Aside from an uncharacteristically awkward moment with Awesome, Chuck's double date went pretty well. Pretty well, of course, considering the ever present awkwardness of being out-coupled by Ellie and Awesome, and Chuck's absolute inability to know what he was supposed to do, say, or where he was supposed to put his hands. Sarah was perfect, as ever, leaning into him, smiling the right amount, getting along with Ellie. And Chuck just felt like a loose wire, one that wobbled about, all out of place and clueless as to it's function.
Or maybe that was just his crippling insecurities reappearing.
He longed for the simpler times, before Jill snatched his heart out of his chest and ground it into dust with the pointy, pointy heel of her shoe. For those moments when being in a relationship felt so right and easy and he didn't have to overthink everything and wonder if this was the day that someone else would come along and his happiness would be torn unceremoniously away.
But this was date night. Chuck wasn't going to think about the crushing heartbreak of his senior year, or of the CIA and the scary secrets probably forever locked in his brain. He was going to think about nice things; like the way Sarah's smile warmed his chest, how right it felt to have Sarah tucked against his side, the subtle shine of Sarah's fruit-scented hair in the streetlight. Or maybe how good it had been to share a meal with his sister and Sarah and Awesome without worrying about Beckman interrupting or Casey loitering around, or just anything about the Intersect. It had been nice to feel like a normal, real couple - even if the dates they talked about were only as real as some of the nights Chuck had been out of the apartment.
After all, Chuck had gotten to spend a lovely evening with a beautiful woman who seemed absolutely smitten with him. It didn't get much better than that.
So, Chuck stood there on the sidewalk with his arm around Sarah, waiting for Awesome to come back with the car, and he felt pretty damn good about himself.
Unfortunately, he was Chuck Bartowski, Human Intersect. And Chuck Bartowski, Human Intersect, was as much of a magnet for danger as Bryce Larkin, Super Spy, apparently was for bullets.
.
Glass shattering on the pavement drew Chuck's attention down the sidewalk. A dirty, sweaty looking man stumbled drunkenly towards them. He made it just as far as Ellie before he collapsed to the ground. Ellie immediately went into Doctor mode, trying to get a response from the man while calling out instructions for the others. When the ambulance came, she was in control of the situation, handing Chuck the man's wallet to check for medical ID.
Chuck had seen spies in action, kicking all kinds of butt, but watching Ellie save a life? That was something else. She was simultaneously soothing and authoritative, working alongside the EMT's like a well-oiled machine. He didn't think he had ever been prouder of her in his life.
"That's my sister," Chuck announced, desperate to share how proud he was of her. "Eleanor Fay Bartowksi, saving that dude's life!" He chuckled, looking around to make sure everyone else was as in awe of her as he was. Then, he found the medical ID card and flashed on a classified CIA file for something called Sanctuary. The ambulance drove away and Chuck could only watch after it in horror. "That's my sister," he said again, beginning to panic a totally healthy amount. "Saving that bad dude's life."
Sarah met his gaze, her face displaying a host of emotions - worry, wariness, understanding, calm - in micro-flashes. "Who is he?"
"Mason Whitney, works for the Department of Energy." Chuck let Sarah drag him away from the chaos, taking a moment to recall his flash. "And I think he also might work for the or might be wanted by the CIA. Something about Operation Sanctuary. You know it?"
Sarah thought for a moment, eventually shaking her head. "It's not something I'm familiar with," she admitted, Chuck feeling his shoulders drop in disappointment. "But, listen to me, Chuck. Your sister is going to the hospital, there's a lot of people there. She's going to be fine. Don't worry about her."
"She's the only blood family I've got left, Sarah," Chuck reminded her, pushing down the rising swell of panic. "And she's saving the life of a guy who's in the Intersect and not the light and fluffy reasons. Of course I'm worrying. I can't not."
Sarah's face softened, although if she really understood or was just pretending to. Chuck couldn't tell. Sarah was a closed book written in a language nobody spoke or wrote anymore. She was indecipherable. Still, her squeeze on his hand felt comforting enough and he knew that - unless national security dictated it - she wouldn't let anything happen to Ellie.
"Go home, stay with Devon. I'll head to Casey's and we'll start working out what this is about."
Chuck pressed a spontaneous kiss to her cheek, smiling as wide as he could. "Thank you."
Sarah shrugged a shoulder, offering a small smile. "It's what I'm here for."
.
.
Staying home and sticking with Devon seemed like smart spy advice. And it had been, for the first hour or so. But, there were only so many times he could pace back and forth with the phone in his hand. There was only so much watching Awesome be awesome on an exercise bike that Chuck could take.
