Ellie Versus the Dive

By Steampunk . Chuckster

Summary: A one-shot in the world of my ongoing fic Chuck Versus the Dive. This is the one glimpse of Sarah's point of view that you're going to get to see thanks to someone asking me for it. Ellie calls Chuck's hotel suite while he's out and Sarah answers it.

A/N: Listen, I don't know. Just read it. Hahahahaha! Please stay safe. Wash your hands, don't touch your face, and stay inside if you can. We're all in this together.

Disclaimer: I don't own CHUCK or these characters. I don't even own all the ingredients necessary for a mimosa. So.

It was too much to hope for that Chuck might've missed the loud rumbling in her stomach, considering his ear was literally pressed against it as they lie draped over his bed, the day only just getting started.

Granted, they'd started their day about an hour ago when she'd woken up with his lips dotting a pattern along the back of her neck and down to her shoulder. Things had progressed from there, and now here they were, an hour later, very spent…and yet energized all at once.

"Sorry," she muttered, wincing, blushing bright red at the way he giggled. He nuzzled her bare stomach and pushed himself up onto his elbow, his gaze lazily drifting up her body to meet her eyes.

A thrill went through her at the slow, lazy smile on his face.

"I'm not. Gives me a reason to actually get up and get food because I'm starving. I just didn't want to interrupt this moment."

"My hunger interrupted it for you," she giggled, feeling a little more modest now that they were finished and the peaceful silence that fell over them having officially ended. She reached down to pick up the sheets and pulled them up and over both of them.

Her giggle turned into a squeal as he let out a "Hey!" upon finding himself covered up, and he lunged for her, wrapping his arms around her midsection and attacking her torso with stubbled kisses.

"Stop it!" she tried, squirming.

He threw the sheet off of his head and popped up with his face hovering above hers. His grin swept her up and she didn't think it would ever let her down again. "Why don't I go foraging for some breakfast to bring back here? There's that coffee place a few blocks down."

"Are you talking about Honu?" she asked, stretching her arms over her head and yawning happily.

"I…think so."

"They have really good breakfast but…" She checked the time. "At this late breakfast hour, you'll be in line for, like, thirty minutes or more."

"I would absolutely do that for you."

The immediacy of his response and the sincerity in the way he said it made her want to say screw it to breakfast and bury herself in him again. But then her stomach rumbled as if it heard her thoughts and wanted to make sure she was aware of her priorities.

She groaned in frustration.

"Okay, message received. Loud and clear." He gave her a wide-eyed, teasing look.

Laughing, she watched him as he climbed out of his bed and snatched his boxers out of the suitcase in the corner, stepping into them. "Can I use your shower while you're gone?"

"Yes. But only if you order the fixings for mimosas to be delivered up here in the meantime."

She sat up, trying to subtly run her fingers through her hair, knowing inherently that her hair was an utter mess after all of that sleeping and then there was all of the vigorous not-sleeping. And sure, he didn't seem like the type of guy who'd care, but that didn't stop her from being a little self-conscious. "You're on."

Chuck quickly dressed and stepped into his flip-flops, spending a good two minutes trying to find where he'd left his wallet and phone the night before. (They were in the pants he'd been wearing when she dragged him to bed the night before.)

But then he'd paused at the door to the bedroom and spun around to face her again. And without even blinking an eye, he trotted back to her and leaned in to kiss her. "See you soon," he drawled, a crooked smile on his face, before he strolled out of the bedroom and suite altogether.

Maybe she was just being silly, but that had felt…

She squirmed a bit, nibbling on her lip, and then she quickly ordered the champagne and orange juice before she climbed out of the bed and went over to the small bag where she'd stored a clean change of clothes, knowing when she arrived the day before that she wouldn't be leaving again for a good chunk of time.

It probably hadn't even occurred to him. But rushing back to kiss her before leaving again was sort of domestic in a way they really hadn't been all this time. …And after only a few weeks, this flurry of a romance that was happening between them, the intensity of it. Without realizing, he'd just pulled a Leave it to Beaver type move, running back to kiss his June before heading out for the day. Now all she needed to do was iron all of his shirts.

She snorted at that thought. She was sure Chuck was more than capable of ironing. And it wasn't like she was annoyed with him or anything. It was a cute gesture. It just felt like…a lot…for this short amount of time they'd been seeing each other.

