Usual disclaimer, no rights to any characters portrayed.

Sarah stared at Chuck as he brought up page after page on the computer, trying to trigger the intersect. "Chuck?" He turned his head to look at her "Yes Sarah?" "Are you Mowgli?" His eyes widened. "What?" "How did you?" Then he gave in and said. "Yes, Yes I am."

At that moment Casey unlocked the front door and stepped into the shop, and Sarah turned to look at him "Then I guess that makes you Baloo, doesn't it, Casey?" His eyes went wide and he darted a look at the General on the screen, who nodded, so he looked back at Sarah, saying "I don't know why we're telling Graham's Enforcer this, but yes, I am." Sarah's expression hardened and the others saw the face that had frightened, and finished, so many people in the last five years "Never call me that again!" Casey took a half step back but he wasn't about to back down from anyone "Can't handle the truth Walker?", but the General stepped in at that point to bark "That's enough Major Casey!", and he'd served under her long enough to dart a look her way and mumble "Yes ma'am."

As this was going on, Chuck's head jerked and he said "OK, we've got an event that we can use to put on a show." The others came over to see what he was looking at, but all they could see was a picture of General Stanfield, and a mention of a Pacific Security League conference at an L.A. hotel. As no-one else was saying anything, Anna piped up "What are you seeing that we aren't, Chuckles?"

Chuck stood up, saying "It's not so much what's there, it's what's in here", pointing to his head as he headed out to the break room to locate and take some more headache tablets. He continued when he returned. "Someone's planning on blowing up General Stanfield and everyone else at the Pacific Security League conference tonight." a chorus of "WHAT?"s rang out in the room (and from the screen), so he went on.

"When I brought up this page, a pile of images flashed into my head, the plans for the hotel, the designs for a bomb, a coded ad on the Russian Business Network for someone to bomb a conference in L.A. around this date and a host of other things, including a schedule for the conference with the time that General Stanfield will be on-stage highlighted. It all adds up to a plan to set off a bomb at the conference while the General's on-stage."

Casey asked "Do you know who the bomber is?" but Chuck shook his head "No, that seemed to be the only thing that wasn't in it." They heard the General talking agitatedly and stepped back to look at the screen, to see that she was talking to someone on the phone. When she slammed the phone down and swore, they guessed that the discussion hadn't gone well, she looked up to see them in front of the screen and said "They won't cancel the conference, or even General Stanfield's appearance without solid proof that there's a bomb, because they've scanned the facility and it was clean."

Chuck started to open his mouth but she shook her head "No Chuck, we can't say that John Smith dug up the intel without having irrefutable intel that we can show them." He grimaced and nodded, this was a difficult side to the thing that he now had in his head, not being able to show proof.

Sarah looked around and then asked "What if we stop the bomb, will that be proof enough?" The General nodded musingly and Casey looked at her with grudging respect, as she'd come up with the way forward that they needed. They (well they being Chuck and Sarah) nutted out the plan that Chuck and Sarah would be on a date at a restaurant in the hotel and Chuck would get a flash of information about the bomber when he saw him, they would follow him and stop him, and somewhere along the way, Casey would crash the party so he was part of it.

Chuck went back to factor in the other details that they'd need for this scenario, he dug out a laptop hard drive that they'd confirmed was totally fried and unreadable, along with other parts, and handed them to Sarah, saying "These are the drive and other bits from the laptop I used when I opened Bryce's email, you dug them out of the bin at my house while I was getting ready after I told you that I'd thrown them out because they were fried last night." She picked up the story at that point "Because, I needed a chance to search your house for the computer, so I told you that I didn't have a place to stay yet, to manoeuvre you into offering to let me get ready at your place before we went on a date."

The General was watching the two with a pleased smile on her face, they worked well together, and given what she was reading from the two of them, she was hoping that her two best friends' children could find happiness with each other, they certainly deserved it after all the shit they'd both been through.

When they'd laid out a workable plan for both handling the bomb situation and the scenario they needed to convince Graham that Chuck needed to stay in the "real" world with handlers (Casey from the NSA and Sarah from the CIA), Sarah turned to the screen and said. "I'm sorry General, I interrupted the story that you were telling me?"


Aunt D had to think back to where they were when the story was sidetracked, Sarah prompted her "But Bry thought that they needed to be able to look after themselves, and he set it up so that they could go through special ops training when they were in their teens." Aunt D's eyes widened as she realised that those were the last words that she'd spoken on this, verbatim, but Sarah had been zoning out at that point? She knew about Chuck and Ellie's exceptional memory, now it looked like Sarah may have the same capability? She tried to recover her composure as she continued.

