I still don't own Chuck. I'm not sure who does at this point.

Warning: This is still going to get dark. Not in a sex or adult situations way. The story will be pretty tame in that regard. But Beckman and Graham ordered a law abiding American citizen to be murdered… simply because he was an inconvenience for them. I don't see how the writers could possibly expect us to like or trust them after that.

So expect a serious war. Ellie, and especially Sarah, are pissed. They aren't going to take any prisoners. Neither is the CIA. There will be multiple character deaths.

As always a big thanks to Michaelfmx for his beta services. I really appreciate it.

I would still appreciate your comments. The worst thing for an author is silence. You can't tell if you're connecting with your readers, if they're getting where you think the story is going or not. And those comments don't have to be praise. Of course, I'd be lying if I tried to say that I don't enjoy the praise. CharahKids would probably also enjoy it, lol. But I actually learn more from the critical comments. Just as long as you're respectful and allow me to respond, you can say anything.

History Lesson

x-x-x-x-x

They had been cuddling for a long time before Chuck finally stirred. "Is this a good time to talk about some history?" he asked. "If we're going to war together, what should I know about you that will come in handy someday?"

"What do you want to know?" Sarah asked. "I'll tell you anything."

"Okay, I need to be a little honest here," Chuck said with his classic grin. "This has nothing to do with us going to war. So if this isn't the right time, I'll understand. I'm just curious about some things."

Sarah grinned back at him. "I know," she said. "I wasn't buying the whole 'going to war' excuse anyway. But it's okay. There isn't anything wrong with a husband wanting to know about his wife's history. Don't feel guilty. Ask away."

"I'm trying to be very careful how I approach this," Chuck said cautiously. "Let's face it. You're not a normal girl. Casey told me that you're like a trained tiger. You may look tame, you purr at night, but do the wrong thing at the wrong time, and you find yourself missing an arm. Seducing me until I'm exhausted and begging for mercy isn't exactly missing an arm. But I am beginning to see what he means."

Sarah's look of concern faded away when she saw his teasing grin. "Very funny," she said in relief. "Taking Casey seriously when he's talking about me probably isn't the smartest thing you've ever done. He wouldn't have a clue. What's your question?"

"He said that there is a line of superspies, oil billionaires, and princes from here to Minsk who have taken their shot at bagging the famous Sarah Walker," Chuck teased. "Was Casey just taking a jab at me? Or is it true?"

Chuck could see the red running up Sarah's neck. "I guess it's true," Sarah said softly. "He's right about that. It got to the point of being ridiculous. Carina made fun of me about it all the time. Bag is actually the correct verb. Carina told me once that there was something of a contest among the other agents over the years to see who could put the bigger notch in their headboard."

"Sarah," Chuck said gently. "I'm not trying to embarrass you. I'm just teasing. Let's drop it."

Sarah rolled over to fully face him. "No, it's okay," she said. "It is what it is. You have every right to know who I was. I want you to know everything. Actually, the spy stuff is easier to talk about than the history with my dad will be. Now's as good a time as any to talk about it. Let's get everything on the table."

Chuck started laughing. "Fine," he said. "But only if we agree that the second this gets awkward, we stop. I like both of my arms right where they are. If there is a contest, please tell me I'm winning."

That actually got them both laughing. "Chuck," Sarah said. "You're so far ahead that there's no point in keeping score…especially if quality counts for anything."

"Bryce has to be in second place," Chuck teased. "Who's third?"

"I didn't sleep around," Sarah insisted. "I don't want you to think that. In fact, you've slept with more women than I have men. But there was a time when I was a young, naïve, rookie agent. The Academy, and especially Graham, taught me how to dress, do my hair, and put on makeup. So I suddenly looked entirely different. I was the ugly duckling who was turned into a swan. All of a sudden I found myself around all of these smooth, good looking, macho types, who were constantly hitting on me. It was the first time in my life that men had ever pursued me. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't enjoy it at first. So I probably fell victim to some less than honorable intentions a couple of times. That is until I figured out they were only after one thing. After that, I was pretty stingy. That part was easy. They thought that their one liners were so smooth. I thought they were ridiculous. I enjoyed shooting them down. I quickly acquired my 'ice queen' nickname and became the challenge they all wanted their shot at. It was a real pain in the ass for years and years."

"How do you know how many women I've slept with?" Chuck asked.

That got Sarah laughing again. "You're joking, right?" she asked. "Who do you think you're dealing with? Sweetie, between us, you're not the jealous one. It's not even close. That's something you need to keep in mind when we're in public places. If I see another woman checking out my husband's cute ass, like they all seem to do, it's going to be an immediate throw down. Your past? I've investigated the current whereabouts of every woman you've ever dated. I've talked to most of them. I'd still like to have a little chat with Jill Roberts. That might not go so well… for her. I've learned that you've broken a few hearts of your own. You have a reputation for being very good in bed. Sweetie, if those women only knew."

