AN: Sorry for the delay! My Microsoft Word mysteriously decided to stop working about a month ago…but then it suddenly decided to start working again, so here I am!

IMPORTANT: Inspiration for one scene in here came from an episode of 'The West Wing', and some of the dialogue is fairly similar to what actually happens in the episode ('These Crackpots and These Women'). I mean NO disrespect to Aaron Sorkin (because he is my God) and I'm not making any money off of this so don't sue me! It just fit really well. *hides*

CHAPTER TWO

Sarah stared at the screen in front of her, completely listless and barely watching the surveillance tape as it played itself out in front of her. People moved across the three screens they had set up. One of them showed the outside of Valentine's large LA mansion; one was the outside of his busy office building; and the third was a map, showing the location of his private car – to which Casey had attached a GPS.

When would the CIA and NSA finish the new headquarters? Working out of the freezer of the Orange Orange was risky and honestly not that comfortable.

Snap out of it, she thought to herself, running her hands over her face and then through her hair. This was just ridiculous. She was one of the best agents the CIA had, and here she was, unable to just watch a surveillance video. To keep her mind going, she reviewed everything they knew about Valentine in her head. He was the son of Joseph Valentine, and the heir to the Valentine shipping fortune. He ran a small number of shipping routes for his father, but on the side he let smugglers use his ships – giving them his reputation against pesky things such as Customs and Immigration – as long as they paid handsomely. The billionaire's son didn't care what he allowed shipped in or out, just that he got paid at the end of the day and the more illegal the cargo, the higher the shipping fee. And, four days ago, the record of payment for an incoming ship was sky high, leading Sarah and Casey to believe that it had held the bio weapons.

Checking her watch, she saw she had ten minutes left on her lunch break with which to watch the videos. All right. She could do that.

But, as she started watching the videos again, she felt some internal part of her body begin to feel like it was swaying back and forth in the ocean. Her eyes glazed over and suddenly she was back under the dark dock, pressed up against Chuck, weirdly hot and cold at the same time.

A beeping brought her out of it, and Sarah sat up straighter. The GPS on Valentine's car was moving, pulling out of his parking spot at work and moving…west. Towards the docks. Watching him for a moment longer, just to make sure he really was going towards the docks, she then texted Casey. "Valentine going to docks. Lunch break almost over. Your turn?"

As she waited for a reply, she kept her eye on the three screens, just in case. As Valentine's car got closer to the docks, three big black Suburbans pulled up outside the office building – headquarters of Valentine Shipping – and seven men jumped out. One man in the middle of the other six was holding a box. Well, a small armored case might be more accurate.

Sarah sat up straighter and checked the time. 12:54 PM. She wrote that down on a CIA sticky note before her phone buzzed. Casey was on his way. She kept her eyes trained on screen two, watching the men march into the office building. Through the doors she could just make out that they were headed to an elevator…the service elevator that went down to the basement.

"Anything fun going on?" Asked Casey sarcastically as he walked through the door.

Sarah whirled to face him. "I think I know where the bio weapons are."

--

As Chuck walked out of the Buy More and out to the Nerdmobile, he was completely zoned out, just as he had been all day. All he could think about was Sarah. Sarah in her beautiful blue dress, Sarah "drunkenly" kissing him in the hallway, Sarah wet and bruised under the dock…she really just made it impossible for him to think.

"Chuck!"

Halting in the middle of opening the door to the little car, Chuck straightened and looked over the parking lot. Casey and Sarah were jogging over to him from the Orange Orange.

"What's up?" he asked, trying to inconspicuously avoid Sarah's eyes.

"We know where the bio weapons are being held. Walker found them earlier today, during her lunch break," Casey said, surveying the parking lot with his sharp eyes, assumedly checking for any sign of danger. "The CIA and NSA confirmed it about an hour ago – there are fingerprints of bio weapons in the office building."

"Fingerprints?" said Chuck. "And, wait, an office building? Like, one that is surrounded by people?"

"Yeah, Valentine was pretty smart about that." Sarah put her hands on her hips and looked at Chuck, but her face was that completely professional mask that Chuck was beginning to hate. "We are presuming that the weapons are being held in an extremely secure location in the basement, but it will be very difficult to steal them from that location – what with the security and the added risk of setting them off in an area full of civilians."

