A/N: DC here. I'd like to address a few things, so that readers can understand where we're coming from. Was Sarah and Casey wrong in what they did in vs The Helicopter? Absolutely. Have they EVER been in this situation? No. They are used to giving orders in the field. They are used to their partners being trained. They are used to assets being sniveling cowards that are reluctant to do anything, much less think for themselves. Casey doesn't trust Sarah, Sarah doesn't trust Casey, and that's what this chapter right here points out. For you comic book fans, what happens when two superheroes meet? They fight. They ALWAYS fight. Why? They don't know and trust each other, and yep, I bring that up in this chapter written weeks ago, might I add. As for writing out what happens, could we skip over things and only write the changes? Yes, but we think it's more powerful to tell what happened and then how it affected them. Lastly, we have a plan, and I love our plan. Me, the fluffmeister general, loves it. Trust us. We won't let you down. There may be a bump in the road, but we are the two biggest Charah shippers you have ever seen. Next chapter, we're beginning to really move. Thank you for all you feedback, we love how invested you guys are! We hope you're having as much fun as we are, because it's criminal how much fun we're having.

Disclaimer: We don't own CHUCK or its characters. (sigh)

He chased her out of the house. What did she mean by the then? Then what? She ran off and left him before she got it out. Then it was someone else? If so, who? He came out of the doorway and yelled. "Sarah, wait!"

She was putting on her coat as she spun, but the look she gave him…yeeesh. "You stay inside." She was pointing at him like he was a bad puppy. "Do what I say." He almost dropped his head like a scolded dog. He had messed up. She had said to trust her, but she didn't ask him to believe her. Wasn't that the same thing? Apparently in her world it wasn't. He didn't understand this world, and she was his lifeline. Damn it. She was his lifeline and they had accused her of being a traitor to them, to her country. He started to chase after her and then stopped and turned to Casey.

"Do you think we were wrong?" Casey never answered because Chuck heard brakes, Sarah yell, "Casey!" And then he spun around in the direction she had run off. Casey took off in front of him and Chuck followed cautiously behind.

Casey pulled his gun. "Hey, don't move." The man slammed the trunk shut, Chuck was sure Sarah was in it. " Zarnow?"

Wha—? How was that possible Zarnow was dead? Blown up by a NDA Incinerator? That Casey said Sarah got off the black market…..Oooooh. Well played, dastardly villain, well played. It was straight out of a comic book. The good guys fight each other and then team up to take down the bad guy. Zarnow took out a gun, and shot Casey with a dart.

"Good to see you again, Agent Casey." Ooooh the dastardly villain had even said it with a dastardly villain smile. Oh, wait, Casey was shot!

Chuck turned, fear in his eyes as Zarnow sped away. "Oh, my God."

"Yep, we were wrong." And with that he collapsed into Chuck's arms.

This wasn't quite going as expected. This was going pretty badly actually. "Casey, he's got Sarah. We've gotta save her."

"Brilliant deduction, Nancy Drew." Chuck wasn't sure all of that was necessary. "Now pull out the tranq dart!"

That was a bad idea, a really bad idea. "Oh, I have a very strong aversion to needles."

"Do it!"

Well, that could have used more compassion! "Okay, uh, here we go." He pulled the needle out AND didn't pass out. "That was the doctor, right?" It had to be. Which made things very difficult. "He's probably not dead?"

"And the sun sets in the West. Nothing gets by you."

Chuck wondered if getting shot made Casey grumpy or if that was just his default setting. To be honest the only time he'd seen Casey not grumpy was thinking about shooting him and getting pancakes. "One, two, three." Chuck helped Casey to his feet. "What's he gonna do with Sarah?"

"He's gonna torture her until she tells him all about you." No. God. No. They were gonna torture her. Because he didn't trust her. She'd only asked him to do one thing, and he had failed her. She kept him safe from Casey that night. She had protected him so Zarnow hadn't seen him, for all he knew she had suggested the dating cover so she could be nearby to watch him, and he hadn't trusted her. Casey was heading for the Herder. "Come on. If we hurry, we can catch him."

Chuck jumped in the driver's seat. "All right, where are we going?"

Chuck put on his seatbelt while Casey fiddled radio. "I laced my quiches with microbots."

Chuck was stunned. He had heard of this technology. It was next gen. "You're not kidding, are you?"

