The Nerd Versus the P.I. Family

By Steampunk . Chuckster

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, folks. And again, thanks to those who reviewed and sent PMs in support. I needed the reminder that there are good people out here. Sometimes it feels like the bad people outnumber us, but it turns out they're just a loud minority. I appreciate you folks. I really do. Hope you enjoy this chapter!

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.

Sarah stared at the laptop in front of her. She had Chuck's notes that she'd copied for Carina on the desk to her right. "You're right. This looks exactly like the sort of thing Chuck said to look out for when we run these tests. They're on here, peeking around."

She made a grossed out sound and pushed herself away from it as though the laptop itself was physically poisonous to the touch. And she stood, pacing towards the window in the office, angry. Extremely angry.

"Is it a keystroke logger, though?" Carina asked. Sarah turned to look at her and she saw that she was frowning deeper than she had seen her frown in quite some time.

"I don't know. I can't tell. Did you take it to your I.T. department at the DA's office to see if they could figure that out?"

Carina shook her head vehemently. "I don't want my boss to know about this yet. And she would if I asked one of our I.T. people." Sarah raised her eyebrow at her best friend and Carina winced. "Look, I'm already sort of on thin ice with Maira because of how focused I've been on this one case for so long. I don't want to add any more cracks to the ice, you know?"

When Maira Banerjee won the election and became DA two years earlier, Carina had been beside herself with excitement. Not just because they'd been peers for a few years before that and Carina had already looked to her as a mentor, but because, as Carina put it, she'd hold her staff's feet to the fire to usher in actual change to LA's criminal justice system. But also to get results.

It sounded like Carina's feet were getting a little toasty this time.

"Doesn't Maira always talk about how important it is that you see a case through all the way to the end?" Carina smirked at that. "Well? Just imagine," Sarah said, trying a different tack. "If you're able to convince that insurance fraud asshole Travers of just how fucked he'll be if he loses this case—and he will lose this case—and you get him to take some kind of plea deal in exchange for giving us info, it could really crack this whole thing wide open. There has to be a connection there."

"You make my job sound so fuggin' easy, Blondie," Carina drawled sarcastically.

Sarah winced. "Yeah. I did just do that, didn't I? Sorry."

Carina waved it off with a swipe of her hand through the air. "Look, the important thing is that we figure out who is sicking these hacker fucks on our people; you got it, then me, and probably Rizzo and Captain Grumpsicle are next on the list. And what then? What are they looking for?"

Sighing, the P.I. pursed her lips. "They want to know what we've got on them, on their hench-assholes. If they can see everything we've collected, who of theirs we're bringing in and why, they can stay a step ahead of us."

"Yeah, well, it's working so far. Bastards."

"Not for long. I've had it. I'm tired of looking over my shoulder."

"So am I. That's why I'm bringing in the big guns." Carina clenched her jaw, anger in her face. "I know how you feel now."

"Violated?"

"Yeah. Seriously. Granted, they don't have access to the big stuff anymore, but they had to have gotten some of it before I caught them and yanked my stuff off of there. And that burns me up so bad. This is the kind of shit that can lose me my job, for fuck's sake." She growled and moved to the door of the office, crossing her arms, not hiding how pissed she was behind a smirk or a teasing remark. That was how Sarah knew this had her shaken up.

Frowning, Sarah crossed to Carina's side and curled her fingers around her forearm, squeezing. "When I say I empathize…"

"Yeah, I know." Carina sniffed, rolling her eyes. "They got us both."

"And I get the whole sensation of thinking you're maybe gonna lose your job over it, too. I was so sure the LAPD was going to boot me off of this case because I'm too much of a liability now, too much of a target, an easy target, one they can't afford to have around. I was so sure." Pressing her lips together, Sarah shrugged. "But they didn't. They have my back. And I've got yours. If the DA has to learn about this breach of security with your case files, Casey, Rizzo, Etheridge, and me…we'll all back you up, you know we will."

"Thanks, kid." Carina squeezed her arm back. "Anyway, for now…what Maira doesn't know won't hurt her." She winced. "I feel so derelict in my duty as a DA prosecutor, keeping this under wraps, but if he can figure out what the hell is going on with my laptop and maybe even who is doing it, I might not need to tell the actual DA."

"I'm not gonna pretend I know better than you," Sarah said with a one shoulder shrug.

"Since when?"

"Oh shut up," Sarah laughed, shoving her friend away from her.

And still, she saw something she recognized from her own ordeal playing over her best friend's face. It was the same thing she'd felt that day when Chuck found the keystroke logger on her laptop and explained what it was, what it was meant to do, and the implications of everything they might've gained from it hit her right between the eyes. Not just anger, though she'd felt a lot of that. It was trepidation, fear. It was that sordid, awful feeling of having your privacy invaded.

That chilling realization that before that fateful day when she'd the thought to call the Buy More Nerd Herd, she could have had this happen to her numerous times and she wouldn't have even known about it. Maybe it did happen, and she'd thought her laptop was just being weird, because technology did annoying crap to her all the time.

"Hey," Sarah said quietly. "I know it isn't really…um, our thing. Or, I guess, the way this friendship usually…functions…" Carina gave her a curious look. "But I just mean, like…if you need to talk about how you're…feeling? I guess? I'm here. I know it's a really gross feeling, that someone was looking around on your laptop. It sucks. So, yeah." She shuffled her feet as Carina smirked, casting her eyes down at the floor of her secret office. "Just if you want to. If you need to. Don't feel like you have to or anything."

