Posted August 16, 2019

A/N: Like the show, there are no illegal fireworks exploding in this one, and a "Night of Morgan" still doesn't survive with just one asterisk. When do things ever go as planned when the Intersect is around?

October 22, 2007

Chuck and Sarah left Casey's apartment, leaving behind the NSA agent with the MSS agent after their evening planning session to rescue the Chinese diplomat from the Triad. Sarah and Chuck held hands walking across the courtyard. Chuck expected a "this is how a spy should act" lecture from Sarah when they returned home. He hoped Mei-Ling Cho left shortly after them. Nothing against Casey, but he wouldn't wish the super-patriot exposure on her because she seemed pretty nice when she wasn't pointing a gun at him.

It all started innocently enough with a "Night of Morgan" the night before with the Bartowskis and Morgan going to the Bamboo Dragon. Sarah later told Chuck that she had heard of Enter the Dragon, but she had never actually seen it. She just knew of Game of Death with Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris (aka Walker, Texas Ranger—no relation), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The special plans for the night had to be aborted because of a flash. Fireworks were avoided, but the movie and sizzling shrimp were put on hold.

The next night, Chuck participated in his first stake-out, which led to a stern "talking to" for ordering a delivery to their stake-out van and for getting out of the car. Sarah still slept close enough for Chuck to keep her feet warm, but Chuck felt bad the whole night because he had upset her.

The day after that, with Sarah and Casey at Sarah's office, Chuck tried to make up for the whole thing by sharing his plan for Mei-Ling to defect. Later at Casey's, when working on the details of the plan to rescue Lee Cho, Chuck stuck his foot in his mouth about getting home in time for dinner. Mei-Ling didn't understand, Casey was annoyed, and Sarah didn't stick up for him. Chuck expected her to blow when they got home. Once again, he was showing his spying naïvety. At least the professional spies still wanted him on the mission for tech assistance.

Chuck decided to start apologizing before the traveled the few feet to their front door. "I'm sorry about the whole thing about dinner at Ellie's. I know saving Mei-Ling's brother is more important, and we can't plan exactly when we get finished. I'm going on a mission again, but I promise I'll stay in the car." He stopped when he saw where Sarah had led them—their old apartment. "Why are we here?"

Sarah didn't answer. She knocked on Ellie's door. Sarah had led them the other way around the fountain to end up at Ellie's apartment instead of their own door.

Ellie happily opened the door and said, "How are my favorite two people?"

Chuck was too confused to say anything, but Sarah answered, "Bad news, Ellie. I have this work thing. Chuck's keeping me company because I'll be out late, so we should probably cancel on Mother's Day."

Ellie accepted the news, but wasn't upset. "We don't need to cancel. Mother's Day was Chuck's and my holiday. Since your mom is out of the picture and we're all taking care of each other now, it's your holiday too. We'll just postpone it a day." Ellie gave Sarah a questioning look. "Will you feel better by then?"

"What?"

"Chuck told me. He left the sizzling shrimp here because of your spastic colon."

"He said that, did he?" Sarah looked over at Chuck. He was squirming. She looked back to Ellie. "I was fine. I had an emergency work thing—related to what I'm doing tomorrow night. I don't know why the shrimp didn't end up in our refrigerator. Your fridge is bigger than ours, but we normally have more space. I'm sorry about that. I caught Chuck at Casey's before we came here tonight. I'll make sure you get your dip plate back by tomorrow. The guacamole dip was really good."

"That's ok. I can get the dish whenever. I'm glad you liked it." Ellie swatted the arm of her brother and gave Sarah a hug. "You're family, and we take care of each other. You definitely need to be with us for Mother's Day. We'll get together for dinner the next night."

"Thank you for being so understanding, Ellie." Sarah let go of the hug, said goodnight, and pulled Chuck back to their apartment.

Inside their home, Chuck needed to preempt any question of his lame medical condition cover story. He really shouldn't have suggested something like that, something which wasn't true, to a doctor. He asked Sarah, "Why didn't you tell me you were coming? I must have sounded like such a fool over at Casey's."

She said, "I probably should've said something back then. I didn't think it was any of their business why I was going to the Bartowski Mother's Day celebration. Casey doesn't know anything about my mom. Even the CIA doesn't know anything about her. I don't want to go there. It's a family thing. Tomorrow, we'll save Mei-Lang's family, and the next night, we celebrate our family."

Chuck and Sarah shared a long kiss. After a few moments, they pulled back from their embrace and Chuck asked, "Are you really ok with this whole 'made-up holiday' thing? You didn't seem to be too enthused about Sweetest Day a couple days ago."

"We don't need to have special celebrations on Hallmark Holidays. We have enough days to celebrate on our own. There's the day I met you, the day that I surprised you at the Buy More, the day you held me as we slept in our home together for the first time, the day we moved into our new home, and every other day we're married."

"Yeah, that's a lot of days."

"Every day I get to spend with you is sweetest day," Sarah said.

"I'm on board with that. How about Valentine's Day? It's for St. Valentine, who died in the third century. Hallmark didn't make up that one."

"We don't need to do anything special for a day celebrating someone who was martyred. As long as we are together, that's good enough for me."

"Understood. What about me going on this mission tomorrow?"

"Just stay in the car, and we'll be fine. Today, you're with me, which makes this as good as Valentine's Day, in my book. Let's go to bed early and celebrate.

Three nights later

"That didn't work," Sarah said.

