A Day in the Life
28 NOVEMBER 2007
DIGITAL DAVE'S DEN
11:39 EST
Chuck led the way into the computer labs belonging to the CIA tech department. Some called it the Department of Science and Technology, but only in reports and never to each other. Most of the building, Chuck included, just called it Digital Dave's Den. Further, very few people actually knew Digital Dave's last name; he simply went by his nickname. At least, he'd told Chuck during a conference call to the bunker a year before, while Chuck had been remote assisting on a tech problem, his name actually was Dave, so the nickname wasn't too bad.
Chuck had let Sarah or Casey lead the way through the headquarters, but descending into the basement here, he took over by instinct, ignoring Vespa Weier's protests. It didn't matter that he hadn't been here before; these were computers, this was his world. They'd picked up their perky, annoying assistant right after their meeting. This time, she was armed with schedules that were much more copacetic to Sarah's wishes, so there hadn't been a battle of the female CIA agents. But it did mean that the Lynch jokes, amusing until Langston Graham had torn the team a new one, were now back in full swing. They weren't as funny now.
Graham's threats had put a damper on the whole team. It was like the color had been leeched from them. Casey still kept his military bearing, and Sarah's expression was as unreadable as ever, but Chuck couldn't help but think there was just a tinge at the edges of the team, just a hint of something that wasn't quite depression but came close. Team Bartowski had its collective tail between its legs now.
He tried to put the threats out of his mind as he moved into the computer lab, flashing the access badge absently at the guards stationed at the front desk. Graham should have been yelling at him and him alone. Sarah shouldn't have stood up for him like that.
He walked through the rows of desks in the main lab, manned by geeks and nerds. Some of the desks were islands of neatness, tidily and ruthlessly organized, but the trend ran toward the messy down here, nests of snarled wires and spare parts covering most of the flat surfaces, sharing space with empty energy drink cans and fast food wrappers. The walls were painted a soothing beige, and there weren't any windows, not that it mattered. Most of the techs working in the lab were staring at their screens, blissfully zoned out on whatever project was occupying their thoughts.
"It's like a den full of Bartowskis," Casey muttered under his breath, thankfully too quiet for the trailing Vespa Weier to hear. "Ye gods, spare me."
Chuck rolled his eyes. Sarah gave no discernable reaction.
Digital Dave's office was one of the six main offices in the complex dedicated to "Field Resources." The Agency could do with a lot more than six dedicated techs, Chuck knew, which was why Sarah and Bryce had been green-lighted on adding him as dedicated tech support to their wonder-team, despite his unorthodox location. Digital Dave was the best of the six in the office, which meant he was also the most overworked.
Indeed, he didn't look up when Chuck tapped on his door jamb. "Two seconds," he said, hunching his shoulders further and tapping away at his keyboard without pause.
"We'll wait," Sarah said from behind Chuck.
Digital Dave's head came up. "Agent Walker! Hey! What brings a high and mighty field agent into our humble offices?"
"That would be my fault," Chuck said.
Dave's eyes refocused on him. "Chuck!" He seemed genuinely pleased to see Chuck, which was a switch, given that Chuck's phone calls to the den usually inspired more work. "Hey! Cool, you're here. Wait two seconds." And just like that, he went back to working on whatever he was trying to tackle.
Chuck turned to Casey and Sarah with a puzzled look on his face. "Am I that bad?" he asked, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at Dave.
"You're worse," Casey grumbled. "I'm going to take Agent Weier here for a coffee and remind her of the things she needs to forget before Dave blows all of our covers. See you at the front door in twenty minutes?"
Chuck and Sarah promised him that they would.
"Don't be late," Casey said, with one final scowl before he left, herding their assistant-for-the-day away despite her protests that she was scheduled to remain with all three teammates for this allotted time.
Chuck and Sarah waved as they left.
"Is she going to be a permanent fixture in DC?" Chuck wondered. "Because even I'm tired of 'Which Lynch?' jokes already, and that has to be a record."
"You could just not tell the joke," Sarah pointed out, smiling a little wanly as she leaned against the door jamb to Dave's office.
Chuck, since it looked like Dave was going to be wrapped up in the project for longer than the afore-promised two seconds, leaned against the opposite jamb and crossed his arms over his chest. "That would be impossible when she leaves an opening wide enough to drive the Crown Vic through."
"Ah well. Can't say I didn't try."
At the keyboard, Dave gave a fist-pump that made both agents look over. "Take that, bitches," he mumbled around the pencil clenched in his teeth, and tapped a few keys with finality. Without double-checking his work, he rose to his feet and joined the agents at the door. "How long do I have Chuck for?" he asked Sarah.
She checked her watch. "Fifteen minutes."
"I'll make do. Follow me." Dave pulled the pencil from between his teeth and automatically put it over his ear. He was almost as tall as Chuck, but he carried his mass on a husky frame. His hair, eyebrows, and beard were as red as a fire engine, and he had a pair of rectangular glasses perched on the end of his nose, mostly forgotten. His uniform seemed to consist of a never-ending stream of front-pocket polo shirts and khakis, unless he was being called up in front of a committee or something. Then, Chuck imagined, he probably put on a suit. But to get a technical mind like Dave's, the CIA had to make some allowances.
He led Chuck and Sarah deeper into the tech den, and Chuck was only grateful that he and Sarah both had the highest clearances, otherwise security would have shown up to shoot both of them by now. They passed more geeks hard at work, huddled in front of screens or working on devices in various stages of tech destruction, the electronic innards of many devices splayed over workspaces.
"So we've been playing around with that Fulcrum code from that cloned hard drive, the Ezersky one," Dave said as he led Chuck and Sarah deep into the heart of the den, a workstation office where every surface was literally covered with computers or spare parts. The doorway had an old, crinkled sign attached to the door with yellowed scotch tape that read, "Dave Cave: Enter And Risk Being Assimilated." It was quite a bit less chaotic than the surrounding desks and labs. "And it's a doozy of a coding nightmare. No wonder it took you over a week to crack."
"Don't remind me," Chuck grumbled.
"We didn't have the luxury of stumbling over a missing cell phone with the same security algorithms, so I've had a few of my best guys building the missing code from scratch." Dave shot a grin over his shoulder to lessen the harshness of his words. "But since you've got a couple of minutes, do you think you could take a look at what they've got, see if you can compare it to anything you remember?"
"The cell phone code files should be saved to my home computer," Chuck mused.
"Really?" Dave perked up. "Is there any way we can get that here?"
As one, Chuck and Dave turned to look at Sarah. She barely blinked as she pulled out her cell phone. "I'll make the call. It'll take a minute, so Dave, don't let Chuck out of your sight, okay?"
After she strolled away, Dave turned to Chuck with both eyebrows raised.
"Yes. I have handlers now," Chuck said, barely suppressing a sigh. "Or partners. Whatever you call them. The Fulcrum thing with the codes, it kind of blew up in our faces, and so now I'm being watched at all times. Sarah in particular is being paranoid. It'll ease off."
"Oh, yes," Dave said, his tone utterly dry. "That sounds like a horrible fate, to be watched all the time by the legendary Agent Walker."
