The Nerd Versus the P.I. Family

By Steampunk . Chuckster

A/N: Thanks for still sticking around. I appreciate the reviews, as well.

Summary: Sarah Walker has uprooted her life, leaving her job with the LAPD and going it alone as a private investigator, all in the hopes it provides her with less dangerous stakes and a schedule she can control so that she can handle her most important job, raising her toddler, a bit easier. But when the single parent thinks her computer might've been targeted by a criminal, she has to request help from the unlikeliest of sources: The Buy More Nerd Herd.

Disclaimer: I do not own CHUCK, I do not own its characters, I am not making money from posting this.

Chuck sat in his idling car, tapping a beat against the steering wheel, waiting for Sarah to come back down. She'd sprinted into her apartment building to return the stuffed animal to its owner so that everybody involved might have a peaceful night—Carina and Max in particular.

But he was absolutely certain Sarah probably would have stressed about it throughout their whole date. And that would've made it hard for her to be present and actually enjoy herself. More than anything, he just needed her to have a good time tonight, whatever else happened.

He was shooting for a second date. Already, after only forty minutes of sitting in a car on their way to and back from the restaurant once Lovey's hiding place was discovered, Chuck felt a connection that extended past those hours they'd spent in her office, staring at her laptop. And that was in spite of the slightly awkward start, first with her friend's teasing stunt when he first arrived and then again in the hallway and in the elevator…

Thank God they'd moved into a more comfortable place since then.

Now they wouldn't be having dinner at the restaurant he'd picked out for them. After he'd called for a reservation after stressing about where to take her for hours.

A small part of him was bummed, having been more than prepared to impress her with the food and fancy expensive wine. And romantic lighting. Apparently. According to Awesome. But he also found he didn't mind this change of plans all that much. They could eat anywhere now, wherever they wanted to.

He could actually ask her what she wanted to eat, get her input on it.

The difficult thing was going to be convincing Sarah that she wasn't the absolute worst date ever once she came back from bringing her son's toy back to him. When he called the restaurant on the way back, explaining there was a family emergency and they'd be forty minutes late, they'd apologized to him and said they couldn't hold the reservation that long. He'd apologized back and hung up, giving Sarah his best oh well shrug. And she was clearly mortified and felt horrible. She'd literally called herself "the absolute worst date ever", and he had yet to do a good enough job convincing her she was being way too hard on herself, that it really wasn't all that big of a deal, that he wasn't upset.

Because she'd pulled back a little, he noticed, shrinking into herself, embarrassment emblazoned into her gorgeous features the whole way back. She'd sheepishly told him to stay in the car, that it'd be faster if she just raced up there by herself, snuck Lovey into the apartment, and came back down.

Now five minutes later, he saw her appear again at the front door of her building, pushing it open and stepping outside, hurrying down the steps and approaching his car. For a split second, he had something of an out of body experience, like he was watching this objectively stunning woman walk up to someone else's car, because it couldn't be his car.

He shook himself before she opened the door, taking another deep breath.

Swinging herself inside, she shut the door and shut her eyes for a moment, sighing roughly.

Chuck blinked. "You…okay?"

"Yeah. I am. I'm so sorry. I'm really just so sorry." She turned to face him and gave him a look full of regret and mortification again.

"Sarah, it's okay!" he said, putting a reassuring hand out towards her and deciding to lay it on her arm gently. "Seriously. I'm not upset that we aren't eating at…a particular restaurant. That place was not make or break. It's just a place. Where we eat means nothing to me. We can eat anywhere. Sky's the limit."

"Yeah, anywhere except for the place where you planned for us to eat," she said sarcastically, a bit of a smile on her face.

"I think Señor Roque's will get over not feeding us tonight, and if you're worried about me, I already told you I'm fine. I'm chill. We're going to find somewhere else. We're gonna get some amazing food. What do you want?" He paused then and hit her with a bit of a mischievous look. "Feel like tacos?"

She burst into laughter.

}o{

"Are you kidding me right now?"

"Nope, I'm one hundred percent serious."

"Why?!" She gestured to his car, their drinks in hand, an incredibly pretty what the fuck look on her face. "Like, we could just sit on the hood of your car. Or on the trunk. Or even inside of the car. Any of those options work. But you're gonna make me sit on the roof?"

