A/N: Ahoy. I apologize for my hiatus, but I was adrift in life things and adulthood. Adulting is difficult and don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise. Damn it.

Thank you to anyone who is still here, reading this story. There aren't many, but those of you who are here are honestly the cream of the crop. I'd prefer to have just you guys over a slew of people reviewing with silly things. You guys are great. Thank you.

Summary: In 1776, George Washington declared himself King of the United States of America and began turning a new nation into the United States Empire: expanding to the west, amassing colonies and gaining power. Over one hundred years later, the government's secrets are at risk and a new way to keep them safe must be created. When those secrets are accidentally brought to inventor and toy maker Chuck Bartowski's doorstep, his future becomes uncertain as his life fills with adventures, hardships, and even a bit of romance.

Disclaimer: "Chuck" is not mine. Its characters are not mine. Though they might as well be, considering how often I think about them.

When last we sailed together on this airship of steampunkiness, Sarah had hatched an insanely complicated plot with Chuck to throw one over on Major Casey, while attempting to keep from alerting the bounty hunter that Chuck is the Intersect.

And so we join our ragtag Team Steamtowski in this, the last leg of their San Francisco adventure.

Let's do dis.

"How was I to know there would be a cable car accident?" Sarah Walker grumbled as she watched the only passenger train headed south that day pull out of the station. They had been ready to head back to the Embarcadero train station early that morning when Sarah suggested they take a faster route, just to be sure they didn't miss the train.

Said route ended up being a mistake when they were forced to pull their carriage to a halt behind a massive traffic jam, due to a cable car literally derailing and smashing a lucky-to-be-alive merchant's fruit stand before it came to a stop in the window of an apothecary's store.

Patrolmen swarmed the street, which meant they couldn't sneak around the accident for fear they would be spotted after last night's tumultuous activities outside of the patrol depot. They had to backtrack and race through the streets of San Francisco along the original route.

But now they were here at the station, standing on the platform, watching as the locomotive they were supposed to be on disappeared into its own cloud of steam.

"What now?" Casey growled. "We were s'posed to be on that."

"Do you think I don't know that, Major?" she asked through a clenched jaw.

"And there are no other trains going to Los Angeles today?" Chuck asked, staring at the spot where the train disappeared forlornly.

"Not passenger trains," the bounty hunter answered, his cello case slung over his back. "Well. Guess we better get ourselves another hotel to stay fer the night. Nearby if we can."

He turned and trudged away, and Chuck made to follow him, the dull ache of disappointment eating at him as he realized another day would go by before he could be on his way back home again. Back to where he was comfortable, surrounded by his things, by his people…and Morgan, of course.

But Sarah's hand was on his arm suddenly, holding him back. "Like hell we're staying here another moment."

Chuck tilted his head. "What?"

Sarah spun. "Casey! Let's go!"

And then they were running, the burly bounty hunter's confused growls trailing after them. Sarah let go of Chuck's arm and hopped down onto the tracks, ducking down behind the platform. "Hurry up!" she hissed over her shoulder as Chuck followed suit. "Count of three," she whispered when Casey lowered himself behind Chuck. "We break for it when that cargo train pulls out. It's on its way to Mexico."

"How you know that?" Casey asked, panting.

"I overheard the clerk say it to a patron as they walked past us. I'm a particularly observant individual. It's part of the job," she said.

"I jes' bet it is."

"Are we jumping that train?" Chuck couldn't help but ask.

"Damn right we are," Sarah answered. She turned to eye him for a moment. "You can do that, can't you?"

He reached up and pulled his bowler hat down a little further over his curls. "Damn right I can." And he had before, at least two separate times in his life. His legs had been much shorter then than they were now.

Sarah's mouth twitched and she nodded. "Good. Cas—?"

"It's goin'!" the man interrupted, pointing at the train.

Chuck and Sarah spun to watch as the connecting rods mounted on the wheels began to pump back and forth, moving the locomotive forward slowly. "Hellfire!" Sarah cursed in a hiss. "Three!" She sprang forward, racing across the tracks like her life depended on it.

Upon second thought, maybe it did.

"Go!" Casey practically shoved Chuck to his feet and both men pumped their legs as fast as they could, trailing behind the extremely quick woman, wearing her trousers and boots again, her long, silky blond hair pinned beneath the newsboy cap she borrowed from Chuck. Her duster fluttered behind her like a cape as Chuck watched her near the train that seemed to be going much faster than it had been a moment ago.

With the spryness of a wildcat, she came up beside the nearest boxcar with the sliding door open two feet and leapt up, grabbing onto the edges of the opening and easily hoisting herself into the car. She turned immediately and stuck her torso out, her features pinched in determination. "Come on, Chuck! Run faster!"

