A/N: All of Fake Name in one chapter. One is definitely enough. This episode has the most WTFs of any in the series. I tried but...yikes. Why is Shaw suddenly staying at the hotel? They stated clearly that he was living in Castle in First Class. They know Vasillis saw him alive. Why in the blue blazes would he go out in plain sight? The scenes are out of order in the beginning. The am with Hannah and Ellie, but Shaw and Sarah in the restaurant with Sarah has to be a day earlier. Breakfast doesn't come with dessert. Yet later in Castle, Chuck is bringing the donuts. Back to that day. What would Casey have done if Gruber hadn't gotten back out of the car? Although, the valet was too close for Casey to take the shot the first time. Shaw and Sarah had to exit the apartment through the Morgan door. In Chuck's room. That had to be brutal. The last time she was in his room was after Ellie's wedding fail. How does Casey find Chuck? Matty and Scotty smashed the phone with the tracker. I stand behind all my reasoning for her telling him her name. Look for Chapter 3 of Corporal Mercy on Monday. Beard is perhaps the shortest chapter because Sarah is barely in it at all. Four more!

I cried myself to sleep that night. Although sleep as it is defined was not really what I did that night. I never really closed my eyes and rested. All my memories of Chuck and Burbank haunted me. I had already lost Chuck once and it almost killed me, and now I had lost him again. This time forever…because now he had feelings, real feelings, for someone else.

In the morning, staring at my haggard complexion, I told myself I needed to pull myself together. I was becoming too emotional, and now it had no outlet. I needed the calm and collected agent, and not the girl. The agent was still inside me, sleeping under my skin. I needed her strength and her practicality.

All hail the Ice Queen.

I pictured the frozen landscape, swept over by bitter wind and blinding snow. I pictured that wasteland inside my chest, burying my heart. I had told Chuck before he had needed to do that. Now, so did I.

Chuck was with Hannah.

And I was…what was I, exactly? I wasn't with Shaw. The fact that I thought of him first as Shaw, and not his given name, was a clue about my feelings. He was interested–I already knew this. But I wasn't…adverse to the idea any more, at least not the way I had been. But was I going down the same path I had been down before? More than once? Was it wise to pursue that? It had caused me nothing but problems.

Shaw and Casey arrived while I was working. I never learned the reason why, but Shaw had moved from Castle to stay at the Roosevelt Hotel. I was told it was temporary. Our mission was in. There was an actual lead on Rafe Gruber, one of the most elusive snipers for hire in the world. We had a time and a place. Our orders were to apprehend him. Shaw's plan was for him and me to be on a pretend date, scoping out the area while Casey waited on a nearby rooftop with a sniper rifle, fit with tranquilizer darts. We kept a close eye, and Casey was poised to shoot.

Of course, Shaw took the opportunity to treat our reconnaissance as a real date. We were eating lunch in an outside café. Gruber was nearby. However, Shaw spent far too much time flirting with me than he did actual work. I made it a very specific point to tell Shaw that I needed to break my bad habit before it started, to keep things professional between us. He said he understood, even as he continued flirting with me.

He leaned close to me and I almost backed away before I realized he was actually working. He whispered to me and Casey that the vehicle in question had arrived. We saw Gruber walking to his car as the valet pulled up. Casey confirmed he had Gruber in his sights…although he didn't shoot. I almost asked him why, but I realized the valet was too close to him, and very possibly could have noticed the dart and the direction of the shooter, hence possibly making a scene. A good stroke of luck, Gruber got out of the car after he had sat in the driver's seat the first time, probably to complain to the valet. Casey waited until the valet walked away and then fired.

Shaw and I then raced to the car and grabbed Gruber before any of the onlookers noticed. We climbed in his car with him, Shaw in the driver's seat. He cuffed Gruber and we drove away. We locked him up in Castle, awaiting further orders.

