A/N 8/26/12 - I'm back home from work and still spending half the day in the decompression chamber. This is one of the products of that time listening to the compressor humming and a faint hissing sound. I digress.

Thanks one and all for your support of this story so far. It has turned out to be an interesting exploration to say the least. I think we'll run with it a bit and see where it leads.

Don't own it. Thanks to those who do and gave it to us.

Sarah Versus the Farm

Chapter 3 – Off the Grid

"Chuck!"

It sounded like it came from the end of a tunnel…from right in front of a freight train; that loud thundering headache that was reverberating off of the walls of his skull.

"Chuck. Wake up, buddy."

Ouch! The gentle slap hurt intensely, from the inside out.

"Come on, Chuck, talk to me buddy."

"Groan…Morgan?"

"Oh, man. You had me worried there, Charles, I was about to dial 911," exclaimed Morgan with obvious relief in his voice. "What happened? Did you and Sarah enjoy a little too much wine last night?"

"What?" He attempted to push the fog from his aching mind. "Wine? No, I barely had more than a glass. You know how I am this time of the year, strictly energy drinks until things start to slow down a bit."

Morgan crossed his arms with an accusing look, "Yeah, I know, I have to pick up the slack for you in season, it's a cross I'm willing to bear. Care to explain then why you're sleeping on the floor in your upturned chair, or why you're late for work?" Mirth was dancing in his eyes. Morgan was clearly enjoying the moment in spite of his concerns the moment before. He offered his friend a hand to help him to his feet.

Chuck pulled himself up off the floor with Morgan's assistance then righted his chair and stared for a few seconds at his blank computer monitors. "I don't have an explanation, buddy. I decided to check the game servers before going to bed and the next thing I know you're giving me this strange wake up call."

"Whoa, lost time eh? Should we call Mulder and Scully? Maybe have you checked for implants?"

Chuck started to laugh. "Ow," he said raising his hand to his temple, "hold the humor down for a bit, pal. At least until I've had a couple of aspirin and a cup of coffee."

Chuck started to make his way to the kitchen, but turned around before he made it to the door and walked back to his workstation and tapped the space key on his keyboard. "Holy frak! The Halo server crashed! What the hell? It was fine when I checked it last night."

"Oh, yeah. I meant to tell you about that," replied Morgan, scratching the back of his head, "but finding you laid out on the floor sort of distracted me. I've been getting IM's and texts since early last night from the clan wondering what was up. I finally had to turn my phone off so I could get some sleep. The natives are extremely restless, Chuck. I think I hear war drums."

Chuck stared at his monitor in disbelief. "It's gone…just gone…the drives have been wiped clean. I may have to rebuild it from scratch…damn."

"I thought you backed up those servers on the fly?"

"Well, I do back them up, but not on the fly. They're on a schedule, minimal server performance bottlenecks that way." He looked at the clock display on his monitor and his eyes shot to meet those of his friend, "Frak!Frak!Frak! It's six o'clock?"

"Yeah. Not to worry, buddy. Kyle said he was more than happy to pick up the extra acres until you came in. He and the crew are already working on that almond job."

"Crap," said Chuck looking back at his monitor, "I'll have to deal with this snafu later. Duty calls, let's get out to the airport."

"You sure you're okay to fly today buddy? You know, lost time?" Asked Morgan skeptically.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," he responded, suddenly energized by the revelation of the late hour, "just give me a couple of cups of strong coffee and I'll be raring to go," Chuck said with an air of false bravado, thumping his fist into his chest like a Romulan Centurion.

"You're the boss."

-II-

She watched Chuck and Morgan walk out of the house and climb into Chuck's pickup truck. A sense of relief washed over her as she watched him walk down the path with a metal travel coffee cup in one hand and a large Stanley thermos in the other. He looked a bit rough, but otherwise like the Chuck she met and fell…the day…before. What? What is going on with you, Sarah Walker! She asked herself. You just met this man yesterday! What are you thinking? You barely know him! He's your mark!

Sarah reflected on her own roiling emotions for a moment as she watched the truck drive down the gravel road away from Chuck's house. Chuck appeared to be all right, but something huge had happened to him last night and she couldn't deny it. She couldn't deny that something huge had also happened to her; something she honestly didn't think she was even capable of anymore – forming a genuine attachment to someone – and it terrified her with a new kind of fear she had never experienced or really learned to counteract before other than the mantras she had learned to repeat to herself at the Farm. And then another fear raised its ugly head in her mind; the fear that whatever had happened to Chuck last night might suddenly and very negatively alter whatever she had just as suddenly fallen into between the two of them.

If Chuck was once an innocent party in all this, Bryce had now changed that, possibly irrevocably.

Thinking of what Bryce had done angered her in ways she was still trying to grasp the meaning of. Somehow Bryce had had a hand in her assignment to this case. And somehow he knew that she and Chuck would hit it off immediately. Did Bryce know her that well? Sure, they had a thing going in Spain, and they had shared a lot more than operatives are typically wont to do, including a bed on more than one night. But had she let Bryce in enough to see who or what her heart was looking for in her life? How did he know she even had any such a longing when she could hardly see it herself because she had buried it so deep for so long? And why didn't Bryce try to fill that need if and when he discovered it? She had felt something for him, and she couldn't deny that either, but nothing like what she had so swiftly experienced with Chuck. One day. One day! And now there were so many more questions than there were answers. All she knew at the moment was that Bryce had once again placed his friend Chuck on the hot seat, and by extension, her too; and she was now going to have to somehow make the best of it.

She stepped out from behind the rickety old garage and walked up the path to the house that Chuck Bartowski had inherited from his father. The thought made her stop in her tracks and turn around looking at all of it around her. Chuck's family had left him a wonderful legacy, and now that legacy was in dire risk of being destroyed by a computer filled with government secrets; secrets that if what Bryce alluded to in his note were now in Chucks head, they could make him disappear forever at the hands of a government that would do anything to keep them that way. What was she to do with this? How was she going to protect Chuck from the very people she worked for? Maybe some answers were in this house. Sarah picked a gardenia from the bush by the path and breathed in its succulent scent, then stepped up onto the porch with a new sense of purpose bolstered by the sweet aroma of the flower in her hand. And, of course, she wasn't surprised to find the door unlocked.

