Don't own Chuck.
A/N – This particular chapter is for David Carner. An enemy of the worst kind knocked at his door and he needed something to cheer him up. David, keep fighting. We are praying for you, and that your doctors would be guided by angels. This chapter was suppose to come much earlier, but life decided to knock on my door and I couldn't seem to write for a while.
My second installment in the Chuck verses the Oceans universe, coming in right after One Month, Three Days, Eight Hours.
Chapter 2 – Chuck verses the Safe House
If there was one thing for which Chuck was grateful, it was that little Stephen absolutely loved his mother's singing voice. It didn't quite matter what she sang, although some of the Huey Lewis songs tended to make him dance rather than sleep. But more often than not, Sarah sang to and rocked their tiny son and he immediately calmed down, seemingly straining to keep his eyes open and failing miserably. Chuck didn't blame him in the least. Much to his chagrin and Sarah's delight, her soft, sweet melodies had even put him to sleep on occasion. He had not wanted her to think he found her voice boring, but the day had been busy and she had tired him out. Still, he had to admit that falling asleep to your angel, your wife's voice had been one of the most special and peaceful nights of his life. He had no doubt his baby would sleep soundly tonight. But-
"Chuck" Sarah's inquiry broke him from his revere.
"Yeah honey?"
"You're thinking about it again."
"What?" Great stall Chuck, she saw through it before it came out of your mouth. How does she always know!"
"Because I'm a spy, and so are you." She reminded him as she rocked Stephen in his cradle.
"Good to know."
She raised an eyebrow, wanting him to take it seriously.
"Okay okay, yes I was thinking about it again. It was my night to watch him and I just fell asleep, snoozing the whole night through and dreaming of you rather than taking care of you like I should have been" He stopped, his brow knit and lips flat.
She just laughed gently.
"Chuck, baby, you pulled a sixteen-hour shift, slept for three hours, and worked another fifteen, all while taken care of a baby."
She walked over and poked his chest. "You needed sleep, and don't think I missed the Singing in the Rain reference."
"But so did you!" He protested in a gentle whisper, not wanting to wake their child.
"I had just flown in, but it was from a weekend with Carina and Ellie. I was fine." She paused, something about this wasn't adding up. She needed to think like him, that wonderful worried father of her child, she needed figure out what was worrying him. Suddenly she knew, and it was obvious. She wanted to send herself to remedial Chuck101 training to get straightened out. So she told him.
"Sweetie, I'm sorry, I think I need to go back to Chuck101." She threw her head back, glancing at the ceiling for a moment before rolling her head forward and down, allowing her to look up at Chuck through her eyelashes
"What? Baby no, you-"
"Sh, my turn." She emphasized with a tender finger to his lips, moving to straddle him on the narrow mattress. Sucking in a deep breath, she locked her eyes with his. "This is not your fault. Even if I had slept more that night, there is no way I would have been able to catch them before they made their move. We would still have had to run. Okay?"
"Sarah, I know you want me feel better about this, but you were distracted."
"I was distracted thinking about my adorable baby boy and my adorkable husband, is that a bad thing?" She asked coyly and smoothed his t-shirt.
Chuck closed his eyes for a second, trying to collect himself before replying. "No, I'm really, really happy that you enjoy thinking about me, which seems like a weird thing to say, but it's true and I am. I just, I don't know, wish we didn't add to the danger around you."
She stifled her laughter in his neck and snuggled into him. "We both know that I am safer with you two than with anyone else, even the secret service. Besides, there is always risk. Remember how many people die in car accidents?"
Chuck rolled his eyes, "As Casey would say, 'priuses kill more people than guns.' Doesn't make me feel any better."
"Hmm, how about this. If you hadn't taken such good care of Stephen so quickly, I would have had to split my focus, and I really don't know how that would have turned out."
Chuck kissed the top of her head, "I know you're right, I just don't like it. We left all this behind, why are they coming after us? We can't even access any databases or any of the cool toys Beckman would loan us."
"Mmm, don't know, don't care. Warm pillow makes me sleepy."
"Singing momma makes me sleepy."
"Go to sleep, nerd." She grinned as she drifted off to dreamland.
One day, four hours.
~\~|~/~
"Aannd hereee comes the airplane bzzzerrr. Tasty airplane, right? You wouldn't think so, but airplanes are tricky that way. What another one? Ooh, whatcha lookin' at, is that Mommy? Do you want Mommy to fly the airplane?"
