Burbank is dry and warm and sunny in August, and it feels strange to be without a brolly ("What is a-" "Umbrella. Sorry.").
It feels so familiar; so much the same and yet Chuck feels like a stranger. He and Burbank are two pieces of the same jigsaw puzzle that no longer fit together. Echo Park feels like an odd, picturesque place, and when he walks into the Buy More, he feels like a Stranger in a Strange Land.
Big Mike greets him warmly (it takes the man a minute to really recognize Chuck. He hadn't realized he'd changed that much), but Jeff, Lester and the rest of the employees are unimpressed with his reappearances.
"So? Is this just a visit?" Big Mike asks eagerly. "Or are you stickin' around for a while? Because you know, I've had a hard time replacing my Nerd Herd supervisor."
Chuck smiles politely and pats the man's shoulder. "Sorry, Big Mike. I'm just visiting."
"Oh. Well, it's good to see you, anyways, Bartowski. You look good. Like you been hittin' the gym once every few hours."
Chuck frowns as the other man walks away and looks down at himself before turning to Morgan. "I'm that different?"
"Gone is our scrawny Chuck," Morgan teases him. "Instead, we get Secret Agent Bartowski. Ready to beat the crap out of anything that moves at any second."
"I'm still me, though," Chuck assures his friend, but the look on Morgan's face tells him all he needs to know.
He mentions it to Ellie later.
"Coming back here was a mistake."
"I resent that you know," she tells him as she waddles out from the kitchen. "You came here to see me, not try and fit in with your old Buy More buddies. I'm about to pop! I need my brother!"
"And he's here," Chuck assures her. "Ready and willing to...hold hands or...boil water, whatever you need, Sis, you know that."
"I know."
"I'm really that different."
"Everybody changes, Chuck," Ellie tells him. "Me, Devon, you, Morgan. Everybody changes, whether we like it or not. You've just changed more than we have. You've been through a lot and you have a very dangerous job and you moved England and now you're all...muscled and slightly British sounding."
"I am?" His eyes widen. "I am!"
Ellie laughs.
"Bloody hell!"
She laughs harder and sits down carefully next to him. "You are still you, though. You're still Chuck. I promise."
He grins at her and leans back.
She watches him carefully. "Thinking about Sarah?"
"When am I ever not?"
They sit quietly for a long time, before Ellie speaks up again.
"You're doing a lot better."
"I feel a lot better. I have days sometimes, but they're becoming less and less frequent."
"Have you thought about...maybe...getting back out there?"
Chuck's eyes widen. "You mean...with...girls? Dating?"
"Yeah."
"No."
"Hear me out."
"Nope!" Chuck replies, getting to his feet. "We're not having this discussion."
"It's been a long time, Chuck," Ellie says gently. "She might not be coming back."
"I don't want to talk about this."
"I don't want you to be lonely," she tells him. "I don't want you to be dad."
He looks down and shakes his head, trying to measure his response; to not fly off the handle, or go overboard.
"I-" he takes a deep breath. "I'm not ready, El. I'm not ready to let her go, I'm not- I'm not ready."
Ellie sighs and shifts to her feet. She wraps her arms around him tightly.
He closes his eyes and rests his head on her shoulder. "I love her too much."
"I know."
They both hear the front door open and close.
"Hey! Group hug!"
Devon's arms wrap around them both, and Chuck laughs at the symmetry.
"Devon, honey, there's only two of us," Ellie points out.
"Three, with the baby," Devon replies. He kisses her temple and pats Chuck on the shoulder. "Chuck, Bro, you wanna go on a ten mile run with me tomorrow morning?"
"Not at all," Chuck replies, smiling at his brother-in-law as the hug breaks up.
"Suit yourself."
Sadly, the next day finds him getting roped into taking over a shift at the Buy More.
"I wasn't even supposed to be here today, you know," he says to Morgan playfully. His old Nerd Herd uniform is much more fitted than it used to be, but it doesn't feel as awkward as he thought it would to put on the pocket protector and the name tag and dole out service with a smile.
Four different women give him their phone numbers and he leaves them in the wastebasket behind the counter.
At the end of his shift, he loosens his tie and stops when he spots the back of a tall blonde woman looking at the Ipod speakers. His breath catches, his heart thunders in his chest and he takes shaky steps toward her.
It's her.
It's gotta be her.
