and there she sat next to him, driving, aching to kiss him. She couldn't ache to kiss someone who could not exist. The rule book had officially become dated. That word, again!

The more Sarah thought about it, the more she understood that Chuck did not just have power, he was a Power. What he had done to her and to Casey suggested that Chuck possessed power the likes of which Sarah had never seen. More power than Graham. More power than Beckmann. The only person who might know what was going on had been missing from among the Casters for a years-Orion. Orion had not written The Intersection-the original author was obscured in the dust of time-but he was the expert on it, and his 'edition' had become the one that showed up to be read whenever it was time for a new Reader.

Orion was supposed to have been the greatest, most talented Caster ever, and the wisest. That he could have created an 'edition' of the book, with himself listed as its author, was by itself proof of that. Anyway, his relationship to the book was permeated by mysteries. But the rumors said that he became erratic, for reasons that were never clear, and that he eventually just vanished. No one knew for sure if he was dead-it was possible for a Caster to extend his life expectancy some distance beyond that of a mortal-but everyone presumed that he was dead. How could he have remained hidden for so long? And, a still better question, why would he?

"Where are we going, Sarah?" Chuck finally emerged from his thoughts enough to ask a question. Sarah had been driving silently for over an hour.

"We are going to a secure location, a safe house, in Barstow."

Chuck had never been to Barstow, but had also never missed it. He shrugged. Sarah was running the show. Chuck knew that he needed to be asking questions, but he was both deeply exhausted and, frankly, afraid of the answers. He and Sarah were hurtling through the dark. Would he ever see Ellie again? Morgan? Would what had happened to him put them in danger too? Could he somehow unread the book? Get it out of his head? And, just how much more was there, in heaven and earth, than Chuck had dreamt of in his philosophy classes? The world he had lived in had been exploded in minutes, revealed to be far bigger and far more frightening than he had ever imagined. His horizons receded in every direction. He felt exposed, alone in a vast, suddenly deserted landscape. But was he alone?

He gave Sarah a sideways glance. Who was she? What was she? Why was she with him? It seemed unlikely now that she had just shown up with a phone to be fixed and found him attractive. Everything that had happened between them was now under a shadow. Was any of it real? Had they been on a date? Or had he merely believed they were on a date, while something else was really going on? Had her eyes shown him what she was feeling or only what she wanted him to believe she was feeling? Had she kissed his neck just to manipulate him, to make sure he stayed with her instead of going with Casey? God, I am so tired. My head hurts too much for my heart to hurt too. Given what had happened, Chuck knew that he was now a major piece in a game he did not know existed and whose rules were beyond him. Sarah seemed primarily to want to keep him with her. Probably the most likely explanation for that was that she was interested in him as a game piece, not really as a person, not really as Chuck. If his heart was going to survive this, he'd better put a brake on his feelings for her. They were outpacing the car at the moment. She was evidently not mortal, whatever that meant exactly, but he was: it was unclear that real feelings for his kind were possible for hers.

Chuck dropped his face in his hands and sighed. After a few minutes, he turned slightly to the side so that he could look out the passenger side window, and could better fight the temptation to keep looking at the beautiful woman driving the car.

Sarah felt the change in Chuck before he dropped his face in his hands, before his sigh. She knew he was smart. He was going to eventually see that everything that happened between them was now in doubt. She clenched her teeth; it hurt her to be the object of his doubt. But what could she do? Casters did not fall in love with mortals-or, if they did, good rarely came of it. But she was no ordinary Caster and Chuck no ordinary mortal. That made the chances that things could work out between them worse, not better.

Sarah's job made her responsible for mortals often, but it did not involve getting to know them really, and certainly did not involve caring for them individually. She cared about their greater good. She cared about them in a way that made her fight to keep innocent mortals safe. But she had no mortal friends and had never even thought about a mortal lover. Everyone who knew her knew she had a type: dashingly handsome, self-assured, heroic Casters.

Of course, claiming that she had a type was really going a bit far, because the only person of that type she had been romantically involved with was Bryce. And although he had been a dashingly handsome, self-assured, heroic Caster, it was unclear that one romance sufficed to generate a type. As a matter of fact, Sarah had few romances in her past, and none that were comparable to Bryce. The men she had dated before him did not, as a matter of fact, really match his type. But maybe, since the relationship with Bryce had been more significant than the others, maybe she did have a type, a maybe it was a Bryce-type.

