Snapshot
By Steampunk . Chuckster
Summary: Photojournalist Sarah Walker has spent her short and acclaimed career walking the tightrope of societal norms and an inherent yearning for adventure. When her duty to making appearances for her career puts her in Bartowski Electrics CEO Chuck Bartowski's path, their very different worlds collide. Will she discover there is more adventure to him than meets the eye? Charah AU based on Hitchcock's Rear Window.
A/N: Thanks for all of the kind words about this fic. I appreciate it! More of this is coming, as well as my other fics. So stay tuned! And I hope you get something out of reading this one.
Disclaimer: I do not own CHUCK and I'm making exactly $0 from this story. Per usual.
"I can't believe you made me freaking bring all this paperwork to one of our beach days. You're a damn psychopath, you know that?"
Sarah smirked as she leaned her hip against Carina Miller's mint green Ford. She watched the slim redhead dig in her backseat where she'd kept her briefcase, snapping the lid open. She noticed the print beneath the tan button-up she'd thrown on over her bathing suit and snorted. "Is that tiger print, Red?"
Carina pulled out of her backseat and smirked back, pulling the unbuttoned shirt open to reveal the actually stunning one-piece suit underneath. "Kind of emphasizes my hips, doesn't it?"
"It does. Well done. Is it new?"
"It is. Want one?"
"I do, actually." She tugged on her own. It was a few years old now and felt like it might be going out of style. It was various hues of blue, white, and black stripes moving up diagonally to meet in the middle of the suit, each side symmetrical. It stopped at the cups covering her breasts where the stripes moved down in a straight line. And one clean white stripe ran along the bottom hem around each leg, and another at the top hem of the suit. She'd been told by the saleswoman at the time that it went beautifully with her blue eyes. And it did.
But styles were changing.
And apparently animal prints were in.
"Luckily no one killed any tigers for this." Carina bobbed her eyebrows and covered the suit again. "I got it from one of those Cole's catalogs."
Sarah shrugged. She didn't know how to even sign up for fashion catalogs, but then would she even be able to afford that? Probably not. And this bathing suit would do for now.
She thrust her hand out towards Carina, palm up, wordlessly asking for what she really came out here for. Sure, having a girls day at the beach would be rejuvenating in the best way, as she'd missed her friends in the last few months, barely seeing them here and there when their schedules lined up, but she needed whatever Carina had been able to find about these private security firms.
"Oh, you are insufferable," Carina groused, diving back into the seat, grabbing a file, and pulling out again, slapping it into Sarah's open hand. "There. Your precious list." She leaned her shoulder against the roof of her car. "So spill. What's this list of private security firms for, huh? You said you'd tell me who this is for if I brought this. I brought it." She thrusted her hand out to the side in a bit of a shrug.
"I did tell you that, didn't I?" Sarah muttered distractedly, moving to the back of the car so that she had a better surface to lay the file on as she thumbed through.
"Oh you better not even think about not—"
"I'm going to tell you! Just give me a second!" She kept thumbing. And then she stopped. "Wait. Who's this?"
Carina stepped up to her shoulder, peering down. "Oh, that? I found him by chance. He's more off the beaten path, but seems on the up and up. I did a little extra research because he was harder to find. Felt…sketchy."
Sarah raised her eyebrows, looking away from the photograph of the man she'd seen speaking to Chuck outside of his flagship store. "Sketchy?"
"Well, yeah. He doesn't do much advertising but he gets clients easily enough."
"Word of mouth?"
"Seems that way. I thought it was a bad sign, that's why I dug harder. But the more digging I did, the more evidence I found that he's not a crook. Doesn't even take clients from the other side of the law. Didn't find a single one. Now that is rare."
Relief flooded through Sarah.
"So he's not a bad guy. His firm isn't crooked?" She looked beyond the photograph. "John Casey."
"Yeah. He was a big-time hero overseas in the war. Got pretty much every medal possible, worked himself up through the ranks to Major. If the war had gone on any longer, I'm sure he would'a made it to Colonel. Man seems like he was built for war." Sarah sent her a look, raising an eyebrow. "Yeah, he's got some screws loose. Couldn't even count how many times he ended up in a field hospital with gunshot wounds and refused to be sent home. But he put the loose screw to good use, apparently. He keeps his guys in check." She tapped the folder.
This Major John Casey fellow wasn't a crook, then. Not that he was necessarily a good man. That wasn't something Sarah was interested in at the moment. All she needed to know was that Chuck hadn't hired someone who would pull the wool over his eyes and swindle him. There was also the option she didn't much want to consider; that John Casey and his firm weren't always operating on the right side of the law, that Chuck knew this about him, and that he hired him anyway.
It wasn't necessarily something she would judge Chuck for considering her own side jobs she took—something that brought her to this inflection point she was at now—but it did make things a bit different. She would have to look at him a little more closely, and perhaps change the way she approached him and this potential romance.
Sarah Walker wasn't going to be let herself fall into a trap.
She had no choice when it was her dad and she was a kid.
She had a choice here.
She was an adult, the writer of her own story, commander of her own life.
"Well. Good."
"So you gonna talk or what?"
Sighing, she nibbled on her bottom lip, slipping the research on Major Casey's private security firm under her arm.
"Excuse me?" Carina mumbled. "You're just gonna steal that from me?"
"Steal what? Are these LAPD files or something? You researched this in the library, Carina Miller," she droned. "Or are you some sort of secret agent and you haven't told us?"
"Who's a secret agent?"
