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Disclaimer: We don't own Chuck and we're not making any money writing this.


It had been three days and two nights since the cabin fire.

Well… both cabin fires. Only one of them was a literal fire.

Luckily things had at least seemed to settle between her and Chuck. He was impressively focused. When they'd chanced venturing out and eating a few of their meals in the dining room, Chuck had flashed on a handful of Ring agents. Sarah had been careful to take pictures of them with what Chuck called her "spy brooch" so that they could ship them off to Shaw and Casey back home and get dossiers on the Ring operatives in return. They needed to know what and who they were working against.

They'd spent their days wandering the ship, Chuck flashing on Ring agents over and over and over again, nursing headaches as a result, and Sarah subtly capturing images of each agent's face to send back to whomever was stationed at Castle in Burbank, whether that was Shaw or Casey. Usually it was Shaw, since he lived there now. Which… she tried not to dwell on that, or how it creeped her out.

That was how they spent their days...but the two nights since that morning were a little more complicated. The first night, they'd fallen asleep on opposite sides of the bed and she woke up having rolled half on top of him, her leg slung over both of his, her face buried under his chin. They'd pulled away before a repeat of the morning before could happen, knowing looks on both of their faces. And things had been...well, awkward for a few minutes while they got dressed for the day. And last night Sarah had woken up halfway through the night to use the restroom and found that Chuck had taken the extra pillows they weren't using and lined them up through the center of the mattress, between where he slept and where she slept. A barrier of sorts to keep them apart while they slept.

It had made her laugh to wake up and see it. And he'd rolled over, looked down, blushed, and muttered, "Well, it worked." She hadn't had the courage to ask if he'd woken up in the middle of the night to find they'd started snuggling again, broke away without waking her, and set up the pillow wall to protect them for the rest of the night.

It was ridiculous, but for the time being, it was necessary. Apparently.

What they'd learned the last three days was that there were at least fifteen or more Ring agents. And she was positive there were more. They were most likely all over the ship. And some of them were part of the staff; at least one of the men Chuck had flashed on was a crew-member, someone who worked in the control room.

It was terrifying.

They'd relayed that information to First Officer Valle, much to Sarah's chagrin. But Chuck felt it was necessary he knew there was someone amongst his ranks who was employed by a terrorist organization. Valle had seemed shaken by the news. She'd told him not to act on it, but to just be careful around his subordinate, to step lightly, and to make sure he didn't know about his relationship with Hannah. A relationship Sarah still couldn't quite figure out.

Sarah was stirred from her thoughts by Chuck's hand draping over hers on top of the table where they'd been seated for dinner. She looked up from her lobster and met his gaze.

"You all right, darling?" he asked, his cover smile in place. It was a little toothy, but she decided not to correct him on it. He was still learning. But less was usually more.

She shook her head and turned her hand over in his. "Yes, of course. Why wouldn't I be? On this lovely trip with my husband…"

Chuck beamed, but the grin faltered a bit as his gaze lifted over her shoulder. His eyelids fluttered and his jaw fell open. His hand twitched in hers, and then he dropped his chin to his chest and groaned. His grip tightened in hers, almost a little painfully, but she just clung back just as hard, thinking maybe it was a way to let him know she was here. "Oh that was a big one," he breathed, his head still down, grip finally loosening just a tad.

Sarah leaned in. "You flashed again?"

"Yeah."

"Can you stand? Let's go out to the dance floor. We can talk easier there."

He nodded, his brow still furrowed in pain. She led him away from their dinner and onto the dance floor as the band on stage played some old big band slow tune. He tightened his arm around her and pulled her in close so that he could lower his lips to her ear. He was moving normally and wasn't leaning too heavily on her, at least. "Don't order any drinks at the bar."

"The bartender?" she asked him quietly.

"Yep. He's got quite the rap sheet. The Intersect just gave me a receipt as long as Moby-Dick."

She frowned. "Don't they do background checks on people for these jobs on cruise-liners?"

"He could've easily given them a fake identity, right? There's no way a cruise-liner making hires would be able to know that." He shrugged. He had a point and she nodded her assent. Hadn't she done the same thing to get jobs as a CIA agent?

