A/N: So...
Hey.
Here's another chapter. Thanks to everyone still reading and following. It means a lot to me to see people's names show up in my inbox who are following this story, because that means they want to see more. And that's really gratifying for a reader. So thanks, you lot. You're great!
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.
Last time in the ChuckVerse:
After following some leads, our heroes (and Casey, I guess) discovered that Bryce not only left San Diego in a hurry, he was there on a mission and had contact with someone from the Hotel del Coronado with the initials I.G. Chuck flashed on I.G. and told Sarah that Ishmael Grand is an asset/informant the IEL was using to take down Theo West, a big baddie involved in illegal oil smuggling. They decide to follow the lead to the Hotel del Coronado across the bay.
We rejoin the troop on Coronado Island (which isn't actually an island, it's more of a peninsula shhhhhhh)...
Enjoy!
Sarah hadn't been lying back at Young's lodging house when she told Chuck she had wedding rings.
After they had disembarked from the ferry with the setting sun at their backs, she had spent a few moments digging through the many pockets of her duster before producing the rings that would underscore their cover.
Hours had passed since then and now the tired trio sat inside of a cozy tavern, the windows at the front and back of the building open to let the cool sea breeze into the otherwise stuffy room.
"Told ya there wouldn't be any vacancies, but neither o' you listen to me," Casey grumbled, shoving some baked fish into his mouth and barely chewing before swallowing.
In fact, Casey had ended up being right, and Chuck wasn't entirely sure if the bounty hunter was glad to be right more than he wanted a roof over his head for the night. He had a feeling Casey would've preferred to be proven wrong in this case.
Tourists apparently came to the island in droves for weekend trips; Coronado boasted activities such as swimming, boating and fishing. Because Chuck, Sarah and Casey had arrived on a Friday, and nearer to sunset than not, any vacant rooms had seemingly been snatched up already. That left finding a room for the night impossible.
At least that was how it seemed, considering they had spent hours scouring the island for a hotel with even one empty room, having conceded that finding two rooms was definitely impossible. Even Sarah's story about them having just gotten married that day and needing somewhere to spend the night hadn't worked—he could still feel the way his heart had ceased to beat when she sent him a quick look for the hotel manager's benefit.
Casey split off from Chuck and Sarah, the theory being that they might have better odds at getting somewhere to sleep that night as a couple, but nobody had been successful.
And now here they were, on the cusp of ten o'clock in the evening, finally sitting down to a meal. Chuck was bone tired, but at least he'd had plenty to make him forget about the lingering head ache and general discomfort from his two flashes at the lodging house earlier that day.
While Coronado Island seemed a rather traditional society when it came to norms and graces and mannerisms—its people dressing to the nines save those who worked at the shipyards—they also had state of the art technology. Self-propelling, steam-powered vehicles, upright humanistic automatons following their masters along the sidewalks…And Chuck had marveled at a youth throwing a stick for his mechanical dog to retrieve, its little tail wagging so hard that it made a click click click as it rapidly swished back and forth.
Every so often, he'd had to slow to be able to look up at the dirigibles passing overhead at incredibly low altitudes, as they were coming in from Central or South America and sometimes even the Pacific islands. That beautiful humming noise above him, the way the propellors spun so fast that they were mere grey blurs, everything about those beautiful flying whales cutting through the sky so slowly…it all made him wish he was up there inside one of those beasts instead of down here with his feet flat on the ground. The possibilities seemed so endless in the sky. There was nothing stopping you. You could fly anywhere, in any direction.
On Earth, humans had built hindrances and barriers and boundaries. Walls and buildings and fortifications. There were things that told you where to go and when. Even at sea, the vessels could only sail so far before they hit land.
And up amidst the clouds, and many times even above the clouds, were the men and women who flew in their sky whales. They could turn the great beasts any way they desired, go anywhere, do anything. The sky was theirs for the taking.
Chuck shook his head and looked across the table at Casey. "Whether we had listened to you or not, there still wouldn't be any vacancies, Casey. That wouldn't change anything. We are trapped here for the night. The ferry stopped running two hours ago."
"That's just peachy," the bounty hunter snarked. "And now we came all this way to follow a cockamamie hunch, and we got nowhere to stay the night, neither…both thanks to this idiot."
He liked to think he had a lot of patience when it came to Major Casey. He sensed a lot of the man's vitriol resulted from a need to pretend he was meaner than he actually was, but with how fatigued Chuck was, and mentally stretched to his limit…the toy maker decided he'd had just about enough. He openly glared at the bounty hunter, the older man wearing a look that dared him to say something. He leaned forward to do just that…
"You know, I'm getting awfully tired of you snapping at every little thing. All you do is complain," Sarah said quietly, but in a tone that made both men shut their traps and their heads spin to look at her. "And they say women are difficult traveling companions. Well, whoever said that hasn't met you. So we sleep outside for a night. How awful!" she mocked, and Casey blinked. "If you want to walk back along the peninsula, or better yet, swim across the bay, feel free to do so, but Chuck has given us the first real lead we've had since we started looking for Larkin. He's dealing with the same issues you are, except that he's being a lot quieter. So who's the idiot now, Major Casey? I'll give you a hint. He's sitting in your chair."
She pointed her finger at his face, her eyes lit up in a way Chuck had never seen, her jaw clenched…It was almost frightening. Except that it was also beautiful. Sarah Walker had just stuck up for him in a big way.
She pushed away from her unfinished meal and grabbed her pack from where it hung on her chair. "I need some air."
And then she was gone, calmly leaving through the back door that led to the docks.
"Hmng. Somebody's got their bloomers in a bunch." Casey shoveled another forkful of fish into his mouth.
For a moment, Chuck wanted to snap that Sarah didn't wear bloomers, but then he realized how that would sound, and that he wasn't entirely sure what she wore under those pretty dresses or the trousers she seemed to prefer. And that it was none of his business. But the way his heart had skipped a beat at the look on her stormy face as she stomped out of the restaurant left him unable to think about much else. And then he felt like a cad.