Sarah turned at the voice coming from behind her to see Zondra Rizzo strutting up behind them. She had one thumb hooked in the loop of her high-waisted shorts. She carried a beach bag in her other hand, a lightweight sea-green blazer slung over her arm.
"Say it ain't so!" Carina teased with her usual dramatics. "Where is your bathing suit?"
Zondra gave her a flat look. "And get myself ogled by married men who look after my legs more than they look after their own damn kids? Not a chance. Anyway, these are comfortable." She tugged at one of the legs of her shorts, a disgruntled look on her face.
"But your shoulders are fair game, I suppose…" Carina continued to tease, pointing at Zondra's muscled shoulders bared by the pretty cotton button-up blouse the brunette wore, the creamy color of the fabric emphasizing her darker skin. "Look, you just untuck the shirt, unbutton a few buttons down here at the bottom of the shirt, tie it at your waist and 'hoo boy look at that cute belly button."
Sarah stepped in, frowning. "Stop it. She can wear what she wants, Red. Hiya, Rizzo. You look nice."
"I don't care how I look. What's all this here?" she asked, leaning to the side to try to look at the papers Carina had brought in the file for Sarah.
"I still don't know even though I did all of the work."
Sarah half-glared at her, a little annoyed at her behavior greeting their friend's arrival. She liked to pick fun at Zondra's fashion, her shorts, trousers, suspenders, and hats, the way she wore her hair. It was getting old. She stuck that in the back of her mind.
"I've got a friend who got a tip someone was looking to rob his store. Hired a private security outfit to keep guard over the place until the threat's passed. I just wanted our librarian research scholar over here to make sure the firm he hired wasn't on the wrong side of the law."
Zondra raised an eyebrow and Sarah knew immediately she'd slipped.
"His? He?" Carina cut in, having much less tact than their crime thriller author friend. "And who is this decidedly male friend of yours you're bending over backwards to protect?"
Sarah snagged the papers on Casey and slapped the rest of the file shut, pushing it into Carina's chest. "There ya go. I'm putting this information in my glove compartment. I'll meet you two out on the bea—"
But of course they weren't letting her get away with that. And they both pinned her against Carina's car as she laughed, halfheartedly trying to wrestle herself free.
"Okay, okay! Fine!" She held up her hands, the information on Major Casey's firm still clutched in the fingers of her right hand. "I'll tell you." Sobering up, she rolled her eyes at them as they stepped back and let her go free. "Either of you own a television set?"
Carina raised her hand as Zondra gave her a look of disgust.
"What do I need one of those for?" the brunette asked. "You realize books exist, right?"
"Books are more work."
"Oh God." Zondra shook her head at the researcher.
"They are!" Carina insisted.
"You work in a library, don't you?" Sarah asked, sending her friend a look.
"Do I get to see Lucy getting into trouble and making all those faces in books? Finally, a redhead getting some damn respect," Carina said, ignoring the crack about the library.
Sarah was completely fine with this derailing into an argument about whether books or television were better. Maybe she could just sneak them all out to the beach and they'd forget about the point of the conversation.
But then Zondra waved her hand through the air. "What's a TV set got to do with this?"
Damn.
"He's the CEO of a television company."
Carina gasped. "He's a producer? Oh, an actor! I'm stunned, frankly. Sarah Walker, photojournalist and adventuress, hopping onto an actor…"
Rizzo made a disgusted sound. "You couldn't have said that in a worse way, Carina. Really and truly. Is it actually an actor?"
"No!" Sarah snapped. "He owns a company that makes actual physical TV sets. Specifically color TVs, but Bartowski Electric makes more than just television sets I suppose. It's mostly television sets, but also record players and—"
Carina gasped, pulling at her arm. "Bartowski Electric? Oh, what's his first name? Carl? Chip? It isn't Ken, is it?"
"Ken?" Sarah shook her head with a look of frustration. "Charles. Charles Bartowski."
Both women gaped. Carina finally spoke up, the words coming out slowly. "…That's him?"
"Yes. Somebody sent him an anonymous tip, so he hired Major Casey's private security firm to stand guard and make sure his flagship store wasn't ransacked. I wanted to make sure Major Casey was on the level." Her friends gawked at her, Carina's eyes in particular shimmering in the Los Angeles sunlight. "What?"
"You're dating the CEO of a massive corporation…oh myyyy…"
"Excuse me," she said, moving to her own car parked beside Carina's, opening the passenger door, and shoving the papers in the glove compartment. "Nobody said dating."
"You don't have to say it," Carina chirped, skipping over to Sarah's side.
"She's right, you don't."
Sarah glared at Zondra. "Et tu, Rizzo?"
The author laughed. "Sorry, but there's no way you get your research librarian friend to gather up all of this information and compile it for you so you can secretly protect a frrieeend's interests. Especially a friend neither of us have heard about before? Nah."
"What she said." Carina pointed, moving back for Sarah to shut her door, lock it, and lead the way out onto the sand. "You might do this sort of thing for us but not for anybody else who's just a friend."
"Not doing anything at all for either of you after this conversation," she drawled, smiling saccharinely over her shoulder at them both, even going so far as to bat her eyelashes.
Zondra ignored her. "Is he rich?"
Sarah spun on her. "Hey. Now that's uncalled for. You think I'd go after a fella simply for what's in his pocketbook? It's me. Come on."
The other woman smirked widely. "Got 'er."
Carina just cackled, patting the brunette on the shoulder. "Well done, Riz."
