Chuck vs. the Con
Chapter 9 – "Miserable Lie"
CAST (in order of appearance):
Jill Roberts – Jordana Brewster
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi
John Casey – Adam Baldwin
Rowan Montgomery – John Larroquette
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski
Deborah Goldman – Bar Refaeli
Yoshiro Matsuki – James Kyson Lee
Burbank, California
July 2003
Chuck Bartowski slowly walked down Magnolia Boulevard away from the post office. Old Town Burbank was really quite nice at this time of year, if you were paying attention – which Chuck Bartowski was not.
He trudged westward down the street, under the shade of the canopy of magnolia trees, back toward the bus stop at the Hollywood Way intersection. His visits to the post office had become a bit of a concern for the people who knew him, because every time, he took with him a picture of him and Jill. Those pictures always had a postcard stamp on the back, and they were always addressed to her at Stanford, except for this last one, which was addressed to her parents' house in Seattle.
This was probably the twentieth time he had done this since Jill had dumped him, and never once had he heard anything back from her. Nonetheless, he had continued to do it, even after having his Herder privileges suspended by Big Mike and having to resort to the Metro to get to and from the post office.
Each time, he swore it would be the last time, but this time, he had decided that it truly would be. When even Morgan was telling him that it was time to move on, then perhaps it indeed was.
Chuck slipped the earbuds for his iPod into his ears. Looking down at the music player, he scrolled through the artist list until he reached the Smiths. Pressing the play button, he let the music carry him away.
"There's something against us… it's not time… it's not time… so goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye."
Palo Alto, California
One Week Till Thanksgiving
The look on Jill Roberts' face could almost be described as comical, such was her shock at seeing Chuck Bartowski. "Chuck?" she asked quietly, almost as if she didn't believe the sight of the man standing in front of her.
A small smile broke onto Chuck's face. "Long time, no see, huh?"
Setting her messenger bag down on the table at the front of the lecture hall, Jill approached him slowly. "What – what are you doing here?"
Chuck sighed. "Well, in part, because I suck at biochem," he replied, "and in part, because of something that you're really going to need to be sitting down, with a drink in your hand, for me to go over with you."
Jill raised an eyebrow. "What exactly could be that serious?"
Chuck looked at the ceiling and braced himself. "Well, Jill… I don't even know where to start…"
"The beginning would be a good place," Jill replied dryly.
"Alright," Chuck said, his gaze coming down and locking with Jill's. "You see, Jill… it turns out… I'm pregnant, and the child is yours."
Chuck's voice sounded so serious, and his face looked so sincere, that it took a moment for the words to register with Jill, but when they did, she started laughing. It didn't take long for Chuck to join in.
"Wow," Jill finally said, removing her glasses to wipe her eyes. "Oh my goodness… I have to admit, I have really missed your sense of humor."
"It is one of a kind," Chuck replied with a smile. "But seriously. What I really need to talk to you about –"
"Oh, shit," Jill interrupted him. "I've got to be at my next class in five minutes. Walk with me."
"O-okay," Chuck complied. Jill swept out of the classroom, messenger bag over her shoulder, Chuck in her wake.
"So," Jill said as she walked, "what is so important that you think I need to be sitting down with a drink in hand?"
Chuck shook his head. "I can't talk about it here," he replied. "Just suffice it to say – it's gonna be necessary."
Jill stopped and looked at him, a half-amused look on her face. "Just when did you get so secretive, Chuck Bartowski?"
The smile melted from Chuck's face. "You have no idea," he replied softly.
Slightly confused, Jill resumed walking. "Okay," she said. "Well, I guess this must really be important."
They entered another building, and Jill stopped in front of a classroom door. "This is my class," she told Chuck. "I tell you what. Meet me tonight at Lavanda Wine Bar – it's just a couple of blocks off campus. Do you remember where it is?"
Chuck raised an eyebrow. "Jill, do you honestly think I frequented wine bars when I was here as a student?"
An amused smile reappeared on Jill's face. "I suppose not," she said. "185 University. 7:00 PM. Don't be late."
With that, she pushed open the door to the classroom, but before Chuck could turn to go, Jill stood on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. "It's good to see you again, Chuck," she said softly, as her class broke into a spontaneous round of applause.
Chuck turned bright red, and it wasn't until the door swung shut, with Jill on the other side, that he was able to move. He turned away from the door –
To find John Casey and Rowan Montgomery just inside the door to the building, waiting for him. "Not bad, Romeo," Casey snarked.
