A/N the First: Happy April Fool's Day! I don't really believe in playing pranks when people expect me to, so this is just a regular chapter, I promise. No jokes here. Well, okay, maybe one joke. What do you call a tuba player's dirty joke? A euphoniuism! Hope you enjoy this chapter. Just this one and the end. Thanks to mxpw for answering all of the weird questions I send him on Twitter and to everybody that reviewed, and all of the remarkably patient people that are still reading along. You guys are swell.
PS - if you follow me on Tumblr, you've seen part of this chapter, but read on. I changed the ending to the scene and it's important.
Recovery
It was indeed possible to go stir-crazy when you'd been handed everything you wanted, Sarah found. She was away from the surveillance cameras, Casey didn't really care about her relations with Chuck (though complaining had gone up four hundred percent), and they had a week to do nothing but relax and enjoy the snow together. Sure, things had been a little tense, as Ellie had been less than pleased that they hadn't warned her of Sophie's arrival in Tahoe, but it had blown over in a storm of bad jokes and shared hot chocolate. So really, everything had calmed down, she and Chuck had found a way to make plenty of alone time, and she had pretty much everything she'd been daydreaming about for months.
And she was going a little nuts.
"Anything?" she asked as she poked her head into the room Casey and Morgan were being forced to share for the week. The latter had disappeared off to the Buy More again, which Sarah couldn't help but be grateful for. She found that Morgan was really best tolerated in small doses and those doses needed to be heavily tempered with Violet.
Casey, hunched over the little kid-sized desk in the corner, glared. "Walker, did you hear any shouts of 'Eureka' or 'Huzzah?'"
"No," Sarah said. "I wouldn't even if you had found something because Chuck isn't in here and nobody says that, anyway. I'm asking for a status update and communicating with real, adult words."
Casey dragged one hand down his face. "Nothing," he said. "News hasn't leaked that Sophie Marston has a kid, the agents watching Kresnick have seen no signs that the very exhaustive line of drugs we forced into him are failing, and there is literally no trace of our mysterious hacker. Satisfied?"
"It's weird, Casey."
"Why do you think I'm in this useless command center and not out on the slopes?"
"I know whoever did it is helping us out, but I don't like having an ally I can't trust." Sarah folded her arms over her chest.
"Get in line, Walker," Casey said. He tapped his index finger against the scratched surface of the desk a couple of times in agitation. "Are we sure it's not Chuck doing this?"
"What?"
"The nerd has the skills. They wouldn't let him look at Intersect code if he didn't." Casey swiveled to face her. He had his shoulders hunched almost to his ears, his arms crossed uncomfortably over his chest. "How sure are we that he's not lying to us?"
Sarah narrowed her eyes. It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that she could read Chuck's body language very well, thank you very much, and he had been just as puzzled by the deleted pictures as the rest of them. But Casey expected that reaction. He sought the hotheaded denial, another test of his to see if he should sanction the relationship.
Sarah forced that answer down. "Why would he?" she asked.
"Profit? If it's him, he's created a facial recognition software that doesn't give a damn about any security firewalls set up. I wouldn't be in a hurry to hand that over to the government agency currently exploiting me, either."
"If it were somebody else, I'd agree. But Chuck?"
"It's a stretch. But can you think of anybody else?"
"What about Bryce?"
"He claimed not to know Chuck had a kid. I mean, he's a good liar—"
"Not that good," Sarah said, shaking her head. "Casey, it's not Chuck."
Her partner sighed. "You're right. This guy, whoever it is, he is good. Even Bartowski's not on that level."
"Don't tell him that, he'll sulk. Anything further from the bosses?"
"As far as I can tell, they've decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and given how specific this hacker's target is, they don't want to assign extra people to it. They're worried research will tip off any analysts that we have an asset living on US soil."
"So…we deal with it in-house?"
Casey typed in a couple of commands, shutting down the computer. "We deal with it when we get back to Burbank. Renovations on our houses are done, we'll have more resources. Until then? We're stuck in this cabin."
"Nope." Sarah clapped him on the shoulder. "I'm stuck in this cabin. You're hitting the slopes."
"What?"
"Threat is minimal right now. You go get some slope time in, I'll stay with Chuck and Violet. Try not to crash into a tree. The family pictures none of us can avoid are tomorrow."
Casey snorted as they clattered down the stairs together. "Please, like I'd ever hit a tree."
"You fear Ellie Bartowski too much," Sarah said, clapping him on the shoulder again and breaking off before he could disagree.
Downstairs, she found her boyfriend and his daughter sacked out in front of the couch, their eyes glued to the TV screen. Chuck's gaze looked a little glassy—her fault, she'd kept him up late—but Violet stared in absolute intrigue at the episode of Dora the Explorer playing. Sarah glanced at the window and thought about her restlessness. "Are we going to stay inside all day?"
