A/N: Today is a good friend of mine's birthday. She knows who she is, even if she doesn't get to this today or even in the next few days. And it felt necessary to get her a present, and I can't because she's on another continent from me. BUT. I can get her this, at least. So happy birthday, you! Love ya!
As for the rest of you, eh, you're all right.
Disclaimer: I don't own CHUCK or its characters. And I'm not making any money from this story.
He hadn't slept well at all.
He'd spent an hour watching television after getting Sarah into her bed…or rather, not watching television and instead waffling between leaving and staying the night, all with the television on in the background. Eventually, he'd rolled his eyes at himself and decided to stay. Of course he was staying, not because he thought Sarah particularly needed him. She was drunk, not incapacitated.
But he was staying because that had obviously been her assumption, considering she went back to his hotel while he slept and lugged his whole suitcase back here.
He just couldn't stop thinking about that number.
Four.
Four days until the day he stepped onto a plane headed back to LA. Twenty-six hundred miles away from here. God, it was so far. There was so much to pack into a short amount of time, and he was still confused by small, quiet moments from Sarah, moments he'd been dwelling on. When she'd seemed almost tentative, like she was holding something back.
And then there was the woman who'd been so incensed, even while drunk or maybe especially while drunk, by the harm Jill Roberts had done to him in college. The lasting harm, apparently, since he was still grappling every single moment with intense confusion about why in the hell a woman like Sarah Walker the scuba instructor who freaking lived on the Hawaiian island of Kauai even glanced at him twice, let alone the connection they'd formed these last few weeks.
A lasting connection.
And that was what really kept him awake. He could feel how genuinely she liked him. He knew she wanted to be around him. She actively sought him out, invited him into her home, to stay with her overnight. In her bed. She'd taken off the next few days of work to be with him until his vacation ended.
This felt like anything but a short and passionate vacation fling. It felt real and like something that was destined to last. He didn't know for how long, and that was being intense again, something Ellie was right about when she told him to reel it in a bit. All he knew was that it had legs, it had power, it had the potential to be something so damn great, something that would follow him back to LA and stay lodged behind his ribcage, burrowing itself in his heart.
He couldn't help thinking back on his relationship with Jill, though. That had been the last real relationship he'd had. He'd dated since then. He'd even been in two different relationships since then, but neither of them had made it out of their infancy, really. And between those two women, the dating was scant, sparse, and…frankly, dissatisfying.
Which was how Jill had ended up getting stuck in his ribs for years. It really had done lasting damage.
And now he was spending time with a woman in a real and enriching way, and it had the potential to be even more lasting, but without the damaging part. God, there was nothing about this thing with Sarah that felt like it could be damaging to him.
Except that he was going to leave soon. And she would stay here, in her home, working her radical job. So many damn miles away. A whole ocean away. God damn it.
The number four haunted him. Four days.
Four days.
And it had made it hard for him to sleep, thinking about the contrast between Jill Roberts and Sarah Walker, the meaning in just how much better and healthier he felt with Sarah than he'd ever felt with Jill even when things had been good. The ease with which he could be himself, the warmth, the heat. The way Sarah could pump him full of confidence and courage simply by having faith in him, and then at the same time, he'd never felt so vulnerable as he felt when he was with her.
Lord help him, but she could really, really hurt him if she wanted to. Jill had been bad enough, but this felt bigger. His attachment to Sarah felt stronger, deeper, and in a much, much shorter amount of time. And he knew it was going to hurt worse than anything to walk away from her in a few days, especially if she made it clear to him that this had merely been a short-lived romance, one that would end when his vacation did.
He drove himself nuts with that thought, wondering if he'd end up face down on his couch for six months eating crap food and letting his company run itself into the ground, the way he'd nearly wrecked his then start-up, now burgeoning and successful company, when Jill had thrown him over for a frat brother of his. No, he thought. This would be worse, much much worse.
So he'd tossed and he'd turned.
And he'd just fallen asleep beside her, finally, when he was woken up by a soft shifting feeling beneath him, like the mattress was bouncing, moving, shaking him awake almost.