"Dance me closer to the bar," she said, slipping her arm around his neck and grinning at him the way a newly wedded wife would grin at her husband.

"Yes, ma'am," he said, grinning back. And he did a strange little two-step move to the left, then spun her out towards the bar. It only took her a moment to get a good look at the burly bartender, and she pinched her brooch, hearing the quiet click, before Chuck spun her back against his chest. "You get it?"

"Mhmmmm." She moved in closer, a happy and flirtatious look on her face.

"Kind of like a hairier Casey, huh?"

She snorted. "Oh, you're so lucky we don't have mics for this mission."

"I think all of us are."

She snorted again as he led her back into the midst of the other couples. "Your head okay?"

"Hurts like a bitch, thanks for asking." He smiled softly as she frowned up at him in concern. "Don't worry, I've built up a bit of an immunity." Then he wrinkled his nose. "Well, not exactly an immunity. I'm just...used to it."

She didn't like the sound of that. That he'd gotten used to being in pain from the Intersect flashes. She unconsciously slipped a cool hand around the back of his neck and rubbed gently. "I'm sorry."

His eyelids fluttered and he leaned down even closer, his lips against her hair. "It's okay. Sometimes I regret not punching Bryce in his face while I had him in front of me again, though."

She smirked and pulled back to look up at him. "That's not your style, Mr. Villanueva."

He relented with a sigh and shrugged. "It could be." Then he did one of his genuine Chuck smiles that showed his teeth and made his nose do that wrinkling thing.

Giggling, she stepped back in against him and rested her cheek on his shoulder, her eyes slipping shut for just a moment. Knowing there were Ring agents everywhere didn't stop her from letting herself enjoy this moment, reveling in how safe and comfortable being in his arms felt…

But when she opened her eyes again, she saw First Officer Nick Valle rush into the dining room. Rather he trotted down the first few steps of the staircase that led up to the guest cabins. His gaze swept through the room, and when he saw her, he stopped, just as she feared he would, his grip tightening on the railing of the stairs.

He didn't need to say anything, he didn't need to gesture. Instead, he turned on his heel and left the way he came.

Sarah pulled back from Chuck and her lips twitched a bit. "You know...sweetie...I'm feeling a bit...lightheaded. Dizzy. Maybe it's the boat. Too much champagne? I dunno. Would you mind taking me back to the room? I'm sorry."

Chuck picked up on the significant crackle of her blue eyes though, she knew, because he clenched his jaw and nodded, before he smiled back, concern in his face. "Of course, darling."

Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, he moved them both through the throngs of guests and to the staircase. "What's going on?" he asked in her ear.

"Valle just appeared at the top of the staircase and was looking for us. When he found us, he left again. I'm pretty sure he has something he needs to talk to us about."

Once they stepped out of the dining area, Sarah scanned the room and saw Valle's back disappear around the corner as he moved outside and onto the deck. "There," she breathed, taking lead. She felt Chuck right on her heels, his hand lightly pressed against her lower back for the cover.

They found Valle behind a post, leaning against the railing and looking out at the pitch black expanse that stretched for hundreds of miles as far as she knew. When they approached, he popped open a cigarette case and thrusted it at the spies, raising a dark eyebrow.

"No, thank you," Sarah said, leaning against the railing beside him.

Chuck stood next to her, gaping. "You really don't mess around with this whole nineteen-forties theme, do you guys?"

Nick snorted, then took a cigarette out for himself. "It's real tobacco, too." He set it between his lips. "None of the chemicalized crap people smoke now," he said with it clenched in his teeth, shoving the case in his pocket and taking a lighter out. As he lit his cigarette, the acrid smell of burning tobacco filled her nose. "Sorry, I'm actually trying to wean myself off. I'm stressed and this is what happens when I have stress. Always seems to help, ya know?" He took a long puff from it and let it out slowly.

"Did something happen?" Sarah asked, eyeing him closely.

"Not sure. It could be big, or it could be I'm just paranoid now." Sarah just stared at him silently, waiting for him to continue. "But the guy you pointed out for me—Michelson—the one you said was a part of that terrorism shit or whatever… You're right. He is part of it." His eyes darkened.