Immediately, Violet twisted around. "Are we gonna build another snowman?"
"We've got so many snowmen surrounding this cabin, Calvin and Hobbes are jealous," Chuck said. "But yeah, we've watched enough TV for a while, Megabyte. Even though it's vacation, and it's our god given right to lay around like the lazy slobs we are."
"Amen," Violet said solemnly.
Chuck twisted to grin at Sarah. "I taught her that," he said, hooking an arm around Violet as he climbed to his feet. "All by myself. We worked that whole routine. Next up, we're going to tackle Who's On First? We'll be famous."
"Famous," Violet echoed, nodding.
"Well, in the meantime, why don't we go outside and play?" Sarah said.
"I've got an idea for something we can do. You get the kid trussed up, I'll see if I can find it."
With Ellie and Devon on the slopes and Morgan gone, it was down to four pairs of boots and all of their outerwear in the mudroom. "You'd better get ready for this because this is going to knock your socks off," Chuck said, burying himself in the cabinet.
Violet's eyes went round as Sarah helped her into her jacket. "Then what's going to keep my feet warm if my socks are gone?"
"Guess you'll just have cold feet."
"Uncle Morgan says that's how people get sick."
"It's fine, we've got lots of chicken soup." Chuck leaned back a little to shoot Sarah a grin. He knew exactly what he was doing.
Indeed, Violet's eyes widened in pure scandal. "Do you want me to get sick, Daddy?"
"'Course not."
"Then we can't let it blow my socks off."
"Unfortunately, Megabyte, that's just the price you pay for a good—ah, here it is." Chuck emerged, clutching what looked like a bright purple trash can lid. It was made of smooth plastic. "That's just the price you pay for a good tobogganing. We'll have a memorial for all of our lost socks later and eat chicken soup."
"But I like my socks. They have ig—ig—'gwanas on them."
"Iguanas," Sarah said, politely hiding her smile. She pushed the little cap with its panda bear ears on Violet's head and moved over to grab her own gear. "And your dad's talking in metaphors again. We're not really going to lose our socks."
"What does that even mean?"
"It means it's going to be awesome," Chuck said, pulling on his jacket. "All ready to go?"
"Yup!" Violet wrapped herself around Sarah's forearm once she'd pulled on her own parka. They tromped through the high snow, Sir snuffling along behind them. The cabin that they'd rented for the week sat atop a little hill, a knoll really, with one area off of the back porch that looked like it would make for good sledding, as it was bare of any trees. Violet's face abruptly took a turn for the cautious. "Is this going to be scary?"
"You'll have your dad with you, won't you?" Sarah asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, yeah, but…"
"If you're about to impugn my masculinity, I can take this back inside," Chuck said.
"I don't even know what that means!"
"Uh-huh. Guess I'm paying too much for that SAT class you're taking."
"What's a SAT?" Violet said.
"It's okay, Violet. This will be fun," Sarah said.
"Have you been to-bogging before?"
"Lots of times."
They reached the top of the hill and Sarah eyed the slope. For an experienced skier, it was no more than a little bump. Chuck shot her a grin as he settled on the toboggan, folding up his long legs in a comical way to fit onto the plastic lid. "Are you ready, Megabyte?"
Violet gripped Sarah's arm tighter.
"Don't worry," Chuck said, smiling. "I'll be with you the whole way."
"Promise?"
"Would I lie to you?"
"Well, if that's the case, we're going to go super-fast," Violet said with a decisive nod, and she let Sarah go to climb on Chuck's lap.
"How about a push?" Chuck asked Sarah. Sir studied his humans with his head cocked, wondering what sort of strange event was about to take place.
"Oh, fine, if you insist." She crouched and, eyeing the tree line, pushed hard on his lower back, sending the toboggan and the Bartowskis over the side of the hill. Violet let out an ear-splitting scream that was pure joy as the zoomed down the hill, Chuck's laughter trailing behind. Sir barked and gave chase, his tail wagging as he crashed down the hill. They skidded into the snow at the bottom, Chuck sliding on his back to keep Violet from falling over. Sarah nearly winced—she'd seen the snow—go up the back of Chuck's jacket, but duo was red-cheeked and grinning as they tromped back up the hill.
"Again!" Violet insisted.
"You wanna go?" Chuck asked, offering up the toboggan.
And get snow up the back of her jacket? Not likely. "You looked like you were having so much fun," Sarah said, and he wrinkled his nose at her. But gamely, he went down the hill again and sent Violet back alone.
"Daddy says I can go by myself this time, and he'll catch me. Can you give me a push?"
Since Chuck gave them a thumbs-up from the bottom of the hill, Sarah gave the girl a tiny push over the side. Sir chased after her in sheer delight.
