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The Devil in Disguise

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His mark sat at the bar, drowning in whiskey and three days' worth of stubble. Agent Eric Gold had been coming here every night for a while now, since things went south between him and an old object of infatuation. Or at least that's how the story went. And it was his job to know the stories. Agency gossip was a deep and swift river, and it was often their greatest asset in this ever-changing game.

He himself sat in a corner booth, twirling a martini between his long, slender fingers, observing silently. The company knew him as the Middleman, and this was his job. Do recon, find an agent down on his luck, make contact, and make the offer.

Gold lifted his hand in a request for another drink. It was approaching one o'clock in the morning, but he had carved out a hole for himself at the edge of the bar, looking for all the world like he never wanted to leave. He was the most dangerous kind of agent, the kind who had screwed up early on, found themselves on the lowest road to a mediocre career, and suddenly lost their last ounce of drive over a seemingly meaningless happening. But he'd seen it countless times. New generations making mistakes of their predecessors. As long as the cycle continued, they'd have a constant selection of pawns at their fingertips.

He sat down beside the mark as the bartender slid a new tumbler of whiskey his way. The bartender cocked his head in a question, but he merely shook his head. He watched the bartender walk to the other side of the bar, then turned to Gold.

"Long night?" he asked, his voice low and scratchy, eyeing the empty glasses littering the bar counter.

"Long life, more like it," the man replied.

Gold's tone was sullen, his posture slouched. He was at a previously unseen low, just as he suspected.

He cleared his throat. "And why is that? A capable agent like you?"

Gold squinted. "I don't think we've met before."

"We haven't, but I've seen you. I know of you." He left it at that. In this capacity, he had no name. Let the man wonder.

"Oh? And what is it you think you know about me?" Gold's slurred voice was starting to become a growl. It seemed the liquor did not make him more agreeable.

He leaned in close. "I know that your star has fallen, and it will not rise again, not where you are now. I know that a few years ago, you could have gotten a woman into your bed with just a smile, and now they don't spare you a glance. I know that you are not the man you once were, but you can be so again."

Gold swallowed thickly and stared into the depths of his glass for a solid three minutes. Finally, he whispered, "How?"

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Sarah wasn't sure how long she had slept last night, although it couldn't have been that long. The sunlight streaming through the window blinds made clear the complete destruction that had taken place in this room over the past ten hours or so. The bed was a wreck, only a single sheet remaining to cover their nakedness. Lifting her head, she could see the bedclothes and the odd pillow strewn haphazardly around the room.

Funnily, Sarah wasn't in the least bit tired, at least not in the sleepy way. She could feel the pull of sore muscles, especially the ones she hadn't used all that often. There was something else beneath the familiar fatigue though, something fuzzy and stirring and strange. At first, she had no clue as to what it was, where it was coming from, but then it hit her, as brilliant and warm as the sunlight spilling in.

Happiness. Honest-to-goodness happiness, a feeling she had been searching for for nearly her entire life. How could she possibly have not remembered this? This filling contentment, this suffusing joy? The feeling was life-changing. If she weren't so happy, she would be in quite the mood to track down Quinn. It was good he was already dead, because the sonofabitch had gotten off far too easy. No one had the right to take away this feeling from anyone else.

But there was no room in her heart for that kind of hate, especially when she was snuggled up against the man who brought out this side of her, the man who had saved her in a very real sense.

"Chuck?" she said softly. "Are you awake?"

Without opening his eyes, without even expending the energy to fully open his mouth, he slurred, "Y'joking, 'ight? Need break."

Sarah felt a muffled giggle escape her throat. "Don't worry," she murmured, a wicked sparkle in her eye as she pressed a kiss to his temple. "You just look a little dehydrated to me, that's all. I'll go get you a glass of orange juice and you'll be good to go."

"You're the devil," he said, a smile touching his lips. He tightened his grip on her waist, but still didn't open his eyes. "I think I just figured it out. You came in the guise of the most beautiful woman in the world. 'Splains why can speak six hundred languages and get poor, uns'specting mortal men to do your bidding. I'm on to your plan, though."

"My plan, huh?"

"To get me to fall in love with you, exhaust me with continuous sex, and then, when I'm all weakened and defenseless, steal my soul."

"Oh, is that it?" she laughed, abandoning all effort to keep in the mirth. After all, it was one of those moments you remembered until the day you died, and she had no reason to hold back.

"Okay," he continued, nuzzling her neck, "maybe you're not actually the devil."