"Because it's the only part of the car that's actually flat!" he reasoned. "Whenever my buds and I come to Tio's Taco Truck, we sit on top of the car. It's like having a table." He shrugged, holding their food, multiple tacos in each to-go box, one box in each hand. "Watch."

He easily reached up to slip each box onto the roof of his car, and then he walked around to the front of his car and climbed up onto the hood, crab walking towards the windshield in a way that made her laugh. "I feel like your foot is gonna slip and you're gonna break your neck, Chuck. Seriously."

Chuck laughed. "I'm multiple feet taller than this car, Sarah. Literally slipping on a banana peel would hurt more and be more dangerous than falling from this height."

She cracked up. "I like how you immediately went to slipping on a banana peel, as if that's a real thing that happens to real people and not cartoon characters."

Snorting, he braced his feet on the windshield wipers, grabbed the roof and swiveled his body to plop onto top of his car. "Bam. See? Easy. Come up here."

"We're gonna look stupid sitting all the way up there," she said, wrinkling her nose.

Chuck covered his mouth with both hands, gasping, eyes going comically wide. "Oh noooooooooo!"

"Shut up!" she laughed. "Fine. If you're forcing me to do something stupid, I guess I deserve it considering I'm the one who blew the restaurant reservations." She sent him a bit of a droll look, but there was amusement in her face too.

And then she stared at the hood of the car, pressing her lips together in a bit of a stumped pout, her eyes narrowed, as if she was trying to figure out her next move. "You know, if my clients saw me climbing onto a fuckin' car right now, they'd never hire me to gather evidence so they could fire their employee who abuses their worker's comp policy again."

He threw his head back in laughter. "Do you do that for people?"

"Yeah, of course I do. I'm a P.I., that's our bread and butter. Come on." She shrugged with a pfft, and something about the two bottles of Coke she held and the massive bundle of napkins when she shrugged made him grin. Hard.

"Still the coolest thing ever. Just in case you forgot. You know, in case you forgot how cool it is."

She giggled and then she rolled her eyes and huffed, gesturing at the car again in frustration. "I'm wearing heels."

"But aren't women supposed to be super good at heels?" he asked from his perch. "Like, y'all are kind of magic, right? Crime-fighting and running away from dinosaurs through a jungle…all in heels."

He watched, biting his cheek to keep from bursting into laughter at the threatening way she tilted her head, giving him a LOOK.

"Did you want to drink this Coke or have it thrown at your fucking face?" He cracked up as she continued her threat. "This is Mexican Coke, too. Glass bottle. Don't think it won't break that cute face of yours."

"Just come up here!" he laughed.

"You need to stop watching so many damn movies," she said. "That crack about heels. Jerk."

The look she sent him through her eyelashes was amused as she figured out to go towards the back of the car and carefully set the Cokes on the roof out of the way, before she went back and eyed the hood, before slipping her gaze down to her heels.

"How's it goin' down there?"

"Honestly, I'll be up there in a minute and I'm pushing you the hell off your own car," she warned, pointing her finger at him. "My panic about people being on high things where they can fall that I picked up from having a toddler aside, I will shove you."

Chuck laughed and watched as she just gave up, shaking her head as she bent over. "Hey, what're you up to down there?"

"I'm taking the damn heels off."

A thrill went through Chuck as he pumped his fists up over his head. "YES! That's what I'm talkin' about!"

She laughed, sending him a weirded out look as she ripped the heels off and draped herself over his hood to throw her heels in through the open passenger side window. He heard the thumps of the shoes clattering to the floor. He was so glad that he'd purposely paid to have his car washed earlier today specifically for this date. He hadn't realized they'd be climbing on his car at the time, but he sent a hearty thank you to Chuck-of-a-few-hours-ago for thinking of it.

Sarah slid back off of the hood of his car and then braced a bare foot on the bumper, hoisting herself up.

She straightened to her full height and walked up to him before she lifted one foot and planted it smack dab in the middle of the windshield, hands on her hips.

"What are you doing posing like Captain Morgan with your foot on my windshield?"

"That's for the 'heels' crack. You're stuck with my ugly footprint in the middle of the windshield and you're just gonna have to look at it."

"Until I wipe it off," he laughed.

"Shut up." Giggling, she took the hand he offered her and let him pull her up to sit next to him.

He felt as though the way this date had started and the way it was going now was like night and day. And he was trying so hard not to overthink it. He had a bad habit of overthinking and that was when he lost his footing. "How 'bout some tacos?"

"Oh, hell yes."

