I still don't own Chuck.

So, who buys Casey and Verbanski? I don't. But I also don't buy that Casey was celibate for years at a time. I'm just saying. :)

I'm a little surprised that nobody commented on the shot at my very vocal (and mostly rude) critics in the last chapter. Maybe it wasn't as funny as I thought. :(

I understand that there isn't a review function on this site. But I would still appreciate your comments. The worst thing for an author is silence. You can't tell if you're connecting with your readers, if they're getting where you think the story is going or not. And those comments don't have to be praise. Of course, I'd be lying if I tried to say that I don't enjoy the praise. But I actually learn more from the critical comments. Just as long as you're respectful and allow me to respond, you can say anything.

Crossroads

x-x-x-x-x

It was a pretty hectic ride to the airport. For one thing, they were all piled into the van. It was a surveillance van… and it certainly was never designed to hold ten people. Not only that, Ellie was still concerned that Joey really wasn't in the best of condition medically to take a long trip. So she made her take the front passenger seat. Casey drove, but that still left Josh, Steven, Devon, and Chuck. And all four were big men. Ellie sat on the floor backwards against the engine cowling and monitored Joey's blood pressure over her constant increasingly annoyed protest that she was okay.

That left the girls to squeeze in wherever they could. Sarah could plainly see the devil in Laura's eyes as she more or less elbowed Joan out of the way to get first choice. Fortunately she knew better than to sit on Chuck's lap. Given Sarah's current mood, that would have been a serious, perhaps life threatening mistake. She clearly thought about Steven for a beat except that Joan shot her a look that clearly gave her pause. So she settled for Devon. It was a good choice… if she was trying to see whose face she could make the reddest anyway. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Except for the look that Ellie was flashing them. At this point moving off his lap wasn't an option. They were pressed so close together that breathing wasn't all that comfortable. "Don't worry, sweetie," Laura said softly. "I was just trying to be a tease. I'm not trying to cause problems for you. I'll talk to her."

One would think that Sarah would be happy being forced to snuggle so closely to Chuck. But if she was at all happy, she was doing a masterful job at hiding it. Finally she couldn't keep it in any longer. "Someone care to tell me why we're clearly on the run?" she asked. She was making zero effort to keep the disgust from her voice. "Again."

Joan looked at her carefully. Whatever protests to the contrary notwithstanding, Agent Walker's spy instincts were obviously still firmly in place. "We're not trying to hide anything from you, Sarah," she said softly. "We were going to tell you. It's just that right now seconds count."

"Tell me what?" Sarah demanded with zero humor. "Why do seconds count?"

"It's probably nothing," Joan said. "But I just got a call from General Beckman. It seems that Bryce Larkin broke into a NATO base and stole a nuclear weapon. Naturally they don't know everything that we know. They're understandably a little freaked out. They wonder if the Intersect made him go insane. And…"

"They're worried about Chuck going insane," Sarah finished her sentence. "So they are going to put him in a bunker while they figure it out."

Joan smiled at how perceptive Sarah was. It would be foolish to try and fool her. "In fairness, she didn't exactly say that," she said. "But yes, we both know how they think, right? It makes sense to stay one step ahead of them. It's probably best that they don't know exactly where he is anytime soon."

"Sonofabitch," Sarah muttered. Actually, that wasn't all she muttered. The string of obscenities was long and really, really graphic. In a way, it was fairly impressive that such a sweet, almost angelic looking lady would know that many curse words.

Naturally, Chuck knew Sarah pretty well, or thought that he did anyway… but yet maybe not quite well enough in some details. After they had been married for a few years, he would have learned that this was a time to keep his mouth shut and simply allow her to cool off a little. But after only a few days, he rather foolishly tried to calm her down. He squeezed her a little tighter. "Come on, Sarah," he said. "Relax a little. I'm safe."

Chuck could feel Sarah's body tense up even more. "From the fucking CIA?" she snapped. "Safe? Chuck, haven't you learned a damn thing in the past year? When the CIA wants you bad enough, there is no escape. They'll find you. Relax for a second and you wake up in a bunker… if you wake up at all."

