Much Ado
By MySoapBox
Act II: I cannot hide what I am
Sarah hadn't slept well. She had thought about calling Casey to ask him to keep an extra close watch over Chuck, but what reason could she give him for her concern? She couldn't tell him that she was worried because Chuck didn't want to have sex with her. There are some things you just can't say to your partner.
She awoke before her alarm sounded and found that she had no desire to go for her morning run. Instead, she sat in the pre-dawn darkness in her running shorts and top and watched the lights of the city start to blink off, one by one. As the glass of the buildings started to glow with the sun's early light, she decided to go to the one place where she could find answers to all the questions that were running through her mind.
Chuck's alarm sounded with Huey Lewis and the News' "I Want a New Drug." Sarah, who had been waiting in his desk chair for the past thirty minutes, got up and clicked off the music.
Chuck stirred under his covers. "Sarah?" he asked, squinting his eyes against the morning light.
"Good morning," she said. "How did you sleep?"
"Awful," he mumbled, "just awful, I was up half the night thinking about…just thinking," he finished lamely.
"That makes two of us," she confessed. "May I?" She gestured to the bed.
Chuck's eyes widened momentarily as he caught her meaning. "Um…"
"If you don't want me to…"
"No, no, that would be fine." He scooted over to one side. Sarah noticed he wrapped the covers tightly around himself as he did.
She lay down next to him, but remained on top of the covers so she wouldn't spook him. She propped herself up on one elbow.
Chuck turned to face her, the covers tucked securely under his chin.
"Chuck," she began tentatively, "is everything okay?"
"Okay? Yeah, I mean, I just woke up thirty seconds ago but in those seconds I haven't flashed on anything, my life hasn't been in danger, no one's been shooting at me, so far so good."
Sarah laughed nervously. "That isn't exactly what I meant."
"It's not? I thought you were building up to tell me about a new mission."
"No, no mission that I know of."
"That's good."
There was a long uncomfortable pause. Sarah examined the patchwork on Chuck's bedspread while she worked up the courage to try again.
"Chuck," she said, breaking the silence, "when I asked you if everything was okay, what I actually meant was: are we okay?"
"Yeah, of course," he answered, a little too quickly.
"Are you sure?"
"Sure, I'm sure, why wouldn't we be okay?"
"Well, after last night, when you didn't want…"
Chuck flinched. "I know, I'm sorry about that. I really am. I just had a lot on my mind." Chuck sighed and looked at the ceiling.
Sarah's sigh echoed his and she lay down on the pillow waiting for him to continue. He usually would tell her what he was thinking if she just stayed silent. For awhile, her eyes traced the same patterns in the ceiling that she imagined Chuck was looking at. After a heavy silence, when it became clear that he wasn't going to elaborate, she asked, "Is it about the new Intersect?"
"No, though I do think about that a lot."
"Me too," she confessed. Another moment passed in silence. "Is it about your new cover job?"
"No, I'm not worried about that. I'm sure the CIA will take care of everything."
She steadied herself mentally before asking the next question, the one she had been working up the courage to ask. "Is it about us? Our relationship?"
Chuck ran his fingers through his mussed hair. "In a way."
Sarah clenched her hands unconsciously. He wasn't making this easy for her. "Chuck, can't you just say it? Whatever it is, it can't be as bad as the things I've been imagining all night."
"It's not easy for me okay?" his voice raised a little. "I needed time to work some things out."
"Not easy for you?" Sarah asked. "We've waited so long for our relationship to be real and just when things seemed to be going so well, something is stopping you." She turned her face from him in frustration. "And now I don't have a clue about what's going on in your head, and I can't get you to talk about it."
There was another pregnant pause. Sarah's heart hammered in her chest. Chuck was making her lead the conversation and it made her feel exposed. "Are you having second thoughts about me?" Her voice was just above a whisper, but she knew he had heard her because she felt him shift on the bed and then she felt his hand on her arm.
"No, no. It's nothing like that."
She turned towards him again. Their faces were only inches apart. "Then what?" She reached out and smoothed down one of his stray curls. "We have to trust each other if we're going to make this work. Isn't that what you keep telling me?"