Chuck looked at Sarah's half-eaten sandwich for a moment, wondering if she might come back. But by the look on her face, and the fact that she took her pack with her, it seemed she wasn't planning on coming back inside. The con woman seemed to have reached her breaking point with the bounty hunter. He understood the sentiment. Even though they had split away from Casey for a few hours, he had quickly rejoined their company afterwards. And the grumbling had been grating, to say the least. Especially since a good deal of it had been directed at Chuck, personally.
It made the toy maker nervous, because a part of him wondered if Casey was getting suspicious, thinking Chuck was leading him on a wild goose chase. And he was leading him on a wild goose chase. But if Casey ever found that out, Chuck feared he wouldn't be long for this world.
Either way, he needed a break from the man himself, so he grabbed the evening edition of the SD Ledger they had bought earlier and wrapped the rest of Sarah's sandwich in a section, before grabbing his own pack from the ground by his chair. "I'm going to go look for her. Take your time with that fish, Casey. It isn't going anywhere. And thank you for paying."
Chuck thumped Casey on the back as he passed him, hurrying out of the back door before the bounty hunter could protest.
Serves him right, he thought to himself as the rickety door swung shut behind him, rattling in its frame.
Shouldering his pack and looking left and right, he strode over the wooden boards of the dock to the railing and looked out at the water, before glancing either way again in an attempt to spot Sarah. There was no flash of blond hair, though the lighting on the dock was nonexistent, and the moon was covered in enough haze from the ocean that it would have been pitch black were it not for the street lights on the other side of the buildings.
Figuring he would just choose a direction and hope he would come across her, Chuck went to the right. It was the quieter way, after all. The clubs, restaurants, and tourist traps were in the other direction, and Chuck imagined Sarah had no need for any of those things at the moment.
What she most likely needed was some peace and quiet.
A little voice in the back of his head told him that he would be disrupting said peace and quiet when he found her, but he ignored it. Casey was the one she was frustrated with, not him. She had stuck up for him. Chuck pulled his newsboy down a little further over his curls and tried not to smile. There was no reason to smile. She had snapped at Casey because she was tired of his complaining. Sticking up for him had little to do with it, Chuck was sure.
He kept his eyes peeled for her as he walked, wondering if he didn't know her as well as he thought, that she was at this moment sitting in a bar with mulled wine at the other end of the boardwalk. But then he heard a shuffle of feet behind him.
"Chuck?"
He spun on the spot. And he saw a flash of blue eyes as Sarah popped out from behind some crates piled at the end of a short dock twenty feet away. He smiled in relief. "I found you."
She raised an eyebrow and stepped all the way out. "I was coming back in few minutes."
Chuck turned and looked over his shoulder at the dark factory behind them, boards covering its broken windows. A drydock was built in the center of the factory where boats could be reeled in to deliver large amounts of fish or other transported goods, but at the moment, a ship in need of repairs was tipped on its side, prepped for careening. It was rotting now, though, this factory obviously having been abandoned and closed down before they could finish.
"What are you doing here?" he finally asked, once he saw that they were completely alone.
"I thought I would find a place for us to sleep tonight. There were closer spots, but those were already taken," she said nonchalantly.
"And this one?"
Sarah made a face as her eyes ran over the area. "It isn't bad. Someplace for us to keep in mind. But I think we will have better luck on the other side of this factory."
"Why not in the factory?" Chuck asked, and she had a look on her face that made him blush in embarrassment. She probably thought he was a pampered city boy in a lot of ways, never having to sleep anywhere but in a cot or a bed, always with a roof over his head. Incapable of sleeping outside.
"We could if you would rather…"
She was placating him, like one did a child, and his embarrassment increased.
"No, no. We don't have to…"
"I just don't trust it. Abandoned buildings attract patrols." Chuck nodded. "If that isn't the case, I know for a fact that makeshift crime syndicates in their beginning stages like to hold their meetings in places like this. Or other street gangs. It's asking for trouble. Better to stay in plain sight, and if anyone stumbles upon us, they'll just assume we're a couple of bums."
Chuck couldn't help thinking that no one in their right mind would ever deem Sarah Walker a bum. She had an inherent grace and elegance to her, even in her trousers, even when she wore Chuck's hat on the train. She just didn't seem the type of woman who frequented the streets, though she did know an awful lot about how to do it safely.
More than he knew, at least.
"Good idea," he said. He realized belatedly that she was staring at the bundle of newspaper in his hand and he shook himself a little. "Oh! Yes. I wrapped up the rest of your sandwich. I thought you might like to finish it outside of Casey's company." He thrust it out for her to take and she did so slowly, her features unreadable in the low light. "I didn't think about whether or not you'd prefer to be completely alone. I'm sorry." He paused. "That's not true, actually. I did give it a thought. Just briefly. But I kept looking for you anyway."
That made her smile as she looked down at the wrapped sandwich in her hands. "Thank you. And you're right. I couldn't handle being in that grumbling nincompoop's presence any longer."
"Me, neither. I left right after you did, give or take a minute or two." Chuck swept his newsboy off, smoothed his curls back and plopped it back onto his head, tugging it down snugly. It gave him something to do instead of standing in front of her dumbly as she unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite where she had left off in the restaurant.
"Where's your food?" she asked and he realized he had grabbed hers and not his own. Not for the first time in the last five minutes, he blushed, and this time she chuckled, food trapped in her cheek. "Here. Have some of mine. I'm not all that hungry anyhow." He shook his head vehemently and received a scolding eyebrow raise. Wanting to stay on her good side, he reached out and took it, taking a modest bite before handing it back.
"Well, anyhow…Casey can eat the rest of my fish if he wants it. He looked liable to eat his chair after tonight's misadventures," Chuck said around chewing. She shrugged and took a bite. "And he got stuck with the bill."
Sarah's eyes lifted from the sandwich to look at him, chewing slowly, and then she swallowed and grinned. "Did you really?"
"I did." He felt pride swim through him as she laughed, raising her eyebrows. He liked to think she was a little impressed, and if not, at least she might be pleased that Casey got his, if only in a small way.
"Well played, Bartowski. I think you deserve the rest of my sandwich for that." She thrust the paper over at him and he chuckled, taking it and opening it up. When he saw there was nothing there, he frowned in confusion and looked up at her.
