Ch. 10
A/N: A sincere thank you for all of the support for this little tale. We're getting close to Halloween. Only one more major holiday betweeen that and Christmas! We're getting there. For most of my stories and David's stories, but Ch. 10 these two are usually engaged. Well, let's see what Chuck has decided to do with the sisterly advice from Ellie.
Chuck glanced down at the copy of Stanford Magazine that was on his desk. Featured prominently on the cover was a story about the 2006 revival of the "Maus", the Halloween Mausoleum Party. Before Jill had ruined his mojo senior year, the annual costume party at the mausoleum bearing the remains of Leland Stanford and his wife had been an event Chuck had always wanted to attend. His fraternity brothers had always gone all out on their costumes for the event. Chuck had spent hours deciding on the perfect coordinated costumes for him and Jill, not realizing that while the costumes would have been perfect together, he and Jill were not. Shortly after his undergrad graduation, the event had stopped taking place. But the students had brought it back the previous year.
While traditionally an undergraduate event, the faculty always had a good number attend. There might not be many of her fellow graduate students, but there were no rules preventing Sarah from attending. Between this article and the advertisement he had seen in the library the other day, an idea began to form. It wouldn't be talking to her, at least not until the party-assuming she agreed to go-but it would be him reaching out to Sarah.
Chuck flipped open the magazine to see where he could get tickets for the Maus. He hopped out of his chair and headed toward the ticket office, a spring in his step. He tried not to think about it, but the thought of seeing Sarah Walker…the thought of talking to her….
Chuck picked up the two passes to the Maus party. The party fell on October 27th this year, meaning that he and Sarah would have very little time to get their costumes in order. He realized, that would be the easy part. He had to somehow get the invite to Sarah. After talking to Ellie he thought maybe Sarah didn't hate the live drop idea as much as he thought she had. Getting her the tickets, simple enough….getting her to actually go with me….gah.
He had to stop and wipe his hands on his jeans so that he didn't ruin the tickets. "Never a good sign that my palms are sweaty from freaking out, and I'm haven't even reached out to Sarah yet." He picked up and stared at his burner phone, praying that Ellie wasn't reading something into the text messages that wasn't really there. He typed in the words, closed his eyes, while wincing he peaked through one, and hit send.
*Have you figured out who your secret admirer is yet?*
He took a deep breath, thinking it was done, and then his eyes widened in amazement as the phone showed that Sarah was already typing a response.
*Maybe. Refer to yourself in the third person much?*
Chuck let out a laugh, partly at the jab, partly in relief that she was still communicating with him. He found himself grinning as he typed back the response.
*How are the glasses working out?*
}0{
Sarah's grin faltered as she read the message. Disappointment nearly consumed her as she realized, despite wearing the damned things constantly around campus, Chuck hadn't noticed her. She let out a frustrated huff, as she realized he hadn't been watching, then began to wonder what was wrong with her when she was bummed out that her admirer hadn't been running surveillance on her.
}0{
Chuck's breath caught. The message had been read, but unlike the previous message, she hadn't responded immediately. He knew, in his rational mind, that she could be busy with practically anything…except class, "Can't be class," he muttered. "I know her class schedule better than my own….which isn't creepy at all." He felt shame at the obsessiveness of it. Before he could spiral down any further into a pool of depression, he saw the blinking dots indicating typing.
*One of the librarians asked me to help her put away some books the other day. So, I guess they work.*
Chuck quickly typed his response, but paused before sending it. He erased livedrop and put in another word…playing it safe. "Please let Ellie be right, please let Ellie be right," he muttered. He hit send and sat there, unable to breathe.
*I left you another little something at your corral.*
The dots appeared immediately and he began to have hope.
*Don't you mean my 'live drop'? Might as well call it like it is.*
Was she flirting, or mad? He decided to play it safe. He hit send on his reply.
*Don't remind me. Not my finest hour.*
}0{
Sarah frowned at the message. Was this the reason he went dark? Was he embarrassed about giving me the glasses? Although she was a little frustrated at the reason behind the silence, she was much more pleased at the fact that it hadn't been anything that she had done. She began to type.
*Knowing what I know about you, I doubt that very much!*
Sarah bit down on her tongue to keep from laughing at her teasing.
}0{
Chuck's eyes bulged open. What she knows about me? I thought she was just fishing with the "maybe" comment earlier. Has she figured it out? She is the best of the best at the CIA…and that is really saying something. He narrowed his eyes at the phone. Ooooor? Is she just fishing again? He didn't even notice the tilt of his internal voice. He had no self-awareness of how much he was enjoying this. Chuck grinned at the mental chess match he found himself in the middle of. Sarah Walker was more than a worthy opponent. "Two can play at this game, Sarah Walker." He began to type sassily.
*Ouch. I see the way it is. I'm going to pick up the drop from the corral before I humiliate myself any further.*
The reply came back quickly, making his grin grow even wider.
*Good. It's not like I'm going to stakeout the site to catch you at it AND get the present anyway.*
Chuck laughed, realizing that he had just lost that round of mental chess. He still had a big grin when he saw that Sarah was typing again. His breath hitched as he waited for the message to appear.
*And it's 'live drop', not corral. Get it right.*
*I stand corrected.*
Chuck laughed as he checked his watch. Sarah had fifteen minutes until her next lecture started. He entered the security camera system through his backdoor right in time to spot a blonde secret agent sprinting across campus towards the library. "Huh, guess Ellie was right," he muttered. "There's no way I'm telling her that.".
