Okay, we're getting close to the end. So I feel that I need at least one chapter with a title that is in honor of the episode titles and descriptions of the show. Accurate perhaps, but totally misleading.

Warning: Just like the show, there are going to be significant character deaths still coming. I don't want to spoil any specific chapters so I'm going to post this warning in every chapter.

I don't own Chuck. Actually, I don't own much of anything.

If you enjoyed this or any of the stories on this site, please take a second and send the author a review. It only takes a second – and it really, really makes a difference.

Sarah Finally Sleeps With Shaw

x-x-x-x-x

Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care. The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath. Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course. Chief nourisher in life's feast. - William Shakespeare, Macbeth

x-x-x-x-x

Ted Roark sat in his finely appointed office and fumed. Well, drank the unbelievably expensive imported Irish whiskey that he normally saved for special occasions… and fumed. And the more that he drank, the angrier he got. His gaggle of high priced morons had failed him yet again. How could two unarmed girls wearing t-shirts and tennis shoes, with no assets other than their chest, possibly escape from a group of ten fully trained, heavily armed agents? It simply wasn't done.

Roark wasn't even sure which was worse, losing his hard earned leverage of having Orion's daughter to play with, or having to listen to Mary gloat about it. Well, that wasn't really true. Mary's gloating was about as bad as it got for him. Now this was personal. Well, okay… it always had been personal. But she had just raised the stakes by a considerable margin. If Mary was going to go all in, it was time to call.

The main problem was that time was quickly running out. Surely the Bartowski group had gotten to the President inLondon. Roark's men on the ground there had just called a few hours ago and reported that all was going well. And if the President knew about The Ring's plans, there would be no way for them to win, not against the force that The President controlled. And once The Ring was lured out into the open and defeated, the only way for Fulcrum to openly survive for very long would be to use the intersect. Without it, they were sitting ducks once The President turned his attention to them. Sadly, that logic certainly seemed irrefutable.

The death of Fulcrum would be a hard blow to take. Oh, Roark really wasn't worried about himself personally. Even if they suspected him, there was no way to pin any of Fulcrum's activities on him. He had been very careful over the years to make sure nothing could be tied back to him. After all, he was a fabulously rich man. He had a roomful of the best lawyers that money could buy. But Fulcrum was his baby. He had twenty years invested into it. It was a fun diversion. It would be a shame to lose it now that they were so close. All they needed was an intersect. And to get it, it was time to turn to someone more… motivated.

Roark's thoughts were interrupted by a sharp knock at the door. Without waiting the man opened the door and entered the room. "You wanted to see me?" he asked.

Roark looked at his watch. "You're late," he said.

"Look," Shaw said impatiently. "This is not the best time for me. I'm pretty busy today."

"Sit down," Roark said firmly. "You're in a hurry? Well guess what, moron. So am I. So let's put some cards on the table. I understand that you've been playing me and White against each other. Normally that would earn you a bullet between your eyes. But this is your lucky day. I'm about to not only save your life. I'm going to give you what you want. I'm assuming that you still want Sarah Walker."

That certainly got Shaw's attention. So he sat down and with widened eyes listened to Roark's tale of the trap that was about to destroy The Ring.

"So," Shaw said sadly once the realization had fully sunk in. After all, he was nothing if not a pragmatist. "After tonight The Ring is going to cease to exist. What do you want from me?"

"That's easy," Roark said. "I want you to deliver me an intersect."

Shaw was careful not to sound totally sarcastic. This Roark was now holding a lot of cards. Pissing him off was probably not smart. But he was asking for the impossible. "No kidding?" he asked haltingly. "And just how am I supposed to do that? We've been trying to do that for a month now. You just told me that Bartowski is inLondon."

Roark shook his head sadly. "Your vision is ridiculously small," he said. "The son would be very valuable. There is no question about that. But the father is the real prize. Orion invented the intersect. With him, we can have as many intersects as we want. Besides, once we have him, the son and his handlers will quickly surrender to save him, especially if they don't know that you're involved. I'll provide you with a comfortable hiding place and all the necessary resources to do whatever sick things you have planned. I'm thinking that she might be a bigger challenge than you're assuming. But hey, that's your problem. Bring me Orion and you'll have years to slowly break her."

The light bulb in Shaw's head finally turned on. "So that's why they were always one step ahead of us," he sighed. "Orion was helping them."

"Hello?" Roark said sarcastically. "You're just now coming to that conclusion. Are you in or not?"

Shaw was more than interested. "Okay," he said. "So how do I find this Orion?"

