The Model Agent

By SarahsSupplyCloset

Author's Note: Thanks for being patient with me. I bit off more than I could chew and not just with these multiple fics I am working on.

Summary: Sarah Walker's modeling career is in its budding stages when the CIA recruits her into their ranks at 16. 10 years later, she's balancing being a world famous supermodel and actress with spying for the CIA. Her existence is fraught with danger and she's constantly on the go, until she meets a disarmingly sincere man on the beach...and her life is changed forever.

Disclaimer: I do not own CHUCK. I am not making any money writing this story.


Two weeks later

Of course the call came when she was in the last vestiges of broken sleep, her head lolled to the side in her seat. Thanks to turbulence, her plan to sleep for the duration of the flight to at least try to mitigate the effects of 2 sleepless nights in a row hadn't been possible.

But as she blinked her eyes open and groaned, she glanced at her watch and saw that she'd at least slept 2 hours so that was something. So that was 2 hours of sleep in 57 hours. Nice.

She dove in her bag for her burner, but that wasn't what was ringing. She'd already disabled it, taken out the battery. It was going in the trash the second she stepped off of the plane. Or she'd leave it in the limo for Casey to dispose of later. He liked having things to set on fire. He was a freak.

It was what Casey had dubbed her "Sarah Walker" phone, which bothered her. It was her phone, damn it. She was Sarah Walker. The woman who went out in the night and carried out missions for the CIA was the alter ego. The burners were the alter egos. Sarah Walker, supermodel and actress? This was her. But he knew it bothered her and that was why he did it. How she got stuck with such a jerk as a partner, she didn't know.

Smirking a little, she answered her phone, not bothering to look at who it was. She didn't care. They woke her from sleep and screw them for that.

"Yes?" she answered, her voice scratchy.

"Jesus, you sound rough."

She rolled her eyes. "Thanks so much, Casey. You sound like a bed of tulips."

"You can't hear tulips."

"When you've gotten as much sleep as I have the last three days, which is to say none at all, you can hear tulips. And a lot of other things. Like, lots of voices in your head."

"They tellin' you to hijack the plane and fly it to Barbados?"

She snorted and glanced at her watch. "What's the call for? I think I'm about 15 minutes out from Burbank so you better be there when I touch down, damn it. I don't want to have to wait around like you made me wait around the last time. Sarah Walker can't just be standing out on a tarmac. 'What were you doing on a private unmarked plane, Sarah Walker?' I can just hear the fucking press now."

He snickered. "I'm already here. But I've got somebody else on the line and I'm providing phone call cover. You know the drill. If anyone's around, make sure they aren't around. All that."

Oh.

Sarah sat up a bit straighter, then glanced towards the back of the plane, and up towards the front again. The pilots were both locked away in the cockpit. And for flights like this, there were no attendants. The CIA didn't have any need for CIA flight attendants. Just pilots. When Sarah needed a pillow, she got her own damn pillow. Not that it helped when the plane was bouncing around the way this one had.

"No one's around," she said. "It's clear."

"Good," said another voice. Only a quiet click had signified Casey switching over. "Congratulations on another job well done, Agent."

Sarah turned to look out of the small round window to her right. "Yeah. Thanks."

Two people were dead, and she'd been the one to pull the trigger, but it was a job well done. It didn't matter that both of them had been shooting at her, that she'd saved her own life by taking those shots. It didn't even matter that they were bad people. They were dead. Gone. And here she was, her designer luggage in the bin above her head, the gun that had done it locked away in a secret compartment at the bottom of the suitcase.

"We'll take care of the rest. The documents are in my possession now, I'm literally looking at them. There's enough here to take on the whole crime ring. I'll let another team handle that, though. Your partner was successful as well. I'm giving both of you some time to cool off, recuperate. You sound…a little rough around the edges."

"You're the second person who's said that in as many minutes. Thanks, boss." She could hear her own sarcasm. "Look, if there's a job out there that needs to be done, we—"

"He said that, too. For God's sake, just take the damn R&R. Build up your…model résumé, or your image, or get some good PR or whatever it is you do." Sarah found herself glaring. Her career wasn't anything more than a really good cover to Director Langston Graham of the CIA. He didn't care what happened in this part of her life, so long as the part of her life that benefited him wasn't harmed in the process. That meant no telling anyone—anyone—about being a covert CIA agent on the side. No telling anyone about her dad. About any of it. That meant covering her tracks.

