A/N: So, my internet was down all weekend, and all I have to show for it is this chapter. And half of 8. And 1/3 of Frontier 32. Please don't all wish me internet outages at once. I'm superstitious.

Chapter 7:

"Rrrrgh," Chuck grumbled, when consciousness returned, bringing with it a hangover such as he hadn't experienced since his fraternity days at Stanford. He blinked awake slowly.

"Well, somebody isn't a morning person." He was suddenly wide awake, and staring unblinking at Sarah Walker, who was, alarmingly, sharing a bed with him.

Chuck grabbed the bedclothes and peeked under them at himself, "Oh, thank god," he breathed upon finding himself still clothed. He shook his head and managed a chuckle. "Well, that's a first."

Sarah arched an eyebrow, "What is?"

"Guy wakes up in bed with a beautiful woman and thanks god they didn't have sex."

She laughed, and Chuck winced, clutching a hand to his head. Sarah lowered her voice. "Yeah, I don't know whether to be flattered or not. You're sending kind of mixed signals there, Chuck. Here, aspirin," she held out the pills and a bottle of water.

"What time is it?"

"Almost ten in the morning," she said.

He waited until he swallowed the pills to voice his next concern. "Do I remember getting punched by your boyfriend?"

"No," she said. "We were never you know 'boyfriend-girlfriend;' we went out a couple times. He's one of those guys who isn't used hearing no."

"So, kind of the anti-chuck," he said.

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Absolutely, but not in the way you're talking about. Garett usually makes great first impressions. And then you realize what a bastard he is after the fact."

"Whereas I show up to answer the door in boxer shorts?"

"Well, you clean up nice," Sarah said. "And you made sure to miss my shoes when you puked in the cab. And I like that in a man."

"Oh god," Chuck put his head in his hands. "I threw up?"

"Granted, I had just told you how my 'ex' was involved in local organized crime; I think that had something to do with it. Did you just whimper?"

Chuck frowned. "You didn't strike me as the kind of girl who would date gangsters."

"I'm not," she said, with a shrug. "Finding that out was just one of the many reasons I walked out midway through the second date."

"Don't get defensive," Chuck said. "I didn't mean that to sound as accusing as it did. You don't owe me an explanation."

"I wasn't—" Sarah puffed her bangs out of her face. "Okay, I guess that was a little defensive. Look, we're kind of down a path here, and I've had time to think about some things."

"Down a path?"

"Well— okay, we've got a multi-national corporation that might have it out for us on one side, your old friend at the 'state department' on another side, and a local mobster with delusions of being my boyfriend on the other. And to top it all off, my dad didn't come home last night, and he's not answering his cell," Sarah said. "We need to be on the same page if we're going to get through this, right?"

Chuck was silent for a long time, before he nodded. "Okay," he said. "Any more skeletons in the closet?"

"None that are relevant," she said.

Chuck blinked. "When did you change clothes?" She was wearing a white button down shirt and khaki shorts similar to what she'd worn the first time he'd laid eyes on her.

"I didn't spend the night," Sarah said. "Once I was sure you weren't going to puke again and choke and die in your sleep, I went home. I stole your key so I could get back in this morning. Also, I had a chat with the day-manager on my way up. If you want, we can use the hotel pool for your practical training."

He shook his head in wonder. "How do you just change gears like that. Your dad is missing? What?"

"He can take care of himself; if he's not answering his cell phone, all it means is he's worried the local cops are after him. The situation remains the same. If we want to get through this, we need to find whatever is at those coordinates before anybody else. I can't make you a diving expert in two hours, but I can at least get you trained enough to help me out if I need it."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Chuck said. "Slow down. Does your dad have to ditch the cops often?"

"No, nothing like that," Sarah admitted. "He's kind of paranoid though, and sometimes he drops 'off the grid' as he calls it. The timing is a little inconvenient for us is all."

"I need a drink," Chuck said. "Or at least a shower."

"I'll order you up some breakfast from room service," Sarah said, reaching for the bedside phone.

Chuck shuffled into the bathroom, and Sarah, good as her word, ordered a hearty breakfast for both of the. She was in the process of hanging up the room phone, when she heard another phone ring. She instinctively checked her own cell, when she recognized the familiar strains of the Imperial March, which she'd assigned to her father's number.

