A/N: I've taken pity on you guys, because the whole fanfic breaking thing kinda screwed everything up, and I wasn't getting any email alerts, so sorry if I didn't reply to your review. Thanks to sarah-fan over at Strahotski, I think her pen name is disabrina here, for the beta. Here's the training chapter. I should probably tell you that this was the planned chapter 2. Yup, I went really off track with the fluff. However, if I want this fic to finish anytime soon, I'm gonna need to get back onto the arc. Here goes nothing.

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Chuck was three days into the SAS training program, and to everyone's amazement (even his own), he was somehow managing to hold his own against some of the fittest people on the planet. Sure, he was near the bottom of the group; it would have taken a miracle for anything else, but he was just about managing to scrape a pass, which was all that he or Sarah really cared about.

Of course, that mild success brought about far, far bigger rewards from Sarah. It was lucky that there was a week's break between the two sections of the training; otherwise Chuck would be in no state to perform adequately in the espionage part. Sarah had confessed last night, while feeling very emotional (as always seemed to be the case, Chuck noted), that she was feeling guilty about manipulating Chuck with sex like she had been doing, at least in her eyes.

Naturally, Chuck had reassured her about that. He made sure that she knew what was going through his mind about her 'incentive' system, and how very much he was in favour of that, and that he would much prefer if she would continue that system. He had had a go at persuading her to include successful missions in the incentive scheme too, but Sarah had just muttered "men" and rolled her eyes. He still got the reward for that day's work however.

"Bartowski! Head in the game!" was Casey's shout. Obviously Chuck's reminiscing about last night hadn't gone unnoticed.

Dammit, Chuck. You need to focus on this, he silently berated himself.

The first four days of the training had been extremely intensive physical work, but now they were beginning to move onto the more fieldwork-related aspects of the program. Today, they would be working in pairs, along with an instructor, in a race to reach a specific objective that was marked on their map. It was a fairly simple orienteering exercise, but considering the pairs were being dropped around various points of the Herefordshire countryside and told to head to the location, without being informed of their current location, it was a pretty large challenge.

Naturally, Chuck had been paired with Sarah. Not even the training cadre were mean enough to split up what was very obviously going to be the partnership anyway if both passed the training. They had noticed the upturn in Chuck's performance when in close proximity with Sarah, so they wanted to exploit that as much as possible. Considering Casey was acting as a mentor for both Chuck and Sarah, he had been chosen as the instructor to go along with them for this exercise.

Chuck was more or less thrown out of the van that was transporting them by Casey, and he turned back to give him a smartass comment, relishing in the fact that there were no officers nearby to come down on him like a ton of bricks after he said it.

"Wow, I've never been forced to get out of the car before. You feeling alright, big guy?" he said with a smirk.

"Better than you will be if you don't zip it, Bartowski. I'm still your superior here, show some respect," answered Casey angrily.

Chuck gave him a Benny Hill-esque salute and made his way over to where Sarah was standing. Then something hit him.

It was the map that Casey had thrown at him. Closely followed by the compass.

"Ow, that's gonna leave a mark. Didn't your mother ever teach you it's rude to throw?" complained Chuck.

"She also taught me how to shoot, and you may have noticed I don't have to protect you anymore. You've lost your shield, Bartowski, so try not to piss me off."

"Chuck, sweetie," whispered Sarah into Chuck's ear. "Don't piss off the Sugar Bear, k? He's our ride back to base, and I'd hate to have to kill him for hurting you."

"How is it you manage to sound cute and threatening at the same time?" asked Chuck in amazement.

"I'm a woman. It's what we do, get used to it," answered Sarah.

"I plan to have the rest of our lives to get used to it, and I won't love you any less for it either. You're perfect just the way y-" he was cut off by the sounds of Casey mock-retching in the background.

"If you two are gonna do that the whole time we're on this exercise I'm gonna have to shoot something, and considering you two are the only things I see at the moment, well..." he trailed off, leaving the rest to Chuck's overactive imagination.

"Shall we just get going?" said Sarah impatiently.

