A/N: DC here...so it came time to write the date, and I know I can do fluffy, I know I can do sweet, but guys, this was one of those times I, as the late great Dusty Rhoades would say, sat down at the learning tree, and let Steampunk do her thing. And oh my word did she. So sit back, relax, and treat yo eyes to the date we should have had. FYI there is absolutely no truth to the rumor that Steampunk has had to turn the firehose on me a couple of times to turn down the fluffiness...None...nope...didn't happen…..(shakes water off as he leaves….)

Disclaimer: We don't own CHUCK, we don't own the CHUCK characters, and we're making no money off of this, but maybe send help because we're having way too much fun and this is dangerous.

"Okay," he said as they stepped out of the elevator in the lobby. "Before we get out there, you need to know something. I-I mean, I need to tell you exactly what you're getting yourself into."

Sarah furrowed her brow and smirked at him. "What exactly am I getting myself into?" she asked with no small amount of humor in her tone.

He tilted his head and made a high-pitched humming sound. "Actually, I'm gonna look over here in this direction while I tell you this so that I don't see your reaction of complete and utter dismay and mortification...gives you a chance to cover it up. We're going to have to drive around LA in the company car," he rushed out.

Sarah raised her eyebrows as they rounded the corner and stepped onto the sidewalk. There was no mistaking what car he meant, as he held his hands up to block him from looking at her face. She was amused by his antics and she laughed, grabbing his arm and pulling it back down to his side. "Calm down. It's not that bad."

"Driving around town in a car that says NERD on the side in big block letters?" he asked, shrugging.

"You do it all the time, don't you?" she asked, shrugging back. "Trust me. I'll live."

This guy seriously needed a crash course in self-confidence, she decided. How much had he stressed over the prospect of picking up his date in this car, she wondered? Poor guy.

The drive to the restaurant he was taking her to was spent engaging in small talk. She asked him how long he'd been in Los Angeles, and he told her since he was born.

"So what you're telling me is I picked the perfect guy to show me around LA."

"Oh, hell yeah, ya did," he chuckled. "I know this place like the back of my hand. When, uh, when I was a kid, Morgan and I would collect up the money we made from mowing lawns and washing people's cars and stuff, and we'd hop on just about every bit of public transportation in town to explore."

"That sounds pretty fun."

"It was fun. Sometimes harrowing. Cannot tell you how often we got lost. I love him dearly, but man, that guy will never have any kind of sense of direction." He laughed and shook his head as she watched him closely, the lights he drove under flashing intermittently across his face. He was settling into this, she realized, now that she'd gotten him talking a bit.

And she liked how easy it was for her to set him at ease, just by being politely interested in him, in his life. "What'd you do? Where'd you go to?" she asked.

"I mean, what any twelve year old nerds would do. We went to comic book stores, libraries…" Then he stopped talking suddenly and blurted. "Ah! Here! Right here...This is something you need to know if you live here in LA." He slowed a bit, checking his mirror to make sure there weren't cars driving anywhere around him.

Sarah leaned forward and cracked up the second she saw the sign at the entrance of the parking lot.

"That's right, Sarah. The beloved Department of Motor Vehicles. Where the devil lays his head to rest."

She just laughed again, surveying him a little. "That's actually a pretty important place to show me, Chuck. So I appreciate it."

"Oh, good. I'll cross my fingers you don't end up there too often." Then he pointed out the other window to where there was a liquor store. "But theeeere…that's different…"

She cracked up again, shaking her head. "Depends on how this job hunt goes," she said, finding this already much more enjoyable than she'd bargained for.

"Oh, yeah? Well, what are ya looking for?" he asked.

"Um. Anything." That was the safest answer she could come up with.

"I'd tell you to apply for the open sales person position at the Buy More, but I refuse to do you dirty like that." He smiled harder at the sound of her laughter and it wasn't altogether a bad feeling, she found. "I mean, I could tell you to, but it'd be for purely selfish reasons."

"And what are those?"

"It'd be really nice to have someone else there with their head screwed on right."

