The Detective and the Tech Guy

Author: Steampunk . Chuckster

Rating: T

Summary: A case of mistaken identity and murder brings Sarah Walker, Pinkerton agent, to sunny California. Protecting the heir to the Bartowski Electronics Corporation should be just business - but Chuck Bartowski fills out a suit nicely and makes a mean martini. Chuck lobbied to hire the Pinkerton Agency, but had no idea the detective they'd send would be as alluring, intelligent and fascinating as Sarah Walker. Will the detective and the tech guy solve the mystery, distracted by the riddle in their own hearts? An homage to The Thin Man movies.

Disclaimer: No money is being made from this story. I don't own Chuck or The Thin Man series.

Author's Note: Here's part 3 of the "The Detective and the Tech Gift"! Also, Happy Valentine's Day! Enjoy these two dorks in love on this day in which love is, like, extra important or something.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

"I think I've had enough calamari that I might legitimately be a squid now. Tentacles and all." Chuck stretched his arms over his head, yawning as he walked Morgan to the door.

It was almost one in the morning. He was just glad he had nothing pressing going on at the office tomorrow.

But he'd needed this night. He'd needed delicious fried food smothered in sweet, tangy sauce. He'd needed hours upon hours of video games, unbridled yelling at his best friend over the bullshit he always pulled when they played Soulcalibur. Sure, maybe Sarah'd seen a side of him she'd never seen before and he spotted her giving him some definite looks. And yeah, he was a little embarrassed about it. But she didn't break up with him over it. She didn't run from him screaming. So there was that.

In fact, she was still here, slowly bringing up the rear as they walked Morgan out. She'd taken their martini glasses to the kitchen and was now trailing after them.

"Hey, you sure I can't help with dishes or anything?" Morgan asked, turning to face them and backing towards the door with the box Bao had brought hours earlier tucked under his arm.

"No, Morgan. That's okay," Sarah piped up before he could answer, and Chuck felt her wrap her arm around his waist, stepping in against his side and squeezing. There was something in her face he couldn't really figure out as he glanced to the side at her but she hid it quickly. "We'll clean up."

"You're suuuure…?"

"Yeah!" Chuck chirped. "You made us the best calamari I've ever had in my life, buddy. It was incredible. Put it on the menu."

"Okay. I will. All right, well… g'night, fam."

He was gone then, the door shut behind him. And as Chuck heard the elevator arriving out in the hallway, he turned to give Sarah a look. "…What?" he drawled.

She raised her eyebrows innocently for a moment, and then she winced. "Come with me."

Curious, he followed her back down the entryway steps and through the living room to the kitchen. He stopped dead.

"Holy shit, this looks like the set on a horror film!" he exclaimed.

Sarah laughed and shrugged. "Yep. The calamari was amazing. And apparently a big ol' mess to make."

"Rest In Peace to sleeping at all tonight. I'm going to be scrubbing until the sun comes u—Is that squid on the wall? HOW DID HE GET SQUID ON THE WALL?" he yelled, his voice getting a little high-pitched. "What the hell? Sarah, how?"

She just kept laughing and shrugged, shaking her head. "I really don't have an answer for you there, Tech Guy. You didn't see it before now?"

"No, I was…distracted! I guess!" He threw his hands up. "He was making the food in here and insisted we didn't help him at all, and then he served it and… I just… If I'd known…"

"He made us dinner. And it was actually incredibly delicious. We can handle this."

"We?" He gave her a look, feeling the warmth leak up from the middle of his chest and pull at the corners of his lips.

"Yeah." She frowned. "What, you think I'm just gonna go to bed and make you do this by yourself? I ate the calamari, too, you goof."

He grinned. "I love you. With or without that super sexy badge my best friend gave you." She gave him a slightly weirded out look and he narrowed his eyes, pausing. "Okay, yes. I did—I hear that now." He tapped his ear. "That sounded a little weird. I—me specifically—find a typically un-sexy thing to be sexy. That's-That's me. I think it's sexy. Morgan did not buy it for you as a sexy thing. He just thought it was cool. There. Better?"

"Yes." She giggled. "It was really nice of him. That's why I don't really mind cleaning the squid off of the walls. If you wanna focus on the pots and pans."

"Deal. Want another martini for some energy? Stupid question, of course you do." He gave her a cocky grin as she laughed and went to start cleaning the kitchen, and he ducked out to go to the bar, fixing them martinis.