And it meant beefing up her career and using it to get access to places that would situate her in the best case scenario for certain missions to be quick, easy, and painless.

This one hadn't been painless.

At all.

She'd had to flirt with Fabiano Batista, a serial chauvinist who went through models like they were napkins at a spicy wings eating contest. But at least she was able to keep things from getting too far before she flitted away from his side with a wink, and she still gained access to the building she'd needed access to, and escaped the party unnoticed later on that night, ignoring Batista's heated looks across the room. Yet another ship that passed in the night for the bastard Batista. He was a shipping magnate, after all.

It was the tussle on the docks that next night where the gunfire had happened, when she'd gone to retrieve the actual documents she'd discovered the location of the night before. She escaped with a few scrapes and bruises. And the documents, which she'd handed off in a quick exchange the next morning at a park behind the U.S. embassy.

Now, almost 24 hours later, Graham had it in his hands.

And Fabiano Batista's Russian criminal friends would be in some very deep shit. Perhaps karma would be unkind to him and he'd get roped in on charges too.

She could only hope.

She'd showered numerous times since that night and she could still feel the clamminess of his hand against her lower back, just above the low-dipping silk of her gown. And his lips against her jaw.

That had been the extent of it. It was enough, though, for her to feel violated.

"Yeah, I have a photoshoot coming. And a show after that," she said dully.

"Good, good. Make sure you rest at least somewhat, though. Even from that. We want you in tip top shape when you get back."

"Yeah. Exactly…how long of a break do I get here?"

"Depends on you and what you need…Sarah, you've done some good work here. I'll be in touch when we need you."

"You always are," she couldn't stop herself from saying.

There was a long pause. "Well, happy landing. Your driver is already at the airport waiting for you."

"Yeah. Thanks."

"Thank you for your service, Sarah. Your country is grateful."

"Is it?" she couldn't help thinking, but she didn't dare say it out loud.

Instead she said, "Thank you, Director, Sir."

And then she hung up, letting her head tip back against the seat with a thump.

"We're beginning our descent. Please fasten your seatbelt, Agent," the pilot said.

Funny how many times she'd heard that, and not a single one of them even knew who they were talking to. She slipped on and off of these flights, the pilots knowing they were carrying an agent whose entire existence depended on anonymity. She had to hand it to them, too. In the decade she'd been doing this, she hadn't seen a single one of them. They understood the seriousness of this, and kept their curiosity at bay.

+ —

The idiot always had this stupid tilt to the hat he wore sometimes when he drove her around. It was tilted again as she approached the limo waiting idly near an empty driveway she accessed by walking through an unmanned gate, right off the side of the tarmac.

Sarah pulled her aviators down just slightly to eye him critically as she approached, her one suitcase tucked under her arm. "Did you get your suit dry cleaned while I was gone, John? How sweet. You shouldn't have."

"No," he snarked, curling his lip at her. At least it wiped the smirk off of his face. He yanked her suitcase from her and growled. "Not glad you're back."

"Oh, yes you are. Without any missions on the horizon, you get to spend all of your time driving me around and being my bodyguard. Isn't that great, Case?" She slapped his back and he shoved at her hand in annoyance.

"The hell is the point of R&R anyway? What am I, a fuckin' lily of the field? I don't need no rest. I don't need no recreation."

She snorted and waited for him to open the door for her so that she could dive in. God, she never cared much about the grandiose bullshit that came with her fame and fortune, but it did feel so good to be sitting on these seats again, smelling the fresh leather. This was such a comfortable limo. And she really did love it, even if she might not admit it out loud, especially not to Casey who would mock her endlessly for it.

When Casey got in behind the wheel and tore off, making his way to the freeway, Sarah leaned her arms on the barrier between them and sighed. "I didn't think I needed the R&R either, and then it all hit me in the plane. Just how tired I am. How much I miss being in one place. I could definitely use this."

Honestly, being in one place used to be something she'd avoided like the plague. And it still was, usually. That was when the haunting started, when her brain wasn't active, when her body wasn't active, when she wasn't jet-setting across the world, meeting people, inspiring little girls in other countries, acting, being photographed, hobnobbing with big folks at big parties. In the quiet, the bad thoughts became pervasive. The nightmares when she saw the faces of people whose lives ended at the blade of one of her knives, or a bullet from one of her guns. The faces of people who'd died because she and Casey hadn't been on time, even if they had successfully completed a mission and got the intel—the thing that mattered the most to the intelligence agencies involved.

It felt like failure anyway.

