A/N: If ownership of Chuck was a tree, it would be in someone else's yard.

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Earlier that evening, the Ratner residence, Westlake Village, California

Mark Ratner was sitting at his dining room table, with his head in his hands, when Heather came back into the room.

"Who were you talking to?" he asked.

"My mother," replied his wife. "Honey bunch, we have to talk. It's why I made the FBI agents stay outside in their car, so we could talk privately."

"Ok," he said. He wasn't looking forward to this conversation. He'd had many of them over the weeks and they were always rough on him, ending in them arguing and not talking to each other for some time. She would sit by herself afterward and cry and that tore at his heart.

"This isn't a joke. The Russians are going to freak out. They are going to think we called in the FBI. They are going to be incredibly pissed off. God knows what they are going to do. You should have just given them what they wanted. Now we could really get hurt. They might even kill us. This is insane, Mark."

"I know, dear, but now that the FBI is here, they can protect us. You heard them. They can protect us from the Russians. They told us to..."

"Mark, I don't care what they told us. They just want us to cooperate. You can't trust them. They don't care about us. They only care about your stupid radar. It's all that matters to them. You and me, Mark. You and me. We are the only ones we can count on."

"No. No, dear. I don't agree. It's the FBI. We can trust them. They can keep us safe."

"Ugghhh. I love you, but you are so naive about the way the world works," she said, giving him a kiss.

She went into the living room and poured herself a large dram of tequila from their bar. She drank it down in a single swallow. She glanced at her watch and sat down on her couch, taking a magazine from the table in front of her and turning the pages without really looking at it.

About forty-five minutes later, and two more glasses of tequila, the stillness of the neighborhood was shattered by the sounds of gunfire from the front of the house.

Heather threw the magazine aside and ran to get her husband. Finding him in front of his computer, looking around in confusion, she grabbed his hand. "Mark, Mark, come on...we've got to get out of here. Come on. The Russians found us. They're killing those FBI agents and coming for us...COME ON." She pulled him to his feet.

"Those agents? We should call..."

"NO, no time for that. We're next. Let's get out on the lake," she said, pulling him to the back door.

They heard the harsh rattle of gunfire from the front of the house. The noise decided Mark and he allowed himself to be pulled out the back door to their boat. Casting off the ropes and starting the engine, they pulled away from the dock and out into the blackness of the lake.

Heather was crying hysterically. "They're going to kill us. They're going to kill us. They just killed two FBI agents. They are going to kill us." She tugged on his arm as he was steering the boat into the dark waters. "Mark, you have to give it to them. You have to. All your morals and principles won't matter if we're dead. You have to. You have to give them the plans. Please, if you love me you'll protect me. You won't let them kill me. Please, Mark. Please. This is insane."

Mark Ratner thought about the gunfight in front of his home. He thought about his crying wife. She was right, if they were dead nothing would matter. She'd been so scared for so long and she'd been so brave. Now it seemed that the whole damn thing was sliding to some kind of terrifying climax. She was right. This couldn't go on. He couldn't stall any more.

"Ok," he said. "I'll do it. I'll give them the plans."

Heather, if anything, seemed to cry harder, but she gripped his arm. "Oh, thank God. Thank God. Ok. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, I knew you loved me."

She took out her phone, but he didn't hear the conversation over the roar of the boat's engine and the wind. Finishing the call, she looked back at him with a smile, "Ok, darling. I've called us a car service to take us from the boat slip to your offices. We'll do it right now. You can download the plans and we can give them to the Russians the next time they show up. We'll be safe. We'll be safe." She stood up next to him, held him, and gave him a kiss.

Mark was happy that Heather was relieved. Maybe they could get this behind them. Ever since the Russians had shown up, he had resisted. Although Heather was intrigued by the offers of money, he had stood firm. He wasn't going to sell out his country for money. He'd sworn an oath of secrecy for the work he was engaged in and oaths meant something to him. He wasn't going to let the Russians buy him off, even if Heather thought the money was attractive. They'd had a big fight over the money offer, but she'd never mentioned it again.

