Chuck vs. the Con

Chapter 10 – "Silence! I KILL YOU!"

CAST (in order of appearance):
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi
Bryce Larkin – Matthew Bomer
Jill Roberts – Jordana Brewster
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski
John Casey – Adam Baldwin
Rowan Montgomery – John Larroquette

Palo Alto, California
May 2003

Chuck Bartowski couldn't believe it. Reeling from the shock of what he'd just been told he stumbled down Greek Row, away from Jill's sorority house.

Cheating on him? With Bryce Larkin?! The same person who had gotten Chuck kicked out of Stanford in the first place?!

This was just too much. Chuck stopped and closed his eyes for a moment. Steeling himself, he re-opened his eyes and looked at his watch.

3:30 PM. Bryce would be getting out of Architecture 480 in about five minutes. If Chuck moved quickly, he could be there, waiting outside the classroom when the back-stabbing son of a bitch came out.

Like a man possessed, Chuck started walking, then jogging toward the architecture building. Four minutes later, he was there, standing outside the doors to the lecture hall, when the doors opened and the class came pouring out.

Bryce wasn't paying attention when he walked out of the classroom, and that made it that much easier for Chuck to walk up to him. "Hey, asshole!" Chuck snapped, just before his fist made contact with Bryce's jaw.

Bryce's head came up, just in time for recognition and surprise to register before he was knocked backward. Bryce staggered and fell over, his textbook and notebooks spilling to the floor.

There was a collective gasp from the students around them, and they all backed away, forming a sort of ring around Chuck and Bryce. Chuck glared down at Bryce, who brought his right hand up to his lower lip. The hand came away bloody.

Bryce looked up at Chuck – but instead of the rage that Chuck expected to see in his former friend's eyes, he saw nothing but pain and sorrow. Chuck was thrown by the unexpected emotions on Bryce's face.

As he took in those emotions, something came over him. This wasn't right. It wasn't worth it. Chuck sighed.

"You're not worth my trouble," he said softly, and turned away. Pushing through the gathered crowd, he beat a hasty retreat.

"Chuck!" he heard Bryce call as he departed. "CHUCK!"

Chuck ignored Bryce Larkin. If he was lucky, he would never see him again.

Palo Alto, California
One week till Thanksgiving

Chuck Bartowski stormed out of the wine bar, his wallet thirty dollars lighter. "Fanfuckingtastic," he groused as he exited out onto the street.

He looked down the street – and there, a block away, he could see Jill getting into her car. "JILL!" he shouted, running down the street.

As he took off running, Sarah Walker burst out of the wine bar behind him. "Dammit, Chuck!" she yelled as she took off running after him.

Jill heard Chuck yell, and just shook her head. She started to get into her car, so Chuck yelled, "No, JILL, WAIT!"

Jill wasn't about to wait. Climbing into her car, she pulled the door shut, and turned the ignition –

With no result. Nothing happened except the starter going click-click-click.

That gave Chuck enough time to reach the car. "Jill!" he called. "I can explain!"

Jill glared at Chuck, then turned her key again. Still nothing.

Chuck heard the clicking coming from under the hood, and looked up at the approaching Sarah Walker, a question on his face. An apologetic look on her face, Sarah nodded.

"Oh, God DAMMIT!" Chuck growled. "I do not BELIEVE you sometimes!"

The look on Sarah's face turned from apologetic to hurt and confused. "Sorry," she muttered as she turned away from Chuck.

Chuck sighed and dug into his pocket. Coming out with his wallet, he pulled out his Auto Club card, which he held up for Jill to see. "Will this help?" he asked, loud enough for her to hear through the window.

Jill made a face, but nonetheless nodded. Opening the door, she got out of the car, and gave Chuck a dirty look. "You're a dick sometimes, you know that?" she asked angrily.

"I'm sorry," Chuck replied. "I really wasn't trying to lead you on. I actually came here to offer you a job – and, I guess, the nostalgia of seeing you just sort of made me wish that things were still the way they used to be."

Jill narrowed her eyes. "A job?" she asked. "What kind of job?"

"A government job," Chuck said. "I work for the government. So does she, actually," he said, pointing to Sarah. "And, while I'm on the subject, she's not ACTUALLY my girlfriend. It's just a cover for our jobs."

It wasn't the words that hurt Sarah. Just the words, she would've been okay with. It was the tone of Chuck's voice – the fact that he sounded completely dismissive, seeming to imply to Jill that Sarah didn't really mean anything to him.

Fighting the tears that were stinging her eyes, Sarah turned around. "Do you need me here?" she asked, fighting down the lump building in her throat.

"Not really," Chuck replied, without actually looking at her.

