Chuck in a Moment

Chapter 2: Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

CAST (in order of appearance):
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski
Hotel desk clerk – Zach Galifianakis
Hotel porter – Patrick Fugit
Logan Echolls – Jason Dohring
Veronica Mars – Kristen Bell

4:30 P.M., Pacific Daylight Time
Saturday, July 4th, 2009
The Carriage House Inn
Carmel By-the-Sea, California

Chuck had chosen very, very well. This was one of the most incredible hotels Sarah Walker had ever been to.

She wasn't quite sure what they had been thinking, expecting to be able to get a hotel room in Carmel on Fourth of July weekend. But interestingly enough, as they were approaching the town that Clint Eastwood built, Chuck had pulled out his phone, made a call, and lo and behold, the Carriage House Inn had a room waiting for them when they arrived.

"Mr. Echolls said we should expect you, Mr. Bartowski," the front desk clerk had said to Chuck when they checked in.

"We're just grateful you were able to accommodate us tonight," Chuck replied. "I'm sure that pretty much every place in town is packed on a night like this."

"Yes, well, a friend of Logan Echolls is a friend of ours here, sir," the clerk said. "And it helped that he was able to arrange for the guests who we had to walk to stay at an estate owned by the Kane family.

"Will you be attending the Carmel Celebration tonight, sir?"

Chuck looked at Sarah. "Uh, perhaps. We might have… other plans."

The clerk smiled knowingly. "I understand, sir. We'll make sure you… aren't disturbed."

But Chuck didn't take Sarah to bed and ravage her, as she had somewhat been expecting from his comment to the clerk. Instead, when they got to the room, he said he needed a little time by himself to think, and that he was going to walk down to the beach.

Ordinarily, that kind of thing would have disturbed Sarah. However, given the fact that he had sort of proposed to her in a sideways fashion a few hours beforehand, she could understand why he might need a little time to think.

The time to herself gave Sarah the chance to catch up on work a little bit. Before the trial that went nowhere, she had informed Director Graham that she wasn't so sure she wanted to quit after all, but that she needed to go back to analysis – she couldn't deal with working in the field any longer, and she certainly couldn't go back to being Chuck's handler.

Unfortunately, analysis meant a LOT of paperwork, and she had three weeks worth of it to catch up on. Two hours later, though, she'd gotten through not even half of it, her head was pounding, and Chuck wasn't back yet.

Sarah sighed. This was not her idea of a vacation so far. Opening her briefcase, she returned the paperwork to its interior, and then closed it. The briefcase vacuum-sealed itself, and could only be opened if Sarah pressed her thumb against a fingerprint detector.

It was another one of those things that had been designed by that psychotic kid Laszlo, the one the CIA kept in a bunker somewhere along the coast – they had actually probably driven by it that day. He might have been psychotic, but he was also brilliant.

But she didn't need to be thinking about the CIA, psychotic teenage scientists, or anything stressful. This was a vacation. Sarah needed to unwind.

When she had arrived, she had almost squealed in glee at the sight of the two person spa tub in the bathroom. Now, it was time to make use of it. Stepping into the bathroom, she turned on the water, let it run for a moment to get it adjusted to just the right temperature, and then closed the drain.

Returning to the living room, she picked up the phone and dialed the front desk. "Front desk, this is Robert, how may I assist you?" It was the clerk they had spoken with earlier. He pronounced his name Ro-BERR, the French way – which made sense, since his nametag had indicated that he was from Quebec.

"Yes, this is Ms. Walker in room 107. I was hoping to get some wine delivered to the room?"

"Of course, madam. Did you have a particular type in mind?"

Sarah racked her brain for a moment. Her history with wine was a long and very torturous one. When she was in college, she and cheap wine – a lot of the time in boxes – had become close friends – or, more accurately, she had become cheap wine's bitch. However, during her year and a half of exile on Catalina Island, she had become somewhat of a connoisseur – not exactly a sommelier, but pretty close.

Finally, she came up with one that she definitely enjoyed, and which wouldn't make Chuck's eyes bug out of his head when he saw the bill. "Yes, I'd like a bottle – actually, you know what, let's make it a split of 1987 Napa Valley Silver Oak Cabernet." Definitely a better idea to get the split than a full bottle. She didn't need to tempt old demons back to the surface.

She could almost hear the clerk smile. "Of course. An excellent choice. We'll deliver that to your room right away."

