Author's Note: I don't know if this was made clear in the first chapter, but this little series takes place in between season 1 and season 2. Keep that in mind when you read the ending.

That being said, thank you SO MUCH to all the wonderful, wonderful support I got from everyone who reviewed this story. I never thought that many people would! Even the one person who said they hoped Chuck got shot. ;) Haha. Anyway, THANK YOU all. I really appreciate it. Also, there are a few shout-outs to Firefly in here, but I don't own Firefly so don't sue me. I just couldn't help myself! I'm not sure this is exactly the ending I wanted, but it's what came out, so here it is.

CHAPTER FOUR

"Stay still and stay quiet, and this doesn't have to end badly. I suggest you drop those knives, agent." Darkwind spoke slowly and calmly, as if there was nothing in the world that troubled him. "I believe I heard you introduced as…Sarah Walker and Charles Carmichael?" He motioned with his gun. "Give me the key card. And don't make any stupid moves, Walker. I do have a gun pointed at his chest."

Chuck made some sort of noise that he was sure was in no way masculine and didn't move an inch. He knew the card was on the table in between him and Sarah, where she had put it down when she'd grabbed her knives. There was a soft klink as Sarah put down her little daggers. So she was unarmed. And unable to do anything because they'd left the door open and hadn't watched their backs. He gritted his teeth in frustration. Yet again, he'd let his feelings for Sarah cloud his judgment.

"Give me the key card," Darkwind snapped, his eyes dark in the dim lighting of the room. He was still standing in the doorway – just out of sight from most of the hallway but not in a closed space with them. Chuck swallowed. He didn't see this ending positively in any way.

"You didn't want me making any stupid moves, right?" asked Sarah, her tone dangerous. "Why don't you come in and take it?"

"Just give me the damn key card, Walker," said Darkwind, his voice rising a little.

"I'm pretty sure that would qualify as a 'stupid' move," she replied blithely, smiling sarcastically. Chuck sent her a panicked look. What the hell was she doing?

Darkwind muttered something about the CIA angrily under his breath and cocked his gun. "I'm not playing, little girl. Give me the key card or I will blow a hole right through his chest."

Then Chuck remembered. Sarah had contacted Casey right as Darkwind had showed up. Casey was on his way right then, they just needed a little more time.

"Hey, hey," he started, "let's hold off on the shooting, okay? Darkwind, you know that if you take the smallpox to Union Station and drop it, you will contract smallpox as well? There are only, like, seven vaccines in the United States and I'm pretty sure they're in heavily guarded labs."

The Fulcrum agent smiled darkly. "I've got connections. There's a vaccine reserved for me."

"You really think they're going to save one for you? If there are only seven left in the country, don't you think they'll be hording them for the people they really care about? They're probably not going to give you any at all, and do you really want smallpox?" Though the tone of his voice was panicked, Chuck thought the emphasis was clear.

Darkwind didn't say anything for a moment. Then, his stance seemed to harden again. "I'll take my chances."

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a blurred mass of black came hurtling at Darkwind and tackled him to the ground. Chuck yelled in shock but Sarah didn't waste any time. She grabbed his wrist and dragged him out of the room, grabbing the key card and her daggers on the way. Casey was wrestling Darkwind in the hallway. The Casey had definitely been unleashed, but Darkwind seemed to be holding his own. Chuck didn't have a lot of time to observe this, though, because Sarah was hauling him down the hall, towards what appeared to be the service elevators.

"Oh my God," he said as she pushed the button, gripping her knives and looking like she desperately wished she'd been able to hide a gun under her dress. "What are we going to do?"

"Hold this." She slapped the key card into his hands. "We can't let Darkwind get his hands on it," she said tensely, eyes trained on the two figures way down the hall who were currently pummeling each other against the wall. "You said the vault is in the basement?"

"Yeah."

"Then we are going to go down there, try to open it and get the smallpox out while Casey takes care of Darkwind." The elevator dinged and they scrambled in.

"What if Casey doesn't take care of Darkwind?" asked Chuck nervously.

"Then we have to get out of here and keep the card away from Darkwind at any cost."

