The Nerd Versus the P.I. Family

By Steampunk . Chuckster

A/N: I know I said it before but I am really, really tired. Hence how long it's taken for any of my fics to be updated. Thank you to those of you still sticking around waiting for my updates. It's appreciated even if you might not hear from me in response to you particularly. Know I am grateful. Thanks!

Summary: Sarah Walker has uprooted her life, leaving her job with the LAPD and going it alone as a private investigator, all in the hopes it provides her with less dangerous stakes and a schedule she can control so that she can handle her most important job, raising her toddler, a bit easier. But when the single parent thinks her computer might've been targeted by a criminal, she has to request help from the unlikeliest of sources: The Buy More Nerd Herd.

Disclaimer: I do not own CHUCK, I do not own its characters, I am not making money from posting this.


He was wonderful.

Therein lies the danger.

Why in the hell did she have her dad's voice in her head? She had no clue. But it was there anyway.

As she watched Chuck pile the takeout on the table Max had excitedly led him to, she did get the feeling that there was something dangerous in this.

There was something dangerous about the way he took the containers out of the bags making dorky sounds, with jerky movements as if he was a robot. No, the real danger wasn't that he was doing it, it was that him doing it had her chest filling with a sort of fluttery warmth.

She could just chalk that up to Max watching from down below and laughing, his blue eyes that were so much like hers shining brightly.

"Bvvvvvvt. Bvvvvttt. Errrrrrrrrrrrrrk!" Chuck froze, his eyes going wide. "Oh. No," he said in a robotic voice. "They. Forgot. The. Grape. Leaves."

But he swept the container of grape leaves out of the bag and lowered them to Max's eye level, popping the lid off for him to see before the joke could go too far and make Max cry. That was absolutely something Max would cry about. Especially after already having a grape leaf meltdown earlier.

Instead of tears, Max looked down at the grape leaves, laughed melodically, and shook his finger at Chuck. "Nooo noooooo. Dis baaaad."

"I am bad," Chuck said, thankfully ditching the robotic tang to his voice. "You're right. I'm sorry. We have grape leaves." As he straightened to his full height to put them back on the table, he leaned closer to Sarah and under his breath, he muttered, "I made sure to check, like, eight times before I left the place, and I checked again just in case at a stop light on the way back over."

"Smart man," she giggled, reaching up to squeeze his bicep. "Chuck, honestly, this was so sweet. Thank you. You saved the day."

She thought she spotted some blush on his cheeks as he continued taking food out. "Hey, it was no sweat. Really." He cleared the bags off of the table, rolling them up in his hands, and then he stopped, looking around awkwardly. "Uh… where…?"

"Here, I got this." She reached over and set the bags on the bar. "There. We'll use it for trash later."

"Now who's the smart one?" he drawled with a smirk.

"Mommy smot! She ve'weeeee smot!"

Sarah beamed as she stepped around Chuck and swept her giggling toddler up off of the floor and into her arms. "Thank you, bud. Here. Into the chair you go, huh?"

He let her put him in his high chair, move behind it and scoot it closer to the table and his smaller plastic plate. She'd given Chuck and herself glass plates, but Max definitely wasn't there yet. Considering he was slapping his palms on the table chanting, "Hab da 'ape 'eaf hab da 'ape 'eaf hab da 'ape 'eaf!"

"You know what, Max?" Chuck said, popping containers open and sticking the silverware Sarah'd gotten out while he was gone into each one.

"Wat!"

"One of my employees is Greek. She was born there. Her name is Carlotta."

"Otta?"

"Close."

"Car. Lot. Uh." Sarah stroked her fingers through Max's hair. "Carlotta."

"Caw. Ot. AHHHHHHH!"

Chuck let out a choking sound, clamping a hand over his mouth, a quiet tittering sound breaking through his fingers, his eyes wide and filled with humor.

