Not a Cannibal in Sight

Conversation topics really depend upon how well you know the person. On a first date, though, you're usually starting from scratch...Make sure you keep the conversation light; don't talk too much about yourself, but don't interview your date either.

- The Tartan, Guide to the First Date

He'd had to turn to Morgan for advice on where to eat, as it had been ages since he'd eaten somewhere without either a kid's menu or a laminated one. That had led to a long debate about the merits of Chinese food versus Thai versus Mexican versus Italian. The instant the word "fusion" had broken through the conversation, Chuck had put his foot down: the final choice was Mexican.

"Aren't you worried about bad breath, dude? Don't order anything with beans in it. Just trust me on that one," had been Morgan's advice.

Chuck had pointed out, quite rightly he felt, that it was a first date, and he doubted he was going to get anywhere near any point where bad breath might be a problem. Not with a woman that looked like Sarah. When he was alone and not focused on something else, he found himself searching his memories of the event—which were tinged with a sheer coat of mortification, thanks to his own clumsiness and Vi's precocious ways—to make sure he hadn't been hallucinating just how beautiful Sarah Walker was. He'd convinced himself that her beauty had been an illusion, that she'd had a strange birthmark, or maybe her eyes were uneven, or something.

He'd convinced himself of a lie, he saw now. Sarah was not only as hot as he remembered, but she'd gotten even prettier over the last couple of days. It shouldn't have been possible, but he was fairly sure it had happened.

Even more amazingly, she hadn't excused herself to go to the bathroom and never return, which he had been pretty positive would happen at some point in the evening. The night's still young, the doubting voice inside him pointed out, but he was starting to think maybe it wouldn't happen. After all, she was laughing at his jokes.

"So, yeah," he said, not quite believing his luck. "I live with my sister, and her boyfriend, Captain Awesome. And Vi, of course."

"Wait," Sarah said, holding up a hand to stop him. "Get out, you actually call him Captain Awesome?"

"Everything he does is awesome," Chuck said, faking solemnity. "Skydiving, white-water rafting...flossing. He is...Awesome. But yeah, I don't know, the nickname might not have stuck, but Vi for the life of her could not say Uncle Devon. So, Uncle Awesome he became."

Sarah helped herself to another chip. "And Uncle Awesome is easier to pronounce than Uncle Devon?"

"Not remotely, but Vi seems to have got a double dose of the Bartowski stubbornness." When Sarah tilted her head, inquisitive, he smiled. "She called him Uncle Awesome once, and I thought it was one of the funniest things I'd ever heard. And she likes making people laugh, so she kept trying, though she had a hard time with the letter 'S' for a long time. Usually, she'd get frustrated and just start calling him 'Unka.' But now Uncle Awesome is just a permanent thing."

"That's adorable," Sarah said. "It must be nice for her to have all of you around."

"Some days. More people to catch her when she's up to mischief," Chuck explained, seeing Sarah's eyebrows go up. "But on the other hand, more people to manipulate."

"You make her sound so..."

"Mercenary is the word we usually use." Chuck rested his elbows on the edge of the table, wrapping one hand around the other fist in front of him. He looked across at Sarah over his joined hands. "But I'm joking, mostly. She's sneaky, yes, and she has a way of getting what she wants more than I like sometimes, but she's a great kid."

Sarah took a sip of her water. "She's four, right?"

"She'll be five at the end of next month, yeah." Chuck felt nerves dance in his stomach, and tightened his hand around his fist. He knew what had to come next. Ellie had coached him about it, even. "You're wondering about her mother."

"I'm that obvious?" Sarah's smile seemed to make the nerves dance a little harder and the room seem a little brighter. Later on, Chuck would have to wonder about the incongruity of it all. "I'm a little curious, yes."

"Well, you can rest easy. I'm not out cheating on my wife with you or anything." Chuck attempted a smile.

"I wasn't worried. You don't strike me as the type to pull off his wedding ring to pick up women."

"No, I usually let my four-year-old take care of that for me."

