A/N: Last chapter, Chuck started his software design and development for the new application, as well as taking Sarah dancing, which they both enjoyed. This time they will start to grow the team in the new company.

Thank again for all the reviews. I was happily surprised that most people thought the Agile development content it was at an appropriate level, some even found it amusing. I was poking fun at it a bit.

As always, LetsGoRed has done great job as my beta with this chapter, so I thank him for that.

Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck or make any money from it.

Life After Death
Chapter 11 - Still Starting Up

Chuck and Sarah's house, 2 months later

Sitting in the kitchen, she sipped her coffee and thought about the changes they'd gone through in the last couple of months.

Pinning Chuck down for the finance discussions, had been an eye opener, both the costs required and the state of their savings. She smiled. Their savings. She no longer saw it as his and hers, but joint. That hadn't been a conscious decision, or some kind of revelation, it just happened automatically. She knew she would spend the rest of her life with this wonderful man, so everything she owned was his, what little there was, and similarly his possessions and money were hers. She probably should feel guilty about that, but knew he wouldn't care. He felt the same.

The costs of setting up the business shouldn't have surprised her, but all that IT equipment and software was so expensive. The developers were too, as they had very marketable skills.

He hadn't thought about other resourcing. Of course! So, although a lot cheaper, facilities, marketing and security added to the costs. Not all would be needed initially, but they had to be covered by the finance package. The discussion about sales and publicity had been harder. Chuck saw no need for either, but he eventually came around.

She had thought they would need seed funding to help get it started, so the discussion about their joint savings was quite a shock.

She knew what she had accumulated over thirteen years in the CIA. She hardly spent anything. All mission costs were covered, as was her DC apartment. She had bought her prize possession, the Porsche, but other than typical necessities during brief downtime, she'd spent very little. As a result, she left the agency with over two million dollars. She'd started digging into that since leaving, but not significantly.

It seemed that Chuck had been pretty frugal too. Obviously living with his sister for three years had saved on both accommodation and food. They had learnt in their teenage years to eat cheaply and had obviously continued to do so, other than the occasional takeout or dining out at some basic eatery. After he moved into his own house, he had mostly continued the same way. Meals out had increased and obviously the car and the house ate into his funds, but other than that, all money spent had been on his business. He'd run that from his home initially and only started renting a small office in the last couple of years. Morgan had initially just helped his friend and only joined Chuck when the office was set up.

So, a lot of his income was in savings. Sarah was shocked at how much that was. For one thing, she didn't know the cost of games, but she also had no idea how popular games from Barsoft Gaming were. Chuck had nearly eighty million dollars in savings! This gave them a huge buffer before they needed external financing, and seed funding would not be needed.

She'd decided to hold off seeking financing until they really needed it. That would enable them to set up and launch without. The popularity of the initial product would both prove whether it was viable or not and, if viable, support them seeking further funding.

They did need those additional developers to produce that initial product. Recruitment had been interesting for Sarah. She was clueless about the skills or experience Chuck was seeking, but she knew how to read people. No one could lie to her. So, she acted as the Human Resources person in the interviews, but if she detected any hesitation or falsehoods, she'd follow those with further questions that took the interviewee by surprise. She was a quick learner, always had been, so she quickly picked up what to ask. They were expecting only Chuck to ask technical questions and yet this beautiful HR woman then dismissed one at them. She also asked why they hesitated or answered questions in ways that didn't seem right. That surprised them, too.

She wasn't surprised that these IT guys fitted the stereotypes and were nervous around her. She was expecting this and always dressed in a way to reduce that and wore no makeup on those days. Chuck had also asked her to make sure she sat on the other side of a desk from them. No point distracting them with her long legs.

It took them two weeks of interviewing to select the four they wanted. All had started with them a month ago. That had been quite a change to their situation. As expected. they'd had to give up the dining room for "office space." The small server Chuck had bought, and the backup server, were in his study, but the place felt crowded with four guys in the dining room, and using the kitchen, too.

