A/N: Mostly a transitional chapter, and a really difficult one to write because I kept wanting to just write Chuck and Sarah banter and not move the plot forward, so I think it feels a little rushed near the end. I just didn't want this to be an eight or nine thousand word chapter.

Chapter Ten:

The smell of bacon brought Sarah out of a dreamless sleep. It felt like her head had hit the pillow only seconds earlier. Apparently she had needed rest more than she thought. It shouldn't have been as surprising as it was, given how little she'd been able to force herself to sleep over the two weeks Chuck had been unconscious. Sarah could usually get by with less sleep than most people, but two straight weeks of catching little cat-naps instead of a decent night's worth had taken their toll. She was sore where she'd slept on one of her guns. Served her right for not taking the time to lose the gun-belt the night before. It was just blind luck that she hadn't tossed and turned like usual and caught the hammer on something and ended blowing a hole in her leg. On top of the Ring trying to kill Chuck in his hospital bed, that would have been the perfect end to a horrible day.

Levering herself up to a sitting position and rubbing her hip, Sarah grinned when she spotted Chuck sprawled out on the floor, snoring with a sound like a bandsaw and drooling a little onto the pillow she'd given him. She grunted and threw her legs over the edge of the bed and shrugged out of her leather vest. Sarah stopped with her hands on the buttons of her shirt and glanced at Chuck again. He was still asleep, but she was suddenly self-conscious and hauled herself to her feet to find the screen Mrs. Norris charged all her tenants an extra four cents a month to rent. Sarah hadn't had much call to use the thing, and she'd piled up a fair amount of debris in front of where it had been tucked away in the corner.

Sarah trusted door locks much better than little frilly screens, but she was glad she had a privacy screen today. Chuck would have been mortified if he woke up while she was changing, and Sarah had to admit, she wouldn't have been much better off. She had a couple of nice dresses and matching underthings in the roomy closet along with her rifle and her weapons trunk and Sarah spread the screen out between her and Chuck while she changed.

Once she had the pale green dress settled over her idiotic petticoats, Sarah shoved the screen back into its corner and sat on the edge of her bed to tug her boots back on. Chuck mumbled in his sleep, rolled over onto his back and began snoring softly, apparently she needn't have bothered with the screen. If they were going to be disappearing together for however long, it seemed like they would eventually have to develop some kind of system. Or, she could just tear all of his clothes off and—Sarah shrugged that thought away. Mrs. Norris' implicit approval notwithstanding, she doubted Chuck would be anything except mortified if she tried it.

She scooped up her gunbelt, and after a moment's thought, sighed and headed back to stow it in the trunk in her closet. Until they were out of the city, Sarah had to be 'Sandra,' and she really didn't like going without a decent six-gun at her side. Then she brightened and kicked the trunk lid back down and tossed the gunbelt on the bed to wake up her new gun-carrying-beard, Charles Bartowski. She could load him down with all the ordinance she could ever need without drawing the slightest amount of attention to herself, and anyone who knew Chuck wouldn't expect him to be wearing irons, so it worked as a kind of doubled disguise.

When she bent down to shake him awake, Chuck mumbled her name in his sleep, and Sarah grinned. She paused to try to listen in, but he lapsed back into silence. Sarah pouted and poked him sharply in the side with her finger. "Rise and shine, sleeping beauty."

"Muh?" Chuck said groggily. He blinked the sleep out of his eyes and stared up at her in surprise. It took him only a few seconds to visibly process where he was, his expression flickering from confusion to pained to accepting. "What time is it?" he finally asked.

Sarah frowned and took out her pocket-watch. "I've no idea," she said, proffering the dented brass case to him. "It hasn't worked since I pegged that horrible woman who tried to kill you in the eye with it."

"Oh, I can probably fix that," Chuck said brightly, excited to be of use, and probably, excited to be back to some kind of familiar territory. "I just need to stop by the store and get my tools."

Sarah shook her head. "No, Chuck. You can't go back. You're dead. Roan will have the obituary in the paper today. If you show up at your house now, it will ruin our cover."