It was nearly a half hour later when the kitchen started to show that usual shine after they'd worked so hard at wiping up the mess and washing the dishes.

Two martinis each had been downed in the meantime. He'd turned on some music to try to make it go faster, and an impromptu dance had started on their makeshift dance floor. Really, Chuck had tried to initiate a dance battle against his girlfriend and she'd cracked up, not playing along, and instead telling him they really would be stuck in there all night if he didn't stay on task.

Chuck finally bent down to put the last pan away and stood to his full height, slinging the towel he'd used to dry it over his shoulder and leaning against his counter to watch Sarah reach up to scrape a bit at the edge of the cabinet with a cloth.

"Stupid oil got all over," she grumbled as if she could feel his gaze on her. "But I think I managed to get it all. Miraculously."

"You wanna know how much I love calamari?" he asked her.

Sarah chuckled. "Wow, okay. Definitely thought you'd end that differently. That was a twist."

Chuck frowned in confusion for a moment, then realized what she'd just said. He laughed and responded, "No twist! None whatsoever. I love you more than I can say. Which brings me to my original question."

"Fine," she giggled. "How much do you love calamari?" She pushed past him to rinse the washcloth, wringing it out and taking it and the towels and rags Chuck had used out of the kitchen altogether.

He followed after her as she took it all to the small laundry nook behind the staircase and dropped it in the plastic tub he always put dirty rags and cloths in. "I love calamari so much that even after all of that, I'm not put off at the thought of eating it again."

She laughed and pushed her chest up against his where he leaned against the doorframe. "Uhhhh…calamari might have to give me a bit of space after that. Just for a little while."

"Totally fair." He ducked his head to kiss her, humming. "Thank you for helping me. I'd still be at it for another hour if you didn't help." He looked at his watch then and whined. "As it is, it's already almost two in the morning. Saraaaaah…"

Rolling her eyes, she gave his hair a teasing tug and grabbed his arm. "C'mon, let's go to bed."

They walked hand in hand around to turn off all of the lights and make their way to the stairs, but Chuck stopped, pulling away and dashing over to the coffee table by his couch, grabbing the P.I. badge that Morgan had gifted Sarah.

She made a face when he came back to her, a very flat look, if he did say so himself.

"Uh, excuse me? We agreed later, but I didn't exactly mean at two AM, you horndog."

"Well…!" He didn't quite know what to say to that. Maybe he had gotten a little ahead of himself. "I just… Ya know, just in case."

Sarah pulled her chin back, raising her eyebrows. "Nuh-uh, no. You don't get to make whiney sounds about how late it is after we clean up all the junk in the kitchen, and then turn around and expect role-play sex. Nnnope."

"I said just in case!" he argued, as she snatched the badge from him with an amused smirk and started up the stairs to his bedroom. "'Just in case' is not expectation. It's-It's, you know, being prepared for when the time comes."

"Oh!" she laughed, climbing the rest of the stairs backwards and beaming, her jaw falling open. "When? When the time comes? Somebody's cocky!"

"Listen. Any guy dating someone even remotely as sexy as Sarah Walker, Private Investigator, is gonna be a little cocky and you just have to understand that. Let that seep into that brilliant brain of yours a bit."

She laughed and turned back to step into his bedroom, and he followed, feeling luckier than just about everyone else in the whole universe, even in spite of the exhaustion.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Sarah just barely withheld the urge to growl in frustration, instead pressing her fingers to her forehead.

"What's wrong?"

She lifted her eyes from her laptop and shrugged. "Nothing. Just…business stuff."

Chuck made a face at her, having turned away from his own computer to stare at her for what must have been a while apparently. She hadn't noticed, as hard as she'd been concentrating on what she was doing. And he'd obviously been studying her for long enough that her response hadn't been nearly persuasive enough to convince him.

"Okay, sure." He made a face. "Sarah, I have been staring at this code for forty-five minutes and my eyes are crossing. Please give me something else to focus on. I'm begging you. Spare me from this torture."

He clasped his hands together as if in prayer and gave her a desperate look.

Giggling, she sat up from where she'd splayed herself out a bit over the comfortable couch in Chuck's office, shifting her laptop off of her lap and onto the cushion next to her. "Torture? Chuck, you love coding. It's, like, your favorite thing about your job. You get all excited and make cute little excited sounds when you get swept up in a coding session. Those are not torture sounds."

