"Trust takes years to build, but seconds to shatter."
- Anonymous
Chuck awoke Christmas morning with a stranger in his bed.
The person sleeping peacefully next to him looked like Sarah. She wore Sarah's favorite pajamas. She was wearing his mother's charm bracelet, the one he had given to Sarah yesterday. But it wasn't Sarah. It certainly wasn't his Sarah.
His Sarah would do many things, but she wouldn't lie to him about killing a man.
He really should have known things would turn out more complicated than they seemed. After all, this was the woman who lied about her cell phone being broken to give her an excuse to talk to him. This was a woman who asked him out on a date under the pretense of liking him. It turned out that she was after something else all along.
Still, after a first date of margaritas and dancing, car chases and routine bomb defusals, Sarah had watched over him on the shore as the sun came up. She had asked Chuck to trust her. Maybe the peaceful light cast by the sunrise softened the words. Maybe he was just too naïve. However, his better instincts told him that she was somebody he could trust, so he listened to them.
In the following weeks, she had proceeded to distrust her NSA-assigned partner, conceal the truth about her and Bryce, and lie to him under the influence of truth serum. Those were just the first few weeks. Those were just the things he knew about. For each of them, he rationalized them. He explained them away. Apparently he shouldn't have.
He supposed none of this should have come as a surprise. She was one of the CIA's best agents, after all. She was deadly and cunning and intelligent and beautiful and sweet and, up until the previous day, completely trustworthy.
He stared down at her angelic face. It shouldn't come as a shock that such a talented agent could kill – or lie – so callously.
More than anything, he wanted to ask her why she lied to him. He couldn't get his head around it. There was no reason for the lie – that's what puzzled him the most. He knew what she did for a living. He knew what she was capable of doing.
He also thought he knew what she wasn't capable of doing, and that included lying to him. Now, what good would it do to pose the question? She could just lie again. He'd never know.
But he'd always wonder.
She stirred lazily next to him, not quite awake but not quite asleep. Something made her smile the slightest bit, the corners of her eyes rising mirthfully to match the grin. Other mornings, his heart would have warmed at such a scene. Right now, with the smile so incongruous with what she had done, his heart just ached.
Outside, he heard Ellie and Awesome bustling about, preparing coffee and stuffed French toast and all the traditional trimmings for the Bartowski holiday breakfast. Chuck didn't want to go out there and face them. He'd be forced to lie to them. And then he'd be no better than her.
He rolled over. There was something terribly wrong with being forced to grow up so much at Christmas time.