4
Sarah got to work putting everything away, opening cupboard doors and drawers and relearning their kitchen. Most things were where she first guessed they would be, which gave her an odd, homey sort of comfort.
When Chuck came out of the bathroom, she took her turn. By the time she reemerged, he had put on some light jazz with a pleasant female vocalist, and he was starting to trim the chicken breasts.
The music was unfamiliar, but there was something about it...
"Who is this?" Sarah asked, and Chuck looked up, then saw that she was gesturing toward the speakers, which stood across the room near the television.
"Stacey Kent."
It wasn't a name she recognized, but she tilted her head and listened. "I like her."
Chuck smiled. "I know."
It was a little disconcerting, having her preferences anticipated like this. And it was sweet.
"So," she said, glancing around to cover her discomfort, "where's the recipe?"
Chuck tapped his head with a knuckle. "You can be my sous chef. It's pretty simple. Just chop up all this stuff—" He gestured at the various packages strewn across the breakfast bar. "—and we'll toss it on the baking sheet after we par-cook the chicken. You can start by separating the kale leaves from the stems. We just want the leaves, torn into bite-sized pieces."
"Okay." That sounded simple enough. But it probably took her longer than usual, because she had to hunt a bit for the hardware she needed, and she almost ran into him once. She felt self-conscious as she set up across the breakfast bar from him. He only smiled at her and continued his work.
What should she say? It didn't seem like the time to start talking about whether she might be pregnant. That was too heavy an opener. Did they normally talk while they made dinner together?
She snuck a glance at him, but he was focused on the cooking. He had started heating the oven and there was a pot of broth warming up on the range. He moved efficiently around the kitchen, measuring out rice, laying parchment paper on a half-sheet pan, and drizzling olive oil and sprinkling salt and pepper on the raw chicken before putting it in the oven. Then he was emptying out the dish rack, washing some leftover dishes, pulling half the bacon out of its packaging and wrapping the rest up to store it in the freezer, before briefly checking on the chicken...
The sixth time she snuck a look at him, he chuckled.
"What?" she asked, looking up from the onion she was chopping, relieved to finally have something sensible to say.
"You're nervous," he said, and met her curious gaze with a smile. "But you can't be half as nervous as I am."
"Wanna bet?" she asked, giving him a crooked smile and brandishing her knife. Then she realized she was waving a knife at him and she quickly laid it down.
He paused, wiping his hands on a dishtowel. He set it down and came around the breakfast bar to stand beside her. She watched him with wide eyes as he lifted one hand to cup her cheek, and with the other, he held her opposite shoulder. When she didn't pull away, he brushed his lips against her forehead. She closed her eyes with a sigh, then frowned. Did he want her to kiss him in return? She tensed slightly, opening her eyes and looking up, but he only drew back and gave her a small smile. It was a little sad around the edges.
"Sarah," he said. "There is really no way for you to fail tonight. What's the worst that could happen? Making a mistake while cooking dinner?" He shook his head. "No. Saying something wrong? No." His thumb traced her jaw. "You could decide right now that you don't want to go through with this, and you could walk out that door, and you still wouldn't have lost anything."
He gave her a half-sad, pressed-lips smile.
"I'd still be here if you need me." His voice was soft and quiet, and her eyes started to sting around the edges.
He withdrew his hands and started to turn away, but she quickly reached out and grasped his arm, pulling him back.
She opened her mouth to say something—
The kitchen timer went off.
They turned toward it with a slight jerk, then laughed awkwardly. Chuck gave her an apologetic look before going to pull the chicken out of the oven.
"Oh, oh, oh, hot—!" he suddenly exclaimed, despite holding the pan with a pair of oven mitts. "I forgot the trivet. Would you—yeah, bottom shelf, right—yep—" And the moment after she laid down the trivet, he hissed and dropped the pan on it, then waved his mitten-clad hands. "Sorry. I've been meaning to buy a new pair. They're kind of old and they don't work for more than a few seconds."
"No problem," Sarah said, slightly worried. "You're okay, right?"
"Oh, yeah, I'm fine." He made a funny, exaggerated macho face as he pulled off the gloves, and she giggled.
He waved his hands in midair for a second, then started issuing orders. "Okay, kale first, then the onions, pine nuts, bacon..."
They quickly tossed all the ingredients onto the hot pan around the chicken, and then Chuck slid the tray back into the oven.
"Now it's mostly just babysitting the risotto," he said, straightening up as he closed the oven door. "We've got a few minutes. Do you want some wine?"
"Sure." She washed her hands and dried them, then started to reach for the dirty dishes, but Chuck made a noise of protest and she turned around. He was popping the cork off a bottle of white wine.
"I'll get those," he said. "You just kick back."
"Really?"
"Sure, I like washing dishes," he said. "It relaxes me."
She shook her head in disbelief. "You really are too good to be true."
He just laughed. "I'll remind you of that the next time Morgan comes over for Games Night and you start throwing peanuts at the back of my head."
"What?" she asked, half-laughing.
He gave her a look. "You said it was good for improving my concentration under pressure." At her still-incredulous expression, he said, "Yeah, I didn't believe you, either."
She laughed and threw a piece of kale at him.
"Hey, if that lands in the wine, it's going to be your glass."
She chuckled and wandered out of the kitchen to look at the framed portrait of the two of them that was on top of the bookcase.
"When was this taken?" she asked, picking it up. "Your hair is a lot longer."
"That was during our second year working together."
"It's kind of cute, the hair."
Chuck smirked and poured wine into a glass. "Ellie said it was making funny animal shapes."
"Well, yeah, but I like it." She looked up and eyed him speculatively. "The shorter cut suits you too."
"Thanks," he said, pouring a second glass. He brought one over to her, then took a sip from the other and smiled. "That one is my favorite." He pointed at a picture of the two of them outdoors on a sunny day with her wrapped around him, piggyback-style, a huge grin on her face while he looked up at her with an adoring expression.
She hummed and reached out to touch the frame. "When was this taken?"
"It was for our invitations," he said. "It's the only professional-quality photo we have, outside of our wedding day." He took another sip. "It was the first photo of the two of us after we got engaged."
After a moment, he cleared his throat and straightened. "Well, those dishes aren't going to wash themselves."
As he walked toward the kitchen, Sarah took a sip and turned away from the pictures, wondering what she ought to do until dinner. Wander around the apartment, asking him questions? But he had set down his glass and was running the water in the sink, so she decided not to try shouting over the music and the faucet.