Blinking his eyes open, he realized he was moving because the bed beneath him was moving, because… He turned to look over his shoulder, blinking up at her in the darkness. Sarah was moving.
What was she doing?
Chuck felt himself going red as a radish as he realized Sarah had sat up in bed and reached down under the covers to try to shove her underwear down her legs. "Wh-Wha're you doing?" he slurred tiredly, trying to get a good look at her face in the darkness. He could see just enough with the moonlight spilling in, and there was sleepy consternation in her adorable face. She was so disgruntled as she tried to get the underwear off.
She ignored him as though he hadn't even said a word.
"HA!" she exclaimed, pulling her hand back out of the covers, her underwear dangling from her fingers. She tossed them down past the end of the bed, and Chuck felt like he was being taunted by how nice the soft swish of her undergarments hitting her bedroom floor sounded to him.
He took a deep breath as he watched her grab the hem of the shirt she had on and began to yank on it.
Sarah hummed as she pulled her arms up over her head, the shirt going with it. "Z'too…hot," she mumbled to herself. "Z'too hot f'r swimming." She mumbled something slurred again and he thought he heard something about her clothes maybe being too tight.
The shirt was off, and just as quickly, she unclasped her bra and shrugged that off too, both of them falling to the mattress on her other side.
Chuck diverted his gaze, wondering what in the hell was going on. Sure, she was obviously still very drunk, but he still wanted to know what in the world she was playing at. Was she even aware that he was here? Or was she in some drunken just-woke-up fog where she was confused, off, and thought she was…going swimming?
She hadn't acknowledged him at all, just sitting up naked in her bed, pushing her hair back from her face, before she just crawled back in under the covers, tugging them up around her, bunching them in a way that meant pulling them half off of Chuck.
He frowned, pushing himself up onto his elbows to peer down at her with a quiet, "Hey!" The humor of the situation hit him then, and he chuckled, gently reaching over to take some of the covers back but letting her keep most of them.
A little weirded out but chalking it up to typical drunken antics—he'd lived in a frat house for two of his four college years, after all—Chuck turned onto his back and peered up at the ceiling, unable to sleep, the now apparently naked woman beside him lodged in his brain.
Filling him with more questions than answers.
And so now he was awake, because it was morning, with maybe only three or four hours of actual sleep, tops under his belt. He had finagled with her coffee machine to get it working, hoping he hadn't broken it somehow when it made weird snapping sounds as it brewed the coffee. He'd never met a coffee machine that did that before…
Ten minutes later, he sat at her kitchen table, sipping his black coffee, peering out through her sliding glass doors past her yard and eyeing the scenery beyond it, the morning sun stretching over the land, over the ocean. He was going to miss how beautiful this place was. The unmatched beauty of every last bit of it. An untouched beauty he imagined was the same as it had been one hundred, even two hundred years ago.
It filled him with so much peace. It made things that would've felt so momentous and alarming in LA feel trivial and paltry here. He thought that maybe Bobby McFerrin had written "Don't Worry, Be Happy" on this island, sitting in some stunning and invigorating woman's kitchen with a cup of coffee, the way he was now, looking out over some absolutely gorgeous scenery, the sea glistening in the sun out in the distance.
He turned his wrist to peer at his watch and saw that it was well after nine in the morning. He'd been awake for two hours or so. And he thought maybe he'd check on his host. He felt a little responsible. He probably should've had her slow down a little bit, but she just didn't seem like the type of person who got drunk carelessly. Even as she did super cool, brave things, like scuba diving, surfing, and other probably reckless things…she seemed very calculated and measured and careful in her decision-making. She took calculated risks. And she seemed not to put herself in situations she couldn't control.
He thought getting drunk last night had been a calculated decision that she had made, and he wasn't going to be the person who acted like he knew better than she did. Especially since he might've been a part of that calculated decision.
And what did that mean for them? What did that mean about how she felt about him?
Or maybe he was reaching.
Chuck climbed up to his feet, taking one last sip of his coffee, before he went back to the machine, grabbing the second mug he found only after wincingly snooping in cupboards. After pouring some coffee in the mug, he also grabbed a glass, filled it with cold water, and sauntered out of the kitchen and through the living room, heading down the hallway to her room.