"Oh? And you know what torture sounds are?" He winced. "Don't answer that. I'm not ready to hear about your ex-career as a top secret agent with MI6, or that you have been speaking with an American accent this whole time to cover up that you're actually a British citizen. Give me a few more years to acclimate to how bad ass you already are before you drop that in my lap, okay? A guy's girlfriend can only be so hot, Sarah Walker, P.I."

She cracked up. "How did you even come up with that much detail on the fly?"

Chuck scoffed. "Giiirrrl, you thought that was on the fly? Like I hadn't imagined you as an ex-top secret MI6 agent like a femme Bond even before we started dating."

Had he really imagined her that way? Or was he just playing a game with her? She had learned by now that her boyfriend had some interesting kinks and ideas about what was and wasn't sexy. He'd definitely been attracted to her when they first met, just as she'd been attracted to him. Had he imagined her some sort of foreign secret agent?

The dweeb.

And she knew just how to get a fun reaction out of him.

Sarah arched one eyebrow and pursed her lips. "Ex-top secret MI6 agent?"

His jaw fell open. "Okay. Baby. You can't. You can't even joke about that sort of thing. The P.I. badge already nearly killed me dead. This would literally put me in cardiac arrest. You break out any kind of British accent and I'll just…melt off my chair and that'd be the end. I'm too young to die. And you'd have to explain what happened to my family. Which…" He made a silly face. "…embarrassing!"

Laughing, she shook her head and dropped the act altogether. "I'm afraid what I was doing isn't much more interesting than your coding. Nothing that would properly distract you, at least." She frowned then. "No, seriously, though, I thought you loved coding."

"This is proving to be very difficult and a lot less fun. I think I've got myself into a corner and I might have to go back to the drawing board. I don't know. After all these years, I still haven't figured out how to strike a balance between doing this when there's a lot riding on it versus when I'm just…futzing around. You know? Gah…" He made a pitiful face and pushed his hands through his curls, mussing them up even more.

Sarah reached over and downsized the research she'd been doing on Apache Adventure Bot and any copies that might be available for her to get her hands on, just in case Chuck decided to bound across the office and sit beside her.

And she was grateful she'd done it, because he did push himself up to his feet and move across his office to plop onto the couch beside her, squishing between her body and the arm of the couch. He didn't have a great angle on her laptop screen, nor did he seem interested in it anyway, but she still felt better that she'd gotten rid of her research.

"I'm glad you're here," he said, moving an arm to wrap it around her shoulders and leaning in to kiss her cheek.

"Awwww." She grabbed onto the front of his shirt and fondly tugged on it a little. "So you have someone to bug when you're bored with your work?"

He cracked up. "Bug? Wowwwwwwwwww," he drawled as she smirked. "So I bug you now, do I? Okay. Okay, that's fine. I'll go back to my coding and when you end up with a boyfriend who's got a broken brain from that bullshit, you'll be sorry." He gestured at his computer, moving to get up from the couch. But she tightened her grip on his shirt and yanked him back down beside her. He landed with a grunt, giving her wide eyes. "Make up your mind, Miss Walker."

"I have. What do you think I've been doing in Los Angeles all this time? I'm not just here for the traffic and taco trucks, you know."

"Oh. But those are two really good reasons," he said, wrinkling his nose and pulling his lips between his teeth.

She laughed and shook her head. "Uh, one of them is. The traffic can go fuck itself."

"It does," he droned. "Often."

"Touché." She used her grip to pull him in for a kiss then. He was definitely kissing her back, but she felt something else there…perhaps a distraction, like his mind was elsewhere in spite of himself. And as she pulled back a little, she muttered, "A kiss for your thoughts…"

That made him chuckle, and he shook his head, encircling her waist with his arms and pulling her in close, leaning against the back of the couch. "Much better than a penny, I gotta say."

"You're worth millions of dollars, Chuck. What do you need a penny for?"

He snorted and raised an eyebrow. "I'm just thinking about how much rides on this thing being a success. The app we're creating. If we can get it to appeal to everyone, every generation, from the Baby Boomers all the way down to Generation Z, with X and Y between them, this could open up all sorts of doors for the corporation."

"You like opening doors, don't you?"

"I do." He nodded, a thoughtful look on his face. "Eh. I'm going to figure it out. I think my brain needs a break from that for a bit. Maybe I'll send it down to Farah, see if she can somehow manage to dig out from the hole I got us stuck in. I always make things overly complicated. She's good at getting it back to the basics." He perked up then. "What's your business stuff that had you looking so frustrated?"

She gave him a look.

