The Nerd Versus the P.I. Family
By Steampunk . Chuckster
A/N: Over a year later, it's baaack! Sorry. I really have no excuse. Writing 7483274 stories at once isn't the best tactic, only this is just fanfiction and it's for my mental health. It just so happens I have a way to share my therapy with others. Enjoy reading my therapy!
Summary: Sarah Walker has uprooted her life, leaving her job with the LAPD and going it alone as a private investigator, all in the hopes it provides her with less dangerous stakes and a schedule she can control so that she can handle her most important job, raising her toddler, a bit easier. But when the single parent thinks her computer might've been targeted by a criminal, she has to request help from the unlikeliest of sources: The Buy More Nerd Herd.
Disclaimer: I do not own CHUCK, I do not own its characters, I am not making money from posting this.
She cast her gaze around the massive open space the moment she walked through the automatic doors. She looked straight down the center aisle at the desk in the middle of the room, the rounded sign hanging above it: NERD HERD.
The sign looked to be in perfect order now, apparently thanks to Chuck's efforts last week, or whenever that was. Two weeks ago? Three? God, the days were starting to blend together now.
And after last night's debacle, Sarah was so on edge she was practically teetering over it. Max was the only thing keeping her from just letting it take her. He needed his mom. He needed his mom not to flip her shit and lose any semblance of control over yet another attempt to hack into her computer.
She'd caught it this time. And she was quick about following Chuck's clear and concise instructions, and she was pretty sure she'd followed them well enough to clear her device of the hacker's greasy fingers, but…
The truth was, she just needed to see him. She needed to be standing in front of him again after yet another string of days of not seeing him. No dates. Just sitting on her couch drinking wine and talking into the early hours of the morning before he left again. She felt like she was failing at this. He was clinging hard in spite of how terrible she was at finding time for him amidst everything. And she was glad, because she really, really liked him. But she also wondered if she was being selfish, letting him cling when she wasn't capable of giving him what he deserved.
And now here she was showing up at the Buy More, showing up at his place of work, needing his help again.
He wasn't at the Nerd Herd desk, and as she wandered around through the aisles, eyeing all of the different electronics, making her way into the DVDs and CDs, she realized this place was massive and she probably wouldn't find him just walking in circles.
She took her phone out and called him, deciding to cut to the chase and stop aimlessly wandering.
"Hi!"
He answered quickly, which made her smile as she responded. "Hey, there. Quick question. Are you at work?"
"Oh, always," he groused, making her snort. "Why?"
"I mean, are you at the Buy More at work? You're not on a job somewhere are you? Not on the side of the road in Palmdale?"
"Haaaaaa. Thanks for putting that lovely memory back into the forefront of my mind," he mumbled teasingly.
"Sorry," she giggled.
"I'm at the store. Why? Something wrong? Something happen?"
Sarah found herself grinning, moving onto her tiptoes to see if she could spot a tall someone with dark curly hair on the phone. But she still didn't see him. "Where are you?"
"In my office. Why—Wait. Are you here? Are you in the Buy More?"
"Yeah. Where's this office you speak of?"
"Oh. Shit, um…back left—back left corner." She heard a rush in his voice then, and beneath that the flurried rustle of papers. "Uh, yeah. Back… if you're facing the back of the store, it's on-on your left."
"See you soon," she said with a smirk, and she hung up, fixing the strap on her shoulder and hurrying towards the back of the store. She didn't much like the idea of anyone spotting her after the stories Chuck had told about the people who worked here.
So she slowed her pace a little, then crouched behind one of the stacks as an employee in a white button-up rushed past with her mouth pressed to a walkie-talkie.
"Skip, get your ass out here. I have to pee and your break was over, like, thirteen minutes ago!" the woman hissed through her jaw. "If you aren't out here in two minutes, I'll beat your ass. Got it?"
Sarah widened her eyes and crept around the stacks and out from her hiding place, sneaking along the outside wall of the room towards the office. She peeked out from behind another stack. And right as she was poised to make the last quick dash to Chuck's office, a tall, skinny man with wild hair and glasses sprinted out from the hallway she imagined led to the employee break area. She froze, watching him make a mad dash for the Nerd Herd desk.
Apparently that was Skip and the woman's threat had hit its mark.
The second he got past her, she took one more peek, and then she rushed to the office with CHARLES BARTOWSKI, NERD HERD AREA SPECIALIST mounted on a plaque. Maybe it was rude, maybe she should have knocked, but she grabbed the door handle and pushed on it, opening the door, stepping inside, and shutting it behind her, letting out a rough breath.
