A/N: It has been two whole years since the first chapter of Chuck Versus the Con Game was published, everybody! Happy Anniversary, ConVerse! Woo!

So I made a decision. There are so many of you who've been around for every last chapter I've put out in the last two years. Whether you've reviewed or not, you're reading and I'm so so so grateful. So I decided I wanted to celebrate this momentous occasion by getting my readers involved! That meant inviting prompts. This is just the first of many, and I hope you all enjoy the sudden influx of ConVerse chapters. Not entirely sure what this will look like but whatever this will be fun!

Thank you thank you thank you, everyone! I'm so grateful!

Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck.

CON GAME CABIN IN THE WOODS

It was cold.

So awfully cold that Sarah Walker's feet felt like they weren't even there. She could barely move her fingers, flexing and squeezing them around the compass she held. Another half hour and she wouldn't even be able to see the damn thing; the blizzard was almost upon them and the wind and snow was getting worse and worse as the minutes passed them by.

But at least she could still see Chuck, trudging along through the snow right beside her. His nose was bright red and he was squinting against the harsh cold air, snowflakes clinging to his long eyelashes. He was suffering just like she was. But he didn't utter a word of complaint…not even when this was her own damn fault. She should've seen this damn storm coming.

She thought she'd be able to get them back to the safe house before the blizzard hit, but it didn't seem likely now even though it had to be somewhere nearby.

Reaching out to grab his arm, she caught his attention and and handed him the compass. "Keep going east!" she bellowed over the wind whipping in her ears just barely protected by the fleece-lined hood on her head. She kept hold of him as he nodded and led her forward, and she pulled her knapsack around from where it hung on her back, digging through it a bit blindly until she found the GPS. "I hate snow," she grumbled.

Chuck moved to hold her hand tightly, and even though they both had thick gloves on, she could feel the warmth of the gesture acutely. "Better than desert, though, right?"

She merely grumbled and activated the GPS, holding it in front of both of them so that they could follow it. It was close to a miracle that the damn thing even worked in the first place, considering they were at least eight miles away from civilization, but with enough money, a girl could get her hands on the best tech, and the guy she'd gotten her hands on knew where to find the best tech. Just another perk of having Chuck Bartowski, foremost technology genius on the planet, as her life companion. Or lover. Or whatever term they were using at any given moment to describe their relationship.

After more than two years of being more than partners, Sarah couldn't think of anything nicer or more apt than calling him her life companion, life partner…life sharer?

But if she didn't focus on getting them to the safe house, said life wasn't going to be lasting much longer than ten minutes once the blizzard overtook them. Shit.

"Straight ahead! See that?"

God, she could kiss him. She saw the faint outline of the two story cabin. Technically it was only one story, but Chuck had taken to calling it "two story" because the attic was made up to be a comfortable and surprisingly well-insulated second bedroom with a bed, a writing desk, and a dresser, as well as an extra bathroom off to the side.

It had been their home for the last week, after Chuck begged for a "winter wonderland vacation". She took him to the winteryest of the multiple safe houses Sarah'd secured for herself around the world over the last decade. Safe houses that had at one time been hers and only hers. Places no one else on Earth knew about. Not even her father.

And now Chuck knew about all of them. It should have made her unsettled or nervous. And maybe a few years ago it would have. But five years of being beside this man, fighting at his side, committing crimes with him, living with him…and two years of doing much, much more…being much, much more…changed everything. They shared almost everything. They shared the important things, at least.

Sarah and Chuck rushed through the sheets of snow towards the house. Sarah judged it was only about one hundred paces away or so. And her eagerness to get inside distracted her from noticing the flash of grey to her left.

She didn't see it until Chuck cried out in warning, tugging her close.

Three grey wolves had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, their yellow eyes fastened on the couple, their fur dusted with snow. Everything about them, the way they shivered, the manic focus of their eyes, bespoke of desperation…hunger.

Sarah didn't have time to ponder what she'd read about wolves before, their hunting habits, whether they were supposed to prey on human flesh or not…or if perhaps she and Chuck had posed some sort of threat to them. Because fear was shooting through her. Enough that all she could think was that she needed to get Chuck to safety.

Humans were predictable. She knew what they were thinking at any given moment, how they would react. She knew how to manipulate them, how to spot it when they projecting their next move. A human adversary was easy for Sarah Walker.

But these animals, with her not knowing whether they were incensed or just desperate for food, not knowing how fast they moved or where they'd strike first, unable to read their body language or the look in their eyes…She had no defense. And she guessed Chuck didn't, either.

"What do we do?" he asked, his voice shaking. She glanced up at him out of the corner of her eye and saw that he was as white as the snow around them, his lips blue and quivering.