"What? I'm pretty good at business stuff. I co-run a corporation that's worth lots of billions."

She laughed. "Okay, not cocky at all there, bud." He shrugged, and she shook her head at him, still grinning. "Don't worry about it. It's not a big deal. I don't need help. I'm just figuring out…bills. That's all," she lied. But it was a good lie, an important lie.

"Well, I'm here. Even if it's just to vent about how stupid bills are. I'm here. Needing a distraction." He widened his eyes. And then gave her a much more sincere look, gently brushing her hair back from her face and tucking it behind her ear. "You can always vent to me about anything. Anytime."

Sarah felt herself melt a little and she pulled him in, kissing him even harder this time. When he began to lean her back to drape her over the couch again, she remembered her laptop. She squeaked and pulled out of the kiss. "Wait, my laptop!"

"Oops!" He sat up straight again, but kept pulling so that she was forced to sling her leg over him to straddle his lap. She threw her head back to laugh as he dove in to kiss her neck. She felt his teeth graze her neck as he grinned in amusement.

But then the door opened behind them.

"Hey, Chuck—Uh! Oh! Oh, sorry!"

She sheepishly crawled off of Chuck's lap, her face beet red as she smoothed a hand down her jeans. Adisa stood at the door, a clipboard held over his face to block his sight.

Chuck winced and stood up from the couch. "Uh, sorry there, Adisa. You, uh, needed me for somethin'?"

"Can I look?"

Sarah laughed with Chuck. "You're good, Adisa," she said through the laughter.

He lowered the clipboard and winced. "Sorry. I'll, uh…I'll knock when I know you're here, Sarah. Next time. I got a call from Carter down in sales. They are having a meeting right now and aren't super clear on how the sales booth is gonna function at the conference and I think the best idea would be for you to go down and explain it to 'em."

"Oh." Chuck sighed, ruffling his hair. A resigned look came over his face. "I can't do it by phone?"

"You could. But it's Carter. You know how he has to see everything to…see it. If you catch my meaning."

Chuck groaned. "Yeeeeah, yeah. I know. You're right. Okay." He turned back to Sarah. "Will you stay? It'll be twenty minutes, thirty tops."

"I'll stay right here." She patted the couch.

His grin made her heart hammer in her chest. "Good. Okay. Okay, be right back. Thanks, Adisa." Chuck went back to his chair and grabbed his suit jacket, quickly shrugging it on.

Before he could leave, though, Sarah made an, "Ah ah!" sound and waved him back over, spotting the way his collar ended up folded under. "C'mere. Your collar." She stood up as he rushed over, straightening it for him and smoothing her hand down the lapel. "There."

"Thanks, hot stuff," he murmured with a smolder, leaning in to peck her on the lips.

"I left the plans on my desk, black binder," Adisa said to his boss as he rushed out of the office.

"Thanks, man!"

He was gone in a whirlwind, the outer door shutting hard on his way out.

"Is he always such a tornado here?" Sarah asked, blinking.

"When it comes to helping one of his employees out? Yeah. I mean, most of the time," Adisa said, chuckling. "You need water or coffee or anything?" he asked her then.

"Oh. No. Thanks, Adisa. I'm not your boss, though. You're not my assistant. You don't have to get me coffee."

"I know," he said with a shrug. "But you're my friend. And I was offering as a friend."

Sarah felt her insides go soft as she smiled. "Well, still no. But thank you. And yes. We're friends."

He beamed, turning on his heel to leave Chuck's office and go back to work. Then something occurred to her, and she reached out a hand. "Wait. Wait, Adisa. Maybe…" She huffed and shook her head as he turned back, his eyebrows raised. "No, you have actual work to do. Never mind. It's nothing."

"Well, now I have to know. What is it?"

She giggled, shaking her head. And then she made the decision to trust Chuck's assistant. Her friend, she corrected herself silently. "Okay, if I tell you this, you have to promise me you won't tell your boss." His eyes widened. "Don't give me that look, it's not that serious."

He let out a long breath and put a hand on his heart. "Oh, okay. I don't know what I thought but… Uh, never mind."

She gave him a look, her eyes narrowed, and he cleared his throat. She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and continue anyway. "How much do you know about video games?"

"Um… Well, I play them." He chuckled at the flat look that got him. "I know some stuff. I had most of the big consoles growing up."

"Do you know about something called Apache Adventure Bot?"

Adisa pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Mmmm, don't think so."

"Well, you're…what…twenty-two?" He nodded. "So maybe it's an age gap thing. He's almost six years older than you."

