I was having a real problem with finding anywhere to go with my stories that crossed over with Doctor Who, Pushing Daisies, and Firefly. So, I decided to go back to the well and write a second part to one of my original Chuck – and ONLY Chuck – stories. And I think I may have gotten the creative juices flowing JUST ENOUGH to get back to those other stories.
Also, there’s been a bit of chatter over in the Chuck Fanfiction forum on Television Without Pity these last few days about how there are certain “cues” that Sarah has that a lot of fanfic writers include in their stories. So, just for shits and giggles, I decided to see just how many of those I could work in.
Enjoy!
“Chuck.”
“Morgan.”
“You know what we haven’t done in a while?”
“There’s many things we haven’t done in a while, Morgan. There’s a very good reason for most of those, too.”
“Yeah, but I’m thinking one thing in particular.”
“All right, Morgan, what haven’t we done in a while?”
“Battle Royale at the Buy More Arena.”
Chuck looked up sharply and set down his PS3 controller. “No. Absolutely not. No way.”
“Aw, come on, Chuck,” Morgan whined. “It was so much fun last time!”
“And last time, we missed ONE pellet –“
“You and Sarah missed ONE pellet, buddy. I had nothing to do with the cleanup.”
“- fine, I missed ONE pellet, and Harry Tang tore a strip off of me and stuck you in the Hole for a week.”
“While I do recall with great displeasure my banishment to Buy More Hell for that unfortunate week, I also seem to recall that shortly after the end of that week, Harry Tang packed up and moved to Hawai’i,” Morgan shot back. “Post hoc, no more Harry Tang; ergo propter hoc, bust out the Airsoft guns!”
Chuck’s jaw dropped open. He stared at Morgan, dumbfounded. “Did… did you just properly use a Latin phrase to explain a causality occurrence?” he asked, incredulous.
Morgan’s smile turned incredibly smug. “You betcha.”
“How in the hell… how could you have possibly known that?”
“Some secrets are not meant to be known,” Morgan obfuscated.
Chuck just stared at him for a moment, and then it occurred to him in a flash – a flash of inspiration, not an Intersect flash. “You’ve been watchingThe West Wing, haven’t you?”
Morgan’s expression went from smug to crestfallen so quickly that Chuck could almost hear his face fall. “Aw, that’s not fair…”
Chuck wasn’t any less confused, though. “Why were you watching The West Wing? You have no interest whatsoever in politics, you don’t like Martin Sheen…”
“I don’t likemodern Martin Sheen,” Morgan corrected him. “Apocalypse Now Martin Sheen was a god among men.”
Chuck just looked at his oldest friend, and then it came to him. “You’ve been watching it because it’s one of Ellie’s favorite shows, and you’re having trouble coming to terms with the fact that she’s engaged.”
Morgan immediately got defensive. “No, that’s not it at all! I just… um… well…”
“Morgan, come on.”
Morgan seemed to deflate, and literally drooped before Chuck’s eyes. “Yeah. You’re right. As usual.”
Chuck sighed. “Alright,” he said, defeated. There was no way he could say no to Morgan now. “We’ll have a Battle Royale.”
Morgan immediately perked up. “Really? Friday night?”
“Yep, Friday night,” Chuck replied. “But we can’t miss a single Airsoft pellet this time…”
“…because if we do, Big Mike puts us on overnight stock duty for a month,” Morgan finished. “I know. We won’t miss anything.”
“Alright. We don’t miss anything,” Chuck warned. He reached out to flip the Playstation off. “I’ve got to go,” he said as the television switched back to Channel 4.
Paul Moyer appeared on the screen. “Senator Edward Kennedy landed at LAX today. He’s here to appear at a symposium at USC…”
Chuck’s eyes rolled back in his head as a flash started. Multiple images flashed before his eyes, but one in particular struck him.
“Shit,” he uttered, running out the door.
As Morgan stood in Chuck’s living room, a look of confusion plastered on his face, Chuck dashed across the courtyard to Casey’s apartment and started banging on the door.
Seconds later, Casey yanked the door open, gun in hand. “What the hell, Bartowski, are the four horsemen riding down the street?”
“No, no,” Chuck gasped. “Ted Kennedy’s speaking at USC tonight, and some fanatical anti-immigration group called the Patriot League is going to try to bump him off.”
Casey’s face hardened, and he pulled Chuck inside his apartment, slamming the door shut behind him. “Are you sure of this?”
“Positive,” Chuck replied. “I saw him on the news, and then I had a flash.”
“Christ,” Casey growled. “That’s all we need – a senator who supports immigrants’ rights and who just happens to have endorsed Barack Obama getting dead in Los Angeles.”