She held the last bite between her fingers jauntily, and with that, she popped it into her mouth and smirked as she chewed.
"That was just cruel," he breathed, unable to keep from grinning as she laughed, and then her eyes flicked over his shoulder and she sobered.
"Major Casey. Took you long enough."
Chuck spun at her words and saw the burly bounty hunter approached with a storm cloud practically hovering over his head. The man could scowl the grin off of a hyena.
"Are you finished being a school girl, Walker?"
"I'm not altogether sure, Casey. Are you finished being an old man?"
He growled as Chuck bit his lip to keep from letting out the bark of laughter that bubbled up from his chest.
"Where we sleepin'? I'm tired. I paid the bill, too, you cheapskates, so you get to find our lodgings. I pulled my share of the weight tonight and then some."
"This way," she said, pointing further down the dock. Casey grunted and strode off.
Wanting to continue the bright mood Sarah had seemed to be in before the bounty hunter stomped into the picture, Chuck rolled up the paper the sandwich had been in and made to throw it at Casey's back. But Sarah giggled softly and caught his arm, sending him a warning look and shaking her head.
Chuck shrugged and watched as she hurried to follow Casey, feeling slightly better for the time being. Only tomorrow would tell if that mood continued.
}o{
She woke up at the sound of a plop nearby. Opening her eyes slowly, she let her eyes adjust and then looked around without moving a muscle. Chuck sat at the end of the dock, his legs hanging over the edge, his arms draped over the bottom rung of the railing and his hat crooked over his curls.
She couldn't see his face, since he was turned away from her, but she could tell he was tired, the way his shoulders drooped and his chin leaned on the metal rail.
He almost looked like a little boy, except that he was so long-limbed.
Sarah looked away then, pushing herself up from the wooden boards, realizing belatedly that Chuck had covered her with his own coat sometime in the night. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that Casey was huddled against a crate a dozen feet or more away, fast asleep.
The plop sounded again and she looked back at Chuck. He was tossing chips of wood into the water a few feet below. It was comforting to know that even the slightest sound like that could wake her up, even when she was as tired as she had been when she laid down to sleep.
The con artist shook her head and climbed to her feet slowly, stretching her arms to the sky and wincing. Damp wood wasn't the best sort of mattress, but she had slept on worse many times before.
Sarah quietly walked up behind Chuck and leaned down to drape his coat over his shoulders in the damp morning sea air. He jumped a little and looked up at her, the wood chips all falling out of his hand and into the water. The inventor spun back to the water and made a pitiful sound. "Those were supposed to last me 'til morning."
She smiled and slumped down next to him, her legs dangling, poking her arms through to lean on the same rung he was. "I apologize. But there are only two hours left 'til sunrise anyhow. And that's when we need to move out."
"Oh." They were silent, Chuck peering out at the ocean and Sarah pretending to while actually taking in his profile.
"Are you alright?"
"Fine. Thank you."
"I know it's hard to sleep out here—"
"No, it's not that. I've slept on the streets before. This isn't bad at all. I swear, I'm—I can handle this." He turned to look at her, his brow furrowed, looking a little shamefaced. "I don't want you to think I can't, because I can. Sleeping out here, I mean."
Sarah nodded wordlessly, leaning forward on her arms that were crossed over the rail. Chuck thought she would assume he found sleeping on the dock a hardship, and he was embarrassed about it. Even if he did think it was a hardship, everything was relative, and it was nothing for him to be ashamed about. But she would flub her words and look foolish if she attempted to tell him so.
Instead she stayed silent.
"It's just that before, there was no—" He stopped suddenly, looking over his shoulder at Casey and she knew what he was going to say. There was no Intersect. "I had no worries back then. I mean, I did. I had plenty of them. We all did. But not like now. No matter where I ended up, I slept like a baby." He chuckled softly and his gaze swung over to her.
She looked back and took a deep breath. She told herself she wouldn't do this. Asking questions, wheedling her way into his past, knowing more and more about him until her head was full of him. Because it was harder, so much harder. What was harder? She didn't know. She didn't even want to know.
But she did want to know.
Sarah sighed and shut her eyes for a moment, before opening them again. "Isn't the point of an orphanage to keep the children off the streets? You said you've slept on the streets…" she clarified when he looked a little confused. His dark eyes cleared then and he mimicked her position, crossing his arms and leaning close. His hat was still a little crooked, and he looked so young all of a sudden.
"I did. It was my own fault, though." She frowned. "Our mistresses were very strict. Not horribly so. They could have been so much worse than they were." Chuck smiled a little. "But there was a curfew. And sometimes I wouldn't go back after my daily lessons like the other children. Ellie and I both. There were better things to do than polishing the mistresses' shoes or reciting Bible verses. There were adventures to be had," he growled, narrowing his eyes, and she had to let out a short giggle. "They locked all the doors at night, once everyone was supposed to be in bed. And no matter how much Ellie and I pounded on the doors, we weren't let in. It happened more than once."
"They just left you out there?" she asked.
Chuck shrugged. There was nothing in his face to suggest he was made bitter or upset by the memory. "We should have known, especially the second and third time. But like always, we had each other. There was no need to worry. We found someplace in an alley, huddled up together, and fell asleep 'til morning."
"What did they do? The mistresses."
"You mean when we returned the next morning?" Sarah nodded. "My ear hurt for the rest of the day."
They both chuckled at that as he finally reached up to fix his hat on his head. "But other than that, they thought sleeping in the streets was punishment enough."
"Apparently not since you did it again."
"And again," he added.
Sarah let herself marvel for a moment on the complexities of both Chuck and Ellie's lives growing up. Certainly no one's life had been like her own. That was impossible. But based on what Bryce had told her about his upbringing in the orphanage, and how sheltered Chuck was, and Ellie as well, none of what she had been learning in the last few months seemed possible. In reality it was the other way around. Bryce must have been totally blind in those days, or he had spent enough time in his own head, traveling the world and spying for the IEL, that he had completely forgotten what his friend was like. He had lost touch with the reality that was his life before he was recruited.
It would be sad, if she wasn't so completely finished with the man and everything he stood for.
"Sarah?" She shook herself out of her thoughts. "Are you alright?"
