Author's Note: So like guys, I'm kinda a liar. See, I told you that the end of this arc was going to be a trilogy. Turns out, not so true. It's not entirely my fault. I sent this part to Wepdiggy and he convinced me through his superior intellect and knowledge of fanfiction, that the 10,000 word chapter would be better digested if it were broken into two parts. Unfortunately, I am weak minded (a Jedi would have a field day with me) so of course I listened to him. Now Chapter 9, which was originally one part, is now two! Right now, we're looking at a quadrilogy. Is that even a word?

Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. Every time I think you guys can't surprise me, you convince me otherwise. Most reviewed chapter yet! Awesome. But really, guys, did you think I'd actually keep Chuck and Sarah apart? I'm a Charah shipper through and through. Most of the time. Then again, there is that weak mind thing...

Okay, here's the deal. If the response to this chapter is as good as the response was to the last chapter, I'll update the second part to this chapter quickly. I think you'll like it.


The klaxon jarred her from sleep.

She bolted upright, hand holding an imaginary gun pointed toward the door of her room before she realized where she was and that she had no gun in her hand.

She threw her covers to the side and slid bare feet onto the rough carpet of her room. She rubbed sleep from her eyes and tried to force herself alert and awake as fast as she could.

Dim red light from the emergency lights in her room flooded the place giving her room an eerie glow. It was just bright enough to prevent her from stubbing her toe on the furniture in her room. If she had any furniture.

An alarm was always a bad thing.

If this was a repeat of her aborted prison escape, she was going to be very upset. She was really getting tired of being played with. It seemed every time she went to sleep and then woke up, something had wildly changed in her life. The only thing she really wanted consistency with, namely Chuck Bartowski, was an always changing whirlpool of emotions and intentions. Just when she thought she was finally going to pin him down, he managed to completely turn her on her head.

Since his visit yesterday, she had obsessed over what he told her. That she might never see him again had depressed and confused her enough. Add to that the fact that she apparently had no choice but to rejoin the CIA and work with Bryce Larkin as his cover girlfriend, seriously annoyed her. She didn't want to be anyone's cover girlfriend, no matter how much she might have familiarity with the concept, and she certainly didn't want to be partnered with Larkin. She did not like the way Chuck seemed so upset and out of sorts with the idea of her with him. If Chuck had a problem with the situation, there was no way it could be good. But as Chuck had made clear to her, there was not much she could do, and if Chuck had wiped his hands of her, she was out of options.

Why did that thought bother her so much? She should be happy that Chuck would finally be out of her life. That's all she had said she wanted since meeting him. Not because he was cruel or demanding or hard, but because he was the opposite and that made him dangerous to her. Every time she thought about never seeing him again though, a feeling of emptiness and painful loneliness nearly overwhelmed her. She wanted—no, needed—Chuck in her life in some way, if only as a friend. She was not naïve enough to think there was a chance at a real relationship there, but she could not deny any more the longing she felt deep inside for some kind, any kind, of genuine human companionship. She could never go back to her old life now, not after everything that had happened to her. Not after all the changes that Chuck had wrought inside of her. She was finally caring about something other than survival for once and she desperately wanted to hold onto that feeling for as long as possible.

She was not going to wait for somebody to sneak into her room this time. It was time she became a little more proactive. For too long she had let things happen to her instead of because of her. If she was going to make sure that she got the kind of arrangement she wanted—Chuck sticking around—then she needed to take some control over how things were going to be. She had to stop reacting and simply…act. There had to be something she could do to leverage her way to what she wanted. Unfortunately, it was probably too risky to start giving information until she found herself in a stronger bargaining position and that was going to be very difficult to come by. Maybe if she had a hostage… She dismissed that thought. It was an old way of thinking. Taking a hostage would undoubtedly only make things worse. Chuck would not approve of that anyway.

Still, it would be a good idea to prepare for any eventuality.

In case this was another game by Carina, she walked over to the door. She readied herself for anything, but hoped that nothing happened. Her muscles were still too atrophied to be of much help. She doubted she could take on three guards again. At least not without the element of surprise, that was why she was taking up position now.

The door slowly opened and she tensed, spreading her feet out and adjusting her balance. Through the open doorway she could see the same sickly yellow light that had been there the last time her door opened during the middle of the night. As quietly as she could, while still in the red darkness before the light from the doorway reached farther into the room, she slipped deeper into the blackness behind the open door so that she could attack whoever came through the door from behind.

