When the video screen went black, Castle descended into relative silence. The quiet that filled the room made Chuck's sigh significantly more noticeable as he slumped over in his chair and dropped his head onto the cool table.
Before Sarah could ask him what was wrong, Chuck supplied the answer. "Is this never going to end? I feel like I've spent more time down here in Castle or out on some mission this week, than I've spent in my apartment in a month."
"It has been a very busy week," Sarah agreed.
"And long," Chuck added. "For the past week we've done nothing but watch surveillance videos or look through stack after stack of boring papers and pictures."
"I have an idea," Sarah said, sliding off the table and into the chair next to Chuck. "It's something Bryce and I used to do on the more tedious missions to make them more exciting."
"We've identified two people in connection with the Ring's attempt to regroup and form another organization. If we can learn the name of their leader and find him, we can stop that from happening. So to make things interesting, while also preventing something very bad from happening, one of us tries to get the location of the leader from one of the men identified and the other tries to get the name of the leader from the other. The first one to get their intel wins."
"Wins what?"
"I'll let you decide that."
"Okay," Chuck replied after a few moments of thought. "The loser has to tell the winner something about themselves that the other doesn't know."
"I don't know what you could tell me that I don't already know about you, Chuck."
"I do. There are some things about me that you don't know yet."
Chuck's comment intrigued Sarah, so she agreed to the terms. "So which do you want, the location or the name?"
The next day, Chuck and Sarah began to work on gathering their piece of intel. While Chuck worked on finding out the location, Sarah worked on learning the name of the leader.
With a little work, the identified enemy revealed the piece of intel that had been sought out and a smile spread across the face of the person who had learned the information. They had just won the bet. Now all that was left was to tell their opponent and watch their face fall, as they realized they had lost.
As the winner headed off to give the prize-winning piece of information to the loser, that person thought about what unknown fact or detail would be given and became filled with anticipation and excitement.
"I got the intel!," echoed through the room as two voices spoke the same words in unison.
Surprised, Sarah asked, "You got the location?" She was certain that she had won.
"Yeah." Chuck was equally surprised when he asked, "You got the name?" He too had been sure that he was the winner.
"Yeah."
"What happens now?"
"Well, since it was a tie, I guess that means we both have to share something. But first, tell me what you found out."
"Their leader is staying at the Bankroft Hotel. Room 230. What's his name?"
"Kurtis Blewes. So what don't I know about you?"
"I can sing."
"What?" Sarah responded skeptically. "I've never heard you sing."
"Which makes it something that you didn't know about me." His trademark grin slipped onto his face before he added, "I'll prove it to you some time."
Sarah accepted Chuck's statement that he had a hidden talent and his promise to prove that talent to her in the future. Now it was her turn to reveal something. What she decided to reveal was something that had been on her mind for the last few days, something that almost no one knew. "The day after tomorrow is my birthday."
"What! Your birthday is in two days?"
Sarah's voice was low, as though she was unsure that personal fact about herself was something she should have shared, when she answered Chuck's query saying, "Yeah."
Chuck immediately began to process the information. He had two days to plan the perfect birthday for Sarah. Despite having known Sarah for years, this would be their first celebration together, so it had to be special.
Chuck didn't have a lot of time to prepare for Sarah's birthday, so he was going to have to make the most of the time he did have. He started making plans right away, and that night, after Sarah fell asleep, Chuck slowly inched closer to the edge of the bed so he could slip out without Sarah noticing.
He worked frantically through the night and didn't make it back to bed until the next morning. By then Sarah was waking up, preventing Chuck from being able to get any sleep, not that he planned to anyway. He still had a lot to do to get ready for Sarah's birthday. So after a brief respite, Chuck headed out again, under the guise of spending the day with Morgan.
The day quickly passed and soon the sun was rising on Sarah's birthday. Nature seemed to know the significance of the day and blessed it with beautiful weather. The warm sun smiled on the earth, the sky was a bright crystal blue and the softest breeze floated through the air.
Chuck hadn't noticed any of this however, as he had collapsed on the bed dead asleep in the wee hours of the morning after not having slept at all since he learned that Sarah's birthday was coming up.
Chuck wasn't able to sleep for very long though. Sarah woke up early that morning and also woke him, knowing nothing about his lack of sleep over the past few days. Had she known, she would have let him sleep, but Chuck preferred to be robbed to his sleep than for Sarah to be robbed of the surprise he had planned for her birthday.
The day proceeded like any other until lunchtime neared, when Chuck not so subtly asked Sarah if she was hungry and suggested they go out somewhere to get something to eat.
"Chuck, today is just another day. Just because it's my birthday doesn't mean we have to make anything special of it."
"Just get dressed, please."
Sarah was going to object, but when she saw the look on Chuck's face, she knew how much this meant to him, so she acquiesced to his request.
After getting into her dress, she pulled out a box that she had hidden away from Chuck and presented it to him.
"Sarah, it's your birthday. You should be the one getting presents, not me."
"I got this two days ago," Sarah said, not taking the box back. "I was waiting for the right time to give it to you..."
"And you decided that today was the right time?"
