Chapter 39: All That...And a Bag of Chips

To be happy with a man you must understand him a lot and love him a little. To be happy with a woman you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all. - Helen Rowland

All That…And a Bag of Chips

12 DECEMBER 2007
NSA HEADQUARTERS
14:17 EST

Chuck quietly closed the door behind him, grateful that Casey had managed to excuse himself for a bathroom break at the same time as Ellie had been called in to talk to the scientists. They got a bit tired of hearing the modulated voices of those inside the lab, Chuck figured. At last, he could get away from the blinding whiteness of the Intersect testing room and rest in the hallway. It was a gamble, as the Intersect scientists used the same hallway to access their lab and he was expressly forbidden from seeing them, but he was wearing his NSA IT department badge, and he could claim he'd simply gotten lost if caught. They would never know he was Patient X, which meant they could never see him with Casey, Sarah, or Ellie, and they could never hear his real voice.

He poked his head out and glanced around. When he saw nobody, he nearly let out a cheer.

"Chuck."

He'd spoken too soon.

At least it was only Sarah, striding toward him as fast as her considerably long legs could carry her. It wasn't the "We're in trouble" gait, but her walk was hurried. Instead of pushing him back into the testing lab, as he half-feared she might, she grabbed his sleeve and pulled.

Chuck entertained a brief but very informative vision of being pushed up against a wall by Sarah, her weight against him, his hands tangled in her hair, her lips on his. He blinked, and Sarah let go of his arm, keeping a regular distance from him. Either she hadn't noticed the split-second fantasy or it didn't concern her.

The problem was, he thought, that over the past two weeks, the daydreams had increased. The first one, the morning after he'd asked Sarah on a date, had taken him by surprise. She had smiled at him from across the breakfast table, around which there was a full complement of people: all three in the guest house had come to the main house for breakfast, Russ and Gwen were there, as were their children, seventeen-year-old Stephanie and fifteen-year-old Nathaniel. And Chuck had looked across the table, seen Sarah smile at him, and thought about simply walking around the table, pulling her to her feet, and bending her backward until she was on the table and he was on top of her.

It had been an incredibly graphic vision. And it had made him more than a little uncomfortable, both because of the people around and because he respected Sarah. It felt wrong. Even worse, it felt like he was a teenager all over again, driven by hormones.

The worst part wasn't that he was now constantly baffled at himself, it was that he was edgy. And nervous, definitely nervous around Sarah, and it was tripping up the easy camaraderie, which only made him edgier and more and more flustered.

Russ had started teaching him how to box—or at least how to hit the punching bag without damaging his hands. The architect was laidback enough that Chuck had no choice but to relax, but he didn't let Chuck try to cut corners. And repeatedly hitting a punching bag was so therapeutic that Chuck would never doubt Sarah if she ever went after Frank again.

He focused on her now, trying to blink away after-images of his most recent vision. It took him a second to realize that she was all but brimming with excitement. Most people might not have noticed, but he knew that when she held her hands at her sides like that, she was excited about something. "What's up?" he asked.

Her eyes sparkled. "I figured out our date."

Chuck's eyebrows went up. "Oh, really?"

The date itself, Chuck thought, the other problem. Nobody had actually said anything, but it was understood that the bosses would frown on a relationship. Which meant that Chuck was only able to talk about the date—which was gaining more importance every passing day—when he was sure Casey wasn't around to report back to their bosses. They were operating under a very strange version of the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. One with its own system of grunts, evidently.

"Friday night," Sarah said, and bit her lip. It made her grin a little crooked.

"Yeah?"

"I've got the place all lined up."

"Where," Chuck started to ask, but Sarah's head cut to the right, toward the control center. She yanked the door behind her open and hauled on Chuck's arm. He had no choice but to stumble forward through the open door. Sarah gave him a "Keep quiet!" look and shut the door behind him, leaving him alone in the dark.

Chuck's foot splashed into something, and he almost cursed. Sarah had shoved him into a janitorial supply closet, judging by the dim shapes of the shelves he could see from the light beneath the door. His entire left foot was submerged in water, water that oozed uncomfortably into his shoe, soaking his sock before he could pull the foot from the water. As he did so, he kicked something: the mop bucket.

It clattered to the floor. Chuck swore under his breath as water gushed everywhere, including across the toe of his other foot.

"Agent Lynch!" he heard a voice say outside the door, and he froze. No wonder Sarah had tossed him in the closet. That was Dr. Zarnow's voice. Chuck recognized it only because it had been speaking to him through the headset for two weeks now. "There you are. Excellent, I had hoped to have a word with you. Would it be possible for you to liaise with Major Nelson and request an extra half-hour from Patient X today?"

"I suppose. I thought Major Nelson was with you in the control center?"

"She left before we could make our request. Dr. Loomis wants to verify a few pattern-recognition trends he's noted within Patient X."

"Is something wrong with them?"

"Not at all. In correlating data for the new Intersect, however, it's best to be certain."

New Intersect? Chuck promptly forgot about the water soaking his feet and the fact that he was in a room he hadn't had time to explore. They were going to build another Intersect after Bryce had blown the first sky-high? That seemed a bit...he couldn't decide how he felt about that. It would be nice if there were others to take up some of the work he did, but at what point did he become obsolete? What point did the information in his head no longer matter?

Chuck decided, ignoring the sudden dread in his stomach, that it was probably better not to think about it for now. He focused on Sarah's voice again, the cold sensation of dampness around his feet trickling back in.

"I will speak with Major Nelson." Sarah used her professional voice, the one that seemed strange to Chuck, since it lacked Sarah's natural warmth. "But I should warn you the Major probably won't approve of the extra testing. Patient X is already beginning to show strain."

