NOTES: OK, your humble author does not happen to an an Intersect, and he unfortunately makes mistakes. In the first chapter of Chuck vs. The No-Win Question, I mistakenly referred to Chuck's niece as 'Molly'. That was a screwup on my part. Chuck's eleven year old niece is Clara Woodcomb, Ellie's daughter that was born in Chuck vs. the Push Mix in season four. Sorry about that. I need to clear that up because Molly is the baby Sarah rescued way back before she met Chuck, and gave to her mother Emma to raise. Clara Woodcomb is 11 in 2020, Molly is 14. This had to be cleared up because as it happens, both Emma and Molly are at the Bartowski cookout, they just have not yet appeared.
Eight years have passed since the finale. As already hinted, a lot has happened in eight years, our characters are still mostly the same people, but they have changed somewhat with the passage of time and parenthood. Chuck is still Chuck, but he's been in the spy game for 13 year by this point, in one form or another, and he's a tad bit more pragmatic and a lot less clueless than he used to be. Charles Carmichael is still an alias he uses, but Chuck is more like Carmichael than he once was. He's had to be.
Chuck still prefers his tranq gun to a real gun, and uses it where he can. He's improved on it, in fact. But over the years he has occasionally had no choice but to use the real ones. He never does it lightly, but Chuck has from time to time been forced to send people to be debriefed by Saint Peter rather than the CIA or Carmichael Industries. Ellie has changed too, she's a full participant in C.I. by this point, with extensive field experience. In short...Ellie's a spy, and a very good one. She and Chuck are also, as mentioned, human Intersects. That's a tale on its own.
As for the charming children that have presented Chuck with his current dilemma, well...
Chuck vs. The No-Win Question Chapter 2: Sisters and Mothers...
..."OK, now what is this big question Ellie said you wanted to ask me?" Chuck said as he sat down beside Charlotte, sitting so that he could face them both.
"Well..Daddy...we were wondering?"
"We just kinda wanted...well, we were talking and we...well..." Stephanie said.
"We wanna know which one of us is your favorite!" Charlotte managed to get out defiantly...
"What makes you so sure either one of you is my favorite?" Chuck asked.
Charlotte Mary Bartowski let out a little gasp. Of all the answers her Daddy could have given to the question, that was probably the one that she had expected least. Across the picnic table from her, her dark-tressed sister Stephanie looked equally shocked. In fact, Stephanie's mouth was hanging open.
"Daddy?!" Stephanie gasped, sounding horrified, shocked, and scared all at once. Charlotte Mary knew exactly how her sister felt.
"I mean," their father went on, though he had taken Charlotte's hand in his right hand and reached across the table to grasp Stephanie's hand in his left, "you're not the only children in the family, you know! I mean, look over there, Char!"
Charlotte looked over where her father somehow managed to point, without ever once letting go of the girl's hand. There sat at a picnic table a youngish teenager, with honey-brown hair and playing competitive video games with Morgan's seven year old son Todd. Their game controllers were plugged into the same laptop and the fourteen year old and the seven year old were engrossed at the symbols on the screen.
"Your Aunt Molly is a wonderful girl," Chuck said. "Really clever, very sweet, and she thinks I'm terrific. She's told me so. Maybe your Aunt Molly is my favorite."
Charlotte Mary looked back and forth from the teenager to her father. Her Aunt Molly was great, it was true. She sometimes would babysit her and Stephanie and she was always lots of fun. But Aunt Molly was Aunt Molly! Charlotte Mary looked across the table at her half-sister, who suddenly did not seem nearly as annoying as she had a few moments before.
"And then there's Todd over there with her, he's a great kid," Chuck went on, "best video gamer we've got here...except for his father and me, of course."
"That's not true!" Stephanie protested, sounding outraged. "I'm better'n he is at every game and you know it, Daddy!"
"Do I?" Chuck asked equably. "Are you sure you're better than Todd, Stephie? He's pretty good!"
"Stephie can beat Todd anytime, anyplace, any game!" Charlotte exclaimed! "She's twice as smart as he is!"
The blonde girl was outraged, because it was true, and she knew it. She had seen her sister play video games with Todd Grimes many times, and the only time Todd ever beat Stephie was when he was just lucky! Stephie was three times as smart as Todd-no, four times as smart!
