The Nerd Versus the P.I. Family

By Steampunk . Chuckster

A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing! Let's just get back to Walker Agency. Posthaste.

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.

"I just don't understand how people like this could actually exist," she said, shaking her head in awe.

Somehow, after a few hours had passed, Sarah found herself sitting in a chair pulled up right next to her most comfortable chair that she'd forced the I.T. guy to take up residence in as he worked on his "GreyWolf" thing. She wanted him to be as comfortable as possible in the hopes he was better able to find the problem, if there was one.

They had continued to talk, even as she'd tried to straighten out the mess that surrounded him in his small space at her desk, and when she'd gotten it looking at least halfway decent again, she'd decided she was hungry. After a lot of persuasion to let her bring him back some food for a late lunch, he'd finally relented, but only if she let him give her money for his food.

She'd met him halfway, striking an accord on that front. And they'd even shaken hands on it.

And now they sat side by side, finishing up their food, her laptop pushed to the side as his program continued to do its job on it.

"Like, I feel like you're describing cartoon characters. But not, like, kids cartoons. Like…adult cartoons. You know what I mean?"

"Oh, they're straight out of the raunchiest most uncomfortable Comedy Central cartoon you can imagine. But I promise you they're real."

"I don't get it." She shook her head and leaned her elbow on the desk, shifting her weight to face him better and propping her head in her palm. "I don't get how they still have jobs with that kind of behavior. I mean, showing up to work high? That's not anything I ever did. Or at least…" She snorted. "Okay, full disclosure, there were a handful of situations where I showed up to work hungover. Before I ever had this job. Like in high school and college." She winced. "Whoops. But, I mean, I was functional. Doesn't sound like this Jeff guy is functional when he does it."

"He's never functional. Because he's always on something. I'm serious."

"That's insane."

"Yeah, Jeff has this van that he lives in."

"What?!" She laughed hard. And then she made a face, wrinkling her nose in a wince. "Wait, I shouldn't laugh about that. That's depressing. I mean, nobody should have to live in their car."

"It isn't a car. It's a van. Like a really awful smelly van with cobwebs in the wheels and tailpipe. And he lives in it because he wants to. It isn't a money thing. Trust me. His family is wealthy. He could live wherever he wants." Chuck shrugged. "He chose this."

"This whole thing is really bizarre." But she was fascinated. She couldn't help it. Even if Chuck was merely making this all up just to entertain her, she was having a blast listening to him tell it, watching him tell it. "Hey, how do you even know about this van of his anyway?"

"Jeff's van?" She nodded. "I've been to the Jeffster Mobile."

She found herself giggling at the way he said it, as if he was some old bearded man telling tale of some legendary creature he'd seen when he was a boy. "Noooooo," she drawled, playing along.

His eyes glinted in utter glee and she felt something twist hard in her chest at the sight of it.

"Yes!" Chuck winced then. "I have shown up to work high. Not just hungover, but high. After…" His voice drifted off then and he pulled back a little. "Wait, if I talk about this with you… This is so unprofessional. I must look like a total loser to you right now. I'm sor—"

"Whoa, hey. What am I gonna do? Call your superiors and tell them that their I.T. tech is really good at customer service but that he told me way too much about that one time he was high?"

He tilted his head as if he was thinking about it. "You know what? Probably not."

"Mm. No." She wrinkled her nose and shook her head, then grinned toothily. Then she picked up a fry and daintily bit off the end of it, chewing, then putting the rest of it in her mouth.

He chuckled and shook his head. "For the record, this isn't how I usually conduct my work. I'm normally a lot less…er…"

Cute? she thought to herself. She had a feeling he was normally this cute, though. "Don't worry," she reassured him, furrowing her brow. "I'm not gonna rat you out, and I don't think you're unprofessional, if that's what you're worried about. I'm wildly entertained by this. And I could use some real entertainment here. Just tell me."

Chuck gave her a crooked, slow smile, just watching her for a few moments, and then he finally relented and nodded. "All right, I trust you. I went into Jeff's van. Inside of it."

"You didn't!" She leaned in closer, fascinated.

"Oh, I did. Much to my chagrin."

"Why? Why would you do that to yourself? It seems like that'd be where a black hole might lurk. Like, if black holes could exist or pop up on Earth, I feel like it would pick that guy's van first, based on the stories you've just told me about him alone."

