Chuck Versus the Birthday
By Steampunk . Chuckster
Summary: Agent Bryce Larkin's puzzling attempt to look up an old college friend after he disappears with U.S. Intelligence's top secret Intersect sends Larkin's betrayed partner Agent Walker to Echo Park, Los Angeles, California as Chuck Bartowski's birthday approaches. Slight AU of the pilot.
A/N: Now that I'm back from vacation, these next chapters should probably be coming out a lot quicker than the last one. Thanks for reading and the kind reviews.
Disclaimer: I don't own CHUCK or its characters. I'm not making money posting this.
Her heart was threatening to burst out of her chest as she sat behind the driver's wheel, reaching over to turn the key, the engine cutting out.
They sat in silence until it became tense and awkward.
Agent Sarah Walker shut her eyes tightly and sucked in a deep breath, letting it out slowly and opening her eyes again. She chanced a peek over at Chuck. He was staring at the glove compartment in front of him, his brow furrowed, jaw hard.
"So…what now?" he asked not for the first time this morning. "I just…say goodbye and go inside?"
"Yes. You have my phone number," she said. She'd given him the number of another burner phone, one that wasn't drying out on his desk. She didn't like the idea of Chuck having the number of the same phone the CIA would be calling. It made something in her feel…sick.
"Right. Your second burner. Since the first one is still drying out in my room." He sent her a cute, crooked smile and she smiled back, nodding. "Do you want me to bring that one to you?"
"No, I can… Let's both go. I'll get it with you."
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
They both climbed out of the car and walked through the gate, into the courtyard. He looked like he might be walking to the front door and she stopped him, catching his hand in both of hers, then gesturing with a head flick to the window.
"I…don't think now is the best time for your sister to, uh, see me…"
"Oh. Shit, duh. Sorry. Right. The window." And he led her to it, sliding it open smoothly. He climbed in like he'd done this numerous times before, then he poked himself out, taking her hand.
"I…should stay out here," she said, shifting her weight to her other foot. This felt like the end of an incredible date. And she hadn't been on dates. Not ever before really. Not real ones, at least. She felt out of her depth. "You need your sleep and I do too."
"Oh. Right. Let me get that phone, huh? Be right back." He thumped his hand on the windowsill sweetly and ducked into his room. She leaned against the wall and crossed her arms, watching him through the window as he moved to his desk.
Melancholy struck her in her chest then, because she couldn't help feeling like something so pure and wonderful and good, something she'd never thought she'd ever experience and likely didn't even deserve to experience, was coming to an end. The blissful bubble was going to pop when she walked away from his room, and she didn't think they'd be able to find it again.
Not with everything else going on around them.
Chuck gingerly lifted her phone from where it was buried in those silica gel packet things, carefully putting everything back together, slipping the SIM card back into place… and he powered the phone on again as he walked back to join her at the window, kneeling down to pop his torso out.
He looked extra tired and extra cute and youthful, his hair mussed, as he looked up at her and held the phone towards her. "It's turning on just fine. See if it's working before you go."
Sarah nodded with a smile, taking the phone from him. She clicked around a bit, giggling and shaking her head. It was working like normal, and just a few hours ago, it had been fully submerged in freezing cold fountain water. "Oh my God." She sent him an impressed look and he practically glowed. "You Nerd Herd guys are good."
He beamed. "Guess I'm really good at my job too."
She smiled, wiggling the phone. "Thank you for this."
"Welcome."
And now the time had come. She pocketed the phone and let her hand stray to the lapel of his shirt, trapping the cotton between her fingers and giving it a sweet affectionate tug, smiling down at him. "Happy Birthday, Chuck."
His smile held some melancholy in it too, and she thought maybe they both knew something incredible was ending right here. A pocket of happiness neither of them would know again.
At least, not the same kind, and not with one another.
"Thank you, Sarah."
She heard a lot more in that thank you than she thought she deserved. "Call me if anything happens, if he reaches out…"
Chuck nodded. "Yeah. I will."
She nodded back and stepped away from him, letting her fingers feel his curls between them one more time, and she turned to the exit of the courtyard, walking away from him. This wasn't the end, she knew…and still it felt like the end of the night, the end of their whirlwind sanctuary of a night.
Sarah didn't look back, instead going straight to her car, trying to ignore the ache. He'd go to bed now, she knew, but she wasn't going back to hers. There was this slithering spy sense in her. Like something was happening, a new development lying in wait.