"So…what are we going to do?" Two could play at the only-professional game.

"Break in. Tonight." Casey's fingers were twitching a little, like they did when he was particularly hankering for a gun.

"Wait, hold up. Weren't you just talking about the risk of civilian lives? Not to mention the risk of setting the weapons off."

"We don't have a choice, Chuck," said Sarah emphatically. "We have to get those weapons before they're sent to Washington DC. We're breaking in tonight."

He held up his hands. "All right. Fine. But after dinner, because Awesome and Ellie are having a wedding planning dinner and your presence is required." He hadn't quite meant for it to come out like that – harsh – but he was feeling more than a little annoyed at her, so it couldn't be helped.

Something flickered across Sarah's face that he didn't quite catch before she nodded and looked down. "Okay. 6 o'clock?"

"Yeah."

Casey looked back and forth between them and Chuck could almost see the wheels turning in his head. Before he could get very far into that thought process, Chuck cut him off. "We'll meet in the court yard after dinner."

"Fine." Sarah sent him an annoyed look before stalking off to her car. Chuck turned and got into the Nerd Herder, shutting the door a little more forcefully than he meant. Casey stayed where he was for a moment, confused, before getting in the car with Chuck.

"What the hell was that?" he asked. "It would appear that you and Walker have not figured yourselves out yet, am I correct?" Chuck gritted his teeth at Casey's sarcastic tone.

"You would certainly be correct," he replied tightly.

--

"Thanks so much for coming, Sarah!" said Ellie with a huge smile on her face. "I know it's probably the last thing you want to be doing right now, but I'm in desperate need of back up. The boys are completely unwilling to just sit down and get things done. They think if they avoid it long enough, the planning will just happen on its own." The two women laughed a little, though Sarah's was mildly forced.

"It's no problem, Ellie. You've been one of my best friends since moving here and I'm totally willing to help out with whatever you need." As long as it doesn't involve your brother. Sarah felt guilty the moment the thought raced through her mind. It wasn't Chuck's fault that she didn't know where she stood. It wasn't his fault that she found herself wanting a normal life, away from the CIA, with him. She dropped her purse on the couch and followed Ellie to the table. "So, what's on the schedule tonight?"

Ellie sent her a grateful smile. "I really just need some help ironing out details. I mean, the wedding is in three months, but you would not believe the loose ends I have to tie up before then!" They sat at the table with magazines and albums and planners spread out in front of them, scraps of fabric and flowers spilling over the paper. As Sarah looked over the chaotic jumble of plans, Ellie winced. "You see why I need help?"

Sarah laughed. "Well, I'm your girl." Ellie grinned and started talking about color schemes while Sarah quietly studied her. Ellie was someone Sarah never would have expected herself to be friends with. She didn't usually fall in with the nice girls who smiled a lot and had nice, normal lives. But, then again, Chuck had changed a lot of things about her.

"Hey, babe," said Devon a little while later as he slid into the chair next to Ellie, kissing her cheek. Sarah watched them with a little longing in her eyes and almost missed Chuck sitting down next to her. Her body tensed up and she sent him a tight smile. He barely smiled back. "Making any headway?"

"Yes, actually. Now that I have actual help." She raised her eyebrow reproachfully at Devon, who had the good grace to look mildly ashamed. "Sarah and I were just getting to the actual ceremony. Chuck, I think you and Sarah should walk down the aisle togeth – "

"No!" said Chuck loudly, cutting off his sister. Everyone turned to look at him in surprise, and Sarah tried not to let her hurt show on her face. He couldn't even bear to be near her, just to walk down a church aisle with her anymore? For a split second, something different flashed through her mind. She was still walking down a church aisle, but Chuck was the one standing at the end, near the altar. She instantly shoved that out of her mind, frustration and embarrassment making her clench her teeth. Somehow she had a feeling that happy endings like that just weren't in her future.

"Chuck?" said Ellie, confusion on her face.