"How do you know that?" Chuck asked.

"I got close to him and he had an earpiece in his ear. Like I'm an idiot, like I'm not gonna see that…" Anger swept over his face. "So I carefully followed him and saw a few people he talked to in different areas. Like we're doing now. None of 'em looked...right. They all made me uneasy."

"It takes a psycho to do business with the Ring."

Sarah sighed. "Or desperation. Abject desperation."

"I followed one of the women he spoke to. He passed her a note and she took it to a cabin that's in the same hallway as Hannah's cabin. The same hallway," he hissed. "Only three doors down. It can't be a coincidence, they've got someone into a cabin that's so close to hers."

He took a long, nervous drag from his cigarette.

"Do you have that person's cabin number?" she asked.

He gave her a calculating look. "I might. Why? What are you planning to do?" He narrowed his eyes. "I can't be party to anyone breaking into anyone else's cabin on this ship. I'm the First Officer; part of my job is making sure everyone is afforded protection under the law. Maritime law."

Sarah sent Chuck a quick look. "Understood," she said, turning back to First Officer Valle. He knew. She could see it in his face. If he gave her the cabin number of this potential Ring agent, she would make it her business to investigate the cabin in question.

And still, he sighed, rolled his eyes a little—probably at himself more than anything else—and pulled a folded up piece of paper out of his pocket. She thrust her hand out and he slapped it into her palm, before going back to his cigarette.

"I had nothing to do with any of this," he muttered, not even looking at either of them.

"We don't even know what you're talking about. Any of what? We—Ow." Chuck gave her a disgruntled look as she elbowed him in the arm. She gave him her best 'shut up' look, then ushered him away from Valle ahead of her.

She waited until they were back inside, cloaked by the walls of the hallway, before she unfolded the paper. It was the cabin number. Which meant Valle had intended to give it to them the whole time. "I have to get into this cabin, Chuck. If this is a Ring agent Valle spotted, there might be something in their cabin that'll indicate what they're planning to do."

"With Hannah in particular," Chuck said quietly as they moved through the hallway towards the stairwell that would take them back to their own floor. "If they installed one of their terrorists into a cabin right near hers, they have something planned, right?"

"Unfortunately, that's how it looks. Which is why our gallant First Officer probably broke maritime protocol or whatever to subtly give me the green light to break into that cabin. He's worried about his girlfriend's safety."

"This means he trusts us. Score."

Sarah smirked a little. "He doesn't have any choice. The CIA didn't stick our cabin right next to Hannah Liu's. The Ring did do that. He's calculating that we're less of a threat to her. He's a smart man."

Chuck raised his eyebrows and stuck his hands in his pockets. "And very svelte in that uniform. I see why she passed me up for him."

She glared at him, unable to keep the corner of her mouth from tilting up in slight amusement. "Are you...jealous?"

"Not about her. Definitely not that. But I'd love to get my hands on a uniform like that. And to actually be able to control this mop as easily as he controls his. How's he do that? He looks like he walked right off a movie set."

Allowing herself a quiet giggle, she crunched the paper up in her fist and smiled at a couple approaching, scooting to the side to let them pass. "If it's just the uniform you want, I can pull some strings to make that happen."

"I want the natural svelteness he has too, though. To fill in the uniform." He tugged teasingly on his lapel to straighten his suit jacket.

"I think you'll do just fine," she said quietly, raising an eyebrow. She stepped in front of him and took the lead, careful not to let him see the slight hint of a blush she could feel on her cheeks. Chuck didn't reply to that, however, and she wondered if it was because he wasn't sure how to.

When they got back to their cabin, Sarah immediately changed into something more comfortable than the floor length gown she'd put on for dinner.

She emerged from the bedroom to find Chuck standing in his shirtsleeves, peering out of the curtains of their window and watching the deck outside. He glanced at her and his eyes swept down to her feet and back up to her face. It was quick and respectful, but it happened all the same.

"Okay, this has nothing to do with his svelteness that I'm admittedly jealous of, but I don't know if we should blindly trust Nick Valle, Sarah, whether he's the ship's First Officer or not." He let the curtain fall back and turned to face her crossing his arms.

She could see sincere worry in his face. "Okay. Let me have it. What's in your gut?"