"Maybe Stephen just knows that you are being a baby hog and it's my turn." Sarah admonished as she knelt down next to Chuck.
"Of course he does," Chuck agreed as he handed Sarah the spoon he had been flying around Stephen's head. "That's because he's super smart and has the same telepathic mind-reading capabilities that Mommy has in her -"
Sarah paused, looking at him and waiting for him to finish.
"- gorgeous, brilliant, head." He stopped trying to look as innocent as possible.
Sarah's shoulders shook with laughter and she and Chuck buzzed together, delighting little Stephen. Two airplane noises was just so exciting that he simply had to eat the applesauce.
Sarah sobered, "So, how was he while, you know."
Chuck dipped his head, "For the past month? Great, for the most part. Cranky if any of the usual suspects were bothering him, but awesome otherwise. Definitely missed you, I had to use the calming pills and the spray a few times when I couldn't risk him crying."
She nodded in understanding. "Yeah, he doesn't like those at all. Did you have to pair them with food?"
"Yup." Chuck nodded, "I know he hates the pills, but I still think I hate them more. He's just being a baby – which is fine, because he is a baby – and we drug him and he gets super still. I hate it, I like it when he is moving."
For a moment, Sarah moved her gaze to Chuck's face. He was doing that scrunched-up pained expression that had become far too familiar in their first few years, but barely made an appearance these days.
"Oh honey." She smiled and rubbed his shoulder, "You are taking good care of him. I know you don't use those things any more than you have to, and I'm glad. Try to not think about it the rest of the time. It does seem wrong to spray your baby's mouth with a sleeping agent, but that's better than what would have happened otherwise. So thank you, even though I hate it too."
Chuck smiled tightly and they both dropped the subject and let the room sit is silence, with the exception of buzzing airplanes and a giggling baby.
Chuck was the first to break the peaceful relative silence. "So, once mister airplane-munching baby godzilla is done eating, what's the plan?"
"Are we ever really done eating?"
"Okay, now you're stealing my lines."
"Whacha gonna do about it, mister?"
"BA, DA BA"
"That's right Sarah, ba da ba, watch out for it. It will come when you least expect it."
Stephen reached forward and placed a hand on Sarah's knee, "Ba da da,"
She looked into his eyes and repeated, "Ba da-da"
Stephen rocked back and giggled through his grin.
Sarah turned to Chuck, "Now who needs to watch out?
"Oh no, that was a friendly warning, he almost feels bad because you don't stand a chance."
"Really, Chu-ck? No chance?" She inquired slowly, biting her lip and batting her eyelashes at him.
Chuck turned to Stephen, "Welp, you're on your own bud, she pulled out the puppy-dog look, I'm a goner. Run while you can!" He proclaimed and fell forward, clutching his chest in as if in pain.
Stephen didn't like that at all, so Chuck let Stephen wrap his tiny fingers around Chuck's thumb and shake his hand. Chuck's hand seemed to keep Stephen satisfied, so Sarah decided to finally address Chuck's question.
"We bring in Casey and Gertrude, let them know what's going on. Hopefully, Ellie and Devon are in a secure location still, but knowing them they insisted on staying in whatever Casey has as a command center. Alex and Morgan are always involved, so maybe reach out to him on one of your forum thingies and see how they are doing. I did manage to check in with Casey for a short time, and they couldn't figure out who was coming after us. But it did seem as if we were the focus, they didn't initially attack anyone else and everyone else got to safety."
Chuck sucked a deep breath and held it for a few moments before releasing it. "You know, I never would have expected that I would consider a picnic on the floor of a safe house a good day, but it is. I'm with my wife and son, my family is safe – wait, you didn't mention my Mom. What about her?"
Sarah's eyes sparkled, "Casey wasn't quite sure. She keeps showing up and checking on everyone – Clara in particular – but she left after we were attacked. Casey has heard rumors of foreign intelligence operations suddenly going offline and agents disappearing, but he doesn't know if she was actually in those locations. I don't think he wants to either. Wherever she is, she is trying to help us, so I'm willing to accept it."
Chuck sat up, "She still reminds me of you sometimes, especially when she gets protective."
"Like training, like minds, and we both love the same nerd."
Chuck hummed, "I love it when you get all protectory, I have to admit that I did miss seeing that when we retired from contracting for the intelligence community. Although, I wasn't sure how thrilling it would be to see it when Stephen starts going to school."