She spun on her heel to find Chuck with a deer in the headlights look on his face, papers in his hand half-shoved into a file in the filing cabinet he stood in front of. "Whoa. Oh. Hi. Um. S-Sorry about the mess. It's been…crazy." He huffed then and gave her a flat look. "Okay, full disclosure, I've been a mess and super lazy this week. There you go. It doesn't usually look like this in here."
That explained his almost panicked reaction to finding out she was at the Buy More. She would be walking into his office and seeing it "messy". The adorable neat freak of a nerd. Like he hadn't seen her office with papers literally on the ground when he first walked into Walker Agency a month ago.
She smiled, glancing around the office. "This isn't half as bad as my office is looking currently. Only reason my office isn't worse than it is is because I have a two-year-old always looking for dangerous crap to play with." She rolled her eyes. "Don't worry, Chuck. I'm in no place to judge." He sagged a little in relief, smiling.
She felt better already. About everything. How did he even do that?
"And I'm sorry I just barged in without knocking but you've told me all these stories about the people working here and I didn't really feel up for meeting them today." She winced. "So I didn't want to take the time to knock. I'm sorry, that was really rude."
Chuck shook his head, stretching a hand out placatingly. "No, please. You don't have to apologize. I knew you were coming. And…heh…let's be real, you come in here without knocking at any other time I don't know you're coming, the worst you'll find is me air drumming to music I've got playing in my head."
Sarah laughed. "I'd pay money to see that."
"I'm sure you would." But then he quickly walked around his desk, making a beeline for her. And she was enveloped in a hug that made the last few days of frazzled case work feel like nothing. She hugged him back.
"Hi."
"Hi, Chuck." She sighed. "It's so good to see you."
"I… Yeah," was all he said. He pulled back and winced. "I almost called you last night to see if you wanted to grab dinner or maybe see a movie or somethin' but then I thought… Well, I didn't because I figured you probably had to get Max to sleep and all that good stuff."
She did. But there'd also been the attempted hack once he went to sleep. She ran a hand down his tie. "Call anyway," she said, in spite of herself. "If I can't, I can't. But… I don't know, things get away from me and as much as I want to see you, I get stuck on one track and don't think to extend myself in any other direction."
Well, that was the truth. Blatant. Right out there for him to digest. That was…new for her.
Chuck nodded. "I'll reach out next time."
"Good. Thank you." She took a deep breath and glanced over her shoulder at the blinds that were drawn so tightly shut. "Do you always leave 'em like that? No natural light?"
He snorted. "All the way back here? There isn't much natural light anymore. It's just the store's glorious fluorescent lights beaming joy into my office through the nice, new blinds that aren't at all covered with kinks and in need of replacement." Sarah chuckled at the way he phrased that, the sarcasm dripping from his words. "I usually keep 'em closed, depending on my mood. Sometimes I just don't wanna know what's going on out there."
Sarah laughed. "Ignorance is bliss, huh?"
"Exactly."
"Well, I approve th—"
She didn't get a chance to finish her sentence because he got a bit of a tentative look on his face she couldn't read before he dove in to press his lips to hers, his hand tenderly cupping her jaw. He pulled back before she could properly respond the way she wanted to, but he kept his forehead pressed to hers.
"And I can do that without anyone seeing," he said softly.
Sarah bit her lip, more pleased than she was altogether comfortable with him knowing. "Mr. Bartowski, Nerd Herd Area Specialist, doing this in his place of work? This behavior is highly unprofessional."
"That's why the blinds are closed. Who's gonna tell?" He gave her a toothy grin that made her giggle. And he swallowed the giggle with another kiss, this one more chaste than the first. "So to what do I owe this very welcome visit to my place of work?" She must've let something show on her face because he frowned, his brow furrowing. "Something happened. What happened? Max okay? Carina?"
"No, they're both fine." She rushed out an answer, not giving herself a chance to let his concern for her son and her best friend settle in her chest because he seemed sincerely worried and she wanted to put him at ease.
He nodded, relieved.
"I have this feeling things are going to continue like this and I-I don't have any way of protecting myself without having to be so super vigilant every day about my fucking laptop, my phone, my work computer." She huffed and shrugged her messenger bag off of her shoulder, putting it down on Chuck's desk. "I'm pretty sure they tried to hack in again. And at this point, I've moved everything to a more secure place they can't access, and they're still trying to get in and I'm so fed up."
Chuck straightened his spine, his jaw clenching. "They tried to hack their way onto your computer again?"
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Thanks to your tips, I think I caught them. But now I'm freaked out that maybe they're still lingering on there." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'm so tired. It's not enough that this case is getting more and more convoluted by the day, that cryptic asshole keeps calling to give me hints that lead me to nowhere, I also have these pieces of shit constantly trying to find ways onto my computer."
