Sarah Versus the Dream

He kissed her. Gently at first, bringing his hand up to her cheek and caressing it lightly. They stayed like that for a while, each brushing their lips against the other's, and it hit Sarah just how much she wanted the kiss to work. That it would bring all her memories of the past five years flooding back. That it would bring her memories of the man sitting next to her, kissing her, back.

But it didn't.

They began to lose momentum before finally coming to a rest, their heads falling forward to lean against one another, eyes closed. She didn't know what to say. It hadn't worked. He'd suggested it casually, as though he didn't think it'd work, but she knew he'd been really hoping that it would. As had she. She felt tears threatening to escape, the sense of loss almost overwhelming her. Where did they go from here? Where did she go from here? How could she stay, having lost so much? She couldn't force her memories to come back, and she didn't know how to be the woman he loved without them. He deserved better than what she was capable of giving him in her current state. He deserved a wife who remembered him, and who cherished those memories. She needed to say something. They'd both been quiet for too long, resting against each other, unsure of what to do next.

"I'm sorry"

It was all she could think of. She pulled away, glancing out to the ocean and wiping the tears from her eyes. She couldn't stay here. She couldn't bear to see his reaction – the disappointment and sadness she was sure were in his eyes. Before he could respond, she began to stand up, and he reached for her arm.

"Sarah, wait"

She pulled her arm away, determinately avoiding his gaze.

"I-I can't be here. I'm sorry"

She began to walk away, and she heard him scramble up from the sand. He called out to her, his voice breaking.

"Sarah! Please!"

The tears were streaming down her face now. He kept calling her name, but she kept walking, faster and faster each time he cried out for her until she was running at full speed. Running away from him, the man she had hurt, and was hurting, so deeply. She kept running and running and running, her feet slipping through the sand, carrying her further and further from him. Eventually, his anguished cries became fainter and fainter, until they were completely drowned out by the crashing of the waves beside her. She came to a stop, the significance of what she'd just done bringing her to an abrupt halt as though she'd run in to a wall. She fell to her knees and sobbed, mourning the loss of a life she'd always dreamed of, a life that could've been hers but was now gone. Forever.

Sarah woke with a start, a gasp escaping her lips as she sat up in the bed. She whipped her head around, her eyes frantically searching the other side of the bed through the darkness. Chuck was there, still asleep. She turned to face forward again and let out a breath she didn't realise she'd been holding.

It had only been a dream. Again.

She looked back at Chuck once more, as though to make sure her eyes hadn't deceived her the first time. His hair was mussed, and his lips were in a very slight pout. Still facing him, she briefly lay back down again, but found she was still too disturbed by the dream, or rather the nightmare, to fall back to sleep. So, as quietly and gently as she could, she got up out of their bed, and tip-toed to the door. Very slowly she opened it nearly halfway, stopping just short of the point she knew it would make a creaking sound, and slipped through the gap.

Out in the hallway, she straightened up and took in her surroundings. The lights were off, but the moonlight streaming in through the hatch to the rooftop sitting area meant she could see well enough. Opposite their bedroom door was the main bathroom, while down the hall and past the stairwell lay her destination. Tip-toeing again, she made her way down the hall to the door of the second bedroom, turning the knob slowly and opening the door just a crack to see inside. She couldn't see or hear anything, which was a good sign. Opening the door a little wider to slip into the room, she made her way over to the crib in the far corner and peeked inside.

Just like his father, Samuel Bartowski was fast asleep. She stood there for a while, watching over him and taking in every detail. His face was relaxed, his sky-blue eyes that were so like his mother's firmly closed, and a little tuft of brown, curly hair sat atop his small, round head. She marvelled at him, her son, the life she had created with the man she loved, her Chuck. Then the memory of her recent nightmare forced itself back into the front of her mind, and she frowned slightly, before forcing herself to remember what had really happed that day on the beach.

The kiss had not, as Morgan suggested, caused all her memories to come rushing back to her all at once. Though Sarah nonetheless liked to think it had been the catalyst for what had happened next.

After that day on the beach, she had moved back into the apartment in Echo Park with Chuck, though they'd started out sleeping in separate rooms. Despite her not wanting to displace him in his own home, he'd insisted she sleep in the master bedroom while he moved to the guest room. He'd argued it was just as much her home as it was his, and that maybe something in there might trigger her memories. It hadn't, at least she didn't think it had, but on her third night sleeping in what was supposedly her bedroom she'd had a dream.