And her failures followed her like the massive long train of an old-school wedding dress.

"You gonna call me weak for it?" she challenged, smirking teasingly at him.

But he didn't take the bait this time. Instead he whipped his hat off and tossed it into the passenger seat. "Nah. Not this time. I, uh, I found something out. Purely need to know how I found out. But, uh, you put in a request for a CIA therapist and you were denied the request by ol' Graham himself."

Sarah felt the deep well in her gut fall open again. She thought she'd filled that over the last few months. But she'd apparently just been fooling herself. It had been 6 months since she'd put that request in, feeling like she was at the end of her rope. She knew she couldn't see a regular therapist as Sarah Lisa Walker, the woman whose face and body was plastered all over everything. Graham would never allow it, for fear she would slip and reveal the other side of her life. So she'd requested a therapist through the proper CIA channels.

Graham had found the request and he'd obliterated it as if it never existed, calling her immediately and explaining to her why it wasn't going to be possible. He'd seemed genuinely regretful, and he'd even offered himself up as a sounding board. But in spite of that, it didn't make his decision any less cruel and unfeeling.

Nobody could know of her involvement in the CIA, not even a trained CIA psychiatrist whose whole function in the agency was utmost secrecy and confidentiality.

It was a testament to her importance to the U.S.'s national security, Graham insisted. That was how serious this was. How massive it was that they kept her so classified. Not even a CIA psychiatrist could know.

She didn't use Graham as a sounding board. Or Casey. Or anyone.

She'd used the inside of her shower where she'd curled into a ball under the jet of water and cried for a whole hour, before she got out, washed her face, covered the puffiness of her eyes with makeup, and did an interview with Entertainment Tonight.

Sarah pulled back from the front of the limo and slumped against the seat to the side, where Casey wouldn't be able to see her. "I, um… Yeah. No big deal. At the end of the day, I get it. I'm the CIA's biggest kept secret."

"Even bigger than Area 51."

She snorted. The oldest joke there was.

"Look. Walker. I'm, um, sorry. That's the pits." She could almost hear him squirming. He hated this kind of thing. And still, he was speaking up. "It's important that nobody finds out what you do on the side for the CIA. It's important that the people we've handed defeat to out there don't know who you really are. Fuck, if they knew…if any of 'em ever found out your real identity, this whole thing would be over. I know I don't have to tell ya that. But it bears repeating. Not only would this partnership be over, the work we do in the shadows, but you'd be living in fear for the rest of your life, Walker. Never knowing if someone's waiting around the corner, someone who you dealt a blow to at some point in your career with the CIA." He was silent for a moment and she rolled her head back, staring at the pristine headliner stretched over the ceiling of the limo's interior, blinking to keep from crying. She was so tired, and it was harder to hold back tears when she was this exhausted. It was harder to filter.

"Look, kid. Your whole life would change. It wouldn't just be the end of your career with the CIA. The modeling business, the acting career, the places you're used to being welcomed at with open arms? All o' that would change, too."

"I know," she said quietly. "They'd all wonder when I used them for a mission. The trust would be gone. I'd never be invited anywhere ever again. I'd never get another part in a movie. Nobody would want my picture again unless they were an ambulance chasing pap trying to get a candid shot of me looking torn-up while walking to the drug store for sleeping pills." She pushed a hand down her face and ripped her baseball cap off of her head, taking the tie out of her hair that had kept it under the cap and fluffing it, frustrated.

"Exactly. And it's fucked up. But it's…"

"I know." She sighed. "I get it. And I got it when Graham explained it to me."

"Yeah." He was quiet for a whole minute before he cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable. "Reason I brought it up was, uh… Well, you know I'm shit at…feelings stuff. I don't…do feelings. Ever. But if you need to, uh, get this shit off your chest…er, I mean, this double life shit…I can at least listen."

It didn't do much to alleviate the empty feeling in her chest, honestly. But she still appreciated it more than she could say. And she knew he wouldn't even want her to say it anyway. It would just make him more uncomfortable. She thanked him silently and nodded. And then she smirked so he could hear it in her voice, "Just listening? No wise advice from the seasoned NSA veteran for me?"

"Heh." He snorted. "You know damn well the only advice you'd get would be something along the lines of 'put your big boy pants on and do your job'. Don't know if it'd be very helpful."

"It wouldn't," she chuckled. "Just listening works. But I-I'm okay for now. I'm still here. I'm doing my job."

"Right. S'all anybody can ask for. That we keep workin'."