"Thank you for conced-"

"Maybe you still think you're on a mission to kill me and you've simply changed tactics. Oh, I know. You've decided that The Widow Bartowski has a nice ring to it."

As soon as Sarah could stop laughing, she lifted her head and slapped him playfully. "Would you quit your bellyaching?" she asked in faux annoyance. "I guess you can have your silly break." She leaned up close to his ear and whispered, "But I was under the impression that you found me attractive."

She could feel his smile against her neck as he protested, "I did find you attractive. Very attractive, the first handful of times. Now all I can see is the horns and pitchfork. Very scary. If I had any energy left, I'd be running right now."

She knew it was only a joke, but instead of laughing, she nestled closer to him and, more seriously, asked, "Do you have enough energy left to talk? We have some decisions to make, after all." And as long as they had a break, they may as well be productive with it.

He finally opened his eyes, rolling over to look into her eyes. "Of course. You don't have to ask me, ever."

If it didn't set her heart racing, she would love how easily he slipped into looking after her. She looped an arm around his neck and pulled him down to press a deep kiss to his lips. When she broke it, she was surprised to find she could barely catch her breath.

"As long as we're talking about future stuff," he said cautiously, "I want to start spending more time with Molly. I think it'd be good for her, to have a male influence in her life. Is that okay with you?"

Even if they were in the middle of a break, she wasn't prepared for that much overt sweetness this early in the morning. And she especially didn't know how to begin to tell him what she'd learned from Eric in Washington. That, however, was something that had to be dealt with before they could plan for any kind of future. She also knew she had to be careful how she told the story. The last thing she wanted was to spoil what progress they'd made, so she approached the problem in typical Sarah Walker-Bartowski fashion – head on.

"We have a problem," she said, barely registering the bewilderment that crossed his face.

"Really?" he asked, his face falling. "I thought you'd want me to spend time with Molly. Maybe we can –"

"Chuck," she interrupted, "no, that's not what I meant. I'd love that. It's just . . . There's something I've held off on telling you." She paused, twisting her lips. "Have we ever talked about an agent named Eric Gold?"

The name got Chuck's attention. A frown furrowing his brow, he moved away and asked warily, "Your ex before Bryce? Yeah, we've talked about him."

Of course that was the part he would remember. "Chuck, he's not an ex," she sighed in frustration. "It was a couple of dates, that's all."

Chuck was a smart guy. He knew every detail about her and how she felt. But if he knew everything of importance, why would he be at all concerned over a man that he knew she had zero feelings for and in fact thought was pathetic? She was on the point of rolling him over and showing him exactly how she felt when an epiphany slammed into her. When he constantly misinterpreted her intent, it was fear taking over his logic. Her mother had hinted at it yesterday, that he was still irrationally afraid of not being worthy of her. He constantly compared himself to men like Gold and, stunningly, thought he came up short in some way. She strongly suspected this wasn't a recent development and had nothing to do with her lost memories. But that only meant that she hadn't gotten him over it when she had the chance. She wondered if she'd even realized it the first time they were together, if she'd ever made it a priority to show him exactly how much he meant.

The real obstacle was that she'd never been around a man who was insecure before. Agents had confidence to a fault. Chuck was a man who wore his insecurities on his sleeve, who needed reassurance, and especially needed it from her. That's what her mom was trying to tell her about going outside her comfort zone. Simply saying those three words every once in a while wasn't enough. She could explain until she was blue in the face, but it was going to take more than words to fix this. She was always an action-oriented being, but this was going to take a precise mix of all the weapons in her arsenal – the words to assuage his doubt, the action to make it stick. She made a mental note to talk to someone for advice, to go to the person who knew him best. She didn't know Morgan very well, but maybe that was another thing that needed to change.

After being on the receiving end of his devotion and generosity and sweetness for a week, the thought of being able to do something for him buoyed her. After being so focused on herself for the past ten years, it felt beyond good to put someone first. Maybe that was what it felt like the first time. Maybe that was what he gave her.

"They were barely dates," she continued. "Just dancing. And it was eight years ago, Chuck. Besides, you surely already know this about me. When I'm on the dance floor, it really doesn't matter who I'm with. I'm pretty much in my own world."

"Come on," he shook his head, "he was attractive and confident. You know about the three date rule. For spies I'm thinking it's more like a three minute rule, especially if Carina is the model. You're telling me it never went beyond dancing?"

A bit too roughly perhaps, she pushed him down into the mattress and rolled to pin him to it. Maybe now was the time for his first lesson. "I know you have this image in your head of what spies are like," she told him firmly, "but we're not all like Carina. Yes, she was my best friend, and yes, she pushed me out on dates a lot, but that doesn't mean I always did what she expected. Do you understand?"

