Enjoy.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

You're late / 4:10 PM / 4-9-2012 / Carmichael Industries

Chuck kept pacing back and forth in the main Carmichael Industries laboratory. He'd already walked into the lobby three times, once into the parking garage.

Ellie smiled as she tried to settle Chuck down, "I'm going to have to buy you a new pair of shoes for your birthday if you don't quit pacing."

Ellie laughed, Chuck didn't. Chuck almost never got upset with Ellie, but he was upset that Ellie was making jokes about this.

Chuck very frustratingly said to Ellie, "Sarah's late. She's never late for anything. Now, she's late for what might be the most important date in her life. Today's the day we're going to restore her memory. Where is she? I hope she's OK."

Ellie thought using the word 'late' was funny. She was afraid to she show her amusement, as Chuck might hit her like he did when he was ten. "Chuck, Sarah and I've been spending lots of time together this past week. This memory issue is important to her. She's afraid to lose her new memories. I'm sure she has cold feet. I don't know where she is, but I'm guessing she is somewhere thinking. She'll be fine. The most important thing, she loves you very much. Of that I'm one thousand per cent sure!" Ellie could not come right out and tell Chuck what was wrong or right in this case, even though she knew some of the story for fact, and could guess the rest.

Finally, Chuck got a text message from Sarah. "Chuck, I need a little time to sort things out. I'm fine, don't worry. I'll meet you at the apartment in an hour or two, then we can talk."

Sort things out, that isn't good, thought Chuck. But it sounds like she's OK, not kidnapped or anything. 'Sort some things out' is what she said … hmmm … I have an idea. Chuck didn't hesitate with his next move. "Ellie, I'll be back."

Ellie smiled at her little brother, "Good, you two are finally going to talk. It's about time."

Chuck raced down the stair case, flew past the receptionist, and jumped into his Hummer. He was only a few minutes from his destination.

As he was driving, he laughed at himself. He realized he could have tracked Sarah with his GPS locater earlier, but he was so upset, he forgot all about it. He turned the tracker on, and sure enough, Sarah was exactly where he thought she'd be. When he arrived, he saw Sarah's Porsche in a familiar parking spot. He got out of his car, knowing exactly where to find her.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The way we were / 4:20 PM / 4-9-2012 / the beach

Sarah spotted Chuck as soon as he descended the small hill which overlooked the beach. She watched him move towards her, and she happily waved at him as soon as he made eye contact. When he was near enough, she welcomed him with a smile and said, "What took you so long?"

Chuck was enormously relieved, both in finding Sarah and in her general demeanor. He responded to his wife's friendly voice in his best nerd imitation from the past, "Well, …. you said you needed some time, I thought you deserved at least ten minutes."

"Did you use the GPS system to find me?" Sarah was in a great mood, which surprised Chuck.

Chuck, continuing in his self deprecating nerd manner that Sarah loved, "Well, eventually. I was a little panicked and forgot, pretty much until I pulled into the parking lot here, then I remembered." Chuck laughed uneasily at himself.

Sarah scooted over on her blanket, and patted the spot next to her for her husband, "Sit down next to me, we need to talk."

Chuck sat down and studied his wife. What's going on with her, he thought?

Sarah was listening to the radio, which was rare for her. She tried to find the right words to start with. 'The Way We Were" began to play on the radio as she began. "Chuck, I'm not the person I was five years ago, not even close. My environment with you changed me, permanently, no matter what was done to my brain. The way you looked at me knocked me off me feet, right from the start, even when I thought you were the enemy. But even more, the way Morgan tries so hard to be my friend, how Ellie is the big sister I never had, how Alex treats me like her big sister, and how kind and gentle the man formerly known as John Casey has become towards all of us. How all of you view me, makes me the person I am, not my memories."

Chuck looked stunned, "But, Sarah, getting your memory back is all we talked about for the past few months, making you whole again. I know you were worried, but then all of a sudden, you changed, you wanted your memory back really bad the last few days."

"That's not exactly what changed Chuck, what I wanted, is to stop the risk losing more memories. I didn't want to risk having the most important conversation in our lives and forgetting about it. That's why I've been in such a hurry."

"What conversation is that?" Chuck was clueless.