"Should I know it?"

"No. I don't think so. Seems like a super rare thing that was big when he was a kid. Here, look." She grabbed her laptop and pulled up her research again, patting the couch next to her as she plopped down so that he'd sit next to her. They looked at the screen together. "It's this. I can find a million images of the thing, the robot in the desert, the weapons, all of this stuff about doubloons you can collect from hacking cacti and rocks to pieces; apparently you use doubloons to buy weapons and potions? Which…what does a robot need potions for?" She shook her head. "Sorry, not important. Point is, I can't find the actual game." She growled in frustration. "I even made an account on this video game thread Morgan told me about so that I could ask around to see how to obtain a really rare game like this one. And then I got onto this site where they find rare and expensive games for old systems and sell them. It's like…ultra nerd Ebay."

Adisa laughed. And then he narrowed his eyes. "Wait, doubloons? In the middle of Apache desert territory? Why do they have a robot using pirate gold? That's not exactly logical or realistic."

She gave him a flat look. "A robot shooting…aliens or whatever…in the middle of the desert… is realistic and logical?"

"Okay, fair point. But also…the world of gaming isn't either of those things too often." Then he pressed his lips together and pulled his head back a bit. "Wait, you're trying to find this silly game for him? Why? Can't he just get it for himself? Not to be…er, presumptuous, but isn't he…well, erm, very rich?"

"Okay, good. Then I'm not crazy for not knowing about Chuck's obsession with this game until a few days ago. You didn't know, right?" He shrugged and shook his head. "See? God, Morgan made me feel like I didn't know anything about my own boyfriend because Chuck hadn't told me about this game. He's never talked about this! How was I supposed to know?" Adisa shrugged again. "He's got a poster in his hallway for it. Apparently he loved it when he was a kid but by the time he had the money to buy it for himself, all of this bureaucratic rivalry shit went down and it was pulled off the market indefinitely and now it's impossible to get your hands on a copy because there are so few copies left and apparently folks who have it are hanging onto it." She sighed. "He's been trying to get one to no avail for ages so I thought….well? Why don't I try and find one for him?"

Adisa grinned and shook his head. "I don't get what the appeal is. Is it not just a robot going around killing…what did you say? Aliens, was it?"

"I don't know. I guess. But it means so much to him." She shrugged. "According to Morgan at least. And while he tends to exaggerate sometimes, more often than not, actually, Chuck does have the poster of it on his wall…And I feel like that means something." Huffing, she moved her laptop over onto Adisa's lap. "You know stuff about games. Is there anything you can think of that might help? Do your young person tech magic on it and find this game for me. Or something." She flapped her hand at the laptop, urging him to fix her problem.

He stared at her, then shook his head in mock sadness, before turning to the screen thoughtfully. "You know, I don't trust these guys," he said, throwing his thumb towards the site. "Some of them might genuinely try to help, but there are a lot of assholes in these threads and subthreads. I've been in places like this enough to know the difference now, but you don't." He winced. "No offense. I know you're a private investigator, but these guys are a different breed. They see women as a threat, or as idiots who don't belong anywhere near a video game, and they'll fool you on purpose. I've seen it happen to people. This world is cutthroat."

"The…video game world?"

"Yeah. Heeeeeyyy waaaait…" His eyes widened. "I remember this game now. It's a whole conspiracy."

Sarah groaned and flopped over the couch arm dramatically. "You nerds and your video game conspiracies."

"It is a conspiracy! I remember it now, from back when I was a kid. They used to mention it in the gaming magazines I used to read." She gave him a look and he rolled his eyes. "Fine, I still have my subscriptions. Don't judge me. This game is a prime example of what I mean when I say it's a cutthroat industry, though, Chuck told me when I was first hired, it's why he decided to work with his dad in the company—you know, doing this kind of work—instead of starting his own gaming company. He didn't want any part in that dog eat dog industry."

Sarah sat up again and widened her eyes. "Was he considering going into the gaming industry?"

"Come on, of course. It's him!"

"Good point."

She let herself imagine how different things would've been if Charles Irving Bartowski was the head of a video game company instead of being the chief operating officer of Bartowski Electronics Corporation. She might never have been brought onto that case a few years ago. Or, if she was brought onto the case, she'd be dealing with Stephen and probably would've only rarely seen Chuck, if at all. And she was hit by a rush of gratitude that Chuck, however many years ago, made the decision to join his dad's company instead of starting his own gaming company.

