A/N: I can't believe it's been four years since I posted the first chapter of Chuck Takes a Stand. How time flies! Since I didn't get to watch hours and hours of Nerd HQ last summer (and again this summer), I did try to finish (or at least work on) the five stories I have in progress, but either my muse was on vacation or life prevented me from writing. This one started as a one shot that popped into my head while I was driving home one day. Funny how the last of the stories I started writing will be the first posted.
This is my post beach story. As a character, I've always liked Jack Burton. As a father he sucks though. Warning, this story is Jack centric. I really struggled with finding a title and thought I'd play off the Big Trouble in Little China reference.
This is also my first posted story that I used a Beta. MichaelFX volunteered to help on a different, as yet unfinished, story a few years back so I enlisted his services for this and I'm sure you'll see his handiwork compared to my previous works.
Another chapter follows this one. As of now there are two finished chapters but MichaelFX asked for an epilogue to follow them so I started working on one but I can't promise how quickly it will be posted. I am not Zettel or David Carner. I really believe they each have several clones of themselves.
This is where I'd normally ask for reviews but given my horrible track record of reviewing stories I think I'll just take what you offer instead.
Chapter 1
Jack Burton versus the Beach
Ohau
May 2016
Sarah was sitting at a table at the Mai Tai bar in the Grand Hawaiian Hotel when she spotted a familiar face sitting at a table with two men. She saw him glance over and lower his sunglasses briefly, giving her an ever so subtle smile before resuming his conversation. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen her father but she smiled anyway. He looked like he was working, however he still managed to catch her out of the corner of his eye. A short while later, after his associates, more than likely marks in his latest con, left, he stood up and made his way over to her.
"Hey kiddo, you here on business or pleasure?" Jack said as he leaned over to give her a brief hug.
"Actually, a little of both, you?" she replied as he released her and sat across from her.
"Business is pleasure when you do it right," he said with a familiar gleam in his eye.
"You never change," she said with a laugh.
"Where's the schnook? You and Charlie are still together aren't you?"
"It's complicated," she answered, remembering Chuck's retelling of the story on the beach about the first time he met her father. Frowning, she wished she could remember it herself.
"Uh-oh, what'd Charlie do? Should I get a hold of one of the bone breakers I know that owes me a favor?"
She laughed loudly before replying, "You know, I think you actually mean that. No, Chuck didn't do anything wrong, but unfortunately our marriage didn't last a year before trouble hit."
"Sorry to hear that. I'd have bet anything that you two were a sure thing, and you know I only bet on sure things. That's why I gave you the money for the wedding. Which, by the way, I never even got a picture of."
"You paid for the wedding?" she asked surprised. Chuck hadn't given her many details about their wedding when he told her their story because he'd said he wanted her to have her own memories of it and not his.
Her question shocked Jack. He removed his sunglasses and looked deeply into Sarah's eyes trying to determine if she was serious or trying to pull one over on him. It didn't take a con man to know something was going on.
"You're not kidding are you? Darlin', maybe you'd better start at the beginning and fill your old man in on what's going on."
Sarah sighed deeply and tried to swallow the lump in her throat before speaking. "Dad, something terrible happened. Something that tore Chuck and me apart."
Jack saw tears forming in her eyes and his heart broke. His little girl was tough as nails and he rarely saw her cry, not even when she broke her arm during their armored car scam, so he knew this was bad. He moved to sit beside her and took her hands in his.
"Angel, I'm sorry. Tell me what happened," he urged as he kissed the top of her head.
"I don't know if you know what I did when you saw me last, but I worked for the government, actually we both did," She paused to see his reaction.
"Yeah, Charlie told me you were some kind of Fed."
"Yeah, I got recruited the day you were arrested in San Diego. They let me finish out my senior year then sent me to train that summer before sending me to college."
The color left Jack's face in shock before turning red with anger.
"They told me you got away and they didn't know where you were! You were only 15 when I got arrested. Why would they recruit a 15-year old girl?"
