03:00 Did you flash?

Chuck sat on the couch in Casey's living room-slash-surveillance center and eyed his handlers with anger. Look at them. Whispering code words and checking weapons and ammo while ignoring the man sitting just a few steps away from them. But if they thought he'd be the one to crack, they were very wrong. He had his own reasons to hate them right now. Telling Beckman he was useless. Not trusting him.

Chuck wasn't one to hold a grudge – Bryce Larkin notwithstanding – but they'd been giving him the silent treatment for almost ten minutes, and he felt he had the right to do the same to them. Even if sitting on a couch with his arms crossed over his chest wasn't nearly as cool as planning a national security mission.

"All set. Walker?" Casey looked at Sarah, and she placed the last gun in her bag and gave a professional nod, her face unreadable. Chuck couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her look so… agent-y. "Let's go." Each agent flung a black bag over their shoulder and both walked towards the door with long steps, Sarah going outside while Casey took one last look behind him and stood by the door. "Move it, Bartowski!"

Chuck stood up and quickly followed Sarah outside, doing his best to look as angry as he felt. It really wasn't easy to appear outraged when you were practically running to follow orders.

Sarah waited by the back door of the black car until Chuck got inside and then slammed the door shut. Apparently, he couldn't even be trusted with the most basic of tasks. "Can I at least know where we're going?" He asked when the two agents had taken their seats on the front.

Casey blatantly ignored Chuck's question, but Sarah looked at him through the rear view mirror and opened her mouth to speak. At least one of his two handlers understood the basics of being a human being. "Seatbelt." Or maybe not.

Chuck followed Sarah's indication and tried again, this time a little louder. "Guys. Where are we going?"

"You already know more than enough, Bartowski." Casey kept his eyes fixed on the road in front of him. "Until you can control your brain, we can't risk you having any information that could compromise the mission."

"You have got to be kidding me." Chuck let out an incredulous laugh. "So now I've gone from asset to what, exactly? Part of the equipment?"

Casey and Sarah's stubborn silence made him shake his head in disbelief before letting it rest on the back of his seat. He hadn't asked for this, anyway. Well, he did ask for the mission, but not for the rest of his now completely insane life. He just wanted to be Intersect-free. And he was almost there, almost touching freedom with his fingertips, when Bryce Larking messed everything up, once again. Okay, maybe that wasn't fair. He did ask Chuck to destroy the Intersect. But what was he supposed to do? He wasn't the same Chuck Bartowski anymore.

Casey sort of respected him, in his own name-calling, detached way. Sarah wasn't going to leave. Sarah. He did it for her, in a way. She was the one person who had always, from day one, believed in him. She truly thought he had what it took to be a hero. And there he was, faced with a choice between the possibility of a normal life, and pure heroism.

For a split second – and not any longer – he understood Sarah's reluctance to ditch her job and join him in a life of normalcy. Sadly, a split second was all it took for him to activate the computer in front of him.

Maybe – just maybe – if he'd taken just another second to think, he'd be enjoying the beaches of Bora Bora with Sarah right now instead of being dragged to some undetermined place to give the Intersect another try. But maybe then he'd hate himself for being a coward. Maybe Sarah would, too, for destroying what Bryce had given his life for. Maybe this was the lesser of two evils.

The car stopped next to what looked like an abandoned warehouse, and Casey was the first to leave the car. Sarah at least had the nice – maybe human would be a more accurate word for it – gesture of talking to him before she followed the colonel. "Let's go."

Chuck walked a few steps behind his handlers towards the warehouse, wondering exactly where they were and why. But he lost his train of thought when Casey entered a code into a small box on the side of the building and the front wall slid open to reveal a small plane, apparently waiting for them. Not that there was anything resembling a crew in there, but still. He'd been working with – or for, as things were looking right now – Casey and Sarah for long enough to know seeing a vehicle usually meant it would be taking them somewhere. This plane thing was a first, though.

Casey and Sarah quickly boarded the plane, leaving him alone to stare slack-jawed at it. It was one thing to be driven to some sort of secret location. But flying? Flying opened up a whole new category of worrying scenarios in Chuck's mind.

A few moments after they'd left him, both agents appeared once again, almost identical looks of impatience on their faces as they looked down at him from the plane. "What are you waiting for, Bartowski? A red carpet?" Chuck took Casey's comment as an order to get inside as fast as possible, and Sarah locked the door behind him as soon as he took the first step inside.

The plane was… functional. Not luxurious in any way, just the basics to get from one place to another. Chuck figured it was the Ford Focus of planes. Nothing fancy. At least the seats looked comfy enough. So much so, in fact, that he couldn't suppress a yawn when he thought about the opportunity to get some sleep before they arrived at wherever they were going.

