A/N: I'm really great at this whole updating in a timely manner thing. I have so many things on my plate. Thanks to everyone still reading. You are all so gloriously patient. Thank you so much. I don't even know how to properly thank you, except to write this story to its end! And I have every intention of doing so. Thank you for sticking with me!
Now that Yvonne Strahovski has a gig as a Pinkerton agent in a post-Civil War western show on Amazon, I'll have plenty of images of 1800s bad ass gun-toting, horse-riding, trouser-wearing Sarah. And I am so excited. I have no words.
Disclaimer: I do not own CHUCK, nor do I own its characters. However, this world and plot is my own, even if I'm not making money off of it.
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.
So here's what happened last time:
Chuck, Sarah, and Casey take off for San Diego after finding a postcard that Bryce sent Chuck years earlier, hoping it might help lead them to where the traitorous IEL agent is now! (Of course, they lied to Ellie and Devon about why they needed to go to San Diego, which didn't sit well with Chuck in the slightest.)
And here we are! Read on, my friends!
"We need a cover," Casey said to Sarah behind him as he led them across the street. In another block, they would reach the lodging house where Bryce Larkin had lived while on assignment. At least, they were assuming he had been on assignment.
"You're the bounty hunter, aren't you? Tell them you're looking for Bryce Larkin and your sources led you there. Easy," came her quick reply.
"Heh. And what about you an' toy boy? Lemme guess. You're—"
Chuck looked over his shoulder. "We're your team."
Casey made a disgruntled sound, obviously miffed that Chuck hadn't allowed the bounty hunter to needle them.
When Sarah moved up to walk at Chuck's shoulder, he glanced over for a split second and thought he caught a smirk on her face. She schooled her features quickly then and met his gaze before turning forward again.
A few minutes later, they stood at the steps of a three story, deep-looking building that was rather dilapidated, but in good enough order, Chuck supposed, to be livable.
"Is this it?" Sarah asked.
Chuck dug in his coat pocket for the address and handed it to her. "So says what I wrote down."
"I been meanin' to ask how you got—"
"Well, let's get inside then," Sarah interrupted nonchalantly.
Chuck knew for a fact that the bounty hunter had been poised to ask how he had gotten Bryce's address. He couldn't very well turn around and say, "Well, Casey, every piece of information about everything in the world prior to three years ago is now lodged in my brain. Sometimes I get these flashes…"
Instead, he followed Sarah's cue and hurried up the steps, opening the door and grabbing Sarah's arm when she moved to walk in. He pulled her back and gestured with a nod of his head for Casey to enter first. "He's the boss, after all."
She relented because she was logical, but it definitely rankled with her. Casey hadn't helped by smirking with a pleased huff, straightening his vest as he stepped inside.
Sarah shrugged Chuck's hand off of her arm, sent him a flat look, and followed after the bounty hunter, Chuck clearing his throat as he brought up the rear, the door shutting behind him.
A bespectacled fellow with wispy, graying hair, bushy eyebrows, and more than one chin looked up from a book that was laying flat on the counter before him. He twitched his thin mustache and straightened his vest when his eyes wandered in Sarah Walker's direction.
Part of the inventor understood the landlord's fixation on Sarah Walker. She was stunning, even after sitting on the train for four and a half hours. The brown trousers and white long sleeve button up tucked under a black vest, knee high boots, and fitted brown duster lent to her cover as a bounty hunter. But it also lent to her beauty in a way Chuck couldn't explain. Maybe it was her confidence and strength shining through.
It wasn't important, because the other part of Chuck wanted to grab the fellow by his tie, yank him over the desk, and tell him to show some respect. It was a barbaric urge, he knew. And if the fellow bothered her enough, Sarah was more than capable of doing it herself.
"May I help you, miss?" He pushed his glasses further up his nose and smiled.
"Sir," Casey said, stepping in front of Sarah and leaning with his elbows on the counter. "I have a question about the sort of folk you're lettin' stay in your establishment, Mister…"
"Young," the man answered. "Edward Young. This is my establishm—er, my lodging house. What do you mean 'the sort of folk'?" the man asked, leaning closer.
"If I asked you to, would you be able to tell me about someone who stayed here for a spit of time nearabouts four years ago?"
"I can look it up, yes. Just whom, exactly, are you? I am perfectly within my right to withhold such information from the average passersby who want to know about my guests." He raised his nose and gave Casey a severe look through his spectacles.
Casey sent first Sarah an amused look, and then swept his gaze over to Chuck. "S'that so, Eddie?"
"I-It's Mister Young."
"I'd rather call ya Eddie, though."
Chuck had a bad feeling about Casey beginning to veer into threatening the landlord, so he stepped forward and leaned his elbow on the counter.