This went on for a few minutes. Violet raced up the side of the hill, kicking snow around in her tiny purple boots and giggling, breathlessly requesting to go again and again. Sarah played along, giving her the requested push (or holding onto the toboggan over the side of the hill and making Violet giggle), until finally Chuck came back up the hill with his daughter.
"Your turn," he told Sarah, holding out the toboggan.
She raised an eyebrow that had him turning a shade of red that had nothing to do with the cold. "Gonna go with me?"
He sat down on the toboggan so fast that she was surprised he didn't fall over in the process. She laughed. "Stay here, we're gonna go once," she said to Violet, who was busy hugging the snow-encrusted Sir (who tolerated it with the same amount of love he did for everything involving his Violet).
To the dog, she said, "Stay." The last thing she wanted was for the dog to drag Violet down the hill in his enthusiasm to chase after the sled. Sir gave her a Would I Do That? look like he could read her thoughts. She had no doubt the innocence was faked, but she climbed onto the toboggan with Chuck.
They were both so tall that it was a tight fit and she was basically in his lap. He wrapped his arms around her and said, "Ready?"
She grinned. "I guess so."
"Hey, Megabyte, give us a push, would you?"
Sarah timed it so that when Violet pushed against Chuck as hard as she could, Sarah dug her heels in, pulling the toboggan forward. Her stomach pitched in excitement as they went over the edge together, the plastic sled zooming over the top of the snow.
Or at least it did for a few feet. Unfortunately, Chuck's height got in the way: his boot caught the edge of a rock, spinning the toboggan so that the snow and trees blurred together. She heard a shout and a woof right before they tipped sideways, rolling hard into the snow. Cold leaked everywhere: under her collar, down the back of her jeans, into the tops of her boots.
"Ugh," she said, and Chuck groaned.
"Chuck?"
He didn't reply, other than to curl inward like a shrimp. He'd landed face-first a few feet away, facing the opposite direction. In a trice, Sarah was across the snow, tugging at his shoulder. "Chuck?" she asked, panic making her heart pound. "Chuck? Are you okay?"
"Ngh," he said, very eloquently. Sarah finally got him to roll over. Her vision telescoped at the sight of the red on the snow. "Ow."
"Chuck!" She grabbed the hand that was covering his face, pulling it back. The sight of the blood around his right eye made her wince, but she also started breathing. It looked like it was just a cut and it had missed his temple and his eye both. "Wow. What'd you hit?"
"I think it was a moon."
She spotted the rock sticking out of the snow. "That's no moon."
"Daddy?" Violet called, and Sarah turned to see both the dog and girl moving down the hill.
"Stay there!" Chuck called and Violet pulled up sharply, her lip wobbling. "It's okay, but stay there. We'll be up in a minute."
"Hold still, let me get a look," Sarah said, tipping her finger under Chuck's chin so that she could angle his head better. The cut on his forehead was bleeding like a stuck pig, but she was more concerned about how hard he'd hit the rock. She prodded the area gently, wincing as he hissed out a pained breath. "I think you're going to need stitches."
Chuck groaned. "Of course I am."
"There's an Urgent Care not far," Sarah said. C'mon, let's pack some snow on it for now."
"No, ma'am," Sarah said into the phone as Violet squinted and lined up her shot. "As far as I can tell, there wasn't any head trauma. His pupils were dilating normally, but of course the doctor's going to know more about that than I do."
"Here I go," Violet said. "Are you ready?"
Sarah put her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. "Ready!"
Violet aimed the quarter at the table and bounced it…right next to the little cup they'd picked up at the water cooler down the hall. She let out a long, disheartened sigh.
"What on earth is that noise?" General Beckman asked.
"Sorry, Gen—ma'am," Sarah said. "As the others are all out, I'm watching Violet while Chuck's in with the doctor."
"You should be with the Intersect, Agent Walker."
"Chuck didn't want her in there while he was getting stitched up. I assessed the situation and he should be fine on his own."
"Hm," was all Beckman had to say to that. "Very well. Send me the reports as soon as you have them. Where was Major Casey during all of this?"
"He elected to spend the day watching over Dr. Bartowski and Dr. Woodcomb," Sarah lied. "We had no way of anticipating that Chuck would hit his head on a rock while sledding."
She could tell that the NSA director wasn't entirely thrilled with that prospect either, but Sarah had no intention of hanging her partner out to dry, so she waited, in case there were further orders. Violet wiggled as she lined yet another shot to go into the cup.
Finally, Beckman sighed. "Keep me updated," she said, and hung up.
"Good-bye to you, too, you old bat," Sarah said under her breath.
"Whuzzat?" Violet asked.