She snorted, feeling warmth rise from her blouse as she felt his smile on the side of her face. "Why do you work there?" She realized how that sounded and she reached out a hand, gently laying it on his upper arm. "Not that there's anything wrong with it. I'd have this stupid broken phone and no way to contact potential employers if you hadn't fixed it for me yesterday."

He smiled a bit crookedly. "Nah, I'm not offended. It's a fair question. I slam my job and my employer, and sometimes even my coworkers, which probably isn't the nicest. But that company, the store in particular, has been good to me in, um, rough times. Guess it's hard to abandon 'em."

"I get that," she said quietly. He was perhaps altruistic, then? He was holding himself back, she surmised, because he didn't want to disappoint these people, this company, that gave him a chance when he was having a hard time of it?

She pondered about that hard time, outside of what she'd read in his file. He'd been kicked out of Stanford early for stealing tests apparently. It didn't seem all that believable right at this moment, not from where she was sitting. She could imagine that wasn't easy for him. What sort of a future had he pictured for himself back then, she wondered?

And now he was here, driving her to a Mexican restaurant, in a car he called a "Herder", working for eleven dollars an hour at an electronics retailer. She imagined this wasn't what he'd pictured for himself when he first got into Stanford.

As Chuck pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant with a playfully ominous, "Here we aaaare", she smiled in amusement at him and wondered what it was about him that had made Bryce Larkin entrust government secrets with him, especially if they were as sensitive as Graham had made them seem. He was perfectly unassuming, charming in a sort of goofy way, and he was seemingly lacking in a healthy amount of self-esteem.

Granted, she supposed she understood why, with him having been at Stanford, and how much of a step down he must feel like he'd had to take to be where he was now. But on the other hand, he wasn't exactly...terrible to be around.

In fact…

As they walked to the front door of the restaurant, he did a few punches with his fists in celebration and drawled, "Margarita tiiiiiiiime", making her laugh and answer with an emphatic, "Yes it is."

And when he laughed at her response, she nibbled on the inside of her lip a little to keep from being too pleased by it.

They were sat immediately, sliding into a booth across from one another as the mariachi band finished a song. Chuck turned and made sure to clap for them and she watched him with soft, steady eyes.

This wasn't someone who knowingly acted against his government. This wasn't someone who would purposely help a rogue agent steal or hide incredibly sensitive intel. There was just no way. There was no guile in him. There was nothing under any kind of facade. She hadn't seen any trace of a facade to begin with. He was just...Chuck Bartowski. A regular guy.

A regular guy passing her a large margarita menu. "Oh my God!" she exclaimed, looking at it. "It's front and back? These are all different kinds of margaritas?"

"El Torero is specifically known for that margarita menu," he said with a bit of a proud grin.

She slid her gaze slowly up from the menu and smirked just enough to make him swallow hard. "You know the way to a girl's heart," she said. And then she broke character a bit and chuckled. "At least, this girl. I love me a good margarita. How do I even choose?"

Chuck laughed. "Can I make a suggestion?" He held his hands out to the side, palm facing her. "And this isn't me tellin' you what to do at all. Just, if you're overwhelmed, which I usually am…"

"Make your suggestion. I'm all ears." She lowered the menu, leaning in a bit.

"Get the original lime margarita. The other ones are all fantastic. Trust me, I've tried most of 'em. Except the papaya. Sometimes papaya tastes like hangover mouth to me."

Sarah let out a genuine bark of laughter. "That is so weirdly specific."

"I know. I have crazy taste buds. It's a thing," he chuckled.

"I can't do this," she said, a serious look on her face. He almost looked nervous. "I can't be on a date with a guy with crazy taste buds. I've gotta call a cab or something." She made to grab her jacket and leave, dropping the act and laughing as he sat back and groaned, dropping his head on the seat behind him and laughing.

"You had me goin' for a second. Just trust me on the original lime, okay? That's the point I'm tryin' to make," he said with a grin, still obviously amused by her antics. "Nobody does the original like El Torero."