"Mister Young, we were sent by the government." Once the words fell out of his mouth, he felt like an incredible fool. There was no way to prove what he had just told the landlord. Damn it.
"I will require proof of your—"Chuck couldn't help but gape when Casey produced a badge from IBoMaD with his picture on it. He had dug it out from a pocket deep within his coat. The toy maker schooled his features when he caught sight of Sarah's impassive face. Was she as surprised by that development as he was?
"Inspector Horace Peabody of Her Majesty's criminal investigative agency." Chuck noticed that Casey didn't mention which agency. "This here is Ashley Saphead," he said as he gestured to Chuck, causing the younger man to send a quick look of confusion and disgust before he forced himself to be nonplussed and nod at the landlord, "and this is Brunhilde Guttersnipe."
Chuck didn't miss the subtle glare Sarah sent the bounty hunter.
"Oh, my apologies. Ashley and Brunhilde were just wed, weren't ya? Brunhilde Saphead," Casey amended, somehow keeping from sending either of them smirks. Chuck couldn't, however, keep from meeting Sarah's wide-eyed gaze behind Casey's back. Wed?!
"Oh. Congratulations." Eddie seemed bored by that information until things caught up to him and he jolted behind the counter and smoothed his vest down nervously. "Criminal investigative…? The government? I'll do all I can to help, of course, Inspector, Sir."
Casey nodded placatingly. "About four years ago, a fugitive by the name of Larkin stopped in here."
"Larkin? I wouldn't remember a guest from four years ago, most likely. It doesn't ring any bells."
"Mind looking back?"
The landlord shook his head and turned around, moving towards the back of the office and stopping at a row of file cabinets that were as tall as he was, just about. "Do you have specific dates?"
Casey turned to look at Chuck. Chuck stared back, shaking his head a little, then jumped, scrambling to retrieve the postcard from his inner coat pocket. He turned it over and read the date the card was posted.
"Well, I've got a list of everyone who was renting at that time. Let me find it and pull it out."
"We'd be much obliged, Eddie," Casey said.
Chuck could feel Sarah rolling her eyes. He didn't have to see it.
It took some minutes, the trio awkwardly shifting their weight, exchanging silent, hurried gestures and mouthing, mostly in Casey's direction at the apparently amusing cover identities that he had handed his "assistants". But Edward Young finally made a noise of success, pulling a folder out of the cabinet and sliding it shut, hurrying back to the counter and opening it up for them all to lean over and see. "Here we have the—"
Casey had already yanked it away and was turning through the pages. Chuck watched over the bounty hunter's shoulder as his finger slid down the names. There was no one by the name of Larkin on any of the pages so far…
Chuck suddenly felt a flash come over him. His eyelids flickered and images flit across his vision. He couldn't catch all of them, and when he came out of it, he couldn't recall any of what he had seen, but what he did know was that Bryce had used a cover identity. "Stop. Ca—Inspector Peabody ahem. Sir. This. Right here." Chuck slammed his finger onto the name he had flashed on. "This is Bryce. He used a different name."
"Did he?" Young asked, seeming quite excited and intrigued by the prospect. He leaned over to get a bit of a look but Casey yanked the file away, angling his hand so that the landlord couldn't see it and growling. Poor Mister Young rocked back on his heels, frozen stiff.
"Robert Tanner?" Casey turned to glare at Chuck suspiciously. He wasn't sure if he could hide the after effects of his flash from the other man, but he would do his damndest. It wasn't quite so bad as how he had felt the times he flashed prior to this. "How'd you know that, Saphead?"
Casey certainly got quite a bit of pleasure calling him Saphead.
Sarah was looming at Casey's shoulder, worry in her blue eyes as she met his gaze. Chuck knew she figured out that he flashed on the name. But she couldn't say anything. It wasn't up to her to get him out of this predicament. He had to get himself out of this deep water. He had to learn to become a better swimmer at some point.
"He used to use that name when we were boys. Make believe games. Aye-aye, Captain Tanner!" He saluted. "You know what I mean." Chuck spun towards the confused landlord. "We used to be friends, he and I. Do you remember him at all? This Robert Tanner fellow? Anything about him?"
Chuck didn't have enough time to congratulate himself on the quick cover-up, so he stared Mister Young down instead.
"Uh, well…He had brownish hair. Blue eyes. Strikingly good looking, so my daughter said."
"That's him," Sarah piped up.
Chuck felt a spike of what he ashamedly knew to be jealousy prick at him as he spun to look at her. Casey did the same, a look of annoyance on his face. She merely shrugged at the both of them and Chuck forced himself to turn back to the landlord. It was true. Bryce had always been popular with the girls for that reason.
"What room was he renting?"
