All the Roads That Lead to You Are Winding

by TakeItTo22

Sarah Walker and John Casey are sent to Burbank to investigate a man, calling himself Osiris, who has been stealing intel from the CIA and the NSA. While there, Sarah runs into her old, childhood best friend, Chuck Bartowski. AU better description inside.

7. To: SarahLove: Chuck

Since it's been awhile…

Previously on All the Roads That Lead to You Are Winding:Chuck's a masked super-spy, Osiris, fighting against an evil organization called Omega that's hell bent on causing a global economic collapse. He steals information from the CIA, NSA, Fulcrum, and the Ring so that he can figure out who's Omega and who's not. His mother, Mary, is a mole inside Omega, but Chuck's team hasn't talked to her in awhile. The chances of them talking to her any time soon are slim because Omega's aware that they have a mole. Since Chuck's team needs more intel from Fulcrum, they're sending him to Richmond, VA to break into Fulcrum's HQ. The problem with that is, one of Chuck's handlers, CIA Agent Carina Hansen, has to go with him.

Sarah's a CIA agent who's been contemplating some of her life choices. Oh, and she and Chuck are totally in love, but there are a couple of things holding them back, since spies aren't allowed to fall in love. Also, one of the reasons why she's in Los Angeles is because she needs to find Osiris, so it would be pretty awkward if she ever finds out he's Chuck, wouldn't it? For some, odd reason, her bosses, CIA Director, Langston Graham, and NSA Director, General Diane Beckman, decided that it would be a good idea for Sarah and Chuck to cover date. Sarah doesn't mind too much, though. She and Chuck just can't seem to keep their hands to themselves.

A/N: I'm sorry it took me close to a year to update, but I broke my old laptop a couple of weeks ago, while I was in the process of writing out this chapter. In fact, I was probably 90% done with the chapter before I accidentally broke the old thing. So re-writing this chapter from scratch has been pretty tough, and I've also been working a lot. So yeah, sorry about that. Thanks goes out to mxpw for beta-ing this chapter pretty quickly, considering its length, and being awesome. Another thanks to you guys for reading and leaving reviews! You guys are awesome as well. More from me at the end of the chapter…

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October 3, 2007
Chuck's Private Jet
4:32 PM PST

Chuck closed the lid on his laptop and cracked his neck. Giving his wrist a quick turn to loosen up the muscles, he reached over and grabbed his glass of whiskey. The liquid warmed the back of his throat soothingly. When he placed the glass down, he chuckled to himself.

"I think we need to help put their kids through college."

Was that smooth? He thought it was, but he couldn't be sure. He was never very good with the ladies. Whether it was smooth or not, Chuck really didn't care. The only thing that mattered was that that kiss? Well, it was just amazing.

"What are you so happy about?" asked Carina, startling him and causing him to choke on a bit of scotch. She was sitting across the aisle, facing him with a playful smile. "Were you writing a love letter to Walker?" she asked. "'Dear Sarah, you're so hot! I love you!'"

"No," he replied defensively. "I was writing an email to your bosses, actually."

"Oh yeah? Did you ask them for permission to start making babies with Walker?"

"Oh, for sure," he said, rolling his eyes. "Why aren't you sleeping? I thought you were tired."

"I can't sleep on planes," she said, shrugging.

"Why were you in such a hurry to get on, then?" he asked, feeling annoyed. If she wasn't in such a hurry, then he and Sarah would have been able to…he didn't know what. Maybe kiss for a bit longer?

"I didn't want the paparazzi to see me," she replied. "I mean, there's a rogue operation that's after you, so you pretty much have a target painted on your back."

If the CIA and the NSA didn't interfere, then I wouldn't have that problem, he thought. But there was really nothing he could have done about that. Out of the hundreds of Starbucks coffee joints in L.A., Jill just had to go to the same damn Starbucks that he and Sarah had gone to.

"But Sarah's been seen with me a bunch of times," he said, realizing that he had painted a target on Sarah's back as well. "Is she in danger?"

"Walker can take care of herself," said Carina, studying him with interest. "You really care for her, don't you? And not in that 'man, I want to get in that hot blonde's pants' kind of way? I'm pretty sure you do," she added quickly, "but it's more than that, isn't it?"

"I don't—I…" Chuck sputtered. The thought of getting into Sarah's pants was quite distracting. He had thought about it a couple of times, yes, but he was a man, and Sarah was extremely beautiful, and she was funny, and warm, and just…cool. That is, she was all of those things when she wasn't in her spy-mode, but she seemed to have struck a balance. "Of course I care about her! She and I have been friends since we were three!" His face was starting to get hot. Maybe he should have drunk water instead of scotch.

"There's no need to get so defensive, Chucky." Carina laughed. "It was a simple yes or no question."

Embarrassed, and just because it was something to do to distract her, he grabbed his laptop and placed it in his bag.

"So who did you write the novel to?" asked Carina, nodding to his laptop. "You were typing for the last forty minutes."

He zipped his bag and placed it on top of the table. "I was writing an email to Director Graham."

Carina frowned. "What for?"

"For Bryce, actually," he replied. "The current chief financial officer is kind of lazy. And since Director Graham now knows that I know that Bryce is ex-CIA, I wanted to ask him if it was okay if I give Bryce the CFO position."

"Oh," she spat, disgusted.

Gosh, she must really hate Bryce, he thought.

"Well, you just wasted your time," she said. "Graham's not going to let Bryce become the CFO."

When spies leave the agency, they're given new covers for their protection. Then they're given lower level jobs than they're qualified for to keep off the radar. Bryce had only been out of the CIA for just over a year. Chuck knew that it was a long shot for Graham to allow Bryce to get the CFO position, but he had to try. In Chuck's opinion, Bryce was the best candidate for the job.

"It doesn't hurt to try," said Chuck. "I just want what's best for the company, and Bryce is the perfect candidate for the job."

"Whatever you say, Chucky," she said airily. "But don't get your hopes up; Bryce will only let you down. He's just a selfish coward."

Chuck frowned. Bryce, despite his arrogance, was a good man. In the eight years of their friendship, Bryce had never let Chuck down. So to see the look of disdain on Carina's face, and to hear her calling his friend a coward, he felt that he needed to defend his friend.

He also needed to soften Carina up so that she'd make peace with Bryce. Now that Omega was starting to put people into large corporations like Roark Industries, there would be more Osiris missions. He needed to stop Wally before he would be able to cause major damage to Roark Industries. He also needed to find out what Wally's team was up to. Chuck needed Bryce to recruit Carina, and he needed Carina to trust Bryce again in order for that to happen.

"Why do you keep saying that he's a coward?" asked Chuck, watching as Carina walked over to the small bar. "Is it because he left the agency? Because that was totally not his fault."

She didn't look up from measuring the vodka, but she laughed humorlessly and peeked into the mini-fridge. "It's not because he left the agency." A loud clang rang throughout the cabin as Carina slammed the fridge shut. "Where the hell is the tonic water?" she asked. "Actually, why isn't anyone mixing my drink for me?"

"Because it was your job to hire them, and obviously, you didn't," he replied, getting up from his seat. He walked over to the bar, and held up the fountain dispenser, flicking the switch to tonic water. "And here's the tonic water," he said, handing her the hose.

"You never told me to hire any flight attendants." She filled her glass with the tonic water, dropped a few ice cubes, and garnished her drink with a wedge of lime.

"Marjorie, my old assistant, would always hire them for me without having to ask," he said, grabbing a bottle of water from behind the counter. "I guess I just got used to her and I forgot to ask you to hire them. That's my bad."

"That's right, it's your bad," she said playfully.

Before she made her way back to her seat, Chuck was able to catch a look of relief on her face, most likely due to her thinking that he had forgotten about the Bryce subject. Not caring whether she thought he was annoying (which she probably did) or not, he followed her back to her seat, determined to accomplish his new mission, Operation Soften Carina Up for Bryce, So He Could Recruit Carina with Ease.

"Anyway," he said, sitting across from her. "So why do you think Bryce is a coward?"

She let out an exasperated groan. "Chucky, just leave it alone."

"Nope," he said, shaking his head and grinning. "We've still got about…" he flicked a glance at his Big Brother watch that his handlers had given him, "three and a half hours left before we get to Virginia. That means that I have all that time to annoy you about it."

Taking a long sip of her vodka tonic, Carina squinted her eyes into a glare. He could tell that she was contemplating on whether it would be worth it to take a swing at him or not.

"I remember going to Connecticut to bring Bryce to LA so that he can start his physical therapy and what not," he said, deciding that it was better to distract her than giving her the time to come to the conclusion that his face was already covered in cuts in bruises, and it wouldn't hurt her to add a few more. "When I got there, he told me that I had just missed you and Sarah. I guess that was the last time you saw Bryce…"

He continued his story, watching her as she determinedly stared at her drink. That night was the first time Chuck had ever seen Bryce break down in tears. It must have been hard for him, finding out that he would never be able to walk again and that he would have to leave the only woman that he had ever loved behind in the span of two days.