"This guy is just...clearing this path for us. Telling us who the Ring agents are, giving us one of their cabin numbers. What if he's clearing the path because he knows what we'll find at the end of it?"

Sarah tilted her head in curiosity. "What are you getting at, Chuck?"

She knew what he was getting at.

"It's a trap!" he grumbled. Sarah sent him a droll look for that and he only looked a little sheepish. "Sorry. I couldn't let that opportunity pass. I had to. I really did." He cleared his throat. "Sarah, what if he is filling Ring agents in on our movements, he gave us this cabin number…" He lifted the crinkled paper from the nearby desk and shook it at her. "Knowing that you or I or both of us will show up there and get ambushed by Ring bastards lying in wait?"

Pursing her lips and twisting them to the side, she nodded. "I thought of that the moment he passed over the cabin number that he'd already written down and slipped into his pocket before he beckoned us off the dance floor to talk to him."

She couldn't decipher the look on his face very well, but she knew she liked it. "Yeah, I should've figured you'd be a step ahead of me."

"I'm a seasoned professional in this business, Chuck. I've been around for a while."

Chuck smiled and nodded. "Yeeaaah," he drawled. When she raised her eyebrows, he cleared his throat and straightened to his full height, pulling his shoulders back. "Uh, but-but are we going to do it anyway?"

"Of course we are." She studied his face, the thoughtfulness in his features, before she continued. "Chuck, part of this job is weighing the importance of the information and/or intel we might receive from an action against the potential dangers involved in said action. I was doing the weighing on the way back to our suite. The potential danger of Valle using us and maybe using Hannah is worth it."

He paused, mulling it over. "And we're going in."

"I'm going in." He gave her a look and she shook her head. "I'm not patronizing you like you can't handle this or like I'm trying to keep you from danger—though I'd prefer you not walk into a trap at this point in your training. I actually have another plan for you."

A slow smile grew on his face as they met gazes, and she smiled back just as slowly.

}o{

"Did I misspeak? Because I thought I said I wanted a First Officer's uniform. Not a bellboy's uniform."

Sarah smirked at him as she straightened the collar of his jacket, lifting her blue eyes to his. "You did, but I'm pretty sure there's only one First Officer's uniform on this ship, Chuck, and the First Officer is currently wearing it."

He smiled at the sparkle in her eyes. "Okay, fine, that's fair enough."

She swung right back into Serious Spy Mode then, meeting his gaze steadily. "You know what you have to do?"

"Yes." When she just stared at him, he continued. "Oh, you want me to tell you. Right. Makes sense. Uhh, I'm going to knock on her door, I'll tell her she has a special phone call from land on the captain's personal phone."

"Me? A phone call?" she asked, pressing her hand to her chest with a curious look on her face. "Who is calling me on the captain's phone? I'm a mere professor of physics!"

Chuck bit the inside of his cheek at Sarah's performance to keep from showing his amusement. "I don't know, ma'am. I was merely told to retrieve the passenger in question from her cabin and bring her to the bridge where the captain is holding her phone call."

"This is very irregular. There's no reason why anyone would call me on this ship. But I also have a phone in my personal cabin. Can they not transfer the call to my phone?"

She was making him think on his feet. He pushed his admitted need to impress her out of his mind as best he could and just focused. "No, ma'am, I'm afraid not."

"Why not?"

"Protocol, ma'am. The call came in through the captain's personal line."

"Good," Sarah said, breaking character. "Keep pushing without being pushy, and once you get her out of her cabin and into the hallway where she'll hopefully follow you towards the bridge...what then?"

"I tell her one of our agents is missing, haven't heard from him, last contact we had from him was when he was headed down to the hold to check Miss Liu's possessions." He clamped his hand over Sarah's as she began to tie his bowtie for him and she stopped, looking up at him again. "Something just occurred to me, Sarah."

"What?"

"What if they have code words to identify one another? Or, like, phrases they have so they can trust that whomever they're talking to is really a fellow Ring agent?"

"We have to just hope that isn't the case. But the CIA's done extensive research on the way the Ring operates—as much as we can considering how their operation is so insanely underground. I think it's a safe bet they know they have the upper hand on this ship and won't question."