"What am I, chopped liver?" came the pained snarl from the bounty hunter running behind Chuck.

Chuck grit his teeth and ran faster, tugging Sarah's sack that he had been carrying for her off of his shoulder and swinging it around to toss it to her. She caught it cleanly and threw it over her shoulder into the boxcar. "Come on, Chuck. Jump!"

"Gimme room!" he panted and she disappeared from the door, backing away to give him room as he asked. The train was moving even faster now.

"God damn it, you idjit, just do it!" Casey yelled.

Chuck sprang into the air. Pain erupted in his chest as he landed, the wind knocked out of him, and his hands grappled for something to hold onto. His vision exploded into an array of colors for a moment, and he lost all sense of where he was, until he heard his name.

He clung to the sides of the opening and hoisted himself into the train, Sarah's hands wrapped in his jacket front as she helped pull him inside. "What the hell happened?"

"I think…I flashed…" He found it difficult to breathe from the way he had landed on the wooden planks, but he scrambled to the door anyway. "Come on, Casey!" He pushed the door open a bit more and reached out for the bounty hunter huffing and puffing as he ran alongside the boxcar. Casey pushed his cello case into Chuck's arms, who then passed it back to Sarah.

And then Casey made a heroic leap, caught himself on the door, and easily tugged himself into the boxcar, shoving Chuck unceremoniously out of the way before flopping onto his back in the hay and groaning. "I hate this hobo shit."

Chuck clenched his eyes shut in an attempt to ease the pounding in his head. He had flashed for a moment there…but for what reason? All he had gotten out of that particular episode was distraction, and quite nearly the ending of his life. If Sarah hadn't gotten a grip on him and helped him inside, he might have fallen under the wheels of the train. Wasn't the Intersect supposed to help him do things? Wasn't that what Bryce had told Sarah, who had then told it to him?

Shaking his head, and covering his face with his hands, he took one last deep breath and pushed himself up to sit, eyeing his bowler sitting a few feet away, his legs splayed out in front of him hay all over his clothes and certainly in his hair.

Sarah was pressed up against the corner by the track on which the door panels slid open and closed. Her arms were crossed and she was staring at her lap intently. Her eyes flicked up to his in the semi-darkness and he knew she was curious about his flash. All he could do was shrug helplessly, and she seemed to almost become even more curious at that.

"Everyone alive?" he asked, looking over at Casey who had pulled himself up to sit against the nearest wall, still breathing heavily with a scowl on his face.

"Shut up, Bartowski," was the only response he got, so he just shrugged again and flopped back down into the hay with a fwump sound, a cloud of dust or dirt or something puffing up around him. He shut his eyes again, letting his body go completely limp, the rocking of the train lulling him into something of a trance.

Earlier that morning, Chuck had woken up on the floor of the hotel room, his face pressed into his bunched up coat, his body in fetal position. Sarah had been waiting at the vanity, her feet propped up, a cup of something steamy in her hands. She had given him her mug and let him take a few large gulps of the hot coffee, and brushed his shoulders off when he asked if she had gotten any sleep.

Casey had awoken in the bed with nothing to say about it except that he needed some whiskey. Once the man had dug into the inner pocket of his duster and procured his flask, taking a swig or six, he was ready to leave. No questions asked.

Nothing like, "Why did you drug me?" or "How did I end up on this bed?" He picked up his cello case, checked to make sure everything inside of it was secure, and hoisted the strap over his shoulder, telling them to hurry up.

Whatever Sarah had given him had certainly done its job, and what was more, the bounty hunter looked more rested and spry than both Chuck and Sarah put together. It was rather disheartening, and certainly frustrating as well.

Although both of those feelings had fallen to the background when Sarah had taken Chuck's newsboy out from his things and pulled her hair up, pinning the cap on top of her head. Chuck figured she was trying to disguise herself a little, perhaps make herself look like a boy.

But God, it hadn't worked. Not even a little.

Sarah Walker was too stunning, and her eyelashes too long, her cheekbones and smooth jaw, and those full lips…

Chuck groaned to himself and turned onto his stomach, his cheek pressing into the dirty hay.

He heard a huff of amusement, then, and opened his eyes, looking right at Sarah, studying how the beams of light from the spaces in the wooden planks above them fell across her face.

"What?" he muttered.

"I just realized something," she muttered back.

"Hm?"

Her eyes turned to his and she smirked a little sheepishly, shrugging one shoulder cutely. "I didn't actually need Casey to find you after all."