Whatever the answer to that riddle, Chuck wasn't of the Bryce-type. He was also mortal, on the other side of a divide Sarah had never really considered crossing for the purpose of romance. It was true that lately she had been thinking about the lives of mortals with a kind of curiosity, even with a kind of sympathy, maybe even with a kind of envy, but she hadn't been thinking about finding a mortal to love. Or maybe she had. Maybe she was thinking about finding someone to love, someone genuinely lovable. To be honest, she wasn't clear what she had lately been thinking. What was clear was that she was growing tired of power, tired of its use and its cost, tired of the constant struggle her life had become. Being a Caster, particularly being an Enforcer with her particular responsibilities, no longer seemed attractive to her as it had for many years. She was tired. Tired of her job, tired of Graham. Tired.

She was too tired to pretend to herself that she had no romantic interest in Chuck, his being mortal notwithstanding. She knew she did, knew it in her bones. But she hoped she was not too tired to pretend to him that she had no romantic interest in him. It would be easier if he thought she was just doing her job. Easier? For her? For him? She was tired. How long would she have to pretend?

Sarah pulled into a motel on the outskirts of Barstow. It was too late, and she was too tired, to face the Casting protocols necessary to get them into the secure location. As far as she could tell, no one had followed them. And, so long as neither she nor Chuck used any power, they would remain invisible. Casey would not be able to track them.

Sarah told Chuck to stay in the car. She got out and went into the office. The slightly greasy night manager seemed to hope Sarah would want some company, specifically him, but her careful mix of boredom and laughter in her response kept him from pushing on the idea. The only rooms vacant were rooms with one double bed. That was a complication, but one Sarah felt confident she could handle. She got the room key and then, just for spite, asked for a second for her boyfriend, as she motioned to the car. The night manager bared his teeth in a disappointed smile and handed her the second key.

Chuck was frowning at the floorboard when Sarah got back into the car. She handed him a key.

"Thanks. Is your room next to mine?"

"No, Chuck, we are sharing a room. I got the extra key just to make a point to that annoying night manager."

"Oh, ok. Who did you say I was?"

"I said you were my boyfriend. That seemed to put a kink in his plans, although maybe 'kink' is not the best word to use."

Sarah started the car and moved it to their room on the back side of the main building. She could feel Chuck looking at her again. She knew he was trying to understand what she was up to exactly. Why had she brought Chuck up at all? Why call him her boyfriend? She was not getting a good start on this pretending-you-don't-care-about-Chuck plan. Annoyed with herself, Sarah slammed the car door as she got out. She beat Chuck to the door and opened it with her key. She went to the window and pulled the curtains closed.

"You rest," she ordered Chuck in a harsh tone, "I'm going to get a shower. You can get one when I finish." With that, she marched into the bathroom, clicked on the light, and shut the door behind her.

Sarah was now mad at herself twice over. She was mad at herself for the whole boyfriend thing, and mad at herself for taking her anger out on Chuck. He did not deserve that. He had done nothing to justify it. And now she was shut in the bathroom. She yanked off her jacket, hung it on the back of the door, and then began to take off her clothes. Just as she started the shower, there was a knock, a timid knock, on the door.

"What?" Sarah managed to keep that from sounding exasperated.

"I can't call Ellie, can I? She's going to be so worried." Chuck sounded a little desperate, and a little cowed. "I mean, can you, uh, Casters, do like magical wiretaps or something?"

Sarah's exasperation evaporated into the rising steam of the bathroom, and she giggled quietly into her hand. "No, Chuck, we don't do magical wiretaps, but we do normal ones. Think about it this way, if, say, the CIA or NSA can do it, then we probably can too. And a lot more. So, no, you can't call Ellie. But I promise that I will find a way for you to get word to her that you are safe." Sarah finished disrobing. She heard Chuck assent as she stepped into the steaming water.

Chuck's headache had finally gone away. He was still exhausted, but too stressed and excited to sleep. He stretched out on the bed and tried not to think about Sarah taking her shower. She obviously thought they were safe for now, and she would be the one to know, so Chuck started working on calming himself. He took long slow breaths, in and out, in and out. He was starting to feel calm, less stressed and excited, when the bathroom door swung open and Sarah emerged in a cloud of steam. She was wearing her camisole and panties. Nothing else. She walked over to the table in the room and put her things on it, her clothes neatly folded.

