A/N: hi again! I know I should be updating my other stories and not posting new ones, but this just wouldn't leave me alone, so I had to write it.
Warning: I can't dance. Everything I wrote here is based in all the articles I read and the videos I watched on YouTube, so there might be some mistakes. And even if I am from Argentina, I don't know how to tango. Trust me, most of us don't. I do like to listen to it though.
A huge thank you to Aerox for beta'ing this.
I do not own Chuck.
"I need to find somebody to dance with. I'm gonna get close to Renny," she says.
He looks at her with a frown, slightly offended by her words. "Sarah, please. You taught me how to dance." He grabs her by her arm and leads her to the dance floor.
She steps into the training room in Castle and asks him, "So, you're ready?"
He gives her that lopsided smile that always makes her insides turn to mush and says in a seductive tone, "Baby, I was born ready."
She smiles. "Good. Today, I'm going to teach you how to tango."
Chuck's eyebrows raise in surprise. "But I already know how to..."
She interrupts him, grinning. "You only know the woman's part, if I recall correctly."
She is right. Devon forgot to mention that little detail before he started spinning him around the living room of their shared apartment dressed in nothing but a robe (which he quickly discarded too). "Touché," he concedes.
"Besides, I'm talking about the Argentine tango. We'll do the ballroom version some other day."
"What's the difference?" he asks.
Sarah takes a step closer, standing in front of him, and looks him straight in the eye. "It's sexier," she simply states. Chuck audibly gulps as he stares into her eyes.
It's her voice that brings him back to the present. "What you want to do first is putting your right arm on the middle of my back, as if you were hugging me," she instructs. He immediately does as she tells him, holding her tightly against him. She puts her own arm around his and situates her hand on his arm, just above his bicep. "Good. Now, your left hand needs to be at our shoulders' level." She holds his hand in hers and she stares into his eyes. He smiles and she can't help but return the gesture.
"I have to say, I'm loving this already," he comments, eliciting a chuckle from her.
The fact is, she is enjoying it as much as he is. And they aren't even dancing yet. "Ok, focus. This is a very passionate dance. In fact, Enrique Santos Discépolo described it as a sad thought that could be danced to."
"Who is... whoever you just said?" Chuck asks.
"Only one of the best tango musicians and composers of all times," she says, matter-of-factly.
He grins. "Sarah Walker, I'm impressed. And here I was, thinking you didn't know anything about music."
She shrugs. "Well, I don't. But I did a little research a few years ago when I had to pose as a contestant in the 'Tango World Championships'." He chuckles and she moves a little closer to him. "Now shut up and let me teach you," she adds in a playful manner.
He grins again. "Yes, ma'am."
She tries her best to hide her smile as she speaks, "The man always leads, so you'll have to be focused, ok?"
He is already having trouble focusing with her body being so close to his, but he nods anyway.
"Good. There are eight basic steps you need to learn." She moves her left foot towards him and he instinctively takes a step back with his right one. "That's one," she says. She takes a step to her side with her right foot and he imitates her moves. "Two." Before she moves again, she tells him, "Now, your right foot goes next to mine, ok?" She takes a step back and he almost falls on her.
"Sorry, sorry," he mumbles, trying to regain his balance.
She smiles. "It's ok, honey, you're doing great." During the previous lessons she has been giving him as part of his training, she discovered that Chuck was actually a really good dancer. He just had to be properly motivated. She looks him in the eyes and says, "Let's try it again."
They do the three steps without a problem. "How about that?" he asks with a smile.
"Perfect. Now this is when it gets tricky. You can't actually stop; you have to take a new step towards me, so now our feet are in the same position again, you get it?"
He frowns. "I think I do."
"Ok, so let's do it all over again." She stands in front of him, her eyes never leaving his. "And, one, two, three, four," she counts. After she says 'one' he starts watching their feet, trying to concentrate on what he's learned already.
"That's great, Chuck, you're really good at this," she encourages him.
He glances at her with a skeptical and at the same time hopeful look. "You really think so?"
She smiles and plants a small kiss on his lips. "Of course I do. Now, after the fourth step, your feet get together in the same spot," she says. He does as she tells him, and watches as she crosses hers. "After that, you take a new step with your left foot, and then one to the side with your right foot. The final step is basically ending in the same position you started, with your feet together." They move as she talks, and he can't do anything other than admiring how right it feels. They are so in sync, their bodies moving at the same pace, and his heart swells inside his chest.
"What?" she asks curiously when she sees his dreamy expression.
He shakes his head and smiles. "I love you," he whispers.
She smiles too before staring into the loving eyes of her husband and saying, "I love you too."
