A/N: Thanks once again to all of you who have read, followed, favorited and especially reviewed, you all make a smile come to my face. So here we are once again, and this chapter starts my version of the date scene in the pilot. I think I've tweaked this one to within an inch of it's life, right up until it was time to put it to bed. Getting Sarah right for this scene was a lot harder than I thought going in. Hopefully you'll enjoy what I've come up with.

As always, standard disclaimers apply I don't own Chuck. If I did own Chuck there would have been a whole lot less whining on all sides. And I reiterate more Sarah in skimpy costumes. Also if you're looking for cannon, I've received a recommendation from Oldest Man that the Benning School for Wayward Boys is an excellent place to find some fine examples including the tracked kind.


Chuck was sitting on the couch wearing a t-shirt and a pair of jeans when Ellie and Devon walked into the apartment. The table was set for an intimate dinner for two. His right leg was bouncing a little indicating he was a little nervous about the evening.

"Chuck, I thought you were making dinner tonight," Ellie said as she walked into the dining area, causing him to startle.

'I must be slipping, she shouldn't have been able to get in the door without me noticing.'

"Yeah, about that, would you mind taking a rain check? I didn't want to leave you with the cleanup, and I'm going to be going out tonight. I ordered some lasagna, garlic bread and salad from the Italian place down the road. It should be arriving in about 45 minutes, giving you time to clean up before it gets here."

Ellie went from normal to full on interrogation as soon as she heard the words 'going out.' "Going out with whom little brother? Don't tell me you and Morgan are going to spend the night gaming in his basement."

Chuck debated flat out lying, Morgan would cover for him after all, but decided to go with at least part of the truth. "No, I met somebody who's new in town when I dropped Morgan off at the BuyMore today, and we sort of hit it off so I offered to take her around town a bit tonight and sort of show her the area. We're going out for Mexican, then maybe find a club with a decent band."

Ellie's demeanor changed yet again. Now she was almost bouncing. "You mean you have a date?"

In retrospect, maybe he should have just gone with the Morgan story. "No, not like a date, we're just going to out to dinner to talk a bit then find someplace to have a good time afterwards."

"And would this talking be in the nature of getting to know each other better?" Ellie asked the beginning of a smile on her lips, and the bouncing intensified.

"Well I suppose that was the plan, yeah." He was starting to think he might be in trouble.

"That is what is commonly referred to, by the general public, as a date little brother. You are not going dressed like that." She walked up and sniffed the air around him. "And you're taking another shower."

Oh yeah he definitely should have lied about this. "I don't need a shower, I'm fine."

"Well you don't stink, but you don't smell fresh either. Get in the shower before I grab your ear and drag you in there. While you're in there I'm going to pick out a different shirt. Now march!" Ellie was pointing imperiously at the bathroom.

"Yes ma'am," sulked Chuck as he headed to the bathroom.

Thirty minutes later a freshly showered Chuck was heading to the front door now wearing a button down shirt over a different t-shirt. He wasn't exactly sulking. Ellie watched with a smile on her face. "I'm a girl and I know what girls like. You'll thank me later," she called to him as he exited the apartment.

As soon as he was out sight, his demeanor changed. A smile formed on his lips and he straightened up. It really was kind of nice to have Ellie do that for him. He actually didn't mind at all, but he'd never let her know that because she'd be impossible to deal with if he ever did. As he walked up to his car he waved at the two black SUVs across the street. They weren't exactly being subtle, but he was actually ok with that. He knew the teams in those vehicles and they weren't going to be surprised or bypassed so being a little obvious might work like a deterrent. He got behind the wheel of his car, which he had reset earlier to mimic a regular '69 Charger's performance. He thought about reconfiguring the seatbelts into a standard 3 point system, but Sarah hadn't complained about the four point harness earlier and she seemed to enjoy going fast so he left the seatbelts as they were. He then pulled out of the parking space and headed over to Maison 23 followed by one of the two SUVs.


As Chuck got out of his car at Sarah's hotel, one of the men from the tail car got out and approached. "Hey Chuck, the boss wants you on comms," he said holding out an earbud. "Put this in your ear; it does both transmit and receive, but it isn't sub-vocal so you actually have to speak to be heard. Whisper is good enough."

"Skip," he said to the security man, "you know what I do for a living right?"

"Yeah, but you always repeat stuff like this every time we get ready to go out, and I thought I'd show you how annoying that is after the first time."

"Fair enough," said Chuck chuckling, "I'll bear that in mind next time."