Chuck sat up and hugged his knees. "What cover is that, if you don't mind me asking?" he said a little waspishly. Sarah frowned at his tone, unexpected, but understandable, she supposed, then she blushed when she recalled the story she'd told Mrs. Norris the night before.

Sarah shrugged one shoulder and retreated to sit in her desk chair. She had to stop herself from flipping the chair around backward so she could straddle the back. It didn't work quite so well in skirts, and she'd forgotten momentarily. Once she settled herself primly in her seat, Sarah leaned her elbows on her knees and took a deep breath. "We're engaged."

Chuck's eyebrows rose. "Well," he said. There was a long pause while he pondered his response. "That was quick." Sarah grinned and rolled her eyes. At least he was taking it well. She'd had a touch of doubt given his earlier reaction. Chuck arched an eyebrow. "Given the way my head feels, I assume... did something happen last night with your landlady?"

"Yes..." Sarah said, drawing the word out. "You could say that. You answered the door, a little... tipsy, and I had to do some fast talking to get her to go away."

"Ah," Chuck said, nodding. "That explains my sudden proposal then. Is that bacon I smell?"

"About that..." Sarah said. "Breakfast is going to be awkward. Mrs. Norris thinks that..." she blushed furiously. Damn that innocently bewildered look on his face, was he going to make her say it right out? Sarah raised both eyebrows pointedly, and worried briefly that a highly inappropriate hand gesture would be necessary, but after a moment Chuck seemed to cotton on and his blushes matched hers, or maybe even did her one better, she was glad to see.

"Oh," he said thoughtfully, and fell silent. Sarah frowned. That wasn't quite the reaction she'd—hoped for was too strong— "If I'm dead, how am I also engaged to you? To Sandra I suppose that means?" His eyes popped. "Jill. I have to tell her about Bryce. She deserves to know that—"

Sarah held up a hand and he stopped. "She knows. After the explosion, he was listed in the newspaper among the dead. She tried to get into the hospital to see you."

"I thought that was supposed to be secret?"

"There's 'secret' and there's really secret," Sarah said. "And the second one doesn't often apply to a man with as much money as Dr. Julius Roberts. I did a little background research on her, before deciding she didn't need to see you."

Chuck scowled. "You decided," he said. "Did you think she was a threat to me?" Sarah shrugged helplessly and dropped her eyes from his gaze, mumbled something. "I didn't catch that."

Sarah glared at him. "No, you hadn't woken up. And she just wanted to pass on her news. She's getting married."

"What? To who?"

"Some Englishman. The ceremony was a couple days ago."

"Barker?" Chuck said, louder than he meant to. "Bryce's body isn't even cold and she's already married Cole Barker!"

"Why do you care?"

Chuck blinked and it was his turn to fail to meet eyes with her. "I—" he froze, and Sarah nodded. She'd thought so. Well at least the woman was safely off the market. Chuck didn't strike her as the kind of man to make a fool of himself over a married woman. Sarah was a little startled at the possessive streak her thoughts seemed to have developed of late, and she tried to keep the startlement and the possessiveness off her face.

"No matter," Sarah said and stood. She grabbed her gunbelt off the bed and tossed it at him. "Put that on and lets go beard the lion in her den. Hopefully we can get away from Mrs. Norris' breakfast table before too long. We need to be on the move, quickly." Chuck stared at the weapon belt in confusion for a moment.

"Oh. Sandra Bower can't wear a pistol on her hip?" he asked.

"Exactly," she said.

Chuck nodded and stood up to put on the belt, but he fumbled and nearly dropped it. Sarah went to him and helped him buckle it on properly. It was sized for Sarah's waist and so it took some doing, even lean as he was, to get the buckle to fasten. He grunted softly as she tugged the belt tight. Sarah's eyes darted up once she finished adjusting the guns on his hips and she realized how close they were standing and the way Chuck's breathing had stopped, and now her heart was pounding in her ears.

