So Long, Goodbye
Summary: What if Chuck vs The American Hero had ended differently? What if Chuck had bowed out of his pursuit of Sarah? What if it took losing Chuck completely for Sarah to completely realize how much he meant to her?
A/N: This is my first Chuck fan-fic. It's a one-shot that I kind of thought up on the fly. I accept all kind of constructive criticism, all I ask is that you think of my feelings when you give said criticism. I have had some pretty nasty reviewer in the past, and sometimes words do hurt. With that said, I am also currently working on a more long-term Chuck fan-fic that is an AU verision of how season 3 could have ended. I'm trying to get a few chapters written before I start posting since I am absolutely horrible at starting stories and waiting forever to update them.
I am also looking for a beta for above mentioned Chuck FF. If you wanna be awesome, and beta read it for me, leave me a PM.
Also, title is taken from a song by 10 Years (Amazing band btw) of the same name.
I don't own Chuck, any of the characters, and I don't own the song by 10 Years.
He stood in front of her. His hands clenched in front of him. Finally making a decision that would weigh heavily on his conscience for a very long time. He was going to back away from Sarah. Not turn his back on her, he would never do that. No, he was giving up his pursuit of the woman he loved. Not for himself, but for her. He knew that she had feelings for Shaw, and he didn't want her feeling guilty for having those feelings. Whatever that might have had in the past had fizzled out when he left her alone, holding his train ticket in Prague. That decision, whether it was the right one or not, had been the single hardest decision of his life. Tonight though, standing in front of her, he was making a decision that would ultimately break his heart. He knew that he couldn't just bow out, couldn't just back away. She would see through that. No, he had to lie to her, and that was the part that broke his heart that most.
"Thank you Chuck. Thank you for saving him."
"Kind of my job description ya know. Saving people, helping my team. It's what I always wanted. To be a real spy."
He let his head fall, letting himself give into his emotions one last time, before jerking his head back up. He faked a smile, as Sarah hugged him.
"I always knew you had it in you Chuck. To be the man that you always wanted to be."
The words she spoke made what he was about to say that much harder on him. Sighing, he looked up, his eyes caught a glimpse of Sarah's plump red lips. All he wanted to do was to kiss those lips, like he had on several other occasions.
"I'm happy for you, ya know. You and Shaw are like..perfect for each other."
He had spoken that line before, only this time he put a little more feeling into it. Almost like he believed it himself. He closed his eyes briefly, inhalling her scent, before she back away from him completely.
"What are you saying Chuck?"
"I'm saying what I said before I left here earlier to go save Shaw. I know how much you care about him, and I know that you feel some sort of...I don't know, weariness of being with him because of me. I just wanted you to know that I'm fine with you and Shaw."
"Really? Because I don't believe that Chuck. This isn't you. You're lying to me."
"No Sarah I'm not. What you said earlier really spoke to me. Your right, I'm not the same Chuck I was before. I killed a man, you saw me do that. Would the old me do that? Would the old me even fire a gun? This is who I am now. I know that me and you, that we had our shot back in Prague and I blew that. When I left you at that train station, I left behind any future that we might have had together. I'm so sorry Sarah, but it's taken all of this. Shaw, the rogue agent I shot...for me to realize that I don't love you anymore. I'm not saying I don't care about you, because I do. Your like my best friend, and I would never turn my back on you, but I don't love you, not like I did."
With a quick pat on the shoulder, and a brief faked smile, Chuck turned on his heel and walked toward the stairs that would take him from castle, and back to the real world. The world where his heart could explode into a million different pieces. A world that would never be the same. He saw the look of utter shock that turned to one of almost hatred as he spoke. He had hit a nerve, and though he would never turn his back on Sarah, he wasn't so sure she wouldn't do the same. He wouldn't be surprised if he learned tomorrow that she had left Burbank for D.C. With Shaw. He just hoped that he could trust Shaw to take care of Sarah. Shaw had promised that even with the information he had found out about what Sarah had done, that it didn't change how he felt. That he still trusted Sarah.
"Are you okay?"
Shaw stood in front of Sarah who had unshed tears built up in her ocean blue eyes. She had a look of utter devastion on her face.
"it's Chuck-"
"Is he okay?"
Shaw looked around Castle, trying to see if Chuck was in the infirmary. Even though Chuck had gotten both of them out of the warehouse before it blew, Shaw had been worried that Chuck might have inhaled a little too much smoke while running Shaw to safety.
"He's fine...I think. Hell I don't know. I think he's lost his mind Shaw. He just...he broke my heart."
"What do you mean?"
"He just told me that he didn't love me anymore. I just...I was almost to a point where I was actually sorting through my feelings for him...for you. Then he just turns into this completely other guy. Definitely not the Chuck Bartowski that I've known for the past three years. Not the guy that I..."
"That you what Sarah?"
"That I fell for..."
"You love him..."
"You don't sound surprised."
"I think, I guess I always knew. I just kind of lied to myself."
"I'm sorry Shaw."
"I understand. When you love someone, you have to do whatever it takes to keep them."
He patted her shoulder, before continuing.
"You should go find him."