It had changed the trajectory of her life in ways she never could've imagined. But more than that, her existence felt so much better with Chuck in it, and the people he'd brought with him.

Adisa handed her laptop back to her and hunched forward, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "I might have an idea. I mean, I think I know who will be able to help us."

"Us?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"What, you think I'm just going to abandon you to do this near impossible task all on your own? Never. That's not how I operate, Sarah"

She laughed. "You don't have to help me, Adisa. Really. It was nice of you to do this much, honestly."

"Ah!" He held up a hand to get her to stop. "Listen, this is the perfect thing for me to focus on right now. My, uh, life outside of my job is kind of a mess and I welcome any sort of distraction. This is exactly what I need."

Sarah winced. "A mess? Everything okay?"

"Oh, yeah. Just…girlfriend problems. Well, ex. Ex-girlfriend." She winced harder. "I know, I know. I'm fine. It happens."

"Adisa, I'm sorry. I had no idea you broke up with your girlfriend."

"Oh, I got dumped." He pressed his lips together and shook his head. "I definitely got dumped. She's focusing on med school now and wants to be able to see other people. Anyway, she's moving to Boston in a few weeks. So…That's that."

Sarah set her laptop to the side and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tight. He hugged her back, his grip loose. And she realized he probably wasn't sure what was and wasn't appropriate in this situation. They were friends, sure, but she was also his boss's girlfriend.

So she pulled back and pat him on the shoulder. "I'm so sorry. Anything I can do?"

"This. This distraction. At least she was honest, which I prefer. But hey, you know, it's for the best. She tried to get me to cut off my glorious braids." He tugged on one of said braids. "And I should've seen the warning signs then."

Sarah laughed, squeezing his shoulder one last time. "Well, we'll find you a better woman who appreciates braids and good guys with high aspirations."

He made an X with his fingers and hissed. "No. No women, no men. No nobody for a while. I don't care if he or she or they are cute. I don't care if they're smart. I don't even care if you push a sweet boy who's nice to his momma at me, I am off the market until further notice."

Sarah held up her hands and laughed. "Okay, noted. If I meet cute twenty-two-ish year old people, I will not send them your way."

"Good. Now here's my idea. And if you wanna be sly so Boss Man doesn't find out about it, we need to go on the weekend when I'm off."

"Go?" She raised both eyebrows. "We're…going somewhere?"

"Oh, right. My idea." She furrowed her brow in curiosity and he continued. "You know how sometimes you go to a corporate retail store for something and the people there don't know anything about the product they're selling and it's super impersonal because they're just teens working a part-time after-school job?"

"Yeah, sometimes…"

"One place that isn't like that is the Burbank Buy More." She tilted her head. "Did you know your man worked there in high school?" Sarah's jaw fell open. "Yep. Only reason I know is that when I go there for chargers or something like that, all I have to do is tell them he's my boss, and they treat me like a king."

He gave off a smug laugh and she shook her head, grinning.

"I can't remember if I knew that about him or not. I don't think I did." He let out a huff in awe. "He's never brought up his old jobs, really."

"Yeah, he told me when he first hired me that all I had to do if I go to that specific Buy More is mention I work for him and they'll bend over backwards to give me the best service ever. Apparently he's a legend."

Sarah gaped. "Why the hell didn't he ever tell me I could get preferential treatment at the Burbank Buy More? I feel cheated!"

Adisa chuckled. "Oh, you'd know why if you met them. Probably doesn't want you anywhere near that, is my guess." She was more than curious about that, but before she could ask, he rushed on. "But! The reason I bring them up is that—Well, two reasons. The first is that the green shirts and Nerd Herders there are really, really, weird and sometimes creepy even, but they know their stuff with tech and games. You could ask about…Viewtiful Joe, for instance…an old GameCube game…" She blinked at him and he snorted, continuing. "These guys would know everything about it, who released it, where to find it. They're good at what they do."

"Ah. And the second reason?"

"Ah, yeah. Second reason is that you're Chuck's girlfriend. You go in there and tell them that, it's going to blow their minds and they might legitimately bust the world open looking for a copy of Apache Adventure Bot for you. Seriously. These guys are our best bet."

"Will they survive Chuck's assistant and his girlfriend walking in there at the same time?"

Adisa shrugged. "We can find out. But you have to promise me, if Chuck finds out I took you there, that you'll put in a good word for me. I need this job."

Sarah laughed. "Deal. Saturday?"

