Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck.

Sarah versus The Alma Mater Part I

1998

She carefully moved her piece into position then leaned back slightly, anxiously trying to read her opponents.

"Check-mate." She announced, slightly hesitantly. Mark glanced over the board and gave a small nod.

"Good game Jenny. " She felt her face flush slightly with the compliment. Not because Mark was a boy or because he was sort of cute. Mark was smart. Not just good grades smart like she was but going to be someone someday smart. She was never going to be someone. She wasn't technically someone now. Jennifer Burton didn't exist. The aliases her Dad mocked up for them might be good enough for a high school administrator, but college would be a different matter. Not to mention they'd probably want to see her grades for all four years of high school.

Plus, even if she could find a way around her lack of social security number or birth certificate, she still would never be able to pay for college. Despite her father's claimed proficiency at his chosen profession, they never seemed to have enough money. Her father always found a way to get food on the table, clean clothes on her back and a roof over their heads, but most of those clothes were second hand and that roof usually didn't have much under it but their heads. That was one reason she liked chess. You might have to replace some of the pieces with coins or paperclips, but you could always find a beat up board to steal or buy cheap.

"I'm good at board games." She said, realizing that she had probably been silent too long. "Not that Chess is a board game, not like monopoly or anything. But it's a game on a board, so." She decided to stop while she was ahead. She was good at interacting with people as part of a con. She had the script down pat. She knew everything she was supposed to say. She knew when to massage a mark's ego, when to push, when to step back. But when that script was taken away and she was forced to have real, actual interaction with a human being she felt like bambi, on ice. Gangly, and constantly slipping and sliding without being able to find her feet.

Mark smiled a bit as they began quietly cleaning up the game and she decided to take that as a victory. After Mark had slipped the top back on and stood up to put it away, he paused and turned back to look at her.

"What are you doing tomorrow after school?" He asked.

"Nothing. Wh?." Jenny told him, cautious not to sound too excited. Trying not to let on that the invitation was the closest to a friendship she'd had in a very long time. Mark pinked a bit, slightly embarrassed.

"Mathletes needs another member. It's a lot of the same people as Chess Club. I was wondering if you might want to join. We could really use you." Jenny was smart, but she was smart with words. She was good at languages, and literature not numbers. But she wasn't not good at math either. She gave a shrug.

"I can't make any promises about my ability to actually do math." She said cautiously.

"Not a problem. Neither can we." He said, shaking his head. "Thanks. We could really use a girl on the team." Jenny wondered how phony her smile looked as he headed out the door.

October 17, 2008

"You know, if you needed iPod speakers you could have just told me. I could have used my employee discount." Chuck pointed out as he leaned closer to her.

"But then I wouldn't have had an excuse to come over here and see you." She said, looking back at him with a teasing smile.

"You could have come over just to see me. Maybe discuss dinner plans." He answered back.

"Okay, honey, what would you prefer Chinese or Thai?" She said, calling his bluff. Chuck wasn't a fan of discussing dinner plans before noon unless it would impact his lunch. Chuck didn't answer. Instead he moved a bit closer to her and tugged slightly on the crook of her elbow. Grabbing the bag containing her freshly purchased speakers she turned threading her free arm through his and looked to him for an explanation. Chuck nodded slightly in the direction of a dark haired man perusing one of the video aisles, who was looking not to subtly towards them. Chuck leaned close as he pulling her gently by her elbow towards the door, and whispered in her ear.

"Mark Ratner." She stiffened, her instinct to protect her cover momentarily freezing her for a moment until Chuck's subtle tugs pulled her toward her ex-classmate. She quickly reviewed what Chuck had remembered about his encounters with Mark and Heather in the other timeline as they made their way down the aisle where Mark was now standing. She didn't want to revisit her past, but given what might be at stake, she didn't think she would have a choice. When they reached him, Mark looked at them nervously and Chuck gave her a slight nudge, urging her to speak.

