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: I don't have much to say this time. I just hope you all enjoy this one.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

The Detective and the Tech Guy Versus the System, Part 3

"It's going to go so great, Sarah. You'll have a meeting of the minds and when it's over you'll have egg salad sandwiches together and save your clients from ruination."

Sarah looked at Chuck's text again as she pulled up to the front gate of the Bartowski property, rolling down her window and pressing the buzzer. She looked at it yet again even as she blindly pressed the large black button on the keypad. It gave her comfort. It settled her nerves.

Mary's voice came over the intercom, scratchy and terse. "I'm buzzing you in. Just pull up to the front steps and park there. Not expecting anyone else."

"Oh. O-Okay," she called back. God, could Mary even hear her? She didn't know. She felt so stupid in this situation.

There was a pbbbtttt sound and the gate slowly slid open. When it opened enough, Sarah drove through, up the long driveway and around to park at the front steps like Mary commanded over the intercom.

As she climbed out, she glanced around the property. It wasn't going to matter if she was with Chuck Bartowski for two years or twenty years, this would never not be strange to her. The wealth, just the utter wealth of the place. There was a gardener trimming the bushes with one of those giant scissor things, and another worker on the other side of the driveway was hunched over the dirt, planting something.

"One of my begonia bushes developed some kind of disease and it had to be pulled out before it transferred to the other bushes."

Sarah just managed to suppress a jump at the sound of Mary's voice on the other side of her car. She turned and saw that the woman had come out the front door and was standing at the bottom step, staring at the man hunched over what were apparently begonias. She switched her eyes back to Sarah and surveyed her.

"Oh. That's too bad. At least you caught it before the others were infected," Sarah tried.

The other woman's mouth twitched in a smile. "Come inside."

"Right," Sarah clipped under her breath as Chuck and Ellie's mom turned on her heel and walked back up the steps towards the front door that was gaping open in all its massive glory.

Mary Bartowski wore capri jeans and a nice blouse with a sweater over it. And major heels. Power heels, Sarah heard Ellie's voice snark in her head. Always with the power heels.

Sarah had to keep her eye on the ball with this woman. She knew she did. It's why she dressed formally in spite of not going into the office at all today. She wasn't slipping on her game today, damn it.

She stepped into the house and was immediately met with Stephen J. Bartowski walking down the grand staircase, a big smile on his face. "Sarah! So good to see you!"

"Hello, Mist—Stephen," she corrected herself quickly. It made him chuckle as he trotted down the rest of the steps to meet her. He clasped one of her hands in both of his and squeezed affectionately. "How are you?"

"Oh, good. Good good. Uh, Mary said you were coming here for lunch, erm, a-and one of your cases."

"Yes. Yeah, the case mostly, but I'm very appreciative of the lunch offer as well."

"Please. You don't come into the Bartowski household without eating. Just doesn't happen," Stephen said. "Or a drink at the very least. Can I getcha somethin'? I made lemonade from the lemon trees out back. They're sprouting like crazy back there." He turned on his heel to look at his wife. "How 'bout you, Mar? O-Or I can…I can make those sandwiches too. Hungry, Sarah?"

She opened her mouth to answer, but Mary cut in before she could.

"We're going to talk about this case of hers and handle some business, and then eat." She reached over to squeeze her husband's shoulder lovingly. "Unless…" She turned and raised an eyebrow at Sarah. "Sarah's hungry…?"

"Business first. Absolutely. Sandwiches later."

"Oh, s-sure. Sure. Thought I'd, uh, just offer."

"I'll make the sandwiches, sweetie. You go get some work done and I'll call you when they're ready, hm?" Mary leaned in to peck his lips and he smiled with a nod.

"See you later."

He ducked out of the entry way and Mary turned to face Sarah, the two of them alone, the warmth in the room leaving with Stephen as he disappeared in the other direction. "We'll talk in my office. It's this way."

Sarah followed Mary, taking note of the fact that she still towered over the woman even with the severe heels she was wearing, and Sarah in wedge boots with only an inch tall heel. It was stupid, playground levels of satisfaction she took in that, but she took it anyway.

Mary led her down a dimly lit hallway further back from the bright and airy entryway and pushed open a dark wood door, gesturing for Sarah to enter first. She thanked her and stepped through the doorway, slowing as she allowed herself to sweep her gaze around the room. It was ornate, covered in dark wood, severe but not exactly austere. Sarah thought to herself that she could imagine some sort of Victorian ghost woman who died from tuberculosis or something really enjoying haunting this room.

"A little much, isn't it?" Mary sniffed in amusement and smirked as she walked over to her desk and stepped around it. "I think so too. But it felt right when I did it all those years ago."

"Oh. No, it-it's beautiful. The wood is very…dark and…ornate. Yeah. Beautiful."

