A/N: Last chapter, Chuck and Sarah had software developers working at their house while waiting for the new office to complete. This time, we'll skip forward in time again and they are now in the new office. Let's see how they are getting on.
Thank again for all the reviews. Reading them is very motivating.
I was very late getting this chapter to my beta, LetsGoRed, but he turned it round so quickly, while still finding all my mistakes and British terms. Thanks, my friend.
Disclaimer: I neither own Chuck nor make any money from it.
Life After Death
Chapter 12 – Office, data & decisions
New office, Malibu
They'd been in the new office for a month now, but it still felt new to Chuck.
For the first two weeks, he'd been mostly on his own setting up the servers in the basement. He'd hit a number of problems, but Sarah had been amazing, handling all the people they needed to resolve them, from the suppliers who'd not delivered things they claimed they had, to the network company and its mistakes with what it installed.
Chuck knew all these people would have given him the runaround. Some had tried with this non-techie woman that called them, but Sarah put them straight. Very quickly. She was like a force of nature. Nothing could stand up to her.
They'd ended up giving the developers time off to prepare for the move and Sarah and he just moved to the office earlier than originally planned.
After that two-week period, the developers moved in.
They initially all brought food with them to eat in the kitchen area, but soon thereafter Sarah had negotiated with a nearby coffee shop to have food delivered daily.
The cleaning staff used by others on the site came in each day to cover the facilities aspect.
Next week, Sarah would be interviewing three security guards who would hopefully take on shifts. With all this IT equipment, it was necessary. Sarah was already berating herself for not doing it earlier. Chuck had had to drag her home each night for the first week, after she'd realized her mistake. She'd wanted to stay onsite, all night.
He smiled remembering that first night. "It's all insured, Babe."
She'd been frowning and pacing around, then she'd stopped. "Babe?"
The completely straight look she gave him, worried him. "You don't like it?"
She grinned. "Gotcha." She walked to him and put her arms around his neck. "Babe is fine by me, Sweetie."
"Hmm. Sweetie. That's fine by me." He kissed her, hard. "Come on… Babe. Our bed awaits."
"Sweet talker!" was all she said, but she didn't stay in the office that night. Or the subsequent nights, but they did have the tension for the next six.
Flight to DC
The three security guys she'd recruited were now working the shifts. Sarah could relax knowing their property was now secure. She could also leave the site for a couple of days.
Today they were negotiating on data. Language data. They were going to buy a database with all they needed for English/Spanish, English/French and English/Italian initially. They had discussed this. Both felt that just a single language translation tool would be too limiting. At the same time, they didn't want to spend too much at this point. If the product was a success, they'd increase the languages offered.
Of course, if they wanted to sell into other English-speaking countries, they'd have to add variants, so in addition to what was essentially American English, they'd add Australian English and British English too. Hell, there'd probably be more variants. Then there were variants of the other languages too, like Spanish for instance.
All that was for later. They needed to have a viable product first.
The product development was nearing the point where she could get involved as the 'User' and do testing with the team. The development had been quicker than expected, hence the urgency on getting the language data. They'd need that for the testing from the Sprint after next, when Sarah would step in.
Up until this point, the developers and Chuck had done testing of pathways using simulated data.
Everyone was getting to the point that they wanted to test for real. Soon.
Just need that damned data.
Sarah was actually looking forward to the negotiations. They could of course just buy some already prepared, but they'd decided to approach Sarah's old university. Harvard. It was willing to supply data it had, and she and Chuck were flying there to discuss the price.
She looked over at the sleeping man next to her.
They'd not been away together before. She reminded herself that this was not a vacation, but it sort of felt like it was.
They would be staying overnight for two nights. The hotel Chuck had chosen was nothing fancy, but they were sharing a hotel room. Sarah smiled at that. Sharing a hotel room was something totally new for her, at least in her adult life. Sharing with her dad was different. As an agent, she'd always been alone. Probably just as well with how restless she got back then. And she would definitely have woken others when she woke crying out after one of her nightmares. She just never got them with Chuck.
She had been there for him with his nightmares after the break-in, but he seemed to be over that now. Or at least he was when sleeping with her. She didn't know if he would get them if he slept on his own, but they weren't going to try that. She needed her foot warmer!
They'd taken an overnight flight to be able to get to the meeting early. Now she was regretting that. She'd never had a problem when in the CIA, but now seemed to need more sleep. Was that an age thing or just lack of practice? Well, she was sleepy now, whatever the reason.
