A/N: A bit longer this time, but this is all of Tango in one chapter. The Buy More subplot in this episode gets almost equal air time as the mission, and even then Chuck and Sarah have limited interactions in this episode, though they are significant. Made more sense to just let this run than break it up.

That dinner in the Wienerlicious was the first time I got to really witness Chuck and Ellie interacting in a normal, non-crisis situation, as a normal brother and sister would. Like I said before, I was an only child. I've heard in traditional families, you know, with both a mother and a father there together throughout childhood, being an only child can make people spoiled or entitled. I can see where if one was the only focus of both loving parents, without a sibling or siblings to compete with, one could get accustomed to being selfish, unbending, and inflexible. In my life, however, being an only child just amplified the loneliness I felt, torn between my parents the way I was. I had no one to share the experience with who understood, no one to bond with or stick by against a common enemy. Maybe I romanticized it, but it was something I had always felt bereft of, missing, one of the many holes left inside me.

That photograph of Chuck and Ellie I had fixated on the night I broke into Chuck's apartment was always there in my mind, even when I wasn't aware I was thinking of it. The closeness and the bond between them was unmistakable to anyone looking at that photograph. Watching them together was fascinating. She was his big sister, and she seemed as protective of him as if she was his mother. It didn't take long to realize why this was the case, but at this point in time, it was only conjecture on my part. He was her little brother, half a foot taller than her, in need of protecting it seemed, although just as willing to walk through fire for her when needed.

In the midst of his terrified pacing the night he had defused the bomb, he had walked in between Casey and me arguing, forcefully demanding that we leave his sister out of this. Then again with me on the beach, asking if Ellie would be safe now that he was an intelligence asset for the CIA. She mattered to him like nothing else did, and I saw it again this time. I can't really say I was jealous…it's not the right term, for they were siblings. But I do remember having at least one stray thought that I wished I mattered to someone in that same way. I thought I had mattered to Bryce, subsequently telling myself I was wrong, but even when I thought I had, it was never quite like that.

Chuck could have done so many different things after that crazy dinner went awry, but what he did first was try and save me from Zarnow. That thought was braided in amongst all the rest of them as I sat at the table next to Chuck, laughing with his sister, her boyfriend and Morgan. At that moment when he had decided to do that, I had mattered at least a little bit, hadn't I? I wanted to matter…and then not matter at the same time. This was the first time I acknowledged how cleaved in half I was on the inside. And that feeling would continue to grow…for a very long time.

Chuck lingered after Ellie, Devon, and Morgan had departed. "Casey wanted me to let you know, he's at the dealership procuring another vehicle courtesy of the U.S. government, so I'm alone in the Buy More for a while," he explained, holding the door for me as we went back inside. "I'm pushing the end of my break here," he added with a smile.

"What does Casey…" I stopped, as it all seemed to make sense at that moment. Why Casey and Chuck had come after me in his Nerd Herder. The dirty clothes and dirty face.

"Zarnow planted an incinerator in Casey's SUV," Chuck told me, like he was reading my mind. Casey never said a word, even though I figured if he had accompanied Chuck to rescue me, somewhere his certainty that I couldn't be trusted had wavered, maybe just a little bit. Maybe I wasn't cleaning the operation, like he had originally thought, but he still didn't trust me enough to tell me everything.

How could Chuck have not thought I was the double? I asked myself. My heart started pounding when I realized that crazy stress in the apartment with the soufflé, Casey following him there later…that was all because Chuck had taken off in a panic, because he knew I was with his sister, and potentially thought I could hurt Ellie. I got angry and nearly sprained his arm…because he was trying to protect his sister. Twisting his arm behind his back must not have made him feel better about me, I thought.

After all of that, he still raced out with Casey to save me. I was glad I had apologized, but at that moment I wished I would have done so a little better, with a little more understanding. Never once thinking until it was over that "understanding" was something I didn't even know how to be, let alone needed to be for someone else.

He was waiting for me to tell him what to do, I thought, because Casey wasn't there and he had another hour before his shift ended. "My shift is over in ten," I told him. "I'll wait for you in the parking lot until Casey gets back." He smiled and departed. I watched him jog across the parking lot through the window.