It was vivid, so vivid it almost felt real. Because it had been real. She and Chuck were in some sort of warehouse, arguing. They were stood in front of a bomb, and she was trying to make him leave and get to safety while she stayed behind and tried to disarm it. But he stubbornly, or courageously depending on who you ask, refused. They stopped arguing just long enough to hear the bomb begin its final countdown. They looked at each other, and he told her it'd been nice knowing her, before closing his eyes in anticipation of the coming explosion. At that point, not knowing what made her do it, she launched herself forward, cupping his face in her hands, and kissed him. Initially he was frozen from shock, but then began to kiss back once he realised what was happening. The kiss was frantic, passionate, as they attempted to express, in what they believed was the last moment of their lives, everything they felt for one another. But then the bomb didn't explode, and were left standing there, unsure what to do next.

The dream had ended there, and she had woken suddenly, just as she had from the nightmare a few minutes ago. They kept coming back to her like that, in her dreams. Some good, some bad, but almost all of them had Chuck in. She didn't tell him about the first few memory-dreams, as they'd mostly revealed to her things Chuck had told her about on the beach. Also, she didn't want to get his hopes up if they didn't keep coming. But then she'd had one, a particularly strong and detailed recollection, of something that Chuck hadn't mentioned in his retelling of their romance. In fact, he'd conspicuously avoided the topic as a whole. So, the morning after, over breakfast, she'd asked him about it.

"Chuck, why didn't you tell me about the first time we made love?"

As she'd asked the question, he'd been taking a sip of coffee, which he promptly choked on.

"Ah! H-Hot coffee!"

"Sorry, I've done that to you before, haven't I?"

She'd handed him a napkin to wipe away the dribble of coffee on his chin.

"Yeah, yeah you have, but it's fine. Wait, how do you know that?"

"Umm…"

And she'd told him all about the dreams she'd been having, and what memories had returned to her. He'd been so excited but was clearly trying for her benefit not to seem so, for fear he'd overwhelm her. He'd been like that ever since she'd returned to the apartment - friendly and welcoming, but also hesitant, as though he were scared that if he pushed too hard she'd run for the hills (something she'd firmly ruled out ever doing back on the beach).

"Now, your turn" she'd pressed on "Why didn't you tell me about that on the beach?"

"Well…I…I didn't want to put that kind of pressure on you, talking about sex when I wasn't even sure you'd want to see me ever again when I was done talking." His considerate behaviour had charmed her, and she'd noticed he blushed slightly upon saying 'sex', which made her smirk. "What?" he'd asked, frowning slightly.

"I'm just trying to reconcile the man before me, who blushes just saying 'sex', and the man who did those things with me, to me, in that hotel room."

He'd blushed even harder then, but she let the subject drop after that. That night though, she'd had another dream of a similar nature, only this time instead of a five-star Parisian hotel, they'd been on a train, in a first-class sleeping car. The next morning when he'd asked her if any more memories had returned, she'd just given him a teasing smile, taken a blueberry that'd been floating in his cereal, popped it in her mouth and said "Maybe…"

That's how their mornings went after that; she'd walk in to Chuck making breakfast for the two of them, and he'd eagerly greet her, hoping that more of her memories would've returned in the night. He'd usually refrain from asking like he had the first time, presumably not wanting to pressure her in true Chuck fashion, but she generally hadn't kept him waiting long, telling him about everything that came back to her, good and bad. They'd talk about it all for a while before going about their daily business, doing the things that couples do. Excluding, however, that one thing which had started to feature quite regularly in her dreams.

The breaking point had come a couple of weeks after her first R-rated recollection, and around two months after the beach. She'd been in the master bedroom looking for a particular pair of boots when she'd found it, the corner of the paper poking out from under the bed. It was a picture – a photograph of a house which had been sketched over with the image of a man and a woman standing by the front gate, a small child in the woman's arms. She didn't need to be dreaming to remember this time – It came back to her instantly. They'd been on the bullet train in Japan, having just had another amorous liaison. The photo had been torn out of a catalogue on the train, onto which Chuck had drawn as she instructed him. A rough sketch of the future they were going to build together.

