A/N: Thanks once again to KathGrangerPotter for her persistence in keeping everyone's actions somewhere in the same ZIP code as character. It's almost ridiculous how much her influence has improved this chapter, and the story as a whole.

While everyone who loves Chuck and the Office must contemplate with the utmost pride and enthusiasm the growth and expansion of our fandoms, the sufficiency of our characters to stand against the rudest shocks of angst, the wonderful creativity and humor of our fanfic writers, and the demonstrated superiority of our showrunners, it behooves us to constantly watch for every symptom of insidious infirmity that threatens our shows' vigor. One such symptom would be someone like myself making a spurious claim of ownership. Fortunately, I'm not going to do that.


Chapter 7: Altercation

Pam's head was still spinning. Right after the talk in the bathroom, Sarah had gotten a call telling her that Chuck was on the move, heading southwest. The blonde had instructed the caller to let her know when he stopped. After that, she'd taken Pam into her bedroom and tossed her a heavy black garment. "Bullet-proof vest, specially made for women of our… dimensions." They'd each put one on. Then Pam had watched in silent awe as Dunder Mifflin's receptionist transformed herself into a walking arsenal, with a pair of pistols, multiple sheaths of throwing knives, and a double-barreled shotgun with an ammo belt full of shells. "Ready?" Sarah asked. Seeing her friend's mute nod, she headed for the door. "Let's go."

"Where are we going?" Pam asked.

"The bar."

The brunette frowned. "Aren't they already gone?"

"Doesn't mean we can't learn anything there," Sarah explained. "We'll take your car."

"Wouldn't the Porsche be faster?"

Sarah nodded. "Yeah, but with any luck, we'll need more than two seats on the return trip."


Pam stared in shock at the thoroughly destroyed bar front.

"See, we've learned something already. They have guns," Sarah observed placidly.

"That's a huge help," Pam replied sarcastically.

"More specifically, they have submachine guns, fired from multiple locations in the parking lot, based on the type and distribution of the shell casings." She quickly expanded the scope of her examination of the area. "Looks like whoever did this closed off the street in both directions before anything happened. All the other businesses around here are closed for the day. No witnesses, no police response." She stepped toward the front door, which was surprisingly intact.

Pam followed her in and gaped at the extensive devastation that had been wreaked on the building. Sarah, meanwhile, moved slowly about to assess the situation.

"No bloodstains anywhere that I can see," she declared.

"Is that good news?"

"It's certainly not bad news… the bullet impacts are all high on the wall, which means the gunfire was just intended to pin people down. I'm guessing two shooters in the parking lot, one for each side, while the rest of the group walked in through the front door and located the bar's occupants. Hello," Sarah broke off as she stepped behind the bar. "And who might you be?"

"Bartender?" Pam theorized.

"Why do you say that?" Sarah queried.

Pam shrugged. "He's behind the bar."

Sarah smiled. "Probably a good bet. He's also out like a light… and has a few shards of glass in his hair. Beer bottle, looks like."

"Why would guys with guns hit someone with a beer bottle?"

"They wouldn't. But guys without guns might." Seeing the residual confusion on Pam's face, Sarah explained further. "My guess is that Chuck whacked the guy."

Pam found a broken bottle on the floor, holding it up for Sarah's examination. "Yeah, it matches," the spy confirmed. "Where did you find it?"

"Behind this table," Pam replied, gesturing toward the location.

"So Chuck took cover there, or Jim."

"Wait, I'm a little confused about something. Why would Chuck hit the bartender?" Pam asked. "If someone started shooting up a bar I was in, I think I'd just duck right away, and I definitely wouldn't suspect that the bartender was involved."

"Chuck has kind of a… sixth sense about these things," Sarah dodged. "He's got an uncanny ability to recognize people as threats."

"Still, it seems like the people with guns would be a bigger threat," Pam objected.

"No question," Sarah agreed. "I'd guess he hit the guy before the gunmen showed up. Which means he knew something was coming, which means he had some time to prepare," she concluded excitedly. "Keep looking."