She trusted him and ordered the original lime like he'd suggested when the waiter came to take their orders, and they ordered their meals as well. As the waiter left, Sarah leaned her elbows on the table and gazed at him a bit, letting him see some interest there. Sooner rather than later, she had to start asking questions, real questions. She wanted to be able to say for sure that he was not a willing participant in any of this.

And she was a little startled, and by extension frustrated, that she wanted him to be innocent as badly as she did.

"So tell me about yourself, Chuck."

"I work at the Buy More as the Nerd Herd supervisor," he answered immediately, a cheeky look on his face.

"Uuuuh, yeah, I knew that."

He chuckled and mimicked her pose, leaning his arms on top of the table. "What do ya wanna know? You can ask me anything."

You can ask me anything… He'd said it without blinking, no hesitation, his tone genuine. That alone was enough to convince her. But she kept going anyway.

"Is that all you do?" she asked. "Work?"

"On the crazier days at the Buy More, it really feels that way." He widened his eyes and chuckled.

"Uh, I've only been in there twice, but I still have to ask...Are there any days that aren't crazy?"

Chuck laughed. "Ummmm. Well, no. It's more on a scale of crazy. From Hannibal Lector on a human flesh diet to Meryl Streep reading a nice historical fiction novel by the fire." She couldn't hold back a laugh at that. It was quite specific. "But to actually answer that first question you asked, I don't just work. Sometimes I sit around watching movies with my sister and her boyfriend when they get home from their shifts at the hospital, sometimes I mess around with programming on my computer, read...stuff…"

"Stuff?"

"Yeah, stuff." He shrugged.

"Your sister and her boyfriend?" she asked then, raising her eyebrow. "You're close with them?"

"Super close."

"You live close? Or with them?"

"Um, define with, though. Because the set-up of the place is—Okay, yes. I live with my sister and her boyfriend." He winced. "Eleven dollars an hour makes it hard to have your own place. Or maybe announcing my income probably was a bad idea right then? Maybe." He let out a self-deprecating chuckle.

"You're talking to someone who doesn't have a job, remember."

"Good point. Thank you." They exchanged a smile. "So yeah, I live with my sister and her boyfriend, Captain Awesome."

"Nooo," she said, letting out a bubbly laugh.

"It's true, though."

"So—So wait. You call him 'Captain Awesome'..."

"Yeah. Wait 'til you meet 'im." He said it so easily, as though that was a sure thing that was going to happen. As though he could see this extending past just one date. Already. It wasn't hubris or ego, either. She thought it might just be that he liked her. And she had to fight to keep the interested, happy smile on her face suddenly. "Everything he does is awesome. Climbing mountains, jumping out of planes...flossing."

She pulled her chin back in surprise and chuckled. "That's funny."

"Well, I'm a funny guy," he said, and she detected some teasing in the way he said it.

"Clearly. Which is good, 'cause, I am not funny," she drawled. She immediately saw the dismissal in his face, the dubious look in his narrowed eyes. But he didn't tell her otherwise with his words, and there was almost a sweetness in that, wasn't there?

"Is that your big secret, by the way?" he asked. "Because I've been sittin' here trying to figure out what's wrong with you…"

"Oh, plenty. Believe me."

"...and I was thinkin' either she's a cannibal or not that funny, and I was really pullin' for cannibal 'cause I've never met one before."

He was such a nerd, and in spite of his lack of self-esteem she'd already witnessed in just a few meetings and the hour since he'd picked her up at her door, there was such an ease with which he was...himself. No filtering the strange, bizarre things that popped into his head. No holding himself back. It was refreshing. It set her at ease.

"Uhh, not a cannibal," she said, nodding once. "But I did just come out of a long relationship, so I may come with baggage."

"Well, I can be your very own baggage handler."

For once, Agent Sarah Walker didn't know what to say to that. And she didn't know why she'd felt the need to talk about any kind of relationship. Maybe because that was what normal people talked about? Or...or maybe she was letting her guard down when she shouldn't be. But the pained, mortified look that clearly read What in the hell did I just say oh my God was enough for her to brush her own discomfort to the side.

How was something so embarrassingly corny still charming when he said it? Maybe it was his recognition that it was terribly corny written all over his face. She looked to the side and pursed her lips. Still speechless. She knew for sure that this man was not Agent Larkin's accomplice. Not knowingly, at least.