"It's right there next to his name. I'm telling you right now, though, whenever a tenant leaves, my wife cleans the rooms thorough. There won't be anything in his room."
"Is someone staying in it now?"
"Nope."
"Give me the key, Eddie."
The landlord shrugged and went back to the wall of keys, grabbing one of them and walking back to Casey. "It's on the third floor towards the end of the hallway—"
"I'll find it, Eddie. Sapheads, follow me." He strode towards the staircase and thumped up the steps, leaving Chuck and Sarah to follow after him.
As they moved into the stairwell, Sarah turned to Chuck and hissed, "He's insane!"
"As a monkey on a trike," he whispered back. "And if we're so married, why don't we have rings?" He tried to always ask the most pertinent questions. He showed her his left hand.
"I do."
Chuck didn't want to know, so he didn't ask, instead focusing on putting one foot ahead of the other. As they reached the third floor landing, Casey continued down the hallway but Sarah put a hand on Chuck's wrist, her gentle touch stopping him in his tracks.
"Are you alright? You know…before." She stared into his eyes, as though looking for something. He didn't know what.
"It was less intense than it usually is. I'm fine."
"Did you see anything that I should know about?"
He pulled her along so that Casey wouldn't get suspicious. "Just that Robert Tanner is the name Bryce used. The IEL must have had his cover identity on record. As well as Bryce's handwriting, so that's strange."
"There are probably a great deal of things in that head of yours that are stranger," she reasoned.
"Are we still talking about the Intersect?"
She giggled, in spite of everything. That was at least something, Chuck mused, and they were quiet again as they reached the door Casey was currently unlocking and pushing open.
They took ten minutes to sweep the room at Casey's direction. Chuck couldn't help being rather impressed by the bounty hunter and his calculated way of searching, running his fingers along the underside of the desk, checking behind drawers, and unfortunately for Mister Young, tearing cushions off of the chairs and looking underneath and inside.
"There's nothin' here," Casey finally conceded, taking his hat off and running a hand over his hair in frustration.
"And you ruined Eddie's furniture," Chuck said, lifting the slit cushion up on one finger before letting it slip back to the ground.
"Did you sit on that thing? Was a piece o' shit anyway. They'd do well to replace 'em. Ramshackle lodgings, these are." Casey shrugged and put his hat back on. "Welp, a dead end, toy boy. Now what?"
"Isn't this how you earn a living, bounty hunter?" Sarah spoke up, a hand on her hip.
"Hmng?"
"You do this as an actual career, don't you?"
"And?"
"We ask Eddie what Robert Tanner said before he left about why he was leaving," she said. "Maybe he left some things behind that are still at the front desk."
"Another dead end," the bounty hunter said snippily.
"You stay here and scratch the curtains up, Inspector. Brunhilde and I will go down and ask Eddie if he's got anything of Bryce's left," Chuck said, striding towards the door.
"Like hell I'm stayin' up here," Casey growled, stomping out of the room ahead of his "team" and leading them back to the staircase and down to the first floor again.
"Eddie, did our ol' fugitive friend say anything to you when he left?" Inspector Horace Peabody asked the landlord. "When he moved out, I mean."
The man simply shrugged, pushing his glasses up his nose again.
But then Sarah had pushed herself in front of Casey, leaning her elbow on the counter and resting her chin in her palm. She just looked at him quietly for a few long seconds as beads of sweat started appearing at Young's temples. When she smiled, he had no choice but to return it.
Chuck marveled at the scene.
"Mister Young, my partners and I are really strapped here. If you could remember anything at all, we would be so grateful. I would be so grateful." He shrugged again, but looked sorry for it this time. She turned to look back at Chuck, smiling a little, before swiveling to face Young again. "We were just wed, Ashley and I. But with my husband's old friend deserting and disappearing off the face of the Earth the way he did…Well, you know how it is, Mister Young." She sighed and looked sincerely disheartened. In spite of that, there was a glimmer of positivity in her that made the man smile. His shoulders loosened a little and he looked like he wanted to pat her hand. "Ashley and I have yet to even go on a honeymoon. We've been searching high and low for months and still…nothing. If you could give us even the smallest bit of information on him, I might get my honeymoon. I know that sounds rather crude—"
"Oh no, no, my dear. I understand." He looked over her shoulder and met Chuck's gaze. All Chuck had the sense for was a sheepish shrug, his lips twitching in a semblance of a smile. It made Edward Young chuckle. "I can see your husband is just as eager as you are. You know, it was the strangest thing." He pulled back and walked further into the office. "I don't think Mister Tanner ever said anything when he left. There was a thank you note with the money he owed and the key behind my desk when I opened up in the morning and that was it. He was gone."
"Did he leave anything?"