"Shut up," Chuck said, grinning. "Now where's that code you wanted me to take a look at?"
He almost didn't see Sarah return from making her phone call, so wrapped up was he in deciphering the code and its possibilities with Dave. But he still noted that she slipped into the room and stood off to the side of the door, waiting patiently in agent mode with her hands behind her back. It was completely different from the way she would sit or lean in the office back in Burbank, waiting for him to finish whatever computer problem he was trying to tackle. Just another difference between DC and Burbank, he thought.
"There's a possibility of a backdoor virus," Dave said. "I'm reporting directly to Graham on this one, and he wants me to create something handheld that will let his agents disable the security remotely, but I'm also working on a secondary virus."
"The coding's pretty tight," Chuck said, frowning at the lines on the screen. "If you're going the backdoor virus route, you risk alerting the sysadmin and creating direct access to your own servers. Whoever created this, they're not exactly minor leagues."
Dave's grin almost redefined cocky. "And what about the CIA says minor leagues?"
"Point," Chuck said, shaking his head.
"So I cleared an hour or two hour for you tomorrow to work with my team," Dave said, hitting a button on the keyboard and making the code vanish entirely. "If your computer's not here in time, we'll get you your own setup down here. Probably in here, actually." Dave looked around the Dave Cave as if he had never seen it before, and the organized soul inside of Chuck nearly wept at the thought. "Or maybe somewhere else. But you've got a battle axe guarding your schedule in Vespa Weier, did you know that? The last time I had to fill out so many forms, it was Take Your Daughter to Work Day, and Kaylee accidentally set off a high-powered laser we had in development in the cafeteria and blew up the soup of the day."
"Really?"
"Yeah, it was Wednesday, too."
"Chili," Sarah said knowingly, speaking up for the first time since she'd returned.
Dave grinned. "They're still cleaning it out of the ceiling vents. But it'll be neat having your brain on the team for a little while, Chuck. Things were getting a little too orthodox down here."
"I'm really not sure what that says about your team," Chuck said. Since he caught Sarah glancing at her watch, he cleared his throat. "Is our time up?"
"Just about." She gave Dave an apologetic look. "Busy day. Sorry, Dave."
"Don't worry about it."'
"One thing: you'll have to call me Agent Lynch until further notice. And unless your people know Chuck by his name already, he's Agent Lynch, too."
"Either NCS developed a sense of humor, or you're supposed to be married," Dave surmised, and Chuck choked on nothing. Dave gave him a puzzled look, but Chuck waved it off, so Dave continued. "All right. I'll inform my men that 'Agent Lynch' will be joining the team. I didn't tell them Chuck was coming. Didn't want to get their hopes up until I was absolutely sure."
"But no pressure," Chuck said, and coughed to clear his throat. As he did so, he noticed something off to the side of Dave's desk, half-buried under a pile of USB cords. It was a barette with a sparkly butterfly on it, the clip halfway cut through by what looked like wire-cutters, leaving a small hollow cup inside the barette where it looked like something had been removed. The clip looked vaguely familiar, though he couldn't place it.
Dave spotted the object of his interest. "Oh, right, check it out. This toy just got here Monday. Next generation tracker." In his excitement, he jerked on Chuck's arm, pulling the other man over to a station with a vise grip and a magnifying lens. Chuck tensed, but the other man had let go by then. "Check out the detailing on this baby. Masterful, right?"
"I think we really need to go," Sarah said from the door.
Chuck flashed her his best wheedling grin. "Just one more minute?" he asked.
She looked doubtful, but she sighed. "It's on you if we're late to meet Casey."
"Got it."
"And he's pissed at you already."
Chuck didn't bother to argue that one, since she was right. Instead, he just tilted the magnifying lens to get a clearer look at the tracker, curious to see if the circuitry was as beautiful as Dave claimed.
The flash caught him off-guard, but that wasn't unusual.
Stop-motion footage of two pigtailed girls on a swing set.
KROLIK ENTERPRISES.
A detailed floor-plan of a very high-tech building, multiple egress points and data security failsafes.
World War II-style photograph of a soldier cleaning his gun while his friend laughed in the background.
PRODUCT DESIGN: EM-50. Schematics, designs for a burst-mode tracker, lightweight, two millimeter diameter, subdermal options. Rechargeable. Seventeen day battery life.
Serial numbers, patent requests, forms and inventories of products needed for the EM-50 Subdermal Locator.
The photograph of the laughing soldier and his serious friend again.
A press release for Krolik Enterprises on a fairly recent product launch for an unrelated in-car GPS system. A shot of the CEO of Krolik Enterprises glad-handing it with the product designer, mugging for the camera.
The girls on the swing-set again, smiling.
Chuck blinked a couple of times, heavily. "Interesting," he managed to say in an almost-normal tone. "I've seen this before."
"You have?" Dave sounded genuinely surprised. "Where?"
"I don't think it's the same generation, but—can I use your computer?" When Dave simply gestured in a "have at it" sort of way, Chuck called up the national patent registry and typed in "Krolik Enterprises." It took him some scrolling, but he didn't want to input the patent registration number directly and rouse Dave's suspicions. He wasn't the one in the room with the damn near perfect memory, after all. It took a few seconds, but he found it, and turned the screen to show Dave.
"The EM-50?" Dave asked, looking at the tracker through the lens. He whistled lowly. "Interesting. You've gotten farther in less than two minutes than any of my guys have in two days, Chuck. Seriously impressive. I'll do some research on this."
"No problem," Chuck said weakly, fighting the urge to rub his temple with his fingers. As he did so, he spotted that odd butterfly barette that had held the tracker. Something about it niggled in his brain. He didn't have time to puzzle it out, though, since Sarah touched his arm, a signal that it was definitely time to go. "See you tomorrow, Dave."
"Catch ya later, Chuck," Dave said without looking up from the computer screen.
Sarah remained quiet while they wound their way through Dave's department, but the minute they were beyond the security desks out front, she glanced at him. "What'd you flash on?"
"Something in the design, I think." Chuck summed up the flash.
"Krolik?" Sarah asked, just to be sure, when he had finished.
"Yeah, why?"
"Um, it's Russian for 'rabbit.'"
"Coincidence?" Chuck asked.
"I don't think so."
"So a Russian guy we know now is Fulcrum because I hacked his security on a confirmed Fulcrum agent's phone makes rabbit-shaped robots, and there's a next generation tracker the CIA has never seen produced by a company that just happens to be named the Russian word for rabbit," Chuck surmised. "Yeah, definitely not a coincidence."
"You think?" Sarah asked, but she was smiling.
"How did we get a Fulcrum tracker?" Chuck asked.
If he wasn't always hyper-aware of everything Sarah did these days, ever since Just say the word, Chuck had turned his head upside down and his world inside-out, he might not have caught it. But Sarah's eyes cut down and to the left, just a flicker, just once. And Chuck knew.
"Jill was wearing butterfly barettes in her hair," he said, his voice hollow. "That's how those Fulcrum guys found us. They tracked us using the EM-50. Jill brought them right to us."