She was still asleep on her stomach, her face turned towards him, her left cheek squished against the pillow. It was so cute, he felt himself smiling as he crept close to set the coffee and water down on the nightstand beside her, before he knelt next to the bed, resting on his haunches. As he reached up to gently tuck her hair behind her ear, she sighed, humming, her face twisting up in a wince.
Shit, he hadn't meant to wake her up. He thought he'd been helping, getting the hair out of her face.
Chuck pulled his hand back quickly and just waited as she slowly began gaining consciousness. She let out a pained moan, her voice crackling. And then she finally blinked her eyes open.
Immediately, she held up a hand to block the sun coming into her room from over her shoulder, hissing out a "Shit…"
He quickly shot up to his full height and hurried around the bed to tug at the window coverings, taking away as much light as he could since the sun was literally rising on this side of the house.
"Whyyyy?" he heard her whine as he came back to the bed and knelt down next to her again.
And he waited patiently again as one eye peeked at him from over her bare arm. He was reminded again that she was bare all over under these covers, thanks to that weird interlude in the early morning hours in which she'd shoved her clothes off of her as if she'd had a grudge against them or something, before plopping back down into her pillow, stealing his covers, and falling back asleep immediately.
"Just leave me here to die," she breathed, shutting her eyes tightly again and groaning.
"I refuse. Not only am I not going anywhere, you aren't dying, and I've brought you some water and some coffee, both. Whatever you prefer. I don't know how you're feeling but my guess is…not great."
"My head feels like someone has it in a vise-grip and is slowly squeezing my brain out through my eyes."
Chuck's own eyes popped, his eyebrows going straight into his hairline.
"Wow. Vivid imagery."
She snorted, opening both of her eyes this time and yawning so intensely, he thought he might've heard her jaw pop. "God, last night was a mistake."
"Yeah. You really shouldn't've tried to teach me poker. Big mistake."
"Oh my God, shut up," she giggled, turning her face into her pillow and groaning again, this time more loudly even muffled against the cotton and down.
Chuck gently pushed her hair away from her neck and set his cool, large hand against her skin there, rubbing comfortingly.
Sarah moaned and turned her face towards him again, this time with a small smile on her lips. "Oh, that feels so good."
"Good. That's my intention." He moved his hand down to carefully rub her shoulders as well, one at a time, and she moaned again. "Do you want any coffee? Water? Or would you rather I just keep doing this?"
"Yes, maybe, I dunno, as long as you don't stop doing this thing with your hand, mmmmmmm…"
He wasn't really sure what kind of an answer that was, but what he got from it was that she wanted him to keep rubbing her shoulders, so he did, raising himself up to hover over her and getting to work with both hands. He moved the covers and massaged her back, her shoulders, and worked her neck, too, as she moaned, a wide smile on her face.
"Oh my God, how are you even real?" she muttered happily. "After everything I've found out about you, you're also a freaking master at massages. Mmmmmm…"
"I think you're just extra susceptible to it right now because you're hungover."
"No'm not," she tried to argue, her lips forming a cute pout.
"Oh, you're not, huh?"
She pushed herself up just enough to glare at him over her shoulder, before she lowered herself back to the pillow with a smirk. "Fine. Maybe a little."
"No shame in it. But you might want to take some aspirin or something. I've got some in my suitcase. You brought it all the way here from my hotel; least I can do is grab it from said suitcase which is sitting right over there." He grinned at her as she peeked at him again.
"I do actually need some aspirin, but I have some in my bathroom." She pushed herself up to apparently get it herself and he grabbed her by her arms.
"No, no, no. No, you stay there. I can get it. You just…tell… What?" She turned onto her back and got a strange look on her face, and then she pinched the covers between her fingers and looked down her body. Oh.
"Why am I not wearing any clothes?" She dropped the covers back, looking incredibly confused as she blinked up at him. And then her eyes widened before he had a chance to answer. "Oh, no. No, please don't tell me that we had sex and I don't remember it now."
