Hi guys, I'm back again!

This is a rather short update, but don't worry, there will be more soon! Just to pique your curiosity!

As usual, thanks to those who kindly awarded me with their reviews and, above all, thanks to kroblues, my peerless beta-reader! You surely have a lot of patience, pal!

Casa Bartowski

Sarah could feel Chuck moving slightly between the sheets, in the darkness behind her back. He was unsuccessfully trying to pretend he was asleep, but she knew he was restless.

They both were.

Only her wide-open eyes, her clenched fists rumpling the sheets and the beads of cold sweat on her forehead could prove that she'd just woken up from a nightmare.

Another one, in which she'd been holding Chuck's lifeless body in her arms. It had seemed to her that she'd been trying to staunch his bleeding for an eternity, despite only half an hour had passed since she'd crashed asleep.

An eternity while she'd felt his warm skin slowly turning cold and pale.

A sudden thought crossed her mind; he'd lost so much blood… His blood had been leaking between her fingers, and she hadn't been able to stop its flow.

In her nightmare she'd missed a long distance shot and an enemy agent had lived long enough to target Chuck and hit him. Just because she'd failed her task.

It's my job to protect you, she thought, involuntarily clenching her teeth.

Great 'job' I'm doing, really, she continued sarcastically.

Even when she looked back, she couldn't find anything but tactical and professional lacks in her behavior. And selfishness in her decisions.

Absolutely nothing was right.

Starting with the very first time they had run a really serious risk, that sweet morning after their escape from Burbank, when she had ingenuously dropped her guard. That had resulted in Chuck risking all he'd got, his freedom, his life, his beloved ones. It had been her fault. She had completely forgotten that they were a couple of fugitives, and had gotten carried away by her dreams. Dreams she'd willingly borrowed from him. Dreams of a real, normal, boring, desirable life.

Never mind, she had said herself, at that time, all ended up in the best way.

Luckily.

Again, the night after Ellie's wedding the Ring agents had captured her. But Chuck had jeopardized his life once more and, no matter what he'd said; Sarah knew she had had a big part in that.

He had made a choice and, after all, he'd saved her. He'd taken the right path.

Luckily.

Finally, just a couple of hours before, Morgan had taken her by surprise. Neither because she was almost naked nor because he was wearing her nightdress, but because she was unarmed.

We were completely, dangerously exposed, she thought, and that happened only because for an instant she had felt just like a girl with her boyfriend, their relatives, the usual light housekeeping to do together, and without any other concern apart from finding out how to light his precious smile again.

What if the guest had not been Morgan, but an enemy agent?

Yes, that eventuality was not very likely… she had to admit, well, perhaps it was totally unlikely, but she knew from her own experience that hers wasn't simple paranoia. During her latest years as a spy, she'd often seen people die just because a gun wasn't in its place, within reach of a hand that was supposed to hold it.

They had just been lucky once again.

Sarah Walker, Jenny Burton, Katie O'Connell, Rebecca Franco, and all the other girls or women she had been acting as, had one thing in common: they all had always hated Luck.

They'd always relied on ability, skills, prowess, readiness, and so on. A bit of improvisation was allowed, sometimes.

But not Luck.

Sarah held her breath for a second, as she took her most difficult decision.

One mission at a time.

She suddenly realized that her jaw muscles were starting to ache, so she slowly released their clamp.

All she could do was hope. Hope that he could wait for her. And hope that there was some happy-ending waiting for them, somewhere in the obscurity before them. But all she knew was that someday that one mission was gonna end. Somehow. She slightly shivered, subconsciously refusing to consider all the possibilities, as she was supposed to do instead, accordingly to her training.

I'm sorry Chuck, she both thought and whispered, in a voice low enough to be barely audible to herself, wishing for his forgiveness.

In the end, she persuaded herself that she'd made the right choice and that awareness let her fall asleep at last. But as a dreamless night embraced her, she felt the urge of wrapping herself up tighter in the bedclothes.

The Castle

Chuck stretched himself on his usual chair, smothering a yawn. Last night had ended up as usual, lately, since Ellie and Devon had left for Bahamas.

He'd had serious problems falling asleep, with Sarah so close to him.

Actually that wasn't an issue at all, because the following awakenings had always been great. As a matter of fact, in a couple of days he'd went through a succession of the best awakenings of his life, that had never left him tired and yawning.

But not that morning.

When he had woken up, he'd felt a cold he wasn't used to anymore. Sarah had already got up and he'd found her in the kitchen, reading the newspaper. That was the problem.