Sarah's hand, the one closest to him, flexed a little bit, as if she wanted to pat his arm or grab his hand but wasn't sure. She gave him a sympathetic look. "I'm sorry, Chuck."
Chuck just shook his head. "It's not your fault. She put her faith in these people and they were just using it to come…clean things up." To kill her, he thought, trying his hardest not to think of the look on Jill's face as she had tumbled to the floor in the musty, disgusting office of the Heartbrake Hotel.
They continued to walk along, silently, through the headquarters of the CIA, going down hallways Chuck didn't recognize but Sarah apparently did. She eyed him a time or two as they walked, but Chuck kept his head down.
"I called the hospital this morning," Sarah said as they approached the main entrance where Casey and Vespa Weier awaited them. "They said there were some complications with some of the stitches ripping, but she's going to be all right, in the long run."
"Great," Chuck said without feeling. "And she's going to talk?"
"She's already come clean, and they're launching an investigation into the matter. Her testimony wasn't much, but every bit we know about Fulcrum now means more that we can do to keep you safe." This time, Sarah seemed to give into the impulse; she rubbed her hand along Chuck's sleeve, and he swore he felt her warmth through the layers of cloth. "Give me some kind of clue here, Chuck. Where's your head at with this Jill situation?"
Chuck moved a shoulder in a half-shrug.
Sarah gave him an exasperated look.
"I'm not a trained dog," he pointed out as they crossed the foyer, letting his irritation color his words. It wasn't fair to her, and he knew that, but he couldn't and didn't want to stop himself. They headed toward Casey and Vespa Weier. "You can't just say 'Speak!' and I'll start yapping out emotion."
"Why not?" Casey asked, rising from the bench by the front door. He buttoned his suit jacket. "Always seemed to work before."
"You two are a riot," Chuck decided, as Sarah gave Casey an annoyed look. "Let's go see what shiny things the NSA has in store for us."
Nobody argued with that, but Vespa Weier did seem pleased that, for once, they were going to stick to her precise schedules.
28 NOVEMBER 2007
NSA HEADQUARTERS, FORT MEADE, MARYLAND
14:08 EST
"Feels like old times," Chuck joked weakly to Casey.
The other man ignored him with the ease of practice, as he was busy listening to the earpiece that Vespa Weier had handed him before they had smuggled Chuck into the building.
At the CIA headquarters, Agent Lynch was just another faceless CIA analyst—Agent Cameron Lynch that was, as Agent Karrin Lynch made for a very poor analyst when she could have found better-paying work as a model—but Chuck's cover for the NSA was that of tech support until they got through the first set of security checks. After that, Chuck's identity became unimportant: Casey had stuffed a cloth bag over his head, and Sarah and Casey had guided him to the testing labs, where all surveillance was disabled for the day, and Chuck once again became Patient X, Intersect subject alpha. During the two weeks between being on the run with Sarah and landing in Burbank to kick off Operation Prometheus, Chuck and Casey had gone through this routine almost daily. The crack NSA team of scientists would be able to read Chuck's brain-waves and physiological signs without seeing him, for his own protection.
Chuck knew Sarah was in with those scientists now, serving as the liaison for the group. She hadn't spoken much on the way over to Fort Meade, and Chuck didn't blame her.
He'd have to apologize soon. He just wasn't ready to deal with it yet, though.
"Old times, Chuck?" Ellie asked. She was wearing an NSA badge just like his own, though she was Army Major Nelson, something she and Chuck had already bantered about for a full five minutes, and she was observing Casey as he went through the motions of setting up the monitors around Chuck for the scientists. "They've put you through this before?"
"Quite a few times." Chuck sighed when Casey pulled out the helmet. "I hate that thing."
"Tough," Casey said.
"At least let me put it on by myself this time. You always shove it on and it pinches and—ow." Chuck glared as the helmet was unceremoniously forced onto his head. "I'm going to have helmet hair."
"I can hear the fashion gods crying already."
Ellie rolled her eyes sympathetically at her brother. She hadn't quite warmed up to John Casey's gruff ways yet.
Chuck managed a feeble grin. He could practically feel Ellie's excitement coloring the air. She had spent the morning going through her NSA orientation, as she would for the next few days, but her afternoons were free to observe Chuck as he went through another round of Intersect testing. Sometimes, with all of her popular friends and lifestyle, he forgot that Ellie could be just as nerdy as he was. She'd aced medical school, after all, and she liked old-school science fiction like The Twilight Zone, so of course the Intersect would be interesting to her.
And this would be the first time she would get to see it in action. Chuck could understand her excitement.
The testing room was large, as it was meant for quite a few more people than just Casey, Ellie, and Chuck. It was also very bright, overly lit, and very white. There were medical tools that Chuck tried not to think about arranged in various cabinets around the room's edges, and a surgical gurney located under a set of lights in the middle of the room. Thankfully, though, he didn't have to lie in this for the Intersect tests. They had set up just an ordinary office swivel chair in the middle of the room for him, hooked up to the monitors already. It was starkly black against the white room, and it lacked cupholders, which Chuck felt was a major drawback because otherwise, it was comfortable. His throat inevitably got very dry during these sessions, as they asked endless questions and did word associations to figure out exactly how he processed the flashes.
Chuck only sat still while Casey attached nodes to the helmet because he knew moving would only make Casey grouchier. "How was your orientation?" he asked Ellie, careful not to move his head. "Did they walk you through how to say 'I'd tell you, but then I would have to kill you' in five different languages?"
"I wish." Ellie smiled. "Paperwork."
"Yeah, they tend to bury you in that the first couple of days," Sarah said, and both Bartowski siblings jolted.
Casey rolled his eyes. "Did both of you forget you were wearing earpieces?" he asked, looking from one Bartowski to the other.
Ellie waited until Casey had turned his back on her before she narrowed her eyes at him, rather childishly. Chuck had to fight a grin. "It wasn't nice of you to warn Ellie not to bring a shovel," he said to the absent Sarah.
He could almost hear her shrug. "Agency hazing. That traitor is NSA now, she's on her own."
Ellie snickered as Casey growled under his breath and Chuck choked back a laugh.
Immediately, the earpiece line buzzed. "Patient X," Dr. Zarnow said, coming onto the line. Chuck recognized his voice because he was the only scientist that had ever bothered to identify himself. "Is something amiss? We've noted a spike in your vital signs."
"That would be Agent Lynch's fault," Casey said, his tone almost gleeful.
"My apologies, Doctor Zarnow." Sarah's tone was professional, but Chuck thought he could detect a promise of retribution to Casey in her words. He glanced at Casey now without moving his head, as the NSA agent was busily attaching the last wires to the helmet. Casey was smirking.
It figured.
"I will do my best not to affect Patient X for the rest of the test," Sarah went on, and the line fell silent.
Chuck glanced questioningly at Casey. "Can they hear everything we're saying in the control room right now?"
"Not unless Wal—Lynch presses a button." Casey finished attaching the final wire and then crouched to get a look at his handiwork. "I think we're all set in here." He glanced at Ellie, sighed to himself, and crossed to the side of the room. He returned with two folding chairs, both of which he set up while the Bartowskis watched him in silence. Once he had finished with that, Casey gestured a bit impatiently for Ellie to sit down.