Chuck nearly tipped right off of the edge of the bed to fall flat on his face on the floor, but he barely caught himself and hopped up to his feet instead, holding his hands up. "No, no. No, that's not—Hey, what kind of a guy do you think I am?" He tilted his head and gave her a frown, putting his hands on his hips. She raised her eyebrows at him, looking up at him through her eyelashes. There was almost a shyness in her features now as she bundled the covers up around her chest. "This is going to sound so made up," he said with a huff, pushing his hand through his curls, before carefully sitting on the edge of the bed again.
"Try me…"
He nodded. "Look, first of all, we didn't have sex. I don't…Even though we have before, a few times now," he added, clearing his throat and tugging at the hem of his shirt, squirming a bit in discomfort as he felt her gaze burning a hole in the side of his face. "You were very much over the drunk threshold, and I very much was not. And I don't like how unbalanced that equation is. My equations need to be balanced, thank you very much. You knocked out over by the couch while teaching me poker, so I carried you to bed. The only thing I took off of your body were your shorts because they seemed like they'd be uncomfortable for you to sleep in," he said, holding his hands up again. "I swear." Her face remained unchanged, he saw, but she seemed to watch him even more closely as he continued. "This is the part that'll sound made up."
She nodded for him to continue and he did.
"I was asleep next to you and I felt some…jostling of the bed or something. It woke me up and I looked over to see if you were okay, and you were just sitting there taking off what you were wearing. Underwear, shirt, bra, all of it…and you did it almost like you were angry at them." Sarah's gaze diverted. "It-It was, erm, confusing. You just, like, threw your clothes away and climbed back down under the covers to go to sleep. Which, by the way, you did sort of…grab them and…Well, you stole them. Not all of them, but still…"
Sarah brought her gaze back to him, looking contrite, a wince on her gorgeous but wan features.
"I swear, that's what happened. I'm not lying."
She shook her head and huffed. "No, I know. I know, Chuck. Nobody could or would make any of that up." Her hand dropped onto his thigh and she squeezed reassuringly. "I must have seriously weirded you the fuck out with that. In the middle of the night?"
"Uhhh…" He shrugged, smiling at her as she shifted to sit up a bit more to see him better. "You actually didn't really weird me out, but I was definitely pretty confused," he chuckled. "I did not know what you were doing, and I don't even think you knew I was here. You were just tearing at the clothes."
"Oh…" She was eerily quiet, and she blushed. "God, I'm sorry. I…must've been pretty drunk to do that. I must've been sort of…sleep-walking maybe."
He chuckled. "You don't have to apologize."
Her jaw clenched then as she stared down into her lap. "Did I…say anything? Anything weird? I mean…did I say anything about…anything else? Like, about anything? You get what I mean."
Chuck frowned and shook his head. "You didn't say a word. It was just the, uh, the stripping."
She looked relieved for a moment, and then she turned and giggled at him, furrowing her brow. "Really?" she droned. "Stripping?"
"Yeah, it was like…angry stripping." He got a pillow straight to the kisser and he fell over, laughing. "Listen, you're in good company, Sarah. When I get drunk, I wake up in the middle of the night and I yodel, so…" She grabbed the pillow, cracking up as she repeatedly slammed it down on him. He had to protect his face by bringing his arms up, giggling maniacally.
"You freaking asshole," she laughed, putting the pillow back behind her, grinning, her blue eyes alight with amusement.
He beamed back at her, pushing himself up to sit again. "I'm just teasing you. Honestly, Sarah, it's not that weird. I mean, I was…just confused."
She rolled her eyes. "Embarrassing. This is why I don't get drunk with people. I…" Biting her lip, Sarah eyed him for a long time, and he saw hesitation there. And then she spoke anyway, taking a deep breath first. "I don't like not being…in control. And when I'm drunk, I lose control. Doing that around people is a big no-no. The whole taking my clothes off in the middle of the night thing that I did is a testament to that." She widened her eyes, blushing again.
"Oh. Well, that makes sense. Folks do stupid shit sometimes when they're drunk, or they say things they don't mean, or…things are revealed they don't mean to reveal." He reached over and curled his hand around hers, squeezing. "If it makes you feel any less embarrassed, or maybe just less alone in your embarrassment, I got dumped by a girl I wasn't even that into right before a party we were both invited to, I got drunk at said party, and I told her in my Loud Drunken Chuck voice that I was actually late to our last date we went on because I was in the middle of an Assassin's Creed campaign and thought it was more important."