Sarah widened her own eyes and pressed her lips together. "Wow, okay. We'll, um, chalk that up to some extra adrenaline over those grape leaves. Sorry, Chuck. Um… what was that about Carlotta?"

He grinned, his eyes still big, and he tapped his ear with his finger a few times. "Just…pop my eardrum back in there real quick." Sarah giggled at that. "Carlotta is Greek and I don't think she even likes grape leaves as much as you do."

"Noooo noo nooo." Max shook his head and made grabby hands towards the food, leaning over the table and reaching, making quiet little grunting sounds. It was rude, Sarah knew, but it was also stupidly cute. "I y'ike 'ape 'eaf mo' den ey'buddy."

"I think you do," Chuck said with an emphatic point.

"Max, hey. Wait for everyone to get their drinks, okay? Then I'll put some of this on your plate. Patience, though, okay? Remember when we talked about patience?"

"I know, Mommy. I jus' hung'ee."

"We all are. Chuck had to drive back smelling the food the whole way so I'm sure he's even hungrier than we are," she said, winking over her shoulder at Chuck as she moved to the kitchen. "Water? Wine? What'll you have, Chuck?"

"Water for now and raincheck on the wine?"

She smiled at him. She had a feeling he was putting off the wine for later because he had a job to do. She wondered if Max was coming into play, too. Nobody would ever have a say in what she drank at dinnertime, whether she had a two year old or not. And there were some days when the wine was necessary.

Unfortunately, today was one of those days. So she ended up with a big glass of red wine in front of her.

"Mommy, can I hab dat joos?" Max asked as she started putting food on his plate, one spoonful at a time.

"What juice?" She saw he was pointing at her wine. He did this enough times now that it was getting a little old. "Oh. Max, I've told you. That juice isn't for you. It has something in it that you can't have until you're older, when your body won't get sick from it."

"Okayyyyy," he pouted, pushing his little palm against his hair to get it away from his forehead. Thankfully the grape leaf she cut up and distributed on his plate was enough to put him off the wine conversation.

And Sarah finally sat down, Chuck on her left, Max on her right, and they passed the containers back and forth between them, conversation light as they stuffed themselves.

"You know, I get why you were so upset about not being able to get this food earlier, Max,"Chuck finally said, setting his fork down and draping his hands over his stomach. "It's top notch."

Max gave a closed mouth smile down at his plate. "It top not."

"That means it's the best Greek food I've had," the Nerd Herd area specialist chuckled.

"Oh! Yis. It top not 'ape 'eaf."

Sarah giggled and reached over to ruffle her son's hair.

He shook his finger at her with a, "No no Mommyyyyy…"

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Oh God. Did your grandpa teach you that?" She looked at Chuck. "That new little habit smacks of my dad."

"Mhmmmm," Max said with a nod, missing his mouth a little bit with a piece of lamb so that it dropped onto the floor under his chair. "Oop."

"I got it." Sarah leaned down to pick the piece of lamb up off of the floor then put it at the very corner of Max's plate. "Don't eat this, it was on the floo—oh God, Max. Ew."

He'd reached over to snag the piece and popped it between his lips, chewing happily.

Chuck giggled. "I love a good lad who doesn't waste his food." He winked at Max.

"Uh, yeah, well it's a good thing I cleaned this floor today."

"You cleaned today after not sleeping at all last night?"

She shrugged. "I can't have guests coming here and seeing a mess. I can only be how my mother raised me."

He just blinked at her, and then his features melted. "You cleaned your apartment for me?"

She smiled. "Well, I definitely didn't do it for the ginger." She checked her watch. "…who is late by the way." Chuck laughed. "Don't get too excited though, nerd, I live with a two year old. Constant cleaning is a must when you have someone in the household who spends eighty percent of the time crawling around and flopping onto the floor."

"Fwop fwop FWOPPPPPPPP!" Max yelled, smacking his hands onto the table, before eating the last piece of gyro she gave him. He pointed at the container with pita in it. "Dough! Mo' dough."