"What happens now?" she asked. Since she was looking at Casey, Chuck figured he'd let the NSA agent field that one, since Chuck's own explanation included phrases like, "Now my brain explodes, but in a fun way." Granted, there was usually sarcasm involved.
Indeed, Casey seemed amused. "We watch 'Patient X' over there spit out government secrets in the name of science. It's actually boring from this end, but the nerds in the control room go nuts over it. Sometimes there's popcorn."
The earpiece buzzed again. "Patient X," Dr. Zarnow said, "are you ready to begin?"
Chuck confirmed that he was, and kicked back in the swivel chair, idly wishing there was a foot stool. At least this time they hadn't hooked him up to lie-detector equipment, as that meant actually being strapped to the chair. Now he simply had the brain-helmet, a couple of nodes attached to his forehead and chest, and a wristband clamped rather uncomfortably around his right wrist. He was a tad disappointed that the brain-helmet didn't actually resemble the mind-reading helmet that Doc had worn in Back to the Future when Marty had first found him in 1955.
The lights in the room dimmed. A white square of light was projected onto a screen in front of Chuck, Casey, and Ellie. "Patient X, affix your attention to the screen ahead. The test will begin in three…two…one…"
Here we go, Chuck had time to think, before the pictures began and he started narrating the flashes as they hit in quick succession.
28 NOVEMBER 2007
DAVENPORT ESTATE
18:49 EST
After catching up with Gwen, or rather, informing her of what had occurred that day, Chuck begged off from the rest of the group gathered in the Davenports' den, claiming a headache. It wasn't a lie. The tests at the NSA had gone on for over an hour of consistent flashing, which meant his brain felt a bit like a brick that had been stuffed between his ears. He had popped a couple of ibuprofen when Ellie's back had been turned, so the ache had dulled to a throb, but with all of the new sensations and areas and just holding it together around so many people all day, Chuck wanted to be alone. Nobody had protested, and now Sarah was picking up her car from storage, Ellie and Awesome had both been at orientation all day, and Casey had had his fill of Bartowskis well before noon.
Now, though, Chuck wandered the house. The Davenport lived in what was almost a mansion, which surprised Chuck somewhat since he'd never pictured the government paying quite well. But he supposed Mr. Davenport, whom Chuck had yet to meet, did fairly well at his job. Or maybe they came from family money. Chuck had no idea. He was just grateful that Gwen seemed so understanding, and that he wasn't staying at the detention facility.
He should go down to the guest house, get a look at that, compare notes with Ellie and Awesome since they were just as out of place out here as he was.
Instead, he wandered until he found a home gym in the basement. Exercise equipment gathered around a few exercise mats, the treadmill and elliptical machine facing a flat-screen TV that matched the TV in the den inch for inch. A punching bag dangled from the ceiling on chains. There was a weight bench and a floor-length mirror, and all of the equipment had that well-cared, well-worn look that told Chuck at least one Davenport put some serious time down here.
It had been five days since he'd worked out. The bruises he'd picked up during the gunfight at the Heartbrake Hotel ached, but Chuck didn't care. He had the sudden urge for a hard work-out. And if he couldn't run in the park by his place in Burbank, he could at least clock some time on the treadmill. He dashed up to his room to grab his gear.
He regretted that he hadn't packed his own luggage, as Casey hadn't seen his iPod as a necessary accessory for DC. Since he hadn't had time to put music on his new phone, he turned on the TV and switched over to the Sci-Fi channel to watch Stargate SG-1 while he ran. The TV was set to the news channel, but Chuck had discovered early on that watching the news only led to flashes, and he was tired of flashing today.
He tuned Stargate out, losing himself to the rhythm of his feet pounding against the treadmill belt and the beat of his breath. Lights and sensors on the treadmill blinked, but he looked past the read-outs and just let himself go. It was almost like an out-of-body experience. He didn't think about the ever-present threat of Fulcrum. He didn't think about his ex-girlfriend lying three thousand miles away in a hospital room. He didn't think about the need to see her, to make sure she was okay and to understand, that need withered and spread on the wind just like the ashes of the Heartbrake Hotel. He didn't think of the shocked look in Leader's eyes as the knife had continued to drip, the jerk of his body as three bullets penetrated his chest. He didn't think about the greatest comfort and greatest confusion in his life. There was no guilt over screwing up the Burbank operation, no remorse in the face Director Graham's ire, no bowing down to an angry Casey's wrath. There was nothing but the sound of his breath.
He ran.
Sensation fizzled out. Chuck's legs moved at a steady pace, not fast enough to push himself to new limits, but enough to challenge him. Time became a meaningless entity that only mattered to others. If he thought about it, and he wasn't thinking about it because there was no thought in this twilight existence of just running, he might have philosophized that Chuck Bartowski ceased to exist. But he didn't think about it. He just ran onward, pace never shifting, never fluctuating.
Something startled him out of his trance, though he had no idea what. Chuck blinked, swiveling his head about to search for the source. He nearly tripped when he realized he wasn't alone.
"'Lo," his companion greeted, and looked up from taping his fist. "Might want to watch it there, you're about to run off the belt."
Chuck nearly jumped and made the problem worse, but he managed to right himself on the treadmill belt before he could do something disastrous like fly off the back. Quickly, he jabbed at the pace button, slowing the belt down to a moderate jog. He was covered in sweat, and not just his normal light sheen reserved for public and open spaces. He was actually dripping onto the treadmill belt profusely enough that he had no idea how he hadn't slipped and broken his neck already. His lungs were beyond sandpaper; he felt like he'd sucked on jet exhaust. Even as he regrouped, his hands and knees started shaking.
How long had he been running?
Since he had a needling suspicion the answer would only make him shake harder, he chose to turn and study the other man in the basement with him. "Thanks," Chuck told him, his voice rasping uncomfortably against the back of his abused throat.
"No problem." His companion smiled. It had to be Russ Davenport; Chuck hadn't met the other man yet, as he'd already gone to bed by the time Sarah, Chuck, and Casey had arrived the night before, and the agents had left under the cover of false dawn, it felt like. Chuck wasn't sure what he had been expecting, knowing that Russ was an architect. Somebody smooth and svelte, maybe, with styled hair and trendy glasses that seemed to be all the rage among architects on TV. Russell Davenport, on the other hand, looked like a brawler. His hair was shaggy and mostly gray and looked like it hadn't ever been styled by anything more than a comb. He was broad-shouldered in a way that made him seem top-heavy, and instead of a tailored suit, he wore a faded Orioles tee and equally-ancient gym shorts. He finished taping up his other hand.
"I don't think we've met," Chuck said, slowing the treadmill down even more since it felt like his legs might physically collapse underneath him.
"You're Chuck, right?" Russ asked, ripping off the tape and tucking the extra into the bundle around his knuckles. Seeing Chuck's hesitant expression, he laughed a little. "I've met everybody else in your group. Process of elimination."
"Oh."
"Russ Davenport. Nice to meet you."
"Likewise. I, um, the kitchen you designed looks really great."