"Thank you." Mary didn't seem like she believed her. That was fair. Sarah still felt so out of her depth in this conversation that she hadn't tried very hard with that compliment. "So have a seat, Sarah. Let's talk about these clients of yours."

Sarah followed her orders, then went into her messenger bag and pulled out the dossiers she'd put together, folders full of things she didn't necessarily want Mary Bartowski to peep, but it helped her provide more information when Mary asked questions to get more of an idea of what they were dealing with.

And maybe she was trying to impress the woman with her investigative skills and her meticulous record-keeping.

"About how much do you think they can afford to pay a lawyer?" Mary asked a little over half an hour later.

"Not much at all."

"That isn't a number."

Sarah blanched a bit and cleared her throat. "I'd say they'd be all right with a retainer's fee of…a few, um…"

"Thousand?"

"Hundred? If that."

Mary winced. "They're that poorly off?"

"Worse than you can imagine," Sarah said. And then she sighed, admitting, "Honestly, I don't think they'll be able to pay me if they don't get that money back. They gave me a check up front, but the rest of it for the work I'm doing? I just don't think I'll be seeing that money if this suit against Newberry, Carpenter & Associates falls through and the money they paid them isn't returned."

The older woman crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at Sarah. "So. You're saying there's a chance you're essentially doing this for the Donohues…pro-bono?"

Sarah sighed. "Almost pro-bono. That check at the beginning was…okay. But, um, yes, there's a chance."

"And you haven't hightailed it in the other direction? I can't imagine this investigation is easy work for you."

"It isn't. But Franny Donohue looks so frail, like she's withering away. Seeing pictures of her like that, and the image of these smarmy jerks sitting in their two-bit law office, counting the bills they stole from this woman because she saw an advertisement on TV and thought all of her problems would be solved, it makes me see red."

"Red enough to not take money from a client even when your agency isn't exactly successful yet?" Mary folded her arms on her desk and leaned forward. "Charities are fantastic, so worth having, phenomenal and miraculous even. But your agency doesn't seem like the type of place that would benefit from being too charitable."

"You're right. Walker Investigative Enterprises isn't a charity. It's isn't a non-profit. Taking clients is supposed to mean having paychecks given to me at the beginning and end of the job. Granted, even if they do pay me…" Her voice trailed off as she realized it wasn't the smartest thing to say out loud to a woman who thought she was a gold digger.

"What?" Mary prompted, tilting her head.

"No, no. It's okay." She got a flat look that reminded Sarah of Ellie in a big way and she sighed inwardly. "I'm not expecting my agency to make much of a profit the first year or two, maybe even longer. And that's okay as long as I can cover my expenses and have a little left over for…whatever."

That seemed to confuse Mary, but then her pretty features cleared and she raised an eyebrow. "I see," was all Sarah was afforded.

And Sarah suddenly thought she knew what was going through Mary's head. Sarah wasn't banking on her agency having much of a profit because she didn't need it to. Because she was with Chuck who was worth a shit ton of money. That was what Mary was thinking right at that moment. She just knew it.

And it hurt.

She looked down at the dossier in front of her, shuffling papers distractedly. "Um, anyway, I don't really know if they can afford to pay me, let alone a lawyer. And that's the difficulty with all of this. She needs money to pay someone to help her get her money back, money that was stolen by a bunch of…"

"Fucking con artists," Mary finished for her. Sarah snapped her eyes up to see that Mary was looking off to the side angrily, her jaw clenched. Well…that was unexpected. Her gaze flicked back to Sarah and she shrugged. "Aren't they?"

"They are. They are fucking con artists. And if I can be fully honest with you, when I snuck into their law office to grab some of this stuff I needed to check up on their practices—many of which underscore just how terrible they are at law and how good they are at lining their pockets—I wanted to set fire to the place so badly. Just…drop a lit match onto their dirty, shoddy carpet and watch the whole practice ignite…"

Mary pursed her lips and sniffed. "Not a bad idea. But they'd find out who did it eventually."

"Mmm. A wrinkle, yes. That's why I just stole their paperwork on the Donohue case and left their place in one piece." She sighed. "I value my freedom."

Mary got up then and went to the corner of her office. "The goal needs to be bigger than just getting the Donohues their money back," she announced, opening the top drawer of the filing cabinet that was there. "Like I said on the phone yesterday, this sounds like a malpractice suit. And I think it is. Which means we need a good malpractice lawyer."

"Do you know any of those?"

Mary gave her a bit of a snippy look. "Plenty." She went back to rummaging, missing the snotty look Sarah sent back at her. Thankfully. "The problem is going to be finding someone your clients can afford."

"Makes sense."