"Yes. Just thinking on where we go from here. I'm going back to sleep, though, and I suggest you do the same. Tomorrow may be interesting, and it will certainly be very long," she said as she clambered up from the edge of the dock to her feet.
He was tentative when he raised his gaze to her, and then he looked away again. "I'm going to sit here for a few more minutes, I think."
"You need your sleep."
"Just a few minutes."
Feeling too much like a nagging mother figure, she backed off and nodded, pulling her duster close around her body and walking back to where she had been sleeping before. She lowered herself to her side, facing away from Chuck this time, and shut her eyes, trying to let her mind go blank so that she may fall asleep. If she dwelled too much on Chuck's story about he and his sister being locked out of the orphanage, about what it must have been like to adventure together in the streets of Los Angeles for the Bartowski siblings, Sarah would never get to sleep.
It was a few minutes later when she heard movement behind her. Close by, she heard him grunt as he splayed out on the wooden dock and fixed his coat over himself, sighing heavily. She drifted off soon thereafter to the sounds of the water lapping at the dock beams beneath her.
}o{
"I would have preferred a bath before putting on this gown, but I suppose beggars can't be choosers," Sarah said, smoothing down the front of the dress, and trying to ignore how uncomfortable the lace sleeves were on her unwashed arms. She had not bathed in two days, and while she had gone much longer than that before on multiple occasions, Sarah had not been forced to wear a nice gown during those occasions.
"We're surrounded by water on all sides," Casey said from behind her. When she turned to give him a look, he merely shrugged.
"You're lucky I didn't make you our manservant."
He glared, but was quiet nonetheless as they stood in the shade of a palm tree in the Hotel Del Coronado's courtyard. A group of young people dressed in formal wear played croquet on the lawn nearby. Steamobiles rolled up the palm-lined driveway and swung around to stop in front of the steps that led into the lobby. Bellhops scrambled to let the passengers out, carrying the new guests' bags up the steps onto the covered porch and disappearing into the lobby.
Sarah had spent the morning in the marketplace, walking on Chuck's arm, exclaiming "Oh, Charles! Look at this!" while simultaneously picking the pockets of unsuspecting victims as she brushed past them to look at the fine linens on display. As much as Casey had an aversion to her criminal activities that morning, he had eaten a hearty breakfast off of it, and he would also get his own room, with a bed and a washroom that had actual running water and electricity to boot. None of those things seemed to bother him in the slightest.
And she hadn't gotten a very good read on Chuck when she had presented her take after a few hours of wandering the marketplace. He had played the part of doting husband, perhaps enjoying it too much with the way he seemed to take to kissing the back of her gloved hand. But when she had counted it after the fact, his face had been unreadable. The fact that she didn't know how he felt about the fact that she had stolen a massive amount of money made her uneasy throughout the whole morning. She shouldn't give a single damn about what anyone thought. This was her profession, and it had been for most of her life. It was what she excelled at, and it was no one else's business.
But she did give a damn.
Damn it.
Now, as she watched another steamobile pull up to the pristine, white steps, she straightened her white dress, fixed the wide-brimmed white hat on her head and lifted her parasol to tuck it under her arm. "It's showtime, boys. Just follow my lead and make sure you keep up. Mr. Charles?"
Chuck was there, holding his arm out for her to take, and then they strode across the lawn and up the steps. If she hadn't felt the nervous energy emanating from her cover husband, Sarah would swear Chuck Bartowski was having a grand time playacting as one Mister Charlton Charles. What with the way he tipped his straw boater at the middle-aged woman sitting on the porch swing with her teenage daughter, straightening the red necktie he wore and smoothing his hand down his brown tweed vest and matching suit.
So elegant, and yet perfectly befitting a financially wealthy gentleman on a leisurely holiday.
They moved into the rotunda and Sarah did her best not to be swept away by the beauty that surrounded her. The high ceilings of dark wooden beams, massive fireplace with comfortable looking and elegant furniture surrounding it, pristine carpet that looked like it had come straight from the Middle East. A massive chandelier hung from the ceiling in the middle of the rotunda, lit by electricity, as well as the light fixtures on each dark wood pillar. A second floor gallery that wrapped around the entire room looked down on them, lined with wood railing and doors that led to private hotel rooms. Women stood leaning over the railings, fanning themselves while chatting and watching the other guests below.
But she had a job to do, and she was forced to lower her gaze to her "husband", who seemed to be just as caught up as she had been by their beautiful surroundings. She squeezed his arm. "Charlton, perhaps we might tour the grounds later."
"Yes, of course, dearest." He patted her hand on his arm, lowering his gaze to smile at her.
"We don't have any bags," Casey said by her shoulder. "Ain't that a little suspicious?"
"Good point, brother of mine," Sarah said through the side of her mouth, her eyes roving the lobby. There were so many people milling about, and…ah, yes. There.
"Follow my lead," she breathed, pulling Chuck—or rather Charlton—along beside her. She smiled politely at a young man who raised a brass hand to tip his bowler at them, and then she glanced over her shoulder to make sure he had moved on. When she saw that he had, she turned back and swept past an obviously wealthy (quite possibly disgustingly so) couple who were half asleep in their chairs by the fire.
There was a pile of bags; two massive trunks with their initials carved into the locks and half a dozen suitcases with handles that looked like pure leather and golden hinges. As Sarah slowed her step just barely beside the bags, she took note of the fact that these had no initials, and stooped for only a split second, long enough to swipe one of them.
As she hurried away from the scene of the crime, she saw one of the suitcases that had been in the pile being shoved into Chuck's arms from behind and she silently thanked Casey for following her lead just like she had requested.
Chuck looked down at the suitcase that was suddenly and miraculously in his hands, gulped loud enough for her to hear it, and raised his head again. Then he lowered the suitcase beside his hip and did his best not to look terrified. Mostly because she had nudged him in his ribs with her elbow.
They were standing at the front desk a moment later, Chuck pulling his money out and speaking to the clerk. They checked into two rooms, one for Mr. and Mrs. Charlton and Sarah Charles, and the other for Mrs. Sarah Charles' brother, Mr. James Cranston.