Sarah winced. "Oh God. Chuck. Really?"
He shrugged. "I ain't proud of myself. But I really wasn't that into her, probably because I could tell she wasn't into me. I felt like she was…settling. Or really, it felt like she felt like she was settling. And that's not a good feeling to feel when you're sitting across from a girl on a date. I shouldn't have lashed out, and I definitely shouldn't have said that so loudly. She worked with my sister at the time, which is how we got set up and poor Ellie did not talk to me for two days, she was so mad at me."
Sarah squeezed his hand back and giggled. "I don't blame her. Sorry. That is…pretty embarrassing."
"Yeah, Ellie heard me when I said the video game thing. Oof, I thought she was gonna murder me on the spot. There would've been so many witnesses and I don't think she would've cared. To be frank, I think everyone there would've helped her bury the body. That was just…a low point. I've had a lot of low points with women." He raised his eyebrows and let go of her hand, throwing his arms up. "See? And ya didn't even have to get me drunk for me to say that extremely embarrassing thing."
Giggling, she leaned over and reached up to push her fingers through his curls. It felt amazing, as always, and he hummed, making her giggle again. "Well, you were hurt. I don't really blame you much, either."
"Oh you should. You really should. You should be judging me right now. Your getting-naked drunken antics last night aren't nearly as bad as me on my bullshit all those years ago." He grimaced.
"You're better now," she shrugged.
"Am I? We don't really know for sure until some girl dumps me right before a party we're both at." He grinned cheekily with his tongue darting out between his teeth.
"You're better." She smiled warmly at him. "I woke up this morning without even a single shred of clothing on, and while I am a little hazy on some of what might've been said last night, I did pick up on the fact that you jumped through hoops not to have sex with me." Chuck gulped half spit, half air, and choked a little, stammering, trying to explain himself. But she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, giving him an affectionate squeeze, chuckling. "Chuck, no. It was sweet. I was drunk but I still half-knew what you were doing. The amount of respect you show people…" She hit him with a melty look that made him feel a little breathless. "The amount of respect you show me in particular… It isn't really…something I'm used to." Her hand moved to cup his jaw. "You are a really good guy."
"You were drunk," he said quietly, shrugging.
"I was. I don't get drunk in front of people, for the aforementioned reason…and yet, last night, I just kept throwin' 'em back."
"You did." He blinked. "Why?"
"Trust." She answered quickly, meeting his gaze. "You make it really easy for a girl to trust you, Chuck Bartowski." A slow smile spread over his face. "It's dangerous," she added quietly, a serious look on her own face.
"Dangerous? I'm not a danger to you."
"Aren't you?" she flirted, smirking, a certain heat in her blue eyes. He didn't know how to respond, still caught up in the part where she told him she trusted him enough to get drunk with him, to let her control slip in a way she didn't in front of others by rule. But she rescued him from having to come up with something by groaning and crawling back down under the covers, burying her face in her pillow. "I hate hangovers."
"Well, it's a good thing you got drunk in front of me, because now you're hungover in front of me, and there's no better person to be hungover in front of."
She let out a one-syllable giggle and turned her face towards him, her cheek squished by the pillow. "Is that so?"
"It is. Here." He reached over her and grabbed her water. "Down half of this, at least. Take your time, you don't have to, like, chug it. And do you have bread? A toaster? That'll go down good."
"My stomach is fine, it's just my head."
He snapped his fingers and popped up to his feet beside the bed. "Even better. Drink your water, then go back to sleep if you want to. We're going to feed your hangover."
"Hey, wait…" She reached out to snag his wrist before he could leave. "I'm not going to have you working away in my kitchen while I lie here like a stupid hungover slob. You are on vacation, you didn't sign up for this. And anyway, what about your leg? You're the one who was injured yesterday, and my dumb selfish ass went and over drank."
"Don't think I didn't also drink a whole lot, because the pain in my leg was almost nonexistent all night. It was niiiiice," he drawled, finishing it off with a giggle.