Chuck was immediately more stressed and excited than before his breathing exercise. Sarah walked to the side of the bed opposite him, and began to turn back the comforter. Chuck raised himself on his elbows and looked at her, carefully, in the eyes.

"Ah, right, I will, uh, sleep on the floor. You can have the bed." Sarah stopped what she was doing and looked at him briefly, then she returned her attention to the bedclothes.

"No, Chuck, the floor is gross. You are not going to sleep there. I wouldn't do that to you. We can share the bed."

"Really? Are you sure that's a good idea, Sarah?" A spark of her earlier anger returned to her eyes.

"Yes, Chuck. I am sure. I can resist you, you know."

"Oh, I am sure. If there is one thing that Chuck Bartowski is, it's resistable." Chuck let the matter drop with that half-joke and went around the bed into the bathroom. He stripped down and took his shower, reasonably sure that Sarah was not having any problem keeping her thoughts from turning to him as he had while she showered.

Sarah was not ready to sleep, despite being in bed, despite being tired. Television did not interest her. But she liked music, even if she knew little about it. So she clicked on the clock/radio beside the bed and turned the dial until she heard a clear voice.

"This is Barstow Community College Radio, and this is my show. I am Gary. Settle back for an hour of old New Wave classics and more. First up, the Smiths, 'Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want'."

Sarah felt the song come home. Its tone of half-realized, half-resigned desire struck a deep chord with her. The singer wanted something desperately but seemed not to expect to get it, maybe not even to know what it was, and, even worse, what he knew was that life he was living was a life that turned good men bad. All the anger and frustration and futility of the past hours and the past weeks and past months welled up in Sarah. She was about to cry. She clicked off the radio as the song ended and put her pillow over her face. She fought with herself for control. She lost.

Chuck emerged from the bathroom wearing his t-shirt and jeans. He was barefoot, and had his shirt and his Chuck Taylors in his hand. He hung the shirt in the closet and stowed his shoes beneath his shirt. Sarah was already asleep. That surprised Chuck. She seemed so preternaturally aware, it was hard to imagine her asleep, or being willing to sleep while in the presence of someone awake. She had turned on her side and was facing toward his spot in the bed. He looked at her face. Beautiful. Even asleep, she seemed aglow. Chuck wondered if that was because she was actually glowing, glowing pale blue, beyond the limits of what he could now see. He noticed that her eyes were a bit red, a bit puffy. Had she been crying? He had a hard time imagining her crying. That sort of vulnerability seemed foreign to her.

Chuck stretched out beside her, trying hard not to disturb her slumber. She rolled back over to face away from him, but he thought she had done that in her sleep. Her breathing was steady and rhythmic. Chuck couldn't help but laugh silently at his predicament. He was in bed with Sarah, but not in bed with Sarah. He got to experience all the curses but none of the blessings of being so close to her. His frustration had begun with their near-kiss on the dance floor and although events had distracted him from it, his frustration announced its continued presence when she came out of the bathroom. His shower, cold, had helped. But having her beside him was warming him again. He rolled on his side to face away from her. Better for them to be back to back. Chuck eventually went to sleep.

Sarah began to awaken. She first dimly registered the feeling of Chuck's hand on hers, and then the feeling of his body curled into and against hers, warm and inviting. He began to stroke her hand and fingers with his fingers. Sarah enjoyed the sensation for a moment and then, still hovering on the edge of sleep, she wove her fingers into Chuck's and squeezed gently. She heard his breathing change, and she was suddenly wide awake. She rolled over toward Chuck to find him rolling toward her and then resting on his arms above her. He leaned down to kiss her, his eyes bright and his curly hair askew. Sarah caught him with her hands against his chest, then pushed him up far enough to slip from beneath him. She walked quickly into the bathroom and closed the door.

Once inside, she leaned back against the door and put her hands in her hair. She pulled it in frustration. She wanted to go back to him, back to that bed, their bed, and she wanted to make love to him. But that absolutely could not happen now. It would be a bad idea to start something she could not follow through. As bad as she wanted to sleep with Chuck, if she did it now it would be with no expectation that it might ever happen again. She still had to face Graham. She could be ordered to leave Chuck or worse. And she would have to face Graham today. She did not just want to sleep with Chuck, she realized, even though she wanted that badly. She wanted to be with Chuck, maybe to be a couple and to work toward something together, committed to each other. But that was not clearly in the cards, and it would be wrong to do what he would understand as her making him a promise. She was dead sure that he was not a one-night stand kind of guy. And she didn't want that. What she wanted wasn't entirely clear to her, but it was getting clearer. It wasn't that. She needed time to think. She needed time to talk to Chuck.