"I always do." Mary pulled a thick folder out then, sliding the drawer shut and walking back to her side of the desk, sitting down in the rolling chair, rolling it up to the desk, and slamming the folder down. "Now I have some pull with some of these lawyers… I know them, from the old days."

The old days. Like Chuck said, she'd gone to law school. She'd graduated from law school. But she'd never taken the California bar. She could relate, though her reason for leaving law school had nothing to do with getting married and having a family, and everything to do with the Pinkerton job offer.

"The old days?" she asked out loud. She had Chuck's voice in her head, telling her not to bring any of that stuff up, that Mary Bartowski was weirdly sensitive and snappy about it.

She ignored it.

Mary gave her a long look. "I was into law once upon a time. A long time ago now." She cleared her throat. "I set it all aside to have the family I always dreamed of having, to help my husband fulfill his dream. It worked out," she said, gesturing around her and smiling widely.

"Oh. I didn't know that. Law school?"

"Yes, law school."

"Which one?"

"USC. I was lucky I was able to get into a law school that was close to where Stephen got his first job coming out of UCLA with his BS. Bachelor's of Science, not bullshit."

Sarah snorted and Mary looked slightly pleased.

"So yes, I know a little about law. And I kept in contact with all of my classmates."

"I didn't," Sarah said, shaking her head. "I kept in contact with no one at all, and that ended up being a mistake. I could use my own contacts in a situation like this if I had." She rolled her eyes. "But you know what they say about hindsight."

"You went to law school?"

Sarah raised her eyebrows. So Mary Bartowski didn't know that about her? She supposed that was good news. It meant she hadn't done any background checks on her. When she first found out Sarah was dating her son, there'd been a part of Sarah that wondered if she might hire someone to look into who she was. She wouldn't have put it past her. But apparently she hadn't. God, she hated to think about what the woman would find if she did. She'd hate Sarah even worse.

"I-I did. Yes."

"I didn't know that. I suppose it makes sense if you worked at Pinkerton. I figured you transferred into the company from some sort of law enforcement position. Where did you go?"

"Harvard."

Sarah was a grown-ass woman but God the tense silence felt so satisfyingly good. Mary Bartowski looked like she'd been slapped in the face. Beautiful. So beautiful. Sure, they were in the middle of an armistice, their very own Armistice Day, but Sarah was taking this tiny win anyway. So sue her.

"Harvard Law? You attended Harvard Law?" the older woman asked for clarification.

"Yes." And then she thought she might toss the woman a bit of a bone. "But I never took the bar either, because I didn't graduate." Mary blinked, sitting back a bit in her chair. "Top of my class but…it just wasn't…what I wanted anymore. It felt like I was just…this robot doing the motions. And then the director of Pinkerton swept in and plucked me out of the Harvard Law mire and the rest is history."

"Recruited by the director, hm?" Sarah wasn't sure if she heard something in Mary's tone or not. Begrudging acknowledgment of an impressive résumé, perhaps? She didn't want to think ill of Chuck's mom anymore, but the woman did this to herself by being so damn catty towards her for the last year and some change. She was tired of it.

"Yeah." Sarah shrugged as if it wasn't a big deal. "So I guess you could say we're sort of similar, huh? Neither of us took the bar, but we went to law school."

"I graduated, so it's a little different." Sarah inwardly rolled her eyes. "And I kept in touch with my classmates. Which is how I have this large stack of options to…" She paused then, and she pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Did you bring your phone?"

Sarah took it out of her bag and wiggled it. "Got it right here."

"Good. We've got a lot of phone calls to make." Mary began to split the business cards in the folder she'd retrieved from the filing cabinet, shoving some of them in Sarah's direction. And Sarah supposed this was going to be part of this job too. At least this time she had someone else helping her. As weird as it was that Chuck's mom was that someone else. After their tense history, to put it lightly.

Sarah wondered as she dialed the first number if things weren't perhaps turning a corner. Finally. Mary sitting here willing to help her, not fully eviscerating her with passive aggressive stinging barbs, actually seeming to genuinely want to take these bad lawyers down.

Maybe things were finally starting to change here. And she smiled a little as she listened to the ringing on the other side of the phone.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

"Without even hearing his side of things?"

Chuck stared at his dad for a long while, and he frowned deeply. "Dad, there are witnesses who saw him behaving like that. They corroborated what Vera said. And these are people who like Sean."

"Everybody likes Sean!" Stephen argued. "He's a nice guy."

"A nice guy who touched his coworker, a subordinate, and it was sexual in nature, and he did it without permission. That alone is sickening enough, but to feel confident enough to do it in the workplace where others see him putting his hand on her? There? Her a—" He stopped at seeing the severe look his mom gave him. "…backside? Dad, come on. Honestly, I feel like a complete dickhead for believing Sean over her right off the bat."