As if saying, Why me, Lord?, Casey threw his hands in the air and grunted. “Call Walker. I’ll call General Beckman. I’m pretty certain we’re going to have a mission on our hands tonight.”
Chuck nodded and stepped back outside, closing the door to Casey’s apartment behind him. He pulled out his phone and was about to call Sarah when Morgan came running up to him.
“Chuck, what was that all about?”
“Not now, Morgan!”
Morgan got an offended look on his face, and started to walk away.
“Dammit,” Chuck muttered. “Morgan, wait!”
“Are you sure, Chuck?” Morgan shot back. “You sure you have the time for me?”
“Yeah, I, uh, I just really, really wanted to consult with Casey on that Airsoft shotgun he used the last time.”
Morgan looked at Chuck, and then started to grin. “You thinking of getting some heavy armament for Friday night?”
“You betcha, buddy.”
“Alright then,” Morgan answered. “I’m out. I’ll probably drop by later, so make sure the window’s unblocked. And, you know, you and Sarah, you might want to not-“
“Morgan!”
“Peace!”
Shaking his head, Chuck hit the dial button on his iPhone. Halfway through the first ring, the phone was answered.
“Walker.”
“It’s Chuck. We’ve got a situation.”
“Bartowski was absolutely right,” General Beckman told them via the video link. “The Patriot League is apparently planning an assassination attempt against Senator Kennedy tonight. Major Casey was also absolutely right when he said we can’t afford for that to happen. I’ve spoken to the President, and he is going to be extremely unhappy if this isn’t stopped.”
“No pressure there, General,” Casey muttered.
“You’ll have backup, Casey,” General Beckman replied.
“Who, Walker and Bartowski?”
“No, you’ll have two FBI Special Agents and a number of agents from the local Secret Service office. Agent Walker can’t participate in this mission.”
“I’m sorry?” Sarah asked. “Why not?”
“You’re CIA, Agent Walker, and this is strictly a domestic operation. You’ll stay in the observation vehicle with Bartowski.”
“Aw, Sarah, you get to stay in the car with me,” Chuck cracked.
Sarah shot Chuck what could best be described as a LOOK. Chuck shut his mouth immediately.
“Is that a problem, Agent Walker?” General Beckman asked.
“No, ma’am,” Sarah replied, her voice tight.
“Alright then,” the General said. “Agent Walker, Bartowski, you’re dismissed.”
Sarah nodded. “Thank you,” Chuck said, following Sarah out the door.
As soon as they were outside, Sarah gave Chuck a bit of a shove, and though he didn’t think it felt playful, when he turned, she had a smile on her face.
“I ‘get’ to stay in the car with you?” she smirked. “Are you sure it’s not a sentence?”
“Hey, staying in the car is fun!” Chuck objected. “We can sit there and swap work stories… you know, how many computers I can fix in an hour, how many people you can kill in an hour…”
Sarah laughed and shook her head. “Besides, half the time, I end up not staying in the car anyway,” Chuck finished. “This could be one of those times.”
Sarah shook her head again, but this time it meant, “No. I have to stay in the van. General Beckman’s right. CIA can’t interfere with a domestic operation. There’s no foreign involvement in this one; if I get tangled up with it, it’ll open a whole can of worms, and that wouldn’t be good.”
Chuck nodded. “I guess that makes sense.”
He paused, as if he was thinking. “Ummm…”
“Yes?” Sarah said, a teasing note in her voice.
“Never mind.” Chuck shook his head. “I’ll talk to you about it later.”
Sarah cocked an eyebrow. “What?”
“Nothing,” Chuck insisted. “If I talk to you about it now, that’s one less thing to kill time in the observation van later.”
Sarah nodded thoughtfully. “Alright,” she replied. “Fair enough. Should I pick you up around, say, 6:30?”
“Actually,” Chuck said, “I was thinking about asking Devin if I can borrow his car. It seems to me that an Escape will get a lot less attention on a college campus than a Porsche or a Herder.”
“It’s USC, Chuck.”
“Right.” Chuck mentally smacked his forehead. “Alright, so, you’ll pick me up at 6:30.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she confirmed. Then, as if taking his appearance in for the first time, Sarah’s expression changed to one of amusement. Stepping toward him, she reached her hands around his the back of his neck, and adjusted his collar. “Your collar was flipped up in the back, and your tie is massively crooked,” she said, as she straightened and tightened his tie. “What exactly were you doing?”
Chuck, his breath having caught when Sarah’s hand brushed the back of his neck –God, I hate that she can still do that to me, he thought – took a moment to find his voice. “Uh, Morgan and I were playing GTA, and it got a little out of hand.”