He wasn't, Chuck thought, but by the end of the day, he would be fighting a headache. The constant flashing that the tests required always made his head hurt more than usual. To make matters worse, his shoes wouldn't be dry by the time they were ready to leave, and Casey kept the air conditioning in the Crown Vic on year round, it seemed.

"I understand. Dr. Loomis assures me the tests wouldn't be strenuous, and if you could pass that on to Major Nelson, it would be much appreciated."

"I will do that." There was a pause and Chuck, on the other side of the door, wondered exactly what was going on. Sarah cleared her throat. "Did you need anything else, Doctor?"

"No, not at all."

"Then I'll see you inside? I just need a moment."

"Certainly."

Chuck heard footsteps recede, but it was a minute before Sarah opened the door. She looked him up and down, putting her hand on his chest to prevent him from leaving.

"Best for you to stay put until I know all of the scientists are back in the control center," she said.

Chuck just looked down at her hand. Smiling, she removed it and must have spotted the spreading pool at Chuck's feet. "What's all this?"

"You shoved me into the mop bucket."

"I did?" Apology and amusement mixed as Sarah obviously fought back a smile. "What is it you say? My bad?"

"You're laughing at me." Chuck sighed.

Sarah's barely-repressed grin intensified. Wordlessly, she held her index finger and thumb very close together, and bit her lip.

"Figures." Chuck gave her a pained look.

Sarah ran her hand up his arm once, elbow to shoulder, before she dropped her hand back to her side. "I'll make Casey turn up the heat in the Crown Vic," she said by way of apology, and brightened so suddenly that Chuck nearly blinked. "Want to hear about the date now?"

"If it will distract me from my wet feet, sure." Chuck made it a point to heave a sigh, though the same excitement coursed through him, as it had every time their date had been mentioned.

"I convinced Casey to let us have Friday night."

"Really? Wait, does Casey know why?"

"He does have eyes. He said," and Sarah dropped her voice in a horrible imitation of Casey, "'as long as the moron keeps his lady feelings to himself, I don't care what sort of sick things you two get up to in your spare time.'"

From Casey, it was all but a ringing endorsement. Still, Chuck wrinkled his nose. "Sick? I asked you out on a proper date!"

Sarah waved that off. "It's Casey. He's not exactly Mr. Romance."

"Oh, I don't know," Chuck said, scratching his ear while he thought about it. "Seems like the guy has connections, if he wanted to be romantic he could probably get one or two things right and—wow, you just went really green there for a second. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Sarah took a deep breath and if Chuck hadn't been paying attention, he might have missed the brief shudder. But one blink and Sarah was back to normal, the regular tinged-with-mischief smile back in place. "Anyway, Friday night. You don't have plans, right?"

"Um…" Chuck scratched the back of his head. "I think I have a date, actually."

Sarah opened her mouth, possibly to ask him who the hell he would possibly have a date with, when it clearly dawned on her. She smiled. "Clever."

Chuck gave her a little half-shrug: you started it.

"Seven thirty, Friday night," Sarah said. "I'll drive."

"You usually do."

Sarah checked over her shoulder and, apparently deeming it safe, motioned for Chuck to come out. "You'd better get back in there. Casey's going to come looking for you any minute."

"Good point." But Chuck paused at the door to the testing lab and turned. Sarah, who was waiting for him to go back inside before she headed back to the control center, lifted an eyebrow at him. He took a deep breath. "Sorry, I'm a little slow, but it occurs to me that shouldn't I be the one to pick the date location?"

"Chuck?" Her smile was the brilliant one again, far more blinding that the testing lab would ever be. "You already did."

What the hell did she mean by that? Chuck gave her a puzzled look, but she only made a shooing motion for him to go back inside. He knew her expression well; he wasn't getting another thing out of Sarah unless he started arguing with her, and that probably wasn't a good note to start their date off on. So he just held up his hands in a "What can you do?" motion and went inside as ordered.

14 DECEMBER 2007
DAVENPORT ESTATE
19:02 EST

There were strings attached, of course. Chuck gazed in dismay at the tranq gun Casey had delivered to his room. It didn't seem heavy, but he remembered shooting Sarah with perfect clarity. And Casey expected him to carry that weapon on a date with the very same woman? It was like the universe was conspiring against him.

A knock sounded, and Chuck stashed the gun into its customary spot at his waistband. Nate was a big fan of Halo; he and Chuck had played a few sessions over the past couple of weeks. And even if Chuck knew that Steph and Nate had grown up with an FBI agent for a mother, and they knew that he, Casey, and Sarah were all federal agents, he didn't feel comfortable being anywhere around them with a weapon they might see.

It was Ellie at the door, however, which made Chuck even more grateful that he had put the gun away. His sister knew quite a bit more about the dangerous side of Chuck's job than he wanted her to, and she seemed to be accepting it somewhat well, but the last thing he wanted to do was wave a gun in her face.

He'd done enough to her as it was.

"Got a minute?" she asked when he called for her to come in.

"For you, always. What's up?" After making sure his undershirt covered the gun securely, Chuck turned back to the room's closet. He'd decided that Sarah telling him casual meant jeans, but he figured he should at least wear a nicer shirt instead one of the nerd shirts.

Ellie stepped around him and pulled out a dark-red button up with military-style pockets. "That one."

"You think—"

"I'm a girl, Chuck, I know what girls like."

"Red shirt it is." Chuck took the shirt and pulled it on over his undershirt. He watched Ellie out of the corner of his eye. She had something on her mind, but clearly wasn't ready to give it up yet. So he cleared his throat. "You're okay with me dating your roommate, right?"

