A/N: This takes place during Chapter 5, Exes and Douchebags, of All the Roads That Lead to You Are Winding when Chuck takes Sarah out for lunch. I remember I kept sending revised copies of the chapter to mxpw during the beta-process. Anyway, mxpw told me that he liked this part, but I ultimately cut it out. I didn't want to, but I did, mostly because, in my opinion, it didn't flow well with the rest of the chapter.

Another note: Last Monday, I was 9000 words in on Chapter 7 for The Roads. I just needed to write another scene, and it would have been done and I probably would have been able to post it on Friday. However, I left my laptop on the coffee table, and I got up to answer my phone which was on the kitchen counter. As I sprinted to answer my phone, the power chord from my computer wrapped around my foot, and it flew off the coffee table, hitting the hardwood floor. It died, and is dead. The hard drive was shattered, thus, everything that I wrote for Chapter 7 went with the dead computer. I'm in the process of rewriting it now. But to be honest, it's a frustrating process, having to rewrite a whole chapter. For you fans of The Roads, I'll try to have Chapter 7 posted as soon as I can.

For now, Readers, I hope you enjoy this interlude of Chuck and Sarah's lunch date.

Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck!

October 2, 2007
The Bamboo Dragon
1:25 PM PST

Sarah had said that she was in the mood for Chinese food. While Chuck could easily afford to take her to some overly priced, overly fancy Chinese restaurant, he decided to take her to the Bamboo Dragon. There was no other restaurant in town that was able to make their shrimp tastier than Bamboo's sizzling shrimp.

Chuck watched as Sarah took a bite of her shrimp. "So?" he asked, as she chewed and nodded her head in approval. "Not bad, right?"

"Not bad at all," she replied. "So how come you just left your iPod in your office? Apparently, it's been in there for awhile."

"I don't need it anymore," he replied. Digging through his pants pocket, he pulled out his phone. "I just use this now."

Sarah stared at his phone, confused.

"It's the L-Phone," Chuck explained. "MP3 player, GPS navigation, internet access, and a bunch of other stuff. It's pretty much a Swiss Army knife, except it's a phone."

"Seems like over-kill to me," Sarah scoffed playfully. "And the L-Phone? That's a pretty lame name."

"I agree," said Chuck, nodding. "When we designed it, I wanted to call it the BAMPhone."

"The what?"

"BAMPhone. Bad Ass Mother Phone," he replied, making a fist for dramatic effect.

Sarah had been taking a sip of her water, and she guffawed loudly. She began to cough, and her eyes were watering. Chuck reached over the table to do…he didn't know what, but Sarah held out a hand.

"Excuse me!" she choked out, but still chuckling. "And the marketing department didn't like that? That's just atrocious!"

"I know, right?" Chuck began to laugh along with Sarah. "So are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," she replied, waving her hand airily. "I just wasn't expecting that."

"I have been known to be an extremely unpredictable man." He smiled and took a sip of water. "So back to the iPod, did you see anything you liked?"

"Why?" she asked teasingly. "Are you going to make me a mixtape?"

"Oh, Sarah…sweet, naïve, Sarah," Chuck sighed playfully. "Get with the program. These days, the cool kids just give each other flash drives."

"Do they really?"

"I honestly have no idea," he replied, chuckling. "It wouldn't surprise me, but let me tell you, there's nothing more personal than a mix tape."

"Oh yeah?" Sarah arched an eyebrow, and half-grinned. "Why's that?"

"When you're burning someone a CD, all you do is click and drag the MP3 files into the program. The same goes for flash drives," he explained. "You know what songs you want, but it's not nearly as personal as making someone a mix tape."

"How is it not as personal?" Sarah rested her chin on her palm, and cocked her head slightly to the side. Her eyes sparkled, and Chuck had to admit, she looked adorable.