"So, Bry organised for them to get into the Services' special ops trainings, and we had Casey get them prepared for the training, luckily they had a good start because Mary had instilled a fitness regime in them since they were little kids. To get them into the trainings, we created additional identities for them, so that they both had established identities in each service, Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, and all their identities were commissioned."

"During the time that Casey was getting them ready, Chuck was fifteen and he had to take down the infamous hacktivist, Roscoe, but after he'd tracked him down and Casey captured him, Chuck wouldn't let us throw him a black site where he belonged, he made a case to use the superior skills and ability that Roscoe had for our benefit, and that was how Mr Barnes joined the team." Sarah looked at Jeff and he grinned at her.

"The next part Major Casey regarded as a punishment to him, as he was forced to add Mr Barnes to the preparation training so that he could get through the Special Ops training with Chuck. Mr Barnes managed to scrape through the Army's Special Ops trainings, and as you know about Mowgli I expect that you know about all the records he set through his trainings?" Sarah looked at Chuck, saying "No, I was told that he was incredible, but they didn't mention records?" The General smiled, saying.

"Well get him to show you his wall when you're at the house. Anyway, Ellie also went well when she did her Army and Marines Special Ops training, she may not have set records like Chuck but she shocked a lot of people by how well she did, and how many of the men she beat. Bry was pushing Chuck to try and make him recognise how exceptional he was and believe in himself, so he also put him through the Marines' Special Ops training and SEAL training when he was sixteen. It was when he blitzed the best of the best there, too, that he started to see himself a little more like we did."

"Major Casey also had a suggestion that worked well, Chuck was interested in flying, so both he and Ellie got flying lessons and started picking up flight qualifications in all four services. That went quite a long way because they were enjoying what they were doing, and they have the ability to qualify for new aircraft far faster than most people."

"When Chuck was twenty, he had to take down another infamous hacker, the Lotus, and it was the same scenario as Roscoe, he took her down but wouldn't let us lock her up, and that was how Ms Wu joined the team. Ms Wu went through the Army's Special Ops trainings, too, and she surprised her instructors by getting through as well as she did."

"Since then, the team's continued to deliver the best analysis and planning for the military and intelligence communities, and Chuck and Ms Wu have also been operating in a Field Analyst capacity that has gone into a Field Agent capacity on more than a few occasions when they were on missions with Major Casey, and on their own."

She looked at Sarah. "I noticed that you recognised the name Piranha, because he found the evidence that exonerated your friend Agent Rizzo?" Sarah nodded. "Well, you may be interested to know that he was also the one who found the footage from Belarus which proved your case and exonerated you when you had problems recently?" Sarah and Chuck whipped their heads around to look at each other, saying "That was you?" almost together. With a smile the General continued. "That's pretty much the story of who the team is, you're aware of who I am, I can see that you know who Major Casey is, and I know that you know Bryan Mills, has this answered your questions Agent Walker?" "Yes ma'am."

"Are you ready to work with us Sarah, to do what's best for Chuck and our country?" Sarah glanced at Chuck and smiled. "Yes ma'am." The General nodded. "I'll leave you to handle the details of how you're going to do this, Chuck, what do you think you need for this?" "It would be useful to have a strike team and bomb disposal team on hand for when all this comes down." She nodded again. "I'll organise them to be on hand." Then with another nod, she disconnected the call.


After she canned the link, they talked about what they had to do for that night, and then Sarah got a call from Graham, she showed the others who it was before she answered, so everyone else stayed silent. "Yes Director" "I have engaged the target at his work, my initial impression is that he's just an underachiever who's found his level at that repair shop, I don't see any possibility that he was an accomplice to Agent Larkin, he doesn't seem capable of that." The look she held on Chuck throughout was an unnecessary confirmation that she was just telling Graham what he needed to hear.

"I have manoeuvred him into asking me out to dinner at a restaurant downtown tonight, I arranged to go to his place to get ready as I don't have a hotel room yet, that will give me a chance to look for his computer and any external drives he may have, that way I can determine where everything is for when I break in later to retrieve them."

"No sir, I haven't see Casey yet, I presume that he was delayed finishing up whatever he was doing before, I am planning on staying here while the target "fixes" my laptop, and then we'll head back to his place." "No, I don't believe that that will be necessary, I know that you are aware of my views on that Director!" "He is coming back now, I have to go, goodbye." With that she hung up and fumed. Casey looked at her "He told you to screw the mark to make him easier to work with, huh?"