"Mm, Marjory found a few things, I think. She put it in a bag and then did her cleaning."
Chuck stepped forward, putting his arm around Sarah's shoulder. It was good for the cover. "Do you still have it?"
"Mmm…I sold anything I could get money for, and the rest I stuck in my safe. People leave things sometimes and I stick 'em in my safe if I can't sell it. Thinking maybe they'd want to come back and get them. Honestly, I forgot about it, otherwise I might have tossed his things by now. Let me get in that safe. Something might still be there."
"Thank you so much, Mister Young," Sarah said, her voice filled with warmth and gratitude.
God, she was good. It would intimidate Chuck if he wasn't so busy being impressed.
They heard the tell-tale whirring of the safe lock, the click, and the squeak of the door opening. "Yap! I've got a few things. Don't know why I kept this note. Thought maybe Marjory would have tossed it. But maybe she thought it would be important. It has numbers on it."
Chuck and Sarah spun to look at each other with wide eyes. "Let me see that," Casey barked, pushing both of them aside with a sweep of his arm. Chuck's boot caught on a loose floorboard and he staggered back a little, his arm still around Sarah's shoulders so that he pulled her with him.
She ended up pressed close to his front when he finally caught them both, their arms around each other, her face pressed into his lapel.
"Hey now, I know you're excited about us finding some of Larkin's things, Sapheads, but it ain't the honeymoon yet," the bounty hunter snarked, grinning as he reached out and snagged the bundle from Young's grip.
Chuck stepped back from Sarah, knowing he was blushing like a turnip as she looked up at him and smoothed her hands down the front of her vest. She cleared her throat and walked back to the counter. "You know I can't help myself around him, Inspector Peabody."
Neither Chuck nor the landlord were prepared for that, and both emitted a choking noise, but Casey just looked disgusted and annoyed. Chuck was willing to take the hit for the pleasure of knowing Sarah had won this small battle, and the pleased and mischievous smile on her face lit a flame in him.
She reached over to snag a small piece of paper from Casey and looked at it, before thrusting it out to Chuck. The con artist turned to the bounty hunter and said something else, but Chuck didn't hear it. Underneath the numbers was a short, seemingly meaningless note. But beneath that were the initials IG. When his gaze rested on those two letters, he was overcome once again by a flash.
He had the wherewithal to turn away from his team until he regained his balance and stability, his vision clearing. He turned back, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he felt the ache left over from the flash. "This stationary," he interrupted the bickering pair standing at the counter. They turned to him. "Have you seen it before?"
Chuck showed the note to the landlord. At the top of the piece of paper was an image of the wooden beach resort's main rotunda, the circular roof that sloped down, meeting walls that seemed to almost be made of glass. The words "Hotel del Coronado" were positioned beneath the image.
"Have you never heard of the Hotel del Coronado?" Young asked.
"Of course we have," Casey growled, snatching the note from Chuck's grip and looking at it. "Did, uh, Robert Tanner have any friends? Anyone you saw 'im with?"
Chuck saw Sarah turn a little towards him in his peripheral, so he looked back at her. She raised her eyebrow in question. He nodded and she flicked her head to the side. He nodded again, before she cleared her throat pointedly, interrupting Casey's terse conversation with the landlord.
"I didn't look in the closet. I'm taking Ashley up with me."
"Why? You afraid the boogieman's gonna pop out?" Casey asked with a smirk. "Or are you two lookin' fer a reason ta hanky panky?"
Chuck wanted to sink into the floor and just stay there 'til the end of time. It must have shown on his face, because Sarah clenched her jaw and reached around the bounty hunter, wrapping her fist in Chuck's sleeve and pulling him along.
"I'm yer superior officer. We got work to do. Ain't nobody say you two could go off on yer own." The extra meaning in what he said was plain as day for Chuck, and he knew by the way she clenched her jaw that it was equally clear for Sarah. "Hanky panky when yer both off the clock, Saphead."
Sarah spun on the burly fellow. "That's Mrs. Saphead to you, Inspector." "I think we're done here for today," Chuck broke in, just in case his teammates managed to get into another brawl like they had numerous times before. "Mister Young, we're going to have to take the rest of his effects. For the agency to log, of course. You know how it is." Chuck gathered the pile up as the landlord nodded. "You have been a great help to your empire today, sir. God bless you."
"God bless the Empire," the man replied, standing a little straighter. Looking a little prouder.
Well, at least someone would get something out of this ridiculous scene.
Casey grumbled something and swept out of the lodging house. Chuck and Sarah gathered Larkin's things, before she turned to thank Edward Young profusely. Chuck left the lobby with a grin on his face.