Her suitcase was still in the trunk of her car. She should bring it in.
She took a fortifying swallow of her wine, then left it on an end table, fished her keys out of her purse, and went out the front door.
When she returned, the relief in his eyes was palpable, but when he caught sight of what was rolling in behind her, his face broke into a smile that warmed her through.
She went into the bedroom to... unpack. It felt weird to do it, but all of her other things were still in the closet, so it didn't make much sense to keep her suitcase packed and ready to go. Not anymore. She looked around the room at the unfamiliar nerd posters, the computer, the low window with its curtains, the walk-in closet with Chuck's clothes on the left and hers on the right, and the small trinkets on the nightstand on her side of the bed. It didn't feel like home yet—it just felt like it was supposed to feel like home.
She turned her attention to the suitcase, letting the simple task give her something to focus on, even if it meant continually fighting the sense that, by unpacking, she was tying herself down, limiting her agility, giving up a tactical advantage. She drew in a deep breath and pushed through the jittery feeling.
Tossing a few items over her arm, she stepped into the closet and began to hang them up. The last item was a lacy, spaghetti-strap camisole, and she found the section where she had apparently kept those sorts of tops. Locating an empty hanger, she put the camisole in its place. As she drew her hand away, her fingers brushed against the silky fabric of a nearby top that hung in the closet already, and she felt a small flutter of recognition. She pushed the surrounding items back to get a better look, and saw a black lingerie top edged with pink lace, finished by a pink bow with a long ribbon.
For an instant, she saw a flash of wood paneling and the sway of a dark red curtain, felt a cold blast of air, and wavered as the floor rumbled beneath her feet.
She threw out a hand to steady herself against the closet door frame, shivering as she dropped the fabric, but the sudden rush of sensation passed immediately. It hadn't felt like an earthquake tremor— She paused, listening, but she heard only the faint, normal sounds that Chuck was making as he moved about the kitchen. Not an earthquake, then.
Frowning, she let go of the door frame and took a step toward the lingerie top. She drew in a deep breath, then lifted the fabric enough to see it clearly again.
Chuck, grinning in the small wood-paneled room as he slid his hands under the lingerie top, grasped her hips, and suddenly lifted her, pressing her up against the wall and putting her chest at face-height for him. Her legs eagerly wrapped around his waist and she giggled as he seized one flimsy silk bra cup in his teeth and tugged it down, exposing her for his enjoyment—and then soon hers...
Sarah flung her eyes open, acutely aware of her sudden arousal, and she blinked as the sensation of his body faded from between her thighs. Curious, she drew close to the lingerie and pressed her nose against the fabric, closing her eyes.
What could she remember about that wood-paneled room? It was small. Behind Chuck, in the memory, there was a window with a dark red brocade curtain, and although it didn't flutter in that particularly... hot... impression, she was somehow certain that the window was where that blast of cold air had come from. Chuck had opened the window? Why?
...but that wasn't important. Where were they? In a small, vibrating room? How did that make any sense?
She frowned, trying to recall something, anything... and suddenly it came to her: they were in a train car! Hadn't Chuck mentioned that they'd hopped a train to Zurich after he saved her life and they had gone AWOL together?
They had been on a train, having sex. And talking. And laughing, and feeding each other, and sleeping, and waking each other up in intimate ways, and having more sex, and having so much fun as they created a little nest away from the world for a while.
The memories felt like a honeymoon, and she supposed that it had been, because that was the beginning of them being together, wasn't it? Hadn't they said those... vows to each other then, long before they had made it official in a church? What was it Chuck had said?
Sarah Walker, do you agree to quit the spy life and be with me?
I do.
And now?
Sarah frowned and stepped back, opening her eyes and letting the lingerie slip through her fingers. She turned around slowly in the closet, her gaze drifting over everything else there, but nothing provoked a memory.
What was she doing here?
Sighing, she stepped back out into the bedroom and returned to her unpacking. But the memory of Chuck brought a smile to her lips.
When she finally went through the last of the suitcase's pockets, making sure everything was emptied, her fingers brushed against something and, curious, she pulled it out.
It was a picture of her and Chuck, probably taken even earlier than the second-year photo out in the living room. He was standing behind her with his arms wrapped tightly around her shoulders, grinning at the camera. He looked younger, as if the weight of it all hadn't quite settled on him yet. His hair was even shaggier, and he looked more gangly, less... filled out. But he still had the same look of delight on his face.
This must have been near the beginning, a cover photo, the sort of prop meant to support why she would be hanging around him so much of the time, as his cover girlfriend. But looking more closely at her own expression, she knew why she had kept this photo in her suitcase. It was supposed to be a cover photo, but he must have just made her laugh, because that was real joy in her eyes. And in his.
She blinked and smiled, drawing in a deep breath before blowing it out through pursed lips. She might be giving up a tactical advantage, but she was gaining a strategic ally. He had her back. She really could try letting her guard down here. It was going to be okay. She took a deep breath and released it. Swallowing, she tucked the treasured photo back into its pocket, zipped the suitcase closed, and stowed it in the back of the closet.
Back out in the living room, the jazz and the wine loosened her limbs, so Sarah kicked off her shoes and finally decided to make herself at home. If she wanted to sit back on the couch, close her eyes, and listen to Chuck puttering around in the kitchen, she was going to do it.
She never came close to dozing off, but there was something wonderful about being able to close her eyes and let the stress of the past weeks fall away.
When the oven timer went off, Sarah got up and returned to the kitchen, leaving her glass of wine next to one of the place settings on the table.
"Can I help?" she asked.
"Sure," he replied. "You're good with knives—" He shot her an amused look. "—so how about you chop up the chicken while I finish this risotto?"
She smirked and set to her task. They worked together easily, combining all the ingredients in a large pot, and when they finally settled down at the table across from each other, Chuck held up his glass. "Cheers."
She smiled and clinked their glasses, then eagerly took a bite, closing her eyes and humming with approval. Chuck laughed softly as he fished his phone out of his pocket and fiddled with something. A moment later, the music dropped in volume.
He gestured with the phone before putting it away. "Thought it would be easier to hear each other."
Sarah nodded and smiled politely as she finished another bite. "This is good."
"Thanks."
They ate in silence for a minute, and then she savored a sip of wine and thought about what she wanted to ask him first.
"So... Carmichael Industries," she began, and he looked up, swallowing a mouthful.
"What about it?"
"What happens next?"
He raised his eyebrows and blew out a breath, his cheeks briefly puffing out. "Well, that depends."
"On what?"