At that Casey looked liable to argue, but then Sarah cut in quickly. "Oh come now, James. Lest you forget Charlton and I are married now. You needn't be so protective. And you'll like having your own room with your own private bathroom and water closet, you old sourpuss."
His face turned red and with the murderous glint in his eye, she highly doubted it was from embarrassment.
They retrieved their keys and started for the staircase, but then she felt a tug on her arm. She stopped and turned to Chuck, whose eyes had glossed over as he looked past her at something. She spun, fearing some sort of danger, her hand at her sleeve where one of her trusted knives was tucked…
A young man in a bellhop uniform stood in front of a gate of ornately patterned brass that went all the way up to the ceiling and beyond. There was a loud buzz and he tugged the gate to slide open, revealing an elevator.
Chuck wandered a little closer, in a trance. "Might we take the elevator, Sarah? Darling?" When he turned to look at her, his straw boater with its brown ribbon atop his barely contained curls, a hopeful look on his face, and his hand clutching hers…She felt slightly breathless, so all she did was nod.
He grinned and tucked her hand back through his arm. "Come along, Jamie," he chirped at Casey, who did nothing but smile simperingly, and she thought she detected a low growl as well.
Instead of pounding Chuck into the carpet, he calmly stayed back. "I want to take a tour. Take my suitcase, Charlton. That's a good lad." And with that, he shoved it under Chuck's other arm.
Sarah figured Casey was going to grab their packs from where they had stashed them so that they might look legitimate when they arrived. It was not a stretch to say that the simple, grungy packs they used were the worse for wear, and did not match their expensive clothing.
As they stepped into the elevator, Chuck readjusting the two suitcases with one under his armpit and the other dangling from the same hand, Sarah felt a chill shoot through her. There were so many ways this could end badly. A box that moved up and down in this strange brass cage…nothing sounded more terrifying at that very moment. She inadvertently squeezed Chuck's arm a little tighter as the bellhop turned from the controls and smiled welcomingly. "Which floor, please?"
"Three. Thank you, young man," Chuck said, making his voice a little deeper, a beaming smile permanently etched on his handsome face. She took a moment to muse on the fact that the operator was perhaps a handful of years younger than Chuck, at the most.
But then the box began to move up, and Sarah bit her cheek to keep from gasping. This wasn't how she wanted to die. This was why she took the stairs. She always took the stairs.
"This is a steam powered hydraulic elevator," he said quietly into her ear, and the fear took a backseat to something much nicer. She looked up at him as he continued. "There aren't an awful lot of buildings with these types of elevators. I mean…steam is moving this glorious contraption. And with all of our weight inside of it, as though it were nothing at all," he whispered. "You only find this in the big cities. I've never been in one, even though they exist in Los Angeles. Can you believe that?"
"What's that, Sir?" The bellhop turned and smiled in a friendly manner.
"I was telling my wife that I've never been—" She surreptitiously ground the heel of her boot into his foot beneath the skirt of her gown and he coughed into his fist, his cheeks pink. "Pardon me. I was telling my wife that I've never seen anything quite like this…pattern…here. Lovely brass work. Just lovely."
"Isn't it, though, Sir? Hasn't even been touched since Mr. Reid had it put in eight years ago when they built this beauteous hotel." As the bellhop rattled on about something or other, she watched as Chuck stared at the controls beneath the young man's hands. His eyes moved back and forth in his head and she wondered for a split second if perhaps he was flashing on the mechanisms. She realized he wasn't when he asked the bellhop a question. The Intersect did not take up all of Chuck Bartowski's brain. A lot of it was just him, always puzzling, curious about everything. She understood in some ways why Bryce thought Chuck was innocent and naive. Chuck was childlike in the way he explored and was interested in just about everything, the way he found reason to be excited and intrigued by things that she usually took for granted…But if Bryce had only dug deeper he would have known that Chuck was so much more than that. And certainly much stronger.
The elevator jolted as it reached their floor and she just barely restrained herself from grabbing at Chuck in terror, but then it stilled and the bellhop slid the gate open and gestured for them to exit. Sarah rushed into the hallway as though the elevator was on fire, turning back to smile politely at him as she waited for her husband to exit.
"You folks need help with the luggage?"
"No, thank you," Chuck replied, and the bellhop nodded, accepting Chuck's tip with a grateful grin and sliding his gate shut, moving his death trap back down to the bottom floor where he would welcome other guests.
Sarah heard Chuck on her heels as she moved down the hallway, another woman's suitcase in her hand. "This is ours," she said, setting the suitcase at her feet and thrusting her hand out for Chuck to give her their room key.
"Oh! Yes. The key." He fumbled with the suitcases and eventually managed to retrieve the key from his trousers' front pocket.
She thanked him and opened the door, stepping inside and holding it open for him. He swept up her suitcase in his free hand and followed, moving aside so that she could shut the door behind him. "Oh," seemed to be the only thing Chuck was capable of saying at that moment.
And she fully agreed with the sentiment.
The room was large and spacious, with ventilation and a large window shaded by Venetian blinds. Electric light fixtures were mounted on the papered walls and the floor was covered in rug carpet. The bed and accompanying nightstands were crafted from solid mahogany wood, as well as the armoire, dresser, and frame around the large mirror beside a door that most likely led into the washroom which apparently boasted both a bath and a toilet—which was certainly a rarity, as Sarah could attest, having traveled the world over and stayed in countless hotels and boarding homes.
Chuck immediately went to the bed and sat upon it, bouncing a few times and smoothing his hand over the pale blue duvet before grabbing one of the cream-colored pillows and fluffing it in his hands. "I must admit, I was not expecting to be living in the lap of luxury when we boarded the train in Los Angeles," he said, putting the pillow back. "Sleeping on the dock surrounded by moldy crates sounded about right."
Sarah took the chair at the dresser and turned it to face him, sitting on the matching pale blue upholstered seat and sighing as she sunk back into it. "The lap of luxury is right."
"You—You have probably stayed in a place like this before, though, haven't you?"
