Five Women That Chuck Has Loved

Author’s Note: This is in response to something of a challenge put forward by killersharky on Television Without Pity. It was proposed that “Five Things” fics should be done, to unblock those with writers’ block, and to encourage those who haven’t yet written.

This is my contribution to the cause: The Five Women that Chuck has Loved

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5) Mom

She left when he was so young. Fifteen years old, just a sophomore at Harvard-Westlake. When Ellie told him, he tried not to cry. He really did. But there he was, in the middle of his teenage years. His dad had left them years before, and now his mom was gone too.

He alternated between missing her desperately and wanting to hate her with every fiber of his being. It was horrible. No fifteen year old boy should have to endure that.

The Bartowskis had never been a particularly religious family. But Chuck found himself on his knees, night after night, praying to a God that he’d never really known, never really understood, asking Him to send his mother back to him.

Sometimes, he would fall asleep during his prayers. But other times, he would break down into sobs – tortured, wailing cries, asking “WHY?!” And yet, the answers would never come.

4) Ellie

More than anybody else, Ellie has been the most constant person in Chuck’s life. He’s seen pictures – she was there when he was born. She was there when he was christened (at their grandmother’s insistence). She was there on his first day of school.

She was there when Peaches died. He remembered it so clearly. Or at least he’d thought he had, until that day not too long ago when she informed him that that was actually the SECOND Peaches.

But that just made him love her even more. The fact that she had been so concerned for him that she’d conspired with their mother to replace the original with an identical dog so that his little ten year old heart wouldn’t be crushed.

On the day that their mother left, Chuck could see the hurt in Ellie’s eyes. He could see the desperation, the horrible pain. And yet, she remained steadfast – the anchor in the storm of Chuck’s teenage years.

She was there when Stanford expelled him. When Bryce stabbed him in the back – not once, but twice. When Jill dumped him. When Sarah and Casey came into his life and created a maelstrom of insanity. When he fell for Sarah, too hard and too fast.

Ellie was always there. She was the constant in the equation of his life.

3) Jill

During the fall semester of his freshman year at Stanford, Chuck was convinced that Jill was the best thing to ever happen to him. She liked computers, and she liked him, and he liked her right back.

It had all the hallmarks of a textbook college romance – the late nights at Denny’s, the ridiculously long conversations on the phone when they were apart, the AIM conversations they had when they were but a five minute walk from each other. They both dove into it headlong, never stopping to consider what might lie ahead.

When Chuck went home for Christmas in 2002, Jill went with him. To all outward appearances, they looked so happy. Heck, Chuck was certain that they were happy. In fact, as he confided to Ellie on New Year’s Eve, he was saving up some money so that he could buy a ring – and ask Jill to marry him.

And then, Chuck’s entire life got turned on its ear. Three months later, he was expelled from Stanford based on fabricated accusations by his own roommate and the man he thought was his best friend, Bryce Larkin. But then it got worse. Two weeks after the long train ride home to Los Angeles, he received a letter from Jill.

It said she was sorry. It also said that it was over. And it said that it was because of Bryce.

And the worst part of all was that Chuck was still deeply, insanely in love with her.

2) Kaylee Frye

Okay, so she was a fictional character. Chuck didn’t care. She was still an amazing woman.

After all, here was this girl, about Chuck’s age, who had no pretensions about herself, who was, in fact, a complete and total geek, and who by everything she said on the show, really liked sex. Chuck could definitely go for a girl like that.

Too bad she was a figment of Joss Whedon’s imagination. Too bad Chuck would never have a snowball’s chance in hell with Jewel Staite – and he knew it. But that didn’t stop him from having a huge crush on this fictional character.

He mentioned it in passing to Jill once, and she thought it was really weird. Chuck didn’t quite understand that – after all, she liked “Firefly” too and had on more than one occasion made rather lewd references to the tightness of Mal Reynolds’ pants. But she said that was different.

Chuck didn’t see how. And after Stanford and Jill both dumped him, Kaylee got him through. He watched the DVDs over and over again. He even wrote some fanfic where he put himself into the story, just to create situations with Kaylee. It never saw the light of day.