"The forged birth certificate you got for me was so good, they really thought I was 17 and that I would turn 18 before reporting for training. Anyway, I got a free college education because of it. They got me admitted to Harvard, which I doubt I could have gotten into on my own. If they'd known I was 15, I'd have probably ended up in Juvenile detention or put into the foster care system. Both of those options were MUCH worse than what I did instead, trust me."
"Angel, I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I was always proud that you slipped away. I assumed you followed our plan and used the money to lay low until you were old enough to go on the grift without fear of going into the system. That's why I thought you were playing the schnook when I saw you after getting out. Then, when he told me you were a Fed, I figured you got recruited after a con had gone bad."
"Like I said, things worked out better this way. I got a good education and was able to use the skills you taught me to take down those who wanted to hurt innocent people. I had a good job, my assigned partner and I worked really well together. Later, he even became a boyfriend of sorts, but even that was incomplete, like something was missing from my life but I didn't know what. Bryce and I had a lot of fun, but it was all superficial. We never talked about our past with each other, we really never connected on anything other than the next mission. It's like we both knew it was temporary, so neither of us really invested ourselves into what was required to call it a relationship, we never let the other see behind our walls. Then something happened that made people suspect that Bryce had turned rogue. I was devastated, not because I was in love with him or anything, but I thought he'd conned me. That I was just a mark to him. He not only betrayed his country but me as well. Bryce was missing for a few months and since I was his partner I was assigned a handler to watch over me to make sure I wasn't rogue as well. We were sent out of the country on another assignment, and as soon as I got back Bryce had broken into a government facility and stolen some information and emailed it to someone he knew. I was sent to investigate that person and see if he was an accomplice, and that's when I met Chuck."
"I never figured a boy scout like him would do anything against the law." Jack was confused by the way Sarah was talking about the events leading up to her meeting Chuck. It was detached, not the way someone describes meeting someone they fell in love with.
"Oh, he didn't. Turned out he was an innocent bystander, Bryce sent it to the one person he thought he could trust. With what he learned it was decided that he could be an asset to the government, so I was assigned to be his handler and my cover was as his girlfriend."
"Sounds complicated. But cover girlfriend? Angel, I know how good an actress you are, but believe me, it was more than just a cover. You two had it bad for each other, you were just better at hiding it, and maybe no one else knew, but I could see it. So when did it become not a cover?"
"I don't remember," she said softly looking out towards the ocean to hide her tears.
"Okay, spill. That's the second time now that you haven't remembered something. Give your old man the short answer. What's happened to you?" Jack said as he struggled to understand what had happened to his daughter. He watched as Sarah tried to compose herself before answering him. He squeezed her hand and she squeezed his back as she turned to face him. He released her hands and cupped her face to wipe the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs.
"It's okay Angel, take your time. I'm here for you." Jack dropped his hands from her face and leaned over to kiss her cheek and put his arm around her shoulder in a soft embrace. She leaned into him for bit before starting her story again. He released her and held her hand again.
"Thanks Dad, but the truth is there is no short answer. I wish there was, but from what I've been told, things between Chuck and I tend to get complicated at times. Anyway, apparently we left our government jobs after our wedding and started our own company. A few months before our first anniversary a bad guy named Quinn kidnapped me and wiped out five years' worth of my memories. All my memories of Chuck were gone. I woke up in a hotel room still thinking I was an active agent and that it was early 2007, before Bryce went rogue. What's worse is Quinn then posed as my boss and told me that Chuck, his friends and family were terrorists and they were the ones that wiped out my memories. He also claimed they killed both my boss and Bryce. After hearing that, I was determined to take Chuck and his group down!"
She paused as she shuddered a bit. Jack could tell how painful this was for her. He felt his anger rising but knew better than to express it now. Sam, Sarah was never very talkative about herself and he didn't want to interrupt her until she finished her story. But he was definitely thinking about sending that bone breaker he mentioned earlier to meet this Quinn character. So he simply held her hand until she was ready to start talking again.
