I do not own Chuck

Chapter 2: Parties

London, April 2015

"So tell me, is the date of this Sten do classified?" Cole asked, "Because it occurs to me that given who you've got coming to this thing, the free world is going to be highly exposed!"

It was a Friday morning, and they were at Heathrow airport awaiting the arrival of the transatlantic morning flights. Given the number of people coming in from the US it might have made sense to have their bachelor/bachelorette parties and the wedding in the US, but Chuck and Sarah had wanted to have them in the UK. They loved London and wanted to make it a part of their memories even after their posting was over.

Considering the logistics of getting everyone they'd wanted over to the UK twice, they'd considered having just the bachelor and bachelorette parties in the US but they'd decided that lots of people had their parties in DC or around there, but not many had their parties in London. They realised that having the parties the month before the wedding rather than around that weekend made it more difficult for some of their guests to travel and, indeed, some – like Morgan – had decided that they couldn't make it twice.

Actually, that had worked out quite well because now pretty much everyone who was coming to the parties had similar backgrounds. Ellie and Devon, who had left the kids with Devon's parents and were looking forward to letting their hair down, were the only civilians and, since they already knew about Chuck and Sarah's "other" jobs, it shouldn't be a problem.

"SARAH!" Their attention was rapidly drawn to the doors leading from the Arrivals hall.

"Oh shit, here we go," muttered Chuck, causing Sarah to smile as they both faced Carina, who had broken into a run. Zondra followed behind a little more sedately, although even she was grinning ear to ear. The redhead picked Sarah up and swung her around.

"Chuckie!" Carina greeted as she let go of Sarah and went to hug Chuck.

"Carina," Chuck greeted, smiling, even though the DEA agent was a bit unsteady on her feet and her breath stank of alcohol. "I see you've got started already!"

"Oh pish!" the redhead exclaimed, "Gotta get in the mood! Hello! Who are you?" Carina had just noticed Cole and let go of Chuck instantly. "I wouldn't kick you out of bed for eating chips!"

"Cole, Carina. Carina, Cole," Chuck introduced as the Maid of Honor started introducing herself to the British agent.

He turned round to a face full of Zondra. "Hi lover-boy," the other agent greeted. Her breath did not smell of alcohol.

"Hey, Z," he told her, returning her tight hug. "Guess you had a fun flight?!"

"Oh, I'm used to her," Zondra explained, "Besides, she managed to find a steward to keep her occupied, if you know what I mean?!" She gave a wink. Turning to Cole, who was still being regaled by Carina, she waved at him and he smiled back at her.

"Chuckie!" Chuck turned as he was picked up by Virgil Rice. "I cannot believe you're getting married!" The ex-Recon Marine put him down and turned to Sarah. "Sarah, my commiserations," the man greeted, grinning at her. Poet had been a regular visitor during Chuck's recovery and got on well with both of them. Chuck was passed off to Manny who had got to know Poet during Chuck's convalescence, and was obviously travelling with the other man.

"Chuck! Great to see you man. Prof sends his apologies but says to tell you the flights are booked for the wedding!"

"SARAH!" Chuck turned around as his wife was crushed in a firm hug.

"Ellie, try not to kill my fiancée!" he told his sister as Devon caught up with the luggage. "Hey Devon!" he greeted his brother-in-law. "So glad you guys could come!"

"Are you kidding man?" the surgeon replied. "We wouldn't have missed this!" he hugged Chuck briefly and then turned to try and extract Sarah from Ellie's grasp.

By now their group was growing quite large and Chuck leaned over to Cole. "Can you start getting people on the bus?" They'd booked a bus to get everyone into town and to their hotel. Chuck had decided to pay for everyone's accommodation out of his own pocket. It was nicer to have everyone staying in the same place. He knew there were activities booked, but he figured most of it would revolve around central London. Since Matt and Carina were US-based, Cole and Dawn Porter had volunteered to help them out organising activities and he knew from the hints that Cole had been dropping that they'd enjoyed that. He was a bit worried, but he trusted Dawn and knew that Sarah would beat the shit out of Cole if he stepped too far out of line!