There was an uneasy silence in the van for a long moment. It was finally broken by the last person in the world that hothead Sarah Bartowski ever expected to challenge her. "They haven't found me yet," Steven said, perhaps with more of an edge in his voice than he intended. "They've been looking for twenty years now. Trust me on this, Agent Walker. They want me far more than they do your husband. The CIA that you're so proud of isn't nearly as powerful as you may have been led to believe."

Sarah was too stunned to immediately respond. She just twisted to glare at him.

They were far to crammed into a small space for Steven to do anything other than to reach past Joan and across the seat past Chuck. He could barely get his fingers on her shoulder. "I'm very sorry that I got harsh," he continued softly. "Someday maybe you'll understand why I got angry. Look, Sarah, I understand that you don't know me at all. I'm not expecting anything approaching blind trust from you. I get that agents are trained to not trust people. If it ever happens, it will have to be over time, and both of us will have to earn it. But understand… nobody is hurting Chuck while I'm alive. That was true twenty years ago… and it's still true today. It's simply not happening."

If he was expecting Sarah to back down, well he was really, really wrong. "My name is not Agent Walker," she said, firmly but without much of her previous sense of anger. "Calling me that is a sure fire way to get on my bad side. She's retired. My name is now Sarah Bartowski. I get that you think that you probably know who I am as a person. But the honest truth is, for all of your wonderful brains and magic technology, you simply don't. There is one fact that I'm especially disappointed that you don't seem to know. I'm far more fanatical about anybody hurting Chuck while I'm alive than you are. You use your impressive high tech magic. Okay, it works for you. Myself, I'm more of a low tech person. I'll use my bare hands to protect him if I have to. You may think that your motives are good, and maybe they are. You say that you had good reasons for the decisions you've made when Chuck and Ellie were kids, and maybe you did. But let's be totally frank. You talk about trust between us. I'm willing to do my part of the work to get there. But this is as plain as I can say it… I'm always going to take a very, very, fucking very dim view of being kept in the dark on things, particularly when my instincts are screaming at me that my husband is in danger. So when are you going to tell me why we're heading to Washington? It seems like the very last place to go given our circumstance."

Steven also wasn't going to back down. But in spite of the tenseness he couldn't keep the smile from pushing at the corners of his mouth. "I know full well what your name is," he said. "Maybe we could settle on Sarah. I called you Agent Walker to make a point. And as long as I'm already on your bad side, I'll be honest and say that my initial reaction was that I didn't want Chuck to be married to a CIA Agent. Joan has made a very strong point of telling me that I'm wrong about that. I'm very willing for her to be proven right. And it's obviously not my decision anyway. Someday I hope that we can have a semi-normal father / daughter in-law relationship. I'll also be honest and say that I have no idea what that looks like. Please don't take this as a criticism, but I seriously doubt that you do either. So maybe we'll have to make it up as we go along. For the record, I'd like to be your friend. I'm not ever going to try to keep you in the dark. You're right in that I may not know you very well. But I actually did know that trying to keep things from you would be pretty stupid. But even more importantly, I need you. You're right; you're the very best there is at what you do. I'll always want you fully on board with whatever we decide needs to be done. Could we please maybe wait for ten more minutes and have this conversation calmly on the plane? We'll be far more comfortable. I promise to fully brief you and honestly answer any question that I possibly can. I even have some transcripts for you to read. If after we've talked, you don't agree that Washington is the place we need to be, we can talk about what to do next. Fair?"

Sarah considered his speech. It was by far the most she had ever heard him speak. A big part of her wanted to break down, apologize, and make up with him. After all, he was right about one thing. And it was a huge thing. He was her father-in-law. But she had heard all of the rumors about Orion too. She knew that he was a lone wolf, even more than she was. And she needed to set some boundaries. She simply wasn't going to be kept in the dark where Chuck's safety was concerned. So she compromised by lowering the rancor in her tone a little. "Fair," she finally agreed. "I'm also sorry if I was unduly harsh. Transcripts of what?"

Steven smiled as he sensed her internal conflict. "I think you're going to enjoy reading them," he said. "I was able to plant a bug in Alexei Volkoff's bedroom some years ago. I can listen to some of their conversations."

