A/N: After the Friday evening events, things are different at Beckman & Associates and not all of it good. A phrase I first enjoyed hearing on Monty Python's Flying Circus is applicable, "Trouble at t' mill." Sorry, but the Spanish Inquisition plays no part.

Thanks for all the reviews of the last chapter. I love reading people say how much they like 'Angry Sarah'.

Once again, thanks to MarkeyDaSad for beta reading this, but also to Ancientgamer and Steelejay for help with the IT stuff.

Anger Management
Chapter 9: Attack

Sarah was incredibly frustrated as she awoke on Monday morning. The weekend had not gone as she hoped, as they'd planned.

It had started badly with Daniel Shaw at Gillian's party, but then Chuck had arrived and it had been great. So great, that she'd drunk more than she usually did and danced too; both of those had meant she had fallen asleep before they'd even gotten home. Chuck, the sweetie that he was, had carried her in and placed her on her bed to sleep it off.

When she woke up, still fully clothed, she heard him in the kitchen singing to himself. He had a great voice. She didn't recognize the song, but it drew her off the bed and out of her room.

He spotted her as she reached the end of the corridor. He stopped singing and smiled at her. "Hello, Sleepyhead."

She grunted, then said, "Gonna take a shower."

She did and when she returned, dressed in her favorite t-shit, one of his, and sweatpants, she found him plating up bacon and eggs. Two coffees were already out.

She settled down at the table tucking one of her bare feet under her. "Thank you, Chuck." He looked up at her and raised an eyebrow. "For this and for putting me to bed last night," she added.

He gave her a loving smile. "No problem."

As she tucked into the food, she wondered why he was so silent. "So, what're we gonna do today?" she asked.

He instantly looked embarrassed. Her heart sank. She knew what he was going to say before he even opened his mouth. "Work?" she said, incredulously.

He nodded. "Anna called in sick and Lester and Jeff are off somewhere. Together." He shook his head thinking about that.

"So, you're on call all weekend?" she said it as a question, but could see the answer in his face.

"Chuuuck! This was a weekend for us, not your customers!" she whined.

"I know, but shit happens," he replied, looking as upset as she felt.

She pushed the food away. "So that's why you made this breakfast? As an apology?"

He shook his head. "I was doing it anyway, but it seemed even more important when the call came through a few minutes ago."

"We have to get you out of there!" she growled.

"I know," he replied.

That surprised her. They hadn't talked about this, although she had been thinking it. Her job change had completely dominated her thoughts about work. She was going to broach it soon, but Ellie telling her she had been trying for years made her want to find the right time. Then she just blurted it out! And he agreed with her! Am I a good influence on him? Do I motivate him?

She got up and walked around the table to him and sat on his lap. "We can talk about this and maybe start looking this weekend, if you don't get called."

He smiled at her. "Thank you, Sarah." He kissed her and pulled her closer.

Then his phone rang.

Sarah got off him and moved back to her side of the table, grumbling all the way.

And that summed up the rest of the weekend. One call after another.

Now Sarah was back in the office. Another Monday morning, but this was different. Sarah no longer had Gillian to lean on, she was on her own now. However, she felt confident. Gillian had let her effectively do the job all the previous week and only provided guidance when Sarah was unsure of things, which hadn't happened very often.

She was pleased that both Project Managers had submitted their reports on the Friday, before leaving to go to Gillian's going away party. However, as she read them, they were not well written. Sarah used a spellchecker and found many misspelled words, but she also found some text vague, not clear at all. Carina's report was better than Daniel's, but still seemed in need of improvement.

She shook her head. She assumed both had been to college, unlike her, but she could write these better herself! She would talk to them about this when they finally arrive!

She decided to take a break and wandered over to the kitchenette to get a coffee. There were two other women there who she walked past to get to her desk each day, but hadn't spoken to. She remembered seeing one of them on Friday night, but hadn't talked to her. Gillian hadn't bothered introducing her to anyone else on in their part of the office, so Sarah had blanked them out. She had never interacted with others unless she had to.