Chuck reached for it even as Sarah reprimanded, "Say please." Chuck pulled his hand back and winced, freezing with his eyes wide. It was cute and made her giggle at him.

"PEEEEEEEEZ dough."

"Thank you," Sarah said, nodding her head at Chuck for him to hand a piece of pita over. She took it from him with a "thanks" and broke it in half, putting one half on Max's plate and giving herself the other half. Her son gave her a look, his jaw slack, eyes asking her very clearly what she thought she was doing. "Geez, fine," she said as Chuck laughed, and she put her half onto her son's plate. "I think your eyes are bigger than your stomach, though."

"No nooo Mommy." He shook his finger, then snagged a piece of "dough" and tore at it with his teeth, smacking his lips as he chewed with an "mmmmmm!"

"So…dough?" Chuck asked.

Sarah smirked. "Everything that's even remotely bread-like is dough," she explained.

"Mm. Dough!" Max held up the piece of pita. "Dough."

"Technically correct," Chuck chirped.

"It is. I'm letting him have it," she said with a shrug. She emphasized it by taking a sip of her wine.

She watched Chuck out of the corner of her eye as he reached over to grab his own piece of pita, dipping it in baba ganoush. He deposited it in his mouth and smiled as he chewed, his brown gaze on her son. There was some danger here.

And maybe Carina was a little bit right about Sarah's dating habits so far, before this. There was no danger in going on dates with a guy who didn't look at Max Walker with this much humor and kindness. There was a comfort in knowing they'd only be around for a short while before they showed their asses, so to speak, and moved on with their lives, letting Sarah move on with hers.

And it had stung each time the end had come, to varying degrees, but it was still always easy, watching them go.

This man felt different.

And that comfort she felt knowing the other men she'd dated wouldn't stick around, that they'd move on and gladly extricate themselves from this situation that required responsibility they weren't ready for…it simply wasn't there with this man.

It was in her nature to do something, say something, act in some way, to bring that comfort in where it didn't exist before. To get her hands on the reins, take some control back. And she found herself fighting her own nature.

Because Chuck was giggling and wrinkling his nose, taking a bite out of the pita with an animalistic growl, making Max giggle and copy him. She probably shouldn't promote rude behavior at the table, and if his grandma was here, she'd chastise Sarah for not chastising Max, or she'd chastise him herself. But Emma Walker wasn't here so Sarah just smiled in response to the exchange.

But then she found them both looking at her expectantly.

"Oh my God," she drawled, rolling her eyes, and she grabbed some pita out of the container, taking her own animalistic bite out of it with a growl. "There, you happy?"

"I am," Chuck said with a shrug, and he turned to Max. "Are you?"

"Yes! Dat was goo', Mommy."

"Thank you."

They ate as much as they could, and Sarah got up to begin gathering containers to take to the kitchen. Before she could walk away, Max held his arms up and pouted, making fake-crying sounds, whining. "Out, Mommy. Out. Done. Out."

She looked down at her full hands, then at him. "Can you wait for a second for me to put this in the kitchen?"

"Nooooo," he complained, lifting his arms up higher towards her.

"I got it." Chuck clapped his hands together. "I'll get little man down from his chair, you do what you gotta do with those."

And before anyone could dispute his solution, Chuck moved around the table to gently clutch her son under his armpits, lifting him out of his chair with a cartoonish "BlooooOOOP!" sound. He set Max down on the floor and straightened up to his full height.

Sarah braced herself. She wasn't exactly sure what Max was going to do. Sarah, her parents, Carina, Casey, and Zondra were the only people on the planet who had ever been allowed to hold Max, pick him up, hug him, because Sarah wanted him to be able to control that for himself. And Max did not like strangers touching him or even coming near him.

Chuck was just trying to help out, so it wasn't his fault, but God, she braced herself.