"By the way," Skip continued, "we actually are expecting the NSA agent, a Major John Casey, to attempt at least contact soon. I'm getting the feeling the NSA didn't get the memo. The powers that be are working on that, but I figured you ought to know just in case. We'll try a clean intercept before he or his team make contact but there could be a kerfuffle if he pushes the issue."

"After you do the intercept, bring him over so we can introduce everyone around," Chuck said after a moment's thought. "Might as well make sure we're all one big happy family before this whole thing spins out of control and we end up on a rooftop with guns pointed at me after a high speed chase through downtown LA."

"That was oddly specific," said Skip with a puzzled look on his face.

"Yeah I think I saw it on a TV show somewhere. Not sure why it popped into my head. I'd better get going or I'm going to show up late to pick her up."

"I thought this wasn't a date," Skip teased smiling.

"And you bugged the apartment didn't you?"

"Just audio in the areas with external walls. We've got good visual and motion on the exterior, including infrared and starlight. We have the computer auto dumping the audio every 8 hours on a loop so no problems there and the people who are monitoring know to let the computer handle it if it starts to sound personal. Don't worry we're security not surveillance."

"I know," replied Chuck, "not like I'm unfamiliar with what you're doing, just didn't think it through. Now I really am going." He started to the door.

"Have fun on your date. Just so you know Anna made me promise to give her all the gory details later. She's like an old yenta that one." Skip called after him.

Chuck's head dropped at this pronouncement. 'I really didn't think this through when I called for a protection detail and then asked Sarah out to dinner. I am so going to take crap for this for months.' He sighed, straightened up and went to see if he could at least make this worth the trouble he was going to get into.


Sarah and Chuck had spent the afternoon getting the logistics set up for what was supposed to be a short term mission. Yeah, she'd heard that before. Last time had turned into a 6 month undercover job where she had to pretend to be a Weinerlicious girl. It wouldn't have been so bad, her intentionally bad cooking had mostly kept all but the most dedicated teenage boys from hanging around to ogle her, but she always smelled like burned sausage at the end of the day. It took 3 showers to get the stink off every night. It ended well though, the arms trafficker she had been staking out took a delivery right in front of her and she got to kick his ass when he tried to run for it. Not really payback for the time spent but you take wins where you can get them in this line of work.

So instead of just setting up for a day or two at a hotel and picking up the bare essentials, she had gone to the local substation and requisitioned a safe house, or in this case a safe long term hotel room in a secured building, and had ordered a small arsenal to be delivered to a newly installed hidden gun safe keyed to her palm print. She had also requisitioned some specialized com gear to be installed and some specialized mission gear to be shipped to the substation so she could get it quickly if necessary. Some things were easier in the U.S. even if they weren't technically allowed to operate here.

Finally as she was getting ready to go out with Chuck, she had called in to Director Graham to find out anything he could tell her about the mission, which hadn't been much.

"I talked to the National Security Advisor and Mr. Bartowski's superior," the Director had said, "we're going to be talking with the head of the NSA tomorrow to hammer this whole thing out, but right now what I've got is the data you're looking for is safe and that Mr. Bartowski is a special case and we are not allowed to do anything other than provide and I quote, 'backup protection.' I have no idea why they termed it like that."

"Chuck said his boss had already sent a protection detail to watch him and his sister, I assume that's where the backup part comes from. He seems to think that it's some sort of joke that they are sending him a detail, but seemed to be in agreement that his sister should have one for the duration. I'm not sure I understand that. He doesn't act like somebody who knows how to handle situations like this, he's too… Frivolous isn't really the word, but he doesn't seem to be taking this very seriously."

"I don't like the sound of that Agent," Graham spoke with a note of distaste. "Perhaps you can persuade him to see the severity of his situation."

There came a knock at her door, looking out she saw Chuck waiting in the hallway. "I'll see what I can do, but I'm not making any promises on this one Director."

Graham sighed, "Just see what you can do Sarah," he said and hung up. Sarah put her phone away and answered the door.


When Sarah answered the door it practically took his breath away. She had her hair up with two pointed chopsticks, and an outfit that looked great on her. She was taking her phone away from her ear, and reaching for her purse. "I'm ready to go." She said with a smile.

"Apparently your boss, my boss and the National Security Advisor had a little chat," she continued. "Director Graham is not a happy camper, but they've apparently worked out a deal where I'll stick around until they work out how they're going to transfer the data back to the CIA and NSA. I'm also supposed to see if I can make you see the severity of the situation."

"Trust me, I'm well aware of the target painted on my back Sarah. I'm taking it very seriously whether it looks like it or not. The rest sounds good to me. Since the business stuff is all being worked out on our bosses' end we can probably skip the business part of tonight and go right on to the fun part. Sound like a plan to you?"