He began another circuit, heading towards the kitchen in case there was some mystical announcement of Ellie's okayness written out in carrot sticks or something. There wasn't. Bryce was there, however, munching on the aforementioned carrot sticks and seeming only mildly put-out that Chuck hadn't gone for his suggestion of feigning some complication or another with his wound and heading straight for the hospital and Ellie. Chuck appreciated it, really he did, he just preferred to keep that plan in his back pocket, in case they really needed it.
"Buddy," Bryce called, giving up feigning absorption in his snack. "Would you sit, please? You're making me dizzy."
"You don't get dizzy," Chuck grumbled, but he slipped onto the seat beside Bryce just the same. He turned the mockingly silent phone over and over in his hands. "You think I should call the hospital again? I feel like I should call the hospital again."
"I can't say about the half hour I spent stuck in the weekly meeting from hell with Director Graham, but you've called the hospital ten times in the last twenty minutes."
"But what about sweaty nuclear guy? What if he, you know, what if he hurts her?"
Bryce rolled his eyes heavenward, snatching the phone from Chuck's hand between rotations. "Sarah is already there, watching over her. Okay? Your sister is fine. In fact, I pity anyone who tries anything with Sarah there."
"She is pretty awesome," Chuck mused, remembering all the times Sarah had saved his life so far. "But, I could just check?"
Bryce's face took on the "tap-dancing on my last nerve" look, one he usually directed at Casey. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "Buddy, reach for the phone and I'll break it. And, you should know, I have a reputation for shattering phones, laptops, televisions, even a pager when I hear orders I don't like. I'm kind of infamous for it." Bryce smirked, a hint of wickedness hiding under fond exasperation. "The TV I stabbed with the bat'leth? Not the first. Won't be the last. Now," Bryce set the phone gently on the countertop. "You can either try and take the phone or eat a carrot stick. Your choice."
Chuck's hand hovered over the cordless phone, his instincts screaming for him to call and check on his sister. But Sarah was at the hospital and she would have called if anything was wrong. And Bryce was right there too, only looking slightly frustrated and not tense or worried or ready to go all superspy on someone. He sighed, snatching a carrot stick with a mutinous glare.
"I'm not a fan of the tough love, Bryce," Chuck mumbled around a bite of carrot. "And I think we need to talk about your disregard for the sanctity of technology. And you, an engineer."
"I have nothing but respect for the sanctity of technology, Chuck," Bryce grinned, leaning his weight on his left elbow. "I just have a very low threshold for people telling me things I don't want to hear."
"You had that at Stanford," Chuck grinned, pulled in to the playful argument despite himself. "And our tech didn't suffer for it."
Bryce waved a stick dismissively. "We were on scholarships, our tech couldn't afford to suffer for it." His eyes flickered over Chuck's shoulder, smile warming from teasing to just happy. "Hey, Ellie."
"Ellie!" Chuck stumbled, baby Bambi graceful, over to his sister. His safe, whole, healthy sister. He wrapped his arms around her, squeezing just hard enough to reassure himself. "You're safe! You're safe. Of course you're safe," Chuck said, pulling back and trying to project the air of someone who had all his stuff together. "What happened?"
"We tried everything," Ellie sighed, mouth pulling down at the corners. "Nothing worked." Awesome came in, resting a hand on her shoulder in wordless comfort. "I think he was poisoned? Had an allergic reaction or something. I'm going to bed. Goodnight, guys."
Awesome followed Ellie off in the direction of the bedrooms, Chuck waiting until they were gone to whirl on his friend.
"I am getting way too comfortable lying and sneaking around with all this spy stuff, Bryce," Chuck announced, glaring at Bryce who only partly deserved it. "I am starting to feel that the spy world is my real life, not this one."
Bryce leaned back against the kitchen island, guilty and just plain tired. "Sarah would tell you that this is just an existential spy crisis, totally normal and to be expected."
That would imply that that wasn't what Bryce thought, and ordinarily Chuck would leap on that and demand more of an explanation. But Chuck felt more words building, like pressure needing to be released.
"I used to have all this compartmentalised. Chuck world and spy world. But when I watched those ambulance doors close and my sister was behind them with the sweaty nuclear spy freak, my worlds collided." He stabbed a vicious finger towards the bedrooms. "We put Ellie's life in danger!"
Bryce's head dropped a little towards his chest, eyes flickering down. He didn't protest.
"No, Chuck," Sarah called, her soft voice coming from behind him. "That guy was sick with or without the intersect in your head. And spy world or no, Ellie helped that guy because that is what she is trained to do."
It made sense. Chuck didn't want it to make sense, but it did. In that weird, twisty spy logic way that was probably taught in super secret spy school.
Chuck sighed, nodding slowly. "Yeah, I guess you're right." He turned, catching sorrowful blue eyes. "I'm sorry I unloaded on you."