Chuck smiled, and said, "Well, if you say so, Char." Their father sounded as if he was not sure he believed what his daughter was claiming.
"It's true, it is!" Charlotte Mary insisted.
"Go get 'im!" Stephanie demanded, her eyes flashing behind her mild corrective glasses as her pride was scratched. "Char is right! Pick a game! I'll kick his-"
"Stephanie!" Chuck warned, raising his voice slightly.
The six year old paused, and said, "-I'll beat 'im! I'll show you I'm better'n that stupid Todd!"
"Well, maybe. But then there's still your mutual cousin Clara," Chuck noted. He nodded toward the group around the grill, which included Ellie, Devon, and their oldest daughter. "I mean if we're deciding who my favorite is, we have to consider her. She just promised me that she'll still love me even if you two are mad at me. That's got to count for something, doesn't it? Maybe she should be my favorite!"
"DADDY!" Charlotte Mary protested.
"Well," Chuck smiled, "are you saying I should pick Stephanie over Molly or Clara?"
"You're OUR Daddy!" Stephanie all but screeched. "Clara has Aunt Ellie and Uncle Awesome!"
"So it's better if I pick Charlotte Mary than Clara or Molly?" Chuck asked his younger (by four weeks) daughter.
"Of course it is!" Stephanie cried. "You're supposed to be OUR Daddy!"
"Yeah!" Charlotte Mary insisted, jumped to her feet to stand on the bench. She could almost look at her father eye-to-eye that way, identical brown eyes were on the same level. "Molly's got Grandma Emma! She doesn't need to be your favorite too!"
Charlotte Mary pulled her hand free of Chuck's and put her hands on his shoulders. "We're supposed to be your favorite!"
"Well, well, well," Chuck said, scooping Charlotte Mary up in his arms and carrying her around the table to sit next to Stephanie. As soon as he sat down, Stephanie threw her arms around him.
"We? So you both want to be my favorite?"
"YEAH!" Stephanie said. "You're OUR Daddy, not theirs!"
Chuck smiled. "But I thought you wanted to know which one of you two I liked best? Now I'm supposed to pick you both? You girls need to make up your little minds!"
Charlotte Mary fell silent, exchanging a glance with her half-sister, who looked as confused as she suddenly felt. When their father had first sat down, Charlotte Mary thought she and her sister were clear on what they were asking, now she suddenly felt as if she had gotten...turned around. She shook her head. She had the distinct feeling her father had tricked her somehow, but she could not say exactly how.
When she felt like this, her usual first resort was to talk to Stephanie. But Stephanie looked kind of off balance herself right now.
"I guess so..." Stephanie said, clinging to her father. "But-"
"Well, I guess it would be more traditional if I picked one of you as my favorite," Chuck admitted. "But then the other one would be mad, wouldn't she?"
"I-well...kinda, I s'pose," Charlotte Mary said softly.
"I'll bet my second-favorite would be so mad, she wouldn't even want to go sailing with us this weekend," Chuck observed. "But I guess that's okay, since my favorite would know she was my favorite and wouldn't need her sister around on the boat."
"Wait, what-?!" Charlotte Mary protested. Of course she and Stephanie had been excited about the upcoming boat trip their father had promised them for weeks. "No, Dad!" Of course she wanted Stephie along! It wouldn't be any fun without Stephie!
"Well, suppose I decide Stephie is my favorite?" Chuck asked Charlotte Mary reasonably. Chuck had repositioned himself so that he had a daughter sitting on either side of him. "Would you still want to come on the trip knowing I picked her?"
"Well," Charlotte Mary said, and then she thought hard. She imagined herself and her father by themselves on the sailboat, and while it was fun sometimes to have her Daddy to herself, then she remembered all the times she had been somewhere and had seen something fun or exciting and had wanted to tell Stephanie right away...and could not because Stephanie was not there. It always made the fun less, part of the fun was Stephanie! But if her Daddy loved Stephanie more...
"I guess not," Charlotte Mary said sadly.
"NO! You HAVE to come, Char!" Stephie protested.
"Now, Stephie," Chuck said, turning to his right where the brunette sat. "If I pick Char, would you still want to go even knowing I like her better?"
Stephanie Bartowski started to answer, stopped, opened her mouth to reply, then fell silent.