Max blinked once, pushed his palm against his chin shyly, then said quietly, "Okay. Tank'oo." Before he ran off to his own table, picking up a marker and starting to draw with that determined little look on his face again.

Sarah spun on her heel and went to the kitchen, hearing Chuck gather things from the table behind her and follow.

To anyone else, the moment might not have meant anything, but Max's lack of a response besides a little shyness and a polite thank you felt kind of big to Sarah. It was a sign of comfortability and trust, as trivial as it was. A simple lifting of the two and a half year old out of his high chair. But that had been a step, specifically between Chuck and Max.

People she dated didn't…take steps with her son.

They took steps with her, but never with Max.

Chuck's arm reached around her to set a container down beside where she'd set the others, and then that same arm rounded her waist from behind and hugged her to his chest. It was quick, just a momentary gesture of affection, and it made the mess of emotions in her that much more acute.

"So what's the plan here? Lots of leftovers."

"Have you ever heard of Tupperware?" she teased over her shoulder.

"Wow. Okay. And the sass comes out," he chuckled as she cheekily poked her tongue out between her teeth and grinned at him. "No, it's fair. Fair. That was a stupid question."

"No, it wasn't," she giggled. "I'm teasing you." She stepped away to lean down and open the cupboard at the corner of the kitchen, snagging some Tupperware and lids, before coming back to the butcher block. "Table's all cleared?"

"Yep. Minus the plates."

And they worked together, depositing the rest of the food into separate containers, putting those in Sarah's fridge. The way they were able to work in tandem, only bumping into each other once, Sarah feeling the heat rise to her cheeks as they laughed at themselves, had her almost overwhelmed by the mounting sensations inside of her chest. And elsewhere.

So much so that she acted without her usual sense sweeping in to take control, and as Chuck shut the door to the fridge, she slipped her hand into his free one and pulled him close, stepping back so that the wall blocked them from view as Max stayed at his table, drawing a million circles most likely while he hummed some tune he made up.

She looked up into Chuck's face for only a moment and she tossed her sense out the window, draping her hand over the nape of his neck and pulling him in for a kiss. A stupid voice in her head reminded her that she'd just had food with lots of garlic, but they'd both had equal amounts of garlic. Who cared?

Sarah slung her arms around Chuck's shoulders and pulled him in even closer, even as she gently backed him against the wall. As she kissed him harder, she felt his large hand move to cup her face, and he kissed her back.

She wasn't entirely sure how long they stayed like that, hands moving against clothes, tucking underneath, when…

"Mommy, w'ook!"

She broke the kiss and took a step back, pressing her fingers against her lips, her other hand propped on her hip innocently as Max hobbled around the wall they'd been hiding behind, holding up the dry erase board in both hands. "What's that you got, Max?"

God, her voice sounded so ridiculously high-pitched.

"I d'waw a—um—a dino eye! Der!" He pointed at an oblong circle on its side. "See?"

"I see it! With my person eye." She made a circle with her fingers and held it over her eye, kneeling down to look closer. "Yep. That's definitely a dinosaur eye."

"Oooo, lemme see…"

Max lowered the board, gave Chuck another shy look, and shuffled his feet. "If you want me to," Chuck clarified. "You don't have to show me if you aren't ready for others to see your genius just yet. I completely understand that."

As Sarah smiled at Chuck, who, she noticed, was still breathing a little hard, she saw a smaller smile break on her son's face. And then he nodded and held it up for Chuck to see, the shyness still there.

Chuck gasped. "Oh wow that's a great dino eye! And I know a great dino eye, I've seen so many dino eyes in my time, Max. Congratulations. And thank you for trusting me with it."

Max was beaming. "Tanks. It a g'een eye. Dinos hab g'een eyes."

"Really?" Chuck nodded slowly. "Makes sense. I didn't know that."

Sarah knew that Chuck was well aware that statement was not a known fact at all, but he didn't correct him. He let the two year old have his moment, making him feel like he knew something a grown-up didn't. She could see her son's confidence bolstered on his face.