She thought she heard the distant din of explosions and gunfire, but with the klaxon sounding so loud her teeth hurt and the pounding of her own heart beating like a drum, she couldn't be sure what she was hearing.

A figure stepped partially through the doorway; male and tall. He stopped only about a foot from the door, holding it open with his right hand, clearly peering into her room, looking for her.

"Sarah?" the man said loudly and she tensed.

Chuck. The man was Chuck.

She relaxed her attack posture and reached out to gently touch his shoulder. He jumped a foot into the air and screamed. Somehow, despite turning completely around to face her, he didn't lose his hold on the door. She couldn't help it, she laughed at the wild look on his surprised face. He really wasn't an agent like her that was for sure. An agent wouldn't have screamed like a girl. No matter what he had done or said to her, he wasn't her. She could take comfort in that at least.

"Holy crap, Sarah, you scared me!" he yelled.

"Sorry," she said unapologetically and tried not to grin. "But you should know better than to try and sneak into an agent's room while they're sleeping."

He gaped at her and shifted uneasily. "Sneak? It's so loud in here I can't hear myself think," he said loudly. He indicated the door he was still holding open with his right hand. "Besides, if I were trying to sneak into your room, I would not have stopped in front of the door and called out your name," he said.

She shrugged her shoulders and this time gave him a small smile. He must be nervous if he was babbling. Of course, that thought made her immediately stop smiling, and she adopted a more serious and business-like demeanor. "What's going on, Chuck?" She had forgotten to raise her voice so she had to repeat her question.

"The facility is under attack," he said matter of fact.

So that had been gunfire she heard earlier. Amazing. Maybe CIA security wasn't so incredible after all. Had Tommy, or far more likely his replacement, actually done something right for once? She found that hard to believe but Fulcrum had to be the only ones capable of launching an attack like this.

"Fulcrum?" she asked.

"We believe…," the alarm suddenly cut off so Chuck was still talking loudly when he finished his sentence, "so." He blushed slightly at how loud he was yelling. Nervously, he looked back outside the doorway, checked both sides of the hallway, and then closed the door. Now that there was no alarm to mask whatever noises they might make, he was probably worried about being discovered.

"What are you doing? Now you can't get out!" Even after everything, she was still primarily concerned about him and his safety; after the lies and manipulations, the back and forth accusations, the ulterior motives, and it still didn't matter. Being locked inside her cell might keep whoever was outside out, but who was going to protect him from her?

She got a brief glimpse of a potential future then: Her always trying to keep Chuck safe, always looking out for him, always worrying herself to death over him, and he never listening, always risking his life for her, always going his own way no matter how much she begged him not to, her always saying no to him and then always caving. It seemed a bleak, anxiety filled future, but for some reason, it excited and comforted her. She couldn't explain it, couldn't understand why she looked forward to a future of the two of them together, even if meant a stress-induced early grave. It seemed like it was never going to matter what he did to her, she was always going to be weak when it came to him.

But then that future would probably never happen.

He actually smiled at her. At least she thought he did, it was hard to see in the dim red light of the room. "Don't worry, I've got a key."

She looked at him skeptically. There was not even a keyhole on this side of the door. Just what kind of key did he have?

Chuck grabbed her arm gently and said, "Look, Sarah, we don't really have time to debate the merits of my presence here. Fulcrum is attacking the facility, which means one of two things."

"They're here to rescue me," she supplied. She wasn't exactly a fan of that thought. On the one hand, she wanted out of this place and she wanted out right now. She was not made for captivity; she belonged in the wild. On the other hand, the simple fact was that she didn't want to leave Chuck no matter how much their situation was screwed up. If Fulcrum broke her out of her prison, she would never see Chuck again. To make matters worse, they would once again be on opposite sides. Not that they weren't already on opposite sides, but the more time she spent in her cell, the more time she spent with Chuck, the less she felt like a Fulcrum agent. Chuck often made her forget even why she was with Fulcrum to begin with.

Chuck nodded his head. "Yes, or failing that, to kill you."

"How do you know they're after me?"

"Because you're the only one here."

"Oh." She got a whole CIA facility to herself? Wow, wasn't she special? "So then why are you here, Chuck? Are you here to protect me?"

She didn't really mean to sound so derisive of his abilities to guard her, but as much as she liked and admired Chuck, she didn't think highly trained combat abilities was one of his many skills. If the way he had jumped in surprise earlier was any indication, he certainly didn't have nerves of steel.