"Uuuhhh!" he interrupted her thoughts and forged on like a trooper. "So, uh, the, uh, the guy. The ex. The guy. The ex is the reason you moved here from…" He paused.

"Uh, D.C."

"Right."

"Yeah. After I realized that all my friends were his friends and that everything about Washington reminded me of…" He voice halted for a moment. She'd almost said it. "Bruce." Good enough. "I needed change. A big one."

Like potentially leaving the CIA. Though that had almost nothing to do with Bryce, and had almost everything to do with Ryker and the knowledge that she'd been a puppet for the CIA for going on a decade now, her hands dripping with blood, and a soul-deep fatigue that existed in every last facet of her being no matter how much sleep she tried to get between missions.

"Bruce." She felt a spike of nerves for a moment. And then he smirked. "Yeeah...you give me crap for being Chuck and you went out with a Bruce?" The nerves dissipated and she let out a breathy laugh. "That's nice. That's real good."

"Soo—So what about you? What skeletons do you have in your closet?" she asked, then. Because he'd given her the perfect way to prod him for information about himself. He got a look on his face then, like he wasn't expecting that question and she wondered if this was a bad first date question. Had she not put as much teasing into it as she should have? "Any secrets?" She paused as he continued to look a bit like a deer in headlights. "Any women?"

"Uhhhhh...yeah," he said quietly. "Yeah, um...Actually back in college there was…" He cleared his throat and fidgeted in his booth. "There was one. Um. Back in college. I mean, there was...I had someone. It was…" And then he just stopped, staring at her. And it was strange, because he didn't look uncomfortable, exactly. It was more like he flat-out didn't know what else to say, didn't know how to finish that thought. She just stared back, lowering her chin a little, waiting…

"But that's all over with now," he rushed out. "And talking about her is as useless as the pile of Starbucks gift cards people have given me as gifts over the years, rotting away in my desk drawer at home."

Sarah laughed, ducking her head as she realized every time she thought she might have him on something, he went ahead and knocked her back on her heels by saying something bizarre but cute, or funny. And as she looked up at him again, she found she didn't want to stop herself from saying, "I like you, Chuck."

Because she did. Already. And wasn't that just great? she thought to herself with an inward roll of her eyes.

She sipped her margarita, deciding she really liked that, and maybe she should be careful about having more than just the one because she was getting much too comfortable sitting here in this booth, across from him, listening to him talk about his family, his work, the self-deprecating humor...And more than anything else, there were the looks he sent her when he thought she wasn't looking, his eyes soft, eyebrows turned up in the middle, as though he couldn't believe he was sitting here with her. Like he was in a dream or something that someone hadn't woken him up from yet.

It was sweet and it made her uncomfortable all at once. Because he really and truly had no idea.

She did, though. She was certain that this guy wasn't guilty of anything besides maybe basing too much of his self-worth off of some girl he liked in college. Or maybe she was just assuming considering what he'd said and how awful he'd looked mentioning it. Not to mention how fast he'd brushed it away.

When they finally finished eating, Chuck spent a good three minutes arguing with her about the check, never actually pushing, but being adamant enough about wanting to pay that she finally relented. It hadn't sat well with her, though, so when he'd helped her put her jacket on, she "accidentally" bumped his hip with her hand and slipped thirty dollars into his pocket without him realizing it. He'd figure it out later, after she was gone, on a plane back to Langley.

She fought back the melancholy as they wandered out onto the sidewalk and began strolling along side by side. He didn't make any kind of move, not to put his hand on her back, touch her arm, hold her hand, and it was...interesting. Instead he stuck his hands in his pockets and turned to glance at her.

"So D.C., huh?"

"Yeah. D.C." She smiled at him and he smiled back.

"That means you're good with the whole snow thing, then." She laughed. "Because I need to warn you, if you're a snow girl, that's not a thing here in LA proper. Now...you can find snow up in the mountains more inland during the right seasons, buuut…" He finished it off with a chuckle.

