A/N First let me apologize for the weird use of quotes, from now on I will only use them when someone other than Sarah is talking, just to make it easy on me. The other thing I need to let you know is how difficult this story is to write. In addition to retelling the series I am writing for Sarah and the young Bartowskis as she is telling the story, and the older Bartowskis as they listen to it. Basically, I am telling 3 stories at once. I am trying to post every 2 weeks, but it may not happen, sorry. By the way if I had any ownership of Chuck you would be watching Chuck VS The Movie instead of reading this.

Inside Sarah Walker

Chapter 4: Irene Demova and Video Games

The next morning arrives early for the trio, as they enter the Bartowski family home again, the sadness is worn in their shoulders. Stephen takes a deep breath, "I hope you guys are more ready for this than I am, I didn't sleep great last night."

Diane speaks up, "I got a call from Clara last night, she said if there is anything we need to give her a call." Diane starts to cry, I can't believe they're both gone, and so close together."

Molly puts her arm around Diane's shoulders, "Oh sweetie, Mom died of a broken heart, there was no way she wanted to live without her Chuck, and now she gets to be with him forever."

Diane's eyes grow red as the tears flow, "but she had us and the grandkids, why weren't we enough?"

Molly hugs Diane close, "oh baby you were more than enough, Mom loved you all so much, but when Dad passed it broke her heart, it was as if she lost part of herself." Stephen joins the hug, as the tears flow.

Stephen steps back, "come on let's hear more of Mom's story, maybe we'll understand better, and at some point, we need to find Dad's too."

It doesn't occur to any of them that they could take the player to Molly's house, this house is where they need to listen, watch, and feel. Diane walks to the player and presses the play button. The trio takes a seat as Sarah's face appears on the screen.

"Hi again, your dad's a prince, he let me sleep in and he got you off to school. He decided that he would go into the office and get some work done, I think he just wanted to give me some space. Kiddos when you grow up, no rush on that, I hope you find partners as loving, kind and considerate as your dad, he's the best." Sarah is sitting cross-legged in a large chair cupping a big mug in both hands; she is dressed in a robe and pajamas. "So, I left off at a very exciting part, but … She smiles, I had something important to take care of.

So anyway, Dad has these flashes that tell him that there is a bomb at this conference involving all kinds of high-level government people. Now most of the people I have met in my life would say, you need to call the police, and go home, not your dad, he ignored the guns we had on him and ran down the stairs, he led the way to the bomb, running at full speed, he was starting to impress me more and more, and he wasn't even trying. I hope you don't mind if I brag a little, I was keeping up with a man in running shoes, funny enough he called them Chucks, and I was wearing three-inch heels, impressed? Now, I tried to get him to stay outside, told him that he was too valuable to risk, he had to stay safe. Casey actually knocked him to the ground, and we told him to stay put, he ignored us, jumped up, and ran into that hotel leading us right to a giant bomb. Kids if your dad had listened to me and stayed outside, I wouldn't be sitting here telling my story.

Now I'm getting freaked out, he runs right up to the bomb and tries to figure out a way to defuse it; Dad has never seen a bomb in his life. So, while everyone else is running to safety, he is looking for a way to save them. Your Dad just shook his head, he couldn't figure it out, just then his phone rings, and it is your Uncle Morgan. He is calling to see how our date was going and tell Dad how bored he is because a virus had disabled his computer, and he couldn't play his games. Your Dad abruptly hangs up the phone and starts typing on the computer that is controlling the bomb.

Now it is Casey's turn to freak out, he tries to stop Dad, I have no idea why, but I tell Casey, let's trust him we have no other choice. So, as Dad explains something about something being overridden, he proceeds to download a computer virus called Irene Demova, the same one that fried Morgan's computer, and with one second left the computer shuts down. Here's the fun part, your dad stops and says, "wow I just defused a bomb… what if it didn't work, we would have been…?" The look on his face was priceless; He just saved thousands of people and didn't realize he might have died. Please take note, your dad saved all of us by himself, no supercomputer flashes, it was all Chuck Bartowski,' Sarah smiles 'not as cool as running in heels, but close. One other very important item, this is only the first time the Bartowski/Grimes team saved lives, very often my own.

However, something much more important happened, in that moment, when I looked at Daddy's face, I think he climbed into that opening that Molly had created. I didn't realize just then kiddos, but Mommy was starting to fall in love with a man she just didn't understand.