"What about your assignments?" Chuck asked, to stop her laughing at his expense more than anything. "I saw the thing with that Lon Kirk. How far was that going to go?"

Sarah stopped laughing as she thought about that time. "I was so pissed at you," she remembered.

"I know," Chuck said. "I still don't know why… not really."

"You made me fall in love with you," Sarah explained simply. "Maybe that's not fair, but I didn't need that. It was the worst thing that could have happened to me at the time. I was stuck. I wasn't ready to surrender to it. I had worked my way to the top of one of the most difficult professions in the world. I was pretty proud of that. Ultimately, I flushed it all away because I found myself in love with my asset and I didn't know what to do about it. I have a confession to make. I'm a hothead. When I'm pissed, sometimes I go a tad overboard. The thought crossed my mind to make you watch this mark get very lucky. But I realized that would have caused you too much pain so I slowed him down. Then I started pretending that he was you. That worked amazingly well. So Mr. Kirk was probably going to get a little farther than he would have normally." She saw the look on Chuck's face and got more serious. "Sweetie, I'm just teasing," she added. "Those thoughts did cross my mind, but he wasn't going to get very far. That wasn't my assignment. It was our first date. Not even a guy like that could expect to get lucky on our first date."

"Watching that sucked," Chuck admitted. "Casey told me that you were just doing your job. It didn't help a bit. It was one of the worst moments of my life."

"I know," Sarah said softly. "I'm sorry. I knew you were watching. At first, I was pissed. I wanted to prove a point to you. Then, about half way through, I started feeling guilty. That's why I suggested we go below. His hands were starting to wander and I didn't want to have him feeling me up in front of you. With that string bikini I was wearing, one tug and my top was going to be on the floor. It wasn't going to take long for him to think of it. But that's all it was ever going to be. Look, I get this is hard for you. That kinda breaks my heart. But it never was hard for me. This guy was like all of the others. He was ridiculous, trying to be smooth. He wasn't even particularly good at it. I was just doing my job. He needed to be on fire… to anticipate what was going to happen on our next date so much that he'd shut off his brain. If that took me getting naked and felt up a little… it was no big deal. Watching him getting so aroused was funny to me. If you hadn't interrupted us, I was looking forward to the look on his face when I told him that he was not getting any farther tonight. I'm something of an expert at shooting men down at precisely the exact moment to inflict the most pain possible."

"That's a great skill to have," Chuck teased sarcastically. "Speaking for my gender… you suck."

"It's true," Sarah said with her eyes flashing with mirth. "In fairness, none of the members of your gender that I teased and left hanging out to dry were very good guys. They were mostly terrorists and drug dealers."

"I guess you're not counting the first time you spent the night with me in that ridiculously sexy negligee," Chuck said sarcastically. "Which did you think I was when you hung me out to dry? A Terrorist? Or a drug dealer?"

"You're still pissed about that," Sarah said sadly. "I don't blame you. It was unacceptable. I'm sorry. You didn't deserve that. You were never a mark."

"It's history," Chuck said. "I'm sorry that I sounded like that. I don't think you get what being in that bed with you was like for me."

"You don't think that night wasn't hard for me?" Sarah asked softly. "It took everything I had to not jump on you. It was cruel. For what it's worth, I wasn't trying to be cruel. I was just performing my assignment. I was doing what I was trained to do. When I'm on an assignment, worrying about feelings doesn't happen. I push them down deep."

"Okay," Chuck said. "We were in a bad situation. Let's not dredge all that up again. We're together now."

Sarah finally rediscovered her smile. "We are," she said. "Hopefully, you can be the representative for your gender assigned to accept my formal apology. Anyway, back to the history lesson… over the years with the CATs, when the assignment called for someone to actually use sex, I was listening in the van while Carina was getting naked. I could pick out the sound of her fake moan anywhere. Actually, I've heard her real moan a few times too. Mostly, all I ever did was just some distraction flirting… dressing skimpily and letting the mark look down my dress, just like I did last night. Thanks to the Academy, a man seeing me without clothes on never bothered me. In fact, sometimes I played a game to see how much skin I could 'accidently' show him without being obvious. I've promised plenty of marks wild sex, described it in very vivid detail, but I've never paid off… not really. I don't want to hide anything from you. Once I was partnered with Bryce, things changed a little. So, I've done some necking to keep a mark occupied a few times while Bryce was looking through his room for information. We would agree in advance how much time I had to give him. Depending on how aggressive the mark was, sometimes he got a little farther. Almost always his hand found its way inside of my shirt. A few times, he got me out of some clothes. There was never any literal sex, but it came closer than I wanted a couple of times. That's really all there is."

