Chuck vs Guns, On The Run and Big Blast-y Explosions.

When a mission goes pair-shape, Sarah Walker requires the assistance of a lanky nerd herder to help her put as much distance between her and Echo Park as quickly as possible. Of course things are never that simple.

A/N: The second chapter here! Whoooo! - I've already done Chapter 3 but I won't post it until I've done Chapter 4 which may be a while because I have exams.

Thanks for all the wonderful reviews and story alerts.

All my mistakes are my own, I apologise also for any blunders, or general discrepancies.

I hope you like my story

Disclaimer: Still Don't Own Chuck - Double Bummer.

Chapter 2

24th September 2007

An hour outside of Barstow

17:42

An hour had dwindled by and the friction caused by their earlier exploits allayed with her confession seemed to yield to a somewhat easygoing silence that stretched taut and loosened like a rubber band as often as Chuck breathed.

But at least she had cleared up one mystery and put Chuck's mind at ease for the time being.

And she didn't appear to be all that cold-hearted or as deadly as an hour ago would have him believe. It was like she had simply slipped into another personality or mind-set all together.

"Do you have any spare clothes I can borrow" Sarah asked, allowing her eyes to drift helplessly to her nurses outfit.

Chuck glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes in understanding; she would stick out like a sore thumb while on the run from – well they hadn't gotten to that part yet – in a nurses outfit that bordered perilously close to illegal. Not to mention how hard it would be for her to blend in what with all of the guaranteed stares she would draw from the immediate male population, which made Chuck question her covert capabilities as a C.I.A. agent.

And Chuck was still processing that one.

And combined with small space and the oppressive heat bearing down on them, their clothes had become sticky with sweat, clinging uncomfortably to them like wet second skin. Chuck's shirt was drenched to the point were it was fast becoming see through and he didn't even want to think about hers. It would surely make things like thinking and driving a hundred times more difficult and awkward then they already were.

"Er – yeah, one second" he pulled the car over on the side of the road and fumbled his door open. Extricating himself easily out of the nerdherder he hurried to the car's trunk.

He suppressed a noise of surprise when she met him half way, flashing a grateful smile that made him momentarily forget how to move and how to think.

He blinked away his temporary brain twinge and returned the grin somewhat creakily.

"Erm – I'll just..."

With clumsy hands, Chuck lifted the trunk thankful for the distraction and proceeded to root through the accumulation of miscellaneous computer paraphernalia, old video games and other various nerdy items that made Sarah's forehead crinkle with speculation.

Finally he retrieved the bag he was searching for which contained his spare t-shirt, shoes and sweats. He handed it to her uneasily, unsure of its worth and was blinded by her impeccable white teeth.

"Thank you Chuck"

"Y-your welcome" He said, light-headed.

She disappeared to the back of the car leaving Chuck staring stunned stupid at the spot she had just occupied.

He could see why the C.I.A hired her.

A handful of minutes later, Chuck roused the car into motion once again, the engine shattering the flaccid heat. He was just gathering his wits when the rustle of fabric and a soft grunt from behind him made him freeze.

Sucking in a deep shaky breath Chuck tried his best to re-establish his driving rhythm, his thumbs even rapping an erratic beat on the steering wheel to distract himself. He definitely wasn't thinking of where she could have possibly hid those knives.

But the pull towards the rear view mirror proved to be too powerful.

He was impressed she could even maneuver herself in the tight space of the nerdherder much less get dressed in it. It had taken him years to be able to fold his limbs accordingly to accommodate the tight squeeze, but then again she was lithe and obviously more flexible then he, a trained assassi –

He caught a flashing glimpse of a bare shoulder, deliciously tanned by the sun.

The nerdherder careened to the left.

"Chuck! Chuck– Are you all right? What happened?"

Her warm breath tickled his jaw and he felt his cheeks flush with colour.