"You're an adult, Chuck, you can date who you like."

Hm, Chuck thought, she wasn't okay. He turned to Ellie, and she sighed. "I like Sarah a lot," she qualified. "I do. I think she's great, and she really likes you, which is great."

"I sense a 'but' in there," Chuck said.

"But the ex-girlfriend you were stalking got shot in front of you three weeks ago." Ellie chewed her bottom lip, her eyes troubled. "And you haven't said a word about it."

Chuck finished buttoning the shirt, a stalling tactic and he knew it, but he didn't care. "I talked to Dr. Anton," he said.

"You did?"

"Yeah, Gwen's been having me talk to him through video conference a couple of times a week now." Gwen had wanted to have Dr. Anton flown to DC, but the bosses had put the kibosh on that one, claiming budget cuts. So Chuck had sat in the Davenport's home office twice a week and talked to a face on a computer screen. It had actually been better than being in the same room as Dr. Anton.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Ellie asked.

Chuck pushed down the desire to shrug. "I didn't want to bother you."

Ellie gave him an exasperated look. "You're my brother: it's in your job description that you're supposed to bother me."

"You've got enough on your mind with your new job and being in DC," he said. "You and Devon both. I didn't see it as a big deal, not in the grand scheme of things."

"Chuck, you're a big deal, and you've been so quiet lately, I can never tell where your head is at." Ellie frowned. "I've asked Sarah, but you know how she is, you practically have to play Chicken with her to get a real answer. Or outright dare her."

Her words surprised a laugh out of him. "Very true," Chuck said. He sat on the edge of the bed to pull his beloved chucks on. "The truth is, I don't know how I feel about Jill because I feel a lot of things. Sometimes I'm angry about what she did, joining Fulcrum and never telling me about it, but who am I to judge? I didn't tell her about the CIA. I was going to, but that's not the point. And I'm angry that she wrote me that letter all those years ago, but even that's weird because sometimes I thought, okay, I'm over it and other times I just wanted to sit outside her apartment and see her again. I didn't even want to talk to her or be with her, I just wanted to…reassure myself that she was there."

Chuck finished tying his shoe and switched to the other shoe. Ellie sat beside him on the bed and stayed silent. "The whole thing, it's a mess," Chuck continued after a minute. "She's Fulcrum and I'm CIA, and even if she cared for me still, which I think she does, everything that's happened can't be undone. So I can't just sit here and dwell on that." A ghost of a smile crossed his face. "I've got too many other pressing neuroses for that."

Ellie's eyebrows went up. "And you think dating Sarah is going to help with those?"

"Probably not." Chuck frowned. "She's liked me a while, I think."

"Mm-hmm," Ellie said emphatically. When Chuck gave her a startled look, Ellie shrugged. "It was kind of obvious."

"Yeah, I guess it was." Chuck picked an invisible piece of lint off of the thigh of his jeans. When that did nothing to dispel the nervous energy that had been haranguing him all day, he rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "I never noticed."

"Mm-hmm," Ellie said again.

Chuck's eyes narrowed. Ellie might have been able to read him like a book, but that didn't mean such a trait couldn't be reciprocated. "That's what this is about," he said after a few seconds of studying his sister. "You think I'm just doing this because of Sarah, not me. Because she's got feelings for me, and I'm worried I'm going to lose her in my life if I don't…go on this date."

Ellie frowned. "I wouldn't have put it quite like that."

"But?"

"But yes, I suppose that's a simplified version of it."

"Man," Chuck said, leaning back a little. "Sarah would kick your ass if she heard you say that."

"She could try."

Chuck looked hard at his sister and after a moment's study decided that Ellie meant every word. She really would face down the ninja-like warrior that had taken out a car full of Fulcrum agents almost on her own. Not for the first time, Chuck wondered if Bartowskis came with insanity embedded in the genes, or if it was just present in his generation.

"You're right," he said. "She wouldn't hurt you."

Ellie made a noise in the back of her throat that was so much like Casey's "Duh" grunt that Chuck blinked. After a second, he relented. It had been a remarkably obvious thing to say. He supposed he should quit stalling.

"El, when I asked Sarah out, it was because I wanted to," he said. "Not out of some obligation. Don't get me wrong: Sarah's beautiful and just about perfect, but dating her would be an incredibly stupid thing to do." He paused to think about it. "Unless I really wanted to."

"I just don't want either of you to get hurt," Ellie said.

"And you think that's going to happen?"

"I don't know. It's new territory." Ellie let out a long sigh. "For all of us. DC, dating, working for the government. It's bad timing all around."

Chuck couldn't deny that, but he remembered Russ Davenport's words to him that night he'd run too far on the treadmill, so he stayed silent.

"I mean, you just had this happen with Jill, and now we're out here, and you're making this thing with Sarah official, and the timing's just…"

"The timing sucks," Chuck agreed. He clasped his hands, rubbing his palms together to dispel some of the nervous energy he'd been hiding pretty well all day. He didn't look at his sister. "But the timing's always going to suck."

"Point," Ellie said.

"And if not now, when?" Chuck pushed his hands through his hair, now well grown out past the buzz cut. The curl was starting to return to the ends.

Ellie was silent for a moment. "Very true," she said slowly, as if measuring her words. Inexplicably, an impish grin appeared on her face. "Besides, I think we're forgetting the very important fact that you've already been dating for months, so it's nice you've made an honest woman out of Sarah."

"Honest woman out of—" Chuck blinked as he abruptly choked on the words. "What are you talking about?"