He was silent and lost in his own thoughts as he docked the boat at the slip. As Heather had said, there was a car and driver waiting for them. They got into the back of the car and Heather gave him the address of the office building. The man did not speak.

As they drove, Heather held his hand. "Are you ok, darling?" she asked.

"No. I'm fucking horrible, actually. But I'll be glad to get this behind us," he said.

"I'm so proud of you, you know?" The look she gave him was all love. He smiled weakly in return. He thought he might throw up.

They arrived at the office building and Heather told the driver to wait for them. He nodded silently.

Mark took out the keys to his office and they entered the building. Without turning on the lights, they walked through the dark offices to his desk on the second floor. He powered up his desktop and waited for the indication that it was ready for him. While they waited, Heather put her hand on the back of his neck and rubbed it lightly.

"You're doing good, Mark. This is the right thing to do. You have to protect us. Protect our family. They said this is your last chance. We have to do this."

Mark looked up at her sharply from his seat. "What did you say?"

"I said, we have to do this. It's the right thing to do," she said. Still rubbing his neck. She could feel the tension as his breathing quickened.

"No, you said they told me this was my last chance," he said, surprise and the beginnings of anger in his voice.

"Well, yeah. They did," she said, honestly confused by the direction the conversation was taking.

"But, Heather, I never told you that. I never told that's what they said to me. I didn't want to scare you...more than you were already scared," he said.

"You did. You mentioned it last night. You must have been so shaken up that you didn't notice it."

The computer had booted up and the screen was illuminating them with an otherworldly glow in the otherwise dark office.

"No," he said.

"Then you told the FBI earlier this evening," she said.

"No. No, I didn't." He stood up from the seat, looking at her with increasing anger, and said, "So, how did you know that's what they said? How did you know?"

Heather backed away a bit and said, "Mark, you're being silly. Stop it. You're scaring me."

Mark slammed his hand down on his desk. "GODDAMMIT," he bellowed. "I can't believe I didn't see it. Shit. They got to you. They got you to help them. You've been in contact with them. Shit. Why didn't I see it? How long?"

"How long what, honey bunch?" she asked, but her heart wasn't in it.

"How long have you been working for them?" He was furious and looked at her with sudden contempt.

She saw that and knew the game was over. She said, in an entirely different voice, "You know, for a smart guy, you are really fucking stupid sometimes. Care to try again?"

Now he was the one confused. "What?"

"What do you think? Who is working for who here?" she said.

"Whom," he said, automatically correcting her.

"SHIT. I hate you so much, you insufferable prick. Who gives a shit? Or is it whom gives a shit? You fucking asshole," she screamed at him.

"You didn't answer my question. How long have you been working for them?" he asked.

"THEY ARE WORKING FOR ME, YOU STUPID PRICK," she bellowed. Taking a breath to steady herself, she said, "I hired them to help me get the plans to your radar. It was the only way. You never took your work home. Never talked about it, not that I'd understand that techno crap anyway. Never even wrote down your fucking computer password. How many choices did you leave me?"

"But why? Why did you want the radar stuff? You don't know anything about that," he said.

She took a gun from behind her back and pointed it at her husband. "For the money, you fucking idiot. FOR THE MONEY. You don't think I married you for love? The Rat? Why would I marry the Rat?" she screamed, using a particularly hurtful nickname from high school. "I married the nerd. Don't you understand your role in life? You are supposed to get rich. That's what I signed up for. You go to Silicon Valley, invent some shit no one else understands and get rich. Then I divorce you and take your money and never see your whiny ass again. But no. Not you. You don't want to sell out for mere money. You are doing it for...shit, you know what? After all this time I still don't understand why you do what you do if not for the money."