"Dad, it was awful, I kidnapped his sister and told Chuck I'd kill her if he didn't meet me. We were on the way to the meet when she crashed the van we were in and knocked me out. He took me to a house we were looking to buy and tried to convince me that I was being lied to by Quinn. He even untied me but then I tried to kill him. He refused to fight back. I pulled my gun and was pointing it at him when I saw our names carved into a doorway and suddenly I knew that I had carved them. That maybe he was telling the truth. Then Quinn showed up and confessed that he'd duped me. Before I could process what he was saying, he tried to shoot me but Chuck jumped in front of me, he took the bullet meant for me. Thank God he was wearing a vest! He told me to run because I was still wanted by the authorities, who thought I'd gone rogue."
At this point a small sob escaped from her and Jack moved to give her a tight hug. This had the unintended effect of opening the dam as she openly sobbed into his shoulder. He hadn't held her like this since she was a child. He'd forgotten how much it hurt to see his daughter in pain. He whispered softly into her hair, telling her that it was okay and he was there for her, realizing all the while that he hadn't been there for her and at the same time realizing that he hadn't been when this had happened. The sobs subsided and he reached into his pocket for a handkerchief.
"I'm sorry, I guess talking about this is harder than I thought it would be," she said as she used his handkerchief.
"It's okay darlin', we can stop if you want to," he rubbed his hand up and down her back like he did when she was little and had a stomachache.
"No, it's okay, I'll keep going. Where was I? Oh yeah, after I fled the house I went to my hotel room to grab my things to go on the run, but Casey showed up and gave me a copy of my, or rather her video mission logs. I watched them and, even as I saw myself talking, the woman on the screen was unrecognizable. The longer the mission went on, the more open, vulnerable even, she became. I saw her transform from an agent to a lovesick woman. That's not who Sarah Walker is, or at least not the Sarah Walker I was. I'd never lower my walls, never ever let anyone in. No one could hurt me if I kept them at arm's length. But she did, she let him in. She wasn't me, I couldn't be her and yet, there I was confessing my love for him to the camera, or rather she was. I didn't know how to be her, she was who he wanted, not me. I had to get out of Burbank, back to the only life I knew, my life. I went to say goodbye to Chuck, to let him know that I knew he had been telling the truth, but I didn't feel what his wife felt. I told him I was going after Quinn for stealing my life. He knew that I had to go after Quinn, and he wasn't going to hold me back. Besides, how could I stay with a husband that I didn't know, and even tried to kill? I wasn't his Sarah. So I told him goodbye and walked away from him. I was so angry, I focused that anger on getting Quinn. In the end, I needed Chuck's help to track him down. Once the job was finished, I left him, again. For the second time he let me go. I could see the hurt in his eyes, I could tell he wanted so badly to ask me to stay but he put my needs ahead of his. I drove around for a while and ended up at a beach. As far as I could remember I'd never been there before. I don't know how long I walked along the water's edge but I had the sudden urge to sit down. As I sat there and saw the vastness of the ocean before me, it made me feel as though I were adrift, floating through life with no destination, no purpose. My whole life I've had a purpose, a mission to complete, whether it was running cons with you or my job with the government. When one finished, the next one started. I didn't always like the things I had to do but at least I had a purpose. Now I had nothing. The man who was both my partner and boyfriend had died nearly three years earlier. My mentor, the person that recruited me, had been dead for four years. I thought you were still in jail. Mom, was… not an option. Add to that no job, no friends, no family, no ties to anything, and lastly no future. I had nothing except a hotel room, a suitcase and a car that I didn't remember buying. I felt I had to leave but I had nowhere to go and nothing to do when I got there. I couldn't work for the government anymore because my missing memories would be a liability and, honestly, I didn't want that life anymore. Especially after seeing how close I'd come to completing the fake mission I'd been given. Dad I almost killed him!"
She choked up again but managed not to break down like earlier. A few tears escaped and ran down her face. She wiped the tears away with his handkerchief. She stood up and walked to the fence at edge of the patio. She rested her hands on the handrail and watched the ocean once again. Jack got up and moved to stand beside her. He didn't speak, he waited because he knew she wasn't done yet.
"I know I could have stayed, but the life I saw that his Sarah had scared me. Could I be that Sarah again? So I sat on the beach for the first time in my life with nothing to do, hoping for a sign from the universe to tell me what to do." Sarah paused to compose herself and wipe away more tears that had run down her cheeks.