And when Serenity came out, he just about leapt for joy – and then booed LOUDLY at the end of the film, when Kaylee hooked up with Simon. Fortunately for him, he wasn’t the only one in the theater booing.

1) Sarah

When the tall blonde woman with the piercing blue eyes walked into the Buy More on September 25th, 2007, Chuck was at a very low point in his life. Four and a half years had passed since Stanford. He just didn’t seem to have the motivation to continue on with life.

Ellie saw it. She tried to be supportive, while at the same time, trying to kickstart Chuck’s life. That’s why she threw him a birthday party six months after his birthday. She desperately wanted to see her little brother make something of himself.

But from the moment Sarah Walker introduced herself to him at the Nerd Herd Help Desk, his life had nowhere to go but up. The first time his eyes really registered her, his brain just about melted. Then, she flirted with him, and he just about died from shock.

When she asked him to take her around the city, he was afraid to blink, lest he open his eyes and find himself singing with the heavenly choir. He thought that finally, FINALLY, his life was turning itself around.

And, well, it was. Just not quite the way he expected. When he discovered that Sarah was a spy who had been shacking up with Bryce Larkin – well, it kind of rankled a bit, especially the part about Bryce.

But the more time he spent with Sarah, the more she seemed to get him. She understood Chuck, understood his motivations, even tried to understand the geek part of him. And though she had trained herself not to admit it, she really started to like him, and he could tell.

He couldn’t help but like her right back. She was beautiful, she was kind, and despite the layers of deception that she had to live with for her own protection, he could tell that at her heart, she was a genuinely good person. And he liked that, a whole lot.

When she told him that their not-a-relationship was never going to lose the “not-a” tag, he was crushed. But he saw things in the days following that made him think twice – she cast dirty looks at Lou; when she stormed out of the Buy More, it was just a little TOO convincing; and when she came into Club Aries, she had a look on her face that said she was absolutely terrified for him.

And that, of course, all culminated with the kiss at the San Pedro Docks – promptly followed by Bryce the Bastard returning to screw up Chuck’s life - AGAIN. He had watched, helplessly, as Bryce’s return had caused Sarah to close herself off to ALL emotions. It had taken a murdered alarm clock and a promise of friendship to get her to open back up just a little bit.

But the clincher – the little, tiny sign that made Chuck realize that he truly loved Sarah Walker – was that night on the helipad. The night after the Buy More was cleaned out. The night that Longshore came to extract him.

When Sarah came to the helipad and was begging Longshore for more time, her right hand carefully slid behind her back. Chuck knew her too well. He knew that her right hand never went behind her back unless she was planning to draw her gun. And that astonished him. The fact that she had been planning to draw down on a fellow agent, to risk her career, her own life, for him.

When he held her hands and said good-bye, he watched her eyes fill with tears. But that wasn’t all he saw. He saw the look behind her eyes. The love there. And despite the fact that he thought he was about to be moved into a secure government bunker… seeing that in her eyes made his heart sing with joy.

Sarah vs. Nine Months, Month Six

It was Monday morning.

Yet another Monday when Sarah had to go sit in a goddamn office chair at a goddamn desk in a goddamn office in a goddamn federal building in this goddamn city! She had a nicer goddamn office when she was a goddamn deep-cover operative working out of goddamn Langley!

“I counted eight ‘goddamns’ there,” Chuck quipped, as she poured her goddamn decaf coffee down the goddamn sink. She couldn’t stand the goddamn stuff anymore. There was no goddamn caffeine, so what was the goddamn point?

With a dirty look at Chuck, she whirled and stormed out the kitchen door, into the garage. She yanked open the door of her Porsche, and tried to slide behind the wheel. Tried, and failed.

“No,” she hissed. “NO!”

She reached down, lifted the bar under the seat to slide it back – but the seat was back as far as it would go. She tilted the wheel up as far as it would go – but it was no use. Her six-and-a-half-months-pregnant-with-twins self just wasn’t going to fit in the Porsche.

“What the fuck!” she wailed in protest. “I fit on Friday!”