It was my job to keep track of Daddy; he was now a very important asset to both the CIA and NSA. I gave him some time to think things through, I watched over him while he spent the night on the beach, just sitting there watching the water. We have all been to that beach, many times, it is a very important place to us, for many reasons. I love cuddling with dad on that beach, looking into the ocean, watching the waves.

I watched him from afar, he seemed so lost. Finally, the sun came up and I joined him on the sand, it is hard to explain, I had the strongest urge to take him in my arms, to comfort him, not a very Sarah Walker thing to do, and not a spy thing at all. I did my best to comfort him with words, to let him know that I was there for him, that he could trust me. I asked him to please trust me.

That very day I was officially assigned to protect dad, more to the point to protect the secrets he carried. The agency created a cover for us as boyfriend and girlfriend. They got me a job in a fast-food restaurant across from the Buy More so I could keep an eye on him, and they got Casey a job in the Buy More, boy did he hate that. He was a soldier, a Marine, he used to complain that his trigger finger was itchy, that he needed to shoot someone, he was not crazy about stocking shelves, and he was certainly not a people person, but he was the consummate Marine/spy, and he performed any assignment to the best of his ability. Then there was also the fact that he didn't care much for Chuck, he was not what Casey considered to be a real man.

Over the coming years the word trust would be tested, it was my job to manipulate Chuck, use him for government purposes, and lie when necessary. Yes, kids I did lie to Dad, and manipulate him, I did things to Daddy that hurt him deeply, and it is only because he is the wonderful, forgiving man that he is that you are here to listen to my story. As you listen to the rest, please be kind, and wait till the end to understand the things I did, you see that while Dad was on his journey to become a great spy/hero, I was on my journey to becoming a complete woman/wife/Mom.

Even today, your Daddy grounds me, reminds me that it is okay to love, to be vulnerable, to be loved. I don't know what I would do without him, I found out once some time ago, I hope I never have to find out again, I didn't like it, a lot of people didn't like it. Tears begin to run down Sarah's cheeks, she does not seem to notice. So again, please be kind to me as I tell you the things that happened next, it will be hard to tell you many of these things, but I want you to know our story in full, to understand how strong our family is, the struggles that make us Bartowski's, please forgive Sarah Walker the spy, please. Sarah stands up and walks towards the camera, the image goes dark.

When the image comes back on, Sarah is dressed in tee shirt and slacks. It's been a morning; Daddy had to deal with a major cyber-attack on a government agency at work, and I had to deal with the fallout of these memories, some of them are pretty rough for me, and sometimes I forget it's the past. School will be over soon I will have to get you guys to your Kung Fu lessons, I could teach you, but Daddy says we can afford a teacher and I should enjoy my afternoon workout for myself. So now we are going to talk about the time Dad had to land a helicopter, and he didn't have any idea how to do that.

As I told you earlier Casey and I weren't always friends, as a matter of fact you might say we didn't trust each other at all, you might even say we almost hated each other. Yet here we were, ordered to work together, me by the CIA, him by the NSA. The government decided it would be best to get these secrets out of Chuck Barowski's head. They set a meet, so a Doctor Zarnow could examine him, but we had to arrange it so the Doctor wouldn't know who Dad was. We hid Dad in the home theater room at Buy More and the doc ran all the tests remotely.

Something was making me nervous; I'm not sure what it was. Maybe it was because he was an NSA doctor, maybe it was because I just didn't trust Casey, or maybe because in the back of my mind I knew that if this doctor took the intersect out of Dad's head, I wouldn't see him again. Whatever it was it was I was on edge. The doctor ran a whole battery of tests, he asked who Patient X was, of course we didn't tell him, but he kept probing. The doctor said he believed that the files could be removed. When I drove Dad home he asked if we took the files out of his head would we be through. I smiled and asked, isn't that what he wanted, he said yes, but he seemed sad about it.

It was becoming clear that Chuck was getting attached to me, normally I would that that was a good thing something I could use to exploit the asset, for some reason, this time it didn't feel so good. He was hesitant when he told me that his sister wanted to meet me and had invited me to dinner the next night. I said that it would be good for our cover, and suggested we should do it. I could sense that he didn't want to leave me, and I was feeling very weird, I was being pleasant to him, not encouraging him at all. When he got out of the car, he leaned in the window to tell me it was a good second date, but it wasn't a date at all, he was tested in a room by himself, and we spent very little time together. Chuck Bartowski is nothing if not charming, he took a weird night and turned it into something good.