Sarah tried to say something, but her voice failed her, so she simply nodded and started walking away. Goddammit, shit, sonofabitch! her voice raged in her head. How the HELL did she screw that up?

The look on her face must have been particularly awful, because when she reached the van that John Casey and Rowan Montgomery were in, they both got out, looking at her in concern. "What the hell happened?" Casey asked.

Montgomery looked from Sarah to Casey and then back again. "John, you have to learn the looks of women's faces," he said. "Unless I'm completely mistaken, Agent Walker here just got rejected by Mr. Bartowski in favor of Dr. Roberts."

Montgomery's words hit Sarah like a punch to the stomach. Enraged, she looked over at him, and spat, "What the hell would you know, you wrinkled old man whore?"

A slight smile appeared on Montgomery's face as he looked over at Casey. "It would seem I'm right," he said.

And with that, Sarah Walker decided that she, too, had just about had it with Rowan Montgomery. However, unlike Chuck Bartowski, she didn't go after him with a right cross. No, instead, she went after Montgomery with a canister of pepper spray.

John Casey's eyes widened as he saw the pepper spray come up in Sarah's hand. Moving quickly, he got between Sarah and Montgomery, grabbing her right arm before the pepper spray became a problem.

"Calm down, Walker," he said quietly. "This is not going to do you any good."

Chuck looked up momentarily at the receding figure of Sarah Walker and sighed. He thought the world of her, but sometimes she could just be so goddamn infuriating. Either she did want to have something with him, or she didn't. She didn't get to have it both ways, but that was the way she seemed to have been operating for the past month – ever since her high school reunion in San Diego.

He looked back at Jill. The anger seemed to be slowly draining from her face. "So, why are you recruiting me?" she asked.

Chuck bit his lip. He wasn't sure whether to sugarcoat the reality of what was going on, or tell Jill the truth straight out.

So, he decided to meet somewhere in the middle. "The, uh, task force I'm working with has received intel that Al Qaeda is going to buy anthrax samples from a rather unscrupulous scientist the lab at Northern Arizona University and use them against us. We have to stop them, but we need somebody with your particular skill set, seeing as how we're dealing with some pretty nasty stuff."

Despite the seeming lunacy of Chuck's words, Jill actually nodded as he spoke. "Okay," she said slowly. "That, to an extent, makes sense." Then she shook her head and looked up at Chuck. "But why me?"

"Well," Chuck replied, "because, in spite of, well, you know…"

"Yeah," Jill said, looking down.

"In spite of that, I still trust you," Chuck finished.

A small smile appeared on Jill's face. "Nice to know that my idiocy five years ago didn't affect the eternal Bartowski optimism."

Chuck's face blossomed into a full-blown grin. "Did you ever hear about what happened after you told me?"

Jill looked up, a disbelieving look on her face. "Are you kidding? Half the campus knew that Chuck Bartowski had punched out Bryce Larkin by that evening." The look of disbelief turned into a smile. "I have to say, I was amused, and a little bit touched."

Chuck's grin got a little bigger, and then slowly faded. "So… why'd you do it?"

The look on Jill's face grew troubled. "I don't know," she said with a sigh. "Maybe someday I'll figure it out."

San Jose, California
Six days till Thanksgiving

Sarah sat on the tarmac of San Jose International Airport in Casey's Crown Vic, by herself. She had decided that she wanted to drive back to Los Angeles alone, claiming a need for time to think to the rest of the group. Casey had, surprisingly, acquiesced, simply begging that she not do any more damage to his car.

Chuck, Casey, Rowan, Deborah Goldman, Mott Matsuki, and Jill were all going to fly to L.A. on Rowan's jet. Jill had, apparently, managed to get emergency leave from the university, claiming a family issue of some sort.

And so, Sarah was waiting for the jet to take off before she headed back to Los Angeles. It wasn't a tough trip – just a straight shot down the 5, with the section over the Grapevine being the most worrisome. It was the emotions raging in her head that were going to make the trip difficult.

She watched the jet taxi to the runway, its identification lights blinking in the early-morning gloom. A moment later, it started moving forward, slowly at first, and then more rapidly. A moment later, it left the runway, climbing into the slowly lightening sky.

Sarah reached her hand to the gearshift and was about to put the Crown Vic into drive when the shotgun door opened. Alarmed, Sarah quickly had her gun up and pointed at the intruder –

Who, it turned out, was Jill Roberts. "Calm down," Jill said quietly, putting her hands up.

Much as Sarah really would've liked to smack Jill in the face with the business end of her Colt 1911, she instead sighed, brought the gun down, and holstered it. "Aren't you supposed to be on the plane?" she asked, her voice tight and controlled.