Just as she was about to mercilessly beat the helpless 911, Chuck walked through the garage door, having heard her from the kitchen. He looked at her for a moment, and wisely, said nothing, except, “Do you want to take my car to work?”

“No!” she snapped. “I want to drive my goddamn Porsche!”

But even as she pouted, she realized that it was hopeless. She wouldn’t be driving the Porsche again until after she gave birth – and even then, who knew how much. It was like Chuck had said two months beforehand – there would be no fitting two carseats in the Porsche.

Chuck walked around the front end of his Dodge to her. Hugging her as closely as he could with the two not-quite-infants growing between them, he rubbed her back gently. She rested her head on his shoulder and let tears of frustration come out and soak his shoulder.

After a moment, he quietly said, “You keep that up much longer and I’m going to have to go change my shirt.” She couldn’t help but laugh at that.

He stepped back. “Listen,” he said. “I know you’re frustrated. But I still love you. I think you’re beautiful. You’re giving life to our two beautiful children. And no stupid German car will ever change that.”

She smiled. “But you’re still going to enjoy driving my stupid German car to work, aren’t you?”

He shrugged. “Well, I suppose I can suffer through it…”

Laughing, she punched him in the shoulder, and then switched keys, handing him the keys to her precious Porsche and taking the keys to his stupid station wagon. He took the keys to the Porsche like a precious jewel – but he treated it like anything but.

He started the 911 up, backed out of the driveway WAY too quickly, and then laid a strip of rubber twenty feet long as he accelerated down Saint Clair Avenue. Sarah gritted her teeth. “We’ll be having a little talk about THAT later,” she muttered to herself.

She walked around the front of the Magnum, unlocked it, and climbed into the driver’s seat. Plenty of room in here. Hell, it was probably the better option for her to be driving. It was bigger, it had more safety options, and it scored a HELL of a lot better in federal highway tests than her Porsche EVER had. Besides that, in the unlikely event that one of her old enemies came looking for her, it had a 372 cubic inch Hemi V-8 under the hood which could crank out 425 horsepower. If it really came down to it.

As she was backing the Beast out of the garage though, a thought occurred to her – she really DIDN’T want to go to work today. So, she called the CIA office at the downtown federal building and told them that she was sick. Since she was six and a half months pregnant, they didn’t say a single word.

Sarah started driving. She didn’t know where she was going, but pretty quickly, found herself on the 101, headed toward downtown Los Angeles. Out of force of habit, she got off at Alvarado, and before she realized it, found herself turning off of Sunset onto Laveta Terrace – headed toward Ellie and Devin’s apartment.

She pulled the Magnum to a stop in front of the apartment complex, got out, and headed toward Ellie’s apartment. As she crossed the courtyard, John Casey stepped out of his apartment. Despite his promotion to Lieutenant Colonel, he was still assigned to Team Chuck, and he was still working at the Buy More for his cover.

“Well, well,” he sniggered, as Sarah crossed the courtyard. “Look out, wide load coming through!”

At no time in his life could Casey have said something that would be more the wrong thing than that. Sarah, moving surprisingly quickly for her stage of pregnancy, stepped toward him, whipping out her stun gun.

Within three seconds of his ill-advised joke, the NSA agent was lying on the ground, twitching. He looked up at Sarah.

“Sorry…” he whispered.

“I will END you,” she grated back at him, holstering her stun gun and giving him a swift kick to the side. She watched in satisfaction as he rolled over on that side, clutching it in pain.

Sarah walked the last few steps to Ellie’s apartment, and rang the doorbell. A moment later, a bleary-eyed Ellie Woodcomb, no makeup on, hair still mussed from sleep, and a belly almost as big as Sarah’s, answered the door.

“Well, if it isn’t my comrade in gestation,” Ellie said sleepily. “Good morning, or maybe just morning, since I can’t drink coffee anymore.”

“Isn’t it a bitch?” Sarah grumbled in agreement, entering the apartment. As she stepped in, Ellie looked out into the courtyard.

“John? Are you okay?”

Casey, picking himself up off the pavement, didn’t trust himself to say anything, and just waved.