Beckman was occupied, but she got back to us later in the day. They were working with intelligence that proved the Ring had hired Gruber to eliminate someone. Our new mission was to find out who. She signed off quickly, not elaborating further, saying Shaw could take it from here. It was strange, but at this point, I was used to not knowing enough and waiting to be fed information by Shaw, as much as I hated it.

We ended up keeping Gruber overnight in Castle. Shaw said we needed to meet with Chuck the next day.

The next phase of the mission? Chuck was to assume Gruber's identity in order to find out the identity of the target. Shaw was full of professional praise for Chuck, saying how well the Intersect was performing, that Chuck was ready for this mission. He called me out in front of Casey, looking for consensus.

I felt sick once I heard the whole plan. Chuck…assuming an identity? And a ruthless killer no less? Everything was happening too fast. But I couldn't answer the way I wanted. All I told Shaw was that Chuck wanted to be a spy. It wasn't really an answer, and Casey knew it. I felt the way he looked at me. I hoped my face was as icy as I wanted it to be, but I'm not sure.

We were interrupted by Chuck's appearance, bubbly and silly and sliding down the railing on the stairs with a box of donuts in his hand. It was such a sharp contrast to the topic we had just been discussing, it hit me like a fist to the gut.

Casey, of course, had to point out that Chuck was acting so goofy because he "got lucky" the night before. I almost choked on my own saliva, sure I was paler than I wished I looked.

Shaw and I were tasked with explaining what assuming an alias entailed. Chuck was too flippant, again, and it was irritating me. Shaw slapped him across the face, hard, to prove a point. Even his ingrained reflexes were subject to the alias. He couldn't be Chuck…he had to be a totally different person, someone who was most likely the exact opposite of him.

Casey was going to interrogate Gruber to find out the details about the meeting. Chuck followed him inside the cell. It made me uneasy, but I did my best to disguise it, not wanting Shaw to make any comment. As luck would have it, Chuck intercepted a phone call before any torture needed to happen. He found out everything he needed to know.

Chuck left to go to the Buy More with Casey. I went into Gruber's cell to secure his bonds, just in case. Standard procedure. Shaw offered to help, but I declined. Gruber was a real pig, the way he talked to me once we were alone. I was used to that, so it didn't really bother me all that much. He commented on the way Shaw looked at me, and how he was better suited for me, apparently because he was better in bed. I mean, disgusting. Did those lines really work on anyone?

Shaw, in an almost chauvinistic display, went back into the cell and decked Gruber, knocking him flat in his chair. Defending my honor, although completely not necessary. Did stuff like that really work?

I had a fleeting thought, missing Chuck and the nervous yet determined way he had always found to do the same…part of what I loved so much about him. And then I forced myself to stop, to literally tell myself that I didn't love him, I couldn't love him.

I was a good liar, just not so much at lying to myself.

Shaw and I were finalizing the details for the mission. Every time I happened to glance at a monitor that was in the Buy More, Chuck and Hannah were all over each other. She was definitely the instigator, but he allowed it. It was nauseating. It actually made me think to myself…was this why Hannah had been fired from her previous job? Acting unprofessionally? I refused to admit it was jealousy making me think so.

Chuck got ready for the mission. When he emerged, with Casey, who was accompanying him, thankfully, he looked different than I had ever seen him. Most strikingly was his hair, greased and combed back straight from his forehead. It made him look like a different person.

At least that was what I told myself. His hair. The truth was too frightening to accept…that Chuck was turning into someone I didn't recognize.

Shaw and I were stationed in the spy van outside the meeting and Chuck and Casey went inside. The intermediaries were mafiosos, which was an unusual dynamic. We were monitoring the interaction.

Chuck was…very convincing. The truth was, it frightened me, how easily he took to the role. No one suspected that he was someone other than who he said he was. I was clicking my pen, fighting wave after wave of anxiety as we sat.

Shaw asked me if I was ok, and I stopped the fidgeting.

