As of 23rd of May 2012, I don't own Chuck, et al.

And yes, I am aware that half of the films mentioned are after this is supposed to be set. You know what? I don't care.

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CLABBY (adj.) – A 'clabby' conversation is one struck up by a commissionaire or cleaning lady in order to avoid any further actual work. The opening gambit is usually designed to provoke the maximum confusion, and therefore the longest possible clabby conversation. It is vitally important to learn the correct use of 'clixby' (q.v.), the response to a clabby gambit, and not get trapped by a 'ditherington' (q.v.). For instance, if confronted by a clabby gambit such as 'Oh Mr Smith, I didn't know you'd had your leg off', the ditherington response is 'I haven't….' where as the clixby is 'Good'.

CLIXBY (adj.) – Politely rude. Briskly vague. Firmly uninformative.

DITHERINGTON (n.) – Sudden access of panic experienced by one who realizes that he is being drawn inexorably into a clabby (q.v.) conversation, i.e. one he has no hope of enjoying, benefitting from or understanding.

Douglas Adams & John Lloyd – The Deeper Meaning of Liff

Published by Pan Books and Faber & Faber, 1990.

-o0o-

"Chuck, I've got to say, I'm with Sarah on this one." Ellie shared a smirk with Sarah, "Kirk. Definitely Captain Kirk."

The extended family was around the dinner table, expanding on the conversation that had begun during the afternoon at the Buy More, where of those currently present, only Chuck had been an active, if semi willing, participant.

That hadn't stopped Sarah from regaling Ellie and Devon with her interpretation of the discussion. Chuck had objected that this was a rather loose and one sided version but Sarah and Ellie didn't seem to care.

Sarah's version of the famous Kirk vs Picard argument, expanded at the Buy More to also include Archer and Janeway, was based on what she'd only seen via the spy cameras that controlled his life, although she made it sound like she'd been there. Apparently, she'd turned the volume down some ten minutes into the discussion, so she'd missed some three hours of the full argument, even if, and Chuck would normally admit this, a lot of the argument circled back in itself several times after the initial five minutes. That circling back was mainly due to Morgan. And Lester. Jeff had tried his best, but...

Chuck also felt that Sarah had absolutely no qualifications to weigh into the argument, seeing as how she obviously had absolutely no idea who the major players were, aside from her viewing of only one movie – the most recent, and big budget, one. Chuck was flat out overruled on this view point.

Chuck swapped looks at his sister and un-authorised girlfriend. The pair of them had the same slightly far away expression.

"Okay, just so we're clear on this, you," and he swivelled to include both of the women in his life, "are both saying that as a character" Chuck emphasised with expression, voice and a raised index finger to each of the women, "you find Captain Kirk over Captain Picard as a better captain of the Enterprise."

Both Ellie and Sarah nodded with slight smiles that indicated they might be thinking of something else.

Chuck still wasn't totally convinced, "We are talking Kirk, not the actor that just happens to be playing him."

"Mmm hmm" Sarah nodded, still with the same smile.

"So, our watching some half-baked rom-com with Lindsey Lohan and the very same actor we'd just seen in the re-boot movie was a pure coincidence?"

"Yep," agreed Sarah, sitting a tad prouder at that utterance.

"The same coincidence that let you trawl IMDB and find Princess Diaries. Two," Chuck held up the requisite number of fingers, "for us to watch, the next night?" he asked after pausing for a theatrical shudder.

"Yep." She affirmed. Her chest sticking out a little further than normal, defying him to argue her unassailable logic.

"Ooh, was he any good in that?" Ellie wanted to know.

Sarah did the 'so-so' hand movement, adding a noncommittal, "Nmm."

Chuck looked at Devon, saying, "I think we've officially stopped the Kirk Picard debate, and have now segued into the freebie five."

Devon looked horror struck, and held up his hands to Chuck to shush him.

Chuck wondered why Devon looked horror stricken, until Ellie asked, "So, Sarah. Have you ever wondered who's on Chuck's list?"

Chuck's head rotated towards his sister, just like in the horror movies, all in slow motion, his face now emulating Devon's in a mixture of dread, horror and betrayal.

Ellie's expression was that of beatific innocence, and a flash of big sisterly malice, before the innocence resumed its regular broadcast.