Ellie reached out and straightened his collar. "You always were a bit oblivious when it came to this stuff."

"I am not!"

"Let's face it, you've been dating this woman for like two months." Ellie shrugged, just a pert little bounce of the shoulders. She raised an eyebrow, daring Chuck to contradict her.

When he opened his mouth to do just that, however, he stopped. Too many instances of things, things he'd taken for granted that had just recently gained new meaning with the revelation that Sarah liked him, flashed through his mind. And when that list didn't stop for quite awhile, he bit back the urge to groan. Finally, he said, in a measured voice, "When were people going to tell me I had a really hot girlfriend?"

"You'd think you would notice that yourself, wouldn't you?" Ellie actually patted him on the head. "I love you dearly, brother mine, but you're kind of clueless sometimes."

It was, Chuck had to figure, probably the understatement of the year. He gave Ellie a mock-sour look and rose to collect his coat from the closet, since the time to leave was approaching. "Well, call it what you will, but tonight is a first date, so I'm going to treat it like one. Minus, hopefully, the Melinda Brock incident from the eleventh grade."

"Just stay away from bad shellfish, and I'm sure it'll be fine. Though I think Sarah wouldn't be as put off by projectile vomiting as Melinda was."

"I think I'll follow your advice, as making street pizza on the first date can never be a good thing."

"A first date with a spy. That'll be interesting. Where are you two going tonight?"

"I don't know. Sarah's being secretive. I'm just hoping it's somewhere far away from guns, knives, maces, battle-axes, and lounge singers."

"Yes, right, the killer Elvis impression. Not for the faint of heart." Ellie smiled and smoothed Chuck's collar one last time. "You have a good time tonight, okay? And be safe."

"Yes, Mom." Chuck rolled his eyes good-naturedly, but endured the hug from Ellie before his sister left. Once he was alone, however, the ease disappeared, and he took a deep breath. Bad shellfish or no, he was about to go on his first date with Sarah Walker.

14 DECEMBER 2007
SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM
20:53 EST

Chuck couldn't decide what was more impressive: the building all around him or the woman standing next to him. "I can't believe you actually know somebody high enough in the hierarchy to bribe. I mean, wow. The chances…"

"I'd be a lousy spy if I didn't make connections," Sarah pointed out, and Chuck had to concede the point. "Seriously, it's not a big deal."

"We have the whole entire Smithsonian Air and Space museum to ourselves!" Chuck could hardly contain his glee, his eyes moving every which way in hopes of capturing every little detail he could about the cavernous building all around them. "How is that not a big deal!"

He heard Sarah laugh, and saw her throw up her hands out of the corner of his eye. "Okay," she said, still laughing. "It's a big deal. Got it. If I'd known how excited you were going to be about this, I'd have gotten us an extra hour."

Chuck grinned at her. "This is great," he said, meaning every syllable. "You're great, but this is just so…well, to steal a phrase, awesome. C'mon." Without thinking about it, he grabbed her hand and pulled her with him, eager to explore. The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, housed in the National Mall, opened like a gaping airplane hangar, with jets and planes suspended from the ceiling and lining the walls as well. Chuck imagined that the center of the big, open floor would be filled with people during the day, and he would in no way be able to handle that, but after hours, the lights on at half-power, it was empty save for him and Sarah, and there was nothing to do but just drink it all in.

He hauled on Sarah's hand, pulling her from one exhibit to the next. He knew it was impossibly nerdy, but with each passing exhibit, there was something new to freak out over—how much bigger or smaller the planes looked in person, how he had once built a scale model of The Spirit of St. Louis with his father, how cool it was to be standing near the Apollo 11 Command Module "Columbia."

"It's so neat how we've come so far in such a short amount of time. I mean, we weren't even flying planes for a hundred years, and we were in space," he said, taking a picture of the module with his phone. Later on, once everything cleared up with their current identity crisis and Fulcrum, he'd send it to Morgan. He glanced over at Sarah and fought back a grin. Though she was doing her best to appear interested, he could see her eyes beginning to glaze. "I mean, think about what kind of minds and engineering went into figuring out how to make planes go faster, and how space works. The brilliance there…it's astounding."

"Mm-hmm," Sarah said. She cleared her throat. "I mostly don't think about that stuff until it doesn't work."

"Then you're busy cursing it?"

"Pretty much."

"It's a good philosophy to have. Oh, what's in here?" And Chuck was off again, all but dragging Sarah behind him. He could hear her laughing, but he didn't care. He was in the freaking Smithsonian. Even with somebody not as neat as Sarah, it would have been the coolest date ever. And having Sarah there, even if he suspected she was probably already bored with the displays all around them, was just icing on the cake.

"They almost had me declare an engineering major in college," Sarah announced almost out of the blue as they wandered through the Early Flight gallery.

"Really?" Surprise had Chuck twisting to look at her. "I mean, not that you're not brilliant, it's just a strange fit."

"Something about my spatial awareness." Sarah shrugged it off. "They thought it would translate well to engineering, but in the end, they decided languages were a better match."

Chuck frowned. "They picked your major for you?"

"Of course they did. It wasn't me going to college, it was Sarah Walker."

"But aren't you Sarah Walker?"

Sarah moved a shoulder. They had left their coats by the door where Sarah's contact, a janitor, had let them in, so she was dressed similar to Chuck—jeans and a nice shirt. Her outfit looked much better on her, in Chuck's opinion. It was understated and casual, and it shouldn't have spiked his heart-rate, all things considered, but he had been a little breathless ever since they'd left the Davenport estate.

"It just seems a bit much," he said, frowning a little as he thought about it. "It's really deep cover. Like, your whole life is. I mean, take your apartment, for example."