Carina gave her a weirded out look then and Sarah could feel herself almost shrinking. This is why she didn't do this crap with sharing feelings. She sucked at it. She was trying and she was sucking. The weirded out look on her best friend's face morphed into amusement then, and finally affection.

"Thank you, but I think I'll be okay. Could be worse. If I didn't notice, if I didn't do that computer check-up thing when I did, they could've gotten a shit ton of stuff out of me. Not just for this case but all of my cases I'm working on, or have worked on." She shivered.

Sarah was still feeling a little foolish, silly even, when Carina's phone buzzed on the desk. She watched the other woman go over and snatch it. "Nice. Right on the dot," she said as she glanced at the screen. She unlocked her phone and started typing.

"What is it?" Sarah asked, crossing her arms.

"He's here."

"Who is here?" She stood up a bit straighter, frowning. "Did you call in Casey? Lotta good he's gonna do. The man can't figure out how to send an email bcc to other people without calling his I.T. department at the station."

Carina snorted. "Of course not Casey. He has his own fish to fry at the moment." And then a look came over her face, one of mischief, and just as quickly it was replaced by faux innocence. "Oh, did I not tell you?" She shrugged as Sarah narrowed her eyes dubiously. "I needed someone who can send an email bcc to other people without calling I.T., because…well, he is I.T…" She pursed her lips. "And someone who isn't a stranger to having to keep his mouth shut…"

Sarah frowned and unfolded her arms, putting her hands on her hips. "What are you even talking ab—" It clicked mid-question. Oh. Oh. "Oh." Her heart immediately thudded to life in her chest, beating like mad. And a blush came up from her collar. She could feel it, even as she did everything she could to stem it. "You wouldn't happen to be talking about a certain Nerd Herd area specialist who has a history of handling these kinds of situations, huh?"

Carina finished typing and dropped her phone back on her desk. "Hmmmm, doesn't ring a bell, no."

"You ass," Sarah breathed, amused, and, damn it, excited. "Did you really drag him here?"

"Drag? Excuse me." She bat her eyelashes. "You better go let him in before he starts to think I stood him up."

Sarah pursed her lips and folded her arms at her chest, staying put, trying not to seem too eager, like her insides weren't singing, like she didn't want to literally teleport downstairs to get there faster. Fuck, she'd needed to see his face. So badly. For days now. And things had just piled up and she hadn't even had the time to say hello, just a text to make sure he knew she was still alive, still out here. And now he was right downstairs. Waiting.

She'd have to explain her absence, her staying away, not even contacting him.

"Well?" Carina prompted.

That was all Sarah needed to drop all pretenses. Like something inside of her snapped, she unfolded her arms and sprang for the door, whipping it open, and leaving the laughing lawyer in her dust.

She decided she would have to let Carina win this time.

It took less than a minute for her to reach the ground floor, avoiding the elevator, before she burst into the lobby. It was dark, shadows from the sparse lighting outside cast long and almost haunting along the tile floor. And at the end of those shadows, as she followed them up to the doors, was a tall figure, illuminated by the light, standing outside on the sidewalk of the roundabout driveway, facing the street, away from her.

His hands were in his jeans pockets, the strap from his messenger bag strung across his back.

Sarah Walker, private investigator, took a deep breath, told herself to calm the fuck down, and closed the distance to the door, unlocking it and pushing it open.

She saw the moment he turned and spotted her, the friendly smile immediately becoming something altogether different. Recognition in his brown eyes, and then a grin, a massive grin that took up his whole face. For a moment, it felt like her worries and fears dissipated into nothing, because what did anyone have to worry about or fear when they had someone who looked at them the way he looked at her?

But those days of not seeing him, of not even texting him, sat there between them, amidst the buzz of excitement at seeing each other again. He was owed an explanation, an apology, and she knew it.

She didn't do either as they finally made their way up to the office, and she made do with the slight touching, the short conversation, the teasing, and the laughter they shared on their way up the stairs.

}o{

"Nope. Nnnnnnope." Sarah glanced up from the laptop screen to meet Carina's gaze who stood at the other shoulder of the man hunched over the keyboard, tapping away, his fingers basically a blur. Carina looked as confused as she felt, so that was good at least. And Chuck kept mumbling stuff under his breath, as if neither of them were there.

Or, more aptly, as if he was in his own little world with Carina's laptop.

Even as one hand kept going, he reached out with the other, blindly trying to wrap his fingers around the can of Coca-Cola she'd bought from the drug store across the street about an hour ago.

Sarah leaned over his shoulder to put a finger on the can and inch it into his grip, he snagged it, brought it to his mouth, took a few gulps, and smacked it back onto the desk, diving in with both hands again.

She sent Carina a wide-eyed look and the redhead looked weirded out, to say the least.

"Ah! A-ha! Yes! Yesyesyes!"

Sarah stood to attention, spinning back to look at the laptop screen as Chuck pulled his hands back from the keyboard and clapped them together once, pressing his steepled fingers to his lips.

"What?! What is it?" Carina asked. "Did you find the bastard?"

"Find…th—Oh. No, no. I haven't gotten that far. Jesus, I'm not a magician." The flat look Carina sent Sarah almost made her laugh in spite of everything. "Flesh and blood, flesh and blood, that's all I am," he chanted quietly. And then he stroked his fingers up and down the edges of the laptop screen, almost reverently. It was…a little odd. Cute, but odd.

"But, uh, I am…pretty good at this," he said, clearing his throat and shrugging. "So I did find out what they're doing. It's a little more complex than the keystroke logger they used for Sarah's laptop," he explained, scratching the back of his head. "Um, I dunno how to explain it."