He nodded, but a hint of confusion still lingered in his eyes. "What don't you understand?"

"How do I know he was different from Bryce? And you're always going on about how Bryce was nothing special, but something must have made you choose him."

She frowned and readjusted herself so she could cup his cheek. "I wasn't one for casual relationships. I'm not ashamed of my past with Bryce because he was a decent guy, for the most part. He was my partner, Chuck. And he was there. He was there when I got in trouble, and I was there when he did. He was there when we were kicking butt and when the sky seemed like it was going to fall on to us." She shook her head. "Gold's not like that. He's small and he's petty and there are a thousand reasons I never let it go further."

"Okay," he sighed, not quite meeting her eyes.

She ran a thumb along his cheekbone. She hated how closed off he seemed to get when she brought up the past, as if it were something to shy away from. But she had no qualms talking about Bryce, especially not when he was the one who taught her to want more out of love, when that was the relationship that taught her to love with everything she's got.

"Don't do this to me, Chuck," she murmured, inclining her head to brush a kiss over his lips. "Don't close off on me."

He took a deep breath and looked into her eyes. "All right, so, what about this guy?"

Well, it wasn't what she was hoping for, but it was a start. "I saw him in the hall at the offices," she told him. "He said he had some information about you. He wanted to tell me about it over a drink." Before he could object, or get the wrong impression, she quickly added, "It was in a bar where a lot of agents hang out, and I only stayed for five minutes."

He swallowed. "So what happened? What did he tell you?"

She hesitated. She could easily tell him just the basics, what Gold told her about the Intersect, and leave out everything that happened in his hotel room for his good. But that's not how she wanted to live, a life of half-truths.

"Listen, there's more to this than just the information. I want you to know everything that happened, but I also want you to not jump to conclusions. Can you do that?" After he nodded, she licked her lips and continued, "Despite all my efforts to reject him, he chose to take precisely the wrong impression. He showed up at my hotel room with a rose, white dinner jacket, and wine." She laid her palm over his chest, took comfort in the strong beat beneath it. "Remember we talked about me remembering that time with you?"

"That's why you remembered?"

She nodded. "But I didn't want to tell you something like that on the phone."

"He tried the Montgomery on you," Chuck said with a defeated sigh. She could tell by the heave of his chest that he was having trouble calming himself. "What happened?"

"Well, he'd been drinking, so of course he didn't listen when I told him I was married and wanted him to leave. So one thing led to another, and I kicked in him the groin and knocked him out. That was the end of it. Then I called you." She took a deep breath. "Chuck, look, I understand you get jealous. There's nothing wrong with that. But this is nothing to get jealous over. You can't know how much I was missing you. I had to force myself to wait to call until you'd be back from Morgan's."

Sarah could barely contain her surprise when Chuck started to laugh softly.

"You knocked him out?" he asked through a chuckle. "Roan is going to have to add a serious disclaimer to those instructions. Warning: Do not try this on Sarah Walker. The results may be hazardous to your health." He sobered, his smile fading. "I know I overreact –"

"Chuck –"

"No, I do. But you should tell me about stuff like this. I mean, that's what married couples do. Agreed?"

"Agreed," she smiled with a tip of her head. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but with everything going on, I didn't want to add to your anxiety."

"So what did Gold tell you?"

With a sigh, she settled back down, snuggling into him and letting him wrap an arm around her. Any potential crisis had been averted. Better than that, she was sure they'd made progress on his inadequacy issues. On to the more important, and scarier, task at hand. She claimed his hand, idly playing with his fingers, and said, "He told me the CIA is resuming the Intersect Project."

He bristled. "What? They promised to shut it down. That was part of our agreement."

"Well," she shrugged, "the CIA likes to promise things all the time and then goes back on their word when it's convenient. At this point, it's still unofficial, probably not even sanctioned. But it's only a matter of time. The technology is too powerful for them to not want to exploit it, especially after seeing what you accomplished."

Rubbing his chin, he mused, "We destroyed the Intersect Room. They're going to have to rebuild the cube from scratch. Even with all of Dad's plans, that'll take them months, and it'd cost them a mint. Are you sure they'd go to that expense?"

"I'm sure," she confirmed with a nod. "I'm afraid the only question is when they'll succumb to the temptation, not if."

"Okay, so what's this got to do with us?"