She felt his hand curl around her arm and squeeze. "Okay, let me see this thing. If they're there, I'll find them and banish them for life, okay?"
Sarah sagged a little and gestured at her bag. "My laptop's in there. I'm sorry. If you don't have the time right now, I can come back, or we can meet somewhere later. I don't want you to feel like you have to jump when I say jump."
And she realized as they stood there, with Chuck smiling at her as he turned and put his hand on the flap of her bag, that their whole relationship—as young as it was—was Chuck jumping when she said jump.
"That isn't how I feel about it." He opened the flap and gestured inside. "Can I?"
"Yeah, of course. Go 'head."
He tugged her laptop out, unzipping the case and pulling it out of that as well. "And if you were to take a gander at my computer screen right now, you'd see a very rudimentary start at an RPG video game on there, so obviously I was neck deep in super important work. How dare you interrupt?"
Sarah giggled. "Really? You're in here gaming?"
"Yeah. I was seeing how it plays on an older PC. It's smooth on my PC at home, but I'm me so I stock myself with the latest, nicest tech gear. Here, it's a different story. This thing is an old-ass tank." He smirked and walked around his desk, patting the monitor like he was patting a dog on its head. "I like my stuff to be compatible with anything."
Intrigued, she tilted her head. "Is this a game you guys sell here at the Buy More?"
"What, the PC?"
"No, no. The game you're playing. Is this something I should get Max into when he's older?"
Chuck blushed for some reason. "Oh, I—I don't know if this thing's ever gonna hit the market, honestly." She gave him a curious look as he set her laptop down on his desk, shoving files out of his way and a random gaming joystick she'd only just now seen. Interesting. "It's not really…I don't know. It's kind of just a niche thing and I don't think I'd be able to get anybody to pick it up and wanna actually pay money for it. Heh." He shrugged, opening her laptop.
It clicked in her brain then, what all of this was about, and she walked around to the same side of the desk and leaned around him to look at his computer screen. There was a large winged creature floating with pointed ears but no face, their head tilted down as if they were looking at the hero holding a broadsword with their back facing her. "You made this? Yourself?"
"Oh. Uh…" He cleared his throat. "Yeah. It's…it's silly, really. Kinda dumb. Probably a Final Fantasy knock off if I'm being honest with you. Let's—" He pointed to her laptop and took a seat, reaching up to scratch behind his ear shyly. "Would you mind putting your password in to…? Yeah."
She noted his obvious embarrassment and lack of confidence about this game he'd somehow built himself, with the faceless winged creature thing and the hero with the sword, both things he'd created and programmed and whatever else the lingo was…and he'd done it himself. She didn't understand why he clammed up so quickly and blushed over it, why there was almost a dismissiveness about the way he eagerly moved onto her problem with her laptop. Perhaps there was even some shame.
She didn't push. She dropped it, even though she found she was impressed. Very impressed. And curious about why he reacted this way.
He plopped into his chair with a grunt.
Typing her password in, she leaned over his shoulder and put a hand there, squeezing. "I don't get why they're coming after me so much. They have to know by now that I don't have anything for them on here. I've moved it all. And they're still trying to access it."
She smiled a little as he took the time to reach up and drape his hand over hers where it laid on his shoulder, and then he set both hands to the keyboard and got to work.
"Well, the most important thing for now is that I want to make sure they don't still have a few of their talons in here." His brow furrowed as he got to work, and because she didn't really understand what was going on with whatever it was he was doing to her laptop, she stepped out from behind him and moved to grab the chair on the other side of the desk, carrying it around to put it next to him. "Oh! Shit, I'm sorry! I should've—"
She gave him a look and he gave her a sheepish, crooked smile. "I can move a chair, Chuck, it's okay."
Plopping down next to him, she watched and waited, quiet as he worked.
And after about ten minutes, he pulled his hands from the keyboard and turned to give her a puzzled look. "You got rid of them, Sarah. Following my tips got rid of them, but they left…um, well… How do I put this?" He let out a long breath. "They left digital footprints. And I'm confused."
"Confused? Why are you confused?"
"They don't seem to be all that interested in what's actually on your computer."
"What? Then why access it?"
"I don't know. All I know is computers, you know why criminals do the crap they do. Why would they get onto your computer, fuck around a bit, and not actually try to get access to the information they might be able to use?" He crossed his arms, a thoughtful look on his face as she wracked her brain. "Only thing I can compare it to is if someone broke into a bank, left the safe alone, didn't take any money at all, but tipped over the tables and chairs, emptied desks on the ground, kicked over filing cabinets and whatever, then bolted when they heard the sirens."
Sarah frowned. "Why would anyone do that?"