But her phone was silent, and she tracked down Chuck's phone, which was blaring the tune. Sarah chewed her lip for a moment, before scooping up the phone. The contact-picture was a portrait of a pretty brunette, smiling into the camera. Finally, she bit the bullet and answered. "Chuck's phone," she said.

"Who the hell is this!" a woman's voice demanded. "Where's Chuck?"

"He's, uh... in the shower," Sarah answered honestly before she stopped to think about it. "Oh, god. You're not his wife are you?" I'm gonna kill him!

"What— god no, I'm his sister, Ellie."

"Oh, good," Sarah said. She'd had a momentary pang of fear, that her judgment in regard to men had been totally destroyed by her failure to identify Garett properly a few months previously for the scum he was.

"Oh my god," Chuck's sister exclaimed. "What time is it there? This is... did you sleep over?"

"What? I— I—" Sarah's eyes went wide. She should have let his phone go to voice mail. Idiot! Why had she answered the phone, damn it? She banged her head against the heel of her hand. "Chuck's told me so much about you," she said. That's what you said at a moment like this right? Even if— she couldn't remember if he had mentioned a sister— if he hadn't, it might get her off the hook for answering Chuck's phone at such a suggestive hour.

"Really," Chuck's sister Ellie said from half-way around the world. "He hasn't mentioned you..."

"Sarah," she said, and grimaced. "We actually just met... it's kind of a... complicated situation."

"Are you a hooker?"

Sarah nearly choked on her tongue. "Wh— of course not! How dare you!"

"I'm so sorry," the woman said. "Its just, it's been a long since Chuck's had a girlfriend, and... God, I'm sorry, I don't know why I said that."

"I, listen, Ellie," Sarah said. She didn't really know why she kept telling the woman the truth, it was a bad habit to get into. "Nothing happened. We went out on, I guess it was a date, and Chuck had a little too much to drink. I wanted to make sure he was okay, so I dropped by this morning to check up on him."

"Oh," she sounded a little... disappointed. "He's a really good guy, don't let all the nerd-speak drive you away."

"I'll take it under advisement," Sarah said, grinning. "But I make no guarantees."

"I guess that's the best I can hope for. But if you break his heart," Ellie said, "remember, I'm a surgeon."

Sarah's eyes widened. She probably would have remembered if Chuck had mentioned that. Then her head turned. "Oh, crap, the shower just cut off," she whispered. "Can you call back and pretend—"

"We never had this conversation," Ellie said. "Gotcha. It might be tomorrow though, my break is almost over, I'm on call tonight, and I'm still figuring out the time difference. It's six am there?"

"10. We're fifteen ahead. I'll bite the bullet and just hand over the phone, if you need to talk to Chuck?" Sarah said.

"No, awkward morning after a first date is punishment enough; awkward phone call from overbearing sibling on top of it is just mean. Hopefully we'll get to talk again sometime, bye Sarah."

"Bye," Sarah said, and made sure she disconnected the line before dropping his phone back where she'd gotten it.

A knock came at the door, and she stood, walking around the bed to answer. Room service, probably. Only, no one was there, and Sarah looked down the hall in confusion until the knocking came again. It was the bathroom door. "Chuck? What's up?"
"I left my bag outside," he said through the door. "With my... you know. My clothes? Would you mind?"

Sarah pursed her lips to fight down a smile. "It's not like I haven't seen it before, Chuck."

"Could you please be serious for like two minutes?"

"Okay," She said, scooping up Chuck's small suitcase and holding it out. The door opened a crack, and Sarah tapped her watch with her free hand. "But know that you're on the clock. You got one minute fifty seconds of serious left."

Chuck's hand darted out and grabbed his suitcase, then he disappeared back into the bathroom. Sarah sat on the side of the bed. "Hurry up, you don't have to fix your hair all nice, Chuck," she said. "We're going straight to the pool."

He got dressed in record time, and came out with his hair still dripping wet. "How exactly did you convince the management to let us scuba dive in the swimming pool?"

This time the knock on the door was followed by a voice. "Room service!"