He picked a seat by one of the windows, facing the front of the small plane, and shifted a little to make himself comfortable before reclining the back and closing his eyes. "Oh, yeah. That's what I'm talking about, baby." Chuck grinned and let out a quiet sigh, fully prepared to fall asleep and wake up not one second before they landed. Maybe his dream would pick up where he left off two hours earlier, with some luck.

But he'd only started to feel his muscles relax when someone pulled on the handle next to his seat, making him sit up straight with a jerk. "Seats must be in an upright position for take-off."

"Sorry, Casey. Gonna point to the exits and offer me some peanuts now?" Chuck could have sworn Sarah was trying to suppress a smile right before Casey sent a menacing growl his way.

For a moment, Chuck really thought he'd stepped over the line and Casey was going to kill him, Intersect be damned. Luckily, Sarah cut the tension when she spoke. "03:04, Casey."

They exchanged quick nods and meaningful glances – Chuck was sure there was a subject in spy school about saying full sentences with just a few looks – before Sarah took the seat opposite Chuck's and Casey disappeared through the door on the front of the plane. She only looked at him to make sure his seatbelt was fastened, and her face remained completely stoic for the few moments it took the plane to start moving slowly out of the warehouse. Apparently, she was fully determined to be Agent Walker for every second of this mission. But Chuck didn't have the time to analyze Sarah's face for much longer, because the plane started to move considerably faster, and he was too busy trying to stay calm.

He wasn't a fan of flying. He hadn't been in too many planes in his life – four, to be exact – and he'd always done his best to sleep through everything. But he'd always been forced to endure take-off and landing fully awake, and this time was no exception.

Wanting to take his mind off the many different deadly scenarios he was imagining at that moment, he looked at Sarah and tried to make small talk. "So. The pilot sure was stealth getting on board, huh?" He hadn't even noticed anyone in the warehouse when they arrived. Then again, he was getting used to people being sneaky around him.

Sarah looked away from the window and focused her eyes on him, a look of slight confusion on her face. "What?"

"The pilot." He let out a nervous laugh when he felt the plane begin to shake. "I didn't even see the guy, is he an agent too?"

"There's no pilot, Chuck." His eyes widened in sheer terror. What, now? "Casey's flying the plane."

"What!?" The sound barely made it through his suddenly dry throat, and he squeezed his eyes shut when the plane started to raise, his fingers gripping the seat until his knuckles went white. "I'm going to die. We're all going to die. Nonononono…"

He didn't open his eyes again until he felt the plane stabilize. Okay, they'd made it through take-off. That was about three more minutes than what he expected to live. When he finally relaxed, he was surprised to feel Sarah's warm skin on top of his right hand. He was even more surprised to look up and find an even warmer smile on her face. "Casey is a trained pilot, Chuck." She gave his hand a little squeeze. "Don't worry."

Chuck nodded slightly, more because he was still shocked at the sudden appearance of Sweet Sarah than because he actually felt safe. If Casey flew anything like he drove, they were in for one hell of a flight. "I'm not big on the flying." His voice was barely above a whisper, and Sarah's hand didn't leave his. He was beginning to not hate this day.

"You flew a helicopter." Sarah nodded encouragingly. "By yourself." He had to half-smile at that. He did do that. "I think you can handle this." Of course she did. She thought he could handle practically everything. Or maybe she didn't, really, and she just said she did to guilt him into playing the brave hero part. Either way, it worked. Every single time.

"I'm just gonna try and get some sleep." He slipped his hand from under Sarah's and reached for the handle on the side of his seat, prepared to dream his way through this flight.

"Actually…" Great. No sleep for him. "I think we should go through a few files, see if you flash on something."

He sighed and nodded, blinking a few times to focus. Sarah had been doing these little training sessions with him since the day she learnt about the possibility of him going underground. She said she did it for him, so he wouldn't have to be separated from his friends and family. He liked to think she counted herself among the people she wanted him to be with.

"Ready?" Chuck looked at the picture Sarah was holding. A house. Nothing. A helicopter. Still nothing. Some sort of Chinese symbol, a bullet, a dangerous-looking woman, two guns, a series of numbers… a dead man.

"Okay, creepy!" He looked away, waiting for Sarah to show him a different picture.

"Focus, Chuck." With a sigh, he looked again. Nothing.

"Nope, just dead and creepy, no flashes. Can I look at something else now?" She finally put the picture away. A child, a phrase in some undetermined language, an FBI badge, another woman… oh, wait! "I know her!" Sarah smiled, hopeful. "Isn't she Carina?"

She frowned and turned the picture in her hand to look at it. "Oh." She put it face-down on top of the pile of discarded photos. "I just took a handful of files, I figured any of them would do." Sarah took the next picture and held it out for him. A Japanese sword. And still no flash.