"At least one of you two suckers is making sense. I'm going to be staying in the background for this one, no help from me unless you want to fail," said Casey.

"Can we still talk to you?" asked Chuck.

"Only if you want my foot up your ass. I'll have to ask Walker if you're into that sort of thing," said Casey, enjoying his once-favourite pastime once again.

"He doesn't, Casey, but if you're that interested I'd be happy to fill you in on what he does like," said Sarah mischievously.

"Oh, hell no! Just go, I'll be following you, and no talking to me!" said Casey in disgust.

Sarah winked at Chuck to let him know she was joking about the previous comment. Apparently she enjoyed messing with Casey just as much as Chuck did.

"It's nice to have the old team back together, don't you think, Sarah?" asked Chuck loudly.

"Oh Jesus Christ," muttered Casey in despair.

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"Admit it Casey, you missed us," said Chuck triumphantly about half an hour into the exercise. Sarah was navigating while Chuck decided to use some initiative and used the GPS function of his iPhone to make sure they always knew where they were. They were making good time, but with no way of seeing where the other teams were they were relying on Casey to inform them of any developments.

"I missed you like a dog misses a cat, now shut up, Bartowski."

"Nah, I know you like us really. Beneath that extremely terrifying exterior is a man who feels, who feels deeply. Go on, admit it, you love us, John Casey."

"Chuck, be quiet, Casey isn't reacting too well to your particular brand of humour," said Sarah, indicating towards the trainer standing well behind them.

Chuck looked back and what could only be described as an angry tomato with a gun was looking back at him. He snapped his head back forward, but he was certain he could hear the steam coming from Casey's ears.

"Please tell me there isn't long left, Casey's starting to scare me," he whispered to Sarah.

Sarah chuckled at Chuck's naïveté. Does he really think that an orienteering exercise would last less than an hour?

"Chuck, there's at least three more hours to go. That's the whole point of this."

She could swear that Chuck nearly fainted there and then with the shock of that revelation.

"3...hours?!" he choked out. "I'm not sure I can walk for that long."

"You'll do fine Chuck," she reassured him. "You know why? Because I'll be here with you. Every step of the way."

"There's a metaphor in there somewhere," said Chuck as he continued walking on.

"I bet there is," answered Sarah. "I've just thought of how you're going to get through this, and whatever comes after this exercise."

"There's gonna be more?" asked Chuck in shock, completely forgetting Sarah's implied new incentive scheme.

"Of course, it wouldn't be much of a challenge if there wasn't, now would it?"

"I suppose not. What do you think it'll be?" he asked, if only to take his mind off the walk ahead.

"With luck, something that lets me shoot at you," came the shout from behind Chuck and Sarah.

"Nice try, Casey!" Chuck shouted back, "I know you care really!"

Sarah rolled her eyes at the bickering that the two just couldn't get out of their system. She'd put a stop to it, but it was just too damn funny for her to see Chuck deliberately pissing off a man that could probably break him in half without breaking a sweat. Yet Chuck knew that Casey couldn't do that, so he just continued with the taunting without a care in the world.

"You know, one day he's going to snap," warned Sarah.

"I'll take my chances; there's nothing funnier than watching Casey get angry when you know he's trying to hold it all in. Like a 6'4" game of Buckaroo, only with a gun."

Sarah started laughing uncontrollably at the image of Casey being forced to stand in the middle of a circle of children while they all loaded various accessories onto him. She wondered if he'd kick his back leg when he went off or not.

Wow, where did that train of thought come from? Focus Sarah, you're meant to be the one navigating!

"Chuck, where are we?"

"Here."

She clipped him round the back of the head with the map for that comment.

"Grid Reference."

"Oh right, 8465 3280. Sorry," he said, grinning sheepishly.

She used the compass to orientate the map properly, and saw that they were not too far from the first checkpoint.

"Okay, we want to be heading a little more north-easterly, and the checkpoint is on a path that crosses a stream about half a kilometre from here."

"Which way's north-east?" asked Chuck.

She sighed, and just pointed in the direction they should head. "That way," she added, as if it were needed.

"Right then. You doing alright back there, big guy?" shouted Chuck.