She tried to smile at Shaw, but it looked more like a grimace. What if Chuck wasn't lying like she was seriously hoping he was. What if he really didn't love her anymore. What if everything that had happened this past year had changed everything that she thought she knew, that she loved about Chuck Bartowski. Like he said, he had killed a man, was that something, a new part of him that she could live with?
"Thanks."
Sarah took off running toward the stairs, hoping like hell that Chuck was at his apartment. She jumped into the front seat of her car, and sped off in the general direction of his apartment. She'd be damned if she'd let something as stupid as Chuck actually becoming the man that they had been training him to become get in the way of how she felt about him. It almost made her sick to think that it took possibly losing Chuck to realize just how in love with him she was. Grabbing her cellphone she dialed a number that she almost wished she wouldn't have to call.
"Sarah?"
"Morgan. Is Chuck home?"
"Yeah. Boy is a mess too. Came home and found him passed out with an empty bottle of whiskey in his hand."
Had it been that long since he left? She glanced down at the clock, it had been almost two hours. Damn, time flies when your whollying in self pity.
"Look, I'm on my way over. Don't tell him that I'm coming though, but do try to wake him up. Make sure that he doesn't have alcohol poisoning or something like that."
"Okay. See you soon."
With that, she hung up her phone, and sat it back in the cradle she had picked it up from. Why would Chuck have gone home and gotten completely plastered if he wasn't lying? Sighing, she knew she'd soon have her answer as she squealed to a stop just outside his apartment complex. Yanking the keys from the igintion, she flung her car door open and jumped out from behind the wheel. She slammed the door shut, before sprinting off toward Chuck's apartment. Taking a slow, calming deep breath, she raised her hand and knocked lightly on his front door. After a few seconds, that seemed to last for an eternity, the door flung open and Morgan stood in front of her.
"Just a bit of warning. He's pissed that I woke him up. Aparently his goal tonight was to drink himself into a drunken slumber. When I tried to find out why, he just yelled at me and stormed off to his room. He might be passed out again, but I tried."
"Thanks for trying Morgan. I'll take it from here."
"Did you two get into a fight or something?"
"Not exactly. Hopefully I can fix it though."
She said the words with more hope than she felt. With Chuck being as upset as he was though, did feel her with a little extra hope that maybe he had been lying through his teeth, like she had orginally thought.
She stood in front of his doorway, stealing just a moment to compose herself, she knocked once, then waited.
"Morgan, leave me alone. I don't want to talk about it. I want to just lay here and be drunk and numb."
"It's not Morgan."
She tried to not smile at the obscenities that he muttered under his breath as he tripped more than once on his way to the door. After a much louder obscenity left his mouth, his bedroom door flew open.
"Sarah?"
"Yeah..can we talk?"
"Uh, yeah, come on in."
She walked into his room. The first thing she smelt was the large amount of alcohol wafting from Chuck's breath.
"Chuck. When you said that you didn't love me anymore..were you lying?"
"No."
"I don't believe you..for obvious reasons."
"Yeah, okay fine. I lied. I just..I didn't want to stand between you and your happiness. I knew I blew my chance with you when I chose to be a spy over you. If I knew then that it would be my last chance to be with you though, I would have gone with you. I should have done that anyway, but I need you to know..that even through my drunken stupor that my heart is racing and my palms are sweaty, and that I never stopped loving you Sarah Walker. You've always been the girl. The one that I never knew I was waiting on, and the one that I always knew, deep down, that I wanted."
Sarah felt tears form in the corner of her eyes, and for the first time in a long time she actually let them fall. This man, as strong as he pretended to be was standing before her, drunk as could possibly be, baring his soul to her.
"I need you to know something very important Chuck..."
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she was about to utter the three words that could, at some point, shatter what she thought to be an unshatterable heart. Not even Bryce, with how much she cared about him, was able to shatter her heart. It took one Charles Irving Bartowski to show her that she never really loved Bryce. What they had was more lust..sexual tension at most, but not love. Her heart never belonged to Bryce the way it belongs to Chuck, and her heart never even had a chance to belong to Daniel Shaw because it already belonged to Chuck. Without her knowledge he came into her life, as nerdy as he was, with his undying love for video games and computers and stole her heart way from her.
"I love you Chuck Bartowski. I fell for you a long, long time ago. After you fixed my phone and before you defused a bomb with a computer virus. I saw in you what you couldn't see yourself. Even though you didn't think so, I always saw you as a spy. Unorthodoxed of a spy that you were, you've been the man that you've wanted to be for a very long time. You've been saving lives for the past three years, even if you couldn't see that yourself..."
Before she could say more, Chuck's mouth covered hers in an earth-shattering, ground-shaking kiss that turned her world upside down.
"I love you too Sarah Walker..Always have."
She, Sarah Walker, felt butterflies build up in her stomach as he flashed his infamous Chuck Bartowski smile at her, before pulling her into his arms. Blissful wasn't even a big enough word to describe how happy she was in that moment. To finally have the man that she loved holding her the way she had always wanted him to. She closed her eyes and let herself remember this moment. The moment that her life turned from the cold-hearted spy that could take a life without a second thought, to the happy woman who had emotions and feelings, and a heart so warm and full of love that she thought that she might be another person entirely.