"I know, more or less, what they have planned."

x-x-x-x-x

Laura knew that Casey had a contact stationed at the military section at LAX. They had talked about it. It's how he was able to make a single phone call and so quickly get them a flight to Washington covertly. There was nothing unusual about that. There were plenty of times when something needed to get from LA to Washington or vise versa quickly, dependably, and without filling out a ton of forms or officials asking awkward questions. Most agents had contacts in the military that would do each other that sort of occasional favor. And it wasn't at all uncommon to develop close friendships in those situations. She even knew Casey's friend's name, Major Mo Peterson. There was nothing wrong with that. They met semi regularly at a neighborhood bar about half way between the airport and Burbank for drinks and to swap war stories. Casey told her that they had even gone fishing for a weekend once. There was also nothing wrong with that. Laura was glad that Casey had made a close friend. It didn't happen all that often in this life. She hadn't even bothered to check him out in the CIA database.

So what Laura found out just before boarding the plane came as something of a shock. Mo wasn't a him. As it turned out, Mo was actually short for Molly. Major Peterson was blonde, filled out her uniform amazingly well, and well, maybe not quite CIA Agent beautiful, was certainly incredibly attractive. And she clearly had a major, no pun intended, crush on one John Casey. Laura picked up on the way she was looking at him the very second that she stepped up and introduced herself.

It was Josh, as usual, who was the one to notice the look on Laura's face as she boarded the plane. "Just what we need," he sighed to himself as he made a mental note to talk to her.

"More spy love life drama."

x-x-x-x-x

It was a mixed bag of emotions on the plane once they were in the air and Steven passed the transcript around.

Casey, Joey, and to a lesser extent Josh, were all giggles at the notion that Volkoff believed that Sarah thought of Beckman as a mother figure. In fact they were laughing so hard that Ellie was becoming worried again about Joey's blood pressure.

Ellie and Sarah failed to see any humor whatsoever. They were simply seeing red. The very idea that Volkoff thought he could break Sarah's spirit wasn't going over all that well. And it was actually Ellie who was angrier than Sarah was.

Chuck was trying hard to keep perspective. Naturally he didn't care for Volkoff's plans. But he was relieved that Volkoff was going to keep his part of the truce, and even more relieved that pursuing Sarah was off the table. But one thing kept coming to his mind. "Why would Volkoff think that Sarah was close to Beckman?" he asked. "They've never been close." He turned to Sarah. "Is there something that I don't know about?"

In spite of being really, really pissed, Sarah couldn't help but grin at the doubt in his voice. "No, Chuck," she said. "There was maybe a time when I respected her position. You have to admit, she rose through the ranks. And that couldn't have been easy in such a male dominated organization. But wherever good will I ever had towards her is totally spent. I don't think I'd call her an enemy… but I certainly don't trust her or consider her a friend."

It was Steven who spoke up. "You ask why, Charles?" he said. "It was Bryce. He must have told them that when he was being tortured, before they wiped his memories. That's the problem with torture. You can always get them to talk, but you're never sure if they're telling you the truth." He took a glance at Joan. "I won't deny that I have my problems with Agent Larkin," he said. "But he took quite a risk in lying to Mary so boldly. She never takes that well. He must have been able to convince her. It was a noble thing. It gives us an opening."

"So," Chuck asked softly. "What do we do now?"

"That's easy," Sarah said. "We do nothing. You read the transcript. Volkoff is wrong. Even if he captures Beckman, so what? Let him. Bryce only has a few days left. Then Volkoff will lose his Intersect. He'll spend the rest of his life looking for Orion. We go on the Enforcer and finish our honeymoon."

There was a chorus of protests, all speaking at basically the same time.

"But that means that Bryce…" Chuck started haltingly. "Beckman…"

"It means they get away with it," Ellie said.

"It means that we walk away from our duty," Casey said.

Sarah grabbed Chuck's hand and pulled him close. "This is not our fight," she said. "Bryce and Beckman knew what they were getting into. They're not our problem. This is our chance to finally get out of this life and start our family." She turned to Ellie. "I know that you want justice," she said. "And, Ellie, you deserve justice. You absolutely do. I'd love to help you get it. But you don't know these people. They are not playing games. If we go after them we're going to pay a price, even if we win. Alexei Volkoff is one of the richest, most powerful men in the world. He has ways to hurt us."

Ellie turned to her father. "But you have a plan," she said hopefully. "After all, you're the great and powerful Orion that everyone here is constantly wetting their collective pants over."