Rolling her eyes, Carina plopped on the edge of the desk to look down at him, crossing her arms. "You mean to tech dum-dums like me an' Sar?" She gave him a look. "Try," she drawled sarcastically.

"No, no, no. I'm—I didn't mean it like that. I don't know what words to use. It-it's in my head, you know? And verbalizing it with…stuff in the English language…"

"Chuck, it's okay," Sarah reassured, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Just try."

"No, I'm gonna. I just don't want you to think I'm acting like you won't understand the tech jargon. Like you're dumb. You're not. It's—It's just like when you're translating a sentence from one language to another language and there are words that really have no…equivalent that means exactly the same thing in that other language. You know what I mean?"

"Okay, we get it. You weren't insulting our intelligence. Can we get the show on the road here, nerd boy?" Carina interrupted, forcing Chuck to spin away from where he was looking up at Sarah.

"Yeah. Right. Of course. I'm sorry."

Sarah tried not to be miffed with Carina for being so short. She didn't blame the redhead for her testiness. In spite of not seeming like she wanted to talk about it, Sarah was sure the lawyer was on edge, feeling vulnerable and upset.

Right when Chuck sat down to scope things out, he confirmed their fears. Someone was poking around on Carina's laptop, just like she thought. And the air around Carina had immediately gotten tense, crackling with a bad kind of electricity.

If Sarah Walker was bad at the whole feeling vulnerable thing, Carina Miller was even worse. Having Max had softened that part of Sarah at least a bit.

Chuck cleared his throat. "The best comparison I can think of is, um, a chameleon."

"Huh?" Carina wrinkled her face up. "Like the lizard?"

"Yeah. When it crawls onto something, it changes its skin to match whatever that thing is to blend in. That's what they've got feasting on your data. But instead of it being something to protect 'em from predators, it's doing it more to, um, make a copy of what's there. And it saves it. And crawls off to the next thing." He took a deep breath. "And it's been crawling around on here for a bit. I've been trying to get my claws in it. That's-That's what I've been doing since I realized what it was. And I think I've got—I just struck a blow but no claws in it yet." He grit his teeth. "Damn it," he breathed in frustration.

Sarah shook herself, moving around him to mimic Carina, sitting on the desk on his other side so that she could see his face. As if that would help her understand this any better. "Hold on. There's some…thing on Carina's laptop that's crawling around just collecting all of the information that's there and sending it to them? Or is it like the keystroke logger where they can watch it and save it on their own device?" She shivered. Sometimes technology was a little too…alive, and it made her uncomfortable.

"No. That's the good news. And it's really good news." He looked up at Carina, and Sarah felt a jump of hope in her chest. "This doesn't work the same way as a keystroke logger. They didn't do this remotely. They got close to your laptop and implanted this chameleon program into it. I don't know if it was when you were out in public or what…" He shook his head, frowning, and Sarah felt a chill go through her. They'd gotten close to Carina's laptop, which meant they'd gotten close to her. This was getting way more upsetting. How was this good news?

"Oh great," Carina groused. "So I was stalked for them to put this shit on my laptop."

"Maybe. Or maybe they just got access to the laptop in your office or something." His tongue flicked out to wet his lips and she could see him start to get excited. "But here's the good news. To get the information its stealing, they have to get this program back, they have to get near your device again. It's still on here…fuggin'…slithering around." She wished he wouldn't with that imagery. "So they don't have it. It's not sending anything anywhere, they've got none of your stuff. They took a risk, thinking you weren't even gonna know it was here and they could retrieve it again without you even realizing anything had happened. To get this information, this data, that it took from you, they have to get this specific program they put on your device back into their own hands. Physically. They haven't done that yet, so I just have to catch it and destroy it as soon as I can. Tonight."

God, that was good news. Sarah felt herself sag with relief. But Carina still didn't seem sold as she watched Chuck continue.

"Now I've been chasing this li'l bastard around for an hour and a half now, and I don't have it where I want it just yet, but I'm weakening it. And, like most prey, when it weakens, it slows down. When it gets slow enough, I'm gonna sink my teeth and claws into it, and I'm gonna tear it out. And then I'm gonna fuck it up and eat it."

Sarah raised her eyebrows, slowly turning to look at Carina whose jaw went slack.

"Wow, uh…pretty visceral there, Chuck," the redhead muttered.

"Sorry, I'm in a bit of a zone. I get…"

"Violent?"

"More like…" He paused. "Feral."

Sarah felt a tug behind her belly button at that. Something was very wrong with her.

Carina looked both weirded out and close to laughter. "You're a fuckin' weirdo, Chuck. But I kind of love this? …Whatever the hell it is?" She gestured to him with a wave of both of her hands.

Sarah got her bearings about her, turning to look at the laptop again. "So you're telling us they aren't getting any of Carina's files, any of her data, until they…pick up this chameleon thing themselves? Like…" She searched her brain. "It's like an invisible jump drive that moves around the laptop drive copying all the files on its own, without you having to highlight and drag…"

Chuck snapped his fingers and pointed up at her, an impressed look on his face. "Exactly. That's it. That's so much better than how I explained it, oh my God. A chameleon? Chuck, what?"

She felt a spike of pride, seeing him look at her like that. She could feel the warmth between them, and Carina interrupted it.

"Jesus, Blondie, you're like a nerd translator. How many dates have you two been on again?"

"Three."

"Four."

They answered at the same time, still gazing at one another. That burst the bubble as he pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes in a wince.

"Uh ohhhhh," Carina drawled in supreme amusement, breaking the awkward silence. She even snickered.

"Shut up, Carina," Sarah mumbled, sending her a look.

She rushed on then, trying to push past that awkward moment, trying not to dwell on where Chuck got that extra date from. "So Carina's data is safe."