"Sarah, is it?" one of the women asked. The one that had been there on Friday evening.

Sarah looked at her. She was an attractive, slim brunette, probably around 5' 7". She nodded. "Yes, Sarah Walker."

"Gayle Bennet," the woman replied. "And this is Emily Danks." Indicating the other women who looked similar.

"Hi," she said to both, but didn't really want to talk.

Gayle, on the other hand, obviously did. "I was just telling Emily how you dressed down Daniel Shaw on Friday evening."

Sarah groaned. This was just the sort of attention she wanted to avoid.

Gayle continued, "You were amazing! You know you're my hero now!"

Sarah looked at her, stunned. "Really?"

Emily chimed in at that point. "We all brush him off, but few give him a mouthful like that."

Sarah felt she had to justify what she'd done. "He was trying to force me to dance with him, when I just wanted to greet my boyfriend."

"I take it that was the tall attractive guy I saw you dancing with later?" Gayle questioned.

"Yes, it was," Sarah replied.

Gayle turned to Emily and said, "He was really sexy!"

While Sarah agreed with that, she didn't like hearing another woman voice it. She glared at Gayle. "And off-limits for everyone but me."

Gayle held her hands up. "Just saying, not planning on poaching."

Sarah forced herself to relax. She nodded, then looked sheepish. "I'm a bit possessive," she admitted.

Emily snorted. "Just a bit!"

Gayle chimed in, "We still think you're amazing. I'd like to be your friend, if you'll let me."

Sarah hadn't had any friends in previous jobs. She nodded. "I don't have many friends," she admitted, then smirked. "So, you'll join a pretty small group!"

Carina and Daniel had both arrived on time. Their reports submitted and checked. They weren't brilliant and Sarah would talk to them about that, but this was an improvement on the previous week, so she held off doing that.

Both had meetings they needed to attend, so neither had spoken to Sarah, other than brief greetings. She was thankful that Daniel had not wanted to talk about Friday evening. In fact, he seemed somewhat preoccupied before he left to go to the meeting.

Sarah had been reviewing their reports, when she looked up to find the Security Manager, John Casey, standing the other side of her desk. That made her start, not expecting him there.

"You startled me, sneaking up on me like that!" she admonished him.

He just nodded.

"Can I help you, Mr. Casey?"

He grunted. "Just Casey." Then he pulled up a chair and sat. "Mahnovski's off sick and we have a problem."

She looked at him and said the first thing that came to mind. "I didn't make him sick, Casey."

He grunted again, a different grunt. "The problem's not with you, but the servers."

Sarah was getting more confused. "I can't help with that, Casey."

"Mahnovski says your boyfriend knows about servers and firewalls," he said, rather threateningly.

Sarah groaned. "God, yes! The two of them were talking about that on Friday evening! I had to drag Chuck away or they would have carried on all night."

"So, this Chuck, knows about our servers and firewall!" His eyes narrowing a bit.

She nodded. "He spent at least ten minutes telling your IT Manager he should replace or upgrade what you have. It was so boring."

"Why'd he do that?" Casey questioned.

Sarah couldn't remember much of the conversation. "Something about security?"

Another grunt. "We were hacked over the weekend. We think some files were taken. Your boyfriend is top of my list of suspects."

Sarah was shocked. "He wouldn't! He's a good man, Casey!"

"It would have been Sunday evening around 11pm," he informed her.

She cast her mind back. Chuck had been called out early Sunday evening, but was back before 10pm and they had a very late dinner. "That confirms it wasn't Chuck. He was eating dinner with me then. A late dinner after he got back from a call an hour earlier."

"Call?" he asked.

"He was the IT cover for the Nerd Herd at the Buy More in Burbank all weekend. He got called out when we were preparing the meal so I cooked it and we ate late when he got back."

A less threatening grunt. "Mahnovski thinks your guy can help us. Give me his details."

Sarah didn't do that. "Why aren't you talking to the police?"