Sarah felt ridiculous, getting so caught up on something he most likely hadn't even thought about. He'd come back to kiss her because he'd wanted to. Obviously.

But her brain was betraying her.

Even then, as she checked the temperature of the water before stepping inside the shower, Sarah wasn't as uncomfortable as she would've been had some other guy she'd slept with done that. And that was almost scarier. Like this intense, warm, incredible relationship they'd had meant more to her than she'd realized. Like his presence in her life had become…normalized?

She took a short shower, drying off quickly, and then she'd shrugged on one of his robes and wandered out to the bed where she'd kept her change of clothes.

But she jumped then, her hand going for her thigh, as the room phone next to his bed rang. Her hand stilled again when she realized nothing was even there except for white terrycloth. And she took a deep, calming breath. Why in the hell did they make these phones so loud and shrill? Jesus, it was enough to wake the dead.

She pulled her underwear on under the robe, meaning to just let it ring, when a thought occurred to her.

She'd just ordered mimosas. They probably had to clarify something, or perhaps they'd run out of orange juice or champagne or something.

Rushing to the phone, she yanked it up from the cradle and held it to her face. "Hello?"

"H…Hi," a woman's voice said, haltingly. "Do…I have the wrong room somehow?"

Sarah stood a bit straighter. "Um. I…don't know. Do you?"

"I was trying to—Is this Chuck Bartowski's room? I know you aren't Chuck Bartowski."

Maybe a few weeks earlier, Sarah might've jumped to a different conclusion, a much more accusatory conclusion. That this woman was his wife or fiancée or girlfriend. But she didn't jump to that conclusion now. And it didn't even occur to her how much she'd grown to trust him more than she'd ever trusted anyone else in her life, in just two and a half weeks. He wouldn't lie to her about a significant other. And that meant the only other option was…

"Is this…his sister? Are you Ellie?"

There was a long pause, and then…

"Oh! Sarah! Oh wow!"

Sarah cracked up, even as she held the phone away from her ear a bit. "Yeah, that's me. So he has told you about me, huh?"

"You have no idea. Oh, shit. I shouldn't have said that. Pretend you never heard it."

Stifling her giggle, she affected utmost seriousness and asked, "Heard what?"

"Wow. Okay. I already like you." And then Chuck's sister cleared her throat, even as Sarah felt nerves and warmth spill through her in equal measure. She really hadn't expected to be talking to Ellie Bartowski today, or really at all, but she especially hadn't expected her to be on the other line when she answered this phone. "Sorry, this is probably awkward kind of." She cleared her throat again. "I tried to call his cell phone but it went straight to voicemail. Not that I'm a worrywart or anything. His assistant called me about something important with his company because I guess Chuck's phone is off, and I thought I'd just call him here and relay the message."

"Oh." She frowned. "Is it something serious? Do I need to go find him and make him turn his phone on?"

"No, no. Nothing serious. I'll call him tonight or something. What time is it th—Oh, it's only eight or so there, right? In the morning?"

Ellie was tactful enough not to say anything more but Sarah understood the implications loud and clear. Yes, she had slept over in Chuck's hotel room. Ellie was right, this was very awkward.

"Um, yep. Eight-thirty. I think we're three hours behind you."

"Right. That's right. Well, this is good. I'm glad I caught you. I hope you don't mind. I mean, talking to me. It's just that Chuck's told me all sorts of things and now actually talking to you instead of just hearing about you feels like a big deal." She paused then. "I mean, not that big of a deal. I'm not being intense at all," she drawled sarcastically, a self-deprecating tone to her voice.

Sarah giggled, squirming in discomfort.

That definitely ran in their family. The blunt candidness and self-deprecating humor.

"Um, it's okay," Sarah said haltingly. "He's…told you 'all sorts of things', huh?"

There was an awkward pause. "Not all sorts of things. No." It made her laugh, the quietude in Ellie's voice, the realization that she'd said way too much. "God, my brother is going to murder me when he gets home."

"Noooo, he isn't. If he didn't murder you over forcing him onto my boat to scuba dive, he isn't gonna murder you for this."