"That was the original plan, yes," Jill replied, climbing into the Crown Vic and buckling herself into the shotgun seat. "However, I think there's something that you and I need to talk about."

"I very much doubt that," Sarah replied. "I rarely have anything to talk about with backstabbing sluts."

Jill laughed in disbelief. "Oh, REALLY," she said. "Is that honestly what you think of me?" She turned and looked at Sarah, shaking her head. "You don't even KNOW me!"

"I know enough," Sarah shot back. "I know that you broke Chuck's heart, and then stomped on it." She laughed bitterly. "With Bryce Larkin, of all people."

"And what exactly does that mean?" Jill asked. "What the hell do you know about Bryce Larkin?"

"Well, I was in a relationship with him long enough to determine that he's a good guy ten percent of the time and a total toolbox the remainder," Sarah grumbled.

Surprisingly, Jill laughed. "Not too far off base there," she said.

"Then why?!" Sarah asked. "Why the hell would you hurt Chuck like that?"

Jill sighed, and bit her lip. "What if I told you that it was all an elaborate plot formulated by Bryce?"

Sarah cast a sideways glance at Jill. "If it were about anybody else, I'd say bullshit, but since this is Bryce, I don't think I'd be entirely surprised."

"Alright," Jill said. "Chuck doesn't know a thing about this, but here's what happened – Bryce came to me, and told me that I had to sever ALL ties with Chuck. Immediately. He said that if I didn't, the government was going to get hold of him and do horrible things to him."

Jill paused for a moment. "Then, Bryce told me that he was responsible for getting Chuck kicked out of Stanford, and that he did it to protect Chuck from the government too. He said that making Chuck think that I was cheating on him with Bryce was the most sure-fire way to get Chuck to leave me alone."

"So?" Sarah replied. "You've got a doctorate, for God's sake. That indicates to me that you have enough backbone that you could've said no to Bryce."

"Yeah, well, Bryce threatened to get me kicked out too if I didn't help," Jill said quietly. "And had I been kicked out of Stanford, my life as I knew it would essentially have been over."

"And you chose to essentially help end Chuck's instead," Sarah said angrily. "This is not making you look any better in my eyes."

"I had NO IDEA that Chuck was going to go into a five year ambition coma!" Jill exploded. "He was the most forward-thinking guy I ever knew, so how the FUCK was I supposed to know he would turn into Morgan Grimes, part two?!"

"I don't know," Sarah replied. "But you still really hurt him badly. It messed him up for a long time, and I don't know if I can readily forgive you for that."

"Like I need your forgiveness," Jill laughed. "The only person who I need to forgi-"

She cut herself off. "Wait a minute," she said, realization dawning. "That episode back there on the street – you really care about him, don't you?"

Oh, SHIT, Sarah thought. "He's my asset," she replied. "He's my friend, too. Of course I care about him."

"Oh, come on," Jill shot back. "He's not just your asset or a friend. You're in LOVE with him, aren't you?!"

"No," Sarah said. "I can't be. I'm not allowed to be."

"Please," Jill protested. "Screw what the government tells you. There are more important things in life."

Sarah remained silent, fixing her attention on the freeway in front of her. "Fine," Jill said. "If you're going to insist that there's nothing between you, then I guess Chuck is fair game."

Sarah tried to remain calm, but her hands betrayed her. They tightened around the Crown Vic's steering wheel, her knuckles turning white. "And that right there was the sign I was looking for," Jill continued, a rather pleased note in her voice. "I'm VERY good with observing people, Agent Walker, and the signs are written ALL OVER you."

Jill turned to face the windshield. "Six days."

Sarah's brow furrowed. "What?"

"Six days," Jill repeated. "Until Thanksgiving. That's how long I'm giving you to tell Chuck how you feel about him, because I think he feels that way about you, too. I want to see him happy, and from what little I've seen, I think the two of you could make it work.

"HOWEVER," Jill continued, "should you choose NOT to take this gift-wrapped opportunity, then I'm going to. Chuck is a great guy, and if I have the chance to rectify a mistake I made years ago, you'd better believe I'm going to try to do so."

Sarah slowly inhaled, and then exhaled. "If you think you have a chance to fix things, why aren't you just taking it?"

"Because," Jill replied. "I don't know if Chuck could ever truly be happy with me, and if he really has a chance to be happy with somebody, then I think he should take it."

Then Jill turned to face Sarah, and her voice turned hard. "But so help me God, Agent Walker, if you hurt him in any way…"

Jill sat back in her seat. "Let's just say that it won't be pretty."

And for the first time in years, Sarah Walker actually found herself quite scared of a threat.