Ch. 9

A/N: Thank you all for the outpouring of support for this story. Seeing the enthusiasm for what we've created definitely validates the time we put (and continue to put) in.

For the next several days, Sarah made a point of wearing the glasses at every opportunity. She would even pull her work phone out periodically just to be sure that she hadn't missed a text. She found herself missing the text messages, wondering if her admirer was gone for good. Her feeling of loneliness increased dramatically.

Had she scared him off? She hoped not. She had seen him around campus. She had learned his schedule and followed him from afar, where he couldn't see her. She stayed out of sight and out of the sight of the security cameras. She thought he looked a little depressed, but she didn't know him well enough to know what his natural state was.

All she knew was that the body language of the man she watched did not match the tone of the man who had been texting her. Maybe they weren't the same man. Maybe Professor Bartowski had stumbled onto the Quad for some completely unrelated reason. She found herself confused…and lonely. She missed the connection with her secret admirer. She'd begun to feel like she could fit in on campus. And she liked that feeling. She wanted it back.

I could always just go up and talk to him, she mused while standing in a doorway shrouded in the afternoon shadows as Chuck made his way into the Gates building, unaware that his movements were being tracked. But what if that put an end to their game of chase? Would he lose interest? Would his ego take a hit that his secret was a secret no more? What does a sidelined spy have to offer the prodigy of Stanford University? Would he even want to publicly acknowledge knowing her? Introduce her around at a faculty event? "Dean Thompson, I'd like for you to meet Sarah Walker. When not prepping for her master's degree, she goes around killing people."

Like I told Roan at the start of this fiasco, any guy with at least two brain cells would go running away from me as fast as they possibly could. And Chuck's a genius. There's no way he would want to be seen in public with her.

}o{

Chuck stared at the laptop screen. It seemed to take up much of his day, just hoping to spot her. He could actually go see her face to face, actually hear her voice. All that he had to do was approach her on campus. But he was sure that he would give himself away the minute he started to talk. I may have done a great job as Perchik in high school, but this was Sarah Walker. The best the CIA had to offer. What do I have to offer…zero. The rational part of his mind rebelled against the feeling. He knew that he wasn't entirely without merit, but the devastation that Jill had left in her wake resulted in scars that ran deep even if they couldn't be seen on the outside.

He was sure that he had overstepped. Between changing the name of dead drop to a live drop and correcting her geek reference, there wasn't much that had gone right between them. He'd thought that the blue light glasses would be an innocuously nice present for a grad student. But he could understand why she likely thought that he was trying to buy her affection, and that was all on him.

The old voices were plaguing his mind again. Wasn't this what he thought from the start? She was way too far out of my league. He shook his head, frustrated with himself. He had known that this was doomed to fail. If he were honest with himself, the biggest problem was that he liked it…enjoyed it, more than he ever thought he could.

His parents had asked him to be there for her, but instead he had made their interaction about him. Shame flooded him as he started to second guess every interaction he had had with the spy who fascinated him in ways no one else ever had. "Of course she's fascinating," He muttered to himself. "She's bold, brilliant, badass, not to mention breathtakingly beautiful." He paused. "I wonder how many more adjectives beginning with B that I can come up with…or any other letter of the alphabet. In fact, I could probably do ten or more for each letter."

But, before Chuck could fall too far down the rabbit hole of tapping into his mental thesaurus, he was distracted by a ringing cellphone. His distraction led to disappointment as he realized that it was his personal phone that was ringing, not the burner. He tried to rally his spirits when the Caller ID flashed "Ellie Bartowski". He worked to inject some levity into his tone when answering. "Hey, sis of mine, what's shaking?" His eyes grew wide at the bizarre question he had just asked.

There was silence on the line for a moment. "What's going on, Chuck? Why are you down? What happened?" Chuck heaved out a sigh. He couldn't fool Ellie. Not over the phone, not face to face, not through a text. Hell, not even over a handwritten letter from two thousand miles away. She could probably tell by the way he signed his name on it that he had put too much pressure on the "u" or something in Chuck and she would go steal a horse and ride cross county to see him, her first words being, "What's wrong?"

He was absolutely sure that this was further proof that it was a good call not to meet Sarah face to face. Chuck silently cursed himself. He knew that his mental spiraling had made him silent a moment too long. "Is this about a girl?" He heard her ask. "Is that why you are mopey, but pretending to be chipper?"

