A/N: Well, here is part two as promised. I found out that it's not as easy as I thought to write a fight scene, so I apologize before hand if it doesn't seem overly realistic. Also, I tried to do a little research on Muscle beach but I'm not sure if I got everything correctly when describing it in the story. Well hope you enjoy this chapter and you'll be glad to know that each chapter after this one has started to grow in size. I guess that will be good if you are liking the story. Just a reminder, I don't own Chuck.
Sarah's morning started out just like the past couple of mornings, parked up the road from Chuck's apartment with coffee in hand and chocolate croissants in the seat beside her. Just like the previous mornings she watched as Devon and Chuck came out, did their stretching routine and then took off on their run. Usually after they would return, Chuck would come out around thirty minutes later dressed in his Nerd Herd uniform and head off to work. Today, Chuck came out about fifteen minutes later and he was wearing a grey pull over hoodie along with grey sweat pants and sneakers. He got into his mustang and drove off in the same direction Sarah was parked. She ducked down as he drove by and was positive that he didn't see her. Sarah started the car and followed him at a safe distance. After driving for close to thirty miles, she noticed that they had arrived in Venice Beach.
Sarah parked and watched as Chuck got out of his car and walked towards a fenced in area on the beach. When she looked at the area she noticed several large men in various stages of working out. A couple of the men were quite large but the rest looked to be much smaller but still in decent shape. Sarah had heard of this place when she was at the farm. During workout sessions in the gym, she had overheard some of the male agents talking about Muscle Beach and figured this had to be the place. She could see that there was weightlifting equipment scattered all along the fenced in area and several of the men were working out while the others would stop and flex whatever specific muscle they had just worked out. Most of the men had shorts and a string styled tanks top on or no shirt at all.
Chuck looked out of place wearing his hoodie and sweat pants as he entered the fenced in area. As soon as he walked in, several of the larger men came over and smiled as they shook hands and gave bro hugs to each other. Sarah watched as Chuck again went through some sort of stretching regimen and slowly walked over to what she knew to be a bench press. She watched as he put a single large plate on each side and then laid back and lowered the weight down to his chest, he paused for a second and then pushed the weight back up. He repeated the same motion several times and then got up and added another large plate to each side of the bar and then laid back and repeated the same process as before. This went on until he had four large plates on each side of the bar. Sarah wasn't sure how much weight that was, but she new it was heavy. This time when Chuck laid back, one of the other large men stood up by his head and spotted Chuck as he proceeded to press the weight several times. The large man helped Chuck get the weight back into the holders on the bench and then gave Chuck a high five when he sat up.
Sarah just watched in her car as Chuck went from one exercise to the next. She was not prepared for what happened next. She could see the other two large guys talking to Chuck and she could see Chuck shaking his head as the conversation took place. Then all of a sudden, she watched him laugh and appear to finally agree with the other men as he slowly reached down and started to pull his hoodie off. Sarah's hand went flying to the A/C switch and she turned it on to max. This was definitely a max air conditioning moment. The sight before made Sarah speechless, Chuck was built like a god. The other two guys were big, but Chuck was huge. His skin was soaked with sweat and between that and the dark tan he had, Sarah could see every cut and shape of his muscles. Holy crap, is the air even working, Sarah thought. All she could think about was what it would feel like to run her hands all over Chuck's body. Here was Chuck half naked on the beach and her cold shower was thirty miles away. Life just sucked at this moment she thought. Sarah came to one conclusion, when she finally got her hands on Chuck, she would explore every inch of his body and she felt sorry for anyone that tried to interrupt or stop her.
The next thing that happened answered Sarah's question about whether or not Chuck had changed or not. She watched as a young girl and boy about eight or nine walked up to the fence and was looking directly at Chuck. She could see that Chuck had seen the children and walked over to where they were standing. You could see the children's excitement as Chuck drew closer and they both had huge smiles on their faces as Chuck jumped over the fence and knelt down beside them. They kept touching his arms and chest and the little boy kept flexing his arms in a manner that made Sarah giggle. She was so taken by the scene in front of her that she didn't notice the very pretty petite brunette standing just off the left of the children. When she took in the view of the woman, she was almost certain that the children belonged to her, but that didn't take away from the fact that the woman looked like a tigress ready for her next meal. Chuck continued to talk with the children and did his best not to give the young mother an opportunity to flirt. This was her Chuck, who would go out his way to interact with the children and yet not let himself get into a situation where he would have to turn down the mother and hurt her feelings. Sarah thought for a moment and came to a conclusion that she had always known; Chuck Bartowski was one of a kind.
After leaving the beach and several cold showers later, Sarah was just killing time until she met up with Casey at Castle. She looked over her list and noticed that there wasn't a whole lot left to accomplish before the time came that she would confront Chuck with her return. The thought sent shivers down her spine, just thinking that Chuck could tell her that there was no place in his life for her or that he was glad she was back and he was willing to make a real effort to have a relationship with her. Either way she was not leaving until one or the other happened and to be honest, she was prepared to fight tooth and nail for him.
Sarah pulled up to the Orange Orange before five and noticed Casey getting out of his Crown Vic. As she walked up to him he looked at her and asked "You ready to see the kid in action?" "As ready as I'll ever be." she responded. As they walked through the Orange Orange Casey told her that the store was manned by new agents just out of the farm. They proceeded down to Castle and Casey set her up in a back office that had never really been used. When they entered she noticed several monitors along with a small switchboard that would allow her to switch the monitors to different cameras around Castle. Casey told her to stay in the room until he came for her, that way Chuck would not know she was there.