You know the sound an ice cube makes, when you drop it into a glass of warm soda? That pop it makes when it starts to crack? If I had to describe what happened to me in that moment, that is the best analogy I have. The ice cracks before it starts to melt because the conditional change is too drastic, the heat transfer so intense at the beginning that the energy breaks apart the crystalline structure of the cube before the heat begins transforming the ice to water. Thermal stress, it's called. I had been completely frozen on the inside for so long, that brief exposure to the warmth of Chuck's family and his company literally cracked me open. It was through that crack that Chuck slowly worked his way inside me, expediting that thawing from here onward, in a slow but steady drip that took time for me to notice.

Talking about thinking about it when it was over, when I went home that evening I continued the video log I had started the day I arrived in Burbank. For long term missions in the field, especially where contact with our superiors could be sporadic or non-existent, that was the protocol. A day by day, blow by blow, mission by mission chronicle of my assignment with the Intersect. It made it easier to write reports when I had these detailed logs to go back to. Specifically for this mission, because we were running a joint NSA-CIA mission, the log was imperative. During that initial discussion when I was negotiating the ground rules for Operation Bartowski, Graham had to concede the official record keeping to the NSA, as Casey was the senior operative on the team.

What this meant, when all was said and done, was that I recorded my logs and Casey kept track somehow, and he was the one who wrote the official report. Knowing this, I kept my reporting succinct, especially in the beginning, because I knew Casey would listen to everything I said. Factual information only. Of course, this became harder and harder to do, as missions went on and more and more of my feelings and Chuck's feelings became intertwined. I maybe could have made two copies or something, considering part of making those logs was a kind of self-therapy that I needed to keep my sanity, but I never did. Casey's feelings towards me, Chuck, and then me and Chuck grew ever so slowly, and I think it was more of the frog-in-gradually-warming-water phenomenon, as he saw the emotion in the logs and then in me at the same time and nothing stood out.

I found out much later that Casey was running massive interference when it came to those logs. He edited everything, in effect making the second copy that I thought about making but never did. He was in charge of filing all those reports, and he made damn sure none of my wistful longing for Chuck was any part of the official record. General Beckman still found out, considering there was just too much evidence and Casey could only do so much. As much as Casey moaned and groaned about Chuck and me, he was secretly on our side way before either one of us knew it.

How did I know Casey did this? Because the night I was running from Burbank, after I had almost killed Chuck and inadvertently turned against the CIA, he showed up with the unedited version of my log, all five years worth from that time I could no longer remember. Watching those logs, hearing in my voice and seeing on my face what Chuck had tried to tell me about, was the absolute worst I have ever felt in my life. It's still very hard to talk about, and it's for later, but it's worth mentioning this here because my decision in 2007 to record the way I did ended up saving my life. And, when I say saving my life, I mean my actual life in its entirety, not just my breathing and my heartbeat. Without my memory, I needed proof that the things Chuck had said were true, because they were unbelievable…and not because he was a nerd or whatever he thought, but because I was me, a ruthless spy and a heartless killer. Instead of running, I went back to tell Chuck that I believed him, without giving him the specifics, since they didn't matter, not in the end.

After I promised Chuck I would stay in Burbank and work on my memory and our relationship, he watched those logs with me. When we got to the part where I first admitted to myself that I loved him, Chuck broke down in tears, sobbing like I have never seen a man cry in my life. I realized that in real time, the point of me admitting it to myself…and the point where he knew that I did were spaced farther apart than they should have been. I hugged him, held him, listened to him explain, touched that he could be so emotional in front of me. I kissed him for the second time after the beach right there, drying his cheeks with my thumbs. During the beach kiss, he was restrained…this time he was not. He tried to be again, but I wouldn't let him be. Getting ahead of myself again, but it always makes me feel better to think about that part whenever I think about that time and being without my memory.

Anyway, tonight was the second entry I made for those logs. I recorded an entry every night going forward until the day I thought I was leaving to run away with Chuck instead of leaving for Washington, D.C.

Later, my dreams that night were about Chuck again, only nothing quite as clear or specifically memorable once I was awake. This time was more shadowy, nothing so concrete but the sound of his voice surrounding me like a soft blanket. Though I couldn't recall it, there was definitely a sexual component to those dreams, only this time my body couldn't release the tension while I was asleep. I woke up swollen and aching.