Grabbing one of the boxes, he passed it to her, then grabbed his own box. "They should still be hot, but you took a while to get up here so—ow!" He laughed as she cracked up and knuckled him in the shoulder, not hard enough to hurt even though he'd pretended it was.

"You deserved that," she giggled.

"I did, it's true." And he paused, his first taco in hand, watching and waiting for her to take her first bite of Tio's tacos.

When she did, her face melted and she let out a loud, "Mmmmmmmmmm!"

"Good?"

"Oh my God," she said around the food in her mouth as she chewed. "Al pastor sent from Heaven, holy shit."

"So the date isn't over 'cause I took you to a taco truck, then?"

"No, it is not," she said emphatically, catching a piece of pork against her lip when it fell out of her mouth with her finger and pushing it back between her lips. "Oops." He chuckled, handing her a napkin. She smiled her thanks even as she continued chewing. "Is this the same taco truck you took her to?"

"It is."

"She's garbage."

He laughed. "I like how she isn't trash until you taste the tacos. Like, ditching me 'cause I take her to get tacos on a first date? Fair. Getting mad in spite of how good the tacos are? She's garbage."

Giggling, she raised an eyebrow and shrugged, already picking up her second taco. "They're really good tacos." She looked down. "Yesss carne asada."

"The thing that really makes this one is the burnt crunchiness on the outside of the meat plus the tanginess of the cilantro, onion, and lime." He took a bite out of his own and his eyelids fluttered as he groaned.

"Oh God, you're so right," she agreed, her eyes full-on closing as she enjoyed.

Chuck set it all down on his lap and reached back to grab napkins, giving her one and wiping his hands so that he could open their Cokes. He popped the cap off of her bottle using the edge of the roof before he passed it to her.

She gave him a long look, her eyes wide.

"What?" he asked, doing the same to his own bottle. "Don't worry, I'll pick up the caps off the ground and toss 'em when we're leaving."

"No, just… How you just did that so casually. Just…on the side of the car like that."

"I told you I come here a lot."

"And sit on the roof of your car."

"And sit on the roof of my car."

She shifted her bottle close to him, tilting it towards his and he beamed, clinking his own bottle against it. "To successfully salvaging a missed reservation at a much fancier restaurant than…Roof Of Chuck's Car."

He laughed. "Hear, hear!"

}o{

They found themselves at the Venice Beach boardwalk, slowly strolling past the lit-up store fronts of souvenir shops, bars, and cafés that were still open after eight at night. It was crazy how she'd just been here, walking this same path, just a few months earlier. That had been for a case, though, and it had been during the day. And as beautiful as the Pacific Ocean was then, there was something different about it this time, out there in the dark, the only thing lighting it being the lamps lining the pier that jutted out over the water.

She'd walked down this boardwalk countless times before, but the way it was lit up now, people enjoying the bar patios with their drinks, the laughter ringing out, the music, it felt a little more magical this time.

Sarah Walker, Private Investigator was no sap. She knew the fact that she was on a date wasn't the reason why it felt different. It was just that she had no real reason to come here at night, especially not with a two and a half year old son.

But then she caught herself thinking it was a little romantic, wasn't it? The Venice boardwalk at night, the light posts glowing softly, flanked by the dark silhouettes of palm trees against the deep blue night sky. And on their other side was a wall painted with bright graffiti that looked like nothing special in the daytime. But at night, with the lights shining off of it, the art seemed to come alive.

She was so lost in her thoughts and the comfortable silence of Chuck's companionship that she jumped when a bicyclist rang their bell behind her as they swept past, guiding their bike around her and continuing on their way. "Jesus!"

Chuck at least seemed to try to stifle a laugh, even if he didn't succeed. She couldn't help joining in on the laughter.

"That bike was full-on stealth. I didn't hear it coming either."

"Seems dangerous, a silent bicycle."

"They should stick something in the spokes. Like a paper or something so people can actually hear the damn thing coming." He tilted his head thoughtfully. "But I guess that's what the bell is for."

"Such an innocent sound, and yet…scared the shit out of me."

He laughed. "No shame, no shame. But I feel like maybe we've both earned drinks after that harrowing experience."

"Yes!" she burst out, turning to face him and grabbing his arm. "Genius!"

Chuck laughed again, leading her past muscle beach towards a bar. "Let's try this place out. What are you in the mood for?"

"I would've said beer, but that bicycle asshole just upgraded it to straight gin."