}o{
"Well, this is a fine mess," Casey finally said. "Now we got nothin' but some of Pretty Boy's garbage and a meaningless note. These numbers are a code, I'm guessin', but unless either of you are code crackers, we're up a creek without a paddle."
"Stop complaining," Sarah said, unbuttoning the top button of her blouse. It was getting warm in this sunny town and she had a close-fitting coat on. "We can figure out where to go next, but first we need some sustenance."
"I ain't hungry."
She was traveling with a six foot five child armed to the teeth. If she thought really hard, she could think of worse things, but at the moment, this beat out everything.
Chuck, on the other hand, was championing on, in spite of looking like he was fighting the after-effects of what had looked to be back-to-back flashes, his shoulders drooping, his forehead wrinkled as though he had an awful head ache. She was walking on his right, Casey on her other side, and she wanted to put a reassuring hand on his back, or wrap an arm around him and let him use her as a crutch, or something. Instead, she adjusted her pack that was around her shoulders and clutched at the strap tightly to resist the urge.
"We can't stomp around San Diego all day without eating. You, Casey, need to eat especially, because I think you're going mad, what with that embarrassing display at the lodging house."
Embarrassing for everyone involved.
The bounty hunter just laughed. "I got a lot of enjoyment out of seeing both yer faces turn purple. Sapheads. Hehe. Brunhilde. Awful name.""Say that in Germany and you'll end up getting smacked over the head with a schnitzel."
Sarah chewed on her cheek to keep from laughing. But the image Chuck had just given her made it extremely difficult.
"Wait, uh…" The inventor in question turned to regard her and Casey, a look of barely-bridled fear on his face. "Are we going to have to be married this whole time?"
"Yup!"
Sarah glared at Casey and turned to Chuck. "No, Chuck. Only when it suits Casey's funny bone, apparently."
That made Casey laugh harder and she couldn't help the smirk that accompanied the roll of her eyes.
"It makes me so happy to see you're both enjoying yourselves at my expense, but that didn't quite answer my question," Chuck muttered.
"We'll see, Chuck. Does that answer your question?"
"Really horribly, but yes. Yes, it does."
She grinned and shook her head, leading them into a small clubhouse that was half full of men who looked to be gentlemen. Or at least…on the lower tier of gentlemanliness. Representations of the emerging middle class, perhaps brought on by the fishing industry gaining momentum in San Diego, as Morgan had alluded to a few days earlier.
"Excuse me, but there are no single females allowed in this establishment," a man in coattails said as he swept in front of Sarah, his hands up in a placating manner.
Sarah gave him a flat look. "How very terrible for your single males, then," she mocked. "It just so happens I am not a single female." She blindly reached behind her, grabbed Chuck by the lapels of his coat, and tugged him against her. He crashed into her back a little harder than she'd meant for him to, but she didn't budge. "This is my husband."
"Pardon me, but there is no ring on your finger. Or his."
"I'm cheap," she heard Chuck say. Casey choked a little and it was all Sarah could do not to laugh.
It seemed like they had gotten around the establishment's silly rule for now as the host pressed his lips together, bowed at the waist, and led them to a table. Chuck pulled her chair out for her, something she hadn't entirely been prepared for. (Though she didn't know why she was surprised; it was Chuck, after all.) As she sat and allowed him to help her scoot closer to the table, she smiled over her shoulder at him. "Thank you, dear."
"But of course, darling."
Was that—Was there a glimmer of mischief in her toy maker's eye just then? As though he was having fun? Enjoying this?
She looked away from him as he took his own seat to her right, Casey grabbing the seat that faced the door. Between the two of them, they could see the entire clubhouse. Not that Sarah expected any trouble, but it didn't hurt any to be extra careful.
Ten minutes later, there were plates of salmon and toast with jam in front of them. They ate in silence, Sarah surreptitiously glancing at Chuck to make sure he ate. She didn't know how flashing might affect his appetite, but it didn't seem to hurt it any. His plate was half empty by the time she even finished spreading the jam on her toast. Sitting down did seem to bolster his energy a bit, and she looked away quickly when she realized she was staring.
"Well, kid, what now? We've hit a dead end," Casey said around a mouthful of salmon. "Might as well take the night train back to Los Angeles. But then we're gonna talk about—"
"What makes you think we've hit a dead end?" Chuck interrupted, peering across the table as he munched on his toast.
"The fact that we're figuratively looking at a brick wall that's right in front of us. The definition of a dead end. If that mechanical idiot were here he'd give you the exact definition, no doubt."
"Don't be silly, Casey. There's no brick wall. We're not up a creek literally or figuratively. Not by any means," she said, taking a moment to enjoy the way her salmon fell apart in her mouth.
"An' how you figure on that, Miss Walker?" the man mocked.
