A/N: Hello again! I almost didn't manage to update on time, because I was a bit under the weather (read: sick as a dog with a stomach bug) between early Thursday evening and the wee hours of Saturday (it's past midnight here now), which, combined with work, meant that over two thirds of this had to be written on Saturday. Anyway, among certain other things, this chapter also includes a tribute to an incarnation of Sarah invented by another writer here on FF dot Net. You'll know what I'm talking about. Before you read on, I'd like to once more express my heartfelt appreciation for all your support. It always means a lot.
Between the office and the car, Chuck had been pestering her with questions: Who did she want him to meet? Were they spies like her? Was she going to take him to a super secret facility filled with supercomputers that even Casey wasn't allowed to enter? If this was the plan, did they have an actual DU-97 unit, Freon-cooled, reconfigurable 30-teraflop architecture with modules for cryptanalysis and video processing? He gushed over the computer's features and only stopped when he noticed how hard Sarah was laughing.
"What? Why are you laughing like that?"
"I can just picture what Casey would say to you," she replied, still laughing while simultaneously trying to catch her breath.
"What?" Chuck repeated.
She changed her voice into a comical approximation of Casey's. "You're going to drool all over the unit and short-circuit it, moron."
"I don't know if I should be flattered or offended."
"Amused," she offered. "I hadn't met Casey until the other day, but I'd heard of him: Real cold school killer with the sarcastic wit to match."
"What we nerds do is not appreciated sufficiently, I'm telling you," he said.
"Oh, I appreciate you, all right," she shot back, eyeing him hungrily. She added weight to her statement by grabbing him and planting a big one on his lips. "Get in," she commanded when she forced herself to separate her lips from his.
He got in the car and buckled up. "Aren't you going to tell me where we're going?"
"Home," she replied curtly.
"Home," he echoed. "Wait, where?"
"My place," she clarified. "I'm in need of a serious plowing before anything else."
"Excuse me, a what?"
"Plowing, schtupping, drilling, fucking, screwing, banging, balling, sexing up, doing the horizontal mambo, going at it like bunnies, bumping pelvises, nookie…"
"Okay, okay," he interrupted her. "You don't need to go through the dictionary for synonyms to having sex."
"Then you're game?"
"I'm game." He loved her and he couldn't deny her. "Just what brought this on?"
"Yes!" She did a fist pump, which surprised Chuck. "To answer your question, I just have a lot of excess adrenaline to burn." It was also going to help calm her nerves about the pending meeting, the one she'd already hinted about to her boyfriend.
"Wow. Are you always like this?"
"Not really. When I get stressed or excited about something, or when I need to unwind, I usually hit the gym or the firing range. But since I have you…" She let it hang. He was sure to get the point. He most certainly did, especially after she ran a hand over the inside of his thigh and shut up while she started the car and drove to her apartment at the Maison 23.
Later, both Chuck and Sarah were completely wiped out after a few rounds of incredibly energetic and (on her part) loud sex. She pressed closer to him, as he lay staring sightlessly at the roof, a half-goofy, half-smug grin on his face.
"I think we need another shower," she said. The first round had taken place in her shower stall, where she'd dragged him claiming that she needed him to scrub her back – and do other things to her, as it turned out – after the dunking in the water of the lake Decker had given her earlier that day.
"You made damn sure of it," he replied, the index and middle fingers of his left hand tapping a pattern on the left side of her body from her hip to the middle of her ribcage and eliciting a shiver (she was slightly ticklish) and a purring hum of pleasure from her.
A knock on the door interrupted their resumption of the pleasurable exploration of each other's body. They looked at each other and Sarah giggled. "That was fast," she said. They had ordered takeout, since they expected to be too busy to cook. She grabbed her short grey silk robe and her wallet. "Stay here and don't move," she ordered her boyfriend. Skipping to the front door, she yanked it open, only instead of the delivery guy from their favorite pizza parlor, there was an older couple in the hallway outside her apartment. The man bore a clear resemblance to her boyfriend, while the woman was definitely an older version of Ellie. Sarah's face turned redder than a tomato, realizing who had just come to visit, especially considering what she and Chuck had been doing in the bedroom just a few short minutes earlier. "M-Mr. and Mrs. B-Bartowski," she stammered.
"Sorry to drop by unannounced, but we need to talk to our son," said Stephen. "By the way, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Stephen and this is my lovely wife Mary."
"I've heard wonderful things about you from both Chuck and Ellie," she said lamely.
Chuck heard voices, so he pulled his pants on and went to see what the holdup was. Naturally, he was mortified to see his parents on the other side of the door.
"Mom? Dad?" He went as red as his girlfriend.