She found she really liked the sound of his laughter as he let her walk into the bar first. It wasn't uncomfortably crowded, but it was crowded enough that she unconsciously reached out to grab onto Chuck's hand, pulling him through the throngs towards the bar.

When they arrived, she squeezed up against the counter and caught the bartender's eye. She got the feeling she'd cut in line when he sliced across from where he was talking to two women who looked a few years younger than she was to approach her, bracing his palms against his side of the counter and grinning as he leaned in.

"Hi, there," he said smoothly, his voice raised just enough to be audible over the music they were blasting in the bar. "What can I get for you?"

"A glass about this big," she said, holding her pointer finger and thumb a few inches apart. He smirked. "Fill it with ice and pour gin into it 'til it's three-quarters full."

"Yes, ma'am," he chirped, obviously amused and charmed, both.

But before he could turn away to fix her drink, she spun on her heel and raised an eyebrow. "What'll you have, Chuck?"

"Whiskey highball," he said. "But let me get the—"

"Nope." She sent him a look and he raised his eyebrows with a nod. Good.

The bartender seemed to get the hint with Chuck behind her now, having to make two drinks instead of one. And in spite of being on a date, she had appreciated the moment of being so blatantly but inoffensively admired by a man, so she tipped the guy more than she normally would have before they moved away from the bar.

This time Chuck was the one guiding them through the mix of twenty-somethings in bathing suits wearing the bare minimum of clothing on top, and mid-forties women with expensive purses and similar haircuts and overly tanned skinned. Sarah allowed him to just take her wherever he spotted a place they could sit, or at least lean against a wall and talk, but then he led her out of the door that was propped open, stepping out onto the patio. There were fewer people out here because the night had gotten a little chillier, especially being so close to the beach.

They found a standing table in the corner and commandeered it. It had a fantastic view of the beach and the pier beyond it.

"I figured we could actually hear each other out here."

"Good thinking."

"And the bartender can actually focus on his job with you out here where he can't see you." The way he smiled, a spark of misbehavior in his eyes that were the color of the whiskey he clutched in his hand, Sarah Walker knew he was teasing her…but the fact that he'd noticed that exchange spoke volumes. Not that he was jealous. She didn't feel like he was the type to be jealous on a first date. But he'd still noticed.

And this felt better than the admiration of the bartender. By far.

"Haaaa," she drawled, glaring at him. Then she giggled and looked out at the pier. "God, it's almost like the pier is glowing tonight, isn't it?"

"Yeah, really. Beautiful. I think it's the condensation in the air out there. Makes it look almost a little foggy and the lights all…glowy."

She turned back to smile at him. "Well, okay there, Keats."

He snorted. "Bold. Very bold using a literary reference on the computer nerd." He sipped his drink and winced at the delicious bitter taste, setting it back down.

"Well, the reference was understood so my boldness paid off, huh?"

"It did," he said quietly, just looking at her with eyes that were equally as quiet. A breeze went through the patio and played with the dark curls on his head. And not for the first time, she was very aware of how attracted she was to him. This self-proclaimed computer nerd.

"So…you a poetry person?" he asked.

"Oh God no."

He laughed, rocking forward. And then he lifted his glass between them. "I'll cheers to that so hard."

Laughing with him, she clinked her glass against his and winked, sipping her gin.

She watched as he leaned against the railing next to him, taking another drink.

"Do you know, sometimes I feel like this is the best place in the world… Los Angeles, I mean. Just, like, the whole area. There's just so much, ya know?" He huffed in awe, shaking his head, still looking out at the people passing by rather than at her. "I mean, I grew up here. I've spent pretty much my entire existence here. And there's still so much here that I haven't seen or experienced. It's just endless."

"The traffic is endless," she said after a few seconds of silence between them.

He snorted and turned to her, tilting his head to the side in something of a nod. "Okay sure, I'll hand you that."

She giggled. "I'm just teasing you." Her hand landed on his wrist and she met his gaze, smiling. "You're right. LA is vast. As shitty as the traffic is," she said, earning an assenting head nod from her date, "it really is an incredible place. Maybe that's why I'm still here, and why I've chosen to raise my son here. It's kind of incredible, even when it's got its drawbacks."

"Oh, definitely. There are drawbacks, traffic aside even." He shrugged then and sipped his drink again, before his golden gaze swept back to her. "From where I'm standing right now, though, I, uh, I can't think of any. …Weird."