Sarah looked like she might shrug again. "It was just a place to crash between missions."

"But it's not you." They had gone there first, to Chuck's surprise. He had expected to go to a restaurant, but Sarah's apartment had been a much better fit. No need to worry about too many people there. Of course, upon discovering that it would just be him and Sarah alone at her apartment, the nerves had come out in full force, only to dissipate right away when Sarah flicked water at him while he'd helped set the table. They'd picked up food to go, and the meal had been just like any other they'd shared before, which had been both startling and comforting.

"It doesn't matter," Sarah said now. "I was never there long enough to care."

"You need your own version of the Tron poster," Chuck insisted.

Sarah smirked. "Whose room is it that actually has the Tron poster in it?"

Though the mention of Burbank hurt a little, Chuck dipped his head in acknowledgement. "But that's because you and Ellie are strange. I'm going to confiscate that poster someday. Seriously, though, you need your own Tron poster in that apartment if you're going to keep staying there."

"I'm not." Sarah stuck her free hand in her pocket and craned her neck to study the Wright Military Flyer. "It's time for that last link to Sarah Walker in DC to disappear."

"Oh," Chuck said. An idea struck him. "Okay, so answer me this. If you could have picked your own major, what would it have been?"

"I don't know. I've never thought about it."

"Top of your head, dream major, go."

"I don't—"

"That's now how this works. You're supposed to say whatever comes to mind." Chuck grinned at Sarah's exasperated huff of breath. They continued to wander through the Early Flight exhibit, neither really paying attention to the museum. "So, lightning round. Right now, dream major."

"I think I suck at this game."

"I think you're cheating by stalling to give yourself time to think or deflect." Chuck made a buzzing noise. "Wrong answer. C'mon, if you could pick any major, what would it be? I won't even make fun of you if it's general studies."

"Sure you will." Sarah looked like she might be teasing herself. Chuck raised his eyebrows at her and waited until she heaved a gusty sigh. "Fine. Dance."

"Say what now?"

Sarah didn't look at him. "That's my 'dream major,' as you put it."

"Dance?"

"Dance," Sarah confirmed. She looked a bit pink.

"I have never once seen you dance," Chuck said after chewing on the side of his mouth for a minute.
Sarah raised her eyebrows. "You've never taken me dancing now, have you?"

"Touché. Are you any good?"

"I know my way around a dance floor."

"So if I wanted to learn how to dance, I could ask you?"

Sarah cocked her head, obviously pretending to think about it. "I don't know if I'm a good enough teacher for that," she said, and smiled.

Chuck put his free hand over his heart and mimed being shot so outrageously that, had Sarah not been paying attention and grabbed his arm, he would have crashed into one of the exhibits. He bounced back onto his feet with a sheepish laugh. "Whoops. But you wound me, Sarah Walker, you really do."

She was still smiling—and still holding his hand. "I'm sure you'll get over it."

"I may be scarred for life," Chuck warned.

"Uh-huh."

"It's very traumatic, you know, being teased."

"I'm sure it is."

Chuck subsided with a grin. "So, how come you didn't just declare yourself a dance major and say to hell with it?"

"I highly doubt the CIA would appreciate paying all that money to Harvard for a recruit to study dance." Sarah's voice was almost dry enough to cover up what sounded like an old undercurrent of pain.

Though he wanted to offer sympathy, he figured Sarah probably wouldn't take it, so Chuck forced a grin. "That's a bit short-sighted, don't you think? I mean, where would Baryshnikov and Hines be without the power of dance? That's right, still in Soviet Russia."

Sarah laughed. "It's not a big deal. I couldn't have done anything with it anyway, so…" She dismissed it all with an absent gesture.

This was probably a cue to change the subject, Chuck thought, but natural curiosity got the better of him. "So what was it like actually being a Harvard student?" he asked. "I mean, aside from them picking your major. Did you actually have to do the homework or did they have a secret cabal of super nerdy spies just waiting at your every beck and call?"

It took a moment for Sarah to answer, which told him she was parsing her words carefully. He nearly raised his eyebrows. "Harvard and the CIA had an agreement," she said. "If I chose, I could ignore the homework, or turn in a mediocre-quality version of it, and I would receive an average grade."

"So you could choose not to do homework?"

"I had the option, yes."

"That would be so amazing. I'd never do homework, if that was the case. I'd just play video games all day."

"Oh, don't lie." Sarah rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "You'd ignore the homework until the professor said something that sparked your interest, and then you'd have to read everything you could get your hands on about it, which would mean doing the homework, and since you're a nerd, the extra credit, too."

"I think you underestimate the power of video games," Chuck said. "So did you?"

"Did I what?"

"Do your homework?"

"Yes. You had a better chance of becoming a field agent if you took the time to buy into your cover, and even though I'm not very book-smart and would never belong at Harvard, not in a million years, I had something to prove."

Now it was Chuck's turn to stay quiet for a minute. "So you did the homework, you say."

"Yes."

"And you took the tests, wrote the papers?"

"I did." Sarah's tone carried an unsaid "Where are you going with this?"

"And the grades you got on those, were they grades the CIA bought, or were the professors grading your stuff?"

"The CIA didn't need to buy my grades," Sarah said, her eyebrows drawing together.

"So if I'm to understand this, you did the work of a full-time student at Harvard, kept up, got pretty good grades, all of this on your own, and yet you could never belong at Harvard, not in a million years?" Chuck shook his head slowly. "Uh-huh. Right. And you call me a nerd."

"I'm not a nerd," Sarah said.

"Fine. You're an overachiever, then."

