A/N: Remember who owns Chuck? Good. Me too. I mean, I think I remember.
A/N2: We interrupt the excitement of grenade throwing shootouts to attend a party in this chapter. Not a party as part of a mission. A real party, with dear friends and family and joy and celebration. I hope you enjoy it as much as our friends here do. If you really, really need a chapter with a plot, come back next week.
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Casey glanced at his watch as he finished reading the report. He still had time. He punched a number into the phone on his desk and said, "Yeah, I'm done. Come on by."
Only a short time later, one of the hackers came into Casey's office at Carmichael Industries. Casey handed the man back the report with his mark-ups. "Big improvement," he said, "But dumber still. I circled some sections that were still too smart. The people reading this report don't know shit about computer systems or software or firewalls or any of that stuff. But those are exactly the people who will make the decisions on spending priorities."
"Yes, Major. Thanks. I'll take another crack at it."
"Thanks, kid." The younger man took the report and went back to his desk.
They had decided that each of their reports to the customers would be in two parts. The front part would be for the computer illiterate and the (much longer) back part would be for the techie folks. Casey had taken the role of reading the front parts of the reports to make sure they were dumb enough.
It was a bit of a struggle with some of the hackers, but well worth it. He'd have to talk to his partners about hiring a technical writer. Someone whose job is to simplify the technical jargon. Maybe they could get someone part-time, until the volume of reports justified a full-time position?
Casey stood up and tightened his tie, loosened during the day. He was just grabbing his suit jacket from the back of the door when Amy stepped up, looking beautiful in a short red cocktail dress and a big smile.
"You ready?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said.
"Eileen?"
"Meeting us there," he said.
"Cool," said Amy.
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O'Malley's was closed for the night for a private party celebrating the engagements of Charles Bartowski to Sarah Walker and Dr. Eleanor Bartowski to Dr. Devon Woodcomb.
Chuck and Sarah came in with both Ellie and Devon. They had called a car to take them from their apartments to the bar. None of them thought they would be in a position to drive home afterwards. They were all dressed for the party, Devon and Chuck in their suits and Ellie and Sarah in cocktail dresses, all of them looking spectacular.
Langston and Anna stepped up to the two couples and said, "Congratulations. What a wonderful party."
Both Chuck and Sarah gave both of their guests hugs of thanks and greeting. Langston whispered to Sarah, "I'm delighted for you, my dear."
"Thanks," she said, giving him a kiss on the cheek.
Ellie similarly gave Langston a hug, but she had never met Anna. The two women looked at each other with smiles before launching into hugs of greeting, both of the same mind. Devon and Langston merely looked on amused and decided to shake hands instead. Graham's friend, the New York lawyer John Neilson was there with his wife and congratulated them. For all the time Sarah had spent with him on the phone, this was the first time they had met in person.
Beckman, dressed in a stylish skirt and jacket combination, stepped up with a glass of wine in her hand and a huge smile. "Congratulations, Chuck, Sarah."
"Thank you, General," said Sarah.
Ellie and Devon were pulled away by their own guests.
"I don't want to talk too much business, but how's Larkin?" she asked.
Bryce had been shot twice at the Von Hayes party. One bullet had hit him in the head and had merely cut a crease. He had been lucky with that one as it didn't even fracture the skull, but, like any head wound, it had bled profusely. However, the other round had been more serious. It had hit him in the leg and shattered his femur. The surgeons had repaired it with plates and pins, but Bryce would have a long painful recovery, certainly with more surgeries in his future. The physical therapy alone was going to take quite some time.
"As good as can be expected, I suppose," said Chuck.
"His arrogance cost you the mission. He deliberately violated your orders and a civilian was kidnapped as a result," growled Graham. "He's lucky he still has a job."
"Yes, Sir," said Chuck. "Perhaps we can talk about that some other time?"
Graham shook his head in chagrin at his own actions, "Of course. Sorry. Another time."
Ben and Lisa Mattock came over to them. "Congratulations, Chuck, Sarah," she said.
Ben said, "Yes. May you have many happy marriages," which earned him a smack from his wife and an amused grimace from Langston and Anna.
Carina was next, handing each of them a drink she had brought with her. She grabbed Chuck in a huge hug. "You know I told her first, right?"
"Yes, Carina. I know," he said with a grin, giving her a kiss on the cheek.
While Carina was paying attention to Chuck, Rachel and Brian came up to Sarah.
Rachel said, "Shit. How is this possible? You look even happier than you did a few months ago. I hate you so much. How can anyone be this happy and not be walking around in a constant state of orgasm?"