And maybe Bryce would make his move soon.
So instead of getting in her car and driving home, Sarah drove it in a wide circle, parked a block away, and rushed back to Chuck's window to watch over him. She'd neglected to take the bugs away like she'd meant to but it was too late now. So she popped the earbuds into her ear, switching her CIA phone out for the burner number she'd given Chuck. Communicating with Chuck was more important than the CIA being able to reach her, frankly.
Five minutes had passed since she walked away from him, and he'd since moved to his bed, flopping back onto it with his legs hanging off, his sneakers still on, sand caking the bottom hems of his jeans.
There was a knock on his bedroom door and he pushed himself up onto his elbows. "Yeah?"
His sister burst in. "Oh thank GOD you're home! You just crawl into the window like a freaking creeper instead of letting me know you're here?"
Chuck sat up all the way and shrugged. "I didn't want to wake you up."
"Like I was gonna sleep 'til I knew you were home? You just galavanted off with this beautiful girl and never come home all night…."
Sarah winced as Chuck gaped at Ellie. "Wait, you…saw her?"
"Are you kidding me?" Ellie walked further into the room and grabbed his arm with two hands shaking him, letting out an adrenalized (probably way too tired) giggle. "Chuck, she's fucking gorgeous!" Sarah felt herself blushing. "And don't get me wrong, I am so proud of you for having fun with a girl…" She paused dramatically, then swatted him in the shoulder hard. "BUT ALSO MAYBE A TEXT WOULD'A BEEN NICE?!"
Sarah winced extra hard at that. She couldn't exactly protect him from his sister in this instance. The poor woman had waited up this whole time? She found herself feeling terrible about that. Especially considering everything she knew about these two, their struggles together, the fact that they were all they really had as far as family.
"I texted you that I left with someone I met at the party. And you said, and I quote…" He fished his phone out of his pocket and pulled up the text. "OK FINE DON'T DO ANYTHING I WOULDN'T DO in all caps. See?"
"The fact that I was able to spell all those words right with how drunk I was when I got your text is a testament to how brilliant I am," she said, and Sarah found she liked this woman an inordinate amount.
Chuck snorted. "Never was in doubt." He grabbed her hand and squeezed. "I'm sorry I scared you, sis. I didn't mean to."
Ellie brushed her hand through the air dismissively.
"And? How was your birthday?" There was something extra in the way she'd asked and he went bright red. "Uh, okay. You don't have to answer that with anything other than a 'good'…" She made a grossed out face and this time Sarah went bright red.
"Um, please don't read anything into my response, but… It was good."
Ellie beamed tiredly, ruffling his hair. "I'm so glad. Ask that girl to dinner. I love her already. I'm going to sleep because I'm fucking exhausted. Need anything to eat?"
"Nope. Just sleep."
"Good. I'm not making you anything anyway. It isn't your birthday anymore." She sent him a teasing look and pointed as she ducked out of his room.
Chuck let out a snort as his door was closed behind Ellie and he shut his eyes, taking a deep breath. Then he frowned and his eyes snapped open. He looked to and fro around his room, then climbed up to his feet. It wasn't until he went over and turned on the lamp next to his bed, peering under the lampshade as he ran his fingers along it, that she realized he'd remembered what she'd said about the bugs.
He let out a thoughtful hum, then moved to sit down when he couldn't find them after a few minutes of scouring his room, on surfaces, under surfaces, along grooves in furniture.
She felt bad. She'd hidden them really well. She'd learned not to underestimate the people she bugged the hard way.
As he untied his shoes, dropping them on the wooden floors, Sarah watched his furrowed brow, wondering what was going through his head. But when he went for the button of his jeans, she quickly pulled away from the window, pressing her back against the stucco wall beside it, rolling her eyes at herself. She was drawing the line there.
Sarah tried to ignore the sound of denim landing in a pile somewhere on the floor of his room deep, deep in her ears. She bit her lip and let out a long sigh.
It was easy to ignore the place her thoughts strayed though when she heard Chuck's voice in her ear.
"Forgot to collect the bugs."
Oh. Shit.
She curled her fingers against the wall next to her hips, sliding down to sit on the cement floor with a huff.