"All right, I'm an—"

"Which is just another word for 'outgoing nerd.'"

"Oh, shut up and look at the planes," Sarah said, but she was smiling.

"I'd rather go look over there," Chuck said, pointing across the main bay of the first floor. "Space stuff!"

"Of course. I'm kind of amazed we didn't go there first."

"I like to build up to it," Chuck said sagely. He resisted the urge to look down at their joined hands, an urge he had been fighting ever since he'd grabbed Sarah's hand. She didn't seem to be in any hurry to let him go. "How'd you get the idea for the Smithsonian anyway? It's pretty much the most perfect thing ever."

"Believe it or not, it wasn't my idea."

"Really?" Chuck furrowed his brow as he thought it over. "Whose was it? Ellie's? Awesome's? No, that can't be right: there are no class five rapids."

"Yours," Sarah said, her smile almost secretive.

"Have I been talking in my sleep again?" Chuck narrowed his eyes. "Which, if I have, begs the very important question: have you been watching me sleep? Because I'm not gonna lie, just say the word Chuck or no, that's honestly a little creepy."

"Ha, no." Sarah shoulder-bumped him as they headed into the Space Race gallery. "You mentioned you wanted to see the Smithsonian when Bryce and I came to see you in the bunker, remember?"

Chuck squinted as they passed the towering blue and white V-2 missile. Most of Sarah and Bryce's visit had been seared into his memory, but time and all of the things that had happened to him in the past two and a half months had blurred things somewhat. "Honestly, no, I don't remember that."

Sarah moved a shoulder, and in the lowered light Chuck thought she might have looked a bit sheepish. "Yes, well, damn near photographic memory," she said, tapping her temple like she always did.

"And might I say, I'm grateful for that? Up until the point I do something stupid because then I know you probably can't forget it." Chuck paused to think about it. "And we know my track record for doing stupid things."

"I seriously doubt you have anything to worry about."

"Right, right. Because apparently you think," and Chuck raised both hands, even the one Sarah held, to make air quotes, "I am 'all that and a bag of chips.'"

Sarah grinned, but didn't reply. Chuck slowed to a stop to get a better look at the front node of the Apollo-Suyez Test Project, which was raised in the center of the room. He tucked about three or four nerdy outbursts to the back of his mind and focused instead on Sarah's profile. "I have to say, this was a good idea 'I' had." He used air quotes again.

"Yes." Sarah turned her head to smile at him. "Clearly you're a genius."

"Clearly."

"You're trying not to nerd out right now, aren't you?"

Chuck grinned. "Is it that obvious?"

"Only a little."

"Can we go look at that?" Chuck pointed at a large bell-shaped object nearby. "Because if it's what I think it is, it's just so impressively cool."

"And what do you think it is?" Sarah leaned forward slightly to read the exhibit nameplate as they approached. "A Soyuz TM-Ten?"

"Look at how burned it is. They say it got quite a bit crispy when it came back into the atmosphere, but I wasn't expecting this much." Chuck let go of Sarah's hand to wander around the capsule, nearly letting out a nerdy gasp when he saw the chalked-up markings around the side. "Oh, and look, here's where they signed it. I remember reading about this when I was, like, nine or ten. My dad got everything he could read on it, and I sneaked into his office and read it all when he was done with it. Manakov and Strekalov and a Japanese reporter who came on the next ship up landed in this."

"Uh-huh," Sarah said.

"Man, I was a nerd as a kid." Chuck fumbled for his phone to take pictures of the capsule. He didn't have to look at Sarah to know she was smiling again. "When they sent this up to Mir, there was a quail in it, you know."

"A quail," Sarah said, and it was almost not a question.

"Yeah, it laid an egg en route to the station." Chuck grinned as he steadied his phone to take a picture. "Can you imagine how confusing that must have been for the quail? Though, yes, it's a strange bird to pick to take into space."

"I'd have gone for parrot myself," Sarah said. Her voice was solemn but as she appeared at Chuck's elbow, holding her hand out for the phone, her eyes were twinkling. She shooed him over to stand in front of the landing pod, and took a picture. When she handed him his phone back, their fingers brushed. They had been doing that a lot lately, Chuck thought. He didn't jolt this time, at least. He just put his phone back in his pocket, took one last look at the Soyuz TM-Ten, and started wandering again. "What about you? Space-bird of choice?"

"You know, nobody ever gives enough love to the chicken-hawk, so I'd pick Henry." Chuck glanced around the gallery, then looked at Sarah. "Is there anything in the Smithsonian you want to see? We've got to meet your contact in fifteen minutes, right?"

"Well." Sarah nibbled on her lower lip and he waited for her to spit it out. She must have really been in a good mood; it took thirty seconds less than usual. "There's an exhibit upstairs I might like to see, yes."

"Oh yeah? Why's that? I didn't know the Masters of Ginsu had an exhibit going on here."

"Ha," Sarah said, and much to Chuck's interest, she turned a bit pink. He nearly slowed to a stop, but Sarah was still strolling at regular pace. He stretched his stride to keep up, just as she let out a huff of breath. "It's the American Treasures exhibit. They've got Kermit and Dorothy's shoes."

Laughing right now, Chuck figured, was very dangerous. Manfully, he swallowed a chuckle and managed to ask, in an almost normal voice, "Kermit the frog?"

"And Dorothy's shoes," Sarah said pointedly.

"Yes, we know how you feel about your footwear. Dude, if Kermit's here, why didn't we start there? C'mon!" Chuck grabbed Sarah's hand again and pulled, grinning over his shoulder at her. She rolled her eyes back, but she was still smiling. When Chuck turned to face forward, he spotted the water fountain, and his throat immediately went dry. "Time out," he said, making the motion with both of his hands (and one of Sarah's, by default). "Water break."