"You, mostly. I'm willing to follow your lead. Before... everything happened, you wanted to quit the spy life and shift our focus toward something safer, so we could—" He looked down, then lifted his eyes to meet her gaze. "—maybe start a family. But, ah, it's totally understandable if you don't feel that way right now."
He frowned. "We don't have Castle for much longer, though, and we sold nearly all the equipment and everything in the armory. We've got some resources maybe coming our way soon, but I don't want us to go back into business for ourselves as freelance spies. It turned out to be a lot harder and a lot less fun than I had hoped it would be." He cleared his throat, then backpedaled. "But we don't have to immediately start trying to have kids, either. We could go back to the CIA. I'm sure Beckman would let us work as partners if we asked." Chuck gave Sarah a crooked smile. "We do make a pretty good team."
She smiled briefly, then picked at her food for a moment before looking up. "That's one option. But it might not be a viable one." When he tilted his head in question, she laid her fork down and said, "There's something I've been meaning to ask you about."
Chuck slowed his chewing and grew serious. Swallowing, he said, "What is it?"
She frowned. "I haven't had my period since I woke up, and I didn't find any birth-control pills in with my things. Were we trying to get pregnant?"
He relaxed and smiled. "Not yet. I mean, anything's possible, of course. We've had one scare already." He gestured in the direction of the bathroom. "If you want to make sure, we have an EPT. Although your best bet is probably to wait until tomorrow morning, because that's when your hCG level, if you have any, would be at its highest."
She absorbed this with a slight frown.
Chuck smiled gently. "I promise you, we've been extra careful since then, because as much as we both—" He faltered. "—as much as I had started to warm up to the idea, we weren't really ready yet. Our lifestyle was still too dangerous."
Sarah took another bite, then a sip of wine, trying to process all that he had said. She swallowed and narrowed her eyes. "Just how 'extra careful' have we been?"
"I went back to using condoms and you switched from the Pill to an IUD. Part of the reason you thought you might be pregnant was that you'd missed a day when you'd been captured during a mission a few weeks earlier, and then when your period didn't start on the date you'd expected it..."
Sarah nodded. "So I switched to a more reliable method."
"Yes."
She took this in for a long moment, then looked up at him. "You said that only you had warmed up to the idea of starting a family. I hadn't wanted to have children yet?"
"No—you did. You were the one who first started pushing for us to get out of the spy business." Chuck pressed his lips together. "I just don't want to speak for you now."
"Thanks," she murmured.
Chuck's eyes unfocused and he smiled. "It all started with Molly."
"What did?"
Chuck focused on her again. "Oh, ah, you deciding that you wanted to get out of the spy business."
"Who's Molly?"
Chuck's face broke into a wide grin. "She's a great kid. Do you remember that infant girl in Hungary that you saved from Ryker and his gang?"
Sarah's mouth dropped open and she sat up straight. That had been her last mission, before she had woken up in the hotel room with Quinn, and she had sworn never to tell another soul about it, not even Director Graham, to protect the baby—and Chuck knew?
"It's okay, it's okay," he said quickly, putting up his hands. "She's safe. Ryker's dead and his accomplices are in prison. We caught them a couple of months ago, and your mom brought Molly here to finally meet you—to meet all of us."
Sarah's eyes stung, and she covered her mouth with a trembling hand for a long moment.
Chuck gave her a warm smile, then got up and walked across the room to pluck a picture frame off a shelf. He brought it back and gave it to her as he retook his seat. "Here. She's five now. She's beautiful and smart and funny, and totally adorable."
Sarah cradled the frame in her palms and stared down at the photo. It was of the four of them: herself, her mother, Chuck, and, in his arms, a little girl with dark blonde hair and dimples. All of them were smiling, although Chuck was beaming. Sarah ran one thumb along her mother's face, and the other along Molly's.
"Emma adopted her," Chuck explained. "You have a sister now."
Sarah glanced up and met his eyes, although her vision was blurred. She quickly wiped away the tears, then finished the job with her cloth napkin, giving a little laugh of disbelief.
"How is my mother?" she finally asked. "God, for her it's been five years!"
"Actually, no, just three weeks," Chuck said with a smile. "Every other weekend, they either come here or we go spend an afternoon with them." He sobered. "I had to cancel last week, though, because of everything that went down with Quinn."
"Right, of course..." Sarah murmured. She set the picture frame down on the table and looked up at him. "Does she know about—" Sarah gestured at herself. "—yet?"
"No, not yet. I'll call her and explain before we next see them."
"I want to talk to her."
"Yeah, of course, yeah." Chuck paused. "Wait, do you mean right now?"
"No, but maybe tomorrow."
"Sure, no problem." He jerked a thumb back toward Sarah's purse. "Her number is in the favorites list on your phone."
"Okay." Sarah let her gaze linger on the photo. Chuck looked so happy to be holding Molly, and she seemed perfectly comfortable being held by him. He was going to make a great dad.
Sarah released a long breath, then returned to her meal, letting her eyes linger on the photo while she marveled at how big Molly was. She hadn't been around many young children in her adult life, and it was easy for the years to pass by unnoticed—including the ones she remembered. Young children marked the rapid passage of time in a way that little else did. It was no wonder, if she had been spending a lot of time with Molly, that the question of having her own child had not only come up, but had started to feel pressing. Sarah had never been one to pay attention to the idea of a biological clock—she hadn't been much of a baby person as a teenager, and she and her father had never stayed anywhere long enough to build the kind of trust required for her to become a babysitter. Children were just something that other people had... until now.
She and Chuck ate in silence for a short while, and then he said, "We don't have to decide anything immediately. Between the Buy More and Castle, we had enough for a down payment, and we've got some savings. We'll be comfortable for a little while yet. It'll give us a nice breather. If there's anything on your bucket list, now might be a good time to do it."
Sarah nodded, then finished her last bite, wiped her mouth with her napkin, and sat back, tilting her head as she regarded him. "So you're willing to follow my lead, but what do you want to do? What would you have wanted, if I were still me right now?"
His eyes softened. "You are still you right now."
"You know what I mean."
"Yeah, I do, and you know what I mean."
She gave him a look, then chuckled. "Okay. But you still haven't answered my question."
He set down his wine glass and sat back, raising his eyebrows. "Well," he said, "I would have wanted to keep working on our house. It's in pretty good shape, but the bathrooms need to be updated and the kitchen could use a remodel. The countertops should be replaced. I was thinking granite: it's more expensive, but it'll last longer than any other material. The cabinetry woodwork is still in fine shape, but the appliances are old."
