An Almost Miracle
Summary: Sometimes things happen at this time of year that you can't quite explain.
Spoilers: None.
Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck. Sadly.
***
There's a young woman sat on the train, her coat done up high around her neck, her face still tinged pink from the cold. She's got her hands folded in her lap, and a long black coat cloaking her thinly covered legs to just below her knees. Her long blonde hair curls gently at her shoulders, and she's wearing a benign expression on her face – she could be anyone, anywhere, anytime.
As it is, she's on the bus to Boston airport on Christmas Eve. Everyone around her is so busy, desperately trying to head home in time, carrying bags brimming with last minute shopping, urgently paging loved ones in their haste. But all she'll do is stare out the window, like she remembering something, like there's no one else in the world but her.
***
"I'll be home in time for Christmas, I promise…"
He shakes his head, lowering his eyes. "You said that about Ellie's birthday…"
She tugs on his hand slightly, but he only pulls it away. "Come on…" she murmurs, forcing him to look at her, "This is the third one of these training courses I've tried to get out of… Beckman's not having any of it anymore… you know I have to go…"
He sighs, looking at his shoes again. "It's always something with you… I thought… I thought you were going to back off the work a bit and start making an effort with…"
"That's not fair." She snaps. "I put up with barely seeing you for nearly a year whilst you did your training, and this is just…"
He runs his hands through his curls, still avoiding her gaze. "As far as I remember, that was your job…"
She's not sure she can remember when he started to sound that bitter. She cups his face in her hands and presses her lips to his; stepping closer to him, loathe to see anger in his eyes.
"I'm sorry…" she breathes, before kissing him again, feeling him tense up before lean slowly into her and rest his hands on her waist. "You know… you know I don't want to… you know I'll be home as soon as I can…"
He kisses her temple lightly, pulling her body flush against his.
"I'm sorry too… I just…" he trails off, kissing her face, "I just want you back as soon as possible, ok?"
She gives him the smile he swears he fell in love with. "I'll be home for Christmas, I swear."
***
Her phone rings, and she picks it up in an instant. The perfect mask on her face wavers for a second, and then it crumples completely, her features twisting into something still beautiful but no longer serene. As if it's a reflex, she claps her hand to her mouth, and an audible gasp escapes her lips as she buries her head in her hands. People around her start to turn and stare, but there's not even a part of her that notices. The hand holding the phone is shaking, yet she manages to finish listening and disconnect the call, the phone falling listlessly into her lap. Her whole body is shaking now, near enough hysterically, like she's not in control of herself anymore. The bus comes to a stop, about a mile from her destination, but she's been in this line of work long enough to follow orders on autopilot, and she's doing that as she stumbles off onto the pavement, feet kicking up the grey snow. She clutches the side of the bus stop for support, breathing heavily, her whole heart seeming to well up inside of her, as if it was too big for her chest. She's leaning against the metal, clutching her small, non-descript black leather bag tightly to her side, her cell phone in her other hand, her hair falling across her face, masking her from the world…
She's getting strange looks; of course she is, shaking against a bus stop the day before Christmas in the middle of Boston. But no one stops and asks her what's wrong; no one offers her even the slightest help. There's nothing about her that endears her to anyone… they simply avert their eyes and keep walking.
***
"Beckman, secure."
"Walker, secure."
"Agent Walker, we have a situation…" she hears a deep breath from the other end of the line, "It seems that Agent Casey and Agent Bartowski ran into a Ring agent last night…"
She's not sure whether Beckman expects an answer from her or not, but she's in no state to give one.
"As far as we can tell, Casey managed to take them out… but for some reason the Intersect didn't kick in, but Bartowski went after Casey anyway…. You know what he's like… got himself shot…"
An audible gasp from Sarah's end, nothing else.
"He's in hospital right now, back in LA. Agent Walker… it's critical… His sister has been informed. We have someone arriving to pick you up at the bus stop in the next ten minutes…"
And the line goes dead, as the phone falls aside. Merely a technicality.
***
The young woman sitting in the hospital waiting room chair could be beautiful, but her face is pale, to the point of grey, and completely void of emotion. There's a woman next to her, a heavily pregnant dark haired woman, who's sobbing her whole heart out into her hands, and her blonde companion can't even look at her. Everything moves in the hospital, everyone around her is tarred with the same brush, coloured with the same grief, but somehow, while theirs is full, hers is empty, hers is hollow, hers is the end.
The dark haired woman clutches at her hand, and she wishes she had the fight in her, the strength to clutch back, to lean on someone, anyone, as she hasn't since she was a child. But she's not that person.
A doctor comes out, pushing a tall man in a wheelchair with a bandage around his left forearm, and a cast over his right leg. Her usually sardonic and cold partner simply sits next to her, staring down at his hands, saying nothing.
***
"Everything's changed now, hasn't it…" he whispers. It's the first chance they've had to talk, since he uploaded the new Intersect, since everything.
"It's already changed, Chuck." She breathes, and she can't bring herself to look at him. "It changed the moment you pressed that button."
For a moment neither of them speaks.
"I'm sorry, Sarah."
What for? She wants to scream at him, For Bryce dying, for taking being so damn noble one step too far, for breaking us the moment I finally decided that I've known what I wanted all along…
"I'm sorry, too." She whispers, and finds his fingers under her chin, lifting her eyes to meet his.