"Oh, you're here," said Sarah. "I need to… I gotta go… I mean I have to… be right back." She dashed to the bedroom and into her closet as fast as her legs could carry her.
"Man, this is embarrassing," grumbled Chuck.
"Nonsense. You're Aces, my boy," said Stephen with a teasing glint in his eyes.
"Thanks Dad." He was still hugely embarrassed. Never before had he been caught red handed by his parents. Well, there was a first time for everything, he thought.
"And we finally got to meet your girlfriend," his mother added with a smile.
"I only wish it were under better circumstances," Sarah cut in, walking back to the others. Only, instead of the skimpy silk robe, she was now wearing her longest, thickest, most conservative bathrobe, a black velour number with a hood that went almost all the way down to her ankles, purchased on a shopping trip with Ellie a few weeks previously. She'd tied the belt as tightly as she could at her waist. "Chuck, invite your parents in."
"What? Oh, right. Mom, Dad, do come in." He stepped aside to let them in and also took their coats, which he placed on the coat rack by the door.
"Would you like some coffee?" Sarah asked, moving to the kitchenette and busying herself with the coffee maker.
"A coffee sounds lovely, my dear," said Mary.
"Not to pry, Mrs. Bartowski…"
"Call me Mary," the older woman interrupted her.
"OK, Mary, like I said, I'd hate to pry, but other than the quite obvious resemblance to your daughter you look very familiar."
"You've probably attended one of the lectures I gave at the Farm," shrugged Mary.
"Since when do you give lectures on agriculture?" Chuck asked, confused. It caused both Mary and Sarah to burst out laughing.
"Chuck," said Sarah, "the Farm is the CIA's spy school. If my still slightly scrambled memory serves, your Mom was introduced to us as Agent Frost. She's a legend in the Company."
"You are a spy, Mom?" Talk about a massive shock to the system. His Mom was a spy! So cool! Plus, it explained her frequent 'business trips' while he and Ellie were growing up. His sister had been a trooper, easily stepping in to assist their father in keeping his mischievous young self in check.
"Was," she corrected him. "Past tense. Of course, I haven't completely severed my connections to the CIA, which comes in handy once in a while, this whole affair being a case in point."
"Langston Graham was kind enough to call and give us a heads-up," added Stephen. "We now know Sarah was Delgado's target from the start and not Chuck."
Mary took the cue. "However, since you two are dating, Chuck had to face the same dangers Sarah here did."
"I'm sorry about…" began Sarah, but Mary cut her off with a dismissive wave of the hand.
"It's not your fault, dear. You had no memory of your life, so you couldn't have known. Anyway, just in case someone else comes after you, Stephen and I decided to give our son something that can help."
"OK, now I'm confused," Chuck cut in. "You guys know I quit Kung Fu in the third grade (being the little brainiac he was, he preferred computers, even at the tender young age of eight), plus I've never used an actual gun. Playing Gotcha with Bryce and the other guys in Stanford or shooting airguns at funfairs doesn't count."
"We know all about that, son," Stephen practically snorted. "And we have the solution." He turned to Sarah. "We know you've been part of the U Project, but have you heard of the Omaha Project?"
Sarah was deep in thought as she racked her brain for any mention of the Omaha Project. "No… wait, yes! I think so. I don't know what it's about exactly, but there was talk of using it to improve the U Project."
Chuck was fidgeting, wanting to ask what the hell the projects his father mentioned were all about, but held back. It all sounded pretty classified, but he knew that Stephen and Mary handled government contracts and thus had pretty high security clearances.
"Exactly," nodded Stephen. "In a nutshell, the Omaha Project was about using subliminal imaging to implant knowledge and skills to selected persons."
"You mean some sort of programming?" Chuck asked.
"Not exactly," replied Stephen. "The recipient's personality wouldn't be altered in any way unless something went wrong with the upload or the program was corrupted, but they would acquire new skills, plus general and/or mission specific knowledge on a number of subjects, such as critical intel and stuff."
"Cool," commented Chuck. "It's right out of some sci-fi movie or novel plot."
"There was a team working on the Omaha Project for the CIA and the NSA. Said team consisted of Professor Fleming, Hartley Winterbottom and yours truly."
"Hold on a second! The good professor from Stanford, Uncle Hartley and you developed this?"
"I'm proud to say we did. Of course, we hit some snags, but with John's help we developed an aptitude test to find suitable subjects from a pool of candidates. You took it in Stanford five years ago, son."
Realization dawned upon Chuck. "Fleming's class on subliminal image recognition and retention," he said. "I did pretty well on the test."