"She caught it, which…good on you, Carina. I'm assuming you used the notes I gave Sarah?" Carina nodded once. "Yeah, so I just have to catch the thing. It's fast. Flitting around. It's…kind of like…" He squinted. "You know the part in The Karate Kid when Mr. Miyagi is training Daniel LaRusso about focus and patience, and he makes him catch the fly with chopsticks?" Both Sarah and Carina just stared at Chuck, unblinking. He cleared his throat. "Well, that's about to be me."

"Wait." Carina shook herself. "So what you have to do is the computer nerd equivalent of catching a fly with chopsticks? What?! That sounds super hard!"

"Uh. Yes." Chuck shrugged.

"So what's the plan?" Sarah asked, sliding off of the desk and stepping up next to him, turning to look down at the computer, her hand naturally coming to rest on his shoulder.

"I'm going to sit right here until I get it, and when I get it, I'm going to obliterate it."

Sarah and Carina shared a look over his head, and the former felt something filling her chest. Gratefulness? But it was something much more intense than that.

She wanted to kiss him.

But before she could do or say anything else, Carina also slid off of the desk, not wasting any time at all before leaning down to press a hard, smacking kiss to his cheek. She pointed at him as he gaped up at her in utter shock.

"You're a nerd, but you're a good nerd. A really good nerd." She must've realized Sarah was there then, and what she'd just done, and she sent Sarah a wincing look. "Sorry," she whispered. "He kinda deserved that."

Sarah laughed, her own shock starting to wear off. "You aren't wrong." She squeezed Chuck's shoulder and resisted the urge to lean down and plant a longer, more intimate kiss than Carina's on his other cheek. She could feel the redhead staring at her expectantly. "What do you need?" she asked Chuck, ignoring Carina.

He turned to look up at her and, without missing a beat, said, "World peace."

"Oh God," Carina groused. "What I need is a fucking alcoholic beverage. I'm buying a six pack. What do you two want?"

"Whatever you usually drink is fine by me," Chuck muttered, and it looked like he was already getting back to work, his fingers typing like mad. How didn't he have carpal tunnel?

"The six-pack is just for me, dodo. I'm asking what else you want me to get for you?"

Chuck laughed. "Uh, I'm good honestly."

"C'mon. It's on me. You're doing all this claws slash chameleon shit and it's royally saving my ass. 'Least I can do is buy you a drink."

He just shook his head, shrugging her off.

Carina sent Sarah a frustrated look and she giggled at her friend. Reaching over to grab her bag, she yanked a twenty out of the side pocket and passed it over Chuck's head towards the lawyer. "Get two six-packs and I'll share mine with tonight's champion."

"Keep the bill, Sar. I've got it. Just make sure you don't spend the whole time I'm gone making out. We're trying not to make this an all-nighter."

Chuck coughed a little and peeled his eyes away from the screen, his eyebrows shooting into his hairline as he watched Carina sling her bag over her shoulder, wiggle her fingers in a wave goodbye, and leave the office, shutting the door tight behind her.

"Ignore her," Sarah said smoothly, squeezing his shoulder again. "But she did get one thing right. You're royally saving her ass. Just know, you're in really good with both of us right now."

Chuck bit his lip. "Between us, this is a lot harder than I made it sound."

"You made it sound pretty hard," she said. He wrinkled his nose as if to say exactly. Damn. "How long do you think this is gonna be? Just…out of curiosity? I'm not rushing you. I obviously don't even know what this is that you're doing or how you're even doing it because the screen goes all weird with the freaky numbers and shit. Just, you know…ballpark?"

He growled in frustration, gesturing at the screen first and then he pushed a hand through his curls. "Honestly, I can't tell you for sure. I'd be lying to you if I gave you an answer, even just a ballpark guess, because I've never had to do this before."

"This is your first time?" She stopped herself before she continued but he must've seen it because he gave her a questioning look. She winced, still not sure she should even ask this. "This isn't…like that situation you were upset about during our last date, is it? When you told the LAPD officers you're working with that you could do the thing when you didn't think you could?" His eyes darted to the side, surprise in his face. "I shouldn't bring that up. It sounds like I don't think you can do what you said you could do, but I just want to make sure you know there aren't…expectations here."

He smiled, warmth in his face, and she felt that very same warmth spill through her. "This isn't that sort of situation. I'm going to catch this thing. I've done stuff that…" He halted, and then he cleared his throat, pulling at his collar. "I can do it," he said instead. She couldn't help being curious. "I got it."

Sarah nodded. "I'm sorry if I offended you."

"You didn't." He draped his hand over hers that still rested on his shoulder and he squeezed reassuringly. "But since we aren't going to be making out while Carina's gone, I'd better get to work on this thing, huh?"

The P.I. couldn't help the look of surprise. That was definite flirtation. He'd seemed almost hesitant since she opened the door for him earlier on in the night, and then Carina steps out of the room and he comes onto her just like that.

He was a confusing man, this one.

But then he stopped and looked up at her again, his eyes soft, brow furrowed. "Sarah, you okay? I know better than to ask Carina if she's okay. She might not be but it's…not my place to…and she doesn't seem like the type either." She wasn't and the fact that he'd already figured that out about the lawyer said an awful lot about his observation skills.

Also the fact that he asked Sarah if she was okay.

That was a whole different problem.

She sighed. "I'm fine," she lied.

And as if he'd read her mind, he shook his head. "This shit is making me nervous, so I dunno how you could be fine, Sarah. I think maybe you're not fine and you're just good at saying you are." Sarah crossed her arms and looked away. "Sorry. Not my business saying shit like that to you. I apologize."