"I don't know. But these guys are good at this. And for some reason it's like they're being extra…careless, extra loud almost. Like they wanted you to find them, to know they were there." He shook his head. "The first time you brought this to me, that wasn't the case. But it is now."
"They're taunting me," she said, her frown deepening. She felt a chill in her. "Why break in somewhere, let them know you were there, but not do anything actually detrimental? Why go and announce yourself but then you don't steal anything?" Pausing, she lifted her gaze to Chuck's. "Unless you just want to scare them."
Chuck looked angry as he turned away, glancing down at his lap, then up at the laptop again. "I don't know why, but that pisses me off worse than if they were trying to steal."
"Yeah. We're on the same page. This is fucked. I'm fucked."
"Why are they trying to freak you out—Oh." He pressed his lips together in a thin line. "They're trying to scare you off the case, scare you to stop what you're doing, stop helping the LAPD with this, because…maybe they know you're good. Or-or maybe you're getting too close to the truth."
She smiled a little at him. "Not bad guesses," she muttered. "But I don't know why I'm the one being targeted by them the most." He got a look on his face and then shook his head a little. "What?" she asked.
"Nah, I'm not a cop. Or a P.I., or any other law enforcement type person. I don't know anything about any of this stuff. I just do the computer thing."
"Chuck?"
"Well, I guess I'm trying to put myself in bad guy shoes." In spite of the seriousness of this situation, she couldn't help smirking slightly. "You want to hit something, go for the easiest target."
She bristled. "And I'm the easiest target?"
Chuck spun to face her, holding his hands up placatingly. "Wait, no. I didn't mean that like… No. No no no. I mean that-that they'd see you as an easy target because it isn't just you. There's…" He winced, seeming like he didn't want to say it. And she knew what he was going to say, feeling her face go white as a sheet before he even said it. "You have collateral that the other people involved in this might not have. I mean, I don't know for sure what the familiar situation is of everyone else, this is just a guess. But I know for sure that you have something else to protect and keep safe besides just yourself."
"Max," she breathed, turning to face forward, her heart racing. She went for her phone in a panic. "They know about Max and they know if they scare me enough, I'll back down, step away, to protect him."
"What are you doing?"
"Texting my mom to make sure she has eyes on my son right now."
She sent a fast text, trying to make it sound casual as she asked how things were going, and her heart sat in her throat, even as she knew this was the point of all of this, making a mess on her computer to scare her shitless and get her to pull out altogether to protect herself, her privacy, and most of all, her son.
}o{
She seemed to ease significantly once her mom texted her back that she and Max were on the swings in their home's backyard, the same swing set Sarah had played on when she was a kid, she'd told him once she put the phone away.
Chuck still felt a nervous ache in his chest. There were things he still couldn't figure out how to put into words. Things he'd found on her laptop that set off alarm bells. Sure, they weren't trying to steal information from Sarah, they weren't trying to access files or top secret clues or whatever else she kept on her hard drive, but they were gaining access to her. A lot of access. So while they didn't escape with anything tangible, they were worming their way into her existence, grabbing hold of her, getting a foothold. It scared him. And he had no business being scared for her when she was a professional at this stuff. She wasn't just a private investigator running her own agency, she'd been a full-fledged detective before that, with the LAPD no less. She knew what she was doing. She could handle this.
And still, he was scared.
This was digital terrorism, only it was being directed at one woman. With their attempt at Carina's hard drive, he supposed it was being directed at two women, but so far Sarah was the only one who'd been hit more than once.
That he knew of.
It felt personal.
And Sarah being a mother to a two year old made it feel all the more deplorable. Not that a mother had more worth than a woman without a child, but that there was a second person, a helpless little guy, also involved in this. Collateral.
Maybe he shouldn't have called her son collateral to her face, though. That was probably a huge fuck up.
He cleared his throat as she sat hunched over in her chair, her elbows on her knees, head hanging forward.
"Sarah, I maybe…phrased things kind of terribly earlier. What I said about Max being…collateral. That wasn't…" He cleared his throat again. "I shouldn't have said that. It's cynical and… I don't know, it was too rough of a thing to say to you about your son. And maybe a little…dehumanizing. I didn't mean to… I guess, I was trying to just emphasize the fact that you aren't just worried about yourself, you also have to worry about Max, and that makes you the perfect person to go after. You have more to…"
"Lose," she answered when he took too long to search for the word. He winced hard at that. But she just sat up and looked at him, reaching out to give the front of his shirt a gentle, affectionate tug. "You don't have to apologize. I know you weren't trying to be blunt or whatever. You're right. What you said, it's…right. I'm constantly being faced with evidence that I'm in a very unsafe career for a single mom, trying to raise my kid and be a P.I.. It's a tightrope act. And maybe one of these days, I'll loose my footing, and who's gonna end up getting the brunt of it? Max, that's who."
