A/N1 More story. We finally move past Tuesday!

Don't own Chuck.

Chutes and Ladders

CHAPTER TWELVE

Three-Legged Race

Still Later, Tuesday, March 28

Chuck was not sure how he made it back to the office. He did not remember driving there. He only remembered her. Sarah. Soft above him. Soft and demanding.

He had said goodbye to Sarah and she to him, both using their lips but not their words, not until the end, when she looked at him, her gaze soft but somehow pointed. "Thank you, Chuck. For listening. For tonight." She dropped her voice to a whisper, "For the couch."

He kissed her and she put her hand, warm and soft, around the back of his neck and caressed it with her thumb. Chuck knew why cats purr - even if he could not do it himself. She smiled a small, gentle smile. "Soon. Talk to you soon, Chuck Bartowski."

So much he wanted to say - but he could feel himself starting to spiral. Better to let the kisses be his words. He kissed her once more. "Yes, soon. Very soon."

At the office, he shut down the engine of the Vic and scanned the parking lot. Perry did not seem to be there, or any others of his ilk. No dark SUVs. He sat for a second in the quiet. It had been a remarkable Tuesday. He started the day believing he was Sarah Walker's client. He ended it in her arms, her client no more. What he was had not yet been clarified, but it included being someone she...investigated...on her couch - and that was good enough for now. Her taste, a spiced liqueur, oranges and cinnamon, was still on his lips. He started humming to himself. Hall and Oates, Private Eyes.

Chuck got out of the Vic and closed the door. He heard another door shut just after his. He looked around and saw Morgan. He was standing next to the pancake-batter beige AMC Matador his grandmother had left him when she died. It was the only car Chuck knew that seemed sillier than his own. The thing also seemed to be made entirely of sheet metal, a poor man's - a very poor man's - Delorean.

Morgan waved and jogged over. "Hey, Chuck, man, didn't think you'd ever get here! Where have you been? You left the course like you had somewhere to go."

"I did, Morg."

Morgan looked at Chuck expectantly, waiting for details. But the evening had been too much, meant too much, for Chuck to share it just then. He would tell Morgan about it, a little about it, soon; for now, though, he wanted to hug the evening to him, keep it to himself. "Where's Alex?"

Morgan screwed up his face. "She's got a big day tomorrow. Her first day serving breakfast in her regular spot. Breakfast burritos! She has to be up at the same time as the Dunkin Donuts guys, so I told her to go home and get some sleep. If I had gone with her, well, dude, sleep would not have been her first priority…"

Coming from another guy, that would have been a brag, but from Morgan, Chuck knew, it was simply the truth, a confession. Chuck had also seen the frustration on Alex's face after Casey interrupted them. It was obvious she had expected the evening to take a different course, and not a golf course. Chuck smiled to himself as Morgan's putt-putt slogan came to mind.

"So, I will see her tomorrow. We are going to go out to dinner. Would you like to come, Chuck?"

"Thanks, Morg. But I don't want to crowd you two." But then he thought of Sarah. She still hadn't met Morgan or Alex - really, she hadn't met anyone except Ellie. "Well, wait, can I bring someone?"

"Not the Jill-bot…"

Chuck shook his head. "No, it's...um...someone new."

Morgan's face split in a pleased smile. "Chuck, my man, my man...now I get it! You did have somewhere to go… Holding out, huh? So, tell me, tell me?" He looked like a kid on Christmas morning.

Chuck started toward the office. "Okay, Morg. But hang on. Let's go inside."

As they walked in, they noticed a light on in the rear of the cafe. Morgan aimed a shoulder that way. "Billy must still be cleaning up. You think he'd give me a grape soda?"

"You can ask. Probably. If you want one, just knock on the window; he'll hear. He sometimes gives me coffee at night. I'm going inside. I just have something I need to check on."

