This one was a tougher one to get finished. Big thanks to Arathorn for giving me the push I needed to get things closer to right.
Scene XLIII – Casa Bartowski, Chuck's Room
Chuck lay on his bed, eyes cast upward at nothing at particular. His hands clasped behind his head to form an unnecessary support; the pliant comfort of his favorite pillow supported the hands supporting his head. He could have been just as comfortable if he removed his hands; however, somehow interlacing his fingers gave him the impression that he was doing something, and he felt a need to be doing something.
He was frustrated.
What reason could Graham and Beckman have for keeping secrets from agents on the same team? Did they really think that there was any chance that Casey or Sarah would suddenly turn rogue?
Impossible.
9/11 apparently hadn't taught the government anything. Months before the attacks, the government had obtained the intel they needed to see the hijackings coming, but it was essentially locked away from anyone who could put the picture together. Yet here Beckman and Graham were, years later, making the exact same mistakes.
Chuck hated that Casey or Sarah could be hurt, captured or killed because, of all things, a lack of information. The intelligence community needed to share information more than ever, yet here the leaders were, rationing it out sparingly at best.
A telltale groan of a floorboard outside his door stole him from his musings. After a pause came a delicate tapping. He immediately knew it was Sarah.
Whenever somebody entered the hallway, the hardwood floor creaked like a squeaky hinge on an old screen door. After the Intersect entered his life, Chuck had always thought of it as the perfect early warning system: not even Casey could avoid setting off the alarm.
Somehow, though, Sarah always passed through the hallway without making a sound. She did it instinctively, almost unconsciously, so much so that Chuck had cried out in surprise one day when she pushed through his half-open door. Ever since, he noticed that she always made sure to step on a particularly noisy board just outside his room to warn of her approach.
"Come in," he said softly.
The door swung inwards. Sarah took only a step or into the room, just far enough that he could see her without straining to twist his neck.
She didn't want to intrude. She still hadn't figured out that she was never intruding.
With an apologetic look, she held up the clue sheet for the day's scavenger hunt. "Our departure time was five minutes ago."
The last remnants of his dark mood evaporated in the light of her smile. He swung his feet around as he pulled himself into a seated position. "Well, then, we probably should get going."
His tone had an impish quality that broadened her smile, brightening the room even more.
Scene XLIV – Los Angeles Freeway
The Riptide zoomed up the 101, as much as the Riptide ever really zoomed anywhere.
The clues for the scavenger hunt were leading Chuck and Sarah towards the heart of old Hollywood. Because all the teams would be in the same area at the same time, they really needed to put in some face time and be seen by at least a couple of teams before their mission took them away.
If they didn't, they'd be making up more excuses involving flat tires or sudden illnesses to cover up the afternoon mission. He was
Chuck had trouble defining exactly how that would be any different from what they were doing by pretending to participate in the scavenger hunt. He tried not to think about that too carefully.
The pair was getting close to their destination; beautiful cars filled with beautiful people were becoming more and more common. The other cars demonstrated what it meant to truly zoom down a highway as their passengers looked down their noses at the Riptide.
The attitude didn't bother Chuck; this was L.A. after all. He pinned the scavenger hunt clue list to the steering wheel with one hand and took a last, longing peek. One clue was proving pesky; he felt like he should know the answer.
After nearly a minute, he gave up. With the upcoming mission and the deceiving his friends and family beforehand, his heart just wasn't in it. The whole routine was getting old.
He set the clue list aside. The dark mood from the apartment had returned in force; it proved harder to set aside than the list.
Chuck needed a distraction. "So, we have a mission later," he prompted.
Sarah looked up from her mission notes. "Yes. We're tasked with meeting the Fulcrum agent at the observatory. We find him, we drag as much information out of him as we can, and then we bring him in for further questioning."
"Why don't we just bring him in to begin with?"
"If we get the contact to give up some information voluntarily, it allows us to skip over the tedious denials about not knowing anything."
"And get right to the thumbscrews and Barry Manilow music."
"Or whatever works." Her face took on a greenish tint; she swallowed hard and focused intently on the notes once more.
Something about her tone made Chuck take his eyes off the road to glance over at her. "You all right?"
"I'm fine."
"You look car sick. You really shouldn't read in a moving car."
She stifled a laugh. "Chuck, I once read an entire mission briefing in a moving Afghani tank that had partially thrown a tread. Do you really think reading in a Skoda for a few minutes is enough to make me sick to my stomach?"
"I'm just saying you look like you ate something you shouldn't have."
"Ate something I shouldn't have. Kind of like the time I was…"
"…in a moving Afghani tank that had partially thrown a tread," he finished with her.
He couldn't muster a matching grin. "That story must kill at the CIA Christmas Party."
"Not as much as the gifts under the tree."
Chuck raised a pleasantly surprised eyebrow. "Did you just make a joke about the CIA?!" Sarah never joked about her agency.
She managed to look slightly embarrassed, but her playful smile didn't falter. "So did you figure out the other destinations on the scavenger hunt list?"
Chuck tapped the brakes as a black Mercedes coupe decided that the Skoda didn't really deserve all of the space it occupied. He frowned, irritated with the other driver. "Shouldn't we be focused on the mission?"
"We've got a scavenger hunt to win."
He shot her a look. "Win? Please."
"You think I'm letting Devon lord this over me for a year? No way."
"Sarah, you have to know there's no way we're going to come close to winning."
"Want to bet?"
The fear of the mission mingled with the disappointment of missing most of the scavenger hunt and guilt over the umpteenth deception of his family and friends. A single, flat expression told her what he thought about it all. "We really should just focus on the mission," he said, his voice low and dry.