"I've never seen the guy so lost," he said somberly. "He was always so confident, you know? And he just…lost everything…he lost you."

Still, Carina didn't say anything. Her hands were shaking, and she glowered at the glass of vodka tonic as if it had offended her in some way. Studying her closely, he could see that she was trying to keep her tears from falling.

"I'm pretty sure that you've figured out that spies get certain rights taken away from them once they become spies, right?" she asked softly, avoiding his eyes.

"Yeah."

"The one right we do have is to quit," she said. "It's a long, tough process, but the CIA does let agents that want to leave, leave. You know that because of Bryce. They give you a new identity, a countless number of psychological tests, and I'm pretty sure that once you do leave, they keep tabs on you to make sure you don't spill their secrets. I'm positive that when spies are issued their red tests, that's a spy's first assassination mission, most of their marks are ex-agents who may have accidentally let something slip."

That was probably why Casey had wanted to report Bryce when he had found out that he had told Chuck that he was a spy. Chuck silently sent thanks to Sarah for defending Bryce that day.

"So yeah," continued Carina, after she had downed her vodka tonic, "I was willing to go through all that for Bryce."

His mouth dropped in shock. Bryce had never told him that, had he? No, he hadn't. All he had said was that Graham had insisted that he and Carina sever ties. He never told him that Carina was willing to leave the agency to be with him. Maybe he didn't know.

"Did you ever tell him that you were willing to quit for him?"

She shook her head. "We promised each other that if anything happened, we would always be there for each other, though. After I killed that asshole who threw him out of the window, I went back to the hospital, ready to tell Bryce that that was my last mission."

She brought the empty glass to her mouth, but stopped when she realized it was empty. To give her something to do, Chuck unscrewed the cap off his water bottle and handed it to her. As she took a drink, he waited until she was ready to continue, although, he had an inkling about what she was going to say.

"He threw me and Sarah out," she spat bitterly. "Threw a big bitch fit. The nurses tried to get me to leave the room, I knocked a few of them out. Eventually, Bryce's handler had to knock me out with a cheap shot to the back of the head."

"But then, maybe Bryce didn't know that you were going to quit," he said hopefully. Bryce was probably just depressed, and he didn't want to see anyone, he considered silently. A realization hit him. Bryce was willing to speak to him when he had gone to visit.

Carina was a trained agent. One of the best, according to Bryce. It would be really beneficial for Chuck's team if Carina was with them. And if Bryce was going to use the excuse that he wanted to protect Carina, then Chuck was going to be pissed. Bryce had given him a hard time for wanting to protect Sarah at the loading docks, saying that she was a trained agent and she could handle herself. Carina was just as good as Sarah was. Granted, it would have been dangerous for her to be a part of the team if she had quit the CIA, but Chuck remembered that he had come up with wearing a mask to conceal his identity pretty quickly. He was sure that if Carina joined the team, she would have gotten a mask as well.

"He knew," she insisted sadly, grabbing her glass off the table, and making her way back to the mini-bar.

He sank back into his chair and gazed out the window. There was nothing really to see, just the dark sky and gray clouds. Why would Bryce throw Carina out of his room like that? It didn't make any sense. Chuck knew that Bryce cared for Carina, and even if she did quit the CIA, she didn't have to know about the team. If Bryce chose not to tell her, Chuck would have understood why. Maybe, if she had quit, Bryce wouldn't have been so depressed. Maybe he wouldn't have tried to…

Chuck's head sprang up. "He was going to kill himself!" he cried loudly, causing Carina to spill vodka on the counter.

"What?" she asked, looking dismayed.

One day, when his father was out, Chuck had gone to the Lair to check up on Bryce. When he had entered the house, no one was there. It was eerily quiet. It was so quiet that when he had gone down to the basement, he was able to hear the sound of a clip being loaded into a gun. It had echoed through the basement.

He never sprinted so quickly in his life. He got into the command center in time to tackle Bryce before he was able to turn the gun on himself.

"He lost everything," said Chuck, remembering what Bryce had told him. "Not just you, but he lost everything that made him, him. He loved being a spy. It made him feel like he was alive. It gave him purpose. He loved being with you, and going out on missions with you and Sarah. In the span of a few minutes, that was all taken away from him. He said he didn't have anything to live for." Chuck looked at Carina, whose face displayed a mixture of shock and pity. That was enough for him to come to the conclusion that Carina had never gotten over Bryce. "He didn't want you to quit, and give up your life, because his mind was set on killing himself."

She clutched onto the counter, breathing heavily, and looking as though she was trying to process everything he had just told her. "Is that…"she began in a raspy voice. She cleared her throat. "Is that true?"

"Yes."

"You were there when it was about to happen?"

"Yeah."

"Does he…is he okay now?"

"I think so. He's accepted it, I think. Made peace with it."

"That's good," she breathed, nodding to herself. "That's good."

They were silent. That was a day that Chuck would never forget. Had he gone down a millisecond later, Bryce would have certainly died that day. It was one of the most frightening days of his life, almost losing one of his best friends. It was also the first time anyone had punched him in the face.

"You talked him out of it?" Her voice was closer now, and he jumped back when he saw that she was sitting across from him again.

"Sort of," he replied. "I calmed him down. Later, I called Graham to tell him what happened, and he told me to take Bryce to see a therapist, Dr. Dreyfus."

"But you still stopped him."

"Yeah, I guess."

She reached over the table and placed her hand over his. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"Just…thanks," she said, taking her hand back.

He nodded, understanding.

"You're a good person, Chuck, for being there for him," she said, a thin smile spreading across her face. "You really care about people." She paused to take another sip from her glass. The warm smile that she directed at Chuck while she put her drink down unnerved him. It was quite odd, seeing her smile so warmly. He was used to her playful, "I'm about to say something dirty," smile. "I understand what Walker sees in you now."

He sucked in a breath, causing a bit of spit to fly to the back of his throat. Holding a finger up, Chuck began to cough into his sleeve. "Wha—what?"

"You know those feelings you have for Walker; the feelings you try to hide? She feels the same way about you." Carina flashed her trademark, mischievous grin.

Chuck's face turned a deep shade of red.

"Anyway," she said cheerfully, "Bryce said that his penis still worked, right? That wasn't a dream?"

Chuck couldn't help it. He had to laugh. Carina Hansen wouldn't be Carina Hansen if she couldn't go an hour without making a deviant comment of some kind.

October 3, 2007
Magnolia Self Storage
San Diego, CA
9:52 PM PST

Sarah unlocked the padlock of her storage unit, and bent down to pull the sliding door up. A loud, metallic clanking noise erupted, echoing down the empty lot of storage units. She picked her flashlight up from the ground, and flicked it on. As the small storage unit illuminated in the yellow light, she saw boxes stacked atop each other in five neat rows.

Lifting the top box from the middle row, Sarah placed it on the ground and began to shuffle through it. The box contained her soccer and volleyball trophies from the years of 1986 to 1993. There were a few team pictures, and she smiled as the memories began to gently weave through her mind. She was a star on the soccer field, and her overhand serve for volleyball was famous for knocking out an opposing team member's tooth. Her mother was always visible in the crowd, cheering her on with Chuck.

She folded the lid of the box shut, and reached for another. There was nothing worth noting in there, just some of her father's old clothes. The next three boxes she riffled through mostly contained some old clothes from her high school years. Finally, she found the box that she was looking for. She unfolded the lid, and found the photo album that she had made years ago.

After her mother died, Sarah's father didn't give her much time to pack. She wasn't able to retrieve the framed pictures that hung from the walls in their old home or the family photo albums. Five minutes was all the time her father had given her. She remembered pulling all of the pictures from the walls of her room and stowing them in a shoebox that contained even more pictures.

Wiping the thin layer of dust from the cover, she flipped through the pages. The first page contained a family portrait right after Sarah had had her first communion. The next few pages were pictures of her and her soccer teammates at their end of the season pizza party. She flipped through those pages quickly, unable to put a name on the other girls' faces. When she came across a picture of her mother hugging her when she was around nine years old, she paused. She remembered the warmth of her mother's embrace, and Sarah missed it.

She missed a lot of things about her mother. She also missed out on a lot of things without her mother.

Sighing, Sarah turned to the last page. It was a picture of her and Chuck on Halloween in the year 1991. Even when she was young, she wasn't all that creative. Sarah was dressed in a witch costume that she had bought from a costume store, even though her mother would always want to help her make her own costume. Chuck, on the other hand, he was always creative. He was wearing a bicycle helmet that he had spray-painted silver, and he had painted the top half of his face with silver face paint. He was wearing an aluminum garbage can, his arms sticking out the sides. Sarah remembered him saying that he was supposed to be Robocop that year.

