Postscript Messages
Chapter 3: I've Tried and Tried

A rational part of me knows it needs to stop. The same rationale tells me that I'm in too deep, that I left "to be professional" and therefore should be professional, even if it takes a kick in the ass.

That very same part tells me that it is time for goodbye.

But I'm unsure if I can bring myself to give myself the kick in the ass with the steal-toed boot to do it.

Saying goodbye entails for me to put him behind, to allow him to fade into the background, but how can one throw something so life impacting out like trash.

Knowing my personal mission, I took out the notebook where I've written the other letters in. My heart felt as if tiny daggers were stabbing it as I opened the notepad to a fresh sheet. I clicked open the pen, the same BuyMore pen from the beginning, and started by writing his name and nothing else.

Chuck,

I found myself once again at a loss of words. Times before I had to bite my tongue to keep myself from saying stupid things, but this time I was biting at anything.

I continued to battle myself. It was as if on each shoulder was a different side, like the angel and the devil. My right shoulder was telling me to do it, to tell him goodbye, even if just for myself, but my left shoulder was fighting back, unable to let go of something.

Ultimately, that is what made my decision for me, the fact that agents do not get attached and that I am.

What I wrote ended up being a goodbye, but not the one I planned on writing at all.

I wish that I could press rewind and turn back time and change everything that transpired between us. Writing these letters I've had to much to say. The thought of writing them seemed easy, but at times it was anything but. I thought that if I wrote them, the words would come out better, but clearly they don't. They're bumpy and incomplete, even lackluster at times.

I want to start off by saying I'm sorry. I'm sorry for leaving without telling you myself. I'm sorry for breaking your trust. You trusted me and I up and left. I'm sorry for not always being truthful all of the time. I'm sorry for all of the times I was cold to you, even when it was necessary.

I owe you much more than apologies, though. I owe you a proper goodbye. While I can't give you a proper goodbye, I can, nonetheless, give you a goodbye.

I'm not saying goodbye to you, Chuck. I'm sticking my hand out in attempt to help you, give you some much needed closure. The physical me saying a physical goodbye to a physical you.

So, goodbye Chuck. You will forever remain in my heart.

Sincerely yours,

Sarah

I set out to say a complete goodbye to Chuck, to throw him like sand into the wind of the past. I intended to end it, but in the way of the cycle, I found myself unable to. All I could do was give him a fraction of the justice he deserves.

In general, Chuck deserves so much more than I can ever give him in a lifetime. I'll never be that woman in the mini-van bright and early on Saturday mornings for sports games. I can never be the wife who stays home and has dinner sitting on the table when he arrives home from work.

That woman, the "perfect wife," can never be me, and Chuck deserves perfect and beyond.

In the field, on an important mission, I found a way to make a huge mistake. I had managed to get my partner shot and killed. Better yet, it was because my mind was so wrapped up on Chuck.

I had been given a partner a few days after my last letter. He was the total opposite of Chuck and didn't stand anywhere near to Casey in comparison. He was more suave and cunning, his voice deep and naturally husky. He was average looking, his face the face of a man from the fifties. He tried to crack jokes, but they always fell flat. He was a fairly good partner, able to shoot a gun and engage in hand-to-hand combat, and was just as good with the tech stuff as myself. In a way, he was a lot like Roan, without the obsessive alcohol consumption.

He was older than me by almost 20 years and sometimes looked at me as his daughter because he never got to have one of his own.

But then I went and let him down.

He made an off-handed comment about something he'd heard through the intelligence community. Apparently "some geeky analyst named Carmichael" stood up to the General and "gave her a piece of his mind" about his "sexy partner" suddenly vanishing. In response, the General had to have her "macho major" sedate him because he was "out of control and wouldn't give it up."

When I asked him more about it he was confused; I usually never engaged in his 14-year-old gossip, but this time was different. Much different.

All that he knew was that the guy had been caught trying to get into the agent's records to see where she was and was actually threatened to be put in an underground secured facility because of it. That part broke my heart for Chuck. "But this all happened months ago," he had said. "It's just spreading now."

His comments were stuck in my mind, playing over and over again on repeat.

That night we were to go to a party being thrown by a drug-lord suspected to be affiliated with Fulcrum to look around and see what we could find. Our cover was boyfriend-girlfriend, even though he was quite a bit older than me.

Normally, this would be a job for Chuck; he would flash and I'd do my agent stuff, but his control started and ended in LA, and this was New York.