Casey slowly turned toward him. "I don't kid about quiche." Ooookay, story there for a later time. "We can trace him using the car's tracker." Casey hit the power button and then several others.

Maybe that dart had more to it than your normal knock-out drug. Maybe there was something that made you crazy or even lose your mind. "Yeah, I think that only comes with the sports package."

Chuck's mouth dropped as the system came online. "We made some enhancements when your car was in the shop." Chuck watched in absolute amazement. Casey somedays acted like a complete Neanderthal, but right now he was making the system do exactly what he wanted. "Got a signal. Let's go."

Several minutes later they found themselves at the Buy More. They crept in, Casey not as well as Chuck. The big guy was obviously still feeling some of the effects of the drug. "Hey, Casey, Casey. Wait a minute. Why, why would he bring Sarah here?"

Chuck didn't like it, but Casey was still gung-ho. "I don't know. You wait here." Chuck looked around when a loud crash came from beside of him….Casey had fallen to the floor. He shook his head, popping back up to his feet just as quickly. "Damn tranq dart," he muttered. A scream got both of their attention. "Come on."

Chuck had to follow, he had no choice. He was still terrified though. "Oh, God."

They made their way to the theater room. Chuck started to go in, as Casey grabbed him. "Hey, wait, you idiot!" Casey did have a gun, and training, but Chuck wasn't feeling the effects of the dart….Casey was still probably the better choice to go first. Casey moved the curtain, saw what was in front of him, and started to lower the gun.

Chuck, intrigued, moved the curtain. "It's Morgan. He ate your quiches."

"We're on the wrong trail. Come on." They got back in the Herder and took off. They rode in silence for a bit as Casey played with the system. "I got nothing."

"What do you mean you got nothing?" Nothing, no, they couldn't have nothing. This was all his fault. He wasn't giving up... "Then what do we do?"

Casey shook his head. "It's over. She's gone."

"No, no, no, no, no. Okay, this is our fault. We didn't believe her. Now we have to save her." Chuck's mind began to run. Not the Intersect, but his brain. He was smart, he was the Piranha, he could figure this out, he just needed help, and sitting beside him was exactly who he needed. "Look, if you were a bad guy, what would you do? Fly Sarah out on a plane? Would you use a boat or a-a-a what?"

Casey was still doped up from the drug but he answered "Chopper. Small airfield near the water. The closest I could find." Okay, how would he do this in Call of Duty….? "Then do-do a satellite search using the touch screen and then maybe limit that to airfields that are within a certain range of us and then maybe limit that by if there's activity on the ground?"

Casey raised his eyebrows, impressed. "That's not bad."

WHAT? Casey had actually complimented him?! "Thanks. Yeah, I was just kind of, you know, spitballing." He was. He could do this spy stuff. He could think with the best of them.
"Just kind of off the top of my head. I was thinking—"

"Found it," Casey cut in. "Port of Los Angeles." Casey pointed forward, gun drawn. "Floor it."

Chuck realized he was terrified again, but they had to save Sarah, especially since it was all his fault. "Okay."

They arrived at their destination, and Chuck killed the engine to the car. Casey looked around. "This is how this is gonna work. I'm gonna go over there, rescue Sarah, and capture Dr. Zarnow, shoot anybody who gets in my way." He turned to Chuck. "You, you're gonna stay here."

"So, in this plan I basically do nothing?"

Casey turned towards him. "Yep."

Chuck tried to put on his best Dirty Harry face and voice. "Let's do this." Casey got out of the car and headed towards a warehouse.

Chuck sat there for a second, the silence overwhelming. "All right, all right. Now we wait." He saw a door open off to his left and Zarnow came out of the building and shut the door as Chuck slumped down in the seat. Zarnow walked away. Casey had told him to stay in the car…..but Sarah was in there, and she needed rescuing. She needed rescuring because of him. He needed to say it out loud. That was it. "Stay in the car. Stay in the car. Do not leave the car. Do not leave this car." He glanced back at the door, reached down, unbuckled his seat belt, and headed for the door he had just seen Zarnow come out of.

}o{

Her arms felt like they were about to pop right out of their sockets, but she just clenched her teeth behind the tape over her mouth and dealt with the pain as best she could, forcing herself to remember why she was here. She was hovering over the ground, her feet a few inches from the cement, arms twisted up, behind, over her head, and she could feel Dr. Zarnow's presence nearby.