“Clearly.” Sarah smiled. “By the way, before I pick you up tonight,” she reached up and brushed his bangs off his forehead, “you really should get a haircut. Your sister was right when she said your hair makes funny animal shapes. You’ve pretty much got a zoo up there.”
Chuck spread his hands in objection, his face taking on a look of mock horror. “A zoo? A ZOO?! How dare you, madam!”
Sarah laughed and rolled her eyes. “Oh, shut up. Go get a haircut. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
Sarah was incredibly jumpy. Between being stuck here in the van and having had that vanilla latte right at the beginning, she was crawling up the wall. Not that she wasn’t thankful for the coffee. She was incredibly amused – and a little bit touched – by the fact that Chuck was so observant that he’d figured out what she liked from Starbucks just from the few times they’d been together.
Of course, he WAS the human Intersect, so she figured it wasn’t THAT unexpected.
Chuck – with his hair now a good two inches shorter – had sucked down some iced thing that had been at least twice the size of Sarah’s coffee, but was showing no ill effects from it. She marveled at that fact, but had come to the conclusion that being a self-styled nerd, he probably consumed a much larger amount of caffeine than she did on a daily basis.
He had sat in almost meditative silence, his attention fixed on the monitors as Casey and his team of agents had methodically and quietly removed six of the seven suspects from the crowd inside the hotel. Those in attendance hadn’t even noticed.
However, suspect number seven was nowhere to be found. “This is ridiculous,” they heard Casey growl into his radio. “How is it that we can’t find a six foot tall, two hundred seventy pound Samoan guy?”
Sarah almost giggled, but choked it back. Chuck turned toward her and gave her a strange look.
“Did you… did you just giggle?” he asked.
She smiled, helplessly. “It’s the caffeine. I’m about to climb the walls.”
“Well, let’s take your mind off of it,” Chuck suggested. “It always works for me.”
“Okay,” Sarah replied. “Why don’t we start by talking about whatever it is you didn’t want to talk about earlier?”
“Oh.” Chuck shrugged. “It’s no big deal. Morgan just wants to have another Airsoft war in the Buy More, and I didn’t know if you’d be up for it.”
It was all Sarah could do to not start laughing. “Again?” She shook her head as a little bit of laughter escaped. “You know what, I did have a lot of fun last time. What the hell.”
“Just so you know,” Chuck warned her, “Morgan wants to do guys against girls this time.”
“So, you, Morgan, and Devin, against me, Ellie, and…”
“Anna,” Chuck finished. “She’s a pretty good shot, too. She was on the rifle team in high school –“
“High schools in California have rifle teams?”
“Private school in Orange County,” Chuck explained.
“What about Casey?”
“He begged off. He said he had a prior commitment, sorting through surveillance tapes… or… somethi…”
Chuck’s voice trailed off, as he leaned forward to look at one of his monitors.
“Chuck?”
Chuck put up a finger. He squinted his eyes, focusing on something on the screen, and then keyed his earpiece.
“Casey. There’s a heavyset Asian woman, about fifty feet to your left, in a purple gown… but I don’t think it’s a woman. I think that’s your suspect.”
“Roger that,” Casey replied. On the monitor, Chuck watched Casey turn and approach the woman from behind. As he did so, he pulled the badge the FBI had given him from his belt. He tapped the woman on the shoulder, and as she turned, Chuck heard Casey say, “FBI. You’re und-“
And the woman hauled off and punched Casey square in the nose. She took off running, with every agent in the room hot on her tail. Casey slowly got up, blood pouring from his nose. He looked up at the nearest surveillance camera. “Good call, Bartowski,” he said in a mix of half sincerity, half sarcasm.
Chuck tracked the suspect’s progress on the monitors. “She” shed her shoes and dress as she went, leaving a six foot tall, two hundred seventy pound Samoan guy thundering through the back halls of the conference center, wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and socks.
It took a moment for Chuck to realize, but then – “He’s coming our way!”
“Chuck, what the hell are you doing?” Sarah asked as he clambered into the driver’s seat.
“Just trust me,” was his cryptic answer.
Seconds later, the loading dock door fifty feet from them flew open, and the suspect came barreling out. “Perfect,” Chuck breathed
Realization and horror dawned on Sarah simultaneously as Chuck grabbed the door handle. “Chuck, what are –“
The suspect drew even with the driver’s door of the van, and Chuck flung it open as hard as he could. The suspect smashed into it at full tilt, his face shattering the window, and he crashed to the ground, blasted into unconsciousness.
Chuck was about to get out of the van, but Sarah reached past him and slammed the door shut. The shattered safety glass fell out of the door frame into the van, Chuck quickly scooting away from the door.