"And of course," Chuck added, as if he had just remembered something, "then there's the trip to the museum coming up. If I pick you, Char probably won't want to go with us-"
"No, no, NO!" Stephanie exclaimed, jumping to her feet. "Char HAS to come! I wanna show Char the DINOSAUR! Mom said the museum has a great big dead DINOSAUR! She showed me a picture of it!"
"Well, that's true," Chuck allowed with a smile. "But maybe Char doesn't want to look at an old dead dinosaur-"
"YES I DO!" Char screeched. "I wanna see the apa-the big-the apath-the-" Charlotte Mary was so frustrated that she felt her words piling up. "I wanna see the dead dinosaur!" she finally got out.
"The apatosaurus?" Chuck suggested.
"Yeah, that!" Charlotte Mary said. "I can't say it as well as you or Stephie, but I want to see it!"
"I can't quite say it right either, Char," Stephie admitted, sounding a little shame-faced. "Mom told me it had a fancy name like Daddy just said, but I've been calling it the dead dino! But Mom told me it was bigger than an elephant!"
"So you both want to go sailing with me this weekend, right?" Chuck asked.
"YES!" two voices cried in unison.
"And you both want to go to the museum and see the apatosaur, right?"
"If that's the big dead dino, then yes!" Charlotte Mary said, and Stephanie nodded in time.
"Well, okay," Chuck said. "Let me think a minute. If I tell you which one of you is my favorite, then probably one of you won't want to go. And of course then there's our big trip coming up, you know, the trip on the jet plane? If I tell you two which one is my favorite, one of you won't want to go."
They both went silent. Then Charlotte Mary said, "But Daddy, both our moms are going to be there."
"Yeah, that's the plan," Chuck nodded. "And Uncle Casey is going, and Aunt Ellie, Uncle Morgan and Aunt Alex, and Uncle Awesome, and your Grandma Emma and your Aunt Molly too, Char! It would be sad if one of you wasn't there. Or, well, it wouldn't be fair to your mothers for me to just bring one of you, now that I think about it. So I guess if I tell you which one is my favorite, you'll both have to stay here."
"But Daddy," Charlotte Mary said, solemnly, "we HAVE to both be there, no matter what!"
"Why is that?" Chuck asked.
Stephanie giggled and said, "You know why, Daddy! If both our moms are there, same place at the same time, and not us...they're gonna end up in a fight."
"Remember the last time?" Charlotte Mary asked her sister, and both girls exchanged grins. "I don't know what those words they called each other meant, but they sure sounded like they were bad!"
"Even Uncle Casey looked like he was surprised to hear those words!" Stephanie laughed.
"Your Aunt Molly told me you two were going around trying to get grownups to tell you what those words mean," Chuck said sternly. "You two are never, and I mean NEVER to say those words you heard, not even to ask what they mean, is that understood? Those are very, very bad words! If your mothers had known you were listening they would never have said them!"
"That's the same thing Uncle Casey said to us, Daddy," Stephanie said. "When he caught us listening he scooped up both up and carried us out of there right then and told us the same thing about those words."
Charlotte Mary nodded. She was more determined than ever to find out what those words her mother and Stephanie's mother had been calling each other meant, but she knew that they had to be very very bad words if they scared Uncle Casey like that.
She said as much and her father nodded. "Even I don't say those words, girls. I'd be in deep deep trouble with your Aunt Ellie if I said those words."
"Not if she didn't know it!" Stephanie said slyly.
Chuck laughed. "Girls, if I flew around the world, and went out into the middle of the Gobi Desert, all by myself with nobody around for a hundred miles, and whispered those words, your Aunt Ellie would know. Instantly. She just would, and I'd be in deep trouble. Those words are that bad."
"So we have to be there so our moms don't say those words again," Stephanie affirmed. "If we're there they won't fight...much."
"Is that why you're bringin' Uncle Casey and Aunt Ellie, Daddy?" Charlotte Mary asked. "In case a big fight starts?"
"You two are both too smart for your own good," Chuck sighed. "Yeah, it's probably better you two are there, at that. You don't want to react uranium without control rods."
"Huh?" Charlotte Mary asked. "What does that mean?"
She looked at her dark-haired sister, and saw that Stephie, who was usually better with the fancy words, had no more idea than she did what their Daddy meant.