He frowned. "Speaking of which, we need to take a look at washers and dryers. I was thinking of going with some water-efficient front loaders, but we need to measure the space and see if we have to knock out a wall or pull up some of the laminate to make room. Most of the laundry machines on the market seem to have a bigger footprint than those old ones in the house, and we can't go with one of the smaller-footprint stacks because the fuse box and the fiber optics box are mounted right above them." He shook his head in annoyed disbelief. "I suppose I could rewire the boxes, but I don't want to deal with the vendors claiming I voided their warranties..."
Sarah laughed, and Chuck looked up from his musings.
"What?" he asked.
"Nothing," she said, taking a sip from her glass, and draining it. She gave the empty glass a playful twirl. "You're just cute when you talk home improvement." He gave her a lopsided grin, and she gestured at his glass, which was nearly empty. "Want some more wine?"
Oddly, Chuck glanced down at his watch. "No, thanks." At Sarah's curious look, he said, "It's nearly eight o'clock. If I drink too close to bedtime, the tannins give me reflux."
She smiled and shook her head, pouring herself a second glass. "It amazes me that you ever became a spy."
Chuck laughed. "Not nearly as much as it amazes me."
"So... we were moving into a new house, and Ellie and Devon are moving out. Where are they going?"
"Chicago. Ellie was offered an exclusive research fellowship in neurology at the University of Chicago Medical Center, and they offered Devon a position as head of the cardiology division."
"Wow. That's an amazing opportunity."
"I know, right?" Chuck said, then sobered. "Mom is thinking of moving out there, too."
"Of course. She wants to be close to her granddaughter."
"Yes, although—" Chuck made a face and scratched the back of his head. "I'm not sure how psyched Ellie and Devon are about that. Mom can be kinda..."
"Intense?" Sarah supplied, with a slight smile. Mary Bartowski had pulled a gun on her only the day before.
"Yeah..." Chuck winced. "She likes you, in her own way. She hasn't really adjusted to everyday social norms yet. I mean, I guess it's understandable: she spent twenty years in deep cover, surrounded by criminals and in close quarters with a dangerously-unstable, brilliant mass murderer."
Sarah's mouth dropped open.
Chuck sighed and waved a hand. "It's a long story. Anyway, my memories of her are just a series of childish moments. She was practical and efficient, and I knew she loved me, but she was also kind of distant, and she disappeared when I was nine. Ellie says that Mom was always a little intense. She's kind of on her own plane of existence, which is tipped slightly off the normal axis in the direction of spy-eat-spy."
"She sounds like my kind of person."
Chuck smirked. "Perhaps a little too much. That's probably why your relationship has always been a bit prickly."
Great. She had a mother-in-law that she wasn't on the best of terms with, the gun notwithstanding.
"Really, she likes you. More than that, you have her professional respect, which is perhaps—at least to her—even more important. She trusts you to protect me." Chuck grinned.
"I'm not sure how good I'll be at that for a while," Sarah said with a frown. "I'm going to need you to fill me in on every mission we've been on these past five years. It would be better to have mug shots, full dossiers, and current locations of all known threats, but we probably don't have access to that much at the moment. Maybe we should rejoin the CIA."
"Sarah," Chuck said, sitting forward and reaching for her hand. "I'd be happy to tell you everything I can, but you don't need to be worried. It's not your job to protect me from the world anymore."
She narrowed her eyes. "You do still have the Intersect, don't you?"
The smile fell from Chuck's face as he withdrew his hand and his eyes tracked away from hers.
"Yes," he admitted with a sigh, before looking back at her. "But only you, me, and Casey know about it."
"Can we trust him?"
"Who, Casey? Absolutely. With our lives."
She frowned. "Are you sure about that? Because from where I'm standing, right now you're worth a lot of money to the wrong people. Do we know where Casey was going when he left?"
Chuck set his jaw. "We can trust Casey. If you trust me, then trust him."
Sarah glared past Chuck's shoulder, then sighed. "I... do trust you. It's just that, from everything I've heard about Casey, he's not exactly known for loyalty to anyone but whoever's calling the shots on his current mission."
"He used to be like that, but Casey's changed," Chuck said. "He's got a daughter now."
"Really?" Sarah blinked. "I thought he wasn't the sort to get attached."
Chuck shrugged. "He's still not, for the most part. But it turns out that his fiancée, from before he got drafted into covert ops and had to burn all his civilian connections—they gave him a funeral and everything—well, she was pregnant, only he never knew about it until a couple of years ago. His daughter's name is Alex. She and Morgan are pretty serious. They're moving in together, actually."
"Wait—Morgan is in a relationship with Casey's daughter?" Sarah chuckled. "That must have been interesting."
"Yeah." Chuck grinned. "Lots of facepalms and even the occasional death threat. But it all worked out. Casey would do anything to make her happy, and Morgan makes her happy."
"Wow," Sarah said, shaking her head.
"I know." Chuck smiled and looked fondly nostalgic. "He's growing up."
"So what is it with you two?" Sarah asked.
"Me and Morgan?"
"Yeah."
Chuck shrugged. "He's my best friend—or was, until I met you. Now he's the next closest thing. We've been friends since we were six. We went through childhood and all the awkward stages of puberty, adolescence, and quarter-life crises together. He was there for me when my mom left, and then again when Dad disappeared. When Bryce got me kicked out of Stanford and totally derailed my life, Morgan was there to pick up the pieces. He and Ellie got me back on my feet. Sure, sometimes he can be wildly inappropriate, and he puts his foot in his mouth on a regular basis, but he's got a good heart, he's brave and resourceful, and he's loyal to a fault. He's family."
Sarah nodded.
"Is there anyone else you want to ask me about?"
"Casey," she said, still serious. "Why do you trust him?
Chuck pursed his lips and nodded. "Because he has saved our lives more times than I can count. Because he has never betrayed us, even when he had plenty of opportunity." Chuck leveled his gaze. "Because he's a friend."
"Do you know where he is?"
"Not precisely, no, but I know who he's probably with. Gertrude Verbanski."
"Verbanski Corp.," Sarah said with a nod. "Makes sense. With their reputation for efficiency and brutal but effective results, yeah, that seems right up Casey's alley. His skills would be welcome there."
"I'm sure they would be, but Casey could have found a new job anywhere. No, he's with Gertrude Verbanski."
Sarah's eyes widened. "Oh."
"Yeah." Chuck smiled.
"Is it... serious?"