Ellie turned around and shut the door, inviting Sarah to take a seat in the living room. “So, what brings you here this morning?”

“I can’t fit in my Porsche anymore,” Sarah complained. “It’s not fair. I paid good money – okay, the CIA paid good money for it, and now your brother’s out zipping around in it, while I’m driving around in a station wagon.”

“I know how you feel,” Ellie commiserated. “Devin insisted that we switch cars about a month ago. He said it was safer for me to be driving the Escape. I think he just wanted a crack at my G6.”

“Men,” Sarah said disgustedly. Ellie snorted in agreement.

They both fell silent, but after a minute, found that both their sets of eyes had wandered longingly to the wine rack that was strictly off-limits to them. “I’ve never had a craving for a drink at 9:30 in the morning before,” Ellie said quietly.

“Yeah,” Sarah agreed. “I’m about ready to be done with this.”

“Do you ever wish it would be over, and the baby would just be out of you now?” Ellie asked.

“From time to time,” Sarah admitted. “Usually at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, when they’re having a boxing match.”

“Oh, God, yes,” Ellie said. “That’s got to be horrible sometimes, with twins.”

“Well, yes, and no,” Sarah said. “I mean, yeah, I don’t get as much sleep as I’d like, but still… every so often, just feeling them gently kick… there’s just something about that.”

“True,” Ellie replied with a smile and a nod. Then she stood up to go to the kitchen for – something… and made the mistake of looking in the mirror as she did so.

“Oh God, I look like a monster!” she wailed.

“No, Ellie, you don’t,” Sarah said, carefully getting up to comfort the older woman. Then she caught a glimpse of Ellie in the mirror. With no makeup and bedhead, she really didn’t look that great.

Then Sarah took a closer look at herself. “I look like a beach ball!” she moaned.

“Why, why, WHY do our bodies betray us like this?” Ellie groaned.

Sarah gritted her teeth. “It’s times like this that I really, REALLY wish I could go to the shooting range.”

“Can’t,” Ellie said. “The sounds can harm the babies.”

“I know that,” Sarah replied. “But still, I – wait a second.”

She had just had a flash of inspiration. She pulled out her phone and dialed a number.

A moment later, a laconic voice answered. “Glendale Police. Anderson.”

“Gilbert, this is Sarah Walker,” she said.

“Agent Walker.”

“Can you do me a favor, set up the paintball target range? Have it ready around, say 10:15?”

“Ten-four.” And then he hung up.

Sarah looked at Ellie with a gleam in her eye. “Ellie, go get dressed. We’re going to go take out some aggression.”

---

At 10:10, the Dodge Magnum pulled into the parking lot of the Glendale Police Department, on Isabel Street just north of Broadway.

Sarah led Ellie inside. “I need to see Detective Anderson,” she said to the sergeant on duty. “He’s expecting me.”

A few minutes later, Detective Gilbert Anderson, Glendale PD, was showing them back to the mock shooting range in the back of the station. “We use guns that fire paintballs with compressed air in here,” he explained. “No noise to damage your babies, which is your concern, I assume?”

Sarah nodded. “Always treat them like real guns. Don’t ever point them at each other, and don’t point them anywhere but the ground unless you plan to fire them.”

And with that, he slapped a Glock G31 into Ellie’s hand and departed. “That’s a .357 caliber gun,” Sarah told her. “In a real life situation, you could put a cartridge in that that would kill a man with no problem whatsoever.”

She could see the distaste on Ellie’s face, as the doctor thought about the ramifications of that. “But, we’re just firing harmless paintballs at metal targets,” Sarah added hastily. Ellie still looked a little disgusted, but not as much as she had been.

Sarah turned to the gun rack, and selected her personal favorite – a Colt 1911A1. She slapped in a loaded clip, and made sure the CO2 cartridge was properly attached. Turning downrange, she hit the target button, and the target popped up. Sarah shot quickly, the paintball gun making odd little pops, and a second later, her clip was empty. She hit the button again, and the target approached them.

“Wow,” Ellie said, clearly impressed at the eight pink dots on the target’s heart and the one on its forehead.