They parted company. Chuck unlocked his office door as he heard Morgan's glass thunk-knock on the cafe window. Inside, Chuck took off his sports coat and retrieved his shoulder holster. Perry had not turned out to be as scary as Jessup had made him seem, at least not in comparison to Sarah, but Chuck felt like it might be a good idea to have his sidearm with him. He put his coat back on and went around to his computer.

The search was finally complete. Something had turned up. He clicked on the photograph. It was a picture of Virginia Monroe. The photograph was from a site buried deep on the dark web; it should not have existed at all. It was a photograph from a CIA file. Virginia Monroe was CIA.

Chuck sank absently down into his desk chair, trying to take that in. Playing a hunch, Chuck keyed in Perry's name, targeting the same source as the photograph of Virginia. Nothing came back. If Perry was CIA, the site had no access to anything about him.

Chuck spent a few minutes doing his best to make sure his footprints were untrackable online. Then he printed a copy of the Virginia Monroe photograph. He needed to talk to Sarah but he would wait until tomorrow.

Morgan came in carrying a to-go cup bigger than his head. "Morg, you know that much grape soda is a bad idea…"

Morgan nodded but continued to suck the purple liquid through the straw. Chuck folded up the photograph he printed and put it in his jacket.

"Want to walk a bit?" Chuck had not been drinking a lake of grape soda but he did not feel like going to bed. Morgan continued to slurp but nodded again.

Chuck shut off his computer and Morgan led them out of the office. Chuck locked the door and they started down the sidewalk of the strip mall, past the cafe.

Morgan finally came up for air. "Wow! I needed that. Running from Casey today, I saw my life flash before my eyes, and there was not enough grape soda in it."

"You worry me, Morg, you really do. But here, give me a sip." Morgan handed the huge cup to Chuck. He took a swig. It tasted like viscous grape cologne - with bubbles. Chuck pulled back from the straw in disgust. "Oh, Morg! 'By the living Gawd that made you/You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!'"

Morgan gave Chuck a puzzled glance and then shrugged. He took the cup back. "So, who is she, Chuck?"

Chuck smiled involuntarily, and Morgan noticed. He smiled at Chuck again.

"Her name is Sarah, Sarah Walker. She's a kindergarten teacher."

"Really? A schoolmarm, like in the Westerns? Little glasses and a high collar?"

"Jesus, Morg, this isn't a Zane Grey novel. No, no little glasses, no high collar. A schoolmarm, I guess, if by that you just mean teacher. But not if you mean unattractive or plain. She's so beautiful I almost can't look at her directly, like the sun."

"Wow! She sounds great. Has this been going on long?"

Chuck stopped walking. "Hard to answer that. We went out on a blind date. Ellie set us up. I thought she wasn't interested. Anyway, she hired me while we were on the...date. I wasn't even sure it still counted as a date, but then we started...um...collaborating on the case, and the collaborating turned out to be more dating. At least, I think so."

"How can you be dating someone and not know it, Chuck?"

"Are you really asking me that, Taco Bell?"

Morgan grimaced, then grinned. "Oh, yeah, right. Pot. Kettle. Black. Got it. But hey, you can't tease me about performance anxiety anymore, man. I got that whipped…"

"From your mouth to God's ear, Morg."

"Huh?"

Wednesday Evening, March 29

Sarah said yes to dinner. Chuck let Morgan and Alex choose the place. They chose Castle Burgers. Alex had not been and Morgan was eager for her to see it. Chuck picked Sarah up. She kissed him right after opening the door. She was dressed casually, as was Chuck. Castle Burgers, after all.

He got in the car, surprised to find her all the way in the middle of the front seat. He sat down and she scooted over even closer. After he started the car, Sarah grabbed his arm and put it around her shoulders. "I like these bench seats," she whispered into his ear, "very couch-like." She giggled as he blushed. As he drove, she turned a bit in the seat, cuddling into him, her head resting on his shoulder.

Although he did not want to, he fished the photograph of Virginia Monroe from his pocket and handed it to her. She unfolded it and stared at it for a minute, straightening herself in the seat.