I started talking about how hard I thought this mission must be for Chuck. I told Shaw that Chuck wasn't like me, or him. I shouldn't have said anything–I wanted to take the words back even as they were out. I was convincing myself out loud because I wanted what I said to be true, and it wasn't. Chuck was an amazing spy.

I just never wanted that for him. He was better than that in every way. Or, at least, he was once, before all of this.

Shaw had to point out that Chuck was living the lie. Shattering my inversion of facts.

I was crumbling on the inside, for I really started getting personal with Shaw. Telling him I didn't know where the job ended and I began. Of course, I had always known before. There was the job…and almost nothing of me. I barely existed, just a shadow on the wall or a flash in the dark. Being with Chuck had fused those things, complicated everything, because he was more than just a job. He was my life. Or, he had been.

He wasn't any longer. And the consequences of that fact loomed: who was I, if I wasn't Chuck's Sarah? Just another nobody, a non-person…a faceless agent who morphed herself into whoever was needed. I had never faced the question so bluntly before.

The mission went sideways, not because of anything that Chuck did, but because Casey was made. What were the chances that some random assassin could ID Casey from 20 years in the past? One in a million, but it happened. We had to go in. Shaw called for backup.

Chuck did an excellent job of stalling. He actually grabbed the gun out of the hand of one of the guys and belted Casey across the face with it. He asked the guys to help him tie Casey up. I was horrified, almost ready to vomit, when I watched Chuck rip out Casey's tooth with pliers. The nausea wasn't caused by the gruesome scene, rather my horror at knowing Chuck was capable of doing it.

I didn't have time to collect myself, because the tactical team arrived and we were ready to storm the place. Shaw and I went in with them, covered completely in riot gear so our faces were obscured.

I pinned Chuck to the counter, lifting my face shield so he knew it was me. He broke his alias for a moment, telling me he had never been so glad to see me before, gushing in relief. I had to be harsh, telling him he had to stay Gruber. I told him to live the lie.

I'm almost certain Chuck flashed, although he was facing away from me and I never saw his eyes. He tensed, which was something that he tended to do with the 2.0 flashes.

Chuck then did something I never in my wildest dreams believed he was capable of doing. He spun, hard, knocking me off him, then kicking me straight in the solar plexus with a roundhouse kick. I went flying, crashing onto a nearby table and then going down in a painful heap.

Chuck and the intermediaries got away. It was a success, all the way around. We hadn't learned any name, but Chuck's cover was still intact.

I untied Casey and he reiterated how successful it was. Casey said he hardly recognized Chuck.

It was an amazing success for a trainee. So then why was I so full of despair?

I'm almost positive Shaw could tell how I was crumbling inside. He was a spy, after all. I say that because I think he was manipulating the situation to his favor, however minutely. He was the one who suggested to Casey that he would take me to Chuck's apartment and we would get everything ready for the dinner Chuck had said he was cooking for Hannah, Ellie, and Devon.

Protecting his cover, Shaw said to me. Perhaps, factually that was true, but I know it was more about widening the gap, prying open the space between Chuck and me even further. I had to agree. He needed help sneaking past Ellie and Devon. At the very least, Morgan was away, so that was one less thing.

There was no amount of torture I have ever endured that compared to those few hours in Chuck's apartment. Shaw acted like it was no big deal, mission focused as always. I stayed in the kitchen, barely lifting my head, afraid I would see something that would upset me. I had only been in Chuck's apartment once since the apartment had changed hands from Ellie and Devon. It looked like Chuck and Morgan's place, not Ellie's like I had always thought of it when I spent so much time there, but the walls and the lights and even the cabinets were the same. It hurt like nothing else has ever hurt me, smelling him everywhere, thinking about what had happened in his bedroom the night before.

I followed Shaw's instructions. We cooked the food, set the table, lit a slew of candles and cleaned up the kitchen. I did some very basic organizing, but I couldn't walk down the hallway. I had to use the bathroom, but I held it, afraid I was going to see Hannah's toiletries scattered about on the sink or in the shower. It took all the strength I had to hold myself together. If Shaw noticed, he said nothing, although, I'm sure upsetting me was his goal. He wanted to change my mind from the conversation we'd had in the restaurant.