I had long since stopped toting my vibrator with me, not needing it once Bryce and I were together and having regular sex the way we did. All of the trauma between that last time for us in Mexico and now had taken my mind off those needs temporarily. It was only a month, like I said, but even all those years I went without sex, I never went without my vibrator. I told myself I needed another, as soon as possible.

I knew there was no way I could fall back to sleep feeling the way I did. I resorted to using my hand and my fingers, inefficient but still able to do the job. It took what felt like forever, I think because the last time I had touched myself like this was when I was a teenager. Every other instance of this before, I focused on the feeling, the sensation, the release of tension after a cathartic burst of pure pleasure. My mind was wandering, and rather than distracting me, it seemed to focus me. I was thinking about Chuck's hands and his fingers, how they'd looked when I'd seen him typing away on the computer keyboard before…thinking about how his fingers would feel against me and inside me.

The more aroused I made myself with manual stimulation, the more I was thinking about Chuck. The release broke the tension, but did nothing to diminish the craving for him I had started to experience. I had never fantasized about anything specific while masturbating. From that night on, every instance of me pleasuring myself was permeated with thoughts of Chuck. In a way, it was almost torturing myself. There were times when the release wasn't even enough, because the fantasy I had conjured never resolved itself in my head, as I always longed for contact with him, not just the sensations.

At this point in time, I was still able to convince myself that just because I was thinking about having sex with Chuck, that it was of no consequence, something that I had to deal with, get under control the best way I could. That somehow that desire was only due to the proximity of him, rather than the consistency of him. My denial only got worse, never better, not even for a moment. By the time I could admit to myself that I loved him, I was calling out his name while I fucked myself with my vibrator, crying alone in the dark…my go-to cure for sleeplessness now the primary culprit for the restlessness in the first place. The only thing that stopped it, at least for a while, was my broken heart. That's also for later, though.

An entire week passed without incident. Casey replaced his car. We had a contingency plan for surveillance for times when Chuck was due to leave the Buy More on work related calls. Casey and I had daily briefings with Graham and Beckman, although no new information was ever passed on to us. We were assured the CIA and NSA were using every resource available in terms of options for removal of the Intersect, though they did tell us after Zarnow, their hopes were thin.

Eventually, on October 8, 2007, Casey and I were notified by Graham and Beckman about a rash of murders of some high profile criminals. They were hoping something was in the Intersect that could point them in the right direction. I finished my hot dog shift and went into the Buy More to find Chuck. I waited in the doorway and peered around, sure I could find him wherever he was, as he towered over almost everyone and everything in the store.

I saw him approaching, and I waved and smiled. The wave was a little showy maybe, but the smile was real. I found I never had to fake a smile when I was around Chuck. Just seeing him caused that now familiar ache in my cheeks. He hurried up to me, but stopped about three feet in front of me. He said "hey" like he was genuinely glad to see me.

"Give me a kiss," I said quickly, under my breath, glancing around to make sure no one heard me tell him that.

"I'm sorry…what?" he stammered, his eyes widening in surprise. I closed the distance between us, puffing out my chest almost without thinking about it.

"We've been on three dates. We have to sell it," I said, relaying facts but with a lilt in my voice. I was pretending, but somehow my heart was still pounding faster once I was close enough to him to smell his cologne.

He was rigid, nervously scanning about to see who was watching. Most men would have loved to kiss a girl who looked like me in front of anyone, just to prove that they could. He moved so quickly I almost missed it, darting to kiss my right cheek, almost at my ear. "That's it?" I asked him, thoroughly surprised by his restraint. I didn't understand it. A flutter of disappointment behind my breastbone I chose to ignore.

"I'm not really good with PDA," he said, swallowing hard and pressing his lips together tightly.

"Hmm. Well, let's go somewhere more private," I said suggestively, taking his hand in mine and leading him back to the Home Theater Room. His palm was sweaty, a sign of his nerves that I was quickly learning, but he actually held my hand in return, rather than letting me just lead him like I had on our fake first date. The way our skin stuck together never even fazed me, for I was far too distracted by the feel of his hand in mine, the warmth and the tenderness. I forced the vague thoughts about his hands from a few days before out of my head, an almost automatic response to my exaggerated tone.