"Thanks." Russ tossed the roll of tape onto a well-used table near the punching bag. There were three empty tape spools already crowded on the table. "It was Gwen's idea. Don't know why, she can't cook."
"So she said." Chuck cleared his throat a little. "You don't mind me using the equipment, do you?" It had been years, he thought, since he'd had to deal with people he didn't know one-on-one without Casey or Sarah or Ellie nearby. He wondered if he would ever be comfortable with anybody outside of his chosen circle ever again. It was almost a depressing thought.
"It's what it's there for." Russ stretched one arm across his chest and simultaneously popped his neck. Chuck had to admit the noise was certainly impressive. "There's water in that fridge over there. You should get one. You're bright red."
"Uh, right." Since he was suddenly dying of thirst, Chuck pulled out the plastic key-card and the treadmill rolled to a stop. The instant he took one step off of the treadmill and onto the basement floor, his knee buckled, the room swam, and he entertained one flash-like vision of the floor racing at his nose. He blinked. Black sparkled at the edges of his vision, but when it receded, he found himself gripping the arm-guard, his knuckles white. Miraculously, he was still on his feet.
"You okay?" Russ asked, stretching out the other arm.
"Ran farther than I thought." Sheer will kept Chuck on his feet, though he was breathing like a steam engine, and his legs had been replaced by flimsy rubber replicas. He made it across the room, retrieved a bottle of water, and promptly collapsed on top of the mini-fridge, where he proceeded to down half of the bottom like a man stranded in the desert. "Ran way farther than I thought," he said when he lowered the bottle.
"It happens." Russ smacked the punching bag a couple of times, testing jabs at the most. Chuck watched the bag swing in reaction. His own knuckles twanged painfully with the phantom memory of pounding on Frank, but he just tightened his grip on the water bottle and continued to drink. His throat felt like somebody had taken an actual chisel to the inside of it, and his head felt foggy and distant, disconnected from his body.
"Good to see somebody using the treadmill. Bought it for Gwen, but she prefers that…thing." Russ jerked his head at the elliptical machine, both an amused and a derisive motion. "Still don't understand it."
Chuck watched the bag swing almost carelessly when the other man pounded it a few times. He didn't really have anything intelligent to add to the conversation, so he made one of Casey's grunting noises that always seemed to take the place of full sentences.
"Ha," Russ said, and hit the bag again. "Yeah, I know, I talk too much."
"People say the same thing about me. Well, not in those words. Usually it's, 'Okay, enough, Chuck,' or 'Shut up, Chuck,' but you know what I'm saying." Chuck thought about it as he downed another quarter of the water bottle. "Okay, maybe they don't say that all the time, but yeah. How long, uh, how long have you been boxing? Because you're, wow, that bag's really moving. My partner, Sarah, she beats the hell out of our training dummy—his name's Frank, not that that's important—but he doesn't move much unless she kicks him." Chuck paused to think about that. "Also, he's bolted to the floor. It helps, I think."
Russ's jabs at the bag paused for a minute. "You named your training dummy?" he asked.
"I also put him in a dress."
Russ's mouth twitched. "Yeah?"
"A really ugly one," Chuck said. Because he was still thirsty, he helped himself to a second bottle of water, and got one out to set on the table beside Russ. His knees still felt a bit watery as he crossed the room. "I also put makeup on him, but don't remind Sarah of that. She's still a little peeved. She's protective of Frank."
"Mm-hmm." Russ nodded his thanks for the water and resumed striking the bag with quick, controlled movements that struck Chuck as really precise. "Since college," he said.
Chuck blinked. "What?"
"Before you started talking about dressing up your dummy, you asked when I got into boxing. In college." Russ jabbed the bag a few more times. "It's how I met Gwen, actually."
"Yeah?"
"Boxing club."
"Get out," Chuck said, thinking of the petite FBI agent. "Gwen's a boxer?"
"Used to be. She prefers that thing more these days." Russ nodded at the elliptical again.
"So are you two college sweethearts?"
"Are you kidding?" Russ actually laughed. "She hated me. I broke her perfect fight record."
"Wait, you used to box against each other?" The water bottle stopped halfway to Chuck's mouth.
"Yep." Russ hit the bag with a series of uppercuts that made Chuck reevaluate the other man's strength. He was built like a freaking bear. "Relax, it was just sparring and it was one of those off-the-record deals. Our club didn't really play by the rules, and I didn't knock her unconscious or anything."
"How's that work with you two being married?"
"Surprisingly well. I just remember she's got a ferocious right hook and most arguments stop before they even get started." Russ grinned, just a quick, surefire flash of amusement. "Took me a couple of years to wear her down after that."
"Wow," Chuck said, and took a long drink of water while his mind worked to process that. "I can't even imagine. If Sarah and I got into a fight, she'd kick my ass in two seconds. I'm pretty sure she's been tempted a time or two."
"A-ha," Russ said.
Chuck's head shot up. "A-ha? Wh-what do you mean by a-ha?"
"I mean that Gwennie owes me twenty bucks." Russ smirked and hit the bag again in a combo that mystified Chuck but seemed to make sense to the architect. "I said you two were a thing, she said it wasn't possible."
And a week before, Chuck would have agreed whole-heartedly with Gwen. Now, with Sarah's confession on the table, he simply felt bewildered. "We're not officially," he said, and searched for a word. Since he couldn't figure out what to say, he just echoed Russ. "A thing. We're not officially anything. It's complicated."
"Uh-huh." More pounding on the bag, but Russ seemed amused.
Chuck sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. "But there have been…overtures made."
Russ laughed. "Overtures," he repeated, still beating on the bag. He seemed to expel a sharp, huffing breath every time his fists made contact with the bag's beaten surface, a piece of information Chuck tucked away for later. "Overtures. Wish I had some sage advice for you, kid, as you seem like a nice guy, but…"
"Yeah," Chuck said. "I don't know if sage advice helps. There is always that little voice in my head that says, 'Hey, dude, Sarah said she likes you, and have you seen how awesome, and, oh yeah, how hot she is?' There's always that voice."
"You hear these voices often?" Russ asked.
"Oh, sure, I'm probably crazy."
"Seem perfectly sane to me."
"So you're saying I shouldn't listen to the voice?"
"Well, the voice isn't exactly telling you to stab somebody in a motel shower, so what's the harm?"
Chuck stared at the other man for a long time, something that didn't seem to faze Russ Davenport at all if the way he kept attacking the bag was any indication. In the middle of a thought, Chuck burst out into inexplicable, unstoppable laughter. He held one hand over his stomach, doubling forward slightly. "You make it sound really simple," he said once the laughter had died down.
"Don't know what to tell you there." Russ smacked the bag once, twice, dancing around now. "Sometimes it's simple. Sometimes it's not."
"That's highly philosophical," Chuck decided, not sure if that advice was supposed to be sage or not.
"It took me two and a half years to wear Gwen down to consider going on a date with me." Russ reached out and stilled the bag. He was breathing a little harder than he had been in the beginning, and sweat had sprouted at his temples. "When we tell people that story, they ask her if she regrets waiting that long. She says no."