Sarah snorted and began to laugh so hard she almost spilled the glass of wine Carina had given her. "Ok, first of all, yuck. Secondly, yeah. Every day with my Chuck is better than the day before." Sarah gave Chuck's arm a squeeze.
"Wait," said Carina paying attention to the new arrivals. "Did she just say you look so happy you should be.."
"Yes, she did. Carina Miller, please meet Rachel Bernstein. Rachel, this is Carina. Now I'm about to fasten my seat belt."
Chuck looked over and said, loud enough for both Rachel and Carina to hear, "Wait...did Rachel just meet Carina? Holy shit. Brian, duck, dude. It's about to hit the fan."
"Yikes," he said laughing.
Rachel and Carina looked each other up and down with happy expectant expressions. Rachel said, "I have a feeling this is gonna to be good."
Carina said, gesturing to the bar, "Come on over here and do shots with me and we can get acquainted. You too, you big stud," she said to Brian.
As Brian took a step forward, Chuck grabbed his arm and said quietly, "I hope you didn't drive here."
"We took a cab. Been to parties before, you know," he grinned.
"Smart man," said Chuck, with an answering grin.
Ellie came to them and said, "Come on over. I want you to meet Devon's parents. Woody and Honey." She looked a little nervous at the prospect.
As they moved across the room, Chuck said to Sarah quietly, "Why are they using porn star names?"
Sarah cracked up just as they got to them, "Hi," she said, trying her best to hide her laughter, knowing that this meeting was very important to Ellie.
"Oh, hi, Sarah," said Honey Woodcomb. "So happy to meet you. I've been meaning to talk to you about the menu for the wedding." And she did. And did some more.
It took only a short time for Chuck to catch Casey's eye and give him a look. Casey came over immediately and extricated them from the Woodcombs with the explanation that, sorry as he was, Fitz and his wife needed to talk to them.
It allowed them to make their way over to the other couple, with a quick thanks to their partner.
Although Fitz was a mountain of man, his wife Megan was not. She was even smaller than Rachel with sandy hair and laughing green eyes. How she had birthed four children...four of Fitz's children... was amazing.
"Congratulations, Chuck, Sarah," she said, giving each of them a quick kiss on the cheek.
"Thank you, Megan. And thank you both for the lovely engagement gift," said Chuck. They had been given a large pasta bowl.
"All Meg. I had nothing to do with it," said Fitz with a loving glance at his wife.
She looked back at her husband with love and said, "Yeah, selecting gifts isn't his strong suit. I keep him around for other reasons." She smiled and gave him a hip bump, which connected at about mid-thigh for the big man.
Morgan and Lou came over. "Hey."
"Hey, yourself," said Chuck.
"Did you see Skip? Did you see who he's with?" asked Morgan.
"No, I didn't," Chuck looked around and finally found Skip with...an incredibly beautiful young woman. They were both talking to Fitz's teammate Leo. "Um, who is that?"
"He met her in his chess club. She's a swimsuit model," said Morgan.
Chuck started to laugh. "Good for him. Hey, is that Big Mike talking to your mom?"
"What?" asked Morgan. "Oh, this can't be good. We'll be right back." He dragged Lou over to somehow interfere with that conversation.
They found Casey and Eileen talking to Pat Kendler and her husband Bert. Across the room Karen Graham was talking to Fitz's teammate Billy. They couldn't be too sure, but she seemed to be flirting a little bit.
Anna Wu had joined Rachel and Carina and Amy at the bar doing shots. Brian looked like he'd bailed on that particular activity and was sipping a beer and watching the women with laughing eyes.
Jackie O'Malley came over with his wife to say hello and assure himself that everything was going well.
Fitz's teammate Marco was at the bar with his new boyfriend, a high school history teacher named Justin.
They saw Jeff and Lester talking to Morgan and Lou.
Between the doctors and nurses from Westside and Devon's family and frat brothers and all of Chuck and Sarah's friends, it was fairly crowded.
There was a tapping noise through the sound system and Devon's eldest brother began the speeches. He would be Devon's best man and he gave a sweet, funny speech which made more than a few of the guests a bit teary eyed. A toast was raised to Ellie and Devon.
Morgan took the mic from Devon's brother and said, "If you would all turn your attention to the screens for a few minutes, my friend Jeff Barnes would like to show us something."