Casey was there the moment I pulled him into the room, asserting his desire that all three of us meet together from now on, a way to avoid the type of conflict we had just had. I was a little extra sarcastic to Casey, since he put a suggestive spin on my maneuver to get Chuck in there alone. Chuck was caught in the middle again, and even made a sort of joke about the way Casey and I were together.

I showed him the pictures of the deceased, to see if he would flash. The entire theme agitated him, something he was unfamiliar with and nervous about. One of Chuck's direct reports, Jeff Barnes, randomly appeared in the Home Theater Room during our meeting. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Chuck flash when he looked at the newspaper Jeff had tucked under his arm.

When I asked him what he saw, Chuck rambled a bunch of information to us. Art auction, painting, weapons…and then the name, La Ciudad. Casey and I made eye contact after we heard that name. An extremely elusive and dangerous weapons dealer. It couldn't be a coincidence, those dead bodies and Chuck's flash. Dead bodies were often left in the wake of La Ciudad.

Once our cover job work shifts were over, we had a scheduled briefing in Casey's apartment, a rental that had been secured for him in the same apartment complex where Chuck lived with his sister, Ellie. The video monitor feed attached to the NSA mainframe was accessible there. It was the first time I had ever been in Casey's apartment. Austere is the best word I can use to describe it. He had very little, mismatched and uncomfortable looking furniture. Almost all of his grocery storage was on the counter or windowsill, as he had very little cabinet space. He had a bonsai tree and two photographs of Ronald Reagan for decoration. Everything else in the apartment was weapons, tactical gear, or military paraphernalia. Walking in there felt like walking inside Casey's head. Little clutter, nothing but singular focus.

Beckman and Graham confirmed the seriousness of the information Chuck had found out. I wanted to go to the auction with Casey and just take La Ciudad down, but there was no record of what he looked like. Casey suggested bringing Chuck, calling him the Intersect, like he was telling Graham which weapon he was bringing, very impersonally. Casey got me overruled, as Beckman said logically, they didn't know what Chuck was capable of until he was field tested.

I argued vehemently against it. It was way too dangerous to bring a civilian into a situation like that, even if he had the Intersect. The mission with Zarnow had shown how his inexperience had caused problems for us. Protecting him in regular life was hard enough. How could we protect him in a dangerous mission situation? Casey downplayed it, perhaps a little too much. He didn't think it had any potential to be dangerous. I'm still not entirely sure why Casey suggested it, since at this point Chuck was a thorn in his side. He told me years later it was because he knew the mission would go better if Chuck was there. Sixth sense? ESP? Or just Casey…starting to see a glimpse of what was there in Chuck, hidden underneath. Casey was in the military for over 20 years before the NSA. That was his job before–mining for excellence. He certainly had the potential anyway, and maybe Casey saw that early.

Anyway, the next day, I worked a full hot dog shift and then went to get Chuck from the Buy More. He was with Morgan, mumbling about having a lot of computers to fix. Big Mike, who was Chuck's boss at the Buy More, had asked him to see to all the pending computer repairs as a way to show his readiness for the Assistant Manager position to which he had applied. Chuck's direct reports actually told him he could leave, that he should go have fun on his date with me, and they would take care of the remaining work. I tucked my arm through his as we walked out of the store. I was pretending perky…but I left my arm tucked against his side almost all the way across the parking lot.

Maybe he thought it was an extra precaution, in case someone was walking in the parking lot or in or out of a store and they could see us. Something like that, however, never even crossed my mind. I didn't need to hang on to him to appear to be his girlfriend, not at every waking moment. But I liked holding onto him way more than I let myself believe. I wanted to just sit outside with Chuck at one of the tables at the Wienerlicious, but Scooter was there and annoyingly tapped on his watch, letting me know my break time was over.

"I'm off the clock," Chuck told me, staying seated. No one was in the store, but there were always a bunch of mindless tasks I was responsible for during my shifts too. Stacking the paper cups, filling the napkin and plastic straw holders, rotating the condiments, cleaning the grill and the fryolator. I chose something that would require me to be outside with him, which was filling napkins. I grabbed a stack and a few holders and sat down with him.