"Okay. I'm going to go look at that…thing." Sarah pointed. "The, um, orange-yellow thingie. Looks a bit like a twinkie."

Chuck glanced over. "You mean the Breitling Orbiter Three Gondola?"

"Didn't I just say that?"

"Of course. My mistake. Very well, then, make it so, number one."

"What?"

"Uh...it's kind of a bad joke, which you probably wouldn't get anyway because you're a very specific type of nerd. Basically, one of the guys that flew in it was named Bertrand Piccard and—"

"Weren't you thirsty?" Sarah asked.

"Oh. Right." Chuck looked down at their joined hands. "Okay, one, two, three, break." He paused when nothing happened. "Uh, that means we let go now."

"Does it?" Sarah wrinkled her nose at him. "Very well, if we must."

"We must. I need that hand to work the water fountain."

That was, Chuck thought as he headed toward the grouping of water fountains along the edge of the main bay, rather needlessly adorable. It more than explained why he was grinning like an idiot as he bent to get a drink of water from the adult-level fountain. He was at the freaking Smithsonian! Ranked by one sophomore Chuck Bartowski in 1997 as one of the top ten coolest places on the planet. And not only was he actually standing there, drinking Smithsonian water from a genuine Smithsonian fountain, but he was on a date at the Smithsonian with what had to be the coolest woman in the world.

It didn't really get much better than this.

The click of a gun safety being taken off sounded incredibly close to his head. Chuck moved his thumb slowly off of the water fountain button.

"I knew," he said as his hand crept across the front of the fountain and pressed the red button on the side of his watch, "this was sounding a little too good to be true."

"Stand up," said an oddly familiar voice. "Slowly, please. I don't want there to be trouble."

Chuck bit his lip before he could point out that eleven times out of ten, guns always led to trouble. He very carefully did as ordered, panic beginning to gnaw at his midsection. All of the sudden, it was far too open and dangerous inside the Smithsonian. Being around Sarah had helped keep the regular paranoia at bay, but now she wasn't there, and he had some stranger with a gun pointed at the back of his head (or so he assumed, he couldn't actually see the gun). And where the hell was Sarah? He nearly turned to look at the Breitling Gondola, but if she was there, he didn't want to give her position away to some mad gunman, and why the hell wasn't she here already? She had a sixth sense when he was in danger, didn't she? Okay, that was an ungracious thought. Getting taken at gunpoint at the water fountain was a bit much, even for him.

"Turn around," the voice ordered. Chuck had a split second to wonder why he recognized the voice before he turned, and the flash hit him.

A jarred, blurry shot of an old clock with sickles for clock hands superimposed over an open palm. A red flag bordered in blue and containing a red star.

Physics textbooks. A woman working in a lab with test tubes and beakers. Microchips.

Kim Jong-il in a meeting.

A surveillance shot of two men trading documents and shaking hands, one looking surreptitious.

The clock and palm once more.

Chuck blinked back the flash and stared in horror at Dr. Zarnow. Other than looking a bit like a Cold War B-movie villain and the revolver in his hand, the man actually seemed mildly pleasant. Chuck had to bite his tongue to keep from blurting out that the man had been selling government secrets to North Korea for years, since he got the feeling that that was the sort of thing he could get shot over.

He decided to play clueless. It had worked rather well for him before, after all.

"Um," he said, holding his hands up in the air, level with his head. He could feel the tranq gun, which no longer seemed like a ridiculous insistence on Casey's part, digging against the small of his back. "If it's not too much, can I ask just one thing? It's not a big deal, really, but why are you holding me at gunpoint again? Is this a hold-up? Do you want my wallet? I've got some cash—not much, admittedly, I don't make that much—and my credit cards are good for a few thousand, and I won't call it in, I swear. Just, please don't shoot anything in here. This is the Smithsonian, these are priceless artifacts."

Dr. Zarnow smiled, and Chuck had to wonder if everything the man did looked sinister or if it was the gun in his hand casting aspersions over his appearance. He really did look like he could be a colleague of Max Zorin. The black trenchcoat wasn't helping him much.

"My dear boy," he said, "this has nothing to do with you."

Chuck blinked. "Uh, what?"

"I'm not after you," Zarnow said, rolling his eyes a little.

"But why n—oh. Does this mean you don't want my wallet, then? Whew. So I can go now, yes?" Chuck, hoping against all hope, began to edge away, only for Zarnow to reach out and clamp a hand down on his shoulder.

Sarah, Chuck thought, was not going to like this.

"Not so fast," Zarnow said. "This may have nothing to do with you, but that doesn't mean you can't be useful. Now, where has your girlfriend gone?"

"My, uh…" Sarah, Chuck thought desperately in her direction since he didn't want to look that way and give her location up, please stay far, far away. "What girlfriend?"

Of course, she didn't listen to him despite her sometimes frightening ability to read his mind. "Right here, Zarnow," Sarah's voice said, and the woman herself appeared around the corner, her gun raised. Zarnow immediately shifted so that he had an arm around Chuck's neck, pulling the taller man into a stoop with the gun barrel pointed at the underside of his jaw. Sarah's eyes somehow darkened. "Let him go."

"Oh, right," Chuck said lamely, his words muffled by the gun. "That girlfriend."

"Agent Lynch." Dr. Zarnow sounded pleased, which set off warning bells in Chuck's head. "So sorry to interrupt your date. It's a pleasant evening, yes?"

"It was," Sarah said, her voice even. "What do you want, Zarnow?"

