Unfortunately I don't own Chuck

Part 4

Russia, May 2005

Sarah regarded the cache in front of her in disfavour. This was a cache of equipment left over from a previous undercover mission she'd taken part in in Moscow, one in which she'd gone in on her own so nobody else could know where it was. The trouble was that it was a few years old and wasn't optimised for their current situation. Still it was better than nothing.

Chuck stared at the contents of the suitcase they'd dug up, aghast. They were in the corner of a park on the outskirts of Zelenograd, one of the smallest suburbs of Moscow. The five guns, ammunition, papers, money in multiple currencies, gold, cell phones, changes of clothes, knives and shoes probably did look pretty impressive to the layman.

"You had all this here, just in case?" he asked incredulously.

She grinned at him. "When you're under cover there's no one you can turn to. You need to manufacture your own back up. I've got a couple of these caches in different parts of the city. This is from an operation a few years ago. If I have to come to Moscow for an op again, I'll take some time out to build another one of these to replace this one."

"If you do, you might want to include some smart phones," he advised, fingering the rather elderly cellphones she'd included. "I can't do anything with either of these."

"I'll take it under advisement," she said lightly. "What were you hoping to do with them?"

"Hack into the security apparatus and find out whether they're searching for us and, if so, where," he replied, shocking her.

That raised so many questions. "You can do that from a smartphone?" she asked.

He looked at her with raised eyebrows. "Yeah," he replied as though it was the most normal thing ever. Maybe it was, for him.

"Can't you just use your laptop?" she asked, grabbing a small bag and some clothes. They'd have to buy clothes for him but there was money here, so that wouldn't be a problem. Luckily she had boots and socks in the cache as well and they fit alright too. Boots had been left out of the change of clothes he'd brought for her.

"I can't take the chance of using this satellite connection," he replied, "In case they're scanning for it now. But if we can get close to somewhere with Wifi like a house or a restaurant or something I can hack into their connection and we can go from there."

She goggled at him as he continued. "I also want to check on Rob, and send a report to NSA. You can also report to CIA if you want."

It would be a good idea to let Graham know she was alive she guessed, but… "If I'm gonna report to CIA, I kind of need to understand what's happening," she said mildly to Chuck as she selected a couple of additional sets of papers and some money. She grabbed a new knife holster and clipped it round her calf; her previous one hadn't survived the fall into the water, and then she grabbed a spare gun, loaded it, checked the safety and shoved it into the pancake holster on her back.

Bartowski looked at her with increasing incredulity. "A knife holster?" he queried. "That's a new one on me!"

"It is on most people," she replied with a grin, "But they're damned handy." She bloused down the leg of her new pants and pulled on a sweater and coat. She pressed some money into his hands.

"Can you shoot?" she asked.

He grimaced. "I'm not great with guns. I can carry a spare one for you if you want, but you wouldn't want me to fire it unless it was an emergency."

She accepted that. "How are you with knives?" she joked.

"I make a mean chicken peperoni," he replied, "but apart from that, not so great either!"

"I may hold you to that when we get back," she grinned, pushing the unused equipment back into the suitcase but withholding the identity papers. She wouldn't use this cache again and she'd need to burn the papers once she got a chance. She didn't want to chance someone else discovering them given they'd have to bury the rest of the gear.

"Do you carry any spare ID papers?" she asked.

"Yeah, I've got one spare," he said.

"OK," she temporised, pushing the box back in the hole. "Give me your old ones." He did so. "Can you bury this? In the mean-time I'll burn our old papers so they won't have a chance of finding them on us."

He looked askance at her. "Not disagreeing with you, but why burn them and not just bury them?" he asked curiously, pushing earth onto the case with his boot and a branch they'd used as a shovel.

"Can't take the chance someone will find them with our likenesses," she said. "I'm a ghost and you shouldn't be here. They have to be destroyed."

She crouched in the undergrowth and lit the papers with a lighter, making sure that all the photos had been destroyed. Finishing her self-appointed task, she turned round to find that he'd finished his and was waiting for her.

"OK?" she asked and he nodded. "Let's head back to the car. We're gonna hide it in the forest and sleep in it overnight, then we're gonna hike to that car park in the early morning and steal a new vehicle. Since it's a commuter station for the city they shouldn't discover it gone until the evening." He nodded his understanding. "Once we get the new vehicle we'll find somewhere for you to tap into the internet from. Then we have to put as much distance between here and our destination as possible." He nodded again and she thought how refreshing he was. Most male agents she worked with, and even some analysts, were always butting in, trying to make their own suggestions. He simply took her orders. If he had something to say he said it, but otherwise he did as she suggested.

As they arrived at the car she told him. "But if I'm going to write a report to Graham I need to know what's going on. I gather there's a lot you haven't told me. Can you fill me in now?"

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "I can tell you some of it," he agreed.

As she lay trying to sleep a few nights later, while Chuck took the first watch, Sarah reflected on all that she had discovered in the past few days.

The current forest that they were in was within ten miles of the Finnish border and the plan was that tomorrow they'd dump the car and simply hike across the border. The border wasn't fenced, and they should be able to stroll right over it.