She giggled back at him, her face bright, even amidst the hangover tiredness. "And is the pain nonexistent now?"
"Nope, definitely not. It still stings like a bitch. But not as big of a bitch as yesterday. Not nearly. I'm not actively trying to go to the ER to have them saw off my leg to make it stop hurting like I was this close to doing yesterday." He held up his fingers an inch apart, winking at her.
Smirking, she shook her head. "That settles it. I'll make the food, after…uh, I get clothes on." That blush again. God, it was adorable.
"No, you will not. I'm the guest. I make the rules."
"This is my house, I make the rules." She arched an eyebrow.
"No. You aren't getting me with that scary eyebrow." She burst out laughing. "I'm putting my foot down."
"Lightly, so as not to exacerbate the sting," she added, narrowing her eyes and pursing her lips.
"You think you're so witty and charming," he drawled, pointing at her and wiggling his finger about, squinting at her. "Well, I have news for you. You are." He leaned down and pressed his lips to her forehead. "You're also staying in bed while I make breakfast. That is final!" he exclaimed, moving out of her grip. "Lie down. Shut your eyes."
"I thought I was supposed to drink water," she said, batting her eyelashes innocently.
"You know what I mean. Cheeky."
She grinned at him as he ducked out of her room, going back out to the kitchen and exploring her fridge and cabinets. He had a mandate. He was going to impress her with this. He only had four more days to knock this woman fully on her ass, enough that she didn't choose to end this when he left the island. God, this was all he could do. And hope.
He could hope, too.
}o{
Chuck thought blasting music from his cellphone as he rummaged in her kitchen for anything he might be able to use to make a real breakfast of champions that didn't come out of a cereal box was a good idea. It put some pep in his step as he scrambled the eggs he found in her fridge, sliced the ham and onions, and tossed them in the pan to cook. He had to give the bacon in the back of the fridge a sniff test, but deemed it good and started sizzling a few strips in a second pan.
He also thought putting his music on shuffle was a good idea. Especially when an old favorite came on. It hit him in just the right way as he clipped the tongs open and shut to the beat of the music, rolling his hips, shaking his backside, singing under his breath.
Yes, listening to music while cooking was a genius idea.
Until it wasn't.
He turned to grab his coffee and take a sip, only to find one blond scuba instructor leaning her shoulder against the oven, silently watching him with her eyebrows raised and her lips pressed together in interested amusement.
Yelping, he staggered back, bouncing off of the counter behind him. He probably would've fallen if it hadn't been there.
Clearing his throat, he reached over to his phone and pressed pause on the music. "Hi. Um, breakfast is coming soon. Er, what-what are you doing out of bed?"
"Watching a guy in his boxers dance in my kitchen," she said with a shrug. "If I'd known you had moves like this, I would've taken you dancing with me more often the last few weeks."
He gave her a flat look, blushing in spite of himself. "No you would not have. You know full-well these moves are embarrassing as hell." He clipped the tongs in her direction, then went to shift the bacon around in the oil, trying to keep himself busy so that he didn't melt into the floor in utter mortification.
Genuinely figuring she would stay in bed and fall back asleep, he'd been operating in the assumption he'd be totally alone until he finished cooking and brought her plate in to her. No holds barred dancing, tongs and hips and all, had commenced.
And she'd seen it all.
Dear God.
Sarah giggled, bringing her coffee up to take a casual sip. "How do you manage to get cuter by the minute? It's ridiculous."
"You're supposed to be in bed."
"Oh, I know. Obviously. I mean, you apparently thought so." She giggled again.
Chuck could feel the vibrant blush on his face. He cleared his throat and scratched behind his ear. "Haaa. Yeah. I just… Uh, this'll be a few minutes still. The bacon's cooking slow." She didn't say anything but even in her silence, he could hear how amused she still was. It was in the air between them. And she was smart. She saw exactly what he was doing trying to divert her attention to the food.
Just pretend what happened hadn't happened at all.
She moved in next to him and looked down into the pans he was working in. "Does dancing while cooking make the food taste better or…?"
"God damn it," he groused, groaning as she laughed, his head tilting back as he rolled his eyes at the ceiling.