"Hey, when it works, it works." Sarah picked up another chip and began to nibble. She gave him an expectant look.

He let out a sigh despite himself. "I'm not sure where to start."

"I'm told the beginning is as good a place as any."

"Point." Chuck took a deep breath. He wasn't necessarily a private person, as he'd always been friendly and well-liked wherever he went, but that was him. This involved more than him. "Violet is the result of a one-night stand. You'd think that sort of thing only happens in the movies, but trust me, it's real, I assure you."

"So you and her mother..."

"Sophie."

"So you and Sophie never even dated?"

"We tried to make it work for a little while, but we were just too different." To give himself something to focus on, Chuck picked up a chip from the basket, but he didn't eat it. Instead, he swirled it through the leftover rice and beans on his plate. "I'm not usually the kind of guy that has one night stands, but it was a...dark period for me. A guy I thought was a friend claimed I stole some tests at Stanford."

"Did you?"

"No, and I don't know why he would say so, except he did, and they expelled me. And so I went from being a scholarship student with an awesome GPA at Stanford to being some loser who worked at a Buy More and lived with his sister." Chuck didn't look up from the patterns he was drawing in the food with the chip. "My best friend Morgan got sick of me moping around, playing video games all the time, and he dragged me out to a bar. I met Sophie there, we got really drunk, and we hooked up. I honestly don't remember much about it."

"Understandable, if you were drunk."

"Then, yeah, Sophie found me, let me know she was pregnant, and it hit me then: I was going to have a kid. There was going to be somebody other than me depending on me. I couldn't afford to be that loser that works at the Buy More anymore."

"I highly doubt you could ever be considered a loser."

Chuck looked up. He didn't see censure or derision in Sarah's eyes. In fact, she looked almost sympathetic. It eased the tightness of his stomach somewhat, and he managed to grin. "I'd like you to tell me that with a straight face when I'm wearing that ridiculous green and yellow polo shirt."

Sarah leaned forward on her elbows. "I happen to think green's a good color on you." Her eyes flicked down to his shirt, which was patterned with pale green seersucker.

He felt the blush start at his neck. The sudden need to stammer and forget half of the English language only made it worse.

Thankfully, Sarah came to his rescue. "So how'd you go from the Buy More to your own business?"

"I petitioned UCLA to let me finish my degree, since Stanford couldn't prove I'd stolen the tests," Chuck said. "Ellie helped me get a second job, working nights as a janitor at the hospital, and I did nothing but study, work, and sleep until Vi was born. Some days I was too busy to even eat, which you can imagine was not a good look for me since I'm already a beanpole as it is. Then, after graduating, I went to work for Roark Industries for awhile. I made the switch over to working freelance a couple of years ago because I didn't like being away from Vi so much."

"She lives with you?"

"She spends one weekend a month with Sophie," Chuck said, nodding. He caught the brief flicker that crossed Sarah's face, and even though he agreed, he cleared his throat. "You know that show, Crusader Point?"

"I'm sorry, I don't really have time to watch TV."

"Too busy keeping the animals healthy?" Chuck asked.

"What? I mean, oh, yeah. I worked a lot of long hours in DC." Sarah looked down at the table for a second. "But you were saying—Crusader Point?"

"That's Sophie's show. She plays this detective of sorts, who can kind of see the future, I guess? I don't really follow it. Anyway, it keeps her busy, and she doesn't really have much free time." It was a blatant lie, and Chuck knew it, but it hurt to say that his little girl's mother didn't seem to want her. He'd sworn to himself long before Vi that his kids would never have to know the pain he and Ellie had known, growing up with a mother who had walked away and a father who had never really been there. And to have almost the same thing happen to his firstborn, it hurt. "And with me having Ellie and Awesome there, it just makes more sense for Vi to stay with me, you know?"

"But only one weekend a month? That seems a little cold, especially with a kid as great as Violet."

Chuck shrugged, and then froze as a thought occurred to him. "Wait, it's not weird that I have a kid, is it? Like, that's not ruining the date for you or anything?"