He looked annoyed. "Police, Feds, they're no good with this sort of thing!"

She could see he wasn't going to change his mind. "Chuck isn't working this morning. He's recovering from the weekend. Hasn't Mr. Mahnovski got someone else in his team who can handle this? Or maybe someone else at the Buy More can help." She didn't want Chuck to be disturbed.

Casey was getting perturbed. "Mahnovski says not, but he seems to have taken a liking to your boy. Give me his details and I'll contact him later."

She reluctantly did so. She was going to have to warn Chuck about this, so she would be the one disturbing him. She glared at Casey. "Don't call before lunchtime," she instructed him.

He took the details and walked off, still looking pissed.

For the last hour, Sarah had heard muttering about "the breach" as people were calling it. She was feeling guilty for not calling earlier, while at the same time feeling the same doing it now. One guilt for the company, one for her boyfriend.

"Hello, Gorgeous."

His words made her feel much better about her second guilty feeling. "Chuck, our Security Manager, Casey, is going to be calling you. Someone has 'breached our firewall.' I think that's the right phrase."

Chuck replied, "I think he already has."

Sarah could almost feel the anger rising. "Shit! He was supposed to hold off calling you until lunchti-"

Chuck cut her off. "Sarah, don't be mad at him. He didn't contact me directly. He called the Buy More and requested a call at 12pm."

Mollified, she calmed down. "What do you know about it?"

"Just I have a call to make about server problems. Why isn't Laszlo handling it?" he questioned.

She smiled at him using their IT Manager's first name. "He's out sick."

"That sounds too much of a coincidence," he replied.

Sarah hadn't thought about that, but it did seem odd.

"I'm going to come there now," he told her.

That made her frown. "What about your time off?"

"What and miss the chance of possibly seeing my beautiful girlfriend before lunchtime?" She could hear the tease in his voice, but she did like the feeling it gave her.

Excited to see him, she replied, "I'll let Casey know you are coming."

Chuck was feeling nervous as he walked from the parking lot towards the building that contained two things that drew him there. The IT problem, obviously, but also the woman of his dreams. Sarah had such a pull on his heart, he wondered sometime how it remained in his chest. All he wanted to do, as he drove over here, was go in, grab her hand and pull her out of the building so they could have the time that had been lost over the weekend.

He tried to focus on the reason he had been asked to visit, but there lay the cause of his nervousness.

When Lester had called him, Chuck was at first annoyed with him. Ignoring his rest time was just typical of the man and he could tell that Lester loved doing it. However, when he heard the details, he knew this was indeed something that only he could help. It wasn't a typical call or even from a customer. Lester probably only took it because of the chance to disturb Chuck, hoping he would be pissed.

His nervousness now was that he didn't know what Casey would ask of him. That wasn't because Chuck doubted his abilities, but more that it might show skills he had kept hidden for years. Those skills could get him into serious trouble. What was worse was that he felt excited at the prospect of using those skill again.

When he had stopped before, it had been because of what had happened at Stanford. He had lost all interest in seeking knowledge or flexing those skills. That was all part of his Stanford life; a life that he had put behind him. He had been safer doing that. In the state he was in back them, he probably would have slipped up and been caught. Over the last few years, he had indeed been coasting, but it had been safe.

Ha, safe. That summed up his existence all those years. Safe and dull, almost comatose. Sarah had changed all that. He felt alive again. She had reignited his drive, his willingness to live life to the fullest. However, he had not added the IT aspect from his previous life into the mix.

Before it had been slowly pulling him into the digital world and out of the real world. He often wondered if that had made Jill seek comfort elsewhere. He didn't want that to happen with Sarah, but this call could start that rot again. However, he knew that if it helped Sarah, as it undoubtedly would, he couldn't hold back.

He would have to talk to her about all this. She would be his anchor. She would save him from himself.

As he approached the entrance, he could see her just inside, waiting for him. God, she's gorgeous! How could anything pull me away from her?