She stayed quiet then. And she knew the conversation was over. She wondered for a minute how Casey had discovered that she'd tried to put a request in for a therapist, and that Graham had denied it. But it didn't matter. Maybe Graham had told Casey to talk to her. A show of concern from the CIA director.

Was it about her, though? Her mental health?

Or was it about keeping her in tip top shape so that he could get the most out of her? His Wildcard Enforcer. His Secret Weapon.

Sarah shifted to lean against the barrier, pulling her legs up onto the seat and holding her knees against her chest, watching the afternoon traffic out of the window.

As they drove along, she tried not to let herself focus on any of that, and instead she let herself think about how good it would be to just sit in her hot tub at her house in Beverly Glen while guzzling margaritas and mules. Or walking out onto her condo balcony overlooking downtown LA and just letting the air cleanse her soul.

Or something.

Maybe she could read some books that had been on her list for a while. Or she would watch movies she'd been meaning to watch for years. She could utilize one of the streaming services that had gifted her lifetime memberships.

Maybe some billboard they drove past would give her ideas.

And as they stopped at a red light, Sarah sent an amused look up at the nearest billboard. Her heart seized as she got a good look at it. It wasn't a movie billboard or a TV show billboard.

It was a black billboard with white text, simple, no icons or images. And it said, "PC or Apple, phone, tablet, laptop, desktop…you have it, we'll protect it." Underneath that it said "Knight Antivirus", and in the corner of the billboard was a logo. The N and the T flanked an I that was larger than the other two letters, the base and top of the I almost looking like it was hugging the N and the T.

NIT? N…

She pressed herself against the window to be able to keep seeing the billboard as Casey turned at the green light.

NTI. Not NIT.

Was that …?

Sarah grabbed her phone and pulled up Google. This didn't count as Googling him, she told herself. She typed NTI logo and hit image.

There it was. The I flanked by the N and the T. So simple and elegant. No nonsense. She clicked the "All" option on the search bar then and saw it right at the top. "NTI: Nerd Tech Incorporated. Optimize your tech experience, expand your mind."

There were articles about NTI underneath it, but she hit the sleep button on her phone and dropped it on the seat next to her, taking a deep breath.

It wasn't that she'd forgotten about him these last two weeks. It was just that things had been so piled up in front of her that she hadn't had the time to think that much about him. Everything rushed back to her so intensely that it almost knocked her over.

What were the odds, the first half hour of her being back in LA after rushing all over the place, flying across the world, she spotted one of his company's billboards?

She felt a need deep in her soul.

A need to see his smile. And to feel that sensation she'd felt that first night she met him again on the balcony outside of the gala, when he looked back at her from the door as if he didn't want to go, letting her see how badly he wanted to stay with her. The sensation had doubled the night he'd left her New York City hotel suite, biting his lip, his face full of longing before he finally forced himself to leave.

What was he doing now, she wondered? It was a Friday afternoon. Was he finishing up his work for the weekend? Did he work on weekends too? And she thought he probably did sometimes. Or maybe all the time. Maybe he worked every day. Someone with a company that was that successful and far-reaching, when he actually did the running of the company and wasn't just a figurehead who pretended to do the work but actually golfed all of the time, probably had to work weekends.

Lost in her own thoughts, she almost forgot that she had a phone right there on the seat next to her. A phone with Chuck Bartowski's phone number in it. His name wasn't in the phone, though. It was under…

Oh no what did she put him under? So much had happened in 2 weeks. She had a million numbers in her phone.

She began to scroll anyway. He wasn't in the C's, unless he was Colby Jack, since she had no idea who that was, but she figured she wouldn't have put him in her phone as a type of cheese. So many exes were still in her phone, she discovered, and she was annoyed with herself for it by the time she got to the N's—

Oh. Of course.

Nerdy Curls.

Smirking, even rolling her eyes at herself, she remembered now. Staring down at her phone, at his number with its 818 area code, trying to think of how to match his cuteness at calling her Surfboard Sarah in his phone. She would've found him quicker if she'd made it Curly Nerd, though. Oh well.

She almost hit the call button, but she didn't want to interrupt if he was busy. Squirming uncomfortably, she glanced up to the front where Casey was still driving. She didn't want him listening to her conversation. And if she put up the barrier after that sort of heart to heart they'd had, the meaning would be a little too much.

So she pulled up a text.

