Chuck & Sarah vs the Recruits Preview 3

So, while I'm not going to start posting full chapters of the last story in the Chuck & Sarah vs Themselves Trilogy on FF.net until I finish posting vs the Frontier, loyal blog-watchers will probably continue to get bits and pieces like this one: the first half of Chapter 1, after the break.

Oh, and the action picks up a few weeks after the ending of Chuck & Sarah vs the Bunker. This is probably quite obvious through context clues, but in case somehow you've missed out on the fact that Bunker is the sequel to Themselves, this wouldn't make much sense without having read the second story.





Chapter 1: Preview
September 5, 2011
Casa Grimes
0800 DST

“Gung,” Morgan said, fumbling for the coffee tin.

Chuck managed a thin smile. “Urg,” he said and plopped himself down at the table.

“Glb,” Lisa said happily from her position in her father's arms, peering at Morgan in curiosity over Chuck's shoulder.

Morgan shook his head and turned on the faucet to fill the coffee pot. “How is she happy this morning,” he complained. “She was crying all night!”

Chuck shrugged. “One of those things, I guess. And it wasn't that bad,” he said. “I mean, she went down for two whole uninterrupted hours from three to five.”

“Not that bad? Not that bad!” Morgan sputtered.

Lisa tensed in Chuck's arm, which he knew was a precursor to a huge outburst. Her face crinkled and began turning red, and Chuck sighed. He pushed his chair back and stood so he could jiggle the baby on his shoulder, which she seemed to enjoy. “Indoor voice, Morg. Anything over 45.3 decibels sets her off. And it's better than last week isn't it?”

“That never gets old,” a gravelly voice said from the doorway to the hall. Chuck turned, arching an eyebrow at his wife, who was leaning against the doorjamb and fussing with her hair where it was sticking up in a huge fan of ridiculous bed-head. “I can't get the pre-emptive cry-stopping thing you do to work, but for you, it's all giggles and smiles all the time. There's no justice in this world.” Sarah let out an overly theatrical sigh, then managed a grin, but it was feeble. There were dark circles under her eyes, Chuck noticed at last. “Is there coffee?”

“Five minutes,” Morgan said.

Sarah groaned and turned to bong her head softly against the wall. “I could have used those extra five minutes, guys. Unlike you, I have to get up every time she does.”

“You know we can work around that,” Chuck said. “This is the twenty-first century. They've got this amazing new invention called a bottle.”

Sarah scowled at him. “No formula,” she insisted.

Morgan flushed. “Oh god, can we change the subject?”

“Sorry,” Sarah said, striding into the living room and stretching her arms out. “Here, gimme my girl.”

“Your's?” Chuck said, half-turning to keep possession of his little bundle of baby girl.

“Giggly-cuddly is mine,” Sarah said. “You agreed.”

“Maybe you agreed. I didn't agree to that,” he shot back with a good-natured chuckle. “Go back to bed, I'll bring you some coffee when it's done.”

“Uh-uh,” Sarah said, with a brief, pointed glance downward. “Gimme, the girls are about to explode here, and Lisa hasn't eaten since five.”

“Agh, you're gross,” Morgan grumbled from the kitchen. “No breast feeding in the living room. Don't make me go find the roommate agreement!” He stormed off in search of the document anyway, pontificating and talking to himself under his breath as he went.

Chuck and Sarah made the hand-off, and he gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “That's it?” Sarah complained.

He smirked and waggled his eyebrows. “Three to five this morning wasn't enough? Look who's insatiable this morning.”

Sarah frowned and tapped her chin in thought, as if weighing that information, before she matched the grin and went up on her tiptoes to give him a smooch. “Fair enough, you're forgiven. Still, you've got me accustomed to a higher level of smoochyness.”

Chuck shrugged. “No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.”

Sarah snorted. “Something like that. Though, I didn't think you were into that particular fetish. Have you been holding out on me?”

Chuck laughed softly and leaned forward to rest his forehead against his wife's. “Nope, all my secrets are laid bare. Well... the big ones.”

“And what does that mean?” Sarah demanded.

He shook his head. “Come on, hon, you're always saying a woman must maintain an air of mystery. Double standard much?” She narrowed her eyes and scowled playfully. “Anyway, I'd better get changed out of my pjs, I'm biting the bullet today and going with Morgan to the zoo.”

“Speaking of the Buy More,” Sarah said. “I still have to interview Jeff and Lester; you want to help me put on my old lady makeup again?”

“Maybe later,” Chuck said. “I'll try not to be down there for very long.”

Sarah nodded, and let him go, but as Chuck was heading for the bedroom, she darted forward and goosed him. Chuck leapt nearly a foot in the air, but by the time he had spun around to stare in shocked accusation, Sarah was holding Lisa up in front of her face and making googly eyes at her daughter. A more innocent scene never existed in the history of the universe.

Chuck wasn't buying it. “Now you're using our daughter as a prop,” he said.

Sarah grinned around Lisa a shrugged one shoulder without the least bit of sheepishness. “Get used to it,” she said and stuck her tongue out at him.

“I don't have to put up with this,” Chuck said, turning for the bedroom once more. He was a little surprised when she didn't follow him, but when he glanced over his shoulder, Sarah was sitting on the couch, lifting Lisa over her head and then bringing her down to nuzzle against her.

Sarah merely smiled at Chuck's not-so-deftly faked indignation and sat down on the sofa. Lisa was starting to fuss and reach for her breast; Sarah tried a quick lift and nuzzle, which had distracted the two-month old from time to time in the past, without success. With Morgan's 'no-breastfeeding-in-the-living-room' edict fresh in her mind, she thought about joining Chuck in the bedroom. Then again, shirtless Chuck was always hard to resist, and Sarah didn't want to risk the crying jag that would likely become inevitable if she put Lisa back in her portable crib while she indulged herself with Chuck.