But the information he wanted, the identity of Patient X, wasn't going to come from her. He would have to kill her first.

As he lowered her back to the ground again, the sweet relief of hard ground beneath her feet, she panted through her nose, feeling the sweat pour down her face, her back, her arms. She focused on that instead of the pain shooting through her arms and shoulders. She blinked to keep the tears at bay as she fell to her knees, the chains and cuffs still attached to her wrists that were clasped behind her back.

At least Casey was with Chuck, and she had a feeling the NSA agent knew more than she did about just how valuable the Nerd Herd supervisor was. Whatever was in his head, whatever Bryce had sent him, was important enough for either of them to sacrifice their own lives to protect.

And she did tell herself, after all, that this would be her last mission.

No, she chastised herself. She'd find a way to get out of this. Just like she had the other times someone like Dr. Zarnow—who she knew fancied himself as a brilliant mastermind, the traitorous dog—had chained her up like this, tried to torture her for information on a mission or assignment.

What Zarnow didn't know was that she was a lot more than the Ice Queen misnomer he kept using while asking her to tell him who Patient X was. The mocking tone, the derision, the vitriol, the way he yanked extra hard on the chains, as if he was trying to dislocate her shoulders…

She was more than the Ice Queen, and more than Agent Sarah Walker. She was stronger than she looked. And as much as she didn't want to die, she wasn't afraid of it. Not if it meant this weasely sniveling entitled piece of shit didn't get what he want. Not if it meant he'd never know Chuck Bartowski's name or face.

Agent Walker wasn't going to be how Chuck was identified, found, and kidnapped. She wouldn't be how he ended up in some foreign adversary's hands. And she definitely wasn't going to be how he died.

"We've been at this for too long, Agent Walker," Zarnow was saying, breaking through the haze of throbbing pain. "And I don't have much time." There was a beep from his pocket and he took his phone out. "Ah...I must dash, but don't you worry, I'll be back. I'm giving you one last chance to really think about it. Is Patient X so important that he's worth your precious life?"

Yes. Absolutely.

And she glared her answer up at him, breathing hard through her nose.

With a smirk, he pulled on the chains again and left her there, dangling by her arms again. But this time, at least she could touch the ground with her toes. That alleviated the pain a bit. He must've been in too much of a hurry to care, though, because he quickly strolled out of the warehouse, the door slamming shut behind him.

She looked up, using as much of her strength as she could muster to pull at the cuffs around her wrists, squirming, trying to figure out a way to get out of them. It was probably useless, and she would have to make her escape when he took her out of the damn chains.

God, she would absolutely massacre him when she got out of these.

The door opened again and she let out a harsh breath. He was already back. She thought she'd have a bit more time.

But then she turned and looked over her shoulder.

Chuck?!

Oh, God. Oh, shit. Oh, God. The unbelievable idiot. The incredibly stupid idiot.

The second he saw her, his eyes widened and he dashed around to stand in front of her. "Sarah!" he whispered, breathless. "Hey…" He took her in, concern and worry in his face. "You okay?"

Did she look okay?

She snapped, "What are you doing here?" as best as she could behind the damn tape and he nodded, holding his hands up with a quick, "S'a good question. Uhhh..." He pointed to her mouth. "Should I…?" She nodded with a clear Duh look on her face. "Okay."

He tore it off quick, and she wasn't sure if that was better or worse than if he'd done it slowly. Quickly, quickly was probably better, she thought as she spared a moment to wince properly at the pain. "Sorry," he panted.

"Okay. Chuck. You have to get out of here," she said in slow, clipped words, looking right into his eyes, willing him to listen to her for God damn once in his life. He was in more danger than he could possibly even begin to understand. If Zarnow found him, if he knew he was Patient X, if he knew that program thing and the secrets were in this man's head… God, she couldn't imagine how dangerous it would be for him, and for the country. The entire world, possibly.

"No, I'm here to save you!"

Oh God, the idiot. The absolutely insane… God, why was he like this? Why wasn't he a damn coward like every other asset and mark and whomever else she'd met in the last decade of doing this job? Why was he incredibly brave?

