Chapter 2- That which we leave behind

A/N- Sorry this took longer than I expected, something happened with my computer and I lost all my work in progress, but considering the abuse I put this thing through its entitled to throw a fit once in awhile.

Oh I forgot to mention that italics are either used in a flashback or text messages.

Sarah took another sip of her mojito and replaced it on the bar. As she did she spotted a man heading straight for her from across the bar. The guy wasn't unattractive; the smart Wall Street type and normaly she would have been flattered by his attention, but tonight she had simply wanted to alone.

"Can I buy you a drink?" He asked slipping into the seat next to her.

She put on a fake smile and turned to him, "How long have you been here?"

"Couple hours, now how about that drink?"

"So you saw me come in? Saw me reject that first guy when I walked in the door, the second when I sat down, and the two that came in after that?

"Yeah, now abou—"

"Did you think you were so charming that I wouldn't be able to resist? I happened to just want to come down here and enjoy a nice quiet drink alone." Sarah downed the rest of her drink.

"Your drinking a mojito? Barkeep put her next drink on my tab."

Sarah turned intending to tell him where to stick it, but he was already retreating back to his friends.

The bartender replaced her drink with a smile, "Must be some boyfriend to turn him down." She said while taking a minute to ogle the man who had just returned to his friends.

"How did you?"

The bartender just smiled, "You've been checking your phone every thirty seconds and are giving off enough signs that say "I'm happily off the market" to fill up every billboard from here to Vegas. So I'm going to guess it's the first time you two have been away from each other?"

Sarah was immediately suspicious, surely she wasn't that obvious?

"Also you told one of the previous guys that you had a boyfriend." She said before moving down the bar to deal with another customer.

A moment later Sarah felt her phone vibrate.

Hey! I finally convinced them that my phone was not a national security threat. Only took them three days to realize I wasn't trying to smuggle a nuke in it.

She sighed. He was okay. I'm fine, any idea of how long you'll be there?

Three months, hey do you think there's any chance they'd let you come out and visit? Unless you're busy.

She almost chuckled to herself, she had quickly fallen into a routine:

Wake up.

Work shift at the Orange Orange.

Visit Ellie and Devon.

Briefing with Casey.

Deal with Casey's annoying barbs.

Return to hotel room.

Sleep.

I'm not busy, Chuck.

"That him?" The bartender asked a very distracted CIA agent. Sarah nodded.

A super-spy like you? Come on I'm sure your busy kicking someone's butt.

She dropped a pair of twenties on the bar and headed for the elevator.

Nope I'm free as a bird. Ellie misses you.

She anxiously hit the call button for the elevator.

You talked to Ellie?

She laughed, she'd spent the majority of her free time with the young doctor. While normally she was nervous around Chuck's sister she was beginning to feel more comfortable around her. Plus she didn't have many choices when it came to friends. Of course, why?

Sorry I just always got the feeling that you and Ellie didn't really get along.

The elevator arrived and Sarah scrambled inside and waited for the rest of it to fill in. Well before I was pretending to be your girlfriend, so she was always pressing me about our relationship. I didn't want our cover to be compromised; now it would be pretty hard to compromise our cover. She was careful to avoid saying that they were in a relationship, the last thing she needed was Beckman finding out.

Well I'm glad you two are getting along now, I have to go they're making me get up early. 5:00AM! Sarah can you believe that?

Goodnight Chuck. I have to get up at 8. She grinned; it was nice to sleep in late and not have to deal with running surveillance on either a target or an asset.

When the elevator, which seemed to move with agonizing slowness, finally reached her floor she proceeded to her room with a great deal of self-imposed slowness. When she finally got inside her room she wasted no time in dialing her superior's number.

"Agent Walker this better be good."

"Yes, general. I have an issue with my cover."

"What is it?" Beckman snapped. She had been about to head home and sleep for a couple of hours, dealing with a CIA agents cover issues was not a very good reason to sacrifice those previous few hours.

"His sister is suspicious that we're going to be apart for so long."

"So break up, say the long distance relationship isn't working out. This what your bothering me about? Do you know what time it is here?"

"No ma'am, she would never buy us breaking up. I—I think it might be best if I went out and helped train him. It would sell the cover and I could help ease his transition."

"Fine, do you think Agent Casey's presence would help?" If she was going to have to go through this she might as well do it correctly.

"NO! I mean it would look weird if both his girlfriend and a fellow former Buy More employee both went to DC to visit him."

"Fine, report to Fort Meade by the end of next week." Beckman hung up before Sarah could say anything more.

Sarah headed to her closet and grabbed her pre-packed travel bag. She checked it quickly, found everything in its place and slung it over her shoulder. She was ready to go inside of thirty seconds. Sarah had one last thing to do before she headed to the airport. She dialed the only other non-work number she knew. "Ellie, hi its Sarah, I guess you're on shift so I just wanted to call and say that I'm taking your advice. See you when I get back."

***

Ellie handed Sarah a glass of wine and took a seat on the loveseat across from the couch Sarah was sitting on. "So how've you been? Enjoying some time to yourself?"

"Yeah I guess, it's just we finally started moving forward and then he had to head off to Washington.

Ellie gave her a warm smile, "Well at least it seems that you guys finally got past that stupid "its complicated" phase."

"It was bound to happen sometime." Sarah responded with a smile, she had known for awhile that a real relationship was inevitable. It was something they were both slowly making their way to, not that Chuck was aware of that, but finally the day had arrived that morning in Barstow and she couldn't be happier.

"Have you talked to him?"

"Not yet, but I'm sure he's been pretty busy."

Ellie couldn't help but break out in a huge smile when she saw how down Sarah got when discussing Chuck. It might have seemed mean, but it was nice to see her brother's girlfriend be so open about her feelings. "You okay about it? You look kind of forlorn.

"I—I just miss him. I know they told him that he only had to stay at the DC office for a short time, but I'm used to him always being around. It's just—it's just kind of weird to not have him around anymore."

"Ever think about joining him? I'm sure you could get a better job out in DC than the Orange Orange."

Sarah laughed, she loved her real job and wouldn't leave it for anything short of the world, "I'll think about it, but don't hold your breath that'd be a big move and I'm not sure me and Chuck are there." In reality Sarah knew that she could easily root up her entire life and move on, she was always ready to leave at a moment's notice. The only thing that had ever rooted her anywhere was Chuck.

A/N- This took a lot longer to update than I had planned. I can't actually upload stories from my hardrive to this site right now so I had to copy and paste over an older uploaded document and edit it.

If anyone has any idea about what could be causing the error and how to fix it (unless everyone is having this problem) that'd be greatly appreciated.