She had fallen for Chuck, or started falling, at the Nerd Herd desk. She touched his hand and he touched her heart. She had continued falling. She had daydreamed about him after leaving the Buy More. She had fallen farther when he called. The plummet was irreversible when he stood in her door. She was still falling. She had parachuted from planes into trackless jungles. She'd even done it at night. Never had her fall been this free. The only force acting on her was irresistible gravity of Chuck.

When Sarah came back out of the bathroom, Chuck was fully dressed and sitting in the desk chair. If he was upset about what she had done, he was hiding it well.

"Are we going?" He asked the question with a neutral tone.

Sarah was both pleased and disappointed. She needed to talk to Chuck, but it would be better to do it somewhere away from the bed they had slept in together, woke up in together. At least, it would be better for her, because the bed drew her with a magnetic force. It was all she could do not to look at Chuck and then to look at it, beckoning them both back into it. She grabbed her clothes quickly and went back into the bathroom. A minute or so later she emerged fully clothed. She walked silently past Chuck and out the door. He followed her and closed the door without comment.

She started the car and drove them deep into the countryside, to an old ranch house. It was surrounded by a fence and the driveway was closed by a heavy gate. Sarah stopped in front of the gate and shut off the car. She got out and walked to the gate. She put her hands on it and bowed her head. She said the necessary words and felt the familiar twinge of power. The gate recognized her, and it swung inward. She knew that as it did so, other perimeter warding spells would be suspended for a few minutes, so that she and Chuck could get to the house before further shibboleths would be needed. Graham would already know she was there, since the warding spells were his.

She would have to talk to him soon. She still did not know what to tell him or what to say about all that had happened. Her life had changed. It had changed so much and so quickly that she was unsure how to even begin to process the changes, since the only vocabulary for change she had was the vocabulary from before the changes, a vocabulary woefully inadequate for her new reality. She had never had many words for emotions. She had not let herself feel them or denied she she felt them when she did. She had rarely been obliged to talk about them, and even then, she normally refused. It was like she'd gone from seeing in black and white to seeing in technicolor, and she was bedazzled by the splay of hues, tongue-tied.

The ranch house was on a beautiful piece of land. Although houses could be seen in the distance, none was nearby. Inside, the ranch house looked like...a ranch house. The floors were old pine, waxed to a shine. Heavy, vaguely Mission-style furniture filled the downstairs rooms. In the kitchen there was an old heavy stove, a couple of large sinks and a central island, over which hung pots and pans. It was a worn and comfortable place, not at all the haunt of witches and warlocks that Chuck had expected. Sarah had disappeared upstairs shortly after they entered. She had gestured to a room off the living room, and informed him that it was his, and that he would find fresh clothes in the closet.

Since she had not looked back and had not returned, he went into the room. A large bed occupied a goodly portion of the space. An old tiger oak chest of drawers stood against one wall and a few feet from the end of the bed. On the top of the chest was an antique clock, ticking loudly, and telling the correct time. Chuck went around the bed to the closet on opposite the door. Inside were shirts and jackets and pants, all on hangers. Chuck grabbed a olive shirt and a pair of jeans. Each was his size. He took them with him and went in search of a bathroom. He found one soon enough, and went inside. He changed clothes. He noticed that there was a new toothbrush, still in its packaging, beside an untouched tube of toothpaste. He brushed his teeth and washed his face. He ran wet fingers through his hair. It didn't help much, but he felt better for trying. He went back into the living room. A bookcase stood against the wall. He went and looked at the books. Most of them were English classics-Austen, Dickens, Trollope, Eliot, Lawrence and so on. Chuck picked up Austen's Northanger Abbey (it fit his mood) and sat down to wait on Sarah.

