Disclaimer: I wish I owned it.
Love is naught but that which makes one's heart swell with indescribable reason. For many, their hearts are constrained by tight bands of leather, and she is one of those many, her leather thicker than most. It took her over a year and a half to break those restraints the first time.
The loss of her memory is like having a name on the tip if your tongue; knowing, but not knowing. It drives her crazy and clouds her judgment, making decisions she thinks she might later regret.
But ever since her own words played on the screen, it is as if she knows the first letter of that name.
She wonders how it happened that first time, how she could fall so deeply in love with someone so different from who she thinks she is.
Then, it seems as if he, too, is starting over. She finds herself thinking that maybe she could like this guy who often never knew when to stop talking. But the love and pain she sees in his ryes when he looks at her is enough to scare her away, and choose her mission over her heart, which aches to understand what he says.
He is an awful spy. He captures her, and then lets her go, never fight back and even taking a bullet for her. He won't even shoot someone. Deep down, as she throws punches and kicks at him, she senses that this is all wrong; she would never do this to him.
The memories come back frustratingly slowly, little things here and there. Irene Demova. Names scratched into a wall. Feelings, but not love, come to her in random situations, telling her how she would act. But there are few, if any, parcels of precious information bridging the gap between her conscious and her frontal lobe.
He is trying so hard, it frightens her. He admits freely his love and that she reciprocates the feeling. He had been willing get her memories back for her. He does so much, and with what intention her brain does not know. But her heart might.
Finally, as they sit in the sand, she feels that the bands constraining her heart have already started to weaken, beginning who knows when. Before her brain can process her intentions, her mouth asks for a story.
Each word he says is like a hammer on those prohibiting iron walls. Each tale he tells is like a fine slice on the leather constraints. He is filling that gap between her heart and mind, providing reason and information as to why she has been feeling as she has.
He tells her of another's theory, and she takes stock of herself; the walls are cracked and almost crumbling, and the once-strong leather has been almost all cut off. So she tells him to kiss her. The stupid guy at first doesn't seem to understand, but he eventually leans in and gives her heart what it is yearning for. A start.
The first time, it took her over five hundred and sixty days to realize that she had broken the cardinal rule of spying; she had fallen in love with him.
They say that it's always easier the second time.
Author's Note: What did you all think of the finale? I think that it was the right ending for this arc. It just would not have been as special if Sarah had merely put on the glasses and gotten all of her memories back. I cannot say that I hate the ending, because it gives watchers something to think about and for fanfictioners to write about.
We will miss you, Chuck cast. There will never be a combination quite like you guys.
Finally, now that I have had my moment of almost-tears (I am like Sarah; all-out crying does not come easily), I ask you to please review. I do not mind if it is about the finale, about this story, or your experience watching these final episodes. I'm not the only one who will miss this show. Please, please, please review.