Chuck let go of her arm and moved a hand to his back. He pulled a pistol from the waistband of his pants and held it firmly, if not carefully, in his hand. "We can't really let Fulcrum take you back, Sarah. You are simply too valuable to fall back into their hands."

"Ah, so you're not here to protect me but to kill me." She was surprised to realize that that thought didn't really bother her. Not like it used to. She thought it would, that she would be fighting tooth and nail against any attempt on her life, but she was just so tired of everything now. Maybe if Chuck hadn't told her what her future would be: indentured servitude with a man she wanted little to do with. Maybe if Chuck hadn't done a number on her emotional psyche. Maybe if she actually had something worth living for. She wasn't sure she did have anything worth fighting for anymore.

"I'm getting really tired of you accusing me of trying to kill you, Sarah. Do you think that if I actually wanted you dead, I couldn't have arranged something before now? Killing you is the last thing I want, so stop accusing me!" He yelled at her.

"I'm sorry…"

Chuck cut her off with an angry wave of his hand. "We don't have time for this. Fulcrum agents are attacking the facility, people I work with, people I care about, are probably dying right now, and if Fulcrum knew enough to find this facility, then there's a good bet they know where you're being held. We need to go," he snapped at her. He shook his head and muttered unintelligibly under his breath. He suddenly focused on her, his eyes intense. "Here, take it," he said and practically shoved the pistol into her hands. "It's loaded in case you were wondering," he said scornfully.

Sarah blinked, looked down at the matte black Glock 17 in her hand, then back up at Chuck, then back down at the gun, then back up at Chuck. She was pretty sure her brain was officially broken. That had been the absolutely last thing she had ever expected Chuck to do.

"You're giving me the gun?"

He shrugged his shoulders self-consciously. "Well…yeah. I hate the damn things. They freak me out and I figure we'll have a better chance of getting you out of here in one piece if you're the one with the gun."

"You're going to help me escape?" she asked shocked.

"No." Then he swallowed and then said, "Well, that's not exactly Plan A. I was actually really hoping you would come with me and hide out in the facility's safe room." Then he shrugged and sighed. "But if you weren't willing to do that, then yes, I would help you escape." He placed a hand on her arm again and she found herself leaning closer to him. "I really don't think you like working for Fulcrum, Sarah, so I'd like to think if you were free of them, you'd stay away. Maybe you could even begin some kind of normal life, free of all of this. And besides, I can't kill you, I don't want to kill you, so if we can't have you, at least I can make sure that they can't have you either."

"You really do believe in me that much."

Chuck shrugged and smiled weakly. "Even Darth Vader returned to the Light side of the Force before the end."

"The real world doesn't always work like it does in the movies, Chuck. Sometimes, people don't change. Sometimes, they can't change."

"I don't believe that."

"You're really that willing to risk your life for me?" She could not wrap her mind around what he was saying. Nobody in her life had ever believed in her that much.

"In my mind, it's not really a risk, okay?" He frowned and added impatiently, "Look, I don't know who's attacking us and I don't know what they want. Maybe they're here to rescue you or maybe they're here to kill you or maybe something else entirely. Either way, I'm not willing to risk your life on I don't knows and maybes. Are you?" He squeezed her arm a little painfully. "That's all I care about."

She extricated her arm from his grip and put some distance between them; it was necessary for her to properly think about what he was saying.

She ejected the magazine from the Glock, checked to make sure that it was indeed full of rounds, and then slammed the magazine back into place. She chambered a round and held the gun like an extension of her own hand. She felt like a piece of her had been missing and was now back where it was supposed to be.

Then she lifted the gun and pointed it right at Chuck's chest. He seemed totally unfazed, his attention turned back to the closed door and what might be happening outside rather than the fact that she was pointing a gun at him. So it was back to this, was it? Truthfully, she was a little grateful. Carmichael was easier to handle; she understood him—as much as it was possible to understand any facet of Chuck Bartowski—much better than she had ever understood the more real part of Chuck. Certainly better than trying to understand why somebody who really shouldn't believe in her, did.

"What's your angle, Chuck?"

Chuck briefly looked at her, lowered his eyes to the gun, and then went back to staring more at the door. It was like he was waiting for something. "I don't know what you mean."

"Don't give me that," she barked out angrily. "I'd like to believe you, I really would, but you've burned me before. You always have an angle, I've learned that much. Everything you do has some ulterior motive."