Chuck mentally reviewed every argument that he could make to convince Ellie that he was down for another reason. For each reason he thought up, he thought of ten reasons why she would destroy every one of those arguments, and then be disappointed in him for not being honest with her. He was going round and round in circles, oblivious to how long he had been silent.

"Ooh, it is girl trouble," Ellie noted gleefully. Chuck could picture the happy dance that Ellie was undoubtedly doing at the moment.

"Chronologically speaking, El," Chuck responded, his exasperation clear, "we are adults. So, it would be a woman, not a girl." The immediate squeal informed Chuck that he hadn't thought that statement through all of the way.

"So, it is girl trouble!" Ellie sounded thrilled.

Chuck leaned his head back as he let out a sigh. He had done this to himself. "No. It's…that's not what I said. I was just pointing out the misogyny of referring to a woman as a girl?" His head slumped back down as he realized how weak his response was. He had posed it as a question for god's sake. He loved his sister, but he knew how tenacious she could be. Especially on the topic of his non-existent love life. Her tenacity was a great attribute for her as a neurologist, but he wasn't a patient. At least a willing patient.

"Ellie, look, Mom and Dad asked me to help them with a project that is personal. But," Chuck paused as he thought of the best way to phrase it, "it's also related to the government work we do. Well, more like Mom's old government work."

"It's classified," Ellie grumbled. "My least favorite two words…well, behind, It's complicated." Chuck laughed at her tone. He had felt the same way, until he started doing some of said classified work. It was needed…sometimes.

"The situation I'm in isn't classified itself. But some of the background information relevant to the situation is classified…very much so. And-and, even the classified parts aren't my story to share."

Ellie let out a huff. She was so excited that Chuck had a woman in his life, in some capacity at least, but she knew that he wouldn't betray anyone's trust. As Ellie remained quiet, Chuck continued. "There's someone new to Stanford who is, or was, deeply involved with things she can't talk to you or even me about. Even if she wanted to. And, if she's anything like mom, she wouldn't want to."

"I understand," Ellie said, although in a somewhat more upbeat tone than Chuck was expecting. "But, you still said she. At least it's about a girl!"

"Woman," Chuck said by reflex. "And that's what you take out of what I just told you?"

"No," Ellie calmly replied. "But it's the first time in five years that you've mentioned a woman who isn't either related to you or a co-worker. So, I'm going to let myself be excited by it. Besides, that's what has you all twisted up like a pretzel. You found someone you like, and you don't know what to do about it." There was no judgment to Ellie's tone, just conviction. She was making an observation of the facts as she saw them. Chuck was silent for a moment as he contemplated Ellie's words. Was it really that simple? The situation seems so…complicated. Is it just that I like Sarah and am creating obstacles that aren't necessarily there?

"Fine. There is a woman. And she does…" Chuck trailed off, trying to think of a way of explaining things to Ellie without revealing classified information.

"Government work," Ellie chimed in.

"Yes. That. Government work," Chuck responded with relief. "And she has for quite a while now."

"Oh." The disappointment in Ellie's voice was unmistakable. It was a reasonable, albeit incorrect, assumption that given Sarah's time in service as an agent that she would be far older than Chuck. Chuck, however, assumed that Ellie suddenly found Sarah unacceptable as being too tainted. He wasn't sure how that was fair, given who their mother was.

"So, after all of this time living in the shadows, separated from mainstream life, she suddenly finds herself yanked out of that world and dropped in the middle of campus. Practically overnight from what I understand. No time to mentally prepare herself. No transition process. It would be enough to make anyone's head spin. But for someone in Mom's line of work? Thousands of miles from any known face? No one to rely on but herself?" She had to be struggling to adapt. Chuck mentally slapped himself. Of course I had to go and make it harder. Damn, it.

Shaking his head to get back on task, Chuck continued. "An old friend of Mom and Dad's reached out to them, and they to me. He knew that I help out Dad with some of his work, so I could be entrusted with some general knowledge of what she does for a living. Aside from me and Dad, there's only one other person on campus with a foot in both worlds. I don't even know details about her work, just the overview."