"I can take it or leave it. I didn't exactly come here for the weather." No, she came here to find out if Agent Larkin was working with someone else, primarily Chuck Bartowski, supervisor of the Buy More Nerd Herd. Not that this was something she'd be telling said Nerd Herd supervisor.

If she played her cards right, she could finish this date, get Graham on the line, and tell him to have them call that crazy bastard Casey off. Chuck was innocent. He had no idea what any of this was. He was just a nice guy. A legitimately nice guy.

A legitimately nice guy she couldn't help liking and wondering, not for the first time, what it might be like to go out on a real date with him, one that didn't involve her feeling him out for the potential to betray his country. What might it be like to actually go out on the town with a guy like Chuck Bartowski and just...enjoy? Have a conversation. Walk around and have him show her things like the DMV and liquor stores?

And maybe it was right then, in that moment, that she let her guard down a little bit and allowed herself to loosen up, enjoy.

"Does that mean if the apocalypse happened and LA was suddenly turned into a winter wonderland, you wouldn't make it?" she asked.

"Whoa, whoa! Whoa, there!" He held out a hand towards her in faux offense, and she laughed, rocking forward. "Slow down, little missy. Okay? I wouldn't just curl into a ball in the snow and freeze to death. Oh my God!"

She laughed again. "I wouldn't let you, don't worry."

"You tryin' to say you'd keep me warm?" He looked like he regretted it immediately, somehow managing to shove almost his entire fist into his mouth and clamping his teeth down onto it. He pulled it back out just as quickly. "You gave me an inch and I took, like, three miles. Can we just ignore that? Can we pretend I didn't just? Thanks."

Sarah cracked up and put a hand on his arm. "It's done."

"Thank you. Seriously. Oh my God."

"I kind of take the blame for it, so don't worry. I've got your back." And he really couldn't even have an inkling of an idea just how intensely she had his back at the moment. That there was potentially a guy out there right now who was headed here to put a bullet in him, that she was wracking her brain for a way to get proof to Graham that he wasn't working with Larkin, that he was just an innocent civilian.

He led her out onto an overpass then, and she decided to change the subject, give him a bit of a hand.

"So, um...where we going?" she asked, since she was following him and really had no idea where he was leading her.

"Well, do you like music?"

She paused, unable to really come up with a lie. "I guess."

It made him laugh. "You guess? What's your favorite band?" She just beamed at him, still not knowing how to answer. That wasn't really ever something she paid attention to. "Ooohh my gosh. Oh my gosh."

He shook his head and looked away, and she decided to maybe take a page out of his book this time. "God, I'm not funny. I don't listen to music. This must be your worst date ever, right?"

But Chuck had stopped a few feet back, she realized a bit belatedly, and she turned to watch him. He'd frozen, facing away from her, looking down at the street below as police vehicles blasting their sirens sped past. He looked stricken...a little strange.

"I was waiting for you to say no," she continued, watching him closely.

But then he spun on his heel and gaped at her. "Sorry…S—Uh, I kinda zoned out there for a second. Uh, no. No! God, no. You kiddin' me? I've had—I've had much, much worse experiences. Oh my God." The way he gently put his hand on her elbow and guided her to walk with him again set her at ease immediately, and she grinned, watching him stumble to clean up the minor mess he'd made taking so long to answer. "In the eleventh grade, actually…"

"Oh! Oh, you have to go back that far?" she exclaimed, cracking up. "Come on!"

"I don't date all that much!"

"Suuuure. Sure, Chuck. Got me on a rollercoaster over here." And she smiled in a way that let him know she was just teasing him.

"Sorry. It's not purposeful, I promise. I'm just a dipshit."

"You are not," she chuckled. "Stop it. I don't typically ask dipshits to show me around when I move to a new place."

"Not that you know of. Us dipshits have a way of sneakin' up on ya with the dipshittedness."

Sarah snorted outright and shook her head. "That's bullshit and I don't believe you."

"Fine, fine. But I'll have you know, a Buy More customer called me one just the other day, and they say in retail that the customer is always right." He grinned cheekily, playing with the keys to the Nerd Herd car he'd driven them in between his hands now.