"I know. I'm sorry."
"Will you stop saying that? Just tell me what's wrong."
Chuck pushed back the covers and sat up in the bed. The fact that his move had put some distance between them again did not escape her. She sat up as well, to put their heads on an equal level. "Okay," he said, sounding resolute. "What do you know about…" and he said the name he had seen on the birth certificate in his flash.
Sarah jumped off the bed like she'd been burned. "How do you know that name?"
He seemed frightened by her sudden movement. "I…I…" he stuttered.
Sarah put the pieces together quickly. "You flashed on me, didn't you," she said in an accusatory tone. "Last night before we went out to dinner. You got new information from the Intersect."
Chuck closed his eyes and nodded. Sarah suddenly felt cold.
"You saw something - something about my past. That's it, isn't it? Like the time you flashed on me with the French diplomats." Sarah started to feel frantic now. She knew that someday she would have to tell him about certain things in her past, but she wanted it to be in her own time and in her own way.
"No...well, yes, I did flash on you…"
"I knew it! It was that thing in Krakow wasn't it? You don't want me after what I did in Krakow."
"Krakow? No, it's nothing like that."
"What then?" She started to pace the room. "Brisbane then… or…Berlin…"
"Sarah, stop this…"
"Bryce! Was it something to do with Bryce? Because Chuck I've told you what happened between us…"
Chuck had stood and now he grabbed Sarah's hands. "Sarah, calm down. It's not like that." She looked into his warm eyes as he pulled her back down to sit by him on the bed. He looked at her and opened his mouth, but for a moment nothing came out. Then he closed his eyes took a deep breath and said, "I saw your birth certificate…okay." He opened his eyes and she saw real concern there. "I saw it. And…and now I know you were born in 1981 on September 21st ."
Sarah was puzzled. "And?"
Chuck raised his eyebrows. "That's quite a coincidence, isn't it, that we share the same birthday?"
"I don't get it. You're mad because I never told you my birthday?"
"No, it isn't that at all. There's more. You were born in Hartford, Connecticut."
"So? Do you have something against people from New England?"
"I'm from Hartford."
"But, you said that you were friends with Morgan since elementary school in Tarzana."
"My dad moved us out to LA to work on the Intersect project when I was just a toddler. Ellie and I were both born in Connecticut."
"As much as I appreciate this review of your family history, it still doesn't explain how you've been acting the past 12 hours."
Chuck pulled on their joined hands, moving Sarah in closer so that they were sitting knee to knee, and hand in hand in the center of the bed.
"Listen, I found something yesterday, something while I was looking for my social security card."
He hesitated and Sarah wondered where this was going.
"I found a folder with family birth certificates in it. One I'd never seen before." Sarah nodded her head for him to continue. "I found a birth certificate for...for my twin."
"Twin?" Sarah repeated in disbelief. "I didn't know you had a twin, it wasn't in any of your files."
"I didn't know either until yesterday. Ellie said that she died at birth."
"She? It was a girl?"
Chuck nodded. "Ellie said that my dad and mom were too upset, so they never talked about it. And then when mom left… well, dad stopped talking pretty much altogether."
"I'm sorry, Chuck." She reached up and put one hand behind his neck. "That must have been hard news to hear. But I still don't understand. What does this have to do with me?"
Sarah saw Chuck's Adam's apple bob up and down as he swallowed. He tightened his grip on her other hand. "When I flashed on your birth certificate last night, it had a serial number: 81-1205." Chuck scooted across the bed, pulling himself out of her grasp and reached for something on his nightstand. He brought back a manila folder and handed it to her.
Sarah looked at the folder. As she did, she noticed for the first time that she was trembling slightly, though she wasn't sure why. She opened the folder and on the top page was Chuck's birth certificate.
"See," he said, pointing to the paper, "the serial number on my certificate is 81-1204." He pulled the top page away, revealing another birth certificate, nearly identical to the last one, except this one was issued for a Lisa Katherine Bartowski. "Look at the number on this one. 81-1205, the exact number that I saw on your birth certificate in the flash."