Sarah repeated what Chuck had told her earlier. "Just open it, please."
Chuck opened the box revealing a red tie, which just so happened to match perfectly with the shirt he had just put on minutes ago. It was an odd coincidence since Sarah hadn't seen what Chuck was wearing when she first began to pull out the box from its secret location. The occurrence made both of them think about how in sync they were. After Chuck had said they were going out to eat, Sarah decided to give Chuck the tie she had gotten for him two days prior and Chuck unknowingly chose a shirt that went beautifully with the tie he had no knowledge about.
Sarah removed the tie from the box and lovingly put it around his neck and tied it for him. When she finished, she adjusted and straightened his tie like she always did.
Once they were both ready to go, Chuck escorted Sarah to the car and the journey to Sarah's birthday surprise began. After a while of being on the road without stopping, Sarah was prompted to question Chuck's actions. He wasn't heading to any restaurant that she knew of, nor did he seem to be going to any location to which she had ever been.
Despite her questioning, Chuck remained silent. This was to be a surprise, so Sarah wasn't going to get anything out of him. They traveled along for a while longer before seemingly stopping in the middle of nowhere.
"Where are we Chuck?"
Sarah's question again went unanswered. Instead, Chuck simply replied, "It's a surprise."
To further cement his claim that this was to be a surprise, Chuck walked up behind Sarah and covered her eyes with his hands. Not liking her visual perception cut off, Sarah twisted free of Chuck's hold and turned to face him.
"Why are you covering my eyes? Chuck, I need to be able have a clear field of vision. I have to keep a sharp watch for potential threats or dangers at all times."
"Sarah," Chuck responded reassuringly. "I'm going to ask to you to do something you told me when we first met. Trust me."
Sarah hesitated for a moment before turning back around and allowing Chuck to cover her eyes again. The lack of visual stimuli reaching her eyes left Sarah with an uneasy feeling, but she was putting her trust in Chuck, just as he had done time and again with her.
Pressed up against her with his hands wrapped around her eyes, shrouding them in darkness, Chuck began to slowly move forward, which forced Sarah to do the same. As they walked, Sarah tried to use her other senses to determine where Chuck was taking her. Her sense of touch allowed her to feel the change from the flat surface of the road to the unevenness of a much softer surface. Her sense of hearing allowed her to hear the crunching under her feet which she recognized as crisp leaves.
After several minutes, which felt much longer due to having her eyes covered, Chuck finally came to a stop and moved his hands away from her face. When his hands were removed and the light entered her eyes, what she saw all around her was shocking and completely unbelievable. She was certain that what she saw wasn't real, that it was all in her head. Her eyes having been hidden away has her seeing things that aren't there.
But when the scene doesn't change she realizes that it's real. She's standing in the center of her place. Except she knows that's impossible since they never left California. But it looks strikingly similar, so similar that it couldn't possibly be a coincidence.
Before her eyes she sees her trees, her creek and most amazingly her rock in the shape of a heart. When she takes in the scene all around her, she's filled with emotion and she travels to back to a time from her early childhood. A time when she was happy. A time before her father pulled her into his world of lies and deceit. A time when he was simply her daddy and she was his baby girl.
When they reach their special spot, three-year-old Sam breaks free from her father's hand and sprints toward her favorite tree and immediately begins to climb its branches. When she climbs high enough be above her father's head, she stops and sits on the branch. Then she looks down at the ground searching for her father. When she sees him, she smiles brightly and waves down at him and he waves back.
She sits up in the tree kicking her legs back and forth through the open air as she watches her father set up everything for their picnic. When the picnic is ready, Sam drops from the tree branch and into her father's arms for a great big hug and a kiss.
Later, Sam is sitting atop the heart-shaped rock by the creek with her bare feet hanging in the water. She kicks her feet through the water, delighting in the sounds and splashing it creates. When she splashes her father with the water it causes her to giggle.
As a child it had always been her favorite place to go. She and her father used to visit their secret spot on a fairly regular basis, until she was six years old. It was then that her father packed their things and moved them to a new home far away and also gave her a new name, Allison. Once they moved, they never went back and there never was a new special place where father and daughter could spend time together and no place where she could just be a little girl and play at any of her new homes.
"How did you know about this place? No one knows about it. I've never told anyone about it."
"I found someone who told me about it."
At that moment Sarah's father stepped out from behind one of the trees. "Hello darlin'."
"Dad?"
After waiting for Sarah to process the surprise appearance of her father, Chuck reminded her of his continued presence. "Happy Birthday Sarah."
"Chuck? How did you do this?"
"Well, after you told me about your birthday, I immediately began to plan something special for you. I got lucky and was able to track down your father before the next day. He told me about this place you used to go to when you were little and how much you loved it and then he helped me re-create it for you. Finding the rock was the hardest part. I almost didn't find one in time."
Sarah tried to hold back her tears, but she wasn't completely successful and water filled her eyes. What Chuck had done, what Chuck and her father had done was just so incredible. It was beginning to make her rethink her view on birthdays.
