I do not own Chuck

Chapter 2

Present day

Chuck Bartowski leaned back from the comp screen and rubbed his eyes. It was hard, complex work and progress was slow. Across his quarters Sarah sat up on the bed and turned her head towards him, looking at him questioningly. He gazed across at the eyes of the woman he loved, so different, yet still the same in many ways.

He shrugged. "It's coming," he explained, "But slowly. I'm gonna sort it, I promise you."

She made a supportive noise, then jumped off the bed, padding across the room towards him. She languorously rubbed her side on his thigh and then stood upright, placing both of her front paws onto his shoulders, reaching up to lick his cheek. He smiled, then buried his head into the soft fur around her neck, savouring the feeling as she nearly purred with pleasure. He placed a gentle kiss against her neck.

"I'm looking forward to being able to kiss your lips," he told her, "but I will miss the fur," he continued jokily.

A low, harsh growl was his only answer and she pushed herself back to get all four feet on the ground, glaring at him. He could immediately tell he was in trouble and held his hands up. "Sorry, Sarah," he told her, fighting to control his smile. "It was only a joke." He gave her a tentative grin, but she just glared at him.

He couldn't meet the stare and turned back to the comp screen. "Tough crowd. Ok, I'll just get back to work," he muttered.

She gave a yip, which may have been playful, and then strutted back to the bed, jumping up to take back her place on the bed cover. She laid her head on her front paws, looking in his direction, closed her eyes and went back to the heavy duty relaxation that he'd disturbed. He wasn't sure, but he thought she may have been teasing with the growl. He decided not to pursue the matter further though.

After two straight tendays of work he finally believed he was close to a breakthrough. Once he'd got that then he hoped to be able to reverse what Orion had done and then hopefully he'd have a human girlfriend with beautiful blond hair lying on his bed, not a cream-coloured Chow Chow! Hopefully her breath would smell better as well! It wasn't something you said to the love of your life (certainly not if you didn't want to get gnawed on!) but at the moment her breath stank!

There were a lot of things he was looking forward to when (not if, when – he had to stay positive) he was successful. Conversations, kisses and cuddles were all close to the top on his list. Sarah wasn't a big talker even as a human, but just to have some to and fro would be an improvement on the current state of affairs. The aforementioned bad breath (and the whiskers) certainly ruled out kisses. And he'd realised he really missed her cuddles. Sure, as a dog she was pleasant to cuddle – soft and furry. But she couldn't exactly cuddle back. And there was something about having your beautiful girlfriend pressing herself against you that you just didn't get when you were cuddling a dog. Dogs didn't have breasts for one thing! And he wasn't even gonna think about sex. Oh no. No way!

Two tendays ago

The body of Orion, sometimes known as Stephen Bartowski, lay on the ground, and Chuck stared at it for a minute, before shouting at Sarah, "Get everyone outside, away from the buildings and tell them to wait for the transport. I've got to get to the lab to download as much of his data as possible!"

So saying, he matched actions to words and ran to the lab, sitting down in front of the comp even as the fifteen minute self-destruct countdown continued. It was down to 13 minutes and 12 seconds.

He didn't bother waiting to see what Sarah did. He had no time to waste. It was fair to say that the plan devised by the man that he now knew was his father hadn't been as successful as they'd both hoped.

Chuck had returned from an enjoyable dinner on his first night to find that his portable comp had been hacked. He'd been pretty impressed by that because the Space Fleet tech was generally very secure. Orion was clearly quite the hacker. What he'd read afterwards had totally shocked him.

In not many words Orion had confessed that he was also Stephen Bartowski, Chuck and Ellie's father, that he'd run away 14 years ago after finding that former Alliance Security Chief Arthur Graham had blackmailed his wife and sent her under cover to infiltrate Alexei Volkoff's organisation. After searching for her for several years he'd discovered that Mary Bartowski had been killed. Stephen had spent many years engineering a situation to get his own back and had eventually captured Graham and used him as a test subject for his new technological breakthrough, which allowed a person's consciousness to be transferred from one body to another. He'd decided to put Graham into a dog's body as punishment for his multitude of sins.

