For Sarah, there had always been only one of quiet– the kind that comes right after a complete mission. Since they had been thrown together, Chuck had introduced her to more. There's a comfortable kind of quiet when she sits next to him without speaking. There's a different kind when she lies awake at night wondering if he's awake, too. And she discovered a completely new brand of quiet when she thought she had only three seconds to live. That kind is a suffusing silence, filling you, but covering and blotting out most everything else.
And the only thing it left in front of her eyes was him.
So she did what her professionalism never would have let her do in any other circumstances – she kissed him.
She launched herself at him and kissed him.
And he kissed back.
And three seconds later, they were still alive.
Weeks later and they haven't even talked about it. She hasn't let him. He's tried to bring it up a few times; she's pushed him away, changed the subject. But now, now he has ambushed her, caught her so completely off guard that even her spy instincts didn't have time to react.
"I think . . . I love you," he says, in that halting, embarrassed way he has.
She pauses, and in that pause, they separately discover yet another type of quiet – the kind that comes after someone bares their soul and hands it, gift-wrapped, to another person.
She knows, of course. He's the most honest guy she knows, and he isn't skilled at hiding his feelings. Even if he had endeavored to hide them, she is overly observant, especially when it comes to him. But he hasn't hidden them, not in the numerous voice mail messages he leaves on her phone, not in his smile when he looks at her, not in the little gestures he makes towards her, like buying her favorite ice cream or ordering pizza sans olives. She knows – everyone knows – but she hadn't expected him to vocalize his feelings.
They had been doing this, this complicated dance where both of them knew but neither could say, for a while now, for so long that it's become comfortable and routine. He brought it out into the open with three simple words, words that she hasn't heard in much too long. And she likes them. She likes hearing it from his lips. It's a reassurance, maybe, that she hasn't lost her humanity during her years as an agent.
She looks up at him, into his earnest, pleading eyes, and she hates herself right now, hates herself because she can't like those words. More than she hates herself, she hates her job and what it's made her do. She's been in situations with the same sense of enclosure, of not being able to see a way out. But she's always made it out of those situations. This one is entirely new, because she thinks she won't make it out, won't make it out without either hurting him or kissing him like they have three seconds left to live.
There it is again – the kiss. She can't block it from her mind, can't forget the feeling of his arms wrapped around her, pulling her closer to him. It lurks in her memories, threatening to pop up at any given moment, usually the most inopportune.
The kiss.
She destroyed him with that kiss.
He smiles nervously. She is still speechless.
"I just," he begins with a low chuckle, "I just wanted you to know."
And he walks away, leaving her to flounder in her conflicting feelings.
It's the worst quiet – the kind when you have so much to say to someone that you can't say anything at all.