Sarah groaned, turning to stomp the rest of the way down the beach.
This was just a taste of what the rest of her day was going to be, she just knew it.
}o{
"No swim cap? Are you crazy?"
Zondra looked right at Carina, then dove underneath a wave, popping back up on the other side, smoothing her hands over her now wet hair. "Well, Red, the difference between you and me is that my hair won't wilt from a little saltwater."
"Excuse me?!"
"It's called Good Genes. Us Iranians have beautiful, thick hair…not this brittle white girl hair—Ow!"
"You bitch!"
Sarah chuckled at their antics behind her as she dipped under a small wave and settled comfortably in the water, letting it bob her about now that they were in a nice spot. But as her friends continued splashing at each other and laughing, she found her mind was distracted.
They'd been at the beach for a few hours now and she hadn't been able to pull her brain away from the distraction. Which rather defeated the point of this beach trip.
She'd been trying to escape from the things weighing on her mind. And instead, they were still here.
Not just the fear that Chuck's store might still be hit, even with the protection, and that perhaps the protection might mean a fire fight, and a fire fight might mean people get hurt or worse. She didn't want all of that on his shoulders.
But this fledgling romance between them still loomed rather like a cloud in the distance on the day of an outdoor wedding or something. Just one big cloud, slowly coming closer, and you wonder if it'll stay white or if it'll go grey and eventually hover over the wedding, unleashing a torrential downpour on someone's special day.
Did this cloud have tinges of grey to it as it loomed? She wasn't sure. It might just be that bad experiences made her all the more careful.
Or she was just broken. Incapable of having a functional response to a potential romance on the horizon. She didn't know why it had been so clean and easy with others, while this guy had her fretting.
She supposed none of them had been big time CEOs of extremely successful electronics companies. And this man was.
None of those relationships had started like this one, either. It had seemed like such an easy concept in Paris. The utter heat of their connection, the warmth, the way talking to him had been so natural, so comfortable. Lying in bed, seemingly just looking at one another, not having to talk. That had been organic. Because she wasn't seeing him again. And it hurt, but it felt like putting an ending there took away the intensity. Didn't it? She didn't have to fear the intensity because it would be over and she'd step back into her life again.
But now she'd met him in the hallway of his work, like an absolute fool she'd followed him into his office, and all of it came roaring back again.
Continuing a relationship that started with such an intense foundation?
Damn well terrifying.
She'd met Mike and it had been such a fun, trivial little thing, sometimes dinner, sometimes they'd go to the movies, to the park, or they'd neck on the couch. Things had gradually and methodically progressed to become more serious. None of it had ever made her feel…fear. And it wasn't that she hadn't loved him. She had, and she knew now she had. Things with Mike had never felt intense though. She'd never felt out of her depth. She'd always had control over things. Granted, when he walked away, broke things off, she'd lost control a little bit. She'd spiraled into a depression. She could admit that now.
Maybe things had been intense for him, and he'd recognized she wasn't on the same page. Maybe that was why he ended it. Honestly, she should be grateful to him for doing that. And she was now.
But she'd questioned whether she was capable of a relationship, at least a serious one. One that required more than she was willing to give.
And now that hovered over her head here.
With Chuck.
But he was careful to phrase things in a way that she suspected he intended to take away that intensity they both knew was there. He just wanted to see her sometimes.
Sure.
Sure, he did.
Sarah Walker knew it was more than that, though, that he wanted more than that, because she wanted more than that.
She wanted to dive into him headfirst and never come up for air again.
It had to be some form of madness.
This was much scarier than it had any right to be.
And Sarah knew she had to be careful. She wanted to let her guard down, wrap herself up in him, and let things just…happen. She knew that was dangerous, and she wasn't in the market for dangerous. Out there? On a job? Sure. But with her heart? Nope. And not his heart either.
She knew she couldn't let her guard down and let things just happen.
But he was good at making her lose a bit of that control she valued so deeply. And if she wasn't careful, she'd drop her guard without even realizing it.
If she wanted to keep seeing this man, she was going to have to be extremely careful. And that was work. A lot of work. Was she ready for that kind of work?
…For him? Yes.
She knew she was.
"Watch out!"
Sarah straightened up from where she was floating just in time for a larger than necessary wave to smack into her, face and all, slamming her down underwater and turning her over at least once, maybe even twice.
She came up sputtering, fixing her swimming cap more over her blond locks, to see Zondra and Carina laughing so hard they were clinging to each other, hunched forward. She glared at both of them and shook her head, picking a bit of seaweed from the end of her tongue. "Great. Thank you. Thanks for the warning."
"I said 'Watch out'," Zondra said calmly, sobering up and standing to her full height. She shrugged.
"Oh, thanks a lot," Sarah sassed sarcastically.
"You never get caught unawares by a wave," Carina said then, lifting an eyebrow. "You must have a lot on your mind…"
Oh, no.
"Color TVs perhaps?" she added. "When do we get to meet Mr. Distraction?"
Zondra was chuckling. "You never quit, do you?"
"Nope."
Sarah turned to walk away from them towards the shore, sloshing through the water slower than she wanted to.
"Oh, come on!" Carina called after her. And she heard them both following. "All teasing aside, I want to know about him. How'd you meet? Is it serious?"
"You keep going and I get my hands on you, you'll see firsthand what serious is," she shot over her shoulder.
"What—Oh, you mean she'll have serious injuries," Zondra helpfully translated. "Wow, Sarah. Good one."