The agents came thundering up just then, Casey bringing up the rear. Sarah opened the sliding door, getting out of the van, and motioning for Chuck to follow.
As they came around the front of the van, Casey looked from the suspect to Chuck in disbelief. “Bartowski do this?” he asked through the paper towel held to his nose.
Sarah just nodded. Chuck smiled.
Casey grinned. “It’s a proud day for me,” he said. “I think Bartowski finally grew some balls.”
It was Battle Royale time.
Chuck had been scolded mildly by Sarah for his rather rash action to take down the suspect at USC, but Casey, Beckman, and Graham had all been rather pleased with the result.
However, Sarah had jokingly sworn her revenge on Chuck for “disobeying orders”. Chuck hadn’t taken her seriously until he’d seen her walk into the Buy More with an olive drab duffel bag.
“Do I even want to know what’s in there?” Morgan asked.
“I have the feeling that this is not going to be awesome,” Devin added as Chuck just shook his head.
Morgan hid their “flag” under the sofa in the home theatre lounge, and then hit the lights. Almost immediately, music began blaring from the car audio office – the women’s base.
“Liz Phair?” Morgan snorted derisively.
“Girl power music,” Devin grunted. Keeping low, he moved out. Within seconds, there was a very loud pop and a sharp thwack. A moment later, he returned to the home theatre lounge, holding his shoulder.
“They all have gas-powered AR-15 replicas,” he whined. “This is so not awesome.”
As he began counting to thirty, Chuck and Morgan moved out. Devin was right. They were putting their Desert Eagles and Colts against a replica of the civilian version of the US Army’s primary rifle. They were going to get plastered.
Perhaps it was time for a different tactic.
Chuck got as low to the ground as he could, and started crawling. He heard another “thwack” and then heard Morgan yelp. Then he heard Anna say, “I didn’t hurt you, did I, baby?” concern thick in her voice.
Make me vomit, Chuck thought.
He poked his head around a shelf – and ducked back just as quickly. Sarah was right there, at the other end of a row of DVDs, her back to him. He poked his head back out again – her back still turned.
Carefully, Chuck slid the Airsoft into the waistband of his jeans, behind his back. He stood to a crouch, and quietly moved around the corner. When he had a clear shot at Sarah, he began to run as quietly as possible, still crouched over.
He wasn’t quite quiet enough, as she heard him just before he reached her and whirled to face him – but it didn’t matter, because he was close enough that all he had to do was lunge forward, grab her midsection, and down they went.
There was a clatter of plastic as Sarah lost her grip on her AR-15 and the gas canister popped off her belt. Grabbing his Desert Eagle from behind his back, Chuck rolled toward the replica rifle, but before he could grab it, Sarah landed on top of him, rolling him onto his back, and shoving the muzzle of her own Desert Eagle against his chest – but she was quickly surprised when she discovered the muzzle of a replica Desert Eagle pushed into her stomach.
“Why Chuck,” she whispered, “is that your gun, or are you just happy to see me?”
“Ha ha, very funny, smartass,” he whispered back.
“I think you need to surrender.”
“I think YOU need to surrender,” he shot back.
“I’ll shoot you.”
“You shoot me, I’ll shoot… are you wearing night vision goggles?”
Without warning, he reached his free hand up and pulled them off her head. “Hey!” she yelled.
“Sarah? What’s going on?” Chuck heard Ellie’s voice come faintly from the direction of Sarah’s head.
“Tactical radios?!”
He pulled the earpiece from her ear – and quickly discovered that it was the entire radio. “Ooh, nifty CIA toy, and the civilian’s got it!” he said, mocking her.
“That’s it,” she growled, and pulled the trigger. But he was ready, and as soon as he heard the plastic click of her trigger, he pulled his own.
Sarah staggered back, holding her stomach, while Chuck rubbed the spot on his chest. “You suck,” she hissed.
“Bite me,” he replied.
Sarah went stomping back to her side in a huff, while Chuck returned to his. It wasn’t until she reached the car audio office that she realized…
“Goddamn sneaky bastard,” she whispered to herself, a smile on her face.
Meanwhile, Chuck was putting on his NVGs, had put the tac radio in his ear, and was hooking the gas canister to his belt. “Whoa, did you mug one of the girls?” Devin asked, as he reloaded one of his clips.
“Took Sarah down but good,” Chuck replied, a note of smug pride in his voice. Then, because he couldn’t resist, he keyed the radio.
“Hi Ellie, hi Anna,” he said. “You can call me Sarah!”
“Goddammit,” he heard Ellie say, and then the radios went dead.