He'd also stalked and eventually captured Graham's lieutenant Roan Montgomery and given him the same punishment.

Stephen had apologised to Chuck (and by extension Ellie) for running away, but stated that he was broken without Mary. He'd confessed that he'd monitored both Chuck's and Ellie's lives from afar and was very proud of what they'd achieved.

He had been happy to live in isolation with his trophy pets until Alexei Volkoff had come calling. The smuggler had somehow found out about Orion's research and wanted to use it. He had a group of captive AIA special ops agents and other government agents to use to test the technology. Orion had initially refused but then had been forced. Into those tests had blundered Casey and Sarah, looking for the captive SOAs. They'd been captured and changed as well. Volkoff had gone off planet to bring some more prisoners but was due back the next day. He'd left a few of his minions to monitor Orion's the compound in the mean time, both physically and remotely. Chuck had successfully chanced on a time when Orion's minions were not present at the compound. That had not happened too often since then.

Chuck had found the intervening time difficult. He'd had so many questions for his father but no chance to ask them. He'd had to try to disguise the feelings he had as well, which had proven difficult. Volkoff's return had meant that the plan could go into action, and Chuck would be able to finally speak to his father. Unfortunately that wouldn't be possible now.

Stephen's plan had been to lure Volkoff to the compound and use the technology on him. The idea was that the unexpected presence of a Chuck that knew what was going on, along with the help of the agent-dogs, would give them the upper hand. That part of the plan had actually worked and Volkoff had been turned into a ridiculously ugly Chinese Crested Dog. The issue was that Volkoff's bodyguards had been incensed by their boss being taken and had decided to start taking it out on Chuck and Orion. Chuck, with the help of Casey, Sarah and G, who he'd found out was Greta Harris, had managed to subdue the bodyguards, but not before they'd fatally injured his father who, worried that the bodyguards would capture them and take his research, had initiated the compound's self-destruct sequence.

Which left Chuck where he was now, desperately trying to pull all the information he could off Orion's database while the clock literally ticked down.

The sound of Sarah's bark penetrated his concentration and he looked up as the Chow Chow ran into the lab. "Everybody out?" he asked, tapping on the screen to send another block of data to his comp.

Sarah barked which, he guessed, indicated an affirmative. "Great, just a little more to go," he told her, returning his focus to the screen. He'd set up a countdown clock and by his estimation he still had another six minutes to go before he had to make a run for it. Sarah gave him a moment but after that she was starting to get quite antsy, barking and grumbling. He looked at her again. "Kind of in a rush here Honey," he told her, focusing again on the screen. She wasn't taking the hint though and started dragging at his pants legs.

"No Sarah!" he tried to tell her, swatting her away, but she just came back for seconds. This wasn't helping.

He sighed and looked down. "Ok, you're right," he told her. "Let's go," he rose away from the screen and made for the door, Sarah following. He opened the door to let her squeeze through then closed and locked it, running back to his work. He didn't have enough time to apologise but he knew he'd be in deep shit when he got back, if the barks, growls and whines coming from outside were any sign. His girlfriend had a protective streak a mile wide but she never gave him credit for not really wanting to die himself! He'd set the timer to give him plenty of time to get out. He looked at the timer again. Only three minutes to go now.

"Call Morgan!" he ordered as he commanded the computer to send the rest of the info to his comp. The damping field had come down when Volkoff's bodyguards had started shooting up the compound.

"Chuck! What's going on?" his friend called excitedly, "We're monitoring instability at your location-"

"Morgan, no time!" he called urgently, interrupting his best friend, "Are the drop ships coming?" He'd worked out a plan with Morgan in advance and, when they'd moved on Volkoff, he'd signalled the waiting marines.

"Yeah, they're inbound," his friend replied.

"Tell them to stay away from the house, it's about to self-destruct!" Chuck called as his alarm rang. He disconnected his memory cube and ran for the door. "Off!" he ordered.

"Come on Sarah!" he shouted, forcing the door open and running right past her as a pissed off snarl echoed off the walls.