She rested her head on Chuck's shoulder and drifted off.
Harvard University car park
Sarah leaned back into the passenger seat in the rented Porsche.
The negotiation had been a success.
The legal guys hadn't come alone, thankfully. The head of Languages had come too. He was interested in what they were creating and wanted to get early samples to try out. He inferred that if he and his team liked it, he'd endorse it. That would obviously be great for them.
Sarah had led the discussions, much to the legal team's frustration. The professor encouraged her. He had been there all those years ago, fourteen to be precise, and remembered this gifted linguist. He knew she was with the CIA then and was interested to hear that she had left.
She smiled. Over lunch he had sung her praises to Chuck.
By mid-afternoon, they had agreed both on price and how they would continue this partnership, as they were now calling it.
So, successful, but also so tiring. She was waiting for Chuck to join her. He had, probably sensibly, decided to go to the restroom before leaving. She just wanted to get away. Being back at Harvard just reminded her of the CIA. The professor's questions had accentuated that.
They would head to the hotel and check in, then get ready to go out for a meal. She smiled. Another celebratory meal!
Then they'd return for the celebration she was looking forward to. In bed. A shared bed with the man she loved. And she would love him, a lot, tonight!
Lincoln Memorial, next day
After making love until 3am, they'd been late getting up. Sarah smiled. She wasn't unhappy with that!
Now standing at the Lincoln Memorial, she was smiling at something else. Chuck. He was so excited to visit the sights of the Capital. He was now gushing over Lincoln's achievements.
She hadn't asked him, but decided to now.
"Chuck." She hadn't meant that to sound sharp, but was pleased he stopped his ramble and focused his attention on her. "Why haven't you been here before?"
He frowned. "The Memorial?"
"Well, yes, but you obviously have never been to DC."
"Never needed to," he said, almost dismissively and looked away again.
That wasn't the answer she was looking for. "Need?"
He turned back to her. "Sarah, I never had holidays, so I only visited places when I needed to, for my company."
That made her frown. She didn't like where her mind went with this information. "Okay. So not DC then. Did you explore other places when you went there?"
He sighed. "No, Sarah, I didn't. I would have been surrounded by couples and families. It would have reminded me that I was lonely."
That was what she'd thought. "God, we're as bad as each other! Two lonely, broken people!"
He grinned at her, which took her by surprise. "You find that amusing?"
He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her to him. "No, but we're two halves, now joined to make a whole. We're not lonely anymore." He gave her a tender kiss.
He's right, she thought and smiled into the kiss.
Office, Malibu, following Tuesday
They'd enjoyed the day in DC and the night in the hotel. Both had dozed on the flight back, exhausted.
Now they were back in the office. The new sign with the company name had been fitted while they were away, proudly proclaiming them to be "Barsoft Tech." They'd bounced ideas between them trying to decide on a name. In the end, they had decided to keep part of the name from the old company, but just drop the 'Games' part.
Chuck was wondering about combining the capabilities of both companies sometime in the future to create educational games, but for now they would stay apart.
In the end, Chuck had retained overall ownership of the games company, but left Morgan totally in charge. Both seemed happy with that arrangement.
Today they were loading the data they'd received onto the database server. They'd do some connectivity tests later, then tomorrow the first app test with that data.
Sarah was quite excited. Well, about the testing. She was less keen on one of the 'Agile' working practices. A daily 8:30AM 'Stand-up' wasn't her idea of fun!
Apparently, it was called a stand-up because that was exactly what everyone did, for fifteen minutes. They would quickly run around the team with each describing what he/she had done the previous day, what they would be doing today and anything that was blocking them in any way. It was an effective way of sharing the progress, but 8:30? Chuck insisted that meant their memory of the previous day was strongest and focused them on what they needed to do that day and the stand-up itself wouldn't be a break in their concentration.
Sarah was going to do the initial testing in the "Data Sprint" as they called it. It would be the final one before starting full testing.
She had interviewed a number of people with Chuck for the testing. They were a mixture of Agile testers, who could work with the developers to iron out any defects found in the software, and linguists from the local university.
That testing would start in two weeks, after this Sprint.
When that testing started, Sarah would focus on supporting that, plus the marketing of the product and preparing the launch.
All this brought one thing to mind. It is becoming real!