His meaning wasn't lost on her for even a moment and she felt a smile slowly stretch along her mouth. "Not bad, Chuck," she drawled, the smile becoming a grin. She added a dash of mischief and flirtation to it, too.

"Oh? You liked that?" He raised his eyebrows and made the perfect "Huh!" face, causing her to giggle. "No, I mean it. I've got a really good drink in my hand, the weather is kind of perfect, if I squint in that direction I can kind of see the break between the ocean and the sky even in the dark. Most importantly," he said warmly, turning back to her, "I'm on a date with a badass P.I. who is also apparently smart enough and good enough at her job that the police department and DA's office are both scrambling to get her input on their cases, and who also has a pretty great sense of humor, and, um…" His features melted a bit in awe. "Gorgeous to boot."

When she couldn't quite find the words to respond to that, he cleared his throat and lifted his almost empty drink. "Want me to grab you a refill or somethin'? I'm not going to drink more than this. I'm driving, after all."

"No, I'm good with this," she said quietly, shaking her head, feeling like she might still be blushing from his multiple compliments he'd just sincerely paid her in a row. "Thank you."

He nodded.

}o{

Twenty minutes later, they ducked out of the patio area, heading through a gate and stepping onto the boardwalk again. Chuck nibbled a bit on his lip, wracking his brain for something to say.

It would be easy for him to pretend the woman walking quietly beside him, one hand resting on her purse and the other tucked in the pocket of her jacket, was like any other woman he might meet and ask out on a date. In other words, it'd be easy to just pretend there wasn't a toddler waiting for her at home, to just pretend that wasn't a massive part of her existence.

And that inherently made her different from the women he'd dated before.

While it didn't necessarily mean she deserved to be treated differently, or seen differently, he knew having a child that relied on her meant that her priorities were divergent from those of most women her age, especially being a single parent.

That said, he wasn't sure how much she wanted to talk about that. Maybe she wanted to just enjoy her night out without having to be reminded of that particular responsibility. And then he felt bad thinking of her kid as just a "responsibility"…

He decided to keep his mouth shut about that, just in case, shoving his hands in his pockets.

Chuck would let Sarah be the one to bring it up if she wanted to.

They'd only walked maybe a minute or so when he felt her grab his arm with both hands, pulling him to a stop. He turned, lifting an eyebrow. She shifted her grip so that she held his hand in both of hers.

Wordlessly, a sparkle of mischief in her blue eyes, she pulled him across the boardwalk towards the sand.

"W-Wha—?" He chuckled as she kept pulling until they both stumbled out onto the sand.

"I was thinking maybe we could go out by the water…?" She raised an eyebrow, pursing her lips, seeming tentative. "If that fits into your plan…"

"Oh, wow. Thank you for thinking I'm organized enough to actually have a plan here. That's encouraging."

She laughed, already grabbing his shoulder and holding on with one hand so that she could take her heels off. "So I guess that's a yes on going to see the water?"

Charmed out of his mind, he giggled. "I like how you said that. Like we're going over to say hi to a friend."

Sarah gave him a straight face as she stood up again, her heels dangling from her fingers. He saw her wiggling her toes in the sand in his peripheral. "What, you're not friends with the ocean? That's lame, Chuck."

He barked out a laugh and shook his head, leaning down to untie his shoes. He didn't quite feel at liberty to grab onto her the way she had him, so instead, he hobbled and hopped trying to take his sneakers off until she finally said, "Okay, enough" and grabbed onto him to keep him from falling.

"I-I just didn't wanna—"

"I know, it's okay," she giggled, grinning at him until he finally tugged his sneakers and socks off, shoving the socks in the shoes and picking them up. "Are you good?" she asked, pulling her chin back teasingly.

He just gave her a faux glare and chuckled, shaking his head. "Let's just go say hi to the water," he grumbled leading the way towards the water.

She cracked up.

All he heard was the sound of feet shuffling in sand before he felt her hip check him. He staggered to the side, catching himself before he fell, but she was running across the expanse of sand towards the water, laughing over her shoulder at him.

"What the hell!" he yelled, running after her, his heart racing. She turned to face him, running backwards, leaning forward and cackling at him.

"I won!" she proclaimed then as her scampering feet hit the damp, packed down sand.

Chuck stopped a few feet in front of her, thrusting his arms out in a shrug. "You won? Won what? You don't get to say you won when I didn't even know there was a thing to be won in the first place."