His foot must have slipped on a piece of ice then because he jerked quickly towards her, grabbing her for leverage. That was when the wolf on the left barked in warning and charged forward. Sarah cursed and clambered back, attempting to pull Chuck with her, but her wet glove slipped in his and she staggered backwards, away from the wolves alone.

She screamed his name and dropped to the snow, bringing an elbow around in the hopes it connected. She felt it crack against something hard, hearing a pained beep from her attacker. The wolf fell onto its back, falling into a shallow snow bank. It reappeared again and righted itself, shaking its head, snow cascading off of its fur as it did so.

Climbing to her feet, she spared a quick glance at Chuck and saw him jabbing the air with a stick between himself and another wolf.

Sarah ripped her knapsack off of her back and wielded it as a weapon, baring her teeth menacingly. It didn't seem to faze the wolf even slightly, and she realized it must've been because it was hungry. That didn't mean she was going to let the bastard eat her, though, so she swung the bag as hard as she could, connecting with the wolf's head as it lunged at her again.

It cried out once more and fell onto its side, taking a bit longer to get up this time. It must have decided she wasn't worth the trouble then, because its eyes flashed in warning once, slowly backing away before it snorted and disappeared alone into the woods.

Sarah let out a relieved gasp and nearly slumped into the snow, when she heard Chuck's voice, desperate and terrified as it was. "SARAH!"

She spun on her heels and watched as the open jaw came towards her, the fangs glinting dangerously, the ragged fur and claws. But then there was a flash of white, and Chuck was there, his arms around the wolf's neck as he tackled it away from her. They both sunk into the snow together, wrestling.

In her shock, Sarah slipped and landed hard on her back, quickly realizing what had hurt so much when she hit the ground. Her gun. She didn't have time to curse at herself, though, because even as she scrambled for the weapon tucked into the waistband of her pants beneath her coat, the wolf had gained the upper hand on Chuck. It's paws were on his chest, pinning him down, and its teeth suddenly descended on his face. "No!" she screeched, her fingers curling around the butt of her S&W as Chuck just barely got his arm up in time to take the bite.

He cried out in pain, slamming his other fist repeatedly into the wolf's head. Sarah pulled the gun free and pointed it at the wolf, but Chuck was thrashing so much she wasn't sure she wouldn't shoot the man she loved instead of the creature trying to kill him.

So she pointed it up at the sky and shot twice, the loud bangs causing both of the remaining wolves to leap back. She shot one more time and they scampered towards the trees, each of them momentarily glancing back, as though getting one last look at what would've been a hearty meal.

Sarah didn't dwell on how unsettling of a thought that was, because Chuck was holding his arm in pain, rolling onto his side and pressing his face into the snow. She crawled to him on her hands and knees, throwing the knapsack's strap over her shoulders again and skidding to a halt at Chuck's side.

"Chuck! You okay?"

He hissed in pain as she pulled his uninjured hand away from his arm. His sleeve was torn and there was some blood, but she wouldn't know how bad it was until they got to safety. That had to be priority. It was getting brutally freezing out.

So she helped him sit up and made to throw his arm over her shoulders to help him back, but he insisted he wal alright and they ran together as fast as they could towards the house. They were inside within a minute, the door shut and locked securely behind them, the curtains tightly drawn over the windows, and their outer layers shucked and hung on the coat rack in the entryway.

What was supposed to have been a quick trip to the trading post ended up being a fight for their lives.

But their radio hadn't been picking up any stations for the last few days, so there was no way for either of them to know the storm was coming.

Suffice to say, she wished she'd allowed Chuck to fix the radio like he said he would two days ago instead of distracting them both from the situation by drawing a pattern over his collarbone with her lips. The radio had ended up being forgotten by the couple, along with just about everything else.

And now here they were, Sarah pulling Chuck down the hallway to the restroom and opening the cabinet to get the first aid kit out.

"How are you feeling? Did you lose a lot of blood? Are you dizzy? Sick?" she asked, popping open the kit and working on steadying her hands. He had tackled a wolf to save her life. A wolf. An angry, potentially rabid wolf.

"No, I don't think so. A-And it isn't bleeding that bad. Just a bit." He tugged at the sleeve of his sweatshirt, stained with smears of blood, tears from the wolf's teeth stretching across the dark blue cotton covering his wound. She still didn't know how bad it was, and with him yanking on the sleeve and gritting his teeth in pain, she decided his way of doing it wasn't working.

"Stop that. Here. Hold on." She stepped close to him and grabbed the hem of the sweatshirt, pulling it up his torso and over his head, carefully easing his injured arm out of the shredded sleeve. She tossed the sweatshirt to the ground, paying it no more mind as she focused on pulling his long sleeve shirt up and over his torso, leaving him in nothing but his white undershirt. Because it was wet and he was shivering, she decided to take that off of him as well.