"You shouldn't even be here!" she argued, hearing the desperation in her own voice. She didn't care. "You're too valuable! And besides, I have this well in hand." She controlled herself enough to at least get that out in a measured, calm voice. She gave him a confident look.

It didn't work. "Ah hah...Yeah…'Cause it looks well in hand."

She didn't have the time to kick him in the shin for that bullshit sarcasm. And also, he was a little right…

"Okay, fine...Just find me something to pick this lock…"

Chuck finally listened to her, at least, and he was surprisingly fast as he dashed away from her and grabbed a piece of metal she could use with a, "Here. Here here…" The relief of feeling his fingers against hers for just the split second he passed the makeshift lock pick into her hand was a little startling, and she chalked it up to the numbness in her limbs after the torture she'd endured for the last half hour or so.

There was a loud bang over by the door then and she spun to look, then spun back to face Chuck. "Go. Go go go!" she rushed out, and he grabbed the tape, wincing as he gingerly put it back over her mouth, an apologetic look on his face. She raised her eyebrows and barked one more "GO!" through the tape, watching as he backed away, flailing right, left, looking for someplace to hide. Oh, Jesus Christ, you stupid nerd, please hide!

He finally just darted into the shadows and watched her through the slats he hid behind. She sent him a look, knowing it wouldn't do much good to project through her eyes just how much trouble he was in if they got out of this alive. But then she turned back to Zarnow as he came into the room.

"The helicopter's ready, Agent Walker," he said jauntily, in his best Villain About To Get Away With It voice. Why were they all freaking like this? Asshole wannabe Bond villains. Every time. "This is your last chance…" he drawled, dangling her freedom in front of her with his voice, giving her a smarmy look. She just glared at him making it clear again that he wasn't getting a single fucking word out of her. "We're going to a special facility where they're going to torture you. Really torture," he said in a tone that legitimately sent a horrible chill through her. She had a feeling he'd enjoy it if they got that far, and that made her feel sick inside. "Not this child's play."

He paused and she couldn't help slowly, subtly lifting her eyes over his shoulder to see if Chuck was still. Damn it, not only was he still there, he was inching to the side, around the slats, closer to them. DO NOT. Do. NOT.

"Or you could just tell me who. Patient. X. is," Zarnow snarled through his teeth. And with that, he held up a massive needle, glee in his face. "Something for the flight…" he chirped. That wasn't anything she wanted anywhere near her...nope...no way. She tried to pull back, resisting with a grunt.

"Oh, crap!"

Oh. Fucking. Chuck.

She screeched "RUN!" through the tape as Zarnow spun and caught sight of Chuck at his outburst. Chuck yelped and ran in the other direction, but the doctor threw the needle, sending it sailing through the air. Sarah yelled and Chuck stopped, the needle slamming into the wall just in front of his nose.

And when Chuck turned back, he froze, his brow furrowing, his jaw dropping. His eyes twitched, his pupils wiggling back and forth, eyelids fluttering, and then he ducked his head and made a small sound of shock and pain, she thought. Then he lifted his gaze to Zarnow and his eyes widened. "I know you, I know your secret. You've been feeding American science to North Korea for years."

Oh. It was the thing again. The secrets he had in his head. How did he access them? How did he know? How…?

Sarah realized suddenly what she had in her hand. And Chuck was distracting Zarnow. She immediately got to work trying to pick the lock of her cuffs.

"Ah...Patient X." Zarnow pulled the tranq gun he'd used on her and Casey out and pointed it at Chuck. Shit, she had to work faster. This was so much worse than it had been when it was just her being tortured in this warehouse. She couldn't let this happen…

But the sweat on her fingers was making the piece of metal slip. Shit…

"To think that my secrets are in that head of yours…" There he went with the villain soliloquy again. This guy was an egotistical asshole, but at least this was buying her a bit more time. "It's an honor. Really." She looked down at Chuck again as he met her gaze, fear in his eyes. "Of course, to hell with honor. I'm here for the impressive dollar figure that you and that beautiful program in your brain will fetch."

Before she could do anything else, Zarnow pulled the trigger. She jumped, watching it sink into Chuck's chest. He looked up, betrayed for a moment as he looked at the doctor, then scared as he switched his eyes to meet hers. "Sa—Sarah…"

He slumped over then, unconscious, and she squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, before she opened them again. She spent only a moment taking in the sight of Chuck's limp body on the ground, and she felt a rush of adrenaline and rage erupt through her body as she turned her gaze to Zarnow. He didn't know who he was dealing with, that much was clear.