"No, I mean – sorry, that came out wrong. But Ellie, I'm going to walk you down the aisle." There was a slight pause as everyone around the table took that in. Sarah's embarrassment fled as she looked over at Chuck. Warmth flooded her body and a little smile worked its way onto her face. He never ceased to surprise her. "Dad's not here and I honestly doubt he'll come back. I love you, Ellie, and I don't want you to walk down the aisle by yourself. I'm going to walk you down the aisle." The conviction in his voice obviously had an affect on Ellie, who was tearing up a little.

"I – thanks, Chuck. That will be perfect." Devon nodded at Chuck and tangled his fingers in Ellie's hair, stroking the back of her neck. Sarah laced her fingers together and stared down at them, feeling a little like she was in the middle of some private family moment. She felt something warm on her arm, and looked up to see Chuck, a small smile on his face and some form of reconciliation in his eyes. She swallowed and smiled back.

--

"Okay, Chuck, you're seriously going to have to be quieter than that," Sarah hissed, mild annoyance in her voice. They were crawling through the air vents of the office building at around midnight, and Chuck was proving a little too lanky to squeeze through the tighter turns. How did Casey do this? The man was practically solid muscle, and yet he was having no trouble crawling through the metal vents.

"Sorry," he hissed back, trying to figure out how to do this more naturally. He followed Sarah's dark form through the maze of twists and turns, dodging her feet once or twice when she almost kicked him.

"Here we are," whispered Casey. Chuck heard a soft whirring and a dull thunk before Casey disappeared down and out of the vent, Sarah quickly following him. Chuck scrambled out much less gracefully, almost falling on Sarah in the process. She gave him an annoyed look as she helped him to his feet. "It should be right down this hallway, according to NSA intel."

"And CIA intel," said Sarah defensively. Casey rolled his eyes a little.

"All right. Now that we have that out of the way, can we grab these bio weapons meant to wipe out the capitol and get out of here?" Chuck hissed urgently, looking over his shoulder. Would these missions ever get easier?

They worked their way in and out of shadows down the hallway, Casey in front and Sarah in the rear, protecting Chuck.

"Flash on anything?" Sarah whispered, her shoulder almost touching his back. He could see from the set of her shoulders and the intensity of her eyes that she was in full-on protective mode.

"No, not yet."

"Here," whispered Casey. The door looked inconspicuous, like any other basement door leading to a storage locker or maintenance room. Casey turned the doorknob – it was unlocked. The NSA agent traded a strange look with Sarah, but then crept into the room anyway, guns out and Chuck's heart pounding like a galloping horse.

The room was small and seemingly not suspicious in any way. There were a few shelves and a desk in one corner, pipes hanging from the ceiling and no decorations of any kind. The floor was covered with a bunch of cardboard boxes, taped and labeled. On the shelves were a few books, covered in dust, and a small box.

"That's it," whispered Sarah. "That box. That's it."

"This is way too easy," hissed Casey, looking around the room as Sarah approached the box.

At that moment, two things happened simultaneously. An alarm went off somewhere in the building, and Chuck flashed on a small maroon notebook lying on the desk.

Pictures of a cherub, trains coming and going from a station, the pages of a calendar, a chemistry lab full of vials and a bundle of red roses flashed before his eyes as Chuck's eyelids flickered.

"Chuck! We have to go!" Casey was out the door and in the hallway, gun up and ready. Sarah grabbed his arm and hauled him out the door, her gun in her other hand. "Casey?"

The agent answered her unasked question. "Must have triggered a silent alarm. I knew that was too easy." They ran down the hallway, but at an intersection of hallways they were stopped by another noise. It echoed down the cement corridor, bouncing around so that they had no idea from which hallway it came.

"Dogs?" Said Chuck, his voice rising in pitch. Casey swore profusely and whirled around, facing each one of the corridors. "Please tell me you have an escape plan." Casey and Sarah exchanged a look that Chuck could easily read. "Oh, come on. The CIA and the NSA thought of everything except dogs?!"

They didn't answer him, and in that instant, three huge pit bulls rounded one of the corners far down the hallway, followed by five armed guards. Sarah swore this time, and Chuck only had a moment to be surprised before she was dragging him down another corridor. "Here, here, through here!" Yelled Casey, ducking into another small room. There was a window to one side, near the ceiling. Through it, Chuck could see the ground and the alley beyond. Instantly, Casey was kneeling down and giving Sarah a boost up to the window, which she broke with the butt of her gun. She scrambled through and then turned to help Chuck and Casey up. Chuck wasn't really sure, again, how he and Casey had fit through the tiny window, but it would seem that adrenaline made just about anything possible.