"What?" He pushed himself up to his elbows and rubbed the hay off of his face, smacking at his hair to rid it of the stuff as well.

When he glanced Casey's way, a little panicked, Sarah waved her hand. "He's fast asleep. Don't worry."

It was only then that Chuck heard the soft snore coming from the bounty hunter's general direction. The man could fall asleep at the drop of a hat, apparently. He must also have quite a bit of trust that they wouldn't just roll him off the train in his sleep, but…perhaps Chuck had already proven himself to be thoroughly against that sort of thing…

"I cut him loose and concocted this whole plan because I thought I needed his help finding you, and as it turned out, I really didn't."

"How did you two find me?"

"We looked for you for hours." She sent him a flat look and he tried to send her a glare in response, because honestly, what did she expect? He had just found out she was some dangerous con artist and he had flashed on quite a few terrifying things. But all Chuck could manage was a blush. "And then I saw in the papers about the opera last night. And I knew in my gut that you would be there."

"How?"

"Hm?"

"How did you know I wouldn't just hop the next train out of here bound for…wherever?"

"It all boils down to the sort of man you are, I suppose."

"And what sort of man am I?"

She seemed to know better than to answer that question and she sent him slightly amused but also somewhat chastising look through her eyelashes. "It's part of what I do. I study people, figure out what makes them tick."

"Rather like what I do with clocks and watches. I figure out what makes them tick. Literally." He gave her a closed-mouth smile that he thought might be rather charming, but she only frowned a little and diverted her eyes.

"Except that you fix said clocks and watches afterwards. And I just rob people blind."

Chuck thought it best to change the subject. "So you didn't need Casey to help find me after all. But if you had left him there, he would have escaped just like he did the first time and—" He was interrupted by a loud snort. He whipped around to look at the burly bounty hunter, but all the man did was flop over from his uncomfortable spot against the wall and land face-first in the hay, snoring again.

Just to be safe, Chuck pushed himself to his feet and crab walked closer to Sarah so that they could speak a bit quieter and still be heard over the racket of the wheels going over the track beneath them. He plopped down a few feet away and leaned against the wall, stretching his legs out in front of him. "He would have escaped again, Sarah. And he would have found us eventually. How would we have dealt with Nooman the Nincompoop without Casey's help? Sure, you and I did the brunt work in the beginning, but bringing his body to the station required a third man—person."

"You're right, of course." She paused. "This is all much too complicated."

Chuck lazily rolled his head to the side to look at her profile for a moment, watching the dust float around her in the light streaming down from the roof of the boxcar. "Do you think we can pull it off?"

She shrugged. "We have no choice."

Chuck turned back and stared at the wall, listening to the sounds of John Casey's snoring and the train moving over the tracks towards home. And he tried not to think about how difficult things were going to be in his future.

}o{

The next day found the trio poised behind the sliding panel of the boxcar, listening to the sounds of the workers unloading and checking the engine and whatever else it was they did when a car pulled into a new station.

Sarah snuck to the opening in the door and peeked around the wooden panel. LOS ANGELES was painted on the side of the station's main building. They were a bit of a ways outside of the city proper and it would be about a mile and a half walk to get into the city, but she knew neither of her companions would complain about that.

That was, if they could sneak out of the boxcar and eventually out of the station without being caught. Patrols had recently been cracking down on the individuals found bumming in the boxcars of cargo locomotives, and if they were caught, Sarah knew prison might be the least of their worries.

That meant she might have to resort to violence. Not for the first time since she met Chuck Bartowski, she was left feeling unsettled, especially right now with the toy maker pressed so close to her back. "I'm going to go first, scope things out. I'll let you know when it's safe."

"Be careful," Chuck whispered.

She heard Casey grunt in a particularly smirkish way and she wanted to reach around Chuck and strangle the older man. But instead she nodded over her shoulder at the younger man, silently slipped out of the door, and lowered herself to the gravel beside the train.

Sarah glanced first left, then right, seeing that the tracks were clear of workers for the time being. So she ducked underneath the car and crab walked to the other side. Two men were setting up a ramp to unload the crates two boxcars away, their cloth caps pushed way back on their foreheads and their overalls smudged with oil and mud.

Apparently Los Angeles hadn't escaped the rains San Francisco had received over the past few days, she thought a bit glumly, looking down at the mud squishing beneath her boots as she maneuvered herself back towards the other side of the train.

She poked her head into their boxcar.

"Psst!"

Chuck knelt down.

"Grab the bags, get down here, and follow my lead. Silently."