Stephen made a frustrated face. "Son, it just—I know Sean. He probably has no idea what he's said and done is—"

"Stop. Don't. Dad. Listen to yourself. It's the twenty-first century. If he turns on his TV for even an hour out of the day regularly, he knows that he can't say stuff like 'your tits looks great in that top' to anyone, let alone a subordinate walking past his office. And anyone with any…God, there's no way anyone thinks just reaching out and squeezing someone's butt is okay! They might feel entitled to doing something that's that not-okay because they're a prick, but they have to know it is still not okay."

His dad grumbled and nodded. "I know. Just makes me sick thinking of firing Sean Mallery."

"Then I'll do it, Dad. But he needs to be fired."

"It just doesn't seem right, not letting him defend himself."

"Dad, I sat down with him, both with Regina there, and just the two of us. He tore Vera down and called her a quote, lying whore, unquote. To my face, without blinking, he called her that." Stephen winced hard. "Yeah. I think we've been having blinders on about this guy for years, Dad. Sorry to say, we're his bosses, and we're men. He treated us with respect and that was all we've seen because we aren't women working under him in his department. That doesn't mean it wasn't happening, just because we weren't the ones seeing it."

"Hold on." Chuck looked up at his sister who sat beside him, her fork halfway raised to her mouth. She had an incensed look on her face. "This guy is going around the office talking to women about their breasts and squeezing their asses?! I mean, both of you never knew about that, which…yikes, guys. But now Chuck wants to fire him and Dad, you don't? Are you serious? He sounds like a monster who needs to be kept away from women and you don't want to fire him, why exactly? This guy's in a leadership position? And you don't want to keep him from running the roost? Because he hasn't grabbed your ass and doesn't call you a lying whore?"

"Eleanor, your father is friends with Sean. Have a little grace."

"Yeah, and I was friends with a guy named Jacob in college, and then I found out he'd touched this girl's breasts when she passed out at a frat party so I said 'Fuck you, you sick fuck' and stopped being friends with him." She ate a piece of her quiche and shrugged.

"Eleanor, language at the dinner table," Mary muttered.

"You make it sound so easy," their dad tried.

"It is," Ellie said, shrugging again. And she sipped her red wine. "Okay, fine. Maybe it isn't easy, but it's necessary. This man is a menace. He's a monster. The women who work on his floor must live in fear. This is exactly the type of person who should be fired without letting him get a platform in the meantime."

"Dad, I agree with Ellie," Chuck interjected. "We wonder why our numbers around women employment at B.E.C. are at an all-time low? Because what kind of woman wants to work somewhere where she has to go through this kind of garbage all day? Get catcalled and touched like this. Not only do we need to fire Sean, we need to find who directly above him enabled him at B.E.C., who allowed him to continue to do this, and they'd better have a really good explanation or they're gone too." He shoved too hot quiche in his mouth and winced, trying to blow on it while it was entrapped in his mouth and failing miserably. When he chewed and swallowed, taking a sip of his ice water, he cleared his throat. "We need to make an example of the way we handle this, and we need to make some changes around how and who we hire. And we need a better system for reporting sexual harassment and assault. A safer one."

His sister raised her hands above her head and clapped. "That's it right there. Good work, brother." She reached over and nudged him with her elbow, making him blush. But then she rounded on her dad who was sitting across from her. "And you. I mean wow, Dad. If I was a putz like Chuck and dove headfirst into the family business…" Chuck glared at her and she snorted, squeezing his arm teasingly. "I'm just joking, Chuck." He was a little mollified. "And I was the one walking around and Sean had touched my ass, what would you think?"

"I'd wanna kill him."

"Becaaaaause that's violating and sexual abuse."

Stephen groaned. "Walked right into that one."

"Oh come on, Stephen," Mary interjected. "You going to let them gang up on you like this and change your mind?"

"They aren't changing my mind," he said with a vehement head shake. "But taking the word of someone who just got hired in the company barely a few weeks ago over a friend I've known and depended on for years, can you not blame me for being skeptical about these accusations?"

"It doesn't matter how we've been treated by him, Dad. Our experience isn't everyone's experience. And if even one, just one, employee is dealing with this guy putting his hands on them or saying crap about their bodies, that's one too many." Chuck shook his head. "Honestly, I'm ashamed that this guy's been at the company for this long. How many other women has he done this to over the years and people just turned a blind eye and she didn't say anything out of shame or fear she'd be fired for pointing the finger at someone everybody loves so much? Doesn't that make you feel sick?"

Stephen squirmed in discomfort. "I know. I know I know I know. Okay?"

"I mean, it makes me feel sick," Ellie muttered. Chuck met her gaze and she shrugged.