"I understand, Chuck, I really do. It's hard sometimes."
"It's hard most of the time."
"It's not that bad. We'll duck out for a quick mission and be back before we're missed."
"You make it sound like a trip to the corner store."
"There's not all that much to this one. We can finish the mission briefing on the way to the observatory."
His fingers tightened around the wheel.
She grabbed the clue list and examined his illegible scribbles. "C'mon, let's plan our attack. Where are we headed first? We've got two–"
"God, Sarah, when do we get to be normal for a change?"
Taken aback, she could only stare at him at first. It took her a moment to recover enough to respond. "What's 'normal'?" she asked calmly.
"You know, 'normal'. Taking walks in the park. Holding hands. Trying to cobble together an edible meal despite a fundamental lack of cooking skills. It's not lying to my sister and working seven days a week."
"Really. You've always wanted to be normal? What about Charles Carmichael? Owner of a software company? Semi-retired at 26? Considering sailing in America's Cup? Is that normal?"
"Well, it was pretty normal at Stanford."
"This is apparently a news flash, but Stanford isn't for normal people, Chuck. Stanford is for extraordinary people with extraordinary talents who do extraordinary things."
"Present company excluded, of course."
She gave him an incredulous look. "You haven't done anything extraordinary recently?"
Chuck didn't have an answer for that.
"My point stands: normal is different for different people."
Somehow, they had gotten away from his point. Chuck tried to regroup. "That's just semantics. When is our relationship going to be about actually having a relationship and not about trying hard to make it look like a relationship?"
"How about now? Is that soon enough?"
He glanced over at her, puzzled by the response. "What do you mean?"
"What do you think we're going right now?"
"I thought we were going to put on a show for the other teams?"
"No, we're going to make sure we're seen participating in the scavenger hunt. Why can't that be us actually having a good time?"
"Because…" He thought about that for a minute. Why did their participation have to be anything other than the truth?
His response was slow and hesitant. "I think I'm having trouble answering that mostly because you're right," he said sheepishly.
She smiled reassuringly. "Don't feel bad; it's an easy trap for us to fall into. It actually wasn't something I'd really thought about until Ellie said a few things to me."
"Ellie?"
"That doesn't matter," she said in a way that brooked no discussion. "Our old routine was to go somewhere and show off our fake relationship. Our new routine is to go somewhere are show off our very real relationship. We'll just have to get used to that."
Before he could say anything else, she reached over, took his near hand from the wheel and wrapped it in hers. She seemed to savor each little sensation of his warm skin against her cool as she very deliberately interlaced her fingers with his, one finger at a time.
It wasn't the first time the two had held hands. The two had held hands any number of times for the benefit of Ellie or Awesome or Morgan or any number of Chuck's friends. However, this time seemed different. Very, very different.
His dark mood was banished from the car around exit 7b.
Sarah said, "Let's do the scavenger hunt while we can. We may not finish, but so what? It's not really about who wins, is it?"
A bit of Chuck's competitive spirit surfaced. He groused a bit under his breath, causing Sarah to laugh appreciatively. "OK, fine, it's a little bit about who wins, but that's not all of it. We have to seize what opportunities we're afforded, because those opportunities are precious. We'll never know what tomorrow could bring."
He thought about that. He thought more about the feel of her hand in his.
"Unless you'd rather waste the time moping around?"
Her tone wasn't accusing; it was gentle with a hint of a challenge. It made him smile despite himself. "I guess you'd be forced to take drastic measures if I did that." His smile grew; he even sounded more like his usual self.
"I'd probably have to shoot you," she said archly. "Nothing serious; maybe a nice safe thigh wound."
"Seems a bit crude, even for a CIA agent."
She laughed at the barb. "True enough." She slipped her hand out of his and undid her seatbelt, leaning across the gear shift as she adjusted her position to the edge of her seat. She put her left hand on the back of his neck. "But in case you decide to get grumpy again, just remember: we CIA agents can be very … persuasive … when we want to be."
"Sarah, what are you–"
Her head tilted to the side. Suddenly, he felt a wave of heat on his jaw line. Her breath was impossibly warm, growing slowly hotter until her soft lips gently brushed his skin.
A jolt shot through his entire body. The car would have skidded across three lanes if she hadn't had her right hand on the wheel.
His last thought, before thought utterly abandoned him, was that it was a damned good thing that she was good at her job.
Sarah and Chuck spent the next two hours laughing their way through the Hollywood streets. Their hands were rarely apart and the next smile was never far away.
Per Sarah's suggestion, they attacked the hunt with a vengeance. They found a 'C' in the guitar case of a musician performing at the corner of Hollywood and Vine. They found an 'I' in an envelope taped under a bench outside the Capitol Records tower. They found an 'F', cheekily enough, in the suit pocket of the George W. Bush mannequin at the Hollywood Wax Museum. They found an 'R' stashed in the frame of an article entitled Support Is Generous for Bra Museum in the Frederick's of Hollywood store.
Chuck left the last destination with a flaming face and a wickedly grinning girlfriend.
"How many we got?" he asked, looking to change the subject.
She sorted through the letters in her pocket. "Seven."
"We got time for one more?"
Sarah glanced at her watch, her face suddenly serious. The smile was quickly back. "Which way?" was all she asked.
Chuck pointed; the two took off down the street, as if determined to somehow outrun the ticking clock. Both of them refused to look up to where the last tourist destination on the docket, the domed observatory, watched over the city like a sentry sitting on a hilltop underneath the brooding sky.