"Give me some credit won't ya? You know I don't have a death wish right?" he called, realising he was just digging himself deeper. "I needed to get Orion's research and time's tight. Sorry." He skidded to a halt. He'd intended to carry his father's body out with him.

"Where is he?" he muttered, looking at the space on the floor where the body had been. Sarah's angry growl/bark interrupted his surprise.

"Did you move him?" he asked, and got an annoyed negative sign, followed by a growl.

"Ok, ok," he muttered, realising he was out of time and very much busted. He made for the exit to the grounds, running out of the house as a drop ship came towards the house to land, clearly having not got the message.

"Call drop ship and Morgan," he requested urgently, out of breath from all the running. "This is Bartowski! Wave off! The house is about to blow!" He continued to run out of the house, Sarah now loping in front of him. The drop ship started changing course, so they'd got his message. Just as he got to the bushes, there was an explosion and he threw himself to the ground. The relatively small first explosion was followed by a very big one which blew debris all around him.

He rolled over, turning to look at the house, panting after the all-out sprint to reach safety. Two of the walls still stood, but the bulk of the house was gone, and the roof had fallen in. Flames flickered within the structure. He lowered his head onto the ground, working on catching his breath while the doubts assailed him. What had happened to his Dad's body? Had he managed to get enough of the data? And would Sarah ever talk to him again?

An angry growl penetrated his thoughts, and he opened his eyes to see an enraged Chow Chow baring her teeth at him from less than six inches. It did look a bit incongruous, but he was damned if he was gonna be the one to tell her! Just as bad as the clear anger was the wave of bad breath which nearly knocked him back.

Realising that he probably shouldn't go there at this point in time, he reached out for the Chow Chow in an appeasing manner, but she simply snarled and moved back. She was really pissed. If she was human, he'd be getting it now. She barked and growled and whined at him and it sounded like a rant of epic proportions. Of course, he had no idea what she was saying, even if he could work it out.

Luckily, Morgan saved him. "Chuck!" he called, running down the boarding ramp of the second drop ship, which had landed next to the first and was now discharging Alliance Marines in battle armour.

"I'm sorry Sarah, I have to deal with this," he told her carefully.

She growled again then turned her back on him and stalked away.

That had gone well.

It hadn't really gotten any better either. They hadn't managed to find the body of Stephen Bartowski anywhere on the compound's grounds. That had been dead end one. Dead end two had been the lab. Everything had been slagged. Chuck was pleased he'd managed to grab what he had but it was by no means everything he needed. Just a cursory analysis of the information suggested that they'd need a full neurological and Tech team to help him with interpreting Orion's work.

Luckily Chuck was pretty good with Tech, had some good contacts and knew two excellent neurological specialists, and he'd been happy to suggest them to General Beckman as soon as he'd embarked on the Churchill ready to leave the system. Aunt Di had confirmed that she would build up the requisite research team at their base on Arran station and Chuck should just get back toot suite with the affected agents.

That meant taking the drop ship, since the Churchill was about to be released back to its regular operations. Which was when the next issue had come up. The agent-dogs had not reacted particularly well to leaving behind the planet. The lack of open space on the starship meant they were practically climbing the walls, which meant that everyone else who had to be around them was practically climbing the walls as well!

Given that there was even less space on the drop ship than on the Churchill, and Chuck wasn't too chuffed about letting other people on an AIA ship either (even if they were currently dogs), it had been a relatively easy decision to tranq all of the dogs and put them in stasis. At least it had seemed an easy decision. The betrayed look that Chow Chow Sarah had given him when he'd tranqed her was heart rending! She'd only just forgiven him anyway (two days later) after the events around the blowing up of Orion's compound.

It had been a much easier trip back as a result, even though Chuck had spent most of his time working on his report and Orion's research, trying to piece everything together.