"It was a race. Obviously." She made a cute pfft sound.

"On any racetrack anywhere on the planet, hip checking your opponent at the start of the race earns a disqualification. Therefore, per the rules of Planet Earth, I won the race on account of disqualification of the first place finisher."

"I'll disqualify your face."

He laughed. "That bartender in there already did that simply by existing."

She stopped, turning on her heel, digging her toes in the wet sand and frowning dubiously. "Is that some crack you're making? Comparing yourself to the bartender who made our drinks?"

Chuck snorted, smiling self-deprecatingly at her. "Maybe. The guy probably works as a Hollywood extra and makes his actual money tending that bar at night. His jaw was chiseled by Michelangelo himself. And his arms were like…Johnny Bravo arms."

She furrowed her brow. "That can't be a real person. Johnny Bravo?"

"He's a cartoon character."

"Even though I don't know you super well yet, that doesn't surprise me."

Chuck pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Not sure if that's a compliment or not."

"Neither am I." He laughed at that and she gave him a pleased smile, pushing at his arm with the hand that wasn't holding her heels and forcing him to start strolling along the water. She fell in next to him. "But don't do that, please." He gave her a questioning look and she bit the inside of her cheek, meeting his gaze. "Don't drag yourself down in favor of some random dude who flitted in and out of your life for, like, two minutes at the most, Chuck."

"I'm just being factual."

"It's subjective at best. Subjective: whether the bartender was attractive or not. It isn't objective, and I know that because I happen to disagree with you that you come out on the short end of that comparison." He perked up a bit, surprised—if not that she really thought that, then that she'd just said it out loud. "I'll tell you what's objective, though… He was only okay at pouring gin."

Chuck laughed, rocking forward. "Wow. I'll take the compliment and thank you for it…" He nudged her warmly with his elbow. "But I'm wondering how he managed to screw up pouring gin. You didn't even have anything in it but ice."

"You're supposed to use a glass that's been chilled ahead of time. Then you put the ice in. Then you pour the gin. And he just let it, like…slop around in there. It's gin, not fucking vodka." She rolled her eyes.

He held up his hands at his shoulders in surrender. "Wowwwwww. Wow, Sarah. Okay. You mean business when it comes to your gin. Damn."

"Maybe I do." She gave him a teasingly prissy look. "I take my gin seriously. Especially after a long day of the work I do—uh, both the private investigating agency and the two year old."

Chuck nodded in agreement with a smile, all the while taking that bit of information and sticking it in a special place in his brain for later.

"Right," he said, noting she'd just mentioned her son. "I'll be honest with you, Sarah. Learning you're a private eye already felt like enough of a mindfuck because…what a freakin' radical profession, holy crap." She snorted, shaking her head at him, but looking pleased still. "But then, finding out you're also a mom?" He mimicked his brain blowing up with sound effects and hand gestures. When she turned her gaze forward quietly, he realized how that must've sounded and he rushed on. "Not that you can't be both. Like, I don't-I don't mean a mom can't work. That's… Some choose to work and some choose not to and that's…okay." She gave him a flat look and he winced, realizing he was losing his point.

"Are you wondering why I didn't pick something more tame like being an interior decorator once I realized I had a kid I'd be raising?" she asked.

He was surprised by how little salt there was in her tone. She was genuinely asking, as if she got that response often when folks learned what she, a single mother, chose to do for her career.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "I think you're utterly wasted in interior decorating." She raised an eyebrow. "Not that you aren't creative. I-I really don't know…you…very well yet. Um… I guess I just mean that I can't imagine you holding paint swatches and…erm…lamps."

She cracked up. "Lamps, huh?" He winced self-deprecatingly. "I feel like you mean that as a compliment so I'll take it as such."

"I do. I really do, I promise. All that being said though, I guess in my head, solving cases as a P.I. is just a, um, well…an interesting thing to pair with parenting."

"Interesting?"

"Yeah. I mean, take why you had me come to your office to check your laptop for viruses. Some big baddie with a history of not just criminality but violence targeted you with an intricate keystroke logger, essentially hacking into your system. Your system. Which means you were getting close enough to nabbing their asses that they felt the need to go on the attack. But more to my point, it meant you were in genuine danger."

"Still might be," she admitted.

He shivered at the thought. "Exactly. You're doing all of this insanely cool, harrowing crime solving stuff during the day and then you go home at night to this super cute little kid to raise him. It's just…I dunno. It's nothing like what I was expecting, I guess."

