Time slowed down.

Chuck moved without thinking, pushing off with his left foot and bringing his right forward, bursting into a sprint, his mind moving much faster than his limbs, far faster than the Ring agent's hand as it reached for the concealed gun.

He took a moment, a split second, really; to glance at Sarah, the agent's intended target. Her attention focused elsewhere, all business, securing another rogue agent they'd captured on yet another extraordinarily successful mission in a long line of extraordinarily successful missions. In that split second Chuck had plenty of time to wonder if his former handlers had grown lax in the company of their newly remarkable former asset.

Chuck shook that thought from his mind in a fraction of the split second, and shifted his attention back to the Ring agent, whose hand had crept a few millimeters closer to the gun during Chuck's musings. The moment he knew would be coming made its unwelcome presence known in a flood of information, as the Intersect gathered a myriad of possible scenarios and solutions from the unconscious part of Chuck's brain ("cold storage," he had called it once, and Sarah had laughed, one of the last times he remembers her laughing) to the conscious part. He had long ago broken free of the momentary hesitation the flood of information used to cause, and could now access the data while in action.

Chuck's right foot dug in as he eliminated the least likely scenarios and narrowed them down to the top three and their respective solutions. One would result in Chuck disarming the agent a fraction of a second too late; Sarah would be fatally wounded, but Chuck would capture the agent without harming himself. Chuck eliminated that one immediately.

The Intersect offered a second solution, one which resulted in Chuck managing to shift the agent's attention from Sarah to Casey. The momentary pause that the change in targets would cause would allow Chuck to disarm the agent, but there was a 33.7% possibility that Casey would be wounded in the process. 17.9% chance of the wound being fatal. Chuck eliminated that possibility as well.

The final solution, the one that the Intersect offered almost reluctantly, involved Chuck revealing his approach, and therefore shifting the agent's attention to himself. Chuck selected that solution, and felt the familiar flood of energy to his limbs.

Moving on autopilot, Chuck stamped his left foot flatly on the ground as he approached the agent, breaking the absolute silence he'd managed so far. The agent's body language indicated that's he'd taken the bait; his shoulders shifted towards Chuck and his gun hand drew back defensively. He'd fire quicker now, increasing the changes of missing his target by 341.7%, but giving Chuck 1.6 fewer seconds to reach and disarm him before the shot came.

Chuck remembered the first time he experienced the slowdown; in the New Intersect room with the Ring agents led by Miles. It seemed as if everyone else in the room had turned into a mannequin, standing motionless while he deftly knocked the gun out of each agent's hand. Less than a second in real time had seemed like ten seconds to Chuck. And as he grew more experienced, learned to incorporate the Intersect more completely into these situations, the seconds seemed to stretch out into minutes.

The problem was, in moments like this, 1.6 seconds of exposing himself to an enemy's line of fire seemed like an hour of having a gun pointed at him. An hour of hoping he'd be fast enough; an hour of praying the enemy would panic; an hour of wondering if this was going to be the one time a bullet found its mark. And each time that hour grew longer.

His thoughts traveled back to Sarah, who was now finally reacting, turning to fix her sights on the Ring agent, way too late to make a difference. Sarah, whom he had wanted for so long, and now could have at any time he wanted. Sarah, who was both found and lost to him at once.

In the days prior to the New Intersect, Chuck would picture the little moments where Sarah would open up to him, revealing little bits of her past, tiny treasures of her real self that she'd offer to him in confidence. He imagined her growing to trust him with her deepest secrets. He dreamed of the day she'd whisper her real name into his ear, her voice soft and loving.

Instead, with every interaction he now had with Sarah, the Intersect forced more information about her into Chuck's brain - past case files, mission results, and, most horrifically, psychological profiles. Every scrap of data the CIA held on the woman he previously knew as Sarah Walker was shoved across Chuck's line of vision as the Intersect offered strategies for winning arguments with her, convincing her to accept his mission plans, and for winning her heart. The Intersect had become Chuck's Cyrano, whispering all the right things to say into his ear, until he couldn't tell which words were his anymore.