"Hey," Sarah furrowed her brow, "if anyone tries to bully him and his adorable brown hair I will make sure they regret."
"Regret what?" Chuck asked, mildly confused.
"Everything."
Chuck snorted, "Oh I know, but maybe we should teach him to stand up for himself. Besides, hopefully there isn't much bullying in kindergarten, teachers should be keeping a pretty close eye on them at that age. But I've distracted us from the problem at hand: who is behind the attacks?"
"We really can't tell, and for the moment we need to lay low, force them to make the next move. The didn't track us to here, so we are safe as long as we don't make a mistake and give ourselves away."
"So, I can poach the neighbor's internet for a while?"
"You'll reimburse them if it costs more, right?"
"Um, I checked, it won't cost them anything, but yeah, I could have them win a random cash prize."
She smiled, her cheeks still hurting from the constant exercise. "He's done eating and needs to be changed, so-"
"I'll get it." Chuck interrupted, "What? You did it last time."
~\~|~/~
Once again, Chuck was tired. Exhausted really, but he didn't understand how a day of prepping and wiring the safe house for an extended stay could be so draining. He and Sarah had tag-teamed Stephen and the prep. He would wire something while she watched Stephen and she would do a barricade thingy while he watched Stephen. He knew she had chosen this house because it was easier to secure, but it still required a bit of prep. At least three of the rooms were completely locked off because of sight lines, and a fourth? Well he wasn't sure about that one, she wasn't done yet. He wished they had updated the safe houses after deciding to have children, but they were out of the life. His webcrawlers were always watching their backs, but a good place to hideout was irreplaceable. A good hideout with a playpen would have been visionary. Placing the tripwires was especially difficult when the nodes kept crawling away, and he still hadn't found that one broadband EM signal sensor. Although, the data was coming in to the main dock and if he couldn't find the sensor, he doubted the baddies could either. Of course Sarah Bartowski's spy baby could out-hide him, it was only natural.
"Chuck, will you help me move this dresser?" Sarah called from the next room over.
"Anytime baby." Chuck replied playfully as he walked into the room.
Sarah stopped, raising her eyebrow at him. "Did you just use the F-14's tagline on me?"
Chuck gulped, found his tongue, and spoke quickly. "Uh, yes. Yes I did. It seemed appropriate, one super duper hot cat to another, yanno. What?"
"Your face." She said, rolling a shoulder playfully. "I don't mind when you tease me, I liked it. And that was way deeper than I though you meant it."
Chuck smiled, wondering why he worried that she wouldn't like his teasing. Maybe he just worried too much, and being away from her had unsettled him.
"Anyway, I need to move this dresser over to that wall so we have space for two cribs in here."
Chuck had been nodding along, listening while admiring the way she thought, so it took him a second to catch her words. "T – two cribs? Sarah, why would we need two cribs?"
Sarah paused, and a shy smile spread across her face. She stepped in close to Chuck, facing him as she brushed her hands along his arms and glanced up at him through her eyelashes.
"I don't know that we do. But we might, and this time, the safe house will be prepared."
Chuck still found his tongue was a bit lost, "We, really, maybe. How? Never mind, dumb question. I'm gonna stop talking. Now. This instant."
Sarah hushed him with a finger resting on his lips. "Yes, just a maybe. I haven't found a way to get a test yet. But soon, I'll know."
"Oh wow. We have the worst timing."
"Nah, our timing is perfect. This will give us plenty of time to solve this mystery before the baby would come." Sarah paused, narrowing her eyes with suspicion. "Speaking of babies, where did Stephen crawl off to?"
Chuck chuckled, "Probably hiding more of my nerdy stuff. I still haven't found that sensor unit."
Sarah laughed. With a kid this sneaky they would certainly never be bored. Hopefully they could meet up with Devon and Ellie soon, and hopefully they could return to normal life soon. But even if they could not and had to stay hidden for a while, they had each other.
Charah, as Casey liked to call it.
They would be just fine.
Two days, five hours.
Today's shout-out is for the brilliant word-player SalishSea, an author with whom I share a love for the Pacific Northwest, and the Salish Sea in particular. No matter where I go, part of me is always there. Spotting whales from an island, riding a green-and-white ferry, and watching beautiful sunsets or magnificent storms, the Salish Sea is always home.
Review if you'd like, it's always appreciated.