He looked annoyed and reached out to push the gun down until it was pointed at the ground. "My angle, if it can be called one, is the same thing it's always been: getting you out of this cell and back into the world, working for the good guys again."

She angrily lifted the gun a second time and this time pointed it at his head. "Stop it! Since the day I met you, you've been lying to me. Stop telling me that you want to help me, it's not true!" She was starting to sound a little wild and high pitched so she forced herself to breathe more levelly. She needed to stay in control. "Is this even a real attack? Or is this just another one of your plans to make me tamer?"

She wasn't really sure where this doubt and anger were coming from. Just a few seconds ago, she had been willing to do anything to stick close to Chuck and now she was pointing a gun at his head. Perhaps it was because for the first time since getting captured, she had the ability to affect real change in her life. With the gun that Chuck gave her in her hand, she could finally dictate the actions of her own life once again. She had power, she had control, and she was back in her element. It was too much like her old life, the life she no longer really wanted, and she got nauseous. But her aim did not waver. Maybe Chuck would finally give her the straight, unvarnished truth she had been so desperate for if he thought his life was actually on the line. She could not actually shoot him, but he didn't need to know that.

Chuck snapped. There was no better word to describe what happened. One second he was standing just as he had since stepping into the room, head shifting from looking at her to looking anxiously at the door, and the next second, the gun had been transferred back from her hand to his and she was pressed face first into the nearest wall, left arm wrenched behind her back and his body pressed against hers, arm digging painfully against the back of her neck, doing his best to forcefully merge her with the wall. He was bristling with such barely contained anger that she was genuinely afraid for her life. One wrong move and she was sure he would actually hurt her. She was immobilized, and even if she had wanted to struggle, she didn't think she had the strength to dislodge him. Not to mention she had absolutely no idea what had just happened.

Chuck leaned close, his mouth hovering just over her right ear, and she shivered as warm breath cascaded over her. He spoke in a low, tight, frustrated voice. "Now listen to me, Sarah Walker. Are you listening?" He pulled extra hard on her arm to emphasize his question. She gulped and nodded her head once. This was a side of Chuck that she didn't even think existed. He had completely blindsided her.

"Since the day I met you, you've been nothing but a pain in my ass. Yet for some reason I have yet to understand, I can't seem to stay away from you. I don't get it, I've tried to, believe me, and my life would be a hell of a lot simpler if I could just stop thinking of you. But I can't and so here I am, once again risking my ass, my family, my whole life on you and all you've managed to do is question every action I take." He stopped ranting briefly to take in a big breath. "What I want from you is simple: stop working for the bad guys and come work for me. You don't have to like the CIA, hell, most of the time I don't even like them. And I know what they did to you, so I get it; I even understand why you started working for Fulcrum in the first place. What they did to your father was wrong and what they did to you even worse, but two wrongs don't make a right and it needs to stop. You want to make it out of this facility alive? Work for us, Sarah."

"Can I speak?" she rasped out. It was all she could do not to break down at the sensory overload that was threatening to overtake her. She didn't even care that Chuck was ordering her around and had probably irrevocably shattered the power dynamic between them. She was still scrambling to wrap her head around the fact that Chuck had pinned her to the wall seemingly effortlessly.

"Yes," he growled into her ear and she shivered again. She was getting inappropriately turned on and that was not what she should be thinking about right now.

She swallowed slowly and thought hard about what she was going to say. She desperately didn't want to mess this up. "Chuck, I'm sorry, okay? But you have got me so screwed up, pulling me in all different directions, and I don't know what to think. You tell me to come work for you, but you told me earlier that Larkin was going to be my partner. I don't…I mean…Chuck, nobody has ever cared so much about what happens to me. I don't understand it." She really hoped that the last part hadn't come out as pathetic and weak as it sounded.

The hold on her arm loosened and he removed the arm from pressing down on her neck, and even though she couldn't really see him, she could sense him gradually relaxing. He was starting to breathe much more slowly and when he started to talk, the anger was mostly gone. "It's called being human, Sarah. I want to help you because that's what people do. Nobody should just be discarded like…trash. That's not right. Yeah, you've done bad things and hurt people that didn't deserve it, so what?"