Sarah tilted her head and felt her lips part slightly, waiting for him to make a move. Chuck looked down at her and he blushed and licked his lips nervously, reminding her of some bizarre lizard and the moment broke. She took a hasty step backward and took a huge gulp of air to calm herself. What the hell was that? This never happened to her. Sarah shook her head. "We can't afford to do anything foolish, Chuck," she said and bit her lip.

"What's foolish about it?"

"We're in enough danger, without..." Sarah struggled for the right word. "Distractions. Come on, we need to get moving."

Breakfast was exactly as awkward as Sarah and Chuck had expected, but they managed to get free after only half an hour's worth of intrusive questions about when the ceremony was, or where they were going to live, or what church they were planning to use. Sarah only thought she was going to blush herself to death once or twice, which was a sight better than she'd hoped for. Mrs. Norris insisted Sarah eat enough bacon that she felt a touch queasy after, on the logic that she would need the heavy fats for the 'baby,' and Sarah tried not to shudder inwardly. The idea of children wasn't one that had been on her mind at all until that horrible old woman had brought it up. She wasn't anywhere near too old, but at the same time, she wasn't exactly a spring chicken anymore and damn the woman for even putting the idea in her head because she had enough trouble thinking straight around Chuck as it was without putting that in there as well.

They said their goodbyes and finally got out the door a little after ten, by the grandfather clock in the front hall, which left them a couple of hours before she could be sure her travel funds and whatever documents she needed to back them up would be in her dead drop. "Do you know where we're going to go, to disappear I mean?"

Sarah shrugged and grabbed his arm, looping hers through his firmly. "We're supposed to be engaged, remember? At least act like you're happy to know me," she said sourly. He'd been a little off ever since he'd woken up. "Is something wrong?"

"It just all seems so fast," Chuck explained. "I realize I was... asleep for a while, but for me, yesterday Bryce was writing Jill a letter telling her he loved her and why we had to do what we did, and she gets that letter and what? Immediately goes off and marries a man she can't even stand?" He sighed heavily. "I guess I'll never understand women."

Sarah frowned. She hadn't thought of it like that, her odd tendency to jealousy where Chuck was concerned had disguised the potential oddity from her. "Well I didn't know that about her not liking Barker. Do you expect me to do anything about it? Lots of women end up married to men they can't stand, I don't know that it's Secret Service business."

"It's not. But I'm her friend, can't I be worried about her?" Chuck said, just a little exasperated.

"Of course," Sarah said eventually as they walked. "I thought maybe you should be a little worried about yourself is all. Do you realize how dangerous the Ring really is?"

"You handled that woman in the hospital easy enough," Chuck protested. "She didn't stand a chance."

Sarah snorted. "Your confidence in me is flattering, Chuck. But the Ring has fingers in almost every branch of government. The incident at the hospital just underscores it. We don't know how far up they go, and that's the scary part. We have to assume that anyone could be a Ring operative."

Chuck arched an eyebrow. "Even that vagrant down the alley we just passed, living in filth?"

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Perhaps not, but it would behoove you to be just a little more scared of them. You're awful glib for someone who survived an assassination attempt barely twelve hours ago."

He frowned sourly at that. "I was trying to impress you with my nerve and calm aplomb; is my manly charm not working?"

Sarah laughed softly at that one. It was working more than she cared to admit, but if he stayed in denial about the danger, protecting him would be extraordinarily difficult. "Not in the slightest," she managed to say with a straight face, and from his expression, he wasn't sure if she was lying or not. Good; she needed to keep him guessing on that front if she stood any chance of viewing anything objectively. For both their sakes, Sarah needed to be calm and cool and professional.

The silence went on as they turned a corner onto one of the larger thoroughfares. Down at the corner a newsboy was hawking his wares, proclaiming the morning headlines, and some that would inevitably be nowhere to be found if one purchased a copy. A streetcar's bell sounded, spurring Chuck to say something. "So, do you have a plan then?"

"It's a work in progress," she said. "First you need some clothes. And a gun."

Chuck let his hands fall to his hips. "What's wrong with these?"