She could hear in his voice that it was a legitimate question, one borne of curiosity as opposed to anything else. "I have seen palaces, and I have enjoyed luxury…" Sarah paused, before standing up and going to the window, sliding the blinds out of the way and pushing the window open to let the fresh ocean breeze into their room. "But never have any of those places had such a lovely setting as this. The air here seems less poisonous, doesn't it?"
Chuck took a deep breath behind her, letting it out slowly. "It truly does."
Biting her lip, she turned away from the window and folded her hands together. "I'm not sure how long it will take Casey to bring our bags up, but you and I need to do some investigating of our own, without the bounty hunter breathing down our necks."
"Why shouldn't he come along?" Chuck asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.
"How will we tell him about Ishmael Grand, Chuck? Because the truth certainly isn't an option."
He sighed, rubbing his hands over his knees. "You make a valid point. I suppose the best thing is to be sneaky. How do we elude him?"
Just then, there was a knock on the door. Sarah stood, producing her best throwing knife and holding it at the ready as she moved towards their door, but Chuck beat her to it, sweeping it open as though he wasn't harboring the most dangerous weapon the world had ever known in his head.
Luckily, it was only the cunning bounty hunter they were currently attempting to keep from knowing about said dangerous weapon's existence. Sarah nearly rolled her eyes at that thought as Casey stepped inside with both her and Chuck's packs in hand, his own slung over his shoulder. "At ease, Walker. Who the hell did ya think it was?"
She merely shrugged and slipped her knife back in its hiding place.
Casey tossed their packs onto the bed, and then stopped, eyeing it with a wide smirk. "Heh. Now that's a narrow bed fer two people. Hehe."
Chuck wisely chose to ignore him, moving past the burly man and grabbing their packs to put on the floor, huffily smoothing the duvet on the bed again and turning to give Casey a surly glare. "I'm not sure if you noticed but these are fresh linens, you barbarian."
The older man rolled his eyes and walked back to the door. "Only reason I'm leaving you two alone is 'cause I need a bath—"
"You got that right," Chuck mumbled.
"And it ain't like you two've got anywhere you can go," he finished, narrowing his eyes and curling his upper lip menacingly at the toy maker for his quip.
With that, he left, making sure to slam the door as he went, and Sarah immediately went to it and eased it open slowly, peeking into the hallway to watch as Casey went to his room all the way at the end of the hall and unlocked it, disappearing inside.
She ducked back into the room and turned to Chuck. "Where would one find an unused bellboy uniform in this hotel?"
In spite of his obvious confusion, he pressed his lips together in thought. "There must be staff lockers somewhere. Perhaps behind the front desk? Though probably not. They would more likely than not want as much space as possible for the use of their guests."
"The hotel is raised up from the ground. Basement?"
"A wine cellar, break rooms, staff lockers. Anything might be down there," he said, and she shrugged one shoulder.
"If one followed a member of the staff…"
He thrust his arm out for her to take. "Mrs. Charles? Care to take that tour now?"
She shook her head wordlessly and took his arm before they slipped out of their room and back down the hallway to begin their investigation.
}o{
They did, indeed, find an extra uniform by following a clerk down a set of stairs and through a door, without alerting the harried fellow to their presence. It was absolutely a stroke of genius that they made it as far as they did. Sarah's stroke of genius. The way she moved in her dress and heeled boots more silently and gracefully than he ever could in his trousers and shoes.
Chuck followed her every command, pressing against the wall to hide from passing cook assistants, ducking into the room with the lockers, et cetera. And when Sarah procured the uniform and promptly told him to turn the other way so she could stuff it up her dress, Chuck withheld any and all questions that sprang to mind about where she hid it. Her skirts weren't all that wide, after all.
And now they were back in their room, having eluded detection and having stolen a bellhop's uniform.
"I'm not quite sure how it will fit you, unfortunately," Sarah said, holding the uniform up against him. "Stand up straight, for God's sake. Don't slouch."
Chuck complied, his eyes widening.
"It should do. Though you really are abnormally tall."
"I was born this way," he said with a shrug and Sarah gave him a long look.
"I certainly hope not, for your mother's sake."
"This is going to make me sound like a simpleton, perhaps, but…erm…why exactly did we steal this uniform again?" Chuck smashed the bellhop hat down over his curls and made a dissatisfied face. It was a little small for his head, especially with how thick his hair was. That did not bode well for the rest of the uniform.
"Because the only way to see the guest registry is if you get behind the front desk. And the only way to get behind that desk is if you work here. Hence the uniform," she replied easily, and he boggled a little at how she managed to come up with plans so rapidly.
"What are the odds Ishmael Grand is still alive, let alone living in this specific hotel? What's to say he doesn't have an apartment somewhere else on the island? Or in San Diego proper?" he asked.
"Well, obviously I don't know for sure. But he did write that note to Bryce on stationary from this hotel. And if Theo West is operating off of this island still—"
"Something we still don't know for sure," Chuck interrupted.
"—then it only makes sense he would live in the lap of luxury. And as we have already established, the Hotel Del Coronado is the pinnacle of luxury," she continued as though he hadn't even spoken.
"Alright, then. Fine. I'll do it."
"I didn't exactly say you had a choice in the matter."
He glared and snatched the uniform out of her hands. "If I'm caught and sent into the center of the rotunda to be shot, it's on your head."
"Oh, spare me. Did you see how absolutely massive this hotel is? There must be somewhere close to four hundred rooms. The amount of bellboys, maids, and other staff working here is easily enough to keep any questions at bay. You'll blend in." She walked to the window and looked out of it. "Besides, no one would suspect someone to steal and wear a uniform to impersonate a hotel bellboy. There's no reason for that to cross anyone's mind. Just get the information and come back."
He grumbled to himself, then realized she was looking outside to give him the time and space to change into the uniform.
With another long sigh, he undressed to his underthings, pulling the uniform on and buttoning the pristine jacket up to his neck. As he tugged his shoes back onto his feet, Sarah turned and regarded him critically, her hand poised beneath her chin, her eyes narrowed. "Stand up and let me see." He did so. "It's small on you. Though I don't wonder. Any of those uniforms would've been small on you."
She paused and swallowed, a strange look flashing on her face for a moment before she stepped close and ducked her head to focus on fixing the hat's strap under his chin. "There. Comfortable?"
