A/N: My one year anniversary for this story! Home sick with a cold meant extra time to write! I couldn't wait to write this. Part one of DeLorean. A few housekeeping things. How exactly did Sarah and her father get in contact? He was in jail...she was under a different name. I gave a plausible back story there. The lack of information her father had in the morning would point to no more discussion about any of that, so that works too. Was Jack staying with Sarah? Seemed weird if he was there the night before and didn't talk about anything? Casey said he knew...how? It wasn't like Sarah would have shouted she had plans with her father...yet Casey knew all about Jack's back story. And he still goes by Jack Burton? Weird. I have more explanation for that in part two. This whole episode is very hard for Sarah...but this time, with the exception of his spying on her at the beginning, Chuck shines here, there for her, comforting and understanding. Enjoy!

What eventually once and for all lifted Chuck out of his bad mood was Ellie. But not the way you would think, not as she had ever done in the past. It was Ellie's pain, something I had only seen a brief glimpse of that night with Devon's parents, that refocused Chuck away from his own heartbreak.

I ended up going back to my hotel after the tactical team cleaned up at Bennett's dojo. As it had transpired, all three of us each had our own car at the scene, so we all drove home separately. But Chuck called me from his car as he was driving; he told me he knew I was tired, but he was so upset about missing the wedding tasting with Ellie. He wanted to know what had happened, so he would be prepared when he walked back in on his sister after another no-show.

I told him, very generally, that the Woodcombs were a little overbearing, and that about half way during the event, Ellie had stormed off to her bedroom, not to emerge again. I assured him it had nothing to do with his absence, that I had smoothed that over well before Ellie lost it.

I had originally thought that the entire evening of being passed over and ignored by the Woodcombs was all too much for her patience…why Ellie had stormed off during that dinner. But it was very specific, what had put her over the edge. When Woody had brought up Ellie's parents, or more importantly, Ellie's father. I realized that after I thought about it, not catching it as it happened.

I don't know what happened when Chuck finally returned later that evening. Whatever Ellie told him, it was significant. He was different–less wounded, more sympathetic. He made it a point to tell me that Ellie wanted him to apologize to me for her behavior, something I knew I needed to bring up the next time I saw her, tell her that I understood.

"His parents brought up my father, didn't they?" he asked me after he had offered that second hand apology.

"Woody." I started, the name still strange to say out loud, borderline ridiculous, "offered to walk Ellie down the aisle."

Chuck winced, seeming to understand the whole picture differently than he had the night before.

Ellie had tolerated all that pushiness, snapping only when her father was brought up. At the beginning of December in 2008, Chuck had only spoken about his father to me once…as he was explaining Mother's Day in October to me over a year ago.

Our Dad was here, but he was never really here…

What that meant, the scope of the young Bartowskis' abandonment, wasn't clear to me here. Ellie and Chuck's mother left when Chuck was nine, Ellie 12. Their father, it turns out, left seven years later, when Chuck was 16 and Ellie was 19. And according to Chuck, that seven years in between, Ellie had done far more caretaking of him than his father had. A part of me had felt connected to Chuck in a way I had never felt with another person back then when he told me that. The more I learned, the closer it made me feel. To both Chuck and Ellie, despite the ruse that existed with Ellie and my relationship.

Chuck told me he was trying to find his father. Ellie's only real wish for her wedding, for herself, was that her father walk her down the aisle. All Chuck told me then was that the last known address he had for his father was in Las Vegas, with a phone number that he tried but was now disconnected. He told me that information was in a birthday card that Chuck had received on his 20th birthday. He hadn't heard from his father at all for six years.

It had been close to ten for me, but at least my father had an excuse. He was in federal prison. The last time I saw him was after I graduated from high school…when he told me to not visit him again. Graham had kept tabs on him for me, but since Graham's death several months ago, I was unsure. I knew my father's sentence was almost up before Graham died. Was my father out of jail?

Even if he had wanted to contact me, there was no way my father would have been able to find me. I was using a different name, undercover for the CIA. Maybe my father remembered one of the myriad names we had used over the years, but he knew nothing about Sarah Walker. I was still Jennifer Burton as far as he knew.