Sarah scowled. "Nothing, but they're still mine. You're just less conspicuous wearing them. We'll probably need to avoid big cities, and the Ring is less entrenched in the interior of the country. The plains states, or maybe out in the territories, we'd be safest from them. But it can be dangerous. You'll need to have your own gun."

"Oh," Chuck said. The sea-change coming over his life was suddenly making itself known. He'd let himself if not forget about, at least go numb to the losses he'd suffered, first his father, then Bryce, now his old life as Chuck Bartowski was coming to an end. He hadn't even given that part any thought. "Do I still get to be 'Chuck' at least?"

Sarah thought about it for a moment. "Of course," she said. "But you'll have to be Chuck Smith, or something if anybody asks. Bartowski is too uncommon a name."

Chuck nodded. That only made sense. "Hey!" someone shouted. "You two getting on or what?"

They stared in shock. The streetcar had been stopped for some time, but neither Chuck or Sarah had noticed. Sarah nodded and motioned him forward. Chuck shrugged and stepped up, before turning back to give Sarah a hand into the streetcar. Once they found seats, they spent the trip in silence, until Chuck couldn't stand it anymore.

"Where are we going?" he asked. "I don't know where this line goes."

"Macy's department store. You need clothes, and they sell firearms as well. There's probably a good boot-maker near there too. Those shoes I scrounged at the hospital will just attract attention to you outside of the city. And we don't want that."

"Hmm," Chuck said with a grin. "If we're trying not to attract attention, they probably should have sent an uglier Agent."

Chuck bought a newspaper at the corner to scan the obituaries, despite Sarah's insistence that it would just make him sad to see it in print. It wasn't much at all, just a couple of lines; his name, date of birth, date of 'death' and a 'survived by his sister Eleanor Faye Woodcombe of New Orleans.

"How'd you know her full name?" Chuck said. "I only ever just called her Ellie."

"What part of Secret Service didn't you understand?" Sarah smirked. "I can't just give away my sources like that. You have to earn it." She snatched the newspaper out of his hands and tossed it in the big wrought-iron wastebin out front of the store. The headline jumped out at him.

Homestead Strike Continues.

Pinkerton Detective Agency Strikebreakers captured and beaten.

But the date was a week in the future. Chuck shivered and looked at the headline again.

Homestead Ironworks Workers Locked Out.

That was today's headline, Chuck squeezed his eyes shut against the images. Barges packed with gunmen and flaming rail-cars. He shook his head and felt Sarah's hand on his shoulder.

Sarah frowned at him, concern etched into her features. "Are you... what happened. You saw something?"

"Yes," Chuck said as if the words were being drawn out of him like a rotten tooth. "I don't see as they'd believe me, but yeah. I saw something." Chuck reached in folded the paper so he couldn't see the headlines, and tossed it back in.

"Tell me," she said. "Please?"

Chuck sighed and gestured at the wastebin. "Steelworkers in Pennsylvania went on strike two days ago at Homestead. The Carnegie steel mill. It doesn't end well, for anyone."

Sarah snatched the paper and scanned the article, checking up on him. "You didn't read that from this article, did you, Chuck? It was..." she paused to make sure no one nearby was lingering to catch what they were saying. The street was relatively clear around them. Sarah scrunched up her face in thought, then rolled up the newspaper and thwacked it into the palm of her other hand pensively. "We need to test this, figure out what kind of things you can learn from the newspaper."

"But not now?" Chuck said hopefully.

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Yes," she said. "We need to get you some traveling clothes, and some other supplies."

"Uh..." Chuck said, and looked down at his feet, at the shoddy workman's shoes they'd scrounged the night before. "About that? How are we going to pay for them?"

Sarah grinned and arched an eyebrow in mock-surprise. "Expense account," she said. Her teeth flashed and her smile was dazzling. "Didn't I explain how this works, Chuck? You're my kept man, I can't have you looking so shabby. Mrs. Norris was suspicious enough this morning, but your drunkenness last night went to explaining that. We need to get you looking like a proper gentleman again."

Chuck's eyebrows drew together in concern, Sarah grabbed his arm and dragged him into the huge store that took up an entire block. With a sinking feeling, he resigned himself to trying on clothing for the entire day.