It seemed Chuck had been wrong when he'd assumed most of the activities would be in Central London. Here they were out in the Surrey countryside, a group of PJs, agents, special forces operatives, military medics and two civilians. At least they'd have plenty of medical support if anything went wrong!

"Alright you lot!" Matt's command voice cut through the noise of the conversations on the bus. It seemed like this was a mixed activity whatever it was, because everyone was here.

"Sir, yes sir!" That was Livvy and everyone cracked up.

"That's enough from you General Todd," the PJ shot back at his wife, not missing a beat, and everyone cracked up again.

"So, we will shortly be arriving at the site for the first of the weekend's activities, and you will be pleased to know that it's…paintballing!"

There was a cheer. "It will be boys vs girls and, since we've got an odd number, Cole has volunteered to be an honorary girl for the afternoon!"

"Yay!" cheered all the girls.

"Boo!" jeered all the boys.

"You're going DOWN, Bartowski!" jeered Sarah, competitive juices flowing.

"Yeah, whatever you say honey," Chuck replied, secretly confident.

"Oh God, what have I done?" muttered Ellie.

"Don't worry Ellie, we're gonna clean their chronometers!" reassured Carina.

"Oh God, that's so good," moaned Sarah as Chuck massaged her scalp.

The paintballing had been hilarious. They'd played one game boys vs girls (which the boys had won convincingly) and then mixed it up so that everybody got a chance to hang with everybody else. The trip back to London had been a much noisier one than the trip down and lots of alcohol had been drunk. When they'd got back to the hotel they'd been filthy and, since the program allowed for it, they'd been allocated a couple of hours of downtime before everyone met in the lobby to go to dinner.

It seemed that the Best Man and the Maid of Honor (as well as their helpers) had borne in mind the bride's and groom's wishes, since a lot of the activities were joint ones, like the paintballing and tonight's dinner. Later tonight the two groups would go their separate ways, to different clubs, and tomorrow the girls would have a spa visit and some shopping (and the bridesmaids some dress fittings) and the boys would go for a speedboat tour of London followed by a private tour of the Tower of London. They'd all meet back up in the evening for dinner and more clubbing.

Chuck and Sarah had chosen to use some of their downtime for a shower; very much necessary since they'd both been filthy after the paintballing and Sarah had lots of paint in her hair, courtesy of a rampant Carina who'd ambushed her in the last game. Sarah and Chuck had got their own back (on Sarah's behalf) by carrying Carina to a bridge and pitching her into the stream below. It had taken Carina ten minutes (because of the muddy sides of the stream) to get out, during which most of the victims of the exuberant spy (which was most of the participants) had stood around shooting her and laughing.

"Love you," murmured Chuck, also enjoying himself.

"Love you too," moaned Sarah.

"I haven't forgotten our bet," Chuck announced. Their banter at the paintball site had turned into a bet. One she'd lost when the girls team had been thrashed handily.

"Oh?" came the response as she cheekily rubbed her backside on his crotch, "I would hope not."

"You want another round?" he asked incredulously. "You're insatiable!"

She turned to face him. "You know I just can't get enough of you, don't you?" she told him seriously as she gave him a languorous kiss. "And it is one of the most beautiful bathrooms I've ever been in." There was no denying that. He'd booked them a suite at the Hilton on Park Lane for this weekend and, so far, it had proven to be more than worth the money he'd paid. He'd also paid for suites for Ellie and Devon, John and Juliette and Matt and Livvy, with the others all getting double rooms. Nothing was too good for their friends, in his view.

He reached behind him and turned the knob on the shower, switching on the side jets to massage their sides as well as heads.

"Mmmmmmm," she moaned into the kiss as their tongues rubbed against one another and he held her against him, almost every inch of their bodies against one another.

She jerked out of the kiss, "Please Chuck," she murmured, taking his hand and putting it on her left ass cheek. "I need you."

With an invitation like that, who was he to refuse? "As you wish," he told her, pushing her back and lifting her onto the alcove along the side of the stall.