Ellie snorted. "Touché, Sarah. Although, I'm pretty sure the only reason I'm not in trouble for the whole scuba thing is that he met you on that boat. Thanks to you apparently being super great, I'm probably going to get him to do my chores for, like, a month after he gets back, he's gonna be so grateful." There were about five seconds of silence, and then Ellie rushed, "I'm joking. He doesn't live with me anymore. He has his own place. And we don't share chores anymore. We're both adults now. He's a full-grown adult. God, I'm really digging myself into a giant, gaping hole."

Sarah cracked up and shook her head. "No, you aren't! It's okay! I'm not going to get you in trouble, I promise."

"Okay, good. Thank you. Listen, before I let you go and spare you from this embarrassing conversation, just know he is just as great as he seems. You're probably getting Vacation Chuck. Which…come to think of it, I don't know that I've ever met Grown-Up Version of Vacation Chuck. But I'm sure he's great. Non-Vacation Chuck is just as great, though. Even when he's here at home being a workaholic, he still finds time to bring me groceries when my boyfriend and I have twenty-four hour shifts at the hospital. So…know that. I don't know if any of that made sense. Oh my God."

"It did. It absolutely did," she laughed. "Thank you for the tip. Your brother is, um, a really, really good guy. And I know you had a huge hand in that. So…thanks. I guess."

"Awww. That's sweet. Anyway! I'm going to let you escape this situation." Sarah laughed. "There are a million things I want to tell you about him but that'd be a really bad idea so I won't! I'll just say it was really lovely to chat with you, as awkward as I ended up making it."

"It was so nice talking with you too." And Sarah kept talking, not even realizing what was coming out of her mouth until it was too late. "And we can pretend this conversation never happened, for Chuck's sake, when we meet in person."

Before she could walk that back, shock rattling through her system, she heard the door to Chuck's suite open, and just as quickly as she heard it slam shut again, he was at the door to the bedroom, a beaming smile on his face.

"Um! Yes, pulp in the orange juice would be great! Thank you, front desk!"

She heard Ellie burst into laughter even as she hung up the phone, inwardly wincing. Hopefully Ellie had as good of a sense of humor as her brother and wasn't pissed she'd hung up on her. The laughter seemed to indicate she understood why Sarah had talked to her about fucking pulp before hanging up on her.

"Hi."

She cleared her throat and ran her hand down the robe nervously, trying to brush off what she'd done as best she could. "Hey. What'd you bring me?"

"Fried egg, ham, and cheese on a croissant. Got myself the same thing. And coffee!" He held up the hand that wasn't holding the bag of food, a compostable tray with two coffee cups clutched in his fingers. "Who was that?"

"Front desk. Just…asking about what kind of orange juice we want in the…Wow, that food smells so good," she rushed out, going to him and taking the bag. "I'm hungry. Mind if I don't wait for the mimosas?"

"No, of course I don't mind." He chuckled narrowing his eyes at her dubiously. "You okay?"

"Yeah. I get a little loopy when I'm hungry enough."

"Good to know."

It was quiet then for a few minutes as they sat to eat, and Sarah thought about her parting words to Chuck's sister, the woman who had practically raised him.

…when we meet in person.

She'd just inadvertently extended this relationship past the moment Chuck climbed onto a plane and left Kauai perhaps forever. And she'd done it into the phone with his sister, oh God. She would probably tell him. And it would either terrify him or put them both in an awkward spot of having to have that discussion that neither of them seemed to want to have.

Sarah didn't want to have that hanging over their heads these last few days they'd be together…that question of whether or not this would continue when he left. Or if it would end.

Perhaps she'd unconsciously just tossed what she had in her heart at Ellie Bartowski. The fact that she wanted this to continue, that she didn't want it to end. At least not yet. And yeah, she did want to meet his sister. All of his people. He'd met hers after all.

She stared down at her sandwich as she chewed, embroiled in her thoughts, wanting to cling to the best parts of that conversation, the warmth in Ellie's voice, her genuine happiness at getting to talk to the woman her brother was seeing while he was on vacation…

Her genuine smile came back full-fledged, even as her heart throbbed. When we meet in person.

Maybe.

Maybe they would. Maybe she'd get more time with this man. But she'd deal with that later.

A/N: Please review! Thanks for reading! And if you read this and had no idea what was going on, definitely pop on over to my fic Chuck Versus the Dive and read it. It'll clear some things up for ya. Look out for your elderly neighbors, friends. Love ya.

-SC