Of course, she had only been joking about dressing him up fancy. He ended with a week's worth of serviceable but nondescript clothes and just the one fancy dress coat and breeches. Still, his fears of being penned up in a changing room all day proved mostly justified. Chuck didn't quite understand what the difference was between the one shade of brown and the five others he had to try on and walk around in before she went ahead and bought the first one anyway. That would have been quite enough, if that had been all, but Sarah walked in on him with his shirt off on two separate occasions, though he was certain the second time had been 'accidentally' on purpose. He couldn't do anything about her teasing except blush and get a shirt on as quick as he could.

It was well into the afternoon by the time they finally picked up everything Sarah insisted he would need, new clothes, boots, a hat, and a revolver. Chuck started to remember the future history of the gun she'd decided on, and he somehow managed to hold the images off. He blinked after a moment, and proceeded to avoid looking too closely at it while the Macy's clerk packed it along with his clothes into a handful of boxes. Which it turned out Chuck had to carry.

They ate a quick lunch standing up, some kind of sandwich shop just across the street, and then Sarah dragged him cross-town to find the dead-drop. She retrieved a thick envelope from a cubby behind a loose brick in a wall of a ramshackle building in a bad part of town. Chuck was worried that they might have trouble with the local gang, kept one hand on the handle of the revolver at his right him and tried to look like a hardened killer.

Once they were back on a streetcar heading back to Sarah's rented room and Mrs. Norris' fine example of the North American nosy-parker, she pulled the envolope out, produced a stack of hundred dollar bills. "What is all that for?" Chuck asked in a hasty whisper, looking around nervously to be certain no one had seen the fortune Sarah had just revealed.

"We don't know how long we'll be on the run," Sarah said. She split the pile of bills and stuffed half the money into his interior coat pocket. "In case we get separated."

"We're leaving tonight?" The weight of money in his pocket felt odd.

"Yes," Sarah said, and glanced at her new pocketwatch. Chuck tried not to pout at her insistence on buying a new one, when he could just as easily have fixed the old one himself. It was probably an easy fix anyway, and Chuck had slipped the dented watch into his luggage on the off chance Sarah would let him slip away to find a new set of tools. "The train leaves in a couple hours."

"This is all moving really fast," Chuck said.

Sarah shrugged. "It has to. The Ring doesn't know 'Agent Walker' is a woman, but it probably won't take them long to figure that out."

"Wait, wait," Chuck said. "They don't know you're a woman? I find that very hard to believe. I mean... that is. You are quite fetching and... I'm going to just be quiet the rest of the week. How does that sound?"

Sarah laughed, loudly and a woman sitting in the seat in front of them, wearing a hat with a beaded fringe that fell and covered her features as if she was going to a funeral, turned and shushed them. Sarah laughed all the louder until the woman opened her mouth to say something. She arched an eyebrow and the woman met Sarah's eyes. The woman's mouth shut abruptly and she turned back to face forward. Sarah's laughter had subsided and she dabbed a tear from the corner of her eye before leaning into him a little and linking arms with him again. "To answer your question: the reason the Ring doesn't know 'Agent Walker' is a woman, is that apart from the nurse last night, no Ring operative has ever laid eyes on me and lived to tell about it."

Chuck swallowed nervously, and their conversation ground to a halt.

It was a long awkward streetcar ride back to Mrs. Norris' boardinghouse, where a long awkward dinner followed. Sarah finally excused herself and went upstairs to pack her trunk while Mrs. Norris kept Chuck downstairs. She grilled him mercilessly about his relationship with 'Sandra,' and he found himself telling more of the truth than he should have. He told the old battleaxe how he'd met her, and that they'd really only just met, and then realized his error and had to backpedal and explain their sudden engagement in flowery romantic language, never a Bartowski strong suit as far back as they could trace the line. And now she was giving him advice on how to 'tame' her, as if that would have been something he wanted to do if they were actually together. If Sarah wasn't ready to go soon, he would pull all of his hair out in frustration.