-III-

"What have you found, Agent Walker? Is Charles Bartowski involved with this untidy mess that Bryce Larkin created?" The look on Langston Graham's face on her laptop screen was also asking another unspoken question. Will Chuck Bartowski have to be terminated, and if so, have you already done it?

"Sir, as of yet I haven't been able to find any Intersect data on any of Chu- Mr. Bartowski's computers. If he is involved in this, it must be in another way we may not have yet considered," she deflected, "I think I'm going to need a few more days here to try to determine to just what level Charles Bartowski has been compromised by Agent Larkin." The word 'compromised' forced her to fight down a very unexpected flush rising up her neck.

"I can't give you any more time, Sarah, I want you back in L.A. and on a plane by the end of the day. The NSA has assigned Casey to this case. I don't want one of my best agents anywhere near Major Casey when he shows up there. I don't think he would give a damn about collateral damage, and he's definitely not a friend of the CIA."

"Casey? He's a burnout. We haven't even been able to determine what Chuck Bartowski really knows yet, let alone if he is actually involved. Casey is likely to shoot first and never even think about asking a question later. Doesn't a possibly innocent American citizen deserve better than that? Than the due process of John Casey's limited judgment and unthinking trigger finger?"

"Casey's a killer, Sarah, cold school. Bryce is one of theirs. Let them handle it now. It's over."

She leaned toward the monitor attempting to school her features, "I can fix this. Just give me twenty-four hours, and maybe an innocent civilian won't get killed, otherwise if he's not innocent…" she said heatedly, then trailed off.

Graham regarded her sternly but a flash of curiosity briefly crossed his face. "All right, you've got twenty-four hours to try to get something," he said with an exasperated tone, "but if you even smell John Casey I want you out of there, do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly clear, sir."

"Good."

The screen went blank and Sarah leaned back in her chair and exhaled forcibly. John Casey? Damn. Chuck was in trouble and she had to do something about it. Her search of Chuck's computer had revealed that Bryce had indeed wiped the drives containing the Intersect. There wasn't a shred of recoverable data on them. Whatever Bryce had done to accomplish his goals had been very clever, which didn't surprise her knowing his background. She did find the copy of Bryce's original email to Chuck and decided to save it to her thumbdrive and delete the original like she had done to Bryce's other message. For now she didn't want to let them fall into either the CIA's or NSA's hands and felt the need to control the information, though she didn't really know why. A search of the house hadn't revealed anything else, but she had to admit she was very surprised by what she found behind the vault door.

The small room beyond it was an armory complete with an extensive collection of firearms, ammunition, and maintenance and ammunition reloading benches. If she hadn't been privy to Chuck's family background she would have been much more suspicious, but she had a feeling that the room had been built there by the elder Bartowski's and not Chuck. The room displayed the wear marks of years of use. Still, she was surprised by the variety and scope of the weaponry and couldn't help but wonder if Chuck might be skillful at using any of them. The surprises never seemed to stop with this man and she also wondered what was yet to be discovered about him or whether he may still shock her with something truly unsettling about him.

Sarah pushed the thought from her mind, deciding she had twenty-four hours to find out. She pulled a legal pad and a pencil from her laptop case and started to make a shopping list.

-IV-

"Man, you couldn't ask for better air than we had today, huh, Chuck?"

Chuck snapped back into the present and looked at Kyle Pruitt stretched lazily in the recliner chair across the room from him. "Yeah it was pretty darn nice out there. Sorry I was late this morning."

Kyle grinned back at him, "Hell, don't worry about it, pard, it just meant more acres for your chief pilot," he chuckled, "and more acres means a bigger check for little ole me, cha-ching!"

"Like I said, sorry I was late."

"Haha, I'll let you pay me in installments if it'll help," Kyle quipped, then regarded him more thoughtfully. "Where you been hiding that amazing mind of yours all morning, Chuck? It's not like you to be lost in thought like that. Something to do with that hot blonde maybe?"

"Her name is Sarah," Chuck replied with a slight edge, "and yeah, she's got me a little preoccupied. Sorry about that."

"No worries, pard. It's the sort of preoccupation we've all been hoping you'd rediscover at some point. You've still got your head in the game, I hope."

"Oh, yeah, that's not a problem. I'll keep my priorities straight when I'm flying."

"Good, didn't think I had to worry about that, but I had to ask. As long as you can still hear 'the voice'."

"Yeah," Chuck said with a snort, "it's still loud and clear."

"What's 'the voice' telling you about Sarah?" Kyle asked with an even smile.

Chuck pursed his lips thinking about a response to that one when there was a knock at the office door and Sarah opened it to look in. "Anyone home?" She asked lightly.

Chuck's face immediately brightened even more than it already was, "Hey, Sarah. You got here just in time to save me from the inquisition." He looked at Kyle who was grinning ear-to-ear, "Meet Kyle, he's the designated snoop and smart-ass around here."

"Hey, I resemble that remark," retorted Kyle Pruitt as he rose from the chair to greet Sarah and shake her hand. "Wow, firm," he commented on her grip, "Nice to meet you Sarah. Sorry I ran off on ya'll yesterday, but I was fixin' to explode when you saw me."

"TMI, Kyle," Chuck warned.

"Nice to meet you too, Kyle," Sarah said with a friendly giggle, "I suppose that's one of the drawbacks of the job, isn't it?"

He smiled back at her, "It can be, just ask ole Chuck about that, he can provide the details."

Chuck winced, "Too much coffee this morning, it almost led to a painful accident," was all he would offer in response giving her an apologetic look. "Can we please talk about something else, Kyle?" He pleaded.