Chuck had been a good travel companion. On the first day after she'd stolen a car from the commuter car park near a train station, hoping it wouldn't be discovered stolen until later that evening, they'd stopped at an out of the way house where he had identified a broadband connection. It had been a matter of minutes for him to hack into that and then within seconds he was passing on information.

"Rob got out OK. He's at the Embassy. Richards was arrested. Kolanski is in the wind, no sign of arrest," he recounted. "I'm gonna let Rob know I'm OK. Do you wanna leave anything for Graham?"

She wanted to say quite a lot to Graham about what he hadn't told her about this mission but settled for "Tell him I'm fine, we're together and hope to get back to DC in a few days," she told him. That wasn't strictly true – they would need to make contact with their agencies once they got to Finland but she didn't want to reveal anything about their exit route, however safe Chuck claimed this communication method was.

Chuck had then settled in to hack the Russian systems while she'd waited patiently. Less than thrty minutes later, he'd muttered "Interesting," then a few seconds later, "No way!" His hands had nearly blurred on the keyboard, he was typing so fast, while she'd metaphorically sat on her hands trying to avoid putting him off. Finally he'd unplugged his laptop from the broadband connection and sat back. "We're OK for now, they're not looking in this area," he'd confirmed. "But we've got a lot to talk about."

So they had set off again, stopping at a roadside café for some food where Chuck had stayed in the car. She was fluent in Russian but Chuck's lack of language skills would be an issue so she wouldn't let him out in public except in an emergency. They had used the country roads to head to the northwest, avoiding the possibility of road blocks and police checks. It took longer at lower speeds, but was much safer.

"Kolanski is genuinely in the wind," Chuck had reported. "He was a double agent. The KGB have a relationship with an arms dealer called Alexei Volkoff who seems to have a relationship with 'a disaffected branch of the US intelligence services'," here Chuck made air quotes, "And there was a deal to hoover up all the non-Fulcrum parts of the operation. The target, as we know, was you. The Russians were quite happy to have the chance to interrogate you, but they don't know why they were offered the chance," he'd recounted, sending an icy bolt through Sarah. She would've walked into the trap fat and happy if it hadn't been for the NSA in general and Chuck in particular. Somehow "thank you" didn't seem enough. Certainly when compared with what would likely have been weeks of torture and years in a Soviet jail, if not death.

"Thank you Chuck," she managed wanly, reaching out with her hand, blindly for him.

"I would have done it for anyone Sarah," he replied, grasping her hand and shooting her a warm smile, which somehow made her feel warmer too. "But I'm glad it was you."

She'd slowly withdrawn her hand but the warm feeling hadn't left her and for that she was grateful. "Anything else?" she'd asked.

"Sure is. And it's a doozy," he told her with a grin. "They're pissed. They put a lot of resource into the operation and only got Richards. And – get this – Richards is already a double!"

He paused and she couldn't help gasping. "Richards was working for the Russians?" she exclaimed. She was stunned. "For how long?"

Chuck looked sad. "Turns out he's gay and they've been blackmailing him about it. It was the normal approach. Get him to do something small and then use that to get him to do something bigger. He's been a genuine double for two years now."

"Shi-it!" she couldn't have been more surprised. She'd genuinely liked Richards. Trusted him to have her back, been betrayed. Oh well, she supposed, it wouldn't be the first time that someone had pretended to be her friend and she'd been taken in by it. That damn Rizzo!

"I'm almost scared to ask whether there's anything else?" she asked with some trepidation.

"That's it," he reported. "They're still looking around Moscow. I'll develop some false sightings for the next time I get the chance to log in, to keep them off our track. Maybe I'll ask you to check my translation software."

"Won't they be able to tell you're in their system?" she asked curiously.

"Not if I'm careful," he replied and said nothing more.

And it seemed he had been careful because they'd not had any issue with pursuit all the way. She'd insisted on driving all day just in case they were stopped. His language issues would have made that dangerous. In return he'd insisted on taking eight of the twelve hour watch at night and they'd fallen into a good rhythm. She took the first four hours to sleep, then he grabbed four and then she took the last four. He'd sleep during the morning in the car.

Normally that would work for her because she wasn't a big talker during the day, but she'd found herself missing his companionship when he was asleep. They didn't talk about big things; just their mutual training, some funny things from missions, politics or the like, but she'd found Chuck to be an engaging partner. Never pushing too hard when something came up that she didn't want to talk about, always listening to her opinion, and able to make her laugh.

She'd genuinely laughed more during these last three days with Chuck than in the last three years, maybe than during the last six years that she'd been in the CIA, she thought. And it felt nice. She knew the nicknames that followed her wherever she went. The Ice Queen one in particular didn't seem so correct around Chuck, and she rather liked that situation. She wondered if she may be able to find a way to work with Chuck in future. From what she'd experienced on this mission, they made a good team.

She didn't know what would happen after this mission though. One thing that did make her feel cold was the fact that there was a major infiltration of her country's intelligence apparatus. From within.

