A/N Onward. Thanks so much for reading, reviewing and PMing.

Happy Holidays to all, if you are celebrating, Happy Days, if you are not.

Don't own Chuck.

CHAPTER 36 The Fate of Eavesdroppers

Listening is obsolete.

Thomas Merton, Cables to the Ace 3

Sarah pulled into the parking lot of her apartment building tingling with excitement. Chuck was clearly atingle too. They could not get inside soon enough, although Sarah was trying to calm herself enough to do what she had planned—and to keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary, anything Jill. She scanned; she saw nothing.

They did not speak going up the elevator, although each could hear the shallow, rapid breathing of the other. Sarah could never remember being quite this excited unless it had been the night after the kiss, the night she climbed through the Morgan Door and into her future.

She was planning not to hurt him. She had a plan. A plan for them. It wasn't worked out, some of it was still a long shot, maybe, but at least she felt she had finally read her fate, seen what was before her, and was walking forward.

Chuck reached out and took her hand. She felt them both tremble as their fingers intertwined. Sarah held him back when they got to her floor. She looked down the hallway. No one in sight. All the doors were closed. She waited for a beat or two to see if there was any change, but nothing stirred. She stepped into the hallway with Chuck a step behind her. She unlocked her apartment door and they stepped inside. Sarah closed the door.

As it clicked, she gave Chuck the most passionate kiss she had it in her to give. They wrapped around each other and pressed against each other with such eagerness that neither could have taken a breath, had one or the other come up for air. Neither did for a long time—pearl divers diving deep. Eventually, as her entire body was overtaken by responsiveness to Chuck, she forced herself to step back and end the kiss. Chuck's eyes remained closed, his lips slightly swollen. He was all responsiveness to her too.

"Chuck," she said in a whisper slightly hoarse with the enormity of her desire, "I love you. I really, really love you. And I really, really want you. But can you wait a few minutes more?"

He opened his eyes and slowly grinned at her, as if they were sharing a joke—and maybe they were, given how often things between them seemed to either be ended, ending, or permanently delayed. He would wait a few minutes more.

"I will be right back."

Jill had heard Chuck and Walker arrive. She heard them in the hallway. She flipped on her equipment carefully and put on her headphones. She heard the door unlock and open. She heard it click closed. And then she heard the sounds of kissing. She heard Walker tell how much she loved him and wanted him. She heard Walker ask Chuck to wait and Chuck agree. Jill was seething. If Walker was acting, she was damn good; it all sounded real, joyous, breathless and eager. There was nothing coy or 'come hither' in Walker's tone, no suggestion of dalliance. Just deep desire and...love. Jill squeezed her eyes shut as if that would stop what she was hearing. She heard a door close. Walker had presumably stepped into her bathroom. What was Walker doing?

Sarah kicked off her shoes and took her clothes off quickly. She slipped into a lapis silk chemise with white trim. It fell around her as if it were water. She knew the color of it and of her eyes were a match. She checked her hair. She took her long necklace off and unfastened its clasp, removing the pendant. She returned to Chuck.

He was seated on the bed, but when he saw her, he stood. He gaped. He gasped.

"Sarah!"

That was all he managed to say. Sarah felt herself flush. She took Chuck's hand and opened it, and dropped the pendant into it. He looked at it. "Sarah? How?"

"Ellie found it for me the night I went to see her...after you were taken. You once told me she could sniff out diamonds. I hope you won't be angry; I wanted it close to me. It was my pledge to you, my promise that I would find you. You always find me, Chuck, no matter how hard I try to hide, no matter how far I run, no matter how hard I make it for you. Well, you have found me. Here I am. Look outside, Chuck." Sarah gestured with one arm toward the window, the bright blue sky now free of the clouds that had been scattered in it earlier in the day. "No rain. The rain delay is over. My delay is over. Are you still asking, Chuck?"

Chuck kneeled and held out the ring he bought in Reno. "Sarah, will you marry me? I want you to be the last woman in my life, the perfector of my happiness."

Sarah took the ring from his hand and she put it on. Then, using that hand, she took his hand and he stood back up. Her smile was sunrise. "Yes, Chuck, I will marry you. When we can work it out, let's go back to Union Station."

