Thanks, as usual, to my editor, Poa, for her assistance.
I guess I shouldn't write while hungry. First pancakes, now chicken alfredo. We seem to have a food thing going on here.
CHICKEN ALFREDO
With Ellie and Awesome gone, Chuck was taking the opportunity to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on the big screen plasma T.V. in the living room. He had the sound cranked up on the headphones so he almost didn't hear the knock on the door. The sound of a hand pounding on the wooden door finally filtered in between the explosions and the buzz of the chain gun. He hit pause and pulled off the headphones before heading over to the door.
He pulled it open just in time to see Sarah reaching toward the lock with a lock pick. He broke into a smile as Sarah straightened, looking a little chagrined. "Sorry," she said. "I knocked and knocked and you didn't answer, so I thought something might be wrong."
"My bad," Chuck replied. "I had the volume cranked on Call of Duty."
"So can I come in?" Sarah asked.
"Oh, yeah, um, sorry. Yeah. Come in. Come in," Chuck stepped back to allow Sarah in. He couldn't help himself; he watched her walk past him, marveling at the way she moved – the catlike grace, the gentle sway of her hips. She walked over to the couch and propped herself up on it and Chuck snapped his eyes back up to her face when she did. There was a ghost of a smile on Sarah's lips as she realized where he had been looking.
Chuck hurried around the couch and fumbled with the remotes to turn off the television and the game console. He dropped the television remote twice trying to hit the right button, mumbling "Sorry, sorry," as he did so. Sarah's smile widened.
Finally, he turned to her. "So, um, what's up? Briefing? New mission? Cell phone trouble?"
The corners of Sarah's mouth inched up just a little wider at the memory of their contrived 'meet cute.' She looked down. "No," she said. "I traded in that cell phone." She looked back up at him to see the dazzling Bartowski smile and twinkling brown eyes. She fidgeted a little. "So, are Ellie and Awesome still gone?"
Chuck nodded. "They've got another six days of fun in the sun in Hawaii. Nothing like a little sun and drinks with… paper… umbrellas." The comment started out in the usual Chuck rapid-fire style, but slowed as he realized what he was saying and its implications. But like a car skidding on ice, he couldn't stop the verbal reminder of his question to her before the 'Jeffster Wedding' (as it was being called.)
Sarah hurried to fill the pregnant silence that followed. "No mission," she said. "No briefing. General Beckman is still trying to figure out what to do."
"So what brings you by?" he asked.
"I was… bored," she said. "My cover at the Orange Orange is over and the CIA has me on administrative hold since my previous assignment with… Bryce… is… well…" She took a breath. "Anyway, I… I missed our cover."
"You what?" Chuck asked.
Sarah bit her bottom lip and looked at him with pleading eyes. Her expression said, 'Don't make me say it again.'
"You know," Chuck said. "We could have a cover date, for old time's sake."
"Does it qualify as cover if there's no one else around?" Sarah asked coyly.
"We could go get some Mexican," Chuck said. "I know this nice little restaurant with a mariachi band…"
"Actually, if you don't mind, I thought we could eat in," Sarah said.
"You know I only know how to make one dish," Chuck warned her. "And with Ellie gone, I've kind of eaten up all the food in the house. Well, except for some of Awesome's staples. I'm a little scared of that overly healthy stuff."
"I have some bags out in the car," Sarah said.
Chuck smiled. "Then let me give you a hand."
As they walked out to Sarah's Porsche, Chuck smiled at Sarah and she couldn't help smiling back. She hit the remote and popped the trunk. Chuck helped her get out several shopping bags of groceries. Then she reached into the front seat to pull out two bottles of wine and a bottle of port.
"Getting fancy are we, Ms. Walker?" Chuck asked when he noticed the port. Sarah rolled her eyes and handed the bottles to Chuck, then pulled out a bottle of single malt scotch. "I didn't think you drank scotch," Chuck said.
"I don't," Sarah responded cryptically as she grabbed something else Chuck couldn't see and then locked the car. They walked back into the apartment complex but instead of going back to Chuck's apartment, Sarah headed to Casey's. Chuck frowned. He had been looking forward to a quiet dinner with Sarah, and she was going to invite Casey? Yeah, that was definitely a mood killer.
Sarah knocked on the door. There was a pause before Colonel Casey, dressed in jeans, golf shirt and slippers opened the door, his hand behind his back – no doubt concealing a gun. "What is it, Walker?" he asked gruffly.
Sarah held up the bottle of scotch and the complete Band of Brothers on DVD. "Take the night off, Casey," she said. "I'll make sure Chuck's apartment is secure."
Casey looked at her, looked over at Chuck, and then grunted. A jerk of his arm told her he was shoving the gun in the back of his waistband. He took the bottle and the DVD's from her. "No dinner?" he asked.