"You probably turned 'em off though. But just in case you didn't, and you can hear me right now…? Thank you." Sarah shut her eyes tight, her chin quivering. "Sorry about my sister. Yeah. I guess that's it. Hope you get some sleep, Sarah. Or…Agent Sarah. I dunno. You never gave me another name. So I'm wondering now if Sarah is your actual name. Or if you have a middle name…"
Sarah opened her eyes again, taking a deep breath. "Lisa," she whispered. "My middle name is Lisa."
She looked up as she watched the light streaming out of the window disappear. He was trying to sleep. She heard him crawling into bed. She snuck a look through the window and saw him pull the covers over his body.
Agent Walker pushed Sarah to the back of her mind then and became the spy once more. Because Bryce was still out there. She'd texted Graham for an update after parking her car. No news. She'd reported no news on her side either, a complete and utter lie.
And now she was absolutely worried.
Because this was how it always worked. When things got silent, that was when you had to be especially on your guard. That was when they struck. Like in horror films, when you think someone's out of danger, when they think they're out of danger, and there's that split second of silence and then…BAM. Clown is there, waiting with its knife raised.
Bryce would make his move now, she thought. Whether Chuck would be part of that or not, she didn't know. Was this his opportunity to screw Chuck over even more by sending him top secret info that would land him in high security prison forever? Or maybe…and this was even scarier…he trusted Chuck as much as Chuck deserved to be trusted, knew him to be a good man. He had a good heart and a good brain. What if he was putting the Intersect in the safest place he could think of…with Chuck?
Someone who had the moral compass to do the right thing with it.
She thought she was giving Bryce Larkin too much credit with that theory.
But it was still a possibility. Because if she needed something to be kept safe, a man working a sixteen dollar an hour job smack dab in the middle of Burbank, one man in a place with tens of millions of people, a needle in a haystack, might be the perfect choice. Add to the fact that Bryce had known Chuck when they were in their early twenties, which meant he'd probably known just how exceptionally strong his moral center was even then.
He'd ruined Chuck's life before. He likely wouldn't mind doing it again, shoving the Intersect at Chuck, thus actually ruining his life, perhaps ruining his mental health if what Graham said about this thing was true.
Brains had been scrambled by the Intersect. That was talk from a few of the scientists she had to meet with to get read in on some of the operation. And folks didn't live full, healthy lives with scrambled brains. Were those test subjects now lying in beds connected to machines keeping them alive somewhere in Langley? Or had they died?
Would Bryce risk Chuck's life like that? Did a life mean so little to him?
She had to think he could be capable of it. She'd seen him take shots she'd paused to take, and he'd done it without blinking. Without thinking twice. Shots that would've haunted her, dropped her into a lifelong trauma.
And right after taking the shot, every time, he cracked a joke to ease the tension.
Would he let Chuck die for something like this? Would he sacrifice a person he knew was this good? This important and full of light?
She stayed there for what ended up being about half an hour, waiting, her tiredness weighing in her bones, in her soul, and still she stayed awake. Sitting on the ground under his window. The sun now risen in earnest, the minutes creeping closer to seven in the morning. No one else in the complex walked in or out of the courtyard thankfully. No blinds opened. No one looking out to see a random woman sitting under their neighbor's window looking like the cat had caught her and dragged her in.
And she kept waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting some more.
Until she heard a sound that made her sit up, alert again. Chuck let out what sounded like a frustrated grumble and she heard the sheets on his bed rustling. She moved onto her knees and peeked into his room through the window again.
He was getting out of bed, probably unable to sleep after everything that had happened, everything she'd told him. He was only in just his boxers and a DC Comics T-shirt, a tired look of surrender on his face as he moved over to his desk, plopping into the chair. She smiled at the way he spun around in it a few times as his computer woke up. He made some sort of explosion sound as he stopped the chair with his knee against the desk and then he scooted in closer as his desktop came to life.
This cartoon character of a man.
She saw what appeared to be some kind of video game blow up to its full size on the screen, the character standing in place. He messed with the edges of the box to make it smaller, scooted it to the side. The graphics were pretty rudimentary…not that she knew anything about video games. Then he clicked a few keys and a black box popped up in the space he'd made to the side of the game screen. His fingers began to move a mile a minute on the keyboard and white numbers and letters began scanning in the box.
Was he typing those out? Or…what was this?
Was he programming? Was he playing this game he'd pulled up or was he…building it himself? She didn't know what that would look like, but she didn't think crazy coding boxes popped up like this while you were simply playing a game.