"Also bullshit. The customer is often wrong, and sometimes they're big stupid assholes about it, too."

"Oh, wow. Wow, can you be my manager, please?"

"Is there an opening for management at the Buy More?" He winced. "What? Did I...say something…?" She felt a bit unsure. Had she offended him?

"No, no. Not at all. No. There's just this...it's an AssMan position." She made a face. "Sorry. Assistant manager. AssMan. Ahem…" She giggled. "I was putting in my application. Or, uh...thinking about it."

"Wow, really? Good luck. I hope you get it, Chuck."

"I haven't—I haven't even—I mean, I have to turn it in first. Heh." He rubbed the back of his head. "But thanks! I appreciate it. Cross your fingers, and uh...I'll keep ya updated." He made a goofy face and crossed his fingers. She couldn't help but notice he'd said something that insinuated he was foreseeing another meeting between them, a future date, an actual friendship or relationship maybe… And it made her...sad.

"You'll get it," she said with an emphatic nod. "I'm sure you will."

His smile was warm. "You have any suggestions?"

"Who, me? Uhhh…"

"Dear God, whatever you do...don't say 'just be yourself'. I heard that too much today and I can't hear it again." Sarah immediately picked up on the meaning of that, even though he might not have meant for her to. She could picture this sweet nerdy guy asking his people—his sister, that Captain Awesome guy, but hopefully not that bearded friend Morgan—for advice before this date tonight. It made her insides feel a little...soft.

"Okay, well…" She giggled. "I won't say just be yourself. But maybe channel the guy who managed to get a whole bunch of Buy More employees to set up a makeshift stage for an impromptu ballet recital to make a little girl happy and hopefully keep her dad outta the doghouse."

They turned the corner and he peered at her for what felt like a long time. Then he cleared his throat and looked away. "Yeah, that's...really good advice. Thanks."

"You're welcome. I have my moments."

"I dunno. Maybe it's just meeee, buuut...I just get this feeling like you have an awful lot of moments, Sarah." His smile was so warm, his words managing to make her speechless for a few moments. She had to remind herself that he was talking to some other girl, someone she'd invented just for the night, and not her. Then why did it feel like he was talking to her?

"Maybe it's just those cool sticks you've got in your hair or somethin'."

He caught her off-guard and she barked out a laugh, having to take a few extra steps as she leaned forward with laughter, and he looked so pleased about it, and this was becoming a legitimate problem—a problem she wasn't feeling like stopping at the moment.

"Oh. Hey. We're in here…" He put a hand on her arm and gestured towards the line in front of what looked like your average downstairs bar. She moved to get in the back of the line but he shook his head and gestured for her to follow him. "No, no... Listen, you picked the right tour guide, okay? You don't wait in lines at the bars when you're out with Chuck."

She raised her eyebrows with a teasingly impressed look and followed him past the bouncer who he exchanged some dorky handshake with, and as they walked into the hallway, Chuck leaned in close. "Full disclosure, this is literally the only place I can do this with." Sarah laughed again and he chuckled, raising his voice as the band playing downstairs became louder, the further inside they got. "I did the owner a solid fixing his tech free of charge."

"Ah, cool!"

He shrugged as they got to the top of the stairs, and she did a quick scan of the place down below, out of habit more than anything, the red, dim lighting making it hard to see much more than the band on the stage and the jumping (she guessed that was dancing?) people on the floor underneath.

They got a little ways down the stairs as he made up a few silly rules of the bar so that she wouldn't break any of them. Things like not feeding the fish (there were no fish), no moonwalking, no pirating...and he was sure to make it clear he meant the seafaring version and not the music stealing version. And finally, he said, no sliding down the banister of the stairs. And right after he said that, he half sat on the railing and made a goofy little sound, sliding the rest of the way to the bottom and letting out a boyish chuckle. She'd already been beaming at his antics, but that last bit made her laugh out loud as she paused on the staircase and finally followed him down the rest of the way.