And she looked at the last thing he'd sent her, 3 days earlier. "Gimme a call when you're in LA and have a few hours to hang out!" He'd added a sunglasses wearing emoji. She saw it for what it probably was. He wanted to see her, probably almost as badly as she wanted to see him, but he was trying to seem nonchalant with his chill emoji.

It didn't work but she liked him all the more for trying.

She had a bubble of excitement and nervousness in her in a way she usually didn't when she first met someone she liked. And maybe that should scare her more than it did.

She thought for a moment about what she might say. Especially after being in the middle of a mission when he'd sent that and therefore forgetting to respond altogether.

Did he think he was being strung along by the woman he'd spent a few passionate days with a few weeks ago?

She hoped not. That wasn't her intention at all. As stupid and ill-advised as it might be to continue to see him, she kept looking to the fact that she'd had relationships before. She'd had boyfriends. And it was fine. She hadn't stopped herself any of those times.

Though she had put an invisible…force field of sorts up to keep from getting in too deep. Some of them had ended the relationship over it. Others hadn't minded that, but had used her as stepping stones for their own careers, and she'd been the one to mind, breaking off those relationships herself.

She did her best to ignore the voice in the back of her head reminding her that this felt different, that Chuck felt different, that he made her feel things she'd never felt before. In just a few conversations spanning a month or 2 and a couple of days consisting of laughter, good food, and even better sex.

"I'm in LA," she typed and she hit send. She knew she should say something else, but she didn't. She just waited. Like a coward.

10 minutes later, Sarah was back at her downtown condo unloading her luggage by the front door before she checked her phone again. He'd texted her 5 minutes ago. "Oh yeah? Great!"

Nibbling on her lip, she nervously bounced on the balls of her feet, then stepped out of her boots, all while thinking of how to respond. She had hoped he would do the prompting, because she had no idea how to prompt.

And she knew how ridiculous she was being as she shuffled over to the sliding glass door, unlocked it, and stepped out onto the balcony, taking a deep breath. The wind was pretty cold up here and she relished it. This whole situation had her a little overheated.

She'd flirted with, come onto, and started things with enough men she was interested in by now to know how to freaking text this one guy.

Why was he so special that she couldn't get her brain to work?

She told herself she was just dead tired from that mission.

But then her phone beeped again and she looked.

"Are you doing anything for dinner?"

Sarah bit her lip. Of course Chuck came through. That seemed like it was his brand. "When?"

"Tonight?" He responded quickly, which meant he was staring at his phone like she was.

But then her phone rang, and "Nerdy Curls" popped up on the screen. Taking a calming breath, she answered it.

"Hello, there."

"Hi! How are—A-Are you in some kind of wind tunnel? It sounds crazy over there."

Sarah laughed, her nervousness gone just like that. He had a way of making everything inside of her settle. She stepped back inside and slid the door shut. "Sorry. I went out onto my balcony and it's windy out there. This better?"

"So good. I mean, it was good before too. If you'd rather be out on your wind balcony, I'm okay with that." He didn't quite sound like everything inside of him was settled. He sounded nervous. It was adorable. The men she was used to didn't get nervous around her. Around anyone. The world had already built them up enough that they knew in the deepest recesses of their souls that they were the best mankind had to offer.

They were wrong.

She wondered if maybe this guy was what they thought they were.

"No, no. I don't want to compete with a wind tunnel. I, um, I just got back from the airport and I'm finally home."

"Airport? Cool, cool. Did you have a photoshoot or are you filming a movie or something?"

Why was it so hard to lie to him? "Work stuff. As always." There. That wasn't a lie.

"Ah, yes. I feel it. But, um, are you free for dinner tonight?" he asked. His voice quivered a bit. "If not, that's totally good. Or maybe not dinner if you've got stuff going on. Maybe just hanging out for a bit. Like…an hour. A half hour? Doesn't matter. You know what? I just realized you barely got back from the airport probably, huh? You'd probably rather take tonight to just unwind and recuperate from your trip. We can do this some other night."

"Chuck?"

"Yes?"

"I've been doing this globe-trotting thing for a decade, I'm old hat at it now, so I need about a half hour of unwinding, and then I'm good."

"Raring to go, huh?" He stopped, and she could almost see the wince on his face, the way he might roll his eyes at himself and shake his head. "Uhhh. Um. You're right, though. Obviously. I shouldn't just assume shit."

"Chuck, it's okay," she chuckled. "What I'm trying to say is that I don't need all night to unwind. A shower, maybe? And then I'll be good to hang out. Dinner or otherwise."