"It means we have a problem," Chuck said seriously, looking from one child to the other. "I think you both want to come on the boat, and visit the museum, right?"
"Yeah!" Stephanie exclaimed.
"And you both want each other to come on the boat and to the museum, right?"
"Uh huh!" Charlotte Mary said, nodding vigorously.
"And you probably both want to see your moms and yeah, it's probably better for everyone if they get to see you both, too, right?"
They nodded solemnly.
"But none of that works if I tell you who my favorite is! But you're both demanding to know! How do we solve this conundrum?"
"Solve huh-what?!" Charlotte Mary asked, looking at Stephie and getting an equally blank look back.
"I mean what do we do? How can you both go if I tell you which one I like best?!" Chuck laughed.
"How about if you tell us later?" Stephanie asked. "After we go on the boat and to see the dino and visit our moms? Or maybe we could put it off longer-"
"Way way longer!" Charlotte Mary agreed, nodding her head vigorously. "A whole long time off, maybe sometime after Christmas or somethin'! Like a real real long time!"
Chuck smiled. "Well, if you two are both sure you can wait-?"
"We can wait!" Charlotte Mary said loudly.
"Yeah, you can tell us way later when we're all grown up, two or three whole years from now!" Stephanie agreed. "We don't need to know right now!"
"Well that's a relief," Chuck said. "If you both think you can wait, I'll put off telling you until there's a good time."
Charlotte Mary and Stephanie nodded happily.
By now the shadows were starting to lengthen, as the sun sank slowly toward the Pacific. Though there were still a couple of hours of early summer light still left, the day was coming to a close.
"I'll tell you what, girls," Chuck said, standing up. "It's getting to be time for the kids to go down to the rec room and watch cartoons, wouldn't you like to go!"
Happy nods greeted this proposal, and Chuck and his children walked toward the grill area, each daughter holding a hand as they did. As they approached, Charlotte Mary heard the sound of a radio tuned to some oldies junk, probably at least five years old.
"Here they come, Mom," Ellie said to Mary Bartowski, as they sat at a picnic table in the fading light, each eating a slice of chocolate cake from the desert table. "It looks as if Chuck is still alive."
"It looks as if my granddaughters are actually happy," Mary answered between bites of cake. "Looks like he defused the bomb."
Indeed, the blonde and the brunette were walking on either side of their father, holding his hands, and exchanging giggles and comments.
"I think my girls here are ready for some Bugs Bunny," Chuck announced, as they reached the group.
"I took the other kids down a few minutes ago, Little Brother," Ellie said with a smile as she looked at them. "But I doubt they've had time to miss much, they're probably still all arguing over the cookies."
"Ready to go down, girls?" Chuck asked them.
"I can take them, if you want," Molly said. The teenager had been sitting beside Emma, but now she stood.
"Is that OK with you two?" Chuck asked his daughters, who consented to be escorted to the rec room by their teenage aunt. As they left, Emma laughed and said, "I was going to let her stay with the grownups, but I think she decided she'd rather be a kid and watch Daffy Duck again...at least tonight."
"Can't quite decide if she wants to be a grownup or a little girl, huh?" Chuck asked Emma, as he sat down beside Ellie, opposite Devon.
"Ever since her birthday she's been reverting a little," Emma laughed. "When she was 12 and 13 she could not wait to be all grown up. She wanted nice dresses, she wanted me to teach her about makeup and how to do her hair like a grownup. But I think it's suddenly hit her that it's all real and sometimes she wants to put on the brakes."
"'The years start coming and they don't stop coming,' in the words of the song," Mary Bartowski said. "What? We had radio in Russia. American music plays everywhere."
Ellie shook her head. "Mom, you never cease to amaze me. "'Smash Mouth'? Honestly?"
"Better than Jeffster!" Casey commented.
As if on cue, the D.J. on the radio announced, "...and our next song is Jeffster's latest hit! It hit number eleven, fell back to fifteen, and then rose six notches to number 9, making it Jeffster's first top ten hit, Hairspray and Handcuffs. Here we go.."
"Top ten. Lester and Jeff. They've broken the freaking Top Ten." Casey muttered. "This has to be some kind of conspiracy."
"If you think that's bad," Morgan said, "think about this: I know for a fact that Jeff and Lester have college-age groupies chasing them."
A silence fell as the group digested that disturbing information.
TO BE CONTINUED...