He nodded, made some strange and indecipherable hand gestures over his shoulder towards Casey—Sarah knew if she couldn't understand them, the burly bounty hunter was most likely just as confused—then snagged Sarah's sack and joined her at the opening.

Slinging the sack over his shoulders, he quietly and (surprisingly) gracefully eased himself down to the gravel beside her. While Chuck straightened his hat over his curls, Casey slid down behind them, and Sarah signaled for them to move along behind her.

She led them along the train safely, ducking beneath the opened sliding doors of each boxcar they passed until they could move around the platform, ending up in front of the small station master's building.

Figuring they were out of harm's way, Sarah slowed to a leisurely speed and reached over to snag the strap of her sack. Almost as though he had a sixth sense, Chuck ducked out of her reach and she thought she detected a bit of a smirk on his face.

She made to reach for it again, but he did it again, a grin on his face this time.

"Give me my bag, Chuck. You've carried it this entire time."

"Not so. It was sitting in the hay between us for the last two days."

"Can you two stuff it for five minutes so's we can get some damn food? I haven't eaten a proper meal in the last two days," Casey growled. "I'm hungry."

They stopped in a small restaurant and dined, all three of them eating at least their weight in shepherd's pie. Casey also invested in some oranges from a citrus stand nearby, muttering something about scurvy as he did.

Through it all, Sarah was lost in thought, attempting to detangle the mess she and Chuck had ahead of them. Once they finally hiked all the way back into Los Angeles proper, there was a lot they would have to handle. She had to make sure her landlord had left her rooms for her. And considering how much she had left there when she was forced to rush off with Chuck in tow, she worried that he had gotten rid of it, sold it, whatever one did when a tenant disappeared and left their belongings behind.

Her only hope was that her odd hours at the Aviator's Timepiece would provide some explanation as to why he never saw her the last few days while she was gone.

Then there was what she knew Chuck had been fretting over throughout the day and a half trip on the cargo locomotive. What would he say to his sister now that he was back home, after disappearing for almost a week with no word save a hurriedly scrawled note?

Sarah had now seen Eleanor Woodcomb on six separate occasions in the last two months and in that time she had found her to be an inherently kind woman who treated everyone with equal respect and esteem, had more brains than anyone Sarah had ever met and, frankly, could strip the paint off a wagon with that hazel-eyed glare of hers.

Chuck would probably receive the brunt of the young nurse's fury. More than that, though, Sarah couldn't help but wonder if she might have lost her favor with the woman, especially after she had shown barely controlled excitement over the fact that Sarah was courting her brother. It just wasn't done, this gallivanting off with a man, unwed, barely having started courting.

Sarah Walker didn't pretend to understand the full details of a proper courtship, but she was certain traveling together unchaperoned was considered highly improper, even for a progressive young woman such as Ellie.

But then she reminded herself that there was a chance Chuck had not mentioned her. She had told him to be general with his missive and to tell his sister he went away on business. She hadn't allowed herself the time to read the note, and therefore had no idea whether he had included her in his escapades.

She would just have to cross her fingers that he didn't. Asking him in front of Casey wouldn't do. And she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know. They would deal with it when the time came.

By the time they reached the outskirts of the city proper, Sarah had wrangled her bag away from Chuck, who she knew was only trying to be a gentleman. She had to admit, his teasing left her more than a little relieved, though she refused to consider her returned attentions as flirting, as Casey had labeled it when Chuck left them to buy some cool refreshments. It prickled a little to give Casey a meaningful look that he seemed to understand in full spades when he grunted and turned away with a curiously displeased look on his face. But he had to continue thinking she was manipulating Chuck's affections for her.

She tried not to dwell too hard on the fact that Chuck was most likely not acting. And when another voice threatened to insist she might not be either, she figuratively punched it in its vocal chords so hard that it was unable to speak up again.

Chuck knew she was a con artist now. Maybe he didn't know who the Ice Queen was, what she was capable of according to the newspapers. Maybe he didn't know about the people left dead in her wake. And she hoped to God he never found out about those. How would she explain those? Because the truth of the matter was that at a certain point, self-defense was no longer a viable explanation. At least it wouldn't be for him, a man who would never hurt a fly.

A con artist was one thing, and perhaps that's why he was still here, why he sat in that hotel room and listened to her, why he was going along with her plan. The more she learned about Chuck's past, the more she realized that he didn't fit into the bubble Bryce had forced him into. He carried a deck of cards in his vest pocket, when gambling was terribly illegal in Los Angeles. He took a bullet for a child who had been caught stealing by a patrolman. He wasn't a simpleton, not by a long shot. And he was brave. She had been right at the very beginning when she deemed him foolishly brave. But the more she she got to know Chuck Bartowski, the less she thought 'foolishly' was the right word.