The glare she sent his way would have sent most men running, but he wasn't about to back down, he did have the grace to look a little sympathetic about her having to take orders like that, though. Chuck went to her and gently put his hand on her arm, she quickly looked at him, and then rested her head on his shoulder, whispering "I hate that bastard!", and she didn't reject him or complain when he put his arm around her shoulders.

Chuck, Jeff and Anna had to work on restoring their customers' computers that had been stuffed by the Irene Demova virus, so they were tied up with working on the machines and customer site trips for the rest of the day. Sarah and Casey managed to put aside their differences and researched everything they could about the hotel and the conference that they were trying to save. By six, they'd had enough and Chuck and Sarah headed to his place to get ready for their "date", Jeff and Anna did offer to stay and work on the customer machines, but the customers were closed for the day so Chuck told them to go home.


Chuck gave Sarah the ten cent tour when they got to Casa Bartek, starting at the top and working down. The attic was just storage and didn't need an immediate tour, on the first floor, he showed her where Ellie's room was and told her to drop her bag in his room as she could use that, grabbing some clothes to drop in the workroom when he showed her that as he'd shower and get ready in there, the ground floor tour was quick because it was fairly normal and then they headed to the basement, he showed her the gym and games room that were taking up over half the space, plus the guest rooms, but she wondered what he was up to when he led her into the closet in one of the guest rooms, at least until he opened the hidden door in the back of the closet.

Sarah found it hard to believe that a facility like the Bunker was under a suburban house (or to be more precise, under the garage and back yard of the house). It had everything needed to support a reasonable force of agents and serve as an operations centre. When she came back from checking out the cells, interrogation room etc out the back, something caught her eye, because one wall was largely covered with certificates and pictures, this must be the wall the General mentioned.

Heading over there, she saw that each of the people associated with the team had a section. The smallest was Jeffrey Barnes', he had certificates to show that he'd graduated from the Army's Special Forces and Rangers training, as well as his degrees, held the rank of USA Captain and USN Lieutenant Commander, was a DIA Agent and had a few medals, the highest being the Bronze Star medal.

Next was Anna Wu's, she had certificates to show that she graduated from the Army's Special Forces and Rangers training and her degrees, held the the rank of USA First Lieutenant and USN Lieutenant, was a DIA Agent and had a few medals, the highest being the Soldier's medal, Navy and Marine Corps Medal and the Bronze Star medal.

Then came Bryan Mills, he had certificates for a number of trainings and mission pictures, held the rank of USA Lieutenant Colonel, was a CIA Agent (and member of SAD/SOG), as well as a DIA Special Agent, Army Master Aviator, and had a pile of medals, up to the Distinguished Service Cross.

Casey had a pile of certificates and mission pictures, held the rank of USMC Major and USAF Major, was an NSA Agent, FBI Special Agent and DIA Special Agent, Naval Aviator, USAF Senior Pilot, and rather more medals than Bry, from the Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross and Air Force Cross on down.

It was at Ellie's where it started getting really interesting though, as well as the certificates to show that she graduated from the Army's and Marines' Special Ops trainings etc and her impressive list of degrees, she had one that stated that she'd flown an SR-71 at a recorded airspeed of Mach 3.31, and had a number of pictures taken in training, on missions, or at award ceremonies. She held the ranks of USN Lieutenant Commander, USAF Lieutenant Colonel, USA Major and USMC Major, she was a DIA Special Agent AND a DIA Agent, Naval Aviator, USAF Senior Pilot and USA Senior Aviator, and a number of medals from the Defense Distinguished Service medal on down, most of her medals were non-combat, but she did have a Silver Star medal and Bronze Star medal.

Chuck's section seemed almost as big as the rest combined, he had the certificates to show he'd graduated from the Army's and Marines' Special Ops trainings and SEAL training, as well as the records he won/held in all those trainings and his degrees (like Ellie's, his list of degrees was impressive). Then there was the one that stated that he'd flown an SR-71 at a recorded airspeed of Mach 3.35, another which stated that he'd flown a MiG-25 at a recorded airspeed of Mach 3.22, and a third for a distance record made on a flight of 9825 miles at an average speed of 1128.51 MPH or Mach 1.71 in an F-15E, as well as a number of framed news articles which obviously related to operations he'd done (including the one that Zondra had told her about) and had a number of pictures taken in training, missions, or at award ceremonies. He held the ranks of USN Commander, USAF Major, USA Lieutenant Colonel and USMC Lieutenant Colonel, he was a DIA Special Agent in Charge AND a DIA Agent, an NSA Special Agent, FBI Special Agent, Naval Aviator, USAF Senior Pilot and USA Senior Aviator, SEAL, and held more medals than anyone else, starting with Distinguished Service Cross (twice), Navy Cross, Air Force Cross, and on down from there with many others.