She was used to it now, but missed their exclusive days. Of course, this meant evenings and weekends were precious. Not all evenings though. Chuck was encouraging eight-hour days, something that was part of the Agile way of working apparently, but sometimes the guys were so excited about what they were doing, they didn't want to stop.

One good thing about having these guys starting at their house was that they saw Sarah far more than they would in the office, or more particularly, they saw Chuck and Sarah together. All these guys were now able to almost ignore a beautiful, leggy blonde because they had seen how much in love the two of them were and how she had eyes for no one else.

They were all very shy. IT caricatures, in a way. Seeing Sarah with Chuck boosted their own confidence with women. If Chuck could get such an amazing woman, maybe there was hope for them. A couple of them, James and John, had started talking about dates they'd had; the confidence obviously extending to being able to talk about their lives. David and Paul still seemed a bit reserved, but joined in the discussions, even though they weren't dating.

The office build had taken longer than expected, but in less than a month, they would be moving equipment into the office, then, after setting it all up, they'd all move there to work. She couldn't wait to get their place back, just for them.

In spite of all this, their life together was great.

Dancing had become very important to them. They went out every Friday evening dancing, but even when they stayed in, they danced in their lounge. And, yes, he had serenaded her. She had loved it and the passion with which she expressed that, all night, made that very obvious to him.

It felt like each day, she fell more in love with him. How she had survived without him all those years now seemed hard to imagine. She had been a hollow shell waiting to be filled, but she hadn't realized that. With him, she was filled with love and so, so happy.

Life was truly wonderful now. She leaned back into her chair, now in Chuck's study alongside his. Soon it will be even better.

Sushi bar, Burbank, two weeks later

Surprisingly, this was only the second time they'd been out for a meal with, or even seen, Morgan. This time with his girlfriend, Alex.

She thought back to the first time she'd met Morgan. after she and Chuck had only been dating a couple of weeks.

= ! =

Watching the two guys together, Sarah had been a bit worried. Chuck seemed to behave like a teenager, as did Morgan. However, as the evening progressed. She'd noticed, a few times, how much Morgan had meant to Chuck and how much Chuck meant to Morgan.

When Chuck had headed to the restroom, Morgan had leaned over the table and taken Sarah's hand in his. That had surprised her, but fortunately she hadn't snatched it away.

Morgan started, "Sarah, I'm so glad you are with him. He seems so happy. I've not seen him like this since his Stanford days."

She raised her left eyebrow and Morgan nodded to himself. "There was harpy there that really dragged him down!"

Sarah just said one word, "Jill?"

Morgan looked surprised. "So, he's told you about her! And you've not run for the hills like so many do!"

Sarah snorted a laugh. "No! I certainly haven't!"

Morgan sat back. "Good! He needs you, Sarah." Then he frowned and gave her such an intense look. "Don't ever hurt him!"

Sarah could tell that wasn't a threat, but Morgan pleading with her. She was glad Chuck's wellbeing was so important to him.

"I won't," she softly replied, "I'm hoping he won't hurt me either."

"Oh, he won't. He'd never do that." The conviction in Morgan's voice made her feel good.

Sarah had been thinking about Chuck's friendship with Morgan. They'd known each other, and been around for each other, since they were six years old. That's nearly twenty-four years.

She hadn't known anyone that long or, more to the point, been around anyone that long. Yes, she'd known her parents longer, but she'd left her mom twenty-three years ago and not seen her dad for over thirteen years.

That thought made her think about the people she did still keep in touch with, albeit tenuously. There was only Carina and Zondra.

Carina was still a DEA agent and rarely off mission. Sarah hadn't seen her for eighteen months. She may be dead now. That's the problem with the spy life. Long relationships were not realistic. So, Sarah hadn't bothered. Yes, it was a lonely life, but it was all she'd known for thirteen years. Her life before. with her dad. wasn't much better, so she had been lonely for all twenty-three years since leaving her mom. It was all she knew.