Aunt Di had given him a pat on the back once she'd read the report and he knew she was pleased to get hold of Volkov. A fresh surprise had awaited him and Morgan once they'd arrived at Arran. Aunt Di had greeted them personally. It turned out though that she wasn't interested in their wellbeing. It was the health of a certain Roan Montgomery (missing, presumed dead) that had Aunt Di's heart a flutter. Chuck thought he may have actually spied a tear in the Beckman eye, but it may have been a figment of his imagination.

Just as Chuck had asked to take Sarah to his quarters (their secret being well and truly out by now), Aunt Di had appropriated Agent Montgomery for hers. Who knew that the old bag actually had a heart?! While Aunt Di had enough stars to make her request stick immediately, Chuck had been over-ruled. At least initially. As he'd left the room where the agent-dogs were being quartered, Sarah had started howling and whining and, as the veterinary assistant had told him rather acerbically later, she hadn't stopped howling and whining for the next three hours until they'd called Chuck to come and pick her up. Nobody ever said his girlfriend wasn't stubborn and Chuck could've warned them that that would probably be the case. But he'd reckoned it was probably better to let them work that out themselves rather than banging his head against a brick wall. He'd been hard-pressed to keep the grin off his face, though, when he'd come back to collect her.

"Come on Sarah," he called. It wasn't quite a command, more of a suggestion. Sarah was very much an exception to what had happened to the other agents. For some reason she'd been able to keep much of her brain power and humanity. He wasn't sure why and neither were the other scientists working on the issue.

Almost from the beginning Sarah had seemed to act differently towards him. While it was clear that all of the affected agents who knew him had recognised him, most of their reactions to him were distinctly doggy in nature. But many of Sarah's reactions had been approaching human. The rising on her hind legs to lick his face, the snuggling and then there was her protectiveness. It didn't take much to set her off. Just a negative tone of voice and Sarah would be in front of him growling at the protagonist and sometimes outright barking at them. When Lester had sneered at him the other day he'd been worried that Sarah would take the man's head off. He hadn't been the only one, if Lester's quick retraction and flight back to his lab was any sign!

His erstwhile girlfriend leapt down from the bed and padded to his side. She sat and looked up at him questioningly, with an almost human expression of curiosity.

"We're going to see the others," he explained, before unlocking the doors to his room. He headed out, Sarah strolling at his side, and the doors shut behind him. He wasn't looking forward to this meeting. The inspection every five days with General Beckman was anything but fun and he didn't really have any progress to report. But at least he had stuff to do; he really didn't envy Morgan having to ensure that the rest of the agent-dogs were shipshape.

It was a long walk from his quarters to the rec area which had been commandeered for the agent-dogs once they'd managed to get back to Arran station. Just as they'd struggled to adapt to being on a ship after being on a planet, the changed dogs had struggled on the station as well. Suffice to say that there'd been some very unhappy and discombobulated agent-dogs when they'd been woken up. Bryce in particular had not dealt with the change well and had ended up shitting all over his sleeping area for days afterwards.

Apparently whippets were quite highly strung as a breed anyway. Chuck hadn't known – most people didn't. Whippets were vanishingly rare throughout human space and they'd had to look them up. Ellie had suggested that the agents ended up in breeds that reflected their mental make up. That seemed as reasonable as anything. After all, Casey had ended up as a German Shepherd (fierce but easy to train), Agent Forrest a Yorkshire terrier (she was, after all, a yappy little bitch), and Agent Miller as a regal Shih Tzu who enjoyed being petted and pampered. He wasn't sure whether Orion had overridden the equipment for Graham – he didn't understand why the former Deputy Head of Alliance Intelligence had ended up as a poodle, but he thought the topknot and bow was a nice touch. Chuck wasn't a fan of Graham at all.

He'd never come across Sarah's breed before either, but on looking her up he'd found that Chow Chows were known as aloof, independent, loyal and quiet and he thought that probably summed Sarah up to a tee.

The doors to the rec area opened and he could hear Morgan's slightly desperate voice almost immediately. "Wait a minute. Casey stop trying to hump Forrest! No, leave her alone! Go over there. Bad dog." Chuck looked down at Sarah and she looked up. There was actual humour in her expression, and he couldn't help the giggle that escaped his lips. Sarah gave a playful yip and bounced around.