Standing with John Casey in reception, Sarah thought about how all the men she interacted with now were all much taller than her. Chuck, Casey and even Daniel Shaw. In her previous jobs, the men were all shorter, as were her boyfriends. Was California the land of giants?

Seeing Chuck approaching the entrance, she stopped daydreaming and focused. "That's him, Casey."

An acknowledging grunt was all she received.

When Chuck entered the building, she rushed over and led him to Casey. She wanted desperately to kiss him, but knew that wouldn't be professional. For either of them.

"Casey, this is Chuck Bartowski, the IT specialist you requested; Chuck, this is our Security Manager, John Casey."

The two men shook hands.

"Thanks, Walker. I'll take it from here," Casey stated and led Chuck away. Chuck looked at her, disappointed, but knew he wasn't there to see her.

Sarah stood and watched them go. "Bringing your boyfriend to work?" Sarah turned to look at Gwen who was obviously teasing her.

She grinned. "Yup!"

Gwen grinned too. "Go, Girl!"

They both laughed.

As Sarah headed back to her floor, she just hoped Chuck managed to help.

Chuck had been reviewing all the network and firewall logs. It wasn't a true attack. Laszlo's initial review had indicated the time files had been deleted. Whoever had done that was not very bright. The disks of file servers were backed up nightly, so nothing was lost. That indicated someone who knew little about standard IT practice. The so-called breach, however, looked more like an insider with access had provided the details to the outsider.

Chuck picked up his phone and called the man who had brought him in. Casey answered instantly, "Found something?"

"Not who did it, but some worrying information," Chuck replied.

Casey grunted. "Coming down."

Chuck started looking again at the firewall logs before the time the files were deleted. Before Casey arrived, he watched each of the files being transferred. He was going to have to track that. He hoped this dumb intruder had not done anything clever and he could find them.

"What did you find?" Casey asked as soon as he arrived.

"You've got a mole as well as an intruder," Chuck replied.

Casey groaned. "Who?" he asked.

"I can't tell, but if they are as stupid as the intruder, I will be able to identify their details," Chuck explained.

Casey raised an eyebrow. "Stupid?"

Chuck grinned. "They tried deleting the files they stole. That isn't a problem because the disks are backed up nightly.

"So, we have two problems. One inside, one outside," Casey summarized.

Chuck nodded. "Thought you ought to know before I continued."

"Thanks. Carry on."

The internal person had been smart enough to provide a seemingly anonymous username and password. That such existed was ridiculous. What sort of IT shop was this?

They must have also provided the IP address or alias of the Beckman & Associates firewall and the port number to get access. This internal person must know IT to be able to provide all this.

The intruder, however, was as stupid as Chuck had surmised. The traffic hadn't bounced around the world, but very clearly came from somewhere in New York. Chuck had the details of the firewall of that company.

Chuck was tempted to hack into their system, but felt he should hand this over to Casey instead.

When Casey joined him, Chuck briefed the man on what he had found, adding, "If you can find out who has access to that username/password combination, you can narrow the list of internal suspects."

Casey was clearly impressed with what Chuck had managed to do, then asked, "What about that intruder?"

"If you identify the owner of that IP address, you have them," Chuck replied.

"Can you do that?" Casey asked.

Chuck didn't know why, but he admitted he could. "Maybe, but to do this fully…" He paused for a second. "… and legally, best get the Feds to help." As soon as he said it, he regretted it. It wouldn't need much of his skills, but it did feel a bit close to revealing he was a hacker.

"Don't trust them," Casey grumbled. He considered the situation for a couple of minutes, then just said, "Do it."

Chuck had no intention of committing a federal felony, but he could do some hunting without going that far.

Chuck was just sitting staring at the screen, when Sarah opened the door. His face looked like he had seen a ghost.

Casey had agreed to her going down to find Chuck because he'd been in there for so long. She was due to finish work in fifteen minutes. She'd seen nothing of him, but knew what he was like when he got wrapped up in his work, oblivious to time passing.