While Chuck was still staring at his sister in horrified disbelief, a seriously sensual, "So Chuck, who's on your list?" was purred into his right ear by a sneaky super spy who'd snuck up behind him.

"Yeragah!" stated Chuck as he leapt three feet to his left. Forgetting for the moment that leaping from the sitting position is a slightly technical process, generally involving a minimum of three stages, and best not attempted while under duress.

He missed one of the stages. A reasonably critical one, as it turned out.

As Chuck got back to his feet, he flashed a look of total hatred at his sister. The look bounced harmlessly off Ellie, as big sisters are generally well known to be immune to hot glares from little brothers. Especially when the specific little brother involved is currently resting on the carpet beside the table. He then tried a pleading look at Sarah.

Sarah returned a brief flash of sympathy, but then she returned to evil joy mode. She was enjoying this. Maybe a bit too much, Chuck thought.

"You know, I'm not really one for the freebie five. That's more of Morgan's domain," admitted Chuck, once he'd resumed verticality.

Ellie and Sarah shared a knowing glance. It wasn't fair, they were ganging up on him.

"But... but Chu-uck..." wheedled Sarah, "...didn't you once have a..." she looked at Ellie for confirmation.

"Life sized, cardboard cut-out of Miranda Lawson..." confirmed Ellie.

"Uh..." gulped Chuck.

Uh oh. This was headed into dangerous waters.

"...in your bedroom," intimated Sarah.

The smirk she provided him was a free sample.

Just the way Sarah could say 'bedroom,' sent shivers up his spine, and also implied she felt that his activities with the cardboard cut-out just might not have been suitable for transmission on the Disney channel.

"See? Now, I can explain that! Jeff and Lester were..."

"So... you thought you'd save her, by taking her home, and hiding her in the privacy of your bedroom..." Each time Sarah said the word bedroom, she'd made it into the sexiest and intimate word imaginable.

Very well, two can play that game. He stepped in close to Sarah, who smirked back at him, knowing what he was about to try. He bent over to whisper into her ear.

"You know what? Yes, I did, once, have a rescued promotional standee in my room. But it's the real woman I'm in love with that I want to share that room, and the rest of my life, with."

Nothing. Not a shiver, not a goose bump, nothing. She can make the word bedroom sound so intimate, so sensual. Why can't I make her...

She grabbed his shirt, pulled him close and whispered hungrily, "You're sleeping at my place tonight."

Ah. Okaaaay. That might count as a success.

The mood lifted, and they all adjourned to the couch, the TV playing quietly, as they waited for their show to start.

Sarah snuggled into Chuck's side, and said to him, "So, cardboard cut-out girl is one of yours."

"Yvonne Strzechowski?" Chuck was extremely careful not to pronounce her name Stra-Hot-Ski, "Yeah, I guess," he grinned at the TV, "I might also admit to the blonde girl, reminds me of a certain someone," he squoze that certain someone, "in that vampire TV show, cancelled now, but stared the same guy from the Honolulu 5-Oh remake."

Slight pause, distant smile, "Okay, he'll do," said both Sarah and Ellie.

"And when I was younger, Kim Basinger. Two words," he grinned at Sarah, "Vickie and Vale."

"Daryl Hannah, the mermaid in Splash," added Devon.

"Yeah," Chuck drifted off for a moment, "and she made for a seriously hot killer robot in Bladerunner."

"You know how else, when he was twelve? Gillian..."

"Aw geez, thanks sis."

"...Anderson. You're welcome Chuck."

"Agent Scully? With you there Chuckster," Devon gave Chuck a long distance fist bump.

Sarah sat up straighter, "Ooh, Duchovny? Yeah, he was hot back then."

Chuck raised both eyebrows, being unable to do the Spock as well as, well everyone else, at Sarah.

"What? I watched TV when I was a kid," she looked up into his eyes, and added in a little girl voice, "Sometimes." When he was finished coughing and spluttering his wine, she continued, "And that cartoon you made me watch, the one about Rapunzel? Well, I kind of like the voice of the male lead in that..."

"And obviously, Chris Pine, the new Kirk," came Chuck's voice

"Yeah," admitted Sarah in a little voice, curling back into Chuck's side a little closer.

"What about Hemsworth? The guy that played his father at the start of the film."

Both Ellie and Sarah made the same moan, "Ooooh! That was sooo saaad..."