"Okay," Chuck said, not sure exactly what Russ was trying to tell him and how it applied to listening to the voices in his head.
Russ patted his palms against the heavy bag, as if assuring himself it was still there. He was three or four inches shorter than Chuck, but somehow Chuck felt very small standing next to him. "I think what I'm trying to say, and don't forget I'm an architect, not a philosopher, is that you should live your life in a way you won't regret later."
Immediately, four or five regrets swam to the surface of Chuck's mind: things like saying yes to Professor Fleming at Stanford, stalking Jill and her Fulcrum cohorts, losing his temper with Sarah that morning. And, since his legs were shuddering from the effort of his earlier run, he definitely regretted losing track of reality on the treadmill.
And not a single one of them he could take back.
Chuck frowned. "Are you sure you're in the right field?"
"Nope, just old." Russ glanced down at Chuck's feet. "Got your legs under you?"
That was an odd question. "Yeah."
"Good. You can hold the bag, then. Consider it a payment for an old fogey's advice."
"Done," Chuck said, and moved to brace the bag so that Russ could beat on it in earnest while he turned the older man's advice over in his mind. By the time Russ declared his work-out done, with a few conversational breaks where they talked about the Patriots' chances this year (Chuck mostly just bobbed his head), Chuck had figured out at least one thing he could get a grip on in his life.
28 NOVEMBER 2007
DAVENPORT ESTATE
20:17 EST
Reminders of his shower were still clinging to his hair and skin as Chuck bundled into his winter coat and headed outside through the sliding door connected off the dining room. He hadn't run into Gwen or any of the others, but Sarah had slipped into his bedroom while he showered and had left a note on the bed: "BBQ Guest House, join us!" She had scribbled a little smiley face at the bottom of the paper, which had inspired Chuck to fold the paper and carefully put it into his wallet before he'd headed down.
Now, he picked his way across the back yard to the little guest house, or mother-in-law cottage, as Gwen had called it. There were footprints already in the light crust of snow that told him he was going the right way, and he could see smoke from the grill rising from behind the one-story little building. The surrounding trees closed the property in and made all of the space a bit more tolerable, but Chuck picked up his pace to reach the others. Going on instinct, he didn't use the front door of the cottage, instead heading around the side. The gardens were bared by the oncoming threat of winter and the snow lay over the winter-brown grass in patches, but he imagined that in the summer, this place must be a show-house.
There was a patio and a swimming pool behind the cottage. And gathered on the patio, bundled in winter gear just like him, were Ellie, Awesome, Sarah, and Casey.
Awesome, manning the smoking grill, spotted him first. "Hey, Chuckster, just in time! Welcome back to the land of the living!"
"Captain Awesome, awesome as always," Chuck said with mock solemnity. Even though he'd seen Awesome at breakfast, he endured what Ellie called the man-hug. "What's cooking?" He sniffed appreciatively.
"Red meat! Special Woodcomb rub, it's like an orgy for your taste buds." Awesome poked one of the steaks arrayed on the grill with his tongs. Though he wore a parka similar to Chuck's, he had put a "Kiss the Cook" apron on over it. "How do you like your steak? Nuked or napalmed?"
"Oh, napalmed, for sure. Mostly because I know Casey probably actually has some napalm on him, and I'd pay good money to see that. But barring actual napalm, maybe medium-well? Hey, El." His sister had slipped up beside him during Awesome's questions. "How'd the rest of your day go?"
"Orientations." Ellie waved a hand, dismissing all of that in one gesture. She squinted up at him. "Did your headache go away?"
"I thought I hid that from you," Chuck said, frowning.
"Nice try." Ellie took her time searching Chuck's face, but whatever she saw there, she seemed satisfied. "You look better."
Chuck's legs had finally stopped wobbling halfway through his shower, and now that his throat and chest no longer felt hollowed out from his run, he was actually close to starving. "Went for a run."
"Awesome!" Awesome held up a hand for a high-five.
Chuck returned the high-five and made his excuses to head over to the table where Casey sat. Sarah had slipped back into the guest house for some reason. He glanced after her, but with a shrug plopped down in the Adirondack chair next to Casey. "Bit cold," he said.
"You think?" Since Ellie was around, Casey left the "moron" at the end of his sentence unspoken. After a minute or so, he relented. "It's not too bad, actually, for this time of the year, snow aside." His face painted quite the picture of dislike for snow.
After spending three years in Siberia, Chuck couldn't help but agree.
Casey eyed him for a minute and sighed. "I'm only going to say this once, and if you moron-babble back at me, I'm going to shove my foot up your ass so far you will have no choice but to kiss the ground I walk on." When Chuck blinked and opened his mouth, one of Casey's eyebrows went up, a deliberate threat. Chuck closed his mouth. "Good. You're learning. You held your own in there against Graham today. You were an idiot and a moron, and the fact that you nearly got us all killed makes me still want to strangle you a bit, but you didn't make excuses or whine today, so you and me, we're fine. Provided you don't pull a fool stunt like that ever again. Got it, Bartowski?"
"I got it," Chuck said when he found his voice. The look on Casey's face should really be bottled and used to frighten children into actually doing their homework.
"Good." Casey took a sip of his beer and settled back. Now that his piece had been said, he looked almost content. He stretched his feet out toward the raised fire pit the others had set up and sighed.
Chuck decided that with Awesome manning the grill, Sarah still gone, and Ellie deep in conversation with her boyfriend, he didn't really have anything else to do. He stretched his feet out toward the fire. The tips of his ears were cold and would only get colder, but he didn't want to return to the main house to collect his hat. After a minute, he remembered something he had been meaning to ask Casey about when he had the chance.
"Do you have any contacts that could get you data about military personnel?" he asked, dropping his voice so that Ellie and Awesome wouldn't overhear.
Casey turned his head to look over, his eyes narrowed. "Could be. Why do you want to know?"
"I've been trying to find some information on a soldier, KIA. Well, two soldiers, but I'm not sure which one it is. I don't know if it's relevant, but I think it may have something to do with the Intersect project."
"Where are you getting your intel, Bartowski?"
Chuck took a deep breath. "Bryce Larkin. Have you ever heard of Project Omaha?" Since Casey still looked annoyed, albeit a bit interested, he quickly summarized what had happened with the menu back in the Bungalow, and the strip of paper he'd found in his pocket in the hospital waiting room upon the return to Burbank. By the end of his tale, he could almost keep time to the vein throbbing in Casey's forehead.
"And why the hell didn't you tell me this before, Bartowski?" Casey demanded.
"With the menu, you were going to execute Sarah on the beach and then your lieutenant beat the hell out of me, so forgive me if I had other things on my mind."
"And the Phillip Dartmoor paper?"
Chuck winced. That one was a little harder to explain. "I wanted to find out if there was something to it before I brought it up to anybody," he said.
"Oh, yeah, because that's worked out well for you." Casey snorted as his eyes swept around the backyard, and Chuck got the message: the team was in DC because of Chuck's foolish actions with the Fulcrum cell phone.
