Posted August 8, 2019

A/N: Crazzywallly told me a warning might be a good idea, like before the good rides at Disneyland. So... This story is classified as Romance/Adventure. There's a lot of romance here, because the romance didn't die after "I do." However, it's no longer about getting Sarah and Chuck together because they're already married. There's humor, because Chuck can't help but be a funny guy and Sarah is funnier than she thinks she is. The spy adventure keeps coming to Southern California because this story parallels the early parts of season 1, Chuck has the Intersect, and his wife/spy protector is right at his side. Consider yourselves "warned."

For those of you keeping track, it's art auction time.

October 5, 2007

Chuck sat back at the top of his bed, feeling a smile come to his face. At the end of each day, Sarah had been making a production of her entrances. The night before, he had fallen asleep in the car, crashing after his fear-induced adrenaline wore off. He didn't want to think about how Awesome carried him inside. Or Casey. That might be worse. Tonight's Sarah Bartowski show was his first chance in two days. He was sure most of his reactions made him look like a love-struck fool, but in a way he was. Maybe not the fool part, because Sarah always appreciated the reaction before she eagerly joined him.

Tonight's show was different, though. Sarah walked in wearing a winter parka. He didn't know that she could get one in Southern California, but then again, the CIA apparently could get anything. Sarah's face held stern expression. She removed the coat and put it over a stack of packed boxes, revealing black cotton pajamas with full sleeves and pants. She also wore heavy socks. It was a big change from her more common attire of lingerie, just one of Chuck's T-shirts, or nothing at all. Sarah took her side of the bed, but left two feet between her and her husband as she turned to her side, away from him. With the socks, she didn't need his feet to keep hers warm.

Chuck was very contrite, saying, "What did I do?"

"You almost died," Sarah flatly replied.

"That wasn't my fault. You saved me anyway, because you're amazing and can do anything. It wouldn't have gotten that far if I could have tangoed with La Ciudad."

"That's your excuse? You just needed to dance a seductive dance with another woman? That confirms I did the right thing by putting on these pajamas."

The day before

Sarah arranged her workspace in her new office. Chuck had stopped by during his break as her first "customer," not that she was going to have people come in off the street. He was welcome any time—others would do better to stay away. She gave him a welcome kiss and said, "Casey's going to use that door some, which means I'm not going to be kissing everyone who walks in. Make sure you come back a lot." They both smiled. "What brings you here this time?"

Chuck said, "I came to get help from a beautiful spy. For this mission tonight, we need to do some prep. I need you to teach me how to tango."

Sarah stared at Chuck with a cold expression. He was a little glad they were married and he had nothing to fear, because being at the other end of that look when there was a real threat was not a fate he'd wish on even his enemies. He had gotten used to her face lighting up whenever she saw him.

Chuck audibly gulped, and Sarah said, "I still don't agree with the idea of you going into the field. You're untrained and too important to risk that way. Too important as an intelligence resource and too important to me. At least I'm going to be there to protect you. You have to follow all of my instructions. Got it?"

Chuck gave her a wide-eyed by nod.

Sarah asked, "Why do you think you need to know how to tango?"

"Casey told me at work. You know, he seems to be fitting in better at the Buy More, really getting into the cover job role. It helps that he's stopped pushing down other employees with a palm to the face. I think he's going to selling some of the bigger items, like grills, where having a tough guy as a salesman might help. I can see how his being at the Buy More might be good for mission-prep because we'll have a lot of chances to talk. For this mission, Casey said I'd be fine as long as I know how to tango."

Sarah let out a small smile. "He seeing if he could pull one over on you. Obviously he could. He actually might be less funny than I am. The only person you'd dance with on tonight's mission is me, and a tango would be very distracting. We'd spend the entire dance pretending to ignore each other, even though we would be paying very close attention to each other to know how to move. That's how a tango is supposed to be done. It means you are spending so much time faking ignoring your partner that you can't pay attention to the rest of the room. It's not good tactics for a spy. Just listen to me, and you'll be fine. No tango needed. I can teach you sometime, maybe after we move into our new apartment in a few days. We can leave a dance area in the middle of the living room. If we are spending time grinding into each other, we'll want a bed nearby."

Chuck nodded very slowly. "Yes. Definitely. That. We need to do dance lessons. Yes. And the stuff after. Yes."

Sarah smiled as a truce and the two of them pecked each other on the lips. Then, her serious mask returned, and she started to give him a run-down of how to stay out of trouble on the mission. Most of it could be summarized as don't freak out and listen to her.

Back in bed the next night, where it was a good thing Sarah wore full pajamas because the temperature seemed to have dropped several degrees.

"There's something I'd like to know. Of course I think my wife is the best CIA agent there is, but that's was before knowing how good you actually are at the shooting, punching, and flying things. I've seen more now. The other day I saw you quickly dispatch a Fulcrum agent and take his gun. La Ciudad got in a lucky hit, but she's supposed to be the world's most dangerous arms dealer, and you beat her in hand-to-hand combat even though she's the type of person to kill people who just saw her face. I told Casey that you had told me that the tango thing was a joke. He got serious and actually apologized. I think he's a little scared of you, and he doesn't strike me as someone who gets scared. How good are you?"

Sarah didn't respond. Chuck looked over her turned back and saw a small smile breaking out.

After a few seconds, Chuck said, "Yeah, it's nice to know you're not just outright saying you're the best because people who do that usually aren't that good. Until I see evidence to the contrary, I'll think of you as Ms Marvel."

"I don't know who that is, but it's Mrs, not Ms And it's Bartowski, not Marvel."