If this hadn't happened, she wasn't sure she would have believed it but, given that it had, she guessed she needed to. She was grateful to Graham for inserting the NSA team into the operation, but still pissed that he hadn't told her the whole truth. She guessed that he probably didn't shout around that there was a fifth column of traitorous intelligence agents but still, a heads up would've been nice, especially as it seemed she was to be the collateral damage as they tried to isolate his support mechanisms.

Given that she now knew about this, she guessed there was every chance she'd be assigned to start investigating it. She wasn't sure where that would take her, but she guessed she'd find out when they made contact with Langley at the end of tomorrow. With that comforting thought she drifted off to sleep.

"OK sir," she acknowledged Graham's order and shut the cell phone off, tucking it in her pocket. The train was about to arrive in Helsinki and they'd be able to check into a hotel and have a shower for the first time in several days. They would both fly to Germany where Sarah would deliver Chuck to the Embassy, before taking a civilian flight to DC.

It was fair to say that while there was pleasure from the higher ups that they were both out safely, there was a fair amount of dismay that Chuck had risked himself to save her. She'd got the impression that Chuck was a much more important asset to the NSA than he'd let on. More important than they were happy to risk on a civilian flight to the US; one they wanted back in the bosom of the US establishment ASAP.

Just who was Chuck Bartowski? It was clear from what he'd done in the course of their mission that he was an established and high level hacker. He was obviously also highly intelligent with an analytical mind. What was a cyber operations operative? Chuck had not offered much on what his day to day job involved during the trip, although he was quite loquacious on other things. She hadn't pushed because he'd been respectful enough not to push her, although she could tell he was curious.

"OK?" he asked now, catching her attention.

"Yeah, Helsinki tonight and then Berlin tomorrow, and then I drop you off. Was that what you got?"

"Yeah," he replied, "As well as getting reamed a new one for going off piste with you!" he grinned. "But my boss is used to me by now. I could tell her heart wasn't in it!"

"Who's your boss, if I may ask?" Sarah couldn't help probing.

Chuck gave her a faint half smile, acknowledging her probe. "Colonel Cassandra Damingham," he replied. "Aunt Cassie to all and sundry, though never to her face!" he grinned. "She's head of cyber ops and assistant director for special projects." He stopped and Sarah knew that was all she'd get. She'd have to look up Colonel Damingham though.

"So, given that we've got a night in Helsinki with access to a shower and real beds, and maybe some hot food, how would you feel like joining me for dinner tonight?" He looked nervous. Normally she would tease him, but she just raised an eyebrow. "Nothing special, just to celebrate and maybe to say goodbye."

She could understand his wish. After a tough beginning she had enjoyed working with him, and actually felt comfortable with him, and there were precious few people she could say that about in her career. And you very rarely got the chance to say a proper goodbye to anyone after a mission.

"OK Chuck," she agreed with a smile. "I'll book a restaurant through the concierge. 8pm?"

He grinned. "8pm it is."

The next day, as Chuck was escorted away by the MPs at the gate to the embassy and Sarah turned to walk back to the U-Bahn station, she reflected on the night with Chuck. It had been a very enjoyable dinner. With the pressure off they'd been able to relax in a way that just hadn't been possible when they were on the run, but not much had actually changed. There'd still been a feeling of comfort between them, a feeling of camaraderie, a feeling of trust. And for Sarah Walker who had really never had any of those feelings in a professional situation, that was special.

Here was a man, obviously an important asset to his organisation, who had risked his life for her, barely knowing her, because it was the right thing to do. That had put his trust in her to do the right thing for him in return. A man who had asked nothing else from her. No sexual or professional favours. A man who respected her intellect but was intellectually her superior. A man who knew his own shortcomings physically and was happy to have a "badass" (his term) female operative as his protector. A man who seemed to genuinely respect her for who she was.

In her entire career, really in her whole life, Sarah Walker had never before met a man like that.

And he had scrubbed up well too! She'd nominally noticed at the briefing in Naples that he was good looking but, having got to know Chuck, having those eyes and that hair and that entire unit just across the table from you, laughing at your jokes (who'd known she could be funny?) and those brown eyes boring into yours, never once looking at your breasts or your body, that had been different. And she'd felt the stirrings of something else. She'd quashed those thoughts. She needed a friend more than she needed a sexual partner at this point.

And a friend was what she had. As she walked away she held onto the crumbled piece of paper in her pocket with his cell number and email address written on it. He had a matching piece of paper with hers. They had promised to stay in touch between missions. These numbers were for their personal cells and computers, not for the cells and laptops they signed out for missions.

Sarah would see how this went. Whether they'd be able to stay in touch given their demanding jobs. If they did, then maybe, just maybe, something else could follow.

A/N Obviously this is set before the series, but Fulcrum has already been identified, which it wasn't in the series until later. My explanation for that is that there's no Intersect in this story so Fulcrum weren't sidetracked by the Intersect technology and broke cover quicker and have been actively working against the intelligence agencies.

Thanks for all the reviews, and please keep telling me what you think! There's still quite a few gaps to fill in before we get to the present..