"Okay. Okay. We can do that, right? No big deal. No big deal." Chuck wiped his sweaty palms on his pants. "Don't you want to take your heels off or something?"

She shot him an annoyed look. "If I do, my dress will be too long and I'll trip."

"Ah."

The elevator opened and they ran out, looking around. It looked like ancient European catacombs down here, but much cleaner. The architect here had obviously been going for a certain look of castle-like grandeur. Sarah whirled to face him, some of her elaborate up-do coming loose and falling around her face.

"Which way, Chuck?"

"Uh, this way." They ran down the hallway, which promptly forked into three different routes. The only lighting down here was flickering lamps that looked like they were in desperate need of maintenance. "T-This way, now." They ran down the left fork, side by side as Sarah tried to be the front and rear guard at the same time. Hallways and small rooms branched from the one they were on, and in the flickering light they seemed to come out of nowhere. "Jeez, did this guy specifically design this place to be as complicated as possible?"

"Are you sure we're going the right way?" asked Sarah. "You flashed on the route through the…basement or whatever this is?"

"Yeah! It's just – aha. Here we go. Go right here." They ducked down the narrow passage, and paused to catch their breath. Or, more specifically, Chuck requested a short break.

"We're going to do some endurance training when this is all over," Sarah said. "Now come on, we have to keep moving." But before they could move, there was a faint ding and a metallic sliding noise. Sarah whirled to face the way they had come, knives gripped in white-knuckled hands. He heard her muttering something very quickly under her breath, the words gun and Casey and stupid coming up a couple of times.

"Do you think that's Casey?" whispered Chuck, eyes wide.

She shook her head. "If it were Casey, he'd have either said something over our mics or he'd be yelling something right now because he took out Darkwind."

"So whoever just came out of the elevator…is most likely Darkwind." She nodded again, brow deeply furrowed. "Then what happened to Casey?" She didn't respond.

"I took care of your agent friend," called out a voice, echoing in the halls of the basement. "He was a tough one, but all government trained agents have too many weaknesses." Sarah whirled around, looking down both ends of the hallway they were on. With all the echoing, it was hard to tell from where Darkwind was speaking. He didn't know where they were down here, but they didn't know where he was either.

"We need to get to a more defensible position," hissed Sarah, motioning for him to follow her. Slowly, carefully, they crept down the dimly lit hall, trying to be as silent as possible. The next small room they came upon, they slipped into. Sarah pushed Chuck into the corner and stood in front of him, knives raised. Darkwind was still talking out there, but they couldn't hear him as clearly now.

"Sarah, what are we going to do? What if Casey is dead? We're basically trapped down here!" She turned and held her finger up to her lips.

"We're going to get out of this. I promised nothing would ever hurt you while I was around, and I meant it." She turned back around to face the door and Chuck stared somewhat sadly at the back of her head. It was amazing how something like life-threatening danger could make you see someone in a totally different light.

"Sarah?"

"What?" she hissed, not looking at him. When he didn't answer, she turned to look at him with her eyebrows raised. "What is it?"

He shook his head. "Nothing. Nevermind."

She made an aggravated noise in the back of her throat. "Then don't waste my time, Chuck. I'm trying not to get us killed."

"Hey," he whispered angrily. "don't pin this all on me! Just because you've stunted your emotions to the point of basically not having any, doesn't – "

"What are you talking about?" she hissed in angry confusion. "And why the hell are you talking about this now?"

"Hey, we might be dead in a few minutes. Why the hell not?" The anger dropped off of her face.

"You're not going to die, Chuck. I promise. I'd give my life for yours."

He smiled at her sadly. "I know you would. You just wouldn't go on a date with me." She didn't say anything. "It's kind of funny, really."

He saw her throat move as she swallowed. "Chuck, I – "

There was a fairly quiet bang as the grate on the air conditioning vent above their head dropped to the floor. Chuck gasped and Sarah threw a knife that barely missed Casey's head as he stuck it out the vent.

"Jesus. Some welcome, Walker." Slowly, he pulled himself out of the vent and silently fell to the floor. Sarah smiled sheepishly at him and Chuck let out a – quiet – yell and almost hugged the agent. Casey was sporting a black eye and was bleeding from the nose, but had that look in his eye like he could run a marathon. Provided there was some sort of fight-to-the-death at the end, anyway. "Here's a gun. So, what's the plan?"