Dangerous.

There was a knock on the door then.

"I'll get it," Sarah said quickly. "Max, why don't you take Chuck back to your table and draw something for him?"

"Okay Mommy…"

Sarah left them both behind and hurried to the door, opening it and smirking at her best friend. "Wow, Carina. Right on time," she droned sarcastically.

Carina stuck her tongue out and snuck inside, moving so that Sarah could shut the door behind her. She readjusted the bag on her shoulder. "Anyway, you should be thanking me. I was giving you three a little extra time to bond." She wiggled her eyebrows.

She rolled her eyes for Carina's benefit, but she couldn't help being grateful for it.

"Rina!" Max threw his hands up where he sat at his table, and Sarah noticed that Chuck had somehow folded himself up to sit in one of the little chairs too, his knees sticking up so far they were practically poking his eyes out.

Carina hurried to Max and lifted him out of his chair, hoisting him into her arms and hugging him. "Hi there, buddy!"

"I ate 'ape 'eafs. An' ums!"

"Grape leaves and hummus," Sarah provided when Carina gave her a what the fuck look.

"Oh wow. That sounds yummy."

"There are leftovers in the fridge if you're hungry," Sarah offered, approaching them and ruffling her son's hair. Chuck looked almost stuck in his position, sitting in the tiny plastic chair. But he didn't seem all too bothered by it, or by everyone else towering over him.

"I ate, thanks. And here's the nerd of the hour." Carina laughed then. "Comfortable, my dude?"

"Not really, no," he chirped. "But we do as the natives do." Chuck thrusted his arms out to each side in an adorable shrug. "Anyway, Max drew me a circle."

"I see…many circles." Carina seemed to peer down at the dry erase board discerningly.

"I d'ew dem ALL, Rina!"

"I'm so proud of you, Max. They're excellent circles, all of them."

Max started squirming in Carina's arms then and he made a quiet whining sound.

"Hey, hey. Talk, remember? Use words. Don't just whine. We don't know what that means." Sarah did know and she was sure Carina knew too. He wanted to be put down. But she was also trying to work on his speech, and she really didn't want her son to be one of those older kids in the store that just whined everything at their parent instead of speaking like normal. She would consider herself a failed parent.

"Can I down?"

"Of course, bud. Thanks for asking." Carina set him down and he went back to the table, picking up a marker.

Then he looked down at it and seemed to almost turn shy as he pushed one of the markers towards Chuck.

"Me?" Chuck raised his eyebrows. He took the marker from the table. "What, you want me to draw something? Oh boy. I gotta be honest, you're better than I am. I need a ruler to make a straight line."

"You do dis der." Max pointed at the clean corner of the board.

"There?" Chuck poked the corner.

"Ya. Der."

"Okay I'll try. What do you want?"

The two year old brought his little fingers up and made like he was stroking whiskers on either side of his face. "Dat." He poked his finger onto the board and made the sign again with the whiskers.

"Max, what do you want Chuck to draw? Say it with words."

"Cat. D'aw cat."

Chuck turned to Sarah and gave her a pained look. "This is going to be terrible."

"Oh, I can't wait for this," Carina teased, moving to stand over Chuck's shoulder and watch.

"You're evil, Carina," Sarah muttered, smirking, but she stepped in close to watch too.

And she discovered that Chuck was not being modest earlier. His drawing of a cat was pretty bad. It's head was lopsided, its nose more snout-like, like a rat or something, and then he drew a fatter oval on its side with sticks coming out for legs, and another wavy line off of its backside for a tail.

"Ta daaa!" The Nerd Herd specialist shivered, looking down at his creation. "This is the stuff nightmares are made of, I think." Carina was just cackling, and Sarah was having a really hard time not joining her. It was so mean to laugh at him for this, and she resisted.

"Yaaay! Dat cat!" Max pointed and clapped.