He narrowed his eyes at her thoughtfully. "At the same time, Sarah, it…" He shook his head at himself, deciding not to say it.
"What?"
"I'm not a parent, let alone a single parent. I shouldn't say this stuff."
She huffed, seeming almost impatient. "Look, Chuck, I sincerely appreciate that you think about that first before you toss parenting advice or diatribes about the safety of my kid and whatnot in my direction. I really do love that about you. But…you can talk to me, still."
"Okay. Well. It feels like this is all part of the plan. Their plan. Whoever the hell they even are." He shook his head. "Make you question the safety of all of this, as if—as if you weren't aware of how unsafe this case is, how dangerous it is. You know. Of course you know. You've been in law enforcement for years, right?" She looked up at him through her eyelashes and nodded quietly. "You knew it was dangerous when you went into the academy to become a cop, you knew it was dangerous when you were promoted and made into a detective, you knew it was dangerous when you left the LAPD to pursue starting your own P.I. agency. And you knew getting involved in this case would be dangerous. For my money, they're miscalculating. You know all of this is dangerous and you're still involved because you want to solve this case, you want to make it so people stop getting…hurt. I guess. I don't know anything about this case you're working; I'm just assuming that you're saving people from bad dudes."
She snorted quietly, her small smile warm as she watched him, and yet he saw curiosity there too. He understood that part completely. He had no idea where he was going with this either.
"They're employing scare tactics because they want you to think about Max, to think about your son and how he factors into this choice you've made to be involved in the case… as if you aren't already constantly thinking about him, about his safety, about how and where he's involved in all of this. As if you aren't in a perpetual state of weighing your son's well-being before you decide which cases to take." He took a long breath and licked his lips, wondering if he should continue, afraid to meet her gaze even as he felt her eyes on the side of his face, making his cheeks feel hot. "I'm probably way outta line saying this, Sarah. But they think you're stupid, weak, and a bad mom, and they're so wrong about all of that. Because you're clever and brilliant, you're a badass, and you're easily the best parent I've ever met. Hands down." He rubbed his hands up and down his pants. "I say all that because I think you know how to handle all of this, even if I've only known you a few weeks, and I think you're capable of knowing when to cut the cord. It seems like that's what you do all the time in this line of work, having a kid at the same time. And I have no standing whatsoever to tell you what you do with your life, but if I can just say this still… Fuck 'em. Don't let them scare you with this elementary school hacking bullshit."
Chuck finally looked up at her, clenching his jaw, looking right into her blue eyes. "You got this. You've been doing this for over two years, as far as I can tell. And you're more than capable of continuing, as much of a tightrope act as it is. You haven't fallen yet. Let them play their games. They do this again," he said, gesturing to her laptop, "you just come to me. You come to me every single time if you need to. I'll take care of this part. You take care of the stuff you're good at and torch the mother fuckers."
She didn't say anything, merely staring at him, her eyebrows raised, chin pulled back slightly.
"Sorry," he muttered. "I shouldn't have said any of that. You don't need my advice. Especially 'cause I've only known you for, like, barely a month now and I really don't know you all that well, or your process for…handling this stuff. The balancing act. I know nothing about any of it. I didn't mean to overst—"
But she stood up suddenly and he froze, his words dying in his throat. And she towered over him, standing there looking down at him. And then she took a step back, putting more distance there. She shook her head and walked all the way to the other side of the desk. He was very confused.
He thought he'd royally fucked up until she hugged herself and let out a rough breath. "Sorry. You just…" She sighed, and just like that he saw longing, yearning even, in her face. She squirmed a bit, hugging herself tighter. "We're in your place of work. In your office. And you have to do that…impressive stuff you do with my computer. It's very important that gets done. But you said those things to me. And if I'm sitting that close to you, after you said all of that, I don't know that I'll be able to resist literally pouncing on you. In fact, I know I won't, so I'm gonna stand over here for a bit."
Oh.
Fuck this. He clicked one more thing on her laptop and let the footprint erasure commence, and then he pushed himself up to his feet to follow her around his desk. Her blue eyes widened as he approached. And he stopped just short of putting his hands on her arms, pressing his chest to hers.
He risked seeming extremely unprofessional, and he realized there was no one in his entire existence he'd ever wanted to impress as much as he wanted to impress Sarah Walker. But maybe this would be worth the risk. "I don't know if you missed the part where I was playing video games before you came into my office, but I'm not really big on respecting the sanctity of this office. Or professionalism in the workplace. So…"
The amusement that lit her face gave him the answer he wanted, needed. And she bit her lip, dropping her gaze to his lips. "Well, who am I to tell you what to do in your own office?"