"So let me ask you," Chuck said. "You showed our deceased doctor friend some serious cleavage last night. How far are you going to go in the future to accomplish our assignments?"

"That's up to you," Sarah responded. "Up to the line I've always drawn, those things have never bothered me. But it really doesn't matter if it bothers me. It only matters if it bothers you. I'm no longer a spy. I'm a wife. You have to admit, it's a powerful weapon. Unlike Bryce, I can't see you being okay with me necking with someone and getting naked or felt up. There's nothing wrong with that. I would never do it unless you were 100% on board. I can see what I did last night happening from time to time. Thank you for understanding about that. Again, I'd never do anything that you weren't 100% on board with."

"Okay," Chuck said sadly. "Thank you. I can't see me being okay with you necking with someone either, but let's never say never. What about training? Seduction School? What did they teach you? I don't think that I like the implication."

"It sucked," Sarah admitted. "No pun intended. It was the worst part of training for me. The fighting stuff was hard, but it was fun. I was good at it. They made it a competition. There was a tournament and I was class champion. I think that I still hold some records. Seduction School was the opposite. They taught you how to pick up a man in a bar in different situations. That may sound easy, but it's not. The key to being successful was to control the situation while you were making the mark think that it was his idea. I wasn't all that good at it. I'd much rather kick a terrorist in the side of the head than flirt with him. The primary goal the instructors seemed to want to accomplish was to get you over being bashful about being naked. They really enjoyed their work. They had these exercises where you had to pick up an instructor in a bar, take him home, and see how long you could stall him from actually demanding sex. That's when the exercise would end. You know me. I'm competitive. When I'm not good at something, I work extra hard at it. So I guess that the good news here is that I can pull off a pretty mean, slow, erotic striptease to stall when I want to. I'm saving showing that to you for a rainy day. There were lots of hands roaming, lots of clothes coming off, but there was never any literal sex, at least not that I know of. That would have crossed the line. I'm not so naïve that I don't realize some of the girls would earn some 'extra credit' or use sex to get a better assignment sometimes. But I never saw it happen."

"Graham?" Chuck asked. "You obviously had a personal relationship with him."

Sarah grinned. "I've never had sex with Graham," she explained. "At least not if you use President Clinton's definition." She saw the growing look of horror on his face as he worked through her meaning. "I'm just teasing you, Chuck," she said with a playful slap on his chest. "Nothing like that ever happened. He's older than he looks. He's older than my dad. I considered him a mentor. He recruited me into the CIA. I was young, scared, in over my head. He took me under his wing and got me through the Academy. He taught me secrets about spy craft he had learned over the years that even the instructors didn't know. I admired him. I owed him a lot. I've practiced the striptease routine in front of him a few times, so he's seen me without clothes, but lots of men have… and never when we were alone. After I graduated, he basically let me pick my assignments… until Bryce. Even then, he called me in and spent some time telling me how important this new assignment was and how he was excited for me. We now know that was a steaming pile. And let me be totally honest with you. Since sex was mostly a currency to me back then, if he had ever asked me for sex, I wouldn't have thought much about it. I would have smiled and paid off my debt to him in whatever way he wanted. I kept expecting it to happen. Given what I know now, I'm not sure why he never did. At the time, I thought that he honestly cared for me. That's what makes his betrayal hurt so much. Carina told me it was common knowledge on the street that we were regularly screwing. It never happened."

Chuck nodded.

"Oh, I almost forget," Sarah added. "Since we're having this discussion, you might as well know every embarrassing detail. I won a wet t-shirt contest in Cleveland once. Carina was the other finalist. Zondra was supposed to do it, but she got sick. Frankly, I think they set me up to see if I would go through with it. I tease Carina about beating her every chance I get."

"I don't know if I should feel relieved or disappointed," Chuck teased. "This story is a lot tamer than I feared. How do you get a job as a Seduction School Instructor anyway? They actually pay them too? I now have a rainy day striptease to look forward to. Too bad it hardly ever rains here. But I missed the wet t-shirt contest. I've never been to one."

"Wow," Sarah said with a laugh. "You didn't learn your lesson last night? You're seriously poking your tame Tiger with that stupid stick again? She might not stay so tame. Don't worry. You'll get your chance someday. They have wet t-shirt contests in lots of places. They're very popular with the people we're going to be associating with while prosecuting our family war."

Before Chuck could register any type of protest, there was a pounding at the door. "Mrs. Bartowski," Casey called. "I'm starving. What are our plans for breakfast?"

"Come in," Sarah answered.

"Are you decent?"

"We're decent."

Casey hadn't made it two steps into the room when he did an immediate about face. "Shit," he said under his breath. "You're naked. I thought that you said you were decent?"

"We are decent," Sarah insisted. "We're also naked. Come on, Casey. You know that Chuck is going to tell me everything. Trained tigers are always naked. Come over here and listen to me purr."