Her hand wrapped around his arm as she pressed her face into his shoulder, still laughing. "Don't be embarrassed. I think you singlehandedly cured my hangover. I couldn't have asked for a better thing to find in my kitchen when I heard the music and got curious."
"I knew I had it on too loud." He winced, flipping the strips of bacon carefully.
"Turn it back on. And also, how can I help?"
"Nope." He shook his head, and then he limped a bit away from her to the other counter behind him, snagging the bowl with the scrambled eggs in it. "Best thing you can do is enjoy your coffee and go back to bed."
She shook her head with a small pout. "I'm done with the bed."
"Fine. Then grab your coffee and sit down somewhere. I've got breakfast."
"Is that why you're limping everywhere?"
"No." He made a face at her, and she snorted, grinning gorgeously, her hair mussed, thankfully wearing blue board shorts and a grey tank top instead of what she'd had on when he left her in bed, which was absolutely nothing at all. "I'm limping because I got stung by a jellyfish yesterday."
"I know. I was there." She raised her eyebrows. "Let me at least do something."
"You can watch me."
"You didn't seem too happy about me watching you a minute ago." She winked flirtatiously as she backed out of the kitchen, smirking at him. She came around to other side of the stove where her bar counter was and climbed up on a stool, peering at him, sipping her coffee again. "You win this round."
"Thank you." He chuckled. "Can you just forget about the whole dancing in your kitchen thing, though?"
"Oh, absolutely not," she said, shaking her head with a cheeky grin. "I'm keeping it forever. You're going home in a couple of days. I'm going to need that image to keep me company."
Damn, that put an ache in his chest, even as he smiled at her, pouring the beaten eggs into the pan. So they were going to bring that up then? And she'd just insinuated she'd be thinking about him even after he left, that she'd miss him.
Or was he reaching again?
"Well, while you have the image of me shaking my flat nerd ass in your kitchen," he said, making her laugh, "I'll have the image of you making up the word lowtense and being all proud of yourself while awkwardly balancing your gin glass on my leg, your eyes all glazed."
She glared and pointed at him. "That's fair but you're a stinker."
"Not as much as you are," he chuckled, working away at scrambling the eggs.
"That's probably true."
He grinned hard, looking up at her through his eyelashes as he stirred the eggs in the pan. But he still felt the gravity of what she'd said, the reminder of how little time he had left in Kauai, how little time they had left for moments like these.
This soft quiet, just being together in the same place, peace between them. He could feel her eyes on him as he continued to make breakfast. And he was careful not to look at her. He felt a little vulnerable, raw. Maybe it wasn't all that grown-up or independent of him, but he really wished he could get his sister in his ear in this moment.
He needed her warm reassurance, first of all, but he also needed her honesty. Was he completely screwing up, not sitting down next to this woman and telling her everything he was feeling? She was such a struggle to read, and it was hard to pin down where she stood sometimes. She seemed to almost pull back into herself one moment, and then next, she said or did things that made him feel so sure there was more to this for her than just a couple weeks of fun and romance.
Chuck knew so little about Sarah Walker the scuba instructor. He knew that she'd bounced around from place to place, had a lot of stamps in her passport, had seen all sorts of different countries, had lived through genuine adventure too, most likely. She was worldly as all get out. He knew she liked gin. He knew she was an adorable drunk. But even with how much she'd opened up last night, it still felt like she hadn't relinquished much to him. He'd learned nothing about her, still.
But he didn't need Sarah to tell him everything. He didn't need her entire backstory. He knew the Sarah who was here, sitting on the other side of the counter where he was turning over the bacon, scrambling the eggs in the pan. At least, he knew the important things. She was a protector by nature, which was exactly why she was so good at her job. The amount of trust she engendered just by being in your presence, her reliability and steadfastness, her competency. She immediately made him feel like he was in good hands, like she wasn't going to let anything happen to him, even within minutes of talking to her on that boat that first day.
It was like a superpower.
And then the protectiveness in her in the early morning hours before she finally fell asleep and had to be carried to bed, when he told her about Jill. It was sincere; he saw it in her gorgeous features. The consternation that was there, like she wanted to go back in time and protect twenty-two year old Chuck Bartowski from the heartache of his cheating girlfriend.