Montgomery, on the other hand, looked impressed. "Charles, I don't understand how you do it," he said. "You're a total nerd, not exactly the ladies' type – no offense – and yet, not only do you have Agent Walker under your thumb, but it appears that Doctor Roberts there wouldn't mind another taste of the Intersect."
Casey's head whipped around. "How 'bout you can it with the Intersect business, Montgomery," he growled. "This place is crawling with potential CIA, and for all we know, Fulcrum."
Montgomery rolled his eyes. "There's no danger, and you know it, Casey," he shot back. "I'm just complimenting the boy on his seemingly effortless, and likely clueless, lady-killing skills."
"Alright," Casey acquiesced. "I'll give you that."
Frazier Park, California
Casey was going to be pissed.
Sarah slowly horsed the old Crown Victoria into the parking lot of the Flying J truckstop just off the I-5 freeway. Steam poured from under its hood, the thermostat reading dangerously close to critical.
Switching the engine off, Sarah turned the ignition switch to accessories and turned the fan on full blast, trying to suck some of the heat off of the engine. She looked over at Mott Matsuki. "Any thoughts?"
He shook his head. "I do guns, not engines," he replied. "Sorry."
"I'll take a look," Deborah Goldman said. "I grew up near a kibbutz, and I'm somewhat familiar with the workings of an engine – although I know diesels better."
Couldn't hurt, Sarah thought. Reaching down under the dashboard, she grabbed the hood release and pulled. The hood cracked open, and a great cloud of steam billowed out from underneath. Deborah pulled the hood the rest of the way open, and waved the remaining steam away. "Well, HERE's your problem!" she shouted.
Sarah got out of the car and walked around to the front end. "Engine coolant intake hose popped off the radiator," Deborah said to Sarah, pointing. Sure enough, a hose had come off the radiator, and green liquid was dripping out its open end.
"Any ideas?" Sarah asked. Cars were not HER thing, either.
"Oh, this is simple," Deborah replied. "Thermostat's bad. Didn't open when it was supposed to, the coolant backflow built up too much pressure, and the hose blew off. Simple enough to replace."
"Really," Sarah deadpanned. "Are you telling me you didn't hear the dueling banjos as we got off the freeway?"
Deborah rolled her eyes. "Agent Walker, this is a truckstop. There are bound to be at least two, maybe more, auto supply shops within five minutes' walk. It's just the way things are."
"Okay," Sarah replied, as Deborah headed for the convenience store. Pulling out her phone, she dialed John Casey. Three rings later – "Casey, secure."
"Walker, secure," Sarah replied. "Hey, listen, your car's a piece of crap."
There was silence on the other end for a moment. "I beg your pardon?!"
Sarah grinned. "It blew a radiator hose coming up the Grapevine," she replied. "Bad thermostat, apparently."
Casey was silent again. Finally, he said, "And exactly why are you driving my car?"
"Because a Mossad agent, a former Yakuza bodyguard, and I won't all fit in my Porsche," she replied. "Besides, you left the Crown Vic in Palm Desert, and I needed wheels."
"Oookay," Casey said slowly. "So, why are you driving north on the 5? I mean, aside from the obvious, that you know where we are. You're not thinking about causing trouble, are you?"
Sarah was taken aback. Was she thinking of causing trouble? She had always sort of envisioned meeting Jill, and the piece of her mind that she would give the woman who broke Chuck's heart when she did so. Apparently, her silence led Casey to draw the conclusion that trouble lay in the immediate future, because he said, "Walker, he is JUST recruiting her. He is not playing hide the Intersect with her."
Sarah rolled her eyes. "Well, thank you for that reassuring piece of intel, Casey," she replied. "However, I would like to personally observe my asset when he attempts to recruit somebody."
Casey chuckled. "Yeah, I bet you WOULD like to personally observe your asset."
Sarah sighed and hung up the phone, just as Deborah came out of the store, a triumphant grin on her face. "Carquest supplier, right across the street!" she chirped.
Sarah shook her head as she turned to follow the far-too-perky Mossad agent. "I'm gonna kill my sisters," she muttered.
Lavanda Wine Bar
Palo Alto, California
Chuck walked into the wine bar at 6:59 PM and looked around. He quickly spotted Jill waving to him, and headed in her direction.
