9:30 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Sunday, July 5th, 2009
The Carriage House Inn
Carmel By-the-Sea, California
Sarah slowly came to wakefulness. No alarm clock to wake her up. No phone ringing to take her off on a mission. Just one solitary sunbeam poking its way between the curtains and onto her face.
She grumbled and rolled over to bury her face in Chuck’s back – except Chuck wasn’t there.
That brought Sarah fully awake. She rolled back over on her back and sat up. Where the hell had he gone?
She was about to enter a full-on panic when she heard a key in the door. A moment later, it swung open, and there he was. On the phone.
“Okay, Logan,” he said as he came in the door. “So, that’s tonight at the Eagle House Victorian Inn in Eureka, tomorrow night at the Elizabeth Inn in Newport, Tuesday night at the Fairmont Olympic in Seattle, and Wednesday through whenever we leave at the Renaissance in Vancouver?”
He paused for a moment. “Thanks, man. I owe you one.” Another pause. “An advance copy of my next game? I’m sure I’ll see what I can do. Of course, that would require me writing another game.”
Chuck paused again, and then laughed. “Bring it on. I don’t live in your jurisdiction, remember?” One final pause. “Thanks again. Later.”
Sarah looked at him admonishingly. “Was that Logan Echolls you were on the phone with?”
Chuck looked back at her. “Do I know another Logan?”
She sighed. “Chuck, he’s a womanizing, law-breaking, somewhat corrupt county official –“
“Who got county charges against both of us and federal charges against you dropped,” Chuck said. “I think we both owe him a little gratitude. Besides which, he’s a good guy.”
Sarah sighed again. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be associating with Logan Echolls, Chuck. That’s all.”
A look of disbelief appeared on his face. “Why the hell not? It’s not like I’m this huge public figure, and besides which, I think it’s a little late – the release party for Mindnode was at his HOUSE, for God’s sake. You know, Veronica trusts him.”
Sarah raised an eyebrow. “DOES she now. And I should give a rat’s ass what your ex-girlfriend thinks of him because?”
Chuck raised both of his hands. “Wait a second. This is not about her. This is about Logan.”
Sarah shook her head. “The moment you mentioned her, you made it about her. Why DID you mention her, anyway?”
Chuck put a hand to his forehead. “Maybe because she’s my friend? Maybe because she’s my handler? Maybe because I can trust her?”
His intention was not to anger or upset Sarah, but the combination of words that he chose – friend, handler, and trust – were just the right combination to really ruin her morning.
“What the hell does that mean?!” she shouted, tears springing to her eyes. “Does that mean I’m NOT your friend? Does that mean you can’t trust me? I seem to recall that once upon a time, I WAS your handler, and…”
She stopped. That was the operative word, wasn’t it? “Was”. She had been his handler, and then she had jumped off the Vincent Thomas Bridge.
“You’re right,” she said softly. “You don’t have any reason to trust me.”
A panicked look appeared on Chuck’s face as he realized what had just happened. “Yes I do!” he replied, feeling helpless. “Why wouldn’t I trust you? You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me!”
“Chuck!” Sarah shot back. “I jumped off of a bridge! How does that make me the best thing that’s ever happened to you?!”
“Because you came back –“
“And I was going to run away,” she replied. “The only reason I didn’t escape was because Casey was waiting for me with a gun.”
Chuck visibly deflated. “Oh,” he said softly. “I didn’t know…”
“I didn’t want you to know,” she cried. “I wanted you to think I had come back for you, because when you told me that you loved me… that… that was the best thing I’ve ever had happen to me.”
He was silent for a moment. All she’d done, all she had accomplished in her short life, and him telling her that he loved her was the best thing that had ever happened to her. How was he supposed to process that?
Maybe the time for processing would come later. Maybe right now, it was more important to remind Sarah of the fact that he loved her.
Chuck nodded and sat down on the bed next to her. “Listen,” he said quietly. “I’m going to be completely truthful with you right now. I… I do have a little trouble trusting you. I’ve been through a lot in the last year and a half because of you, and it’s not easy.”