"No, it—You…" She paused and took a deep breath. "You're right," she admitted, raising her eyebrows. "That's exactly what I did annnnd you just called me out."

He winced with a bit of a hiss. "I didn't mean to call you out. That's not what that was. I just want to make sure you…erm, well, I guess I just didn't hear from you and I wanna make sure…" Chuck stopped and scratched the back of his neck in discomfort. He looked shy suddenly and she wanted to wrap him up in her arms. "It's, um, important to me that you're doing okay with all of this scary shit. Keystroke loggers and people sneaking chameleon hacks onto Carina's laptop, getting that close to her device and potentially to her. I'm concerned. About her, yeah of course, but I mean I'm concerned about you mostly. Because…well, our history." He winced again. "Our history? What the fuck is that, Chuck?" he muttered under his breath, looking off to the side, as if he was talking to himself, like she wouldn't hear it.

Sarah gnawed on her bottom lip, smiling in amusement, her chest full. Brimming, even. He was extremely adorable and she didn't know how to react, or what to do. She reached down to tug on the collar of his jacket in affection. He had a lot of work to do, but she needed to use this opportunity to say what he deserved to hear.

"I'm sorry I've been…absent, Chuck." He looked up at her again and opened his mouth to reassure her that it was fine, she knew it. But she cut him off. "No, don't be sweet about it. Please. Not that I don't appreciate it because I do. But I am sorry. I should've at least texted. Things got so… Between Max and the case, I barely had room to breathe this week. So I'm sorry that I didn't even do that much, let alone another date."

He nodded. "I understand. You know, this is something you warned me about. You were up front with me about how hard it was going to be to find time for this, and I said it was okay, because it is okay. Not-Not that I didn't think aboutcha, 'cause I did. Definitely." His eyes were so soft as he leaned a little closer, peering up at her.

Sarah felt herself melting. "I thought about you, too, as busy and as crazy as things were. I really did."

He smiled warmly. "Well, that just made my insides all fuzzy and gooey."

She laughed, rocking forward, climbing off the edge of the desk to her feet and squeezing his shoulder. But before she could step away again, he reached up to curl his fingers around her wrist, holding her hand where it was. She looked down to meet his gaze, eyebrows raised.

"This is probably me not minding my own business again, but, um, if you need me for anything…outside of just getting crappy file copying hardware off of your computers…please know that I'm here. I'm here for the tech stuff too. Of course. But… Um, you get it." He dropped his gaze back to the keyboard, shy again.

She wanted to hug him. She wanted to kiss him, actually, but she held back, and instead, she slipped her hand from his shoulder to hold onto his fingers in hers, threading them together and just squeezing. "I cannot tell you how much that means to me. Thank you, Chuck."

He nodded, then let go and went back to what he was doing… catching the chameleon fly with his brain chopsticks. Or something. She was tired.

And when Carina came back with the beers, they cracked a few open. Sarah took up residence in an old rickety chair near Chuck, careful to sit in it carefully, knowing there was a good chance it didn't hold up. And having a chair break under her, ending up splayed out on the dusty floor, wasn't something she really wanted this guy to see. This guy in particular, because as she and Carina settled to play cards while he worked, she kept glancing over to watch him go, and she felt the crush she definitely had on him increasing with each minute that passed.

There was a good chance tonight had wedged a few more Chuck Bartowski shaped hooks under her skin. And she didn't know how she was supposed to get them out again.

}o{

A mug-shaped blob lowered into his peripheral.

Blinking a few times to try to reset his vision, he looked away from the screen for a moment to look at it, felt a spike of confusion, and then blinked some more.

"Coffee…"

He almost jumped at the sound of her voice invading the constant stream of code blasting through his brain. It was such a nice sound. A nice, soft sound. And he smiled as he realized the source of the voice was standing next to him. He turned to look at her hand hanging loosely at her side, and then he followed her arm up to her shoulder, and finally settled on her face. "Oh. Hi."

"Hi," she drawled, smiling down at him.

God, she was so beautiful. And without meaning to, he muttered a dreamy, "Beautiful" as he looked up into her face.

She raised her eyebrows. "W-What?"

"Uhhh…" His face crumbled into his best what the fuck look and he shook himself. "Y-You are. I meant you are. Beautiful. That's…" He pointed to the mug. "Thank you for the coffee. Thanks. That's nice of you." He grabbed it and took a drink.

"Oh—oh wait it's…"

It scalded his tongue and he coughed setting the mug down quickly and wincing.

"Hot," she finished, too late.

"Right. Yeah. I…I'm fine." Ow.

Sarah giggled and her hand was on his shoulder. "You doing okay?"

"Yeah, I got a little lost, um, for…a second…"

"A second? Try a little over four hours."

He whipped around to look up at her. "What? Four hours?" She thrust her watch in front of his face. It was close to two in the morning. "Oh. Well holy shit."

He'd genuinely had no idea he'd been doing this for that long.

"You really didn't know?"

"Uh, nope. I get a little…carried away when I go into a zone like this. Um, sorry."

"Hey, don't say sorry, Chuck. You're saving the day."

"Trying to," he groused. "This is a slippery bastard." He raised his arms over his head, stretching, feeling the pops and cracks in his back and shoulders. "Is there a bathroom in here? I've…had a lot to drink, I'm realizing."

"Uh, I dunno. This is my first time in the building. We can wake up the redhead and ask." Sarah stepped away from his side to go to said redhead who'd stretched out on a dingy-looking sofa and apparently fell asleep at some point, but he reached out and snagged her wrist, preventing her from going over.