Thinking about Chuck, looking for his father, made me start to think about my own father. Not because I missed him, or missed him the way one might think. I had been without him almost as long as I'd been with him at this point, sad as that was to acknowledge, and my life was worse for wear because of it all. Did he want to see me? Did he ever think about me, wonder if I was alright? The hard truth was…unless I tried to find him, I would never know. I had the means to find him, and not vice versa. The wondering was the worst part.

So I checked very basic records online at the federal prison where he was serving time. It didn't take long at all to find out the truth–Jack Burton, the last name he had used while we were in San Diego, had been released from federal prison at the beginning of October of this year. A little over two months ago. But the prison had no forwarding address, no information at all.

So I searched for him…pretty much the same way I searched for my mother. I was taking a chance, just because I had no way of knowing which alias he was using, any of his old ones or something new that I had no idea about.

It only took two days to find him.

As unbelievable as it was, he was in Los Angeles. Los Angeles. I could have crossed paths with him at any point during the last couple of months and never even known it. He was still using Jack Burton as his name. He was registered in a hotel, which was strange, but not all that unexpected, considering he had only just been released from prison.

I had almost no doubt, even after ten years in jail, my father had gone back to his old life, running cons. It was the only thing he had ever done in his life, the only thing he knew how to do. Some people change their ways in prison, rehabilitate, find Jesus…whatever. Not my dad.

I had his number and his address. I thought about calling. I almost dialed the phone twice, but I froze both times. Sure, I was reaching out, because there was no other way for him to know where I was. But I wasn't brave enough to handle what would have happened had I just called and he brushed me off, like I didn't matter, like he didn't care. It was a possibility. In the broadest of senses, my father loved me…but not so much that he would have disrupted his life for me. I knew that. I had lived with that scar, that knowledge, all my life.

I wasn't taking the risk of opening that wound, making it bleed again.

So I called the front desk at his hotel and left a message for him. I told the receptionist at the desk my name, Jennifer Burton, knowing he would remember my last cover, that I was looking for him, and the phone number he could reach me at. I made it a point of telling her that I was in Los Angeles, and she could tell him that.

Then I waited.

My father called me the next morning.

The sound of his voice brought tears to my eyes, unexpected tears from a place deep inside me. I had almost forgotten what he sounded like. He called me Darlin', like he always had, like nothing had happened in between high school and now. He talked and talked; I barely said two words. I couldn't. It would leave me too vulnerable, crying where he could hear.

He didn't ask me anything–not how I was, where I was, what I was doing–nothing. Initially, that hurt, just as much as it had hurt when I had gone to visit him in prison. I know now, after years of pondering, as well as my husband's loving understanding and willingness to have those difficult conversations with me, that my father didn't ask those things, then or now, because he just always assumed that I would be alright. He knew how tough I was, how smart I was. Of course, he used that as an excuse to be less of a father than he should have been. Just because I could take care of myself didn't mean that I should.

All he did was tell me he wanted to take me out for dinner. And since I was in L.A., he would come to my hotel and pick me up. We made the date. Three days away. I would finally see my father again in three days.

I purposely didn't tell Chuck that any of this had gone on in the background. One, he was still upset about Ellie's tearful confession that she wanted her father at her wedding, and adding my family's angst to the mix was too much. More importantly, he had already heard far more about my past than I ever wanted him to know, especially while he was at my high school reunion. I couldn't handle the thought of Chuck knowing everything…and risk altering that look, the way he always looked at me. Would he look at a criminal, a lying thief and a cheat, the way he looked at me now?

Now the idea seems stupid and ridiculous. Chuck knew I was a thief, a con, a cold-blooded assassin (although he had not physically seen that part of me yet)...and he still looked at me that way. Like I was the only girl in the world, like the sun rose and set on me, that nothing existed where I wasn't.

If anyone has ever looked at you that way, you know what I mean, how hard it is to really describe. If no one ever has, make it your goal in life to find that person. Trust me, I know. It's the difference between light and dark, life and death.

I was working my usual Orange Orange shift, bored and anxious at the same time. Nothing was going on spy world-wise, so I was literally just serving frozen yogurt. Boring. And that lack of something real to do let my mind wander, cycling back to my father and the dinner we had planned for that evening, and my anxiety would ramp up, my thoughts running away with me.

My father had seemed genuinely interested in seeing me. Was it legitimate? Or did he want something? I hated second guessing, hated that I had to second guess.