"Let me see that note." Chuck reached across the table, his hand turned palm up. Casey made a face, grunted, and went into his pocket, pulling the note out and handing it over. Sarah felt herself tense as Chuck perused the note, wracking her brain for a way to explain if Chuck flashed again. She watched him closely, but he simply handed the note back to Casey. "That image at the top is from the Hotel del Coronado. Whatever reason Bryce was here, someone wrote a note to Bryce on that hotel's stationary. There has to be something there."
"Have you even seen that place? It's the biggest hotel on the West Coast," Casey said. "The hell we gonna find there?"
"I don't know. But there must be something. Whoever wrote this," he said, lifting the note as Casey snatched it from him with a scowl, "might still be there. And if he is, we can find him. Maybe he knows where Bryce went."
"This seems like a whole lotta hooey. A bunch o' dead ends. Dead end after dead end after dead end. What, so we drive all the way around the peninsula to get to this fancy hotel? And then what?" Casey asked.
"We are not going on land, Casey," Sarah said, pulling the map out of her pack and moving their plates around so that she could open it in the middle of the table. "We'll be taking the ferry. Go around the peninsula up here and dock right at the hotel."
"W-What? A ferry? Why we hafta do that?" The burly bounty hunter squirmed a bit in his seat and took a long drink of his beer.
"Because it's the fastest way to reach the hotel," Chuck answered, putting his finger down on the map where the hotel was located. "Say, where'd you get this map?"
"I stole it from Eddie."
Sarah bit her lip then as she saw Chuck jolt in surprise. She could feel his eyes on her and she wondered if perhaps she shouldn't have been quite so cavalier about the fact that she stole something. She couldn't help it. It was habit. And she hated that she felt a little ashamed of it. He already knew she was a con artist. This was who she was.
She was also a thief. It was part of the package.
But then he chuckled, and she looked up at him in surprise. "What's so amusing?"
"I didn't see you—When did you even grab that?" he asked.
"This is my living, Chuck. Nobody should have seen me take it. That's rather the point."
Once again, she had misjudged Chuck Bartowski. There was no condemnation. There was no disappointment, nervousness, or even a speck of discomfort. He almost seemed in awe of her. And it made her wonder once again what sort of a boy he had been. Why didn't her talents as a thief shock him as it should for a person who seemed to constantly be teeming with moral fibre and other attributes of someone who was good through and through. How would Ellie react if she knew her brother's sweet and unassuming girlfriend was an expert thief?
"If yer done flirting," Casey interceded, and Sarah sent a glare his way, "Why can't we just ride around here? On land?" he emphasized. He swiped his finger all the way down and around the bowl of the bay, before bringing it back up to the spot where the hotel was.
"Because, instead, we can just go like this." Chuck slapped at Casey's hand to get it out of his way, then dragged his own finger along the much shorter route, across the bay and around the peninsula to the hotel.
"But it's on the other side. On the Pacific."
"The ferry takes far less time. Look at how long this peninsula is. And who's to say there's even room for a carriage to drive this spit of land?" Sarah asked, enjoying the tinge of desperation in the bounty hunter's eyes. She knew what this was. The big fellow was most likely afraid of the water. He probably flew whenever he left the continent, as it was much faster though certainly more expensive.
"So it's settled. I will ask our friend Sir Stuffshirt over there where we can purchase ferry tickets to the Hotel Del."
As Chuck got up from the table and weaved through the other tables to do just that, Sarah took quite a bit of joy from watching Casey silently decide whether to continue arguing or just deal with the ferry trip that was inevitably in his future. "It's just a ferry, Casey. Only an hour or so. You'll be alright."
He growled angrily through his teeth and skewered his toast with his fork, lifting it to his mouth and taking a large bite out of it with no small amount of venom. She just smiled to herself and went back to her food.
}o{
The mystery of Casey's fear of being on the water was solved a few minutes into their ferry trip, as he went green and ended up sitting at the back of the ferry with the other green passengers. As he seemed to be quite distracted from much else besides his roiling stomach and dizziness, Sarah took the opportunity to approach Chuck, who stood at the bow, looking out across the bay at downtown San Diego.
She moved slowly, studying his profile. He dwarfed everyone else on the deck of the ferry, even without his hat on as he held it in front of him, turning it in his hands distractedly as he leaned forward against the railing.
The smell of coal and fire mixed with the salty sea air was strangely pleasant to the con woman at the moment, as she stepped over a little boy playing with a toy car on the wooden planks of the deck. His mother was paying attention to the prattling gentleman sitting beside her more than she was to her child, but as Sarah couldn't imagine she knew any better when it came to parenting, she strolled on, finally coming to a stop at Chuck's elbow.
"How are you, Chuck?"
