A/N: A different computer snafu had me reverting back to writing most of this out on paper. We will see if there is a difference in going back to my original method.

Chuck vs. the Killer Pimp

Chapter 4

"Chuck don't open that e-mail, Bryce cannot be trusted."

"Wha… Sarah I only started to mention an ex-roommate before you steered away from that story, but I know I didn't state his name."

"Please! This is just what I was about to tell you. Bryce is my ex-partner. We work for the CIA, well there is evidence that he went rogue on an undercover assignment and is going to steal government secrets. One of his last known acts was to access your current information which is the reason that I was assigned here."

"So you were sent here to sleep with me?"

"No… yes… maybe?" Sarah regrouped quickly, "I was sent here to acquire the information if Bryce sent it to you and establish if you were an enemy of the state. Within the assignment if it were necessary to seduce you to determine and procure the parameters of my mission I would do so. Before you bring up James Bond, seduction is an art and not simply sex. A good seductress should never have to sleep with her mark to gain what she was assigned to collect."

"I don't want to sound insulting, but how good are you?"

"Not to sound braggadocios, I'm one of the best. It isn't as though they keep a spreadsheet on that… although it wouldn't surprise me if one of the analysts has something worked up. I've heard a few of them nicknamed me the Ice Queen. Everything that we have done is because I wanted to do it with you. I need you to believe that." Sarah pleaded.

"Why? Wait… hold on a minute. I'm to believe Bryce Larkin from Connecticut is a spy? Granted he has the looks and arrogance to pull it off, but… how long had you been partners?"

The emphasis on the last word gave Sarah the sense Chuck was asking about how far her and Bryce's partnership went. She stopped herself from answering immediately and instead looked deep into his eyes and saw pain and betrayal in them. Sarah brought her palm up to Chuck's cheek and gently stroked her fingers along his temple.

Chuck visibly relaxed and lightly grasped her wrist and placed a soft kiss onto her palm before sighing and stating, "How could anybody say that about you? Granted I am still trying to comprehend all of this, but…" he trailed off seeming lost in his own thoughts sifting through everything he has been told and done since this whirlwind named Sarah entered his life.

She cautiously grasped his hand and let out a gasp of relief that he didn't pull away. The sound pulled Chuck out as he casually smiled at Sarah which brought hers out and gave her the courage to speak, "Chuck, I have to call my boss and tell him Bryce contacted you and he can tell us… me how to proceed. What other devices do you use to access your e-mail?"

"The computer here is the only one I use. As tempted as I am to use my phone or a computer at the Buy More to look at it, in general they aren't any more exciting than work, so it seems too risky. Especially when some of those things are incredibly easy to hack. I mean the FBI servers at least… I said that last part out loud, didn't I? I am not a bad person or evil, Sarah, I swear."

Sarah pushed back what Chuck had said and pulled out her phone. Seeing Chuck become jumpy she showed him her Enforcer's glare full bore and soon he was curled on his bed while Sarah relayed the pertinent facts to Graham. He shared with her the details of the break-in and that the NSA goon Casey owed her ten thousand dollars from their wager; apparently the oaf decided to include the bosses into the betting pool. Larkin did break in, steal the Intersect, and made it out of the building before Casey unloaded two into his back. For some reason they did not want to share the NSA was going to bury him in Los Angeles. Graham's interpretation of this was they were going to interrogate Bartowski to verify for themselves he is not in cahoots with Larkin. Sarah's job now was to grab his computer and corrupt his account to make it inaccessible for anybody else in the time it would take for his private jet to make it from DC to LA. She hung up the phone and took a deep breath trying to formulate a plan to accomplish everything that she wanted.

She quickly had something come to mind and gently rubbed Chuck's shoulder while softly calling to him. He responded cautiously, but was still receptive; especially with the small kiss she gave him before pulling back with a smile.

"Chuck I need you to trust me. Can you do that?" Sarah bit her bottom lip immediately after asking that question.

"Well… I do think you are telling the truth that whatever Bryce sent me is most likely dangerous, and I do want to trust you Sarah, honestly."

Sarah looked into his eyes and saw that he did need something from her. Reaching back into her vast experience from the con game to the spy game this is what made her the best. She had an innate ability to tell or show a person what they needed in order to gain their trust. With Chuck it all came crumbling down, she did not want to cajole or manipulate him. She was certain if she corrupted this situation her fate was sealed forever in this cacophony of lies; doomed to exist merely in the shadows and whose only remembrance would be in sealed files and an anonymous silver star on a wall once she had tempted fate one time too many.

"Chuck… I'm a spy, this is all I know how to be. I lie for a living, but you deserve more than that." She maintained eye contact knowing that if she moved away conveying the weakness she felt it would be a manipulation, "I need to take your computer and leave tonight and Bryce was more than just my partner."

As much as her heart screamed to tell him how she had felt more in this past day then in the last almost twenty years she remained quiet. She could see in his eyes that he was still filtering everything and trying to parse out what was going on. She could feel a tear begin to form and chose to close her eyes to prevent that from happening. When she opened them for the first time Chuck's eyes were cold.

"Sarah, I need to go to the bathroom for a moment." Sarah simply nodded her head.

She heard the door close followed by a guttural roar followed by silence then the faucet running before the door opened again and heard his footsteps leading back to the bedroom. She expectantly turned her head to see him standing in the doorway looking puzzled.

"Sarah, I was in the bathroom for almost fifteen minutes. That should have been more than enough time to take my computer and go. Why are you still here?" Not giving more that a moment to answer that he immediately fires another question, "Have you moved?"