Sarah climbed the steps and forced herself not to look back at Chuck. She did not need a fresh image of him in her mind when she had her conversation with Graham. She in upheaval enough, confused enough. Their second near kiss had left her strembly, and she had worked hard to keep Chuck from noticing. Luckily, he seemed to be struggling to find a way to act as though it had not happened (had not nearly happened), and so he had not talked about it or spent too much time in close, if surreptitious, examination of her. She knew what she had done had hurt him, and that she had once again thrown everything between them back into doubt. But that was where she needed it to stay. If he was as sure of her as she was of him, not even Graham and Beckmann together could keep them apart. But since she might have to part with him, it was better to keep him unsure. He was hurt, but the hurt did not compare to the hurt he would experience if she allowed herself to confirm all that she knew Chuck had spied in her eyes or felt in her touch. Plausible deniability, or something like that.

Sarah went to her room and found the closet full of clothes in her size and style. She changed quickly into a plain blue blouse and a pair of black jeans. She put on pair of soft, low boots. She brushed her teeth and worked on her hair. She put on just a little makeup, and then she left the room and went down the hall to the library. Inside, there was a round table in the middle of the book-covered walls. On the table was a large earthen bowl, unadorned but beautifully shaped, in which stood a couple of inches of water. Sarah approached the bowl and dipped in a finger. She drew a vertical line on her forehead with the finger, and then sat down at the table. She chanted for a while. A few seconds after the chant ended, a three-dimensional image of Graham appeared above the water. Telepathy was fine in a pinch, but it was always better to be able to see and hear (with your ears) the person talking to you. Telepathy was prone to the same sorts of troubles as texting. It was hard to get tone and context. Telepathy was not empathy. Communication spells were really better. It just took time to prep the items (luckily they were already prepped in the library) and to do the chanting.

Graham looked unhappy. "Sarah, at last. Why didn't you go to the ranch house last night?"

"It was too far and I was too tired. Chuck was too upset to spring yet more on him. I figured we would both be better off with some rest. I was sure we got away clean. We spent the night in a bad motel on the other side of Barstow."

Graham looked at her, unconvinced. He seemed to be trying to decide what to ask her first. Sarah figured she'd be better off if she took control of the conversation.

"So, I went out with Chuck on a 'date'," Sarah said, making scare-quotes in the air with her hands. She felt a sharp pang of guilt when she did so, felt disloyal to Chuck. But she went on. "I found no reason to think Chuck is a Caster or is in thrall to a Caster. In fact, if it were not for your knowledge that he read the book, I would have thought there was a mistake. We had dinner and then we went to a club. Chuck seemed perfectly normal," her eyes went unfocused, "even charming." She forced her eyes to refocus. "Casey caught up with us, as you know. There was a brief battle, and Chuck and I escaped." Sarah stopped and then looked at Graham. "By the way, did you send in someone to wipe the memories of the folks in the club, and to repair the damage?" She saw Graham nod. He must have sent in a group of Cleaners, Casters who wiped away the trail of other Casters. "We ended up on a roof. I needed to get closer to the moon after the power I expended in the battle. Casey caught up with us. He and I prepared to engage each other again, when Chuck stopped us."

"What do you mean? 'Stopped you'?"

"Chuck somehow froze me and froze Casey. We were unharmed, but could not move or use our powers. After a couple of minutes, Chuck released me and we ran. He said that he could only hold Casey for a little while longer, but he was able to do it long enough for us to escape."

Graham's eyes were wide and his lips were working. He was upset, in disbelief. But more, he was...afraid.

"So you are telling me, Sarah, that a mortal now has powers, and not only that, sufficient powers to overcome two of the most deadly Casters in the world, two Enforcers? Is that what you are telling me?"

"Yes, sir."

"But you know that is impossible!"

"No, sir. I know it is possible because it happened. I saw it. It was done to me. Chuck went into a kind of trance, his eyes rolled back a bit, and he spoke in a voice that seemed his and his. But as quickly as his power came, it went. He does not seem to have any real control over it. Maybe he could learn some; I don't know."

Graham mulled this over.

"Do you have any idea what triggered his power?"

"Well, he said he was afraid, and then it happened."

"So you think that Bartowski's power is triggered when he is afraid for himself."

Sarah sat quietly for a minute.

"No, actually, I don't think Chuck's power is triggered by fear for himself. I think it was triggered by his fear for me. Chuck is a mortal, yes. On paper, he seems like a loser, I grant. But I have spent some time with him. He is not a coward. But, more than that, his first thoughts are never for himself." Sarah thought about Ellie and Morgan, and about the grandfather and granddaughter. "He is brave and he is selfless. I think his power was triggered by his fear for me, sir."