Roark buried his face in his hands in frustration. "You haven't been listening to a fucking word that I've been saying have you?" he demanded. "We know exactly where Orion is. I need you to lead an assault on the house and capture him. I have a hundred man force already in position to go with you. But I need somebody to lead them who is properly motivated to succeed. Orion and Frost are all alone in that house. The rest of his team is confirmed to still be in London. I'm warning you. Don't underestimate him."

Now Shaw was smiling. "Don't worry," he said as he stood up to leave. "I'm more than properly motivated. I'll bring you your prize. As long as I get Walker."

"One more thing," Roark said. "Daniel, I've let you slide once. It won't happen again. Do your job and you'll get your reward. It actually doesn't cost me that much, as long as I don't have to witness it. She's a proud woman. It seems like what you have planned is on the inhumane side. I'm a bit squeamish when it comes to such things. But let's get something crystal clear. There can no longer be any question as to where your loyalty is. Do we understand each other?"

Shaw turned to fully face Roark. "Yes, sir," he said.

"We understand each other perfectly."

x-x-x-x-x

Casey never was an overly cautious driver. But he had absolutely no reason to begin now. Not with Misty lying in the back seat bleeding to death. So he had the petal of this cheap POS rental car pressed to the absolute metal. Well, okay. Ellie was constantly reassuring both of them that Misty was doing fine and pleading with him to be careful. Still, it would be nice to get her into a clean, safe hospital.

For one thing, it was all going down much too quickly. The Ring fell for the fake Air Force One explosion hook line and sinker. The very minute they heard the initial news reports of the disaster they sent their teams the go code. Colonel Blum's Special Forces were lying in wait not so patiently listening to their communications. Once they heard the go order, they very enthusiastically captured all ten terrorist teams just as they were moving to attack. They had absolutely no incentive to be gentle. After all, blowing up innocent women and children to make a political statement wasn't a very sympathetic position. So it all happened very efficiently with no causalities. Well, no friendly causalities that is.

It's true that the odd terrorist or two might have 'accidentally' fallen a few times in the capture process. There were a few assorted cases of cuts and bruises. One unfortunate terrorist with apparent bad balance fell several times. He even broke his arm… in three places. It actually became quite a news story in the following weeks. After all, interrogation techniques were a hot button political issue. There eventually was a through investigation. But it was finally decided that there was not enough evidence to proceed and no charges were ever filed.

That just left rounding up the Ring leadership. White was easy. He was just about to leave for the White House to take the Oath of Office when he was arrested. He did them the huge favor of having a press release already prepared announcing his new cabinet. That was pretty much a list of the co-conspirators. The others were going more slowly. It was important that they were all captured at basically the same time and before the press realized that Air Force One hadn't really exploded so they wouldn't go underground. Once the story broke, the press feeding frenzy would require all of the President's attention simply to manage the story and not panic the nation. The President had just arrived back at the White House and was directing the effort from there. But it was still a very fluid situation.

The President had planned all along to send Devon to Walter Reed hospital to oversee any team causalities in the secure wing that was set up there for exactly such an event. He was going to head there as soon as the plane landed so he was probably currently in route. It made sense to take Misty there. It normally would have been about a three hour drive. But Casey was going to get them there in a little over half that.

When they pulled up to the E.R. of Walter Reed, Devon was already standing there not so patiently waiting for them with a medical team. They had Misty out of the car, on a gurney, and into the secure wing before anybody had time to react. Ellie quickly snapped into professional E.R. doctor mode as she walked next to the gurney and efficiently briefed the surgical team on the details of her patient's injuries and her suggested course of action.

The first thing was to get a blood transfusion started. Although Ellie had brilliantly slowed her bleeding as much as possible, Misty still had lost a fair amount of blood. The team was anxious to get her into surgery as soon as possible.

Naturally, Misty was nervous. No question about that. Who wouldn't be? She was quickly being prepped for emergency surgery. That meant for a few minutes, she was surrounded by folks all probing or injecting or asking questions. Devon simply smiled as he grabbed her hand, made sure that she knew that he was going to be in the O.R. with her every second, and then left her and Casey alone to talk for a minute.

Once they were relatively alone Casey wiped some loose hair from Misty's face tenderly. "Don't worry about a thing," he said. "This is nothing for the world's biggest badass. I'll see you when you wake up."

"I'm not worried about me," Misty replied as she grasped his hand. "I'm worried about you. You're going to go back and rejoin the battle."