Chuck came to see me on his lunch break, inquiring about a fake date with Ellie and Devon. I had to tell him I already had plans–something he had never heard me say before. He asked if it was a mission; I told him no. I was being mysterious, which I hated, which also made him extra curious. I had to be a little abrupt, and told him it was personal.

Again, something he was not used to at all. So much so that he thought I was keeping it a secret because it was a mission. He tried to get the info out of Casey when I wasn't so forthcoming. It sounds crazier than it was–he had gotten info out of Casey with a little flattery before, so he thought maybe that was a good place to start.

Casey knew I was going to meet my father, but he found out by accident, after he saw a text come through on my phone with a time and a meeting place. He thought I had some secret mission, too; the possibility of something from my real life was so foreign, that was his first go-to as well. I was brief…telling Casey I had a scheduled dinner with my father, nothing more. He knew better than to pry, especially after I had recently backed him up when he was so out of control over Bennett, so he just grunted and left it alone.

That evening, my father arrived early at my hotel with a car. He came up to my room and knocked on the door.

My heart threatened to pound out of my chest as I stood there, after I'd opened the door.

"Look at my little girl, all grown-up!" he gushed, movie-star smile and all. He grabbed me, hugged me, which was a shock, so much so that I just stood there, frozen.

He smelled the same. Same cologne, laundry soap, deodorant combination. It made me feel 17 again. Slowly, I hugged him back, blinking the tears out of my eyes. His hair was still long, now shot through with many strands of gray, but otherwise, he looked no worse for wear after ten years in prison.

"Good gosh, Angel, I barely recognize you," he said as he pulled back. His smile faded, ever so slightly, and he added, sobering, "You look so much like your mother."

I had never heard him bring her up, not since I was seven. The fact that he was mentioning her now brought her back to the front of my mind. She was an hour away, raising the baby I had left in her care. That baby would be close to two now, I thought.

I felt a quick trill of panic right then. I had never contemplated that my mother and my father would ever cross paths again in their lives. It was part of the reason why I felt relieved when my mother agreed to take care of the baby.

Was there a chance my father would try to find her as well? He never had, not once, not even when she was homeless and thought she was dying of cancer. But he had also never said her name like that, wistfully, like he missed her.

I changed the subject, quickly. "Dad, I go by Sarah Walker now," I told him. I didn't explain why. He connected the dots in his head, believing I had done what he thought I should have done after he was imprisoned–started running my own cons. He thought I was grifting, and Sarah was my cover. Well, to him, it was better than the truth–the CIA. I believed at this moment that if I had told him I was a CIA officer, he would have left, maybe not even taken me to the dinner he had promised.

I finished getting ready, doing my hair and makeup, while he waited in the plush green chair by the window. The conversation was shockingly generic, touching on very little, but seeming engaging just the same. That was one of my father's gifts, to talk at length about nothing while at the same time being so charming and disarming that his listeners talked about deeper things. I didn't fall for it, but I knew that was what he was doing.

I put my hair up on a whim, not the usual way I wore my hair, but it felt right. I wasn't me…I wasn't Agent Walker, or Sarah Walker, or Chuck's Sarah…I was Sam, even though I didn't know who she was any longer. Neither did he, so this was a reacquaintance, a realignment. My father hadn't called me Sam since I was four, but that was still who I was, his daughter, before I was Katie or Rebecca or Jenny. Sam wore her hair up, with subdued makeup and a shawl to cover her bare shoulders.

We walked together down to the lobby of the hotel. The people behind the counter who always noticed me coming and going must have been shocked, both at the way I looked and who I was with. I didn't pay attention, just stayed in my role.

In the lobby, I could feel the chill that was in the air. My father saw me shiver, because before I even mentioned that I was cold, he draped his suit jacket over my shoulders. I got into the car that was waiting for us.

He was taking me for Italian. The restaurant was De Biasio's, a place I had heard of but never been. It was on the expensive side, with a seating area outside. He ordered wine for me. We ordered off the menu. While we were waiting for our food, he started talking a little more personably to me. He reached across the table to smooth a lock of my hair back behind my ear.

I had almost forgotten that he could be tender with me at all.

The moment, the emotion, was short-lived. Chuck's tracker started beeping on my phone, blipping actually, because I had it set for long range surveillance and he was close. Very close. Three tables away close, once I looked over my shoulder and saw him hide behind his menu like he was five.

Chuck was spying on me? My initial anger flared, but cooled, replaced with irritation. He couldn't take my "personal" at face value. What did he think spying on me would accomplish?

