Disclaimer: Some really cool peeps named Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak own "Chuck." And maybe NBC and Warner Bros. I don't really know. But not me!
A/N: Hello, there! I've had the middle piece of this fic sitting on my computer for . . . half a year now? It was part of a larger fic that I didn't really like, so I took out the scene I was really attached to and built another story around it. I hope it worked, lol. It actually turned out fairly similar to a story called Battle Scars by GoldenGirl, which I urge you to check out (there's a link in my favorites).
As usual, thanks to BillatWork for the beta. :)
Last thing: I have a new story that I'm really excited about! The first chapter should be up by the end of next week? Look out for it!
Ooh! I forgot to say that this takes place between seasons one and two, closer to the end of season one. Okay, I'm done now!
"Chuck? Chuck, open up!"
Sarah pounds on the bathroom door, her heart contorted with worry.
He's been locked in there for twenty minutes now, refusing to come out, refusing to let her in. Casey's long gone. He was gone the moment the mission ended and was deemed successful.
But 'successful' never takes into account the state of the asset.
Which is why she's the one in the hallway, practically begging him to open the damn door.
"Chuck!"
"I'm fine, Sarah," he replies, his voice muffled. "Really. You can go home."
She huffs, rests her hands on her hips. "I'm not going home until I know you're okay."
"I just told you I was."
"I need to see for myself."
She purses her lips and rolls her eyes. Why does this conversation feel so ridiculous all of a sudden?
He turns the water on (the sink? Or is it the shower?), effectively shutting her out even more so than he already has.
"Dammit, Chuck," she mutters as she smacks her open palm against the door. "Why won't you let me in? I can help you."
"I live with two doctors," he argues, and she can hear the anxiousness in his voice. "I think I've learned how to take care of a little cut."
She fumes. A little cut? That's what he thinks? She squeezes her eyes shut, pinches the bridge of her nose. He had almost . . . he'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and her mind's so fuzzy that she's not even sure whose fault it was, whether he was being his usual, heroic self, or whether she just wasn't paying enough attention to his location.
The scene flashes before her eyes – the thug, the knife, the blood. And suddenly she's sinking to the floor, her fingertips sliding down the carved mahogany of the bathroom door.
Damn it. He's her asset; he's her guy. She should be able to fix this.
Sighing, she turns around to rest her back against the closed door. "What happened, Chuck?" she asks quietly. "After all we've been through, I thought you trusted me."
She can hear the water shut off, hear him heave a sigh.
"I've had enough trust issues with partners," she tells him.
"I'm not your partner. I'm your asset. There's a difference."
"Why do you have to be so damn stubborn, Chuck?" she asks wearily, banging a fist on the door. It must startle him, because he's silent as she continues. "It's just a title, Chuck. What's real is that you're out there every week, right along with us."
And as amazed as she is by him sometimes, his actions also terrify her. And that happens to be what got him into this mess in the first place.
"Bad things happen when partners don't trust each other," she murmurs, running a hand through her hair and letting her face droop into her hands. "Believe me, I know."
There's another pause, and his voice is closer when he asks, "What happened?"
"I never trusted Bryce, not like I should've, not about the important things . . ."
Not like I trust you.
The cut's not severely deep, but the blood doesn't seem to want to coagulate. It streams down her thigh, staining the silky yellow material of her dress dark purple. The liquid is sticky to her touch as she applies pressure in a half-hearted effort to staunch the bleeding.
He's suddenly too close to her, bumbling in his attempts to attend to the wound. She doesn't want this – not the warmth of his body, or the tinge of alcohol on his breath, or anything about him right now, and she pushes him lightly on the chest.
"I can do it myself," she insists, her voice wavering because her head's reeling because her thigh's bleeding because she's been stabbed.
Stunned, Bryce staggers backwards. Brushing his bangs out of his eyes, he takes a deep breath and says, "Just let me take care of you." She doesn't respond, pretending to be too occupied with the trek to the bathroom to listen, and he continues with a feeble laugh, "Or humor me?"
She drags a hand across her sweaty forehead and waves him off. "I just . . . can't do this right now, Bryce. I'll be fine." She grabs the med kit from the bed and disappears into the bathroom, shutting and locking the door behind her.
She doesn't even bother to take off the dress before collapsing onto the side of the tub, letting the kit drop to the floor, and drawing the water. Instead, she rips the fabric at the knee, deriving a twisted satisfaction from the sickening sound of the material as it tears. She's starting to feel faint, but the good news is that it helps her ignore Bryce's knocking.
She sinks her knee into the mouth of the tub, angling her leg under the spigot. As the water rushes over the gash, she opens her mouth and arches her back but tightens her lungs, determined to not scream. She won't let him hear her scream.
She scrubs the wound with a washcloth, and when she thinks it's clean enough, she shuts off the water and dries her leg off with a towel, staining it red. Bryce's insistent knocking comes in clearer as she applies medicine to the gash, and she doesn't want to admit to herself that something's off. He should be in here with her, helping her. She should let him help her. But something, some indefinable something, keeps her from trusting him completely.
She might trust him with her life, but she doesn't trust him with her heart.
She doesn't even realize she's crying until a teardrop falls onto her shaking hands as she wraps a bandage around her thigh.
"Sarah?"
She sniffles and scoots to lean her back against the cold linoleum wall. Resting her head against the wall, she lets the name hang in the air for a beat before responding.
"Yeah?"
She can hear Bryce swallow, which is weird, and she thinks she might be getting supersonic hearing. Like something from one of the comic books she used to read in middle school. Some poison on the offending blade that's altered her genetic structure perhaps? Strange, to be sure, but supersonic hearing could really come in handy on missions . . .