Sarah shook her head as the ramification of what Chuck said hit her. He gave her the opportunity to make an essentially clean break with his bathroom sojourn. To add to her kicking herself as to how she was completely oblivious to that she opened her mouth to softly say, "I don't want to hurt you."

Chuck was completely unsure of what to make of what Sarah had just said. It was said in as non-threatening a manner as he could imagine, but the longer nothing else was said a dread came over him that although she may not want to, her orders could be counter to that. At the continued silence Chuck was about to snap, both from the silence and the absolute unknown of what would be happening in a relatively short period of time. "What's going on Sarah!" both were shocked by the outburst from Chuck as it was far more intense than he imagined he could ever be, but Sarah was startled off the bed.

"I'm sorry." Came contritely out of Chuck's mouth as he knelt down to check on Sarah. She brushed some hair off of his face and turned to lean against the bed while on the floor. Chuck followed suit and to fill the silence began to speak that he is mostly angry at himself for wasting these last five years in feeling nothing and that he understands that fairness is the cruelest word in the English language and is going to tell Sarah why. Sarah snaps herself out of the malaise she was in to stop Chuck with soft kisses on his mouth.

"I know what happened between you, Bryce, and Jill. When we were partners every few months something would come up that would make him think of you. Initially I could tell he didn't like what he had done and he shared things from his perspective. After about a year it shifted to where he would get angry when those things would crop up and blame everybody else for the situation. Last night I heard these things from your perspective and you have nothing to apologize for."

"Wha… I did come close to sharing some of that stuff, but I didn't think it quite fit in to the other things we were doing at the time." Chuck added earnestly.

Sarah nodded her understanding with a smile and eyebrow waggle before she dropped her head and got up. She quickly put on her little red number and grabbed the surveillance bugs in the room along with her underwear. Chuck recognized the bugs as they looked similar to something two of his co-workers had placed in the women's rest room of the Buy More. The implication that Sarah saw him at his lowest moments last night hurt him deeply.

"Ok, so I wasn't good enough for a James Bond seduction, or be a Bryce Larkin substitute, but I was enough for a pity fuck!"

The slap was instantaneous, it was loud and it hurt like hell. It took Chuck almost a minute before he could see clearly once again and the sight of a nostril flaring, enraged Sarah Walker convinced him his time on this planet was going to be short. He took what he suspected would be the last look before he was processed or eliminated or whatever the term was for killed in the current spy vernacular and what he saw took his breath away. The evident strength in her body combined with the ferocity of her glare contrasted with the memories of the softness of her skin and the way her eyes would literally twinkle when she held a certain smile. He came to the realization she was the most interesting creature ever created and he deserved to be damned for not spending every last moment cherishing every minute thing he had yet to discover.

Sarah was chiding herself on her temper, but felt completely justified. He had completely belittled the most amazing night of her life and now he was just staring at her. The look he was giving was so intense; it wasn't a glare, but scrutinizing yet appreciative began to peck away at her spy façade. What was he looking for? Moving away from his eyes for a moment her eyes gravitated towards the cheek she had struck and her shoulders demonstrably fall as the red clearly outlines where she connected. Her bottom lip began to tremble before she was cocooned in heat.

"Sarah, I am sorry. I've let Bryce Larkin dictate how I've viewed myself for the past five years; so it would make morbid sense that I would ruin the greatest night of my life by doing it one more time. I just want to thank you for last night and I know it meant something to you as well. You deserve so much… so much and I don't blame you. It isn't your fault to do what you have to… in fact as long as the last thing I get to see is you I can die…"

"Oh my God Chuck shut up!"

"Wha?"

Sarah put both hands on Chuck's head, although she winced as she could feel the heat from the slap, "Don't you dare finish what you were about to say… That's why you thought I stayed when you went into the bathroom I was given an order to liquidate you?"

Chuck did his best to evade Sarah's eyes, but he meekly nodded nevertheless.

"Chuck I know it is impossible to believe after…" Chuck could see Sarah's eyes drift towards his cheek and begin to fill with moisture.

"Sarah, I truly deserved that."

"You did."

Chuck giggled long enough that Sarah did as well and soon they were resting their foreheads on the other. After Chuck sighed, "What happens now?"

"With the computer or us?"

Chuck paused for a moment, desperately wanting to say us, but he was elated enough that she was the one to first utter 'us' in reference to them, "Computer".

Sarah swallowed knowing she dodged a bullet with his answer, but a quick look into his eyes told her just the mention of them together was enough for now. That type of dedication needed to be rewarded with a kiss, which led to another, which led to Sarah becoming disrobed shortly after.

A/N: This is not at all where I planned to end this chapter, but it is nice to not always try to force an end to a chapter with a cliffhanger and instead a naked Sarah. However with the roller coaster they were on I think it is better to not try to add in some things which can easily fit into the next chapter and not dilute what I wrote here.

As I stated above, for technical reasons, I had to write out essentially the rest of the story which has its good and bad points. Good: I don't slave thirty minutes over a sentence, somewhat bad I can go off on tangents. The next chapter will arguably be the last, however there will be an epilogue which could easily be a chapter of itself and a chapter that I could not keep within this story, but needs this story to understand it. This deleted scene will be done after the epilogue. The good news it is all already written out, the bad it needs to be transferred from paper to Word.

Thanks to all of those that are still following and/or favoriting this story and any of my other ones. It is most definitely appreciated however I'm not trying to be haughty or negative as I probably misconstrued what following is, but following a story marked complete won't do anything as there should be no more forthcoming chapters. I apologize if I am wrong on that.