"Really? Did he say that?

"No, no he didn't. But he almost did. He's been talking around the fact that he has feelings for me since we met, I think."

"Sarah, I know how good you are at your job. I also realize that you are a beautiful woman, intelligent and, well, bewitching. But do you mean to tell me that you have been able to manipulate Bartowski to this degree in such a short time? Because if you have, we may have to go back to calling him a loser, and not just on paper."

Sarah fought back her sudden anger. She took a breath before she responded.

"No, sir, you misunderstand me or I am not making myself clear. Chuck has not been manipulated. I have not been running any kind of seduction gambit. I mean, I did force a bit of flirting when I first spoke to him, but the forcing vanished almost immediately. He fell for me; I didn't push him." Sarah paused, considering.

"Maybe love at first sight seems unreal in our world. But it is real in his, or it is a real possibility for him. I think he is in love with me. And that love is a product of, well, nature, not artifice." Sarah was silent for a while and Graham watched her closely.

"Until the last few hours, I did not believe in love at first sight. Or, if I did, I thought it could only happen to the pure in heart-like Chuck. I don't think that anymore. I do believe in it."

Graham hardly knew what to say to her, she could tell. He seemed to recognize the drift of what she was saying just after she did. He tried to resist it.

"Look, Sarah, does it matter how it happened? This is a good thing. If he loves you, then we have a handle with which to control him. But we need to know exactly what power he has, what he can do. The problem is that we may not have time to figure this out. I have been in contact with Beckmann. She made nice after Casey lost you and, I presume, after his report scared her silly. She says that there is a group of dark Casters who have infiltrated our Houses, and that they were already expecting that someone would soon read the book. They now know it has happened. But they don't know who the reader is or that he is mortal or where he is. Luckily, the display of power on the roof last night seems not to have alerted anyone or left a trace. Don't ask me how. Whatever the nature of Bartowski's power, he can use it without alerting everyone to who and what and where he is. A significant advantage for him. But it also could make him a very threatening enemy."

Sarah let the last remark pass. It wasn't false, but she felt sure Chuck was not and would not be their enemy.

"Sir, how did Beckmann come by this information?"

"She caught one of the dark Casters in her rooms. She...questioned him for a while and he...told her what she wanted to know."

"Does this group of Casters have a name?"

Graham laughed. "They call themselves The One Ring." Graham shrugged. He had no explanation for the name.

"So Chuck is safe here?"

"Yes, Sarah, at least for a little while. See if you can figure out anything more about his powers, about him. I have his sister and her boyfriend-and that Morgan character you mentioned-all under protection. He does not need to worry about them. Make that clear to him. Talk to him. Go on long walks. Do...whatever is necessary."

Sarah blushed. She looked at the floor. So this was how Graham was going to play it, how he would try to twist what he now knew she was trying to say.

"Sarah, are we done for now?"

"No," Sarah said, lifting her eyes. "We are not done. Because you need to know: I fell for him too. I love Chuck, I don't know how it happened but I do, and I don't know what to do about it. But if...whatever...happens, it will not be because I am following orders. I want that to be clear."

Graham looked like he was going to be sick. So much for his handle on Chuck. So much for his handle on her. She waited for the tirade she knew was coming.

Chuck had read a sizable chunk of Northanger Abbey and still Sarah had not returned. He did not want to follow her upstairs. Her body language had more or less told him not to do that. But he could not imagine what was taking so long. He made a mental note of the page number he stopped on and then put the book down. He walked through the kitchen to the back porch and stood looking at the fields and distant houses beneath the glare of the midday sun.

"Chuck?"

Chuck turned to in time to see Sarah see him. The concern that had been in her eyes vanished. She looked at him with real warmth in her expression.

"Did you talk to your boss?"

"Well, 'boss' is not exactly the right word, but it is close enough. And yes I talked to him. We are going to stay here for the next day or two. Ellie and Captain Awesome and Morgan are all under the protection of the House of Graham. They will be safe. So we can stay here and try better to understand what has happened to you That will also give Graham, my boss, time to work out some details about where we go from here."

Chuck had been getting more and more worried about the folks back home, and it relieved him some to hear that they were being protected. That was good. But it also meant that they really might be or become targets. That was bad. But for now, Chuck could not do anything about it. If, however, he could better understand what that stupid book had done to him, maybe he could help to protect them. If he could gain some control over what he could do, he could make a difference in all that was unfolding around him.