"And what if they have code names for Hannah and the key? Like, so they can talk to each other out in the open without people around them knowing what they're talking about? And then I don't use the special code words and language and she knows I must be a federal agent?"

Sarah gently folded her hand over his that still gripped her other hand tightly. "Remember this is gonna be in your jacket pocket." She lifted the small bug-looking contraption from the table next to them and pulled his jacket away from his chest to slip it into the inner pocket there. "Press on it and I'll know you're in trouble and need back-up. I'm gonna be right behind you until you lead her away from his cabin. I'll be close by if you need me."

He nodded and let out a slow breath. "Okay. Got it."

"If you think you're made, press it, okay?" she said, tapping his chest with a finger before going back to tying his bowtie. "Even if you just have an inkling, or a funny feeling about a look she's giving you."

"She's a terrorist agent. I don't know if I'll be able to tell if she's caught onto me or not. I imagine she'll be a good actress."

Sarah shrugged, and he saw a bit of a smile at the corner of her lips. "You're the only person who has ever been able to see through my spy mask, Agent Carmichael," she teased. "And there's no way hers will be as good as mine always has been."

That made him grin, and he felt a bit of confidence at how sure she seemed that he'd be okay, how sure she seemed about him, about his abilities. "Okay."

"You're ready?"

"Yeah. Yes. Yep. Yes. Definitely. Mhm."

"Hey."

He blinked and looked at her. She looked up at him through her eyelashes. "If you're nervous, or even scared, Chuck, that's not a bad thing. It means you're taking this seriously, as you should be. But you've got this. Okay?"

He couldn't help thinking that Casey donning this uniform and tricking a Ring agent into thinking he's on her side would be a much more reliable situation. But Casey wasn't here. Instead, Chuck Bartowski would be undertaking the mission. And Sarah was right. She'd be near enough. He just had to slap his chest where the trigger was.

"Yeah. I've got it. Let's do this."

She grinned. "Wait. Finishing touch."

Within two minutes, the false mustache and beard were applied to the bottom half of his face with Sarah's help, his hat on top of his head. He caught Sarah watching him closely as he peered at himself in the full-length mirror.

"Not exactly svelte, but it'll do the job," he teased. "I like the facial hair. Makes me look older, don't you think? Like The Most Interesting Man in the World in his younger days." He poked the beard.

"I don't know what you're talking about, but you don't look as much like you. And that's the most important thing." She grabbed that floppy felt hat of hers and put it on, grabbing her lock-pick kit and sticking it in her handheld purse. "You go first."

Nodding, he made for the door, but as he reached it, he felt her fingers wrap around his wrist and stop him. As he turned back, she smoothed her hand down the front of his uniform, switching her weight between feet, and biting her lip. "Keep your head on straight, Chuck. Focus. There are people out there who doubt you. In spite of everything, I'm not one of them. Neither is Casey, and for that matter, add General Beckman to the list. Prove the rest of them wrong. B-But be careful. Please."

Warmth spread through him at the earnestness in her. He wanted so badly to just lean in and kiss her. But he didn't. He took what she'd said in bed a few days ago seriously, and knew she'd meant it when she begged him to understand why they couldn't act on this now. Not yet. So instead, he reached up with a gloved hand and gently fixed a wavy lock that escaped her hat away from her face.

"You too, Nancy Drew."

With a grin, he swung out of their suite and checked to make sure nobody was in the hallway. It wouldn't look great for a dashing bellboy steward guy to come out of a married couple's suite. People would think some tawdry things and they were trying to exist on this ship a little more under the radar.

He inwardly snorted at himself and hurried into the hallway and began his trek to Hannah's floor. He heard the door shut behind him as he strolled along, the click of the lock, and he knew Sarah was in pursuit.

Considering he was about to look a Ring agent right in her face and lie, considering everything that could go wrong in that situation, having Sarah remind him that she, Casey, and General Beckman had faith in his abilities to do this job had buoyed his confidence. He was nervous, but he could do this.

And he knew that the better he was at getting Renata Weissman out of her cabin and far away from it altogether, the safer Sarah would be in searching the place for anything that would help them figure out just what the Ring's intentions were—with Hanna Liu in particular.