"So you know the boys want to take me to a strip club?" he asked. It was later and they were just finished resting in bed after their prior activities.

She wasn't very pleased about that and wondered why he'd brought it up. "Mmm?" she managed.

"I don't know why I'd want to go to a strip club when I've got the most beautiful woman in the world to come back to. And I know you don't like it," he replied, looking deep into her eyes.

She melted when he stared at her like that. The corners of his mouth curved up in a smile. "So?" she asked.

"So," he replied, now outright grinning. "I've got a solution, and a way for you to pay off your lost bet!"

Now the danger signals were flashing. "How?" she asked with some trepidation, wondering what he'd dreamed up.

"With this," he replied, dropping a small egg-shaped vibrator into her lap. Uh oh, she thought. She recognised it of course. They'd used it many times since the day he'd first introduced her to it. All of those had been good days. Some of them very good. The first one had been horrifically embarrassing.

"Uh huh?" she replied, wondering where he was going with this.

"So, I promise I won't use it at dinner," he explained, "but when we split up it's a nice way for you to know I'm thinking of you. Every time you feel it going off you'll know I'm thinking about you, not whichever woman is taking her clothes off in front of me."

"Huh," she was pleasantly surprised. He'd obviously put some thought into this. She knew a lot of the boys wanted to go to a strip club. Ostensibly to meet some British women, although she reckoned most of them would be Eastern European! She guessed men would be men. Strip clubs weren't places that Chuck was that comfortable in but she knew that he felt that as a good host he had to join them. She understood that as well. She understood, but didn't like it. This was a nice idea to reassure her.

"Ok," she replied, "But…"

"But?" he asked.

"But…" she continued, "I agree to your terms, but I want something in return." She raised her eyebrows at him and he looked straight back at her. "When we're back together this evening, I want a show. You show me what you learnt at that strip club. If it's good enough, you never know – you might get lucky!"

"Oh God," Sarah moaned sitting up, but leaning back against the headboard as pain and nausea washed over her.

"Here," Chuck's voice came from next to her. She felt a warm towel on her forehead and her fingers being wrapped around a cold glass. She heard fizzing.

"You're the best fiancé," Sarah groaned, "I may have to keep you."

It was Sunday morning after their second consecutive night out. Friday night had been heavy but relatively tame compared to Saturday night, when everything had hit the fan.

It had seemed that Chuck had been thinking of her quite a lot on Friday night if the pulses she'd received on the vibrator were anything to go by. Since he wasn't teasing her he hadn't set it at a high level, just enough so she'd know he was thinking of her. Having said that it had driven her absolutely mad with desire.

When he'd finally got back to find her waiting in their room for him he hadn't made it far into his "act" before she'd literally jumped him! They hadn't managed to get too much sleep that night.

Saturday had been fun. She'd enjoyed the pampering with her friends although she'd been more than ready to see her fiancé by dinner, and then the whole lot of them had gone out to a club. She'd already been what Dawn called "rat-arsed" before they left the restaurant. She didn't remember a lot from the club. She knew at one stage she'd been dirty dancing with Chuck. She knew that she'd had a lot of shots. And she vaguely remembered falling over in the toilet. She may have puked as well. Certainly her mouth tasted like she had.

She brought the glass up to her lips and moaned as the taste of the vitamin C drink that Chuck favoured for hangovers washed over her. It made her feel brighter and she opened her eyes. The curtains were still shut and the lights were turned down low. Chuck sat next to her looking at her concernedly.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Shit," she replied. There was a bad smell in the room. "Did I puke?"

He smiled lopsidedly. "A few times."

"Oh God. You held my hair out of the toilet," she remembered.

"Yes," he confirmed.

"You don't look too bad," she looked at him quizzically.

"When it looked like you were gonna tie a real one on, I stopped drinking," he explained. "I had to take care of you."

"I don't deserve you," she muttered, feeling suddenly bad. He'd had to reign in his evening to take care of her.

"It's my job," he told her. "At least it's going to be. In sickness and in health I believe the phrase goes."

"I'm sorry," she croaked.