"He… Bryce… he told me you weren't going to leave…"
No, I was staying with you, you stupid, heroic bastard. But she only shakes her head. She hasn't prepared herself for the look in Chuck's eyes, however. She's not sure, but there might even be tears there as he leans down and brushes his lips against hers. She's not used to this new, more confident Chuck, but she's not complaining. The kiss says everything, and it leaves her breathless, resting her forehead against his.
"Everything's changed now… but I still want to be with you… more than anything…" he whispers, and she knows then that she'll never be quite enough for him.
That she'll probably be the death of him.
She kisses him anyway.
***
Its hours before the man beside her recites the story of what happened to her, deciding that she needs to know the truth, no matter how painful. He chooses the moment that her companion takes to use the bathroom, knowing it's something that she couldn't handle. He stares straight ahead as he speaks, unable to look at his friend, his partner. In his peripheral vision, he sees her knuckles whitening where they grip the arm of the chair, and he wishes he wasn't the one bearing this news.
When he's finished, without letting her protest, he uses pure brute force to pull her head onto his shoulder and hold her there while she cries.
It's not something he'll ever do again.
***
"It didn't happen how Beckman told you…"
He can tell from her eyes that she can't even summon curiosity.
"He did run into a Ring Agent tasked with taking him out, that much is true… but he wasn't supposed to be killing him, but bringing him in… anyway, the agent hadn't seen me, but I was waiting for Bartowski to flash, and nothing happened… and the agent… he told him that they had you in custody, that they'd found you, and they were torturing you… well, I thought he'd flashed, he moved so fast… he went straight for the guy…"
The look in her eyes tells him she can guess the rest. "I was as quick as I could be, Sarah," she doesn't think he's ever used her first name before, "But he ran straight towards the gun…"
There's a lingering silence, and then Sarah Walker starts to cry.
***
The doctor who knows the patient too well wipes the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. He can't even begin to quantify in his mind what it means that it's his brother-in-law lying on the table in front of him, with three bullet wounds, two though and through, and one embedded just below his heart, a time-bomb waiting for the slightest nudge. He takes a deep breath, he needs to be in two places right now. He needs to be here, saving this man's life, and he needs to be holding his wife, and their unborn child between them, and telling her, trying to give some semblance of explanation to the truth about her brother.
The blood is warm all over his hands, and it's like there's no hope. The clock ticks above him, and it's thirteen minutes into Christmas Day before he realises, but he won't stop. There are two women outside, and the only news he's prepared to give them is good news.
It's their turn for a miracle.
***
"We'll have our perfect Christmas, Sarah, just as soon as you get home."
She smiles, knowing he shouldn't forgive her this easily, but loving him a little more for it. "I know we will." She whispers, pressing her lips to his one last time.
"I'll miss you." He breathes.
"It's only for three days, Chuck."
"I'll miss you all the same." His arms wrap around her waist, drawing her closer, kissing her again.
"I'll miss my flight." She laughs as she hears her seat numbers called out over the speakers. She pulls away, lifting her bag. "I'll call when I land."
He kisses her cheek. "Stay safe, Sarah. I love you."
She stares at him for a long moment. The world seems to stop revolving and start turning in the opposite direction, and she almost chokes on words she wishes she could say.
"I'll miss you too."
***
The tall doctor runs out when it's time to tell them, throwing doors open and almost collapsing, panting, in front of them, spilling the good news. His wife throws her arms around him, despite the seven-month baby bump, despite the tears still streaming down her face, despite everything. He manages to explain it – her brother had crashed twice on the table, but somehow something had kept him hanging on, some sort of miracle had happened after all.
When his wife finally releases him, he can see the blonde, still sat in the chair, still staring at her hands. Slowly, her eyes raise to his, knowing he understands. This wasn't a random attack, this wasn't because her cover boyfriend had tried to stop a mugging or some other such excuse that they were going to feed his wife and everyone else. He knows that his brother-in-law was a hero.
She speaks three words, and then walks straight past him.
***
"I love him."
***
There's a young blonde woman sat beside a man's bed, and Christmas Day's nearly over. She's been told that it might be days before he wakes up, but there's no way she's leaving, not now.
Strangely, he looks as he always does. Hair not quite staying in place, small smile on his face. The only telltale sign of the last 48 hours in her line of vision is the tubes snaking into his arm.
She holds the other hand, tightly, but not so as to hurt him. She's tried sleeping a few times, but it's hard to find a comfortable position leaning this far forward in the chair, and there's no chance of her letting go of him.
She made his sister and brother-in-law go home, celebrate Christmas properly, promising not to leave his bedside for a moment. She makes a silent vow to herself to never leave his side for the rest of her life.
Eyelids flicker open, and it's none too soon. For a moment he doesn't seem to focus on anything, and then his eyes meet hers. And tears are falling from her eyes as he breathes her name, and she's whispering something desperately to him, caught between laughing and crying, the miracle spilling over both of them.
The clock chimes twelve and another Christmas is over just as she climbs onto the bed with him and wraps herself around him.
***
"Sarah… you're all right…" he whispers.
She's nodding, wildly. "I was never… you're so… oh God, I love you…" she whispers, and once she's said it once it's like the floodgates have opened and she can't stop saying it. "I love you, Chuck, I love you, and I'm sorry, and we'll figure all this out, but we'll have the normal life you wanted, the one we both want, and I love you…"
"Hey…" he whispers, stroking the side of her cheek, "I love you too."
As the clock chimes, she promises him forever.
A/N: This ended up considerably longer than I'd planned, I got ahead of myself! Hope you like my Christmas angst, anyway.
On a side note…. HAVE YOU SEEN THE LATEST PROMO? SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
Reviews are always appreciated.