"I'm free Saturday."

They shook hands and she beamed down at her laptop, feeling better about this whole thing now that she had a willing accomplice who seemed to know Chuck better than she did in a lot of ways.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Chuck took a deep breath as he stepped back into the elevator and the doors shut. He had to remind himself that the sales department was one of the most important departments of the entire company, because without them, the company wouldn't exist. They were the ones who added all the zeros at the end of B.E.C.'s profits reports.

They made B.E.C.'s product move. They put it on the shelves at retail stores all over the country, and in France and the U.K. as well.

It made him feel better about the forty-five minutes he'd had to spend down there going over the sales booth at the convention that would be coming up soon. He'd had to explain at least fifteen times why he wasn't prioritizing sales at that particular convention. That it was for low-income students and that a lot of them wouldn't have the money to buy the products on the spot. It was about giving them the tools and resources they'd need to succeed, teaching them how to use them.

He could tell it was bothering Carter. And he didn't blame the guy or think he lacked a moral compass. Sales was his department. He managed a massive sales team. He was there to sell, and to make sure their numbers improved every year. It obviously just didn't make sense to him that B.E.C. would have a convention with a lot of people and not want to emphasize selling their product.

But Carter was a professional and he trusted Chuck, and so he'd do what he was asked, even if it went against everything he knew.

God, that had taken a lot of work, though.

He shoved his hand through his curls and looked down at the thick binder. Thanks to Adisa, it was extremely neat, since he was so anal about everything. It made Chuck feel seriously blessed to have hired that guy, because he never would've been able to put something like this together without him.

And now he just hoped that after all of that, his girlfriend hadn't gotten tired of waiting for him and bounced out of the office early. He checked his watch and saw it was nearing six o'clock.

It wasn't exactly early anymore.

He walked into his outer office, Adisa's office, and shut it behind him, striding back into his own office and stopping short upon seeing Sarah and Adisa staring at her laptop, their heads together as they focused on whatever was on the screen.

Sarah's blue eyes flicked up and she smiled at him. "Oh, hi there."

"Hi," he drawled, grinning. And he noticed how Sarah oh-so-subtly shut her laptop and set it to the side as Adisa climbed to his feet. It wasn't subtle enough. And he stored it away in his brain for later, wondering just what they were up to.

"Everything taken care of with sales?" his assistant asked.

Chuck huffed. "Yeah. Carter's having a tough time…um, understanding the concept of the convention."

"It's hard for a salesman to wrap his head around…not selling things. Yeah, I thought that might be the problem." He clapped his hands together then. "Well, boss, I'm headed out for the night. Have to get my allergy meds from the pharmacy before it closes." He halted at the door. "Is there anything you need me to do before I go?"

"Be free, good sir. And good luck at the pharmacy."

"Thanks, boss."

Adisa said his farewells and Chuck didn't miss the wink Sarah sent at his assistant, who merely nodded, before he disappeared, shutting the door behind him.

Chuck listened to the sounds of Adisa rummaging around his desk out there, and then the outer door shut as well. He spun back to face Sarah who sat on his couch still, legs crossed, an innocent look on her face.

"Okay, what's going on?"

Sarah raised her eyebrows. "Hm?"

"With you two. What's going on here?"

Her jaw fell open and he knew what was coming before she even said it. "Are you insinuating that I'm having an affair with your assistant? I thought there was more trust between us than that."

"Haa haaaaa," he droned. "Hilarious. You know exactly what I'm talking about. I walked in here and you were all in cahoots over your laptop, and then you winked at him when he was leaving. Like there's a secret thing happening that I am not privy to."

Sarah giggled. "It's not as big a deal as you think it is." She stood up and walked up to his desk, shifting the binder to the side and leaning on the desktop in front of him, curling her fingers around his tie to pull him in close. God, he loved when she did that with his tie. He just loved it so much more than most things.

"It's not? You two are friends," he said, "and then you have all these secrets, and you're texting each other now. I guess what I'm asking is…are you guys talking about me behind my back?" He affected a middle-school aged girl, high-pitched voice.

She snorted and beamed up at him, shaking her head. "Shut up." She giggled. And then she sobered up a bit, playing with his tie, which was just as good as the pulling thing she did. He leaned down to brace his palms on either side of her, their faces close. "Did you know his girlfriend dumped him so she could date other people while she's in med school?" She wrinkled her nose in a wince.

He felt his face crumble in a big time wince to match hers. "Yeah, he just told me the other day."