It had felt like she was holding it more like an anti-riot shield.

As he had been able to realize later, she'd suddenly become distant, somewhat colder. Her voice and her face had become expressionless, wearing a working-mode mask even when they were alone.

She'd kept answering him with just yeas and nays.

As Casey walked in, the sound of his steps shook Chuck from his thoughts.

He was coming from the tunnel that led to the Buy More locker room, so Chuck asked him "What were you doing on, ah, under the holy ground of Buymoria?"

"I was just making sure that that entrance would be blocked forever." said the other.

Chuck nodded, and looked around the room they were in. Some Agency technicians had already removed a couple of monitors and computers, and the empty spaces were revealing the gray concrete wall crossed by dangling connecting cables. "You know what? I'm gonna miss this place," said Chuck, sighing.

"Why?" asked Casey, "The new Castle, under our new cover-company building, will be handier for us, not to mention the fact that it'll be simply… better. Better equipped, better positioned, safer…" he started listing.

Chuck brushed a hand in the air, "Okay, okay, Casey. I think you made it clear enough that you have a place in your heart only for your new old-Crown-Vic."

Casey smirked.

Chuck went to reply, but Sarah's voice suddenly called him from behind his back.

"Chuck?" she said, taking him a bit by surprise, as she had silently sneaked into the room. "I need to talk to you."

Something in her tone of voice made him freeze. Something beyond words. His eyes tried to cold-shoulder the fears of his heart, pretending to ignore the emotional-health-danger neon signs, but failed miserably to remain expressionless. He could just turn his head and nod slightly, and then he reluctantly followed her into the armory.

Sarah had been staying in that room for the previous half an hour, thinking. She'd been trying to gather the necessary coldness to do what she had planned to do.

Once, Chuck had said her that she was a girl or, more appropriately, a woman that could kick the ass of all the people crowding the restaurant they were in.

But the truth was that there actually was one ass she couldn't possibly kick. Because she didn't want to, not only because someone ordered it.

And now she was purposely heading straight for that, in a way.

When they were alone, Sarah spoke again, and she was deadly incisive. As she'd planned to be. "Listen Chuck, I need a break. This whole task is not the best thing for me, just now." Then she bit her tongue to prevent herself from shouting don't believe me, Chuck, it's all a lie, and continued "Today I'm gonna ask for a reassignment." Stop me, save me from myself, please!

A painful emptiness spread in Chuck's chest, threatening to cause him to implode. After a couple of seconds a single strangled word came out from his dried lips, bringing with it a million untold questions. "Why?"

He had already considered that eventuality before, but lately he'd been more and more sure that Sarah would have done everything she could to stay beside him. At least since he himself had finally come to blindly trust her.

His worst fear was that the Government could suddenly decide to bury him several floors underground, pulling him apart from her.

"I…" she stopped to take a deep breath, "I'm asked to look after you, but now I have to take care of myself… " Sarah Walker, you're an idiot! she scolded herself, couldn't you find a better excuse? What do you think your father would say if he could see you right now?

"You don't really expect me to swallow that, don't you?" Chuck said, coming a step closer, and gently but firmly grabbing her shoulders, "Sarah, please…" he begged, "Please, just let me help you, I know I can. Don't…"

She vigorously shook off his hands and backed a few steps from him, putting the table between herself and him, "My skills are lapsing, getting worse. I'm becoming dangerously used to the routine and I'm getting more and more often distracted…" by daydreams of us, she silently ended, but said instead "Your safety is supposed to depend on me, but I'm falling and I could take you with me."

"I can't… I can't understand. What the hell are you talking about, Sarah?!" he yelled, unable to restrain himself. His eyes were lost in confusion. Can it be Bryce's death? he asked himself. He has already moved us away from each other, a couple of times. Could it be his ghost coming back? He violently shook his head, no, this can't be.

Sarah raised his voice to get his attention back, "Chuck, I could fail at any moment and you could DIE!" and I would die too, she thought, shouting "Don't you get it?!"

She was panting.

"Sarah, what…" he objected with a cracked voice, "What happened to you? Just yesterday everything was fine, and now everything seems to be wrong!"

Breathing was becoming heavier and heavier, and she felt that she had to end it quickly. "I evaluated the situation, and I found out that I'm no more suitable to this assignment." she said, "Besides I realized that I need to avert this 'thing under the undercover thing' for a while…" she said, hastily swallowing the lump in her throat, "If there is something."

In the exact moment she let them out, Sarah cursed herself for those last words. They were simply unnecessary, a gratuitous stab in his back.