Chuck squeezed Sarah tighter to his side in a half-hug. She snuggled with him on the sofa as the movie credits scrolled on the TV screen. She gave Chuck a kiss on the neck, then extracted herself and took their empty glasses to the kitchen.

Chuck said, "It sounds like White Nights isn't your thing."

"No it isn't. Why is that one of your favorite movies? There are no superheroes or space battles."

"I never said it was one of my favorite movies. I haven't seen it in about twenty years."

"We based our entire mission on a movie that you don't even like? You own this one, though." Sarah finished in the kitchen and walked back to talk to Chuck.

"I bought it at the store today because we planned to watch it tonight. I don't dislike it."

"It didn't even apply to the situation. No one was kidnapped in the movie. There were two defections of civilians to different countries. It wasn't the same. There has to a better defection movie." Sarah started down the hallway, starting to get out of her clothes even as she was still in the hall. She continued into their bedroom.

Chuck called into the other room, "I don't know. Moscow on the Hudson?"

Sarah called back. "Is that about a spy who defects?"

"No. I don't remember much about it. It has Robin Williams. You know. Mrs Doubtfire, Good Morning: Vietnam, Alladin, Mork." Chuck started up, wondering if there was an implicit invite to join her.

"Of course I know who he is. I didn't grow up on another planet. He was a weird alien in that last one, though, wasn't he? That's probably why you know him." Sarah returned to the room, pulling on one of Chuck's T-shirts over her boy shorts.

Now Chuck wasn't sure. They'd end up sleeping in bed together anyway, so maybe he should stop talking so they'd get there faster. Or maybe he should play along. She once told him she thought he was cute when he rambled. "No I don't him because he was Mork from Ork. We were too young when that show was on the air. He's been in a lot of stuff. This past summer, he was in August Rush, He was also in Good Will Hunting. That movie came when we were seniors in High School, and the movie was set in Boston and MIT. However, you went to Harvard. I don't know if MIT is considered an anti-Harvard since it's for engineers, so maybe that school was a rival and not liked by Harvard students. I think Minnie Driver's character in it went to Harvard, though."

"I don't know it. I was recruited into the CIA that year. Between cons and spy-training, I really didn't pay attention to what movies were popular. The Hong Kong UK-China hand-off and tensions in Serbia were the big deals back then. Why did you think this movie was a good plan for saving Mei-Ling's brother?"

"It was just about defecting. I didn't know how defection is supposed to work when I suggested it. Since you like ballerinas, I thought you might know about this movie. It's a Cold War-era movie, which is in Casey's wheelhouse."

"I knew about Baryshnikov. Some of this stuff everyone knows—even those of us who are lacking in the pop culture background. He was a ballet dancer not a ballerina." Sarah took her initial position, pressed into Chuck side. The only differences from when they watched the movie was she was ready for bed and the TV was off.

"Helen Mirren was a former ballerina," Chuck said.

"You weren't there to help her because her dad didn't know how to use a camcorder. She's not very tall either. The connection is really thin."

Chuck figured he needed to get ready for bed too, so he reluctantly stood up and parted from his entire life, meaning he parted from his wife who was wearing his "My Entire Life" T-shirt. "What did you mean your plan didn't work?"

Sarah followed Chuck to their bedroom to answer. "You didn't follow instructions on the mission and got out of the car. That calls for some kind of punishment. After the La Ciudad mission, the warm pajamas thing didn't work. It wasn't just punishing you. It was punishing me as well. Last night was a special holiday which made me feel more a part of the family, and then I wanted to reward you for saving my life during the rescue. I thought I could save the punishment for tonight. We'd watch this movie and go straight to bed. I'd still get to snuggle with you during the movie and when we went to sleep, so it wouldn't be unfair to me. However, I didn't factor in that I'd have to sit through a completely irrelevant movie that made the spy part of me cringe. Next time, you can watch the movie with Casey."

"That's mean."

"Heads up. He wouldn't snuggle. If the movie was full of dancing and had no weapons fire, he'd complain the whole time. That sounds like an appropriate punishment as long as I get to sleep by you afterwards."

"That sounds awful…the movie watching part. The threat is bad enough. I've completely learned my lesson. Next time, when I get out of the car to save you, I expect to be badly punished on the second night. We both know I'm going to try to save you anyway, so the best thing you can do is not get captured again. Please no Casey, though. If it gets that far, I'll buy him a WWII documentary set or something. Then he might not kill me, something that would be too harsh for both you and me."

"Ok. Now hurry up. I'm ready for bed, and I want my pillow."

"Yes ma'am." Chuck changed out of his jeans. He couldn't finish changing in a hurry, though, because he didn't hold off the attack of the scantily clad blonde that came at him from behind. He didn't try too hard. It was never his goal to stop the leggy super-spy who was hanging all over him so he could finish getting ready for sleep.

A/N: As if Team Chuck would really blackmail Mei-Ling into defecting to save her brother. After they (accidentally) abetted the Triad to help them continue to hold their kidnap victim, the good guys would want to help anyway. Making a communist spy defect is cleaner from the storytelling standpoint to get the spy protectors to cooperate. At the time, Casey was still often portrayed as someone who would kill Chuck, and Sarah still didn't understand Chuck's view of family. However, if you want to see a case in which Mei-Ling is not being forced into defecting, try WillieGarvin's "Chuck vs A New Day." Or just read that story anyway. You won't regret it.

Songs:
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story main theme by Randy Edelman
"Separate Lives" by Phil Collins (from White Nights)