"Stop putting the blame on your father, Chuck. What you didn't know, you didn't know," Mary argued. "We still haven't done much to vet this Vera woman—"

"Oh my God, she went through the whole hiring process, didn't she?" Ellie argued, putting her fork down. "You check on people, get references. It isn't easy getting hired at B.E.C… She somehow made it through the throngs of privileged boys strolling confidently up to the gates of the company with their My Daddy Went to MIT and I'm At Cal Tech backgrounds, so that's worth something."

Chuck winced. So Ellie had noticed the hiring trend. And he hadn't. "She's right," he muttered, looking at his sister. "We hire a lot of men. Especially white men."

Mary huffed in frustration. "I don't know how you can say that when your assistant is a Black man, an immigrant even. And the head of HR is a Black woman. And—"

"Yikes, Mom," Ellie breathed.

"What? How is your father the bad guy here?"

"Look, I was going to have this conversation with Dad later, but I guess we can do it here over this delicious quiche—the quiche is really delicious, Mom, thanks," he rushed out, poking it with his fork. He heard Ellie's put upon sigh as his mom smiled at him. "Ahem, look. This whole situation with Sean has made things pretty clear to me. While we do what we can to make sure our employees are happy at B.E.C., that they work hard, that they're given the space and freedom to work in the way that they work best, I don't think that's enough. We've been so focused up here in the nitty-gritty of running the company," he said, holding his hand high up above his head, "finding corporate partners and sponsorships, doing these big launches, cranking out product after product after product… and all the stuff down here has been status quo, same ol' same ol'." He lowered his hand by the table.

"What's that mean?" his dad asked, and Chuck felt him getting defensive. That, in turn, was making Chuck feel like maybe this wasn't going to be a great conversation. And maybe he should've saved it for a time when they were both sitting in his dad's office, without Mary and Ellie in attendance.

Too late now.

"There's a culture that's grown throughout the company and I'm really scared that it's a male-centric culture that makes working at B.E.C. difficult for women employees."

Stephen sat back against his chair and put his cloth napkin down on the table next to his plate. "So you think women who work for our company are miserable?"

"No, of course that's not what I'm saying. We've done a great job at making our employees value the work that they do and feel supported in that work and in their methods. We value thinking outside the box. We value the hypothesis method—try something big, see if it works, and if it doesn't, iron out the kinks and try again, failure is okay. All of that stuff. And our employees respond to that in an extremely positive way. I'm talking about the stuff…around the work ethic, around the product creation and the art design and everything else that gets done here, Dad. I'm talking about those moments when they have to report to their superior about something that happens that makes them feel uncomfortable. I'm talking about stuff that's said around the water cooler or at a company party. And, honestly, I'm talking about our hiring practices."

"You're just saying that because your sister said it and you've always been influenced by what she thinks and says." Mary gave him a look, lowering her chin and glancing at him through her eyelashes.

"Well, that wasn't condescending at all, Mom, thanks." Chuck exchanged a look with Ellie. She just looked tired and annoyed. "I could do a lot worse than being influenced by my big sister, first of all. Secondly, this has nothing to do with what Ellie said and everything to do with sitting in Regina and Cherish's offices for extended periods of time the last few weeks and actually learning about how our Human Resources department works. Our practices. How complicated it is. And how we've got the same type of guys making these decisions hiring in different departments of our company, which means the same type of guys are getting hired. And that's not good. We need more women getting hired in our company, up and down the ladder. We need to work with our employees and figure out how to change the culture at Bartowski Electronics."

It was quiet for a few moments. And then Stephen spoke up before Mary could. "A-Are you saying we've got bad employees, Chuck? This company continues its successes be-because we have such exemplary employees. We hired those people and they are good at-at what they do." He was getting flustered, Chuck saw. Mary put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed comfortingly.

"They are good employees. They're great, Dad. But what I'm saying is we can have great employees who also bring something different to the table. A different background, a different life experience. And that will make Bartowski Electronics Corporation all the richer. An influx of culture and experience and life views that aren't the same kinda thing we've been seeing in our employees is going to add diversity, which is a strength. People who look in places we aren't going to think to look, who build in ways we don't think to build. B.E.C. would be unstoppable, if you want to think in terms of success. But just…thinking in terms of being human beings running a company full of other human beings, it's the right thing to do."

"That's massive change you're talking," Mary said.

"Yeah. There's no other employer like B.E.C. in the whole world, no company like us. I'm proud of that." Chuck swallowed hard. "Which is why we can do it. I'm going to sit down with Cherish. She's done this before at other companies. We're going to come up with numbers, minimums and quotas we want to meet, percentages. And we're going to meet those standards as we hire people in the future. It's past time and I'm not…feeling great about the fact that I never saw it as necessary before."