"Oh, Sarah, we don't have to do that. We can get married wherever you want. We don't have to go all the way to Reno."

"Yes, Chuck, I think we do. That's where you first offered me this ring and…"

Sarah stopped.

She remembered a diamond ring turning slowly on a screen. A home shopping show. Jill's neighbor. The woman Jill used as an alarm when she abducted Chuck. The apartment next door.

Sarah turned and grabbed her pistol from her bag. Chuck saw it and gulped. "No, really, Sarah, Reno would be fine…I'd be happy with Reno."

Sarah soundlessly screwed on the silencer she fished out of the bag. "This isn't about Reno, Chuck." She spoke quietly.

"Oh. Well, ah, um, fore-gunplay sounds…ah, okay...?"

Sarah put her finger to his lips, telling him to be quiet. She leaned to him and whispered, nearly silently. "Chuck, call Casey. Tell him to get a team here. Jill is next door. Stay in the damn apartment."

Jill was in a lather. Chuck had just proposed to Walker.

Again, evidently. Or still (whatever that meant). For a moment, Jill could hear nothing more except her own internal cry of anguished frustration.

This could not be happening!

The apartment door made a woody, snapping sound and whipped open. Jill kicked herself backward and sideways in her desk chair, grabbing her pistol from the desk as the chair went over. She rolled out of the chair just before it contacted the floor. She rolled across the floor to the far end of the couch. She waited. Nothing happened. She cautiously peeked above the arm of the couch.

Walker was not in the apartment, not so far as Jill could tell. She must still be in the hallway.

"Well, it is fitting I guess, Walker, that this would end in a showdown between us. Sort of like a Western…but not. He's mine, Walker. He's been mine from the beginning. Mine. You cannot have him. I suppose I get it, your falling for him. I did. But you know he can't really fall for you. Chuck fell once—at Stanford—and he's never going to fall again. He. Is. Mine." Jill felt her mouth foaming a little. Her rage was deep and complete.

Walker spoke from the hallway. She had kicked the door in but not followed it.

"Jill, you know Chuck is a person, right? He doesn't belong to anyone. He is not property. No one gets to say 'Mine' about him the way you keep saying it. But in the other sense of that term, Jill, in the sense of real commitment and devotion, he is mine—and I am his. We're getting married, Jill! I assume you were the first to hear. Must have been quite an earful. Since you were the first to hear, would you like to be the first to congratulate me? Oh, wait; you are supposed to say 'Best Wishes' to the woman and 'Congratulations' to the man, right? Well, really, Jill, either is fine."

Pause. Silence.

"Look, Jill. I don't have to come in. You are trapped. I'm just going to stand here with my gun and wait for backup. Why not just give yourself up. I had other plans for this afternoon." Walker's tone slid from taunting to annoyed.

Jill reached for her suitcase, open on the couch. There was a flash grenade there. Walker had Jill in check, but not mate. Mate—damn Walker! If Jill could manage the throw, she could incapacitate Walker long enough to kill her—kill her several times—and then she could take Chuck and get out of town.

She got ready to toss the grenade.

Chuck called Casey. He did not elaborate, he just said: "Jill is in Larkin's apartment. Sarah has gone to get her."

"On the way," Casey growled.

Chuck ended the call. At least Sarah said 'Yes' before she ran this time.

Chuck opened the door to Sarah's apartment, to hear Jill claiming him as hers. He stopped while still inside. Despite his fear, Chuck couldn't keep the thought from his mind: I'm like the Old West schoolmarm, being fought over by the guy in the white hat and the guy in the black hat.

Sarah could have kicked herself. Why had she kicked in the door?

She should have just called Casey and waited. But she knew the answer: the thought of Jill overhearing the proposal made her coldly furious, and she had been so ready for…Chuck…that she immediately rejected the idea of just waiting in the apartment. But she certainly wasn't going to do there what she had planned if Jill was listening in. So, her anger and her pent-up desire caused her to overplay her hand.

Jill was unlikely to accept her fate. Undoubtedly, she had a gun. Had she been able to get to it? Sarah assumed she had. What other resources might she have? Other weapons? Maybe. But what?

Sarah knew when she saw it bounce in the doorway and land a foot or two into the hallway: a flashbang. As it went off, Sarah thought, grudgingly: Nice toss!