"I never said I was a smart guy, Sarah. I said I was an honest guy."

She laughed. "Touché. So why?"

Chuck made a supremely pained face. "I had just gone through a pretty terrible break-up. A much smarter, more successful woman threw me into a dumpster, something I maybe should've seen coming. You know, in hindsight." She frowned a little, narrowing her eyes curiously. Who in the hell was that woman to toss a guy like this in a dumpster? "Anyway, I was a total mess, not myself by any stretch of the imagination. And when Jeff and Lester found out, they invited me to the van for some really hard pot, like really good stuff. Phew." For a moment, as his eyes fluttered close, Sarah felt like he was going back in his head and experiencing whatever it was he'd inhaled or ingested in that van. "In their defense, they were sincerely feeling terrible for me and wanted me to be okay."

"So…what the hell did you smoke?"

"Still don't know to this day. But it was so strong they had to freakin' drive me home, and then the next day I went to work feeling like I'd died and come back to life. The blunt they rolled was like…fat." He put his fingers up and held them an inch apart.

"Holy crap! That's nuts!"

"I was in a rough place, okay? Don't judge me."

He chuckled, which made her think it wasn't such a sore spot for him anymore and it was okay for her to laugh too. So she did, shaking her head. "You're braver than I am. No way would I be sitting in a van like that and smoking whatever those guys gave to me."

"You'll think I'm even more nuts if you ever go to the Buy More and Jeff and Lester are there. You're gonna think I'm some kind of masochist."

She laughed. "I've done stupid shit because of a break-up. It's okay."

The only reason she hadn't been more broken up about her break-ups in the last three years had been because she had much more important priorities, specifically a son to take care of. That started with Max's father. And her insides squirmed a bit just thinking about that guy wherever he was, thankfully having signed away his rights, never to enter their lives again, and the idea that he was still biologically Max's father. In spite of not wanting anything to do with him.

That break-up hadn't wrecked her as badly as she might've thought, because being pregnant and knowing she had a life growing inside of her had taken priority. And the short-lived attempts at relationships hadn't busted her up, either, because she had a baby, and eventually a toddler, to keep her busy—much too busy to be broken up over men who hadn't gotten all that deep under her skin in the first place.

"As stupid as that?" he asked, sending her a wide-eyed, dubious look.

She snorted. "I don't know. Maybe not. I didn't get into any weird guys' vans, at least."

Chuck threw his head back, laughing, and she found she liked the sound of it. He didn't hold back, letting every bit of glee show in his face, letting her see and hear it, his nose wrinkling and his eyes shining. "Then you are much smarter than I am."

"Maybe I just have a bit more self-preservation." She giggled at the side-eye that got her. "No, seriously. Really, I don't blame you. Sometimes shit happens and there's this…urge you get to just…do something reckless." She understood that. She got those urges, too. Only she was well aware every time that she couldn't afford to do anything reckless. Somebody else depended on her now.

"Exactly. That's exactly it. Man, I was a wreck, but doing that made me even more of a wreck somehow? I'm not proud."

She smiled softly at him as he pulled the laptop open again and typed away. She still couldn't even figure out what he was doing. Her laptop screen looked the same as it had before except that there was a small box off to the side with numbers scanning across it. Whenever he typed something, she couldn't spot any changes to the screen or the numbers. How did he even know what he was doing? How did he knew if he was helping?

It was a whole world she was sure she'd never understand. A completely different language, a level of brain use that was just so foreign to her.

And it was impressive, too.

"Suffice to say, that's not something I do regularly. I don't get high and go to work. I survived that day just fine, as awful as I felt, both emotionally and physically…" She made a bit of a pout face at that. "But it's not professional and anyway, it's just not smart. I'll leave that kind of bullshit to Jeff and Lester. I can't afford to be that way."

"So what you're saying is you're responsible."

"Yeah. Guess so. I try to be."

She let out a quiet hum of a giggle. "Join the club. All you can really do is try."

"Oof. I hear that."

They exchanged a look and he smiled slowly, before he cleared his throat and grabbed the wrappers to his burger and fries, shoving them in the bag. "Here, I'll take out the trash since you got the food. Which I still appreciate a whole lot. It was totally unnecessary."

