A/N the First: Thank you to everybody that's read and reviewed! I'm glad you guys are enjoying the story. Also, thanks to my awesome beta mpxw who I am positive is kicking butt at his really difficult week. You rock, mxpw! Thanks also to my pre-readers, to all of the people that have sent me messages about the publishing contract in the past couple of weeks, and to you, dear reader.

PS - Some of you may have read part of this chapter before. I wrote this story out of order and have released parts of it on Tumblr and even AO3, so if you follow me other places than ff-net, you'll likely have seen some of it.

Kickoff

Casey knows.

The words had haunted him for nearly a week after Sarah had texted them to him on her way to Tahoe. It had taken him two days alone to be able to meet Casey's eye, and when he had, he'd found the NSA agent smirking at him. Sarah had called from Lake Tahoe the night she'd sent the text and they'd discussed it, vaguely, using code-speak in case the government was listening (they were always listening) and even though Chuck might be feeling itchy and foolish and like a teenager again, waiting to get to Lake Tahoe so that he and Sarah could finally have some private time together, he couldn't get past the idea that Casey had known about the two of them almost all along. And even more, that he hadn't breathed a word to the bosses.

"Does he want something?" Chuck asked the first chance he got, which was when they were at CVS an hour outside of Burbank picking up supplies for the road trip upstate. Sarah had rented a sporty SUV that would handle the snow much better than either of their cars. "Is that why he hasn't said anything?"

"Probably." She picked up a bag of almonds and flipped to the nutritional data on the back, making a contemplative sound in her throat.

"Why are you not freaking out about this more? Shouldn't you be freaking out? It's your job on the line."

"And his, too." She put the almonds back.

"Wait—what?"

"He's known since January. It's March. He knows that if he reports us, I can turn right back around and say he was in on it."

Chuck, in the middle of reaching for Sarah's preferred brand of water, turned and gaped. "That's a little..."

"Cold? Probably. Survival of the fittest." She selected the Cracker Jack box and dropped it in the shopping basket Chuck held. "I think he told me so that we'd stop sneaking around and he can figure out what's suspicious and what isn't. That way, he can focus on the real dangers."

"And he doesn't care?"

"Or he doesn't want to think about it," Sarah said. "I mean, he'll still threaten us if he thinks we're getting too touchy-feely."

"With Casey, too touchy-feely is just looking at you."

Sarah grimaced. "I'm choosing not to look the gift horse in the mouth."

She pinched his ass before she walked away.

"Well, that was quite a yelp," Ellie said, coming around the corner from the next aisle over. "Got everything? I think Devon's a little antsy to get on the road since they're calling for snow overnight in Carson City."

"I, uh, yeah." Belatedly, he remembered to grab two Red Bulls, and Ellie pulled a face.

"That stuff rots your insides."

"This sweet, sweet elixir of life? Ellie, you crush me." He set both cans in the basket and snatched up a bag of dill pickle potato chips on the way by, which only made Ellie roll her eyes at him. "It's a long road trip, and I will not only have a small child in the car with me, but a half-grown elephant who already threw up the tranquilizers we tried to feed him. Take pity on me."

"You forgot your super-hot girlfriend," Ellie said.

"Aw, Ellie, I didn't know you cared," Sarah said as she strolled up with magazines tucked under her arm. Chuck perked up; she'd grabbed one of his favorites, and he hadn't read that issue yet. Suddenly the idea of being stuck in the car with Sir didn't seem so bad.

Ellie spread her hands wide. "I am just pointing out the facts here. Got everything?"

"Yep."

"We really should have stopped for stuff before we left," Ellie said as the cashier, who'd looked pretty bored until the three of them had come into the store, began to ring them all up. "Or stocked up yesterday or something."

"To be fair, we were all kind of busy." A mission had kept Casey, Sarah, and Chuck out late. Thankfully, it had ended well, with the actual Nigerian scammers sitting in an NSA holding cell now, and Ellie and Devon had been called to cover shifts for doctors that had been stuck in bed with the flu. Only Morgan had had a drama-free night, but then, he'd just been watching A New Hope with Violet. They were leaving Burbank later than they'd hoped, as Ellie had gotten called in again, but with any luck they would reach the cabin before midnight. "Besides, this is fine. We're not taking too much time out of the trip."

"Yeah, but you know how Devon gets on road trips," Ellie said.

Sarah pulled out her credit card to swipe before either of the Bartowski siblings could reach theirs. If she paid, Chuck knew, the treats were on the government's dime, so he didn't complain. Though General Beckman might when she got the bill.

"Last chance to trade one oversized elephant puppy for Morgan," Chuck said when they'd sorted out the bags between the two cars.

It spoke of her relationship with Morgan that Ellie actually looked tempted. But she glanced at Sarah and then Chuck for a brief second. "No, no, I think the setup we have here is fine. You two with Vi and the dog, and the rest of the adults in our car, that's a good setup. We'll stick to that."