Casey smiled. "How did you know?" he asked.

"Please," Misty snorted. "Do you really think that I don't know you better than that? You're the heroic sonofabitch, right? Besides, it's what you should do. It's what I want you to do. It's my family too. It's what I would do if I could. I'd tell you to be careful… but that would be pretty pointless wouldn't it?"

"Being careful gets you killed," Casey replied with a grin. "You know that. From the story Ellie was telling in the car, you weren't being careful… at all."

"Okay," Misty said with her own grin. "Fine. Don't be careful then. Have a great time kicking all kinds of ass instead. Remember that I love you." Then she looked at Casey's face. "Don't worry," she said in faux seriousness. "I'm just kind of excited. I'll tone down the romantic, lady feelings stuff a notch. I promise. I'm not expecting you to have to say it twice in one day. Just make sure you're back here by the time I'm feeling frisky. And understand something. I've always been a fast healer."

"Trust me," Casey said. "I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't miss that."

After a long kiss, Devon came and wheeled Misty away. Casey waited until she was out of sight and headed back to the car. To his surprise, Ellie was sitting in the passenger seat. There was a backpack sitting in the back seat.

"Ellie," Casey said. "You need to get out of the car. I'm going…"

"I know where you're going," Ellie interrupted. "Come on, John. I mean duh. I'm going with you."

"You can't go," Casey said firmly. "It's too dangerous. Get out of the car."

"Get out of the car?" Ellie repeated incredulously. "Did you seriously just give me an order? Really? Since when did you become so delusional that you think I would obey one of your orders?"

"I'm sorry that I said it like that," Casey said. "I'm just in a hurry. It wasn't an order. Will you please get out of the car? I don't want to have to worry about you."

"This is my family we're talking about," Ellie said firmly. "They may need a doctor. I'm going. I've brought some medical supplies. If you're in a hurry, then stop wasting time talking about it."

"Just drive the damn car."

x-x-x-x-x

Once the team arrived back at the farmhouse, there really wasn't much time for any tearful reunion. They had to get ready to defend themselves against an imminent attack. Steven quickly deployed the team in defensive positions. He had Cole and Carina join Mary in the attic of the house. It was set up as a sniper post. It had a clear view of three sides of the house. The only blind spot was the barn.

Carina looking lovingly at the assault rifle that Mary handed her. It was a thing of beauty, complete with a long range, night vision, laser scope. Carina was in love… until Mary showed her the battery of missiles that were ready to be deployed. Now Carina was really in love.

Steven sent Sarah and Chuck to the barn where they would have some cover and be in a position to defend the house's flank. One advantage they would have is that they would almost assuredly want Chuck alive. Sarah… probably not so much. But they had night vision goggles, and in the dark that would give the intersect a huge advantage. At least until the sun rose, but that was about an hour away. They all had comm. in their ears. But they had no illusions as to its value. Surely the first thing that Fulcrum would do would be to jam the frequencies so they wouldn't be able to communicate.

Sarah made Chuck put on a vest. That was fair, since Chuck made Sarah put one on as well. He made a big show out of ogling her as she took off the top of her black mission outfit to put it on. She wasn't exactly in a playful mood. After all, this was as tense a situation as it got and Sarah wasn't exactly famous for relaxing in these situations. But even she couldn't help but smile at his faux description of her big beautiful green chest. It was just another reminder that he could make her laugh, no matter what. Remembering her previous unfulfilled promise to use the goggles while skinny dipping, she actually paused and grinned as posed for him a long moment. It did break the tension a bit. After she was dressed they just sat there holding hands in the dark and waited for the attack that they both knew was coming.

In fact, it wasn't very long before they started hearing shots, only a few at first. That was probably Cole and Carina picking off the early advancers. But the volume of shots quickly grew as the attacking force returned fire. It's when they first heard the unmistakable sound of the first missiles being deployed that they realized that the attack had been begun in earnest.

The poor men that decided to try and find cover in the barn soon discovered the folly of that strategy. With night vision and the intersect, Chuck was blowing through men faster than Sarah could count them. They actually had developed something of an impromptu system. The intersect would knock them unconscious and then Sarah would come behind him, secure their weapons, and not so gently zip-tie their arms and legs. They quickly had a couple dozen or so lying around the barn in various stages of helpless consciousness.

Suddenly they found that they had hit a lull for some reason. The battle wasn't over, far from it. If anything the volume of shooting had increased. The morning sun was now high enough in the sky that the night vision goggles were no longer any advantage so they took them off.