"Wait, wait. It's okay. Let her sleep." He climbed to his feet and stretched again, groaning quietly. "I'll just go look." He glanced back at the screen. "Um, can you do me a favor though?"

"If it's about that, I'm not sure. I have no fucking clue what I'm looking at."

He chuckled. "It's simple, if the screen changes at all, not just the numbers running, but a legit change, yell at me, come find me, or something." She gave him a dubious look. "You'll know it when you see it. Trust me."

"Okay," she said with an amused sniff. "I'll, um, stay here and…watch the screen I guess. Happy hunting. Hope you find a functional toilet."

"Me too," he snickered. He felt her eyes on his back as he quietly left the office and it took everything in him not to look back at her. All he knew was that there was a warmth crackling there, and it had been there all night. Well, the times he wasn't completely lost to his work.

He finally found a working urinal on the other side of the building after nearly getting lost, but it wasn't really the strange layout of the building that had him wandering as much as it was the fact that he was drowning in his own brain.

Because he'd started tonight thinking he'd just be taking a quick look at Carina's computer, diagnosing, and hopefully fixing the problem. Then he'd arrived and Sarah was here and it was this crazy program creeping around Carina's computer, and he'd been here for hours on end, and Sarah had apparently stayed awake with him the whole time.

Something had to happen tonight. There had to be some kind of…trigger or something. This had to be a turning point. Not just because he was helping her friend. That hadn't been his purpose in coming here, to get in good with Sarah. But because the air between them was thick with something special and he felt it in his bones. He had to assume she felt it too.

He slipped back into the office to find that Carina was still asleep, Sarah sitting in the chair he'd been keeping warm, staring at the laptop. Her blue eyes swept up to him and she smiled. "Find it?"

"I feel so much better."

She giggled. She gestured to the computer then. "Nothing. At least I don't think so."

Nodding, he walked over to stand beside her, then he shifted to sit on the edge of the desk and crossed his arms. He took a deep breath, swallowed, and finally got up the courage. "A date," he said then. She looked up at him and raised her eyebrows. "Can we schedule another one? This has been nice, but I've spent most of it basically on another planet while you played cards with Carina and I dunno what else 'cause I was being a space cadet."

She twisted her lips to the side. "Oh. Were you…maybe gonna consider this a date?" She wrinkled her nose adorably. "I-I mean, I wouldn't." Tucking some hair behind her ear, she winced. "And…that sort of reminds me. Earlier, you said four dates and I said three and…"

"Ah. Yeah, that was awkward."

"She didn't help." Sarah pointed at Carina with her thumb. "But what's new there?"

He snorted and nodded, blushing. "Sorry, that was probably my mistake. I-I just…I visited your office that day and we did the whole lunch thing and I guess it felt like…" His voice drifted off there.

Sarah mouthed a silent "oh" and looked surprised. "We're counting that?" Chuck winced and she winced back at him. "I-I just mean… Well, Max was there. So I thought…um…"

"I feel like it still counts," he said with a shrug. "I mean, he's your son. He's gonna be around. I don't have any experience dating single parents, but I imagine if I want to hang out with you, I'm gonna have to get used to hanging out with Max too." He scratched behind his ear, glancing down at the laptop screen and keeping his gaze there, almost a little afraid of what he might see if he looked at Sarah. "At this point, I have to be honest, that doesn't seem to me like that much of a hardship. But what do I know, really? I don't have a kid around me twenty four/seven. But I've met him a few times and he's adorable and hilarious, and he seems kind, which is the biggest thing. Like, it isn't exactly a traditional situation maybe, being on a date when there's a two-year-old third guy hanging around, but I didn't ask you out 'cause I thought you were traditional. I asked you out because I like you, and fuck traditio—"

He didn't have a chance to say more because Sarah was up on her feet, and in one intense, determined move, she had her hand cupped behind his neck and her lips covering his.

He was still leaning on the edge of the desk, his hand grappling for the edge and clamping down to hold himself steady as she pressed herself into him. It took him a moment to get over the surprise, but only a moment, and as his brain crackled back to life, he pushed off from the desk and rose to his full height, cupping Sarah's face in two gentle hands and kissing her back.

Chuck distantly wondered if it was something he'd said; was it the thing he said about Max, or about her? Both? Either way, he wrapped an arm around her lower back and tugged her in even closer, earning a soft gasp into his mouth. He felt her free hand dip inside of his jacket and grab onto his shirt at the center of his back, twisting her fist in it in a way that drove him absolutely mad.

They grabbed at one another, switching their grips, from hair, to shoulders, to biceps, wrists, waists, hips, jackets, shirts, necks, heads, literally anything they could get their hands on. It was frenzied, full of heat, and it was the first time since he left his apartment earlier that he didn't feel the cold of the LA night seeping into his bones.

Instead, he just felt her, the way she was touching him, and how her lips moved against his like she hadn't kissed him for years instead of the days they'd been apart, busy with their own existences.

Chuck opened his mouth and flicked at her lips with his tongue, a question, a request. And without preamble, he felt Sarah's tongue swipe over his hotly, and she moaned deliciously, ending it in a whimper that made the Buy More Nerd Herd area specialist feel like he was standing on a bed of lava-hot coals instead of a grimy wooden floor that was laid in the nineteen-twenties or something.

Literally nothing else in the universe mattered. Except this. The woman in his arms. And he wanted more, he needed her closer.

So he wrapped her up tight in his arms and tugged her flush against his body, sighing at how sturdy she felt against him, real and strong…safe.

Sarah's fingers slipped into his hair, her fingers tangling in his dark brown curls. And just as she gave a teasing, wanton tug to his curls, there was a loud beep beep beep from down by his hip.