"You might need a spray bottle to keep him and John from fighting," Sarah said, and Ellie laughed as they split off for their cars. Morgan sat in the driver's seat of Sarah's rental, drumming silently against the steering wheel. In her seat in the back, Violet lay passed out, one hand still clutching Bun-Bun.

"She wake up at all?" Chuck asked.

"Out like a light the whole time. See you when we stop for gas." Morgan raced off to join the ‛adult car,' as he'd put it earlier.

"Your sister's being really subtle," Sarah said as she started the car.

"Yeah, that's a problem with her lately." He'd noticed right away that Ellie had devised it so that Chuck and Sarah were off in the rental with Vi and their dog (for Sir really was Sarah and Violet's dog) like their own little family unit. "It doesn't bother you, does it?"

"It's okay, she's just excited." They pulled back onto the freeway, following Devon's SUV. In the backseat next to his human, Sir began to whine a little, so Chuck twisted in his seat to give the dog's ears a scritch. Sir's whine softened. "Though if it's like that all week, I don't know how long it'll be okay."

"I'll talk to her," Chuck said. Sir nosed his hand, making him laugh softly.

"No, don't do that, I can deal."

"We've been ‛seeing each other' for, like, six months. She'd be coming on a little strong even if you weren't secretly my government-assigned handler and I weren't the equally-secret holder of the secrets of the universe. Well, the universe as the US government sees it, anyway."

Sarah's answer to that was a smile.

"You okay with driving?" Chuck asked, mostly to change the subject.

Sarah's snort reminded him that she was indeed a spy and had likely handled much harder assignments. Spy or not, though, Chuck reached out and wrapped his fingers around the hand she had resting on her thigh. She turned the hand over, linking their fingers together.

"Let me know if you change your mind," he said, and closed his eyes to get a little shuteye while he could.

The first fat flakes had begun to fall when they pulled into the driveway of the cabin. Chuck had convinced Sarah to let him drive at least a little bit, so he leaned over the steering wheel, peering out into the night sky overhead. "We got here just in time, I think," he said in a hushed voice. Both parties in the backseat had fallen asleep nearly two hours before.

Sarah yawned. She liked snow, but after a long ride in the car with an overtired young child, she didn't really care about admiring it at the moment. "Not going to argue with you there. Which one do you want?"

As one, they twisted to look in the backseat. "You know what? I'll be lenient this time," Chuck said. "You take the kid. I've got Morgan."

"You're not actually going to carry him inside, are you?"

"He'd sleep through it, but no, I think not," Chuck said, climbing out of the car.

Morgan lay sacked out over the backseat. During their last stop for gas, they'd swapped him for the dog, as the other car had a free adult to sit in the backseat with Sir and calm him down.

Sarah had almost preferred having the whining dog to Morgan, though she was never going to tell Chuck that.

Ellie dashed past them to turn on cabin lights and make sure the heater was on as Sarah undid all of the buckles and straps. For a moment, she debated whether or not to put the girl's jacket on, but it was only a short trip to the front door and maneuvering into a jacket would wake her. So in the end, she just pulled the girl out of the carseat and hurried for the door. Chuck and Morgan, she decided, could bring in all of their bags from the trunk.

Ellie held open the door for her to squeeze through with Violet.

"What are the sleeping arrangements?" Sarah asked. "Is she in with Chuck and me, or...?"

"I think she'll be okay on the couch. John and Morgan can take the loft bedroom."

Oh, thank god, Sarah thought, but she didn't say anything. Having Violet sleep in the same room as them would have put a serious damper on her plans. She moved over to the couch in the cabin's living room and carefully deposited Violet there.

"I'm going to go put hot chocolate on," Ellie said. "So we can all have a nightcap before bed."

"Good idea. I'll go help with—oh, no, they got everything already, it looks like."

Sir ambled in, sniffing experimentally and getting underfoot as Chuck, Casey, Devon, and Morgan brought in the bags and coolers of food, stamping their feet on the mat so as not to track in any snow.

Casey took one look around the living room, which was decorated rustically with an actual deer head mounted on the wall, and grunted. "Good night," was all he said, and headed for the stairs. Apparently Ellie had already briefed him on the sleeping arrangements.

"He's missing out on some fantastic cocoa," Chuck told Sarah as he brought over Violet's Dora the Explorer suitcase and the mesh bag full of her toys that they had brought along. He dug out pajamas. "If you want to take the luggage to the room, I think we're the bedroom on this floor."

Close to Violet, Sarah realized. It was the smallest of the three bedrooms, but she didn't mind. "Sure," she said and grabbed their bags, yawning again. Weariness had settled in around the same time Morgan had switched over to their car. She unpacked first her bag and then Chuck's bag, pushing their garments into adjacent drawers and shaking her head at her spy instincts that screamed at her to just leave the bags packed, that it made for a faster getaway. This was a family vacation, not a mission.