There's nobody-
The woman turns around and her face is too long. Her eyes green instead of blue, and the eyebrow piercing glints in the fluorescent lights above them.
He's sure now that he'll fully recover from the Laudenol. Because he feels his heart crack in two in a way that he never thought he would again.
00000
He gapes at Roan Montgomery. "You did what?"
"Please, Charles. Take advantage of my generosity."
"Your-" Chuck fumes for a moment from behind the Nerd Herd counter. "You turned into Lester Patel overnight. I can't believe you did this!"
"It's only for one night. Take advantage of it."
"No."
"Your sister mentioned that you were having a hard time getting over Agent Walker. I thought a professional might help you ease your way past all that."
Chuck snorts. "The oldest profession..."
"Do not scoff at sex workers, they are an important part of our culture. And this one often does work for the Agency. She's very nice."
Chuck crosses his arms tightly, obviously uncomfortable.
Roan hands him a small card of paper. "Meet her at the Grand Ambassador at nine."
Chuck watches him leave and slumps against the counter.
But he does when Roan says and at nine, he's waiting in the bar of the Grand Ambassador, nursing a a tonic water.
"Chuck?"
He turns around and the woman standing in front of him is tall with short, brown hair and big green eyes. Her dress is pink and tastefully shimmery. "Y-yeah. Yes. Hi. Hi."
She smiles and holds a hand out. "Serena. Roan set us up."
"Right. Of course. Yes."
Serena looks him over, but what she's looking for Chuck has no idea. Possibly his nerve. Or his vocabulary.
He tries to find it. "Do you...can I get you a drink?"
"I would love one," Serena says, taking the stool next to him daintily. "What are you having?"
"Tonic water."
She quirks an eyebrow. "Not so adventurous, are you?"
"Well, I'm here," Chuck shrugs. "I'm...I'm not supposed to drink."
"Then tonic water it is," Serena says.
Chuck grins a little. "Barkeep! A tonic water for the lady."
Serena grins politely at the bartender and sips her tonic water. "So. Chuck."
He purses his lips and widens his eyes in a silly way. He's trying to stay loose; trying to pretend that he's just there to have a drink with someone who seems like a nice person to have a drink with.
And then it hits him.
He is.
He is there just to have a drink with someone who seems like a nice person to have a drink with.
He really doesn't want anything else from this person.
The tonic water gets refilled a couple of times, and they talk, mostly about how ridiculous a person Roan Montgomery is. They laugh and Serena catches on fairly quickly that Chuck's not really interested in sleeping with her.
"He didn't pay me, you know," Serena says.
Chuck tilts his head.
She smiles. "I owe him a favor. He saved my life in Belize last year, after things went south with a mark. He called it in by showing me your picture, and asking me to show you a nice time."
Chuck nods and plays with his now empty glass. "This is...this is a weird situation for me. I turned my sister's car on and off ten times before I finally decided to come here. I felt like Cameron Frye on his way to Ferris Bueller's house."
Serena laughs a little and puts her hand over his. "You're cute. And you seem like a really nice guy."
"But you're not interested?" he replies jokingly. "You see me as more of a little brother and you just want to be friends?"
"Oh, I'm interested," Serena tells him. "But I don't think you are."
"It's not you. It's me."
He watches her purse her lips, obviously trying not to laugh.
Chuck laughs softly and sets his glass down. "There's this...woman. That I fell in love with. Things...Things are complicated, and Roan meant well with setting us up, but..."
Serena smiles and leans over, kissing his cheek. "Thanks for the drink, Chuck."
He nods and grins sheepishly. "Have a good night, Serena. Nice to meet you."
00000
When he gets home that night, he finds Morgan playing Call of Duty on Awesome and Ellie's couch.
"Oh. Hey, Morgan."
"Hey, Chuck. How was your hot date?"
He doesn't seem too bothered by the details of said "hot date" which is surprising, but Chuck rolls with it. He's tired of being not-quite-best-friends with Morgan.
"Eh. We had a drink, and then she had to go."
Morgan pauses his game and looks up at his friend. "In other words, she picked up on the fact that you can't stop thinking about Sarah."
Chuck nods. "Pretty much." He shoves his hands into his pockets and looks away. "I've been thinking about her more and more since I've been back here. Everything reminds me of her."
"Have you even been lookin' for her, man?"