That got Chuck giggling helplessly just like Sarah had earlier. "Casey calls you Mrs. Bartowski?" he was finally able to squeak out.

"It's an inside joke," Sarah said. She turned her attention to Casey, who was still standing in the doorway with his back to them. "I'll be right out," she said. "I'm making my mom's recipe for French Toast. Fair warning. The kitchen is one of the rooms that Chuck has decreed as both clothing optional and a 'no panty' zone. I wouldn't dream of defying his orders. Hopefully he'll grant you a waiver."

As soon as Casey closed the door in disgust, Chuck and Sarah started laughing, leaning into each other. "You're out of control," Chuck teased. "You really enjoy torturing Casey with your nakedness, don't you?"

"Does that bother you?" Sarah asked with genuine concern. "People seeing me naked doesn't bother me. I get that I have a husband who may have a contrasting view. There's not a thing wrong with that. I want to be sensitive to it. If it bothers you, even a little, please tell me and I'll stop."

"It doesn't bother me," Chuck assured her, still laughing. "At least not with Casey. I'm enjoying it more than I ever would have thought. It's funny."

"By the way," Sarah said. "Ellie is coming for breakfast. She's bringing the new Intersect for you to upload. You might want to grant her a kitchen waiver. She could possibly go for the clothing optional thing in front of Casey for an entirely different reason."

Chuck was confused. "What are you saying?" he asked.

"Ellie thinks he's hot," Sarah replied. "Don't tell her that I told you this. She asked me what he was like in bed. Like I'd know. She would never cheat on Devon. But it is a good opportunity to tease her… well, actually, both of them… for the rest of her life."

Chuck shook his head as he looked at her cat-ate-the-canary grin. "You're definitely out of control," he sighed with a grin of his own. "You're really going to be a handful as a wife, aren't you?"

Sarah's grin turned evil. "I'm afraid so," she said.

"I don't think you'd want it any other way."

x-x-x-x-x

Bryce sat in the conference room trying hard to shake the hangover from last night out of his head. He hated these team meetings, always had. It was one of the great things about Sarah. She always came prepared in these situations and took charge.

But Sarah was gone. Graham had introduced him to his new partner last night. Her name was Kim. Fortunately, she looked to be almost as professional as Sarah. She was talking to their new support team as if she had read all of the two inch binder of briefing reports they had put together. That was a good thing, because Bryce hadn't cracked it open yet.

Alexei Volkoff was not a new problem for the CIA, quite the contrary. So there was a team established many years ago dedicated to his pursuit. They were already in place with analysts, satellite surveillance experts, even some junior agents. Some had already been on this assignment for years. The large conference room was full. There was another full conference room someplace in Germany linked on a secure video conference.

Then there was his new partner. Kim Smart was gorgeous. That went without saying. You didn't become a CIA Agent any other way. Some people might even say that Agent Smart was prettier than Sarah had been. She was certainly easier to get in bed. In fact, last night, it had been her idea. That was, frankly, something of a turn off for Bryce. He enjoyed a conquest… the chase… the ultimate surrender. Sarah had been his crown jewel. Her surrender had been hard fought, gained via well thought out manipulative tactics, and something very, very sweet to be savored. Kim was far too easy to be savored. If anything, Bryce felt like he was the conquest. There had to be something Agent Smart didn't really want to do to turn those conquest roles around.

Bryce knew that comparing his new partner to Sarah was pointless. Sarah was dead. He had to move on. So he forced himself to pay attention to the conversation. The frustration around the table was palpable. For having watched Alexei Volkoff for twenty years now, the CIA really didn't know much about the man. He had never been seen outside of his fortress. Satellite surveillance showed picture after picture that all looked exactly the same. Obviously, it was a very heavily fortified compound, almost a square mile in size, protected by a private army. Guards were constantly stationed at various strategic points. People came and went. But there was nothing on Volkoff. They had sent several agents over the years to attempt to infiltrate the compound itself. Their body parts had all come back in boxes.

Maybe it was time to give an Intersect a try. Russia wasn't Bryce's favorite place. But he did like Vodka. So he tapped Kim on the shoulder. "Wrap this up," he said.

Bryce gave Kim a moment to end her conversation before he stood up. Immediately every eye in the room turned to him. "Organize a penetration team," he instructed the moderator firmly. "Agent Smart, myself, and another junior couple." He turned to Kim as he walked to the door, clearly signifying that the meeting was over. "Pack your warm clothes," he said.

"It's time to go to Russia."

x-x-x-x-x

Steven sighed as he watched the 'secure' conference unfold on his monitor. Things had just gotten a lot more complicated.

Maybe Sarah was going to get her shot at Bryce Larkin much sooner than anticipated.

x-x-x-x-x