Fascinated, she watched, listening to him humming some tune she didn't recognize. And then he downsized the game and pulled up some music player on the screen. A quiet song came from his speakers soon thereafter.
He probably wouldn't appreciate that she was watching as he began dancing in his chair to it, pulling the game back up and typing away again.
"Streets like a jung-uuuulllllllllllllllll…" he began to sing, bobbing his head back and forth.
She didn't know how he was singing, dancing, and doing this programming thing at the same time.
"Nothing is waaay-steeeehddd, only re-pro-dooooooyyyooooosssssed…"
The Intersect might do just fine in a brain like his, but he'd have to work on his accent.
The small smirk on her face died down just as quickly when there was a swoosh sound and a box popped up in the corner of the screen. She knew what an email notification looked and sounded like.
He clicked out of his game, pulling up his email.
She didn't have access to his email here and would need to hurry back to her car where the system was to see what he was looking at…but something was buzzing in her gut. A bad feeling. Like something was happening.
Agent Walker had no idea what he saw that made him go so tense. He hit a button on the keyboard to stop the music and leaned in closer to the screen, letting out a quiet curse, looking left and right.
Her heart in her throat, Sarah ducked out of sight just in case, inching back to peek into his room as he rushed to the door and flicked the lock on it.
"Shit," she heard. "Oh God shit. It's here. It's here. He sent it. It's him he sent it oh my God."
She knew exactly what he meant immediately. It's here. He sent it.
He'd received an email. From Bryce.
Sarah switched into spy mode as he rushed back to the computer, looking at it again. His hands hovered over the keyboard, shivering, awe in his face. Awe.
Not confusion, not fear.
A look like he'd just received something…he'd been waiting for.
Something stabbed at her chest. Anger, betrayal… She'd trusted him. Was he that good of an actor? And the whole time he'd played her. He'd been waiting for this email. Waiting for Agent Larkin to contact him, to send the Intersect to him.
He spun to look towards the window, as if knowing he'd left the blinds gaping open. Sarah just barely hid in time as she heard him rush over and hurriedly lower the blinds, obscuring her view. "God damn it," she whispered through her teeth.
She couldn't help the hurt in her chest.
He couldn't be an accomplice. There was no way. She would've seen it… Just like she'd seen it with Bryce?
Fuck.
Either way—and she had to believe he couldn't, wouldn't, betray her—she had to make her move now and stop him from opening the email. Chest aching, she reached back and grabbed the tranq gun she'd taken from her car's trunk after parking, and she stood to her full height at the window.
But just as she got her hand against the glass, ready to lift, her phone began to buzz in her pocket. She frowned, meaning to ignore it, but then she realized which phone she'd taken with her. Nobody had this number…except for him.
Sarah pulled it out of her back pocket and swiped to answer, pressing herself against the wall, out of sight again. "Hello?" she asked in a low voice so that he couldn't hear her out here.
"Oh. Oh hi. Sarah."
"Chuck…"
She took a deep breath, the anger and sensation of betrayal abating, and instead she felt guilt, a deep and painful guilt. She shifted even further from the window just in case. She was wrong. He was calling her of all people. Not some foreign contact, not a courier.
"I'm sorry. You're probably sleeping. Or trying to. I couldn't. I couldn't sleep. I tried and—Wait. Oh no. Is this…is this line secure? Should we find a secure line? We aren't…b-u-g-g-e-d?"
"It's secure," she reassured him, smiling in spite of everything. He was phenomenally cute. Did he think the people who'd listen in on their conversation were two year olds who couldn't spell 'bugged'?
"Oh. Okay. That's good. Good…" He lowered his voice even more, and she thought by the sound of it, he was cupping his hand around the phone just in case. "Sarah, it-it's here. I mean, it's happened. The…thing. Happened. The thing you told me to call you about when it happened. That."
Any suspicion she'd had because of his extremely suspicious behavior when the email came in was gone now. She'd been right to trust him. And he was trusting her.
She was nervous as all get-out, the Intersect was likely sitting in Chuck's inbox right now…and then she was floating, too. He was everything she'd thought he was. More even.
"Can you be a little clearer?" she asked, almost dizzy with relief. He was good. He was still good. He hadn't been acting. It had all been real.
And he sounded terrified, poor guy.