"Sounds great," she said with another smile, "lead on."

Chuck held out his arm, and Sarah took it with a slight giggle. This caused Chucks head to whip around and stare at her. "Did you just giggle?" he asked.

Sarah turned bright red with a look of horror on her face. "I do not giggle."

"I think that's no longer a true statement Miss Walker," he kidded trying not to laugh as they made their way to the elevator arm in arm.

"If you even think about telling anyone about this remember I know over 200 ways to kill you," now she was smiling too.

"This may be the most dysfunctional flirting in history. You realize that?" commented Chuck as he pushed the elevator call button.

"Probably but normal is probably never going to define anything that happens around us is it?"

Chuck thought for a few seconds. "Maybe, maybe not. Sometimes I wonder if I even know what normal is anymore." The elevator doors opened and they stepped inside and Sarah hit the button for the lobby. "You know what?" he continued. "I don't think it matters. Normal is what you expect so who cares if we have unusual expectations?"

"That was really deep Chuck."

"Thank you I just made that up on the fly. Sounded good though didn't it?"

"Yes it did, let's try that for awhile and see where it goes." Sarah replied.

"Sounds vaguely like a plan." The two exited the elevator and left the building through the lobby. Walking up to Chuck's car he opened and held the door for Sarah to get in. Once she was in he closed the door walked around and got in. "So you do like Mexican right?" he asked as he pulled out of the parking space. "I forgot to ask when we were talking earlier."

"Mexican is fine. I'm not really picky. I'm as happy with pizza and cheeseburgers as I am with steak and lobster." Sarah thought for a second and then made a face. "Actually lobster and I had a bad experience at an embassy dinner once, so probably stay away from the lobster."

"You aren't allergic or anything are you?" He started categorizing the different dishes he'd have to steer her away from if she was allergic to shellfish.

"No… You know the lobster scene in the movie Pretty Woman?" Sarah asked.

"You mean where she tries to crack it open and ends up throwing it across the table?" Chuck asked. He started to wonder where she was going with this.

"Imagine that scene involving gunfire, then imagine having to run out in your underwear because a guard managed to snag your dress and the only way out was to shuck it off."

Chuck's mind ground to a halt thinking about Sarah in her underwear, he barely had enough attention left to continue driving to their destination. He came out of the near stupor before she had to prompt him, but he blushed when the look on her face told him she knew exactly what he had been thinking about. She actually looked a little pleased at the discovery which confused him as well. He decided he better say something before it got awkward.

"Ok, I fail to see how any of this is the lobster's fault."

"It isn't," she replied, "think of it as guilt by association. I can't even think about lobster without reliving that memory, and it wasn't my finest moment. The whole op got blown. Given that my partner is the one that blew the op and led to my failed attempt at a distraction and near capture when he ran out on me I probably should have figured out something was up." She stopped talking as she thought about Bryce and where it all went wrong.

"We're here," Chuck announced as much to break the silence as to let her know. He pulled into a parking place, got out, went around and opened Sarah's door giving her a hand out. They walked half a block to the restaurant, which was both loud and busy, and Chuck gave their names at the desk. As their table was ready they were immediately seated.

After the hostess had walked away Sarah decided to ask the question that had been bothering her since she got this assignment. It also would help her determine what her next step was going to be. She put her menu down and looked at Chuck. "Chuck, can I ask you a question?"

"You mean besides the one you just asked me?" he replied putting down his menu and smiling at her. "Sure, go ahead."

"Jerk," she said with a smile so he could see she wasn't serious. "Why do you think Agent Larkin sent that email to you? The limited briefing I got indicated that he was the last person you'd be willing to help out of a jam or assist him in whatever he was planning. I mean he got you kicked out of Stanford, and slept with your girlfriend after he did it. So why send the data to you?"

"Honestly?" Chuck began, "I have no idea why he would think I would do anything for him. The douchebag burned every bridge he had with me when he did what he did back in 2002. I've gotten past most of it now, but there's no way he could know that, and if he showed up right now, I can't truthfully tell you I wouldn't break his jaw for him so why he would look to me for any help is beyond my knowledge." He thought for a second and his expression changed to a less angry visage.