Chuck gestured at Max then, looking at Sarah first, then Carina. "See? See that? At least someone supports me in my artistic endeavors. Thank you, Max."

"D'aw hat on cat?"

"Wait, I'm not done?"

"No."

Chuck gaped.

Max, the little bully, just stared at Chuck unblinking, to which the older man chuckled and shook his head, moving to draw the hat. When he finished, Max surveyed the drawing, tapping himself on the chin, then pointed again. "D'aw it eat-y d'awbe'wwy."

"Strawberry," Sarah muttered when Chuck looked confused. That seemed to clear it up for him as he nodded.

"Geez, okay…uh, how to draw a strawberry. Hm." He erased one of the stick arms with his finger, then redrew it so that the arm went to the cat's mouth, then he drew a triangle with rounded edges in a little stick figure fist. Sarah found herself giggling then as Chuck drew a jagged line over the cat's mouth. "And teethies. So it can nom the strawberry." He turned to look up at her with narrowed eyes. "Okay look, I'm not pretending I'm Michelangelo over here…" he groused.

"A little more Picasso I'd say," Carina muttered, and Sarah laughed as he sent the lawyer a glare.

"All right, I don't have to take this abuse…" he said, amusement in his face even as he tried to unfold his legs and stand up from the table.

But Sarah acted fast, stepping in behind him and putting her hands on his shoulders, squeezing them even as she kept him from getting up. She leaned down over him.

"No, no, no. We're just teasing. Your drawing is lovely. Right, Max?"

"Lovey!"

"See?" Sarah giggled, pushing her cheek against Chuck's temple. "What else should Chuck draw, Max?"

"Cat go potty?" He poked the drawing of the cat. "Der. Potty."

Chuck laughed. "You want me to draw the cat going potty?"

"Yeah!"

Sarah couldn't help sliding her hands across Chuck's chest, rounding his shoulders with her arms and hugging him from behind as she leaned over his back. She could almost feel Carina's smirk, but she refused to acknowledge it.

"Okay, well…it's a cat. What kind of potty do you give a cat?"

"I hab my potty!" Max pointed at his little portable toilet Sarah stashed under the side table just outside of the entrance to the hallway. "But I do big potty too."

"Of course you do," Chuck insisted. "Because you're awesome. I mean, come on, dude, I had no doubt."

Sarah watched as her son preened quietly, and warmth filled her chest. A deep love for her son, the two and a half year old instructing this new person who'd entered his life to draw a hat-wearing, strawberry-eating cat going potty. And an ever-growing respect and affection for the man taking drawing orders.

"Okay, so our kitty cat is not a person, though. It's hard for them to use a person toilet. So we give them a litter box." He drew an uneven rectangle around the cat, but to his credit, he was able to construct a three-dimensional litter box looking thing, and then he drew squiggly lines in it. "Know what that is?"

Max thought hard. She could see how badly he wanted to get it right. "Watooahhh?"

"No, but good guess. It…definitely looks like water. That's probably my bad."

"It definitely looks like water," Carina offered. Sarah shot her a flat look and she shrugged defensively. "What, it does?"

"Thank you for defending me, Sarah. Valiant of you, but unfortunately, they are both correct." He meticulously started erasing the lines with his finger. "I will fix it!" he announced in an exaggerated superhero voice that made Max giggle. Then he began to smack the tip of the marker down on the board over and over. "There. That's more like sand, huh?"

"Sa'd?"

"Cats have litter boxes, Max," Sarah explained. "Their mommies teach them when they're little to use the litter box. Like how I taught you how to use the potty."

"I ve'wy goo' at it!"

"You are," she agreed. "But cats go to the bathroom in this sand that soaks it up and it turns into hard clumps. And their owner can remove the clump out of the box and put it in the trash."

"Ooooh."

"Okay, the cat's in the potty. How'd I do, Max?" Chuck asked.

"Good! Now it go to s'eep 'cuz it tie-oood."