Morgan would just have to get over his squeamishness she decided, pulled up the Faux Paws t-shirt she'd stolen, tugged down one of the straps on her maternity bra and let Lisa latch on. After a minute or two, Sarah became restless. She'd never been able to sit still and breast feed, and so she quickly found herself pacing the apartment. Her circuit took her into the kitchen, where she checked the coffee pot: still only half full.

Then, she cocked her head to one side, eyebrow perking up. Her 'spy'dey-sense was tingling, as she'd told Chuck once, to a groan and a comment about puns being the lowest form of comedy. Sitting in the sink were a pair of cereal bowls, still with some brightly colored sugary bits in the bottom, on closer inspection, as well as a couple larger than usual coffee mugs. The math was easy one of those over-sized mugs was at least three cups, and Morgan's coffee maker made 9 cups. Her husband and his erstwhile best friend could easily have finished a full pot.

Sarah took a couple steps to the trash can and lifted the lid. A used coffee filter lay on top of the older trash. Her eyes narrowed and she turned toward the bedroom. Something hinky was going on.

The doorbell rang, and Sarah froze. “Anybody wanna get that?” she said, loudly enough to carry through the whole apartment. It wasn't quite a shout, but close.

She sighed grumpily and pulled Lisa away from her breakfast gingerly. The little one made a sound of protest, and Sarah cooed down at her soothingly. “Once I get rid of them, I'll finish feeding you, just don't go all fire alarm-ey on me, deal?” Lisa didn't so much agree as she just didn't object more strenuously on the instant, which was better than nothing. Sarah realized that she'd picked up Chuck's habit of talking to Lisa as if she was a grown-up, or at least closer to ten years old than two months. She dismissed the thought as extraneous, tucked herself back into her bra and pulled the shirt back into place, before padding over to the door.

Years of spy experience had left their mark, and Sarah found herself sidling carefully up to the doorway, peering at the peep-hole to make sure whoever was at the door wasn't waiting to blast her through the door when the tiny window darkened as she put her eye to it. The CIA horror stories of the KGB operative back in the sixties who had knocked on his targets' doors and put the tip of his silenced Makarov 9mm to the peep hole, were widely known; so widely known in fact, that the method had made its way into a fair number of movies over the years. Once Sarah was confident that she wasn't going to be shot in the eye, she put her face to the peep-hole.

A tension she hadn't realized she'd been feeling left her in a rush; it was just Ellie, her sister-in-law— which was still a new-feeling title to be throwing around willy-nilly, despite better than a year married to the woman's brother. Much of that year she and Chuck had been on the run or in hiding, and before that, they'd been pretending to have broken up. Thankfully, most of the CIA-related complications in her life were no more, and Sarah yanked the door open to greet Ellie with a smile, despite the early hour.

Ellie's eyes widened and her jaw dropped at the sight of her, causing Sarah a moment's confusion, before her sister-in-law opened her mouth. “Is that what you're wearing?” Ellie asked.

Sarah's confusion deepened. “Apparently,” she said.

“No, I mean,” Ellie faltered briefly, “Chuck really didn't tell you? I thought you'd have used your feminine wiles on him and got him to spill.”

Sarah felt dread beginning to build in her stomach. Chuck had mentioned keeping a secret, briefly, but she'd assumed he'd just been being playful. “Uh-oh,” she said, just as a small handful of women popped out from carefully chosen positions to either side of her sister-in-law.

“Surprise, blondie,” Carina said with a smirk, and then reached over to wiggle her fingers in Lisa's face. “I mean blondies,” she corrected herself.

Zondra shook her head in disbelief. “Carina told us you'd reproduced, but we didn't believe her. Even with the pictures.”

“And you never told us you had a sister!” Amy chirped, arm in arm with a second redhead.

“Hi Renee,” Sarah managed. “Chuck set this up?”

“Yeah, Sammie,” Renee tossed her head to get some hair out of her face, in a manner familiar to all of Sarah Walker's friends. “Your hubby really stepped up this time,” she said, then glanced around at Sarah's former spy-buddies, particularly Zondra, given the way her little sister was glaring. “Or maybe stepped in it.”

“Oh, yes,” Sarah said. “He will pay for this...”

Carina laughed. “I'll bet,” she said, with a knowing smirk, that set Sarah off in a blush. “Come on, Walker, change into something less Mommy and Me, we've got a party to hold.”

Sarah smiled evilly, and made to hand off Lisa to the devious redhead. “Here, somebody's got to hold her while I change.”

Carina's eyes widened and she took a hasty step back. “Oh-ho no! This is a Dolce and Gabbana blouse. No way am I getting puke-stains on it.”

Sarah arched an eyebrow and turned smoothly, “I was talking to Ellie.”

Lisa's aunt took her and bounced her and the littlest Bartowski reached up to grab her hair. Ellie laughed and pulled her head up, while Sarah disappeared into the apartment. A moment later she poked her head back out. “You can come in, if you want,” she said. “I wasn't trying to be a b-word.”

Zondra arched an eyebrow. “'B-word'? Why don't you just say it?” she frowned, until Sarah pointed vaguely at Ellie, and who she was holding. The tall brunette spy rolled her eyes, and Renee shrugged.

“You get used to it,” she said. “And anyway, she's mellowed a bit on that front. You should have seen her two months ago. That was scary.”

Sarah scowled. “Okay, everybody but you can come in, Renee,” she said, and darted back inside.

TO BE CONTINUED...