He winced again. "Yeah, point. But I'm bringing it up now, and Sarah kind of already knows about it. I'm sure she just hasn't brought it up because we've all been so busy lately, and it's probably not even that important. Bryce liked to play games back at Stanford. That hasn't changed."
Casey was silent for a long moment as he chewed on that information. "You think it's important?" he finally asked.
"I stopped having the first clue about anything a long time ago. I think it's worth checking out. Anything that can help us against Fulcrum, right?" Chuck stretched his hands toward the fire. He still felt a bit like a limp noodle after the punishing run he had put his body through, and his stomach growled at the thought of dinner.
It took Casey a minute to answer. "I'll ask around. Phillip Dartmoor, you said?"
"Yes." Chuck listed off the serial numbers of both, and had to do it again when Casey pulled a notepad and a small pen from his pocket to note down details. The NSA agent was just tucking both away when Sarah came out of the guest house, juggling a platter for the meat and three bottles of beer. The former, she delivered to Awesome and Ellie before she wandered over to Chuck and Casey. Since there were only two other chairs free and those seemed reserved for Ellie and Awesome, she dropped down onto the arm of Chuck's chair.
"Beer, gentlemen?" she asked, reaching inside her jacket. No, Chuck saw, inside her shirt. She pulled a knife out and flicked the blade loose.
With anybody else, Chuck might have wondered if she was going to kill him. Instead, he watched with absurd fascination as Sarah popped the first bottle top off with the dull side of the blade, and passed the beer to Casey, who grunted his thanks as he took it.
"Neat trick," Chuck decided as Sarah handed him a beer, their fingers brushing a little.
Had that been intentional?
"Thanks," Sarah said, smiling. "I'm pretty good with knives."
"Which is like saying the Pacific's a bit damp, but okay. Cheers." Chuck tapped his bottle to Sarah's and took a long drink. He leaned back in the chair, shifting to the right so that Sarah's weight on the left arm wouldn't knock the chair over. When he realized what the move looked like, as though he were trying to get as far from her as possible, he opened his mouth to apologize quickly, but Sarah just smiled and sipped her beer, giving him a minute head-shake.
It occurred to Chuck that life could be very interesting with a mind-reader. Also that he could get into a lot of trouble.
"So whose idea was the barbecue?" he asked instead.
"Casey's," Sarah replied before the NSA agent could give her the evil eye. "He ever so politely informed me that I lost the bet because he took out more Fulcrum people than I did, so I owed everybody dinner, and Devon suggested a barbecue."
Chuck considered it. "It fits. Awesome would be the only one awesome enough to actually pull off a barbecue when it's below freezing."
Sarah's eyes glimmered wickedly. She was leaning toward the fire, one arm tucked around her midsection while the other rested on her knee, the bottle dangling loosely from her fingers by the neck. She leaned over now, nudging Chuck. "Pool's heated," she said, and took a sip of beer. "You're welcome to strip down and jump in. I'm told the water's very warm."
Chuck nearly dropped his beer. In the other chair, Casey rolled his eyes and rose to stride away, muttering something about having forgotten his book and needing to get away from "CIA morons who can't keep it in their pants."
Sarah waited until he was gone and started snickering. After a minute, Chuck joined in. "It really is too easy." Sarah sounded almost regretful about that, but the wickedness lived on: she stole Casey's seat and let out a happy sigh as she leaned back, stretching her boots toward the fire.
She looked far more relaxed than he'd seen her in a long time, even in the Jeep driving toward Phoenix. Her coat was unzipped over the shirt she'd worn around the CIA and NSA headquarters earlier, though she had changed into jeans and a pair of fuzzy boots to ward off of the cold. There was a light blue scarf around her neck, not tied. In that moment, she didn't look a thing like Superspy Agent Walker, just a woman in her mid-twenties enjoying a beer with friends.
Sarah turned toward him, her head tilted a little. "You're staring," she said.
"I'm sorry I snapped at you earlier," Chuck said.
Sarah's eyebrows went high and then low very quickly. "Don't worry about it. It's not a big deal, Chuck. We're all tired and living in close quarters. Stuff like this is bound to happen."
"No, it is a big deal. I can't just take my aggression out on you. It's not fair to you, with everything you've done for me, and for Ellie, and even for Casey, though I know you'll never admit it." Chuck scratched the bare strip of skin between his parka and his hair at the back of his neck. The way Sarah was studying him, as though he were some kind of foreign specimen she didn't understand, made him want to squirm, but he had rehearsed what he needed to say after talking to Russ about life philosophies. "So I apologize."
Sarah was quiet for a long moment, still studying him thoughtfully. "Apology accepted," she said, and narrowed her eyes playfully. "Though I bet you don't worry this much about Casey's feelings."
"Well, you're much prettier than Casey."
Sarah's jaw dropped.
Despite the nerves, Chuck had to grin. "What, like you didn't know that?" He leaned over. "I have to admit, the man has a jaw chiseled by Michelangelo himself, just between you and me. He's a very attractive—oh, hi, Casey. How's it going?"
Sarah threw a hand over her mouth to stop the giggles as she and Chuck looked up at the NSA agent, who had approached during Chuck's speech.
Casey looked from one face to the other suspiciously, evidently decided he didn't want to know, and looked accusingly at Sarah. "You're in my seat, Walker."
Sarah shrugged and pulled herself onto the arm of Chuck's seat again, this time sitting between Chuck and Casey.
"Meat's done!" Awesome called.
Later, sitting around the fire while everybody ate, Chuck looked around at the group ranged about him. Casey devoted his attention to the meal, Sarah and Ellie listened to Awesome's tales of whitewater rafting. Chuck had inhaled the first half of his steak, but he slowed now, enjoying the flavor and texture and conversation. They were all trapped in limbo, he thought. Nobody knew how long they would be in DC, where they were going next, if Burbank was safe for them anymore. His sister had to be nervous, Chuck thought, and Awesome probably was, too. But here they were, sitting outside in the cold and just enjoying a meal together.
One step at a time, Chuck heard Sarah's voice say in his head. He glanced across the fire at her now; she had taken the empty chair after Awesome had opted to sit on the ground in front of Ellie's seat. Because it was Sarah, she noticed the attention right away. It didn't faze her. Still chewing, she raised an eyebrow at him for just a fraction of a second.
Chuck felt himself grin back and returned his attention to his food. One step at a time, he reminded himself.
Sarah's voice broke through again, though, and had him stopping with his fork halfway to his mouth.
Just say the word, Chuck.
28 NOVEMBER 2007
DAVENPORT ESTATE
21:48 EST
As soon as the meal had ended, Casey had bowed out, claiming something about needing an insanity plea if he spent more time around the other team members. Chuck imagined he would probably stay up for another hour reading the Reagan biography Sarah had picked up for him at the airport in Phoenix, and wake to do his rounds of the estate at midnight and four, as Sarah had elected to do the ten, two, and six a.m. rounds tonight. Chuck didn't feel comfortable letting his teammates take all of the rounds, but both had pointed out that Chuck had neither spy training nor proficiency with weapons, and he was the thing they were trying to protect. Even so, it rankled.
