CHAPTER 9

With Halloween approaching it was time for Chucks yearly trip to the pier. At first he'd stayed away from it, but during his second year at Stanford he decided to make himself go and found it helped in a way. Maybe it was because he wasn't visiting Morgan's grave as much as he felt he should, but it helped him realize that kind of stuff didn't matter much. If he could feel like Morgan was still with him even at the arcade where he'd died then he could feel like he was with Chuck anywhere.

Still, each year he made the trek and spent the day playing games, drinking slushies and eating junk food. Of course he couldn't go without some prep, so as per usual he spent the week before playing a few different classic games he tried to hit every year, including a day dedicated to Street Fighter 2.

By the time he arrived at the arcade, he was ready to go on a tear like usual. A buzz started to fill the arcade when he actually managed to fight Reptile in Mortal Kombat by getting two perfects without blocking. Then he moved on to Super Street Fighter 2 and spent an hour on a single quarter.

People kept coming up and challenging him, and each time he picked Ryu and beat them. Either they'd try again or he'd go back to the computer until someone else came along.

About an hour and a half into it a kid came up and put his quarter in. "New challenger, huh?"

The dark haired boy nodded enthusiastically. "I played the new one with my brother, but he said they're all different… Who's good in this one?"

"Who do you use in the new one?"

"The wrestler, but he's not here. Maybe… Blanka!"

"Good choice," Chuck said as he moved his joystick around randomly to chose a character. It didn't matter who he picked, the kid was winning, and he was going to make it look believable.

After two losses, Chuck turned to the kid as he put in another quarter. "Okay, best of seven!"

"Okay, Chuck!"

While the kid chose his character, opting for the masked Vega, Chuck looked out of the arcade and saw a familiar blonde by a stand across from it. Though she was seemingly looking over the merchandise, he noticed Sarah glance his way and smile, so when he turned back chose the blonde woman at the center of the screen.

"Sorry, Bub, you're going down this time."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, Cammy here reminds me of someone, and she never loses so I can't let her lose here either."

It wasn't too difficult to win, even if his Cammy wasn't great, but eventually he won his four and the kid decided to watch as another guy came up to face him. Chuck was in the middle of a perfect when a quarter slammed down on the cabinet as the placer declared, "I got next."

Once he won, Chuck turned to look at the next challenger and flashed on Laszlo Mahnovski. By the time it finished Laszlo chose his character and Chuck looked past him. There outside the arcade Sarah was trying on sunglasses, so he stepped back from the machine with a laugh.

"One second guys," Chuck turned to the kid beside him and dug two dollars out of his pocket, kneeling down to his level. "Hey think you can get me a soda from that cart outside? I'll pay for yours too."

"Really?" The kid took the two dollars and nodded. "What kind you want?"

"It's rare, but could you see if they have any Flash soda. I got it here once years ago and maybe they'll have it again. Tell the guy it's special for Chuck, okay? If not then just whatever you get."

"You got it!" Chuck watched the kid run off and turned back to Laszlo with a laugh. "Sorry about that. Been here for a while."

"Sure." Laszlo shook his head, focused on the screen as Chuck chose Blanka. He wanted to lose a few times and keep the guy here so Sarah could get there, and at least he wouldn't have to fake it as much.

Sarah was looking herself over while watching Chuck in the mirror on the stand where she heard a boy say, "Chuck said you have some kind of Flash soda!"

Feeling herself tense, she turned, pulling off the shades and saw Chuck glance away from the screen and look toward her, something he hadn't done when he was playing before. Even clearer was the panic on his face. The moment he caught her gaze, he looked to the guy next to him, and Sarah had to stop herself from reaching for her gun. There were too many people around, and she was a spy. Not to mention she didn't want to think of how it might traumatize Chuck having more bullets flying on the same day and in the same place Morgan died.

Chuck watched her take out her phone and call Casey while he turned back to the screen and lost his first round. By the time he lost his second, he let out a laugh. "You know what, I apologize for doubting you. Best of three?"

"Sure," Laszlo said with a shrug, looking to the screen as chuck put in another quarter.

The kid returned with a Dr. Pepper, handing it to Chuck who took a moment to open it and take a long drink. The tension in him eased when he heard a voice call out, "Hi, Sweetie!"

Turning, he found Sarah walking to him with a smile. Coming up to hug him, she kissed his cheek and whispered, "Casey's on his way. We safe to stay until he texts?"

While Chuck answered with a nod, the boy who bought the sodas looked Sarah up and down before nodding. "You really are Cammy like Chuck said." When Sarah arched her brow at him and Chuck blushed, she turned and saw the blonde character he quickly passed over for Ryu.