"Thank God," whispered Sarah, catching it as he tossed it to her. "We need to get Chuck and the key card out of here as quickly as possible. We can't take any more risks." She shot Chuck a look that he couldn't decipher. "We need to make sure you're safe, Chuck, and that the key card is as far from Darkwind and the vault as possible."

"I called in backup right before I came to save your asses, so if we can get Chuck out, they should be able to take care of Darkwind," said Casey quickly and quietly.

"What if Valentine has an extra copy? I'm sure he does, he seems like the kind of person who would," Chuck said, failing at keeping the bitterness out of his voice. Sarah squeezed his arm.

"Damn. I hadn't thought of that. Should we try and get the smallpox out of here as well? Find the vault ourselves?" she asked Casey, still holding Chuck's arm. "Chuck flashed on the location of the vault and Darkwind doesn't know where it is. It's like a maze down here."

Casey thought it over for a moment, a muscle bulging in his jaw. "I don't think we can risk it. Let's just get Chuck out of here and then the SWAT team can deal with the smallpox. They'll have experts to deal with that." Suddenly a slightly panicked look appeared in his eyes. "Plus, what if they drop it or something? I'd personally like to be farther away from that disease while it's being transferred."

"What happened to diseases not being deadly weaponry?" Chuck teased. Casey shot him a dark look. "I think we should get it as far away from Darkwind as possible, as soon as possible. We can't leave not knowing if he could find some way to get his hands on it!"

Sarah and Casey looked at each other for a moment, having one of their super spy conversations that apparently didn't require words. After an intense moment they nodded.

"Let's get it, and then get the hell out of here," said Sarah quietly and vehemently.

Casey held up his gun with a savage grin. "I've got Jayne here, so we're all good." Chuck gave him a weird look.

"You name your guns? Never mind, that is so not the issue right now." He ignored Casey's glare and kept talking. "Alright. The vault is…out the door, turn right, right again, then left for 123 feet and it's on the right."

"We grab the smallpox, keep on the lookout for Darkwind, get out of here as fast as we can without alerting anyone at the fancy party upstairs and then let the SWAT team deal with Darkwind," Casey said hastily, his fingers twitching in that weirdly familiar way that meant he wanted to shoot something – someone – and soon.

Sarah nodded tensely. "Alright. Let's go."

With Sarah in the lead, they crept out of the small room and into the flickering lights of the hallway, trying to stay as silent as possible. Chuck felt his heart thundering in his chest. For most of his life he'd had recurring nightmares of being hunted or chased in a maze, but he'd never actually expected to live out that particular nightmare.

Instead of panicking about the fact that they had no clue where Darkwind was – he could be around the next corner for crying out loud! – he stared at the back of Sarah's head, watching her hold her gun with such authority that he instantly felt a little safer. If anyone could save him from an evil Fulcrum agent in an underground labyrinth, it was Casey and Sarah. Chuck felt a wave of intense regret about the way he had acted that evening. What if they died right now and he never got to apologize or tell her…anything?

But he couldn't say anything. Swallowing his regret, he just studied her as she crept along the hallway, gun in front of her, looking around with extreme alertness.

When they reached a wide open crossroads of two hallways, they paused at the corner. Sarah and Casey had another one of their silent conversations before Casey went back to covering the rear with the gun called Jayne. Sarah slowly slipped forward and looked around the corner. She turned and nodded at them and then took one step into the hallway before something very strange happened.

She fell over.

Well, she didn't fall over. She…got shot. There was a huge bang and she yelled and was hurtled to the side as a bullet lodged itself somewhere in her body.

And that was it. Something snapped in Chuck then, as he watched her fall to the ground. She always protected him, and it was time for the tables to turn. The sight of Sarah on the ground, bleeding, even as Casey was yelling something and shooting around the corner, was unbearably painful. That was it. He was sick of it.

Chuck picked up the gun.

--

The first thing Sarah saw when she woke up was…Awesome. She blinked groggily and furrowed her brows. Then Awesome – Devon, she told herself – saw that her eyes were open and grinned.