"No talking."

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They made it to the first checkpoint fairly easily after that. There was a minor issue when Chuck made an ill-timed comment just before he crossed the stream that nearly ended up with Casey pushing him in, but Sarah intervened in time, which probably saved Casey's job as there was another instructor waiting on the far side of the stream for them.

"Ah, Pugh and"-he looked down at his clipboard that held the relevant information- "Lloyd, is it? How are you two finding things so far?" he asked.

"Not too bad, sir. We haven't had any issues thus far," answered Sarah.

"Major Casey? Anything to add?" the instructor asked Casey, whose hand was still occasionally drifting towards his gun whenever he looked at Chuck.

"Nothing, no. Pugh just reminds me of an asset I had about a year back. I'm still working through the desire to shoot him. These are two very strong recruits though, if I didn't know better I'd say Lloyd had more than a couple of years experience in fieldwork."

"Impossible, Major. I doubt they'd be going through this training if they were already agents, would they?" said the instructor incredulously.

"No, I guess not. Pugh here is starting to show some ingenuity though, I'd get that down if I were you, the team he's likely going to be a part of alongside Lloyd is going to need someone who stays in the car," he said the last part with an evil grin.

Chuck gave him the Bartowski equivalent of a death glare (only Ellie had truly mastered it), while Sarah was stoic on the outside, but inwardly agreeing with Casey. She was always worried when Chuck got out of the car to try and help them, even if his assistance had saved them on more than one occasion.

Maybe I'll worry less once he has this training complete, she thought, but she doubted that the worry would ever go away. More than once she had found herself doubting the decision to go back to government work, but she reassured herself by thinking that this job was at least less dangerous than her previous role. Most missions, if not all, they'd have police backup, and that meant Chuck could largely stay out of the firing line.

Sarah knew that she only had three or four months at most before she'd be joining him in the 'stay in the car' role, but considering that meant her being left alone with Chuck for large periods of time, it was something she was largely looking forward to. Up until then though, she would likely be leading the police forces, while Chuck directed proceedings from the van/car using his Intersect knowledge to identify suspects. All in all, how the original Team Bartowski was supposed to work.

"So where next, Sarah?" asked Chuck, shaking her out of her reverie.

"There are three more checkpoints before we reach the end, which is back at the base. The next one is about"-she checked the map- "two and a half kilometres from here. It's an abandoned farmhouse at the bottom of a steep hill; we should see it when we make it out of this belt of trees."

"You can tell all of that just from the map?" asked Chuck in amazement.

"Most of it, yeah. Didn't you ever join the Scouts?" responded Sarah.

"Come on, do I look like I'm built for the outdoors?" said Chuck, but then he realised the implication of Sarah's words. "Does that mean that you were in the Scouts then?"

"Yes," Sarah admitted. "It was the one constant I had between cons; Dad always tried to get me signed up to the local Scout troop."

Chuck was almost beside himself with glee at finding out more about the real Sarah, and Casey groaned behind them when Chuck started a happy dance. Sarah rolled her eyes at it, but she was once more heart-warmed by his antics.

God, Chuck, how did you get so perfect? she thought dreamily, before she berated herself for sounding more like a lovesick schoolgirl than a hardened agent. She couldn't stop herself from staring at him though, a fact that Casey noticed pretty quickly.

"For the love of Reagan, Walker! I would've expected it from Bartowski, but you?"

Sarah just shrugged as if to say, I can't help it, and Casey went back to his standard defence mechanism: threatening Chuck.

"Bartowski," he said menacingly, "maybe I wasn't clear before. I don't have to protect you anymore, and we are a long way from any roads."

Chuck calmed down immediately. He didn't think Casey would really do it, but with the way Casey always seemed to be on edge at the moment, he wasn't taking any chances. He pulled out his iPhone to check their current position, and relayed this to Sarah, who adjusted the map accordingly. Chuck marvelled at how seamlessly the two of them seemed to be working as a team, and he hadn't seen any indication from Casey that they were falling way behind, so he assumed things were going well.

For once, thought Chuck.