"Really, she's a CIA agent? I had no clue. Of course, I haven't really talked to her in person but for a minute on a crowded Meet The Teacher night. Or on the phone. At least this tells us something about her scanning the perimeter. She's been trained."

"Do you think she is really Sasha's mom?" Chuck looked at Sarah out of the corner of his eyes, trying to keep most of his attention on the road.

Sarah sighed. "I don't know. My gut says she is. Something about her conversations with me on the phone. I talk to moms a lot; she just...sounds like one, despite the fact that she has always seemed...I don't know...cool, controlled, non-committal. Spy-like, I'd now say. My gut says she is both: a spy and a mom. Although that's an odd combination. You know what they say: Spies don't fall in love."

"They say that? Who says that?" Chuck was genuinely puzzled.

Sarah shrugged. "Spies, I guess. Cons, too."

Chuck hesitated, then asked. "Your dad?"

Sarah sat quietly for a moment. "Yeah. He never used that exact phrase, but he told me again and again that no one can be trusted, that love truly is blind, that those emotions are for...suckers."

Chuck kept his eyes on the road but nodded once. Sarah cuddled back in against him, the movement itself a comment on and rebuttal to her dad's lessons. Chuck pulled her closer and she kissed his cheek.

"By the way, I tried to locate info about Perry on the site that coughed up Virginia's photo; there was nothing there."

Sarah pondered that for a minute. "I can't say I am shocked. Our friend Perry is a player in all of this, but I started to wonder last night, after you left, if he was really playing for the Company."

"You mean you didn't go right to sleep after I left?" Chuck was fighting a grin.

"No, as a matter of fact, I couldn't sleep. My bed...felt empty." She glanced down at her hands.

"Yeah," Chuck offered, "my bed didn't feel like where I was supposed to be."

Sarah looked out the passenger-side window for a second before turning back to Chuck. "Do you think our bed problems were related?"

Chuck took advantage of having stopped for at a light to lean in and kiss her cheek, her ear. "The sort of problem a...couple...of suckers might have?"

Sarah's smile lit the interior of the Vic. "A couple...of suckers…" she repeated, her voice thick. "That's us?"

Chuck dared to do it. He nodded and said yes.

With no hesitation, she snuggled in even closer "That's us, a couple. A couple of suckers." She reached up and pulled his arm tighter around her shoulders.

And then she added, returning to the previous subject. "We do need to work out what game Perry is playing. I'm beginning to worry about Sasha and her family, more than before."

ooOoo

As they walked toward the restaurant door, Sarah gave a short laugh. "Oh, the place with the burgers - from our stakeout. They were good."

"Well, prepare yourself for an...eccentric burger environment."

She raised her eyebrows but made no comment. Chuck opened the door for them, the bell above it ringing. They went inside. Morgan and Alex waved to them from a corner booth. Xena walked up, menus in hand.

"Hey, Chuck!"

Chuck tried to make eye contact, and, as usual, failed to be able to hold it for more than a split second. "Hey, Xena! We're here to join Morgan."

Xena looked Sarah over. Sarah was trying not to stare at Xena's leather apron. "Well, the end times are upon us. Morgan has a date he didn't inflate, and Chuck has a date that ain't a pill."

Sarah's head turned sharply to Chuck, but he gave her a quick, Later look.

Xena raised her black, penciled brows. "I have to say, Chuck, it's about damn time…"

Chuck didn't understand. "What do you mean, Xena?"

"It's about time you started dating someone who deserves you, you lanky clown…"

ooOoo

Sarah wondered about Chuck's wince at 'clown'. The large waitress in the leather apron had a thing for Chuck - and Chuck had no idea. But Sarah did. She reached out and took Chuck's hand.

"Thanks," Sarah responded, "I think I am the lucky one."

"Me too," Xena agreed, but so far under her breath that Sarah barely heard it. Xena then looked directly at Sarah. "You are both lucky."

The undertone of kind sadness in Xena's tone snuffed Sarah's flare of jealousy; Xena had a thing for Chuck but Xena knew it was not going anywhere. Sarah sympathized. She had an idea of how bad it would be to know and like Chuck and see no future in it. Thankfully, she did see a future in it - but she felt for Xena.

