A/N: I'm back! And now with 100% more twitter! (Same pen name, retropanda37, over there.) Blame NMH. And quistie64. Although, I did manage to drag Doc in Oz down with me too, so you're welcome fandom, haha! Also, rest assured, dear readers, that Chapter 5 of Unexpected Attachments is in the works. :)

This fic came about as an attempt to understand the motivations Sarah had for some of her behavior in Season 3. I wrote the majority almost a year ago, came back a month or two later and filled in the ending, and then promptly forgot about it during school, only to find it in my stories folder a couple days ago. FYI, it follows canon until the last section, when it veers AU, since it deals with parts of Season 4 that had not yet aired when it was written. HUGE thanks to NMH, beta/cheerleader extraordinaire, and an all-around awesome person who I'm SO grateful to call my friend.

Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck or its characters. This is just for fun, and I'm not making any kind of profit—please don't sue. Also, the only ownership I have of Tamia's "Officially Missing You" is the MP3 I bought off Amazon.

All I hear is raindrops
Falling on the rooftop
Oh baby tell me why'd you have to go
Cause this pain I feel
It won't go away
And today I'm officially missing you

I thought that from this heartache
I could escape
But I fronted long enough to know
There ain't no way
And today
I'm officially missing you

On the run, at a standstill, across the world, across town, it didn't matter. She missed him everywhere. The anger that rose within her, vicious and glaring and safe, was a trivial comfort, hiding her broken heart and masking the constant ache for him. The ache of being away from him, but most of all, of knowing they would never be together. Because even though he was the one that broke her heart, he was still the only person she wanted to put it back together. It was only when she was by herself, lying in bed watching the rain fall, that the façade of anger would crack and shatter around her until all that remained was missing him and feeling so very alone.

Two years. Two years ago he'd walked into her life with his curls and his "nerd, not geek" and his innate sense of what was right and his sister who cared almost too much. She'd never known she wanted any of that, never would have if it hadn't been pushed on her. But now, now, there was a him sized hole in her life, a heartache that throbbed with the desire to see him again. To smell the soap on his skin, adjust a curl at his temple, snuggle into the arm he placed around her when his sister was watching, press her lips to his again. Whether for the cover or not, it no longer mattered.

Oh can't nobody do it like you
Said every little thing you do
Hey baby say it stays on my mind
And I, I'm officially

All I do is lay around
Two ears full of tears
From looking at your face on the wall
Just a week ago you were my baby
Now I don't even know you at all
I don't know you at all

Just a week ago she was planning their escape together, unreservedly giddy as she gathered IDs and paperwork to support a new life, a life for them together. Something real. And she was finally, desperately ready for real. But when the moment of truth came and she'd placed her hand in his, he had handed it all back to her. She had finally, finally been ready to give him everything, and he didn't want it. He didn't want her.

Deep down, a part of her had always felt that she was too screwed up for him, too far gone, but she was still utterly unprepared for the burning ache in her chest, worse than being hit full on by a roundhouse kick. She didn't get her heart broken. Jenny, maybe, or Katie O'Connell, or even little Samantha…but not her, the agent who was wise to the world. Not until now. Her defenses were always too high, the protections too solid, the distance too firm. But he had wormed a path through every wall she erected, and she knew now that it meant there was even more to come crashing down around her.

She never thought he would do this.

Oh can't nobody do it like you
Said every little thing you do
Hey baby say it stays on my mind
And I, I'm officially

Well I thought I could just get over you baby
But I see that's something I just can't do
From the way you would hold me
To the sweet things you told me
I just can't find a way
To let go of you

The next him to come along felt safe, and looking back, the irony was not lost on her. But with the new him, her heart didn't beat fast. Her stomach didn't flip-flop. Her heart wasn't laid out on the line. She could stay in control without having to be alone. And the only thing worse than not being with him was being alone with her thoughts of what could have been. Alone with the pain. So she let the new him distract her, let him wine and dine her, let him buy her presents and hold her in his arms, because she missed the feel of arms around her, of his arms around her. Missed the intimate way he tucked her hair behind her ear and caressed her cheek.

The whispered words of the new him were never the same, never as meaningful or thoughtful or unique, but they filled the time with something other than missing him. The new him may have been a sad substitute, but he was a substitute nonetheless. And after she saw him get interested in the newest brunette to flounce into his life, she desperately needed the escape.

Oh can't nobody do it like you
Said every little thing you do
Hey baby say it stays on my mind
And I, I'm officially

It's official

The night before, when his sister banishes them to separate rooms, she misses him and longs for him, but it isn't the same. Not anymore. She lets the memories swirl into her mind, the pain rolling over her like black smoke, clouding the face of her reality now. But before tomorrow comes she wants to feel it all again, bring it up rather than have it hidden deep inside her forever more. And isn't that just another way he's changed her - made her not want to jam this down and swallow it forever. Slowly, she untangles the lingering fingers of pain that gripped so tightly around her heart for so long, teasing out the hurt and anger, the betrayals of them both, cleansing it all away before he places a second ring on her finger tomorrow to join the first, cool metal sliding into place to seal out that old pain forever.

Tonight, wrapped in soft, cotton sheets in the ocean of their empty bed, she misses him and smiles as tears well in her eyes, knowing that their journey will always be twined together. As the night darkens, she drifts off to sleep, dreaming of the color white and the depths of love and the way her heart jumps at the word mine, safe in the knowledge that after tomorrow she will be his and he will be hers, just like they have been all along.