He sighs. "I did everything I could think of. I did things that would get me fired, killed...both. But I couldn't find her and now...Maybe..." Chuck takes a deep breath, and looks at his best friend with heartbreak in his eyes. "Maybe Ellie's right. Maybe it's time to just move on."
"Oh, that's not the Chuck Bartowski I know," Morgan says. "And don't give me that 'I'm not that guy anymore' crap, Chuck. Because I know you. And that guy will always be in there. That guy never gives up."
Chuck stares at him for a long moment and then gets to his feet, loosening his tie and plopping down next to Morgan on the couch.
"It's not over between the two of you," Morgan tells him. "There's still story there. Meaty, angsty story."
Chuck can't help a grin. "So in your head, are we...Nightwing and Oracle? Green Arrow and Black Canary? Superboy and Wondergirl maybe?"
"Eh. Cyclops and the White Queen, more like."
"Low blow, Buddy," Chuck mutters as he picks up a controller. "Seriously low blow. One that you will pay for."
Morgan picks his back up. "We'll see about that."
00000
Ellie gives birth the night Volkoff comes for Chuck and Mary.
It goes badly.
Not the giving birth part, that went fine.
Volkoff seems to think that he has the upper hand over Chuck, but luring the damn maniac away from his family, facing off in his father's old cabin, it's a close thing.
Not because Volkoff can win; that won't happen.
It's a close thing because Chuck nearly beats him to death.
He's so angry.
He's never felt so angry in his whole entire life. The rage building from the moment he'd been informed Volkoff was in Burbank had finally burst in that old cabin, plagued by the memories of being drugged; being forced to do whatever this man wanted and having no feelings or power of his own, and the knowledge of what it's done to him since pushes Chuck over the edge.
He punches the older man until his fists turn black and blue. His knuckles are aching and he keeps swinging. There's a ringing in his ears, and he feels his heart racing; blooding pumping. Volkoff's splatters on the floor next to his face and Chuck listens to the man's grunts of pain.
Things slow down. The room is dark, and chilly (for California), and it takes him too long to stop himself. His hands are shaking with anger, and his vision is blurred but he realizes that though the man is bleeding, his face a mess of swelling bruises...
He's smiling.
Chuck takes a couple of deep breaths, and then gets to his feet. He takes one long look at Alexei Volkoff and then swings a long leg, kicking the man in the gut hard before walking away and getting a better grip on himself.
"Oh my god," he mutters to himself as he looks down at his hands. Did he really just do this? Was that him?
He's still marveling at the fact that he can be so intensely angry and then somehow manage to pull himself back from it when he digs his phone out and calls Beckman. When she arrives (with a task force big enough to take down the Galactic Empire), she looks around, stunned.
"Agent Bartowski. You had no back-up?"
"No, General."
"You took down Alexei Volkoff by yourself?"
"I...I guess so," Chuck replies, looking around. He's still coming down from his anger, still amazed. "I didn't mean to hurt him so badly. I got..." He huffs. "I got carried away."
Beckman watches him carefully. "Good work, Agent."
"Thank you, Ge-" His phone buzzes and he pulls it out with an apologetic looks to the General before reading the text. His eyes widen. "Oh. Oh! Uh...m-my sister is having a baby right now. I have to go I have to get to the hospital, I was supposed to...I promised boiled water and-" He takes a deep breath. "Can I borrow a car?"
Beckman tilts her head. "Agent Bartowski, you just single-handedly took down the world's most notorious arms dealer." She then turns to one of the troops next to her. "Get this man a chopper!"
00000
He's sitting in the waiting room by himself, having sent his mother into the delivery room as the extra family member aside from Devon in the delivery room.
In another universe, in another life, he wouldn't be alone. Sarah would be here. Maybe Casey, and Morgan would be, too.
But Chuck sits by himself, tapping a foot, thinking about the way his fists connected with Volkoff's face; thinking about how it felt to have the man who had tried to turn him into a killing machine's blood on his hands.
He wonders if Alexei Volkoff has succeeded in turning him into the living weapon he'd so wanted, but when Chuck is dragged off to the window of the nursery room by Devon, he knows it's not true.
Chuck looks at baby Clara and chokes up.
That's his niece in there, and she's beautiful.
It fills him with a hope he hasn't felt in a long time, and he turns to Devon, hugging him.
"Congratulations, Buddy."