Then she'd come to Los Angeles and met Chuck. He changed everything for her. Until Chuck, she wouldn't have imagined knowing anyone for as long as Chuck had known Morgan. Now she could imagine it for her future. She didn't know how long she'd live, but even if she died at eighty, that would still be fifty years. Fifty years with Chuck. What a wonderful thought.

Of course, that might not happen. He might decide to leave her. Either of them, or maybe both, could die in a car accident. Or catch a deadly disease. Or die of a heart attack.

She told herself that she should stop thinking negative what-ifs. They achieved nothing but to depress you. These were all things that everyone faced. It was just life. But so much better than spy life.

She'd just bask in the thought of fifty years with the love of her life.

= ! =

Now she and her love were sitting opposite Morgan and Alex. She silently watched them talking to each other and to Chuck.

They were both excitable. About the same height, but apart from that very different.

Morgan seemed like a kid, as always. He was apparently the same age as Chuck, but you'd never think it. He never seemed to sit still, gesticulating all the time. His mind, similarly, never stuck on a single topic, spiraling off in random directions. Games were key to his life. Not just the ones they sold, but any game. He always wanted to talk to Chuck about the latest, seemingly, greatest ever released. That had happened the last time, but the greatest was now something just released.

Alex, on the other hand, was mostly quiet, letting her boyfriend talk, and talk. However, get her on a topic that interested her, and she was off.

She and Sarah had a shared love of dancing, so had arranged a night out the next Thursday, a girl's night. Chuck looked a bit disappointed. Sarah smiled at him. "Don't worry. We'll still go dancing together on Friday." That cheered him up.

Morgan looked shocked and challenged Chuck. "You go dancing?"

"Every week, Morg. You should try it."

Morgan turned to Sarah. "Wow! You've changed him."

"Not at all, Morgan. Dancing is one of the things we both love to do. Apparently, he was just waiting for the right girl to come along." She smiled at Chuck.

Alex chirped up, "And you're that girl!"

Sarah beamed. "Yup!"

Alex turned to her boyfriend. "I'm taking you dancing!"

Morgan gulped.

Chuck decided to take their conversation in a different direction. "Morg is the expert on eating establishments, whether for takeout or dining out. This is one of his latest recommendations, but the Italian and Chinese we went to were, too."

Sarah looked at Morgan, who was looking pleased with himself. "Thank you, Morgan." That puffed him up even more.

"Oh God! I'm not going to hear the end of this!" Alex muttered. Chuck and Sarah laughed.

Morgan stopped preening and leaned over to Alex and kissed her.

Sarah smiled. They did seem good for each other. Looking at Chuck, she hoped she and Chuck seemed good for each other when others saw them.

They'd finish eating and sat drinking iced tea.

Sarah was curious and decided she'd just ask, "Morgan, are you going to be okay looking after Barsoft Gaming without Chuck?"

Morgan looked at her. "I've known Chuck wasn't happy there for about a year before he decided to leave, Sarah. I panicked for about three months."

Alex snorted. "Make that six!"

Morgan looked hurt for a couple of seconds, then nodded. "Yeah, six."

He looked back at Sarah and continued, "Then I realized, that was okay. I still had game ideas and my bud would still be around to bounce ideas off."

Chuck nodded.

Morgan smiled. "Over the time he's run the company, he's taught me how to code and fix bugs in the code, his code. I'll get by. It'll take me a lot longer than it would Chuck, but I'll get there." He smirked and sang, "With a little help from my friend."

" Yeah, you will, Bud." Chuck smiled at his friend fondly.

Sarah nodded and smiled too. "Good."

Alex beamed at her.

A/N: So, they now have software developers working at their house while they wait for the new office to complete. Not ideal, but they're managing. They have now also met Morgan's girlfriend, Alex who seems good for him.

Next chapter, we'll skip forward in time again and they will be in the new office, but still have more to do to finish the solution.

Finally, please leave a review with your thoughts on this chapter. They are really appreciated.