}0{
Sarah looked at the admission ticket to the Maus party and wondered what her admirer was up to. On one hand, a masquerade party sounded somewhat romantic. On the other, and as an intelligence officer, she loathed the damned things. All the odd costumes makes it more difficult to run countersurveillance. If anyone had seen her and the beaming smile on her face, they would have had no idea of the small war going on inside of her.
"I would get to play dress up for fun," she mused. "But, what to wear?" She shoved the ticket into her bag, and headed to class.
During the lecture on the historical development of the Germanic languages in the Swabia region during the early Renaissance era, Sarah multitasked as she searched for information on the younger Professor Bartowski. As it turned out, it was the elder Professor Bartowski whose university bio gave Sarah an idea on how to find out more about the mysterious Charles "Chuck" Bartowski. After class wrapped up, Sarah retrieved a clean burner phone from the stash in her emergency go bag.
"Good afternoon, could I speak with Dr. Eleanor Bartowski?" Sarah's breath caught. She had run information scams countless times during her time with the CIA and her time with her father. This should be simple, was what was running through her head. But for the life of her, she couldn't understand why she felt so nervous, nor could she remember the last time she was this edgy making a simple phone call.
"This is she," came the polite, if somewhat wary response. Sarah smiled, she had a virtual foot in the door. That was all that she needed.
"Doctor, my name is Virginia Hall, I'm with Stanford Magazine. I'm doing an article on Dr. Charles Bartowski, and I was wondering if I could take a moment of your time?" C'mon, c'mon, she internally pleaded. Say yes…please say yes. "I promise to be brief. I'm just looking for some background. You know, fun little anecdotes that will tell the student body and fellow faculty about the man behind the legend." Sarah heard a little snort and knew that she had the good doctor hooked.
"Well, I guess that I've got a few minutes…" Sarah was beaming as she did research on a man who fascinated her unlike any other man.
}0{
It was all Ellie could do not to laugh out loud. Virginia Hall… "Oh, Chuck. You have NO idea what you have gotten yourself into," she thought to herself.
Ellie gave a silent laugh as she paid as much attention to how the questions were asked as she did to the information on her baby brother that she was disclosing. As she talked with "Virginia", Ellie went online and found that Virginia Hall was one of the student editors for Stanford Magazine. However, a quick check on social media showed that the young woman was currently doing a semester abroad in Barcelona.
"Bingo," she thought. "Baby brother, you may have finally met your match. Let's see what it is that you want to really find out about my brother. Mama B taught me a lot of techniques to figure out answers based on the questions asked." She smiled broadly as she told some embarrassing, yet innocuous tales of Chuck's childhood.
}0{
(October 27th)
Sarah was fiddling with her spy phone. She hadn't heard from Chuck after a stroll around the student center. She had deliberately lingered in front of several security cameras, without appearing to know that she could be seen. She grabbed a coffee in the Student Center, then meandered around the front of the building. She did everything shy of holding up a sign with her name on it.
It had been a few days since her last surveillance of the young professor. At first, she justified the covert observation as necessary to learn about who had been watching her. After trailing him around campus several times, it began to feel more like stalking. After several more days of 'observation', she forced herself to stop. It had become actual stalking. She already knew how he took his coffee, what (horribly unhealthy) breakfast cereal he ate in the morning, and which comic book store that he frequented.
The surveillance/stalking she could live with. It was similar to her work at the CIA. But this, this was way, way outside of her comfort zone. What do I get for catching my secret admirer? She looked down at her outfit. Whatever she might have expected, this was not on the list. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted her reflection in the window of a building. Ellie better be right about this ensemble.
She watched the face in the reflection as a soft smile broke out at the realization that it was just nerves speaking. She didn't really suspect that Chuck's sister had given her bad intel. Such deep-seated trust was new ground for the experienced undercover agent, but it felt good. Still, she'd never heard of the show, much less this character. What does Seven of Nine even mean? She wasn't sold on the odd item glued to her forehead, but she had to admit to herself that she looked pretty damn good in a catsuit.
Just then, two nerds came walking down the sidewalk headed towards the Keck Science building. Sarah discretely watched as their jaws dropped open as they swiveled their heads to watch her as they kept walking. Unfortunately for one of the nerds, the building they were heading into only had one of the two doors open…and it wasn't his. As his friend started laughing hysterically at the guy sprawled on the ground, Sarah turned back to her reflection. This time she had a wide grin as she gave a cocky nod to the reflection. Ok, so we're doing this.
As she entered the Cactus Garden, Sarah noted that the majority of attendees were dressed in attire modeled on Renaissance France. But she also spotted a student dressed as cat woman, a couple guys imitating Zorro, and (she noted with relief) a fair number of sci-fi outfits. With her outfit, she was in the minority, but not alone. "So, where would I find a secret admirer?"
Sarah gave a quiet laugh at the realization that she had just spoken aloud then thoughts in her head. She made her way up to the steps of the Mausoleum, but still hadn't found any sign of Chuck. Realizing that he was smart enough to know how difficult it would be to spot someone in the most crowded section of the party, Sarah moved out to meander through the edges of the crowd. Her grin lit up the night. It was time to finally meet Chuck Bartowski.
A/N2: Ending the chapter here just before Sarah is to meet her nerd is in no way a retaliation for Joe Watkins ending the Matchmaker chapter just as Chuck was about to meet Sarah for the first time. Sarah has had to wait for weeks to catch her secret admirer. You guys only have to wait 24 hours to find out if the party is a success.