Xena led them to the corner booth. Morgan and Alex spilled out of the booth, ready to meet Sarah.

Normally, Sarah struggled with meeting new people unless their roles were already established. She was fine meeting parents on Meet The Teacher night, for instance, when she was teacher and they were students' parents. But genuine, personal encounters, not structured by roles, those made her anxious. Her father's training got in her way, made her distanced, appraising, slightly awkward.

Somehow, though, knowing that she was with Chuck (and I really am!) and knowing that she was meeting people he cared for, helped keep her anxiety at bay, made Morgan and Alex seem more like friends she had yet to meet than strangers.

"Sarah, this is Morgan, and this is his..."

"Girlfriend. Alex." Alex added, grinning at Chuck's stumble. "Hi, Sarah! Morgan and I are really happy, happy to meet you."

"I'm happy to meet you too." And she was. Morgan was small, bearded, with a mobile, expressive face. Alex had long wavy brown hair. She was small too - but lovely. Sarah liked them both on the spot.

"Hey, Alex," Chuck said as they all slid back into the booth, "red to brown?" Sarah wondered what that was about, then she saw Alex grab a lock of her own hair and look at it.

"Oh, yeah, I washed it out. Dad'll be happy about that," she smirked.

"Alex's dad is John Casey, the police detective."

Sarah nodded. "I haven't met him yet."

The other three shared a look. Then Morgan spoke up. "Probably better not to let him know you know me…"

"Really? Why?"

"Long story. Maybe we will tell it later. It ends with a calliope and Enter the Gladiators."

Alex giggled.

Morgan looked down. "Jeez, I so wish Rhonda had not known the name of that song."

Sarah was lost. "Rhonda? Calliope?"

Alex went ahead and explained, telling Sarah who Rhonda was and describing the golf course chase from the night before. Sarah laughed so hard she thought she would make her stomach hurt.

Xena came back and they ordered. Morgan watched her walk away for a moment, lost in thought, then turned back to the table. "So, yeah, now Alex won't stop calling me Maximus."

Alex gave Morgan a sultry smile. "Hey, if the name fits…or you can make it fit..." Morgan blushed. In an attempt to shift attention, he turned to Sarah. "Say, Alex named a taco after Chuck - did he ever tell you that?"

Sarah shook her head. Chuck started to jump in but Morgan was out with it before Chuck could stop him. "It's called the Tall, Dick and Curly."

Sarah felt herself blush even as she laughed. Chuck looked away, but right into the oncoming Xena. He tried to look away from her too and ended up looking vaguely at the ceiling.

Alex elbowed Morgan. "Don't give Sarah the wrong idea. That was just a joke, You know, Sarah - Tom, Dick, and Harry, but Chuck's tall, a PI and has that mop of hair."

Sarah looked at Chuck, still gazing at the ceiling tiles, and she fought back an urge to touch those curls, touch them as she had done last night on her couch, as part of her investigation. "No, I get it Alex. I have to say, I am really curious to taste it...taste one, I mean." Sarah's blush deepened. Silence. Then Morgan and Alex were rolling - and Chuck's face looked like a cherry lollipop atop a stick. Bad image, Sarah.

She tried to save herself: "That came out wrong." More laughter. "So did that." Still more laughter. Sarah sighed. "I can't seem to get my mouth to work right. - Oh, shit." An explosion of laughter, even Chuck was now doubled-over. Sarah let her embarrassment go and joined in.

Xena put their food and drinks down as they all tried to collect themselves. The momentary silence was interrupted by the doorbell. Sarah looked toward the door to see a couple enter. She felt an immediate chill fall over the table. Xena turned to look. "Oh, goody. My favorite cardboard couple." She headed in their direction.

"Caviar Larkin and the Jill-bot," Morgan groused, low.

Sarah shook her head. "Did you say 'Javier'?" He doesn't look like a Javier.