She handed him her trash and he stuck it in the bag. "It was nothing. I had to eat, too. Anyway, you paid for your own food; it's not like I paid for it."

"After a lot of arm twisting, yeah," he chuckled. "Where's the nearest garbage?"

"There's a kitchen type area at the end of my hall. Turn left when you get out there, keep walking. You'll see it. It's got a vending machine and a large trash can, microwave, fridge…"

She didn't use any of it. It wasn't her own space. But she knew other businesses on the floor did. She couldn't imagine keeping anything in a shared area with people she didn't even know, people she never worked with or even saw, except maybe once or twice on the elevator.

It creeped her out.

The vending machine and trash, as well as the sink, she did use every so often. And on the rare occasion, she used the microwave if she wanted tea or something. But she refused to touch that refrigerator.

She was in the process of getting her own little mini kitchen set up in the corner of her personal office since it was the biggest space in her agency.

Sarah thanked Chuck and watched as he left her office, and then she scooted closer to the laptop and just stared at the numbers.

She couldn't make rhyme or reason out of them. And she was terrified to touch anything in case it ruined the whole thing his GreyWolf thingie was doing.

Shaking her head, she got up and walked around her desk. For a moment, she eyed the Nerd Herd I.T. guy's messenger bag. And she was ashamed of the sudden urge to snoop inside. She imagined he had a laptop, maybe some documents or something, whatever he needed for the job. What else would he have in there?

Would she discover anything about him if she looked in his bag? She couldn't deny she wanted to know more about him, this guy who was brilliant enough to have built his own virus and hack scanning program that he hadn't patented for whatever reason, who'd had his heart broken and climbed into a nasty van with coworkers to get wrecked on some kind of marijuana-type mystery substance, but still insisted he was responsible and that professionalism was important to him. This guy whose nose wrinkled when he grinned, who laughed freely and without restraint.

In just these last few hours, chatting over burgers, having a conversation as she straightened up her office and he … GreyWolfed her laptop, Sarah had decided it had been a very long time since she'd enjoyed talking to someone this much. Stimulating discussion with topics ranging from food preferences to philosophical pondering, but nothing that steered too close to the personal or private. She didn't know if it was an unconscious agreement between them or what, but it kept things easy and comfortable.

And for the first time in a long, long while Sarah was having fun with someone other than the select few people in her pack. Her son, her parents, her best friend… Even the relationships she'd had since Max's birth had lost their luster quickly, as balancing her son and her romantic life had been more of a strain than anything, even if she'd had some fun moments with those men. (The un-fun moments had outnumbered the fun ones eventually.)

Choosing Max every time had been a no brainer. Obviously. But the fact that she kept having to choose was bullshit.

Sarah shook her head and rolled her eyes at herself. No, she wasn't doing this. She couldn't. It was trashy and intrusive. She wasn't looking through his things. God, what was she even thinking?

Anyway, what was she hoping to accomplish by looking at what he carried around with him? What was she playing at here?

This guy had sat in her office for a few hours, they'd eaten lunch together at her desk. Was she really this starved for attention from a male who wasn't still in the later stages of figuring out potty training?

Just then, she heard him come back into the waiting room from the hallway, whistling a tune she didn't recognize. She smiled unconsciously, and walked over to meet him, stopping in the doorway between her office and the waiting area. "Find it?" she asked.

"Nope. I just balled it up, tossed it into the elevator when the doors opened, and ran away." Sarah barked out a laugh and he grinned, shutting the door behind him. "Yeah, I found it. I got a weird look from a guy who looks exactly like the guy from Mad Men. He gave me, like…one of those you shouldn't be here looks." He winced. "Dunno if he's another tenant. I think he was kind of following m—whoa, wha—?"

Sarah acted fast. She lunged for the door, gently scooted him out of the way and locked it, dashing back to her office to shut the door and then rushing to shut the light off in the waiting area, before she grabbed Chuck and pinned him into the corner beside the door where whoever had just shuffled up outside of her agency wouldn't see any shadows through the popcorn glass or under the door.

"Wh—?"

"Sh," she whispered, pressing herself in closer to him and holding a finger to her lips.

The private investigator was only focused on the feet shuffling, the unsure shifting of weight she could see by the shadow under the door.

And then came the knock.

She felt Chuck tense and she pushed a hand onto his chest, meeting his eyes and shaking her head subtly.