"The identity of Patient X, of course. I would think it fairly obvious."

"Not happening."

They sounded like they had just sat down to a nice cup of tea, Chuck thought somewhat hysterically. But then, most tea parties didn't involve gunplay, and he wasn't sure exactly how many tea parties the Smithsonian actually hosted every year. He forced himself not to freak out. The logical part of his brain pointed out there was still a chance: Zarnow apparently had no idea that he was Patient X. The scientist obviously believed Chuck was actually "Agent Lynch's" boyfriend.

The other part of his brain, however, made the irrefutable argument that there was still a gun pointed at his head, and that was a very, very bad thing.

"Very well. If that's the case, here is what is going to happen." Again, Zarnow sounded remarkably pleasant, like a proper bad guy giving a monologue should sound. "You're going to put your gun on the ground."

Sarah's eyes flicked to Chuck and back. "And why should I?"

"Or else I shoot your boyfriend in the head, of course. I'm going to have to explain everything, aren't I? Ah well. I suppose I must, since your boyfriend thought I was trying to mug him, of all things. Does he not know you work for the government, Agent Lynch?"

Again, Sarah's eyes cut to Chuck. This time, he realized it was a cue. He did his best to swallow a surge of nausea and panic. "G-government?" he asked, putting as much fear as possible into his voice. "What's he talking about, S—Karrin? You don't work for the Smithsonian?" He thought about it for a second. "And why, for the love of God, do you have a gun? You brought a gun on our date?"

He'd oversold it. He could see the grimace on Sarah's face, but she simply said, "Not the time, Cameron," and adjusted her grip on the gun.

"Uh-oh," Dr. Zarnow said, his tone gradually becoming more and more mocking. "Sounds like there's rocks ahead in the relationship."

"Thanks for the concern about our love life. If you were really worried, you would let go of my boyfriend."

"You put the gun down and come with me, he doesn't get harmed."

"Karrin? What's going on?" Chuck widened his eyes and looked to the left, at his watch, the face of which had a small beeping red light in it.

Sarah's face never changed, but Chuck saw her eyes cut briefly to his watch. She had received the message. "Let him go, and I'll put my gun down."

"Do I look like I was born yesterday, Agent Lynch? I'm not releasing him until your gun is down."

"Then we have a problem," Sarah said, and Chuck bit his lip hard to keep from pointing out that she was stating the obvious.

Instead, he cleared his throat. "I have no idea what's going on, but here's a solution: why not do both at the same time? Whoa, crazy idea, right?"

Dr. Zarnow sounded amused. "He's quite the chivalrous one, throwing you to the wolves to save himself, Agent."

Chuck bristled. Pointing out that Sarah would rightfully kick Zarnow's ass given the first and slightest opportunity, however, would have been counterproductive. Sarah answered before he could do so. "Eh, it's a first date," she said. "We're still finding each others' flaws. You let him go, I'll put my gun down at the same time, got it?"

"Acceptable," Zarnow said. "On the count of three?"

"One," Sarah said, slowly kneeling. Zarnow's hold on Chuck began to slacken as well. "Two. Three."

Sarah set the gun on the ground. Zarnow shoved Chuck away from him so hard that Chuck stumbled forward and would have tripped if Sarah hadn't stepped into his path and counterbalanced his weight. As he staggered, Chuck slipped his watch off. By the time he straightened and spun around to face Zarnow again, hands up, the watch was nowhere to be seen, but Sarah looked a bit furious.

Zarnow aimed his gun at Sarah's chest. "Very good, Agent. Now, kick the gun away from you. We wouldn't want you getting ideas. And hands up, just like your boyfriend, there's a good agent."

Zarnow really wasn't long for this world, Chuck figured. He could practically hear Sarah grinding her teeth in frustration even as she did as ordered and kicked the gun away from her, back about ten feet. She raised her hands level with her shoulders and glared at Zarnow.

"Uh, now what?" Chuck asked into the pause that followed.

"Now Agent Lynch comes with me and you should probably find a new girlfriend. It's her, it's not you, but things just aren't going to work out, I'm afraid." Dr. Zarnow rolled his eyes and pointed the gun at Sarah more impatiently. "Cameron, is it? You seem nice enough, your obvious faults aside. Run along now while the grown-ups talk, hmm?"

Chuck bit off a retort that he had been an adult for several years, thank you very much, as he doubted that would really help his case. His glare deepened. He ignored the sensible half of his brain and instead did the most terrifying thing that came naturally to him.

He stepped between Sarah and Zarnow's gun and said, "No."

"Chuck," Sarah hissed under her breath. Zarnow probably wasn't the only one not long for this world now, Chuck figured, but he ignored her, instead stretching his hands out, ostensibly as if to form a shield between the mad scientist and the CIA agent. "What are you doing?"

He heard the catch in her voice as she figured out exactly why he had moved in front of her. "Cameron, no, it's okay, I'll go with him, it'll be fine," she said in a louder voice, and actually tried to shove him out of the way. He felt a pressure against the small of his back, right above the waistline of his jeans. Chuck, however, hadn't been working out every day for naught. He didn't budge, not even when Sarah pushed a shoulder against his back in hopes of dislodging him before Zarnow tired of their game.

Indeed, the scientist didn't disappoint. He heaved a lofty, put-upon sigh. "I didn't want to have to do this," he said, and Chuck had approximately a quarter of a second to wonder if the scientist had studied drama in college in order to make his threats even more sinister before Zarnow pointed the gun right at his forehead. "You seem like a nice boy, but I simply don't have the time for heroics. Good-bye, Cameron."

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