He took the blow, wavering in a haze for an instant. His burnt throat seemed to set on fire also his eyes, and the couple of tears that came out to extinguish the flames couldn't do anything but hide themselves in the corners.

Sarah did her best to restrain herself from moving around the table and holding him tight, telling that it was nothing but a cruel joke. His anger could have been less painful than his grief.

He shut his eyes, squeezing his eyelids and softly shaking his head. He was doing the only thing he could do. He was trying to wake up.

He would have undoubtedly preferred the nightmare in which she had tried to kill him.

Then he opened his eyes, and in that very moment he felt the blow, as he realized that not only everything was real, but also that Sarah had turned her back to him and was heading to the main room.

"The meeting with General Beckman is starting in a couple of minutes, be ready in time." she said without even turning to him, skillfully hammering out every crack that threatened to leak in her voice.

Luckily she couldn't see his face.

Unluckily he couldn't see her face.

When Sarah walked in, followed three minutes later by Chuck, Casey couldn't help noticing that while the first was wearing a perfectly professional attitude, the latter looked heavily stunned, almost as if he'd taken a bunch of slaps on his cheeks, though he didn't have any visible mark.

As they took position at the opposite sides of the room, Casey felt the air thickening with tension and… somewhat else, that he couldn't identify.

Actually he wasn't quite good at deciphering that lady-feelings stuff, so he resumed what he was doing before, looking down again on his documents.

All of a sudden Sarah broke the silence, pushing back her chair, standing up and heading towards the mainframe room .

Chuck made as if to follow her, but the door she slammed behind her back took every initiative from him. Deprived of any energy, Chuck plopped down again on his chair.

After a few minutes of silence, Chuck dared to ask, like an automaton, "Casey, can I ask you a personal question on a delicate matter?" his voice was expressionless and his eyes too, as he was staring off into the distance.

Casey huffed, feelings only bring problems with 'em, thought the soldier in him. "If you can't help it at all…" he mumbled, willfully keeping his eyes on the sheets of paper unfolded in front of him.

Violently shaken by his offish reply, Chuck glared at him, "You really care only about your car, don't you?" he accused. "That old, rough-edged, prehistoric, museum piece…"

"Hey! Tone down, kid!" the Colonel barked, giving him a burning glance.

"You know, I thought that that kind of scrap became extinct when I blew up the last one." Chuck added sarcastically. He was feeling like he himself was about to explode.

Casey jumped up, knocking over the chair behind him, and took a deep breath, trying to keep himself cool, "Now shut up, moron, I don't know what's up with you, but I'm sure you don't know what you're talking about." He could see that the nerd was clearly upset.

"Oh, I do, you bet I do!" Chuck burst out, "If only I knew its GPS code…"

"Thin ice, Bartowski, very thin ice!" the other menaced, clenching hard his fists. A couple of veins grew big on his neck, visibly pulsing.

"Try me out, Sugar Bear!" Chuck taunted.

That was his second great mistake after insulting Casey's car, the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. Chuck abruptly found himself knocked against the table, with his face pressed down on the cold metallic surface and an arm painfully bent behind his back. Casey's growl was so close that his breath was stroking Chuck's left ear.

As if it wasn't enough, the Intersect kept insistently giving him flashes on how to free himself.

He really wasn't in the mood to take its advice.

"Listen to me carefully now, you idiot! I don't know what's going on between you and Agent Walker, but leave me out of this crap! I've had enough!" Casey growled. "Oh, and it's about time for you to figure out how to deal with your temper tantrums." and banged him again on the hard steel.

Chuck blinked a couple of times.

He was slowly and with difficulty managing to calm down, and did his best to perform a nod.

"Sorr-hy," he tried to apologize, temporarily overcoming the pressure of Casey's forearm on the back of his neck. He shut his eyes tight, repeating again and again that sole word in a whispered prayer, while tears were conquering once more the corners of his eyes.

Casey loosened the grasp, allowing Chuck's lungs to expand enough to let him talk. "She's asking for reassignment." he groaned. His heavy breath was drawing misted-up shapes on the smooth surface of the table.

"I know." the other said simply.

"You knew?!" Chuck burst out, incredulous, "Why the hell didn't you…?!"

"As I said, I do not want to get involved now…" he repeated, remarking his statement slamming once more Chuck on the table, "And I didn't before!"

Suddenly the central screen on the wall turned on and General Beckman's voice came out from the speakers, "Well, first of all, I need you to bring…" she begun, but she stopped as she looked up from the documents on her desk and she realized the scene that was taking place before her eyes.