He let out a short huff of amusement, his eyes bright in the setting sunlight shining off of the glass windows of the city's factories on shore and into his face. "Oh, fine. And how are you?"
She smiled when he turned to regard her from where he was still leaning hunched over the railing. "Better than Major Casey, so there's that."
That made him laugh and she pushed aside the strange way her heart sped up at the sound.
"Poor fellow. No wonder he was arguing to take the long way."
"He'll be alright once we dock."
Chuck nodded and the air between them sobered drastically. Sarah brushed off her disappointment and soldiered on.
"You flashed," she said, then. "I could see it when Casey gave you the note. Was it something on the note?"
He nodded silently.
"Are you alright?"
There was surprise in his face when he looked up at her and she was confused for just a moment before she realized. She had asked about his well-being before she asked about what he had seen in his flash. The fact that this surprised him made her feel…heavy.
"I'm alright. The head ache is gone now," he shrugged. "It wasn't as bad as they usually are. Maybe I'm learning how to deal with it the more I flash."
"Even so, if I were you I wouldn't go looking to flash."
He shook his head. "But so far they've helped us."
And hurt you, she thought silently, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from saying it out loud. Why was he so willing to withstand confusion and headaches for just a few measly crumbs of information that may or may not help them evade John Casey's suspicion?
"And what happens when Casey notices you flashing, Chuck?"
He took a deep breath and slumped a little. She hated that she had caused it, so much so that she decided to drop this line of discussion. "So what happened? With the flash?"
Chuck pulled the note from his pocket and handed it to her. She looked at it, holding on tightly as the sea breeze whipped at her hair and coat. They couldn't afford to lose this.
"See that right there? I.G.?"
Sarah nodded, pushing some hair out of her face as she looked up at him.
"Ishmael Grand. He works for a man named Theodore West, known as Big Theo by friend and foe alike."
Sarah shook her head, having never heard of Theodore West or Big Theo or Ishmael Grand before.
"Bryce was here on an assignment, Sarah. He was getting fed information by this Ishmael Grand fellow."
"An informant, huh? But the note is about neckties. It's absolute gibberish," she said.
"It is. But the numbers at the top are a code. The note might be, as well. I think the empire's government agencies must use some sort of code to ensure that a correspondence hasn't been intercepted and tampered with—you know, on notes like this or telegrams, et cetera." She opened her mouth to ask how it worked, but he interrupted. "I don't know how it works. Before you ask. I don't know if it's just not up here or if I've…done it too much and need to…I don't know, recuperate or something. But I do know Grand was Bryce's informant."
"For what reason? What's so special about this Big Theo fellow?"
"Apparently the IEL was attempting to uncover a massive underground oil industry."
"Underground as in black market?"
"Big Theo—You know what? I'm just going to call him West, because I feel ridiculous saying Big Theo." She smirked at him. "West sounds like quite the shining gentleman," he said sarcastically. "Four years ago, Bryce was here on assignment to find inarguable proof that there was an illegal and violent black market in the oil industry. The IEL had reason to believe that West had been transporting oil over the border and into Mexico, selling it at an exorbitant price to drug lords who operate in the Central American Union."
Sarah gaped. "That was all in that one flash? But it happened so fast."
He merely shrugged, continuing what he was saying before. But Sarah was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that Chuck's flashes could be that…informative…when they were over in little more than a second.
"Apparently, West had a stronghold on the reins that operate a lot of the moving parts in San Diego's status as an up and coming tourist destination. The economy was booming, all thanks to him. Seemed no one was all that eager to dethrone the fellow."
"Not when it filled their pockets," she agreed, nibbling on her lip thoughtfully.
"Mm. This city is on the map now, largely due to Big Theo's dastardly ill-doings." He wiggled his fingers at her and she made a face.
"Chuck, you've been reading far too many penny dreadfuls."
"Not nearly enough, in my estimation."
She snorted. "So what happened? Does the Intersect know whether Bryce was successful or not? Was Big Theo incarcerated for his crimes?" Sarah realized belatedly that she had just referred to the Intersect as though it were a living thing all on its own…like a parasite.
And that sent a shiver down her spine.
"I don't know. All I received were the details of Ishmael Grand being involved."
"I wonder if West found out about Grand being the IEL's asset, or perhaps he got wind of there being a government spy on his tail. If Larkin was discovered, that would be a good enough reason to leave town quick, wouldn't it?"
"With the way the landlord described Bryce's departure, it seems as though he disappeared into thin air. If he was discovered by West, that would be a damn good reason to run."
Sarah reached over to take his hat from him, fixing the brim between her fingers. "Stop fiddling with this. You're bending the brim. You'll ruin your hat." Realizing what she had just done and how strangely intimate of a gesture it was, she cleared her throat and reached up to put it back on his head. And then she realized how much more of an intimate gesture that was.