The weird part is that as I watched him walk away from my car, I wasn't sure I wanted him to leave either. My inner mind was screaming at me, what is wrong with you Walker, this is just an assignment like any other, handle the asset, walk away when you are done with him. I did what I always did, I handled the asset, worked him to make sure he did what I needed. I told Dad whatever I needed to, he was an asset, to be used and "burned" when he was no longer useful. Little did I know this was no ordinary assignment, it wouldn't be long before the stuff hit the fan.

I'm going to cut out a lot of the details here because this story is about me, and my experience. What you do need to know is that as I said earlier the CIA got me a job in the Wienerlicious, a hot dog place across from the Buy More so that I could keep an eye on the asset, your dad. We get the word that Zarnow's car got blown up. Blown up with a bomb created by the NSA, designed to destroy all biological matter, there was no trace of Zarnow left. I think Casey did it, but because Casey knows that those bombs could be bought on the black market, he thinks I did it for the CIA. Guess who got caught right in the middle of this friendly little war, right again, Dad.

Casey came into the Wienerlicious to arrest me, when he went for his gun, I threw a skewer stabbing his hand and came across the counter and clocked him. He put up a good fight, got a couple of solid blows in. I want to tell you it was a great fight, but I kicked his ass, yay Mom. I would have finished him off too, if some teenagers hadn't come in distracting me, giving him time to get away, to this day he swears he was winning. Just a reminder Grandpa John is family, and we love him to pieces, people change and grow, your dad taught me that to, everyone deserves a second chance. To this day Daddy has only used a gun once in his life because it takes away that second chance, and that was to save my life, it still haunts him, but he has never regretted it. I will tell you more about that, but it will be a while before we get there, you might want to get some popcorn and drinks, Sarah smiles.

That evening we are at dinner with Dad's family and Casey shows up uninvited, things get weird. Daddy is all nervous, and when it is suggested that we eat the chocolate souffle that I had brought with me he really gets nuts and does this magic trick, pulling the tablecloth off the table without disturbing all the stuff on it. Darned if it didn't work, except that it knocked a candle into my dessert, setting it on fire. Dad picks up my now flaming souffle and runs into the bathroom and floods it with water in the tub.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to make a chocolate souffle, I was pissed, and I wind up in the bathroom manhandling Dad demanding that he tell me why he did that. Casey had told him that I poisoned a bunch of French diplomats at a dinner party and that's why they were afraid to eat the dessert I had made. I, not very gently, explained that they were French assassins and that I was glad I killed them before they got me, that was when he told me that someone tried to blow Casey up using the same kind of bomb, and he was accusing me of being a traitor, I realized that Chuck was in danger. I raced out of the house ruining your Aunt Ellie's dinner party, figuring I would check in with Washington. Guess who's waiting for me in the street when I get there, nope not Dad, it was Zarnow, still alive, he caught me by surprise knocked me out and threw me in the trunk of his car, but not before I had time to yell for help.

Zarnow had tried some techniques on me, but I wouldn't talk, there was no way I was going to give up the intersect, I wasn't going to give up Chuck. He said that he was going to send me to some people in North Korea who would torture me properly and get the information they wanted and went out to check on something. He leaves, my hands are cuffed together, and I am hanging from a hook in a warehouse of some kind, my feet are bound, and my mouth taped, I have to admit I was scared, no one knew where I was, I was tied up and helpless, and Zarnow definitely hurt me. Then bam, in comes Dad, all excited and upset because I am in trouble. I have no idea how he found me, but there he was, pulling the tape off my mouth, did I say thank you for coming to save me, nope, I chewed him out for putting himself in danger, always the good spy. I asked him for something to pick the locks on these handcuffs, He gives me something and I tell him to hide, when we hear Zarnow coming back.

Now kids, when I said your dad was no spy, I was overestimating his spy abilities. When Zarnow holds up a needle to use on me, Dad panics and gives away his position, he still hates needles that's why I am the one who takes you to the doctor for shots, then to make matters worse he Flashes on Zarnow and tells him that he did. Now Zarnow knows that Dad is the Intersect, Patient X, he tranqs him and drags him outside to a helicopter and they take off. Casey finally shows up just as I get the handcuffs off, we run outside, and a helicopter is flying erratically. We look up and somehow Chuck is flying the chopper, and clearly he does not know how.

I'm not sure it is important to know, but both Casey and I are pilots. Casey starts barking orders at Chuck over the phone, telling a guy who has never been in a helicopter before how to fly one, clearly it is not working. I take the phone and calm dad down; I explain that the video games that he plays are designed to work just like the real thing. He finally gets his fear under control and makes believe he is playing his game, with just a little instruction here and there Dad sets the chopper down safely.