Stephen waved his hand through the air. "I-I have to think about it. Okay? I have to think about it."

"What is there to think about?" Ellie asked. "I walk into that place and it's like a sea of clones."

"Enough, Ellie," Mary interjected. "Your father and brother hire plenty of women and people of color and people in the gay community."

"Oh, thanks for bringing that up, Mom. Because we need to take a look at those numbers too. People in the LGBTQ community."

His mom took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Well, I guess I just didn't realize you two felt this way about your father's work for all these years."

"Oh God," Ellie drawled.

"That's the point, though, Mom. I didn't feel this way, because I'm used to walking through a sea of people who look like me. So I didn't even notice. And I feel bad about that. I'm noticing now and Dad, I'm just asking that you take a look, spend some time in the other floors of the place, really pay attention to things happening on a day to day basis. We've let too much get by. And I think Sean's transgressions against Vera might be a product of that. We need to make sure nothing like this happens again. It can't. And this is how to do it."

"I-I'm going to think about it." That seemed to be the end of the conversation.

Ellie looked like she wanted to say something but Mary sent her a warning glare across the table. She just grumbled quietly and settled back against her chair, eating with a certain amount of frustration. Even still, he felt her put a supportive hand on his arm. And he appreciated it.

Chuck wondered if maybe he wasn't as big of a part of this company as he thought. If maybe his dad wasn't going to listen to him on this subject, and that signaled that his dad wouldn't let him in on decisions like this in the future either. And maybe, just maybe, this sabbatical he was going to take couldn't be better timed.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Sarah almost laughed at the look on the other woman's face. "You're…kidding."

"I'm not."

The brunette worked her mouth like she was going to say something else, and then shut it again with a click of her teeth.

"I know," Sarah chuckled, widening her eyes and holding up her hands. "Trust me. I was extremely surprised that the phone call went in that direction, imagine my surprise when she dove straight in to help me." She paused. "Well, I think mostly she's helping my clients. But I'll take it."

"Oh, Mom hates shyster lawyers. Hates them. She loves law, she loves the industry, she loves justice and whatever. When people like this law firm you're going up against make a mockery of the profession, she gets heeeeeated." Ellie bounced Clara in her arms a little and made a face at her, opening her mouth wide and making a gasping sound, then closing her lips around the baby's fingers, making her giggle boisterously.

Sarah laughed as mother and daughter continued the game. Clara's laughter did things to her. Like she was floating. It was such a sweet, gusty, pure little sound.

"Anyway, my mom is such an enigma," Ellie continued. "She gives a shit about people. She really does. She loves people, she loves helping people, she cares about the issues people face. And I really think she would've been an amazing lawyer if she'd gone through with all of that instead of marrying my dad and getting pregnant with little ol' me."

Sarah smiled softly. "I'm pretty sure she's found a lot of happiness in your dad and in having little ol' you and Chuck."

"Most of the time. Too bad I shit the bed marrying a successful heart surgeon whose own heart is made out of gold and he looks like a freaking supermodel," she drawled sarcastically.

Snorting, the blonde shook her head, pulling her feet up onto Ellie's couch and tucking them under her body to get comfortable as she sipped her beer. "I genuinely will never understand how your mom isn't over the moon about Devon. He's exactly what most parents want for their children. Successful surgeon, good income, extremely handsome, and very wholesome."

"He has his moments when he's not so wholesome if you catch my drift." Ellie reached over and nudged Sarah with a raunchy snicker.

Sarah threw her head back with a cackle. "Oh it's a good thing Chuck isn't here. He'd barf into his beer."

Ellie laughed. "He's such a child."

"Sometimes. But God I love that boy." She moaned a little and let her head thunk against the back of the couch, smiling dreamily.

"I know you do." Ellie smiled warmly, and turned to her daughter. "Huh, Clara? Honorary Auntie Sarah loves your Uncle Chuck, doesn't she? Yes, she does. She does."

Giggling, Sarah reached over and poked Clara in the shoulder gently with a "Boop", then settled back against the couch again. "Yeah, still…I mean, Mary and I worked pretty well as a team the other day. It was kind of shocking. I was shocked to my deepest core. And she only let out a couple of barbs. They weren't even barbs that cut that deep." Ellie rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Don't think she appreciated finding out that I went to Harvard Law." Ellie gave her the most excited look she'd seen on the other woman's face in a while, if ever. "Or that the director of Pinkerton traveled to the Harvard campus to personally meet with me and invite me to join the Pinkerton agency."

Ellie's jaw fell open. "Sarah Walker, you bad bad girl. I am so in love with you right now." She cracked up then, rocking forward, setting Clara down on her mat to play and scampering across the couch to throw her arms around the younger woman. "You just made my whole life!"