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There weren't any issues with getting to the next checkpoint, or indeed the one after that, so Chuck and Sarah were making some good progress with making it to the end of the exercise, and in good time too, according to Sarah. Hers was an opinion that Chuck trusted too; she had once walked ten miles through a jungle because Bryce had screwed up and made them miss their helicopter extraction, so they had to cut across country, avoiding pursuers, to make it to the backup drop point.

That being said, it wasn't an easy experience for Chuck; his lifestyle hadn't led to much physical activity before the Intersect, and even then he didn't spend that much time running or walking large distances; usually only the distance required to get into a position for Casey or Sarah to take out the bad guy running after him.

"Please tell me it's nearly over, Sarah," whined Chuck. "My feet can't take much more of this."

"I think it is, we've just passed that last checkpoint, and it's normally about an hour between each checkpoint, so I think there's maybe two more kilometres to walk. That's all," said Sarah soothingly.

"Man up, Bartowski," said Casey, who was still staying a way back from Chuck and Sarah. "There's plenty more PT to come today after this. Don't want you passing out on us, do we?"

"No, we wouldn't want that, would we," said Chuck sarcastically.

"Less of the lip, Bartowski," was Casey's only response as he went back to a threatening silence.

Sarah was a little surprised that Chuck had managed the climb that they had to do just after the second checkpoint so well, especially after she had accidentally dislodged a stone about half way up which then proceeded to roll down the hill and shatter on a much bigger rock at the bottom. She was expecting that to do some damage to his nerves, but he had proved her wrong by scrambling up the narrow path that seemed to be the only route up the hill only a short time after she had completed her ascent. Chuck had decided to help Casey out by shouting 'encouragement' down at him as he made his way up, but that quickly stopped when Chuck could hear Casey's growling even from a couple of hundred yards away.

About three quarters of an hour later, they had managed to cover nearly all of the two kilometres remaining and were bearing down on the Hereford SAS base. Sarah had taken pity on Chuck and gone easy for the last stretch, so he would have some energy left for the rest of the day. They had begun the exercise at exactly 10 am, and it was now just after noon, so they had made good time in Sarah's opinion. They had to let Casey out in front once they reached the base, because their recruit badges wouldn't get them through the security checkpoints on the outer regions of the base.

"Easy, corporal, they're with me," was all Casey had to say to get them through the gates, and he led them at a punishing pace through the entirety of the base until they came to a stop at the recruit parade ground. Chuck was a little upset by that, but he figured it was probably a fair amount of revenge for what he had put Casey through today.

Chuck and Sarah were the third pair back of six, which fit in well with Sarah's 'don't stand out' policy. Captain Mainwaring seemed very surprised to see them back this quickly; he obviously hadn't expected the 'soft Yanks' to be able to keep up with the rest of the group. He sent them to the quartermaster's office to drop off their equipment for that day's exercise, which was a bag specifically weighted to simulate the equipment a soldier would be expected to carry on a typical patrol.

Chuck was full of relief when he finally managed to get that weight off his shoulders; though he had long grown used to it, it was a strange sensation to be able to lift ones shoulders without a large amount of effort. Even Sarah looked relieved for this exercise to be over, and now they had some free time until the rest of the groups showed up. Chuck went to ask Captain Mainwaring just how much free time they had, and he was unsurprisingly brushed off. Casey, on the other hand, was much more welcoming, which came as a shock.

"I don't wanna know what you've got planned, but I'm sure the 30 minutes that the instructor for the last group is estimating should be plenty of time. Get back here for 1300," said Casey.

As Chuck walked off to join Sarah, they were just within earshot, so Casey heard Chuck's comment to Sarah after he had informed her of their 30 minutes free time.

"Sarah, what time is 1300?" Chuck had asked.

Casey shook his head and muttered, "moron", before getting to work on cleaning one of his many guns.

As it turned out, half an hour probably wasn't enough time for what Sarah had in mind.

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A/N: I know I said that this was the whole training chapter, but I thought that was a good place to end. Probably one or two more chapters for the training, I dunno. Anyway, let's see if we can't get this past 100 reviews this time.