And so, he had stopped altogether - stopped any kind of interaction with Sarah that wasn't directly associated with their jobs. He walked out of mission briefings the moment they ended. He changed subjects, avoided questions, and cut conversations short before they could wander into personal territory out of fear of learning anything else about Sarah that she wasn't telling him herself. And even with that behavior, the Intersect coached him on how to mend things with her; on how to make her understand, on how to tell her exactly what she needed to hear to reassure her that Chuck still loved her.

Chuck used every ounce of will to force these words back down his throat, to walk away, so say nothing. They weren't his words; they weren't really him, and he could never live with himself if he'd won Sarah that way.

And Sarah had reacted exactly the way the Intersect had predicted, by withdrawing deeper into herself, mirroring Chuck's behavior and in most cases surpassing it. Interpreting Chuck's actions as a result of his being a superior agent than she, Sarah closed herself off to him. She threw herself deeper into her work, betraying a determination to regain her role as Chuck's protector in an effort the Intersect predicted had a .000051% chance of succeeding.

But now, with the Ring agent's gun leveling at him, Chuck couldn't help but think that the effort was about to become moot. The Intersect was projecting that his current course stood an 83.6% chance of resulting in a direct hit, a 43.3% chance of that hit being fatal.

Sarah's hand grasped the gun tucked into the waist of her pants. Thank you, Sarah, Chuck thought. I appreciate the effort.

The agent's finger tightened around the trigger. The Intersect shifted its projection to a 97.9% chance of a direct hit, 71.1% chance of a fatality.

Sarah pulled her gun out, 39.5% faster than the Intersect had predicted, but still 1047% too slow to contribute to the situation. Chuck, against the Intersect's protests, stole an impossibly brief glance at Sarah's face, to see her one last time. And with the glance, a flood of data was made available.

The Intersect reported that, combining Sarah's past psychological profiles with her current reaction to Chuck's behavior, her concern for Chuck's safety should have migrated from an emotional motivation to a professional one. Therefore, her current reaction should have been consistent with an agent witnessing a fellow agent in danger.

Sarah's facial expression and body language, however, reflected an individual witnessing someone she deeply loved about to be killed. This reaction went completely against all projections the Intersect had prepared. There were no scenarios available to deal with the situation. Simply put, for the first time since the upload, the Intersect couldn't make any sense out of the data it was absorbing.

Chuck, however, could. Sarah still loved him.

Chuck eliminated the solution that the Intersect had offered for dealing with the Ring agent, and closed his eyes. He shifted at the last possible second, changing course from a direct charge at the agent to dropping down, out of the agent's line of fire, in what anyone watching would see as Chuck tripping over his own foot.

As Chuck fell, he heard the agent's gun fire, and felt a rush of air against his scalp. A split second later there was another gun blast. Chuck hit the floor.

Time sped up.

Chuck rolled over onto his back, tilting his head to see the agent fall to the ground. Chuck turned to see Sarah, her gun smoking, a panicked expression on her face quickly fading into her familiar schooled features. The Intersect offered fifteen appropriate remarks to either compliment, criticize, or explain himself to Sarah. Chuck eliminated all of them as Sarah approached him. He held out his hand and smiled.

"Thanks, partner."

Sarah looked at Chuck suspiciously for a moment before helping him to his feet. "You tripped?" she asked. The Intersect offered 103 different excuses. Chuck eliminated all of them.

"Still an idiot," Casey muttered from across the room. The Intersect offered one very vulgar reply. Chuck eliminated it and shrugged at Sarah.

Sarah studied Chuck's face. "You haven't had a single misstep since the upload." The Intersect offered 891 explanations. Chuck eliminated all of them, and simply shrugged again. "Good thing you were here."

The faintest hint of a smile appeared on Sarah's face. The Intersect searched back through every last bit of information and came up with 0 reasons for why Sarah would smile at Chuck at that moment. And for the first time in months, the Intersect was quiet.

"We haven't talked in a while," Chuck said.

Sarah's eyes brightened, but her expression remained the same. She nodded slowly. "A long while," she said. Chuck smiled.

"Can we talk tonight?"

The Intersect predicted a 0.8% chance of Sarah saying yes. But Chuck knew better.