But he was going to find out.

"Don't worry, Agent Walker. I'll take good care of him."

She had to watch him drag Chuck out of the warehouse. Before he'd even gotten outside, though, she was back to picking the lock of her cuffs. Once she felt the click against her wrists, she yanked one hand down, then loosened the cuff on the other.

The sound of glass shattering made her turn and look over her shoulder, and Casey stepped inside of the room. Melodramatic idiot. She ripped the tape off of her face. "Zarnow tranq'd Chuck and took him!" she snapped, reaching up to catch the gun Casey tossed towards her.

"I told him to stay in the—Aw hell! Where'd he take him?!"

She gestured with a flick of her head even as she sprinted. Casey overtook her and they burst out of the door she'd seen Zarnow take Chuck through, out onto a landing pad. The helicopter Chuck was assuredly inside of was taking off already.

Casey lifted his gun and she reached out, grabbing his shoulder. "No, Casey, they have Chuck!"

"Well, what the hell you want me to do then?" he growled. "You want the country's most valuable secrets handed to the damn Ruskies?"

"North Korea is actually more likely…" Casey made a face. "Chuck—He figured out Zarnow's been selling our science to North Korea. It was in that program with the secrets, the one in his head."

"Fuck…" Casey shook his head and spun back to the helicopter, raising his gun again.

"Casey! No! You can't! You'll kill him!"

"And North Korea won't get what he's got in his head!"

She flicked her eyes back to the helicopter as it made a wide circle above the pad and started heading in the other direction. And that was when she saw Zarnow inside, the dock lights flashing on his face as he held his hands up. Chuck...Chuck was holding a gun on him. "Wait, Casey! Casey, look!"

Casey stepped closer. "I see 'im. The hell's that kid doin'?"

She had no idea. But at least it was getting Casey to lower his gun. The helicopter turned again and she couldn't see inside of it as it moved higher into the sky, preparing to make its departure, but suddenly it lurched, jerked to the side, then the other side, and the nose pointed down.

"What's happening?" Casey muttered.

She squinted up at the helicopter, not sure what was happening as the helicopter started making wild circles, jerking up and down, swaying through the air. It was Chuck. He was...fighting? She couldn't tell. She couldn't see inside well enough. "Come on, Chuck…" she breathed.

The helicopter swerved again, heading straight for one of the towers. "No!" she yelled, watching it miraculously bump off of the tower and careen in the other direction. She let out a huff in relief and pushed a hand through her hair. She focused her eyes on the cockpit of the chopper as it swept past the lights on the nearby crane and she thought she saw a white shirt and curly hair sitting in there.

"Oh my God, Casey, I think Chuck's flying the chopper."

The wide-eyed look of oh shit on Casey's face was the most she'd related to the man in the past few days. Easily. This was very bad. But at least it looked like the thing wasn't totally out of control now.

Casey grabbed his cell phone and dialed Chuck's. He lifted the phone to his ear, and a few moments later, he bellowed, "I TOLD YOU TO STAY IN THE CAR!"

No, that was the most she'd related to Major John Casey. That right there. The furious rage in his voice.

Then, "All right, there's a collective in the cyclic control." He paused. Oh God, this was bad. She didn't know Chuck all too well yet, but she knew he had no idea what those words meant. "One's the stick. One looks like an emergency brake. Grab 'em both." He was trying to get Chuck to land but they didn't speak the same language. And she could hear Chuck freaking out in Casey's ear. "Push the stick just a bit forward while doing the same thing with the emergency brake…" The helicopter, predictably, made a nosedive right towards the ground. "Pull up, PULL UP! Pull up on the emergency brake! Level off. LEVEL OFF!" he barked when the helicopter lurched in the wrong direction. She heard more freaking out, high pitched screaming practically. "LISTEN. MORON. DO YA WANNA DIE?!"

She shook her head, done with this bullshit. "Give me the phone, Casey!" she ordered. He gave her a weird look for a second, then passed it over. She pushed the worry and outright anger she felt towards Chuck at the moment out of her completely, settled into a calm, reassuring tone, and put her all into getting this damn nerd safely on the ground.