We just finished as Chuck et al approached. We couldn't go out the front door.

That left the Morgan door, which was the window in Chuck's bedroom. I almost hyperventilated, having to lead Shaw down the hallway into Chuck's room. The scent of him overwhelmed me. I blinked away tears as I was thankful, at the very least, that Chuck had made the bed in the morning.

Maybe Hannah helped him.

I gulped, choking, covering my mouth with my arm, hoping no one heard.

I only felt worse, once we were back in Castle I was watching the dinner on the monitors. Hannah sat where I had always sat, when it was the four of us, when I was Chuck's date. Every sharp edge from my broken heart jabbed me with every breath. The sense of loss was acute.

Shaw approached from behind, surprising me. He took a small portion of the dinner we cooked and asked me if I wanted some. I told him I wasn't hungry and told him I was leaving.

Every word was an effort to say, my energy sapped. My voice broke as I hurried away. I broke into a run once I was out of his earshot. I finally let myself cry once I was alone. I cried all night.

By the time I saw the first rays of sunlight from the approaching dawn, I was almost hysterical. I didn't know how I could function. I had reached a low point, I know, because I convinced myself that talking to Shaw would help me feel better, help me sort things out. I'm sure now that was what he was hoping all along. Probably why he answered the door in only a towel, soaking wet from his shower.

I started to talk to him, but his state of barely-covered-ness was distracting, making me feel uneasy and uncomfortable. I asked him to please put some clothes on, which he did. Although, he still continued to finish dressing in front of me instead of in the bathroom.

I apologized for how I acted the night before, losing my composure the way I did. He asked me if I was ok with the Chuck/Hannah thing. This wasn't about work, it was about personal stuff, and it felt so…wrong…to be talking to him. I was desperate, perhaps the most desperate I had ever been. Shaw was all I had. Any port in a storm, right?

I didn't answer, just thanked him for asking, which was awkward. I continued to tell him I was having trouble with the changes I was seeing. I told him how hard it was watching Chuck become a different person. He thought I meant Gruber, which he reminded me was the mission. But I meant everything. Burning the asset, ripping out Casey's tooth, lying to Hannah…it had all become easy for him, too easy, not the Chuck that I had always known. And loved, but I swallowed that thought down. It didn't fit anymore.

Shaw reminded me Chuck was becoming a spy. It was his goal, his purpose. Why everyone was here doing what they were doing. I said something stupid, like lives were being affected. Of course they were, but I meant me…and just said it poorly. I tried to rephrase it.

"It's like I'm watching Chuck disappear and the further he gets from who he is the further I get from who I am."

Chuck knew who I was, better than anyone ever before in my life. I had started to believe I could be the person he thought I was, and the key was the way he felt about me. How we were together. But if Chuck was changing, becoming a different person, what happened to that girl he had found, had always seen when he looked at me? I was back to being a faceless, nameless blur in the background of the world.

I understand why they say ignorance is bliss. Had I never known what it was like to be considered special, important to Chuck, I would never have known the agony of what it was like to have that ripped away from me. I became acutely aware of my perpetual loneliness like I had never known. Like the Novocain that had been making me forget it was there wearing off all at once and now I was dying from the pain.

I told him that I wanted to remember who I was. I did, only, I wanted to remember the girl that Chuck thought I was. Shaw got closer, more personal, even more tender. I was close to tears, and I hated that I couldn't hold myself together.

Falling, falling…I reached for what was there, terrified of the endless falling. I told him I had never told anyone my real name. He made it a point to say, "Not even Chuck?"

"No, not even Chuck."

I never wanted to be Samantha. I wanted to be Sarah, Chuck's Sarah. Was Samantha all that was left? I had left her behind in the mirror when I had walked out of the hotel room in Paris the night of my red test. She wasn't someone worthy of Chuck. But maybe…just maybe…she was worthy of Shaw.