Sarah led Chuck to a relatively safe place and over his protests went to check outside to see what was going on with the battle. She was only a few steps away when she heard a shot ring out. When she turned to see where the shot came from she looked in horror as Chuck, seemingly in slow motion, crumpled to the ground.

Sarah was by his side within two seconds. Chuck was laying there, helplessly gasping for breath. The amount of blood told Sarah clearly that the shot had missed his vest. "Chuck," she shouted. "Can you hear me?"

He was clearly struggling to speak so Sarah quickly put her ear close to his mouth.

"I love you," he whispered. "Always remember… I'm going to die loving you."

If she wasn't already, that caused Sarah to panic. Chuck had lost consciousness. So she checked his wrist for a pulse. Nothing. So she frantically checked his neck. Still nothing. "Chuck," she cried. "Please. No. This can't be happening. Please wake up."

"You know, it didn't have to happen this way?"

When Sarah looked up, she saw Daniel Shaw standing on the other side of the room holding his gun by his side, the gun that had just killed her Chuck.

"We could have worked something out," Shaw said. "I'm not the jealous type. I would have shared you. You of all people should know that being a CIA Agent is a life time commitment. There's no room to fall in love. Someday you'll realize that I just did you a big favor. Once you've thought it through, there will come a day when you'll think of some creative way to thank me."

That caused Sarah to simply snap. This insane bastard wasn't going to get away with this. She quickly grabbed her gun and fired off a couple of shots at his retreating form. But he was already too far away.

Sarah really didn't want to leave Chuck, not like this. But there was no longer anything that she could do… except avenge his death. She couldn't leave without kissing her husband goodbye one last time. Then she went off chasing after him.

Shaw had taken one of the ATV's that was parked by the barn. If Sarah was thinking clearly, she would have realized that the Fulcrum forces all around her were in the process of surrendering and that the battle was over. But she wasn't thinking clearly, not even close. All she knew was she had to avenge her husband. There was no way that this bastard was going to live. So she jumped in one of the other ATV's and took off after him.

He wasn't hard to follow. The twisting path only led one place. Sarah had the advantage of being familiar with the course, having raced Carina here only a few short days ago. She pulled out her gun and took a couple of shots in Shaw's direction but in the bouncing vehicle it would have been pure luck to hit anything.

Once Sarah had caught up to him she waited until they were about to go around a sharp curve around one of the many hills that the path wandered around. She gunned her vehicle and went up the steep embankment. Then she turned the wheel sharply and sideswiped Shaw. The momentum caused both vehicles to leave the path, careening totally out of control.

Sarah could feel the tremendous jolt as they impacted the huge tree. Through her dizzy haze as she stumbled out of what was left of her vehicle and fought to remain conscious. She could see that Shaw had been thrown from his and was lying unconscious. Then the blackness overtook her. Sarah fell first to her knees and then face first into the sand.

Shaw finally got his dying wish. Sarah Bartowski was sleeping with him.

x-x-x-x-x

Casey was driving as fast as he could back to the farmhouse. On the way to the hospital, he was being fairly careful because Misty was in the back seat. That was no longer true. And that meant a fairly bumpy ride.

At first, Ellie was busy holding on. But she finally decided to hell with it. The situation was so messed up that there wasn't anything to do except to have fun with it. "This is sort of like going to an amusement park and riding the roller coaster," she said with a grin. "Except you don't have to wait in line."

That broke the tension in the car and they both started laughing.

"Can I ask you something?" Casey finally asked. "I'm not looking for false encouragement here. I don't want smoke blown up my skirt. I want your honest opinion." Seeing Ellie's nod, Casey continued. "Am I being fair to her?" he asked. "She can do so much better."

"She's amazing," Ellie replied with a soft smile. "Isn't she? I've never met anyone like her."

"Me either," Casey said. "I feel like I'm cheating her. She needs more than I can give her. Maybe she would be better off if I just ended it."

"Wow," Ellie said in amazement. "You want my honest opinion?" Seeing Casey nod this time, Ellie continued. "That may very well be the stupidest thing I've ever heard. What is with you anyway? You really are brain dead when it comes to women, aren't you?"

That actually got a smile. "Well," Casey said. "I'm glad that you're not afraid to be honest."

"Hey," Ellie said as she playfully punched him in the arm. "You asked. Come on, John. If you can't see that she is so clearly head over heels, I don't know what to tell you. And if you weren't too chicken-shit to admit it, we both know that you've got it just as bad as she does. Is it really so bad to be in love with a beautiful, smart, funny woman who clearly worships you? What am I missing here?"