Sarah just nodded, not trusting herself to say anything. She felt tears trickling down her face.
“But here’s the thing,” Chuck continued. “Trust or no, I still love you. And nothing’s going to change that.”
And that statement was enough to bring a smile back to her lips. “You’re without question the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Chuck said. “And you know… you jumping off that bridge was actually kind of good for me, in a weird, twisted sort of way. It made me value the people I love, the people I care about that much more. It made me open up a little more, be willing to take more risks, be more vulnerable. And I have two more friends out of the whole thing.”
“Um…” Sarah thought for a moment. “Last September, you visited my gravesite at Forest Lawn. There was, uh, security footage, which I saw.”
“You saw that?” Chuck asked. Sarah nodded, uncertain where Chuck was going with this. “Oh, God,” he moaned. “How humiliating.”
That certainly wasn’t what she was expecting. “I was really touched by what you said,” she replied quietly. “When you said that all I had to do was tell you what was wrong, that you would’ve fixed it.” She smiled through the tears that had started to well up in her eyes again. “Leave it to a nerd to think he could fix a girl.”
Chuck sniffed back tears of his own that were starting to build. “Nerd, huh?” he said softly. “Talk about the pot and the kettle.”
Sarah smiled, wrapped her arms around his back, and hugged him. Chuck responded in kind, and as his arms softly enfolded her, Sarah felt safe, warm, protected – all the things she loved about being hugged by Chuck.
She smiled. “You have no intention of ending your association with Logan Echolls, do you?”
He chuckled. “Babe, he’s my number one investor. Besides which, if I do, we might have a problem with accommodations the next few nights.”
Sarah pulled back and nodded. “Alright,” she replied with a straight face. “But when I start hanging out with Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, I don’t want to hear anything about it.”
Chuck rolled his eyes. “You are an enormous loser.”
“And yet, you love me.”
John Casey put his head in his hands. “I may vomit if I have to listen to much more of this,” he grumbled.
“Hey, shut up,” Veronica Mars replied. “Two months ago, I was in a relationship with Chuck. How do you think I feel about having to listen to it?”
Casey shot her a look. “Fine,” he said. “We’ll blame it on the CIA. After all, it was Director Graham’s idea for us to tail them.”
Veronica got a thoughtful look on her face. “Yeah, I wonder where General Beckman is.”
12:30 P.M.
US-101 Northbound, San Jose, California
Sarah and Chuck’s moods had both improved considerably since two hours before. They had checked out of the Carriage House Inn just after 11:00, and now they were headed up to Eureka, via San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge.
Chuck was on the phone. He was trying to reach Veronica again, and fortunately, when he left the message, “Hey, it’s me again. Gimme a call when you get a chance,” Sarah didn’t suspect in the least the real reason why he wanted to talk to Veronica.
Then he called Logan Echolls. “Chuck, two calls in one day!” Logan said in mock astonishment when he answered. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Have you seen Veronica in the last couple of days?” Chuck asked.
“Seen? No. Talked to? Yeah, on Friday night,” Logan replied. “She said she was going to be busy the next few days, she might have to go out of town, she wasn’t sure when she was going to be back.”
Chuck nodded. “I see,” he said. “Well, thanks, Logan. I’ll try not to call you again today, lest you think I’m stalking you.”
“Or you want to go out with me,” Logan replied.
“Yeah, that’ll be the day.”
Chuck hung up and shook his head. A rueful smile appeared on his face. “Son of a bitch,” he said with a laugh.
Sarah looked at him, confused. “What?”
“Just a moment,” Chuck replied, calling another number.
“This is John Casey. Leave a message.”
Chuck hung up. “Veronica’s not picking up, Casey’s not picking up. Logan said that Veronica was going out of town for a few days, and I’ll bet you that if I call the Buy More, Big Mike would tell me that Casey’s on vacation.”
“You don’t think –“
“Oh, I do. Tell you what. Pretend to have steering trouble for a second, and then pull over.”
“Hey, the Porsche is swerving a little,” Veronica said, a note of concern in her voice.
“Yeah, that’s not good,” Casey replied, as the Porsche 911 shot off to the side of the road and slowed to a halt on the shoulder.