There was no missing the sarcasm there.
Sarah couldn't help laughing, turning to face them once she reached the shore, her hands on the hips of her bathing suit. "I'm sorry, not all of us can be Edgar Award winning crime novelists."
Zondra frowned thoughtfully. "I haven't gotten an Edgar."
Feigning innocence, Sarah ripped her swim cap off. "Oh you haven't? That's too bad."
"Ooohhh ho hoooo," Carina laughed as Zondra gasped, apparently highly amused.
"Turnabout's fair play, I guess," she laughed, shaking her head. "Anyway, I don't want an Edgar. I like not being mainstream. I get all the money and nobody tells me what the hell to write. I get to continue making my violent trashy gory crime drivel. And filllllll my pockets in the meantime."
"You're right. You are living the dream," Carina added.
"See?"
Sarah chuckled. "You know I'm teasing. Those awards are pointless. And your books are damn well addicting."
"It's all the blood. People love that," Carina surmised, swiping her own cap off of her head. "But for me, it's the sex."
They laughed.
"You're a madwoman. The sex in my books never leads to anything good."
"Hmm. Been meaning to ask. You ever make an appointment with a headshrink?"
They all laughed again, their laughter interrupted by another voice cutting in from nearby.
"Hellooooo, ladies. Fancy a drink up at the cabana? I'll buy," a man who looked to be nearing middle age climbed up from where he'd been sitting in a striped beach chair. He flexed his chest and arms a bit, trying not to make it obvious that was what he was doing. "Always hap—"
"No, thank you," Zondra cut in quickly. "We're just fine."
There was anger in his face as he sat back down, but at least he didn't continue to pursue, or follow them. Sarah'd had her fair share of that sort of situation.
"Every single time," she muttered so the other two would hear, finally approaching where they'd spread their towels out over the sand further up the beach. "Do women ever say yes to that sort of invitation?"
"Carina thought about it," the author snarked teasingly.
Carina shoved the other woman. "Oh, shut up. I did not. Just because I've got more suspenders hung over my bedpost than you two, doesn't mean I'm desperate."
"Oh my word," Sarah groused.
"Suspenders on your bedpost? Red, you're horrible."
She let out a racy bit of laughter and plopped onto her towel. "Anyway, did you see how high the waistband of his swim trunks was? Practically to his eyeballs."
The threesome laughed again, laying themselves out over their towels and letting the sun bake the water from their skin.
"You know what?" Sarah spoke up after a few minutes.
"Hm?"
"It isn't the blood or the sex."
"So what is it if not those things?" Carina asked, propping herself up on her elbow and shifting on her towel to look down at Sarah through her sunglasses.
"I'm eager to hear as well," the brunette chimed in, not budging from her comfortable spot. "So I know to do more of it and make myself a damn fortune."
Sarah smirked. "It's the way you tackle the human condition. With every single book, it's different. But every single time, you explore the bad side of the human condition. It's fascinating. The things that lurk deep in our souls…Some of us are good at knowing it's bad, that we need to keep it from coming out, and we're good at doing that, too. And then…there are those people who either can't keep it in, or see no need to keep it in. The psychopaths who lust after that sort of thing. I think your audience likes reading about people who don't keep it in. Who don't want to keep it in."
"Ooooooo," Carina drawled. "She ain't wrong. Isn't that similar to what that…Oh, who's that bastard politician? That man who's obsessed with you. Every book you put out, he treats it like it's evil in its purest form."
"Are you referring to the illustrious Representative Don Redantis, hairpiece and knee-high boots and all?" Zondra lifted her hand and cut it through the air prissily.
"That guy. He looks like a thumb." Sarah cracked up at that. Carina continued. "Didn't he have a problem with the way you portray 'veterans and patriots' in your last book? He wants to stop stores from selling it, yeah?"
"Because Phil went to war, spent years getting shelled in a trench, watched people around him die, killed a bunch of Nazis and fascists, came back and couldn't tell the difference between a person walking down the street at night and a Nazi coming at him with a rifle?" Zondra asked. "If he wants to pretend every single grandfather, father, uncle, brother, cousin, nephew, and son came back from that war in one piece, he can. But I deal in realities." Zondra finally sat up a bit. "My cousin Cyrus came back, lemme tell you what... We'd have some birthday party for one of the kids, he'd be off sitting in the corner shaking because some car backfired while driving by my Auntie Farah's house. Poor fella went off proud and came home a few years later like an empty, terrified shell." She huffed and plopped back down on her towel. "Anyway, Redantis can shove it where the sun don't shine. He's a draft dodger. His issues with Devil Came Back stem from his own embarrassment on account o' he's a draft dodger."
"Noooo," Carina exclaimed, turning onto her stomach. "Redantis dodged the draft?"
"Uh huh. Claimed college the first time they tried to call him up for duty, they let him go, and the next time they tried to draft him a few years later after he graduated, and he didn't have college to hide behind anymore, he paid off his daddy's doctor to write him a note that he's got bad feet because of some birth defect. What do they call 'em? Bone spurs? Whatever the hell that is."
"Wow," Sarah murmured. "So he hate-reads your Devil Came Back, writes a scathing bill to have it banned that includes nonsense about how you must hate veterans because the murderer in the story fought in the war, and all the while pretends it has nothing to do with the fact that he never saw a lick of battle because he paid a doctor to flub up a story about a bad foot. What a heel." She shrugged. "No pun intended."
"That was terrible," Zondra chuckled.
"Thank you."