"Nothing – nothing just erm" pitching forward with a gracelessness he had perfected over the years Chuck slapped the rearview mirror away from his line of sight "—a fly, really –really big fly—got it now, I just– you can go back to changing, it was just a fly"

He felt her lingering just inches away from him. She smelt of lavender.

"If you say so," she determined after a beat. Chuck heard the suspicion lining her words but thankfully she dropped the subject.

Once she retreated to the back seat, Chuck freed the breath he hadn't realized he had been holding in.

That was a close call.

He hated to think what she would do him if she had caught him peeking, even if he had driven miles and miles for her and sort of saved her life. He doubted it would be pretty.

When she finally finished changing, much to Chuck's everlasting relief – there had been a number of hair raising moments that had prompted his eyebrows to shoot beneath his curls – she reappeared and dropped into her seat, a hand brushing agaisnt his shoulders and sending a jolt of electricity through his limbs – was that deliberate?

He focused on the road, his grip on the steering wheel tightened.

"Thank you, Chuck"

"No problem" he spared her a fleeting look and then snapped his attention back on the long stretch of cracked and deserted tarmac ahead. "You erm-you look good"

'Good' was the understatement of the century, she looked breathtaking. If her nurse's outfit could trigger a near catatonic state of men everywhere then surely if he was to fully allow himself to appreciate the fit of his clothes on her now instead of avoiding her like direct sunlight, then it would probably send him shuffling of the mortal coil with a smile on his face.

"Thanks" she said faintly, her features softening at his compliment. He watched apprehensively as she toyed with the frayed edge of the loaned shirt, obviously building up to something. Finally after what seemed like an age, she met his eyes. "I don't just mean the clothes"

"Oh" he said steadily and feigned nonchalance. "Well I was finished with the sizzling shrimp anyways"

That provoked a small chuckle from her and Chuck felt his heart soar. It was without a doubt the most enticing sound he had heard in a long time.

Her chuckles trailed off and to cover up the awkward silence that ensued her fingers brushed away strands of blonde out of her eyes. Then her expression dimmed into seriousness.

Chuck quelled the twin rush of anticipation and hope in his gut and forcibly relaxed his muscles. Though his thoughts belied those actions.

Finally, a voice whispered in the back of his mind.

"Chuck about that" she paused to pick her words carefully, her brow furrowing. "—Obviously for National Security reasons I can't tell you everything, but those men back there they were the bad guys, a threat, apart of a rebel organization that I was ordered to neutralize"

Chuck felt his stomach drop at the word 'neutralize', but didn't hold it against her.

She looked pained, torn, Chuck couldn't help but think, between two personalities as she spoke, her human side, susceptible to emotion, and her professional agent side, hardened by years of dedicated service. As she fought to reign in the conflicting emotions exposing a deep-seated insecurity, she parted her lips to say more.

"I'm sorry you had to witness that," Sarah continued, and she did look truly apologetic "and I'm sorry I got you involved, and that your stuck driving me hundreds of miles" and her eye pointedly swept over the car, lingering for a split second on his face before securing her gaze on her shoes. "...and for ruining your day"

Chuck burst into a deep-throated laugh that made her spin around in surprise "Ruin my day! – Hardly and as for being involved and stuck driving you hundreds of miles, well I'm only honored and happy to help you out for all you've done for our country"

The brilliance of Sarah's smile put the sun's dazzling rays outside to shame and Chuck felt his neck warm under its intensity. His throat bobbled and he felt a bead of sweat glide down the back off his neck.

"— If anything it should be me doing all the thanking" and he nodded his head animatedly when he caught the flash scepticism skitter across her features. "Yeah, honestly, those guys back their they didn't exactly scream model citizen and you saved a hell of a lot lives by doing what you did today and it couldn't have been easy but you did it and who knows what they would have done – so sincerely Sarah Walker C.I.A thank you"

He tried not to let his mind wander to how close those men had come to endangering Ellie and Awesome or anyone else unlucky enough to accidently stumble across them in the hospital car park. One stray bullet could have irreparably changed someone's life forever if not for Sarah.