"What were you expecting?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

Chuck didn't know how to answer that so he just threw his hands up, earning a laugh.

She grabbed his arm and squeezed reassuringly. "I'm just giving you a hard time because I'm starting to figure out that it's sort of fun to do that to you."

"Oh, joy," he drawled, chuckling, making a face at her.

Sarah giggled and squeezed his arm again. "Seriously though, it's fun. But if it bothers you, or if I'm going a little overboard, I'll stop."

"No, don't stop." He blushed a bit at how he'd rushed out his response immediately. She gave him long look, a slow smile stretching over her perfect lips. "I-I mean, I don't mind it. I like it. Not—Not that. I just mean…Shit, what do I mean? I don't even know. Dear God." He groaned and rolled his head back, shutting his eyes in agony.

"Oh, come onnnnn," she groused, wrapping both of her hands around his arm, her heels clutched in her hand digging into him a little as she grabbed him, but he didn't mind it at all since she was touching him. "Give yourself a break, Chuck."

He shrugged. "First date jitters. Can't speak in complete sentences. Have no idea what the brain is doing except misfiring. Repeatedly."

She giggled. "Lighten up a little, huh? I mean, come on. It's just me. I'm not anything special."

Chuck ignored the teasing glint in her eye and said steadily, without blinking once, "You absolutely are."

She bit her lip, turning to look straight ahead, and then she slowly swept her gaze back to meet his. "You're just saying that because you're obsessed with my job."

He cracked up, shaking his head. And then he broke away from her grip on his arm to jog ahead of her, turning to face her so that he was walking backwards in front of her. "I am so obsessed with your job and I'm not even gonna lie to you about that."

Her laughter rang out across the beach as she rocked forward. "Thank you for your honesty."

"But I didn't say your job is special, I said you are."

"I am my job."

"No. No, you're not." She raised her eyebrows, as if reprimanding him for disputing her. And he knew she had a bit of a point. She absolutely knew herself better than he did, he was sure. "Sorry. I know. I don't know you. I just met you, like…two days ago." He cleared his throat, still walking backwards in front of her. "I just meant that tonight I've sort of been getting to know you outside of the whole private eye agency atmosphere, away from your work, and you're a hell of a lot more than just your job."

She raised her eyebrows, a mute smile on her face. "Am I?"

"You're really good at asking questions that at face value seem like little, trivial questions, but underneath they're super big questions that force me to work really, really hard to answer. But you are a P.I., so I guess that's something you've learned on the job, huh?"

Her grin lit up his insides like someone had kindled a fire in his stomach. "Maybe." But then she must've spotted something behind him because she widened her eyes just slightly and grabbed him by both of his arms, steering him away from the water, around, and back down towards it again in something of a horseshoe pattern. He looked down then and saw a massive clump of seaweed she'd saved him from stepping in.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome," she chirped, giggling. "I have a toddler who rarely watches where he's going. I've learned to watch for him."

He made an offended gasping sound. "Are you comparing me to a toddler?"

She laughed at that. "No! Stop it!" Sarah gave him a play shove as he chuckled. And then she eyed him dubiously. "But you're not out of the woods with that at-face-value-little-but-underneath-big question I asked."

He groaned, stepping to the side and turning so that he was walking forward, shoulder to shoulder with her again. He didn't want to step in anything worse than seaweed in case Sarah wasn't quite as observant the next time. "I tried."

"I commend you for the valiant effort. I see you're trying again, though."

"You're good." She gave him a look. "Okay fine, you're more than your job. You're also apparently a hell of a gin connoisseur, at almost hipster levels."

Sarah laughed, affronted. "How dare you! Hipster?! I didn't say I liked gin before anyone else ever liked gin, okay? I just know what's good and how I like it, that's all."

Chuck felt the way she said that behind his belly button and he swallowed thickly, tugging at the collar of his shirt a bit, as it was almost a little tight suddenly. "That's—Right. Well. I respect that. A whole lot."

She hadn't meant for him to hear it so…salaciously, he was sure. So his defense mechanism roared to life and he resorted to silliness immediately.

"Another way I know you're more than just your job is we've been hanging out together on this date for a few hours now and you've yet to pull out a magnifying glass and yell, 'A CLUE!'" He mimicked stooping down, holding a magnifying glass to his eye and surveying the sand ahead of them.