"Think about it. It takes like five minutes for a CD to burn, and two minutes to put songs into a flash drive. But mix tapes, you spend sixty to ninety glorious minutes taking the time to actually listen to the songs—to listen to the lyrics, and just…take them in, you know? You get truly know why you're choosing to put those songs on the tape."

Her chin still resting on her palm, she grinned widely. "I still have that tape."

Chuck raised an eyebrow. "What tape?"

She let out an exasperated sigh. "The tape you made me in San Francisco?"

"Oh yeah!" He remembered now. Making that tape was pretty difficult, seeing as how he had rewire his friend's Walkman so he could connect it to his Discman. "Wow! You still have it?"

"Sort of," she said, looking up to the side. "After I graduated high school, I rented a storage container. I remembered putting the tape in a box."

Chuck felt slightly stung that she didn't bring the tape with her to college, and he must have shown it.

Sarah gave him a kind look and added, "I had to go to Basic. They wouldn't let me take too many of my personal belongings. After that, I went to Harvard, so I didn't really have the time to come back to get my stuff. This actually might be the first time I've come back to California in almost ten years."

"Too busy winning knife fights in Jakarta?"

"And quelling revolutions with a fork," she quipped. "Wrestling bears in Siberia, punching sharks in the Pacific—that's pretty much a typical day for me."

"I'm impressed."

"Yeah…it's tough being such a badass," she bragged playfully.

Laughing, Chuck suddenly had an idea. "Have you ever seen Bourne Identity?"

"Say what now?"

"It's a movie about a former assassin for the CIA that lost his memory," he replied. "Anyway, there was a scene where Jason Bourne and this German chick were sitting in a diner, and he was telling her about how he memorized the license plate numbers for all of the cars outside, how some guy sitting at the counter knew how to handle himself, and all that other stuff."

"Good for him," she scoffed.

"If I point to a person sitting in this restaurant, can you get a read on them?" he asked excitedly. "Like…point out their weak points, and explain how you'd take them out? We could totally make a game out of this whenever we go out," he added, wondering why he had never played this game with Bryce.

Sarah frowned. "That's your idea of a game?"

"Just think of it as eye-spy, emphasis on the 'spy.'"

She flicked her hair to the side and grinned cockily. "Okay, bring it."

"Alrighty, then." He smiled, and pointed his thumb behind his shoulder. "That large gentleman behind me across the room; what are his weak points?"

Gazing over Chuck's shoulder, Sarah squinted her eyes as she studied her mark. "Easy. He already drank three beers, and it's still early in the afternoon. Judging by that, I think it's safe to assume that he's an alcoholic." She turned back to Chuck. "I could take him out with a swift right hook to his lower abdomen. That will subdue him long enough for me deliver an elbow to the back of his head, knocking him out." She tipped her head, and gave Chuck a wink.

"Okay, I'll look for someone else then," he said, looking around the restaurant. He nodded his head over at a brunette woman. "The lady on my right; three tables down."

Sarah turned, and only studied her mark for a few seconds. "Hm…five feet, two inches, 115 pounds. She knows her way around the gym. I mean, she has pretty nice calves. She has a Burberry purse, but her shoes are cheap. You know what that means?"

"I don't know what Burberry is," Chuck stated.

"They're a luxury fashion house," she said. "Really expensive stuff. Anyway, if I wanted to be a bitch, then all I would have to do is throw a dirt clod at her purse, and she'd storm over at me. Then I'd probably give her a roundhouse to the head."

He chortled. "Really? Just like that?"

"Pretty much," said Sarah, giggling. "That purse is probably the most valuable thing she owns. Look at how she's holding it in her lap. She loves that thing."

"That's really mean, Sarah," said Chuck, staring over at the woman. "Why would you want to get her purse dirty?"

"I wouldn't!" she insisted, laughing. "That's a really cute purse!"

"But you said that you would throw a dirt clod at it."

"I was kidding, Chuck! Jeez…I thought you were supposed to be the funny one out of the two of us."

"I'm sorry that I don't get spy humor," he bantered, playfully rolling his eyes.