Mark said, "Goddammit. Then no, Heather. No. No plans. Go fuck yourself, Heather. I'm not giving you the plans. Go back to your Russian friends. You want to kill me, do it."

Heather shook her head in frustration. She had been so close. So damn close to getting what she wanted. What she deserved. She extended the gun to arm's length and said, "In that case, consider this a divorce."

From the side of the dark room came a woman's voice, hard, commanding, "Drop it, Heather."

Heather and Mark both startled at the command and turned to watch as a blonde woman in a tactical vest came out of the shadows. She had cold blue eyes and a pistol pointed at Heather, each as frightening as the other.

Heather exclaimed in surprise, "No fucking way. Little Jenny Burton? Hi, Jenny. You're going to stop me? I don't think so, you loser. You were a loser then and you're a loser now." Heather grabbed at her husband's shirt and yanked him in front of her, putting her pistol to his head. "Drop your gun, Jenny. Drop it or the super radar engineer is going to immediately resign from his newest project."

Sarah kept the gun pointed at Heather, but after a few moments put it aside on a nearby desktop.

"Ok, Heather. Let him go," she said.

Heather merely grinned and took the gun from her husband's head to point it at Sarah. "God, you're an idiot too."

Mark threw himself backward and knocked Heather to the ground, landing on top of her. He managed to knock the gun out of her hand and under some nearby desks. She rolled him off of her and jumped to her feet, kicking him in the head as she did so, knocking him out.

Sarah was within arm's length of her by that point and her punch took Heather in the chin and staggered her back. Sarah said, "Casey, I have the Ratners up here. The wife is working with the Russians. Keep an eye on the ones outside. I've got this covered here." He acknowledged her update.

Heather righted herself and took a karate stance. She smirked, "You don't have shit covered, Jenny. I have a blackbelt in karate."

Sarah took her own fighting stance and said, "No kidding? That's cool. From which strip mall?" Heather, stung by the jibe, threw a kick at Sarah's midsection, which Sarah easily blocked.

Heather followed up with a left-right-left combination of punches, only one of which clipped Sarah. Heather said, "Hey, talk to your dad lately? He still in prison?"

Rather than replying, Sarah snapped an elbow into Heather's jaw and a knee into Heather's gut. Heather rolled backwards across a desk, but she held a grenade in her hand that she'd pulled from Sarah's vest. Heather pulled the pin on the cylindrical device.

"Back off, you stupid cow. I have a grenade," Heather snarled. "I was always better than you."

Surprising Heather, Sarah leapt over the desk and knocked the grenade flying. It landed on someone's desk and detonated with a bang and a flash of light.

"Same arrogance you've always had, Heather," said Sarah, hitting Heather with a solid right cross. The other woman staggered back, but recovered and came at Sarah with a roundhouse kick. Sarah leaned back and the kick passed harmlessly in front of her. Sarah's return kick, though, caught Heather in the kidney, making the woman grunt in pain.

The flashbang had caused some of the papers on the desk to catch on fire. As the fire grew, the building's sprinkler system was triggered and both women found themselves facing off under the running water from the ceiling. The fire alarm began to howl.

Within moments, the women combatants were soaking wet. Their hair plastered down and their clothes clinging to them.

Heather charged at Sarah and grabbed her, wet hands slipping somewhat. "You're nothing but a jailbird's daughter, you bitch. I'm better than you. I was a cheerleader. I dated the captain of the football team. I had friends and went to parties. You were nothing. A pathetic nothing."

Sarah used a simple judo throw to toss Heather around the edge of the desk they were standing near. Heather rolled away and came to her feet. Sarah said, "Pathetic, huh? You want to know what's pathetic, Heather? You and your glory days. It's pathetic that the best days of your life were ten years ago … in high school. Now that's pathetic. You see, Heather, the best days of my life haven't even happened yet. And my life just gets better and better with every passing day."