"Okay, Chuck, new subject. So, Sarah, just what are your intentions with my good buddy, Chuck, here?"

"Kyyyle!"

Sarah let out a short laugh as her eyes locked on Chuck's with a playful blue invitation, "Well, Kyle, your good buddy here invited me on a picnic with the 'mistress' this afternoon. I guess we'll see where it goes from there."

"Well! You've met the mistress already, eh?" Surprise was written all over Kyle Pruitt's face, "Bold move Chuck, sharing the other women in your life so soon in a new relationship."

Chuck's jaw dropped and he turned bright red as he looked back and forth from Sarah to Kyle. He saw an ever so subtle reaction from Sarah at Kyle's mention of the word 'relationship' but she hid it well. "Time for you to go Kyle, before you give me a case of hypertension."

"Aw, shucks, Chuck, I was just gettin' started."

"That's exactly what I'm afraid of."

"I'll tell you what, Chuck," Sarah interjected, "Why don't we go ahead and take off and leave Kyle to his burning curiosity here while you, me, and the mistress enjoy our afternoon?"

"Oh, I like this one, Chuck, she can dish it too," said Kyle with a laugh, "She's going to fit in fine around here."

Sarah walked over to Chuck and took his hand, "C'mon, sport, pick your jaw up off the floor and let's go, our afternoon is slipping by."

Chuck stared at her with incredulity as she led him to the door.

"Have fun, you two, don't do anything that I wouldn't do…that grants you considerable leeway," Kyle added with a raised voice as they went out the door.

"Nice to meet you, Kyle," Sarah shouted back as they walked briskly across the deck to her car.

-V-

As they stepped up to Sarah's Porsche she pointed to a soft-sided cooler bag in the back seat of the car. "I took the liberty of packing us a lunch this morning. I hope that's okay with you."

She watched the smile spread across Chuck's face as the shock of the banter with his friend wore off. "You're really excited about this, aren't you?" He asked, seeing it in her eyes.

"Yeah, I am," the excitement showing even more as she rose up onto her toes, "I've been thinking about it ever since you showed me the Cub last night."

"Well then we better not keep you waiting another second. I gave Morgan a ride this morning so I'll go with you and leave him my truck if that's all right with you."

"That sounds great," responded Sarah already anticipating it, "It gives us more time to talk, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it does. I'll send him a text to let him know."

As they drove down the road to the Casa, Sarah noticed Chuck taking several peeks at her from the corner of his eye when they weren't making small talk. She smiled inwardly at his attempt to study her on the sly, and then their eyes met briefly before looking once again out to the road ahead.

"So how was the interview this morning?" Chuck asked, now looking directly at her.

"It went well," she lied, glancing at him. "They didn't offer the job to me today, but I should have an answer in a day or so." The CIA had arranged for her to actually have the corporate pilot job as a cover if the need arose but Sarah hoped it didn't have to come to that. Originally because she hoped this assignment would be short, but now she was hoping for a different cover job in its place. "But we can talk about that later. Where are we going in the mistress today?" She asked the question like a child wanting to know what was in a wrapped gift before she even tore the bow and paper off.

"Well, it's a surprise. Did you happen to bring a jacket? It might be a little cool." He found something endearing about the way Sarah was now referring to the Cub as 'the mistress'.

She looked at him with unmasked curiosity, "I have my leather jacket, will that be enough?"

"Probably. But we'll throw Ellie's barn coat in the plane just in case. It should fit you."

They pulled up in front of the house and Chuck jumped from the car, opened Sarah's door for her, and then walked briskly onto the porch. "Just one minute while I grab a few things we'll need," he said as he walked to the front door. She followed him through the door and waited by the couch for him as he walked down the hall toward the bedroom wing. He came back a minute later wearing a heavy long sleeved cotton shirt and carrying two coats under his arm. He looked at her as if sizing her up and held out a dark brown heavy cotton canvas barn coat with a leather collar. "Here, try this on for size," he said, holding the coat open for her as she shrugged it on. It was a tad large for her, but felt like it would be cozy and warm.

Sarah watched Chuck step back looking at her in Ellie's barn coat. She was stunned by the look of absolute affection in his eyes as he admired her in the bulky garment. "Oh, jeepers," he exclaimed, "you make one fantastic looking farm girl; and I see you even wore the right footwear," he added looking at her leather hiking boots. She couldn't help but smile and pose a bit at his proclamation.

He looked thoughtfully at her for another moment. "Give me one more minute, I just need to grab a couple more things." And he disappeared into the den. After a couple of seconds she started to shrug the coat off, "Hey, Sarah, come on back here for a minute," he said cryptically.

Sarah walked back into the den just in time to see him swing the vault door open. "In the interest of full disclosure. I figured you must have seen this last night if you looked in here. Please don't freak out," he said pensively.

Sarah was taken aback by the display, but not the contents of the room he was showing her. She was more surprised by his concern about her possible reaction to it. "Wow. This is really something," she said looking in. "I have a few friends who would be extremely jealous of this room," she said very truthfully; she wanted to laugh out loud so much, because it was so true.

He let out another one of those sighs of relief she had already heard more than once. "I was afraid you might walk out the front door and never return after you saw this."

"Well, it is pretty amazing in a sort of intimidating way," she grinned, "but why would I walk out because of this? Weren't you the one who mentioned something about family traditions?"

"Well…yeah, but you have to admit, some people might think this is a little bit over the top…"

"It doesn't surprise me all that much Chuck, I've seen similar rooms before, and you do live on a farm. Did your father build this room?"

"Yeah, actually Dad and Gramps…after a wild planning session fueled by beer," he said brightening, "and there are five generations of firearms in this room, including a few that belong to Ellie and my Mom."

"Well, don't worry Chuck. I'm not going to run out the front door screaming."