"Hey there, Sarah. El, she's awake." Ellie Bartowski came hurtling into Sarah's range of vision, wearing her scrubs and an extremely relieved expression.

"Sarah! Oh, thank God you're awake. How are you feeling? Any pain? You'll be very sore for a while, but you're not in a great deal of pain, right?" Awesome laughed and touched Ellie's arm gently.

"Honey, give her some room to breathe. She did just wake up from having been shot." Ellie smiled sheepishly.

"Sorry. I'm usually more professional than this but hey, you're practically family. You'll have no lasting damage, by the way. The bullet grazed a kidney but they patched it up in surgery."

"What…what happened?" Sarah said slowly. Her side did burn, but it was nothing she couldn't handle. She'd been shot one before, but that he been in her leg and this was in her torso.

"Shock will do that," said Awesome reassuringly. "Make you forget, I mean."

"It sounded awful!" said Ellie emphatically. "I mean, to get mugged leaving the restaurant after Chuck took you out to a fancy dinner – your beautiful dress is ruined, which is a tragedy in itself. But really, Sarah, you shouldn't try to fight off a mugger without any training! I mean, the guy had a gun and all he wanted was your purse and jewelry. It's not like you're trained in self-defense."

Sarah smiled to herself. "It was stupid," she said weakly before losing her smile. "Where's Chuck? Is he okay? Is he – "

"He's fine," said Ellie quickly. "Completely fine. Leave it to Chuck to let the girl defend him." She rolled her eyes. "He only just left, though. Took me an hour to convince him to leave the hospital, but he was starting to smell." Sarah nodded. "I'll let him know you're awake, though!"

"Thanks," Sarah said, her eyelids feeling terribly heavy. "I need to…"

"You need to sleep," said Ellie in her motherly way, rubbing Sarah's shoulder gently. "This is going to take time to heal so don't push yourself, okay?"

Sarah just hummed in response as her eyes fell closed and she drifted into a slightly drugged sleep.

--

It was sunset when Sarah next woke, and her hospital room was flooded with reddish orange light. She blinked and swallowed, wincing at the dryness in her throat. She must have made some sort of noise, because the large dark shape in the chair in the corner instantly reacted.

"Sarah? You're awake!" Chuck's relieved smile made something inside of her stretch almost to the breaking point. "Ellie told me you woke up earlier, but until I saw it for myself…God, I'm glad you're alright. Well, I mean, not alright alright, but…okay." He pursed his lips. "Sorry. Shutting up. You did just come off your drugs, after all."

She swallowed and winced again. "Is there any water?" Her voice was rough.

"Oh, right, yes." He jumped to get her some, and then held the cup out to her uncertainly. "Do you need…I mean – "

"I can handle it," she said with a small smile, taking the cup and losing herself for a moment in how amazing water was. She heard Chuck laugh softly.

"Of course you can. You're Sarah Walker."

Slowly, Sarah lowered the cup and looked at him solemnly. He stared back at her, something in his eyes that she was ashamed to admit she couldn't read. Or, maybe she could. Maybe she could and she just didn't want to acknowledge it.

"So," she said to change to subject. "what happened after I got shot? I'm assuming that we got Darkwind and the…weapon." For a second she thought he winced, but then he was just smiling wryly and she assumed she imagined it.

He sat in the chair by her bed and propped his elbows on his knees. "Well, it was…interesting."

She arched one of her eyebrows sharply. "Define interesting."

"Um, I kind of picked up your gun."

She blinked and frowned. "Did you shoot it?"

He nodded. "Yes."

Now both of her eyebrows shot up. "Did you hit anyone?"

He shot her a weird look. "Of course not. I've never shot a gun in my life. But it distracted Darkwind enough for Casey to get a few shots in. He's alive and in an NSA detention facility." At that Sarah grumbled a little and Chuck smiled. "Then the SWAT team busted in like the cavalry in some old John Wayne western and I showed them where the vault was. After they'd put you in an ambulance, that is. They did their thing with the smallpox. Or, I assume they did because Casey grabbed me and dragged me out of the building and into a car." He laughed. "The man is suddenly a germaphobe."