Casey agreed with me that Chuck should have a cover if he was doing any work in the field, even something as minor as accompanying us to just observe. I told Chuck this, asking him to come up with it on his own. I told him to keep it simple, something that was as close to the real thing as possible so he would remember it. He rattled off Charles Carmichael right away, almost too easily, like it was something he had imagined about himself at some point in the past. I was in the process of agreeing with him, but he kept worldbuilding, if you will.

The things he said made me smile. I asked him if he'd done that before it came so easily. It reminded me of the on-the-spot stories I'd made up when I was running cons with my father. He looked a little embarrassed that I had called him out for it. When I asked him more, he seemed even more embarrassed, but he made this face…looking down at the table, huffing, straightening his bottom lip over his teeth and eventually running his tongue over his bottom lip that was so unexpectedly attractive to me…even sexy in a strange way, so much so that I felt myself flush when he did it.

The conversation that followed was the first time Chuck really opened up and talked to me, like he would have if I was really his girlfriend and not his handler. He told me about where he wished his life would have brought him to this point, instead of where he actually was, how he felt almost left behind. I asked him what happened…because I really wanted to know. I wasn't mining for information or looking for a way to control or manipulate him. I could have, in fact if I was doing my job the way I was supposed to, I probably should have, but I didn't. I just wanted to know. It seemed awful, and it seemed like he didn't like talking about it, so the fact that he was willing to talk to me about it felt significant.

He told me during his senior year, Bryce Larkin alerted administration at Stanford to the fact that he had stolen tests hidden in his room, and that he was expelled for that. I wasn't expecting Bryce's name to come up in the conversation, and I looked away quickly, hoping nothing showed on my face. Former friend, indeed, I thought. Bryce was now credited with stealing Chuck's girlfriend and getting him expelled from Stanford. It made me angrier, so much that I had to consciously control the emotion.

"Did you steal those tests?" I asked him cautiously, sure I knew the answer before he replied.

"I thought it was kind of implied that I'm a decent person," he retorted, his voice higher in pitch, almost like he was offended that I was even considering it as a possibility.

I felt those words go through me. He didn't mean them in an accusatory way, I'm certain of that. A decent person. I was raised to believe there was no such thing. Even as I'd grown, I'd never really crossed paths with someone I would have classified in that way. I began to realize that was maybe why he was affecting me the way did–because he was. I wasn't, in comparison, when I thought about cons and then assassinations. I knew I wasn't normal, but sitting there in that moment, that was the first time I felt ashamed…felt less than I wish I did. He had no idea at this point who I really was…which was why I spent so much time focused on the way he looked at me, because I believed if he did know that I wasn't a decent person, that look would change. Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined that look would never change–not because he never found out I wasn't a decent person, or he didn't care that I wasn't a decent person…but because he thought I was a decent person, regardless of any other facts that came along with my life, because he worked first to understand, and never to judge.

"Well, we all make mistakes," I answered him, the split second after I wrestled those emotions back into submission. I only meant myself when I said that, although he didn't know that.

"And I've made plenty," he interjected quickly, full of humility. "That just wasn't one of them," he added.

I was smiling gently, scanning his face, certain he was telling the truth, despite my own bias at this point after I'd already made that conclusion. He looked away, something on my face a little too intense for him, I think. Then he changed the subject again, back to Bryce, and the way my ex-partner, and ex-lover, had disrupted his life completely.

I told him not to worry…that everything was going to be fine. I was still a little worried, even if Casey thought there was no risk of danger. I reached across the table and grasped his hands as they were folded on the table. It was instinct, an urge to touch him that I didn't register until after I had already done it. Leaving it there was less conspicuous than pulling it away as if it was on fire. I covered by commenting on his sweaty palms, Chuck's little tell that I was familiar with after 15 days. He made me smile, telling me his hands always got sweaty when he was freaking out.

I finished my shift and went back to my hotel to get ready. I chose a long, red satin evening gown. I was used to dressing this way, although this particular dress was far less revealing than the things I usually wore. The purpose for tonight was just to blend in with the other guests at the auction. Rich people, the elite crowd. To facilitate the look, we arrived in a limousine, with Casey acting as the chauffeur. The CIA had a watch made specifically for Chuck with a GPS tracker, something we had suggested due to his particular off-site job duties, but also something I had argued with Graham over. If Beckman was so sure Chuck could be tested in the field, then I wanted a way to make sure I could still protect him, regardless of what was happening on the mission.