He jumps out of the chopper, and he is all excited and proud of himself for what he just did, after all he just captured a double agent and another enemy accomplice, flew a real helicopter for the first time and landed safely. I did not let him enjoy his victory for even one minute. I jumped so far down his throat I could kick his tonsils; I chewed him out so hard, threatened him and berated him. I watched as his face went from absolute joy to total sad puppy dog that just peed on the rug and was getting punished with a rolled-up newspaper. I yelled at him for calling me a traitor, for comparing me to Larkin, for not following orders and putting himself in danger. Sweeties, I was not gentle.

I walked away in a huff, I was furious, but that just didn't make sense to me, it was totally unprofessional and not like me at all, losing my cool was not who I was. Looking back, I realized that I was terrified that your father could be hurt, or even killed, not because he was the intersect, but because he was Chuck Bartowski, and I was starting to have feelings for him, feelings that made me very uncomfortable, it was irritating.

The next time I saw your dad was at Bryce Larkin's funeral, he showed up to pay his respects to a "friend" who had betrayed him and ruined his future, your dad was, and is, a class act. I was there because he was my partner and traitor or not, we had pulled each other out of the fire many times, and… this is hard to say, at the time he was the only relationship I had ever had, it was the most real thing I had, as fake as it was. Sarah sheds a tear, I was not very respectful to myself, and I am so very grateful for the gifts in my life, like you three, and it all came about thanks to a nerd named Chuck, with a little help from Bryce Larkin".

Pulling herself together, "later that day Dad shows up at the Wienerlicious, have I mentioned how much I hated that cover job, I smelled like grease and sausage all the time and the teenagers were constantly coming in to ogle me, it was demeaning, but it was my mission to keep the intersect safe, so I did what I had to. As I was saying Dad comes in to apologize for not trusting me and for basically accusing me of being a traitor, of course I couldn't totally blame him, I mean Casey was whispering in his ear, plus your dad sure knew how to charm me, much to my consternation at the time.

I read in Casey's report later that it was Dad who figured out how to find me, and it was Casey who left him alone in the car so he could wander into danger. It was Dad who saved me, putting himself in danger to do it. I should have been chewing out Casey and thanking Dad.

Now to be fair you have to understand that Casey didn't have the unexplained feelings for Chuck that I did. To Casey, Dad was a thing to be used, with no value other than his usefulness to the mission, and he really did not much like this Op, nor Dad. As far as Casey was concerned Chuck Bartowski should be locked away in a cell a hundred feet below ground, surrounded by Marine guards, and he should be in the field shooting people from a quarter mile away.

I apologized to Dad for threatening him and yelling at him in such a nasty way. We were smiling and making up when in walks Uncle Devon, Aunt Ellie, and Uncle Morgan; they came to give me a redo on dinner together. They were willing to eat the fast-food nastiness that I was cooking to show that all was forgiven. I later realized that this is what a loving family looks like. What I didn't know was that someday it was going to be mine.

This whole assignment was just strange to me, I was used to working with a professional partner I trusted, but kept at an emotional distance, traveling from place to place, handling different missions. This setting down roots, being in the same place all the time was…suffocating… or maybe it was just scary. Not to mention this "asset" was different than any other "partner" I had dealt with before. He was nice, considerate; He didn't want anything, just to be useful, and I knew that at some point I would have to burn him or worse. Kids, it was downright unnerving, I could not figure out his game, come to find out, it was because he didn't have one.

Diane turns off the player, hey guys how about some lunch, I could go for a burrito at La Compadre. Molly and Stephen laugh, and Stephen says, "I wonder where that craving came from."

Diane insists, "come on let's get some margaritas and toast to Mom and Dad, I'm tired of being sad, they had good lives filled with lots of love, let's celebrate that, I have a feeling there will be more tears later."

As I am sure all of you reading this know the people who write these stories make no money for doing it. Yes, I do write because I enjoy it, and it gives me the opportunity to bring my vision to others. However, what drives me to do it, what creates the energy I need to keep writing is you. Your reviews connect me with my readers and encourage me to keep going. If you want to see more of Sarah's thoughts and how her family turned out I need to feel connected to you. Please help, leave a review, a brief comment is very helpful. Thank you again for taking the time to read my musings. LR

Another note if you are on Facebook and want to connect with other Chuck authors join us in Chuck Fan Fiction.