"Cah-sey!" gasped Chuck, desperately pointing at the General's figure.

"… me up to date…" Beckman voice faded down as she continued speaking. Her expression had lost part of its impassiveness, while she'd slowly raised a hand to fix the glasses on her nose.

That very minute Sarah hurried into the room but stopped as she glanced at the monitors. "What's going on here?!" she asked, astonished, staring alternately at her two partners and the General. "Casey, chuck it!" she shouted at last.

"Colonel?" Beckman exhorted him.

As Casey let his victim go, Sarah couldn't help asking him "Are you all right, Chuck?" But fortunately she reacted fast enough to restrain herself from getting closer and helping him up. Instead she stepped back.

"Great. Absolutely great." General Beckman said almost sarcastically, "While one of the handlers is raring to take off our asset's pants, the other one is raring to kill him."

Chuck ironically snorted at the sight of his two companions blushing.

"And, as if it wasn't enough, the asset is bravely committing himself to achieving both their purposes." continued the General, sighing, "That's really a well balanced unit. It's a shame we don't have a trained monkey to send to team up with you…" she gave a little shook.

"Colonel Casey, I bet you have a really valid explanation for your actions, but I'm not sure I want to hear it, so I'll pretend nothing happened."

"Yes, ma'am," he agreed, clearing his throat.

"However, we have lost enough time; you'll give me the last updates regarding the new cover company tomorrow. Now I have a more important task to assign your team." she revealed, "Tonight I need you to carry out an exchange. You'll have to reach the following GPS coordinates before midnight."

The numbers 34.344237-N and 115.062232-W appeared on another screen.

Chuck was too distressed about Sarah to even notice them.

He was afraid of the fatal moment to come, that one in which she would have asked for her reassignment.

"Right now, as we're speaking, a courier should be delivering a briefcase inside the Orange Orange. You'll bring it to the established location and complete the trade."

"What are we supposed to bring back?" agent Walker asked.

"Him." the General said, as her figure was replaced by the picture of a distinct man, in his forties. His hair were pitch black, as his eyes, and a spider web of wrinkles widened from his flat nose, hiding sideways under the thick but well-groomed black beard.

Chuck didn't flash on the picture. As a matter of fact he was busy stealing every glance he could at Sarah, desperately trying to read her soul through the barricades she had hidden herself behind.

A sparkle of hope had lighted up in his eyes when she had not complained at the new mission. Not yet. Perhaps that meant she was going to stay at least one day further.

He let out a hopeful sigh. One more day to try to negotiate.

"Or at least you should be able to bring back some valuable news on him." continued the General, "This man is James A. Butters. He was the chief engineer of the study for a new cruise missile project." a series of images and schematics of mechanical parts slid on the screen, "Five days ago he disappeared and no ransom request has been made. Our analysts have no clue about his possible kidnapper's identity, so we'll act as if he is a deserter, probably helped and/or pushed by other unknown forces, until proved otherwise."

General Beckman's face appeared again on the central monitor, "Any questions?" she asked, shifting her eyes between the three members of Team Bartowski. "Agent Walker? Colonel? Agent Carmichael?"

Chuck blinked a couple of times, his attention finally called to the monitor.

A couple of "no, ma'am" and "everything's clear," gave the General the answer she expected. She nodded as a goodbye and shut off the transmission.

As the screen went black, Sarah burst out "What the hell were you doing, Casey?!"

"Guys?" Chuck tried to get their attention. He had an astonished look stuck on his face.

But Casey continued arguing with Sarah, "Hey, calm down, I was just paying the consequences of your brilliant ideas!"

Chuck cleared his throat, repeating "Guys?!"

They ignored him, and Sarah replied to the other "If you have a better solution, you're welcome to suggest it!"

"Sarah, Casey, listen…" Chuck horned in impatiently, with a slightly trembling voice.

"Shut up!" both yelled at him, causing him to pull back against his chair.

"Pineapple." he muttered, with a dead serious expression in his eyes.

The silence flooded the room with the intensity of a thousand waterfalls suddenly drying up.

"What?!" asked Sarah, frowning and brushing a stray wisp behind her ear. The anger in her eyes was leaving its place to confusion.

Casey grunted. "We're settling this discussion outside." he growled, hastily standing up and giving Agent Walker a gaze that nipped any question in the bud.

Halfway on the stairs for the Orange Orange, he added in a whisper "Bartowski, for your own sake, this would better not be a joke."