Seeing Chuck trembling slightly, she placed a hand on his shoulder blade and moved beside him. He glanced at her and she smiled, hoping it conveyed her assurance t hat it would be okay, and it seemed to as he swiftly calmed down and turned his attention to the screen.

Watching him play was surprisingly enthralling. She'd never really sat and watched him play a game before. It was only ever in glances, or seeing him just as she entered a room and he paused it to talk to her. It was surprising how focused he was, and yet he seemed to know exactly what to do with the controls, resulting in a fairly swift victory.

While he won the second match, a brief glance at her made it clear he planned to lose the next match, so she decided to tease him a bit. "Can you choose Cammy?"

After a quick glare at her, Chuck sighed and chose the bare legged blonde, which earned an arched brow and smirk from Sarah, who nodded sagely. The round was close, but he lost the first, and it was in the middle of the second that Casey's text arrived. She checked it and put on a frown, rubbing his back.

"Sweetie we should go after this one, okay?" She said in her typical ditzy voice.

"Of course honey," he said giving a frustrated grunt as he lost his second round. Sarah swiftly grabbed his left hand as Chuck turned to the guy and offered a cordial nod. "Thanks for the game."

Sarah practically dragged him away as the kid waved to him and thanked him for the soda, making his way to another section of the arcade.

Walking down the pier, Sarah kept looking over her shoulder to make sure the guy didn't leave, waiting until Casey ran over to them before asking, "Who was the guy you flashed on?"

When Chuck gave his name and that he was considered dangerous Casey patted Chuck's shoulder. "Go straight home and stay there."

Chuck nodded, watching Sarah lead Casey back toward the arcade while taking a cap he handed her and tying back her hair, sliding on a pair of sunglasses and jacket he brought. With a sigh Chuck turned and made his way to the Herder he drove there and began his trek back to Ellie's.

It was only when he was back in his room that everything caught up with him. He'd been in the place where Morgan died and had some dangerous guy show up out of nowhere. He could have been hurt, or that kid could have been hurt, but would he have been able to do anything? If something did happen he would have been as useless as he was a decade earlier. If Sarah hadn't been there this dangerous guy could have gotten away, or even hurt someone in that arcade just like the G-Man and his goon.

He'd put on Star Wars mostly to keep Ellie from bothering him as he sat on the edge of the bed realizing that once again he was sat there alone instead of helping Sarah and Casey. No wonder a girl like Sarah would never take him seriously. Whenever something bad happened he left her in a ditch and ran with his tail between his legs. No wonder they treated him like a dog half the time.

Glancing at the closet he wondered if maybe he should just go through with his plan soon, but the truth was he was nervous. As frustrating as it all was there were things he enjoyed about the way things were. As much as he wanted to help he didn't want Sarah angry with him. What if she actually made good on her threat all those weeks ago and left? It felt almost pathetic to admit, but it felt like it would hurt less if someone went full Temple of Doom and ripped his heart out of his chest.

He was sat on his bed with his head in his hands listening to the menu music for the Star Wars DVD when his door opened. Looking up he realized at once that it was Sarah who had entered and at some point the sun had set.

"You're okay," he said sighing in utter relief.

Sarah smiled as she closed the door and sat beside him. "How are you doing?"

"Fine now I know you're okay."

It was surprising to Sarah how much that warmed her heart. "I realized on the way here that must have been tough for you having that happen there."

Chuck shrugged. "It was more the idea of losing someone else there than having some guy like that show up."

Placing her hand over his on his knee, Sarah bumped her shoulder against his lightly. "Well you didn't. In fact Casey and I are proud of you."

"Because I had to run away again?" He muttered dismally.

Shaking her head Sarah said, "Because you did the right thing. And you did it well. Telling me you had a flash with that kid you were playing with before was smart. And you kept your cool and helped keep him busy until Casey got there. You were great, Chuck."

Chuck stared into her eyes and found himself wondering if he was fooling himself again, because he was almost positive he saw something there beyond an agent praising her asset. With a nod he quietly asked, "What happened?"

Sarah sighed, taking her hand from his to press them into the mattress behind her as she leaned back. "We followed him until we got a call back from Beckman, who told us he was was the guy behind a bunch of tech but had some kind of mental break and killed his handlers before escaping a lab."

"Did you get him?"

"We did. He tried to draw a water pistol on Casey, so Casey shot him in the leg."

"Ouch."

"Mm." Sitting up, Sarah put her bag on her lap. "I almost forgot. I picked up a surprise for you while we were doing the debrief as Casey's."

"Are you guys putting a collar on me now or something?" He asked warily.

Sarah snickered and shook her head. "No, just something I thought you might like which could help our cover."