The nerd blinked and looked down at his drawing. "Really? Now it has to—You know what? Okay. It's tired. We're good. Needs somewhere to sleep. All that strawberry eating is tiring. Uhhh…" He drew a bigger circle around it, then drew a puffy square on it. "Cat bed!"

Max nodded approvingly after taking a closer look. "Uh huh."

"Firing on all cylinders, Chuck," Chuck hissed with pride at himself, setting the marker down and doing finger guns. "Peeooom peeooom."

"Oh Jesus," Carina groaned, walking back to the table. "Can we get to work before this one makes my eyes roll so far back into my head I fall out this window?" She gestured at the living room window behind her, then flopped into the window seat under it dramatically.

"Peeeem! Peeeeeem!" Max hopped to his feet and ran around the couch in circles, over and over and over, yelling, "Peeeeeeeeem!" and waving his fingers in an obvious attempt to do what he'd just seen Chuck do.

They all laughed and Sarah (sort of reluctantly) unfurled her arms from around Chuck's shoulders, standing to her full height, giving him one last squeeze under her fingers, before she dove in to intercept her son, chuckling as he squealed and cracked up, lifting him up from the floor into her arms.

"Okay, little peeoom peeoom. We have to wind down and get ready for bed."

"Nnnnnooooooooo," he whined, the glee immediately gone from his face, replaced by a pout.

"Yeeeeeeeeees," she drawled. "It's past your bedtime."

"But nah tie-ooood."

"You don't think you're tired, but you're tired. I promise, the second you put your head on your pillow, you're gonna fall right asleep." She gave him a squeeze. "Come on, Mommy will take you."

"Nnnnnnnooooooooo."

Sarah knew she would get this reaction. And she didn't blame him at all for it. She remembered being almost as young as he was, being told to sleep, hearing her parents have their friends in for drinks or something, and knowing she was missing out on the fun.

"Heeeey now. Kiddo, we're doing work out here, okay? Nothing about this is gonna be fun," Carina tried, already taking her laptop out of her messenger bag. "It's going to be very unfun and boring and look…" She faked a yawn. "I'm already yawning, it's gonna be so boring."

She was afraid for a moment that Max would start to cry, and she really didn't need him throwing a fit in front of Chuck again. It wasn't Max's fault. He was two. Two year olds did this kind of thing. But she wasn't sure if Chuck got that, if he would understand.

She was annoyed with herself for having that worry, as if Max had to be anyone else but who he was for some new guy she had a massive crush on…but the worry was still there.

Max didn't cry, though, because Chuck stretched his arms up over his head and not-so-gracefully pushed himself to his feet, groaning a little after sitting in that tiny chair for so long. Then he let out a big, much more convincing yawn, ruffling his own hair. "Oh man, I'm bored too. This is going to be so much work and so boring. Not fun at all."

"Okay, Mommy, take me to my w'oom."

Sarah bit down on her cheek to keep from laughing at how quickly that convinced Max he maybe didn't want to stay out here after all. "You want to say goodnight to Auntie?"

Carina immediately came around the table and made grabby hands at the little boy who reached out for her. She took him and kissed him on the head. "Sleep good for Auntie, okay, Max? Love you."

"Wuv 'oo." Then he rubbed his right eye with his fist. "Down?"

She put him down and he just stared at Chuck. Sarah wasn't exactly sure what he was going to do as the tech genius knelt down at Max's eye level.

"I'll see you later, okay? Hope you have a good sleep, dude." Then Chuck thrusted out a fist towards him, smiling kindly. Max blinked and stared at it. Then he reached out and shyly poked one of Chuck's knuckles. It was the cutest, funniest thing Sarah had seen in a while and she burst into laughter as Carina snorted.

Max looked up at her, confused, and maybe a little upset he was being laughed at. She knelt at his side and hugged him, kissing his jaw. "Nobody ever did the fist pound with you."