"You mean marriage and kids? I doubt it. But who knows? Casey and Gertrude aren't what anyone would call... conventional. Apparently when they first met, she tried to kill him. She only managed to disarm him, though. And based on something Casey once said..." Chuck made a face. "...I can only infer that their skirmish turned into sex. And then they parted ways and she mounted his captured weapon in her office."
"That's... strange," Sarah said, grimacing.
"Tell me about it. After we started advertising ourselves as a private security firm, we kept running into Verbanski Corp., and Casey took it to the next level by stalking her—with your help, I might add—and planting a bug on her."
Sarah widened her eyes in disbelief. "I helped him stalk Gertrude Verbanski?"
"Yeah, you shipped them something fierce."
Her mouth fell open and she tilted her head in confusion. "I... what? Did I send them a panther or something?"
Chuck blinked. "Huh? Oh. No." He laughed. "You shipped them—it's a fandom thing—you know, when you want two characters to be in a romantic relationship?"
Sarah's frown deepened. "What's a fandom?"
"Oh, it's—" Chuck laughed and shook his head. "You know what? It doesn't matter." Still chuckling to himself, he finished off his wine and pushed his chair back from the table, picking up his plate as he rose. "The point is, you wanted them to get together. You even suggested where he should take her on their first date: a shooting range." Chuck grinned as he went into the kitchen. "From all accounts, it went great."
"It's still weird," Sarah said, picking up her dishes and following him.
"It's not my thing, either, but who are we to judge?"
Sarah laid her plate, utensils, and glass in the sink, then stood back, leaning her hip against the counter and crossing her arms while she watched Chuck load the dishwasher.
"I'm not judging, exactly, I'm just trying to wrap my head around it."
Chuck gave a short laugh. "Don't bother. It's never going to make sense." He lifted the dishwasher door with his foot, then nudged it closed with his hip and pivoted smoothly to begin hand-washing the wine glasses in the sink. "Would you grab the bottle?"
"Oh, sure." She went back out to the dining area and gathered up the napkins, clearing the table before she brought the bottle back. She peered around the kitchen. "Where's the cork?"
He glanced back at her. "Oh—right here." He picked up the cork and tossed it to her.
She caught it. "Thanks."
With a nod, he continued washing the last few items. When Sarah finished putting the wine in the fridge, she decided to take the opportunity to stand back and really look at him, unobserved. He wore an untucked dark olive button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows, a pair of blue jeans, and black Converses with white laces. The sneakers suited him, and made her smile. All of his clothing fit well, hinting at his frame without hiding it in yards of fabric or clinging in unflattering ways. Compared to the clothes in his earlier pictures, these clothes looked like something she would have helped him pick out, and she smiled, wondering if she had. The darker colors suited his skin tone and coloring; he didn't look as washed out as he had in the photos. Of course, that could have just been the effect of bad lighting and low-quality cell phone cameras, but still, there was an ease and a touch of class about him now.
In particular, she enjoyed the way the shirt fabric moved on his back and shoulders while he worked. He had nice shoulders, she decided, and a long torso that tapered to a narrow waist and hips. The proportions weren't an Adonis ideal, but relative to his long legs, the overall effect was... nice to look at. If she were standing beside him, she would have to look up to meet his eyes. As a tall woman, she was accustomed to most men being at or below eye level—especially when she was in heels—but even if she wore her stilettos, he would still have a couple of inches on her, in his bare feet. There was something undeniably appealing about that. And about the idea of him in his jeans and bare feet. She smiled, looking back up his frame again, finally letting her eyes trail down to his bare forearms.
He had apparently taken off his watch some time after they'd gotten home, but he still wore his wedding ring. She wondered if he ever took it off. Looking down at her own hand, she frowned. She had taken her wedding and engagement rings off after she'd realized that he had tricked her and switched out the Intersect glasses for a dud. There hadn't seemed to be much point in maintaining the ruse any longer. She just wished she hadn't put them in hock for the cash. But she couldn't have brought them with her when she went after Quinn—if she had been captured, any sign that Chuck still mattered to her would have made him a target all over again. She had to be the ruthless assassin to keep him safe.
She rubbed the empty place where the slim bands had been, and pressed her lips together.
"You okay?" Chuck asked.
Sarah looked up. "Oh, ah..." Chuck stood facing her, drying his hands on a dishtowel.
She frowned down at her left hand, quickly turning it over and flexing it into a brief, loose fist before dropping it to her side. "It's just... I don't have my rings anymore." She lifted her gaze to meet his.
Chuck nodded, but he didn't seem surprised or angry. He draped the towel back over the oven door handle, then straightened and pushed his hands into his pockets, his shoulders relaxed. "I know."
She frowned. "How? I could have just taken them off and kept them somewhere."
He gave her a half-smile. "No, it's not your style to hold on to mission mementos."
She smirked in wry agreement, then sobered and allowed herself to rub the empty ring-spot again. "I'm so sorry," she finally said with a sigh.
"They're just rings," he said. "They can be replaced. That is—" He pulled one hand out of his pocket in a quick, hedging gesture. "—if you want them to be."
She nodded and dropped her hand, not knowing what to say. She was willing to spend the night—was she willing to go through with all that doing so might entail? She didn't know yet, although she was certainly curious—but deciding whether to renew her wedding vows, that was an entirely different kettle of fish. She was finding it easier to trust him; it was herself that she didn't trust.
"No, they aren't just rings." She grimaced. "You've been nothing but kind to me since I woke up, and I've..." She winced and shook her head, looking down. "...I've made so many mistakes."
Chuck stepped up close to her. He had taken both of his hands out of his pockets, and he reached for her hands, grasping them lightly.
"Sarah," he said, and his voice drew her to lift her eyes up to meet his. "You don't need to apologize for anything that's happened. It wasn't your fault. You were doing the best you could, given what you knew. Besides, you apologized two weeks ago. I appreciated it then, too, but it wasn't necessary. I had already forgiven you."
Her eyes stung, but she blinked the tears back. "See, that's just it," she answered softly. "I wasn't doing the best I could. I was afraid, and I was looking out for myself. You confused the hell out of me because you were such a good man, and I... I couldn't believe anybody could be that good. Not in the spy world." She looked down, baring her teeth in self-disgust. "I just automatically gravitated toward the ugly lie, when the..." She withdrew one hand from his grasp and lifted it to cup his cheek, raising her eyes to meet his again. "...beautiful truth was standing right in front of me."