"Hi, Chuck!" she said happily as he walked up to her table. Chuck cocked his head at the sound of her voice, and then noticed the half-empty bottle of cabernet sauvignon on the table.
"I guess you got started without me, huh?" he asked with a grin.
Jill shrugged. "Well, you said I needed to be sitting down, and that I should have a drink in my hand, so I figured it couldn't help to be well prepared when you got here."
"Fair enough," Chuck replied, sitting down across the table from Jill. "So, the reason I needed to talk to you –"
Jill held up a hand, interrupting him. "Wait a second," she said. "Before you get started, there's something I wanted to show you."
Confused, Chuck stopped. Jill lifted her purse up onto the table and opened it, digging around for a moment, and finally pulling out an envelope, which she set on the table in front of Chuck. "Open it," she told him.
Chuck picked up the envelope and opened it – and nearly dropped it when he saw what was inside. "Oh my God," he whispered. "You kept them."
"Yes I did," Jill replied, taking a drink from her wineglass. "All twenty of them. Every single one."
Chuck smiled and shook his head. "I figured you would've burned them," he said, setting the postmarked pictures of him and Jill back down on the table.
"Nah," Jill said. "I mean, maybe we didn't end under the best of circumstances –"
"Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun ended under better circumstances," Chuck muttered, drawing a dirty look from Jill.
"Seriously," she said. "I still missed you, though. You had been part of my life for so long, and you were suddenly gone – I must've read each one a hundred times. I was even able to figure out what music you were listening to when you wrote each one."
Chuck scoffed. "Oh, come on."
"No, really!" Jill insisted. "This one," she said, picking up a picture of her and Chuck at, of all places, Bryce Canyon National Park, "you were listening to U2. 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For'."
The fact of the matter was that Chuck remembered exactly what song he had been listening to when he wrote each one, and Jill was exactly correct. "That's right," he confirmed.
"And this one, I'm thinking Metallica," Jill continued, picking up one of the two of them overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. "Specifically, 'Nothing Else Matters'." She gave Chuck a concerned look. "You were really depressed, weren't you?"
Chuck nodded. "That's putting it gently," he said.
She picked up the last one he had sent. "The Smiths, 'Miserable Lie'," she continued. "Right?"
"Oh yeah," Chuck said. "That one was a real fun one."
Jill was quiet for a moment. "I'm sorry," she said, looking down at the table. "I really never wanted to hurt you."
Chuck shrugged. "You know, time helps heal a lot," he replied. "It has been five and a half years."
Jill looked back up at him. "So… do you forgive me?"
"Absolutely," Chuck replied with a smile.
A smile reappeared on Jill's face. "Oh, good," she said. "So… what was it that you needed to talk to me about?"
"Well," Chuck said, "here's the thing. You see, I'm, uh, working for a, uh, government agency now, and we need the help of a –"
His voice cut off as the door opened. "Oh, crap," he uttered. Suddenly he found himself with a bizarre desire for an invisibility cloak.
"Chuck?" Jill asked, concern in her voice. "What is it?"
Chuck just sighed and braced himself for what he knew was about to come. "Hello, Chuck," Sarah Walker said as she walked up to the table.
Jill looked from Chuck to Sarah and back to Chuck. "Chuck, who is this?"
Chuck gritted his teeth and sighed. "Jill, this is Sarah Walker, my… girlfriend. Sarah, this is Doctor Jill Roberts, my ex-girlfriend."
At the word girlfriend, Jill's eyes snapped upward toward Sarah, as she went into what Casey would have called "threat assessment mode". Sarah acted almost exactly the same way. Chuck fought a distinct urge to beat his head against the table as the two women sized each other up.
"Well," Jill finally said, her voice wooden, "I can see when I'm a third wheel." Sweeping the pile of pictures into her purse, she stood up from the table and stalked off.
"Jill!" Chuck called, standing up quickly. "Wait, I can explain!"
The only response he got from Jill was her right hand going up in the air, its middle finger extended stiffly upward. Chuck sighed and sank back down into his chair, as Sarah sat down where Jill had been sitting.
"Well," she said, "that looked like fun." She looked at Chuck and smiled. "Did you get her?"
Chuck gave Sarah a look of death. "I was just about to tell her about the mission when you made your grand entrance," he snapped. "Thank you so much."
Then, another painful moment of realization hit Chuck, and he groaned in despair. Slowly, his head sank down until his forehead touched the table. "She left me with the tab."