Shutting the photo album shut, she reached back into the box, finally finding the two things that she had been looking for: a cassette tape and a folded note. On the front of the note, Chuck had scribbled:

To: Sarah
Love: Chuck

He had given her the note on their last night in San Francisco, just before their first kiss. Sarah remembered how she had been crying in the elevator on the way back to her floor, clutching at the note, and too afraid to read what it would say. She didn't know what she was afraid of. She still didn't.

"Hello, Sarah," a voice called from behind her.

Sarah, startled, immediately grabbed a knife from her ankle holster, and turned. Her right arm was cocked back, ready to throw the knife at the intruder. Upon the sight of a woman, in her mid-fifties, with long, brown hair and hazel eyes, wearing a long, tan coat, Sarah's arm fell to her side. She couldn't believe her eyes.

"Mrs. Bartowski?"

Mary maintained her stoic expression, and nodded. "Yes, Sarah. It's me."

Questions suddenly filled Sarah's mind: How could she have left her beautiful, smart, and well-behaved children behind? Where did she go?

"What…what are you doing here?" She thought it was best to start off with a simple question.

Mary looked over to her right and nodded her head. A moment passed, and Sarah saw a large, hulking figure stop beside Mary, making her look minuscule.

"Wally?" she called out, getting up, still clutching onto her knife. "What the hell is going on?"

"We're here because we need you to do something for us," said Mary. "Something important."

"I'm a human resource rep for Legends, unless you want me to hire you, I don't think I can do anything to help," Sarah protested.

As the words came out of her mouth, she knew that there was no way that Mary and Wally were going to believe her. What kind of human resource representative carried throwing knives? She cursed herself for unsheathing the blade earlier. That was something that she had always had trouble with back when she was in training: attacking without fully assessing the situation.

Mary chuckled. "Sarah, we know that you're CIA, and we know why you're here in California. That's why we need you. You can help us."

She felt disoriented; like she had when she used to play soccer and someone would accidentally head butt her. Why was Mary with Wally? Two people from her past just showed up, and they seemed to know everything about her. It was unsettling. How did they know that she was CIA? What was going on?

"Who are you?" she demanded, trying to buy some time to figure a way out of this situation. If Wally was around sixty pounds lighter, she could have used him as a body shield. But he looked as though he weighed at least 265 pounds. Moving him would be nearly impossible.

"Why don't we talk about this somewhere else?" Mary said, eyeing the knife that Sarah was still clutching. "Somewhere public?"

"How about we talk about it here?" said Sarah coolly, sheathing her knife. "I won't hurt you." Unless I have to…

"That's not what I'm afraid of." Mary raised her hand and pointed it over her shoulder. Outside of the container, Sarah could see a man perched on top of the container opposite from hers, aiming his rifle at her. "What I'm afraid of is that you'll do something foolish, and get yourself killed."

Sarah glanced back out at the man with the rifle. It was too dark to determine what kind of rifle he had, but she guessed that it was most likely an automatic carbine. Maybe it was an M16 or an M4.

She dropped her knife. The container was too confined for her to dodge out of the line of fire. "Fine," she said with a huff. "Let's talk, Mrs. Bartowski."

October 4, 2007
Iron Jaw Motel
Richmond, VA
12:55 PM EST

The rest of the flight was quite uneventful. After her second vodka tonic, Carina seemed to find it easier to fall asleep. While she was asleep, Chuck took the time to try to clear his mind. It was nearly impossible. With Carina asleep, and having nothing to distract him, he thought about Sarah. He wondered what she was doing. Maybe she was parked outside of what she thought was Fulcrum's headquarters, waiting for Osiris to make an appearance. There was a part of him that hoped she was thinking about him as much as he had been thinking about her.

After the plane had landed, Chuck and Carina got in a slight argument. He was annoyed that Carina hadn't reserved any hotel rooms, and she was annoyed because he never told her that she had to. He knew that it was his fault, but again, he was too used to how his former assistant always took care of those things for him without him having to ask her. Because it was the presidential campaign season, they weren't able to find any hotels that weren't fully booked.

Nearly all of the motels were booked as well, and the two of them had to settle for a small motel just outside of the city. He really didn't mind. The motel was quite nice, especially since he was expecting some cliché, creepy motel. He actually did find a roach motel in his bathroom, though.

Even though he hasn't gotten much sleep in the past couple of days, it was only 9:55 PM in California, so Chuck decided to shuffle through some of the coded mission notes that his father had left in his suitcase.

The hardest thing about this mission was that he couldn't be seen by any Fulcrum agents. If word got out that Osiris had stolen intel from Fulcrum's headquarters in Virginia at the same time Chuck was supposed to be at a meeting in Virginia, it would most likely mean that the CIA would be able to deduce that he was Osiris. At the very least, he'd be a suspect.

Chuck was reading about a new feature for his tranq pistols when there was an odd shuffling noise coming from the bathroom. He snapped his head to the left, and stared at the bathroom door. It was slightly open, but he was sure it had been like that when he got here. Shrugging, he decided that it was just his imagination. He began to turn back to his notes, when suddenly he was staring into a pair of the lightest blue eyes that he had ever seen.

"Hi, Chucky!"

"GOO!" he yelped in shock, falling backwards on his chair. His legs collided against the table, not only sending a wave of pain through his shins, but overturning it as well. The last six months of being Osiris had made him quite paranoid.

Carina held out her hand, looking satisfied, as if that was exactly the reaction she was expecting from Chuck. He saw that she was wearing a tight, purple tank top and some black boy shorts. He also noticed that she had really long legs.

"Where the hell did you come from?" He stood up on his own, ignoring the outstretched hand.

"Snuck in through the bathroom window," she replied, smirking.

Dusting off his back, Chuck shot a confused glance at her. "Why couldn't you just knock?" He gestured to the front door. "Like a normal person?"

"Where's the fun in that?" Carina helped him put the table back on its legs. When she was done, she gathered up his notes for him. "What's all this?"

"They're notes for tomorrow's meeting," he lied, taking them from her. "So, uh, what are you doing here? Were you just bored, and you felt the need to scare someone, so you figured, 'Hey! I'll scare Chuck?'"

"Actually, I came by to borrow some toothpaste," she said, watching Chuck gathering the rest of the notes from the floor. "That's why I broke into the bathroom, but it wasn't there."

"Oh, right," he grumbled, putting his notes in order. "Again, I don't know how hard it would have been to knock."

"Oh, it's extremely difficult," she said, grinning.

Chuck rolled his eyes. "Toothpaste is in my suitcase," he said distractedly, gesturing over to the bed where the suitcase was. "Help yourself."

Carina nodded and walked over to Chuck's suitcase, while he began to shove the stack of papers into a manila envelope. He sighed. The mission tomorrow was going to be his toughest yet, and he wasn't even sure if he would be able to attain the intel. The laptop that his father had designed was large, bulky, and fairly heavy, weighing in at around nine pounds. He had a bad luck streak going on lately, and his confidence was beginning to wane.

At least Jill had made him new armor. If he got shot at tomorrow, he wouldn't have to worry too much about the bullets piercing through it.

Oh, shit, he realized. The armor was in the suitcase! The same suitcase that Carina was about to go digging through to look for a tube of toothpaste.

"Carina, wait!" he cried, turning around.

It was too late. She was already kneeling in front of his suitcase, holding his mask in her hand, with a look of confusion on her face. Chuck could literally hear the gears in her head turning, and then everything seemed to happen in slow motion. She dropped the mask back into the bag, and reached a hand to her waistband for a knife. Chuck flashed, and instinctively, he threw the thick envelope filled with mission notes into the air, and dove forward into a front somersault.

As Carina's knife tore right through the envelope, and into the wall, Chuck stood up so that he was face to face with Carina.

He held up both of his hands. "I can explain," he tried to say, but he ducked underneath Carina's left arm, swinging a blade at his head. She thrust the knife downward, and he rolled to the right next to the bedside table. He grabbed the phonebook off the table, and held it in front of him as Carina tried to thrust the knife into his chest. The end of the knife poked through the book, and Chuck twisted his arms counter-clockwise to disarm her. He threw the book and knife aside and quickly caught Carina's right wrist from a right hook.

She attempted a wide, left hook, and he ducked underneath. She had put all her weight into the punch. The momentum caused her to spin around, so Chuck reached from behind her to grab her left wrist, and he pulled her into him. Carina's back was against his chest, her arms crossed around her neck. He loosened her arms a bit to keep from choking her. That enabled her to twist around. His back was now against her, and she began to pull his arms toward her, choking him.

A hot woman in her underwear was chocking me, he realized. This was not as fun as most guys would think. It was actually quite frightening, seeing as he could never hit a woman. Ellie would skin him alive if he did, even if a woman was choking him to death. She told him that since he spent so many hours at the gym, then he should be able to overpower a woman without actually hurting.