"98%," said Stephen. "Shortly afterwards, we decided the technology was too immature at the time to implant on people, but it could be used as a search engine for a computer system, using image and sound inputs. We called the program and the supercomputer used with it The Intersect."
"To this day, only three people uploaded segments of the program," Mary took over. "One was Hartley. It was needed for a highly classified job and it was deleted from his head as soon as said job was done. The second was the wonderful idiot I fell in love with and married. He was tinkering with it and decided to upload a small skills pack, without telling me first I might add. I was pissed, but he had no ill effects from the upload, so I let it slide."
"It did cost me a couple of nights on the couch," Stephen reminded his wife.
"And the third…" Chuck prompted.
"The third was you, son," Stephen deadpanned. "Your mother was in Europe for, um, work, and I'd forgotten to lock the workshop door. You sneaked in and somehow managed to upload a segment Hartley and I had created as a joke."
"What was it?"
"Golf," replied Stephen, chuckling at his son's surprised expression. "We made a pack with the basic golfing skills. You never knew you'd uploaded it, because you never played golf."
"I played mini golf a number of times," Chuck pointed out.
"It's not the same as regular golf. You don't need to decide which club to use while playing mini golf, do you?"
"Huh. OK, I get it." He paused and looked at his parents and then at Sarah, who was listening attentively. "This means I'm a suitable candidate for this Omaha Project?"
"You are indeed. But before going there, there are some things I need to talk to you about. It won't take long."
They were interrupted by the delivery guy from the pizza parlor who knocked on the door. Sarah took the pizzas and paid for them, giving one to Chuck and his father and keeping the other, a vegetarian with no olives, for herself and Mary. The two women went to the chairs by the window to share the pizza and talk, leaving the men to their own devices.
Stephen took a break from explaining some technical stuff to his son and grabbed a slice of pizza. Chuck took advantage of the short break in the conversation to steal a glance in Sarah and Mary's direction. What he saw made a huge smile appear on his face. Mary was smiling as she ran a hand soothingly up and down Sarah's arm. Sarah said something he couldn't hear and the next instant Mary was pulling her into a hug, which the young woman returned, obviously needing the comfort his mother was providing. She'd never been like that with any of his previous girlfriends, not that there had been many to begin with. Chuck correctly surmised that Mary's behavior was influenced by the knowledge of Sarah's amnesia. Even though she'd had no recollection of her personal history, her core personality was still intact, in plain sight without her agent mask on and this spoke volumes. Mary had pegged Sarah as a good person, someone who could make her little boy happy. Therefore, she was going to give their relationship her full support. The young blonde also had Ellie's glowing endorsement and to Mary this was another plus.
"You really love her, don't you, son?"
"To say I love her would be a gross understatement, Dad."
"You two remind me of your mother and me. She'd originally been assigned as a liaison for the CIA. We annoyed the hell out of each other at first, but then we realized we were falling for each other. The rest you know. Anyway, getting back to our original subject, there are still players on the loose, who may come after Sarah and, by default, you, like Mary said before." Stephen reached into his briefcase and extracted a few items. One was a regular case for glasses, containing a pair of sunglasses as Chuck saw when his father opened it. Another looked like a box to transport computer chips and circuit boards. And the third had the size and shape of a medallion case.
"Dad, what's all this?" Chuck asked, his curiosity peaking. It was the same curiosity that had resulted in him uploading the golfing skills when he was just eight years old.
"Patience, my boy, you'll see soon enough." Stephen used his thumbnail to slide open a small trapdoor on the right-hand temple of the sunglasses. He then slid a chip inside the space revealed. The last step was to slide the squat cylinder from the last box on the glasses' other temple until it clicked into place. "This will give you the skills you need to protect yourself and Sarah," he said, holding the assembled device out to his son. Chuck accepted it, still looking somewhat skeptical. In the end, knowing his father's abilities as an inventor, he shrugged and put on the glasses.
At first, nothing happened. He was about to ask if he needed to do something when the inside of the lenses lit up with an amazing display of pictures changing at a dazzling speed. Chuck couldn't avert his eyes from it. It only lasted about a minute, but to him it felt longer. When the twin screens finally went blank, Chuck faltered and fell backwards onto the soft, thick pile carpet on the floor.
Sarah leapt up from her seat the moment she saw him fall and was next to him in a flash. "Chuck!" She gripped his shoulders, shaking him lightly, while she turned to Stephen. "What happened to him?"
"He just uploaded an Intersect skills pack," Stephen replied nonchalantly. "He'll be fine."
"Fine is a relative term," said Chuck from his position on the floor. "It feels like the aftermath of my first hangover back in Stanford."