Thanks to Casey's dossier, as sparse as it was, they at least knew which name she was going by on the ship's ledger. If she had a code name, Chuck would have to try to tiptoe around that situation.

A lot of this would be feeling the water, letting her dictate the conversation so that he didn't stick his foot in his mouth or step in it, as it were. He and Sarah had stayed awake through most of the night as she gave him a crash course on how to handle the conversation with Renata. Saying as little as possible, not being too buddy-buddy—which was his natural inclination, she'd informed him, wanting people to like him immediately. He couldn't deny it, though he had been humbled by their conversation. It didn't matter how she felt about him as long as she believed he was part of the Ring.

When he reached Hannah's floor, he saw that it was devoid of other passengers. Most were out on deck enjoying the beautiful weather, he imagined. Others might be enjoying a late-morning brunch in the dining room.

That was good.

Sarah was going to have to break into Renata's suite and it'd be best if no one saw her doing it.

He could feel how sweaty his palms were under the gloves and he stupidly rubbed his hands on his pants, as if that would do anything. Huffing and rolling his eyes at himself, he stepped up to Renata Weissman's suite door and just stood there for a moment.

When he stole a quick glance down the hall, he saw a floppy felt hat sticking out from behind the corner for just a split second before it disappeared. Sarah was there, watching and waiting.

Moment of truth.

He knocked.

There was movement inside as he folded his hands behind his back and stood straight, lifting his chin. He had a good five seconds to run and rejoin Sarah around the corner. He could make it.

But then she opened the door, pushing her straight, short, blond hair out of her face and eyeing him severely, her bright red lips pursed. "Yes, what is it?" she asked, her accent slight, clipped, German perhaps.

"Miss Weissman, very sorry for the disturbance, but a phone call has come through for you on the captain's phone and you're to accompany me to the bridge to take it," he said.

She frowned and her eyes narrowed. "A phone call?" she asked. "Who on earth is calling me here? I told my university I would not be able to stay in contact while I was on this cruise…"

"I am sorry, miss. I don't know anything about the circumstances of the call. I was flagged down by an officer and sent to retrieve you to take you back to the bridge."

"This doesn't make any sense," she said, her eyes narrowing further. "I have my own phone in my suite. Can't they just connect the call here?"

"No, miss. I'm afraid it was a call placed through the captain's personal line, and therefore it cannot be transferred to any of our guest suites."

She was extremely dubious, but he kept his features steady, making sure she couldn't read into anything in his face. "Well… give me a moment."

He bowed slightly and took a step back as she went inside of her suite and slammed the door shut hard. Chuck jumped slightly and licked his lips, glancing down the hallway. Sarah poked her head out and shrugged in question. He didn't react more than just sending her wide eyes and pressing his lips together before he turned back.

He'd managed to glance over Renata's head, as she was barely five feet tall, and saw her suite, at least the room he could see into, was empty. It made him feel better about Sarah heading in there alone, and without an S.O.S. trigger like the one she'd slipped into his jacket pocket.

"All right. Take me to the phone, I guess," Renata groused as she turned to shut and lock her suite door, slipping the key in the long walking cloak she'd thrown on over her skirt and blouse.

"Yes, ma'am. This way to the bridge."

Chuck took the lead, careful to resist the urge to look over his shoulder and see if Sarah was watching from the other end of the hallway. He'd successfully executed the first part of his duty, and now came the hardest part.

He waited until they were out on the deck before he took the next step. He held the door open for her and as she stepped over the threshold, he said, "We think they got one of our own."

He watched as Renata went rigid. But she recovered quickly and turned to face him as he stepped to the side and shut the door behind him. "Excuse me?"

"He was sent down to the hold to check her baggage for the…" He lowered his voice significantly. "Key. And nobody has seen him since. I'm supposed to be on deck duty. That damn First Officer is a hard ass; he's watching us all like a hawk. If I'm found in the hold, it would be extremely suspicious. We need you to go there and see if you can find anything that's amiss."

"I'm not an errand girl. I have my assignment and I'm sticking to it," she snarled.