“Well, I seem to have taken that advantage away from them,” Chuck whispered.
“Leave it on, dude,” Devin suggested. “You never know when they might think they’re safe to use them again.”
Chuck had long since passed thirty, so he headed out of the home theatre lounge. As he exited, he passed Morgan limping in.
“Your sister opened up on full automatic on my crotch,” he moaned.
“Ooh,” he heard Devin say. “That had to hurt.”
Chuck kept low as he headed out, scanning as he went. As he was passing the point where he had ambushed Sarah, he heard a noise to his right. He turned his head –
And the world exploded with light.
Chuck ripped the NVGs off his head, and between the spots, he could see Sarah standing at the other end of the aisle, MagLite in hand. Aiming the best that he could, he opened fire on her with the AR-15. He was pretty certain that he hit her at least once, but rather than backing down, she started running straight at him.
Dropping the gun and detaching the canister from his belt, Chuck braced himself. He still got knocked on his ass when Sarah hit him at full speed, her rather superior CIA training getting the best of him.
He went down, the wind knocked out of him, but managed to somehow kick the AR-15 out of Sarah’s reach. She tried to roll off of him and grab for it, but he wrapped his arms around her as if giving her a bear hug.
There wasn’t much she could do in such close quarters, and Chuck wasn’t about to let her go, either.
“You are really starting to piss me off,” she hissed. However, with her face so close to Chuck’s, he could see that she was smiling.
“Yeah, but you like it,” he whispered back.
“What can I say, I’m having fun,” she admitted.
“And therein lies the point.”
After a moment, it became evident that Chuck had no intention of letting go of her. “Are you going to release me, Mr. Intersect?”
“Not a chance,” Chuck replied. “As soon as I do, you’ll go diving for that gun, and I can’t have that, now can I?”
“Well, then, I might as well make the most of my situation,” she said.
“Huh?”
At that point, she leaned her face in closer, and kissed Chuck. He was so surprised that he almost let go of her. But this kiss wasn’t like the one at the pier. That one had been full of fiery passion and danger. This one was gentle and tender – and brief. But it was quickly followed with another. And another.
After a moment, Chuck released the bear hug, and slid his hands up higher, pulling Sarah as close to him as he could. He could feel her breathing growing heavy and ragged, and was sure the same thing was happening to his own.
As quickly as it started, though, it ended, as whoops and hollers sounded from Ellie and Anna and the lights went on. Unfortunately, Devin was standing no more than ten feet from Chuck and Sarah.
“Whoa!” he uttered as he saw the two tangled on the floor. “Fraternizing with the enemy, there, Chuckster?”
Sarah quickly disentangled herself from Chuck and popped up to her feet. Chuck was still a little sore from getting knocked on his ass and took longer to get up.
“Well, I guess that’s us on cleanup duty,” Morgan groused, walking up.
Devin clapped his hand on Morgan’s shoulder. “I think we should give Chuck a pass on this one,” he informed Morgan.
“What?!”
“I think Chuck’s got more important things to do,” Devin said with a smile.
Chuck smiled. “Thanks.”
He caught up to Sarah as she was loading the duffel bag into the cargo space of her Porsche. “Hey,” he called. “Sarah!”
She turned to see him, smiled and blushed red all at the same time. “Listen,” she said as he walked up to her. “I’m not sure that was the best idea I’ve ever had.”
“I think it was a fantastic idea,” Chuck replied, slipping his arms behind her back, pulling her close to him. “In fact, I think it may have in fact been THE best idea you’ve ever had.”
He initiated this kiss, and it was considerably longer and considerably more passionate this time. When they finally broke, Sarah whispered, “This is a terrible idea.”
“Who cares,” Chuck whispered back.
“Yeah… who cares.”
Seven o’clock the next morning, Morgan snuck around the back of the Bartowski apartment. Carefully, he opened the “Morgan Door”, and boosted himself up to the level of the window.
Something was not right. “Chuck?” Morgan called.
No Chuck. In fact, Chuck’s bed was still made. No clothes on the floor. No shoes next to the bed.
“What the hell is going on?”
Several miles away, an alarm clock sounded in a hotel room.
Chuck Bartowski opened his eyes – and realized that a beautiful blonde woman was sleeping next to him.
He lifted the blanket. “I appear to be naked,” he whispered. “As does Sarah.”
“I believe I am,” Sarah muttered.
She rolled out from under the covers, and strode – naked – across the room to turn off the alarm clock. She turned back and faced Chuck.
“Wow,” Chuck said.
“This is such a bad idea,” Sarah insisted, once again. A smile spread across her face.
“But I absolutely love it.”