"Oh, good. I'm so relieved. I actually came back here to get something," he said, as he opened a cabinet door and pulled two daypacks and a couple of aluminum tubes about two feet long with screw caps on the top of them from the shelves inside. Then he reached into a drawer and pulled out a Smith & Wesson revolver in a leather holster and a couple of leather pouches holding speed loaders and tucked them into one of the packs. Sarah recognized the pistol as a model 329PD .44 magnum. It was a popular model with Alaskan bush pilots because of the lightweight scandium frame and titanium cylinder.

He handed the aluminum tubes to Sarah. "Would you mind carrying these?"

"No, not at all. What's in them?" She asked, genuinely curious.

"Pack rods," he replied, and then smiled at her continued look of confusion. "Fishing poles that break down into multiple sections so they will fit into a backpack," he explained further.

"Oh. We're going fishing?" She wasn't sure how she felt about that.

"Maybe," he grinned back. "It depends on whether the river is still frozen over."

"W-What?" She asked incredulously.

He laughed as he picked up the packs and turned out the lights before closing the vault door and spinning the door bolts into place. "C'mon, our afternoon is slipping by."

-VI-

They pushed the Supercub out of the doors on the south side of the barn into a grassy area with a large double gate that led to the alfalfa field to the west of the barn. It was then that Sarah noticed that a section of the alfalfa had been kept mowed short to allow it to be used as a landing strip. The mowed section was fairly short, less than a thousand feet long. As they walked around the airplane to get in, Sarah started to move toward the back seat but Chuck gently took hold of her arm and pointed to the front, "You go ahead and sit up front, I can fly it from the back if I want to."

She couldn't contain the surprise on her face, "Are you sure? It's been a while since I've flown one of these, and I've never flown one with giant tires like this one has."

He waved his hand dismissively, "You'll be fine. Besides, the view is better up there," he quipped.

"Well…okay." She tentatively climbed into the front seat and Chuck gave her a quick review of the start routine and engine controls since there was only a throttle, stick, and rudder pedals in the back seat. Then he climbed into the back seat behind her.

He gave her a reassuring squeeze of her shoulder, "Don't worry, you'll be fine," he repeated, "and I'll do the first takeoff and landing today, which you can follow along on if you want." He pointed to a headset hanging from the overhead tubing and had her turn the master switch, the radio, and the intercom on.

"O.K. By the numbers; let's start her up."

Sarah advanced the mixture, set the mag switch, and pushed the starter button on the panel and gave the throttle a couple of pumps as the engine cranked and then shook to life at an idle. "That's not even a normal Supercub engine, is it?" she asked, realizing by the sound of the engine that there were probably more than the normal 150hp under the cowl.

"No that's a 180 horse engine, and it's been blue-printed. It probably makes closer to 200 actual horsepower."

"This is going to be interesting," she stated flatly looking over her shoulder at him wide-eyed.

"Yeah," he gave her the Bartowski smile, "hold onto your hat."

"I would if I was wearing one," she laughed.

"We'll have to fix that won't we? I have a Flying 'B' Aviation cap that's just begging to have a blonde pony tail threaded through the back of it."

She turned further to him and gave him a huge smile, which he returned in kind.

"Okay, let's take her on the dance floor. Turn her around a couple of times to get a feel for the ground handling and the heel brakes and then I'll take us out of here. We'll leave the door open, okay?"

Sarah nodded then let out a breath and advanced the throttle a bit to get the plane moving and then spun it around 360 degrees pivoting on one wheel, then did it the opposite direction pivoting on the other wheel. Then she got it moving forward and turned around in the grassy area several times. Looking out the front of the plane was difficult because of the high deck angle caused by the large bushwheels and the extended landing gear. She was forced to guide the plane on the ground using 'S' turns and looking out the edge of the windscreen and the side windows. She couldn't begin to imagine how bad the view must be from the back seat for Chuck.

But he tapped her on the shoulder and gave her a big thumbs up with a grin when she stopped the plane to look at him. "That was great! You're a natural!" He exclaimed enthusiastically. "Okay, go ahead and do a short run up."

Sarah advanced the throttle to 1700 rpm's and checked both magnetos.

"All right, she sounds good. My plane," he said shaking the stick in her hand to signal the handoff when she was done.

Chuck took the controls and advanced the throttle briskly taxiing out through the open gate into the alfalfa field where he gave the plane a quick pirouette looking around at the sky around the farm. "When I tell you, pull on one notch of flaps, okay?"

She answered with a nod of her head and he lined up with the 'runway' towards the west and smoothly advanced the throttle causing the plane to briskly accelerate and the tail to lift after only a few feet of takeoff roll. It seemed like the Super Cub had barely rolled a hundred feet when Chuck said, "Okay…flaps…now," and she pulled up on the Johnson bar one notch. Chuck pulled back on the stick, the tail dropped, and the plane sprung from the ground like a spring and climbed quickly into the air. After a couple of seconds Chuck rolled smartly into a turn back to the east over the trees along the creek and started to follow the creek drainage up into the hills.

He shook the stick again and said, "Your plane," verifying by feel that her hands were on the controls and that she had nodded affirmative to his statement.

He didn't let go completely until she said, "My plane," and she gave the stick a firm shake and retracted the flaps. "Wow, Chuck, that was incredible! This thing really goes!"

"Yeah, this bikini babe really knows how to shake it, doesn't she?" He said with mirth in his voice.

Sarah looked over her shoulder at him with a raised eyebrow, "That was rather graphic," she commented with a hint of what, jealousy?

Chuck blanched at her reaction, "Sorry, sometimes I get a little carried away when I'm in this…thing," he said, thinking better of using anything gender specific to describe the airplane.

Sarah chuckled, and looked forward towards the Sierra Nevada Mountains in front of them, "Relax Chuck, I think I'm beginning to understand why she's named 'the mistress'." She looked around at the increasingly hostile terrain around them, "Just where are we going, anyway?"

"Just keep her on roughly a heading of zero-four-zero, but you can deviate to sightsee if you want, I'll give you some directions when we're closer and let you know when we're almost there."