Sarah laughed hard, shaking her head even as she hugged Ellie back. "Did I?"

"Yep!" She relinquished her hold on Sarah and let out a bubbly giggle. "Oh my God, that's going to haunt her, I just love you so much. It's probably eating away at her as we speak. That wily Walker woman, getting her claws into my son," she mimicked Mary a bit perfectly, it was kind of spooky, "and now I find out she's a genius who was accepted into Harvard Law and me and my stinky little law degree from stinky little USC," Sarah laughed and shook her head, "and the Pinkerton director personally invited her into his agency… The neerrrrrve." Ellie snorted and pat Sarah on the shoulder. "I mean, I can't believe you, actually being insanely smart and accomplished and worthy of Chuck. Ugh. How dare."

Sarah knew the response she'd get from Ellie if she tried to deny that last part about being worthy of Chuck, and she was sure it'd be similar to Chuck's. Vehement and determined. And it wouldn't do anything to change Sarah's feelings on the matter. "I guess I couldn't help myself. Not the most mature thing I've ever done probably. Also might not share that part of our meeting with Chuck, just in case."

Ellie made a face. "Hmm. I don't know. I think you might get an evil snicker out of Chuck if you told him you did that. She deserved having you smear that in her face." Sarah laughed. "And I have to tell you, you're my hero for it. I love you so much." She turned and looked down at her daughter slapping her hand on the little squeaking bit of the play mat she was on to hear the sound and feel the air spurt out of it. "Clara, pack your bags," Ellie said. "We're leaving daddy here and moving in with Sarah now."

Sarah laughed hard, having to reach over and set her beer down on the coffee table so that she didn't spill it. "Your Mommy is teasing, Clara. She knows you're obsessed with your dad and would never leave."

"Fine. I am teasing." Ellie rolled her eyes dramatically. "When it's just the two of us, she adores me. And ugh, the second that guy walks through that door when he's off his shift, she's like 'dada dada dada dada dada'." Sarah snorted at the mocking face the brunette made. "Ridiculous." Clara turned and put her hands on Ellie's shins, slapping at her knees and squealing. The mother leaned over to snag her from the floor and lifted her back up into her arms again. "There she is. There's my Clara. Hello." She kissed her forehead and snuggled her. "You know who she gets super nuts over?"

"Who?" But Sarah knew, and she immediately thunked herself in the forehead with her palm. "Oh duh. Her Uncle Chuck."

"Ob. SESSED. She is obsessed. Chuck had to swing by and pick me up the other night to take me to the parents for our 'family dinnerrrrr'," she said with air quotes, rolling her eyes, "because my car's in the shop and Devon went to take Clara to see his parents that night with the other car. So on the way back, he came up with me so that we could finish our conversation, and Devon was already back with this one. Yes he was," she cooed at her daughter. "Oh my God, Sarah. You should have heard the purely demonic sound that came out of this baby's mouth when she saw Chuck at the door. I was ready to call a priest." Sarah laughed so hard tears squeaked out of her eyes. "She made this deep, warble sound like…" She made a sound that sounded like it belonged in the movie The Exorcist, rolling her eyes into the back of her head and stretching her arms out towards Sarah. And then she lowered her arms and giggled. "I'm only exaggerating a little bit, too. I think my child could be a psychopath." Sarah only laughed harder. "She did not stop making that sound and reaching until Chuck sprinted over to take her from Devon."

"Oh my God," Sarah said through tears, wiping at her cheeks. "I'm crying. Ohhh." She fanned her eyes with both hands.

"Who's my little psychopath?" Ellie was saying to her daughter, grinning brightly at the laughing baby. "Are you? Yes, you are."

And then Ellie's words from before she started making her daughter's demonic Chuck-obsessed sounds dawned on Sarah. "Oh yeah, the family dinner. How was that?"

"It was greeeeeat," she droned in a flat voice, the look on her face matching her tone.

Sarah raised her eyebrows. "Convincing."

Ellie let out a long, tired sigh. "I love my family and they also make me so exhausted. Did Chuck tell you about our latest family conversation?"

She shook her head, frowning. "No, he didn't tell me anything about the dinner. Haven't really had time to talk at all the last few days. I've been so focused on this case and he's spending all his time at the office. I was at his place last night. He came home so late and woke up to leave early again, there was no time to talk, only—" Whoa. She'd nearly just blurted that, she'd gotten so comfortable.

Ellie wrinkled up her face when it occurred to her what Sarah was about to say. "Ew."

Laughing, she shook her head at her friend. "Oh but he's a child?" she teased.

"That's fair. I deserve that." Ellie lowered Clara back onto the floor when her daughter leaned back and reached down towards her mat. "It was that conversation, though."

"Ugh, did Mary have rude crap to say about Devon?"