With all the strength he had, Chuck bent his torso forward. He felt Carina flipping over his back, into the wall. She somehow kicked off the wall into a flip, but Chuck maintained his grip on her wrists. They were now facing each other, their arms twisted, and breathing heavily. Carina was glaring fiercely at him, her red hair disheveled. It was quite the scary sight. There was a deep hatred in her eyes, and the disheveled, red hair made it look like there were the flames of Hell behind her. Chuck could also see hurt and betrayal in her eyes. She had trusted him enough to open up to him earlier, and the whole time, he was the one that she and her partners were supposed to be searching for.

"Carina," he gasped, trying to catch his breath, "I can explain—"

"You're Osiris!" she spat angrily.

"Yes, I'm Osiris, but listen…" he trailed off as Carina's eyes flicked briefly to his groin. He reacted in time. He blocked Carina's kick with his knee. It was painful, but had her kick actually landed on its intended target, that would have been a hundred times more painful. She attempted another kick, and he blocked it with his knee again. "Carina, stop!" he yelled, frustration in his voice.

With surprising strength, she pulled her arms back, causing him to stumble forward. The next thing he felt was pain. A lot of pain. Carina had bit through his shirt and onto his nipple. He let out a howl. It was just excruciating. Having been in a frat during his college years, Chuck had been on the receiving end of many Purple Nurples. But this was something else. It was like a thousand pounds of force, clenching down on him. Bryce had always told him that Carina fought dirty, but he never thought she would fight this dirty!

"Oh my—fuck!" he cried, tears of pain welling in his eyes. He shoved her back into the wall, and he fell down on one knee. His hands clutched at the pain on his chest.

Carina leapt on his back, and put him in a sleeper hold. Her long legs wrapped tightly around his torso, not allowing any air to escape or enter his lungs. There was a part of his mind that thought this wouldn't be such a bad way to die—getting choked to death by a beautiful woman that was straddling his back. He couldn't help it. He was a guy, after all. But then, he remembered Sarah and that kiss. God, he wanted to live to see Sarah again.

As everything around him began to darken, he lifted himself and Carina off the ground and plopped down backwards onto the bed. Without taking the time to suck in a breath of air, he pinned Carina's arms down with his knees. She was squirming, kicking, and snarling profanities at him, but he ignored her.

"Carina, please, calm down!" he pleaded.

"Go to hell!"

That was a little harsh, he thought. It wasn't like he had done anything to her personally. "Give me five minutes to explain myself. If you don't like what I have to say, you can arrest me, or kill me, or whatever," he bluffed, silently hoping that he could convince Carina that he wasn't a bad person. "I'm going to get off you as long as you promise to be cool."

As Carina contemplated, he stared down at her arms. They were a deep shade of red. He felt bad about cutting off her circulation, but he was too afraid to shift his weight. The last time that happened, Carina had choked him with his own arms.

"I'll get off you," he repeated, glancing over at the phonebook with a knife lodged in it. "And I'll give you your knives back. You'll have all the power. Just let me explain why I've been stealing information."

"Fine," she spat, after what seemed like hours. "Get off me."

He slid back, off the bed, and held his hands out in front of him. "You cool?"

Carina rolled off the bed, and walked toward the phonebook, rubbing her arms in an attempt to get her circulation back. "Just talk, asshole." She pulled the knife out from the book, and plopped down on the ground in exhaustion.

Ignoring the sting from her remark, Chuck leaned heavily against a wall. His nipples were killing him. "Okay," he said, taking in a deep breath. "What I'm about to tell you is above top secret. Not even the President knows any of this. At least, I don't think he does." He looked up thoughtfully before shaking his head. There were more important things to talk about. "Anyway, just…don't tell your bosses. Please."

For a long moment, Carina looked skeptically at him. Chuck held his breath, studying her. When she finally nodded, he began to explain to her about Omega's motives. About Bryce, and how he downloaded the original Intersect. He explained how it used to be easier to obtain intel when Bryce was in the CIA and Jill was in Fulcrum. He told her that they had to get intel from the CIA, the NSA, Fulcrum, and the Ring so that they could figure out who Omega had in those organizations.

Memories of the night when Bryce and Stephen had told Chuck everything came back. Only, in this situation, Carina was Chuck. However, Chuck was sure that he had an extremely dumbfounded, confused look on his face. Carina listened intently to his every word. Her eyes flicked quickly as she read the information on his father's laptop. The computer had some solid information about Omega, so that helped a lot.

Chuck left out the part about Orion being his father. Bryce trusted Carina, so Chuck trusted her as well, but he had to be safe. There was a chance that she was just playing along, and once his guard was down, she'd arrest him, Bryce, and Jill. At the least, his father would still be around to fight Omega.

"Daniel Shaw," she said, placing the laptop down on the ground in front of her. Relief washed over Chuck when he saw her sheathing her knife. "He was Omega?"

"He was one of their moles inside the Ring," he replied. "But yeah, he was Omega."

"Omega's the reason why he's paralyzed," Carina said to herself.

She looked lost in thought, processing everything that she had just heard and seen. Chuck waited. If he was being honest, he had no idea what he should say or do next. Should he just straight up invite Carina to join the team, or should he just wait, and let her fully take everything in?

"You said that you have a mission tomorrow?" she asked, looking up at him. "To get Fulcrum's intel?"

Chuck nodded.

Carina grinned as though she was a child who had hit the mother-load of candy on Halloween. "Looks like I'm going to need a geeky call-sign, huh?"

Waiting was a good idea indeed. However, Chuck was not entirely kosher on the idea of having another person out in the field with him. The main reason he had even volunteered himself for his father's team, apart from wanting to save the world from an insane, apocalyptic, war, was because he didn't want others to end up like Bryce or worse. On the other hand, having Carina willingly join the team was a relief. He couldn't come up with any more ideas on how to avoid his handlers, and she was an experienced CIA agent. It would be nice to have one of those to help him out.

"You want on the team?" he asked, studying her closely to be absolutely positive that she genuinely wanted to be a part of this.

Her grin faded. "Yeah, I want to help you." Her face hardened. "Everything that you said—everything that you showed me—" She gestured to the laptop. "I can't just sit idly by, knowing all of that is going on. I want to help."

Giving her a half-smile, he nodded.

"Anyway, I'm going to need a geeky call-sign."

"It doesn't have to be geeky," said Chuck, rolling his eyes. Was Osiris a geeky name? Personally, he thought it sounded cool, mysterious. "And you can come up with your own call-sign."

Carina pursed her lips together, and scowled in deep concentration. Chuck just sat back and watched her. After a few silent seconds had gone by, she looked up in hesitation. "Honestly, the only things that are coming to mind are really stupid."

"I'm sure they're not stupid," he said kindly.

She let out a puff of air. "Yeah, they are. I'm not a creative person. That is, I can get creative when it comes to…you know—" her eyes flicked over to the bed, and Chuck understood, "and when I'm out in the field. But when it comes to things like this? Yeah, I just can't do it."

"Well, just tell me what you were thinking, then," said Chuck.

Carina hesitated briefly, before inhaling a deep breath. "Okay, I got…Big Red, Strawberry Shortcake, and Red Velvet."

Chuck stifled his laughter. "Uh…yeah, they're not stupid. But, er…are you hungry perchance?"

"I actually am," she said, absentmindedly rubbing her stomach. "And I also like my hair." Carina's hand left her flat stomach, and flicked a strand of her red hair. "Even a prude like you should be able to admit it, but I'm hot for a redhead."

"I'm not a prude!" For some reason, he felt self-conscious, and he couldn't fathom why. "Anyway—" Chuck shook his head, "yes, you're a very pretty, young woman. But no offense, calling yourself Red Velvet isn't really going to sound very intimidating to Omega. Well, it might if they were diabetic, but…"

She looked taken aback for a second, before she retorted, "Oh, and how is Osiris intimidating?"

"Osiris passes judgment. In a way, I do the same thing."

"Oh yeah?" Carina scoffed. "How's that?"

"You know how I basically have a computer in my head?" Carina nodded. "If I see an Omega agent, I flash on them, and I pretty much pass judgment, you know?"

"Clever," she mused, not looking impressed.

"Well, I think it is," he said, examining Carina. Suddenly, inspiration struck him. "Do you know who Pamela Isley is?"

"Nope."

He stood and walked over to his suitcase where his work laptop bag was laying. "I think your call-sign should be Eisley," he said, booting up his computer.

"Why? And who the hell is Pamela Isley?" Carina stepped beside Chuck and watched him as he opened up his web browser.

He tilted his laptop so that she could see. "That," he said, pointing to the screen with his free hand, "is Pamela Isley, aka, Poison Ivy; which I think is a pretty lame name, but whatever."

"The chick from Pulp Fiction?" asked Carina, frowning at the JPEG of Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy from Chuck's most hated superhero film adaptation, Batman & Robin.

"No, her character," he replied, setting his laptop on top of the bed. Chuck clapped his hands together. "So Pamela Isley is a hot and deadly redhead—sort of like you."

"Hot and deadly, eh?" Carina focused on the picture with more interest. "What does she do?"