“You give it a shot,” Sarah said.

“Uh, okay,” Ellie replied, not very sure of herself. Sarah hit the target button, and it popped up. Ellie fired, not as quickly or as surely as Sarah, but when Sarah brought the target downrange, it was clear that Ellie’s aim was pretty good.

“Not bad,” Sarah said approvingly, noticing that four of Ellie’s shots had been inside the X-ring. “Let’s do some more.”

They both loaded another clip, and fired some more. This went on for about half an hour, with Ellie’s aim markedly improving as they continued.

Then Sarah had an idea. Turning behind her, she picked up the range phone. “Gilbert,” she said a moment later, “I need you to do me a favor. Load up surveillance photos of Charles Irving Bartowski and Devin Lawrence Woodcomb, and then project them on the targets – Bartowski on the left, Woodcomb on the right. Okay?”

She hung up the phone and turned back to Ellie. Ellie had a rather amused look on her face. “Target practice on our husbands?” she asked.

“Why not,” Sarah replied. “It’s their fault we’re in this condition.”

“Well, as a doctor, I should say it’s both parties’ faults equally,” Ellie answered her, “but I think I’m gonna go with you and say it’s his fault.”

Sarah started laughing. She never realized just how much she enjoyed spending time with Ellie until now.

That’s when the pictures of their husbands popped up on the targets. Ellie’s eyes narrowed as she picked up the Glock, loaded a new clip, and advanced to the firing line. When Sarah reached the firing line, they looked at each other. Sarah nodded, and they both turned their faces forward.

Within three seconds, both of the women had emptied their clips. Sarah hit the button to bring the targets forward – and as they got closer, both women started laughing hysterically.

Chuck and Devin’s crotches were covered in pink paint.

Chuck vs. the Fool

Author's Note: this story takes place in the Seduction/Star-Spangled/Bright Side timeline. If given a place in that timeline, it takes place between Chapters Four and Five of Chuck vs. the Bright Side of Life, and about a month after The Star-Spangled Intersect.

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It was just another one of those days for Chuck Bartowski.

He often told himself he should have a blog. The only problem was, it wouldn’t be that entertaining. “Got up. Drank coffee. Went to work. Dealt with jerks. Went home. Played Call of Duty. End of day.”

But this Tuesday… well, today was gonna be one for the record books.

Nobody was gonna see THIS coming.

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John Casey stood impatiently outside the Bartowski apartment. He had rung the doorbell three times now

Finally, Ellie Bartowski answered the door. Her hair was wet, and she had a robe on – it was pretty apparent she’d been dragged out of the shower.

“John?” she said, surprised to see him at the door. “What’s going on?”

“Your brother seems to have left without me,” Casey growled. “Do you happen to know what’s going on?”

Ellie shook her head. “I have no idea,” she replied. “I knew he had left early today, but I just assumed that you were either going with him then, or that you had made other arrangements.”

Casey grunted something unintelligible and returned back to his apartment to figure out how to take the bus from the apartment to work.

An hour and fifteen minutes and two buses later, a very pissed off John Casey arrived at the Buy More. Who KNEW that it could take that long to get from Echo Park to Burbank?!

The worst part had been riding the L.A. Metro #92 bus. That had just been sheer hell for the NSA Agent.

“Where’s Bartowski?” he growled at Morgan as he hobbled into the big electronics store.

“He’s in the cage, fixing computers,” Morgan replied. “But you can’t go back there!”

Casey looked at Morgan with what people often described as “the crazy eyes”. “And exactly why not?”

“Because he’s in his zone, man. He’s crankin’ out computer repairs like you would not believe, and if you interrupt him, Big Mike will have your nuts for breakfast.”

Casey gritted his teeth and tried not to scream. Yep, interrupting Bartowski would be a bad idea, because if Big Mike got pissy with Casey, then the NSA would have to find him a new cover job, and that was not something that would make General Beckman very happy.

With a series of meaningless grunts, he crutched off. Maybe he could move another Beastmaster. That would make him happy.