He could see from their position a quarter mile back as Chuck Bartowski got out of the Porsche and looked at the right front. Sarah Walker also got out of the Porsche, and started going around the car.
“We’re not gonna stop, are we?” Veronica asked.
“No,” Casey growled as the Crown Vic shot past. “Shit, shit, shit!”
Neither Chuck nor Sarah really looked up, but Chuck could see enough out of his peripheral vision. “Did you see it?” he asked.
“You mean the maroon Crown Vic, California license plate five charlie alpha whiskey eight eight two?” Sarah asked, a touch of anger in her voice. “As in, the Crown Vic that’s registered to Casey?”
“That’d be the one,” Chuck replied. “Let’s go beard the lion in his den, shall we?”
Sarah shook her head as she got in the car. “Well, it shouldn’t be too hard to find them,” she growled. “But how are you going to contact them?”
“Okay, they’ve passed,” Veronica said, looking down from the overpass. “You sure these tracking things will work?”
Casey smiled. “Agent Mars, there are tracking nanocells in the Porsche’s fuel, its coolant, its oil, its transmission fluid, its brake fluid, and its power steering fluid. They’re not gonna lose us.”
“Well, shit,” Sarah said two hours later as they crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. “How do you make somebody leave you alone if you can’t find them?”
“Maybe we should just forget about it,” Chuck replied. “I mean, they haven’t really bothered us yet…”
“It’s the principle of the thing, though!” Sarah exclaimed. “God knows what they might have heard… for that matter, God knows how they found us…”
“Yeah, well,” Chuck said. “We’ll live. In fact…”
He smiled evilly and turned to Sarah. “How about you want to melt their parabolic microphones tonight?”
9:30 P.M.
Eagle House Victorian Inn, Eureka, California
Casey and Veronica sat in the Crown Vic, their faces masks of shock and horror. “Oh… my… God,” Veronica finally spat out, after about fifteen minutes. “What the hell is going on in there?”
“Jesus,” Casey breathed. “I’m not sure I can listen to this much longer.”
Veronica cocked an eyebrow, as if she heard something interesting. “Hmmm,” she said. “Oh my… oof.”
Then her face took on an expression as if she’d just bitten into a lemon. “He never wanted to do that with ME!”
“Okay, that’s it, I’m done,” Casey snapped, ripping the headphones off of his ears. “Clearly, they’re in NO danger. You want to keep sitting there and listening to the Walker-Bartowski porno hour, you go RIGHT ahead. I’m going to go find a burger. And some brain bleach.”
He started to get out of the car, and then thought twice. “You do know Walker’s faking it, right?”
Veronica couldn’t resist. “No, she isn’t,” the petite FBI agent replied with an ear to ear grin. “She has no NEED to fake it. Trust me.”
Casey’s jaw dropped. “Seriously… I’m gonna go behind the car and vomit now.”
Chuck and Sarah both collapsed on the bed. They were both rather worn out after the last hour.
After about five minutes of just lying there, Chuck finally summoned the energy to move his arm. Reaching over to the nightstand, he snagged a notepad and a pen.
You think we made either of them throw up?
Sarah grinned, and took the pen. Maybe Casey, she wrote. But I have the feeling that FBI agent likes to get a little freaky.
Chuck read that and turned bright red. I have no comment in this matter.
Good thing, mister.
After Chuck and Sarah had FINALLY drifted off to sleep, Casey and Veronica went into the room that they had booked for the night. It only had one bed, but that wasn’t a problem, because they’d be sleeping in shifts – with the one not sleeping drawing the oh so fun duty of listening on the surveillance microphones.
They were several rooms away from Chuck and Sarah, so Casey had had to fiddle with the placement of the microphones and the digital filtering before he finally got it right. He took the first shift, and four o’clock couldn’t have come soon enough for him.
When the end of his shift finally came, he pulled off the headphones and woke Veronica up. However, with the headphones off for just that brief period of time, neither of them was listening to hear Chuck suddenly exclaim, “Holy shit! I know how they’re tracking us!”
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