And as Sarah draped herself back over her towel, she caught herself thinking Chuck would've been pretty proud of her for that one.
They settled into a comfortable silence and Sarah found herself thinking about Zondra's crime novels. Zondra would probably never know that some of the situations she'd written about, shady dealings her characters had gotten involved in—both the protagonists and the antagonists—were things her best friend had dabbled in. Both as a child and as an adult. Perhaps the things she did as a child, she might be absolved for, but not the things she continued to do as an adult.
And she wondered if she had the same sort of mental block some of Zondra's characters had—the mental block that allowed them to still believe they were good people who deserved good things in spite of what they'd done, the crimes they committed or perhaps encouraged.
One good thing in particular continued to float about in her mind. No, rather, he'd cemented himself there. Ever since that night in Paris. When he'd found her after she unfairly berated him in front of others, and instead of deriding her for insulting him, embarrassing him, he'd asked her to tell him what she meant, engaged in a conversation, and took it all to heart.
A man who received criticism that well, constructive though it was, wasn't someone she was likely to dismiss or forget.
And so she hadn't.
She'd gone to bed with him more than once now, and she had every intention of doing it again.
Sarah had no idea what she wanted from him, what she really wanted, beneath the physical draw and the fact that it felt good to be around him, comfortable and natural. And if she didn't know that, was it right to continue to give him herself, or ask him to give himself back to her in return?
She didn't know.
Chuck seemed more than content to let all of those questions wait on the back burner. He seemed fine with living in the now, just spending time together, letting themselves enjoy that time. Maybe she should do the same. And they could tackle those questions when they finally had to. When a problem reared its head, they'd deal with it.
And she could foresee problems.
With her work, and with his… but especially hers.
The weeks at a time she spent away from Mike had given him ample room to realize he was unhappy…that she made him unhappy. Or maybe just that he wasn't happy enough with her. He deserved better than she was willing to give him.
And now she was looking at this very new relationship with a man who worked harder than Mike, had a more demanding job, didn't come from a background of wealth but had plenty of it now, but who was still definitely more stationary than Sarah was.
Was she a fool, going down the same path?
Or would this path be different now that she was going with a different man?
As Carina started up another conversation about the library and her frustrations with her overly demanding boss, Sarah strove to pay attention to it, trying to push the thoughts about Chuck and the viability of a relationship with him from her mind. It was fruitless to fret about it now if she had no intention of doing anything about it.
Because she wanted him.
So she would take this day by day.
She would jump and see where she landed.
}o{
Almost…
Almost there…
He delicately used the very tips of his forefinger and thumb to turn the screwdriver clockwise and…the screw popped out again and he blinked, the screwdriver still poised in the air. Sighing, he set it down on the desk and moved to pick the screw up from the floor, the quiet rumbling of it rolling along the wood almost mockingly making him roll his eyes.
"Try five hundred and seventy two. Failure," he muttered to himself, slapping the screw onto the desk beside the contraption.
He didn't know how he managed to still have hope he could actually invent this thing in a way that would work and be functional…when he couldn't even manage to fasten this one pesky screw.
What he needed perhaps was dinner. And a drink. Maybe the drink first while he fixed dinner.
Glancing over towards his kitchen, he wondered if he had the energy to cook much more than a grilled cheese sandwich. A nice big pickle on the side.
But before he could get up, his phone rang, a shrill sound breaking through the soft jazz coming from the record player. Cursing, he pushed himself up from his chair, wincing as his limbs ached after the long hellish day he'd had.
He undid his tie all the way as he ambled to the phone, letting it hang down on either side, not even caring enough to whip it off and toss it somewhere.
Picking the receiver up from its base, he cleared his throat. "Hello?"
"Oh good! You're home!"
He frowned. "Morgan? You okay, pal?"
"Yes and no. Yes, because no one's broken into our store or stolen anything thanks to the Major and his fellas being here…"
"And no?" he asked, raising his eyebrows as Morgan paused a little too long for his comfort.
Four days had passed since he first received that tip on his desk and gave Major Casey a call to have him come by and check things out, finally deciding to just pay for him and his "fellas" to guard the flagship store and protect his people. In that time, nothing had happened, nothing out of the ordinary at least. Everything had been just fine when he'd stopped by earlier on in the day to buy the new record he had on right at that moment in the background.
"Well, our good Major says he thinks the threat is over by this point and he wants a meeting with you tomorrow to talk about he and his men moving onto another job."
Chuck straightened from where he'd been leaning against the arm of his couch. "What? I'm signing his paycheck. He's gonna take another job? Just like that?"
"Well, that's what I said and I—Ahem, Chuck, I'm certain this man could pulverize me with nothing but a feather if he wanted to, so I thought maybe you should be the one to talk to him andhereheishe'srightherehimajorsir. I—Okay."
Morgan was gone then, and a much deeper, gruffer voice came onto the phone.
"Bartowski. Figured I'd stop letting the runt be my messenger and just give it to ya straight-like."
Chuck frowned. "Okay. Give it to me straight-like, Major Casey."
"I've had my research team do a bit o' lookin' around. Thanks to a, uh, certain…ahem…member of their team, we discovered there was a potential plan to strike your flagship store."
Chuck's blood went cold. "A member of their team? You mean someone working with the guys who wanted to hit my store?"
"Right."
"How'd you get 'im to talk?"
"I'm sure you can understand, Bartowski, that we'd like to keep our methods…a secret. For…reasons."