Sarah on the other hand apparently didn't share his sentiments, she seemed to shrink back into her seat with the weight of his words and Chuck felt his stomach drop a second time; maybe he had laid it on a little to thick. He couldn't help the truth though and she was an honest to god secret agent. It sent chills of excitement coursing through his vein at the thought of all the adventures she must have gone on, all the stuff she had done to preserve humanity for the greater good. He had entertained countless of spy fantasies and now he sat next to the real deal.

He waited with bated breath for her to respond and she didn't disappoint. Her face finally cleared of tumultuous thoughts and brightened considerably.

"Well if I saved a hell of a lot of lives today its only because of what you did Chuck" the candor overriding the amusement of her words made Chuck look away, abashed.

"Well anything to save a damsel in distress"

They shared a brief look before exploding into laughter. Sarah Walker was anything but a damsel in distress.

And just like that the last of the tension was banished.

With hints of laughter stilling clinging to her features Sarah's eyebrow raised "So Nerd Herd?"

24th September 2007

Approaching the outskirts of Barstow

18:51

"Wait," Sarah said, breathless with laughter. "You actually call him Captain Awesome?"

"Yeah, everything he does is awesome," Chuck grinned, faking a second of solemnity. "Skydiving, white-water rafting...flossing."

Sarah's shoulders shook with badly suppressed mirth, an errant thought was that there was absolutely no way this could be the same woman who only a couple of hours ago had pointed a gun at his heart.

They had struck up an easy camaraderie and literally talked away the last hour about anything and everything, played road trip games, skirted over sensitive topics that caused apologetic frowns to grace Sarah's face and stuck to items of conversations of more a superficial nature.

Sarah struggled to catch up with him on numerous occasion lost in the sea of his techno-babble and obscure pop culture references that prompted the most adorable wrinkle to materialize between her eyebrows. He would be lying if he said he was sorry.

He'd laughed more in that hour with Sarah Walker then he had in the last five years of his life.

She seemed to have relaxed too, as much as she seemed capable of once they had hit desert road with nothing but miles of parched and sunbaked earth stretching on as far their eyes could see. Tension drained from her muscles and her pupils were no longer darting around so frequently in their sockets that it made him dizzy.

"You're funny, Chuck."

His shoulders twitched, hands loosening on the steering wheel and his smile turned shy.

"Well, I'm a funny guy."

"Good, because I'm not. Funny, I mean."

"Clearly." His eyes sparkled as Sarah made a face. "So, is that your big secret? 'Cause I've been sitting here...trying to figure what's wrong with you"

"Oh plenty. Believe me" Sarah piped up and Chuck eyebrows rose at that admission.

Shaking his head he continued "And I was thinking either she's a cannibal or she's really not funny. I was pulling for cannibal 'cause I've never met one before"

Sarah twisted away to muffle laughter. Chuck stomach gave a now not so uncharacteristic flutter at the sound.

"Not a cannibal, promise" she said once she recovered.

Chuck gave an exaggerated sigh of relief "Thank god" he glanced at his watch "I had no idea when the last time you ate was"

A passing sign tugged Chuck from his jollity and his heart gave that not so uncharacteristic judder.

They were only a couple of miles from their destination.

Chuck could count every mile with the subsequent tightening of every muscle in his back, could feel every nerve writhe beneath his skin like live wires emitting sparks.

It was stupid he knew, he had only just met this woman and they lived worlds apart literally and their very first meeting may have been a bit more bloody and violent for his liking but the connection he felt was too palpable, too real to ignore.

But whether he liked it or not, connection or not, a couple more miles and Sarah Walker would be out of his life for good.