"Wasn't he the one that played Thor?" Devon asked.

"You think your thor, I'm tho thor, I can barely p... Thorry. I, aah, *ahem*, sorry. That's his brother, I think."

"Oh, the Avatar guy? Now he's cute."

"Um, think that might be a different brother."

They were quiet for a bit while they all thought.

"Aragorn," declared Ellie, "It's about the only thing I've seen him in, but..."

Chuck faked a cough, cupping his free hand to his mouth to clearly say, "Haldir!" as though that was how he normally coughed.

"Thanks Chuck," said a slightly pink Ellie.

"Who?" Sarah wanted to know.

"You are most welcome, sis. One of the Woodland elves, died at the battle of Helms Deep."

"Oooh, Wolverine!" exclaimed Sarah suddenly. "And Keith Urban, the doctor in the new Trek movie."

"That's Karl," Chuck whispered to her.

"Whatever," she waived her hand, dismissing his nitpicking. Then she considered for a moment, "Actually, him too," she continued.

"Yeaah!" agreed Ellie. The two women looked off into the distance for a moment, and then both spookily sighed wistfully at the same time. Devon and Chuck shared raised eyebrows, but said nothing.

-o0o-

The show that Ellie and Devon were waiting for started, so the conversation quietened, and the volume on the TV was turned up. It was the cop show, set in New York City, featuring the former captain of the Serenity.

When the ad break came around, Sarah asked, "Do you think they'll ever get together?"

Chuck made a judging humming sound "Mmm, probably. It's a balancing act. People watch the show for the interaction between Rook and Heat. But you keep the will-they-won't-they dance going too long, and you jump the shark," he looked at her amused expression, and answered the unasked question, "they get bored and stop watching."

Chuck sipped his wine, and Ellie continued for him. This was a discussion that had happened a couple of times before Sarah arrived into her brother's life. But when Morgan was involved, Ellie tried to keep out of it.

"Three seasons would be about the maximum that people could stand. Four if it was done cleverly, but you'd need some good writers, and a decent plot twist to pull that off. But when you resolve the will-they-won't-they dance, that changes the whole show. It's no longer about the sexual tension, and seeing as how that was pretty much the whole reason the audience watched it in the first place, well you've just lost that audience."

Chuck set his glass back down, "So, once you've got them together, you've got one season, tops, to round things out, have the wedding and end the show. If you go for two or more seasons afterwards, well, that's just greedy and stupid. You end up having to drag in more and more outrageous guest stars." Chuck gazed down at his beloved, "Imagine say, Bo Derek as a killer snow bunny for example, or Timbo Dalton as an arch villain for the whole season. Or you could have all your previous villains escape prison all at the same time. And that's just stupid. No one would ever watch that."

The advert for something made in garish plastic that sliced, diced and helped you shed those unwanted pounds ended and the conversation lulled while the show resumed.

At the next ad break, and almost as soon as the ad for some singing reality show started booming from the TV, Devon hit mute as quickly as he could, wincing at the noise.

"What if they go the amnesia plot?" Sarah asked, resuming the discussion during the ads.

"God, I don't think any TV executive's been stupid enough to try that since Dallas, what was it, two whole seasons, all a dream? The audience just won't buy it. Plus it's totally implausible. You'd be better for one of them to declare their love while the other is near death. Again, you wouldn't want to drag it out too much," said Devon, as he got up to freshen up the glasses.

"So there's only two episodes that'll be really popular, the 'get together' episode. That'll be for the guys. And that's usually a season climax. Annnd, then there's the one with the white dress," said Chuck.

"Awwww, I wonder what she'll wear?" Sarah wanted to know.

"I just told you, a white dress. Ow! Devon, help me."

"Sorry Bro, you're on your own."

Chuck's, "Coward," was muffled somewhat by the cushion that Sarah held in place.

"Breathing coward," Devon corrected, sharing a smile with his fiancé.

-o0o-

After Rook finished, one of the Crime Scene Unit shows started, one of the secondary ones, but not the one with 'Loo-ten-ant Daaaa-n,' Sarah took Chuck by the hand and announced they were going home.

They said their good nights, and just as they were about to leave, one of the characters on the show announced his discovery that the murder weapon was a high tech smart gun that fired bullets that could change direction while in flight.