Sarah waited for an explicit reaction from him. When he smiled, she returned the smile and then she headed back into the kitchen. Chuck followed her. Since they had not eaten breakfast, Sarah offered to make them omelettes for lunch. Chuck quickly took her up on the offer. While she cracked the eggs and beat them, Chuck cut up vegetables. His cutting was going slowly, and he noticed Sarah watching with an amused mixture of pain and horror, so he wordlessly handed her the knife. The blade was a blur in her hand. In seconds, the vegetables were chopped. When she saw Chuck's stunned pleasure at her prowess with knives, Sarah gave a slight, satisfied smirk, and then added the vegetables to the eggs and cheese Chuck put into the pan.

As Sarah finished the omelette, Chuck found what was necessary for coffee and brewed a pot. He had just poured them both a cup when Sarah put two dishes on the table, each with half an omelette. They sat down and ate in a suddenly embarrassed silence. Sarah realized that each had been struck by how natural it felt, how right. But they did not know each other, really, so the feeling of naturalness had to be an illusion. Except that Sarah knew for her it wasn't. But she knew Chuck was not completely sure about her. His doubt was like an ache in her side. She needed to rid him of that doubt if she could.

Chuck was sure of one thing. Whatever was going on between them had shifted yet again after Sarah's conversation with Graham. She was not exactly open with him. But she seemed no longer angry or frustrated, no longer determined to try to be closed to him, as she has seemed from the time he tried to kiss her until her conversation with Graham. Chuck knew she had been in a running battle with herself since they had met. He had taken a little friendly and unfriendly fire himself. But now it seemed like, although there were perhaps battles still to come, the war was over. Something had shaken loose in her. Chuck realized he would simply have to let her work it out in her own time.

Graham had been furious at what Sarah said. And then he got even more furious. His tirade had been colossal. How could she, Sarah Walker, his student, perhaps the finest Caster he had ever trained, his personal Enforcer, how could she be in love with a mortal, how could she?

Sarah simply weathered the storm. She had no explanation that made sense to her, so she had none that was likely to make sense to him. And, yes, she knew that Casters, especially Enforcers, did not fall in love, especially with mortals. And, yes, she knew that such relationships typically ended quickly or very badly or both. And yes, she knew that she was tasked with protecting Chuck, and that her feelings for him might make her less effective. And, yes, she knew that she might end up needing protection from him. Yes, she knew all that. (Even if she wasn't too worried about most of it, but there was no reason to tell Graham that. He would chalk it up to her being moony.)

Eventually, Graham wound down. All he could do was mutter and fret and repeat that this was a shocking development and a very bad idea indeed. And then he did what Sarah had expected all along. He threatened to remove her, to send someone else to protect Chuck.

"Look, sir, I understand that you are unhappy about this. I understand that it runs against protocol and tradition. But he is in love with me. He used his power to keep me safe. You know I would not lie to you about that, and you know that, in general, you trust my judgment. Let's agree to disagree about my feelings for Chuck. But, despite them, I am the best person for this job and you know it. I am the best at what I do, and my feelings for Chuck will not keep me from being the best. Our feelings for each give me the best chance of figuring out what he can do and why he can do it. Again, you know I won't lie to you. So let me say that I take protecting Chuck very seriously. My feelings for him will not compromise my ability to do that. But my feelings may make it the case that I will find myself protecting him from you, and not just from Beckmann or The One Ring. I am offering you that up front, not concealing it. So, unless you have plans to harm Chuck, your best plan is to leave him with me."

Graham had remained pissed. But he also saw Sarah's point, at least he did after a long session of swearing and threats. She again weathered the storm. At the end, Graham had this parting shot:

"Sarah, you have talked more to me in the last few minutes than you have at any one time since I have known you. That shows me that what you are telling me is true. Bartowski has...done something to you. I...hope it is something good. Get back to me soon."

When she finally got back downstairs, she didn't see Chuck. There was a book on an end table, but no Chuck. She felt panic begin to rise-had he run? She hadn't even considered that. She went into the kitchen and then she saw him on the back porch. She stopped and took a deep breath before she called his name. She meant what she said to Graham. She loved Chuck, but she did not know what to do about it. That had to be worked out. They could start by making something to eat. An omelette sounded good to her.