Chuck raised an eyebrow. That was…intimidating. "I see. Yes, I understand."
"Seems they planned it, but when they sent scouts out and saw us patrollin' the place, they decided it wasn't worth the trouble, and they've moved onto a job outta the city center. I'd say you're in the clear. And I know you'd pay us a good sum to stay on, so I could'a just said nothin' and let you keep payin' but…that ain't how I do business, Bartowski. I wanted to be up front. Also, we have another job we gotta git to."
Frowning, he leaned on the arm of the couch again. "Oh. I appreciate you being up front about the situation. You're…sure they aren't going to just wait for you to move on and hit us then?"
"You're a smart kid for askin' that, Bartowski, but we've scared 'em off good. Whoever tipped you off is just gonna do it again if they change their mind and come after ya once we're done. They know you're keepin' me close by, too. They're done with ya."
Chuck nibbled the inside of his cheek, thinking. If Casey'd gotten all of this information, though, that meant he knew who was planning on robbing his flagship B.E. department store downtown. "Who was it?"
"Hmng?"
"Who planned on robbing my store, Major Casey?"
There was a long pause. It had been a long shot asking, he knew. Still, he had to ask.
"I can't tell ya that information, Bartowski. I can tell ya why I can't tell ya, though."
Sighing, he nodded. "I'll take it."
"You don't want these guys to know you know. Anybody who knows too much about them ends up bein' found facedown in the river bottom by some poor sonofabitch lookin' for shelter. They tend to knock guys' blocks off, kid. And when these guys do it, the block stays off." He made a shivering sound. "Soulless bastards."
Chuck went pale and winced. "I still want to know."
"I still ain't tellin' ya. I might kinda respect ya, kid. Rather not read about ya in some obit."
Raising his eyebrows, he opened his mouth to speak, but then what the contract security agent said occurred to him. "Hold on now, did you just say you respect me?"
"I said kinda," he grunted glumly.
Just then there was a light knock on his door. He glanced at his watch on his wrist under the shirtsleeves he'd rolled up so that he could focus on his work without them getting in the way. "Oh. Kinda. Okay, that's different then," he joked as he picked up the phone, carefully pulling the wire and the base as he crossed the room to the door, trapping the receiver between his cheek and his shoulder so that he could open said door.
When he did and saw who stood in his hallway, he nearly let the phone slip from his shoulder and crash to the floor. He caught it at the last minute, putting his foot out to keep the door from shutting, gaping.
"Hi," she chirped, shrugging. It had been a handful of days since he fell asleep with her next to him, pressed against him. After the best date of his life. And now she was standing here in flats, high-waisted khaki colored slacks that started with a brown wide buckle belt and stopped at her ankles, and a white button-up blouse with sleeves that she rolled up to just above her elbows. Her blue jacket was slung jauntily over her shoulder, held by two fingers, and her other hand was poised on her camera that was hanging from a strap around her neck, the camera bag hanging from her other shoulder. She tilted her head and her swooping blond ponytail bounced cutely.
He realized he hadn't said anything then. And he breathed, "Hello," a grin sweeping over his entire face. He also realized that Casey was still waiting on the phone. He held up his finger as she widened her impossibly blue eyes, and his heart was absolutely racing, the tiredness in him completely evaporated and instead being replaced with adrenaline. "Major Casey, would you mind terribly looking after the store just tonight? One more night. And I'll meet you at your office tomorrow to pay you the rest of your fee and finalize the contract. I'll pay you extra for ton—"
"Nah, nothin' doing. We'll take the same pay we took the other nights. I wasn't just gonna leave ya high and dry tonight. Noon tomorrow sound okay?"
"I'll be there at noon tomorrow. Thanks a lot, friend. You're a champ."
"Surely. Have a good night, Bartowski."
Chuck kept his gaze on Sarah through the last dregs of the conversation and finally hung up, shaking his head in awe. "You're here. You're…standing outside of my condo and—Oh. Oh gosh, come in. Sorry!"
Shifting the phone to underneath his arm awkwardly, he yanked his door open to let her inside. "I'm so sorry. I was on the…phone—You know that. Of course you know that. You saw me…literally on the phone when I…opened the door."
She came in and he shut it after her. And then they just stood, looking at one another, still standing beside the door.
"Sarah," he muttered. "Hi."
"Hi there. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt an important phone call…" She ducked her head, looking up at him through her eyelashes.
"No, no. Please…"
"I shouldn't have just…shown up at your place out of the blue like this. I know that. I tried calling, erm…well, a few times over the last couple of days." His face crumbled in misery. He'd missed her phone calls? Damn it. "Figured you were simply being a workaholic, at the office all hours of the day and night and not…well, not out on the town with some other girl who's all sorts of grace personified and has class coming out of her ears," she teased shyly.
He pressed his lips together and wrinkled his nose. "Coming out of her where?"
That made her laugh and he rejoiced in the sound. Then she reached out and gave his forest green cardigan he shrugged on over his collared button-up when he got home from work a flirtatious tug. "Nice sweater, TV man."
"Hey, I like this sweater," he muttered, blushing, smiling at the physical contact. "It's comfy."
"It looks comfy, and I wasn't being sarcastic, either. I like the sweater."
"Oh. Thanks."
She teased one of the buttons, smiling up at him.
She cast her gaze to the side then and stopped, arching her brow. He followed her gaze to the desk where he'd been working on his never ending project, this invention that seemed like it would never be properly invented. At least not by him.
"Gee, what's that?"