"No, no. Not that for once. The other… You know, the huge problem they're dealing with at B.E.C. right now."

The detective did a double take.

"I mean the way people just explain that kind of awful behavior away with the 'oh that's just his generation, he doesn't mean any harm' bullshit. And how oblivious they were about him, there right under their nose, just this…monster. And Dad! My own dad! Not wanting to fire him after that? And my mom defending it. God."

Sarah gaped. What in the hell was she talking about? Monster? Awful behavior? What "huge problem" was Ellie talking about? There was a huge problem at Chuck's company and he didn't say anything to her about it.

Ellie leaned in, surprise in her face. "Wait a second, you don't know about this? Chuck didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what? What huge problem are you talking about? Is the company okay? He hasn't told me anything about any of this!" And now she was worried about them, but also concerned about why Chuck wouldn't say anything to her about it. What in the hell?

"Oh. Oh boy. I'm sure Chuck's just been so…caught up in it, he hasn't had time or seen you enough. My dad has dropped all of the shit into his lap and I'm so disappointed in our freaking father for how little responsibility he's taking." Sarah blinked. What shit was Chuck having to deal with on his own, and why wasn't he talking to her about it? "One of their oldest employees was accused by a new hire of sexual misconduct. Harassment, touching her ass, commenting on her breasts. Totally disgusting."

"What?!"

"Yeah. And the second HR brought it to Dad's attention, he roped Chuck in and told him to deal with it. And Chuck is Chuck so he dove in headfirst and the poor guy, I'm pretty sure there's no water in that pool, so he's gonna walk away from this with a big ol' bump on his noggin. Maybe even a concussion, depending on how badly the rest of it goes."

"He's making Chuck deal with a sexual harassment situation at the company all on his own? Why?"

"Sean's an old friend of Dad's. The guy let my dad forego his paycheck a few times in the beginning there when the company was struggling to get its footing."

"But he touched some poor woman's ass and talked about her body?!"

"Yep. Witnesses and everything."

"He's getting fired, right?"

"Yeah, Chuck's probably already fired him today, or is he doing it tomorrow? I don't remember but soon if he didn't already do it. You know Chuck, he'd never not fire someone for that." Sarah knew that, and at the same time, she was still drowning in questions. Why didn't he talk to her about any of this? What in the hell was going on? "Our dad is basically holding his hands over his ears going 'la la la la la' and making Chuck do the dirty work. And I'm sure my brother is kicking himself over the whole thing still."

"Kicking himself? Over firing this sexual harasser guy?"

"No. No, no. I mean, I'm sure that's not easy, firing someone you've got that history with. But the fact that said history put blinders on him and he just missed stuff because it wasn't happening to him. He was definitely kicking himself at dinner."

Why didn't he talk to her? He was keeping this from her for how long now? Was he avoiding her? Was that why she'd barely seen him? Or did it just work out that way and he was burying his head in this situation to try to fix it and really did need to be at the office as often as he was?

"How-How long has this been going on? The accusation and the investigation and the firing and all that?" she asked numbly.

"Maybe a week? I don't know for sure. Longer?" Ellie winced. "I'm sure he just didn't say anything because…" She huffed, seemingly at a loss for words. "Well, I don't know. I'm sure I stuck my foot in it saying this. But I thought he…would tell you." Yeah, so did Sarah. "But I'm sure he's got a reason. You'll have to talk to him. The guy's doing all this on his own. And I love my dad but he's being shit about it."

"Oh trust me, I'm gonna talk to Chuck."

He wouldn't be on his own anymore.

She would find him the second she walked out of here.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

A/N: Again, I beg y'all to allow for these characters to be people. Because unfortunately, people don't always react the way they should, or the way we want them to. I wanted to show the different sides to Mary, because she's a super complicated person. Absolutely apeshit angry over the Donohues being preyed upon by grifter "lawyers" and wanting to tear them apart for it...and in the next breath getting huffy and defensive with her son and daughter who are asking their dad to have some more guts in standing up against a predatory dude in the office. And also, I've found in my own experience that if you say something even slightly critical of something your parents do, there's always the immediate defensiveness and honing in on a part of the conversation that isn't even close to what you're trying to say, getting their claws out like hoowww dare you, so what, am I a TERRIBLE PERSON NOW and it's just like (sigh). Mary absolutely seems to me like she'd be that kind of a parent. "Oh I'm SO SORRY I did such a BAD JOB as a MOTHERRRR" I can just SEE this Mary being like that.

So there, that was my thinking behind all of this. And I really just wanted Ellie to be an absolute goofball too. I wish the show had allowed for more scenes with Ellie being a goofball because she was actively hilarious when they let her be.

Thanks for reading! Please review if you can.

-SC