Chuck couldn't tell if they'd been at it for minutes or hours, but it really felt like the latter. He was sick and tired of looking at pictures already. On the bright side, he'd practically forgotten he was flying. But, really. The boring pictures were making it harder and harder to stay awake. Buildings, people, weaponry, numbers, words… and then a face. And his eyes widened slightly as he wondered if he should speak his name.

"Chuck?"

"I uh…" He looked away. "Bryce Larkin."

Sarah looked at the picture and pursed her lips slightly. She stared at it for a little while, with something flashing through her eyes that looked like sadness, or anger, or maybe both. And then, as suddenly as they'd appeared, the emotions left her face, and she put the picture on top of the others, slamming it down on the seat next to her. "Let's…" Sarah cleared her throat. "Let's continue."

"I'm sorry." It suddenly hit him that he hadn't even thought about asking Sarah how she was after seeing Bryce dead for the second – or was it third? – time.

She acknowledged his words with a quick nod. "Anything?"

But Chuck wasn't looking at the picture, he was still looking at her. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, Chuck, just look at the pictures!" He sat up straight, shocked at the sudden outburst, and Sarah sighed and relaxed her previously furious face. "I'm sorry. I don't want to talk about it, okay?"

He just looked at the picture, shaking his head to indicate he was still seeing nothing. Not that he expected to, considering his mind was completely filled with Sarah. Was she all right? He really thought she wasn't. Did she have someone to talk to? He knew she didn't. He just wanted her to be okay. After all, when things got tough he had Ellie, Morgan and even Sarah herself. But, unless she and Casey hung out from time to time and shared their problems – and Casey discussing sandwiches and desert islands with him was far more likely than that – Sarah had no one to talk to. No one to…

"Chuck!" He jerked up, suddenly realizing he'd almost fallen asleep. "Did you just flash?"

Chuck shook his head. "No, I was just falling asleep." He smiled apologetically. "Sorry."

She sighed and put the pictures away. "We're almost there. Let's take a break."

"Thanks." A quick look at his watch let him know they'd been flying for forty-five minutes, so wherever they were taking him couldn't be too far from LA. With that thought, he closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

"Chuck?" He should have been annoyed. Really, he'd been up since one in the morning, didn't he deserve some sleep? But it hadn't been Agent Walker's voice, not even Sarah The Handler's voice, and he couldn't get mad at her when she was being just Sarah. So he opened his eyes.

"Yeah."

"I do trust you." He smiled at her, even though her face showed nothing but seriousness. Which was a good thing, considering what she'd just said. "We were just trying to protect you."

"I know." He nodded. "Thank you."

And then they had one of those moments. When she looked into his eyes and – perhaps more importantly – let him look into hers. Something told him that was the perfect moment to bring up the issue of her not wanting to leave him after the wedding. Just Sarah had been mostly missing since the new Intersect was uploaded into his brain, and he figured he had to take his chances.

"Sarah?" She smiled slightly, and that gave him the last push he needed to say what he'd been wanting to say for two weeks. "Were you going to stay with me? You know, after the we- oh Jesus Christ!"

He gasped when the plane tilted down to begin the landing part of the trip. This was – by far – his most hated part. When the tiniest little error could end in a spectacular crash. Not that he thought Casey was capable of making errors like the rest of humankind, but still. Scary. So he pulled a Morgan and squeezed his eyes shut, grasping the seat again.

This time, he was half-expecting Sarah's hand to cover his. And, without opening his eyes, he relaxed that hand to hold Sarah's, figuring if these were indeed the last minutes of his life, he may as well allow himself some luxuries. And the fact that holding her hand when they were alone qualified as a luxury spoke volumes about his love life. Or lack thereof.

He kept his eyes shut when the wheels made the first contact with the concrete of the landing strip. And – even though he was mostly fine by then – he didn't open them until the plane was completely still, just because Sarah's thumb was soothingly stroking the back of his hand and he was afraid she'd stop if he dared open his eyes.

When he finally looked at her, Sarah was still serious, but with a hint of something else in her eyes. "Yes."

He shook his head, more than a little confused. "What?"

"Yes, Chuck." She didn't pull her hand away from his, and he took it as a good sign. "I was going to stay with y-"

"It's 03:59." Casey's voice resounded in the small plane as he walked through the door with his usual military demeanor, and Sarah jerked her hand away, her CIA poker face firmly in place. God, he hated John Casey at that very moment. He just wanted to make him shut up so Sarah could finish talking. There's no way he wanted to hear what the colonel had to say…

"Welcome to Las Vegas, Bartowski."

…or maybe he did.