Sarah grinned and produced Chuck's corporate credit card, flipping it through her fingers as she went to the door. "Oh, look what I 'found,'" she said. Then, after the usual business of a tip for the guy with the room service cart, Sarah sat down and grabbed one of the plates heaped with bacon and eggs. "Uh," Chuck said, "aren't you supposed to wait like an hour after you eat before you go swimming?"
"Oh... yeah," Sarah said. "I forgot. Well, you've got a microwave. You can re-heat yours," she grinned and crunched a strip of bacon between her teeth and then began shoveling food into her mouth.

"Good lord, woman," Chuck said not even a minute later once she was finished. "Where do you put it all?"

She shrugged and wiped the corner of her mouth with a cloth napkin. "Swimming burns a lot of calories. Alright, you ready?"

"Can I have my credit card back, now?"

Sarah's spare set of dive gear was down in the Jeep, and she made Chuck lug it out back of the hotel parking structure to the pool area. "Why am I the pack-mule all of a sudden?" he grumbled.

"You're the one diving," Sarah explained. "That means, you get to carry the dive gear. It's like fishing or hunting; if you catch it, you've got to clean it, right? Didn't your dad teach you that?"

"Dad never was much for outdoor sports," Chuck said, "He was always busy in his workshop."

"You never said what he did for a living. Sorry," Sarah said, remembering. "Touchy subject. I forgot."

"No, it's alright," Chuck said while Sarah reached over the wrought iron gate to let them into the fenced-in pool. "Kind of the same business I'm in, computer and electrical engineering mostly. I do know he helped design the operating system that Predator drones use."

"Wow," Sarah said. "That's cool."

"Yeah, you should see the Roark Instruments Remote Controlled car sometime."

"What's so..." she started. "Oh, wait, you mean like... real, full size car?"

"The current prototype is a humvee," Chuck said, "But I think their project lead says next they're bidding on an old APC or something."

"Okay, into the pool, Chuck," Sarah said, "And we'll start the lesson."

"What if I run out of air?"

"Stand up?" Sarah pointed to the nearby depth markings. "It only goes down to five feet. Anyway you're not starting off with the tanks just yet."

"Ah," Chuck said, fighting down embarrassment.

"Anyway, we'll start you out— have you ever been snorkeling before?"

"No, not really," he said.

"Okay," Sarah tossed a mask and snorkel at him.

Sarah only dangled her feet over the side through the first hour of his lesson, even though the pool was shallow enough that the whole 'don't eat before you swim' advisory wasn't particularly important. Chuck had already graduated to strapping on the tanks, so Sarah decided it was time she join him in the pool. But when she got up to strip down to her bikini, her phone started ringing.

"Oh, I think that's my phone," Chuck said.

Sarah shook her head. "No, it's mine."

"We have the same ring tone?" Chuck grinned. "Must be fate."

"Oh, hush," Sarah rolled her eyes and answered the phone. "Yeah, dad, what's up?" Her face blanched.

"What's wrong," Chuck said immediately, but Sarah held up a hand for him to wait.

"Is he alright?" she asked. "Okay, okay. What's the address there? Thank you. Alright, I'll do that."

"Everything okay?"

"My dad's in the hospital," she explained. "That was the head nurse. I'm in his phone as his 'In Case of Emergency' contact."

"Did they tell you what happened?"

"No, just that he was in serious condition," Sarah said. "I need to go check on him; sorry, but I guess we'll have to cut this short."

"You mind if I come with you?"

"I— really?" Sarah asked. "You don't have to do that, I'm fine."

"Your dad seems like a nice guy," Chuck said. "I'm worried about him too."

Sarah frowned at him for a moment, then shook her head. "Okay, let's go."

After a Jeep ride that made their trip to the Marina the day before seem like a lazy-Sunday drive through the countryside, they arrived at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital. It only took a brief angry staring match with the nurse at Receiving to get Chuck and Sarah in to see Jack, even though it wasn't technically visiting hours. Chuck kept glancing warily at her out of the corner of his eye after that on the elevator ride up to Jack's room on the fourth floor.

"Relax," Sarah finally said. "I'm just worried, and I promise I'm not going to take it out on you, okay, Chuck?"