Sarah looked back over her shoulder at him in puzzlement. "Okaaay," she said as she took in the view of the mountains around her. As they flew along Chuck pointed out some of the landmarks to her. They flew over Glenville, and the old Woody stagecoach road and the famous Granite station stagecoach stop. Chuck pointed to a large lake off to their right, "That's Lake Isabella," he stated, and then pointed to the river feeding into it from the left. "That's the Kern River, where that trout we ate last night was caught. That's also where Captain Awesome likes to white water kayak and raft. He also likes to rock climb on those crags over there, they're called The Needles," he said pointing to some granite spires rising from the mountain landscape on the ridge above the river.

"Who is Captain Awesome, and how did he ever get that name?" Her tone was one of suspended belief.

"Captain Awesome is Ellie's boyfriend, Devon. We call him that because everything he does is awesome; kayaking, white water rafting, rock climbing, mountain biking, off–road racing, flossing…the list is longer than my arm. Oh, and did I mention he's a neurosurgeon?"

Sarah laughed at his description, "It sounds like Devon is a fun guy to be around. I hope I get to meet him."

'I hope so too, because if you meet him you also get to meet my sister. It's a two-for-one bonus. Ellie is pretty awesome too, and I'd like you to meet her."

"Well, I'd like to meet her too." Sarah pondered that statement for a moment. She suspected that meeting Ellie might be something like being introduced to the parents if Chuck's parents had still been around. Then she thought where they were at the moment having this odd over-the-shoulder conversation as she climbed the airplane over the rising Sierra Nevada Mountains. The terrain below was now alternating between patches of green and white lit by the afternoon sun from the southwest. The sun was behind them painting the picture in front of them in bold relief as it reflected off a meandering ribbon of water at their twelve 'o clock in a large valley surrounded by very rugged looking mountains with the afternoon lit Owens Valley and the White Mountains in the background.

"HA! You nailed it!" Chuck pointed down through the open right-side window at the creek bed below singling out a relatively straight gravel bar and motioning south to north with his leather gloved hand. Sarah rolled the airplane into a turn around the makeshift runway along side the river bank. She looked curiously at his gloved hand and her eyes followed his arm back up to his muscular shoulder and to his face now framed by his upturned shirt collar and an insulated corduroy John Deere ball cap now crowning his head under the headset with those lovable brown curls poking out everywhere.

"It gets a little chilly back here when the door is open, at this altitude, this time of year," he said from behind that adorably sheepish smile. He was holding a pair of those one-size-fits-all super-expando-fuzzy gloves in his other hand near her cheek. He brushed the fuzzy softness against her neck, "Aw, c'mon, you know you want them, fuzzy warmth."

She reached to grab the gloves from him when she caught a rather dramatic change in Chuck's expression as he looked beyond her out the front windscreen, "Wow, you are in fact a natural," he said, with a touch of awe as he tilted his head to one side entranced by the sight, "how do you do that?"

"Do what?" she asked innocently.

"That!" he waved his arm towards the front of the plane "That, you know, that. You're doing it now, you show off! Not many can groove a turn like that and not have to keep an eye on it. Very impressive, Sarah Walker, I hope you only share that with people you trust. "

Sarah watched as Chuck's gaze came back into the cockpit and settled on her eyes with that corny crooked grin on his face. She could feel her concentration slipping as he winked at her playfully and his hazel eyes reached into her, and his grin broadened as she snatched the gloves from his hand and turned her attention back out the front of the plane. Damn! How did he do that? So quickly? Then she turned to see his gloved hand resting once again on her shoulder and she smiled again through pursed lips as his other hand pointed down at the creek below.

"I've got the plane," he said with a hint of amusement, shaking the stick, "Go ahead and put those gloves on while I reconnoiter the picnic grounds."

"Your plane," Sarah acknowledged as she quickly wriggled her fingers into the gloves and then returned her attention back outside the Super Cub as Chuck turned upstream and followed the bend flying only a few feet over the gravel bar he had been pointing at a moment before. It looked like it was only a couple of a hundred feet long but it adjoined a grassy part of the creek embankment that looked like it was ready made for a picnic. She sneaked a quick peek at him over her shoulder as his eyes tracked, sharply focused on a spot on the ground and he made a subtle change in pitch and power as they circled back around. She could see what he was thinking as he manipulated the controls and she reached for the flap handle, pulling in a notch of flaps as he settled on a low final approach to the sand bar along the rivers edge.

Their eyes met briefly, "Follow along with me on this," said Chuck, "I want to show you something." Sarah turned quickly with her attention once again up front, mostly, and placed her hands and feet on the controls. "Okay, pull out the rest of the boards and dump them when we're stopped," he said.

Sarah pulled on the last two notches of flaps as requested and felt the Cub settle into ground effect over the creek and slow more as Chuck brought in more power and the 31" Alaskan Bushwheels touched the water and started to hydroplane about seventy-five feet out from the edge of the gravel bar, spraying water out to the side as they slid along the top of the water. "Feel that? Push into it a bit, then add power to hold her there, then focus on the edge and let the energy bleed, slowly," the airplane rolled off the water onto the gravel bar with a splash and then rolled slowly across the bar to turn and come to a stop tailed in toward the shore of the 'river.' Sarah looked down at her hand on the Johnson bar, realizing she had, indeed, dumped the flaps as requested.

"All right! Sweet. That's how we do it. Very refreshing. Welcome to Monache," exclaimed Chuck, "I'm dying to see what you packed in that picnic basket you put together, hopefully a towel," he added with a laugh.

"Oh?…HA!" She turned to see a reasonably well-soaked Chuck with water dripping off the bill of his cap. She, herself, was mostly dry.

"Another advantage about the front seat when the wheels get wet," he quipped, "I stayed dry here until the last second when we rolled onto the bar. Wasn't sure if you noticed, we were starting to break through a bit there. Adding 'Door Closed' to the before gravel bar landing checklist." He looked over her shoulder toward the panel as he started to unfasten his five-point seat belt harness, "You can go ahead and shut her down."