Perhaps it was foolish of him to trust her when all he knew about her was that she was a con artist whose reputation deemed her the Ice Queen. The multitudes of ways trusting someone like her could go horribly awry for him…

But she had no intention of abusing that trust.

Which confused her and terrified her and made sense all at the same time. And that confused her even more.

Shutting her eyes tightly, she shoved all of her thoughts to the back of her mind. When she opened her eyes again, they were almost at the alley that led to the side entrance into the Buy More's workshop. Casey tromped on, idly scuffing his boots against the corner of the shop as he passed by it. But Chuck stilled, shifting his weight a little and wiping his hands on his pants. "You know, in the almost nine years that I've had this shop, I've never left it for more than a day," he admitted quietly.

"Really?"

"Mmhm."

He didn't have to say anything else. She could see in the way his brow furrowed, his fingers fiddling with the hem of his jacket, that he was nervous. And she knew it wasn't just about the Buy More, but about his sister, too. Maybe she hadn't even given Chuck the chance to think about the fact that he was leaving his home for the first time in awhile, if not for the first time ever. And now Chuck was just starting to realize it now that he was back, standing here in front of his shop, his home, after a week of being away from it.

Sarah focused on the Ellie issue, though, since that was the one thing she was sure bothered him.

"She will understand, Chuck. Sudden things come up all the time when you own a business."

"Like what, exactly? She won't stand for a shoddy explanation. 'What sort of business, Charles Irving?' she'll ask. 'Just, you know. Important business.' Yeah, that is not going to work. And she has this face she gets when she's disappointed in me. And I can hear her banging things around in the kitchen even from upstairs in my room…" His voice drifted off and he sighed.

"We'll come up with something."

He turned his head and glanced at her, the corner of his mouth twitching at the edges. "Alright."

As much as Sarah knew Chuck wanted to see his sister immediately, he informed her that Ellie would most likely be on shift since it was the middle of the week and she rarely received time off, especially in the middle of the day. So instead, Chuck tinkered with Morgan and assigned Casey to make sure no one had broken into the Buy More and taken their tools.

Apparently it was an unspoken agreement that the bounty hunter would continue on as Chuck's assistant, even though he scowled a little when Chuck gave him an order. Then again, it didn't quite seem like an order when it came from Chuck.

And as much as she wanted to be sure her rooms were still unoccupied and her effects had not been tinkered with, she stayed at the Buy More, busying herself with wiping the counter in the front. When she finished that she picked up the broom leaned against the wall behind the counter and began sweeping the floor. And as she swept the dust into various piles throughout the shop, she began to think about Chuck the other night, on his hands and knees, wiping up the coffee Casey had spilled when he had fallen. The way he scrubbed so unconsciously, his voice soft and warm as he let her in on a small piece of his childhood. He was right about cleaning. It was cathartic, moving back and forth across the floor, every so often leaning over one of the toys Chuck had built to get a good look at it.

As the sun began to lower behind the neighboring steampower plant's smoke stacks, she noticed strange shadows being cast by the objects around the shop. She found it rather eerie. And at the same time, it was curiously comforting being surrounded with things built by the toy maker with his own hands, inventions he had thought up in his own brain before the Intersect was implanted there.

Sarah realized it was getting darker in the shop, so she went around the room, turning up the lamps one by one until the shadows of the figurines on display danced and light flickered on the faces of the clocks mounted on the walls. Wondering how Chuck was getting along with Morgan, considering how nervous he was about leaving the android stationary for such a long while, and hoping Major Casey wasn't spinning tales of her exploits (whether true or not) in the toy maker's ear, Sarah pushed her way through the door behind the display case and walked into the workshop.

She frowned in confusion, as the place was silent and eerily dark. She didn't immediately spot Chuck anywhere—let alone Morgan or Casey.

But that was when she heard a splashing sound from the corner to her left and she turned to confront…

Chuck's back. His bare back.

The only source of light in the room was the lantern he had lit and set on the workbench behind him. The light danced on his figure, and the droplets of water he was splashing over his face and neck and rubbing over his arms glistened.

Her voice caught in her throat as she noticed he wasn't as thin as she'd assumed under the poorly tailored clothes he wore. There was definition in his arms, shoulders and back. Chuck bent a little lower and splashed more water over his face. Then he stood a little straighter, causing the water to cascade down his neck and over his shoulders and past the scar—

The heat rising from under her shirt collar froze, and her heart began beating so hard she thought it might explode straight out of her chest. The scar…

There was a raised scar on his upper back. She followed the diagonal line from the point of his right shoulder across to the bottom of his left shoulder blade. It was something she had seen before on others, but to see it on him—to see it on Chuck Bartowski, the toy maker…She couldn't look away. And she wanted to so badly.