As they ran down the deserted alley way, Chuck barely kept up with the two agents. "I am so telling the CIA and NSA that they need to train their agents for dogs. Did you think that modern technology is the only way people protect things these days?!"

"Not now, Bartowski," Casey said tensely.

"Also, I flashed on something in there." He slowed as he said that, the importance of what he said finally settling in his mind. "Oh my God."

"What? What is it?" Sarah said, pulling him behind a dumpster. Casey followed, his gun still drawn. "Chuck, what did you see?" She was panting, her eyes were over-bright from the adrenaline and Chuck knew that the forearms of her shirt were soaked with blood from crawling through broken glass and here she was, more worried about him. He almost smiled.

"There was a notebook in the room," he began, "but it wasn't just a notebook. Someone had written a few notes in there, which I am assuming were not for public consumption." Swallowing, he made himself continue. "The box that we didn't get, the one with the bio weapons…well, they aren't exactly biological weapons. They're vials of smallpox."

"The disease?" said Casey, coming to join them.

"Yeah, the disease." Chuck sent him a strange look. "What else could I possibly mean?"

"The smallpox, Chuck," said Sarah urgently, making him look at her again. "It's going to Washington DC? To be released at the White House?"

"It's going to Washington DC, but not to the White House." He had to swallow again before he could continue. "Valentine is selling them to a Fulcrum agent named Darkwind, who is planning to release the smallpox in Union Station."

"Union Station?" Casey said in disbelief. "Twenty million people go through Union Station every year. Almost fifty-five thousand people every day."

"How many people in the US are vaccinated for smallpox now?" Asked Sarah, a slightly frantic look creeping on to her face.

"I don't know," replied Casey tightly, "but the last outbreak was in 1988, so I'm guessing not that many. I know that the public stopped being vaccinated in 1972. For a while, the state kept the military vaccinated, but that stopped in 1990." He gritted his teeth rather violently. "The US defense budget never covers the right things."

Sarah pushed her hair back and took a deep breath. "Okay. We have to get back to headquarters and report. The Director and the General have to know this right away." They started to walk back out into the alley

"Wait, what about the – the box! We have to go back and get it right now!" Chuck stopped in the middle of the deserted alley. "If that gets out, it could infect half of LA! This could be the beginning of World War III, and you're just going to walk away from possibly our only chance to stop that from happening?"

"It isn't going to be World War III, Chuck," said Casey. "No one in their right mind would start a war with a disease and not weaponry."

"Okay, just because you're a gun-loving maniac doesn't mean that there aren't other forms of deadly weaponry," snapped Chuck. "There are seven doses of the vaccine in the United States. Seven. If this gets out in LA, it'll spread across the country, across the world, and all it takes is a little vial being dropped in a train station or LAX or even some street corner in Burbank. Someone just drops a vial and pretty soon everyone in the US is infected with only seven doses of the vaccine available. How's that for deadly."

For a moment, neither Casey nor Sarah said anything. Sarah opened her mouth, but then closed it again. Finally, Casey made an aggravated noise and lowered his gun.

"We can't get it now, anyway. Once we triggered the alarm and they knew someone broke into the facility, they will have moved it. They'll be moving it right now."

"Where?" asked Chuck urgently. "Where do you think they'll move it?"

"If I were Valentine, I'd want to keep it as close to me as possible after something like this," said Casey. "He'll probably have it moved to his house."

"His house?" asked Chuck with eyebrows so high they almost disappeared into his hairline. "You think this guy wants smallpox in his house?"

"Valentine stands to make an absurd amount of money for this deal," said Sarah. "Darkwind is paying him enough money to feed a small country for a year, all to help bring down the United States. He'll want to make sure this deal goes through, and he has a personal army of security guards at his mansion that will keep it safe."

"How in hell are we going to get in to the Valentine mansion?" asked Casey.

Chuck raised his hand tentatively. "I might have an idea."

"What is it?"

"Well, there was another thing written in the notebook." He paused. "Tomorrow is Valentine's birthday."