"First thing's first. We gotta get drinks," he said and he moved up onto his tiptoes to glance over at the bar. "Yesssss! Jenna's tending the bar tonight. She will make you your perfect drink. Trust. Best bartender in LA."

"Oh, really?" she asked, raising her eyebrow and following him as he weaved through the crowd.

He glanced at her over his shoulder and laughed. "Jenna is fifty-seven and lives with her husband and two parakeets, so don't you even give me that eyebrow raise, as stupidly pretty as it is."

She smirked and it became a lot warmer of a smile when he turned back to look forward again. Stupidly pretty was probably the nicest and cutest thing she'd heard someone say about her in...longer than she could remember.

When they got to the bar, the woman with the jet black hair and the tank top that had a blond rocker-looking chick on it caught sight of Chuck and threw a big grin his way. "Heyyyy, if it isn't Chuckles!" Sarah wasn't sure but she might've caught a blush on his face under the red lights. Jenna made her way over and gave Chuck a half hug over the bar. "Usual?" she asked.

"Uh, yes. Please. And this is Sarah. She's my guest for tonight—"

"Guest or date?" The older woman winked. Sarah thought it'd be smart not to answer that question, and instead she just turned a toothy smile on Chuck, who ducked his head in embarrassment. "I'm just messin' with ya, kid. Hi, Sarah. Jenna. What are you drinkin'?"

"I, um...I dunno."

"You seem like an international woman of mystery." Sarah gaped for a moment, then schooled her features. "You're hiding a lot behind those eyes. I'll make you a martini fit for Emma Peel."

The woman seemed to just be joking with her as she moved away to make the drinks, but it still left Sarah feeling a bit...seen. Chuck must've seen a bit of a startled look on her face because he laughed and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, leaning in to speak so she could hear him over the band. "Don't pay attention to Jenna. She likes to freak people out by making these weird fortune teller statements when she makes drinks for 'em. It's always way far off, too, but it still gets 'em every time."

She just grinned and nodded. Jenna came back with the drinks and Chuck moved to pay, but Sarah stopped him with a hard look. He actually let her pay for the drinks, which was...refreshing. Incredibly refreshing. And she gave Jenna an extra big tip and felt a little silly about it. As much as she knew the woman deserved a big tip, the reason she'd really done it was because she thought maybe spies weren't big tippers...Maybe the woman would be dispelled of any notion that Sarah wasn't a CIA agent after all, that she'd been wrong.

Sarah felt like an idiot, but she covered it up with a grin as Chuck tried to form a bit of a barrier between her and people who might knock her very full martini by dancing too drunkenly near her.

He pointed out an empty couch in the corner and she nodded, and they made their way over to sit. It wasn't exactly an atmosphere that was conducive to conversing, so they just sort of peered at one another, smiling. It felt good. It felt normal and real. And she let herself enjoy it because who would really know about it besides her when it came down to it?

Chuck kept pushing his hand down his thigh, clutching his drink with his other hand, as he stared up at the band and bobbed his head a little. He was a bit awkward now, as though he didn't know how to proceed.

So she leaned to the side and bumped his shoulder with hers. "They're good!" she said.

"Good!" He blurted. "Good." He glanced away then as she looked up at the stage, nodding to the beat. When she turned to him again, meaning to say something to wipe the anguished awkward look off of his face, she caught something out of the corner of her eye.

And immediately, her guard was up again, all pretenses of enjoyment, any notion she'd get to spend the rest of this night like a regular girl on a date with a regular boy absolutely gone. She had a job to do. And Chuck was in serious danger. For that matter, so was she.

Everywhere she looked, she saw men in suits—obvious feds, she guessed NSA. They'd never learn how to properly blend in, the idiots. They stuck out like sore thumbs.

She turned and looked forward again. What could she do? How did she get them out of here when they were surrounded?

Then an idea struck her. She turned to Chuck and grabbed his hand.

"Let's dance."

A/N: UNDER THE MOONLIGHT ... THE SERIOUS MOONLIGHT ...

I had to. As we all know, though, the date isn't over. We'll be back with the rest of it soon, folks! Hope you all enjoyed the chapter! Let us know and leave a review! Thanks!

-SC and DC