Pam scoured the seating area, while Sarah searched the rest of the bar. She emerged from the men's room with full hands.

"Chuck's phone and his keys, and a watch," she listed.

"That's Jim's watch," Pam announced. "I got it for his birthday. Why would they take Jim's watch?"

"They wouldn't – but they'd take Chuck's watch. They must have checked him for GPS tracking devices," Sarah surmised.

"Jim's watch doesn't have a GPS…"

"But Chuck's does – it's how we monitor him remotely. He must have found somewhere to stash it, and borrowed Jim's watch so they wouldn't look for another one," Sarah guessed. "That's why we're still getting a signal."

"So are we done here?" Pam asked.

"Yeah, I think so," Sarah replied, walking toward the door. "Just waiting to hear what our destination is."

"Hey Sarah?" Pam called haltingly. Seeing her friend turn and fix her with an inquisitive gaze, Pam swallowed her nervousness and continued. "This is going to be dangerous, isn't it?"

"You can back out at any time, Pam," Sarah answered comfortingly.

Pam shook her head firmly. "No. I was just wondering if you could maybe teach me a few fighting moves or something, so I can look out for myself a little."

Sarah smiled slightly. "I can do better than that. Come on," she instructed, waving her friend to follow her out of the building.

Pam found the blonde leaning through the passenger window of her car and looking through the glove compartment. As Sarah stood and turned to face her, Pam jumped slightly at the sight of the weapon in her hand.

"Here," Sarah offered.

Pam stared at her. "A gun? That seems like a bad idea."

Sarah responded with a disapproving frown. "If you want to protect yourself, this is the easiest way I know. We can go over the basics of handling it here pretty quickly."

"I just don't think I'm a gun sort of person," Pam protested. "I'm a little freaked out just knowing you kept this in my car."

"Spies keep guns everywhere," Sarah informed her friend calmly. "Besides, it's not a real gun – it fires tranquilizer darts."

"Fine," Pam conceded reluctantly. She gingerly grasped the weapon, letting her hand become accustomed to its feel. Moving alongside her, Sarah demonstrated how to line up the sights, engage and remove the safety, unload and reload the magazine, and finally, how to hold steady while firing. Despite the surreal feeling of the lesson, Pam proved to be a quick learner, becoming almost comfortable with the process in the five minutes before Sarah's phone buzzed. The blonde stepped away to answer it.

"Casey? All right. Do you know what kind of building… Okay. Any other information you can give me? Great. Thanks."

She hung up. "The signal from the watch has stopped moving. They're in a warehouse in Nanticoke." Pam quickly joined her in the car.


"I need to ask you something."

Sarah's statement startled Pam out of a brief daze. "What's that?"

"Probably should have asked you before we left, but we're kind of pressed for time here," the CIA agent continued apologetically. "How far are you willing to go on this?"

Pam returned Sarah's gaze resolutely. "I'd die for Jim."

"That's good to know," Sarah replied. "But it's not really what I'm asking – I was already pretty confident in that."

"What is it, then?"

Sarah sighed. "You're a good person, Pam. Dying for someone else is pretty much never the ultimate test of loyalty, for a good person."

"What do you mean?"

"I'd rather not go too deep into what I mean, because I don't want to freak you out right now," Sarah hedged. "The only question that should matter today is: Would you harm someone else for Jim?"

Pam said nothing.

"It's not an easy question, I know," Sarah said.

"Really? I mean, don't you kill people?"

"For my job, yes. I've killed roughly 70 people while doing my duty. Outside of that, I've only killed one." She paused. "That was for Chuck."

"Tell me," Pam requested.

"Are you sure? I really don't want to mess with your head at this point."

"I'm sure," Pam affirmed.

"It was at the end of a mission," Sarah started. "This enemy agent had found out… something about Chuck, something that would cause dozens, hundreds of other people to come after him. I caught up with him and we fought. He almost killed me, but I finally had him at gunpoint, and he surrendered."

"So what happened?"

"He told me that he knew," Sarah recalled in a shaky voice. "He told me that the government wouldn't be able to hold him, that he'd get out somehow, and that Chuck's life would be over. So I shot him."

