Chuck v. The Twilight Zone
Written by: truthseekr
Chapter II—Chuck's Sleepless Night
Chuck had tossed and turned all night. It was amazing how much more realistic the intersect often made his dreams, and his nightmares. His lack of sleep could not be blamed on the intersect this time though. It was like Morgan had asked him the night before, what do you do when you see your girlfriend do something so horrific that it gets permanently burned into you brain? He muttered to himself, "You can't sleep, you can't think straight, and you can't get past it." He just could not get the picture out of his head of Sarah taking down Lt. Mauser.
Sure, he remembered seeing intersect images of Agent Walker poisoning French assassins and taking out afghani warlords. In fact, until he had asked her to quit wearing that blue ring of hers, the later image flashed in his head every time he saw her. But this was different, he told himself. Was there any way to put aside this image which was now burned into his brain?
He thought to himself, "can't I just talk to her about it?" But what was there to talk about? She has already killed that bad man, lied about it, and it was now like nothing happened. But something did happen. For all purposes, she had murdered that bad, bad man in cold blood. Mauser's arms had been up, he said he was ready to go, and he had surrendered. Nothing he said or did could justify her taking his life? Could it?
When Sarah, not Agent Walker, had said she would never let anyone hurt him, Chuck had no idea she would not even let the man live. Chuck thought, what would happen the next time Emmett took away his lunch break? And for that matter, how many other people had been "taken into custody" by Agent Walker in like fashion? Laslo? Tommy? The pita girl? Come to think of it, he had not seen Scooter since the Weinerlicious was turned into the Orange Orange. Chuck knew that Sarah definitely did not like Scooter. Maybe Scooter's constant eavesdropping on him and Sarah in the back storage room had finally backfired on him, literally. "Okay, well, eliminating Scooter was taking it a bit far," Chuck told himself.
But surely, Sarah had to have a reason for shooting Mauser. He went back over and over his final words with her last night. She had said, "Chuck, it's okay you're safe. I got the Fulcrum agent." Why, oh, why had he not just trusted and accepted this explanation as enough from her? But the fact was he had not.
He wanted an explanation. He needed an explanation. And in light of the day's events, Chuck felt that he deserved an explanation. After all, she was his girlfriend, "well sort of," he muttered to himself. Chuck wanted to trust and believe her. He had asked, "What happened to him?" And then, she flat out lied to him.
Chuck thought she really was not kidding when she said to "leave the deception to me." He just did not think that the lies would continue to be directed primarily toward him.
Why was it just so hard for her? Why could she not just tell him the truth? He told himself that he could handle it. He knew that he would not approve, but he was not naïve.
The question that remained in his mind was would he be able to accept her? Frankly, he did not know the answer to that question. He was certain though, that until she was able to talk with him straight about what had happened with Mauser, he would not be able to get past this.
Chuck sighed. He realized that he had better get some sleep somehow. It was Christmas, he groaned. It was going to take everything in him to put on a fake heart-warming show in the morning for Ellie and her awesome fiancé, especially now that he had given Sarah his mom's charm bracelet. Great.
He had been carrying the bracelet around it in his pocket ever since her dad had told him to "take care of her." He had been looking forward to giving it to her and just could not wait. The guys at the Buy More had thought he was just in the holiday spirit and he was fine with letting those yahoos think that. But, whenever he put his hand in his pocket, it warmed him to think about her and what her reaction would be when he finally gave it to her. And her reaction did not disappoint. Sarah was truly the best thing that had ever happened to him.
The whole day, even with the hostage stand-off, had been the best day he had had in a long time and was well on to making its into the Chuck Bartowski all-time Top 10 days, until . . . Well, he just was not going to go there again, not now.
He thought, maybe some music would help him sleep. He put on his ear phones, attached them to the pink iPod on his nightstand, and pressed "play."