"Not even slightly," he said, squirming a bit. Things pinched where he was sure they weren't supposed to pinch, including the crotch of his pants. He tried to smile still, even though this was by far the least enjoyable feeling he had felt in quite some time.
"Find the registry quick, then," was her solution, and he pouted a bit at that. "I'll keep watch for Casey, but he doesn't seem like the type to take quick baths."
That was a strange thing to say, Chuck mused, but then when he really thought about it, what she said made a lot of sense. And then he shook his head and shivered, because thinking about Casey and baths was a considerably traumatizing use of his brain power.
"Right. I'm off then. Let's hope Ishmael Grand has a room here. Because if he doesn't, we have to figure out what to do next."
"Either way, that's something we are going to have to figure out."
He nodded, flashed her a smile that was his best attempt at looking confident, saw that she wasn't fooled for even a moment, and turned away.
At least he tried.
"Chuck…"
Her fingers slid around his gloved hand—and it had to be said, the gloves fit horribly.
He turned back, not sure what he expected to see. But when he saw that she had slid her mask over her face—that mask, the one that she used to shield whatever emotions she happened to be feeling at that moment—Chuck felt his heart leap a little in his chest.
"Will you promise to be careful? I mean, don't…talk to anyone if you can help it."
"They won't even know I'm there." This time his grin was confident. Maybe the Intersect was the reason for her worry that she was attempting to hide. Or maybe it wasn't.
And with that nice thought wedged in his mind, he squeezed her fingers and swept out of the room after checking down the hallway both ways.
He had a mission. And there was something inside of him that seemed to almost be coming alive. It wasn't excitement or adrenaline or anything like that. Maybe it was Sarah Walker and the way she had taken his hand just then. Maybe it was the way she used that mask when she was around him…the emotions bubbling up beneath it…
Or maybe he felt like he was doing something outside of just building toys, improving on Morgan's mechanisms, making pins for the coalition. All of those things were important in their own way.
But for some reason, working with Sarah, knowing that she had enough faith in him to send him off on his own mission…Well, he felt like a ridiculous child for being so excited about getting let off of his proverbial leash, but he was excited. She believed in him.
She knew he could do this.
Pushing down the thought that "this" wasn't the most imperative or life-threatening mission he'd had since Bryce accidentally gave him the Intersect, Chuck hurried down the back stairs and stole himself for whomever or whatever he might meet at the bottom of those stairs.
}o{
Sarah opened the door and looked both ways down the hallway. There was no sign of Casey yet, which was encouraging. It meant he didn't expect them to leave without him, which would make sneaking around behind his back a bit easier in the future. Hopefully.
More importantly, though, Chuck had yet to return. And he had been gone for an hour.
All he had to do was sneak down to the front desk and check through the registry to see if Bryce's contact was still staying at this hotel.
Granted, now that she had thought about it for the last hour, there were a lot of ways it could have gone wrong. What if he was caught by a maid or another bellhop? What if the man at the front desk recognized him? What if he was questioned while he was looking through the book? If it was busy, the clerk would be hovering over the guest book, signing in new guests. Chuck wouldn't get the opportunity to look through the book for himself.
The fact that he had been gone for a whole hour made her more than nervous. She was downright frightened. On the verge of searching the place high and low for the inventor.
What if they had been followed here? By the IEL, by IBoMaD...
What if Casey wasn't taking a bath? What if he was on to them? What if he kidnapped Chuck right out from under her nose?
She shut the door and leaned back against it, realizing she was getting lost in an uncharacteristic spiral of nerves and what-ifs. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to calm down and collect her thoughts. It had only been an hour. There were so many things that could be keeping him, and none of them had to mean he was in danger.
She just hoped he wasn't stupid enough to find Grand himself.
God, she couldn't even imagine. After his stunt in San Francisco, that was a definite possibility. She would strangle him if he had gone and done that. She truly would. If he didn't end up dead in the Pacific Ocean first.
She felt a chill sweep over her and she immediately decided it was time to look for him. She was foolish to let him go on his own. He wasn't a con artist or a spy or an agent. He was a man who fixed machines and built toys. And he was rash.
Sarah turned to head back to the door.
But there was a sudden bang from behind her. She spun on her heels, the gun she had hidden in her bodice clutched between her hands and pointed at the window where the sound had originated.
Chuck was there, his bellboy hat crooked, his gloves mysteriously missing as he climbed in from where he had been perched on the red roof sloping down from the window ledge. When he saw the gun, he almost fell backwards right out of the window again, but she lunged and caught him by the front of his jacket to yank him back in.
"Where the hell were you?" she asked as he practically landed on his head.
"Why are you still pointing that at me?" he squeaked from the ground, holding a hand up in front of him in defense. She saw a piece of paper crinkled between his fingers and lowered the gun.
"Sorry," she breathed, shoving her gun back in its hiding place and ignoring the vibrant blush on Chuck's face as he neglected to look away. Her immediate reaction was to tease him for it, but she resisted and instead reached down to snatch the paper from his hand. "Do you know how long I have been waiting here for you to get back?"
"I didn't mean to take so long. I really didn't." He sat up and dusted himself off a bit.
"And climbing in from the roof? What is so terrible about the stairs, Chuck?"
"I had to!"
"And what's this?" She opened the note, attempting not to show him how unbelievably relieved she was. "Wait." She watched as he climbed to his feet and started unbuttoning the jacket. "Were you caught? Is anyone onto you?"
"No, no. Open it. That's Ishmael Grand's room number and I found out that Theo West is staying in one of the fanciest rooms in this joint. Anyone who is anyone in West's operation has their own separate ledger. Safe to say the man has quite a bit of pull around here. It's no wonder Bryce's mission failed."
Chuck pulled the jacket off of his shoulders and tossed it over the back of the stuffed cream-upholstered chair nearby before undoing a few of the top buttons of his white dress shirt to reveal his collar bone.
"Well done, Chuck," she said, keeping her eyes on his, instead of letting them wander down. "Why did it take so long?"