"Bry—Erm, B. B and L. I mean B…L… You know who. Sent…an email. A…particular one. That is… I mean, he doesn't send me emails because he knows I'd respond with a big ol' fuck you and a gif of, like, an elephant shitting or something." Sarah pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. "When they go, they, like…it's intense—"
"Chuck," she interrupted. "Did you open the email? It's in your inbox now?"
"Yes."
"What?!" she hissed, her heart in her throat again.
"I mean, n-no. No, I didn't open it. Yes, it's in my inbox. Sorry."
She thrust out her hand to steady herself against the wall, taking a deep, calming breath.
"Of course I didn't open it. You told me not to!" he hissed back.
Oh God, she could kiss him.
He'd done everything she'd asked him to. He was safe.
"Okay, don't touch it. Stay where you are. I'll be there ASAP. Understand?"
"Yeah. Yeah, ten-four."
She hung up and made a mad dash for her car. They had work to do.
}o{
Within ten minutes, Chuck heard a light knock on his window. He almost tipped his chair lunging towards the window, just barely catching it in time, and he yanked the blinds up, nearly breaking them. There she was, standing outside of his window, in the same outfit she'd been wearing all night which was…interesting.
But that didn't matter. He didn't care what she was wearing, she was here, and he was so fucking relieved he could faint.
He tugged the window open and reached out so that she could grab his arm. He held onto her elbow and helped her gracefully swing inside of his room. "Hi," he breathed. "Hey."
Sarah stood to her full height, squeezing his arm, and then she spun to slide the window shut. She swung the bag she'd had slung over her shoulder down onto the floor, not even making a single sound, kneeling down to unzip it and producing a laptop and a cord.
"What's this?" he rasped, knowing his sister was a heavy sleeper, but not enough that too much loud noise would rouse her and her suspicions.
"I need to shift that email onto my own system here so that I can take it back to my superiors." Then she gestured to his desk. "May I?"
"Yeah! Oh God. Sure. Hold on. I have so much…crap. Lemme just…" He shoved some coding books to the back of the desk, dusted the wood lamely with the hem of his T-shirt, and patted it. "Here."
She sent him an amused look, her eyes sparkling. "Thanks."
"Welcome."
As she set it all down, she turned to his laptop, inspecting the email. "You're sure this is Bryce…"
"Yeah, I mean…it says it's from BeamReamLARPin." Sarah just stared at him through her eyelashes. He shook himself. "Oh. Uh. Sorry, right, how would that make any sense to you? That was Bryce's screen name in Call of Duty. We'd spend hours upon hours playing at Stanford and—Well, anyway." He cleared his throat. "That's definitely him."
"LARPin…? What does it even mean?" she asked, leaning close to inspect the email he still hadn't opened, thank God. She told him not to and as curious as she knew he must be, he hadn't.
"Well, his name is Larkin and we used to LARP here and there. He was a big fan of the LARP."
"Is that something I'm supposed to have heard of before? LARP?" She raised an eyebrow at him over her shoulder.
"Heh. Only if you're—Erm, no." He swallowed thickly as her look turned flat. "Live action role play. See, if you cross over to the East Bay, there are really cool recreational areas with massive trees and foliage and it looks like something out of Lord of the Rings, so we'd…fight each other with plastic swords and maces we made out of—You know what? I've already said too much. Ahem."
Sarah slowly stood to her full height and looked at him, her smile just barely there but still amused, and those eyes sparkling in humor. "You fought each other with plastic swords in the woods…?"
Chuck blushed and scratched behind his head. "Can we go back to before I said that? He sent me this very important email with the top secret intel stuff. The Intersect thingy. Can we get back to that?"
The CIA agent pursed her lips and nodded, still laughing at him with her eyes. "Sure, yes. You're right. We'll get back to that."
"Thank you," he breathed, running a hand down his shirt. He only just realized he was still in his boxers. Crap.
Should he—? God, she was already in here, she'd seen his lower half in nothing but boxers, he was terrified and exhausted, and he was too frazzled to pull pants on. Fuck it.
"I need to find a way to move this without you opening it. See there, he's got something attached. I need to have the attachment moved. It'd be easier if we could get into the email but if it activates when it's opened, we're both screwed."
Chuck frowned. "Why?"
"It's…hard to explain because I don't even really get it yet. But it's a program that sends subliminal messaging, coding or something, through a series of images. You end up looking at it, it transfers that information into your brain in a fast and likely painful way. If you don't have the head for it, your brains end up scrambled." She winced.