"Bryce! Stay away from Carina. I mean it! If you even think of a repeat of what you tried last night I'll neuter you! Yes I mean it!" As Chuck and Sarah drew closer, Chuck could see his bearded friend shoving the Whippet that was his former nemesis away from the Shih Tzu.

"Alright Morgan?" he called, failing to keep the humour out of his voice.

The Beard looked up. "Oh Chuck, thank God you're here. They've been a nightmare today man. Bryce is out of control and it's like Casey's in heat."

"Why didn't you call for help?" he asked his long-time friend, who did look absolutely exhausted.

"I did!" the shorter man replied, "But Lester and Skip refused to help."

"I'll sort that," he growled, immediately keying in his communicator, intending to call the recalcitrant research assistants. He was distracted by a weird noise of disgust coming from Sarah. They both looked round.

Chuck wished he hadn't, as Morgan exclaimed. "Bryce, stop blowing yourself. Ah come on man. That's gross!"

As Chuck called for reinforcements, Morgan's plaintive voice continued to ring out. "Oh come on Casey, leave Graham alone. No man, that is not cool."

Chuck sat at his desk, head in his hands. That had not been a fun briefing.

A high-pitched sound made him look at the ground to his right. Sarah looked up at him quizzically.

"I'm scarred for life," he groaned. And he was. Between Casey trying to screw anything that moved (he'd even tried to hump Beckman's leg at one point), all the dogs trying to mess with Graham (it seemed that the former head of frontier security was widely hated), and Bryce's incontinence problems after he'd been told off (which he'd never liked, even as a human) it had been a horrific meeting, even worse than the last one, and that was saying something. He could only hope that he'd make some breakthrough soon and there wouldn't be a next one.

"God, I hope I can figure this out soon," he muttered tiredly. "What if I can't?"

It was in their thinking. They had to be realistic after all. Morgan had rhetorically asked what they would do if they couldn't turn the agents back and Chuck had unthinkingly suggested "Canine Interstellar Guard!"

"What, Bartowski?" Beckman had asked, catching Chuck unawares. He hadn't been aware that he'd spoken.

"Sorry General?" he'd asked.

"What do you mean – Canine Interstellar Guard?" the diminutive general had enquired acerbically, spacing out each individual word like it might hurt her. Any positive feelings the general may have had on finding her paramour alive seemed to have faded by now, several days after they'd arrived back at the station, and she was back to her normal irascible self.

"Oh," Chuck had temporised, cursing his big mouth again. "Ah. Um, actually it's from a book from the late twentieth century. It was about this intergalactic trouble shooter who went around solving problems with his herd of super-intelligent pigs. They were called the Porcine Interstellar Guard."

He looked up to see Beckman staring at him in a fulminating way. He was familiar with this look and almost cringed, sure the explosion was coming. But it didn't. The general stared at him for a few minutes as if trying to ascertain whether this was a serious suggestion and then her expression had softened.

"Well, I guess it's something to consider," she'd finally offered, surprising Chuck, who had expected to get his head bitten off. He'd thought the suggestion was nuts and he'd made it! "I may ask you to write up a proposal Bartowski if your initial plans aren't successful."

Chuck supposed that was why the general was a general and he was only a lieutenant commander; she thought of things strategically, considering all the options for the future, whereas he just focused on the here and now.

But the here and now was tough. How was he going to turn these agents back? He massaged his temples with his fingers.

Sarah jumped onto the bed and pawed at the duvet. When he didn't react, she whined, pawing at the duvet again with renewed vigour.

"You want me to join you?" he questioned.

She stopped pawing and rested her head on her front paws, almost purring.

"I've got too much to do," he explained. She growled and glared at him.