Heather screamed at her and threw a high kick at Sarah's head. Sarah caught the foot with both hands, swiveled her hips, and executed a textbook yoko geri kekomi, a side thrust kick, to the inside of the knee of Heather's support leg. Sarah kept her hands on Heather's high leg as the other knee buckled and Heather screamed in agony from multiple torn ligaments.

Sarah bent to the downed woman and punched her once in the face very hard, knocking her unconscious. Standing up, Sarah murmured, "Go Cougars."

Heather's phone began to ring.

"Walker, what's going on?" asked Casey in her ear.

"Flashbang went off and triggered the sprinklers. I've just subdued the wife. She knocked out her husband. What are the Russians up to?"

"Getting nervous from the fire alarm. They look like they are trying to call someone."

"The wife. Her phone is ringing. I'll come down to you after I check on Mark."

"Roger that," he said.

Less than a minute later, Sarah was with Casey looking out at the Russians.

One of the men from the parking lot approached the glass door to the lobby and began to bang on it. Sarah and Casey were hidden from view, so he must have been trying to attract Heather's attention when she didn't answer her phone.

"What's going on upstairs?" Casey asked.

"Mark is still out. Heather is out, but zip tied. She'll need medical attention. I fucked up her knee," said Sarah without expression.

Still looking at the increasingly nervous Russians, Casey asked, deadpan, "She's the one who was a bitch in high school, right?"

A ghost of a smile played on Sarah's lips for a blink-and-you-miss-it moment and she said, "Yeah."

Casey grunted in understanding.

As they watched, two large black vans roared into the parking lot blocking any movement from the Russian's cars. Men and women in FBI windbreakers and carrying assault rifles poured out of the two vans and surrounded the Russians. The FBI agents were shouting and the Russians were shouting back, but raising their hands.

The last figure to leave the van, also wearing an FBI windbreaker, was Chuck.

Sarah and Casey opened the front door to the building and stepped outside into the night air.

Chuck saw them immediately and jogged over to them. He gave Casey a squeeze on the shoulder and Sarah a kiss. "What's going on?" he asked.

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An hour later, offices of Winthrop Keller

Mark Ratner sat at a conference room table with an instant icepack held to the side of his head and said to Chuck and Sarah, "I can't believe it. I can't believe that Heather did this."

"I know. I'm sorry, Mark," said Sarah.

"I suspected she wasn't happy...but to orchestrate this whole thing with the Russian mob...holy shit. It's insane," he said, shaking his head.

"Well," said Chuck, "thanks to you we stopped her. She's in for some very serious charges, I'm afraid. Five men died tonight."

"I know. I'm just so glad those two FBI agents weren't hurt. I mean, I'm not happy the Russians got killed, but..."

Sarah put her hand on his arm to comfort him. "I know, Mark."

"And Jenny...I can't believe you're Jenny Burton from high school," he said, looking at her with amazement. "And you saved me, you saved my life."

"Well, I'm using the name Sarah Walker now, but yeah, I was Jenny Burton."

"Wow. This whole thing is so crazy. I haven't thought about you in years. Are you going to the reunion?"

"Umm, no. I didn't even know about it," said Sarah.

"Well, yeah, of course not. You're out there being an awesome crime fighter and stuff. You wouldn't want to hang around with us. I get it."

Sarah and Chuck shared a look. Chuck said, "Are you still going to your reunion? I mean, after all this with Heather..."

"Oh, yeah. I know. I probably won't go, I guess. We were going to go together. Heather and I. I don't know. It would be pretty weird to go stag at this point. But I feel sort of bad. I was looking forward to it. I'd hate to go alone, you know?"

Sarah and Chuck shared another look. She sighed and said, "When is it?"

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A/N2: The strip mall joke comes from Steelejay. I'm not that funny. Thanks, buddy.

A/N3: It wouldn't be right to smile when Heather got hurt. That would be wrong. Wrong. What do you guys think? Let me know, please. I love to hear from you.