"Yes, ma'am, Mrs Bartowski, ma'am."

"That you agree to, but last night I told you to stay at the bar."

Chuck explained, "Casey left because we thought you were in trouble. It turns out it was some MI-6 agent who thought it would be a good idea to come into our country and point guns at people without knowing who they are. Who knew the MI-6 could be so much trouble? They're supposed to be our allies. Anyway, while I was minding my own business, I noticed the frame on that painting was different than what I had seen in the newspaper. I wandered over to take a look. There were a lot of people around, and I thought that would still be safe—safer than staying at the bar where I had already flashed on an old classmate who had been making his money on insider trading. I was worried he might blow my cover. I didn't know I would end up standing by the real La Ciudad. She noticed my interest in the painting. I explained that it would be too expensive for the decorating budget of the new apartment."

Sarah said, "Our budget is basically unlimited, as long as it's for something that is making us safer. If you were worried about a decorating budget, it didn't make much sense for you to be at the art auction. People buy those things as status symbols or investments, not for decorating."

"Good point, but I couldn't talk about our real budget, and I don't know why people buy things not painted by Bob Ross. If we ever go to Paris, we shouldn't waste time at the art museums, because he's about the limit of my art knowledge. That painting wouldn't be for safety, so we can't spend money on stuff like that anyway. I now know I shouldn't have talked about my decorating budget. A tango started playing, which would have given me the opening to invite her to dance, providing enough time for you and Casey to return and save me. Instead, she got suspicious and took me away with her goons."

"You were wearing a wedding ring. Why would you ask her to dance?"

"I don't know. Maybe she wouldn't care about dancing with another woman's husband. When I later told her I worked at the Buy More, she didn't believe me at first, so maybe she wouldn't believe I was really married. It's sometimes hard for me to believe I married someone as wonderful as you. You and I haven't gone dancing, though. I haven't asked anyone to dance since college. I don't know how this is supposed to work. Maybe it's polite to ask an unaccompanied women who are standing without a dance partner. I wouldn't want to be rude."

Sarah still talked away from Chuck. "It works by you not asking strange women to dance."

"I didn't."

"Because you didn't know how to tango. And if our bosses ever decide to send you on a mission again, please don't tell people we run into you work at the Buy More."

"It's all hypothetical anyway. If something like that happens again, I won't ask anyone but you to dance. It didn't seem safe at the bar, but I'll just stay with you. I'm exclusively your arm candy, or whatever you want me to be. You're the one who keeps saying I'm sweet, and candy is sweet. I'm not implying I'm something that you can show off. Do you realize Casey said I did a good job, because I both survived and identified La Ciudad?"

"Was that before or after we knew you left your Buy More ID with the woman who wanted to kill you?"

"Uhhh...'

"Why didn't you tell me it was missing?"

"You know I fell asleep last night. Then this morning, I was distracted with a beautiful blonde woman in my bed. I noticed the badge was missing later in the morning, but everyone was telling me I did a great job by simply surviving, so that didn't seem important in the grand scheme, compared to saving the world. I figured I'd report it lost. Buy More corporate can handle things like that. A lot of people who work there are far more irresponsible all of the time."

"Next time, don't take things that say who you really are on a mission. Things like your wallet."

"Next time? You're going to let me go on a mission again? I'd like to get out of the doghouse someday—not that I want to go on a bunch of missions, but I hope to get out someday so I can move in with the person I love at the apartment across the courtyard next week. I've heard the construction crews are almost done making it extra safe."

Sarah said with a bit of fake uncertainty, "I guess you can get out. You know, this isn't just punishing you. I prefer my Chuck-shaped pillow. This hurts me too."

"Ok. I get it. You know making it so I am hurting you is worse. Enough of that. We'll get through this Intersect mess, and then you can go back to your exciting life of traveling the world to save it."

Sarah turned and met Chuck's eyes to make sure he'd understand. "That's not it. This entire situation is really hard. Meeting you was the best thing to happen to me in my life, but that was made possible by an egotistical traitor. I won't say we both hate him, because your too nice for that, but if we see him again, it will be too soon. I've never been so scared now that your life is in danger because of that thing in your head. However, as long as it's in your head, I get to stay by your side, which is a lot better than any place else. I don't want to go away from you."

Chuck said, "And I love being with you. Whatever happens, I know I can count on you. I'll get better at this spying thing. I'll learn how to stay out of trouble on these missions.

"The important thing is that you survived. Keep doing that. I would gladly beat down any person that throws sharp things at you, even if it means I get a split lip. Speaking of which, I think I deserve a massage of my injury."

"I thought it was just a lip. Is your back or neck sore, too?"

"No. I mean my lip."

"Your lip?"

Sarah confirmed that's what she meant by shuffling under the covers, quickly removing her pajamas, turning in bed, and starting to remove what Chuck was wearing. "It a really good thing you survived, so we can keep doing this." She met his lips before resuming her work.

He started to help speed things along, and they spent one of their last nights together in that apartment celebrating with one of the reasons they were glad they were both alive. Sarah didn't let her "war wound" from the arms dealer's lucky punch slow her down.

A/N: Bar rhymes with car, so Chuck doesn't get that either.

Songs:
"Hazy Shade of Winter" by The Bangles (I just discovered there's a Simon and Garfunkel one that came out before I was born, as opposed to when I was in high school. I mention it because Paul Simon deserves writing credit.)
"Por Una Cabeza" by Carlos Gardel, used in True Lies, Scent of a Woman, and Schindler's List