Sarah smiled a little. "Well, I'm glad you didn't shoot anyone." If anyone deserved to be as far away from that life as possible, it was Chuck. And yet he'd been trapped in it for a long time now. Somehow he was handling it. The problem was that some small part of Sarah really didn't want him to be handling it. Or, more accurately, didn't want him to have to be handling it.

Chuck laughed. "Like I could. Casey read me the riot act for doing that, even though it gave him the window he needed. Ah well. You can't have everything." He just looked at her then, a smile lingering on his mouth. His tan skin seemed even darker in the reddish light. And in that moment, even though she was hooked up to monitors and IVs and the pain in her side was beginning to throb again, Sarah felt strangely at peace. Chuck had that affect on her, usually when she least suspected it.

"I'm sorry," said Chuck, his expression earnest. "For earlier. At the party. I acted like a jackass."

Sarah could barely remember back that far. "It's fine, Chuck. It doesn't matter any more." Somehow that seemed to make matters worse.

"But it's not okay. I was upset and…jealous, and I let it get in the way of the mission." Sarah thought vaguely to herself that that happened fairly often. "It was unprofessional and uncalled for, and if I hadn't acted like that then you might not have been shot." He was looking at her with the way he had, all conviction and guilt and heart. "So, I'm sorry."

"My getting shot wasn't your fault, Chuck," she replied, her voice soft but stern. "Don't ever think that. I made a mistake, and I paid the price. We're not supposed to make mistakes, and that's why."

Chuck just looked at her for a long time after that, and when she didn't offer any more he just sighed and looked down at his hands. "That's really what you think, isn't it." She couldn't tell why his voice sounded so…sad.

"Of course it is," she replied. "Why would I think any differently?"

He sighed again. "It's just…that's such an agent way to think about this whole thing."

"I am an agent, Chuck," she said firmly. "First and foremost, I'm the agent keeping you safe."

"I know," he replied and looked up at her in the way again. "I just…am realizing more and more that this will never work."

Sarah blinked. "What?"

"You and me, once the Intersect gets taken out of my head. Or whatever. It's just…sometimes I think there's the possibility that we could be something and I want that. Like that moment under the dock, in the water, but not a little stolen moment." He looked down at his hands. "Sometimes I think it's possible for us to be together. I really, really want that, but it's never going to happen, is it?"

Pain lanced through Sarah's body that had nothing to do with the bullet wound in her side. Maybe it was her weakened body, but tears sprung to her eyes more suddenly than she would ever allow. What could she say to that? She wanted to say that she wanted the same possibility. She wanted that whole normal life with Chuck – waking up and making coffee without having to worry about enemy agents or bugs or Casey. Having brunch on the weekends. Watching movies just because, not to prove a point. Going on dates where she didn't have to bring knives strapped to her ankle or a gun hidden somewhere on her body. She didn't want to have to go on dates where she spent all of her time either pretending they were dating or scanning the room for any suspicious activity. If she was completely honest with herself, she wanted to wake up in the morning curled up next to him, warm and safe. She wanted to think that this was right instead of constantly thinking that this was something she shouldn't do.

She swallowed. "No. I guess not." Her voice was soft and there was barely any backbone in it, because Sarah just couldn't command the willpower to make it any more convincing. Blinking furiously, she looked out the window into the sunset to avoid his crushed look.

"Right," he said. "That's what I thought." He stood and was about to leave when she called him back.

"Chuck." He turned and she swallowed her emotion. "I'm sorry. For…not protecting you last night like I should have."

He smiled a little and stood at the end of her bed. "Don't worry about it. I did okay. I'm not dead yet, right?" The smile he sent her was supposed to reassure her, but she just swallowed yet more unwanted emotion.

"I'll always be there to keep you safe," she said quietly, trying desperately to keep herself from crying. Her self-control seemed to have gone out the window.

For a moment Chuck just stood there and looked at her while she struggled within herself. Then he walked around the bed until he stood next to her, leaned down and pressed his lips to her forehead. She let her eyes close briefly.

"I know."

Sarah watched him leave, and some sort of weight lifted slightly off of her chest. The breath she took in didn't hurt quite as much. As the red faded from the sky, she let her eyes slip closed and drifted into sleep.