"Darlin'," Sarah's father said gaining the attention of his daughter once again. "Don't you think it's about time you climb up that tree?"
Sarah looked to her father and saw him pulling out a picnic basket out from behind where he had been hiding earlier. Remembering the happy memories from when she was little, Sarah smiled, pulled off heels and chose a nearby tree. In the dress she had put on when she thought she and Chuck were going out for a nice lunch, she climbed a few feet up the tree and sat on one of it's large branches.
She then called down to Chuck and told him to come up and sit with her. "Uh, Sarah. I've never really been very good at climbing trees."
"If I can get up here wearing a dress, you can get up here too."
Well, it was Sarah's birthday and if she wanted him to climb a tree, then he supposed he should at least try. Several minutes later, with some assistance from Sarah, Chuck finally made it up.
Neither Chuck nor Sarah paid much attention to what was happening on the ground. Instead, they were focusing on the view from their vantage point or on each other. Finally, Sarah's father had to call up to them to let them know that their picnic was ready.
After several more seconds to take in the beautiful view, Sarah slid off the branch and dropped the few feet to the ground. Once she was down, Chuck then did the same.
As the three ate, they shared a little conversation which continued after lunch by the water. Sarah of course sat on her heart rock, which looked so much like the rock she loved as a child, that it could be its twin, if rocks had twins. Sarah's still bare feet dangled in the cool water of the creek. While Chuck and her father sat in the grass nearby.
After a few minutes of conversation by the water, Sarah's father pulled out a small colorfully wrapped package.
The gift wrapped package caused Sarah to eye her father warily. The last time he had tried to give her a gift it had been money he obtained through one of his elaborate cons, something she wanted no part of. "Dad..."
"It's not stolen darlin'. I promise."
Though still wary, Sarah accepted the gift. As she started removing the wrapping, she immediately realized that the present had indeed not been stolen. Under the wrapping, inside a plain wooden frame, was a photograph. Once all the paper had been removed, Sarah could see the picture clearly. It was a photo of herself as a child.
In the picture she was sitting up in her favorite tree in the secret spot giving her father a big grin for the camera. She recognized the timing of the photograph right away. It had been the last time
she ever climbed that tree. Her last truly happy childhood memory. Actually, it was her last happy memory until Chuck came into her life.
"You kept this?" Sarah couldn't believe it. Her father had always said that any ties to the past were dangerous. He told her that any of their former lives and identities had to be forgotten and never thought of again. So the fact that he had held on a link to past and the fact that it was a link to their true selves, completely stunned her.
"I did," was her father's simple reply. After which, he began saying his goodbyes. Before he left however, he gave Sarah the name of the place where she could find him for the next few days.
Now left alone, Chuck and Sarah stayed behind to enjoy the peacefulness of the secluded spot. Almost as soon as her father was out sight, Sarah wrapped her fingers around the tie she had given Chuck that morning and pulled him to her for a kiss.
Just before the kiss broke, Chuck dipped his hand into the water and lightly splashed some of it up toward Sarah's face. While Chuck was enjoying the reaction he got from Sarah when he playfully splashed her, Sarah retaliated and splashed him with the creek water.
At that time an all out water war began, their nice attire completely forgotten in the playful battle. Loud splashing and laughing filled the previously quiet wooded area with the sounds of happiness.
By the time the splashing game ended, both Chuck and Sarah were completely drenched from head to toe. Every inch of their clothing and every strand of their hair had been soaked with the creek water.
The late afternoon sun now shining down on them, Chuck and Sarah began to prepare to head home. But before they left, Chuck had one last surprise for Sarah.
Sarah had never discovered where he had hidden it, but soon a small box appeared in Chuck's hands, which he then presented to her.
"What's this?"
"Your birthday present," Chuck stated as if it should be obvious.
"I thought this was the present," Sarah said indicating the re-creation of her favorite childhood spot. "And bringing my father here."
"That was part of it, but this is your real present," Chuck replied pointing to the box in her hands.
Sarah opened the box to discover a beautiful white gold necklace with a small heart pendent. "It looks like we both got each other neck accessories."
"Yes, it does," Chuck said, removing the necklace from the box and putting it around Sarah's neck, just as she had done with his tie that morning. "It looks beautiful on you."
As Chuck was admiring the the beauty Sarah brought to the necklace, she took hold of his still dripping wet tie and pulled him toward her. Just before her lips reached his for a kiss, Chuck whispered, "Happy birthday Sarah."
A/N: Two years on this date I posted my first piece of fanfic, having joined the site two days prior per the site's rules. Which just so happened to be Yvonne's birthday. On my two year anniversary of joining fanfic, my little icon guy on the forum I post on here received his tie. The day I joined also happened to be the birthday of a fellow fic writer. The day between my joining and the first time I posted a story happened to be the birthday of an actress I like from another TV show. This fic attempts to celebrate all of those things. My little icon guy getting a tie, Yvonne's birthday, the birthday of an actress from another show, the birthday of a fellow writer, the posting of my first story and the fact that all of these things occur together. The biggest celebration in this story is that of Yvonne's birthday, so Happy Birthday Yvonne!