Looking at what was on his wall, Sarah could see that Chuck was getting uncomfortable and wanted to leave, so she decided to let him off the hook for now, but she wanted to talk to him about this, she remembered being jealous about that flight he did in the MiG-25, and now she knew he'd topped that with the SR-71? Anyway, she let him lead her out of the Bunker and upstairs.

Sarah went to Chuck's room to have a shower and get dressed for their "date", but she noticed as she was getting undressed that the bedroom was obviously unused most of the time, and without thinking went down to the workroom to ask him about that. She walked in the open door of the workroom starting to ask "Chuck, why don't.." but she forgot what she was thinking when she saw him standing at the desk checking something on the computer, wearing only his boxers.

For the second time that day, she was just standing there, staring at him with her mouth open, because the sight in front of her took her breath away. When he was dressed, she found Chuck cute and attractive but not exceptionally distracting, looking at the definition of the rock hard body and limbs on display in front of her now though, that was something totally different. She remembered at that point that she'd been surprised by how firm and solid his body had felt the night of his twenty first when she pretended to be drunk and latched onto him, but she'd forgotten at the time because what was supposed to be a quick kiss followed by a fake embarrassed exit had become an intense, passionate experience followed by a hurried and genuinely embarrassed departure.

Sarah had forgotten at that point to hold her shirt together, so Chuck was getting as entrancing a view as she was when the shirt hung open to show her delightful form in nothing but lacy lingerie. Neither registered that she'd crossed the room until she was lightly tracing his pecs and arms with her finger tips and asking how he'd gotten like this. Chuck shrugged, saying "At least three or four hours' hard work a day for the last ten or eleven years, and about an hour a day for the previous ten years?" At that point he suddenly realised that they were both standing there almost naked and blushed, stammering "Um, maybe we should have this talk when we're finished getting ready, and dressed?" Sarah looked down and realised what he was talking about and blushed almost as much as he had, apologising as she ran out of the room.

When they'd both had their showers and were dressed, she came back and knocked on the door, waiting for him to ask her to enter before she came into the doorway this time. She was blushing as she walked in and started to apologise again, but he stopped her, telling her that she'd actually given him a wonderful gift, as that was the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen. She looked at him for a while, and realising that he was being totally sincere in what he said, she smiled shyly, saying "Thank you, it was a beautiful sight for me, too", which made him blush again.

He waved her over to him, because what he was looking up was the plans for the hotel they were going to. After they'd looked through the plans and talked about that for a while, he suddenly turned to look at her, to find that her face was mere inches from his. They'd been so comfortable talking as they looked at the images in the screen that neither of them registered the fact that Sarah was perched on the arm of his chair, balancing herself with her arm across his shoulders.

He stopped again, all thoughts driven from his head as he was lost in her eyes, and she wasn't much better until she closed the last few inches to kiss him. It wasn't like their last kiss, it was soft, sweet, and tender, but it took their breath away all over again. When they drew apart she spoke softly, almost in a whisper "Sorry, but I just had to see whether I've been fooling myself for the last five years about that kiss." he looked at her, "And?" She looked hesitant, "Well for me it definitely meant something?" His smile lit up the room as he said "Thank god, I was afraid that it was only me!"

He put his arm around her and they had another light kiss before he remembered "What was it you came to ask earlier anyway?" "Oh, why don't you use your bedroom, it looks more like a guest room than someone's bedroom" He waved at the computer in front of them. "I'm working in here nearly every night, if I need to sleep I'll just nap on the sofa (poking his thumb over his shoulder)." She obviously didn't think much of that idea, but when he raised his eyebrow, she just said "We can talk about that later." With that he shut down the computer and they headed out.


The restaurant they were at had a view of both the main entrance for the hall where the Pacific Security League Conference was being held, and the service corridor for it. Casey was in a bar only a few minutes away. They were actually having a nice time as they talked, keeping an eye on both entrances, but no-one showed that set off any information flashes, so as the time for General Stanfield to get up on stage approached, they called Casey to come up. Casey had his NSA credentials and Sarah had her CIA credentials ready as they entered the hall, Chuck had his FBI credentials in his pocket, but they didn't want to use them unless necessary, to avoid tipping off Graham and his cronies.