"She's a villain, but that doesn't really matter," explained Chuck. "She's pretty much a man-eater." Upon hearing the words, Carina grinned gleefully. "You know, she seduces them, sometimes for the hell of it, other times to get things she wants. When she's done, she kisses them. But get this," he said dramatically, "her lips are filled with venom, right? So every time she kisses someone, they die."

She glanced up at Chuck, looking exhilarated. "You said you had a chemist on your team?"

"She's a bio-chemical engineer," he replied. Carina was about to say something, but Chuck interrupted, already knowing what she was going to say. "And I really doubt that Jill can make you a poisonous lipstick."

"Damn it," she sighed, looking disappointed.

"And besides, why would you want to kill someone by kissing them?" he asked, letting out a laugh. "You can get mono that way. But anyway, so what do you think of Eisley? With an E?"

"Why is there an E?"

Chuck shrugged. "So DC Comics doesn't sue us if we go public," he joked.

Carina chuckled. "Fine. Eisley it is then."

"Yeah?"

She nodded, and grinned coyly. "So about that mission of yours tomorrow—you're going to need my help if you want to go undetected."

"That would be great, but you don't have a mask," said Chuck, running a hand through his hair. "If Fulcrum knows that you're helping me, it's only a matter of time before your bosses find out."

"Oh, stop it, Chuck," she said, rolling her eyes. "I've planned this whole mission out from the moment you told me about it."

October 3, 2007
Wade's Diner
San Diego, CA
10:20 PM PST

When she and Chuck were younger, they used to watch a cartoon program on television. In each episode, they would animate an old children's tale. Sarah remembered watching an episode about the ugly duckling that turned into a beautiful swan. What that episode didn't show, or tell, was that the beautiful swan most likely still suffered from low self-esteem.

So as Sarah looked upon Wally, wolfing down a gigantic plate of scrambled eggs with eight slices of bacon, she thought back to when she used to be the ugly duckling during high school that had been made over by the CIA into a presumably beautiful swan. After a three hour long tutorial on how to apply makeup properly, they, the agency, sent her to Harvard. The first six months there were some of the most awkward months of her life. Every time a boy gave her a second glance, she immediately felt uncomfortable. Then, Wally came along. Perhaps he had sensed that Sarah wasn't aware of her beauty back then, but he had confidently asked her out on a date. And now, Sarah despised herself for being so vulnerable.

Sarah shuddered as a torrent of memories overcame her. Wally, simply put, was a jerk. He constantly cheated on her, but she was a coward back then. She just couldn't confront or put an end to that relationship. Not only did he cheat on her, but he had treated her as though she were an object. That, along with her training, made Sarah truly believe that she was indeed an object. College just wasn't a happy time for her.

She turned her attention to Mary, only because seeing the muscles in Wally's neck and jaw tense as he chewed his food made her want to vomit. Mary hadn't said a word since she suggested that they go somewhere public to talk. This whole situation was uncomfortable. Usually, in cases like these, where Sarah hadn't a clue as to what was going on, she would punch or kick first, and ask questions later. Although she didn't know what his motives were, Sarah wanted to knock Wally out—just because he represented a past that she wasn't too proud of.

However, there was no way she could knock Mary out. There was just too much history there. And she was curious as to why Mary needed her.

The diner that they were at was a small truck stop. Apart from her, Mary, and Wally, there were six other men sitting in their own booths, eating their food quietly.

Finally, Mary handed her a folder. "Osiris," she said. "We need you to bring him to us."

Sarah opened the folder and saw a CCTV still of Osiris carrying her temporarily paralyzed body from the loading docks. Placing the folder on the table, she tapped the picture of Osiris. "Why would I want to bring him to you? When I catch Osiris, he'll belong to the CIA."

Mary and Wally exchanged looks. The older woman had an expression of great remorse etched on her face, while the large man's squinty, blue eyes glinted with glee. He reached his hand into his jean pockets, and tossed a folded wad of paper at Sarah, and he topped it off with a grin that made her want to punch his face.

Glowering at the gigantic mongrel, Sarah unfolded the wad of paper and saw a photograph of her and Chuck at the Santa Monica Pier, holding hands and looking content. Confused, she glanced over to Mary, but Mary was just staring down at the table in distress.

"If you don't bring in Osiris," said Wally, his mouth still full of eggs and bacon, "we'll kill your boyfriend."

It took a great amount of restraint for her to not jump across the table and strangle Wally. Instead, with all the strength she possessed, she kept her face emotionless. "That's it?" she bluffed. "Bartowski's just an asset." She turned to Mary and glared. "How could you let these people threaten your son's life? What kind of person are you?"

Mary's eyes shot up from the table and burned into Sarah's. "Everything that I've done in the past seventeen years was done to ensure my family's safety," she spat so icily that shivers ran up the back of Sarah's neck. "You're the one that came here and put my son's life in danger by compromising yourself in public."

"Compromising myself?" she asked rhetorically. With much trepidation, Sarah fought to keep calm. "It's a cover relationship. It's fake. Chuck's an important public figure. This—" she gestured to the photograph of her and Chuck holding hands, "was done so that we could sell our relationship. You're all wasting your time with threatening an innocent man who's only a low-level asset."

"Chuck isn't just an asset to you, though," said Mary. "Look at the other pictures."

"I assure you, Chuck is nothing more to me than an asset," she insisted. Usually, she never had a problem with lying, but this was just excruciatingly difficult—having to lie about Chuck. But if she wanted to save his life, then she would have to keep lying. No matter how hard it was.

"Just look at the pictures, Sarah." The older woman reached over the table and spread the photographs in front of Sarah.

When she looked down, she saw another photo of her and Chuck outside of Club Aries. This time, she was grinning up at him like a love-struck teenager. He was smiling affectionately, with an arm wrapped around her. Apart from Casey in the background with his mouth open, undoubtedly yelling at the paparazzi to get out of his way, she and Chuck looked like a normal, happy couple in love. If this were any other situation, she would be in front of her computer, photoshopping Casey out of the background so that she could frame the picture.

Wally let out a chuckle that deeply irritated her. "Look at you," he jeered, "lookin' like a bitch in heat. Shit…" he leaned back in the booth, and held his gargantuan arms out to the side, "if you want a good fuck, you're looking right at him."

Impulsively, Sarah began to grab for the napkin dispenser off the table with the intention of slamming it against Wally's overly large face. But before she could even reach it, Mary slammed her empty coffee mug into his face.

There was an explosion of porcelain; the pieces chattered as they hit the linoleum floor. Wally, whose face was twisted in anguish, clutched at his face. Meanwhile, Sarah watched in disbelief. Holy shit, she thought, did that just happen? Did Mary Bartowski really just slam a coffee mug into a man who looked like he could be a cage fighter?

Six of the diner's patrons shot up to their feet, with their guns drawn. They were all aiming their pistols at her, causing her to hold her hands up in innocence. Sarah figured that they were working with Mary.

"Don't you ever talk to a woman like that," Mary snarled, grabbing a handful of Wally's short hair. She yanked his head roughly, pulling his head back with one hand, while the other held a piece of broken porcelain to his throat. What Sarah saw was a bloody mess. "Do you understand me, Johnson?" When he didn't answer right away, Mary slammed his face against the table. The table shook violently from the impact. "I said, 'Do you understand me?'"

"Yes, ma'am," Wally groaned weakly, "I understand."

"Good," said Mary, releasing his hair. She turned to the other agents. "Berkowitz, take Johnson to the clinic." A young, red-haired man rushed over, and helped Wally out of the booth. "Jenkins, tell the nice owners of this place that we're here on official CIA business, and we apologize for the inconvenience. The rest of you, go back to whatever the hell you were doing before."

Sarah was still taking in what had just happened. She would never have guessed that Mary was capable of such violence. However, Mary looked tiredly at her as though nothing had happened.

"Let's get back to the main topic, shall we?" Mary suggested, pulling a napkin from the dispenser, and wiping off her hands.

"Who are you people?" Sarah asked, glancing around the small diner at the operatives. "Are you Ring? Fulcrum?"

"We're everyone," Mary replied, tossing the napkin aside. "It's safer for you not to know exactly who we are."

She huffed out a breath of air in frustration.

"I will say this, we have people everywhere," the older woman continued. "The CIA, NSA, FBI, Secret Service, Fulcrum, the Ring…any agency that you could imagine. We've been around for a long time, and we have worked very, very hard to go unnoticed."

"If what you're saying is true, then what's to stop me from letting my bosses know about you?"

"Well, Johnson was supposed to make this threat, but…" Mary rolled her eyes. "They'll kill Chuck if you do. If my people even suspect that the CIA is onto us, they'll kill Chuck. They'll also kill him if you don't bring Osiris to us by December."

Sarah gulped and cleared her throat. It was very unsettling to hear Chuck's own mother say that her people will kill her only son if Sarah doesn't cooperate.