He blinked, his eyes suddenly bright with contained emotion. This way he had of coming to tears so easily and unexpectedly, his pain and his joy expressed without hesitation—it tugged at her and drew her in. She envied his ability to feel so easily. He wasn't afraid to be himself, and his honesty made her feel safe enough to be honest, too.
"I let the lie turn me into a monster," she whispered. "I thought you were the monster, but I was the cold killing machine. I kidnapped Ellie and held her at gunpoint, for God's sake!" Sarah started to pull her hand away from his face, but Chuck captured it and squeezed it gently. Sarah pressed on. "You begged me to believe you. You gave me every chance. You never hit me back, even if it meant that you—you took an awful beating." She pulled her hands out of his and looked down at his torso with a wince, lightly running her fingers over his shirt. Her throat closed up as she tried to finish. "You kept your vows."
His warm hands cupped her elbows. "You didn't remember yours," he said. "No one would have held you to them."
"It's just—" She squeezed her eyes shut, but it was no use; the hot, stinging tears pushed out anyway. "I can't help thinking how different it all would have been if you were the one who had his memories taken away. You would never have done what I did!" Her chest burned, and she gritted her teeth and twisted, bending in on herself—but he stopped her, pulling her into a strong embrace that kept her upright. His arms wrapped more tightly around her and he pressed his head against the top of hers. A sob wracked her, but he didn't let go.
She choked on her words. "I thought I was one of the good guys!"
"You are!" Chuck insisted, gravel in his voice. "God, I hate that Quinn did this to you!"
"No." She shook her head and straightened, swallowing a sob and forcing her breathing to calm. Flexing her jaw, she pushed back, and Chuck's grip on her loosened. "He didn't make me into this person." She sniffed sharply and lifted her head to fix him with a firm gaze. Did Chuck even really know her? "I've been this person for a long time. Quinn just revealed the real me."
"No, you used to be this person," Chuck said. "But this isn't the real you, it's just what you can do. Before you became Sarah Walker, the CIA's top agent and Langston Graham's wildcard assassin, you were Sam, a lonely girl who loved her father and mother, and dreamed of having what you never did: a stable home and family."
Sarah swallowed and frowned up at him.
Chuck paused, narrowing his eyes and tilting his head in question. "From what I've gathered, Graham didn't give you much choice about joining the CIA, did he?"
"He didn't force me."
"No, but he recruited you as a vulnerable teenager, straight out of high school. Did you have anyone else looking out for you after your father was taken into protective custody?"
"I wasn't coerced," Sarah repeated. "The CIA promised me a job, a college degree, marketable skills..." She trailed off with a bitter smile. "I got all those things."
"Yeah." Chuck pressed his lips together, straightening again. "The point is, I know you didn't stop being lethal when you married me—" He gave her a small, lopsided grin. "—and I never expect you to. More than once, I have spent the night beside you, fully aware that you could kill me with nothing more than your pinky finger."
Sarah laughed, then shook her head and looked down. But a moment later, she had to raise her head when his fingers caught her chin and tugged it back up.
"I'm not done yet," he said, all trace of humor gone, and she swallowed and held his gaze. "About a year ago, the thing we'd all been dreading finally happened: I was captured by someone who had discovered I was the Intersect, and they wanted to sell the data—to sell me—to the highest bidder." Chuck released her chin, but she didn't look away, captivated now. "General Beckman made a bad call. Honestly, so did I. I was separated from you and Casey, and sent on a mission halfway around the planet. I was trying to prove something that didn't need to be proved: that I could be an agent without the Intersect."
Sarah frowned. "But I thought you said—"
"It had been suppressed against my will," Chuck explained. "Long story. In any case, the guy who had captured me, code-named The Belgian, didn't know that. He killed the other CIA agent who was on the mission with me, then injected me with something to knock me out, and we went off the radar. You and Casey spent a week chasing down leads in half a dozen countries, looking for me, and every lead turned out to be nothing. He said you became more and more erratic, you weren't sleeping, and you refused to listen to reason. When another lead turned up, you violated international law without a second thought and kidnapped a Thai diplomat out of his own embassy, then threatened to burn him from the inside out with a syringe filled with ammonia."
She winced.
"Morgan said you were seriously scary," Chuck continued. "But it worked. The diplomat told you what you needed to know to find me, and you took the next flight to Thailand. Casey and Morgan got on another one shortly after that, and by the time they caught up with you a day or so later, you'd fought your way across half the jungles of Thailand, leaving a trail of unconscious bodies in your wake. Word got out. They started calling you 'The Giant Blonde She-Male'." A tiny, cold smile tugged at the corners of Chuck's mouth. "By the end, if someone just spotted you coming, a shout would go up and everyone would flee."
Sarah frowned. It sounded like some kind of ridiculous legend, but Chuck was telling the story as if it were true. Although the thought of someone trying to hurt him made something coil in her belly—
"You ended up in a pit match against a local warlord's top hit man, and as if that wasn't enough, the pit also contained a cobra. If you won the match, the warlord would tell you where he'd given The Belgian a place to do his human-trafficking experiments. You won, but Morgan said that he had to dig human teeth out of your arm. By the time you finally made it to me, you were a bloody mess." Chuck smiled. "Casey said you still looked better than the other guy."
Sarah tried to smile, but there was a cold lump settling in the pit of her stomach. "What had The Belgian done to you?"
Chuck frowned and glanced to the side. "Mostly just psychological torture. I didn't have access to the Intersect, and they kept trying to manipulate my subconscious to activate it. When that didn't work, they finally just tried to cause a death of personality and leave only the Intersect intact, since they assumed that I was refusing to access it. They started performing a lobotomy without a scalpel, essentially." At Sarah's gasp, Chuck looked back at her. "It nearly worked."
His gaze drifted away again, fixing on a spot over her head. "I remember..." He frowned. "...the lights going out. Everything felt smaller, like the walls were closing in, parts of my life just... gone. Everyone I knew was taken away, separated from me by barriers that I couldn't reach through. The last place I came was here..." There was a dreamlike note in his voice now. "The windows and the walls had shattered, and the glass was everywhere, shards streaming through the air, through me. There was a bright light beyond them, the only light left, and I walked toward it—" Chuck's whole face contracted. "I accepted it."
"Accepted what?" Sarah whispered.
He blinked, returning to himself, his face clearing. He refocused on her, and as he took her in, he swallowed and smiled.
"My death."
She stared at him as he began to rub her upper arms, his smile warming as he continued.