She'd walked into the living area, picture in hand, to find Chuck sat at the dining table working on his computer. He'd looked up, a concerned expression sweeping across his face on seeing the tears welling in her eyes. When he noticed the picture clutched in her hand his eyes had widened in realisation. Before he could say anything, she'd strode over to him, bent down and kissed him deeply. After overcoming his initial shock, he'd kissed her back with equal fervour, standing up and wrapping his arms around her. From there, they somehow made it into the bedroom, their bedroom, from which they didn't emerge for quite some time.

After that first time (or rather, second first time), they resumed the 'practice' sessions they'd started on the bullet train. However, they were careful to make sure it was just practice. While Sarah could remember the plans they'd made before, she still didn't feel completely harmonious with the version of herself that'd made those plans. So, they agreed to focus their energies on the reformation of Carmichael Industries, all the while enjoying their life together to the fullest.

Within six months, Carmichael Industries the cybersecurity firm was established, complete with formerly Ronald Reagan-owned offices and a staff of some of the best cybersecurity experts and software engineers in the country. Chuck and Sarah shared responsibility for leading the company, with Chuck focused on the technology side of the business while Sarah concentrated on the financial side. Desperate to escape the Buy More, Morgan joined them as office manager, and they even managed to convince Casey to join as well, his connections in the spy world proving very useful to the fledging cybersecurity firm. After only a few months of being open for business, Verbanski Corp hired Carmichael Industries to assess the security of their computer networks, which their field agents depended upon. Verbanski hiring CI put the latter company on the map, and after completing the work for their private security ally found themselves swamped with more clients, government and commercial alike.

With the business doing well, it wasn't long before Chuck and Sarah resumed their previous discussion of starting a family in earnest, and the path to parenthood proved relatively straightforward from there. After just a couple of months of trying, Sarah became pregnant, giving birth to a son nine months later, exactly two years after the beach. By then, most of her memories, including all the major milestones in their relationship, had returned, with only a few miscellaneous date nights and minor missions left to come back here and there.

After Sam had been born though, in place of her memory dreams, she'd started to have the nightmare sporadically instead. It was the same every time. As though her subconscious was taunting her with what might have been had she made a different decision, what it would've cost her…

She felt the presence of someone behind her then, and immediately tensed, her spy senses having not completely faded and her protective parental instincts coming into their own over the past six months. However, she was soon set at ease by the voice that came through the darkness.

"What are you doing up?" Chuck whispered.

"I couldn't sleep, I had a nightmare" she whispered back.

"Oh. The nightmare?"

She sighed, "Yeah"

He moved further into the room, joining her beside the crib. He put his arm around her, and she let her head fall to his shoulder. The stood there like that for a while, watching their son sleep. Eventually though, Chuck spoke up.

"I'm sure it'll stop soon. We've just had a lot on our plates recently, you especially"

"Yeah, I guess. It's just…what if, you know?"

She turned away, not wanting him to see the tears welling in her eyes. Crying was something that'd come much more easily to her recently. She'd originally assumed it was the pregnancy, but when her ease at expressing herself continued after Sam's birth, she realised it was more than that. Gone were the ways of Agent Walker, who studiously suppressed and ignored her emotions. She was Sarah Bartowski now, and Sarah Bartowski was free to express herself. Just one of the many post-spy life freedoms she'd almost denied herself after in the wake of the Quinn affair.

"Hey…" Chuck said soothingly, squeezing her arm so that she'd turn face him, which she did "Don't go there. What you might've done doesn't matter, what you did do does. And the fact is you stayed, and you persevered, and now look at you. At us. We're parents, we're together, and we're happy. No good will come from dwelling on what might've been, or what might've not been."

She wiped the tears from eyes "Yeah, you're right"

He smiled softly at her "Come on, come back to bed"

"Okay"

She smiled, and he offered his hand, which she took. As he made to turn for the door though, she tugged a little on his arm, and he turned back around to look at her curiously.

She took a step forward and pecked him on the lips.

"Thank you" she said quietly.

He just smiled again "Anytime"

Silently, they left Sam's room, closing the door as quietly as they could on their way out, before making the short trip down the hall to their room. Chuck walked slightly ahead of her, still holding her hand, guiding her back through the darkness.

Once inside their own room, he pulled back the bedsheets, allowing her to get in first, which she did. Once she was settled, he lay down behind her, pulling the sheets over them again before putting his arms around her waist.

"Goodnight Sarah" he whispered in her ear.

"Goodnight, Chuck"

It wasn't long before sleep overtook them once more, both their slumbers completely and blissfully, nightmare-free.

The End.

Thanks for reading. Reviews would be greatly appreciated!