Thoughts were racing through her head at a million miles a second, trying to understand just what Chuck was saying. "You think anybody that works in this business is a saint? You think that Bryce or Carina or Casey, or hell, even me, haven't done stuff we regret or wish we could take back? You think that we haven't done stuff that would make the people we sacrifice for every day look at us with disgust and horror? Let me tell you something I learned a long time ago: it's not what you do that matters but who you are inside. Some day you will have to answer for your crimes, but not to me."

He put some distance between them but he still held her to the wall. He sighed loudly and tiredly whispered, "As for Bryce, I was jealous; which is ridiculous, because I have nothing to be jealous over. I thought Bryce was what you wanted, and I was going to give you him. But I was just being stupid; really, really stupid." He sighed again and sounded like a man that had aged 30 years, "The way he makes me feel sometimes…" He paused and, probably for her benefit, added, "A long time ago I once loved a girl and thought I would spend the rest of my life with her. She cheated on me with Bryce. So you can imagine what the thought of you and him together does to me, even if I know that nothing will ever happen between us. In my mind, it's like it's happening all over again."

He let go of her arm completely and gently turned her around until her back was against the wall. He grabbed her upper arms and pressed her against the wall until she was flush against it and he was flush against her. His eyes stared into hers, full of passion and an emotion that she couldn't identify. "I believe that somewhere, deep inside of you, there is a good person desperately trying to claw its way out. I believe that you don't want to work for Fulcrum, and that you've stopped caring about anything but living for the next day. Let me give you a purpose. Let me help you reclaim a life you lost. I can make you feel proud about what you do again. Work for me, and we can stop Fulcrum. I can help you, Sarah. Let me help you," he pleaded.

"Make me a promise," she said.

"At this point, Sarah, I think I would be willing to pretty much promise you anything if it means you'll start to see reason," he said wryly.

She smiled faintly at him but knew that it didn't reach her eyes. It was time to put all her cards on the table and hope for the best. "I will make a real effort to trust you, I mean really trust you, and I will tell you everything I know about Fulcrum. Everything. But, in return, I will only work with you. You are the only one I am willing to try trusting, and if you promise me that, I'm your girl."

"I think that can be arranged. You'll be a great addition to the team," he said in relief.

"No, Chuck, you don't understand. If that is not the arrangement, then you will get nothing from me. I mean it." She paused, debated internally if she should continue, and ultimately decided that she might as well go for broke. He had pretty much poured his heart out to her, he deserved she do the same. So she told him exactly what she wanted. "That means YOU will be my partner. YOU will debrief me. YOU will be my cover boyfriend," realizing what she said, she hastily clarified, "or whatever other cover they determine for us. Only you, Chuck. That's my one condition."

"Sarah…" Chuck hesitated. "Carina's my partner."

"No, she's your handler."

"We don't really make a distinction between the two," Chuck argued.

"Doesn't matter," she said stubbornly. She wasn't about to let Chuck's bitch of a handler stand between her and what she wanted. "A handler is not your partner. They are not your friend. A handler is only there to make sure you do what they want and are only around as long as you maintain your value as an asset. You may think that Carina is your friend, but I assure you, she is not. She is only acting like your friend. It's just another means of controlling you," she said harshly. She couldn't help but still feel resentment and anger over Chuck doing the same thing to her. She couldn't understand why he didn't see the similarities in their actions.

Chuck stepped away from her and frowned. "You don't know what you're talking about, Sarah."

She tightened her mouth and fought down the urge to press him harder. She could tell she might actually lose him over this. His affection for Carina was a problem but she was confident she could break him of that eventually. All she needed was the opportunity to spend time around him as much as possible and she could replace Carina in his life. She was not about to let Carina stop her from getting what she wanted.

"Okay." It was all she said. It was all she could say. The rest would come later.

Chuck instantly brightened. "Really?"

"Yes."

"You understand that while I fully intend to help you every step of the way, Carina will always be my partner, right?"

She sighed and nodded her head reluctantly. "I get it."

"Great!" Chuck smiled brightly at her and she felt her stomach flutter. God, she loved that smile. "Let's get you out of here."

"How? The door is locked."

Chuck grinned and all of a sudden somebody was knocking on her cell door. Chuck rapped out a corresponding knock and the door slowly opened, sickly yellow light cascading into the room.


Next Chapter...er, part: Choices Part Three (or alternatively, Choices Part Two-B) - It's an action extravaganza! Who's on the other side of the door? A 100 points to the first person who guesses right! What will happen with the attack? Will Chuck and Sarah survive? Dun-dun-dun!