"Damn," muttered Stephen. "I should have warned you. There are still some aftereffects. Don't worry about them. They're due to the speed of the upload. Sarah, do you happen to have some aspirin on hand?"
"Sure, I'll go get it," she replied and hurried to the bathroom. She returned almost immediately, making a detour to the kitchenette to fill a glass of water. She handed it and the pills to her boyfriend, who'd sat up in the meantime. He took the pills, washing them down with the water and smiled reassuringly at Sarah. She just knelt by his side and hugged him tight for a few seconds before helping him up.
"Sarah," said Stephen, making her turn to look at him. "Time for you and Charles to see the results. Attack him."
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. Try it."
"Okay," she replied hesitantly. She put some distance between herself and Chuck and got in a fighting stance. Mindful of the fact that she was wearing absolutely nothing underneath the bathrobe – she simply hadn't even thought to grab any underwear from her dresser – she decided to go for a right cross and avoid trying a kick. To both her surprise and his, Chuck easily blocked it.
"Wow," he exclaimed. "I instantly knew what to do."
"Then our job here is done," said Mary. "Stephen, let's go and leave the lovebirds alone." Both young people blushed at her statement.
"It was nice to meet you, Sarah," said Stephen. "Take care of each other." Her reaction was to hug them both.
"Thank you," she said. "For everything. Chuck was in danger because of me and now you made it a lot easier for both of us, should something like that happen again."
Mary also gave her a double-cheek kiss before she left with her husband in tow.
-o-
"You're still not going to tell me where we're going?" Chuck griped from the passenger seat of Sarah's Porsche.
"We're almost there," she promised. After his parents had left, they'd finished the pizzas and then she'd dragged him to the shower to clean up – and have her wicked way with him again. Now, fully dressed, they were heading to the still mysterious destination she'd mentioned after the debriefing with Graham and Beckman.
If he was expecting a posh office building, a run-down warehouse or an industrial facility used as a spy base, Chuck was sorely disappointed when she stopped and parked the car in front of a house with a white picket fence in a quiet neighborhood not far from his place.
"Here we are," she announced. "Follow me."
Chuck had a keen eye for detail, so he carefully took in the surroundings. It looked just like any normal house in the area. It could be a safe house she kept, he guessed, drawing from spy novels and movies. Only, something didn't quite track. The place was immaculate and didn't show any trace of neglect. Sarah's amnesia had lasted for months. Had she hired people to maintain the property? Plausible, he concluded. It was all swept away when Sarah knocked on the door after pausing and taking a deep breath to screw up her courage.
A woman answered the door. She was a blonde with blue eyes, basically an older version of Sarah. And she cradled a baby in her arms. Said baby was about ten months old, with blue eyes and a wild mane of almost shoulder-length blond hair. "How may…? Sarah?" Such was the shock that it was a miracle she didn't either faint on the spot or drop the baby.
"Hi Mom," Sarah said nervously. "May we come in?"
"Who is it, honey?" The new voice belonged to a man and even though it sounded like it came from the back of the house it was instantly recognizable to Sarah.
Emma couldn't form words to reply to either question. She just held the baby closer and moved aside to allow Chuck and Sarah to enter.
"Honey?" Jack called again, entering the living room while wiping his hands on a rug. And then he froze. "Sarah?"
"Hey Dad." Damn, she thought, it feels as lame as it sounds.
"You're… how?"
"Let's just say that the news of my death were quite wrong. I was lucky and made it to shore in one piece. I'll explain everything later. Right now, it's great to be back with you guys. How's Molly?"
This snapped her parents out of their trance. They stepped forward in unison and enveloped their daughter in a big group hug. The tears were flowing freely and even Chuck was visibly touched by the scene he was witnessing.
They pulled apart but stood close to each other after affirming that Sarah had finally returned to her family. "Mom, Dad," she began, "I'd like you to meet Chuck Bartowski; my boyfriend."
"Your boyfriend, huh?" Jack instantly switched to the default mode of fathers meeting their daughters' boyfriends for the first time.
"It's nice to meet you, sir." Can't I get any cheesier? "Mrs. Walker," he nodded politely at Emma before turning to Sarah. "You have a kid?"
"Uh, no. Chuck, this is Molly. My adopted sister," she introduced her to the baby.
"Molly, this is Sarah," said Emma, pointing at her older daughter. "Your big sister. And this is Chuck."
"Tawah!" Molly squealed. "Tuck," she added and giggled.
"Her first word was Dada," Jack proudly informed Sarah. "She has also started walking. As a matter of fact, she's just like you were at her age. Just as noisy, too."
Emma handed Molly to Jack and took Sarah and Chuck's arms, leading them to the living room. "Come on, let's sit down and you can tell us everything."