"Nothing," Sarah said. They were in the waiting room at the Urgent Care, which was empty save for the two of them and the nurse working the front desk. The dried tear tracks on Violet's cheeks made Sarah think they should probably find the bathroom soon so she could was her face, but for now, the five-year-old was content with sitting in Sarah's lap on the floor and bouncing quarters into her cup. She'd cried so much on the car ride that she seemed listless and unfocused now. She was going to crash hard the minute they knew Chuck was better, Sarah figured.
But for now, she still needed to be entertained, so Sarah picked up one of the spare quarters from the haphazard pile on the edge of the table, and bounced it expertly into the cup.
Violet immediately twisted. "How do you do that?"
"Lots of practice. You give it a try."
It took about six more tries (and Sarah grabbing the cup and manipulating it) until Violet's quarter bounced in, and Sarah determined after Violet grew more and more agitated with every miss that maybe they should focus on something else for a while. Though Violet shed a couple of tears over the end of the game, she changed her mind when Sarah let her spend those quarters in the vending machine to get some fruit snacks. She covered the backs of two flyers with drawings of people and of Sir, chewing on fruit snacks and asking if Chuck was going to be a pirate because one time Moniqua's daddy had an eye problem and he wore an eye-patch for two weeks and Moniqua's mom said he looked like a pirate.
"I don't think so," Sarah said. "I think it's just some stitches."
"But I could wear an eye-patch sometime if you want me to," said a new voice, and Sarah looked up to see that Chuck, the right side of his face puffy and smeared with an anesthetic, had somehow sneaked up on both of them.
Violet shot to her feet. "Daddy!"
He scooped her up, keeping her on his left side. "Hey, Megabyte. Have a good time out here with Sarah?"
"She taught me how to play Quarters. Does it hurt? Your eye? Does it hurt?"
"Nope. They gave me the good stuff." He gave her a big, smacking kiss on the cheek and though Violet's smile wavered, she grinned back at him.
"So you're probably feeling pretty good right about now," Sarah said, squinting at him as she climbed to her feet.
He gave her a kiss, too, squeezing her shoulder with his good hand, and it was more of a relief than actually seeing him and knowing he was okay. "For a guy that just lost a fight to a measly little rock, I feel great. I could take on the whole world right now, but I think I'll just have to settle for taking on the bill."
"I've got it," Sarah said, giving him a significant look so that he would know she'd already talked to the bosses about it.
He fell back on a tired grin. "Best healthcare out there, I guess. Gotta protect the old noggin."
In the end, she was right: they hadn't even gotten out of the parking lot before Violet's head lolled forward and the little girl was out like a light. "I know exactly how she feels," Chuck said, sagging back against his seat. He flipped down the sun visor to get a look at his eye in the mirror. "Gosh, that's almost prettier than you."
"Hey," Sarah said, and he laughed. "What'd the doctor say?"
"No concussion, but I'll have a nice bruise to show off. My planned response to anybody who asks how I got it is 'You should see the other guy.' Please go along with it and spare my dignity."
"Got it. How many stitches?"
"Four, and they hurt. Ugh." Chuck flipped the visor up and glanced at the backseat again. He frowned. "How'd she hold up?"
"She cried for a while," Sarah said. "But I think she's okay. Probably won't let you out of her sight for a couple of days."
"There goes our privacy for the rest of the trip."
"It's only a couple of days."
"But then we're back to the surveillance all the time." Chuck reached out and grabbed her hand, the one that wasn't focused on steering the car. "Can't this trip last forever?"
"Considering that in the space of a week, we've kidnapped and drugged a paparazzo, discovered a mystery hacker protecting your privacy online, pissed off your sister, and now you have four stitches in your face?" Sarah raised an eyebrow. He tried to mimic the move right back to her, but winced when he evidently remembered that he'd smashed his own eyebrow on a rock. "As much as I don't want it to end, maybe it's for the best."
"Yeah, I guess you have a point."
Sarah squeezed his hand. "You could probably pay the 'take pity on me, I got hit in the face' card on somebody in the house if we need time alone."
"I love playing that card," Chuck said, giving a pained sort of grin. He leaned his head back against the headrest with a sigh. "You know, it's probably the painkillers talking, but getting hit in the face with a rock aside, and the paparazzo, and Ellie's upcoming reaction to the fact that I will have a black eye for her family pictures aside, this is probably the best vacation ever."
"I'm glad you think so," Sarah said, and they held hands all the way to the pharmacy. Neither of them, Sarah noticed, had brought up the inevitable: they had no idea what was going to happen when they got back to Burbank.
A/N the Second: I'm calling it now. GODZILLA. GODZILLA HAPPENS WHEN THEY GET BACK TO BURBANK. Somebody should really contact the person writing this fic and let her know that's what she should do. THIS IDEA IS GOLD, YOU GUYS.