He looked supremely confused. But he just nodded a little. Thank God.

Her landlord cleared his throat.

"Miss Walker?" He knocked again. "Miss Walker, you in there? It's Mark."

She responded with silence, shutting her eyes tight and thinking go away go away go away go away go away. She snapped her eyes back open again and glared a little at Chuck when she spotted an amused twitch at the edge of his lips, his brown eyes glinting in the dark.

Let him think whatever the hell he wanted, the jerk.

"Miss Walker, are you there?" There was another knock and she let her head fall back, rolling her eyes at the ceiling. Jesus Christ, this guy just did not take the hint. Which fit within her experience with him ever since she started renting this office space for her Walker Agency so that she could get her career as a P.I. going.

Finally, his shoes scuffed the tile floor with a squeak and she listened closely to the sound of his receding footsteps.

"Did he see you come in here?" she whispered then, looking up into Chuck's face.

"Uh, I-I'm not sure. Who is that? Is he bothering you? Do I gotta go find him and clock him?"

In spite of everything, the fact that he'd just said that, seeming like he was kidding only a little bit, made her giggle. "Uh, no. That's okay."

"Good. You'd probably deliver a more effective punch than I would anyway."

Sarah laughed, leaning into him even more as she rocked forward. But then she angled her chin up and they were…definitely too close. Her nose was maybe only a few inches away from his.

She stepped back as nonchalantly as she could, running her hands down her front, straightening her blazer and reaching up to tuck her hair that escaped her low messy bun behind her ear.

"Sorry about that. Again, you probably think I'm nuts."

"No, I-I don't. Not at all. I'm…curious, though. Not gonna lie."

He cleared his throat and seemed to rub his hands up and down the thighs of his pants, as if to dry his clammy palms. It made her smirk inwardly.

"That's my landlord."

"Oh. Oohhh."

The understanding that came over his face made her bristle slightly. "Whatever explanation for my hiding from my landlord is going through your big brain right now, you can toss it out." She stepped back from him towards her office again and he followed her slowly.

"Explanation? I-I don't know—" he tried.

"I'm not behind on my rent. Just for the record. That isn't why I'm avoiding Landlord Mark. Okay? So just…take that out of that techy brain of yours."

"It's out," he said, holding the two first fingers of his right hand up by his head. "Promise."

She led him back into her office and let light flood in through the blinds again, then went to close her door so that it was only ajar about an inch or so. If Mark came back, he'd likely not see the extra light. "We'll do this so he can't see I'm here."

"Why are you avoiding him? If I'm not being too nosey."

Sarah let out an annoyed breath and walked around her desk to plop into her chair. It let out a similar annoyed huff as she sank into it. "It's such a cliché but he hits on me really awfully whenever he sees me." She affected her best Mark voice. "How's the new digs treating you, Sarah? Can I get you anything? Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable here?" She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, if you left me the hell alone, I'd be a lot more comfortable."

He chuckled, shaking his head. "He sounds like a pain in the ass."

"He is. But the rent was cheaper here than any other space I checked out when I was opening my agency, so… Here I am." She flicked a piece of fuzz off of her skirt.

Chuck was frowning thoughtfully as he came over to sit in the other chair, leaning his elbow on her desk. "You have to weigh whether it's worth it or not. Sticking around with an annoying pest of a landlord and having cheaper rent for a pretty good space, or…finding someplace more expensive that might not be this nice and not getting hit on by your landlord."

"Yep. I chose the former, 'cause I'm cheap. He's not so bad that I feel unsafe. It's just…annoying." She scoffed then, shrugging one shoulder. "Anyway, I'd kick his ass easy if he tried it. He also knows I carry a gun."

Chuck let out a low whistle. "I believe you. About all of the above."

"Yeah, well… Anyway, I'm used to it. I just didn't want to deal with it right now. I've got someone here trying to find out if anyone hacked my laptop and it's a serious situation. I didn't feel like explaining."

"Understandable."

Sarah sighed then and leaned back further into her chair, slumping a bit and staring at the screen. "Can you tell at this point if anything is funky on my laptop?"

"Not really. If I stopped it now, I might, but then I'd have to do a whole bunch of work to start GreyWolf back up in the same place and retain all of the information it's gathered so far."

"Oh God, don't do that." She widened her eyes.