Chuck drove to my hotel to meet me. I knew Casey had rented him a tuxedo, but I must admit I wasn't prepared for how he looked when I opened the door. He was definitely a t-shirt and jeans kind of guy, even uncomfortable in his Buy More button-down uniform shirt. Nevertheless, he looked amazing. The thin, black satin stripe on the side of his formal wear pants seemed to trail on and on. He was tall…strikingly tall when he was dressed like that. He also had no idea how handsome he really looked, because his stance was awkward and he slouched a little bit, his shoulders rolled slightly forward instead of held back. My eyes wanted to continue scanning him up and down; I had to force my eyes back up, only allowing myself to stare when I was sure he wasn't looking.

He was nervous and barely talked the entire ride to the art gallery. I didn't want to overwhelm him, so I just went over a few things, reiterating that we were taking him with us to see if he would flash on any information, and then Casey and I would take care of the rest, keeping him clear of any danger. When we pulled up, I gave him the watch, explained what it did, and then told him one more time what we wanted him to do. Casey, for all his he'll be fine, put him in the field blabbering, started on about how dangerous and serious the mission was, freaking him out just as I was trying to keep him calm.

Then Casey brought up the tango. I was confused, but Chuck came right back, like he knew exactly what Casey was talking about. Chuck had done some tango preparation. Apparently that was some type of spy hazing routine Casey pulled on him. I never knew until after Chuck and I were married that he learned how to tango from Devon, and that he knew the female part of the dance. I found that out when I was teaching Chuck to dance for real, after he lost the Intersect and all of his dancing skills along with it.

Not one minute after we entered the gallery, Chuck spilled food on his tuxedo when he was grabbing a warm appetizer from a circulating tray. He was flummoxed, but I tried to just ground him, and told him to go rinse off the stain in the men's room. I waited on the stairs for him. He came back frantic, panting, telling me he had seen La Ciudad in the men's room.

Chuck did flash, but once again, the information was incomplete. The man he had encountered was MI6, British intelligence, their sort of equivalent of the CIA. His face was in the Intersect, related to La Ciudad, but not the fact that he was undercover MI6. In the beginning, as Chuck was getting used to the informational flashes, he inferred things without even realizing that he was doing so. This was the first instance of that, and not the last. Each flash made him better, but here, we were all still learning.

I moved to get Chuck out of harm's way as soon as possible. Casey was posing as a bartender, so I sent Chuck to wait at the bar while I did some reconnaissance on our target. I found the man Chuck had identified, and went to work charming my way into a conversation with him. He got friendly, and I let him. However, considering they were spies also, my act wasn't that convincing. I ended up being escorted out of the party and onto the top floor of the parking garage at gunpoint. Casey, being the good partner that he was, even when he didn't 100 percent trust me, saw me get taken and rushed to help. Problem with that was he left Chuck alone. He didn't think there was any danger, to be fair. He was sure he was chasing the danger out the door after it left with me.

I was being held at gunpoint when I saw Casey through the crack in the door that led to the top of the parking garage where they had taken me. I clubbed the man holding me from behind in the face and ducked while Casey shot two out of three of my captors. While I was on the ground, I pulled my gun from my thigh holster. Casey and I had them. That was when the man Chuck thought was La Ciudad told us they were MI6, British Secret Service as he called it. His credentials were legitimate.

He explained that MI6 had intercepted the painting Chuck had flashed on. It was being used to smuggle plutonium in the frame. MI6 removed the plutonium, but allowed the auction to continue in order to lure La Ciudad. I will point to this again here–how poorly intelligence entities communicated with each other. The NSA and CIA had a hard enough time with each other, let alone with foreign agencies like MI6, the DGSE, FSB, and the like. I have no way of knowing what would have happened had we not interfered. Perhaps MI6 would have apprehended La Ciudad when she bid on the painting. My gut tells me the sting would have gone bust, mostly because, as you may have guessed, La Ciudad was a woman, a fact no one in the world even suspected.

That part was actually in the Intersect, believe it or not. Only the scar on her neck which was visible in a photograph. That was what the Intersect was designed to do…connect the dots in order to ascertain that the scar in the photograph and the scar on the woman at the gallery were the same, and that the scar belonged to La Ciudad. We learned over time, the Intersect itself worked better when Chuck wasn't thinking about it, like trying too hard to make him guess when he didn't really need to.