Sarah turned, walked over to Chuck and looked through the grocery bags he held. She pulled out a pre-packaged container of sushi and a box of Hot Pockets. She walked back to Casey and held them out. He put the DVD's under his arm and accepted the food. He came to something resembling attention – as close as he could come with his hands full of food, booze and entertainment – and said, "I stand relieved."
Sarah gave a slight nod. "Thank you, Casey."
Casey glanced over at Chuck and then back at Sarah. "Try not to kill him," he said and then kicked the door closed with his foot.
Chuck stood, wide-eyed, at the exchange in Casey's doorway. Sarah took the wine and port bottles from him with a smug expression on her face. "Come on," she said. "I'm hungry."
She started toward the apartment. Chuck just stood there for a couple beats, stunned, before giving his head a little shake and hurrying after her.
Once in the kitchen, Sarah started unpacking her grocery bags. She had chicken breasts, butter, cream, pasta, a long baguette, and assorted other foodstuffs. "Here," she said, handing Chuck a bottle of wine. "Why don't you open that?"
"Yeah, um, sure," Chuck responded and started toward his bedroom, stopped, started toward the bathroom, stopped again, and then went back in the kitchen, opened a drawer and pulled out the corkscrew. Sarah couldn't help but smile at his nervous fumbling.
While Chuck finally started to open the wine, she searched through the cupboards for the proper pans. She had no doubt that Ellie, the Martha Stewart of Echo Park, would have everything she needed. She put a little olive oil in a pan and started the chicken to browning. Then she handed a pot to Chuck. "Can you fill that with water for me?" she asked. "I need to boil the pasta."
"Sure," Chuck replied with a grin. He filled the pot with water. "That enough?"
Sarah peered over the edge. "Perfect. Now add just a little bit of salt and some olive oil, then put it on the stove."
Chuck grinned and did as she asked.
Sarah turned the chicken to brown the other side and then got out some parsley and chives and started chopping them. Chuck stopped to marvel at the way she handled the knife. Maybe, he thought idly, Sarah could teach Morgan how to be a Benihana chef. The thought widened the smile on his face.
"What?" Sarah asked, turning to see the grin.
"Just thinking," Chuck replied.
"About what?" Sarah asked cautiously.
"Maybe you should be the Benihana chef," Chuck teased.
Sarah laughed and threw a piece of chive at him. "So do you think he's really going to do it? Morgan, I mean?"
Chuck should his head. "I doubt it. I love him like a brother, but Morgan doesn't exactly have a lot of stick-to-itivness, if you know what I mean."
"Well, maybe Anna will keep him on the straight and narrow," Sarah said, pulling out the butter and cutting it up to put in a saucepan.
Chuck shook his head. "You don't know the power of Morgan's short attention span."
Sarah laughed. "So were you going to pour me some wine, or did you think I just wanted it opened so you had something to do?"
"I was letting it breathe, madam," Chuck said in a bad French accent. He turned and got out two wineglasses and poured them each a generous portion.
Sarah held up the glass. "Are you trying to get me drunk, Mr. Bartowski?"
"Maybe," Chuck said. "Roan seemed to think it improved my chances."
Sarah turned back to the stove. "You don't need wine," she said so softly Chuck wasn't sure he heard her correctly. She turned back around and handed him the pasta. "Here. Make yourself useful. Put that in the water when it starts to boil."
Chuck complied while Sarah stirred the melting butter. She turned and minced some garlic, then put the garlic and some white pepper in the melted butter.
She searched the cabinets and found the cheese grater and handed a block of parmesan cheese to Chuck. "Grate that," she said.
"All of it?" he asked.
"A little over half a cup," she replied.
She took the chicken out of the pan and put it in a baking dish, then put it in the oven.
"Ow!" Chuck yelled. Sarah turned back quickly to see him sticking his finger in his mouth.
"What happened?" she asked.
"I grated my finger along with the cheese," Chuck mumbled through his fingers.
"Let me see," Sarah said, holding out her hand.
Chuck reluctantly removed his fingers from his mouth and showed them to Sarah. The skin was broken, but not too bad. She pulled him by his wrist over to the sink and stuck his hand under running water. After a few moments, she dabbed it with a paper towel, then held it to the wound. "Hold that," she said.
Chuck complied while Sarah got out Ellie's kitchen first aid kit (Ellie had kits all over the apartment) and pulled out a Band-Aid. "SpongeBob?" she asked, looking at the Band-Aid.
"They were on sale," Chuck replied, sheepishly.
Sarah put the SpongeBob Band-Aid on the wound and then kissed it lightly. "All better?" she asked.
"Um, yeah," Chuck said breathlessly.
"Then can you finish grating the cheese or do I need to bring Casey in to relieve you?"
"No!" Chuck said just a little too quickly, eliciting a grin from Sarah. "No Casey. I mean… I can do it."