"Yeah, alright," Chuck said. The elevator doors opened and they set off down the hall, finding Jack's room easily enough. It was the one with the chastened-looking nurse retreating, bedpan in-hand.

"Hey, dad," Sarah said.

Jack grinned from the hospital bed, bandages around his temples and one hand, and more around his ribs. His grin faltered momentarily when he spotted Chuck at her side, but she didn't think Chuck himself noticed.

"Are you alright, Mr. Walker?" Chuck said.

"Call me Jack, I already told you that, didn't I?" Jack grimaced. "And let's say I've had better weekends, okay, but I'm going to be fine. The doctors say I've got a concussion, so I've got to stay here over night, but I'm going to be fine."

"What happened?" Sarah said, moving to her father's bedside.

Jack grimaced, and his eyes darted from Sarah's to Chuck and back. "It's... god this is embarrassing. I owe fifty grand to my bookie."

"You what?" Sarah said, finding that a little hard to swallow.

"Look, I'm sorry, darlin' I didn't want to tell you, cause, well, I just didn't okay. I'm sorry, I am, but, it's too late for that. Look, Chuck, I'm sorry. I gave them those coordinates of yours. I figured whatever's there has got to be worth enough to keep them off my back for—"

Chuck's face was red, and he glared daggers at Jack, and at her, too, Sarah could see. He turned on his heel and walked out. When the door shut behind him, Jack turned on Sarah. "Why'd you have to bring the schnook, kid?"

Sarah glared at her father. "He was worried about you," Jack grimaced. Sarah didn't give him time to recover. "Okay, dad. What really happened?"

Jack grunted. "Armenians," he said. "The same crew I stole the quarter mil from back in California. Somebody must have tipped them off; they found me last night. And after they started in on my fingers, I told them about the R7. It's gotta be worth at least twice what I owe them to the right buyer; their local gomer bought my story, and I told them the thing was at those coordinates Chuck gave me. Not my finest bit of work but at least we've got a window to get the heck out of dodge, sweetheart."

"And what about Chuck?" Sarah demanded. "He's in this thing up to his neck. Maybe not as deep as you are with the mob, but still."

"What about him, darlin? Worse comes to worst, he can skip back to LA, can't he?"

"I can understand you not knowing him very well, dad," Sarah said sharply, standing and heading for the door herself. "But I have a hard time understanding how you don't know me better than that." She turned back just for a moment in the doorway. "If you want to skip town, once the doctors let you out of here, go ahead. I'm taking the boat out."

"Kiddo," Jack said. "Wait, one last thing..."

Sarah arched an eyebrow.

Sarah was fuming as she started up the Jeep and headed around the front of the hospital. She knew her dad was always looking out for himself, and the threat of the East Coast mob tracking them down had always been a sort of back-burnered low-level fear for almost ten years, but she just couldn't stand it. Chuck had confided in them almost from the start, trusted them, let them into the details of this strange corporate (maybe regular) espionage case when he didn't have to—and probably shouldn't have, for his own safety—and here her dad went, acting as if it didn't matter. She shook her head and grumbled a curse under her breath. Hopefully, Chuck hadn't had time to catch a taxi yet. He should be out at the front by the ambulance bay—there.

Her tires squealed as she braked to a sudden stop that rattled her teeth. Sarah leaned down so he could see it was her, as if he wouldn't recognize her Jeep. "Chuck, get in."

"Go away, Sarah," he said.

"Chuck, I didn't know," she said. "I'm sorry, come on." If the real world had any sense of drama, this should be happening at night, in a thunderstorm, not a little before noon, under bright sunlight, with just a hint of a breeze off the nearby canal to cool things down a little.

"Just— I don't want to talk right now," Chuck said.

"Chuck, if we're going to beat them to the coordinates, we've got to go now."

Chuck blinked and ducked down to stare at her face. "You're serious. You want to race whoever your dad's bookie works for— probably the mob— you want to race the mob to whatever is at those coordinates?"

She grinned. "Something you should know about me, Chuck. I don't like to lose. Now get in the car."

Chuck shook his head. "I can't believe I'm doing this," he said. And got in the car.

TO BE CONTINUED...

A/N: So, now we're getting into what I call 'the meat' of the story. What that means will become apparent as the next couple chapters come out. Reviews are always appreciated.