Pam stared wordlessly out the passenger window.

"I shot him, and I told Chuck we'd arrested him," Sarah continued. "And you know what really sucked? He saw me. He saw me shoot the son of a bitch, and he knew I lied to him. It almost destroyed our relationship." She stopped briefly for effect. "And I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Okay, not the lying. But the shooting? No question."

Pam turned back to face Sarah. "None at all?"

Sarah shook her head. "I'm not saying you have to decide right now what you're willing to do, because you really can't know until you're in that situation. Just know that you may have to decide."

Pam nodded thoughtfully. "Thanks."

Sarah smiled nervously in reply. "You sure it helped?"

"Yeah. I think I'm ready," she said.

"That's good. Because we're here."

Pam and Sarah dismounted from the car, walking toward the door on the west side of the warehouse. Chuck's last location had been reported as building's northwest corner, and this was the closest entrance to that spot. Sarah picked the rusty lock with some difficulty, and pulled lightly on the door. It opened with a slight creak. "So much for stealth," she muttered.

The warehouse was filled with shipping containers. They were stacked in evenly-spaced rows running perpendicular to the route between the door and the corner office that appeared to be Sarah's destination. That made things tricky; they'd have to walk past at least ten rows of containers, and the gap between each pair posed a risk that they'd be seen by a guard. The unfortunate layout of the building, the patchwork composition of the two-person strike team, and the unknown number of waiting enemies combined to form a tactical situation that Sarah assessed as comfortably less-than-optimal.

She quickly formulated a basic plan and turned to Pam. "I'll lead. I'll be looking down each aisle in turn and facing forward apart from that. You stay one row back, check to see that each one is clear before you cross, and watch behind us otherwise." Pam nodded, and Sarah moved ahead.

The first three rows were passed without incident, and Sarah crossed the fourth with equal ease. When Pam looked to follow, she saw a guard at the other end. She pulled back quickly with a nervous squeak. Sarah turned to assess the situation and saw that the guard was moving toward them. She crouched down and leaned carefully around the corner of the nearest container, firing a single round from a silenced pistol. It caught the man just above the left eye, dropping him instantly. She signaled Pam to come across and whispered, "We're going to have to move faster – we need to reach them before they find that body." Pam nodded, and Sarah moved off again.

They progressed smoothly until there were only two stacks of containers ahead of them. Sarah poked her head around the corner and quickly learned that the guard at the end of this row was more alert than the other man they'd encountered. He immediately fired at the space Sarah's head had occupied moments before. She ducked back and whispered some brief instructions to Pam, then ran off down the last aisle they'd crossed.

Pam waited for a break in the gunfire, then stuck her dart gun awkwardly around the corner and pulled the trigger twice. She withdrew in mild terror as the shooting resumed, recovering only when it stopped abruptly. She hesitantly peeked, seeing the guard lying prone on the ground with a knife protruding from the back of his neck. Sarah retrieved the blade, jogged back to her friend, and nodded. "Nice job."

"I didn't do anything," Pam protested.

"You kept his attention. That's all we needed," Sarah countered. "Oh, there aren't any more guards in this area of the building."

"On to the office, then?" Pam suggested.

In response, Sarah strode quickly to the door of the room in question. Trying the knob and finding it locked, she stepped to the side, readied her shotgun, and blew the deadbolt apart. She kicked the door open and rolled into the darkened room. Pam quickly crouched and followed her, flipping on the lights as she entered.

A lone man sat tied to a chair in the middle of the room. Sarah watched in stunned silence as Pam leapt to her feet and threw her arms around her husband. Rallying, she walked over and cut Jim loose from his bonds. His attempt to hug his wife was inhibited as Sarah grabbed his left arm.

"Why do you have Chuck's watch?"

Jim came up for air from Pam's kiss and replied, "We switched in the bar, just before the shooting started. It was a little weird."

Sarah's face crumpled. Pam explained. "There's a GPS tracking device in the watch. Chuck must have figured they'd check him, and bet that they wouldn't scan you." Jim nodded. Pam saw that Sarah was on the verge of tears, and endeavored to add a hint of hope to the situation. "When did you last see him?"