He chuckled. "Getting tired of having someone cooped up in your office and don't want to have to repeat it all over again, huh?" He glanced at his watch. "Another three and a half hours with the I.T. guy doesn't sound good to you?"

"That's not it at all," she said, sending him a flat look, smiling a little. "You're not so bad. You're actually kind of…okay. You know, for a nerd."

He cracked up. "You know what? I'll take it, because you actually used the correct term this time instead of geek."

"Ehh?" She shrugged in faux modesty, proud of herself.

"I'm proud of you."

"Thank you."

She giggled, shaking her head. And then she sobered up and sighed, pushing her hands through her hair. And for some reason, any semblance of a filter she normally would have had fluttered away as she muttered, "I don't know if it'd be better for this GreyWolf thing to find out I've been hacked, or if it'd be better for it to find nothing at all."

It was out of her mouth now and there was no taking it back. But the silence in the room was somehow comfortable rather than tense or awkward. And yet, she could still almost feel his brain working as he sat beside her, as if he was trying to figure out what to say, or how to say it, without being "nosey", since that seemed to be something he was worried about. And that made sense, considering how much he geeked out over the fact that she was a "private eye".

Finally, he spoke up.

"Why would you ever want to be hacked?"

"I don't want to be hacked," she said, shaking her head. She looked at him steadily. "But if your GreyWolf scanner thing finds out I've been hacked, at least I'll know."

"Know what?"

She breathed out through her nose and smirked, then fastened her eyes on his.

He was just a guy who worked at the Buy More. He wasn't a police officer, or a part of Casey's LAPD squad. He wasn't one of Carina's peers at the DA's office. There was no reason for her to tell him a single thing about this situation except for what was pertinent to what he was here to help her with.

But he felt…trustworthy.

And God, this had been such a week. And while she loved Max more than anything on the planet, talking to him about work wasn't really an option. She did talk to him about work, anyway, of course, but he didn't exactly talk back in complete sentences or really even understand what she was talking about. And he peed himself after drinking too much water—so much pee that it had escaped out of his diaper and made a mess on his pants—the last time she tried to talk to him about her frustration over a case. That had been a while ago now.

This guy also wasn't Carina or any of her old squad mates, which meant she wouldn't have to deal with the potential shame of being The Leak if she did confide in him.

She needed to confide in him. He was here, and sweet. He'd understand the seriousness of this situation, and he'd keep mum. Right?

Shit, she really shouldn't.

"That I'm the reason why a potentially dangerous suspect's been getting information about this investigation that's only been in the hands of three entities: the LAPD, the DA's office, and me."

And she did it anyway, didn't she? The cat was out of the bag.

Sarah looked right at him, watching him closely. He just turned to look at her laptop screen, his brow furrowed, lips pursed. Then he said, oh so softly: "Shit."

"Yeah. Shit."

"Oh. Oh!" He sat up straighter. "The plant! The plant you pulled out of the pot." He pointed to it. "That's why." She blinked and he whipped back around to face her, scooting his chair closer. "Bugs. You were looking for bugs when I first got here this morning, weren't you? Oh my God, that makes so much sense!" He snapped his fingers and then flattened his hand on top of his head. Sarah felt a bit sheepish now that he definitely knew she'd lied to him earlier. And he must've seen it in her face because he put a reassuring hand on her wrist, his fingers warm and comforting against her skin there. "Hey, no. I totally get it. I get why you said you were just 'tidying up' earlier," he insisted, making his fingers into air quotes. "I'm just a guy you called to figure out if there was something up with your laptop. And this is serious stuff here."

She shrugged. "It wasn't anything…personal."

"Nah, of course not. I'm not taking it personally." He was silent then, his brow furrowed again.

"What?" she prompted.

"Well, I…Why'd you tell me the truth now?"

How did she even answer that? Did she even really know? Because she was stressed, her insides were dying, and deep down inside she feared this might be the end of her agency and its reputation? She had a son to feed on top of bills to pay?

"I guess I think you're trustworthy." He raised his eyebrows and she sat up and huffed. "Look, pal, this isn't exactly the norm for me either, telling some random person all about a craptastic case I'm dealing with." He chuckled, holding his hands up in surrender and she smirked, shaking her head. "God, I've had such a long freaking week. I mean, when the prosecutor I'm helping with this case called and told me there was a leak and that she and the LAPD are looking in their own backyard for it, and that I needed to be careful, that was seriously just…" She sighed in frustration. "The idea that I might be the leak, that it could've happened because of me, that maybe I wasn't careful enough with some seriously important evidence is just…really damning. So yeah, I just want to know if I was the leak."