But she hears him swallow, and she chastises herself because, in her mind, it's a small reminder that he does care about her in his own cool, somewhat detached way.
"How're you doing?"
She closes her eyes. "Fine."
"The bleeding stop?"
"Uh-huh."
They're hovering between professional and personal, between partners and lovers, and she can't stand it anymore, can't stand that they do this to themselves.
Yes, she loves him, in her own way.
But what is love to a girl who spent most of her life running away from anything remotely resembling a relationship or even a connection with another human being? And who is she to determine that her own happiness, her own desire to love and be loved, means more than the greater good?
Bryce is an obstacle to a flawless career, a roadblock whom she just happens to love.
Even as she admits it to herself, even as she tells herself that she should break this off and ask for a new partner, she knows she'll stick this out until one of them doesn't return from a mission, or until they both get so fed up with this arrangement that the agreement to end it is mutual.
Because Sarah's the kind of person who doesn't try to fix something when it isn't broken. She doesn't speak up when she sees things going wrong. She holds her tongue until they're beyond repair. It's a bad habit, she knows, but she's taciturn by nature, and who knows if things could fix themselves?
For being such a strong person, she's never quite been able to lift herself out of a rut.
Precisely because she doesn't have the strength to end this, or maybe because she needs him more than she knows, she offers him her strange kind of apology, the way she always does when they have their strange kinds of arguments.
"Will you get me something to sleep in?" she asks.
To anyone else, it'd be a simple question. But between them, it's: I'm sorry. Forgive me. I'm coming out of this bathroom so you can help me, so we can work through this. I'm trying to not be afraid . . .
Once again, she can hear him through the door. This time it's a small, relieved chuckle. It's the scraping of the pads of his fingers against the door.
"Yeah," he says softly, "sure."
And with tremendous willpower, she drags herself off of the tub and heaves herself in the direction of the door. When she twists the knob and opens it, she finds him sitting on the bed, folded clothes draped over his knee.
He stares at her, and for some reason, she hates that he can't tell that something within her has changed. But she smiles weakly, limping over to him. He reaches out for her, and she collapses onto his lap.
"Was that so difficult?" he teases, trying to regain some of their easy, we're-badass-CIA-agents kind of banter.
Yes! she wants to scream at him, pounding her fists against his body in fury. But she settles for shaking her head, her hair swishing against his chest.
"What do you say we get you out of that dress?"
She joins in his laughter, but her heart's not in it, because there's an ache inside that wasn't there before, and there's a pain in her thigh that's messing with her head.
But even so, she knows that come tomorrow, all will be back to normal. Bryce will be charming and witty, and she'll quiet but receptive, falling again like she always does.
Tomorrow, everything will be the same as it ever was.
She just hopes she's able to remember how it could be different.
Sarah rests the back of her head against the door, her ears straining against the deathly silence. And then there's a click.
She turns her head sharply, scrambles to her feet to push the door open before he changes his mind and locks it again. She must look a mess to him, her hair tangled and her clothes rumpled and her face etched with concern.
Chuck, bare-chested, is sitting on the rim of the bathtub. There's a nasty gash across his abdomen, running from his navel around to his side. He's washed it off (not very well), the evidence his gym shorts, damp from the bath water, but he hasn't succeeded in getting a bandage on.
Sarah purses her lips. "Maybe we should take you to the hospital."
"No," he shakes his head. "It's really not that deep. Plus, if I go to the hospital, either Ellie or Awesome will find out within five minutes of me being there."
"Fine," she sighs. "The least you can do is let me clean it."
"I already cleaned it!"
"Who knows more about field injuries, huh? That, mister, is not clean." She wets a washcloth, sits down beside him, and begins to cleanse the wound.
He relents, a slight smile on his face. "Fine. . . . But really, you've already saved my life countless times. You shouldn't have to bandage my wounds in addition."
Her hands stop involuntarily. She stares at him, fighting the urge to knock some sense into him. This isn't some stupid contest. This isn't one of his video games. Besides, doesn't he know how dangerously close he is to saving her? Maybe not in the way he means, maybe not in a way he can even imagine . . . but she can't deny the effect the past few months have had on her, the effect he's had on her just by being himself.
Before she can say anything, though, he continues, "Tell me the truth, am I the worst asset you've ever seen?"
She smiles at him and resumes cleaning the gash across his stomach. "I'm an undercover operative. You're actually my first full-time asset. But from what I've heard, far from."
Chuck brightens. "Really?"
"Yeah," she tells him, "a lot start to get an exaggerated sense of their own importance after a while. They start to drink too much, go out too much, the sort of thing that makes them think they can stop doing their actual job." She pauses in her work to offer him a reassuring look. "I know Beckman and Graham are hard on you. But they don't really remember what it's like to be a civilian serving your country."
"No," he frowns, "I bet not a lot of people would."
"For what it's worth, I'm proud of you."
"Really?"
"Really."
He's right; the gash isn't so deep. It looks a lot worse than it actually is, and she's able to clean and bandage it in a few minutes. A part of her wants to smack him for being so stubborn, but another part of her sort of understands. It's taking a while, but she's starting to get him, really get him.
It's a risky road, she knows. Instead of running as fast as she can in the opposite direction, though, she just sits next to him on the bathtub and asks, "Wanna get ice cream?"
"Mmm," he says. "You betcha." He rises and extends a hand. "Ooh, there's a new ice cream shop in the plaza. And let me tell you, they do not skimp on the sprinkles."
Chuckling, Sarah follows him out of the bathroom.
True, she's seen many partnerships fail, but right here is the proof that they can work. And she'll do everything she can to make it work. All it takes is a little faith.