"I'm sorry, Eleanor," Steven said. "But I'm actually with Sarah on this one. I do have a plan, one I've been working on for twenty years now. But it's too risky. And we don't have to do it. Volkoff will never find me. And he'll leave you alone. The smartest thing is what Sarah said, do nothing."

It was actually Joan who broke the awkward silence. "But that means you and I go on the run forever," she said to her husband. "Don't take that the wrong way. I knew that was a very real possibility when I married you. I'm still very willing to do it. In a lot of ways the romance of it even appeals to me. And I'm looking forward to being with you no matter where we are. But I was also looking forward to helping you get your family back."

Joan paused for a beat and turned to Ellie. "I didn't quite say that right," she said sadly. "It's more than hoping that you'll give your dad a chance. I'm hoping that you'll give me a chance. I was looking forward to getting a family of my very own to belong to. I was looking forward to becoming friends with my new brilliant step-daughter. I wanted to be standing there having her back and listening while she tells off her mother. That might be a little fun. I may even have a few words to add myself. But even more than that, I'd like to go shopping, maybe even stop and have a drink or two. I'd like to be sitting in the church when you're saying your vows to Devon. Then I'd like to have game nights and Thanksgiving dinners."

Joan paused and turned to Sarah. "And my new Step-Daughter-in-law," she said. "I was looking forward to maybe get to the point where you don't scare me half to death, get you sloppy drunk, and maybe someday hear the real unedited story about what happened in Italy that time."

Joan paused for a long moment to gather her composure. "I know that all sounds pretty selfish considering our circumstance," she finally sighed.

"It didn't sound selfish at all," Ellie said. "Not even a little bit. It actually sounded very nice. I think I can safely speak for Sarah in that we'd like that too. I'm not sure what you're talking about in Italy. It must have been a mission. Sarah's not the most open one about talking about herself so we might have to get her pretty drunk. But I'm pretty sure I'd like to hear the story as well."

Chuck turned to Sarah. "Please, don't be mad at me," he said. "I get what you're saying. I do. And I want those things just as much as you do. But just doing nothing and allowing Bryce and Beckman to die, that would bother me. I'm sorry."

In spite of the tense situation that actually got a smile. "And just why would I be mad at you?" Sarah asked. "For today's demonstration of what I already know? That you are the sweetest guy in the world? Chuck, going after Volkoff is going to get messy. There is no way to do it half way. The only way to survive is to totally defeat him. And to totally defeat him requires doing whatever it takes with absolutely nothing off the table. If we're not willing to do that, you every bit as much as me, then please don't ask me. I think that you know what I need to hear from you."

Chuck looked at her for a long, long moment, clearly weighing the pros and cons in his mind. Finally he sighed. "I never thought that I would ask you this. But will you please become Agent Walker again until this is over?" he asked. "For me?"

That turned Sarah's smile into more of a grin. "You know that I'll do anything for you," she replied. "I just needed to hear you say it. But I'm staying Sarah Bartowski. She can also be a badass when the need arises. And I rather like her."

Chuck wasn't really ready to make this a joke. "I rather like her too," he said. "That's why I'm not feeling all that good right now."

For some reason, that got Sarah in a giddy mood. "That's always good to hear," she said. "Don't worry. As soon as we get someplace private, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to improve your mood." Then she turned to Ellie. "What about you? Are you willing to do whatever it takes, Agent Elise?"

Ellie just looked at her for a long moment. "They took away my childhood," she finally responded. "They tried to take away the only family I have left. She can't get away with that. I'm ready."

Sarah turned to Joan. "What about you?" she asked. "I get that you and I worked for the same CIA. Being in the field is different. For the record, you have no reason to be afraid of me… unless you fuck up somehow and put Chuck in danger. Are you willing to do whatever it takes?"

Joan smiled and nodded. "Yes, ma'am," she said. "I'll do my best."

Finally Sarah turned to her new father-in-law. "Okay, great and powerful Orion," she said. "We've been out-voted. It looks like the Bartowski girls are ready to go to war. So now you're up to bat. You want to earn a promotion to Dad? I'll give you a fair chance to impress me."

"Let's hear this plan that you're so proud of."

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