"But then I heard your voice, and all the shattered pieces disappeared. The apartment was still standing. I walked toward you, but I had trouble believing it was really you, because... Well, let's just say that they had done a real number on me." Chuck reached up and cradled the sides of her head in his palms, his eyes growing bright. He swallowed. "But you kissed me, and I felt it—and woke up."
"I guess those magical kisses are real," she murmured, letting a small smile tug at her lips.
Chuck exhaled a laugh, dropping his hands to her upper arms, where he gave her shoulders a brief caress with his thumbs before releasing her and standing back. "By Morgan's fairy tale logic, though, they only work one way, if you think about it."
She frowned slightly. "What do you mean?"
"It's always the prince whose kiss wakes the damsel in distress—or in my case, the dude in distress. It's never the other way around."
Sarah smirked. "So you're saying I'm the kickass princess?"
"Yeah, definitely," Chuck said with a laugh.
She sobered. "But now I'm the one who needs to be woken up."
He pressed his lips together. "I want your memories to return, too," he said quietly. "But even if they never do, you're strong. You have what it takes to do more than just survive. You're amazing. You always have been." He gestured in a way that took all of her in. "You've reinvented yourself more times than you probably even realize, and you can do it again. I'm not sure I've got the resources to survive what you've gone through, but I am sure that you do."
"Even so," she said, frowning as she stood up a little straighter, "it doesn't change the fact that when circumstances push me to my limit, I'm a liar, a thief, and a killer."
"But not for your own gain," Chuck said softly, lifting his hands, palms up. "You have the strength to do these things to protect the people you care about. There is a time for fighting, and you're very good at it, and I don't want you to be any other way." He drew closer, reaching out to run his hands down her forearms until her palms were in his grasp. "And when the fight is over, you are warm, kind, generous... and beautiful." He let out a shaky breath, smiling at her through his tears. "What I'm trying to say is that I wouldn't be standing here right now if you weren't exactly who you are." He gave her hands a gentle press. "We work well together, Sarah. You bring out the best in me, and I bring out the best in you."
She arched an eyebrow. "I'm not sure beating up half of Thailand's thugs is really me at my best."
"No, you're right," he said, nodding, his expression serious. "Your best is probably all of Thailand's thugs."
She laughed and then sighed. "I don't know if I can do this, Chuck. I want to believe you. I want to believe in myself. But this is all so, so..." She withdrew a hand and waved it at the small, homey apartment, with all of its picture frames and the stability that the unfamiliar surroundings implied. "...different from what I'm used to. I don't know who I am if I'm not a spy. I don't know how to be anything else."
"Do you want to be a spy?" Chuck asked.
She pulled her other hand out of his grasp and turned away with a shake of her head, pacing into the living room. "Honestly?" she said. "This morning, I might have said yes. But now...?" She exhaled and frowned. "I don't know. What I do know—" She turned on her heel to face him. "—is that as long as you have the Intersect, you're going to be a target. The story about The Belgian only makes me more certain of it. I mean, what if we do stay out of the spy business, keep our heads down, don't ruffle any feathers?
"There's no guarantee that someone won't get curious about what happened to the Intersect glasses. I know the official report says that Quinn used them before I shot him, but that's awfully neat and convenient. Someone with a suspicious nature won't buy it; they'll try to test it. It's what I would do. Quinn wasn't working alone; he had labs and co-conspirators. He had resources, connections, favors he could call in. We stopped him, but what about the rest of the organization he was a part of?"
"From what he said, I had the sense that he was running his own rogue operation," Chuck said with a frown. "With him gone, they're probably scrambling for direction right now."
"A dangerous state of affairs, since there could be multiple actors with sensitive, valuable intel that they're looking to sell. Getting curious about the people who took out Quinn would be at the top of their list."
Chuck nodded and bit his lip. "I agree. What are you proposing? That we go back to Beckman and ask her to let us track them all down?"
"No," Sarah said. "I'm not proposing anything. I'm just saying that even in the best-case scenario, you're still a person of interest. From what you've told me, it seems like you can't always control when you flash. And given how you looked the one time I saw you flash, you have a distinctive, visible reaction when it happens. So if someone wanted to find out if you had the Intersect, all they'd have to do was expose you to a trigger and then watch your response. You could 'accidentally' bump into some random person on the street and the jig would be up."
Chuck's frown deepened and he crossed his arms. "It's worse than that," he admitted. "They could put an image or an audio trigger on a TV in a public place and catch my reaction on a security camera. They wouldn't even need to send a human agent."
"How were you not discovered before?" she asked, incredulous.
"Because they didn't know where to look or what to look for," he answered. "We got a lot of mileage out of security by obscurity." His mouth quirked bitterly. "And out of you and Casey executing nearly everyone who did discover it." Sarah gave him a mirthless smile, and Chuck continued. "But word started to leak out, particularly once Shaw went rogue, and the only solution was to make sure everyone knew that we no longer had the Intersect."
"Yeah, that worked really well."
"It did, for a while," Chuck said. "Quinn came out of left field, but you're right: he wasn't working alone." Chuck frowned. "About six months ago, Decker told me that there was some kind of master plan that has been making our lives hell for the past five years, a plan that started long before I ever downloaded the first Intersect. He told me I was just a pawn in a larger game."
Sarah frowned. "Do you believe him?"
"I don't know. It was the kind of belittling, mess-with-your-head move that he would make, even if it weren't true."
"Yeah. But it's worrisome. It makes me think this whole situation is far from over."
Chuck sighed and dropped his arms. "But that's exactly what he wanted us to fear, and I refuse to do it. Conspiracy theories offer a kind of comfort, because they imply a certain design to what is actually just a vast, complex web of largely random interactions. Nobody wants to admit that they have no idea what the hell is going on, because that's even more frightening."
Sarah gave him an incredulous look. "You can't possibly be that naïve. For spies, it's always truths wrapped in lies wrapped in half-truths and more lies."
"And sometimes, it's just a group of desperate people whose mad, selfish plans keep getting blocked, so they thrash around, making mistakes and losing more pieces in their little 'game'," Chuck said. "They want you to believe they're in control of the pieces, because they can use fear to keep you from fighting back. But there were too many random variables that they couldn't possibly have controlled. If there really is some Illuminati-level plot buried deep in the U.S. government whose aim is to play with my life—which I seriously doubt, I'm not that important—then we've dealt them a lot of serious blows these past five years. We've taken down Fulcrum, Roark, the Ring, the GRETA project, Volkoff, Decker, Shaw, the Omen virus, and Quinn, not to mention revealing that the identity of Orion, the original designer of the Intersect, was my father. And we blew up not just one, but three separate Intersect terminals. If there was some master plan, it must be in tatters by now."