Please, her whole body seemed to cry out.

"Oh. Wow, that's—Okay. That's great. Cool. Cool, cool. Um, where do you think you'd want to meet up? I know a good Italian place, downtown. Romantic candlelight, insanely good wine, and polenta Bolognese that will make you scream."

She laughed at that, and then she froze, because she realized what he'd just suggested. It was impossible.

"Chuck, you have no idea how amazing that sounds but I-I sort of… Um, remember how we agreed that this stays kind of…between us for a bit? I think being in a restaurant would—"

"Oh God, duh! It's a public place!" He sounded frustrated with himself and he rushed on before she could assuage his guilt. "I'm sorry! I really wasn't thinking. It isn't that I forgot that agreement we made, I didn't forget, it's just that I got overly excited about getting to see you again. It feels like it's been ages."

"Please stop apologizing. I get it. I really wish that I could meet you at that Italian restaurant you're thinking of, and we could share a bottle of wine, and the…candlelight and the polenta whatever it was you said. I wish we could do that. You have no idea how much." She leaned her hip on her leather couch and shut her eyes. "We just…can't do that right now. I don't want the paparazzi to get anywhere near you."

"Well, thanks. And understood. Totally understood. Um, where…I'd say my place but you've just been on a plane for who knows how long today and I'm sure you'd rather not go sit in a car to get here."

She pursed her lips. "That's sweet, Chuck. I don't mind, though. I've got a driver." One that was gonna give her guff about this, she knew. Worth it. "Your place have a private elevator like the one in New York?" she flirted.

"Um…" He cleared his throat. "No, not this time. But I do have my own floor. And you can't stop on it unless you have my code."

"See, that's cool."

He chuckled. "I like it. You sure you don't mind? I don't mind at all if you want me to go to yours—"

"No, no," she said, trying to sound nonchalant. She couldn't help being a creature of habit. Her boyfriends had never been to her condo, or to her Beverly Glen home. They'd never seen the beach house, either. Those were her own private spaces that she didn't want anyone knowing about. And there was some evidence of her CIA life around this place in particular. She could always hide it but still, it felt like something she wasn't ready for. If she ever would be. "I'd really like to see this elevator trick anyway. Text me your address after we get off the phone."

"Oh, sure. I'll do that. I'll give you the elevator code, too. You just punch it in on the keypad, then press 10. That's my floor."

"Perfect 10, huh?"

"Ahhh that's cute," he chuckled. "Nice one."

She rolled her eyes at herself. "What time should I be there?"

"7 too early?"

She glanced at her watch. It was a little after 5. "That's perfect. I'll see you then?"

"Yes, absolutely."

When she hung up, she spilled over the back of the couch to land on the cushions, letting out a massive sigh of relief that became a giggle. She had about an hour and a half to make herself look damn good. It had been over 2 weeks since she'd seen him and her heart was racing at the prospect of seeing him again. Of feeling his arms around her. And after this last mission, this relief couldn't come too soon.

+ —

"I know this must've been a huge inconvenience for you, Rafaeli," Chuck rushed as he took the multiple bags out of the older man's hands. "So I want you to make sure your staff that handled all of this gets a share of the tip, okay?"

"Mr. Bartowski, sir, for you, it's not an inconvenience," the head chef said, helping Chuck pile the food on the seat and floor of his car. "Make sure you chill the aperitif for a bit before you pour. It's fine room temperature, but better chilled. And I put the sauce for the tortellinis to the side. Don't do it too much with the sauce, eh? Drizzle. Drizzle, eh?"

"Drizzle, got it. Thank you, Rafaeli." He went into his wallet then and produced a few hundreds, putting them into the head chef's hands. "Thank you, thank you."

"Mr. Bartowski, this is—!" the wide-eyed chef tried, but Chuck cut him off with a shake of his head.

"If the owner or anybody else gives you trouble, send them my way. I'll set them straight. Got it?"

"Yessir. Thank you, Mr. Bartowski."

"Have a good weekend, Rafaeli. Tell everyone I said thanks!"

"Will do."

Chuck got into his car and pulled away, down the alley, and out onto the street again. He had 30 minutes to get back to his condo and get all of this plated. And he needed to change into something nicer, probably.

They were eating delicious, expensive food after all. He was going to try to recreate what she would've found at La Casa Del Gusto. The candlelight, the food, the wine, all of it.