They got in fine using Casey and Sarah's credentials, and they were all scanning the hall, Chuck looking for the Intersect to identify something and Casey and Sarah looking for anything out of place. It was the Intersect that got the hit, as he identified a server wheeling a covered food trolley towards the tables up front as a Serbian bomb maker. Unfortunately, when Chuck identified him and Casey ordered him apprehended him, he pulled out a pistol and the guards all opened fire, which left them with a very large bomb using an arming mechanism that was all but tamper proof in the time available (which was counting down from twenty seven seconds), and the only person who knew how to disarm it creating an ever increasing red stain on the floor..

There was no time to get the bomb disposal team in or evacuate the dignitaries in the room and it looked like they were up shit creek, but Chuck suddenly realised that the laptop used for the arming mechanism was the same cheap type as the ones they'd been using for testing with the virus that morning, so he quickly brought up a web browser and went to the Irene Demova malware site, thereby frying the laptop and disabling the arming mechanism with about four seconds to go.

The bomb disposal team arrived a couple of minutes later, and the loud "Fuck!"s that a couple of the bomb techs blurted out when they saw how the C4 explosives filled the bottom of the trolley (as well as much of the portion on top under the cover) led to a number of the dignitaries loudly demanding that they be fired, or at the very least severely reprimanded. General Stanfield bought into it and stormed down to demand the names of the offenders, until the bomb disposal team leader quietly pulled aside the cover on the bottom on the trolley to show him the C4 and HE blurted out "Fuck!" even louder than the bomb techs had, of course his only concern then was "What are you waiting for, get that out of here!"

Once outside, they talked over the script of how this was to go before Casey and Sarah called their respective directors and acted out their scripted arguments about what was going to happen to the asset. Eventually Graham pushed for the solution that matched what they'd scripted to ensure the CIA's involvement. The CIA and NSA would run this as a shared CIA/NSA operation, assigning the two current agents as handlers for the asset, and for now, at least, they'd leave him out in the world to see how much use he could be.


Afterwards, Casey stayed to manage the situation and ensure that any references to Chuck were suppressed, and Sarah was going to take Chuck home, but he asked her to take him to the beach for a while. As they lay on the sand, they were trying to avoid serious topics as they talked, because the whole point of going to the beach was so that Chuck could try and stop thinking about the shit in front of him.

They stayed at the beach for an hour and then headed back to Chuck's, Ellie was up, and she descended on Sarah to drag her into a bone crushing hug. It took a bit to make her shut up long enough to explain to her that it was Sarah, not Jenny, now, Sarah Walker. They opened a bottle of wine and settled down in the living room to catch up, Ellie needed to know what was going on with the CIA's involvement, and Sarah had to learn about the "Bartek"s sooner or later.

They were laughing about some of the stories that Ellie was telling, and on the way back from the bathroom, Sarah wandered over to look at the pictures on display, she recognised everyone in the pictures except for three girls, who looked like they were early teens in the latest pictures. She was asking if the girls were their cousins as she turned around, but cut off suddenly when she saw the expressions on both Chuck and Ellie's faces. Chuck looked like he was shutting everything out as he said "No, they're my daughters" he looked away for a moment before continuing. "You recall what Aunt D was saying about my playing up quite a bit? That was what she was referring to." He turned to Ellie to say "How did you put El? The biggest slut in California?" He looked back at Sarah as he stood up, saying "It's probably better that this comes out now, so you can get out before you get stuck here" and with that, he walked out of the room.

Sarah stared after him for a while before turning to Ellie and asking "What just happened?" Ellie patted the seat next to her and reached over to refill their glasses, waiting until Sarah was settled and had her glass in her hand before she started talking. "It was partly my fault that this started, I thought that I had to do everything a normal teenager does to keep up our cover, so I invited a group of my girlfriends over for a sleepover one weekend when Chuck was about twelve and a half. Now you have to remember that he was already about my height and really cute, that's what he looked like (pointing to a picture of the two of them), and the other girls thought he was a hottie around our age, so he was fair game."

"I can't remember why, but I was doing something for a while and they started a game of truth or dare, and one of the girls got dared to go and make out with Chuck, I don't know how, but it ended up being a lot more than making out, and she came back in a happy daze, so when they got the story out of her, the other girls decided that they wanted a piece of that and they all had a turn. Chuck was probably in heaven, what boy gets his pubescent fantasies to come to life like that?"

