Title: Truth is Ticking Down
Rating: PG
Pairing: Chuck. UST for Chuck/Sarah I guess.
Spoilers/Warnings: before Chuck vs. The Third Dimension.
Summary: The thing is, just because he wants to confront her about it doesn't mean he does.
Truth is Ticking Down
The thing is, just because he wants to confront her about it doesn't mean he does. So he lets it sit, settle, and stir inside him for weeks. He tries not to think about it too much because when he does let himself dwell on it and it takes residence in his eyes, she then asks him about it.
Worried and caring, she presses the palm of her hand to his arm and asks, "Hey, is something wrong?" She cares, he can see it in her eyes (when she lets him), hear it in her voice (when she allows it) and he wants to talk to her about it. He wants to talk to her, he wants break the pattern they're falling into.
He never does. The words die on his tongue and he shakes his head with a smile, "Nothing, I'm fine."
She looks at him like she doesn't quite believe him, but she doesn't press and maybe that's the problem right there. They just let the lies settle. He's just not as used to it as she is.
Or maybe he's just afraid of the answers he'll get.
It's not that he doesn't get that Sarah's killed people before. He still has the images of her killing those two goons on that street shifting around in his brain. He remembers the dinner with the French attachés that weren't attachés. It's not that. No, it's not. Really, he tells himself. It's that this is the first time it wasn't self-dense. (As far as he knows whispers the ever growing cynical voice in his head, which sounds surprisingly like Casey. And god, doesn't he haev enough crap in his head already? Life, clearly, isn't throwing him a bone. He wonders who he wronged in a past life because, really.)
The thing is though, he gets it. He gets why she lied. Really, he does. He knows that if she knew he had seen it, she wouldn't have lied. Pretty hard to lie then. It's that she doesn't know he saw her kill— Sarah kills, really kills, oh god, don't freak out, Chuck, don't. Freak. Out.— that guy. The surrendering guy. Just like that. He knows she lied because she thinks he doesn't know the truth. She's lying to him, because he's not supposed to know.
It's all circles and shadows and nothing is true, but at the same time everything is just too real.
He's not supposed to know. And the bitch of it? Is that he knows why he's being kept in the dark. Its simple, really: Because she can't trust him with the truth. She's choosing to not to trust him with the truth.
This is what he can't let go off.
Not so much the lie, even yeah, that stings more than a little, but the lack of trust. He really thought they were past that. (Finally. Hell, her dad, her criminal of dad, trusts Chuck with Sarah, but she doesn't. Yeah, it stings. He won't lie.)
It's that she and Casey are actively keeping it from him. It's the fact he is not supposed to know. But he does. He can't help it, every time he looks at Sarah he sees it. He tries hard not to see it. The man, who was Fulcrum, a bad guy— maybe that was reason enough… no, it should never be reason enough, he thinks— and Sarah pulling the trigger so effectively. Neatly, like the trained agent she is. He tries to rationalise it. Fulcurm, bad; Sarah, good, and if he leaves it at that it works.
Fulcrum is to bad as Sarah is to good.
FULCRUM : BAD :: SARAH : GOOD.
It makes sense, but then the other factors fill his brain.
The bad guy had been surrendering and Sarah had still pulled the trigger.
Here is where ERROR message flashes in his brain.
This is where everything looses clarity and this shifts in his brain to:
Sarah killed an unarmed man.
He wants to talk about but he can't. And trust him, he's tried. When he can't bring himself to ask Sarah about it, he tries Casey, but if talking to Sarah about this is hard, then it's near impossible with Casey. The crux is that if he had seen Casey shoot the guy he probably wouldn't be as disturbed by it. With Casey he's always understood that the man is a killer. And yeah, maybe it's unfair, and yeah it's probably a double standard, but he's always seen Casey as he one that kills and Sarah as the one that protects him from dying.
So he doesn't ask Casey about it and Sarah and him don't talk about it and it sits, settles and stirs in him like a virus popping up into his brain every time he hears the jingle of his mother's bracelet and every other kiss she brushes against his cheek.
Worse thing about all this though is when he realises he's becoming a person that lets these things — lies, death, killing, murder — settle. He wonders if this is what Bryce had been trying to prevent.