Chuck watched Sarah go to the desk and he looked down to realize he still held his phone under his arm like a damned football. Shaking himself, he rushed over to put it back on the end table beside the couch and followed Sarah as she peered down at the invention.
Or…rather, the mess of gears and cradles and notes scattered about the desk.
She leaned down to look closer, her hand reaching out towards it, but then she froze, pulling back a bit and sending him a regretful look. "Oh. Can I touch it?"
He smiled and nodded. "Sure. It won't give you any sort of shock or anything."
Sarah chuckled. "I wasn't worried about it hurting me. I just don't want to hurt it."
"Oh, you won't. Please." He gestured to it, his phone conversation with John Casey completely forgotten with Sarah Walker standing here in his home, looking all adventurous and windswept with her rosy cheeks and the camera still dangling at her stomach.
She picked up a part of his invention delicately between her fingers, stooping low, turning it, looking at it closely. "Hm. You selling this thing at Bartowski Electric?"
Chuck's eyebrows shot into his hairline. "That? Oh, no. Perhaps someday, though it isn't looking likely to be anytime soon. Unless a miracle happens and it all just…comes to me in a dream some night while I'm asleep." He tilted his torso to the side. "That'd be quite nice, actually. Let's hope for that." He crossed his fingers of both hands and winced, making her giggle.
Then she frowned, setting it down and turning to look at him more closely. "Wait, you're building this? Is this some sort of an invention you're working on?"
He nodded, propping one bare foot on the nearby chair and leaning his elbow on it. "Sure is."
"On top of everything you do to keep B.E. up and running?" she asked with an arched brow.
"Oh, this is…just a side thing. That…I'm…dabbling with. That's all. I had an…incredibly long day and I needed something to clear my head. Working on this beast always seems to do the job." He lowered his foot, stood up straight, and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his linen trousers.
She eyed him with a blank look for a moment. "You…invent electrical contraptions to clear your head after a hard day of work?"
"Crazy, I know."
"Crazy, yes." She smirked at him, biting her bottom lip. "But also impressive." She turned to lean down and look at it some more, carefully turning things over, but always putting them back exactly as she found them. With an amount of respect that made his heart hammer in his chest.
"And you, Sarah Walker, photojournalist?" She straightened and glanced at him over her shoulder, smiling almost flirtatiously. "What do you do to clear your head?"
"Hm. That's a good question." Her hand landed on her camera and she looked down at it, almost as if noticing it was there for the first time. "Ah. Developing my film." She wiggled the camera, then peered up at him with the corner of her lips tilted up. "I must've done it millions of times by now, so it's rather like…muscle memory. Being in my darkroom, the lighting in there—it-it's rather calming, you know. Soothing. Mixing the chemicals, swishing the photo in it…" She mimicked the motion, just two fingers pointing down, dabbing…as if a photo was there in front of her in the tub of chemicals. "Hanging it up. Doing the same thing over and over. That always does the trick."
He nodded, smiling at her. "So, erm…" He swiveled his body towards the door, hands still stuffed in his pockets. "To what do I owe the pleasure?" When her eyes widened a bit, her lips forming an 'o', he realized how that must've sounded and he pulled one hand out of his pocket, reaching towards her placatingly. "Not that I'm—I mean, I'm very glad you're here. Best part of my week, easy."
Sarah made a sweet one syllable sound that resembled a giggle and looked away shyly. "That's sweet. I didn't take it in a bad way." He nodded, blushing slightly. She lifted her camera. "I was just…out taking photographs. I do that sometimes, between jobs, when I'm listless. Just go out and take photos of interesting things. Sometimes I can use it in a project or for work later. Other times, I-I just keep them for myself." She cleared her throat and shrugged one shoulder. "I was taking a photo and I looked up and realized where I'd wandered to, that I was in your neck of the woods, so to speak, so I…thought I'd pop over and…say hello. If you were here."
Her lips twitched slightly, but he didn't know what that meant, if it meant anything at all.
He grinned, deciding to pretend he didn't see it. "I'm mighty happy you wandered into my neck of the woods."
Sarah grinned back. "Me, too."
Chuck realized he'd been a terrible host on numerous counts at this point and he cursed under his breath. "Sorry, can I take your camera? …Erm, and the bag? And…jacket…? Your things?"
"Oh. Sure. I didn't know if I was…staying…" The cute little hopeful look she gave him through her eyelashes made him wonder if he wouldn't take on the whole world for her.
He swallowed hard. "Yes. Please." She beamed at him. Maybe he'd sounded a bit desperate. Oops. "Want a drink?"
"I'm okay."
Chuck took her things, carefully hanging her coat on the coat rack, then setting her camera and the bag on the entry table.
As he came back, she pointed at the attempt on the desk. "You never told me what this is. I…can't figure it out."
"No, of course not. It's an utter mess," he chuckled. "Apparently, I can't figure it out either. Heh." She snorted. "What it's supposed to be is… Well, have you ever heard of machines that do calculations for you?"
"Calculations? In math? Like…those abacus monstrosities I had to use in school?" She shivered.
Chuck laughed. "That, yes. But an actual machine. Electronic. It does it for you. No moving those…bead things. You punch in the numbers and it computes the solution for you." She gave him a dubious look. "There are a few of them out there. Very large, mostly constructed attached to larger machines, desks and…" He cleared his throat. "They cost thousands of dollars so you'll see labs with them, perhaps somewhere in a college lab setting, but my idea…" He bit his lip, seeing the way her brow was furrowed as she listened, her eyes narrowed. "This is going to sound silly."