What happened to him? Who had done it and why? How could he have done anything to deserve it?

She had assumed much about how he had grown up. He and Ellie had been raised in what always seemed to her to be the somewhat comfortable walls of an orphanage. And while things might not have been quite as nice there, not like it would be if you were raised by your own parents in the comfort of your own home, it was better than the streets surely. But what if that wasn't the whole story?

As her eyes trailed the scar on his back, she decided it obviously was not the whole story. Someone had punished him severely. And by the looks of it, he had just been a boy when it had happened. Sarah knew scars; she could read them like most folks read words on the pages of a book. The way it stretched and pulled at his skin…even in the very low light she knew someone had towered over him, brought something down over his back, just once, so powerfully that it had ripped at his flesh…

Her hand unconsciously clenched at her shirt front at the gruesomeness of that thought.

Had one of the matrons at the orphanage done it? Or…

Thousands of things went through her mind, all of them too terrible to imagine happening to him. How she had misjudged him. How wrong was she about the way he lived, about what he went through? And did Bryce know about…whatever it was that had happened?

Who would do such a thing to a child? And what had it done to Chuck? What sort of trauma had he gone through as a result? How was he still…the way he was? His outlook on life should have been altered significantly…like hers had been.

She was so confused. And what was more, she was startled. Even scared. Scared because she saw people hurt almost every day of her life. She had watched people die right in front of her. Suffering was everywhere, whether it was a child moaning from hunger pains, the mother moaning in helplessness…

And yet none of that had made Sarah Walker feel the emptiness and bleakness of her world so acutely as seeing this scar upon Chuck Bartowski's skin.

The thought of him suffering, especially a child version of him, made her want to scream and kick and set fire to everything.

And she knew how it felt. She could almost feel it now, the pain searing between her shoulder blades, the days of feeling like she couldn't move, feeling her skin burn so painfully she could barely breathe…It had only been that one time, and he hadn't even broken her skin.

There were no scars on her back. Nothing like his. Nothing that spoke of the worst sort of torture. And she hadn't been a child. Not like Chuck had been.

That was when she felt it…the tear dripping from her chin, soaking into her shirt collar.

He turned to put the soap back suddenly, his profile dripping with water, his brows furrowed and his jaw perfectly clean shaven now after days of having scruff covering his lower face…

Quite by accident, Sarah started, stepping back into the door and shutting it with her heel, causing him to yelp and spin to face her, his hands making fists in a defensive position that wouldn't have stopped even a babe.

"Sarah!"

"I apologize," she breathed, not having time to wipe the track of that single tear from her cheek. All she could do was hope he couldn't see it. And God, he looked even better from the front and she felt ridiculous and childish for staring at the smattering of hair she hadn't entirely expected to see on his chest. And why wouldn't it be there? He was a man, wasn't he? A fully grown man. A surprisingly well built, fully grown man.

"I, uh…I should be the one apologizing," Chuck said, his voice startling her away from her blatant staring. She beat back her blush with a figurative stick, glad there was only that one lantern lit in the room. "You see, I didn't know you were still here."

"I'm sorry. I was straightening up the front of the shop."

Lord save her, she wanted him to put something on and she wanted him to leave it off at the same time. This was not good.

Almost as if he heard her, though, he grabbed at the cloth and wiped at his face, hair, neck and shoulders. She tried so hard not to watch as his muscles flexed while he pulled a white, clean tunic of sorts over his head and tugged it down to cover his torso.

Finally.

Damn it. It opened halfway down his chest and in some ways this was rather worse. So she forced herself not to look away from his face.

"You were straightening the shop for me?" he asked, seemingly confused.

"I thought I might as well."

"Oh. Well, thank you."

"Welcome."

The air was tense between them, but then again, he had probably caught her staring at his body. It wasn't exactly modus operandi for Sarah Walker to allow people to see her in her most candid moments. She had completely lost control of her sensibilities. What with seeing that scar and then having so much of Chuck Bartowski on full display.

True, he wasn't your typical strong man candidate. He built toys for a living, for goodness sakes. But…

Sarah shook her head. "Where's the major? And for that matter, Morgan?"

Chuck finished drying off his hands, then flicked his thumb to the side. She followed it and saw Morgan sitting on the ground in the corner, a book propped in his hands, completely unmoving like a strange, metal statue with facial hair.

"What is he doing?"