"Now the important thing, young man, is that..." Chuck tuned her out, it was undoubtedly going to be something embarrassing or vulgar, and he'd blushed enough earlier that day in the fitting room to last him a week as it was. His lack of attention to Mrs. Norris' ramblings let him notice Sarah, leaning against the doorframe and watching with a slightly manic grin. She had changed into much less frilly dress, dark gray with her leather coat over it.

Chuck stood abrubtly, and Mrs. Norris startled back in her heavily patched armchair. "What's wrong with you, boy?"

Sarah cleared her throat loudly. Not ladylike in the slightest, but at least it shifted Mrs. Norris' focus off of him. "Oh, is it time for you to go already?" the old woman asked.

Chuck rolled his eyes. It had to have been less than half an hour, but it felt like it had been half a week.

Sarah fought a grin when she caught sight of his expression. "Yes," she said. "The train leaves soon and we really should get moving.

Mrs. Norris made a big fuss at them leaving so suddenly, but eventually subsided after a story from Sarah about a sick aunt in New York that needed someone to look after her. Chuck was delegated to drag Sarah's trunk down from her room and out to the waiting hackney coach.

They arrived at the station only a few minutes before the train was set to depart, and Sarah insisted on supervising the loading of her trunk into their sleeper car. She tossed a dime to the porter and shut the door in his face. "Alone at last," she said with a twinkle in her eye.

Chuck swallowed nervously. "Yes... um," he said inarticulately.

Sarah arched an eyebrow. "Is something the matter with being alone with me?"

"The... uh," Chuck said. "There's just the one bed."

She smiled. "Hm. Imagine that."

"I'll take the floor," Chuck said.

Sarah rolled her eyes, but shrugged. "We'll talk about it. But first, I want you to look at this newspaper. We need to figure out what triggers these episodes of yours."

"I'd kind of prefer not to have them at all, they make my head ache," Chuck complained.

Sarah sat on the bed and put her chin on her fist. The train lurched into motion slowly picking up speed. Chuck leaned against the windowsill and looked out at the sunset over Boston. "I understand you being nervous," she said. "But the Ring wants you dead because of what they think might be in your head. If we can use what's in your head, maybe we can help take them down. These are the people who killed your father."

Chuck frowned. "No, Roark did that. At least he gave the order. And he's dead. Mission accomplished," his voice took on an odd tone at this pronouncement. He looked a little nauseous.

"He was working for the Ring, Chuck. How else did they know about the machine."

"You..." he stopped and thought about it, then sighed and stretched out his hand. "Give me the paper."

Chuck flipped absently through the paper, without really registering any of the words. He was mostly humoring her, and Sarah scowled and leaned forward to grab his hand. She turned the page absently to a random page. "Look at it. Really look, Chuck. Please?" He sighed again and nodded. He shuddered and his knees wanted to buckle. Chuck stumbled forward and Sarah shot up to her feet to steady him. "What is it? What was it?" She looked down at the page he had read. Obituaries.

"Your boss. Montgomery. Roan Montgomery?"

"Yes, that's him. What did you see?" Sarah said with a sinking feeling.

"He's going to be murdered... I mean. What time is it. Maybe it's not too late."

"It's just eight O'clock," Sarah breathed.

Chuck's eyes winced closed. "Damn it all!" he said and punched the wall. "Damn it! It's too late..."

Sarah stood behind him, wrapped her arms around him comfortingly. "It's okay Chuck. There's nothing you could have done. It's not your fault."

"If I'd looked at this again earlier, we might have been in time. We could have saved him," Chuck said, head hanging and clutching his knuckles. They'd healed from the first time he punched a wall, and it was becoming a bad habit. "What good is it knowing the future if it's too late to make any difference?"

"Shh..." Sarah said. "It's going to be alright."

"I wish I could believe that..." Chuck said. They stood in silence for a while swaying with the motion of the train, the sound of the locomotive a thunderous counterpoint to the enormity of events.

TO BE CONTINUED...

A/N: Writer's block and Metal Gear for PSP are a deadly combination. Hopefully I'll get moving on this story again soon.