Chuck disregarded the lead weight that settled in his stomach at that thought. He had maybe more then ten minutes left with Sarah and he intended on enjoying them. He didn't want to think about the lonely drive back to Burbank where he would undoubtedly be confronted by his sister and Morgan about his sudden disappearing act, think about going back to work at a dead end job, continue to feel he wasn't making a difference in the world.

His eyes drifted to Sarah in sudden reverence.

"So what's it like?" Chuck asked infusing wonder into his words. He rotated around in the driver seat so he could better gage her response.

Sarah stilled. Outside the window blurred with passing desert. Her face however betrayed little surprise, like had been expecting this question for some time.

Chuck could see the wheels turn in her mind, no doubt selecting her words carefully.

"Being in the C.I.A – being a agent is like being a..." she searched her brain for the right analogy and eventually a grin broke over her face "a super hero"

Chuck's face lit up.

"It's exciting. Its fun. You do all these amazing things" her eyes cast off into the distance, voice growing impassioned "you save all these people, you visit all of these beautiful place and thwart all of these countless plots..."

She trailed off sidetracked and Chuck frowned at the sudden shift in mood, at the sudden sadness wafting across her face. His eyes cut from the road to her, to the road and back again – feeling utterly helpless. It was like a wall cracking and fissuring under the pressure of a great weight.

He quickly regretted asking her the question.

"But nobody knows you did it, I could be just like any other person and I don't want parades or anything, its just hard sometimes to see whether I've made a difference, whether all of these horrible things I've done for the greater good actually impact people or knowing whether there will ever be an end to all these same recycled conspiracies and same cliché bad guys, I can't help but think sometimes the world is just inherently evil, filled with all the same characters who get their kicks wiping out whole civilizations for nothing other then their own sadistic pleasure."

It was the most she had spoken in the last hour.

Her head bowed now as if the burden of her career had sapped her of all her strength and made it impossible to hold up "it's tiring, I clean up one mess and sure enough there's another one waiting for me around the corner"

With a sigh she slumped agaisnt her seat, her words hanging heavily in the air. She looked so unlike the strong woman from back in the car park, the strength, that had drawn him to her in the first place, burning in her bright blue eyes were ghostly now with pain.

She looked so small.

"Sarah" his voice was barely above a whisper, but she froze as if it was a shout. "I don't think you could ever be like any other person"

And with a move surprisingly bold for a man who almost crashed every time he caught a glimpse of her legs, unclenched a hand from the steering wheel and placed it atop of hers.

His eyes locked on hers.

"And I know"

Her eyes, which had just widened with the sudden realization of what she had just said, snapped to their joint hands and then back to him with the strangest expression. Then a slow hesitant smile lit up her face in stages.

Chuck's heart bumped clumsily into his ribcage.

"It's becoming a little redundant" Sarah murmured and she pinned Chuck down with a level stare laced with such honesty he found it hard to breathe "but thanks again Chuck"

A thumb brushed agaisnt his knuckles and Chuck jumped, the air knocked out of his lungs.

"Your w-welcome" He croaked out finally. With a huge amount of effort he tore his eyes away from Sarah and hauled his gaze back on to the road.

And ignoring the screaming voices in the back of his head, he gently extracted his hand from hers, pushing down the wave of profound loss and returned it to its place on the steering wheel, clearing his throat nervously.

He didn't catch the flash of disappointment behind her eyes.

He was more focused on the fact that his skin was practically on fire. That the fleeting touch lingering agaisnt his knuckles might as well have been a bolt of electricity for all he knew.

And maybe Sarah truly was a super hero. Her powers clearly derived from a single touch. The fact that she was sitting just a mere couple of centimeters from him and her fingers alone could send him into coma he couldn't help but wonder what would happen if he closed the distance and—

Chuck blinked.

"Erm I believe this is your stop" Chuck said, flattening his voice into what he hoped was something approaching neutral.

Sarah straightened up from her own internal musings, clearly surprised and swept her eyes around the baked landscape, her gaze lingering on the sign that did indeed mark the outskirts of the city. A frown pulled at her lips, almost as if she was angry with herself for losing situational awareness to such a degree. He didn't know what to think about that.