He kisses her. He feels her hand closing over his shoulder and griping his shirt tightly. He reluctantly pulls away, knowing that, if they keep kissing like that, the dance lesson will be finishing early. She keeps her eyes closed and rests her head on his chest for a moment.
"Shall we try it again?" he says.
Sarah smiles and looks up at him through her lashes. "Yeah."
They move around the mat in silence, and Chuck once again focuses on his feet, trying not to step on hers.
"Great. You're doing very good, Chuck. Now, we're going to try it with music," she says as she disentangles herself from his embrace and goes over to the small table in the corner of the room, where she placed her iPod and speakers before they started. Chuck watches in silence as she tries to find the song that goes with the lesson. He smiles. Knowing Sarah, she probably put it in a folder inside a folder placed in another folder. Finally, she finds the song she was looking for. She walks towards Chuck again, and he immediately wraps his right arm around her just as she taught him, while she searches his left hand with her right one. Music fills the room and they start to sway to the rhythm of the song. As he enjoys the soft cadence of the music, Chuck vaguely thinks that Sarah was right. This is definitely sexier than any other dance. Maybe it's because of the closeness of their bodies. Or maybe it's just because he's dancing with her. After a few repetitions of the same steps, Sarah tells him improvisation is a great part of the dance, and she steps over his foot in a move she calls 'pasada.' She rubs his calf with her own foot, eliciting a gasp from him and she just laughs as they keep on dancing. He has no choice but to follow her lead. It's not like he ever had a choice other than that, anyway. Finally, the song comes to an end, and he's very aware of Sarah's body pressing into his. They're both breathing heavily and, almost unconsciously, he tightens his arm around her, holding her even closer. Sarah looks up and her eyes dart to his lips just as he starts leaning down to close the gap between them. He pauses, delaying the inevitable, and they share a smile. After that, there's no more dancing for a while.
As they move around the dance floor, he forgets about everything. He doesn't care about Renny, Quinn or the Intersect anymore. He only cares about what he feels when his wife is in his arms. And he desperately hopes she can still feel it too. Even if she'd told him she wasn't in love with him, he knows that kind of feeling doesn't just go away. After everything they've been through, this can't just be it.
"Get me close," she demands, slightly out of breath, and he wastes no time in pressing her tightly against his body. After two weeks of heartache and trying to come to terms with the fact that his wife left him, being like this, so intimately close to her, feels so damn good that he loses himself in the moment. "To Renny. Close to Renny," she quickly clarifies, and this time her breathlessness is even more noticeable than before.
He can barely restrain himself from kissing her when he sees her eyes glance at his lips. But he can't afford to ruin what might be his last chance with her. So, in a testament to his self-control, he looks away and says, "Right, right, right..." and keeps dancing, praying to whoever is listening to make this amazing woman who once loved him, fall in love with him again. Because he knows he's not ready to just let her go. Because their love was just too great to have just disappeared into nothing.
He spins her around and he can hear Renny talk to someone, but he's not really paying attention. All he can think is how much he's missed his wife's scent, how much he's missed holding her like this. He sees Renny walking away and Sarah turns to face him and says, "New location."
They are so close their noses are touching and he's breathing like he's ran a marathon. He knows she's just as affected as he is, because she's flushed and the hand resting on his neck is gripping his collar tightly, as she visibly tries to conceal the furtive looks she's casting at his lips. It almost makes him smile, but having her so close and knowing he can't kiss his own wife is causing him physical pain. And, of course, they have a mission. How very them that is, he thinks to himself as he lets Morgan know they have to change location again. He closes his eyes briefly, cursing his never-ending bad luck. He then eases his grip on Sarah and leads her to the door, their arms intertwined.
She keeps quiet, and it reminds him of the old times, when she would pretend nothing was going on between them. But even then, he knew better. And so did she. And in the end, neither of them had any other choice but to acknowledge the fact that they were destined to be together.
A lot of things can change, Chuck thinks as they walk towards the van where Morgan is waiting for them, but not this. Not the love they have for each other. Not the fact that they're Chuck and Sarah, and they can overcome anything.
So he makes up his mind. He's not going to give up. He's not going to give up on her. He's going to honor the promise he made her when she was barely awake in a tub filled with icy water. They are going to be together, forever.
He's going to get his wife back.
A/N: For the scene in Castle, the song that I imagine playing is "Una emoción" so you can look it up if you want to. There's a video in YouTube, I think it's the end of the movie "Assassination Tango" –which I never saw-, where Pablo Verón and Geraldine Rojas dance to it and it's simply amazing. I hope you liked this.
Reviews are always appreciated :)