"Oh, shit." He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I had no idea." Of course he didn't. But he knew now because she'd just freaking blurted it all out at him. "So you went looking for bugs in your office. I would've done the same if I were in your shoes." And then he reached out and ran his fingers under the ledge of the desk. She gaped a little at him then, watching as he then pushed his chair back and got down onto the floor on his hands and knees, feeling underneath the space between the bottom of the lowest drawer on the desk and the floor. "You're the pro so you've probably already done this. But sometimes the actual looking part jostles the bug free from where it got stuck by the evildoer and it ends up falling on the floor or in places like this."

Sarah was too focused on the way a lightness made itself known in her chest and in her head to notice the slow and soft smile stretching over her face as she watched him try out a few tricks he most likely learned from TV shows to try to help her.

He hadn't even blinked. Just like that, he was on his hands and knees looking, trying to be of some help to her. As if he'd sensed her very real worry, how upset this all had her, and it spurred him into action.

The I.T. guy pulled himself back out from under the desk and looked disappointed. "Nope. Just dust. Did you try the light fixtures?" he asked then, his eyes widening.

"Yeah," she said quietly, still smiling at him. "I did."

God, did he even know just how insanely cute and sweet he was being? He was absolutely clueless and that somehow made it sweeter.

"Of course you did. This kind of stuff is what you do." He scoffed at himself, blushing a bit as he climbed back up to sit on the chair, brushing his knees off and shaking his head. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize," she said immediately. "Please. Not for being sweet." His eyebrows lifted slowly, surprise in his features she decided were actually pretty handsome. Really handsome, now that she was letting herself take him in fully.

She didn't know why, but something about his actions a moment ago, how genuine and sincere they were, how he didn't even think twice about it, had flicked a switch inside of her. And everything felt warm and the room felt brighter or something.

"I can't shake the feeling I have a lot riding on this program of yours, and I really hope it isn't me. I hope I wasn't the leak. But I also know it'd be a lot easier for the sanctity and future of this investigation if the culprit was found out sooner rather than later. And I mean, it'd be a lot easier for the LAPD and DA's office if it was me, than if it was either of them." He tilted his head in question. "Well, if it's me, the solution is simple. Cut me loose. Let me drift away. Get rid of the P.I. and you don't have to worry about a leak in the LAPD or the DA's office. If they leaked, it would be a hell of a lot worse."

Chuck winced and nodded. "You're right. A crooked cop or a crooked prosecutor, or-or paralegal or something? A lot harder to uncover and deal with. So many employees you'd have to look at to find the mole. A P.I. getting her computer hacked?" He seemed to stop himself, as if he didn't want to say it. And she wondered at the fact that most people were too self-involved to be as thoughtful as he continued to show himself to be.

"Yeah," she said, deciding to finish it for him. "Fire me and problem solved."

"I'm sure they won't fire you, Sarah. You're an important part of the team."

She gave him a droll look. "I appreciate that you said it, Chuck, but the fact is…I am definitely not as important as they are. I'm lucky they keep bringing me in for certain investigations."

"What if it isn't luck and instead it's just that you're really brilliant?" he asked easily.

Sarah snorted. "I'll let you think that because I could use a win right now."

But then she turned and looked at the laptop and saw that the screen looked different now. "Wait, what's that?" She pointed at a different box that popped up to take up the whole screen almost. It had codes, or something. It looked like a list.

"GreyWolf is done scanning and has compiled its report. Now I've gotta read the report, go down the list, and figure out what—if anything—is going on with this laptop of yours."

Sarah stared agape at her laptop, then jolted a bit as she realized she was in the way. "Oh, here! Let me move so you can—"

His hand landed on her bicep. "No, no. Stay where you are. Watch this." He reached over and carefully lifted her laptop, setting it back on her desk in front of him instead. "Easy."

She smirked at him, raising an eyebrow and shaking her head. But she felt nerves shooting through her as she realized there was a chance Chuck would find something, that GreyWolf had found something. And she would have to call Casey and Carina to tell them she was the reason why their investigation and case was now compromised.