Sarah crossed her arms and jutted her jaw. "And if there is a chessmaster—or a group of them—they've probably retreated to lick their wounds. But I don't want to be caught off guard. If there was some master plan, they're going to regroup."
"I don't want to be caught out, either. But given how much infrastructure we dismantled, it could take years for them to rebuild what they lost."
"Assuming that's what they want to do."
"We just don't know," Chuck sighed, "and I, for one, am not going to put my life on hold to sit around worrying about a bunch of shadowy, theoretical figures. General Beckman didn't get to be where she is without knowing how to do her job. I don't trust her entirely, but I do believe that she'll look out for us, and she'll let us know if we need to be on the alert."
"Assuming she can."
"Yeah," Chuck said, but he sounded weary. He was standing beside the table, and he pulled out a chair and sank down into it. "I just want to be done," he said. "Ten years ago, the Intersect Project stole my future from me. I didn't know it at the time, but that was why Bryce got me kicked out of Stanford—to protect me from a worse fate. My ability to store subliminal visual data and accurately recall it is off the charts, apparently. I was the ideal Intersect candidate, but as you've pointed out yourself, I'm not exactly traditional spy material."
Sarah nodded slowly, her nostrils flaring in distaste. "So when you failed the field-agent training, they would have loaded the Intersect into you anyway and kept you in a bunker somewhere."
She pulled out a chair and sat down kitty-corner to him. Something cold twisted inside her at the thought of him being imprisoned and treated as a slave or a lab rat.
Chuck nodded. "Bryce did me a huge favor, but it cost us both. It was the end of our friendship. Five years later, when he sent the first Intersect to me, I think he was working with my father. The two of them threw a huge monkey wrench into whatever master plan had been set in motion. I've been the random element, bouncing around in the works for the last five years, and laying waste to all sorts of gears."
Chuck gave her a tired smile and held up a hand for a mocking high-five, which she clearly wasn't expected to return. "Team Bartowski for the win." He expelled a long breath. "I'm done. I'm done with letting the various elements of the Intersect Project try to corral, use, capture, or kill me. I want the future that I've dreamed of with Morgan since we were in middle school."
Sarah blinked. "You want a future with Morgan?"
Chuck looked up, confused, then laughed wryly. "No—I mean, yes, I want him in my life and my future, but, no—" Chuck's amusement faded and he rested an elbow on the table, reaching up to rub his eyelids. He dropped his hand and looked at her. "No, I mean, Morgan and I have been dreaming of a certain future since we were in middle school. We used to plan out all the details, and we would revise them over and over."
Sarah smiled and crossed her legs, settling back in her chair. "What sort of future?"
Chuck shook his head slowly, exhaling, and he made a brief wave with his hand, his elbow still resting on the table. "Beautiful wives..." He gave her a sad smile. "Happy children running around with little superhero capes on, families that stayed together for a lifetime. Years of movie nights and lame in-jokes and gaming marathons. Being there for our kids when they graduated from high school. Boring stuff to most people, but the kind of thing that he and I both wished we had growing up, you know?"
"What happened to his parents?" Sarah asked.
"His father abandoned them when Morgan was little, and his mom—she had to work two or three jobs just to keep a roof over their heads. She was either always working, or she was exhausted. She loved him, but she didn't have a lot left for him. That's why he spent a lot of time at my house growing up. It was better than being home alone."
Sarah nodded and looked down at her hands. She knew that feeling only too well.
"After I got kicked out of Stanford, I went into a tailspin," Chuck said. "I had hoped that Jill and I—she was my college sweetheart, but she told me she was sleeping with Bryce, only I later found out that she wasn't, but by then it turned out she was a Fulcrum agent and she seduced me and then tried to turn me over to them—" Chuck closed his eyes and covered them with his hand. "God, my life sounds like a spy soap opera." He ran his hand down his face, then looked up as he let his hand fall away. "Anyway... I had hoped that she and I might... last, you know? But then she and Bryce—well, I fell into a hole for five years."
Chuck sighed. "Ellie and Morgan did their best, but I had no idea what to do with myself. The things I thought I had wanted were permanently out of my reach. I mean, who is going to hire somebody who got kicked out of a top university? And if I couldn't get a good job, what could I possibly offer a woman, never mind a beautiful one who could have her pick of a world full of better prospects? I couldn't provide for her, or any children we might have."
He shrugged. "So I just avoided thinking about it. I avoided dating like the plague, and I played a lot of video games with Morgan. I knew the Buy More job was a dead end, but at least I was good at it, and I had my coworkers' respect. I was comfortable there, except for the part where I could always hear Ellie's voice in the back of my head, telling me I was meant for better things." Chuck sighed. "And thus I would have gone on indefinitely, were it not for you."
Sarah smiled and reached for his hand. He looked down at their joined fingers and swallowed, pressing his lips in a tight smile.
"I was fond of Jill," he said, "but I didn't know what love was until I met you."
A lump rose in Sarah's throat and she forced it down. She was beginning to understand what he meant.
Chuck turned his hand over under hers and intertwined their fingers. "Someone once asked me if you were worth dying for, and for an instant, I couldn't understand why he would have to ask. It wasn't even a question for me. It was just—of course. You were Sarah. So you see..." He squeezed her hand. "...what I did back at our house, when Quinn was there? It wasn't a sacrifice, or anything extraordinary, not to me. It was as natural as breathing. I couldn't have not done it."
Yes, she would fight her way across Thailand for this man. She would walk into the jaws of death itself, if it meant protecting him.
Tears welled up in her eyes—God, how many times had this happened today? He was turning her into as much of an emotional incontinent as he was!—and she laughed softly. She pulled on his hand, tugging him close, and they leaned over the corner of the table until their foreheads were touching. She closed her eyes and cupped the back of his head, and he rested his free hand on her knee.
They held that position for a long moment, and then he tilted his head up slightly, nudging her cheek with his nose. She turned her head and met him for a kiss. It was sweet, and rather wet, and when they pulled apart, they both gave a soft laugh as they dried their faces.
"Everything that you said about what you wanted for the future," she whispered. "I want it, too. All of it."
His eyes widened. "Really?"
"Yeah."
Chuck suddenly sat back, gently extracting himself from her grasp. "Just a sec."
He got to his feet and quick-walked around the corner, disappearing down the hall toward the bedroom.