"What the fuck? That's what the Intersect does? Is this the sort of thing the CIA is working on?" he hissed. "Brain scramblers?"
"Some of it."
"What about Area 51?" She gave him an impatient sigh. "I'm sorry. I had to ask."
"Did you?" he heard her mutter as she bent back down towards his computer, and that was fair. He probably didn't.
"I can figure this out." She turned to look at him again, curious. "Tech is my thing, remember. I'll move that onto whatever you've got. Without the brain scrambling." He shivered. "I think because there's clearly an attachment, it's probably hidden within the attachment, and we'd be able to at least access that part safely, but if you're sure you don't wanna chance it…"
"I don't. I told you I was going to protect you and I meant it. From Bryce, from the CIA, from this."
"Wait…" He frowned deeply as she stood beside him, turning to face him, a supportive hand on his arm. An awful thought occurred to him, one that made a pain go through his chest. "Did Bryce send this to me to try to scramble my brains? Was he trying to get me hurt?"
A sadness swept over her face as she shrugged. "I'm not sure what his motivations were here. I didn't think he would steal highly classified intel and make off with it, and before he did that, I wouldn't think he'd try to hurt someone who was his friend in college, but I guess I don't know now. Maybe he thought it'd be safe with you. That you're…one in a million whose brain would handle the information without imploding. If anyone could, Chuck Bartowski…I'd think it would be you."
Chuck's tongue darted out to wet his lips, his brow furrowed as he glanced down at the computer. At the email in particular. "Safe? Safe from whom?"
Sarah didn't answer. Either she didn't know or she didn't want to say.
With a frustrated huff, he pushed his hands through his hair and gently shifted Sarah out of his way, his hands on her sides, and then he plopped into his chair and got to work.
Within ten minutes, he was ready to transfer it. She'd certainly both harmed and helped his efforts by standing behind him, supporting him and also making him nervous. She'd rested her cool hand on the back of his neck, his heated skin there, and he'd wanted to cry it felt so good.
"What am I putting it on?" She reached over him and put her hand on the laptop she'd taken out of her bag when she first arrived. "That's a little less easy," he said. "Transferring from laptop to laptop. You have a drive or something? An external drive?"
"Oh. Yeah." She moved to dig through her bag, producing a square external hard drive about the size of a smartphone. "Here."
And as the transferring commenced, he pushed his chair back a bit and stood up, turning to face her, watching her. So many emotions cascaded over her stunning features, and then she locked them all away again, behind a mask. A spy mask.
"Now what happens?" he asked softly.
"I'm going to take this back to D.C. with me, they'll analyze it, make sure it's the intel he stole, the Intersect. And we'll keep looking for him. Maybe they can use this to track him down."
Chuck nodded. "That's it then? I'm out of it?"
"I'll need to give your email information to our analysts so that they can open it and take the information out of it safely. They'll scrub your account of any bit of Bryce and the Intersect, and then they'll hand it back to you. Hope you don't have anything super important or time sensitive being sent to you…"
He shrugged. "I work at the Buy More. I'll never get anything more important than this." He gestured at the computer with a toss of his thumb.
"Apparently Agent Larkin thought you were important enough."
"Or he just despises me that much," he mumbled, frowning. Hurting.
"My gut tells me it isn't that. I can't imagine anyone knowing you and despising you. Not for any reason, and definitely not over some dumb girl. I'm not making any excuses for him, he doesn't deserve any, but I don't think he picked you out of hate. I think he picked you out of admiration."
"Admiration?" Chuck scoffed, gesturing around his room. "What've I done that's worth that? What do I have that deserves admiration?"
Sarah stepped in very close, surprising him. And she reached up to lightly stroke his temple under her fingers. "This," she breathed. And then her eyes softened as she oh so slowly let her fingers wander down the side of his face, his jaw, his throat, collarbone, and his chest. She pressed her palm over his heart. "But especially this. I've spent a long, long time in the CIA, longer than you'd believe…" She took a deep breath. "So has Agent Larkin. I can tell you for certain that it is very rare for someone like me, and like Bryce, to meet a person who has a heart like yours. An incorruptible moral center. An innate goodness. A need to do the right thing. Bryce is a dickhead, but he's an extremely smart dickhead. And he's a good spy." She bit her lip, her eyes far off as she turned them down. "He probably knew there's no one safer to keep this than someone who would never ever use it for wrongdoing. Only for good. Someone who wouldn't be persuaded by anti-Intelligence groups, by foreign adversaries, or by terrorist cells and arms dealers. Someone who wouldn't be bought."