When he got back to his condo, he hurriedly set the food down, grabbed the aperitif and stuck it in the fridge, then sprinted to his bedroom to change into nice black slacks, a black button-up, and a black blazer. He combed his curls to tame them at least somewhat. And then he took several breaths, trying not to be so nervous, but he couldn't help it.

He'd pined for 2 weeks, damn it.

He'd pined and pined and pined. He'd sent a text a few days after he left NYC, asking how she was doing. And they'd texted back and forth for a few minutes. Then he'd waited, obsessing over not wanting to keep bothering her, keep texting, be an annoyance. And he'd obsessed enough that he hadn't texted her again until earlier on in the week, asking her to let him know when she was back in LA again so that they could hang out.

He felt so stupid sending her that sunglasses emoji. Like that would stop her from thinking he was longing to see her again. Longing hard. As if she'd go, "Uh oh, this guy is a little too intense with this text. Oh phew, he sent a sunglasses emoji. He's chill after all."

He'd just missed her so much.

And he couldn't deny it, not to himself.

They'd gone from a whole weekend of almost being connected at the hip, literally, to nothing but a few texts here and there for over 2 weeks. And it had kind of been like whiplash for him. He wasn't used to hot and heavy, super intense, explosive stuff … and then nothing. That wasn't really typical for him. It wasn't his M.O.

He had no idea if it was hers or not.

It didn't matter if it was hers or not. All that mattered was that she'd be here in…Oh fuck, 3 minutes.

Chuck took a deep breath and scrambled for the matches, setting them on the bar, checking inside the bar cabinet belatedly to make sure he had enough different kinds of alcohol and sighing in relief when he saw vodka, rum, whiskey, and gin there. That was good enough.

And then he heard it. It was a sound he recognized well after living here for the last 2 years. This was the first property he bought after NTI took off. At least it was the first property he bought for himself. He helped Ellie with a few payments on her own place she got with Captain Awesome first. And he helped Morgan get out of his mom's house and into his own apartment. Now Morgan had more than enough money from his salary at NTI to afford his rent.

The elevator door had just opened on his floor. The 10th floor.

She was here.

Chuck stood and bonked his head on the edge of the cabinet door, wincing and rubbing his the spot, standing up and going to the door. That actually hurt.

But when he pulled his fingers away from the painful spot on his head, there wasn't any blood. Good. Then he was fine.

With one last wince, pressing on the place where he hit himself one last time, he rushed to open the door the moment she knocked on it.

She was in the process of unwrapping a patterned scarf from around her head, large sunglasses covering half her face, and she jumped a little, apparently not expecting him to answer so fast. "Oh. H-Hi!" She quickly shoved the scarf in her bag, slipping the sunglasses off of her face. They went into a side pocket.

Chuck felt butterflies in his stomach at seeing her again, and a deep, deep warmth was there too. He'd really missed just looking at her face. "Hi, Sarah. I-I mean, welcome. Welcome to my… Oh shit, come in. Sorry." He stepped back, chuckling, embarrassed he'd made her stand out there awkwardly, and he swung the door open for her to walk into his condo. "Now welcome to my home."

"Thanks," she giggled, stepping inside and moving so that he could shut the door behind him. "Really nice place you got here, Chuck," she said then, looking around.

"Oh, nah. It's—I mean, I like it. It's my home. If you want to leave your bag on that entry table there you can. Or one of the chairs or really anywhere you want. Doesn't matter, I'm not picky about that."

She eyed him with a long look as she eased the bag off of her shoulder and set it on the entry table. "Thanks. And thanks for inviting me to your home tonight. I kind of needed to get out of my own place for a bit. Breathe a little."

"Oh, yeah. F'course. Can I take your coat?"

"Sure, thanks." She untied and unbuttoned it so that he could help her peel it off, and everything inside of him broke immediately. She kept talking as if she hadn't noticed that he'd frozen, gaping at her. "And yeah, I don't know why but sitting at home just didn't sound like something I wanted to do tonight, even with being on a plane all day…" Her voice drifted off as she finally noticed that he was just gazing at her.

He swallowed hard, taking her outfit in. He'd seen her in stunning gowns, in a robe, in nothing at all. But somehow this dress that clung to her figure, going not even midway down her thighs, a deep sea blue color that made her eyes pop, and deliciously tall heels. She'd pulled her hair up in a meticulously messy updo, leaving her neck bare and so beautiful and soft and he was way, way out of his league.

"Chuck?"

Chuck shook himself but still kept his eyes on her dress. God save him, her cleavage. He quickly forced his gaze to her eyes, and somehow that made him feel even more lost. "Hi. Yes. I'm here."