Before he could think of anything properly witty and flirtatious, her hands framed his face and her mouth was pressed to his. She'd pushed herself to her tiptoes, and the moment he surrounded her waist with his arms, he felt her arms wrap around his shoulders, one of her hands landing in his hair.
So worth it.
So worth the risk.
Worth everything maybe.
He forced his brain to shut up and he kissed her harder, earning a soft sigh, her fingers tightening in his curls and in his shirt at his shoulder.
But forcing his brain to shut up also meant he lost control of his impulses, which is how he and Sarah ended up against the wall beside the door to his office. She squeaked and giggled, and the giggle became a soft moan. Sarah pulled him even closer so that he was pinning her to the wall.
She clamped her hand around his then and moved it, pressing it to her thigh pointedly. He took his cue and squeezed, pulling so that she wrapped her leg around his waist.
Knock knock!
"Bartowski! You in there?"
Sarah pulled her lips back from his with a gasp and he shut his eyes tightly, hissing out a, "God damn it."
"Bartowski?"
Knock knock knock
Chuck stepped to the side as he felt the pressure of Sarah's hand pressing against his hip, and she slipped out from between him and the wall. He turned to watch her move the chair back to the proper side of the desk and throw herself into it, crossing her legs.
"Yeah, coming!" he called out, sending her a frustrated look that earned a shy smirk.
He did a full on angry dance, his hands making fists at his side as he stomped and made growling sounds. She snorted and whispered, "Open the door!"
Chuck did, grinning at his once-boss, now-colleague. "What can I do for ya, Big Mike?"
"Ah. You are here. I thought maybe you'd left for a job."
"No, I didn't leave for one. But—"
"Good. 'Cause, son, we've got us an emergency situation." Big Mike made his most serious face, puffing out his chest and straightening his spine, holding up his clipboard.
"How emergency is emergency, though, Big Mike, because I've got—" He gestured over his shoulder towards where Sarah sat at his desk.
"Damn near catastrophic," Big Mike boomed, interrupting him.
Chuck reared his head back and blinked. "What, um, seems to be the problem? See, because I'm actually with a client right now. In the middle of a consultation."
Big Mike stepped halfway into the office then, gently shouldering Chuck to the side. "Oh, I see." He lifted a hand up in greeting. "Salutations, miss. Sorry to interrupt. We have a fire in the store and this here's our best firefighter."
Chuck watched as Sarah's eyes snapped wide. "A fire?!"
"Oh. Ahem." Big Mike shifted his weight as Chuck rolled his eyes and gave Sarah an apologetic look. "Apologies. Maybe fire isn't the best word for me to use. It meant it…allegorically." He leaned in closer to Chuck and mumbled out of the side of his mouth, "Did I use that right?"
"Um. Depends," Chuck mumbled back.
"Good enough." He raised his voice again to speak to Sarah. "You wouldn't mind if I steal him for a quick minute, would you, miss?"
"Big Mike, I don't think—" Chuck tried, but the Burbank Buy More store manager's hand clamped down on his arm almost painfully, shutting him up.
"Without his help, we might not have a literal fire on our hands, but it will be an…allegorical one. You get it, I'm sure." He smiled at her with the amount of politeness he typically reserved for the forty-something year old housewives looking for a new blender and ending up leaving with a deal to have a new washer and dryer installed in their home later that day.
The man was a sales artist.
And he seemed to sell it well enough to Sarah too because she smiled back and nodded. "No, of course. I understand. Fires are meant to be put out. Both the literal ones and the allegorical ones."
Chuck swallowed hard. He could think of a fire he hadn't wanted put out, the one that was raging in him before the fucking knock on his fucking door. That had been a very good fire, damn it. Damn it.
"I like you," Big Mike said, waggling his finger and grinning genuinely. He grabbed Chuck's shoulder and began pulling him out of the office, saying, "I like her."
The Nerd Herd area specialist let himself get dragged out, but not before turning back to face her and mumbling, "Sorry. I'll be back as soon as possible." She gave him an understanding nod and this time he mouthed, "Don't leave."
He thought he saw her give him an amused head shake before Big Mike snapped the door shut between them and gave him a hefty shove in the direction he meant for him to go. "Well, I am especially sorry to pull you away from that, Bartowski." He whistled. "Been a long time since I saw a woman that pretty." He paused for a moment, stopping, looking up with a dreamy look on his face. "Belinda Greene, Compton High, class of '83. I have regrets, son. So many regrets."
"Sorry about that, man." Chuck pat him on the shoulder. "But, um, I'd like to get back to the job, so…about this allegorical fire…?"