"Er, hate to break it to you, but there was pretty strong evidence you had a kid on our first meeting," Sarah said, a smile twisting the corners of her lips up.

"That's not what I meant."

"I know what you meant, I was just teasing. It's not weird at all—this is a casual date, right? It's not like we're," and Sarah paused for just a split-second, but Chuck caught the move, "going to hop a plane to Vegas tonight or anything."

"Drat. Does that mean I have to cancel our reservation? I got you an aisle seat and everything."

"Thoughtful of you."

"But I feel like we're talking about Violet and me a lot," Chuck said. "I'd rather talk about you, I think. Why the move, if you don't mind me asking? D.C. to L.A.'s a pretty big hop."

"Oh." Sarah hurriedly finished swallowing the water she'd been sipping and set the glass down on the table quickly. "Er, well. I just got out of a long relationship."

"Ouch. Was it bad?"

"Really bad. Things blew up. And when I realized that all of my friends were his friends, and everything reminded me of—Bruce, I decided to move. Make a fresh start of it all. It was either here or New York, and I hate being cold."

"Well, may I be the first to say welcome to L.A.?"

"You were. The other day."

"Oh, right." This time, Chuck did smack himself on the forehead. "I forgot about that."

"Don't worry about it. It's such a nice welcome, I was glad to receive it twice." Sarah leaned forward and squeezed his wrist, and Chuck wondered if she could feel his pulse speed up. If she did, she made no comment.

He covered by clearing his throat. "Do you like music?"

"Uh, it depends on the type, I guess."

"Well, what's your favorite band?"

Sarah's smile abruptly went puzzled. "I don't really have one."

"Don't really—don't really have one?" Chuck goggled at her. "Okay, that's it, we've got to get you a favorite band."

"Sounds like a good mission. Where do we start?"

"Normally I'd say the Beatles and work our way up from there, but there's this great band playing a few blocks away, and I was wondering if you wanted to check it out with me?"

# # #

She shouldn't be here. Graham had outright told her so, and Sarah knew it, if she dug too deep into the introspective side of her she didn't really like to use much. The NSA had officially caught onto Chuck's case, and it was supposed to be out of her hands now. She was nothing but the shunned partner of the man who had stolen the Intersect, and the investigation would be passed on through official channels.

If those official channels weren't John Casey, she might have agreed.

She'd heard stories about Casey; he was well-known through both agencies as being cold, relentless, patriotic almost to a fault. If she was an enigma, and a frightening one at that, Casey was as clear cut to the point of almost being unreal. He didn't let his quarry get away. And sometimes, he didn't let his quarry survive.

On the phone before Chuck had arrived to pick her up, she had laid out her very real concerns about this whole situation. She'd circled around the issue that day, going back and forth and arguing with herself, but she just couldn't believe that Chuck was in on it with Bryce. Her instincts told her that he was just an innocent bystander in this somehow, if that was at all possible. She could be wrong, but she didn't think so; her instincts had kept her alive for years in the spy game, so they had to count for something. Even so, she shouldn't be here right now, walking across an overpass with Chuck, on a date with the man.

And on top of that, she shouldn't be enjoying herself.

It felt disloyal to Bryce.

Chuck had parked out in front of the club, but it had been another twenty minutes before the band was due to be on stage, so they'd opted to take a walk. It was a nice night for it, and there wouldn't be much opportunity for conversation once they got into the club itself. She needed to get the conversation back to Bryce Larkin; it had drifted that way twice, but neither opportunity had been ideal to bring up, "So, hey, were you and this guy that got you kicked out of school involved in any government conspiracies? Together? Did you steal millions of dollars of government intel this week?"

She hadn't had many first dates, but even so, she was pretty sure that was the sort of thing you didn't talk about, like bursitis or...gout.

She and Bryce had never had a first date. It had just been missions, then sex, and then conversations that sometimes took the place of sex. Would things be different if they'd followed a more traditional path? Would he have let her in on his plan then? Or would she still be out in the cold, trying to puzzle out exactly where Bryce Larkin, Chuck Bartowski, the Intersect, and even herself fit now?