Sarah would have had to bite back a laugh, if she couldn't already see the dangers spread before them like a picture. "They'll want you, Chuck. You know that. Gold said if I could stay close to you and deliver you at the right time, I could use you to bargain with them."

"All right, so, we'll just tell them 'no' and that'll be the end of it."

She let a small, sad smile come to her lips, because Chuck didn't even fear that she might want to turn him over for leverage, and because she was starting to get pretty damn good at knowing what made Chuck Bartowski tick. Maybe sex with her husband was just the thing she needed. Maybe after tonight they'd be even more attuned to each other.

Something else that was abundantly clear to Sarah was that her husband was an absolute genius. Not only was he a full CIA agent in his own right, but he had the Intersect 2.0 in his brain. When he wanted to, he was the most powerful person in the world. His one weakness, though, his fatal flaw, was that he honestly believed that all people were basically good at heart, that they were as nice and as honest as he was.

And that's what Beckman had been trying to tell her all along, wasn't it? That Chuck needed, maybe not a handler, but certainly someone to look out for him. She could never afford to think like that, and she cared for him on top of it, which made her the ideal candidate. Even if he no longer needed a physical bodyguard to guard him from bad guys, she'd be there to protect his blind spot. She'd be there to protect him emotionally in a world he didn't begin to fathom, a world where the emotions that made him such a wonderful person were too often a liability, where the logic he so effortlessly and brilliantly utilized didn't always apply. And he trusted her enough to let her be that person.

Ironically, it was exactly the same role he'd played for her in his world, for exactly the same reason. That's what made them such a great team, and not just in the spy sense. Separately, they both had serious flaws. But together? Together, they were unstoppable.

"You can't just say 'no' to the CIA, Chuck," she said gently, pushing away thoughts of a day, so long ago now, when she'd run into the woods to escape her life and had found a new one instead. "They'll always find a way to make you say 'yes.'" To hammer her point home, she brought up something she'd much rather forget. "Remember a month ago when one of those ruthless CIA agents wanted the real Intersect glasses from you? What'd she do?"

"I get it, you threatened Ellie," he sighed. He paused, running his thumb along the curve of her hip. "So what do we do?"

Closing her eyes, she pressed her face into his chest. That was the question she was dreading, because she really didn't know. She was supposed to be good at this, and yet she had no clue how to proceed, and she was finding it exceedingly hard to concentrate with the shivers Chuck was sending up her spine. She bit her lip. "We don't have to decide anything today. Whatever we do, it has to be well thought out. If we're going to fight against the CIA, we're going to need a plan."

He pulled her a bit tighter, his nose buried in her hair. After a deep sigh, he finally asked, "Did you tell Gold that I currently have the Intersect?"

"Of course not."

"Beckman said she wouldn't report it. If no one knows . . ."

He let it hang in the air, an unspoken hope.

Sarah pulled her head from his chest, placed a hand on his chin to get him to look at her. "Chuck," she said softly, "whatever we do, we're doing it together. I want you to promise me right now that you're not going to try to go off and do something crazy on your own."

Chuck said nothing, and that said everything.

"What?" she murmured, leaning forward to press her lips against his. "You think you can know every single detail about what makes me tick, and I wouldn't try to learn those same things about you? You'd want to protect me and deal with this yourself. But no matter how brave that is, Chuck, it's also very stupid." She kissed him again, deeper this time. "So promise me."

"Sarah . . ."

"No, promise me, Chuck," she demanded, propping herself up on an elbow to look down at him. "We're a team, in every sense of the word. I know if you promise me, I can trust you to keep your word. And I'll promise you in return."

He reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, his fingertips ghosting against her cheek. "I promise," he whispered. "We'll do this together."

"Thank you," she breathed out, feeling all the anger and worry rush out of her as she dropped to rest her forehead against his.

The morning had started off so wonderfully, and she didn't want to let that mood slip away. She wasn't going to let this issue, or a guy barely worth a thought, ruin the day. There were better things to talk about, better things to occupy her mind. He lifted a hand to the back of her neck, his thumb behind her ear, and she could feel the now-familiar and comforting pressure of his wedding ring against her skin. An image flashed in her mind, of a photo of a house, with a red door, and a sharpied drawing of a man, and a woman, with a baby in her arms. It hit her with force, not because of how suddenly the memory came, but because this was something she never expected and yet she felt absolutely ready for it.

After a moment, she ventured, "Have we ever talked about starting a family?"

"Don't worry," he said quietly, jumping to the wrong conclusion, as usual. "I'd never try and hold you to any decisions we made before the accident."