"You knew? Why didn't you tell me? The poor guy seems really bummed about it."

Chuck shrugged. "It's not my business to tell you. That's his private…love life business. Man, he came in the day after she broke up with him and he was a wreck. Still hungover but mostly just really sad. I sent him home after he told me what happened. I felt bad for him. I've been there."

"We've all been there," she said, pouting sympathetically.

Chuck gave her a doubtful look. "Riiiiight. Sarah Walker, Pinkerton bad ass, hottest woman in the universe, coolest woman in the universe, has been dumped. Uh huh. Okay. Sure. Sweet of you to try to make us nerds feel less bad about ourselves, though, baby."

She glared. "Don't be a such a butt. I have been dumped, thank you. Not that I've ever had a really long-term thing or anything like that, but I've had boyfriends and I was dumped by one of them. So there."

Chuck found himself gaping.

"What? Don't believe me? I'm serious. He dumped me."

"N-No, no. I do. I believe you. I don't think you're lying. It's just… What the fuck was wrong with him?"

She laughed. "It's cute how genuinely confused you are right now. And I'm gonna keep saying this, but I will never get tired of how flattering it is that you think I'm so great."

"That's good. 'Cause I'm never gonna stop thinking that. No, seriously. What the fuck?"

"Honestly?" She winced. "We weren't, like, serious. It was kind of an easy, breezy type of deal. Just sex stuff."

"Ew gross."

She cracked up and slung her arms around his neck. "Oh, you think it's gross all of a sudden?" He beamed cheekily and nuzzled her nose, watching as she melted a little. "But I was way too involved in Pinkerton. Work kept coming up. He'd try to get together and I'd disappear from the continent for a case." She winced. "Wasn't a really great…girlfriend…or whatever we were. So he called me while I was in Baton Rouge for a case and told me he was done with us."

"Yikes. Ouch."

"It was ouch, actually. It didn't feel good." She shrugged. "But I got over it."

He found himself smiling as he gazed off to the side thoughtfully. Sarah'd been with Pinkerton when they met, and she'd still been with Pinkerton when they decided to start dating. No matter how little he saw her, as hard as he loved her and missed her, the thought of breaking up with her would've felt like death itself…if it had even crossed his mind in the first place. Which it really hadn't.

"What?"

He shook himself. "Hm? Nothin'." It only took a certain look from her for him to chuckle. "No, I was just thinking about how this guy dumped you because he wasn't spending enough time with you…"

"Yeah, he wanted more than I was giving him."

"Right. I guess it just made me think of when we first began our relationship, how you were jet-setting all over the place and I was only seeing you once every few weeks, and I'd be gifted a few days with you and then you'd go off again on another case. And how we got through all of that to get to where we are now."

"You did not break up with me through all of that. Miraculously."

"Oh, nothing about it is miraculous. I went through six months of barely only seeing you sporadically and I wasn't about to make a stupid-ass decision that would ensure I never saw you again." She smirked and tilted her head at him. "I wanted you way too bad."

Sarah pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and just stared at him for a moment, pulling him in even closer so that their foreheads were pressed together. And then she kissed him slowly and pulled back again, looking into his eyes. "Chuck, the reason why things didn't work out with me and Eric when I was gone for long periods of time for my work is because we didn't have anything remotely deep going on there. What reason did he have to stay in Chicago waiting for me to come back, when he could be with some…stationary girl? What did he know about me? What did I know about him? …On the other hand… You and I? That's a very different story. I fell in love with you while I was working your dad's case. Being away from you didn't make me feel like there was actual distance between us. Geographically, sure. And that sucked. But in every other way?" She shook her head. "It was just different. So different. So good. Good enough that I left behind an agency that was treating me like garbage without any regret or qualms because I knew I had you to go back to. Am I drifting off of my point? I think I am."

"Feel free to drift. This is a drifting safe space."

She giggled and shook her head at him. "The point is that I love you. I've always loved you. That's why we didn't break up while we were long-distance dating. This is some addictive, and yet really wholesome love right here."

Chuck laughed at that. Then he gave her a thoughtful look. "Can we still call this wholesome if I go lock that office door and we have a really amazing quickie right here on this desk?"

There was a flash of lust in those blue eyes of hers that gave him his answer before she even opened her mouth. "I don't know, nor do I care. Go lock the door."

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

A/N: Happy Valentine's Day inDEED. Thanks for reading! Please, please review. It helps. It really does. Thanks, folks. :)

-SC