"Our cover?" He muttered quietly, hoping his disappointment wasn't obvious.

Taking a framed picture from her bag, Sarah held it out for chuck. "It's, uh, it's us at Comic-Con. What do you think?"

He saw the picture of him and Sarah stood in costume in front of a booth in a convention hall. She was dressed in the classic Slave Leia outfit while he wore a Solo white shirt and vest. "It's… It's great," he said holding it a bit closer, "but we've never actually gone to Comic-Con have we?" For a moment it seemed so real, like some memory he'd completely forgotten. "Wow, we-we actually look like a real couple."

"Well we are a real couple, we're… just a different sort of a couple."

And just as it had started to feel real it became so obvious. Both had big toothy smiles, but neither was real. Her smile wasn't her real smile, which showed off her front teeth and bottom teeth. His was almost the same as hers but with different lips, not any of his usual smiles. It was a decent photoshop job, hard to tell where his head had been pasted on or Sarah had been pasted in front of the guy who acted as his body, but the smiles made it seem utterly fake.

"That we are," he said solemnly. He tapped the edge of the frame, his focus shifting from Sarah to him as a frown took over. "No Chewy."

Sarah turned to him and blinked. "What do you mean?"

"I'm Han, but there's no Chewy." He tapped the fake him in the picture. "I guess it's sort of fitting to get it today."

"What are you…" Sarah glanced toward the screen and frowned as she remembered what today was. "Oh, Chuck, I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"No, it's fine," he said shaking his head, thankful he was clear headed enough to blink away the sting in his eyes. "It's just a stupid thing with me and Morgan. He, um, he always said he was the Chewy to my Han. He got more focused on that after he finally grew his beard out, but even as kids that was who we were. Best friends completely loyal to one another. We always had each other's back.

"But then when…" Chuck sniffed, staring at the picture as he felt his eyes start to burn. His throat tightened as it always did but a glance at Sarah eased it and suddenly he knew he could speak again, looking back to the picture as he did. "When he was dying and I was trying to stop it he made this stupid joke about how he wasn't Chewy. He was Goose. He's this, um, pilot from the movie Top Gun, he's Maverick's best friend but then he dies early on. But I told Morgan he wasn't Goose, he was Luke Skywalker." With that Chuck pointed to Luke Skywalker on the screen. "I said we just have to get him to a tank to heal like they do in the movies, and the last thing Morgan said was this joke from the movies."

Sarah rubbed his back as Chuck reached up to wipe his eye. "When he was buried I put these figures in his casket. These Han and Chewy toys we saved up for and bought together. I kept thinking I'd put one of them in and keep the other. I thought I'd put in Chewy since he was my Chewy. Then I just kept thinking that Han shouldn't be without Chewy, but I just thought every time I saw Chewy alone on my shelf I'd feel sorry for him because he didn't have his Han. So I put them both in and said Luke needs a Han and Chewy. At least that way he wouldn't be alone even if I was."

Sarah felt her heart break watching tears slip down his cheeks and drip from his chin until he finished speaking and reached up to wipe his face. She kept rubbing his back. "I'm so sorry you had to go through that, Chuck."

Chuck took a big, shaky breath that made his chest ache, then let out a laugh. "I don't even remember the last time I talked about it. At Stanford I was desperate to start a new chapter in my life I avoided bringing it up with people, and then afterward I didn't really have anyone close enough to tell." He sniffed and shook his head. "I don't think I even told the therapist Ellie made me go to about the whole Top Gun thing."

"I won't tell a soul," Sarah said before she remembered the dozens of cameras and bugs in his room and fought off a wince. With a silent apology she pressed her hand a bit deeper into his back and bumped his shoulder again. "Want to watch the movie or something?"

"We can do that if you want," Chuck said with a shrug, getting to his feet. "I'll grab us something to drink. Did you eat?"

"I grabbed something on the way back. Thanks." Watching him leave the room Sarah glanced at the picture he'd left on the bed and frowned. One thing was for sure. There was no way she was going to risk wearing that gold bikini again. Not unless he asked.

AN:

Generally with what-if's there's two ways to go about the challenge of them depending on what the writer wants. Either you fill or patch the gaps and events still happen as they did in canon so the challenge becomes finding new paths to similar events. Or you let the gaps pile up and the challenge is figuring out a new path.

So far I've stuck to patching gaps. I like the first season so Chuck still ends up about where he was, but this is the first kind of big break off point where I play into a gap. I like the canon so I'm not looking to change everything about it or anything. The fun in this story for me is shifting scenes and adding scenes based on previous shifts while trying to keep them in character, being true to the world and having it make sense for the story, which happens more in the next few chapters. It's all kind of a puzzle, at least for me.