Even though I was angry, I could never stay angry at Chuck, no matter what he did or how foolish he acted. I told myself he would have done this because he was worried about me, thinking this was some mission or something. I don't think he thought it was a date, like a real date, with someone else (which is why he freaked out when he saw me with my father and thought I was on a date), and I don't think he was invading my privacy in any way other than because he was concerned, although, factually, invading my privacy was exactly what he was doing.

I excused myself from my father and walked over to Chuck's table. He hid behind the menu again and made a stupid voice. I pulled the menu away from his face.

"How did you find me?" he asked, flushed with embarrassment.

"The GPS on your watch," I huffed. "What are you doing here?" I accused. He looked at his watch like he had forgotten I could do that.

"Look, I'm sorry, I came for backup only," he stammered.

"I told you it was personal," I insisted, my arms crossed tightly across my body.

"I know, I know…but I flashed," he admitted. That scared me for a moment, until I realized he meant he just flashed, while he was already spying on me.

He jumped to his feet, mumbling through gritted teeth that although I deserved some time off, that I should know I was with a bad man, a very old bad man.

I rolled my eyes when I realized what he thought. That I was on a date with a man old enough to be my father.

Before I could explain, my father walked up to the two of us. While Chuck was berating my father, I was dying inside. He didn't hold back, just said what he was thinking. About my father. And maybe also…about me? If he couldn't separate it, what hope did I have?

My father, Mr. Witty himself, piped up by saying, "That's all true. But I'm a hell of a dancer."

Chuck looked mortified.

I turned around. "Chuck, I'd like you to meet my Dad, Jack Burton. Dad, this is my boyfriend, Chuck."

I think Chuck was hoping for the ground to open up and swallow him whole.

My dad had a sardonic smile on his face, looking Chuck up and down, assessing like I had always seen him do. He was trying to figure something out beyond just the current scenario. What was real and what was pretend.

Magnanimous as always, my father invited Chuck to join us at our table, but Chuck just awkwardly excused himself. He tried to apologize to me; I just told him I would talk to him later and went back to eat with my father.

"So…Chuck, huh?" my father said after a short silence.

"Dad, can we just not talk about him right now?" I asked.

He smirked, studying me much the same way he had studied Chuck when I introduced him. But he complied. He didn't bring Chuck up again until the next morning.

He showed up bright and early the next morning, suitcase in hand, alongside the room service cart he ordered for me downstairs when he had arrived. He lugged his suitcases into my room, then took the food off the cart and told me to sit at my table. He pushed the cart out into the hallway, setting the covered plate in front of me.

"French toast, whipped cream, fresh strawberries," he announced. "Just how you like them."

"When I was 12," I quickly told him. I wasn't the same person he had left. I needed to make him see that, but I couldn't even begin to figure out how.

I was already dressed for the Orange Orange, and I could see him sizing me up, dressed like that. He was probing, asking about my job. He was sarcastic about my life being believable. He was right, of course. Scooping frozen yogurt didn't pay for a hotel like the Maison23, but the only other people who would have questioned my cover…hot dogs or frozen yogurt with a Porsche and a fancy hotel room…were Ellie and Devon, and they had the "getting back on my feet from D.C." thing. They also had never seen my hotel room. It might have been harder to explain if they had.

He started rattling off all the things about my life he thought were suspicious. My job, my name, Chuck. He thought I was running an elaborate con. He thought Chuck was a Beverly Hills heir, that I was trying to swindle money from him.

That thought hurt, worse than I thought it would, worse than I expected. In another life, if I hadn't stopped and I stayed like my father…maybe that could have happened. I had to shake myself, telling myself there was no version of reality where I would meet Chuck and not fall in love with him. Even if he eventually hated me for who I was, my true intentions.

Steeling myself, I warned my father to stay away from Chuck. I confirmed he was my boyfriend, not a target for anything.

He didn't believe me. Instead gave me some flip lines about not cutting him in. He told me he didn't need Chuck's money, he had enough of his own. He opened his suitcase, showing me almost a million dollars in stacks of hundreds.

He offered me money and I refused it. I told him I didn't want any of his stolen money. His stealing, his choice to bring me along, had ruined my life, left me here in this soul-destroying profession, with no choice, no hope for it to get better.

Good Lord, he had been out of jail for two months and already he was running a huge con like that?