Sarah did what she did best. She repressed the nerves, burying them deep, and slipped a mask over her face. "Well, then. What's the damage?"

"Nothing, yet. The stuff that's popped up so far are just cookies."

His face was scrunched up in concentration, and she took the opportunity to subtly look at him as he worked. He had all the markings of a man who was in his element when he was in front of a computer, tapping away on the keyboard, unseen (or perhaps more like not understood) things happening on her screen.

And then he frowned. Deeply. "Oh. Oh, God damn it."

"What?!"

He looked frustrated, perhaps even angry. "I should've thought of this. I should've—I could've saved all of this time, and I just wasn't thinking straight. Damn it."

"Thought of what?" she asked, her heart in her throat. "Did you find something?"

His nod was slow and somber. "Yeah. I found something." He turned her laptop towards her. "This right here? Prime indicator that someone's put a keystroke logger on your laptop. Somehow."

"What?!" she snapped. While she wasn't a wiz with a lot of technology, she knew enough from her time with the LAPD to at least be familiar with the term. "Somebody's been watching what I've been doing on my computer?"

"Yeah. It looks like they did it remotely, too. Which means they didn't even have to come anywhere near your actual laptop—I mean the physical laptop. Usually it's done with a drive they stick in the USB, but it can be done from another system, without them needing to physically install it. I should've checked that! God damn it!"

He typed furiously then.

Sarah was numb. "What are you doing?" she asked quietly.

"Cutting the strings," he muttered, determination furrowing his brow as he worked. She didn't know what that meant but she watched him for about forty seconds or so. He tapped one more key and pulled his hands away. "There. Cut. Access is gone. But I've made a copy of what they used." He pushed to his feet and went to his messenger bag, then grabbed it and ripped the flap open to go into a pocket. "I don't know much about law but I know what this bastard has been doing is illegal, so I'll put it on here." He stuck the USB stick in the open port on her laptop and sat down, working fast, his brown eyes flitting back and forth.

"You made a copy of it?"

"Yep. The hope is that it's traceable. And if it's traceable, the LAPD gets a lead on whoever this piece of shit is who put a keystroke logger on your laptop." He popped the jump drive out of the USB port then and held it up between them. "Give that to them. Who the hell is this, anyway? Why put this on your computer?"

Sarah blinked, taking the drive, their fingers brushing as she did so. "To get access to those files, obviously. I am the leak. Jesus Christ, it really was me. Those fuckers got into my computer, took it out of my email…" She put her hands on her head, feeling panicked.

"Have you opened the files on your laptop already?"

"I mean, yes. Of course I did. I was reading them!"

"They didn't access your email. They accessed the files once you opened them."

Great, so this was doubly her fault. If she'd left those files in her damn email and hadn't opened them, this never would've happened. "God damn it," she breathed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "It was me."

She couldn't help feeling like she was sunk. And the absolute snowball effect that would have on her career, this agency, supporting herself and Max...

"I made sure they don't have access to your laptop anymore." He squirmed then, and she gave him a questioning look. "Keystroke loggers are pretty common practice because it's an easy way to gain remote access to someone's device. I should've checked for that first. Maybe if I had, you wouldn't have had to deal with me sitting here all day. In your space." The I.T. guy shook his head in frustration at himself. "You would've known hours ago what had happened and I could've done what I just did now… I-I screwed up."

"You did not screw up. You had literally zero idea what was even going on when you got here. Anyway, whatever the hell they put on here, it was invisible until you did your GreyWolf scan thing." She shrugged. "You're just supposed to know immediately what's wrong? Read my laptop's mind or whatever? That's not fair. You aren't being fair to yourself."

"I appreciate you saying that, Sarah, but this is my job. It's what I get paid for. And I should've done a check for a keystroke logger immediately. Damn it!" He thunked his forehead with the heel of his palm.

"You didn't know! You can't just automatically know what's going on the second you arrive at a job especially with the lack of information you got from me."

"That's the thing, though. I typically run through all the potentials in my head. And of course I should've thought of the possibility of a keystroke logger. I mean, that's one of the easiest ways to hack onto someone's laptop or phone." He looked like he was going to say something else, but then he looked at her steadily, and shut his mouth, his teeth clicking. "I apologize."