"Okay," Casey said. "Point taken. But don't you want what's best for her? I sure do. And I'm not sure I can give her what she needs. She needs romance. That's not me, Ellie."

"You're talking about your bet, huh?" Ellie asked. When Casey nodded again Ellie smiled. "That was a mistake," she continued. "She knows that now. She doesn't want fake romance from you. She'll settle for what you can give her."

"That's just it," Casey replied sadly. "I don't want her to have to settle."

"That was a bad choice of words," Ellie said. "I think that Misty understands you better than you think. We've gotten pretty close over the past few days. She realizes that you're not going to say romantic things. You're going to prove how you feel with your actions. I think she is fine with that. All she needs to hear from you is that you want it to happen. If you'll just say those exact words to her, she'll let you slide on almost everything. That sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Having said that, you're going to need to work at this thing a little too. Do you really think there aren't times when I want to stab my eye out with a fork when Devon goes on and on about some new exercise regimen? Or ranting about some high protein shake that looks like it was just fished out of an open sewer? Don't worry. I'm going to help you."

"How?"

"I'm going to be your romance conscience," Ellie replied with a grin. "I'm going to tell you what to do and you're going to do it… no questions asked. It'll be just like the bet you made… except it's going to last for the rest of your life. Do we have an agreement?"

"Yes, ma'am," Casey sighed. "We do." Once they got close, they saw a ton of military type vehicles. Suddenly Casey spotted him and quickly pulled off the road. When he approached the man, his face lit up in recognition. Ellie was right behind him so he quickly introduced him. "Ellie," he said. "This is Jeff McKnight. He is Carina's… umm…"

"I'm Carina's fiancé," Jeff finished the statement with a grin as he offered his hand. "You must be the Misty I've been hearing so much about. You're even more beautiful than I've heard."

Ellie let the mistake and the compliment go. "Carina's fiancé?" she asked skeptically. "Our Carina? How could that be?"

"It's a long story," Casey sighed shaking his head. "One we don't have time for right now. Jeff, what are you doing here?"

"The President sent me," Jeff replied. "I have one of the Special Forces teams with me. What should we do? Attack? When?"

Casey looked around. There was obviously a fierce battle taking place at the house. You could clearly hear all of the shots being fired. But Jeff had about fifty solders in full combat gear ready for an order. "Hell yes,' he said. "There's no time like the present."

That's all it took. "I was hoping you'd say that," Jeff shouted enthusiastically. "You heard the man. Let's move." Then he let out an unintelligible warrior type yell and started running toward the house with the force he was leading right behind him.

All Ellie and Casey could do was look at each other and snicker at Jeff's exuberance. It was finally Ellie who expressed what they were both thinking.

"Go get um, dude."

x-x-x-x-x

When Sarah started to wake up, her first reaction was pure relief. Chuck was fine. It was only a bad dream. Then she realized that her mouth was full of sand. Full memory quickly rushed back. And, in horror, Sarah remembered Chuck's heartbreaking last words as he died in her arms.

Sarah looked around. At first she was puzzled that she couldn't see anything out of her left eye. But one look down quickly told her why. The sand was soaked with her blood. Shaw was still unconscious lying about ten yards from her. His right arm was obviously broken just by the way it was twisted. His gun was lying in the sand about a foot from his head. So Sarah walked over and threw it out of reach, pulled her own gun out, and waited for him to wake up.

Sarah didn't have very long to wait before he started stirring and then moaning. She resisted the temptation to shoot him now. She wanted this creep to feel it.

Shaw slowly started to gain more consciousness. He carefully pulled himself to his feet being very careful not to use his obviously mangled right arm.

Boom. The shot shattered the eerie silence. When Shaw looked down all he could see was the blood spluttering from his crotch.

"Guess what?" Sarah said with absolutely no humor in her voice. "The days of you using your manhood as a weapon appear to be over. Unless of course, you plan on picking it up off the ground and throwing it at me."

Boom. Shaw's head semi-exploded where Sarah's shot entered. It was a kill shot. He quickly fell dead face first onto the sand.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Sarah kept firing round after round into his head. After a while it took her a long moment to realize that the gun was just clicking. Her clip was empty.

She let the gun drop to the ground, stumbled over to a large tree, backed up against it, and allowed herself to slide down the ground. She sat there numbly waiting for the end.

"Don't worry, sweetie," she whispered to her now dead husband.

"We'll be together again soon."

x-x-x-x-x