Smart bullets.

Chuck and Sarah glanced at each other as they stood in the open doorway, and silently agreed, they were committed to leave now, and couldn't stay to watch a show that Ellie knew Chuck didn't particularly like.

As they crossed the courtyard, Chuck suggested, "We could ask Casey to record it, make some notes. I mean that's what he does, isn't it?"

She shoved him into the stairwell leading to the underground garage, "One, it's just a television show. You know very few operations have their missions based on the plot of a TV show. And two, do you really wanna explain to Beckman where the idea came from if we do get something out of it?"

"Um, maybe not."

Once they got to her hotel room, Chuck still wanted to look up the plot of the CSU program. Just to be sure.

Sarah, on the other hand, had other ideas regarding the preferred sequence of events for the rest of the evening.

Sarah had her way. In more ways than one.

Once Chuck was convinced that her way was a lot more funner than his – not a hard decision, one option involved a Sarah Walker mostly nude except for a tiny amount of what was basically just either lace, or dental floss, the other option necessitated his squinting into an iPhone. Option two died a quick, lonely death as the phone followed a parabolic trajectory somewhat in the direction of the couch.

-o0o-

It took a couple of days for Chuck to remember he wanted to look up the CSU episode, but the delay wasn't his fault. They'd had a couple of quick missions, two nights running. Don't you love that word, 'quick?' It implies simple and easy. The more memorable of the missions almost ended when the bad guy flushed paperwork down the toilet.

It was due to Casey that the word 'almost' is used to describe the more fragrant parts of that long, long night.

As Chuck pretty much suspected and Sarah had told him, the show gave no details about smart bullets at all. Some writer had heard about them, and used the concept. Wikipedia had more info, and most of that was guesswork.

The entry did mention GPS as guidance, but Chuck had his doubts about that. The flight time would be too short for it to adjust while in the air. Certainly couldn't be used for hand guns. For a rifle, then. Maybe.

That means a sniper...

So, that scene from Wanted, then. Not scary at all.

During the afternoon, Chuck did a little light reading over in Castle. The training manual on Casey's M-60 general purpose machine gun, which Casey lovingly called Matilda, mentioned tracer burn-out at eleven hundred metres. That would beeee... half a mile-ish.

So that was two scary thoughts. Unseen death from almost anywhere within a little bit shy of three quarters of a mile. And the fact that the military have enough machine guns of a specialised nature, that the rest can be considered 'general purpose.'

Not to be sarcastic, but what are the other purposes? Gardening, perchance?

"Chuck, you okay?" Sarah asked him from the freezer doorway.

"Yeah... just... frustrated. And a little alarmed at the frame of mind of some people, I guess."

"What do you mean?"

"I..." Chuck closed up the manual and folders he'd spread across the bench. He got up, and headed to the stairs, climbing up to meet her, "...I'm sorry Sarah, sometimes this just gets to me, you know?"

"Hmmm?" she asked, rubbing her hand along his arm once he was close enough.

"Guns, what we do... It's just..."

"Chuck, you're starting to scare me."

"Guns, Sarah, guns. They only have one use... I'm sorry, I just..."

"You've been down here for a bit, haven't you?" she asked, studying his face.

"...'bout an hour, I guess," he looked back down at main ops, as if judging the time from the layer of folders he'd created.

"Chuck..." she said, her voice full of hurt for him. "Yes, we use guns. But we save lives too. You save lives Chuck. Casey and I are good at what we do. But you make us better. Better agents," and her voice dropped to a whisper so only he could hear, "and better people, too."

He tilted his head at her, just like a confused Labrador.

"I didn't know it at the time, but I didn't like myself before you came along," she whispered.

He nodded mutely, but she could tell he was still down. Sarah Waler knew the many moods of Chuck Bartowski.

There was really only the one – happy to see her.

Anything else called for the big guns...

She took him by the shoulders, forcing him to look at her, "Chuck! This is not a sha-wade... we need tow-tow..."

God bless him, he couldn't resist, or help himself. He joined in with a Chuck grin. A small one, but it was there.

"...con-then-tway-shun!" the pair of them said together. His grin grew bigger at her grin.

She led him into the Orange Orange. He headed back to work with a thank-you nod and smile for her. Once again, he thought to himself, Sarah Walker saves the day.

-o0o-