"I'm sorry, but you look really familiar." She told Mark. "You didn't go to James Buchannon High in San Diego by any chance did you?"

"Uh, yes." Mark said, his eyes were wide, but they also showed a slight bit of relief.

"You probably wouldn't remember me. I was more the chess club and student orchestra crowd then." She hoped Mark didn't see as she glanced around, making sure no one that knew Chuck might hear before lowering her voice as far as she thought she could without it seeming odd to Mark and feigning a questioning tone. "Jenny Burton?" Mark's eyes clouded for a moment before he appeared to be hit by the realization of who she must me.

"Oh. Jenny." He said giving her a genuine smile. "You look good."

"And I'm Jenny's boyfriend. Chuck." Chuck said quickly offering Mark his hand.

"Mark Ratner." Mark told Chuck as he took his hand. Sarah saw the flicker of Chuck's eyes which she had learned signalled he was trying to hide a flash.

"Who's this Honeybear?" A voice called from behind Mark. The engineer stepped aside to reveal a blonde woman Sarah knew for certain she had never seen before.

"Oh, uh, this is Jenny and her boyfriend Chuck." Mark gestured towards them. "Jenny and I went to High School together."

"What a small world!" The blonde said with more enthusiasm than Sarah thought should be genuine. "I'm Mark's wife, Isobel." She said, offering Sarah her hand. "But all my friends call me Libby." Of course they did.

"You know, we should get together sometime, trade stories." Chuck suggested. The woman actually seemed to beam.

"That would be great. I can't wait to hear all about what my Pookie was like when he was younger." Mark looked just as uncomfortable as her as their significant others began to plot together.

XXX

Chuck was sure that the dinner in the other timeline had been even more awkward then this one, he had just been too distracted by the prospect of finding out more information on Sarah to notice. As it was, Mark looked anxious, Libby looked far too excited to be there than any normal human should have and, despite the absence of Heather, Sarah still looked like she wanted to rabbit. Or hit something. He wasn't surprised. Sarah had been hardwired from an early age to keep different aspects of her life separate from each other and while Jenny Burton might not have been her "real name" it had been her identity during a part of her life she had tried to forget. Even Casey had seemed to realize this was not the time for sarcasm and remained uncharacteristically on topic when he introduced himself as their waiter.

Chuck had spent a chunk of the afternoon trying to understand what had happened that could have caused the change in Mark's life. He hadn't done anything to affect Mark directly, but He had told his father about Heather. He had told his father everything, or at least summarized everything, and anything to do with Volkoff had gotten special, more detailed attention. It was possible the elder Bartowski had done something.

He had also investigated Heather toward the end of his time at the farm, when his supervisors had assigned him analysis work to keep him occupied while he finished up his last few classes, but he hadn't found anything suspicious. Since he didn't think he could have Heather arrested for traitorous goldigger in another timeline, he decided to wait and check again later. Then Volkoff had disappeared and Chuck had somewhat idiotically pushed everything to do with him to the backburner, becoming distracted by the day to day problems of protecting the country and saving the world.

With Sarah still sitting uncomfortably silent next to him, Chuck decided to take the first steps towards actually completing their current mission.

"So Mark, what line of work are you in?" He asked, casually.

"Engineering. What I'm working on is technically top secret. So I can't really talk about it."

"Isn't that so exciting." Libby gushed. Chuck tried to keep himself from looking at her with too much disbelief. Sarah loved him and even she wasn't that excited about the geekier side of his former cover jobs.

Sarah then stepped in to engage the couple in conversation, and Chuck studied Mark. He was acting increasingly nervous. After a moment the newish Mrs. Ratner noticed as well.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah. I'm fine." Mark said, slightly distractedly.

"You're all flushed and sweaty. Did you accidently have shellfish again?" she asked before yelling towards Casey. "Garcon, is there's shellfish in this soup."