Sarah laughed, groaning at him. "Oh my God, you're ridiculous. A magnifying glass?"

"I've yet to see you smoke a pipe, either. Or even a cigar." She gave him a look, still amused, but with a furrowed brow and pursed lips, tilting her head. "Okay, okay," he chuckled. "I'm done. But honestly, Sarah?" As if she could hear the sincerity in his voice, she watched him, paying close attention this time. "We've talked about so many things tonight, and none of them had to do with your agency. You're fascinating with or without the 'P' and the 'I' at the end of your name. And you're doing all of that while raising a kid as a single parent?" He made a scoffing sound. "You are not your job." He tilted his head thoughtfully. "At least you're not only your job."

She pursed her lips and twisted them to the side, looking away from him out towards the water. He wasn't sure whether she was trying to hide her reaction from him or what. But it was cute either way. "I might be good at the asking big questions that seem like little questions thing, but you have your own thing."

"I do?"

"Mmmmhm." She nodded slowly, nibbling on her lip as she looked up at him again. "You're good at saying something super dweeby and funny and then you switch on a dime and deliver the smoothest damn line a girl's ever heard. It's impressive. I'm impressed."

He chuckled, feeling the blush on his face. He didn't turn it away from her. It didn't occur to him to. He just shoved his hand that wasn't holding his shoes into his pocket and ducked his head a little. "Uhhhhhh…I'm not sure how to respond to that."

Sarah giggled and wrapped her hand around his forearm. "You don't have to. Just know that it's very effective."

He raised his eyebrows. "Effective at what?"

It took her a moment, but then her jaw dropped and she slowly turned to give him an impressed look. "Oh wow, okay. I see what you mean by the whole little question on the surface, big question underneath thing. Okay," she chuckled, and he was sure he saw a blush. "Well played, Mister Bartowski."

Oh, he liked that. Mister Bartowski. And with the way she'd drawled it, her tone crackling with something akin to flirtation. Would she think he was nuts if we went up to the water and dunked his head in it after that?

Probably.

So he continued to walk next to her instead.

"It's effective at keeping me on my toes," she said then and she let go of him again, hugging herself.

"And that's a good thing?" he asked. "Genuine question."

Sarah bit her lip and gave him a long look. "You sussing me out?"

He raised his eyebrows at that. "What?"

"You're trying to figure out what I like and don't like in a guy I'm on a date with."

"Um." He cleared his throat. "Not actively."

"Yes, actively. You literally asked me." He blushed vibrantly and she pulled at his arm, stopping, holding him back with her and forcing him to turn and face her. "I'm not mad about it. I'm just… It's new. Being asked something like that. Having a guy be this candid with me, especially on a date. Especially especially a first date." Chuck didn't know what to say, so he just watched her as she studied his face, a smile growing on her lips. "And yeah, it's a good thing. I like the way you keep me on my toes."

"Oh. Good. Well, for the record, I'm not doing it on purpose."

"Yeah, I can tell. That's the best part."

Chuck took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "You are not beating around the bush at all."

"Nope." She shrugged. "That okay?"

He pointed at her, grinning. "Now you did a Me Thing. I like that. I see what you did there."

They chuckled together and he didn't even pause when the sea breeze swept past them, causing a few wisps of her blond hair to fall into her face. He reached up and oh so gently tucked the hair behind her ear, letting his fingers linger against her ear, down her jaw, feeling how soft the skin of her neck was, a shiver of pleasure going through him at the way she not only didn't pull away, she stepped in a bit closer.

Oh God, she tilted her chin up towards him. And for a split second, thousands of sensations cascaded through his body, thousands of thoughts surging through his mind, and then it all stopped, and they were alone at the edge of the water, the moonlight shining down on their little spot where they stood.

He leaned down towards her, meeting the shimmer of want in her blue eyes with a slight smile.

Her lips lightly brushed against his when suddenly he heard a crash, water slamming against sand…and it was too late to move, too late to get Sarah out of the way. The water smacked into their legs.

She squealed and yanked him away from the water as they laughed, the moment ruined, and then not at the same time…as they stood safely removed from the reach of the water, wet up to their knees, hunched forward in laughter, clinging to one another.

A/N: I love street tacos. And reviews. Feel free to leave reviews in lieu of street tacos. And yes, I do sit on top of my car if I'm eating takeout somewhere sometimes. It's like having a table.

Come back soon!

-SC