"Wow, complicated doesn't begin to cover your life, angel. Makes me almost wish that ole Charlie had an affair instead of what you've been through. So did you get your sign?" Jack asked as he shoulder bumped her like he used to do when she was younger.
Sarah snorted as she answered, "Yeah, Chuck sat down beside me. I hadn't told him where I was going but somehow he knew where to find me. He told me that the place we were sitting at was important to us and said he didn't want anything from me, he just wanted to make sure that I knew he was someone I could count on, and that he would always be there for me. I asked him to tell me our story. For the next hour or so I listened. The stories he told me about our time together made me laugh and cry. Then he told me about a crazy idea his friend had; that a magical kiss, like in fairy tales, would restore my memories. So, I asked him to kiss me."
"A magic kiss? You didn't really think that would work, did you?"
"No, not really, but seeing the hopeful look on his face made me want to try. Of course, the kiss didn't bring my memories back. When I told him it didn't work, I could see he was disappointed. I don't know why but I didn't like disappointing him so I told him it may not have been magical but it was a really nice kiss. That made him smile and he asked me to go out on a date, in his words 'a final first date'. I don't know why, but I agreed. He promised to take me somewhere that neither of us had been to before so that the memories would be new for both of us. The date was fun. He came up with the idea that we treat it like we had just met and didn't talk about anything that had happened between us in the previous five years. I don't think I'd laughed so much in my life. He was so different than most other men I'd met. He was so unassuming and, well, charming. I didn't fall in love with him that night, but it did make me want to stay and find out for myself if I could be the person from the mission logs. He also offered me a job. It turns out that before my memory loss, we were in the process of transforming the company we'd created into a cyber security firm. So to keep myself busy I accepted his offer. At first I was concerned about spending that much time together, but as it turned out we barely saw each other during the average work day. I was more involved in the investigative side of things as well as the day to day running of the company, you know sales, marketing and such. Chuck was running the technical side, the nerdy stuff. At first, I told myself that it was because I had nowhere else to go. Besides, if it didn't work out I could always leave."
They turned and went back to their seats and each took a drink from their respective glass before continuing. Jack was hesitant to ask his next question but he had to know.
"I'm guessing it didn't work out since you're here alone."
"Actually, within the first six months, the business was hugely successful. Also, I'm not here alone, Chuck and I are here celebrating our fourth wedding anniversary. Shortly after our final first date, Chuck and I started dating again. Since we never actually divorced, we renewed our vows on our second wedding anniversary, and nine months later, Lisa was born," She said with a smirk as she pointed over Jack's shoulder.
Jack turned around and saw Chuck coming towards them, and he was carrying something. A child, a little blonde haired girl. When he stood next to Sarah's chair he could see that she had brownish eyes. Except for her eyes, he could swear he was looking at his little Sam.
"Jack! Fancy meeting you here! We tried finding you to let you know about, well you know," Chuck said as he reached his hand out to Jack.
Jack took Chuck's outstretched hand without taking his eyes off of his …granddaughter? Jack whipped his head around to look at Sarah, whose smile got wider.
"You made me a Grandfather?"
She shrugged and laughed as she got up to take her daughter from Chuck. She blew raspberries into her daughter's neck causing the 18 month old to laugh and squirm in her arms.
"Lisa, this is your grandfather, and Dad, this wiggle squiggle is Lisa. Say hi Lisa."
Lisa's eyes got big and she laid her head on Sarah's shoulder and gave a small wave as she put her thumb in her mouth.
Jack, still in a state of shock, mimicked the child's wave back.
His little Sammie was holding a near duplicate of herself. Of course there were differences, but Lisa was so close to his little girl. Now Jack didn't have an Intersect, in fact he'd never even heard of it, but the sudden rush of images of his Sammie at Lisa's age was as close to one of Chuck's 'flashes' as one could get.
"Dad. Dad, are you okay?" Sarah asked, the concern in her voice was evident.