"They split us up after we got here. It was a while ago."


"Had enough, Mr. Bartowski?"

The captors had been subjecting Chuck to audible Intersect triggers for over half an hour. At first, he'd thought they were probing him for information. But after he'd proclaimed that he'd never tell them anything, the small man who had led the strike team had merely laughed. "We already know everything that's in there, Mr. Bartowski. But we're aware that the data retrieval process is quite unpleasant. Consider it an inducement to join the Ring."

It was not a particularly effective form of torture; these men seemed to be unaware of the upgrades to the new version of the Intersect. But Chuck quickly realized that if his captors didn't think he was suffering, they'd be tempted to switch to something that would work much better.

"Gah! I'll never join you!" he gasped, contorting his face into an overtly pained grimace. All this flashing meant that he was going to have a headache later. But for now, he carefully studied his surroundings and quietly celebrated the fact that the agents holding him, confident that their guns served as a sufficient deterrent, hadn't tied him up.


Sarah's legs nearly gave way. She managed to catch herself on the chair Jim had been tied to. She told herself that this situation was nothing she hadn't dealt with before, that Agent Walker could handle anything. The problem was that Agent Walker had let a little too much of Sarah out for the talk with Pam on the drive to the warehouse, and she didn't seem to be coming back any time soon. And while Sarah was a highly capable spy in her own right, she was also struggling to fend off the waves of panic resulting from the fact that she had no idea where to find her boyfriend. She gulped down several desperate breaths and fought to calm herself enough to consider her next move.

The bulky form of another guard stepped into the room before she could finish. Her mind vaguely registered Pam yanking Jim to the ground and firing a few wild shots from her tranq gun, all while screaming "Sarah, get down!" Seemingly in slow motion, she drew her own pistol, and watched as the sights instinctively lined up with the target's forehead. She pulled the trigger, and was momentarily confused at the gunshot's apparent echo in a room that seemed far too small for one. The second sound was quickly explained by the painful impact of a round from her assailant's weapon on her chest.

Breath and balance abandoned Sarah at the same instant, sending her toppling to the ground. Her eyes lost their focus on the room's drab ceiling, and the frantic exclamations of her companions devolved into vague mumbling. A final, barely audible "Chuck" escaped her lips, and then she slipped away from the conscious world.


"Sarah!" Pam yelled hysterically. "Sarah, wake up!"

Jim removed his fingers from the wrist of the injured agent. "She's alive, and she's not bleeding. She'll be all right, Pam."

The brunette shook her head insistently. "How many people grabbed you guys from the bar?"

"Uhh… five thugs, plus a ringleader," Jim counted.

"The guy Sarah drilled between the eyes over there is her third kill since showing up here. That leaves three more, and it doesn't look like she's exactly in prime last-stand-mounting condition right now," Pam said despondently. Staring at the unconscious form of her friend, Pam suddenly reached a decision. "Help me turn this desk on its side," she instructed.

Jim complied. "What are we doing?" he queried.

"Fortifying. Go kill the lights and shut the door," she instructed calmly. Kneeling down once again, she pulled Sarah into a safe position behind the improvised barricade.

"What, are we going to fool them into thinking nobody's here?" Jim asked, his voice laced with a surprising amount of sarcasm.

Looking sharply up at him, Pam noticed the fear in his eyes and held back the harsh response that had sprung to her mind. "No, but we're going to force them to let us know when they get here, and give ourselves a better view of them than they have of us." Suitably chastened, Jim obeyed his orders. As satisfied as she could be given the situation, Pam turned back to her unconscious friend, and her eyes fell on the other woman's gun. She glanced up from it briefly to wave Jim back behind the desk, and studied him thoughtfully as he joined her in a relatively safe crouching position. Nodding decisively, she reached for the weapon, removing it cautiously from Sarah's still-firm grip.

"Pam…" Jim started nervously.

"Jim, someone has to. The rest of them could get here at any…"

Her sentence went unfinished as the door flew open, revealing a tall, imposing figure.