Bryce shook his head, pushing off the island. "I sent you that email, and you've been due a freakout for a few weeks now." He shrugged, fake grin falling into seriousness. "Besides, it's Ellie." Bryce said it like it excused everything, and maybe it did for Bryce, but Chuck still felt bad. The superspy suddenly grinned and there was nothing fake about it. "Oh yeah, and Awesome wanted me to have a chat with you about your sex life and getting back on that bike."
Mortified, Chuck spluttered and choked on thin air, coughing and forming nonsensical syllables while Sarah patted him on the back.
"Devon is right, Chuck," Sarah agreed, definitely not helping with the whole mortification thing. "Our covers are starting to suffer. We probably should make love."
Chuck started spluttering all over again, now sure his cheeks were bright enough to act as emergency lights.
Bryce offered an overly cheerful good night, whistling as he disappeared into the bathroom.
"You both enjoyed that far too much," Chuck accused as soon as he got his breath and coherency back.
Sarah offered a smile and a little shrug, all CIA trained, butter wouldn't melt innocence.
.
.
After lunch, where Morgan was scarily back on time for a top secret project involving Harry Tang's wife, Chuck was in a hell of his own making. Beautiful, sandwich making Lou was (maybe, hopefully) flirting with him and she had named a sandwich after him and it was great. It was all really great. And then Sarah came and Lou realised that Chuck had a girlfriend and shot him a glare that would even make Casey flail. And Sarah had the look of disappointment and just the right amount of pissed off girlfriend jealousy. And Chuck was just babbling and trying to work out how two very beautiful women were right there in front of him and so, so angry with him. And the universe really had to hate Chuck in particular, because he was sure this shit never happened to Casey or Bryce, or even Morgan for that matter.
Sarah, still deep into really pissed off, disappointed girlfriend mode, gave him a flat stare. "There's more to the Mason Whitney incident than we thought." And then she walked off. "Let's go, Chuck."
"Tell me that didn't just happen," Chuck asked the universe mournfully. He received a sympathetic hum back, a warm travel mug pressed into his hand.
"She'll calm down, eventually," Bryce consoled him, watching after Sarah.
"Sarah or Lou?"
"Sarah," Bryce said, holding up a finger in the face of Sarah's glower. "Sandwich girl looked ready to castrate you with a plastic spoon, so I'm not so sure about her."
Chuck did not need that mental image. But, now that Bryce had described it, it did seem accurate. "You really need to work on your comforting skills, buddy."
"Probably," Bryce conceded easily. "How's this? You're a good guy, Chuck. Women like that."
Chuck considered that for a moment. He did feel oddly comforted by it. Or maybe it was just the excellent coffee Bryce seemed to pull out of thin air. Either way, he felt a little less like the universe had sucker punched him. "Better."
"Good. Now, we'd better hit this briefing soon. Beckman still hasn't forgiven you for the wrinkle comment."
"I was complimenting the television," Chuck groaned, letting Bryce steer him after Sarah.
"I know," Bryce agreed, glaring at Lester and Jeff as they loitered around. "But you know the NSA have no sense of humour. Just look at Casey."
"You're not going to leave me alone with Sarah, are you?" Chuck asked, horrified at the thought. It wasn't that he didn't trust Sarah, it was just, you know, perfectly understandable fear for his safety around a woman he had pissed off.
"Buddy, I'm not cleared for the field."
Chuck blanched.
Bryce smirked a little, slipping sunglasses over his eyes. "Just messing with you, Chuck. Of course I'm coming along."
.
.
Sarah delivered a great and terrible revenge. She brought him to a morgue. Technically, Casey and Bryce were there too. But, a morgue. A cold, sterile, dark place with freezers full of dead bodies. None of those things Chuck liked. Especially not the freezers full of dead bodies.
Chuck perched on the autopsy table, staring wide-eyed as Casey opened one of the lockers. "It's just a storage room," he told himself. "They just happen to store people in this room. People who are no longer breathing, and who are refrigerated."
"Man up, Bartowski," Casey ordered, pulling a body from the freezer. "They have to store them somewhere. Better than stacked up on a curb like garbage, right?"
Chuck shuddered, refusing to let Casey plant the images in his head. It was bad enough when Bryce did it.
"I remember the last time I was in one of these," Bryce offered nostalgically.
Sarah caught his gaze and smiled, just a little. "You faked your death as a distraction so I could grab the asset and escape."
Bryce smiled at her, for a moment Chuck seeing the past they had shared. "And you came and got me."
"Romantic," Casey scoffed, glaring at the CIA agents. "Can we get on?"
Bryce hopped up on the table beside Chuck, watching Sarah and Casey check the body and run their tests. "Any flashes?" Chuck shook his head. "Any sign of the codes, Sarah?"