By the time Casey and I made it back to the main gallery, Chuck was nowhere. Casey activated the tracker in Chuck's watch. He was on the ninth floor of the hotel in a private room. Casey and I went after him. We were sure somehow La Ciudad had him, we just had no idea how or why. We found the room, noting there was a guard posted outside, never a good sign. I decided we needed to distract the guard. Casey grabbed my hand and started walking, skipping like he was drunk, making silly sounds. We pretended to be on our way to a tryst, which worked, as I took the guard down with one kick to the face.

They must have heard us, because immediately gunfire exploded into the hallway. Wood splintered and glass shattered. I felt sick thinking of Chuck was in that room with that amount of bullets flying. "Chuck, get down!" I screamed from the hallway.

I heard him shouting over the bullets ricocheting. "Sarah! Help!"

Casey and I coordinated, then stormed into the room, guns blazing. There was only one person left in the room, and my bullet hit him in the chest and he fell backwards over the balcony. The others had to have already escaped over the balcony somehow. Chuck was tied to a chair that had tipped over.

Casey stepped over him to check over the balcony. I crouched down next to him. "Hey, Chuck, are you ok?" I asked him, scanning him quickly for injuries. I reached up and touched his head, threading my fingers into his hair. He was terrified, shrieking that in two more seconds they would have thrown him over the balcony. His forehead was damp with perspiration, but there was no blood. I sighed internally in relief, even as I strangely marveled at how soft his hair was, how deliciously thick his curls were under my hands. The thought was fleeting, but I would go back to that sensation a thousand times in my dreams at different times, for that was the only time I ever touched his hair like that until we were lovers, almost three years later.

Casey asked him about his cover and what he told them. He said nothing, like he couldn't believe we would even have to ask. I untied him from the chair. No matter his inexperience, keeping his head about him in a dangerous situation like that was beyond admirable. It was amazing. It was in fact why sometimes we expected more of Chuck than what he gave, only because we got used to him acting at least semi-professionally when he had absolutely no training other than what we did with him.

The adrenaline rush and subsequent crash left Chuck shaking. I knew sort of what that felt like, an abbreviated version of it anyway. I tried to calm him down, but he was unsettled. He asked if missions always went this badly, or if this was a fluke. I told him the truth. Sometimes missions were boring, that is everything went exactly as anticipated and nothing ever went wrong. Other times, there was excitement, dynamic situations one must adapt to on the fly…like accidentally saying the wrong thing to an arms dealer whose identity you didn't know.

He explained everything that happened…flashing on the painting, talking to Malena, dancing with Malena, flashing on her scar, Morgan calling the front desk and the clerk finding him in front of Malena, the abduction and interrogation at gun and knife point. At this point in our association, Morgan was more of a hindrance than a help, here a perfect example of Chuck's regular life wreaking havoc in his spy life. This would also happen again.

I went home after I dropped Chuck off to get some sleep. From his phone tracker, I saw that he left his apartment again almost right away and went to the Buy More, where he stayed all night. He told me later that night he went to get Morgan out of the locked storage locker, which was why he called Chuck at the hotel in the first place, and then stayed to finish the remaining computer repairs. I know Chuck well enough now to know why he did that…he was anxious, worked up, and needed something detailed to occupy his mind to settle it. Sort of like solving a giant math problem as a way to relax, but that's Chuck.

I only knew in the morning he was working a full shift with almost no sleep. I decided I would bring him a coffee and a breakfast sausage sandwich, to see how he was doing, knowing he wouldn't have had any time or a way to eat breakfast if he had been at work since the early morning hours. As I was crossing the parking lot from the Wienerlicious to the Buy More, I passed a delivery driver whose neck had a scar very similar to the one Chuck had described from his flash. It had to be Malena. I hid and contacted Casey via communicator.

Casey apparently had infiltrators inside the Buy More, so I had to go after Malena by myself. She climbed onto the roof of the Wienerlicious and I followed. She was setting up a sniper rifle. I had no weapons other than my fists. I snuck up behind her…and the fight ensued. It was all hands and fists. She was approximately the same height and build as me, which actually made it more difficult for me to fight her. I learned to use my opponent's size against them; it was harder when I had less leverage because of my opponent's smaller mass. She managed to kick me to the ground and almost drove my face down onto some iron spikes, part of some old cooling unit that had been removed. I fought back and got back on my feet. She brandished a knife; all I had were a set of handcuffs. I disarmed her and knocked her out, securing her with the handcuffs.