She lifted her head to find him looking up at her and let her breath out in a huff. "Will you shut up for a minute and stop reading into things?"

He frowned, a twinkle lighting up his eye. "Can I say I'm sorry?"

"Hush," she giggled, pressing a finger to his lips.

"How'm I s'posed to answer your question?" he grumbled.

"Are you going to be quiet for a minute?" she asked with a smile and a tilt of her head. He nodded. "Good. We need to be honest with each other, Chuck. Skirting around the truth is not going to help me, and it's not going to help us make good decisions. So I'm going to tell you what I want, and you need to tell me what you want. If they're different, well, we'll find a way to compromise. Got it?"

"Mm-hmm."

"So I asked you that question for a reason. I'd appreciate an honest answer." Slowly, she withdrew her finger.

A smile tugging at his lips, he said, "We did talk about it, a lot actually. We even thought you were pregnant at one point, but it turned out to be negative."

Sarah took a deep breath. "And is that what you want?" She was half-afraid to hear the answer, because what if he said 'no'? It wasn't as if they had tried last night.

"You know I do," he answered, expelling the words in a rush, "always have." More haltingly, he added, "Family means a lot to me. It's more important to me than anything."

"I'm starting to figure that out."

"But we're in a different place right now, and I absolutely don't want to put any pressure on you. As far as I'm concerned, we can shelve that particular issue for a while. Although, lately, I have to admit, you've been the greater advocate for family expansion."

"Really? I never saw myself as a mom."

He twirled a lock of her hair around his finger. "No, you thought it'd never be possible. There's a difference."

Smiling, she lay back down and rested her chin on his chest. "I want it," she whispered. "I mean, maybe not immediately. But the white house with the red door, the kids, the big yellow dog, I want all of it. Chuck, I've never –"

His head came up. "Wait, what did you say?"

"I want kids?"

"No, about the red door. How did you know that?"

That house had been her dream house since the days when she had to learn how to rely on cell phone conversations and whispered wishes in the night to stay in touch with her mom, but there was something different about this memory, too. It was touched by what they had. It didn't exist in the vacuum of her pre-Bartowski life. "I just have this image in my head, of that house, like it's meant for us." She smiled into his chest. "And it's meant to be filled with little Bartowkis running around with curly hair and lightsabers."

"You mean Walker-Bartowskis, don't you?" he asked with a smile, settling his head back onto the pillow.

She picked her head up. "Wait, what?"

He chuckled. "You were the great Agent Walker. When we started Carmichael Industries, we thought it'd be good to have that name recognition. So we compromised. You were Agent Walker professionally, and Sarah Walker-Bartowski personally."

"Hmm. Did that bother you? That I only hyphenated?"

"No," he said a little too quickly, with a hasty shake of his head. Lifting his shoulder in a shrug, he explained, "I mean, maybe a little. Like you couldn't completely leave your old life behind."

"Like I always leaving backdoors open in case I ever wanted a way out?"

"Maybe like that, yeah."

She stretched up to lean directly over him, then ran a hand through his hair. "I know I don't have a basis for this, so you can take this on trust, but it wasn't like that."

Maybe she couldn't remember all the details, but she couldn't imagine being like that with Chuck. The only reason she could fathom was that she wasn't a believer in love, and she simply didn't know how things were done, how certain things would be taken certain ways. And maybe she didn't want to give up that connection to her old life, not because she'd want a way out eventually, but because who she had been brought her to where she got to with Chuck. Her husband.

"No?"

"No," she assured him, pressing a brief kiss to his lips.

"I'm sorry then. I always seem to read into things the wrong way, don't I?"

"You do," she confirmed with a soft laugh. "But explain something to me. For being the nicest guy in the world, you seem to apologize a lot. What's with that?" Her eyes sparkling mischievously, she added, "If you want to be sorry about something, try apologizing for needing a break at the worst possible time. Babies don't make themselves, you know."

Chuck's laughter joined hers. "About that," he said, eyebrows waggling, "I may have recovered enough to accommodate you, my lady. I must say, your offer to get me a glass of orange juice did wonders."

"You're thirsty? I really will get you some."

"Some orange juice would be great," he replied with his classic grin, "but if I'm being totally honest, the break ended when I pictured you going to get it naked."

Laughing, she took a pillow in her fist and hit him playfully in the side of the head with it.

"Hey, hey, hey!" he shouted playfully. "You told me to be honest!"

"I did," she conceded, pinning his hands above his head and smiling down at him wickedly. "And in that case, that kind of honesty should be rewarded."

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