Sarah had expected the service to be quick, but when there was a knock on her door less than five minutes later – before the tub had finished filling – she was rather surprised. She hadn't even stripped down and donned a bathrobe yet.

She opened the door – and there was a young man who looked like a kid, although she knew that under California state law, he had to be at least 19 years old. He had balanced on one hand a silver tray containing two wine glasses, a corkscrew, a vacuum resealing cork replacement, and a three-quarter liter bottle of one of the best wines Sarah had ever tasted.

"Where would you like your wine, ma'am?" he asked in a surprisingly deep voice that didn't really fit his appearance.

"Just, right in by the tub," she informed him. He nodded and walked past her into the bathroom. Sarah dug into her pocket to get a tip for him, which she pressed into his palm as he walked out the door.

"Thank you very much, ma'am," he said, not even looking at the tip. It was only after the door had been closed and Sarah heard a muffled "Holy crap!" in the hallway did she know that he had actually looked at the hundred dollar bill in his hand.

She smiled and shook her head. She had made almost a habit of doing that to the staff at the Avalon Hotel on Catalina. The CIA had paid her very, very well as an operative, and had continued to pay her quite well as an analyst, so she figured that she would share the wealth.

As Sarah headed into the bathroom, she stripped down, leaving a trail of clothes on the floor behind her. She figured Chuck would get the hint when he returned.

Before stepping into the bath, she uncorked the wine. She smiled again as the delicate scent of the twenty-two year old cabernet sauvignon drifted up toward her. Pouring slowly and gently so as to not aerate the wine too much or bruise its texture, she filled one of the wine glasses about a third of the way.

Sarah then stepped into the tub and sank down, until only her head and her shoulders remained above the water. She sighed as the just a slight bit too hot water soothed her sore muscles. The soreness was a reminder of all those missions the CIA had sent her on, all around the world, before she had been assigned to Chuck nearly two years before.

She reached out and snagged her wineglass off the tray. Lifting it to her mouth, she gently inhaled the scent of the wine, and then allowed a tiny amount to pass between her lips. She sighed. Drinking this particular vintage was always quite an experience.

Sarah had been in the tub for about an hour and had gone through maybe half the split of wine when she heard the front door open. Chuck had finally returned.

"Didn't your mother ever teach you not to leave your clothes lying around?" she heard him ask, a trace of humor in his voice. A moment later, his head poked into the bathroom.

"Well, you look like you're enjoying yourself," he remarked, a trace of pink touching his cheeks as he saw that she was completely nude. It offered Sarah no small amusement that despite the fact that they had essentially spent the last three weeks in bed, Chuck still had a touch of modesty that caused him embarrassment at being in that sort of situation.

"Care to join me?" she asked, lifting the wine glass.

"In the tub, or in the wine?" he replied, a smile crossing his lips.

Sarah put a mock-thoughtful look on her face. "Don't see why you can't do both," she said, humor in her voice.

He disappeared back into the suite. "Where are you going?" Sarah called after him.

"To change into a bathrobe!"

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Which you're going to have to take off anyway to get into the tub!"

Chuck's head reappeared in the doorway. "I know that, it's just that, I, uh…"

"I have seen you completely naked on a regular basis for the last three weeks, goofball," Sarah gently chided him. "Now get in here."

Chuck wasn't about to say no to that, and so he rapidly dropped his clothes on the bathroom floor and stepped into the tub, sinking down next to Sarah. "See, now, that wasn't so difficult, was it?" she asked.

"I suppose not," he replied. He leaned over to her and gently kissed her. "I ought to go for walks more often if this is what I'm going to come back to."

She kissed him back, not quite as gently. She began to trace her fingernails down his chest, going lower, lower –

Only to have her hand intercepted at his stomach. She felt his fingers wrap around her wrist and gently move her hand away from him. "Let's just, you know, relax for a little while," Chuck said quietly. "Maybe do some talking. We haven't done much of that since… well, since you came back."

Sarah nodded. "Okay, what do you want to talk about?"

Well," Chuck began slowly, "if it's not too intrusive, I'm kind of curious what you did during your year and a half away."

Sarah smiled. "Not very much," she replied. "As I'm pretty sure you figured out from the couple of days we spent there, I went to Catalina Island, because it's pretty out of the way and it wasn't very likely I'd be found there. I had a pretty large amount of money saved up, so I was able to live comfortably while I was there.