I called it in and waited for the CIA unit to arrive, this time posing as HVAC technicians, so they could get access to the roof and remove La Ciudad without attracting attention. Casey came and found me and told me Chuck was safe, that all of La Ciudad's henchmen were subdued inside the Buy More. Those same technicians then went to the Buy More and took those men away as well. I suffered minor injuries during that fight, nothing serious enough to require medical attention.

Instead, I went back to my hotel and cleaned up. I had a bad cut on my lip and I was aching and sore, but nothing so bad that I couldn't explain it to Scooter or Chuck's friends or co-workers. Chuck called and said his sister had invited me to dinner at his house again. We were fake dating, four official fake dates in two and a half weeks. I was tired and sore, but for the cover, I needed to go. That was what I told myself, what I convinced myself I believed, even as I fussed over which top to wear and made sure I picked out jewelry that matched. I stopped at the liquor store on the way, buying the same bottle I had seen in Ellie's apartment a week earlier, relieved that I was sure she would like it, wondering why it mattered so much what Ellie thought.

Morgan ended up there as well, but I didn't mind. He was apparently adjusting to the fact that Chuck now had a girlfriend and that all of his time wasn't available to Morgan like it used to be. It was another great dinner, as comfortable as it had been that evening in the Wienerlicious. Ellie's boyfriend, Captain Awesome, was working a late shift and was absent, so it was really just with Chuck and Ellie. I got the feeling that Ellie liked me, the fake me, Chuck's fake girlfriend, by the way she was looking at me, at us, and smiling so much. She did ask about my cut lip and Chuck came to my rescue, while I was chewing a bite of food, telling her I fell while I was jogging. He thought fast and it sounded authentic. I was impressed.

I waited until he was walking me out to compliment him on the job he did. He was very down on himself and almost wouldn't take what I said for real, even though I did mean it. Did he think I was handling him? I don't think so. I do think he thought I was trying to make him feel better, which I was, but not by lying. I was honest. Considering he was a civilian 17 days before, what he did was amazing.

He was still down on himself.

"What's the good of being a hero if nobody knows about it?" he asked me with this sad, lost look on his face. I actually thought about Bryce here, when he said that. I pegged Bryce that way, wanting to be a hero at all costs, and he had cavalierly told me I was right. Before whatever had happened to change his mind about where his loyalties lay, Bryce had wanted everyone to know that he was a hero. That made him the way he was–mission oriented and emotionally cut off from me, although I was no better when it came to how I was with him, and I was certain I was no hero. Only that was just it…the last three missions with Chuck, and I had started to feel that way. Maybe the work I was doing was making a difference, making the world safer or better. It was all I had hoped for when at 17 I gave my life away to Graham. For the first time, I actually started to believe it.

"You know," I assured him, feeling my own self-satisfaction swish inside my chest. "And so do I," I added, unable to keep that in. I wanted him to know I felt that way. He smiled so sweetly, my reward for having the courage to say that. The sad, lost look went away.

That smile transformed into him biting his lip, and saying if we were really dating, that he would have been forced to kiss me goodnight.

"Forced? Would it be so bad?" I teased him.

"I'm sure I could suffer through it," he replied, spacing the words out slowly, a dreamy look in his eyes that caused that same feeling like my heart had liquified and run down to my feet.

"Me too," I answered him, unable to look away even as I saw his jaw go slack when he absorbed what I said.

I turned and ran, afraid he would lean towards me, and I wouldn't be able to stop myself. He stayed still and watched me go, somehow understanding that he shouldn't follow me, lest he complicate this.

I was out of breath when I got into my car and I didn't remember the drive from his apartment to my hotel. All I did was think about what would have happened if I'd stayed…if he would have kissed me.

I was exhausted, but my sleep was fitful, as I tossed and turned, my skin almost burning where I wished he had touched me. Where I wanted him to touch me. It was the fear of what that meant much more than the craving that wouldn't let me sleep.