"You don't owe me an apology for a single damn thing, but if it will help, I accept. Thank you for this," she said, lifting and shaking the drive with the keystroke logger program or whatever Chuck had copied onto it. "I have to get this to my LAPD contact immediately."

"Right. Of course. Let me just…finish up with GreyWolf…" He tapped a few more things, the boxes disappeared, and he pulled out the program, pushing to his feet and burying it back inside of his bag. "Listen, your computer is clean now, but I'm gonna advise you to change all of your passwords. All of them. Email, social media, bank accounts, anything you access on that laptop, just in case they recorded your passwords. Sounds like it was probably a direct job just to extract the evidence you were sent in your email, but it doesn't hurt to be extra careful."

Sarah nodded, pushing herself up to stand on shaky legs. "Thank you…Chuck." She snapped out of it a bit and grabbed his arm, her grip steady and warm. "Thank you. Seriously. You're a life saver."

"I wish I'd been here sooner. I might've been able to stop all of this from happening to you in the first place."

The way he said it so earnestly, his amber eyes warm, his brow furrowed… She wanted to hug him.

Maybe it was just the aura of comfort he exuded, the feeling that she was safe around him, but she wanted him to stay while she was on the phone with both Carina and Casey.

That wasn't his job. And she needed to let him go back to work.

She barely knew him.

He'd done her a massive service, and he was sweet and thoughtful. He was brilliant. He set her at ease.

But there wasn't anything to this other than the innocent flirtation that had happened throughout the day.

"Um, not to harp on this, Chuck, but…if you could keep all of this under your hat, that'd be…"

"Of course," he said seriously. "Not telling a soul. And-And hey, this wasn't your fault. I know, I know…I don't know anything about this case except that you're working on it with the LAPD and DA's office. I imagine this isn't the first time you've done this, and they asked you to help for a reason. You know your work. You aren't careless. If you were, they never would've passed this off to you." He winced. "I'm making a lot of assumptions, I know. But they're assumptions based on…evidence. And you're a P.I.; evidence is kind of your thing." He gave her a crooked, warm smile. "They're not gonna cut you out. They'll understand. I'm sure of it."

"I don't understand," she insisted, even as the ache in her chest was slightly eased by his words. "They did this to my laptop. Not anyone at the DA's office, not anyone at the LAPD. Mine. And they chose me on purpose. 'Cause I'm a fucking amateur."

Chuck shrugged, grabbing his messenger bag and slinging it over his shoulder. She didn't want him to go. She felt ridiculous for it. She dealt with this kind of shit alone all the time.

"Yeah. They went after you. And you're gonna make them regret that mistake, I'm sure."

A different kind of warmth went through her then. The words he'd just said, and the look in his eyes that told her he believed every bit of it. The faith in her, the belief he had that she'd do exactly what he'd said she'd do.

He thrusted a business card out at her then. "If you run into more trouble, don't call the Buy More. Just call that number. Call me directly."

Still buzzing from his you're gonna make them regret that mistake comment, she took the card from him. And as she turned it over, she saw "Chuck Bartowski, Nerd Herd Southern California Regional Specialist" with a phone number under it, the Nerd Herd logo up at the top left of the card. "Southern California Regional Specialist?" she asked. She flicked her gaze back up to him, a smile growing on her face in spite of the bad news she'd just gotten. "I did get lucky."

Chuck grinned and shook his head. "Chin up, Miss Walker. The strings are cut. And you've got all the power on that drive there. Use it wisely. Ball is in your court."

"Thank you," she breathed.

"It was a pleasure meeting you."

"Yeah, y-you too. It was a pleasure. Chuck."

He smiled. His nose wrinkled and his eyes sparkled, and then he turned and made his way out of her office, through the waiting area, and finally he disappeared into the hallway, the door thumping shut behind him.

Sarah clung to the card tightly, her hand clammy, and she stared at the door he'd just gone through, her heart racing.

A/N: Every woman reading this fic has unfortunately dealt with a Mark at some point in their existence, if not multiple Marks. That's just a fact of life if you're a woman. But it's okay, because in this fictional universe, Chuck exists. Ta da! Fiction! Fixing real life's bullshit fuckery! Anyway, wear a mask. And review. But it's way more important to me that you wear a mask.

'Til next time!

-SC