"I didn't have shellfish, Libby." Mark interjected, calming her. "I'm fine. I'm just going to go wash-up." Mark assured her, before leaving the table abruptly. As Sarah began to speak with Libby again, Chuck tried to calculate how long he should wait before following Mark. Given all the changes in the timeline he really had no idea whether Mark would be confronted in the restroom, but if he was Chuck couldn't leave him to find for himself. After what he deemed a long enough time, he excused himself to the little boy's room and headed after Mark.

As he approached the bathroom Chuck's heart sank slightly when he heard Russian accented voices through the door. It seemed liked Mark may have a different wife in this timeline, but the same luck. He opened the door to find, unsurprisingly, two thugs harassing Mark and immediately flashed on one. General Beckman's still unnamed new contact must have contributed to the Intersect refresh this time because instead of receiving information which tied the man generally to the Russian mob, the Intersect immediately identified him as working for Kaminsky. After he came out of the flash, Chuck could hear Mark trying weakly to convince the goons that Chuck was nobody.

"What do you know?" The man closest to Chuck asked. Chuck simply gave the man a befuddled look as an answer. It wasn't the same man in front of him as during the last confrontation, but it was fairly clear that, no matter what he claimed to know, it was going to end the same way.

"Turn on the hand dryer, so no one can hear him scream." The apparent leader told the other man, as the two stuffed Mark into one of the stalls. The two men turned towards him then, drawing their weapons. Having two goons pointing guns at him at more or less point blank range wasn't something he was entirely comfortable with normally, even as the Intersect. But the bathroom was cramped, and in this case he hoped that the men would be hesitant to actually fire, if only out of fear of hitting each other. Then again, knowing his luck, that might be giving them too much credit.

Taking a breath he forced a flash, then studied the men in front of him for a short moment. In one swift movement he reached over and twisted the gun out of one man's hand, while at the same time delivering a kick to the other man, sending him tumbling backwards towards the sinks. He elbowed the now gunless goon in the face, then delivered a last punch to the head knocking him unconscious. By then the second goon was up again, and Chuck grabbed the hand holding his gun and pulled it to the side before sending another kick to his gut, then grabbed his head as he slumped over and crashed it against the hand dryer that had turned on earlier. The man slumped over and fell, just like his boss, and Chuck reached over and took his weapons from his now limp hand.

There was a slight creak over the sound of the still blaring dryer and Chuck turned towards the sound, automatically holding the pilfered gun at the ready, only to find Casey at the door. Chuck stuffed the gun into the back of his pants, slightly embarrassed. His partner didn't seem to notice. He glanced down at the unconscious goons in annoyance.

"You couldn't have left one for me?" He asked.

"Sorry. I'll try to be more considerate next time." Chuck told him. Casey grunted that he better.

"All right, I'm going to pull the van around so we can stow these guys, be right back." Casey said, allowing the door to close after him. At that moment the dryer finally cut off and Mark stumbled out from his stall. His eyes grew wide as he took in the scene in front of him.

"How? How did you do that?" Mark asked, staring up at him.

"I got into self-defense a bit a few years ago." Chuck said casually.

"Are you nuts, these guys are killers!" Mark said in disbelief. Chuck doesn't really remember what he said last time, but he supposed that it didn't really matter, he was going to have to break his cover when they brought Mark in anyway. He decided to go with being frank. Mark was a smart guy, choice in wives nothwithstanding.

"Mr. Ratner, we know that you're planning on leaking the bomber plans to Kaminsky." Mark's eyes narrowed slightly in this and looked slightly confused.

"Kaminsky? "

"Russian arms dealer?" Chuck said helpfully.

"Oh. But how did you know that? Who's we?" He said, sounding confused. "Wait a minute … I know exactly who you are. Dude, you're The Man!" Mark said excitedly.

"I wouldn't say The Man exactly." Chuck demurred.

"So who do you work for? Is it the FBI? CIA? NSA?" He asked, moving closer.

"I'm sorry Mr. Ratner, I can't really say." Chuck told him, before adding, "Not the FBI." Casey would never let him live it down if Mark thought that.