"Mary, why are you letting this happen?" she asked, her face falling in disappointment.

"I don't have a choice, Sarah," Mary replied sadly, with a look of remorse on her face. "The only reason I'm with them is because they threatened to kill my family if I didn't join. It was the hardest day of my life, leaving my family."

Sarah shut her eyes slowly and remembered how Mary would be gone for long periods of time before she left for good. "You used to be a spy," she stated. "For who?"

Mary nodded slowly. "The CIA. And now, the people that I work for are threatening to murder my son unless you accept this mission and find Osiris. Chuck's the only bargaining chip they have against you. I've protested, but our leader wouldn't listen. He believes that you'll be the one that will be able to bring in Osiris."

"Why?" Out of all the people that were out there, looking for Osiris, why was she being singled out? Sarah knew she was one of the best, but why couldn't they use someone else? Someone that these people already had in their organization?

"We saw the surveillance footage from the loading docks," Mary replied. "Osiris went out of his way to protect you. That's how we operate, Sarah. We use peoples' emotions against them, and for some reason, Osiris seems to have an emotional connection to you."

Suddenly, she felt uncomfortable. There was a masked psycho out there that had a crush on her? That was unnerving. "Your boss wants me to seduce him, then?" Sarah asked, repressing a humorless laugh.

"No," replied Mary. "Osiris won't fight back against you. He'll probably dodge and block your hits, but he won't fight back."

"When I saw him, he pinched nerves along my back and paralyzed me."

"According to the footage that we saw, it looked like he didn't have any other choice. Besides, he took the time to step in front of a bullet for you."

Sarah shook her head in disbelief. "Who knows if Osiris is still in California? He's been spotted in Houston, DC, Boston…he could be anywhere right now."

"Your new base, Castle, I believe it's called, contains some new information that he'll want to steal. It's a safe bet that he's in the planning process of trying to break in."

"Okay, well, what if Osiris doesn't break into Castle?" Sarah asked. "What if he lies low and he doesn't come out until after December? What happens to Chuck?"

Mary only responded with another regretful look. It said it all: if she didn't get Osiris by December, then they'd kill Chuck. Damn bastards.

"Mary," said Sarah softly, leaning forward. "I can take Chuck when he comes back, and we can run."

"They're already expecting that," Mary sighed. "You can't run. Not from us. We have resources from every branch of the government. If running was a choice, then I would have taken my family and left."

Her hands wrapped around the back of her head, and Sarah leaned her head down. Guilt flowed through her veins, into her heart. It felt like the oxygen in her lungs had been replaced by concrete. This was all her fault. The pictures lying on the table showed her beaming lovingly up at Chuck. Even a blind person would be able to see how she felt about him. She should have known better—her training taught her better—than to have expressed her emotions like that. Now, because of her emotions, these people were threatening Chuck's life. The worst of it was that Sarah didn't know if she could catch Osiris.

"Sarah, as long as you bring him in, Chuck will be safe," said Mary, reaching a hand out to Sarah, but hesitating. She placed her hand back on the tabletop, and gave Sarah a small, reassuring smile. "I know what you're thinking, and this…situation…" Mary let out a huff of air. "It isn't your fault."

Sarah ignored her. Of course this was her fault. She'd compromised herself—her feelings. Because of that, Chuck's life was being threatened.

"Chuck's a good man," said Mary. There was too much understanding in her eyes for Sarah's comfort, so she turned away. "And you two, well…" she dragged off and smiled wistfully. "I've never seen two children that cared for each other as much as you and Chuck did. Even though you two were forced to separate at a young age, it doesn't change the fact that you guys have been through a lot together—a lot more than most children have when they were your age."

Again, Mary reached her hand across the table, but this time, she didn't hesitate. Nor did she pull it away. She rested it on top of Sarah's hand, and gave it a squeeze. Oddly, Sarah felt comforted by the gesture. It was almost motherly. She felt a tug when she saw the pained look on Mary's face. Her face appeared to be much older, as though it had suddenly aged ten years. That was when Sarah realized just how hard it must have been for her to leave her family behind—unable to see her children grow up, not being able to comfort them when they were scared, and watching them from afar as they took care of each other.

"It's not your fault," Mary repeated. "You're only human. Your training tried to chisel your emotions away. But no matter how hard they drill, how much they yell at you, there's always going to be someone or something that reminds you that you are, in fact, human."

Minutes passed, and Sarah didn't say a word. She knew that Mary was right to a certain extent. At the same time, Sarah felt angry with herself. She was here to protect Chuck, not to put him in further danger. She felt angry with Beckman and Graham. They just had to make her be in a cover relationship with Chuck. Yes, Chuck needed around the clock observation, but was it absolutely necessary for them to make her and Chuck's cover be boyfriend and girlfriend?

"My bosses," said Sarah, "are they working for you?"

"Beckman is, yes," Mary replied.

"This was the plan all along?"

The older woman nodded. "You, Hansen, and Casey are the best agents that she has. You all have something in common: leverage. Hansen has Larkin—"

"You know about Bryce?"

"Not much slips past us," said Mary. "John Casey has Alex McHugh—his eighteen year old daughter." That one was totally out of left field, Sarah thought. "But you, you were the wildcard."

Sarah raised an eyebrow.

"Beckman told us that you had run into Chuck, and reported Jill Roberts as Fulcrum," Mary replied to Sarah's silent question. "You let it slip that you and Chuck had a past."

"Fuck me!" she brushed her hair back with her hand in frustration. How could she have made so many mistakes? "Okay, so Beckman's with you guys. Why would you need to blackmail any members of my team?"

"Because Graham isn't with us, we need to keep Osiris's capture silent so he doesn't suspect anything. The original plan was to threaten Casey, and we wanted him to bring Osiris in. Beckman could have vouched for him. You ran into Roberts and reported her, so Graham insisted on bringing Hansen in to assist you and Major Casey as Chuck's handlers."

"And you chose me, because…?"

"Because you're the best out of the three of them," Mary finished. "And we, they, discovered your feelings for Chuck." She gestured to the pictures.

Sarah looked down at the pictures again, and gazed down at Chuck. He was grinning affectionately at her. "I'll do it. I'll bring Osiris to you under one condition."

"What's that?"

"After I bring Osiris in, you leave Chuck alone. If any of you hurts one hair on his head, I swear to God, I will kill every last one of you."

The dark haired woman smiled, and slid out of the booth. "I wouldn't expect anything less from you, Sarah."

October 4, 2007
CIA Substation
Richmond, VA
9:31 PM EST

Chuck stepped into the small, modest office, carrying his messenger bag, followed by Carina and two other agents. According to the redhead, the agents were fresh off the Farm—rookies. Carina and he had spent a good five hours planning the night before. Again, he was going on less than three hours of sleep. In fact, for this entire week, he guessed he only had about thirteen hours of sleep. He was exhausted, yet, with Carina on his team, he felt exhilarated all the same.

Carina turned to the young, eager looking men. "Okay, you two stand guard outside the office," she ordered in a serious tone that seemed unlike her. "Leave Mr. Bartowski alone. If he needs you, he'll call for you. Under no circumstances are you to speak to him unless he speaks to you first. Understood?"

The agents nodded.

"Good," she said. It looked as though she were waiting for something, and when nothing happened, she barked impatiently, "Now, get out."

As the young agents scrambled away, Chuck gave them a half-hearted wave. "Thank you!" he called to the rookies, while grinning at Carina.

She chuckled and sighed. "Ah…I totally get off on this shit," she said happily.

"What?"

"Yelling at rookies," she explained. "They literally do whatever you tell them to do. Like, after Bryce's accident, I needed to take out my sexual—"

"Cool!" he interrupted, not wanting to hear the rest of the story. "So what time should I expect you back?"

"It shouldn't take more than two hours," she replied, winking. "But this is my old office, so I'm pretty sure if you snoop around, you'll see something you like." With that, her eyes flicked over to the corner of the room, where Chuck could see a faint outline of a trapdoor. "And I had the rookies stock up the mini-fridge in case you get hungry."

"How thoughtful of you." Placing the bag on the desk, he pulled out what looked like a digital metronome for his watch's heart rate monitor, and began to unscrew the face off of his Big Brother watch. Carina waited until Chuck gave her a wink to let her know that everything was a go.

"Right, well, I'm gonna go do my thing," she said, once he had hidden the watch from view.

"Good luck."

She nodded, and headed toward the door. Before she turned the knob, she gave him another knowing look to which he responded with a nod. Once she left the office, and the door was locked, Chuck pulled his mask, his tranq pistols, a Bluetooth device, and laptop out of the bag. He walked behind the desk and pulled open a large drawer. Inside, a dark grey suit jacket and a black, wool peacoat were neatly folded just as Carina had promised. He took out the suit jacket, and put it on. After that, he strapped the laptop to his back, and pulled on the spring loaded arm holsters for his pistols.