Chuck mulled it all over. "You think I'm all of those things? In seventh grade, all Bobby Griffith had to do was threaten to put Morgan in a trashcan and I gave him my Venusaur card. Pristine condition." He frowned deeply, his chest still hurting over that one. "That solarbeam was so effective." He sighed. "I have regrets." She looked supremely confused. "Pokémon card. My point is, bad guys could show up and point a weapon at one of my people, and I'd give 'em whatever the fuck they wanted."
Sarah shook her head. "I don't doubt you'd do anything for the people you love, Chuck. It's part of what makes you so…you," she said with so much warmth he nearly melted from it. "But you've got that brain of yours too, ya nerd." She looked up at him with flirtation in her tone and in her face, and he wanted to kiss her again. He didn't. She was trying to make a point, and he swore he was listening. "You'd find a way to protect your people and the Intersect. I know it."
"You seem so sure of me after only knowing me a couple of hours," he said quietly, shrugging, feeling shy. He wasn't used to all of this praise from someone who wasn't his sister, his best friend, Captain Awesome, Big Mike on occasion when he was having a good day.
"You forget, it's been a week since I was first handed your dossier. I've had a week to get to know you, read about you, watch and listen to you…"
"A little creepy," he teased.
She giggled, nodding. "It is, yeah. Sorry about the creeping. In fact…" She reached out to squeeze his hips affectionately, then moved around the room, systematically removing the bugs from the places she left them.
Chuck gaped, exclaiming, "No way!" under his breath, and "Noooooo", and the occasional, "Ridiculous", with each bug she removed. He hadn't even thought bugs could go in those places…
And finally, she crawled onto his bed, sending certain feelings he couldn't control through him. And he was assailed with a need so strong to just…wrap her up in his arms and cling to her while falling asleep, cuddled under his sheets, holding on and not letting go. Basking in the warmth and comfort, the safety she made him feel.
Sarah tilted his San Diego Comic Con mug that he had on the shelf behind his bed and picked the last bug from the bottom of it, sending him a mischievous look.
He threw his hands up dramatically for her benefit, earning the giggle he was hoping for. "Can't believe I didn't look under there. Perfect place for a bug."
"Yeah, well…I noticed there was so much stuff cluttered on this shelf here, collectibles and the like, that you haven't dusted in a while." She swiped her finger, holding it up for him to see that it was covered in dust. "Figured you likely wouldn't look here."
"Wow. Managed to throw a little dig in there about my dismal dusting habits. Nice. Real nice."
She giggled again and climbed off of his bed again, sticking the bugs in her inner jacket pocket.
Before either of them could say anything, his computer made a DING sound.
Chuck turned towards it and glared. It couldn't have taken just a few more minutes, damn it? He knew once she collected her things and shoved them back in the bag, she'd be pressed for time. She'd have to sneak all of this back to D.C. safely. As fast as possible.
"It's done transferring," he muttered forlornly.
"Yeah. I thought that might be…what it was. The sound…"
They just stood there facing each other, eyes linked.
Chuck cleared his throat and gestured to it, before rushing over with a muttered, "I'll just…unplug the… There. Voila. Here, it's on…It's on the drive. What do I do now? I mean, with the email?"
"I hope you don't mind the CIA playing around with your account? They'll be out of it again soon enough. You won't even know they're there. Just…whatever you do, don't touch this email from LARPin. One day, you're gonna open your account and that email will be gone…you'll know we're done with what we needed to do and we're out. And…you go back to your life like normal."
"Right. As normal as I'm capable of. Heh."
She smiled a bit, nodding.
And then she stuck her hand out towards him. He gently placed the drive in her palm and watched as she collected everything, shoving it all back into the bag, zipping it up. She stayed kneeling beside the bag for a long moment.
Chuck wondered if she was trying to prolong the inevitable in the same way he was.
The agent slowly stood again, turning to face him. "Well, that's that. Thank you for trusting me," she added genuinely, stepping closer. "For not opening that email when you saw it and calling me instead. For believing I had your best interest at heart and trusting that. Even though I definitely didn't give you enough information."
"You made me trust you. I didn't just do it on a whim."
She surprised him by rushing him, throwing her arms around his shoulders, and hugging him tightly to her. The moment he got his bearings, he hugged her back, rounding her torso and squeezing hard.