Morgan and Alex burst into laughter again. But Chuck looked pale, especially in contrast to the deep blushing laughter of just moments before. Then it struck Sarah. Jill-bot. Jill. Ellie's brief description. The former girlfriend. A new flare of jealousy went up.

The couple spotted them and, making a bit of a production of it, joined hands as the headed in their direction, past Xena.

"Shit." Morgan.

"Bitch." Alex.

"Sarah, I - " Chuck.

Jill gave the table a large, perfunctory smile. "Well, well, the gang's all here." She turned a smirk on Chuck. "Just can't stay away, huh?" Sarah noticed that Jill kept glancing at her. Chuck looked decidedly uncomfortable. Sarah had a troubling thought: is he not over her? She felt a pain in her chest.

The man with Jill extended his hand to Sarah, giving her an LA smile, all dental white and meaningless. "Hi, I'm Bryce. Bryce Larkin." Sarah felt his gaze travel over her, serpentine. Gross. The town was full of men like him. His LA smile became even more dental white and less meaningless. He looked...interested.

ooOoo

Chuck was trying to kick himself under the table. Jill. Bryce. Shit. He had told Jill the other night that he and Sarah were dating. But that hadn't been true then. Or it had, but he didn't know it. Or…. Shit. At the very least, I am going to be humiliated.

But in the midst of that fear, he realized something else. Jill was at the table - but he belonged to Sarah.

Bryce was introducing himself, turning on the charm. Turning it on...Sarah.

And then Chuck saw it for the second time. The icing over. Sarah gave Bryce a look so cool that Bryce shriveled up in it. Shrank. She reduced him to actual size, the reverse of a side-view mirror. Bryce was fumbling for something to say.

"So, you must be Sarah?" Jill. Shit, here it comes. "Chuck told me he was dating a Sarah. Unless you are someone else?" Jill's artificial sweetness attempted to disguise the jab.

Sarah stayed iced over. Chuck saw Morgan and Alex notice the change. She was not the warm, beautiful, slightly tongue-tied woman of moments before. Sarah looked at Jill. 'Stared' was not the right word, because a stare implies a kind of interest. This look was pure sentient ice. If a glacier had eyes… Jill faltered before it worse than Bryce had. She opened and closed her mouth but no sounds came out. The smirk on her face froze into a disfiguring grimace. Alex shot Morgan a significant glance. He scanned the scene and grinned back at Alex.

"Yes, I'm Sarah...and not someone else." Glacier-speak. Jagged, sub-zero.

"And you are dating Chuck here, my Chuck?" Jill sounded a little pathetic. Bryce glanced at Jill, reacting to her phrase.

"Not just dating," Sarah responded. "Dating exclusively. I'm his girlfriend." A hint of warmth and of challenge crept into the last line.

Jill stood for a moment, prepared to brazen it out...and then she wasn't. She folded. "Well, I'm...happy for you," she coughed out, unhappily. She shot a look of contempt at Morgan and Alex, then turned to Chuck. "I'll leave you with the Munchkins."

"Why is there never a good falling house around when you need one?" Alex asked, aiming her voice at Jill's retreating back.

She and Morgan started singing "We're off to see the wizard…" in tiny, shrill voices. When Jill glanced back, Morgan added, voice climbing even higher in pitch, "Follow the yellow bitch road, follow the yellow bitch road…"

Evidently, Jill and Bryce decided to eat somewhere else. The bell rang.

But Chuck did not look. He was too busy returning Sarah's kiss.

A/N2 I know, I know. I said things were going to speed up. They are. But I had forgotten that I had planned these scenes (my notes got out of order in Barcelona). Tune in next time. Chuck and Sarah start to put together the pieces of Sasha's mystery. Chuck follows Jill into the bowels of FARMA. And more. Chapter Thirteen, "Hüsker Dü".

A new chapter of MisEd will be posting in the next couple of days.

How about a review or a PM? Especially if I haven't heard from you in a while or not at all?

Z