Sarah giggled and he'd missed that sound so much, and also her smile. Her smile was everything. So big and bright and warm. "You okay?"

"You look so beautiful I can barely breathe," he admitted. No sense in trying to play it cool now, he'd already made a fool of himself.

She clamped her bottom lip between her teeth and moved closer to him, her coat in her hand. "Thank you. And you look very handsome."

"Thanks. I, um…" He ran a hand down his front. And then he shook himself. "Oh here. Lemme hang that coat up for you."

He took it from her and quickly moved to hang it on the coatrack in the corner. And when he turned back, she was there, and her arms were around his shoulders, her front pressed against his.

Chuck hugged her back immediately and sighed. "Hi," he said warmly, turning his face into her hair.

"This feels so good after all this time," she said.

Oh thank God. Her too, then. He hugged her tighter and pressed a kiss to the spot behind her ear. "It really, really does."

"I'm so sorry I got all busy and life was so crazy…" She pulled back and peered up at him apologetically. "I wish we could've done this sooner."

"Hey, I was willing to wait for a lot longer than just 2 weeks," he said with a shrug, keeping his arms around her. Her fingers found their way into the hair right at the nape of his neck and he shivered. Oh he'd definitely missed that a whole lot. "That said, I…missed you." He winced. "Can I say that? Sorry."

She grinned at him, nodding her head. "Yeah, you can say it. I missed you too."

They gazed at one another for awhile, and then she seemed to squirm a little, as if she was realizing it was quite awhile. He cleared his throat and pulled back just enough to keep one arm around the small of her back, and he turned them towards the feast he'd set up.

"Hope you're hungry. I got us, wait for it…Italian."

"You didn't," she laughed, her voice light and happy. But he walked her to the table so that she could see that…

"In fact, I did."

"Same place you talked about?"

"The same place. Yep."

"You're kind of adorable," she giggled, turning to lean up onto her toes and place a kiss on his jaw. She wiped at it a bit with her finger. "Oops. Sorry. This lipstick comes off easily."

"Oh, I don't care. Leave it. Mark me for all I care. I'm not going into public anytime soon."

She laughed hard, then stepped away from him to look at the food. "Oh my God this all looks so delicious. And it smells wonderful."

"Yeah, I've got, um, wine too. Hope you like red."

"Love it. Thank you."

He beamed at her, then hurried to pour the wine, before he snapped his fingers and rushed over to the bar, grabbing the matchbox and coming back to the table. "A little extra effect. Please sit."

She eyed him closely, a small smile on her face as she watched him light the candles in the middle of the table. "Does it matter which chair I sit in?"

"Not at all. I've sat in all of these chairs." He made a face as she cracked up. "I don't even know what that means. Sorry. I'm, um, a little ridiculous tonight."

"I'm thoroughly enjoying it so please don't apologize." She picked the chair closest to his living room and sat down. Before he joined her, he went to the light switch and lowered the dimmer, making the room seem a lot more romantic. "Wowww," she drawled, raising an eyebrow at him as he finally joined her and sat across the table from her. "A light dimmer, huh? You get that installed for girls like me?"

"Please," he scoffed, shaking his head and making a face. "This came with the place. Anyway, there's no way I ever could've seen a girl like you coming. Not in a million years."

She seemed to almost melt back into her chair, and then she leaned her elbow on the table, propping her chin in her palm. "You really say some things, Charles Bartowski, that make me feel a little crazy."

"Is that…good?"

"God, yes," she said, and then she took a deep breath and diverted her gaze, biting her lip almost shyly. "Should we toast before we eat?"

"Y-Yeah!" He grabbed his wine glass and watched as she did the same, and then he reached over to clink his against hers. "To finally getting to see each other again."

"To light dimmers."

He laughed, not expecting that, and then he sipped his wine. "Hey, if you like it, then it worked."

"Oh, I like it."

Chuck gulped, then gestured to the food. "You dish yours up first."

And she did. They ate in companionable silence, enjoying their food, meeting eyes over wine glasses, and he decided this was going even better than he'd anticipated.

So well, in fact, that he hadn't noticed her distracted glances to the side, or the way she every so often nibbled on her lip, a thoughtful look on her face. His insides glowed at being with her again, and he was totally unaware.


I know. No sex. Gaspeth. Don't worry, next chapter will make up for that. Just as a warning. I appreciate reviews!

SarahsSupplyCloset