"Reading a dictionary. I think he must have been reading that same one for the past two days. I'm not sure he's moved in that time."

"You mean he hasn't been charged?"

"He charges himself. I don't have to be here for that."

Sarah shook her head, her brain a little too addled and foggy to wrap itself around the concept of a machine that took care of itself in the same manner a human being might. "What about Casey?"

"Gone home. Which is why I was here. I-I thought you had gone to your rooms to make sure they were still vacant."

She huffed and leaned against the door. "I should. And I will. Are you going home?"

"Yes. Facing the music, as it were. The shrill, disappointed, no delicious baked goods for a week music." She smirked at that. "But it will be fine," he added. "She'll be nicer to me now that I'm clean and shaved, though." He patted his own cheek with a wink.

Sarah bit her cheek before she could ask him if he needed her to go with him as a buffer. She didn't want to go. She couldn't face the tall, powerful, admittedly intimidating nurse tonight. Not with everything that had happened since the last time she saw her, and not with what Sarah had just seen searing Chuck's upper back.

She could see herself seeing the woman's face and immediately imagining a similar mark on Ellie Woodcomb's back. And that would make for a horrible reunion.

"For the record," she said instead, meeting his gaze steadily, because looking away might reveal too much to his perceptive gaze, "we should decide a story to tell your sister."

"A lie?" Chuck asked.

"A lie, maybe…yes. But a lie that will protect her. And your brother-in-law."

His shoulders slumped. "I know." He reached over to grab his coat and pull it over his arms and shoulders, buttoning it tightly at his front. "I've been thinking about what I would tell her."

"And?" she prompted when he didn't respond right away.

He fixed the collar on the coat. "There was a man a few months ago who came in to have his timepiece fixed. He was really impressed with Morgan and decided he might want something like it of his own someday. He left and I remember thinking I could really make some good money if I exploited his idea. Building androids as companions for lonely people, you know?" She raised an eyebrow in acknowledgement. "But then I remembered it took me years just to build Morgan. Granted, I was only a kid then, but still…"

"So what would you tell Ellie?"

"That this fellow wanted me to come up to San Francisco because he had a business proposition. But then when I got there, I realized all he wanted was to buy Morgan off my hands." Sarah heard the swirl of gears from the other side of the room and when she glanced over, Morgan had lifted his head to look with black, beady eyes at his creator. "And I told him Morgan wasn't for sale. Then I came back down here." The metallic head lowered back to the dictionary again, as if satisfied there would be no selling of any bearded androids on this day.

"Clever, Chuck." He gave her a small, slightly sad smile. "But what are you going to say to her when she asks why it was so sudden? She will ask that. Probably."

"I know. I'm going to say there was a problem with the delivery of his summons. It got to me a day later than it was supposed to and she was on her shift and I had to go immediately or I would miss my window to see him."

He was a good liar, but she could see the way his spirits sunk lower and lower with each word of untruth that came from his mouth. "That should work," she said quietly.

"Mm. It will. She has no reason to think I would lie. I've never lied to her about anything before." And now you are lying to her left and right, Sarah added silently.

"Now that you've sorted that out, should we get going?"

He stood up a bit straighter and nodded, grabbing his bowler from its hook and snagging his keys keys from the workbench. They locked up and Sarah turned down the lamps in the shop, first receiving some acknowledgement from the toy maker about how spic and span it all looked. Then they made their way out of the workshop door, stepping into the alley.

The moon was somewhere up there, obliterated by an early evening haze that crept along the Los Angeles rooftops. Sometimes it came in from the ocean, but this haze smelled differently. Then again, the steampower plant was still spewing stuff out of its smokestacks, the workers inside slaving away, covered in grime and their own sweat no doubt.

It was a life Sarah could easily picture herself in if things had gone differently. Then again, there were a million different routes her life could have taken, some of them worse than this, many better. Either way, she was here now, following Chuck down the alleyway and staring at his upper back.

She knew what was beneath his coat. She had seen it, glowing in the lamplight. And it still hurt to think about it.

A large part of her wanted to ask, but then he would know she had been in the room for a good deal of time without alerting him she was there. Which would make it all that obvious to him that she was quite literally taking in the view. And there was no way in damned hell anyone would ever know about that.

And…selfishly perhaps…she didn't particularly wish to know the details at the moment. The last week had drastically changed her outlook on the toy maker as it was. And just for tonight, she would appreciate a reprieve from…well…feelings.

She scoffed out loud at herself. As though that will be happening…

"What was that?"

She looked up to see him glancing at her over his shoulder, a curious bit of amusement tilting the corner of his mouth upwards.

"Hm?"

"You just made a little sound."