"I got a part time job working in a computer store as, believe it or not, a tech support type," she continued. "You really rubbed off on me – I was amazed at how much I had picked up."

Chuck grinned. "I'm just that good."

"Anyway, it was funny. In June of 2008, you remember Devin and Ellie going on vacation to Catalina?"

"Yeah," Chuck replied. "Don't tell me you ran into them and they didn't recognize you!"

"Not exactly," Sarah said. "Your sister's computer crashed, and Devin called the company I worked for to get it fixed. Ellie wasn't there when I got there, and Devin didn't recognize me – I had changed my appearance. I had short red hair, and I was wearing green contacts at the time."

Chuck narrowed his eyes. "Wait a second. You had red hair and green eyes?"

Sarah nodded slowly. "Mm-hmm. Just like your video game character."

He shook his head. "Unbelievable. I went out of my way to design her so that she didn't look like you… and then, it turned out, she looked like you."

She smiled. "Yeah, I just about had a heart attack when I saw a screenshot of the game on TV. I called up Director Graham, to make sure there was no way you could have known."

Chuck cocked an eyebrow. "So Graham knew you were alive?"

"Well, he didn't for the first six months," Sarah admitted. "But, I made one very small tactical error which an analyst happened to pick up on, and he found me. After threatening to rain down the apocalyptic plagues of the book of Revelation on me, he decided to have me go back to analysis work. But he couldn't tell anybody."

"Understandable," Chuck said. "But wait… you, YOU made a mistake?"

He grinned as he said it. "Couldn't be. Not Sarah Walker. I can't believe it!"

"You had better shut up, mister," Sarah shot back, leaning in close to him. "Try not to forget that my hand is all of a foot away from an easily damaged part of your anatomy."

"You wouldn't dare," he said with a smile.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, because then your night would be very boring," Chuck replied with a self-satisfied smirk.

"Well, aren't you full of yourself!" Sarah said.

"You certainly do seem to like it."

"Oh, you are just ASKING for a beat down," Sarah growled, a playful tone in her voice.

"Bring it ON, woman!"

That was it. Sarah turned and leapt on Chuck, causing an alarmed yelp to escape from his throat.

Fifteen minutes later, the tub had maybe half of its water remaining in it. The other half was all over the bathroom floor.

"The housekeeping staff is gonna hate us," Chuck remarked.

"I'll leave them a big tip," Sarah replied, a satisfied tone in her voice.

Chuck laughed. "You'd better. I think we just put half the tub on the floor."

Sarah smiled. "You want to work on the other half?"

He rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Slow DOWN. If you wear me out on the first night of this roadtrip, it is going to be very long and boring."

"Oh, alright," she pouted.

Ten minutes later, though, between the wine and how much the hot water had relaxed her, Sarah lay next to Chuck on the bed, fast asleep. Chuck smiled and extricated his arm from underneath her.

Retrieving his cell phone, Chuck stepped out on the balcony and watched fireworks launch from the beach. He dialed a number and put the phone to his ear. A voicemail picked up a moment later.

"Hi, you've reached Logan Echolls. Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work. Leave a message!"

Chuck laughed softly at the fact that Logan put a different "inspirational" message on his voicemail every day. "Logan, hey, Chuck Bartowski. Thanks for helping us out with the hotel room in Carmel. I don't mean to be a pest, but do you know any nice places up around Eureka? Give me a call. Thanks!"

He hung up the phone, and debated whether or not to make the second call. He sighed. It had to be done. Chuck dialed again.

"Please don't pick up," he breathed as the phone rang. Nobody did.

"Hi, you've reached Special Agent Veronica Mars, Federal Bureau of Investigation. If you need immediate assistance, please call the Los Angeles S.A.C. Otherwise, leave a message!"

Chuck took a deep breath. "Hey, it's me," he said. "Listen, there's something I need to talk to you about. Give me a call when you get this, okay? Thanks."

He hung up the phone again, and turned to walk back into the room. Sarah was asleep, and now had her back to him. He crawled into the bed, making it move as little as he could. Scooting up behind her, he gently wrapped his arm around her.

She let go a little sigh, and rolled her body a bit to form more against his. "Much better," she breathed sleepily.

Chuck smiled. "Good night, Sarah."

"Good night, Chuck."