"If they got him, they can get you, too. Or me. Any of us." He met her gaze solidly. "You're the only one with a good enough cover story to be down there." Chuck went out on a limb then. "What with your having some of your luggage in the hold as well."

She sighed, annoyed. "True." Oh thank God. "All right. Fine. I'll go."

"I'll take you part of the way there but then I have to head up to the deck again."

Renata nodded and let him lead her in the opposite direction from the bridge, as he led her around the ship and back inside to the nearest staircase. For at least an hour the night before, he and Sarah had planned on him knocking the Ring agent unconscious and locking her in a closet or something to buy Sarah more time. But once she came to, she'd immediately have a face to pin to one of the federal agents she and her Ring terrorists knew were onboard. The mustache and beard wouldn't protect him.

This way, she could forget about the fellow Ring agent amongst the dozens they'd stuck on this ship, find the body of the agent they'd left below, and Chuck might fade into the background of her memory in the hubbub of trying to figure out what to do with their dead peer.

Chuck halted and checked his watch. "Just keep going down, make a left as you hit the door. There may be a sailor on post there, but you'll find a way past them."

She just smirked coldly and kept going.

Letting out a silent sigh of relief, Chuck hurried in the other direction, stopping at the top of the stairs and opening the door to let it clang shut so she'd heard it… without him actually leaving through it, before he silently turned on his heel and snuck back down the stairs to stalk the Ring agent.

He needed to keep her down there. He needed her to go into the hold and find that body. It would distract Renata and the other agents and give Sarah enough time to carry out her part of the mission.

He just hoped she was okay.

}o{

Part of her hoped there was at least one Ring agent lying in wait for her to break into Renata Weissman's suite. She could use a good fight, get some extra energy out. Some frustration.

But she smirked as she swept through the place and found it empty. No luck, she thought.

Of course, she checked the terrorist's closet first. That had been Chuck's inspired advice early this morning, when he was loopy with exhaustion and they were figuring this whole plan out. No, listen. You have to look in her closet first, Sarah, okay? Why? Because! This is the way it works. She probably thinks there's a chance federal agents, spies like us, are going to inspect her room, right? So she's got it ingrained in her head that wherever she is, when she has somethin' to hide, she's gotta hide it in the closet. Chuck, wouldn't that be the first place someone would look? That's literally where you put things you don't want people to see. That's it's prime function. Exactly! She's gonna know that a smart, seasoned spy like you is going to think what you just thought, and therefore, they're gonna look somewhere else, somewhere less obvious! So of course, it follow reason she puts it in the last place a smart spy would look—the closet!

It hadn't followed reason at all, but he was so sure of himself. And so tired. When he'd fallen asleep accidentally a few minutes later, she'd just eased him down on the couch to get more comfortable and let him sleep while she kept planning.

And now, damn it, she was slipping gloves on and checking the closet. If only he could see her at this very moment…

She forced herself not to think about what Chuck was actually doing right now. Walking side by side with a Ring agent, pretending he was also a Ring agent. Could he pull it off? Yes, absolutely. She knew he could. But if this Renata Weissman woman was really some kind of college professor, she wasn't going to be easy to fool. Chuck was going to have to take some chances.

And she was thinking about it.

Growling to herself, stamping down the worry, she rummaged through the closet. Clothes, clothes, more clothes, an empty suitcase, a jewelry box with...damn, just jewelry inside. She checked the inside for any false walls or anything that something could be hidden behind, then hurried through the room making a search in a zig zag pattern.

She'd done quick searches like this many times in the last decade she'd been with the CIA. The kind of search where you weren't entirely sure what you were actually looking for, just waiting for something to jump out at you, trigger your spy sense, as Chuck would call it.

And it wasn't until she zigged and zagged back towards the desk in the bedroom that she felt those spy senses go off. Just like in her own suite, the chair pushed up against the desk had a puffy red cushion on its seat—only Renata Weissman's cushion was tilted just enough at one corner that Sarah was sure something was under it. As she pulled the cushion up, she saw a notebook.

Renata must've stuffed it under there when she was finished with it, an extra bit of security in case someone did break into her suite, the way Sarah just had. It was half-assed security, and as Sarah carefully opened up the notebook and thumbed through it, she saw that Renata had also done a half-assed job at tearing out whatever page she'd torn out of the notebook, the last one she'd written on, considering everything else after it was blank.