"Oh my gosh," Ellie interjected, clearly worried about someone she never even met. "That has got to be such a lonely existence. No one to talk with. No one to confide in." Ellie's words inadvertently cut Chuck to the quick. She was supposed to have someone. At least, that was Roan's plan, but he had gone and screwed that up, the idiot that he was. "So, are you there to help her in the world of academia?"

"I was supposed to be. But I think that I made things worse for her." Chuck thought through how he could phrase things to give Ellie and understanding without compromising Sarah's security. "I thought that if she was handed a mystery, it would distract her from her situation in life by letting her use some of her skillsets to solve it."

"Ok. Not a bad idea. Continue." Chuck felt reassured at Ellie's approval with his overall strategy.

"First, I set up an untraceable burner phone."

Ellie quickly cut him off. "An untraceable what phone? Chuck, where in the hell did you learn how to do something like that?"

"Mom." Chuck's tone made it clear that no further explanation was necessary.

"No?! Seriously? Mom told you how to do that? Why would Mom know…you know what, I'm better off not knowing. So you made an untraceable doohickey."

"Yep. I figured that if I made it too easy, Sa…she wouldn't see it as a challenge. But, I also had to make sure that she didn't see it as a threat. I thought that as she used her skills to track me down, we would form a friendship. Of sorts, at least." Chuck grimaced as he spoke aloud his thought process. Didn't sound as good aloud as when it as up in my head.

"Yeah, that's not the choice I woulda gone with," Ellie says. It's not an indictment of his plan, but Chuck winced at how quickly Ellie spotted a flaw with it. I should have just gone to Ellie in the first place. She knows what girls like. Even amazing women who are brave and strong and skilled.

"I, uh, left a present of sorts for her in a dead drop," Chuck admitted in an embarrassed tone. "Except that I told her that I thought 'dead drop' was too morbid, so I called it a live drop." He exhaled slowly. "They were blue light glasses that would help prevent headaches from staring at computer screens and her tablet all day long. She's used to a more…active role in her occupation."

Ellie clearly wasn't impressed. "Reading glasses, Chuck?"

"Non-prescription reading glasses! I didn't want her to think that I thought she was old, or anything." Chuck was pretty sure that the thump he heard over the phone was Ellie's head against the table.

"I'm starting to see why you've been single for the past five years. What did she say when you told her about the, what did you call it, live drop?"

Chuck was becoming more convinced that he should have enlisted Ellie's aid from the start. "Well, we weren't talking. I would send her text messages." Ellie didn't even make an effort at holding in the groan this time. "She must think that I'm some type of creep."

"Ok, Chuck. I want you to read me the messages, as long as none of them get into the classified territory." It didn't take long for Chuck to recite the texts, word for word. Ellie asked for him to reread the section on the dead drop. "Oh my god. You were totally flirting!" Her tone was one of shock.

"What! NO!" Chuck quickly reread what he had sent and groaned. "I didn't mean to! I was just trying to be helpful. I wound up ruining everything."

Ellie snorted. "Hopefully not everything. When I said 'you' were flirting, I meant the collective you. She was flirting too. 'Sexy librarian'? C'mon Chuck. She was flirting back." They were both silent for a moment as they contemplated Ellie's revelation. "How long has it been since you guys last texted?"

Chuck could practically feel Ellie wince when he mumbled, "A few days."

Ellie drew in a breath. "Not great, but I doubt that it's a deal breaker. At least if she's as special as you think she is."

Chuck boggled. "Wha- - Why do you think that I think that she's special?"

Ellie's laughter tinkled through the phone. "Oh, Chuck. You wouldn't be beating yourself up this much unless you really liked her. So," she paused, filling Chuck's stomach with dread, "here's what you are going to do: invite her to dinner, or coffee, or a movie. Talk to her, Chuck."

"But," Chuck began.

"Talk to her Chuck," Ellie said again.

"Okay," he replied, dejected, sure that Ellie was wrong.

"Aces, little brother, let me know how it goes," and with that she hung up.

"This is a bad idea," Chuck muttered, looking at his phone he texted Sarah with.

A/N2: Writing Ellie is just plain fun. Intelligent, sarcastic, compassionate, impassioned. Whatever emotion you need, Ellie can cover. So now Sarah has spotted Chuck, and Ellie is pushing for direct interaction. Must be a good thing.