It was like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over his head. He broke the kiss, gently pushing her back just enough that their lips came apart. And he scooted out from between her body and where she'd pinned him to the desk, spinning around to hunch over the computer.

This was it. The cup was over the bug… or at least, almost. It hovered right there over it. This was it. Oh God.

}o{

Sarah stared at the desk in front of her, one hand on her lower ribcage to steady herself as best as she could, shifting her feet against the wood floors to make sure she was actually standing on a solid surface instead of hovering, floating.

But Carina had woken up, propping herself on her elbows and groggily looking over to where Chuck was furiously typing again. "Mmm'what?" she muttered. The beeping must've dragged her out of her sleep, a sleep Sarah thoroughly hoped was a very, very deep one.

Because Sarah Walker really hadn't held back, pinning Chuck to the desk like that, clinging to him like she'd never wanted anything that much in her life.

And now Carina was standing up and stretching, slowly ambling over.

Sarah cleared her throat, pulling her lips between her teeth and biting down hard enough to try to give her something else think about that wasn't that tingling, buzzing sensation of his soft, warm lips covering hers. God, that had been fucking fantastic.

She wrapped one arm around her lower stomach and propped her other elbow on her forearm, leaning her chin into her palm that was there to try to look casual, as if she hadn't literally just tried to devour him. And God, he'd devoured back.

"H'oh boy, this is it. I've got it. Almost. Almost…" Chuck muttered.

"The…snake thing?"

"Chameleon," Sarah corrected her friend, and she was careful not to touch Chuck as she stepped in a bit closer to his side to try to see what he was doing. She was afraid even the slightest graze might cause her to just explode.

"Whatever. A snake is a lizard without arms. What's going on, Chuck? Do you have it?"

Chuck just slammed his fingers against the keyboard, his eyes flitting back and forth, reading things on the screen that made no sense to her.

And in the meantime, Sarah's heart slammed against her ribcage. It was absolutely hammering. Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, and still she felt him there, a ghost of pleasurable pressure. She felt the way he'd gripped onto her like his life depended on it. Where he'd touched her—her neck, her jaw, her cheeks—she still felt flames licking at her skin.

She'd been the one to kiss him…and still Chuck Bartowski had managed to take her out. He'd taken her all the way out. And she couldn't seem to catch her breath, either.

Luckily Carina was too fixated on the potential of her computer being rid of its malicious intruder, and was probably still too sleep-logged, to notice just how out of sorts Sarah was. And the P.I. used it to her advantage, letting herself stand over Chuck's shoulder and recuperate, taking deep, calming breaths.

"Hey. Earth to tech-head. I asked you a question…"

Sarah bristled a little. "Red, he's doing the thing. Can you not see he's doing the thing? Let him do…whatever this is, get the…bad thing off the computer…or whatever. Let him focus. He'll talk to you when he's done."

Carin raised her eyebrows and straightened up from where she'd been leaning down over Chuck's other shoulder, hovering close to him like some kind of vulture or something. "And who are you, his bodyguard? Jesus…"

"No," she sassed back, crossing her arms. "But you're, like, in his ear snipping at him to answer you when it's clear he's got the chameleon thing where he wants it and is trying to do the fly with the chopsticks thing. Just wait until he's in a place where he can talk, that's all."

"Well! You go on three slash four dates, depending on who you ask," Sarah gave her a flat look for that, "with a guy, and you're his personal agent, huh?" Carina snorted and smirked at Sarah.

"Hey, hey. Hey hey hey." Chuck stopped and held up his hands by his shoulders, tilting his head but not looking away from them. "No arguing. No disagreements. It's all good. And when I say it's all good? I mean…" He turned and looked up at Sarah, a confident, crooked grin growing on his handsome face. "It's all good."

"What's 'it's all good' mean, slugger?" Carina asked flatly.

"Oh." He whipped around to look up at her. "Right. I should clarify. You know how Luke uses the Force to send the proton torpedoes down the exhaust port and into the reactor core, thus destroying the Death Star? But before that he has his little viewfinder looking targeting computer he's looking through and it beeps and goes red when he's got the target locked?"

Sarah and Carina both answered at the same time, in identical calm, tired tones.

"No."

Chuck drummed his fingers on the desk. "Right. Sorry. Um…"

"Drop the metaphors, nerd."

"Drop the metaphors. Right. Makes sense." He was getting flustered and she could see how tired he was. She could almost feel it emanating off of him at this point. But it was kind of cute how he spiraled into his nerdiest self when he was tired. "Um, I've got the target in the crosshairs, locked, all I have to do is pull the trigger. See that key there?" He pointed to a key on the keyboard. "Press that, and the the trap snaps, locking the bastard up."

"That key there?" Carina asked, pointing.

"Yeah. That one. It's going to be a catalyst for supreme majesty—" Click. "Oh. Wow. Okay, well…you could just…press it too," he mumbled when she just reached down and hit the key. "That was a little anticlimactic but sure."

Also cute? The slight pout on his face. Like he'd wanted to make the moment special, climactic, magic. Carina had stolen the moment's thunder. She patted him on the shoulder placatingly.

Carina shrugged. "So that's it? It's gone?"

Chuck clicked a few things, then dragged an icon to the side, clicked a few more things, then pointed towards his bag. "Sarah, there's a flash drive in the pocket on the flap of my bag. The skinny pocket with the zipper. Can you grab it?"