She tried to get his attention. "Chuck." Nothing. She tried again, louder this time, "Chuck!" When that didn't work, she shook his shoulder. That worked.

Chuck looked at her. "You are not going to believe this, Sarah!"

She looked at the screen. "What am I looking at, Chuck?"

"The IP address of the intruder." He pointed at a series of numbers, letters and dots. "And the owner of that address, along with the rest of the group." He pointed at the name next to it.

Sarah gasped. That was the firm she had worked at in New York! "Have you told Casey?"

He shook his head. "Not yet."

"Well tell him now and then we can go home," she virtually ordered him.

He quickly did so. "It might just be an individual who works there," Chuck said as he didn't want Casey gunning for the whole firm.

Sarah pulled him out of the chair and towards the door. "C'mon."

On their way out they bumped into Carina; or more precisely Carina bumped into Chuck nearly making him drop his case. She grinned and started to sing, "Ooh, don't stand so close to me."

Chuck liked the song, but it lost its appeal when someone like Carina sang it to him.

Sarah recognized it too. She growled, "He'd have to be eighty for you to be half his age!"

Carina looked a bit irritated for a couple of seconds, then she laughed. "Nice one, Blondie." Then she looked at Chuck. Bringing your playthings to work, Sarah?"

The idea definitely appealed, but Sarah just said, "Casey called him in."

Carina obviously joined up the dots. "Oh yeah, the breach." She looked Chuck up and down. "Any time you want to breach my defenses, just let me know, Chuckles."

She backed away on seeing Sarah's expression. Sarah pulled him to the reception desk to sign out, then pulled him out of the building.

Once they reached his Nerd Herder, she breathed a sigh of relief. Carina just wore her out. "See you back at the apartment?" she asked him. He nodded.

As he drove away, she headed to her car.

Driving home, Sarah thought about Carina's comment. She was just playing her usual self, but could she make a real play for Chuck? Sarah trusted him, unlike most men, but what if he got tired of waiting for Sarah to invite him into her bed?

And that got her thinking about their relationship. What am I waiting for?

Sarah seemed to be deep in thought when she walked into the apartment. Chuck guessed she was thinking about their discovery; that someone, if not the whole firm, where she first worked was trying to steal information from Beckman & Associates. Why would they do that? How would that benefit someone across the country in New York? And why would someone in Beckman's organization help them? It was bizarre.

Unbeknownst to Casey, he had left some monitoring on the firewall to trigger alarms if someone from that remote IP address tried to access anything else. He knew it would be recorded anyway, but that could only help. He should have told the big guy, but Sarah had distracted him. He would let him know tomorrow. Maybe he should go there again and discuss next steps further with Casey, then take Sarah to lunch somewhere. He smiled at that.

Then his thoughts drifted back to what he had experienced at Beckman & Associates and he got lost in those thoughts.

Sarah had made a decision. She was being stupid waiting. There was nothing to wait for. They were in love with each other. How could it be anything but wonderful?

Sure, she felt nervous that she wouldn't fulfill his desires, but she was sure he would hers. Her thoughts of that being the reason her two previous boyfriends cheated on her was still there, but now her need was overcoming that fear.

Coming out of that dreamlike state she looked at the man she wanted more than anything.

However, Chuck had a distant look on his face. Sarah recognized that look from before they started dating. He had admitted to thinking about them and how he wished they could be together, but thought they couldn't; he focused more on those thoughts than what was happening around him. She didn't think his thoughts now were on Carina, or at least she hoped not. No, she believed he was focused on what he had found in his investigations, probably on New York.

What she had in mind was only going to happen if they were both there, present, mentally as well as physically. She didn't want him in any way distracted from her. So, she kissed his cheek and said good night to him, then left him to his thoughts and went to bed, alone.

Chuck couldn't stop himself. He was on a mission. He was determined to find the individual the back of his mind, he felt sure he knew. It was too much of a coincidence.

So, he brought out his alter ego and began fishing.

A/N: Not so much Charah in this one. Sorry.

Please tell me what you think, though.