We were snooping in the office, my partner on the computer, myself riling through paper work and files when two armed men walked in.

My partner had started to say something, a pre-made-up line used to distract them by calling it an accident, when the men pulled out their guns and I knocked one out with the butt of my own.

I knocked down the other when I told him we needed to leave, but he had found Fulcrum documents. He made an interested noise, his curiosity clearly piqued. "I've heard a few things about the Intersect," he mused. My head shot up, distracting me from the men.

Intersect. Fulcrum... Chuck. Three words that meant danger when in the same thought.

During my moment of distraction, one of the men on the floor overhead our discovery. In response he shot the laptop so we couldn't get the file, but the bullet went right through the screen and out the other side. A lucky shot, indeed.

It hit my partner square in the chest.

Before anything else could happen, I shot both men, my thoughts cold and dead. I became the scary agent that scared Chuck away many previous times. I ran to him where he laid on the floor, cold and motionless, the blood slowly draining from his body. I checked for a pulse, but he was gone.

I could have stopped that man. But I didn't.

After recovering form the shock, I knew what I had to do, no mater how hard. I now had no choice other than to say the real goodbye to Chuck, as hard as it may be. I couldn't let another incident like that happen again.

Chuck had to be put into the past, kicked out of the corners of my heart of which he had grown so comfortable in. I had to change the locks to my heart and only hope he'd never find them again. Chuck had to be a distant memory, if that, and stay that way.

Dear Chuck,

This should finally be the letter of goodbye. I've tried and tried, Chuck, to get you out of my mind, but it's proven an impossible test as every day it grows harder and harder.

It confuses me. You confuse me. I confuse me. I've never had this hard of a time letting go of anything. I've yet to understand why I write these, even though I've come up with answers. There's simply something inside of me that makes me.

I've already lost everything since I lost you, Chuck, so why not take that next step.

I paused, fearing the words that I had led up to saying too soon. Once again, as seemingly every time, the letter took on a life of it's own. I held my breath.

I love you, Charles Irving Bartowski.

Why I wrote that, or even admitted that to myself let alone this letter presumably to him, I have no idea. But the real mystery is why I didn't cross it out...

Just thinking about you... I can't help but smile. My heart still breaks because I'm not with you. It breaks because I hurt you, but I can't help but smile at the good memories of you, even nearly a year later.

But this is equally as unfortunate.

I've kept all of my pictures of us. The real ones. I'm sure you've noticed the one missing from your room, the one of us during that day Morgan planned at the beach last spring.

The picture I was referring to was tapped onto the notepad of letters. That particular picture was taken by Ellie; only she could manage to get a camera in the middle of a football game.

Chuck and I were laying on the grass, both going after the ball. I had landed on him and was distracted by being so close.

After the ten months I've been gone, I shouldn't still have them, but I do. I don't think that I have the strength to part with them yet, if ever.

I've tried to erase your smell, how you feel--

Taste, the tingling feeling after kissing--

but there's some things I can't forget. Sometimes I think I can still feeling the spark from your skin on mine.

Things were out of control, more than any other time. My mind was running, the words being translated onto the sheet of paper with clearly very little of a filter to stop things from being said.

You changed my life, Chuck.

I took another deep breath, willing to keep in the tears. I knew it was time to get to the point, say goodbye, and tell him I'm leaving him in the past.

I guess that by spending so much time with you you rubbed one of your nervous tendencies on me. Nervous chatter.

I didn't want to keep reliving all of the memories, but there's just so many feelings that haven't left.

I guess you thought it would be all behind me, you seeing me as the stone-cold agent, and I honestly don't think it ever will be, but it has to be.

I can't go on being so consumed by you. Emotionally, I can't take it anymore. I may smile, but my heart breaks at the same time. It's distracting in my line of business. It just got my partner killed.

So this is that emotional and metaphorical goodbye. I have to start... I have to "start a new chapter of my life." I have to put this pain behind me.

So goodbye, Chuck.

Love,

Sarah

I hesitated before I wrote what I wrote next. It would contradict the whole point of this letter, but the point is to be honest, not hiding things through these letters. It shouldn't even be a big deal if he's not going to read them, I reminded myself. Right?

PS, I'm still not over you.

Author's Note: I know, I know, it seems like it's already over, and maybe even too quick. The song just seemed to split up into a few parts, really, so I wrote around that. But don't worry, you've got at least three more installments coming you way. Reviews are still very much appreciated.