Sarah couldn't comprehend exactly what he was saying, but when she looked into his eyes her heart filled with dread.
"Sarah," he said, taking her hand in his once more. "You're my twin sister."
* * *
Chuck saw the expressions change on Sarah's face, first confusion, then disbelief, each one only lasting a heartbeat. Finally, her expression settled on what could only be described as panic.
"There is no way I'm your sister," she exclaimed.
Chuck felt a wave of relief. Hopefully she would have a missing piece to the puzzle that would make this whole nightmare go away. "What makes you so sure?"
"Because we've…we've… you know…" She gestured in the air, inviting him to fill in the blanks.
Chuck nodded his head. "I know."
Her hands never dropped. "…lots and lots of times…"
Chuck rubbed his eyes. "I know."
"It's just not possible. You and me? Brother and sister? It's just…ridiculous."
"It's illegal," Chuck muttered.
"Oh God," Sarah exclaimed covering her mouth with one hand.
Chuck's heart sank. "That's it? That's your best argument? That we've had sex so we can't be related?"
Sarah took a deep breath. Her panicked expression turned into the calculating one he'd seen so many times when they had talked about strategy before a mission. "Let's work this through logically," she said. "Ellie said that your twin died. And I wasn't adopted; at least as far as I know. The rest is just a coincidence."
"A coincidence?" Chuck shook his head. "Amazingly the stars aligned and Chuck Bartowski and Sarah Walker were born in the same hospital in Connecticut on the exact same day? Who knows, we could have had cribs next to one another in the nursery. Maybe my dad and your dad even exchanged cigars!" Chuck looked hard at Sarah, willing her to understand. "Sarah, the Intersect is never wrong. I saw your birth certificate, the name was different, Jack could have changed that, but the numbers were the same, the date, place and time were all exactly the same."
Sarah took the twin's birth certificate and held in close to her face, presumably looking for signs of counterfeit. Chuck looked down at his own certificate. He still had so many questions and no satisfactory answers.
"Sarah, tell me about your mother."
Sarah appeared taken aback. "I don't know much about her really. She died giving birth to me."
"So you're mother died giving birth to you on the same day that I was born, and in the same hospital."
Sarah gave the certificate back to him. He could tell from the set of her lips that she was obviously thinking it through.
"Think about it this way, Sarah. Where would a con-man go if he wanted to adopt a baby? He wouldn't go to an agency and fill out paperwork. He would go to the black market."
Sarah seemed to bristle. "Listen, my dad may be many things, but he isn't a kidnapper."
"I'm not saying he is. I'm just saying that maybe someone at the hospital was. They would take babies, like a twin, and tell the mother that the baby had died. And then sell the baby on the black market."
"That's crazy." Sarah rolled her eyes. "Chuck! My dad did not buy me on the black market!"
"How can you be so sure? We need to consider all the possibilities." Chuck decided to push on with his next idea. "It could have been a government conspiracy."
Sarah furrowed her eyebrows and tilted her head a little; he could tell that he had piqued her interest. She wasn't convinced, but at least she was listening.
"Orion said he had uploaded the Intersect, right? What if the government knew that a talent like that would be hereditary? What if they took you and made sure that you were trained to join the CIA? What if Jack was just preparing you your whole life to become an Intersect? But then, thanks to Bryce, I got the Intersect instead – by accident. That would explain why you were assigned to me. When they found out there was a human intersect, they wanted you working on the project because they knew that you could become a human intersect too."
"Chuck, do you hear what you're saying? You met my dad. He's a con-man, not a CIA operative. He spent ten years in prison."
"It could have been all part of the cover."
"Believe me, I saw them take him away. It wasn't a cover."
"You don't think the CIA could sell a seventeen-year old girl on an arrest? And if it wasn't that…he could have been a pawn. Just someone they manipulated, and at the right time they took him away so they could get to you."
"I know that in the world we work in, everything can seem like a conspiracy, but sometimes Chuck, things really are just coincidences."