Chuck didn't seem overly worried about it, though, as distracted as he was by the puzzle they had been given by his flash. "So what do we do now?"
"We must find this Ishmael Grand. If he's even still alive. Maybe he was never found out and he is still working for West. He might know where Bryce went when he left." She paused. "I don't know what to do about Casey yet."
"Once he's on solid ground again, he'll be fine."
Sarah rolled her eyes, certain Chuck knew what she meant and he was just attempting to lighten the mood. She smiled and glanced around the toy maker's shoulder to see Casey at the end of the boat, still as green as ever. "We aren't going to continue getting breaks like finding the postcard Bryce sent you."
"I know. Perhaps it's just me, but do you…do you get the feeling there's more under that scowl than we know? Like he's not showing all his cards."
She frowned. "What do you mean?"
"The snarling and growling and calling me an idiot and toy boy—which kind of rankles because I am almost twenty seven years old and well over six foot…What if it's all an act? At least somewhat. Call me crazy, Sarah, but I think there's more to him than the grumpy bounty hunter shell he puts out for people to see."
"You think deep down, he likes to cuddle, hm?" She knew she was getting dangerously close to flirting, but his knack for being optimistic did something to her. It was impossible to explain it, even when she had spent hours some nights attempting to do just that instead of sleeping. He was an anomaly. Even a man such as John Casey could elicit feelings of understanding from Chuck. He was always giving people the benefit of the doubt. Even if she didn't deserve it.
She shook her head at that last thought as Chuck responded.
"I wouldn't go that far, no. And I wouldn't say as I've wormed my way under his skin yet or anything like that." He paused, giving her enough time to muse on how easily he had wormed his way under her skin. At least she had gotten to the stage where she was willing to admit that to herself, even if she would never admit it to anyone else.
"But there's something in him. These moments when we're working together in the work shop, or in San Francisco when he tried to protect me from you. He wanted to help me. He has a moral center. And I think he sticks to it. If he knew the truth…"
Sarah panicked a little and grabbed Chuck's sleeve, causing him to look at her, wide-eyed. "Chuck, we can't tell him."
"No, I know. I'm just saying that—"
"Maybe Casey does have a moral compass or center or whatever it is you just called it. But when a moral center is pitted against piles and piles and piles of money…Let's just say I don't trust him not to throw you to the wolves."
She watched as his face fell a little and she hated this. She hated quashing his optimism as though it wasn't one of the best and most important things in this dreary, ugly world they lived in. It felt like watching a rose bloom before her eyes and then reaching out and crushing it in her fist.
"You're right," he said quietly, and she barely heard him over the wind rushing past her ears, the waves slapping against the hull of the ferry as it crawled around the peninsula towards its destination. "I suppose this is how I get into trouble. Always trusting people, believing the best in them, willfully ignoring the bad. I'm sorry."
Sarah couldn't stop herself, and she didn't exactly want to anyways. There was no way she was going to let him believe something was wrong with him because his first inclination was to see the best in people. That made him different from other people, certainly, but different didn't always have to be a bad thing. In Chuck's case, it was nothing but good. He was good. And confusing and rash and infuriating and stubborn…but good.
So she grabbed him by his arms and turned him so that he was forced to look into her eyes.
"Don't be sorry," she said. "Chuck, you trust people. You see the potential for good in this world that sometimes seems so awful. Don't change that about yourself. Please. I'll protect you. I'll be cautious and mistrusting and skeptical for you…so that you don't have to be. Do we have a deal?"
He looked perplexed, but he was smiling as he nodded. "Deal. I'm glad I have you."
"We make quite the team, you and I." And she meant that as she pulled back, wrapping her arms around her torso and hugging herself. "We're almost there. We can figure out what to do about Casey later. For now, we should worry about our cover story while we're on the island."
"Do we have to be married?"
She smirked even though that smarted a bit. And that, in turn, made her feel foolish. "It might be best while we're in the hotel. I'd rather pretend to be married to you than to him."
"Not the best compliment I've ever received, considering."
She giggled a little. "Speaking of which, I had better find somewhere to change into my skirt once we disembark."
"What's wrong with your trousers?" he asked.
"Have you never been to Coronado Island, Chuck?" He gave her a blank stare. "The only people who can afford to live, rent, or vacation here would never wear trousers unless they had man parts." When he flushed vibrantly, she snorted and sympathetically patted his shoulder, brushing past him with a smirk.
A/N: SARAH WALKER JUST SAID 'MAN PARTS'! YOU GUYS!
Thanks for reading. Please review! I appreciate all of you! And I am going to try to get the next one out much sooner than I did this one!
-SC
P.S. She said 'man parts'!