"Okay. Uh, Chuck? You're gonna be okay. Now I need you to focus." She wracked her brain for a way to connect to him, a way to communicate with him that he would understand. Comic books? Movies? ...Video games. That was it. "Have you ever played any flying games before?"

"Flight simulators? Flight simulators. S-Sure I've done those. Yeah."

God, he was freaking out so bad. "Okay, which ones?"

"Uh...Maverick of the Skies...Stealth Fighter Elite...Uhhh Apache Chopper Patrol…"

"Great. Okay, remember that last one," she said, keeping her eyes on the chopper, watching him in the cockpit. "I want you to pretend like you're playing that game, okay? You're just in your bedroom, you're playing a game and none of this is real." She ignored the look Casey was giving her in her peripheral, even stepping forward a bit so that she couldn't see him at all. She was getting Chuck down here in one piece because it was her job and she was damn good at her job.

"It's just a game," Chuck breathed in her ear. "Just a game. Okay...I can do this." She felt relief go through her at the thread of confidence in his voice. "I can play this game…"

But just as he said that, the helicopter swayed and was over the water. "Easy, Chuck!….Easy…" she mumbled to him.

"Uhhh…um...is this one of those helicopters that can turn into a boat?"

What?! "Nnno, it isn't. Just ease to the right and goose the brake. They designed the game exactly like the helicopter," she assured him, knowing she actually wasn't sure if that was, in fact, the case. She had no idea what the hell the game he'd mentioned was. All she could do was pray.

"I got it," he drawled. "I goooot iiiit…" He almost looked like he did have it, she thought, as the helicopter slowly shifted to the right, making its way back towards the landing area. "Almost theeere…"

"A little more to the right," she coached.

"Easing right, easing right, goose the brake, it's just a game," he chanted. She watched closely, her heart in her throat. "A big, scary video game…"

The helicopter lowered….down, down...slowly...and it landed, skidding a bit, but then it stopped. God, it stopped. She listened to Chuck's manic, relieved laughter, the phone still at her ear as she felt the anger start to rush back into her as she watched him climb out of the cockpit and stumble back onto the ground.

She lowered the phone as he did a stupid dance and exclaimed, "And that! Is how! I do! That!"

Casey swept into action immediately, lifting his gun and rushing over to the chopper to secure the scene. Good. She would deal with the damn asset.

As he neared her, still celebrating, completely clueless, he must've noticed the fury on her face, because he amended, "Okay, okay, that's how we do that. Up top, Sarah! Palms are a little sweaty, but..." He lifted his hand for a high five.

And the rage spilled over like a dam broke inside of her. "What the hell were you thinking?!" she yelled.

"Clammy hands, got it, no good…" He lowered his arm to his side, suddenly pale.

"Chuck! The secrets that you know are incredibly important! You compromised everything when you stopped trusting me!" She inwardly pulled back a bit at that. Because his shit with following her into the warehouse was worse than him being manipulated by Casey, it was just foolishly reckless…

"And when you got out of the car!" Casey broke in.

Sarah just glowered at him, even when he seemed to pull back into himself, the gravity of the situation seeming to finally dawn on him a bit. "Listen, I'm...I'm sorry, okay?"

"No, it is not okay!" she yelled. And even Casey seemed a bit speechless. She didn't care. She wasn't letting him off the hook. "How could you think I was the double, huh?" He looked stricken. She still didn't care. "You know I am not Bryce. Bryce betrayed everything I believe in, and if you ever accuse me of that again, then I will walk away. Mission over. We all go back to Washington." She forced herself to ignore the way her voice broke when she mentioned Bryce's betrayal, to not take so much notice of the deflated, upset look on Chuck's face as he dropped his chin to his chest in shame. She waited for him to lift his eyes back to hers before she continued, the final blow, the one thing she wanted to pound into his head above all else. "And you do not want that to happen, Chuck. That, you should trust me on."

She turned on her heel and walked away from him, not even looking back once.

A/N: DC here. Okay, guys, next chapter...Trust Us. This is what you've been waiting for. Now, it's not a DC fluffity (is that a word, SC?) (IT IS NOW! -SC) piece, but….but things happen, and more things are gonna happen. It's still ep 2.

SC here. TRUST! US! Stick around for the next chapter and the chapters after that because TRUST US. Thanks for reading!