---

Chuck didn’t show up for lunch. That worried Sarah a little. The thing was, she wasn’t sure if it worried her more because he wasn’t there, or because she had this irrational notion that he could be somewhere with another woman.

Stop it! she ordered herself. She knew that couldn’t be the case. After all, he had told her that he was in love with her, not a month before, in Arizona. Hadn’t he?

But when Scooter returned toward the end of Chuck’s lunch hour and he hadn’t come over yet, she decided to check on it herself. Telling Scooter that she hadn’t had her lunch break yet, Sarah hurriedly departed the store and jogged over to the Buy More.

She was winded when she entered the store, a sign to her that she still hadn’t completely recovered from her injuries in Utah. Got to get back in shape, Walker, she mentally reprimanded herself.

When she walked into the Buy More, though, she didn’t see Chuck. Who she DID see, however, was Morgan. She made a beeline for him.

“Morgan,” she said softly as she approached him.

“Oh, hey Sarah!” he replied brightly as he turned to face her. “What’s up?”

“Have you seen Chuck?”

“Yeah,” Morgan replied. “He’s back in the cage, fixing the whole list of back orders. Why?”

“He didn’t come over for lunch.”

Morgan’s eyes widened, and he smacked himself in the forehead. “Dammit, he was probably expecting me to remind him!” he groaned. “He’s gonna be so pissed about missing lunch with you!”

Sarah looked at him quizzically. “Morgan, it’s a corndog and fries. I don’t think he’s gonna be THAT pissed.”

“No, no,” Morgan explained. “He’s gonna be pissed that he didn’t get to spend any time with you.”

Then, without warning, Morgan turned and sprinted toward the stock room. Sarah, caught off guard, moved quickly to follow. As she entered the stock room, she could hear Morgan talking to Chuck.

“Dude, I’m so sorry, I forgot to remind you to go have lunch with Sarah.”

“What?”

“You didn’t go have lunch with Sarah.”

“Who?”

That one word hit Sarah like a runaway freight train. Who?!

“You know, hot blonde, works at the Wienerlicious… your girlfriend…”

“Morgan, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

A rush of anger mixed with betrayal flooded through Sarah, and she came around the corner to the cage, fury in her eyes.

“THAT – Sarah,” Morgan elaborated, pointing.

Chuck looked up, and his stare was curiously vacant. “Dude, I’ve never seen her before in my life.”

Sarah’s jaw dropped. She didn’t know whether to slap him or run away crying. Her body made the decision for her, as she stomped out of the stock room, tears beginning to stream down her face.

Seeing that, Chuck jumped up and chased her out of the stock room. “Ma’am? Excuse me, ma’am? I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean…”

She stopped dead, and then turned around. As he stopped in front of her, she hauled off and slapped him. Then, grabbing him by the ear, she dragged him in the direction of the home theatre lounge.

Lester and Jeff watched from the safety of the Nerd Herd desk. “Dude, here we go again,” Lester said quietly.

“She’s a maneater,” Jeff replied.

“Oh, oh here she comes,” Lester agreed.

Once safely inside the home theatre lounge, Sarah really let loose. “What the hell is wrong with you?!” she hissed.

“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about,” Chuck replied.

“I’m your girlfriend, you son of a bitch!” Sarah snapped. She was REALLY getting mad now. “Don’t you remember? You met me months ago, you have the Intersect in your head, you were kidnapped in February, and I came to rescue you, and admitted that I was in love with you?”

Chuck raised an eyebrow. “That sounds like a fascinating tale, but really…”

Sarah narrowed her eyes. Then it occurred to her. She could force him to have a flash. “Longshore,” she said.

And Chuck’s eyes took on that curiously vacant stare again. “I’m sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about. If you’ll excuse me, I really need to get back to work.”

With that, he walked out of the home theatre lounge, and headed back to the stock room. Sarah watched him go in disbelief.

As soon as he was back in the back, though, she dashed out of the home theatre lounge. She found Casey, and dragged him into the lounge, which Jeff and Lester watched with no small amusement. “Watch out, boy, she’ll chew you up,” Lester said.

“Oh, oh, here she comes,” Jeff replied.