She left their toiletry kits sitting atop the room's dresser, and Chuck's laptop on the desk. She'd just unpacked the final touches into the night stand on her side of the bed when he nudged his way inside, holding two cups of hot chocolate.

"Courtesy of Ellie," he said. "Her orders are that we sleep until we can sleep no more. Which is not possible with a certain sprog of mine around, but it's a noble goal and I say we stick to it."

Sarah's yawn cut off her reply, so she just took the hot chocolate and sipped. "You want the bathroom first?"

"You look like you're asleep on your feet. You go first. I can get some work done while I wait."

"Nerd," Sarah said, giving him an affectionate kiss on the cheek as she passed. For a brief moment, she considered her exhaustion and was tempted to do more, but she hadn't done a thorough check for bugs in the room. So it was better not to go there...yet. "By the way, I haven't fully checked the place over yet, so we'll have to be careful."

Chuck's eyebrows went up. "Oh," he said, drawing the word out to several syllables. Sarah might normally have rolled her eyes at how obvious he was being, but right then, she found it kind of adorable. He really would make the worst spy ever. "Oh, I guess that means we'll follow orders and just get a lot of sleep."

"You'll need it," Sarah said, giving him a smile that made him visibly turn red and gulp, and she slipped into the bathroom.

His left foot woke him.

More because it was cold than anything else. Somehow or other, and he was going to guess that ‛somehow' had something to do with Sarah, who'd not only stolen most of the blankets but also his left arm and most of the real estate on the mattress so his left foot had been freed from the covers and lay exposed. It was nothing but a foot-shaped block of ice anymore.

The clock on Sarah's side of the bed told him it was just after seven, which meant Violet would be getting up soon. And that meant he should be getting up soon, too, but it felt nice just to lay there and drowse, wrapped around Sarah. Some of her hair tickled his nose and he could feel her chest rising and falling in steady sleep against his arm.

This moment was perfection, but it really was too bad about his left foot. He was really going to miss that foot.

A knock at the door made Sarah stir. "Come in," Chuck called softly, recognizing it.

Violet, her hair a mess around her face, poked her head inside. "Did you see, Daddy?" she asked in a loud whisper. "Daddy, did you see? Huh?"

"See what, Megabyte?" Because he felt Sarah waking up, he reached an arm out in invitation. Violet needed no further urging to clamber onto the mattress and wriggle in on his other side.

Sarah's eyes opened a minor slit. "'Morning," she said, reaching an arm across Chuck to smooth down Vi's hair, which was sticking up in all directions, wayward curls all over the place. Vi beamed. "Did you sleep good?"

"A-yup. Did you see?"

"I just woke up, sweetie." Sarah rested her chin on Chuck's shoulder.

"What is this mysterious thing you're wanting us to see, huh?" Chuck asked.

"Snow!" Violet threw both hands up in delight.

"Oh yeah? How much snow?"

"Look, look, look." Violet wiggled free of Chuck and crawled down the length of the bed, tumbling off and sprinting for the window. When she yanked up the blind, Chuck had to squint against the white light that flooded the room. It wasn't much in reality, but his eyes had been fully adjusted to the dark.

"Uh, wow," Sarah said as she extricated herself from the stolen covers. She crossed the room to join Vi, peering out through the blinds, and Chuck took the opportunity to stick his frozen foot under the covers again. It prickled as feeling began to return. "I knew the forecast had called for a little snow last night, but I didn't realize it was that much. There was definitely not that much on the ground when we got here last night."

"Sounds like Uncle Awesome and Aunt Ellie are gonna get some good skiing in today, huh?" Chuck said.

Vi craned her neck to look at him, fearfully. "Do we have to ski?"

"Nope." Sarah scooped Vi up under the armpits and swung her as she toted her back to the bed. "That much snow demands a snowman."

"Or five!"

"Five? That's pretty ambitious." Sarah deposited Vi on the mattress and crawled back under the covers.

Vi immediately rolled over so that she was lying directly on top of him, resting her chin on her folded arms so that she could study him earnestly. Chuck wrinkled his nose at her. She wrinkled her nose back. "What's going on? Why aren't we getting up yet and playing in the snow?"

"Because," he said, "the first rule of snow days is you have to sleep in. It is law."

"Oh, okay," Violet said, and yawned. When Chuck pulled up the covers, she obligingly climbed beneath them, and snuggled in between him and Sarah, which made him wince. Her feet were even icier than his were. The minute they got out of bed, he was going to dig out her socks. "And then we'll build snowmen?"

Chuck reached across her so that he could lace his fingers through Sarah's. "Maybe we'll have a really big breakfast first."

Vi frowned. "And then we'll build snowmen?"

"And then we'll build snowmen," he said, and his left foot was perfectly warm as he dozed off.

A/N the Second: Bonus chapter on Thursday. Get ready.