Sarah pulled the mixture knob back to 'full lean', then unfastened her harness and looked around the airplane as the propeller came to a stop, then she switched the mags off. "This is your picnic spot?"

Chuck ended the struggle with his shoulder harness for a second and slumped back into his seat, "What? You don't like the picnic grounds?" His brown eyes took on the hyper-intensity of a Disney cartoon character. "I have others," he added earnestly, "wasn't sure if you were ready for the swimmin' hole yet, but it is warmer there…the water's kind of cold right now…" He was now looking at her from the corner of his gleaming eye and hiding a hint of a boyish grin.

"No…what, are you kidding? I love your picnic spot," and that landing was amazing! She turned around with her knees on the seat and leaning over the back grabbed his wet shirt looking him straight in the eye, "This place is beautiful!" You have more of them? Sarah pulled off her headset and listened to the sound of the water flowing around the gravel bar and the breeze in the grass at the edge of the creek, then looked around at the snow patched mountain vista surrounding them beneath a dazzlingly blue sky before her eyes latched onto his, "But I'd still like to see the others sometime. Why do I get the feeling they're extraordinary, too."

"That could be arranged. I know the tour operator. Extraordinary is kind of his thing."

"Yeah, it would appear. A swimming hole, huh?" She unclenched his fisted shirt and smoothed the wet fabric against his chest, watching it lay out under her hand, "That opens up a whole new line of awkward wardrobe questions, doesn't it?" She asked as she locked her eyes on his.

"Not this one, swimwear is optional…actually lovingly forbidden, there's a sign and everything," Chuck shrugged as he watched her gaze bore into him from behind eyes of intense, liquid, blue flame. "Like I said, wasn't sure if either of us was ready for the swimmin' hole yet…" he added, with a snerk

Smart move, Chuck, not actually going there, but I might have been ready to take the plunge. "You are evil, Chuck Bartowski. Now I'm going to be thinking about your secret skinny dipping spot until the day you finally take me there."

Sarah watched with amusement as the color marched up Chuck's neck. "Oh. Let me think for a moment whether that's actually a bad thing or not." He had a far-away look in his eye as he brought two fingers to his temple.

"Hey!" She swatted his chest with her hand, "Not fair, get your mind out of the swimmin' hole this instant, I can't picture it the way you probably can!" Sarah almost burst out in laughter when she saw the sudden look of guilt on his face. "I don't even want to know, do I?" She asked simply.

He shrugged and looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, as if reviewing his experience of the last several hours, maybe the last two days, "So far, I would share 100% of my thoughts with you…even the scarier ones."

Sarah peered at him biting her lower lip, her mind suddenly flooded with thoughts and memories she didn't want to share with anyone…up to this point in her life. Then there were the thoughts she found herself thinking of this man in front of her. They made her want to grab a roll of mental crime scene tape.

Chuck watched the edges of her eyes soften, the blue pools of flame darkened, revealing her mind had gone to a possibly troubling place, "Uh, Sarah? You okay?"

She shook her head almost imperceptibly and gazed at him, "I'm fine Chuck. That was a pretty heady thing you said there about sharing all your thoughts."

He grinned back at her, "I didn't say my head was rated 'G', only that I'd even share the embarrassing stuff and the 'X' rated stuff too – the rated 'X' stuff is mostly soft porn…" He pulled the brim of his hat down over his eyes as his face turned scarlet. "…And Chuck kills the moment while stepping on his own cerebellum."

She returned his grin even though he was hiding from it and studied him as he hid under his hat bill; then she reached over the seat to pull his hat bill even further down and started to breath again. "I think I need to get out of the plane for a little while, Chuck, it's getting a little warm in here…and we have a picnic." Sarah started to climb out of the plane bumping her head in the process.

Chuck peeked at the outside air temperature gauge and noted it said sixty-one and he was feeling a little wet and chilly as he started to extricate his soggy body from the back seat of the plane.

-VII-

Sarah was placing a slice of marinated mozzarella on a lavosh cracker thinking how much easier it would have been with one of the very sharp knives in her ankle scabbard as opposed to the pathetic one she was using that came with the picnic bag. She could feel Chuck's eyes on her as she purposefully concentrated on her task.

Chuck was watching her mouth move as she slid the slice of cheese onto the cracker. He smiled around a bite of chicken salad on a small slice of pumpernickel bread as the corners of her mouth turned up and she bit into the cracker, the grin getting even bigger when she saw him watching her so closely. "This is some spread you put together here. You're a very talented picnic packer," he said, breaking the short silence.

She looked reflective and giggled around a mouthful of cracker and cheese, "I had help. When I told two of the girls at Trader Joe's what we were doing things got a little out of control, as you can see," she answered, gesturing to the large arrangement of food between them on the blanket.

He took a sip of his bottled mineral water; "Well, this is all terrific; now you're spoiling me. I think we have enough here to stay overnight if we're so inclined, maybe two. We could even catch some fish," he added, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

She looked around at the broad expanse of wilderness around them and then at him in his now drying and very well fitting work shirt and her eyes narrowed. Clearly she hadn't given enough thought to the different directions her day could go and the revelation startled her. "Overnight? Out here?"

"Too much open space for you out here, Sarah Walker?" He gave her that one sided grin looking at her from the corner of his eye and softly chuckled, "Relax, I was only kidding, it wouldn't be proper. Besides, everyone thinks we're just gone for the afternoon and there's no way we could tell them otherwise, and it's supposed to be well below freezing up here tonight, and there's only one survival sleeping bag…so it would get a little cozy…"

"Do all conversational roads with you eventually ramble into compromising positions, Chuck Bartowski?" Sarah could feel the air warming around her and her calm slipping.

He flushed and rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully averting his gaze, "It would appear so…this is a recent development…and only with my current company…" He reached into the picnic bag with deliberation, "…I'm curious where these odd events and unusual conversations might be leading." He held up a pair of containers and gave her that lopsided grin, "Yogurt?"