"Don't be," he replied. "I've got some great blackmail material I can use for years. Not just you. Ellie, Carina, Zondra and Cole as well."

"Oh God," she muttered. "Was it bad?"

"Well let's just say that the intelligence services didn't cover themselves in glory compared to the medical profession!"

She tried to assimilate that. "What time is it?" she asked.

"About eleven," he replied.

"Oh God, but Dawn and Cathy…" she started to struggle up, subsiding backwards as nausea and pain swept over her.

"Whoa!" Chuck exclaimed, standing up and pushing her back down. "Dawn and Cathy left just before ten. They had the evening shift tonight. They said they'll message you tomorrow. We're meeting the others for lunch about one, then I'll take them to the airport. I think you should stay here. I don't think two hours in a bus is going to agree with you."

She sort of agreed but she felt bad. Their friends had come all the way from the US and she felt she should be there to see them off, no matter how bad she felt. But one thing at a time. First of all she had to get to her feet without puking.

"Damn Sarah, you look like shit!" Luckily Zondra spoke quietly, and she wasn't wrong either.

"Yeah, I feel like that too. Remind me never to drink again!"

"That's kind of how I feel too." The two were sitting at the end of the long table that Chuck had booked for the party's lunch. Chuck, Matt, Poet and Manny were at the other end of the table talking among themselves. Livvy had apparently cried off because of her hangover, but the others were all expected to turn up for lunch. Sarah had chosen to come down this end because the sight of the food in front of the guys made her nauseous.

"You don't look great either," Sarah observed. Her friend was wearing her sunglasses, just like Sarah, and looked pallid, just like Sarah. But she wasn't shaking, like Sarah was.

"Yeah, well that tends to happen the morning after the night before," Zondra commented, taking a sip of water. "But damn girl, I've never seen you let go like that. Ever. Not even in the CATS days!"

Part of Sarah was pleased that they could talk about the CATS days again without problems. But most of her was really embarrassed. "Was I bad?" she asked.

"Girl, you were out of control. More out of control than Carina."

"Oh God, was I embarrassing?" Sarah groaned.

"We all were…" her friend tailed off. "But I gotta say. I gotta get me a PJ!"

"Why?" she wondered.

"Because Chuck was brilliant. You probably don't remember, but he carried you home all the way from the club. We couldn't get a cab because we were so pissed. And you couldn't walk."

"Oh God." This was so embarrassing.

"You puked a few times, but he didn't put you down. He just cleaned you up and set off again. He was so gentle with you. We smuggled you into the hotel and he carried you to your room." Her friend paused. "You know, it took me a while to understand."

"What?" she felt compelled to ask, even though she just wanted the ground to open up and swallow her.

"About you and him, I mean. Sure, I owe the guy my life. I like him. And he's pleasing to look at as well. But I've never had a relationship like you guys. I really didn't understand."

"What?" this time she was plaintive. Why was her friend talking in riddles? She didn't have the brain cells for this today.

"I've never seen anyone in our line of work let go like that. Sure, we have a good time, we party. But you totally let go. You completely lost situational awareness. You had no idea what was going on." It was true, she had. Zondra had continued her line of thought. "It's because you trust him. Totally. You trust him to have your back. It's amazing…" her friend tailed off, gazing into the distance. "I'm so jealous of you. I want something like that."

She didn't know what to say. She was floored. She wasn't set up for a conversation like this today. She really wasn't. Luckily she was saved. Just as she was replying, they were interrupted by Ellie and Devon.

Ellie looked as shit as them and peeled off to their end of the table. "Is this where the hung-over people are sitting?" she asked in a monotone.

Sarah glanced at Zondra to assure her that this conversation wasn't over, then plastered a welcoming smile on her face and stood shakily to welcome her future sister-in-law.

Please review if you get the chance!

A/N So bachelor and bachelorette parties are called Stag and Hen parties in the UK, and combined parties for bride and groom are often called Sten nights or Sten dos (not to be confused with the very successful WW2 sub-machine gun!). It's an increasingly popular thing and, given the number of shared friends in this relationship, it seems it made sense to Chuck and Sarah to combine their parties.