God, that felt good. He didn't need to know much else about her but that, the crackle in her blue eyes of protectiveness and a flash of vengeance, too.
Of course, that wasn't altogether true, either. He wanted to know more about her. He really, really did. He still wasn't sure what it was that made her tick.
Her job, sure. Those moments he'd spent underwater with her, how the wonder was still there in her eyes behind the goggles as she peered at everything around her, even though he knew she had led hundreds upon hundreds of dives in the last however many months she'd worked at the Scuba Shack.
But what brought her here? What scared her away from Washington, D.C. of all places that she wanted to disappear into the beautiful wilderness of Kauai? A big, history-filled city, grey with cement and government buildings, cherry blossoms, cold… to the peace and serenity of an island that was lucky enough to be a little more untouched by colonialism than the other islands. A little. Its quiet beaches, thick pockets of amazingly giant, beautiful trees, an almost remoteness that felt pure and unique amongst the Hawaiian islands.
"Um… Chuck?"
He shook himself and looked up at Sarah. "Hm?"
She winced and pointed. Oh. Smoke was coming up from the eggs.
"Oh! Whoops." He turned them over and turned off the burner, giving her a sheepish look as he checked underneath. At least they hadn't burned, but they'd be a little more done than he'd intended.
"I lost you for a second there," she said quietly. He met her gaze and she smiled slightly. "You okay?"
"Yeah. Totally. Just got lost in my brain for a second, that's all," he chuckled.
"What about?"
"Oh. Um." He didn't want to lie. So he told a half-truth. "Just thinking about how different this island is from the others. Not that I've been to the others, but from what I've heard, they're a lot more touristy, have more resorts and big…capitalism traps and stuff. And this feels so much more remote. The amount of time you have to drive through legit, like…wilderness, to get to little pockets of human life…it feels super unique."
She nodded. "Yeah. I really like that about this place."
"Man, if I was running away from something, I'd come here. For sure."
There was a tenseness in the quiet and he wasn't sure why. She broke the quiet, her voice tentative. "What makes you say that?"
Chuck shrugged, turning over the bacon one more time, then setting down the tongs and moving to grab the plates he'd gotten out at the beginning of cooking. "I don't know. I've probably seen way too many dumb action movies. Like, dude stool pigeons and throws his criminal peers under the bus and goes into the witness protection program, changes his name, his hair, and disappears into Kauai to buy a fishing boat and make his living that way. It's the plot of so many action films, you know?" He chuckled.
"You watch too many movies, for sure," she giggled, shaking her head. But the look on her face was quiet, thoughtful. And she was almost seeming to pull back into herself again. "But it is really easy to fall into the solitude of this island and fall in love with how few people are around. I sometimes imagine how it must have been here before we came in and fucked it up."
"From what I've read, Kauai is at least less fucked up. They've preserved some semblance of…" He stopped himself and huffed. "Nah, you're right. We fucked this place up too."
She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. "This is easily my favorite place I've lived though."
"I can see why."
He served the food, equally distributing it onto the two plates, and he loved the way her face crumbled in abject hunger and desire, watching the steam billow up from the plates. It made him smirk.
He reached over to set one plate in front of her, the other in front of the stool next to her, and she smiled at him, her eyes flashing with something that made him feel almost giddy. And then he snagged silverware and came around to sit on the stool beside hers, sipping his coffee. "I can tell you for sure that this is easily my favorite place I've ever visited."
"Is it the pineapple? Nothing beats Hawaiian pineapple."
Chuck laughed, and he was struck with a bit of tentativeness, shyness, deciding not to verbalize what it really was that made this his favorite place. It didn't feel like the right moment for some reason. So he just raised his mug and smirked. "To Hawaiian pineapple."
"Cheers." She winked and clinked her mug to his, sipping her coffee with a quiet smile on her face.
A/N: I miss Kauai so much when I write this fic. Ugh. Most beautiful place in the world. But I probably won't miss it as much as Chuck will when he goes back to LA. Bahahahahahahahahaha (dodges things thrown at my head and runs away)
Please review! Thanks!
-SC
