A/N1 Let me begin by thanking folks for hanging in there. You've taken a leap of faith across almost 200K words. An old-fashioned word that I like, 'long-suffering', seems an appropriate description: you've been long-suffering. I've put us through the wringer. Thank you.

As Sarah thinks often enough in this story for it to be something of a refrain, we should have seen it coming. In the pilot, she told Chuck - and the viewers - that she had a lot of baggage. Chuck volunteered himself as her baggage handler, not knowing how much or what kind of baggage she had. One of the most beautiful and tragic features of human life is our power to promise ourselves beyond what we know, foresee. (Love: friendship, marriage, parenthood.) And, despite what we come to know, our power sometimes to keep those promises.

Chuck's promise is sorely tested. The promise Sarah makes in response - the promise she effectively makes when she asks him to trust her - is also sorely tested. But the trial is almost over.

I opened my Chuck book by pointing out that two intertwined Bildungsromans compose the show, the story of two people in the midst of great changes, and changing as they do largely because of each other. That is another of the beautiful and tragic features of human life, our power to change and to be changed by others. The people we know form crucial parts of us and of our destinies. To deny that is to live in a fantasy of independence, to fail to know that human beings are, as Aristotle rightly declared, social animals. (Anyone who lives alone (independent), he says, is either a beast or a god.)

Sarah and Chuck walk each other to the brink, and then they stop, pull each other back (with a little help from a friend). They save each other, and they go on saving each other through the rest of the show.

After restructuring and abstracting away from many episode details, I return to some here, mostly those of American Hero but some of Other Guy. So, this one starts rough, but, well, you know how it ends...

We are through the bulk of the story sequence. There is one final story in S3, two stories coming for S4, one for S5, and two post-finale stories.

Don't own Chuck.

The (Mis)Education of Sarah Walker

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Back on the Chain Gang (Part Three):

Appearance and Reality

Faith is limited to that ideal region where, apart from faith, doubt is possible. [Faith's] positive essence lies in the overcoming or prevention of doubt, actual or possible, as to an idea. And the doubt further...must be excluded in a way which cannot in the ordinary sense be called logical. The non-logical overcoming from within of doubt as to an idea, or the similar prevention of such doubt, appears, so far, to be the general essence of faith.

- F. H. Bradley, "Faith", Essays in Truth and Reality

Faithless?

Shaw and I fly back to Burbank. He is lost in files on the Ring, reading, re-reading, turning the wedding ring he is not wearing on his finger, but that he imagines is there.

I don't know what I am doing here, with him, except that I have nowhere else to be. I start trying to do what I do. Compartmentalize. I start trying to find a way to compartmentalize Chuck, Burbank. Ellie and Devon. The family I almost had. I need to put them behind me, a past mission. Close the file. New mission. Mission. DC. Shaw.

The one time Shaw looks at me, I give him my best smile. I have to move the muscles. But maybe if I keep doing it, over time it will seem spontaneous to me.

We get back to Burbank, back to Castle. In the time we have been gone, Chuck has left me message after message on my phone. I deleted each without listening to it. I can't forget him if I take his messages.

I am with Shaw now. Last night, whatever might be said about it, was me committing to being with him, body if not soul. This, this is what I signed on for. He is a good spy. That will have to be enough. It should be - I am nothing but a spy myself. What more am I offering him than he is offering me? A perfect match.

ooOoo

Chuck finds me in Castle. He is going to be sent on assignment to Rome. He gets to pick his team. He wants me.

He wants me.

What is he thinking? Doesn't he know what I have done, can't he guess? What the time in DC meant?

Even stranger, how can he seem so much like Chuck? Doesn't he know what he had done? I feel lost suddenly, dizzy, gyroscope malfunction. What is happening? How can Chuck be...Chuck?

I know this man. Chuck frets over switching from peppermint to spearmint toothpaste. How can he gun a man down in cold blood and then focus only on a glamorous-sounding assignment? In my worst Enforcer days, moving fast and feeling nothing, I never managed this, this lack of reaction. What the hell?

I tell him I cannot go. He does not understand. How can he not understand? I tell him.