"Nothing?" Chuck asked, drawing her attention back to him as they walked over the overpass again. "No favorite book? What do you do in your spare time?"

She gave him a helpless look.

He backed off with a laugh. "All right, all right. I just find it kind of strange. No favorite book, no favorite music, no...favorite TV show?"

She shook her head. "Nope. I...I don't have a lot of spare time. My life in DC was all about my job, really. And my, um, boyfriend. I'm sorry, I must be the most boring person you know! Worst date ever, right?"

There was no reply. After a second, she realized Chuck wasn't even beside her anymore, and spun on her heel. Chuck had stopped and was staring out over the roadway below the overpass, looking completely lost in thought. For all of her jokes about being boring, she had never managed to bore anybody into staring off into space before. Was this normal? Did Chuck regularly shut off like an automaton? What was going on?

"Chuck?" she asked, reaching out to touch him.

At the contact, he seemed to jerk back to life. "What? Wha—no, no, this isn't the worst date ever. I've had—I've had much worse dates than this. I mean, this one time in the eleventh grade—"

"You have to go back that far?" Sarah laughed, though she wasn't quite ready to write off the whole encounter. "You really know how to build a girl up there, Chuck."

"If it makes you feel any better, it was a really, really bad date."

"How bad are we talking?"

"Um...multiple restraining orders? Would that bring me back into your good favor?"

"She took out a restraining order against you?"

"Uh, no, but the waiter, the violinist, the people at the next table, and a Russian ice skating champion that just so happened to be passing by right then did. I'm no longer legally allowed to go to any ice shows without a police escort, it's heartbreaking, really."

Sarah was still laughing when they went inside.

There was something off-putting about Chuck, she couldn't help but think when they'd reached the club's basement. He'd gone off to order them drinks, leaning awkwardly against the bar and trying to get the bartender's attention, to no avail. He was off-putting precisely because he made people feel comfortable, she decided. He had a way of seeming entirely wholesome and pure, which was not something she saw much these days, yet he still seemed to fit perfectly into the world at large. She'd already noticed that he had a habit of directing negativity at himself rather than letting others deal with it. The busboy at the restaurant had leered at Sarah rather obviously, which she was used to; Chuck had noticed and had offered to switch seats with her, making up some rambling story about how the light looked like it might be hitting her eyes at a bad angle, and that might be uncomfortable for her, and was she sure she didn't want to switch?

It was frankly downright endearing, she could admit in the part of her that would never surface. This man was too good for her, thief or not.

Sarah, recognizing the trend her thoughts were taking, attempted to head them off at the pass. She shouldn't be thinking about this, not when Bryce Larkin wasn't even cold in his grave yet.

Bryce, who hadn't even bothered to tell her what he was up to.

Bryce, who hadn't seemed to care enough to say good-bye.

Chuck returned with her drink and she made sure her face gave nothing away. The band was already on stage; she hadn't heard enough to call them good, but they were certainly energetic. The dance floor at the base of the stage was already crowded, bodies writhing in the amber wash of the club lights, but Chuck led her to a bench.

Not much of a dancer. It fit with the profile. She sipped her drink. Should she work the conversation around to Bryce somehow? Maybe get Chuck to slip? See if he revealed anything about the Intersect project?

She opted to go another route. "They're good," she called to Chuck over the music, nodding over at the band.

"Good! That's, uh, good..."

She was about to ask him what his favorite band was, but something out of the corner of her eye stopped her. Who would wear a G-man suit in a nightclub?

A G-man.

Or, more specifically, four G-men. Sarah looked around, scoping out the enemy while her blood pumped and the adrenaline began to kick its intoxicating rhythm. John Casey had arrived to extract Chuck, and he'd brought backup. Right now, she and Chuck were nothing but sitting ducks.

Time to change that.

"C'mon!" she said, grabbing Chuck's hand. "Let's dance."