"If I was a civilian, I'd find it funny," she retorted, sticking her tongue out lightheartedly.

"Hm," he murmured, taking a sip of water. He stared at the cup for a moment, while Sarah finished the last of her Chow Mein. "Do you want to see a magic trick?"

Holding up a finger, she quickly chewed and swallowed her food. "You know magic?"

"For sure," he replied, sticking to fingers into his cup. He held them out in front of her. "See how my fingers are wet?"

Sarah nodded and leaned closer to his hand.

"I could make them dry in an instant."

"How—?" she flinched back in surprise when Chuck flicked his fingers, causing beads of water to hit her face. Giggling, she cried, "You jerk!"

It was his turn to stick his tongue out at Sarah, but before he could taunt her, she threw an ice cube at him. It bounced off his forehead, and onto the table.

"Ow-ugh!" he squealed, rubbing his forehead.

Sarah flashed him a sly smile as she dipped a few fingers into her cup to splash water at Chuck. He tried to fight back, but she was relentless. Did agents learn how to flick water from their fingers at lightning fast speeds?

"Time out!" Chuck held his hands out in a T shape. When Sarah stopped, he wiped the water off his face with a napkin. "Time in!" Grabbing his cup, he quickly flicked more beads of water at Sarah's face.

The two of them laughed until their sides hurt as they continued to flick water at each other. At one point, Sarah reached over to the table next to theirs and grabbed their neighbors' cups from right under their noses. Chuck's suit was soaking wet, and so was Sarah's business suit, but neither of them cared. Honestly, he couldn't remember the last time he had laughed this hard or had this much fun.

"Eh-hem."

With his hand still in the nearly empty cup, Chuck looked up to see the Chinese waitress who had a disapproving look on her face.

"Your check," she said, plopping it, and some fortune cookies, down on the table.

"Thank you." Chuck flinched as he felt another cold flick of water splashing on his cheek.

The waitress shook her head, and walked away. Sarah began to giggle harder than she had before.

"I win," she mused in a sing-song tone.

"You're so competitive," Chuck teased, as he took his wallet out, and plopped a few bills on top of the check. Leaving a large tip was probably a good idea, seeing as he and Sarah had made quite the mess around them. The table cloth was soaking wet. Somewhere in their intense water-flicking battle, he or Sarah had knocked over the bottle of soy sauce and red-pepper paste onto the floor.

She grabbed her handbag. "Ready to go?"

"Ready," he replied, placing his wallet back into his pocket.

Sliding out of the booth, he straightened up next to Sarah. Without thinking, or realizing what he was doing, he took her hand. His breath caught in his throat, but Sarah didn't seem to mind. In fact, aside from her cheeks reddening, she seemed pleased while they walked out of the restaurant.

Wow, he thought. What are we? Twelve?

It was silly. He was a grown man, and here he was, making a big deal over holding hands with a woman. A pretty woman. In fact, she was extremely pretty. Heartbreakingly pretty.

He wanted to ask her why she was herself today. Why wasn't she taking him on that crazy, emotional rollercoaster ride from yesterday? Earlier, he guessed that Sarah had found a medium between her spy mode and what he presumed was her normal self. However, at the restaurant, she was her old self—the same Sarah from so many years ago that would play silly games with him.

He opened his mouth, ready to ask her why, but as he turned his head to face her, he couldn't bring himself to do it. She was smiling happily. Whether it was to sell their cover for the well hidden paparazzi, or if she was smiling because she was truly happy, he didn't know. As Sarah turned her head to face Chuck, still smiling happily, he realized that he didn't want to know. Because, at that moment, all he could focus on was the beautiful woman strolling beside him.

A/N: So what did you think? Was I dumb for not posting this? Let me know!

Oh, because it's been so long since The Roads was updated, I'll let you know the title for Chapter 7: To: Sarah…Love, Chuck. If you paid close attention to the first chapter, then you should be able to guess where the title comes from. =)

Thanks for reading!