Barsoft Tech Office, Malibu, two weeks later
They'd just finished the 'Show & Tell' and the Sprint Retrospective. The latter was a review of the last Sprint to identify what had gone well (to continue) and what hadn't or was missing (to correct next time). For something labelled 'Agile' there seemed to be a lot of fixed processes that had to be followed!
After some connectivity and some 'permissions' problems on the first day, everything had gone well in the Sprint. All tasks completed successfully.
On top of that, the test team members were now assembled and had their laptops, all ready to start the testing tomorrow. Chuck was calling what the linguists would be doing "User Acceptance Testing." Sarah didn't care what it was called, as long as it proved the app was good enough.
Chuck had just popped out to get things for the evening, so she was now in her office looking out at the beach. She didn't do this very often, always too busy, but once in a while, sitting on her couch with her feet up and a coffee in hand, she'd just relax.
She let her mind drift, contemplating again how her life had changed.
When she'd arrived in Los Angeles all those months ago, she had no idea what she was going to do with her life or even where she'd live it. She'd just needed that escape from the CIA. It wasn't a plan! She chuckled to herself. All her life until that point had been about planning, either the next con with her dad, how she would sneak in and out of school without being seen and then the missions when she joined the CIA. She'd always been a meticulous planner, never leaving anything to chance; always having contingency plans for any mishap. Then she'd left the Agency and just got on a flight across the country with no plan other than to get a rental car and go to a hotel!
She'd done all that deliberately. She didn't want the order her career had imposed on her. Obviously every day had been different as an agent, any day potentially her last, but the structure was there and she always knew the mission goal and that there would then be another mission, and another.
Her life fully mapped out as a lifetime of missions, mostly assassinations, until it stopped, probably with a bullet, but a blade or other terminations were possible.
Arriving in LA, she was free and wanted no fixed plan for a while.
Of course, once at the hotel, she'd immediately set up a routine, a schedule for each day, but she still didn't do the "big plan" – what her life was going to look like.
If she was honest with herself, she'd felt lost. An empty shell with the killing engine removed. She had no idea what to fill it with or how.
Then she'd met Chuck. He changed everything!
Now her shell and her life were full. Full of purpose, full of happiness, full of love.
She still didn't think herself worthy of this, worthy of Chuck, but she wasn't going to give this up. Ever.
Beach near Chuck and Sarah's house
Chuck was pacing by the water's edge.
He knew Sarah would probably spot his agitation if he went back to his office, so he'd walked down the beach to calm himself. It wasn't working!
He knew they'd not been together that long, but this felt so right.
She was the one for him. He knew that. No one could ever compare to this amazing, brilliant and beautiful woman. She made him laugh, she made him sing, she made him so, so happy. He was absolutely in love with her.
If she turned him down and decided to walk away, he'd never find anyone again. There would be no point. He'd always love her, only her. Whether she stayed with him or not.
He knew she loved him and there was no real likelihood of her leaving him, but those insecurities could not be quelled completely. But it wasn't just that. He wanted her to remember the moment with joy. He had to do it right. He wasn't good at speeches and this felt like the biggest, most important one of his life.
He knew that all he could do was his best, but was it good enough? Was he worthy of her?
For now, pacing was all he could do!
Barsoft Tech Office, Malibu, later that day
Sarah smiled when Chuck came into her office, but was surprised when he closed her door. She always left her door open, unless taking a call.
She then noticed he looked a bit pale. "Are you alright, Chuck?"
"I'm fine." He didn't sound fine, but she wasn't going to push that point.
She was sitting at her desk and started to get up, but he came around the desk and gently steered her back down into the seat.
He looked earnestly at her, "Sarah, we've only known each other for a short while, but I feel like I've known you all my life. You are so important to me. You are my life now. You know that, don't you?"
She nodded, not saying anything. She could feel tears starting to form. Oh God, is he really doing this?
"I love you, Sarah. I know I tell you that a lot, but it's not just words. You fill my heart with joy. I can't imagine living without you."
Tears were now starting to roll down her cheeks. She nodded to show she felt the same.
He dropped to one knee and pulled a box from his pocket. "Sarah, would you make me the happiest man on earth and be my wife?"
She still couldn't say anything, but launched herself at him. The kiss was her answer for the next minute, then she pulled away and finally found her voice, "Yes! Yes! Yes!" She then kissed him again.
They lost themselves in that kiss. Both thinking, best day of my life!
A/N: So, they have now finished the software development and are testing it. They have also secured data they need to be able to release the product. And... Chuck has popped the question. You may not be surprised, but Sarah was.
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