"Oh. Right. Of course you wanna get back to that," he said with a snicker and a wink. Chuck pressed his lips together in a thin line and narrowed his eyes, doing his best to make what Big Mike walked in on seem like a completely innocent and professional first meeting between someone who needed tech help and a guy who was good with tech. Instead of the seriously hot make out session they'd been having against the wall.
Some fires were so, so good.
Big Mike led him towards the back of the store. "Misty locked herself in the theater room and she's not letting anyone in."
Chuck raised his eyebrows. "Not even you?"
"Especially not me." He huffed, looking guilty. "I blame myself. I put too much pressure on her today. Too much pressure. It's just that our sales numbers have been so low this month. Storewide. And she's the best salesperson we got, so I gave her a goal to meet today."
"A goal?" Chuck gave him a look. "Big Mike. You know better than to give Misty goals. She doesn't like pressure."
The store manager winced. "Can you get her to come out?"
Out of all of the days for Big Mike to have done something to trigger one of Misty's episodes, it had to be today, and at this moment when he had Sarah in his office. He was trying to protect her computer from shitheads related to her case who were trying to scare her off the case, and instead he had to be here, trying to coax an old coworker of his out from the home theater room.
Again.
Chuck neared the home theater room as Anna turned from where she was trying to talk to the greenshirt through the locked door. Anna shrugged and gave him a frustrated look. "Woman to woman isn't working either," she said, shaking her head.
He nodded. "Okay. I'll see what I can do."
Misty Gilford was their best salesperson and she had been since years before Chuck had even been hired over a decade ago. She was a Burbank Buy More legend. But sometimes she had episodes, a nagging mental illness that overwhelmed her when she had too much stress heaped on her, when she got too nervous. And she either had her episode on the sales floor, startling the customers, or she did this—locking herself up somewhere and staying there until someone could coax her out.
But the Burbank Buy More was an equal opportunity employer, and the regular customers loved her, just like she was loved by her fellow employees and Big Mike himself, who regularly took her with him for holidays with his extended family every so often if she wanted to join them. Having Misty around was worth the bad days she had on the rare occasion.
As if no one else here had bad days. He'd take Misty over all the Nerd Herders put together, if he was honest.
Chuck sidled up to the door and knocked on it. "Misty? You in there, Misty?"
"No!" Chuck heard her snap.
He sighed. "Oh. Bummer. I thought maybe my friend Misty was inside the home theater room. I wanted to have a chat with her…"
"Oh. Okay. Well…" There was a long pause. "Maybe I am Misty. But I don't want to talk. I just want to be left alone. Leave me alone!"
"But it's me, your pal, Chuck."
There was another long pause. "Oh. Chuck?"
"Yeah, it's me. I just want to see if you're okay, that's all. Are you okay?"
"I can't do it today. I can't do it, Chuck."
"That's okay."
Misty didn't say anything for a while and then he heard a quiet, "…is it?"
"Sure." He shrugged. "It's okay if you have days when you can't do it, Misty. You don't always have to be the best salesperson here. You don't always have to come in and kick every single day's ass. Sometimes it's okay if you just muddle through. You're human."
"I don't want to let anyone down."
"Oh, you're not," he said quickly, shaking his head. "I promise, Misty. You aren't letting anyone down. This is just a bad day, that's all. We're a team here, right? We have your back on your bad days. Okay?"
"…Nobody's mad at me?"
Chuck turned and looked at the handful of Buy More employees gathered around, then gestured to the door with a flick of his head.
"No, no. Of course not." Big Mike stepped up to the door. "Least of all me, Misty. I'm not a bit mad atcha. In fact, I was just about to go get some donuts for everybody. How's that sound?"
She was quiet for a moment, and then the door popped open and a tear-streaked face popped out timidly. "The chocolate frosting with the rainbow sprinkles?"
"Now, come on. Of course the chocolate frosting with the rainbow sprinkles. Don't I know my favorite employee?" Big Mike asked, smiling kindly.
Misty opened the door all the way and came out. "Okay. Sorry. It's a bad day."
Skip immediately swept in with tissues and she took one, dabbing her face.
Chuck waved a hand through the air. "S'okay! Look, I have bad days. Skip has bad days." Skip nodded, his eyes wide. "So does Big Mike. He has more bad days than all of us combined."
"Now ain't that the truth," Big Mike chuckled. "Wanna come with to get donuts? Come on. We'll both go."
"Okay." She sniffled. "Let me just…freshen up." She gestured to her red splotchy face, still wet with her tears.
"You take your time."
Anna went with Misty, taking her hand and holding it securely with a "Come on. I'll help."