"Nothing so far," she replied, frowning at the dead man's ear. "Hold on." She pulled something away from the base of his ear, frowning. "Bug."
Casey, meanwhile, got an alert on his computer. "Guy was poisoned. Toxic derivative of pentothal. Initially, the subject becomes uncontrollably truthful. After it accumulates in the occipital lobe, victim suffers from unconsciousness and, eventually, death."
Chuck leaned in towards Bryce, muttering; "Casey is way too happy about this."
"Tell me about it," Bryce murmured back, eyes fixed on the corpse.
Casey and Sarah talked about the timeline for the drug to kill it's victim, none of which was helping Chuck's increasing anxiety levels.
"You think someone was after Whitney for the codes?" Chuck asked, relieved when Casey pushed the corpse back into the locker.
Bryce inclined his head, swaying a little as he dropped back to the floor. "It's likely."
"Those codes are a skeleton key to our nuclear system," Sarah announced, tone a little curt. "I'd say it's more than likely."
Casey grunted in the affirmative, packing up his supplies. "The only question is who has them now."
Bryce nodded once. "I'll reach out to some of my contacts, see if they've heard any chatter about someone looking to sell these codes."
"That's not a bad idea for once, Larkin," Casey smirked.
"I'm full of good ideas," Bryce smirked back, smile glittering at Chuck. "And while we're doing that, Chuck and Sarah have a mission of their own to prepare for."
For a moment, Chuck swore he saw Casey actually grin at Bryce. "They gotta do what they gotta do," the NSA agent conceded.
"Have I told you I like you today?" Chuck asked his far too amused friend.
Bryce feigned consideration, laughing as he replied; "Nope."
"Good," Chuck glowered, Sarah matching his expression. "Because you are the worst. And I don't like you at all."
Bryce just laughed again, striding from the morgue like the smug superspy he was.
Sarah stepped into place beside Chuck, a little less angry than before. In fact, she looked a little awkward. "Bryce is right-"
"When isn't he?" Chuck muttered mutinously.
Sarah pretended not to hear. "We should probably talk about this. You know, the-"
Sharing a bed together thing. Chuck knew. It was a little awkward, Bryce aside Chuck hadn't shared his bed with anyone since Jill. "Yeah, I got it."
"- Sleeping together thing."
"Got it."
"Because we've got to do it," Sarah seemed to realise what she said. "Well not do it but-"
Chuck felt himself nodding far too fast. "Got it. Really got it. Following along."
Sarah nodded herself, hastening down to help Casey load his things in the car.
Bryce pushed off the wall outside the morgue, shaking his head in playful despair. "You really are smooth today, bud."
"I will leave your ass in this parking lot, I swear," Chuck (emptily) threatened, glaring at his smirking friend.
Bryce's warm, bright laughter was probably the only reason Chuck didn't hold on to his annoyance. It turned out, it was really hard to stay mad at him. Especially when he was laughing so hard it had to hurt.
"Let's get back to the Buy More before we're missed," Chuck sighed, trudging towards the car as if work would delay his inevitable awkwardness.
Bryce's chuckles trailed off, Chuck getting the impression those blue eyes would be pinning him with his assessing gaze behind his sunglasses. "Since I'm still on lockdown at yours, why don't I be a good friend and let you and Sarah enjoy your night at mine?"
That sounded almost too good to be true. "But Awesome and Ellie?"
"Will see Sarah picking you up for a nice, romantic dinner that I'll cook because you can burn water, and you can have the privacy you deserve."
"What do you think, Sarah?" Chuck asked, slipping into the backseat with Bryce.
For a moment, Sarah was silent. Chuck feared she might say no, feel too awkward about spending the night with him - even pretending to - in her ex's apartment. But, then she smiled and nodded.
"I think that would be a nice, low pressure start for our developing relationship," Sarah agreed, Casey just muttering something under his breath. "You sure you're okay with this though, Bryce? It is your home."
Bryce simply smiled and shrugged. "Wouldn't have offered if I wasn't," he replied, all ease. "Besides, the guest room is practically Chuck's already. And there's no Tron poster to ruin the mood."
Chuck squawked in offence. "You love my Tron poster!"
Bryce patted Chuck's knee, grinning brightly. "Yeah, but I'm a nerd. And you brainwashed me. Almost every day for three years, I slept in a room with that damned thing."
"I don't mind the poster," Sarah said, proving why she was his (current) favourite handler. "But thank you for the privacy. It's very sweet."
Chuck felt the urge to say something about Bryce knowing this was fake so she didn't need to get in good with him, but he dismissed it. Sarah was smiling and Bryce was already musing about possible recipes and Casey was grumbling that Bryce never offered to cook for him, and it was nice. Really nice. Nice, like maybe the spy world seeming more and more real to him wasn't such a bad thing. Not if more moments could be like this.