When she was in this mood there was no arguing. "OK," he confirmed, getting up. He supposed a small rest couldn't hurt, could it? He had been working for 18 h-units after all. He kicked off his shoes and pants and lay down on the bed. "Lights," he instructed and the lights turned off, then "Set alarm. Four h-units." A low growl emanated from his right. He tried again. "Set alarm. Six h-units." Another one. He glared in that direction and sighed. "Fine then. Set alarm. Eight h-units." He turned to the right. "Happy now?" There was no reply, but he heard a rustle as she moved up beside him, draping her head onto his chest. She was warm and relaxing, and he reached into her fur to stroke her head. If he didn't concentrate too much it was a bit like stroking her head when she'd been a woman. With that comforting feeling he closed his eyes and fell into an exhausted sleep.

As it happened he was woken slightly before the alarm, by a cold nose in the crotch. Not the way a man really wants to be woken in the morning. A bit discombobulated, and not really sure what was happening, he reached down and encountered a fur-covered head trying to push away his boxer shorts. That woke him up triple damn quick.

"NO SARAH!" he practically screamed, catapulting away from her, nearly falling out of bed for his troubles. She made a sad little sound in the back of her throat and pawed at his leg, reaching for his boxer shorts again and licking her doggy lips.

He took a deep breath. "We talked about this already," he explained, fixing her with a glare. "There is absolutely no way in Hell that we are having sex while you're in that body."

She made that sad little sound again and hid her head under the duvet. He wanted to melt. She was too cute. But it didn't change his mind. "Just no," he told her as she whined again. "Look, you can be as cute as you like, but I'm not gonna change my mind. It would just be wrong."

She didn't move, so he reached over to touch her, running his hand through the smooth fur on her back. She growled, and he flinched. "You're not gonna sulk about this again are you?" She didn't deign to reply. Given this wasn't the first time this issue had come up, with roughly similar results, he knew how to get round this. He sighed, reaching for his trousers next to the bed.

When she got randy, it was normally for a reason. He needed to find a way to get rid of that randiness. He made an effort to make his voice playful. "Why don't we go to the park?"

It was instantaneous. The nose poked out of the bed clothes and her tail wagged. He reckoned she wasn't fully in control of the tail in this form. But it was much more obvious with her as a dog than as a human what sort of mood she was in. She was a master at hiding her emotions in human form. As a dog, not so much. The tail was a dead giveaway in most situations.

She sat up and jumped off the bed, gambolling around, tail wagging and yipping excitedly. He wished it was this easy to get her out of her moods in human form. Although maybe he would have to try the whole exercise thing in the future! He normally just withdrew into himself until he was ready to apologise, or she was. Who knew that you could dispel these issues by just taking your partner for a run in the park? She loved her exercise, whether she was in dog or human form. In human form she loved her martial arts as well. Maybe he'd have to let her beat him up a bit?

He tried to get out with her at least twice a day at the moment. He knew it must be really difficult for her trapped inside a dog's body and not able to communicate, so he tried to do stuff she enjoyed. He'd run with her in the morning, but in the afternoon he mostly just threw the ball for her to catch. She loved that. Sometimes they'd go for a walk through the station. She enjoyed that too. But they didn't stop for a coffee any more. Not after that time in the coffee shop when that woman had fallen in love with her and wouldn't stop stroking her!

Sarah didn't like to be touched much anyway as a human. And as a dog she wasn't too keen on it either. She was happy to be touched by Chuck most of the time. She tolerated Ellie, Devon and Morgan, but not really anybody else. The woman in the shop hadn't got the hint after a few growls, but she'd certainly got the idea when Sarah had nearly bitten her. Chuck had been buying coffee for him and milk for her and had only seen the back end of the scene. He'd rushed over and apologised to the woman as she'd fled. The shop owner had also seen what happened and they'd been asked to leave as well. Since that time they'd stayed out of restaurants and common areas.

He grabbed the ball from the shelf. "Come on you!" he called, heading out followed by his excited girlfriend.

Please Review!

A/N1 Chuck wonders about Graham being a poodle. Maybe the origins of the breed were lost in time but poodles were originally bred for hunting even if they look cute and fluffy and are seen as toy breeds today (and seemingly in the future)!

A/N2 The Porcine Interstellar Guard is from the book The Men from PIG and ROBOT by Harry Harrison. It was one of my favourite stories when I was a kid!