He'd helped Ellie with the dishes and they'd joked about feuding agencies while Awesome perused DC tourist guides, seeking activities they could do the minute the team got some leave time. Chuck hadn't had the heart to tell him that he probably wouldn't be able to handle any tourist sites, but judging from the sympathetic look Sarah had tossed his way a couple of times during the discussions, he figured he wouldn't have to. Sarah would probably take care of that, just like she saw to everything else.
Just say the word, Chuck.
That phrase had echoed, refusing to be ignored, all the way through dinner and slices of the chocolate cake Ellie had baked. It had pestered him during the dishes and afterward, when they'd all had another beer. Sarah hadn't pressed him about the issue at all. She wasn't crowding him any more than usual, and she had made it more than clear that the ball was in his court, and she would stand by whatever decision he made.
That didn't help at all. It should have been an easy thing to say yes to her. She was Sarah Walker. She was awesome, and beautiful, and she liked him against all odds. He didn't have to understand it, he knew. He should be able to accept it. Nothing had changed. Whatever feelings she had, they had apparently been there for awhile, and she had made it clear that she wasn't going anywhere and wouldn't judge.
But it made him nervous as hell, knowing she was thinking things like that about him.
Now, walking across the Davenport lawn next to her, he watched her out of the corner of his eye. "Isn't it the guy's job to walk the girl to her door?" he joked.
She smirked. "Not if the girl's the armed one. And that's dating, not espionage."
"Sometimes I wonder if there's a difference." Chuck craned his neck to look up at the stars overhead. The wintry sky had magnified them so that they seemed to sit right overtop the trees, since the Davenport estate was out in the middle of the country. After the clangor of Burbank, he was almost jittery with the lack of sound out here. "It's a nice night, though. I'm glad Awesome had the idea for the barbecue. And excellent cooking on your part, by the way. The potato salad was just delicious. What herb did you use?"
Sarah laughed and shoved his arm. "You'd have to ask Beeman's Deli, jerk."
Chuck grinned at her before he remembered the nerves boiling his stomach. He cleared his throat. "How's it feel to be back in DC?"
"All right. It was never more than a crash-pad between missions." Sarah tucked her hands in her pockets as they walked, very slowly, toward the back patio, where she would leave Chuck and move on to do her rounds of the estate, most of which was dark. The Davenport kids had school the next day, and everybody else had to report in to work. "I stopped by my apartment and picked up some essentials. I really don't even think I should keep the place, as I'll never use it again." She frowned at the ground for a few seconds as they continued to meander across the lawn. "My spider plant died again."
She seemed genuinely upset about that, which made Chuck pause. "I'll buy you a new one," he offered.
"Probably better not to. That was like the fourth or fifth one I've killed."
"Aha. Chlorocide. I see." Chuck shoulder-bumped Sarah before he realized what he was doing. He stiffened, but Sarah didn't seem to notice. Since they were almost to the back patio, he slowed to a stop. "Sarah, we need to talk."
Sarah didn't look the slightest bit nervous, which he felt was really quite unfair, given that his midsection was about to be eaten alive by the nerves. She stopped next to him, her hands in her jeans pockets, feet spread, head slightly tilted. "Okay," she said. "What's up?"
Chuck looked at her and a thousand topics sprang to mind. He wanted to ask the ever-present why, why would you ever like me question that was constantly on his mind. He wanted to ask if it got easier to deal with death, if the flashes of memory of Leader would ever go away, but he didn't think he really wanted to know the answer to that. There was the need to be reassured that things after DC would be okay, but she had no way of knowing that either. And the idea of talking about Jill to her, trying to figure out what the hell he felt about any of that, rose to mind, but he dismissed it as unfair to Sarah. Until he knew better himself, he would keep that inside. There was the ever-present curiosity about Sarah herself, what she thought of things, those interesting little glimpses into her life in the CIA and before that.
But none of that came out.
Instead, he asked the last question he expected.
"Sarah, do you want to go on a date? With me?"
"Chuck, that's…" Sarah, obviously intending to say something else, trailed off and gave him a puzzled look. "What?"
"You said 'Just say the word, Chuck,'" Chuck said, so nervous that he could almost hear his voice shaking. He hoped Sarah didn't. Since he wanted to shuffle his feet, he planted them and stayed absolutely still. "Well, this is me. Saying the word. I have no idea why you would even want to go out on a date with a guy like me when you're, well, you, but…do you want to?" When Sarah continued to just stare blankly at him, he cleared his throat and debated just sprinting away. If he ran fast enough, he could pretend he had been somewhere else and accuse her of hallucinating. She might even believe him. But that was the cowardly way of dealing with it, so he stood his ground. "Uh, Sarah? I know it's a little middle school to ask this way, but—"
"Yes!" Sarah said, seeming to snap out of it.
Chuck froze. "What? You said yes? Or did I just hallucinate?"
"Yes. Wait, no."
"No?" Chuck's stomach sank.
Sarah grabbed the sleeves of his parka so fast he nearly jumped. "No, you're not hallucinating," she said, and there was a breathless quality to her voice that made Chuck's heart speed up. "Yes, I said yes. I want to go on a date with you, Chuck."
"You mean that?"
Sarah threw her head back and laughed. "I mean that," she said emphatically, her grip tightening to almost painful levels on his arms.
The pressure was easily ignored, though. Chuck felt the grin start somewhere at his toes and spread until his teeth hurt. "Okay," he heard himself say. He had to take a deep breath to fight down a weird surge of giddiness. "Okay. It's a date."
Sarah's grin seemed to match his. "It's a date," she echoed.
Chuck had no idea how long they stood like that, just grinning at each other like fools. He came to awareness first, and had to clear his throat a couple of times to get himself back on track. Feeling awkward and giddy and a thousand things he wasn't sure he would have ever felt again, he pointed stupidly at the house. "Um, that's where I'm going, so I should probably…do that. Um, what do we do now? Do we hug? Is this a hug situation?"
"I…have no clue," Sarah said, and it sounded like she might be realizing the same awkwardness herself. "I'm not sure what hug etiquette calls for."
"Uh. Okay. Right."
"But." Sarah sprang at him so fast that, had he not planted his feet, he would have tumbled backward and taken her with him. Her arms went around him and she squeezed once, tightly, before she bounced backward on her heels. The hug was so hard that Chuck felt his teeth rattle, but his grin didn't lessen. "You should go inside. I've got to go do my rounds."
"Okay." Chuck turned to obediently head toward the house, but stopped a few steps away. He half-turned. "Good night, Sarah."
"Good night, Chuck."
As Chuck reached the sliding door, a noise behind him made him whirl, his hand automatically going for the tranq gun he wasn't wearing. But he saw nothing in the darkness, save a bright head of blonde hair. Sarah, it looked like, had stumbled over something on the lawn and was picking herself up. "Are you okay?" Chuck called, hoping he didn't wake anybody inside.
He didn't expect to see Sarah flash him a smile that could light entire solar systems, but she just waved the accident off. "I'm great! Good night!"
And once she had vanished into the woods to do her rounds, Chuck went inside. He was halfway up the stairs when it hit him.
He was now officially dating Sarah Walker. Oh God.
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