Her heart seized at the shallow wounds in his arm. Only two of the teeth had broken his skin thanks to all of his layers, and despite the fact that blood was slowly dripping down his arm, the wound wasn't serious. That didn't stop her eyes from blurring with tears. And she blinked quickly, sending them slipping down her wind-afflicted, rosy cheeks.

Within minutes, she'd stopped the bleeding and treated the punctures with antibacterial ointment, covering them with gauze and wrapping his forearm with a great amount of skill.

"How's that feel?" she asked. "Too tight?"

Chuck shook his head. And with one hand on his chest and the other gently caressing his wrist with gentle fingers, she felt more than saw him shiver again. Both of them were damp from rolling aroung in the snow, so they wordlessly left the bathroom together and headed into the bedroom where their suitcases laid open. Their escape to the winter-plagued cabin had been more of a vacation than anything, but with the way they'd just been attacked, and the blizzard descending upon the house, Sarah decided the vacation part had become somewhat of a mirage. Or a dream perhaps.

Or maybe what was happening now was the dream, and the vacation part was a reality.

She turned from where she was stepping out of her pants and watched as Chuck pulled thick cotton pajama bottoms over a fresh, dry pair of boxers.

They were just attacked by wolves. It was like a fucking movie or something. This shit didn't happen to real people…

And Chuck…Chuck had saved her life. He had tackled an incredibly dangerous predator, risking his own life to protect her. Like Tarzan or something. It was wild, unbelievable.

She knew there was no one else in the history of her existence who would ever do something like that for her. Just him. Just Chuck.

It was brave and foolish at the same time. It was insane. It was desperate. An act of the truest form of love…self-sacrifice.

Before she knew what she was doing, Sarah had crossed the few feet of distance between them and wrapped her arms tightly around his shoulders, burying her face in his neck. It was so cold in the bedroom, the fireplace begging for a fire to be lit inside of it, but the moment his arms came up to embrace her, squeezing her against him, his lips against her hair, she felt so much warmer. "What were you thinking?" she breathed, the fear from watching the wolf descend upon Chuck coming back and forcing her to suppress a sob.

"I don't know," he replied in his comforting tone of voice. "I just had to stop it."

Sarah pulled back to look him in the face, lowering her shoulders and pressing her lips together in that Oh, Chuck way of hers. "And if it killed you instead of me?"

She knew his answer. He didn't have to say. He would die in her place without reservation, just as she would in his place. So instead of saying anything further, she buried her face in his neck again and clung as hard as she could, dragging one hand up into his hair and tangling her fingers in his damp curls.

Shivering again, the cold really starting to get to her, she attempted to stem her chattering teeth, and nearly bit her own tongue when Chuck hoisted her up against him. She wrapped her legs around his waist without even thinking about what she was doing. They were second nature, these highly intimate moments between them.

She continued hugging him, rubbing her nose along his jaw, letting him carry her across the room to the bed. He lifted the sheets and set her down so that she could crawl inside, but she frowned in curiosity when he moved away instead of joining her.

Five minutes later, Chuck had a fire roaring in the fireplace, and she found herself feeling warmer already. But that didn't mean she would deny herself the comfort of his lithe form pressed against her once he finally did join her under the covers of their bed.

Unable to forget what he'd done to protect her, she made sure to whisper her thanks in his ear, against his cheek and jaw, along his throat and collarbone, down his chest, and over his abdomen and lower stomach…even while she reprimanded him for being so foolish, so stupid.

Chuck didn't seem to care except that she was still alive, and his groaning sighs into her hair and over her skin bespoke of his unending love and adoration. They devoured one another so intensely that it was almost as though time stood still, nothing but the crackling of the fire and the popping of burning wood could be heard amidst the sounds of their whimpers and gasps.

The skies outside of their warm safe haven were bursting, the snow falling in layers. And neither of them cared, pushing themselves to keep going even when their muscles ached and their lips were numb.

Sarah had to know this wasn't a dream. That this was real. That the man beneath her, above her, inside of her…was fully alive. The bandage on his arm rubbing against her skin serving as a reminder of what he'd done for her…a risk no one else in the entire universe would have taken were they in his place.

Not for her. Never for her.

They kept going for what must have been forever, the fire eventually dying, the tears on Sarah's cheeks drying, and the fear that had been in her breast ever since she saw her Chuck on the brink of death…ever-so-slowly dwindling.

A/N: If anybody needs a moment...that's fine.

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Okay, moment's over. Thanks for reading! Head over to my profile page if you want to see the ConVerse chapter timeline!

-SC