She looked back at him goggle-eyed as she accepted the carton of yogurt and started to peel back the lid, then stopped, "No way we could tell them otherwise? What do you mean? Why?" Sarah asked as she was struck by a sudden realization.

He pulled his new phone from his shirt pocket and held the display up where she could see it, "We're in an electronic black hole here, no cell reception for miles, and forget about watching Monday Night Football unless you've got a satellite receiver." He saw the expression on her face flash briefly to one of alarm. "Sarah, everything okay?"

Damn it! How did I let him do that? "Uh, yeah, Chuck, I'm fine. Hand me a spoon, please?" Off the grid! And I never noticed…and he's picking up my tells!

"Oh, right…a spoon…I know we have a couple here somewhere, I saw them earlier" he said, looking around inside the picnic bag. "Oh, wait a second, I know where a couple are, plus I have something for you, hang on," he said as he sprang to his feet and walked to the plane.

Sarah pulled the arm of her jacket down a bit to cover her watch more, "Oh, Chuck? Would you mind grabbing Ellie's coat for me? It is getting a little chilly out here." She lifted her jacket sleeve briefly to look at the face of her watch and then pulled her more modest looking CIA issue phone from her pocket to look at it. No service, not even the government encrypted network. At least the watch was still talking to the satellite.

"A coat? Sure thing. Uno momento." Chuck walked back from the plane carrying both coats, one of the daypacks, and the two fishing pole tubes. He plopped the pack down on the blanket between the two of them as he sat back down and handed her one of the coats, which she immediately pulled on. He reached into the pack pocket and pulled out two plastic spoons, "TaDa!" He said as his eyes fell on her in the barn coat and he sighed, "Oh, wow, you've got a real cool westerny sci-fi thing going on with that leather jacket of yours and that barncoat. It has kind of a 'Firefly' kind of look going on…very sexy…in a wild westerny sci-fi kind of way…"

She looked down the front of her garments and back at him and grinned at him as she felt her 'off grid' concerns pushed back a bit by his innocent but flirtatious banter. "I'll assume that 'Firefly' is another one of those movies or TV shows I haven't seen." She finished opening the yogurt and took a bite of it with the spoon Chuck had provided.

He gazed back at her with morbid curiosity. "I hope your calendar is clear for the foreseeable future."

"I guess that depends on how much free time you're going to give the both of us at work," she said, as she spooned some yogurt and then looked at him with an appraising smile.

"So you think you'd rather fly a crop duster than a Gulfstream Four?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I think I would." Why are you doing this, Sarah Walker?!

"Well, okay then. I guess that gives this gift special meaning." He reached into the pack and handed her a Flying B Aviation ball cap. "Welcome aboard, Sarah Walker," he said a little flatly. His face quickly became a little pensive as he reached down to unscrew the top of one of the fishing pole tubes and busied himself assembling the pole. Pensiveness was starting to show a little as distress.

Sarah watched the sudden change in his demeanor, "Thanks, but now it's my turn to ask, Chuck, is everything okay? That's a bit of an odd reaction, especially considering you just hired a pilot who can fly a plane facing backwards." She wove her ponytail through the back of the cap and pulled the cap on, adjusting the bill a bit at the edges with a flourish of her fingertips.

Still absorbed in his task he smiled at her comment, "Yeah, I'm sorry, everything's great. I'm excited about you working with us. It's just…it's really, nothing…" His eyes lit up when he looked up and saw her wearing his company cap.

And it hit her as she looked at him. He had just hired her. And he had been raised with a more traditional sense of propriety – one that might not allow him to become involved with an employee or a co-worker. And then it hit her like a one-two punch that this man sitting with her on a picnic blanket might be battling with some of the same emotions she was, but conflicted for different reasons…or were they really that different? "Chuck, look…if you think having me work for you might be a problem because…we…"

"Sarah…it's okay. We're both adults and I think we're both on the same page. I've learned over the years to be flexible about what life throws at me from one day to the next." He bumped fists with her and smiled. "Semper Gumby."

Oh, my, gosh. "Always Flexible? Is that your motto? HaHa."

He scrunched up his nose and grinned back, "My motto? No. Well, not exclusively at least, there are others to fit the situation…and our family has had more than its fair share of situations," He flashed that crooked grin, "so there are more than a few different mottos. I like the hat on you, by the way," he added pointing at her head as he started to stand up holding two flyrods in front of him.

Sarah looked at the fishing poles and climbed back onto her knees at the edge of the blanket waving her palms in front of her, "Oh, no, no, no, no…"

"That's definitely not one of the motto's." Chuck tilted his head to one side and gave her the 'Disney eyes' again, "C'mon, you'll have fun." Then he flexed the poles against the ground and looked at her with the pleading eyes, "Semper Gumby?"

-VIII-

They wandered up and down the meandering alpine river for almost three hours. Chuck showed Sarah how to sneak up on the native golden trout and roll cast a dry fly into the calm waters under the embankments. They caught several of the striking looking fish and Chuck taught her how to identify them and how to safely unhook and release them back into the river. Sarah found that Chuck was right again and she was having fun. She found herself sneaking up to the edge of the river to peak in looking for bigger fish to catch. Then there was that moment when Chuck was showing her how to roll cast. It had been sublime, almost like a dance as he stood closely behind her at the edge of the water shadowing the motion of the cast for her for several minutes. And then they had sat on the grassy edge of the riverbank just talking. Chuck was asking probing questions about her and her past and she was deflecting most of them while sneaking a seemingly innocuous question into the conversation here and there and comparing his answers to what she knew of him from his file. She was gazing into the water at the rivers edge thinking about it, and the fact that time was slipping away from her, when she heard him walk up behind her. "I know, we need to think about getting going, don't we?" She asked wistfully, still peering into the cold, clear waters.

"In a bit," he admitted, taking her pole for her as she looked from the clear but placid water of the river up to his eyes. "I have reflectors on the strip at the Casa, or we could always fly into Wasco and grab a company truck, but we need light to fly off that gravel bar," he said pointing at the thin strip of rocky sand and the Cub parked on it. "We've been here longer than I thought we would."