"I will tell you this much," he said with a conspiratorial tone. "Mostly because it's not really classified. He didn't actually manage to get me kicked out of Stanford, I have my degree not that it really matters to me at this point. I had proof Bryce was the one who planted the tests, and that one of my professors helped him do it. But, I had reasons of my own for needing to disappear, and I already had enough credits to graduate so I made a deal with the University. I wouldn't publicly humiliate one of their tenured professors and one of their star athletes, and I got to leave campus with my degree and an excuse nobody would question. Not really a win/win, but close enough for government work. "

"That wasn't probably the answer you were looking for by the way, but hey I figured you might be interested."

"Wait, you had proof that Bryce framed you and you let him off the hook? Why?" Sarah asked.

"Yeah," Chuck answered. "Some days I wonder if I shouldn't have ended Flemming's career and nailed Bryce, but in the end that never really mattered in the big picture. I'm still pissed about Jill though. Five years later and that still hurts. But for the rest of it? I had bigger worries at the time, and I was trying to exit quietly, so making that big a scene was counterproductive. If I could have done it and slipped away silently I absolutely would have but I couldn't come up with a way to pull it off at the time."

She was curious about him needing a reason to disappear, but figured he wasn't going to tell her right now so she didn't push. She summoned up some courage, and began her own story, she figured it was a fair trade, and the way this relationship was going they were going to have to play scrupulously fair with each other for it to work. 'Wait, relationship?' She shook that realization off and started in again, "I can understand that Chuck, but now in the interest of fair play, I have something I need to tell you, and I really hope you don't hate me for it." Sarah couldn't explain why, but she was actually a bit scared to say what she now felt she needed to say.

"I doubt I could hate you for something you'd be telling me now. We haven't known each other long enough for you to betray me on that kind of level. Go ahead, I'm all ears," he said.

Sarah continued on nervously, "My partner, the one I mentioned in the car, was Bryce Larkin. We were together for two years, and he and I were involved for most of that time."

'Ok, that was unexpected.' Chuck thought as he tried to school the shock off his features. Obviously by the fact Sarah was looking a bit upset he'd failed. "I'm not sure what to say to that honestly. You said you were involved, does that mean you aren't any longer?"

Sarah looked closely at his face trying to read him, she had not expected that response. "We broke up about 6 months ago. We're spies, so obviously we kept secrets, but it became obvious that he was keeping something important from me, like something that could get me as his partner killed. I never figured out what it was, but I started second guessing every move he made and every word he said. When I thought about it I realized I hadn't told him very much about myself either, granted, not stuff that would impact our missions or safety but personal stuff he, as my boyfriend, should have been allowed to know. It occurred to me that maybe subconsciously I didn't trust him at all. From there, it was a bumpy road to first the relationship ending and then our partnership cratering. I've been running solo with an occasional joint op since then. That's probably why when Bryce went off the reservation I didn't end up in a cell somewhere and was instead sent out here to try and get ahead of this thing."

"So no unfinished business or residual feelings for me to worry about then?" Chuck asked her still with a serious look on his face.

"Unless you consider a killing rage at this situation unfinished business no," Sarah replied. 'Where is he going with this?' she wondered.

"Ok then," Chuck said with a smile returning to his face. "I'm really glad you told me Sarah, it means a lot. I know that in your line of work it's hard to bring up that kind of stuff, but I'm honestly glad you told me now and I didn't find out later some other way. Just so you know, It means as much to me that you told me as what you told me. Anything else I need to know? You're not a robot or something are you?"

"No not a robot, unless you count the fact that I'm not funny," Sarah said feeling a small smile starting to show itself in the corners of her mouth.

"Ah, so that's what's wrong with you, because I was wondering," Chuck joked picking his menu back up.

"Oh plenty is wrong with me believe me," replied Sarah copying his movements. "I come with enough baggage to fill the cargo compartment of a 747."

"Actually, I think you're probably selling yourself short Sarah. You seem pretty incredible from where I sit. I doubt you have any more baggage than anyone else, you've just spent more time burying it than most of the rest of the populace." Chuck looked over his menu with a more serious look than his smile of just seconds before. "Tell you what, when we get more comfortable with each other we can put our various valises on the table and maybe help each other with the unpacking. How does that sound?" His smile returned.

"Sounds great Chuck," Sarah responded. "But I doubt I'll be around long enough for us to get to that. Once everything has been handled, I'm sure I'll be off to Borneo to quell a revolution with a fork, or something equally ridiculous."

"And you say you're not funny,"


A/N2: Well hopefully everyone enjoyed the start of the evening. Now the fun can really start. Next chapter, our friend who can make a grunt mean anything joins the party, and we finally see some action. No, not that kind of action, get your mind out of the gutter. (Oh, you mean you hadn't gone there? That was just me? Oh, then my bad, Carry on, nothing to see here.)