Sarah sprang for his bag, swinging the flap open, eyeing the skinny pocket closed with a zipper, unzipping it, and pulling the flash drive out. "Comin' in hot." She tossed it to him and he snagged it out of the air easily, in one graceful movement slipping it into the port on the side of Carina's laptop. "I'm collecting the specimen," he explained. "Taking it completely off of your laptop. I had a change of heart."

"And what's that mean? You aren't destroying it? Maybe you should destroy it. Especially if it's got data from my cases? Just a thought…" Carina narrowed her eyes as if she was dubious, unsure about what he was playing at.

"You can collect it and have the LAPD handle it. This thing is pretty advanced, and there's a chance they might be able to trace where it came from, where it was produced. I know stuff like this exists, but I haven't come into contact with it since I started in this line of work. Probably because it's criminal as all get out. Like, you don't need this unless you're doing some high-tech crime shit."

Carina squirmed in discomfort and Sarah was pretty sure Chuck hadn't seen it. Only someone who'd known Carina for as long as Sarah had would've seen it. "Well, um…do…do the thing, I guess. Sar, care to step outside for a sec? I need to talk to you." She cleared her throat. "Just…big case stuff that probably isn't meant for your ears, Chucksie. No offense."

"None taken. Do I, um, have the go ahead to move the program onto the flash drive?"

"Uh. Yeah. Sure."

Sarah squeezed Chuck's shoulder one last time and followed Carina out of the office and into the hallway. Carina shut the door behind them and rounded on Sarah. "Okay, moment of truth, Blondie. He doesn't know that I'm trying to keep my ass from becoming grass at the DA's office. I need a way to get him to destroy that thing and keep my boss, the Los Angeles District Attorney, from knowing that this case she thinks I'm unhealthily obsessed with and letting get 'personal'," she rolled her eyes as she lifted her fingers up by her face to do air quotes, "also almost became the reason a shit ton of my case files were stolen by bad dudes. How do I do this?"

Sarah nodded sagely. "Mmhmm. Okay. Well… I have a thought, and hear me out…" She paused as Carina leaned in expectantly. "Tell him you don't want your boss to find out that this case she thinks you're unhealthily obsessed with and letting get 'personal'," she did air quotes as well, "was almost the reason a shit ton of your case files were stolen by bad dudes. In other words, Red, tell him the truth." She shrugged and crossed her arms.

The other woman gave her a flat look. "Look, Sarah. Just because you're on this guy's bones—and honestly he's kinda growing on me—"

"He's saving your ass, Carina."

"Yeah. That. I know he is. But just because he's a nice guy, maybe even a genuinely good guy, doesn't mean I should trust him with this much truth."

"What do you think he's gonna do, Carina? Go to DA Banerjee's office and say, 'Oh hey did you know that your top lawyer Carina Miller had her laptop broken into and almost lost a shit ton of really important case files to criminal hackers?'"

"No, of course not!" Carina snapped. "But who's to say he doesn't slip or something? What if he's friends with some ambulance chaser, or he's friends with someone who's friends with one of them? And they snatch it up. Next thing I know, it's in the LA Times, Sarah."

Sarah sighed. "I see what you mean. But we can tru—"

"Don't say that unless you mean it. Seriously. Don't say it unless you really mean it."

The private investigator took a deep breath. She really didn't know Chuck for very long. But there were people she'd known her whole life that she didn't trust as much as she trusted him. And that was… What was it?

Was she letting her feelings cloud her good sense? That wasn't really her modus operandi. She didn't play games with her own cases. She kept her work close to her chest. And Carina deserved to have that much care extended to her work. Lives depended on the safety of her files. And she was the best lawyer Sarah had ever met, bias aside. The community deserved someone who stood up for them against corruption and violence the way Carina Miller did.

So it was with an extreme amount of care and awareness and certainty that she said, quietly, "We can trust him, Carina." She paused when Carina raised both eyebrows. "You can trust him. I promise. Just tell him how busted you'd be if Maira found out about this thing they got onto your computer, all the files they could've gotten their disgusting little hands on. That you could potentially lose your job." She took her friends wrist. "Just tell him."

Carina pressed her lips tightly together and shook her head. "I'm trusting a lot with this dude."

"He's proven his mettle so far."

"True. Apparently he still wants to date you even though you've been very you with him."

"The fuck is that supposed to mean?" Sarah asked, gaping in offense even as she chuckled.

"You get into a case and you bury yourself in it and do the whole, 'Oh but Max is my priority' thing. Which, of course he is, but that doesn't mean you can't go on a date with a dude. Like, you have babysitting options. And I know you're doing that to this guy and he's still, like, chomping at the bit to see more of you."

Sarah pursed her lips. "Think he's a glutton for punishment?" she asked wryly.

"I think he likes the shit outta you."

The sincerity of Carina's response, the way she sidestepped the chance to say something snarky or teasing, surprised Sarah.

"I think I'm way out of depth with him, Carina," she responded just as sincerely.

"You?" Carina scoffed. "I'm the one who's about to put the future of my career in his clammy computer nerd hands. A guy who makes long-winded metaphors about…fucking Star Wars, Sarah."

She went back to the door to open it.

"Wait, you knew that was a Star Wars reference?" she teased.

"Shut the fuck up."

Sarah followed her back into the room, laughing, even as she felt the pool of nerves in her gut.

A/N: Don't ask me why Carina saying Whatever. A snake is just a lizard without arms. strikes me as one of the best things I've ever written for this fandom, all modesty aside, but maybe I'm just an idiot. I wrote that and laughed about it to myself for days. The look I imagined Chuck giving her. Like HUHHH? at first, then thinking about it and doing that she has a point head nod he does with that funny face.

Anyway, if you have time to review, that'd be awesome. Ta.

-SC