"Okay. I get it. I get it. But just tell me, does Jenny know who you really are?"

"Jenny knows nothing." Chuck said quickly. There was no sense in compromising Sarah as well if he didn't have to.

"Of course not. But anyway, I just want to thank you so much for saving my life. Can't you just tell me your name? Agent?" Mark said, trailing off.

"Carmichael. Charles Carmichael." When he saw the slightly overexcited look on Mark's face that he suddenly rewound that sentence in his head. Then wondered if it would destroy Mark's awe in him if he slapped his forehead.

October 19, 2008

Chuck wasn't particularly thrilled to have Mark meet them at the Buymore but, as Casey pointed out, Mark already knew he worked there so it would be the least compromising location. Chuck did get Casey to drive Mark around in circles for a bit after they placed the bag over Mark's head to try to confuse him, but Chuck suspected it had done more to wear on Casey patience than actually stop Mark from realizing the location of their base. Casey nearly tossed Mark into the seat once they got to the interrogation room and as soon as he ripped off the bag, it was fairly clear who would be playing bad cop today.

"This is not a negotiation." Casey told the frightened engineer. Mark sputtered something about stiffing Casey on their tip as the already irritated Casey began explaining what Mark needed to do to get their help.

"Those two goons from last night, they don't report back to their boss, he's going to want a follow up meet. We're going to cover that drop. He contact you yet?" Mark looked anxiously from Casey back to him before speaking.

"I'm sorry, but I'd prefer to deal only with Agent Carmichael. The man saved my life last night." Casey's eyes narrowed slightly at the comment, and Casey gave something between a grumble and grunt. Then, to Chuck surprise, he stood fully and huffed off out of the room.

Mark looked up towards Chuck eagerly, after he left. Chuck stood there slightly awkwardly for a moment, unsure of what to do next. He hadn't really expected Casey to leave him alone. Weighing his options, he took a final swig of his coffee and stepped towards Mark.

"We need your contact's information Mark." He told Mark, his best to sound both comforting and firm.

"I know. I understand that, but I don't really have that information."

"Mark, they threatened your wife. I get that. I want to help you. But I'm sorry, if that's all you can give me, I'm not going to be able to. And believe me, you need my help. The people you're dealing with, they are ruthless. And now that they know your weak point, they aren't just going to let you go. They will hold your wife's life over your head until they've gotten everything they can from you and then they'll kill you and her without a second thought. I can't protect if you don't give us something. Not from them and not from my own people. If you do give them the plans you'll be a traitor. You're a smart guy, and I know you realize what that could mean for you. So, I'm going to ask you again to tell me what you know." Mark stared at him a second, absorbing what he had said. Chuck saw Mark's eyes growing wider at the full implications of Chuck's words clicked in his brain, then watched as Mark reflexively swallowed and somehow seemed to grow even more nervous.

"I really don't know, he texts me, that's it. That's all I know." Chuck nodded, then moved towards where the bag had fallen onto the floor when they stripped it off of Mark. Mark seemed to take that as a bad omen and began to panic. Before he could get too anxious, however, his phone began to ring.

"No, wait, wait a minute. This is him! Right now, he's texting me right now this is him. Okay, he wants to meet tonight. But that's doesn't work for me, I can't make it tonight. Tonight's my reunion and my wife has really been looking forward to this, she really wants to meet all my old friends and my teachers. Plus she has this idea that I need closure. I couldn't disappoint her."

"Tell him you'll meet him there. " Chuck said, closing his eyes so that Mark couldn't see him rolling them. They needed a relatively public place for the drop anyway, and Chuck already knew how things would probably play out at the High School.

"I, I don't know about this." Mark stammered.

"Then come up with somewhere else to meet tonight and explain to your wife why you aren't going to be able to go to your reunion." Chuck told him. Mark's eyes widened even further.

"You know what? Meeting at the reunion is a great idea."