While he walked over to the trapdoor, he buttoned up the peacoat, and pulled on his mask. Carina had told him earlier that she had activated the trapdoor so that it would open for him, but as he reached down to the edge of the chute, he held his breath. He didn't know why, but for some reason, he thought that Carina would have forgotten to unlock the trapdoor. When it opened with ease, he uttered a soft apology for having doubted her. Maybe she used an airy, careless attitude so that people would underestimate her, he figured.

Chuck climbed down the ladder as quickly as he could. He only had five minutes to climb down ten stories, and harness himself underneath a SWAT van. This was his second mission in less than thirty-six hours. As he descended down the ladder, his shoulder muscles began to protest. Usually, he would have a couple of weeks to rest after his missions, so this was his first back to back assignment.

After about two minutes, he finally reached the bottom of the ladder. Carina had told him that the hidden door would lead him straight outside, and his only cover would be a few, short bushes. He knelt down and pushed open the door in front of him. The bushes outside were roughly two feet tall, so Chuck cautiously crawled forward to where Carina had left the harness and a small motor that was no bigger than a cell phone.

As Chuck peeked out of the bushes, he pocketed the motor and picked up the harness. To his relief, there was no one outside. The SWAT van was fifteen feet in front of him. Inhaling a deep breath to calm his nerves, he sprinted out from the bushes toward the van. His steps slowed when he approached the van, and he fell forward to crawl underneath the van.

While he was looping the harness through the motor, Chuck heard heavy footsteps approaching the van. Bringing his hand up to his right ear, he whispered, "Tie your shoe. I need another minute."

"Hold up," he heard Carina's voice echoing in his ear. When he was able to see her kneeling down to lace up her boots, he moved quickly. Hooking the four ends of the harness to each side of the van, he then hooked the motor to his belt, and was lifted up, stomach first, against the vehicle. It was extremely uncomfortable.

"Okay."

At that, he could see her straightening up. A few seconds later, he heard the doors slam, and the engine rev. The van moved forward, and he shut his eyes as tightly as possible.

For the next twenty minutes, he clutched onto the van as tightly as his hands were able. With every turn, he would let out a surprised gasp. At every bump, he would let out a terrified groan. It was possibly the most horrifying twenty minutes of his life, and he wished that he had suggested Carina take her own car so that he could lie down in the trunk.

The van finally stopped, and Chuck wanted to cry out in glee. He repressed the urge, however, since he might surprise his partner and cause her to appear strange to her tactical support team. He could hear the door swinging open, and he watched as fifteen pairs of boots hit the concrete, sprinting toward their target—the Prewitt Building, aka, Fulcrum's HQ.

Just as she was a straight-forward person in real life situations, apparently, Carina was also straight-forward when it came to operations. As Chuck lowered himself to the ground, he could hear the glass doors shattering as her team charged straight through the door and into the building. He unhooked the motor from his belt, and waited for Carina's signal.

From underneath the van, he saw bright lights from gunshots flashing inside the building.

"Go, Ozzy," said Carina.

"Are you referring to me?" he asked in a deep voice, feeling confused. The second the mask came on, he couldn't help but talk in his Christian Bale's Batman voice. It had started out as a joke to cheer Bryce up, but it just stuck around.

Carina let out a sigh. "Yes! Go, go, go!"

"Okay, jeez," he grumbled, crawling from beneath the van. He stood up, and sprinted toward the building, running past the front entrance to the emergency fire door on the side. Flicking his right wrist, he caught his pistol as it sprang out, and unhooked it from the holster. He pointed the weapon down as he slowly, and cautiously, pulled open the door.

The pistol aimed in front of him, Chuck ignored the chorus of gunfire, and gave the hallway a quick sweep. There weren't any agents, CIA or Fulcrum. Letting out a sigh of relief, he turned right and began to jog silently down the hall. At the end, to his left, there was a spiraling staircase that led down to the basement.

He descended down the steps. When he reached the bottom, there were four Fulcrum operatives. All of them had their Sig Sauer P226's drawn out in front of them. Chuck aimed his pistol at one of them, and fired a dart. The dark haired man fell to the ground as soon as the dart hit him. He aimed at the man behind the fallen operative, and fired another dart. By the time the second man fell, the other two operatives began to open fire.

Chuck turned and ran back up the steps, narrowly avoiding the shots. The two remaining operatives gave pursuit. At the first turn, Chuck grabbed onto the railing, and kneeled behind it. He flicked the new safety on his gun all the way back to activate the new feature on his tranq pistols: a 0.51 mm syringe needle poked out of the bottom of the gun beside the magazine. Throwing his pistol up in the air, he caught it by the barrel just as one of the Fulcrum operatives came up behind him. With a sideways, hammer-like motion, the butt of the gun collided against the operative's neck, causing him to fall back, unconscious. The man's partner aimed his pistol at Chuck's head. Chuck reached out, grabbed the man's wrist, and brought down the butt of his gun to the man's arm. Just like his partner before him, the man fell, unconscious.

Pushing back the urge to pat himself on the back for not needing to flash to take out the operatives, he descended down the flight of stairs once more.

"Clear," he said into his earpiece. "Are you in position?"

"Yeah, about damn time," she said teasingly. Although Carina was out of sight, Chuck imagined her hand on a hand grenade. To make sure the CIA wouldn't find it suspicious that there were knocked out security guards with no sign of trauma, they had planned for Carina to throw a grenade down. "Pulling of the pin, now. You better make sure you're out of range."

Chuck took a couple of steps back, and roughly four seconds later, the ground shook as the grenade detonated in midflight. Pieces of plaster and bricks showered down, making it seem like the operatives were knocked out from the blast. When the men regained consciousness, they wouldn't remember any of these events unfolding, thanks to Jill's twilight tranqs.

"You okay?" asked Carina.

"Yeah," he replied, placing his hand on the doorknob to where Fulcrum kept their database. "I'm going in."

"I'll be down there in five. You think that's enough time?"

He shook his head, and realized that she wouldn't be able to see him. God, he couldn't wait to get some sleep. "I don't know. You think you can come down alone just in case?"

"I'll come up with something. Move fast, Ozzy."

Again with the Ozzy, he thought inwardly. Oh, it's short for Osiris. I see what she did there.

Flicking the safety switch off, he held his pistol at the ready. If he was right, there would be at least five guards inside the room to protect the database. He cleared his mind and flashed. When it cleared, the exhaustion went with it. Aside from a slight headache, his body felt relieved. He kicked open the door with a front snap kick.

Automatically, his right arm shot two darts at the surprised guards, and two of them fell to the ground. He was about to fire a third shot when someone made a wild grab for his arm. The guard's fingers tightened around Chuck's arm, and the guard swung his torso around, pulling Chuck into the brightly lit room filled with computer towers. Chuck crashed into the wall, and the guard brought his knee up to kick Chuck's pistol out of his hand.

As the pistol flew out of his hands, for a second, he watched as it fell to the ground. While his head was turning, Chuck was able to count three other guards—spread out across the room—aiming their Sigs at him. Chuck fell back, pulling the guard with him, and pushed the guard with his legs, flipping him over Chuck. The guard landed on his back with a sickening thud. Without a second thought, Chuck flicked his left wrist and caught his other pistol. He rolled out of the way as one of the three guards fired. The bullet missed his head by at least a foot, and Chuck fired a dart at the shooter.

He somersaulted toward another guard, and sprang up to his feet. Chuck grabbed the man's arm with his right hand, and hooked it over his arm. He snapped his forearm up, causing the man to cry out in pain. Chuck's thumb flicked the safety switch to the syringe mode, and he plunged the butt of his gun into the guard's neck. As he pulled the gun off, he flicked the switch again, and fired two quick shots. One dart landed on the last standing guard, and the other on the man that Chuck had flipped over.

Chuck unbuttoned his coat, and reached behind him for the laptop. He unzipped the overly padded case, and relaxed when he powered the computer on. In the back of his mind, what with his recent bad luck streak, he was half-expecting to get this far into the mission, only to discover that the laptop had broken. So when it had powered on, with no problems, Chuck wanted to let out a whoop of joy.

"Okay, I'm beginning the upload process," he said, typing furiously to break through Fulcrum's security. "Start heading down, I'm in the clear."

"Not quite." Carina's voice echoed, so Chuck looked up from the monitor to see her aiming her Desert Eagle at his head.

"Dude…seriously?" Why couldn't he just catch a damn break? And why the hell was Carina's gun so big? She really was a man-eater.

Chuck began to bring his hand down to where one of his tranq pistols was laying next to the laptop, but Carina's voice stopped him. "Put your hands up, bitch."

He rolled his eyes, and reluctantly brought up his hands. As he did so, he caught the redhead flashing him a wink. Like a snake pouncing on an unsuspecting mouse, Carina kicked the door closed and pistol whipped a guard who was hiding behind it. Chuck watched in shock as the guard fell.

"Rule number one, Ozzy," she said, grinning, "always check behind the doors. Elementary shit, man. Oh, you might want to tranq him. He'll probably remember what happened when he wakes up."