“I think there’s something wrong with Chuck,” Sarah said to Casey as soon as they were in the lounge.

“Aside from the fact that he’s a total putz who left me without a ride to work this morning, why exactly would that be?”

“He didn’t give you a ride to work today?”

Casey shook his head. “I had to take the goddamn bus.”

Sarah’s face was changing from angry to concerned. “I think we may have a problem,” she said finally.

“What sort of problem, exactly?” Casey asked.

“I think Chuck’s memory has somehow been wiped,” Sarah replied, her voice now taking on a worried tone. “He forgot to give you a ride to work this morning, he claims to not even remember me, and he doesn’t seem to remember the Intersect.”

Casey’s eyes widened. “We need to inform Washington.”

“No!” Sarah hissed. “If they think he’s lost his memory, but he still has the Intersect data floating around up there, they might give us a termination order.”

Casey rolled his eyes. “Like they’d do that after Utah.”

“You think it’s completely outside the realm of possibility?” Sarah asked. “Although, they have to realize, that if they give somebody the order to terminate Chuck, I will terminate that individual. That includes you.”

Casey smirked. “Bring it on.”

Then he grew serious again. “We need to figure this out somehow,” he said. “Call Ellie and Devin, have them meet us at their apartment. I’ll grab Morgan, we’ll go over there.”

---

About half an hour later, Chuck came out of the stock room, looking for Morgan. When he didn’t find him anywhere, he approached the Nerd Herd desk. “Hey guys, where’s Morgan?”

Lester looked at him. “Dude, he jetted out of here about twenty minutes ago with John and your girlfriend… although that looked like a fairly vicious encounter you had with Sarah earlier.”

A blank look appeared on Chuck’s face. “Who?”

Before Lester could answer him, though, Chuck had turned and was heading to the door. Once out the door, he jogged across the parking lot to his Herder.

Chuck headed home and parked the Herder out front. He ran around the back of the apartment building, opened the Morgan door, and boosted himself up and through the window. He crossed his bedroom to the door, cracked it open a little, and looked out.

Sarah, Casey, and Morgan were all in the living room, talking to Ellie and Devin. “I think he’s lost his memory,” Sarah was saying, sounding like she was about to cry. “He doesn’t remember me, he doesn’t remember Casey, he doesn’t –“

She stopped, and pointed at her head. Morgan still didn’t know about that, but Ellie and Devin caught on immediately. Ellie, too, looked like she was about to cry.

“Sarah, I’m sure this is just temporary, I’m sure he’ll be fine,” said Ellie, not sounding very convincing, as she stood and embraced the younger woman.

When Chuck saw Sarah’s shoulders beginning to shake, that was all he could take. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” he called, opening the door and walking down the hallway.

Everybody whirled and looked at him. “You’re SORRY?!” Ellie gasped. “What the hell?”

Chuck smiled weakly. “Uh, April Fools’?”

Nobody appeared to be amused, least of all Sarah, who stomped down the hallway, hauled off, and smacked Chuck even harder than she had earlier at the Buy More. “How COULD you?!” she screamed. “You had me so worried!”

“Sarah, Sarah!” Chuck said, ignoring the pain in his cheek. “Seriously, if I had thought that it would worry you guys or hurt you, I never would’ve done it! I just thought… I thought it would be funny!”

Sarah still looked mad as hell, but behind her, Casey began to chuckle. “You know,” he said, “I have to admit, as far as April Fools’ jokes go, that was pretty well done, Bartowski.”

Sarah turned and looked at Casey in disbelief. “Oh, come on, Walker!” he exclaimed. “It was! And you saw that as soon as he realized that it had gone wrong, he called it off! Give the man a break!”

She turned back to Chuck, whose face had turned to a look of pleading. “Seriously, Sarah. I love you. You know that. I would never do anything to hurt you. I just thought… I just thought an April Fools’ joke might be fun.”

Sarah sighed as Chuck wrapped his arms around her, unable to resist the urge to return the hug. “I know,” she sighed, letting herself melt into his embrace. “But if you ever do it again, I’ll shoot you.”