He looked even more confused.

Chuck's fist was still out, so Sarah reached over and pounded her own fist against it. "Boom. There. Easy."

But of course Chuck made an explosion sound with his mouth as he pulled his hand back. Max giggled. And then he looked down at his hand, concentrating on making a fist, before he stuck it out towards Chuck.

"Oh yeeeeah," the nerd drawled, gently pounding the two year's old's fist.

Max brought his hands up to his mouth and pushed them against his lips shyly, and just like that he was gone, dashing out of Sarah's arms and racing to the hallway.

"Whoa," Carina muttered.

"Um. Well. I guess we're going to bed, then," Sarah said, feeling the surprise that must be on her face. She stood up, reaching down for Chuck to take her hand, and when he did, she pulled him up as well. She didn't mean to be so close to him, but it was like her body magnetically leaned into him. She'd touch him if she leaned even an inch closer, and their eyes met, and she had to blink to break the gaze, clearing her throat and slipping her hand out of his. "I'm going to go make sure my son is tucked in all right."

"Uh huh," she heard Carina's dry voice mumble from the table.

"You two can get start—"

But she stopped when Chuck's eyes latched onto something behind her, and she turned to see Max coming back. Only this time he had one of the tiny toy airplanes his grandpa bought him clutched in his little hand.

"I thought we were going to bed," Sarah tried, but she was completely ignored as he made a beeline for Chuck. He stopped a few feet away, becoming shy all of a sudden, like he'd forgotten himself for a moment and remembered again just as quickly. Remembered that this was a very tall man who was still a stranger, and he probably couldn't figure out why he was here, what he was doing here, who he was…

But Chuck was doing something right, because Max quietly held out the airplane to him. He pressed his lips together and stuck his tongue through them, blowing a raspberry. Then he pulled his hand holding the airplane back like Chuck had after Sarah pounded his fist a minute earlier.

It made the nerd chuckle sincerely, leaning forward with his hands on his knees, peering down at her son. "Perfect. Is that the sound an airplane makes?"

"If I'm ever on an airplane and it makes that sound, I'm saying a prayer for the first time in my life," the lawyer chimed in from the table where she was already setting up Chuck's working area.

"If that's the first time, there's a chance you aren't getting what you pray for," Sarah shot back. "I like your airplane sound, Max." Carina got a faux glare.

Max lifted the plane towards Chuck then, an observant, almost searching look on his sweet face as he took the much taller man in. Thankfully he still had that two year old one track mind and didn't try to figure out Carina's jab.

"You want me to take it?" Max nodded and Chuck did so, gently plucking it out of the toddler's hand with two of his fingers and holding it up to inspect it. "It's a good, strong plane, dude."

Max grunted and reached for it again, and Chuck promptly handed it back, then the boy went to the table and made another grunting sound as he went on his tiptoes to precariously slip the toy airplane onto the table. Then he lowered himself back to his heels. "It fun. No bow'ed."

Sarah realized what he was doing then and she felt her insides squeeze, warmth flooding through everywhere. "Oh, Max, that's so nice. C'mere." She knelt down and gathered him up in a loving hug. "That's nice to share your toy with them so that they're not too bored while they do work."

He just nodded, looked at their two guests shyly, and yelled, "KAY!" Before he ran away again, towards the hallway and his bedroom. Sighing, she stood up again and shrugged as if to say that's my guy.

"Little charmer," Carina chirped, waving Chuck over.

He complied, even as he kept his eyes on her. "You're, um, coming back out here? After, I mean? After putting Max to bed?"

The warmth in her increased tenfold at the hopeful look on his face. She nodded. "Yeah, I'll be out as soon as I can to help you two."

But something in his face told her he didn't much care if she helped or not. He just wanted her there.

It took everything in her not to float after her son.


A/N: Thanks for reading! Til next we meet again...

Please review. Thanks, gracias, por favor, et cetera.

-SC