Big Mike thumped Chuck on the back as the others wandered off as well, Jeff sending Chuck a wink and a golf clap as he went, Lester pointing at him with a smile. "Don't know what we'd do without you, Bartowski."
"Doesn't matter who you are, we all have bad days sometimes. She just needs a reminder sometimes that she's just like the rest of us. A little different," he amended then, holding up his thumb and forefinger close together. "But different's not bad. It's just different."
His one-time boss reached up and mussed his hair, knuckled his chest with his fist lightly, and walked away, throwing over his shoulder, "Now go on back to that client of yours, huh, champ?"
Chuck didn't appreciate the wink really, but Big Mike didn't mean any harm. Shaking his head, he sighed and turned to head back to his office…only to find Sarah leaning against a nearby rack of printer ink. He widened his eyes, speechless.
She just smiled and crossed her arms.
Had he been that long? She must've wondered what was going on and wandered out here to see. Had she been standing there through the whole thing?
"Sorry," he said, closing the distance. "Sorry this took so long."
Sarah shook her head and bit her lip. "No apology necessary." She looked in the direction Anna and Misty had gone in. "She going to be okay?"
"Oh, sure. Yeah. Sometimes she isn't and we have to call her caretaker to pick her up and she comes back the next day to try again. And that's okay, too." He turned back and smiled at her.
"We all have bad days," she said quietly, warmly, just looking at him.
Chuck narrowed his eyes. "So you were here for all of that."
"Sorry. I'm a private investigator; I'm curious about everything. Even though that guy clarified it wasn't a literal fire, I guess I sorta wanted to know what an allegorical one looked like."
"Still not sure he used that word right."
She giggled, and then she looked around. "Think we can go back to the office where I can hide before things settle down and people start looking at me?"
Chuck laughed, then winced, and covered his mouth. "Sh. Yep. Yeah, let's sneak along the back row here. Keep your head way down as we do this, P.I…. You're a tall one."
Laughing, she led the way.
}o{
Her heart still hadn't stopped hammering away in her chest, even with a half hour's separation from the incident at the home theater room door with Chuck's coworker…or was it his one-time coworker? She still couldn't figure out whether he was an employee at this store or not.
Even considering they were sitting in an office that had his name on a plaque on the door.
It wasn't surprising that Chuck Bartowski had been the one person in the store to get the woman to finally unlock the door to the home theater room and come out. Even not knowing him as well as she wanted to after only a few weeks, she knew enough to be well aware of his innate kindness.
But she was knocked onto her ass by just how understanding he'd been, how he'd exuded warmth and humanity in a way that truly felt special.
In turn, Sarah was really starting to have it sink in that Chuck himself…was truly special.
Which set her heart to hammering away in her chest. And her brain was also going a mile a minute.
Those two things happening at the same time? Well, it could lead to nothing good.
Chuck finally lifted both of his hands from the keyboard of her laptop and grinned at her. "Done. I've also had to jump through some hoops to figure out how to do it, but I think it's going to be effective enough to stop them from doing this bullshit again."
Sarah raised her eyebrows. "What? Really?"
"Yeah. I've made it extra hard. Hopefully it's hard enough to get onto your system that they deem it not even worth their trouble… Just to scare you? Having to break through multiple anti-hack coding patterns? Not worth it." He shrugged, then slowly closed her laptop and patted it respectfully. It was sweet. "She's all clear. And hopefully this keeps her clear."
Sarah smiled hard at him. "You're such a show-off," she teased.
That made him laugh. "How else am I supposed to score another date, Sarah?"
She smirked. "Wow, okay. Ulterior motive, huh?"
"Yep." He snorted then, ducking his head. "No, no ulterior motive. I meant it when I said I want you to bring this kind of stuff to me whenever it happens and you don't know what to do with it. I'll help you with this stuff so you can focus on your case."
"Okay," she said, nodding. "Thanks, Chuck." Reaching over, she put her hand on his wrist and squeezed. "Really. You're…" She took him in, all of him. His kind, open face, the way his hair curled so beautifully, the way she could see how much he liked her in his rum-colored eyes. "You're kind of amazing." She shook her head and scoffed. "Not kind of. You're just amazing. And sometimes I wonder if you aren't…too good to be true."
He seemed utterly shocked by that. And when he gathered himself, he shook his head with a self-deprecating smile. "Oh trust me, I'm true. You just haven't seen my warts yet. And I have plenty."
She smiled and scooted a bit closer to him, letting herself sit there beside him in his office for longer than was maybe necessary, just enjoying his presence. And her heart hammered away as her brain buzzed.
A/N: Maybe someday we'll get notifications back LOL why do we put ourselves through this? Review if you can. I'd really appreciate it. More soon!
-SC