A sheepish smile crossed his face and she momentarily regretted asking. "Well, as it turns out, I was perhaps too convincing. I did a few jobs. Emptying steamobiles, bringing bags up for a few guests, and I also brought a delicious looking meal up to a Señor Murquis. I peeked under the plate cover on the way up the stairs."
Sarah's eyes slipped shut and she sighed, opening her eyes again to give him a flat look through her lashes.
"I was tipped handsomely." His toothy grin almost made up for it as he went into his pocket and flashed the money at her.
She bit her cheek to keep from smiling, but it didn't work and she ducked her head instead. "You are something else."
"In a good way?"
Sarah opted not to answer, even though the answer was obvious. At least to her. Maybe she didn't answer because it was obvious.
"While I was down there, I also grabbed a menu." He tugged a card out of the back of his pants and handed it to her. "We can order salted mackerel. Smelts. Lamb chops. Do you know, I've never had lamb. I'd like to try it sometime. And coffee. I smelled their coffee. It smelled like how I imagine Heaven might smell. It really did."
"Chuck, we don't have time for this," she said, hating to burst his bubble. "We have to find Ishmael Grand. This isn't a vacation."
His eyes dimmed and she wondered just how caught up he had gotten in all of this playacting. This sort of thing had lost its excitement for her years ago. It was her business. A way to survive and thrive. But Chuck was a toy maker, an inventor. He wasn't a thrill-seeker. He rarely left Los Angeles before Bryce came along. Before she came along.
And she couldn't see him making a very good conman.
It didn't seem like he was particularly negative about the idea of conning, considering how quickly he had accepted his role in this ruse. Maybe it was the novelty of it; for a man whose life was relatively boring compared to the life of someone like her, this was exciting and different, with a tinge of danger that would stimulate anyone's sense of adventure. The novelty was gone for the Ice Queen. The idea of treating this as a vacation, of enjoying her time here and making the most of their accommodations…none of that had even crossed her mind.
The fact that it crossed Chuck's pricked at her conscience something awful. And then she shoved all of it to the back of her mind and shrugged. "We need to decide how we are going to proceed. Casey can't find out how you know Grand is staying here."
"That much is obvious." She thought she detected a tinge of sass in his tone as he looked away and tossed the menu on the nearest table. The light that had been spilling out of him when he pulled out the menu, that had caused him to ramble excitedly at her, was gone. And in its place was a quietude that Sarah found herself resenting. She didn't resent him for it. She found herself resenting everything else: what it meant about how he was feeling, her, everything in general.
"So what do we tell him instead?" he asked. "I mean, since we can't tell him the strange, other-worldly glowing cube I touched implanted government secrets in my brain, what can we say?"
"I don't know yet. Do you know what Ishmael Grand looks like?"
Chuck simply sighed heavily, shrugging. "No. There aren't any photographs of him in…" He trailed off, tapping his temple with his finger and giving her a closed-mouth, wry smile.
"Right. Well…" They couldn't have much more time left before Casey sought them out, and she didn't much want to pile another lie on top of the ones they were already telling the bounty hunter. Chuck wasn't a very good liar in the first place, but if he had layers upon layers of lies to keep track of, he would lose track and unknowingly let the cat out of the bag. She was certain of it.
"He doesn't know about the Intersect, but that doesn't mean we have to lie about everything," Chuck said, and she wondered if the Intersect somehow gave him the ability to read minds. And that was a terrifying thought. With everything that went through her brain, let alone the things she thought about him especially.
"What do you have in mind?" she asked, since she wasn't a mind reader.
"We have the note that Bryce received from 'IG' on this hotel's stationary. So I masqueraded as an employee to look at the guest book, and I skimmed the list of current guests to find anyone with 'IG' as their initials. I found an Ishmael Grand still staying in that room," he gestured to the note she still held in her hand, "and figured that was the fellow who wrote the note for Agent Larkin."
She crossed her arms at her chest and looked up at him as he took the hat off of his head and tossed it on the chair. "That idea of yours isn't half bad." He smirked a little and shrugged. "Maybe we'll catch him coming out of his room."
"Or going in," he offered, stepping out of his shoes and grabbing his own trousers. He gave her a long look, which she ignored for awhile as she got lost in thought. It was when he cleared his throat, causing her to lift her gaze to his fingers hovering near the button of his bellhop uniform's trousers, that she realized he was going to change.
"Don't mind me," she breathed, going to the window and shutting it, staying there and studiously staring out at the white sand beach again. She knew she was blushing. She could feel it rising from her gown's collar, and she was incredibly glad he wouldn't be able to see it. She hurriedly rushed on, voicing her thoughts from earlier. "What do we tell Grand when we find him? If we ask him about Bryce, we run the risk of having him suspect us, or fear us. Either way, he'd no longer be an asset for us. If anything he'd be a potential danger."
"Alright…" She turned, thinking that he was telling her he had finished changing, but she quickly discovered she was wrong when she caught sight of his bare back for just a split second before he donned his undershirt and tugged it down to cover that tan, scarred skin. She had almost forgotten about that. And she spun back around to the window, clenching her eyes shut and vowing not to turn around again until she was absolutely positive he had all of his clothes on. "…Well, we have to ask him about Bryce somehow, don't we?"
"Mm. While getting him to trust us."
"You can turn around now."
She sighed in relief and turned, watching as he fell back into the comfortable-looking chair beside him, his shirt cuffs unbuttoned, his tie missing, and his socked toes wiggling as he propped his feet on the ottoman. "He trusted Bryce apparently," she said, noting with amusement how at home he was making himself here. "And Bryce is an agent in the Imperial Espionage League."
Crossing to him, she shoved his legs off of the ottoman and sat on it, ignoring the put-out look on his face as he sat up a bit straighter. "He's IEL, Chuck."
"And?"
"And Ishmael Grand was an asset for the IEL, not just Bryce. Bryce was only his contact. So…" She shrugged innocently and folding her hands in her lap, raising her chin. "What if another IEL contact shows up at his doorstep, wanting to continue the investigation into West's less than legal dealings across the border?"
Understanding slowly crept over Chuck's handsome features as he propped his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. "But where on Earth are we going to find IEL agents willing to help us?"
A/N: ...yes, where on Earth? Hehe.
Thanks for reading! Please review!
-SC