Chuck could see that Sarah was getting frustrated with him, but he had been thinking about this all night. Unless she had a rebuttal that made sense, he needed to make her understand. He reached into his night stand drawer and brought out a picture from Ellie's wedding.
"Last night, I watched you all evening. Do you know you have the same dimple as Ellie? Look at this Sarah. The one on the left cheek. And you have the same nose. If you dyed your hair brown, you two would look like…well, sisters."
Sarah examined the photo thoughtfully. She reached out and touched the glass with her finger. "I don't think we look anything alike."
"The dimple, Sarah, they are exactly the same."
Sarah looked at the picture once more. "Okay," she said, "I guess there are some similarities. But Chuck, what are the chances?"
"I know. It seems incredible. But you and I both know that the CIA manipulates people for their own purposes. Maybe we're just characters in a bad Star Wars reenactment and you're Leia to my Luke."
Sarah's puzzled expression told him that he had lost her a little on the pop reference. Not surprising, he thought. "I've already put a message out to Orion. He may know something that will help us. But I don't know where he is or how long it will take him to contact me."
Sarah turned and looked at the morning light streaming in from the window. Finally, she sighed and turned back to him. "This isn't going to go away is it?"
"No, Sarah, it's not."
"We can't just ignore it and go on with our lives?"
"Do you think you can forget it? I don't know about you, but I don't want to be wondering about this the next time we're together. It could really ruin the mood."
Sarah nodded. "Good point." She pulled out her cell phone. "Alright, I have a couple of places I can leave messages for Jack. I don't know if he'll get them though."
Chuck nodded as Sarah started dialing. At least she was taking him seriously now. Maybe working together they could uncover the truth.
A few minutes later, she put away her phone. "Well, I've left the messages, but I'm not too optimistic."
They sat there looking at one another, lost in their own thoughts. After a moment, Chuck felt Sarah's thumb stroking across the top of his hand. He looked at her and then down to their clasped hands.
"Sorry," Sarah said awkwardly. She started to pull her hand away.
Chuck tightened his grip. "Even if you are my sister, I can still hold your hand," he said.
"Sister," Sarah mused. "Of all the ways I thought our relationship might end, that wasn't even on the list."
"Hey," he reached up and put his hand on her jaw, turning her face so that she looked into his eyes, "my love for you wouldn't end. We'd just have to learn to love each other in a new way."
He moved his hand down her jaw and stroked her bottom lip with his thumb. He pulled his thumb away and mentally checked himself. Those were not the kind of thoughts a brother should have for his sister. He licked his lips nervously.
Sarah suddenly moved from the bed and stood. "I'm can't just wait here and hope one of our absentee fathers decides to call us back."
"What else can we do?" Chuck asked.
"You can go take a shower. I'm going home to change. I'll be back in 20 minutes to pick you up."
"Where are we going?"
"To LabCorp. They do all the DNA analysis for the CIA."
Of course, Chuck thought. That would answer their question once and for all. "But don't forget, we have Ellie and Awesome's anniversary dinner tonight."
"I haven't forgotten. Don't worry; we should be done at LabCorp by lunchtime. We'll have the results by tomorrow morning and then, hopefully, we can put this whole nightmare behind us."
She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. He smiled nervously and said his goodbyes. As her eyes lingered on him a little longer than they usually did at parting, he thought he saw real worry there. She stepped out the window and was gone.
He had always known that there was a special connection between them, more than handler and asset. But what if that connection ran deeper than anyone could have ever imagined?
Many thanks go again to my awesome beta Sharpasamarble, who sacrificed his beauty sleep to look over this chapter. Additional thanks go to Poa who proofread my rewrite and saved me from some embarrassing mistakes.
I forgot in the first chapter to throw a shout-out to the folks at TWOP Chuck boards (found at here at ff net). We were talking about the idea for this story one night, and it was Wepdiggy's idea for Chuck to flash on Sarah's birth certificate. I may have used other ideas from that conversation, so credit where credit it due. Thanks guys.
You may have read this with pleasure "just so much as you may take upon a knife's point." Ouch! Leave a review anyway.