He felt her lips at the line of his hair behind his ear, pressing a kiss there. And then they moved against his skin as she spoke. "You're a hero, Chuck Bartowski. Never forget that. A real life hero, not one of these comic book guys. I would never ever put you in a position that'd make you a prisoner of the U.S. Intelligence agencies the way you might've been if you'd opened that email, if I hadn't come here, if we hadn't known about you before. But if it had happened, I can't think of a more honorable, capable, brilliant, strong, thoughtful, good-hearted person to have this thing in his head. To have this power."
Chuck didn't know what to do with that, so he merely held her tighter, burying his face in her hair and taking a deep breath. "Would it be so bad? Me with this thing, using it for good?"
"Sometimes, it would be. Yeah. For you." She gave him one more squeeze and then gently pulled back to look up into his face, still holding his biceps, his arms still slung around the small of her back. "And for me. I don't think they'd like this."
"What?"
"This."
She stroked her hands up to cup his face and moved to her tiptoes to kiss him. It didn't have the gentleness of the kisses they'd shared on the beach, though she was tender. There was almost a thread of desperation in it, passion, need. No one had ever kissed him like this.
And he kissed her right back, twisting his fist in her jacket and opening his mouth for their tongues to meet.
He couldn't help whimpering as one of her hands moved to his hair and tugged on his curls. And he resisted the urge to start moving towards the bed, dragging her with him. With the way she was kissing him, touching him, her hand that wasn't buried in his hair dipping under his shirt to cling to his bare waist, she might jump right in with him.
And they could lose themselves in each other for a long, long time.
There was nothing he wanted more.
Still, he didn't do it.
And as Sarah finally broke the kiss, he blinked his eyes open to find her staring up at him, her eyes swimming with longing and regret both.
He let her back away from him, but he clung to one of her hands, even as she bent to grab the strap of her bag, lifting it and draping it over her shoulder. And he kept clinging as she straightened up again, just looking at him.
Chuck said what he'd been afraid to say since she first crawled in through his window this morning.
"I'm never gonna see you again, am I?"
Pure, heartbroken emotion came over her face before she could cover it up. And then she didn't cover it up, she let him see it, bare emotion. "I…don't know."
He smiled sadly. "That's 'no' in spy language."
She didn't respond, just dropping her eyes to his chest, her fingers threaded tight with his. "It's complicated."
"Please be careful," he heard himself half-whisper. "Be safe. When you're out there saving the world."
"You too, LARP boy. Saving the world with those plastic swords and your…deep well of kindness."
Chuck grinned at her. "Thank you, Sarah."
She furrowed her brow. "For what?"
"Trusting me. Believing in me. Not just kidnapping me and sticking me in a bunker or something. For telling me the truth and respecting me enough to know I'd be able to handle it. And for…these hours of adventure. That I'm never gonna forget."
Sarah's smile was plagued with sadness then as she nodded, squeezing his hand. She looked off to the side. "Someday, Chuck…you'll be a successful game programmer or something like that with a beautiful model girlfriend who…better freaking deserve you…and you'll forget all about this. You'll forget about me."
Chuck shook his head vehemently, his heart hurting worse than he was prepared for. "No, I will not," he said with a distinct steadiness. Her blue eyes swept back to meet his gaze. "I will remember you 'til my dying day, and beyond that even."
She swallowed hard enough for him to hear. "Well. You know I'm gonna think about you, like, every single day. You aren't the kind of guy a girl forgets."
She closed the distance again, cupping his face passionately and pressing her lips to his again. The whimpering sound she made as she broke the kiss and stepped away from him finally nearly made him follow her to the window, get down on his knees, and beg her not to go.
But she was a spy. She had more important things to do than stay here with him.
So he let her pull open the window and stick one leg out into the courtyard, easing her bag through.
This time she stopped and she looked back at him.
He felt ridiculous lifting his hand in an awkward wave, and with one last aching swipe of her eyes down to his toes and back up again to his head, she ducked out of the window and walked out of sight.
Chuck rushed to the window and watched her back as she determinedly strode away from him. He kept watching until she went through the gate and turned the corner.
And he kept watching even when she was gone.
A/N: Let's be real. Nobody forgets either of these dumdums for any reason, no matter how old we get. (gestures to the crapton of fics I'm still writing about them 10 years later)
Please review if you can. Thanks!
-SC