"Huh? Oh yeah, I was just remembering you at this age. She really looks a lot like you did. I guess she gets the brown eyes from the Schnook."
"Hazel, Chuck and Lisa's eyes are hazel, not brown."
"What's the difference?"
"Well, I've been told the difference is that depending on the lighting, their eyes can seem to be either light brown, green, or a goldish amber color," Sarah said as she smirked at Chuck.
"Hey! Lisa and I can't help if our eyes change like mood rings! And Lisa and I think it's pretty cool," he said as he stuck his tongue out at his wife.
"No, No Dada!" Lisa said with a frown, as she pointed her tiny finger at her father.
"Ok, I'm sorry. No more sticking tongues out," Chuck replied as he took her small hand in his and kissed it.
"That's my girl! You tell the bad daddy to be nice," Sarah said laughing before kissing Lisa's cheek.
None of the adults were sure what exactly Lisa said to Chuck next, but it was obvious the she was chastising Chuck for his transgression.
"I said I'm sorry, will a kiss get me out of the doghouse?"
"I think it just might, if it also comes with some ice cream."
At the word ice cream Lisa's demeanor went from strict disciplinarian to excitement as she babbled incoherently.
"Yes, Lisa gets ice cream too. So, I have one strawberry for Lisa, Rocky Road for Sarah. Jack what's your poison?"
"I'll have Rocky Road as well."
"Okay, be back soon."
"So Dad, do you want to hold her?"
"Think she'll let me?"
"Yeah, she's very friendly," Sarah said as she handed Lisa to Jack.
Jack held his granddaughter and marveled once again at the similarities with his daughter. Lisa reached for his sunglasses so Jack took them off and put them on her face.
"Oh Dad, that's probably not a good idea, she may break them."
"That's okay, she seems to like them," he said as Lisa beamed at her mother.
"So, you guys still running the company together?"
"We still have the company, but we took some time off after Lisa was born. Now, we're there on a more part time basis. We want to -, well let's just say we like time with Lisa," Sarah stumbled at the end of her statement.
"You want to be better parents than you had," Jack finished her thought.
"Dad, I didn't mean-"
"It's okay angel, I know I wasn't the best parent. I treated you more like a partner than a daughter. I'm glad you and Charlie are the parents that I wasn't. This little one deserves the best, and I think she's got it," Jack said as he hoisted Lisa up in the air and wiggled her as she giggled. He brought her back down to his chest and she hugged him. He kissed her head as he blinked back tears from his first hug from her. He looked at Sarah and saw her wiping away the moisture from her eyes as well.
"How long are you here Dad?"
"Oh, I have to be in New York at the beginning of next month but I just finished the job I was here for so I thought I'd stay for a bit. How about you and the Schnook?" he inquired with a mischievous gleam in his eye.
"We're here for another ten days. Now, that's the third time you've called him that, am I missing an inside joke? Because, it seems as though you're doing it to get a rise out of me. Besides, he's not a schnook, he's a wonderful, caring intelligent guy- wait that sounds familiar. Have we had this conversation before?"
Jack smiled before speaking. "Yeah, and you said the same thing last time. And judging by how happy you and little miss wiggle squiggle here are, I'll admit he may not be a class 'A' schnook after all. But don't expect me to tell him that. I like it that he's a little nervous around me, makes him try harder to get in my good graces," he smirked.
"I've missed you Dad. I know it's only been three years for you but with my missing memories it has been a lot longer. I want to see you more. I'd like it if you were in Lisa's life more than once every few years. Can you do that for me?"
"Darlin, I've broken too many promises to you to make another one, so let's just say that I'll try to do that for you."
"Thanks, Dad. That's all I can really ask. So…, do you have any dinner plans tonight?"
"Nope, my schedule is wide open for the next ten days." Jack replied. Normally the idea of spending ten days with family would send him straight to the nearest exit. But after what he'd gone through the previous six months, the idea of spending time with Sarah and his granddaughter Lisa sounded perfect. Perfect except for the schnook being there as well, but seeing how happy Sarah and Lisa were, maybe he wasn't such a schnook after all, but he'd keep that to himself.