"Oh, right." Chuck picked up his gun, and shot a dart at the man. Carina bent down to pull it out, and she began to pull the darts out of the other fallen guards. "Hey," he called, causing Carina to look up at him, "thanks. You probably just saved my life, you know."

She waved away the gratitude. "You honestly forgot to check behind the door?"

"I…uh, I didn't know that I was supposed to," he said, hitting the execute key. The status bar popped up. Forty-five seconds.

Carina kneeled down beside him, and handed him back the darts and the pistol that one of the guards had knocked out of his hand. She shook her head. "Do you know anything about espionage?"

"Only from what I saw in the old Bond flicks," he replied, watching as the status bar began to fill, while hooking his pistols back up to his arm holsters.

"I'm going to have to teach you, then." He snapped his head up to meet her face, and narrowed his eyes in confusion.

"What—I don't—"

"Yeah, you do," she insisted. "We're a team now, and I don't want to work with a guy that only depends on the skills from some crazy computer in his head."

"I don't only depend on the Intersect," he said, offended. He took out four guys without a flash, thank you very much.

"Whatever. When we get back to Los Angeles, I'm going to start training you. Make you better." She gave him a stern look as if to say, "and that's final." "Oh, and you really need to stop that growly, whispery voice. It gets on my nerves."

"Is that so?" he asked playfully, purposely making his voice deeper. "You don't like it?

Carina snorted, and shoved him. "Stop that!"

"Okay! I'm sorry!" he cried, chuckling as he straightened up. Carina began to laugh with him. When their laughter died, they both grinned at each other. Unsure whether or not it was his imagination, he thought he saw her eyes flick down to his lips. "Looks like the upload is done," he said, snapping the laptop shut. He pointed up at an air vent. "There's my exit. You should call your team down here, and uh…I'll wait for you under the van, yeah?"

She blinked. "Yeah, for sure," she said, nodding. "You did a pretty good job, Chucky. Well, apart from that, I mean." She gestured to the door.

"Thanks," said Chuck, strapping the laptop to his back. "You did a good job too, Eisley. Oh! Don't forget this," he unplugged a flashdrive from the main computer, and handed it to her. "I made you an extra copy to give to your bosses."

"Thank you," she said, pocketing the flashdrive.

Nodding, he stood up and climbed on top of the desk to pull himself up to the air vent. As he did so, Carina called for her team. He pulled the cover back on the vent, and began to crawl through the narrow, dusty, metallic maze. As he turned a corner, Chuck silently reasoned with himself that he only imagined Carina's bright, blue eyes flicking down to his lips. At the same time, he hoped that even if they really had looked at his lips, it was because there was something on them. As beautiful as Carina was, he couldn't ever see himself kissing her. Actually, he couldn't imagine himself kissing anyone other than Sarah.

When he made it to the end of the vent, he popped out another screen, and hopped out, landing softly on his feet on the pavement. He began to jog toward the van. It was great the Carina was on the team. She had done an incredibly good job. Without her, he would not have known what to do on this mission. But at the same time, he couldn't help but wish that it was Sarah who had been helping him instead of Carina.

After that thought crossed his mind, while he was strapping himself back to the bottom of the van, he realized that he sort of missed Sarah. A grin began to form on his face when he realized that he'd be seeing her again twelve hours from now.

October 4, 2007
Sarah's Hotel
12:30 AM PST

Sarah sat up in her bed, leaning against the headboard, and brought her knees up to her chest. She let her knees knock together for a bit before she wrapped her arms around them. Just over nine hours ago, the smoggy Los Angeles air tasted sweet. She felt light whenever she walked. There had been a bounce with every step she took. She laughed when she went to a novelty store to get Chuck a t-shirt with a picture of Chunk and Sloth from The Goonies. And she felt positively giddy as she imagined the look of laughter on Chuck's face when she would give it to him.

But now, she was cold. The air was sour. Her steps were heavy. Laughter was the last thing on her mind. Closing her eyes in quiet desperation, she blocked everything that had happened at the diner out of her mind. She imagined what it would be like to be someone else. Someone that could look at a person and try to judge whether they were worth getting to know, rather than sizing them up to try to pinpoint physical weak points so she could take them out easier. Another person that was free to express their emotions and not get judged or threatened. She wondered what it would be like to have a home-cooked meal every night instead of ordering room service. She just wanted to be somebody else.

Somebody who deserved Chuck.

As hard as she tried to imagine that she was someone else, it was all for naught—it was only wishful thinking. No matter what, she was always going to be CIA Agent Sarah Walker. She opened her eyes, and faced the blurry white wall, illuminated by the lights from outside downtown Los Angeles, in front of her. The sounds of car horns and police sirens split through the absolute silence.

The second their paths had crossed, she had put him in danger. Before she came along, he was fine. She had read over Jill Roberts' files the second she had started her job at Legends. After reading through them, it was clear that Roberts wasn't planted by Fulcrum. She was only there for a cover. There were no anterior motives, Sarah had realized. It was her first mistake of many.

Why did she have to look at Chuck like she had in those pictures? She didn't even know that she was capable of giving such a look of longing. She should have known better, and now, his life was in danger because she couldn't keep her emotions in.

But Chuck…God, how can she not look at him like he was the only person in the world? He was, and always has been, the warmest person she ever knew. Spending an hour with him felt like spending only five minutes. When she was with him, time would always fly by. As children, Sarah remembered having him over for dinner with her family. Her parents would set up TV trays in the living room so that they could watch The Wonder Years or reruns of the old, Adam West Batmanseries. But when the programs were over, and their plates were empty, her father would drive Chuck home, and she would feel alone.

It wasn't any different now that they were adults. Whether they were out on a coffee date, watching old home videos, flicking water at each other, or reminiscing over old times, every time he left, she would feel alone.

"God damn it," she sighed, wiping away the wetness in her eyes.

Sarah knew that she shouldn't feel this way. She was a spy. It didn't matter whether she could quit or not. Even if she did quit, apparently, there was an organization out there that knew who she was. Having been in the spy game for the last five years, she knew how people like these operated. After she brings Osiris to them, they could have other intentions for her. Maybe they would want her to join them, and once again, for leverage, they would threaten to kill Chuck.

Mary Bartowski had the same training as Sarah did. In fact, Sarah was sure that Mary had been a spy far longer than Sarah was at the time when Mary was forced to leave her family, and even she didn't take the risk to run away.

We have people in everywhere.

You can't run. Not from us. We have resources from every branch of the government.

To her left was the nightstand. The green light from her alarm clock flickered on and off. With every flash of the green light, an old cassette tape and a folded up piece of notebook paper would glow into view. Sarah glanced down at the note on the nightstand.

To: Sarah
Love: Chuck

With every blinking light, his untidy, yet somehow neat, handwriting would illuminate. Again, her vision blurred. Her eyes felt warm, and her breath caught in her throat. Although there was nobody else present in the room, she quickly wiped her eyes. The springs on the bed creaked slightly as she reached for the note on the nightstand. The paper felt old and coarse beneath her fingers.

Letting out a breath, Sarah slid out of the bed, with the note still in her hand. Across the room, there was a dresser where she had secured her spy will. She pulled open the drawer, and reached for the red, rectangular, plastic case. With slight difficulty, from having never been opened since she wrote her will two years ago, she pried it open and placed Chuck's note inside.

---

A/N: MamaB is quite scary, yet sweet, isn't she? Anyway, I won't say when the next chapter will be posted, because every time I do, something bad happens to me. True story. But I can say that it's in the process of being written right now, and it's probably 60% done. Speaking of the next chapter, I've made a playlist for it: http:/www(dot)playlist(dot)com/playlist/20484691723

So what does that playlist mean? You'll find out. Go ahead and listen to it if you'd like.

Also, I've written the first chapter to a companion piece in Carina's POV which will probably be called Carina's Condition. It's in the process of beta'ed by the great mxpw (did you know that mxpw means Maximum Xtreme Power Writer? Well, now you do.), and it should be posted within the next couple of days. Hopefully, you guys will find it funny and entertaining.

Here's a little snippet for you guys:

It's both a blessing and a curse, this condition I have. You see, there are a lot of things that turn me on. Yeah, I'm not going to sugarcoat it, I'm a nymphomaniac. After I got out of the Farm, my boss wanted me to see a therapist. They say that my behavior is unhealthy. I don't see it that way. I don't know why people are telling me that I have problems. Some people like to run or eat chocolate to relieve stress—I like to have sex. I don't see anyone giving runners or chocolate lovers any shit about what they do.

Guess what, runners? Fifteen minutes of a good ol' rump in the hay burns way more calories than an hour of running, so suck it. It's also a lot easier on the knees too. Yeah, I'm talking to you, Walker. You big prude. She never wants to make out with me after missions, which is a total drag.

Anyway, thank you guys for reading! Let me know what you thought of the chapter!