He told me he had gone to Dubai, which I'm sure was a violation of his parole. He also mentioned that he had stolen the money from Sheikh Amad. Saudi oil family, renown terrorism funders. A thousand red flags that I needed to alert Beckman about, my father or no. It was too serious.

I remember thinking as I left…Dad, what did you do?

I called General Beckman right away, telling her we needed to have a briefing about some pertinent information I had just learned. We were all there–Chuck, Casey and me. I told Beckman straight out my father had conned Sheikh Amad. I asked her to give the order and I would bring him in. I felt awful, caught in the middle, and I wanted her to force my hand.

Chuck freaked out when he heard me say that, not believing that I would or could arrest my own father. Casey, on the other hand, spoke right up. I hated the entire thing, just wanting it to be over as soon as possible.

Beckman had other plans. The CIA was interested in Amad, for the terror watch list on which he was a key interest. Beckman said there were no current photos, no financial information. They were hoping to use my father as an asset to get intelligence.

I spoke up quickly, telling Beckman my father didn't know I was CIA…and that he would be upset if he learned that I was. I could feel Chuck looking at me, curiosity mixed with sympathy that I didn't want, not from him, not like that. She ordered me to talk to my father and take Chuck with me. It was my worst nightmare come to life; she drove it home by stressing how dangerous my father's latest con was.

It made me wonder if the con Graham had him arrested for in 1998 was similar to this…and why hadn't he learned his lesson after ten years in jail.

I called my father from the Orange Orange and asked him to come to dinner with Chuck and me that evening. He sounded suspicious, but he agreed. He thought I was trying to steal money from Chuck, and he wanted in on the take.

He continued hounding me when I got back, while I was getting ready to go out. It was infuriating that he didn't believe the words that I was saying, that Chuck was caring and sweet. Like I didn't have the capability of caring about a person for qualities like that. My own father didn't believe I could genuinely care about another human being. I tried to ignore how much that hurt.

He was using the past as a predictor of the future, which is usually a good way to go. He didn't know me any more, but he thought he still did. That was what I told myself. But the truth was…my father knew I wasn't normal, however that is defined. Maybe not thinking of normal the same way, but he knew. Grifter, CIA agent…not a regular girl with a regular boyfriend. He didn't mean to hurt me, but he had. But that was his way…hurting me without thinking, without caring. And I was better off when I believed that about him.

Chuck was the one who wanted me to believe more, to see the good in him, the way he saw the good in everyone. I had been around Chuck long enough by this point that I know I tried to give my father the benefit of the doubt.

In the midst of all of that hounding, he told me how much money Chuck had in his bank account. I asked, pretty sharply, how he knew. Turns out, my father picked Chuck's pocket at the restaurant and checked the balance on his debit card. I snatched the card out of my father's hand.

He told me he wanted to check Chuck out because he was worried about me. Worried about me. Because why…because I may have been putting my feelings above my work? Late to the party, Dad, even if my "work" wasn't what you thought it was. Knowing that Chuck was broke made him worry more, because now he didn't understand what I was doing…at the yogurt shop…or with Chuck in general. Me…incapable of love.

My dad was on his way downstairs to get a cab when he opened the door to reveal Chuck standing there. Of course, he called Chuck "Charlie," a name I know Chuck positively hates. My father always did that, gave people nicknames that he could remember, instead of what they wanted to be called. He had started calling Chuck "schnook" too, which actually bothered Chuck less than Charlie did.

He complimented Chuck on his tie, his attire in general. I didn't repeat it, but my dad was right. I loved Chuck in a suit, and a navy suit like he had on that night was the best. His hazel eyes looked closer to green when he wore dark blue, something I had to be very close to him to see.

He walked into my hotel room, smiling, telling me he thought my father was warming up to him. The fact that he cared at all about what my father thought was sweet, if completely unnecessary.

I gave him back his debit card.

He defended my father to me, saying my father was only being protective, and that he had acted like a jerk the night before and deserved it. I told him he was attributing good intentions to my father because he was a good person.

"Well, he must have done something right. You turned out pretty good," he said gently, a soft smile on his face.

He made my knees feel like butter. I had to have been beaming, because the smile he gave me in return turned my heart liquid inside.

If only I knew for sure he would always think that way, maybe I wouldn't have been so afraid to let him see the real me…whoever she was.