Her brow ironed out and she shook her head, putting her fingers on his wrist. God, this was the first time she touched him skin on skin since she arrived he realized. It took everything in him not to collapse against her and wrap her up in his embrace. It had been half a week or more since he last held her. But they weren't at a point where he could just…do things like that.
"No, it isn't silly. Explain it to me. Perhaps you'll need to dumb it down slightly, guy who builds inventions to clear his head," she groused dryly, smirking with a teasing glint in her eye.
Chuck could feel the heat rising from his collar. "I'm not dumbing it down. You aren't dumb. Nobody who takes the pictures you take could be anything less than incredibly brilliant." She melted, moving in closer to him and tilting her head, pursing her lips and squishing them to the side with a blush. "I want to try to make one of those calculating machines, and instead of it being massive and thousands of dollars, something only wealthy labs can afford, I want it to be something you can…keep in your drawer, you know? And when you need to…ohhh, I dunno, balance your checkbook, you open the drawer, pull it out, put it on the desk, punch in the numbers, and there it is. Easy as pie. And you know I love pie."
She laughed, hugging herself.
He huffed, shrugging with his whole body. "But I also want it to be less expensive. The average person should have one. I imagine someone being at work all day, coming home, cooking for their children, putting them to bed, and sitting down at the kitchen table to pay the bills. That late at night, after working hard, handling everything life throws at a person, having to do math in your head, with pencil and paper? What if they have a calculator they can pull out? Makes all of it that much more painless."
A smile was slowly spreading over her face as she leaned her hip against the desk, her fingers landing delicately on the desktop, her head tilted.
"See, my-my goal is to create something about the size of…Well, take my telephone for instance. The size of that, perhaps slightly bigger if I'm being realistic. The size of a small typewriter. Imagine that. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. All at your fingertips for…" He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "Well, I'd strive for it to be about fifteen dollars for the first version. Hopefully as the kinks are worked out with the materials being used, we can eventually whittle it down to—The goal is eight to ten bucks. Still expensive, but much more accessible."
She continued to just watch him quietly, and then she pursed her lips and looked down at his attempted beginnings of his dream calculator. That was what it was at this point after all. Just a dream.
"When did you start this crazy idea?" she asked softly.
"Oh, I dunno, about a year ago. It—Erm, it's hard to get started. That's the hardest part. Once I figure out the…makeup of the…Well, you know. It'll be much easier after that."
"You don't have to justify to me why you don't have a perfectly functioning invention sitting on this desk after only a year, Chuck," she said with a giggle. "I was asking because… Well, I'm starting to think I really was very wrong to chastise you that night in Paris." He gave her a curious look. "It seems it's in your nature to look out for the average person." She laid her hand on a sheet of his notes. "Even before I took a shot at you, you were thinking about how to make balancing a checkbook easier for the working single mom in America."
He blushed, shuffling his feet, loving the way it felt to have Sarah Walker peering up at him in complete, unguarded admiration. "Don't get too carried away there, Sarah Walker. Remember, I'm still the man who sells extremely expensive color television sets." He winced.
"Oh okay. True," she said with a chuckle.
Chuck felt an almost awkward silence between them and he cleared his throat, tossing his thumb over his shoulder. "I-I was just about to eat dinner before I got that phone call…"
"Oh!" She took a step towards the door. "I did interrupt. Namely your dinner. I'm sorry. Let me just—"
He reached out and curled his hand around her arm, stopping her. She looked back at him, eyes wide. "Stay for dinner," he said quietly. "Please?"
She shifted her weight shyly. "You hire a cook or something?" she teased.
Chuck laughed. "Nah, she only works every other day." Her face went blank. "I'm pulling your leg, I don't have a cook."
Rolling her eyes, she giggled and blushed. "You got me. You know, I wouldn't judge if you did hire a cook. If I had your money, I might hire one. Not much of a cook, unfortunately. Well, I can, I just don't…like to. But of course, because I continue to run into things that make you better and better, you're a cook, too, huh?"
"Whoa now. I was going to ask if you wanted a good ol' fashioned grilled cheese and a pickle." He winced, glancing over his shoulder at the kitchen. "Though I should check and make sure I still have pickles before I offer you one."
Sarah giggled melodically and shook her head at him. "Really? Grilled cheese and a pickle? …You're gonna make that for me?"
"Sure." He shrugged. And then he lifted two fingers, biting his lip and wiggling his eyebrows, slowly backing her towards the kitchen. "Two kinds of cheese."
Her jaw dropped open. "Two kinds of cheese? That's not an old fashioned grilled cheese sandwich, Chuck."
"Yes, it is!" He pulled her along.
"No. Absolutely not."
"Then what is it?"
"Fancy grilled cheese."
"Fancy? Because I use two cheeses? I'm not caramelizing onions and dropping them in there, Sarah."
"It's fancy."
"Oh my God."
"Rich person grilled cheese."
"Okay…" He turned and pulled her the rest of the way, laughing, happier than he'd been in days.
A/N: Look, I'm both with her on this and not. Anything other than cheddar or American on bread isn't an "old-fashioned" grilled cheese, but I also do that tomfoolery all the time. Avocado, sliced figs, tomatoes, ham, turkey, you name it. Delicious. But that ain't old-fashioned.
Thanks for reading. I had fun writing the CAT Squad as just a couple of professional goils out at the beach. More coming soon! Please review if you're able.
-SC