I hesitated, worrying what it would sound like when I said it. He said something stupid too, like I never seemed like a Sarah.

Maybe not to him.

"I'm Sam." I would live to regret telling him that, for lots of reasons.

I didn't regret it here, though, as he told me he was going to kiss me and I let him.

The kisses were relatively chaste, nothing like the few times I had kissed Chuck. I felt tenderness, understanding. Comfort. Very little passion. But I was only looking for comfort, and in that moment, that was enough.

I was beyond surprised…dumbstruck, horrified…once I realized Chuck had heard that entire exchange. Had I known he was listening, I wouldn't have said any of it. It wasn't his fault; he was caught in an impossible position and trying to still be Gruber and save his team.

We were still casually kissing, closed mouthed, when we heard Chuck pounding the door and demanding that Shaw open it.

I was shocked. What was Chuck doing there?

He barged in the door and shoved Shaw back into the room.

The entire situation as I recall it has a surreal quality to it. I didn't understand what was happening, and I'm sure part of my reaction was out of guilt, misplaced, but still guilt for kissing Shaw when I still had such strong feelings for Chuck.

To be fair to Chuck, he did exactly what he should have done in the situation he was in. He was still Gruber, purposely repeating the words I had said to Shaw to let us know we were being recorded. Without all the excess emotion involved, that should have clued Shaw into the fact that Gruber's target all along had been Shaw. Play along and the cover stays intact.

But there was when everything broke down. Chuck put a little too much truth in his lies, letting his emotions, his jealousy get the better of him while he was fighting with Shaw, making it appear just a little too real. Shaw should have been professional, but he cracked a bit too. It was like they had become teenage boys and they were fighting over me.

Casey knew about Gruber's escape, but had no idea where I was or why. Gruber found his phone, but by chance, Chuck left it in the sniper post, so Gruber went there first. Casey found Chuck at the same place—how, I have no idea. The mafiosos smashed his watch at the Buy More, ending the signal.

Gruber showed up at Shaw's room and then all hell broke loose. The door was still wide open, so he had easy access. I tried to fight him, but I was not in my best form–distracted, emotional, shaken. He clobbered me, knocked me over the sofa. I faded in and out, dazed, struggling to clear my head. I could hear the sounds of brawling, calling me back to wakefulness.

What woke me solidly was being lifted by my hair by Gruber. I reached back for his hand, but he was far too strong for me to break his grip. He put the gun against my neck as I stood there, looking at both Shaw and Chuck. Gruber told them he was going to kill me, to solve their dispute.

I kept my eyes on Chuck, certain if I was going to die, his face was the last thing I wanted to see. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and slapped my hand back with all my strength. I felt a percussive force and then the carpet under my cheek. But no pain.

I heard Chuck screaming, Shaw yelling, the sound of a gunshot…but I opened my eyes, and the only one hurt was Gruber. Bullet straight between his eyes, courtesy of Casey.

I got up slowly, watching Chuck the whole time. I knew from his face, he had thought I was dead. He whimpered softly, overwhelmed as I rose shakily to my feet. I couldn't help but smile at him, relieved myself.

For just that split second, Shaw disappeared, and it was just Chuck and me again. Only, it didn't last.

Chuck acted strangely afterward, during the time the cleaners were there handling everything. He avoided me, couldn't even look at me. Shaw was there instead, swooping in, I swear taking advantage of my vulnerability and not wanting to lose the ground he had gained, reasserting his closeness to me. I was so shaken by how close I had come to dying, I didn't notice as much as I should have.

And later that night, alone in Castle with Shaw, as I pictured Chuck on another date with Hannah, I made a decision. Sort of like making the best of it. Shaw was back in Castle. I brought him Chinese food. And then I kissed him.

Not the best decision I have ever made, but, in all fairness, I was slowly going insane from grief, so it was only to be expected.

Still falling, nowhere near the bottom yet…