"I like this place," Sarah said, looking at the airplane and then the view around them ending with the sun perched low on the southwestern ridges surrounded by high clouds.

"Yeah, it's going to be a beauty, isn't it?" Chuck said, standing so close she could feel his breath on her neck. "That'll be a sunset that will make you a lifetime member."

Sarah just smiled and nodded. Then she felt his hands on her shoulders as they looked at the scene and felt the cool breeze on their faces. She noticed herself leaning back into him and it felt... "There is one thing I wanted to do before we go, though," he said cryptically, "and it would probably be good with a sunset."

She turned around to face him, which just happened to find them together in a loose embrace as he caught the fishing poles with one hand and her hand dropped reflexively on his to try to help him catch the toppling poles before they fell – then curiously she felt their fingers intertwine together as they looked at each other. "What are you trying to say, Chuck?"

"What I've wanting to say since lunch. That I've been dying to get my hands on one of those inside out carrot cake cookies since I saw you take them out of the picnic bag," he said with a devilish version of the Bartowski smile.

Sarah did a double take, "W-what?" NO! He can't be that…what he does with his eyebrows… She felt him gently shaking in her embrace and gently pulling her in.

"No," he said chuckling softly but with a pensive look on his face as the bills of their hats touched, "I'm not that oblivious. I have been out of circulation for a while, so I'm a bit rusty though. It's just that I don't know quite what to do or say when I'm with you, Sarah Walker, I know what I'm feeling, but…"

"Chuck?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up and kiss me." She took his hat off his head and dropped it to the ground before grabbing a handful of his hair and pulling his lips to hers. He met her half way. The fishing poles dropped to the ground as Chuck and Sarah slipped into a tight and easy embrace and the kiss deepened. As the kiss almost started to become frantic they broke apart, both of them staring shocked into one another's eyes as they caught their breath. Their eyes fell to each others lips and then the kiss did become frantic as their hands came up holding each others face's in what could have been interpreted as a struggle for domination. Then Sarah felt Chuck shiver in her hands. She opened her eyes startled to see his eyes disassociated and barely perceptibly fluttering for a fraction of a second while a red light lit his face in a blinking pattern.

"Sarah, why is your CIA issue GLG-70 watch blinking a beep code to call the office immediately?"

She pulled away and fumbled with her coat sleeve pulling it up enough to reveal her blinking watch and the code. She then looked at him through eyes of deep icy blue flame and pulled him in tighter to her with a firm grip on his wrist now pulled halfway around his back, "What? Chuck, did you just…? Are you…?" She felt herself cracking.

"Whoa, Sarah, ease up, okay? It's hard to fly with a broken arm."

Whoa? She just stared into his eyes for several seconds, but felt her grip easing and no resistance from Chuck as she balanced the choice of whether to kiss him, or to adhere to mission protocol by ending him with a knife here and now. Kissing him was winning hands down and her alternate orders to kill the subject if he became uncontrollable were just repugnant to her…especially now. She looked into his eyes and wondered if he could ever possibly become controllable, already knowing the answer. No, there was simply no way he was going to be turned into a controlled asset in the classic asset/handler sense, and Sarah knew she didn't want the job when she reflected on her growing feelings for him.

"Sarah, can we just talk about this?"

"SHSSSH!" She put her finger to his lips and craned her head to listen. "Do you hear that?" she whispered.

"Hear what? Wait. Oh, yeah. That's a McDonnell Douglas MD 520N. They make a very distinct sound because they don't…have…a…tail…rotor," he trailed off seeing the expression on her face.

"Did you just…?"

"Just what? No! What? Sarah, I'm not sure I understand what you're asking me. I just know a thing or two about helicopters, that's all."

She stared at him, and then beyond him, "Chuck…get DOWN!" Sarah shoved him down onto the grass and fell half on top of him as an MD 520N helicopter flew close overhead flattening the grass around them and swooped around in a tight turn circling them. She looked up into the cockpit as it flew over them and saw who could only have been John Casey sitting in the left seat glaring at her lit by the setting sun with an assault rifle in his hands, and the pilot in the right seat wearing the standard flight suit with a set of night vision goggles tilted up on the helmet.

"What the hell!?" Exclaimed Chuck as Sarah's arm held him to the ground.

"Chuck, we have to get out of here!"

"What? Well, then why are you holding me down!" he turned to her "Why? Sarah, who are those guys?"

"Listen to me, Chuck. They're NSA, and you don't want to still be around when they land. We have to leave, NOW."

"NSA? And you're CIA? God, when is my family going to finally be rid of you people," he said with a groan.

Sarah turned with a shocked expression totally unsuppressed and clung to him even as she was flooded with questions, "Chuck, trust me, please…please, there is so much at stake here," she said into his ear, "We'll talk about this later. Right now we have to get to your plane."

She could feel the heat radiating off Chuck as she looked into eyes of smoldering molten brown. They were almost unreadable, and the sight both frightened and exhilarated her at the same time, but she could see anger and frustration in them...and something else. The closeness of the moving helicopter recaptured their attention and they rolled together slightly as they watched the chopper settle into a slow moving hover and it stalked around about a hundred and fifty feet from them. John Casey was looking right at them, and Chuck did some quick and simple calculations, "Sorry, Sarah, but you're going to have to ride in the back seat this time," he said with a shrug as she turned her attention from the helicopter to him. 'Is he smiling? Why is he smiling?'

"Are you ready then?" Sarah asked as she could feel both their bodies coiling.

He nodded with a small – Oh, my, gosh, it was a smile. They both sprang to their feet and Sarah watched in shock as Chuck reached back for his ball cap lying on the ground before he grabbed her hand and they made a mad dash for Stephen's Mistress.

A/N LUMB, another cliff-hangar. I wonder how an MD 520 and a souped-up Super Cub are going to match up against each other?

Mac