"Nothing. It's cold," she lied with a shrug.

"Oh." Chuck stopped at the corner and turned to her. "Would you like my coat? I'm not all that cold for some reason."

"No, no. No, thank you." She waved him off as he began unbuttoning it. The truth of the matter was that without that coat, he was only wearing the cotton shirt and she wasn't entirely ready for another glimpse of him like that just yet.

"Are you positive?"

"Absolutely."

He nodded and they walked on together. "May I walk you home?" She gave him a look and he suddenly became sheepish. "I'm sorry. I almost forgot about—Of course you don't need me to walk you home. If anything it should be the opposite. What with you protecting me and the like."

As they walked along the damp road, Sarah wondered if he meant that he had forgotten for a moment exactly who she was—what she was. Had he unconsciously reverted back to that time before San Francisco? When she was merely a waitress at the Aviator's Timepiece? A country girl who enjoyed dancing and laughed often?

She could just imagine the thoughts going through his mind now that he had forced himself back down to earth, faced with the reality of things. It all had been too good to be true. And it wasn't true. Not for either of them.

"Well you live a block further than I do, so perhaps it's best if we stop at my rooms and then you continue on to yours alone. It would be best if Ellie didn't see me, perhaps." He nodded. "And besides, if I can't stay in my rooms any longer, I may need to borrow your carriage to find someplace else."

"Of course!" He turned to glance at her, his curls smashed down by his hat. "I almost forgot. I can help you with that. If it comes to it, I mean."

"Thank you." She didn't refuse him, only because if it did come to that, he would then be able to take the carriage back home. But the thought of spending more time with him tonight was quite honestly a wearying thought.

Their walk was quiet, for the most part, filled with the sounds of the city at night, the humming of airships and dirigibles overhead, loud arguments spilling out of windows, cats preening in the alleys. And even with everything that had happened, the unexplained things that hovered between them, and the reality of what both of them would face in the morning, the walk was comfortable. Calming.

And perhaps a little longer than her aching limbs preferred after the events of the last week, napping on trains, fighting assassins and patrolmen, chasing people in rainstorms, dealing with debilitating emotions. Lord help her, she just wanted to crawl into bed—any bed, really—and let her weariness overcome her until preferably tomorrow afternoon.

They finally reached the gate that led behind Mister McLeod's house to her own much smaller, single-story one. "Will you go in to see him first?" Chuck asked, is hand on the latch of the gate.

"No. It might just be that the old man didn't notice I was gone," she shrugged. "And if that's the case, I see no need to bother him."

"What if you walk into your entry way and there's a man in your parlor?" He widened his eyes teasingly and she smirked, reaching around him to open the gate, ducking under his arm to walk through.

"I don't think that will be the case, as I have no parlor. I suppose we'll just have to see what happens."

He followed behind her as they moved along the path quietly. "I don't see any lights on," he whispered, leaning close to her.

"Mm, that's a good sign."

As she slipped her key into the lock, she waited to hear any signs of life inside; someone getting up from a chair, movement in the washroom, feet scuffing the wood floors.

But there was nothing.

She pushed the door open and saw that the entire place was dark. Not only that but everything looked exactly as it had been left, the rope they had used to bind Casey laying about the ground.

Sarah moved further into the room where she slept and turned up the lamp on nightstand beside her bed. "Everything looks untouched to me," she admitted. "I think perhaps I dodged a bullet, as it were."

"Well, then…if everything is settled here, I suppose I'll be on my way."

She sent him a long look, turning to him slowly. Was he nervous about being here, in the place where she slept and kept her things? Even after San Francisco? Falling asleep in the same room, even in the same bed that first night?

Men had never been a mystery to her. She had since unlocked most of the secrets of that particular gender. But Chuck consistently proved to be the exception to that rule. He was consistent in his unpredictability, so at least that was something.

"Thank you for seeing me home."

"Thank you for saving my life."

And so he surprised her again. She leaned back against her dresser and looked up at him, taking in the way he gazed at her in sincerity and gratitude. "You're welcome."

In a moment of apparent self-consciousness, he shoved his hands in his coat pockets and nodded, a close-mouthed smile on his face. "Good night."

"Good night."

And then he ducked out of her room, the door shutting immediately thereafter, leaving her alone so that she might drown in a slew of emotions she wasn't ready to address.

A/N: Well, how 'bout that! We're back in steampunk LA! And Morgan is reading a dictionary.

Sarah, as always, is confused by feelings. Poor Sarah.

And you guys are going to leave me a review. Right? Right. But of course. You all know I love reading them.

As always, thanks! See you next time!

SC