Just before five Sarah could see Chuck coming down the stairs into Castle. Chuck disappeared into the locker rooms and several minutes later he reappeared in the dojo wearing shorts and a t-shirt. She watched as Casey walked to a rack which held fighting staffs. She watched as he threw one of the staffs to Chuck. Chuck caught the staff and started twirling it around his body faster then Sarah had ever seen before. When he stopped the twirling, the staff was out in front of him, ready to either strike or defend. Casey brought his staff out in front of him and leaped in the direction of Chuck. As he approached Chuck, Casey brought the staff low into a sweeping left to right motion at his lower legs. Chuck jumped avoiding Casey's staff and while in the air he brought his staff down onto the left side of Casey's left neck and shoulder. The force of the blow caught Casey by surprise and he tried to recover as Chuck spun the staff around and caught the back of Casey's left foot. As he swept the foot, Chuck reached out and struck Casey in the chest with his left hand which knocked Casey down onto his back. Chuck spun the staff around his back and as Casey's back hit the floor, he brought the end of the staff to Casey's neck. What the hell just happened, Sarah thought? That was just amazing. She knew that Casey was no push over and yet Chuck had just made him look like an amateur.
Sarah watched the monitor as Chuck and Casey put their staffs away and put on head gear and padded gloves. She had to admit, that even in the monitors, Chuck's size was quite impressive. As large as Casey was, he paled in comparison to the new Chuck. Once they had all their protective gear on, they both bounced around as they sized each other up. She watched as Casey started the attack by sending in a couple of left jabs and a right hook which never made contact with there intended target as Chuck had easily blocked or avoided each punch. She watched as they both circled the mat and carefully eyed each other, looking for an opportunity to strike. Casey again was the aggressor and feigned a left jab and then went in low in the area of Chucks waist. Chuck immediately jumped to his right side and used his left arm to push Casey to the side while bringing his right fist to the side of Casey's head. The strike from Chuck made Casey stumble to the side but he quickly recovered and dropped low and tried to sweep both of Chuck's legs. Chuck had already started to counter the move as Casey was implementing the strike and jumped back out of the reach of Casey's leg. Before Casey could recover, Chuck had moved in close enough to knee Casey in the side of his head and then followed it up with two quick jabs to Casey's chin. Chuck wasn't going to wait for Casey to recover and struck hard and fast with a combination of left and right punches to Casey's midsection and head. Casey was having trouble blocking the punches because Chuck was hitting with such power and speed that Casey was worn down in a matter of seconds. Chuck caught Casey with an upper cut and that was all she wrote. Casey fell back on his ass and laid back to tap the mat three times. He didn't feel the need to keep getting his ass kicked just to show Walker how good Chuck had become. Sarah couldn't even find words to describe what she just saw. Chuck really was trained like an agent, in fact he was better then any agent she had ever seen. She watched as Chuck went over to help Casey and could see that Casey just waved Chuck off and continued to lay on the mat. She watched Chuck turn and head towards the locker room.
After about fifteen minutes , she could see Chuck on the monitor heading up the stairs and was leaving Castle.
A short time later, the door to the office opened and a tired looking and slightly bruised Casey stood in the doorway. "Do you believe me now Walker? I told you that Chuck was quite accomplished at hand to hand combat. In fact if you need any more proof, you can spar with him. I'm getting too old for this shit." Sarah looked at Casey with a look of shock, "How did he get so good Casey? I've seen agents that have years of experience and they don't even come close to what I just saw in that room." Casey sat in a chair across from Sarah, he reached up and rubbed his face. "Walker, all I can tell you is Chuck trained like a mad man and between that and all the weight training he did, well hell, you seen the results of it on that monitor. He never whined or complained once the whole time I trained him. You can take my word for it when I tell you that he is a very good shot with most of the weapons we have here at Castle and is at least as good as you with the throwing knives."
"What about the intersect Casey? I'm assuming he's received updates during the past two and a half years."
"Yes he has, but he refused the updates that would have given him the skills to fight and shoot without actually learning them. He took the updates that would allow him to speak several languages and other abilities like dancing and medical knowledge. He told Beckman that he wanted to learn the rest on his own."
Casey stood up very slowly and looked over to Sarah. "Don't hurt the kid Walker, I really don't want to be the one who has to pick up the pieces again after you've left again."
"I told you Casey, I'm not going anywhere and I will not hurt Chuck ever again! If everything goes the way I want it to, I hope to put in a request to Beckman to be reassigned to Team Bartowski." Casey grunted and stared at her intently, "What about Larkin?"
She looked at Casey with just as must intensity as he looked at her. "Bryce will do just fine without me. My place is with Chuck, it always has been." "Well Walker, I hope everything works out because you were one of the best partners I've ever had and I would be honored to have you back on the team. I pity the the poor Fulcrum assholes that may have to deal with this team if you do return. Unstoppable, that's all I have to say."
Sarah and Casey both walked out of Castle and went to their separate vehicles. "Hey Casey," "Yeah Walker", "Thanks for tonight, I really do appreciate it." Casey opened the door to the Crown Vic and looked over to Sarah, "Don't mention it. No, really don't mention it. I've had enough of your lady feeling in the past two days to last me for awhile." Sarah smiled as she got into her vehicle and headed to her hotel. She had to admit that this had definitely been an eye opening day to say the least.