When he finished, he held out the bowl of grated cheese proudly to Sarah. "Ta-da!"
"My hero," Sarah said sarcastically, and took the bowl from him. She measured out a half cup of the cheese and added it to the simmering sauce.
She took a sip of her wine and stirred the sauce. After a couple minutes, she said, "Check the noodles?"
Chuck put in a pasta fork and pulled out a noodle. He gingerly pulled it off and threw it at the wall.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Well I read somewhere that that's how you check pasta. You throw it at the wall."
"And what does that tell you," Sarah asked with a sly smile.
"I, ah, don't remember?" Chuck responded, sheepishly.
"And what's Ellie going to think if there are noodles stuck to her wall?"
"Maybe I'll just check it this way," Chuck replied, taking out another noodle and pinching it. "Almost ready."
"Why don't you set the table?" Sarah asked.
"Oh. Yeah. Right."
Chuck set the table while Sarah finished the meal. She smiled a little when Chuck got out a candle, put it on the table and lit it. She ladled the noodles, the alfredo and some chicken onto plates and carried them into the 'dining room.' She frowned to see that Chuck had set the table with one place setting at each end of the table. Sarah set a plate down at one end, then put a plate on the placemat on the other end and pulled it around to the chair next to the first. This brought a grin to Chuck's face.
"More wine?" he asked.
"Please."
Chuck pulled out Sarah's chair for her and then stepped around to his place. He sat and gave her a big grin and then held up his glass. "To the smartest, toughest, most beautiful CIA agent on the planet," he said.
Sarah held up her glass. "To my favorite agent," she replied, touching her glass to his.
Chuck smiled and then his eyes got wide. Did she just call him an agent? Did she think of him as an agent now, not an asset? The implications were mind-blowing. He quickly took a sip of his wine to cover his surprise and glanced up at her over the rim of his glass. She was looking at him and grinning.
He grinned back and set down his glass before picking up a fork. He twirled some pasta around his fork and raised it to his mouth. Sarah waited expectantly. He slipped the pasta into his mouth and chewed slowly. A look of ecstasy crossed his face. "Oh God," he mumbled, his mouth full. "Oh, that it so good. That's incredible." He opened his eyes and looked at her. "How did you learn to cook so well?" he asked.
A panicked look crossed his face. He tried hard not to ask her personal questions or questions about her past. He knew she was beyond reluctant to talk about herself. To his relief, she smiled. "My dad couldn't cook," she said. "So I had to learn to do all the cooking. I found out I liked it."
"Well, you're fantastic at it," he said, shoveling another forkful of pasta into his mouth. Sarah smiled and took a delicate bite of her own pasta.
While they ate, and at her urging, Chuck regaled Sarah with stories about Morgan and him as kids and the various pranks and antics they pulled, which usually led to Ellie catching them and giving them both a lecture. At one point, Sarah laughed so hard wine almost came out of her nose, leading to a howl of laughter from Chuck and Sarah 'threatening' him with a butter knife.
Once dinner was finished, Sarah stood and reached for Chuck's plate. Chuck grabbed her wrist. Sarah started and looked up at him. Chuck nervously pulled his hand away. "Let me do that," he said. "Isn't that how it's supposed to work? One cooks, the other cleans?"
Sarah smiled and put her plate on top of Chuck's. "No, I'll get this. You get the movie started."
"Movie?" Chuck asked.
"In the bag there," Sarah said, nodding toward a grocery bag that she hadn't emptied yet.
Chuck reached into the bag and pulled out the DVD case for Cyrano de Bergerac starring Gerard Depardieu. He looked at her and smiled. "No fair, you probably speak French," he said.
"Mmm hmm," she said with a smile. "But it has subtitles."
"I've never seen this one," he said, stepping over to the home theater system.
"I think you'll like it," Sarah called from the kitchen. "It has sword fights, like The Princess Bride."
Chuck got the movie set up and then went into the kitchen to help Sarah with the dishes, drying them as she washed them. She kept looking over at him and smiling, and he smiled back. They were a perfect scene of domesticity.
The dishes done, Chuck turned down the lights while Sarah sat down on the couch. Chuck sat on the other end of the couch and picked up the remote. Sarah frowned at him and then scooted over to sit next to him and actually picked up his arm and put it around her shoulder.
An hour and a half later, Chuck was sprawled on the couch with Sarah cradled up against him, his arms wrapped around her. He sniffed and brushed a tear from his eye. Sarah looked up at him and smiled. "See, the subtitles weren't that bad," she said, purposefully ignoring the glistening of his eyes.
"Thank you," he said softly.
"Happy Valentine's Day," she replied.
He looked at her, confused, for a moment. Valentine's Day was months ago. Then, slowly, realization dawned on him. He smiled at her. "Happy Valentine's Day." He leaned down and gently pressed his lips to hers.