She'd written notes and had left the rest of the pages alone. Why'd she rip out that page, Sarah wondered?

Taking her pocket-sized spy camera out from where she'd stuck it in her waistband, she took pictures of as many of the pages as she could. It'd be easier to just steal it, she knew, but then the Ring agent would know her room had been broken into and she'd realize Chuck had been the one to lead her away, and it would cement him in Renata's brain just as much as if he attacked her and locked her in a closet.

But when she got to the ragged fringe from the poorly removed last page Renata had written on, Sarah nibbled her lip. If she'd written hard enough, Sarah might be able to at least get an idea of what she'd written. Nothing in the notebook was specifically a plan about this particular situation with Hannah, unfortunately. But maybe this last page…

Sarah got to work as quickly as she could, pulling a scrap paper out of her waistband and flattening it against the page behind the one Renata had torn out. Using Renata's pencil she'd left on the desk, Sarah etched as carefully and as quickly as possible.

It was mostly illegible, she found as she held it up to the light streaming through the window. She couldn't make out much. But some things stuck out. She didn't have time to read it at that moment, however, because she asked Chuck to make sure she had at least twenty minutes, and she'd now hit her twenty-third minute.

She had to get out of here.

Running her eyes through the place to make sure it was all exactly as it had been before she'd entered, she ripped open the suite door and peeked out into the hallway. An elderly man turned the corner at the end of the hallway and disappeared, leaving Sarah alone, so she quickly stepped out and shut the door, kneeling down to relock the door with her lock-pick.

It was when she reached the staircase to head back to her own floor that she felt the sudden buzz in the breast pocket of her blouse.

Chuck!

"Shit!" she hissed, and she blasted her way down the stairs, lamenting that she'd left their suite packing only three throwing knives. What had happened? What sort of a situation was he in? Had Renata found him out? Was she holding him at gunpoint? Had she called in reinforcements?

Sarah knew Chuck had led Renata towards the hold, because that was their plan, and she had to trust he'd carried out the plan. So she didn't stop. She burst out of the door and rushed through the corridor towards the corner around which was the entrance into the hold—the same hold where she'd murdered someone and made out with a particular newly minted NSA agent in the span of maybe fifteen minutes or so.

She heard voices around the corner and listened immediately for Chuck's.

"What the fuck happened?"

"That's what I asked you!"

Sarah paused right at the corner and plastered herself to the wall.

"There was no one else down there?"

"No. Just these porters."

"Look, Jem's gonna take care of the porters. Right, Jem? But I want to know how one of our own ends up shoved behind some pipes in the hold of a ship."

"Oh, come on," the female voice answered sourly. She had a bit of an accent, which made her think it was probably Renata. "How do you think? The feds killed him, the bastards. Who sent him down to check Liu's luggage?"

"I don't know. I didn't give that order. Last I checked, weren't you the one giving the orders around here?"

"Shut up. Doesn't matter now. We need to get rid of these bodies."

Bodies. That meant they'd killed the porters who were standing watch.

But more importantly, where was Chuck? Sarah very carefully eased her head around and leaned to the side, peeking as best she could without them spotting her.

She didn't see him at first, instead seeing a group of five apparent Ring agents desperately trying to scoot the bodies of porters back down the steps and into the hold, out of sight. But as she slowly pulled back, she spotted him. There. Hidden, stranded, stuck with his back against the wall in a nook big enough for him to fit into without them seeing. How in the hell had he ended up there in the first place?

He looked up, his body rigid, eyes wide, and he saw her. She pressed her finger to her lips and he sent her a flat look. She supposed she deserved that. As if he was going to yell, OH GOOD! YOU'RE HERE, SARAH!

"How did you get there?" she mouthed and he just shrugged as dramatically as he could in such a small, precarious space.

But that wasn't the most important thing, was it? It didn't matter how he'd gotten there. With five Ring agents a mere ten feet away and on high alert, how in the hell was he going to get out?


A/N: Please review if you can. It helps us out a lot. Thanks, folks!

-SC and DC