Jill got up from behind the couch and ran to the door, her pistol out. Walker would be dead in a few seconds and Chuck would be hers a few seconds after that. Just as Jill got to the open doorway, Chuck filled it.

He hit her so hard she went down immediately, plunged into the dark of unconsciousness.

Chuck stood over Jill, shaking the hand he used to punch. "I don't punch girls, normally, Jill, but that's for thinking footsie is fun when only one is playing. And for making me eat another stack of those God-awful pancakes."

He turned and gently took hold of Sarah, who was stumbling in the hallway, trying to regain her senses.

Casey arrived a few minutes later. As he got off the elevator, gun in hand, he saw Walker blinking in a daze, leaning against Bartowski's shoulder. He had an arm around her. She was wearing some kind of lady thing. Jill was unconscious but cuffed, lying in the doorway of Larkin's apartment. Bartowski was grinning at Casey like an idiot, holding Walker's silenced pistol in his hand.

"What the hell happened here, Bartowski?"

"We got engaged!"

Casey put his gun away and took Walker's from Bartowski. He reached out to shake Bartwoski's hand.

"Best wishes, Bartowski."

Walker chuckled. Casey gave her a hug.

Leader had been contacted by one of his moles in the CIA. Jill Roberts had been in contact with the mole, asking about a CIA operative, Ryker. She had contacted Ryker through the mole. She had wanted to know about a mission of Ryker's in Budapest, a mission that involved Agent Walker. Why?

Leader set his vast computing network on the task, cross-referencing, collating, searching.

What was Roberts trying to find out? What was going on that might have caused Ryker and Walker to be in Budapest together? Leader called up all his information on Agent Walker. Maybe there was an angle here, one to be used against Agent Walker and somehow against the Intersect.

No one spoke to Leader as the Intersect had spoken to Leader. That breach of etiquette needed to be addressed. The penalty for impoliteness was death.

Leader smiled. That was the penalty for all transgressions.

The computer beeped. A news story in a paper in Budapest had popped up. A missing heiress. Multiple deaths in the child's mansion home. Ties to organized crime. The deaths were clearly Walker's handiwork. Leader sighed respectfully. If only he had Walker and not Roberts! Walker was a perfect spy. She would never allow personal desires to affect her mission…

Or would she? Where was that little heiress now? Leader knew the scent of a promising trail. The game was afoot.

Morgan stared at his cell phone. Then he stared at a napkin on the Nerd Herd desk. He wasn't really supposed to use the desk, but no one else was using it at the moment. Jeff had headed to the men's room for his lunch break—and Morgan was not going to think that thought any further. Lester was talking to a guy about buying time in the guy's studio. It was an opening.

Alex McHugh had given him her phone number when they parted at the Orange Orange. She had written it on a napkin and given him a direct look. "I'd be happy to do this—or something like it—again, Morgan."

Morgan had, of course, considered calling her before she got out of the parking lot. But he made himself do what he often did when he was about to succumb to his instincts. He asked: What Would Chuck Do? Chuck would wait.

So Morgan waited. He wanted Chuck's advice, but he hadn't seen him and he didn't want to call: Chuck could be doing something of national importance. Morgan was going to have to do this mission solo.

He summoned up his resolve and dialed six of the numbers. Then he put the phone down. His heart was thumping. No comparable woman had ever looked at him before much less given him her number. It crossed his mind that it could all be a cruel joke. But that seemed unlikely. The only people he knew cruel enough to play it were Lester and Jeff, but they weren't smart enough. The only person smart enough to play it was Chuck, but he wasn't at all cruel. It really seemed real.

He picked up the phone and put in the final number. It rang. The voice that said answered was hers—sweet and no-nonsense at the same time. He managed to squeak out a hello.

"Hi, Morgan. I was hoping you would call!"

Carina eased her black Camaro onto the exit ramp. It had been a while since she had heard from Walker; Carina had been on a mission that required her to go dark, so she had heard from no one for a while. She wondered if much had changed in Burbank in the interim. She was dying to know. The DEA had given Carina a month off. She'd jumped a plane and headed toward Sarah immediately. She was hoping for some days at the beach and some girltime with her friend. And maybe, if she were lucky, she would find a nice guy or two to enliven the evenings.