"Anyway, they wouldn't stop talking about it and more and more girls came after him to see what everyone was raving about, so he had a sex life that would put a porn star to shame before he was even a teenager and all the girls kept talking about it. I got pretty bitchy to him because I got sick of hearing about my baby brother's sex life all the time, and I said some terrible things to him, that was probably at least part of what pushed him away so he'd disappear most weekends. Even if he wasn't partying, he stayed friends with any of the girls he'd been with, so he always had plenty of places he could go."

"That went on until he was nearly finished high school and three sisters who'd moved away back at the start of all this moved back to town. It turned out that the reason they'd moved away was that they'd all gotten pregnant the weekend he was with them and their mother had moved them away to a farm so that they wouldn't have everyone pointing fingers at them for being pregnant at such a young age. Things were happy out there at first, the girls were keeping up with their education via distance learning and their daughters were happy playing on the farm, but when they started having play dates with other kids they started asking where their daddies were."

"When the kids got more upset about this, they decided to move back to town so that Chuck could see his daughters and they could get to know him. They knew that Chuck would never reject his kids and would be a wonderful father, because he's Chuck. So they moved back and let him know that he had three daughters who were half sisters as well as cousins and he started going over there a lot to see them."

"He was still going out partying up until he took up with Jill, but nowhere near as much, and when he was up at Stanford, he was coming back nearly every weekend to see the girls. Since Jill and that bastard Larkin betrayed him like that, he hasn't been with anyone, he just goes to see the girls whenever he can and catches up with friends."

"He never told Jill about the girls because she didn't care about anything but herself, for that matter you're the first person outside the family who were there back then that he has told about them. He didn't even tell Anna and she's been very much part of the family since about five or six months before he met you. I hope you understand how important that shows you are to him?"

Sarah nodded tentatively, but asked "Why did he tell me to leave then?" Ellie smiled at her "What makes you think he said that?" "He said.." she stopped, running what he said through her head. "It's probably better that this comes out now, so you can get out before you get stuck here" She looked at Ellie "He was giving me a way out if I can't handle the idea?" Ellie nodded with a smile, asking "So, do you think you can handle it?"

Sarah looked at her "Can I handle the idea that he wants to be a father to his daughters who were born when he was thirteen? Yes, I think he's wonderful for doing that. Can I handle the idea that he's still seeing umpteen exes? I'm not so sure about that."

"No, you apparently misunderstood me, he's still FRIENDS with nearly all the girls he's been with, and yes, that's an embarrassingly large number, but as far as I know, the last woman who got anything more than a friendly hug and kiss from him was, actually, you. He spent the night holding Anna the night I got drunk and came out with the biggest slut in California diatribe right in front of her in a club, because then Anna was upset that he'd rejected her when he'd been with all those women, but that was nothing more than holding a friend because she was upset."

Sarah muttered to herself "That'd be right, I have to fall for a fuckin' saint!", or at least she thought she'd muttered it to herself until Ellie snorted and said "Oh, he's no saint." Sarah tried to stop herself talking, but she seemed to have no control of her mouth. "Ellie, you don't know what I've done, I've killed hundreds, I've tortured people without mercy, I've slept with disgusting perverts for the job, OK, I only did that to survive, but I did it, I even had a relationship with Bryce fuckin' Larkin! I don't deserve Chuck, and I certainly don't deserve to be around his girls, or anyone good."

Ellie reached over and took her hand. "You two are a good pair, you've been downstairs, you've seen the wall, haven't you?" Sarah nodded. "I'm sure you know as well as I do that he's earned everything that's there." Sarah nodded again. "Well as far as he's concerned he doesn't deserve any of it, he believes that they've just given him those things to try pump up his ego, or he's being rewarded for doing things he believes are wrong, like killing people." She looked her in the eye "So who's better suited to each other than a pair of over achievers who don't believe that they deserve what they get when they've sacrificed so much? Do you care about him?" Sarah nodded and said "Yes, yes I do" "Then will you PLEASE get your head out of your arse and then go up there and make him do the same?"

Sarah went up to the workroom, but couldn't get Chuck to open the door, so she picked up her bag and came downstairs to tell Ellie he wouldn't to talk to her, so she was going. Ellie ripped the bag out of her hand and grabbed her arm to drag her back upstairs, unlocking the workroom door and pushing her inside saying to both of them. "If either one of you come downstairs alone I'll tranq you both and lock you in a holding cell in the Bunker together until you sort yourselves out!"