Chuck and Sarah looked at each other with the beginnings of panic. The screens, which would normally be showing a baseball game or something like that, came alive with the sounds of Bright Eyes singing "The First Days of My Life" and a picture of Chuck and Sarah. The picture morphed into a video of them nose to nose at the Nerd Herd desk at the Buy More grinning at each other. Several more happy pictures followed, including a short clip where Sarah was practically dragging Chuck into the Home Theater Room at the Buy More, checking to make sure the coast was clear and happily closing the door behind them. The final scene in the montage was of them walking out of the Buy More together, holding hands.
Chuck and Sarah had their arms around each other and were gazing with love at the pictures on the screen. More than one person found themselves crying at the beautiful production. The crowd broke out into happy applause.
Ellie found Jeff and gave him a huge kiss, much to his surprised delight. While he was still reeling from the kiss, Ben and Lisa Mattock stepped up to him. Ben said, "Jeff, right? Jeff Barnes?" When Jeff nodded, Ben continued, "Quality stuff, son. Here's my card. Call me Monday morning for a job making movies for me at Castle Studios. Ok?" Jeff looked at the card and back at the man and nodded his head. He was clearly trying to process the one-two punch of Ellie's kiss and a mogul's business card.
Morgan handed the mic to Casey, who looked at it seriously for a moment or two while the guests quieted down.
Casey looked around the room at the crowd. "Evening, everybody. My name is John Casey. I'm Chuck and Sarah's partner and I'm Chuck's best man." He paused. "Ever think about that? Ever think about the designation of the man standing next to the groom as the 'best man'? I've been giving it a lot of thought lately. I've never done this before, you see. Never been anyone's best man, so I've been thinking about it. I think it's a pretty silly designation, to be honest. Weird. Might be better to say wingman...or adjunct, if we were in the military...or right hand man...something like that." He paused again. "It doesn't mean best friend, we all know that's Morgan over there..." Casey gestured to the little bearded man with an arm around Lou, who grinned widely and raised his drink to Casey.
"But here I am anyway, in this spot...in this..." Something in Casey's voice caught and he stopped and stared at the mic in his hand for almost 15 seconds. Eventually, he continued, "...in this most honored spot. For Chuck Bartowski, the smartest, kindest, bravest..." He stopped once again. Eileen, next to him, reached out a hand and gave him a squeeze on the arm. He gave her a tiny smile in return.
Sarah put her hand to her mouth in surprise and began to cry silently.
"...man I've ever met. But, you see, that's not the thing, really. He's all those things, sure, but he's also good. He's actually good. I don't know a lot of people like that. He will do the right thing each and every time. The moral thing. The thing to help people, even if it costs him personally. You can count on it. To tell the truth, he's better than just good. He's..." Casey had to stop one more time, getting himself together. "... he's the best man I've ever met, and I am merely the man honored by his selection of me to stand with him."
Sarah and Ellie were both crying hard and openly by this point.
"And who could we pair with the best man, but the best woman? Sarah Walker. A woman of grace and beauty and wit, with every bit of the brilliance of her soon to be husband. But a woman who is made of iron and is far and away the toughest person I've ever known. Don't let anyone tell you different. Sarah Walker is the rock upon which our partnership is built. A woman who in every respect truly deserves and complements the best man.
"Now what happens when these two amazing people get together? Charah happens, that's what." By this point, Casey's voice was strong and sure, ebullient.
There was a whoop of a laugh from Lou, who considered herself to have coined the word.
"A love that people will acknowledge and celebrate for decades to come. And God help anyone who might even think of interfering. Mark my words, Chuck and Sarah will see their way past any hurdles life may throw at them and, with their rock-solid love, thrive. I am incredibly honored to be their friend and partner. I'm honored to stand with them at their wedding. Ladies and gentlemen, please raise your glasses with me. To Chuck and Sarah."
"TO CHUCK AND SARAH."
People crowded Casey to congratulate him on a real tearjerker of a speech. He found himself hugging both Ellie and Sarah, who were still crying. Chuck gave him a hug and whispered thanks. Even Morgan tried to hug him afterwards, but that didn't go well.
The food came out and the dancing started and the evening went on for another five hours. The afterparty...well, it might still be going on.
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A/N3: Thanks to Dillwg for explaining to me what a technical writer does.
A/N4: I'm not the first to make the porn stars joke about Honey and Woody's names. I couldn't remember where I'd read it, but Chuckboxers pointed out that it's used in Jay1978's story "Make a Wish." Thanks, Jay1978 for a good joke.
A/N5: Hope everyone enjoyed this interlude in the dangerous spy life. I'm just sorry I wasn't invited to the party. I think I'd like to do shots with Carina and Rachel and the other ladies. What do you think? Would that be fun?