"One mission at a time Chuck. First, I want to explain. I've grown fond of the pictures and voices from the past. I enjoy putting the faded snapshots into place. I have my own personal jigsaw puzzle located inside of my brain that I get to play everyday. And when I get stuck, I have you and all my family and friends to help me find the missing pieces. I've had so much fun with Ellie the past few weeks, she's told me so many stories. We laugh all the time about the old me. And who else in the world gets to hear about their own wedding from someone else's point of view without having any bias to cloud the perspective? And she tells me how much Awesome and her used to talk about us, how the spy life we lived which they knew nothing about, made us appear so strange to them. We were the subject of many of their breakfast chats." Sarah laughed, a gentle, content, easy type of laugh.

Chuck continued to object, "I don't understand Sarah."

Sarah asked Chuck a question, "Does it bother you that I can't remember every detail of the past?"

That question stopped Chuck in his tracks, "I never thought of that Sarah, no, of course not. I've been happier than the last few months with you than ever before, and before I was pretty happy. I appreciate you more, us more. And even though the fate of the world rested in our hands, I've had fun because you were with me. We're a great team. But don't you want to remember everything?"

"I did Chuck, at first, but now I don't want to risk losing my new memories, no matter how small the risk. And, I don't want to lose any part of the person I've become. The biggest thing I learned the past few months, is I can't go back and change the past. I'm now this person. If I recover my memories, then what person am I? Am I the old Sarah that we both lost on the bullet train? Am I a blend of the old and the new with no consequences? Or, and this is the bad one, do I become someone all together different? I don't want anything like what happened with Quinn ever affecting my brain again. I don't want to go through that again. Once we got back together, this me, as your wife, I could not have asked for anything more. Yet life gives me more and more each day ever since we got back together on this very beach, in this very spot. I don't know what I've done to deserve such blessings, such magic."

"Baby, that's so beautiful. I feel the same way. Are you sure?" Chuck was beginning to get the picture.

"I've never been more sure of anything in my life, I want to be this person, unchanged, who I am right now, how I am right now, this is perfect for me ..." Sarah then stopped talking and stared into Chuck's eyes.

Chuck studied her face. The look in her face was changing, from serious, to something else. Chuck didn't quite know what mood her face reflected. Chuck saw beauty, in a way he couldn't describe, a beauty that he had never seen before, in Sarah or in anyone. He wondered why she stopped talking. Chuck learned after six years with Sarah, that he had to keep quiet at these times, and let Sarah have a moment to finish her thoughts. He wondered how things might have turned out if he would have learned that lesson years earlier. Regardless, now he needed to resist the urge to press Sarah. Then he got an idea, maybe if he held her hand like last time on the beach it would help.

As Chuck reached for Sarah's hand, instead, it was Sarah who grasped Chuck's. She spun around to face Chuck while going to one knee, much like Chuck had done on the beach where she found herself lost and all alone three months ago.

"Chuck, I have more to tell you." Again, Sarah's pace slowed.

Chuck thought to himself, all this silence is killing me, but keep quiet Bartowski, if you don't say a word, Sarah will tell you what is going on, give her some time. God, she's squeezing my hand tightly he thought, she's really gripping down, what's going on?

Chuck didn't realize it, but the words that followed were going to change everything, nothing ever again would be the same.

"Chuck ... Chuck …. Chuck …. don't freak out. I …. I ... I'm ..., we're ….., PREGNANT. You're going to be a dad, I'm going to be a mom. Can you believe it Chuck? Your going to be a dad and I'm going to be a mom, we're having BABIES, Chuck! BABIES. TRIPLETS! Three times the fun. Tra la la la!"

"BABIES? Triplets. Wha, Wha, Wha ….?" As the scene ends, we are left with those words, and a picture worth framing of Sarah holding Chuck while he feinted into her arms, on the beach where it all began.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

One more chapter remains. The last chapter is titled You Can Do Magic, think that song vs the final scene of the Return of the Jedi and you will be well on your way to understanding the final chapter of my story.

I've teased Sarah's pregnancy throughout, and was pleased to deliver on my tease in the chapter above. I really hope most of you at least liked it.

Did anyone notice that I used the number three or multiples of three often throughout the fourteen chapters? I was trying to foreshadow triplets. Xena barked three times. Shaw got shot three times, twice. Gepetto took three to the head. Chuck would often go Wha, Wha, What, etc.

Thanks to all those who read my story. And a special thanks to those who faithfully reviewed chapters, I did not get real many reviews compared to most published stories. But, I appreciated each and every one.