"Yeah I guess it is" Sarah agreed after a minute.

She didn't move, Chuck likewise stilled, when he eventually slowed the car down to a stop, unsure of what to do now. What did one do after dropping a C.I.A agent off hundreds of miles out of his way?

Did the situation call for a hug, a handshake, a see-you-in-another-life-maybe.

A kiss on the cheek?

"So..." Chuck said, breaking up the abrupt uncomfortable silence that had settled. He chose to soak up the barren wasteland unable to meet her eyes, when a thought occurred to him. "Are you sure you don't want me to drop you off in the city"

The little curling flame of hope that had reared in his chest at the prospect of another twenty minutes in the car with Sarah Walker was doused by a small shake of Sarah's head.

"No its best if we part here" Sarah at least looked dismayed by that.

"Okay" and before she could fully voice her weak protest, Chuck was out of the door and halfway around the car when he reappeared at her window a goofy grin plastered on his face. "After you m'lady"

Sarah humored him and took his pro-offered arm, hopping lightly out of the nerd herder, now coated in a fine layer of dust from the drive.

They broke apart with stilted laughter, Chuck backtracking a couple of steps and arcing his spine until it gave a satisfying crack. He stuck out a hand, the other instinctively reaching for the back of his neck.

"It was nice to meet Sarah, I hope everything works out"

Her hand felt soft in his, her fingers like little individual packets of heat that sent individual tremors searing down to the tips of his toes to the top of his curls.

"Likewise, Chuck"

He didn't want to let go.

A sudden burst of wind picked up and drove through Sarah's blond hair shattering the spell that temporarily rooted them to the spot. If it hadn't made him remember himself he would have brushed the stray locks that had come to rest in front of her eyes.

Instead however he dropped her hand and his lanky build shook with strangled laughter.

"Well I best go right, unless your sure you don't want a lift" he eyed her for confirmation and she gave an amused nod. "Okay then if you're ever in Echo Park..." he trailed off.

"I'll give you a call" Sarah supplied, eyes bright.

"Yeah" Chuck said, distracted by the shift in sunlight that hit her hair and picked out every fiery highlight. "Yeah you do that."

"I will" Sarah promised.

And just like that the bubble of warmth created from his time with Sarah started to deflate. He wondered what she would do now and entertained a quick slideshow of her hurling herself out of planes, dirt biking across rocky outcrops, scissor kicking corrupt oil sheiks in the delicates, throwing herself out of a burning building just before it was consumed by a bright orange explosion.

His thoughts were cut off by an unnatural rumbling.

He stumbled to an ungainly stop halfway around the car. Sarah, similarly, stilled and a hand went to her gun.

"What?" he asked, immediately tensing. "What is it?"

He didn't dare look over his shoulder already fearing the answer.

"Chuck get in the car. Now!"

Even though every instinct screamed at him to obey, Chuck didn't move. "What about you?"

Sarah waved her gun and gave him an exasperated look.

"Oh, yeah," Chuck said. And as he crashed into the drivers seat a hand fumbling for his seat belt, he comprehended the fleeting glimpse of the reflection in the side mirror with an audible gulp.

Three black suburban's, with blacked out windows, kicked up a flume of thick suffocating dust as they drove unswervingly towards them like a bad dream. Tiny but unmistakable blotches in the distance that would clear the dirt between them in a matter of minutes. They looked so incongruous in the desert, but thanks to the amount of movies he had watched they looked so at home as well.

He was interrupted from his paralyzing thoughts by a car door opening and slamming.

"Chuck drive now!"

Well he'd heard the lady and thinking of nothing else better to do Chuck slammed his foot on the gas.

A/N: Hope you liked the 2nd chapter enough to feel free and drop me a review - hint, hint.

See you soon.

Dontfreakout