"I saw you kill the mole." I am cold all over. Flinty. If he won't react to it, I will. I will force him to acknowledge what he has done. Kill, Chuck, you killed a man.

He stalls. I see thoughts, feelings flash in his eyes. Reluctance. What are you reluctant about, Chuck? Admitting that you killed the mole to me, or to yourself? You are no longer you. Even if you seem like you.

But he does not do what I expect. Instead of trying to justify killing the mole, he makes a distinction. "I know what you think you saw." Think I saw. Think? I saw him kill the mole. Didn't I?

Shaw comes in, forces himself into the conversation, forces us apart. I am too angry and confused to stand there. I leave.

What is Chuck playing at? Can he suddenly lie this perfectly? A killer and a liar? He did not seem like he was lying. But I saw what I saw, my version of what he saw in the Christmas tree lot.

...Except I didn't see what he saw. He saw me pull the trigger. I saw him standing over a dead man. I heard the shot but I did not see it. I am a spy. I know that appearance and reality not always identical. God, how I know that! But there is no other explanation.

Doubts fill me. Doubts about Chuck. Doubts about my own eyes.

I push it from my mind. Shaw is taking me out tonight, a date. It is now time for me to be with him. My new life. Shaw's...partner. I make myself stop thinking about Chuck, glass dividers in place. We go out. I try to enjoy the evening. Cope, Sarah. Shaw is my rebound, my ricochet. I suppose I am his.

The restaurant, I tell him, is nice. He corrects me. It is perfect. I keep my smile in place, but that word is no longer mine to use. Still, I am going to make this work. The last few weeks have been so dark. I have made my decision. I focus on the meal, on Shaw, and I push other things from my mind.

I killed Chuck. I ruined him. A termination mission I did not know I had accepted until he pulled the trigger. The mission is done. Chuck is done. Terminated. New mission. Mission. Shaw. No more Chuck. No more comparisons. Nice. This is nice.

This will never be what I could have had with Chuck, but it what it is.

It will have to be enough. I need to stop thinking about Chuck. Maybe I can.

I can't because when Shaw gets up to take a call, Chuck joins me at the table. When I see him, my half-real, half-fake mood, the one I was in for Shaw, the one I was trying to make real, deflates. I feel my shoulders sag, my expression shift. He affects me like no one else ever has.

And right now, he is making me angry. Anger terror. I hide the terror.

Let me go, Chuck! It is over. You killed the mole. I ruined you. My work here is done, God help me. Let me pick up the shards and glue them into something livable. Shaw can't help me cope if you keep forcing comparisons with you.

I snap at him. "What are you doing here?"

Here's here for me.

But I have told him. He doesn't get to have me.

I respond. "What do you want me to say?"

That has always been the question between us and I have always known the answer: He wants me to say 'I love you, Chuck'. Even if I didn't know, or wouldn't admit the answer was true until my mudbath. It is still true. I love you, Chuck.,

My anger intensifies. The pain is coming back. Everything I pushed away rises again. Why isn't he more upset? Could he be telling me the truth? Doubts.

He says he will do anything to get me to go to Rome.

Then do this. "Tell me what happened at the tracks!"

Again, he stalls. Why? What are you thinking, Chuck, what are you so reluctant to tell me? He is genuinely reluctant. I know him and I know his reluctance. I know how often over three years he has given me this look, reluctant to say or do something for fear of my reaction - or non-reaction.

He finally admits that he is keeping a secret. A secret? He does not want there to be any secrets between us. Neither do I. I don't want anything between us. This table, these clothes, nothing. I want him naked against me, me naked against him. Stop. Stop, Sarah.

But I don't understand. What is the secret?

Before I can ask, he changes tack. He tells me that he is still the same guy I met at the Buy More that first day. As I look at him, he must see the question marks in my eyes. The man seated across from me, beautiful in his suit, nervous still, but now assured in his manner beneath the nervousness, this is not the man I met at the Buy More. This is Chuck. The same, but different.

And then Chuck agrees, reading my mind. He tells me that he is not that guy anymore, because that guy hated himself for not knowing what he wanted to do with his life and who he wanted to spend it with. But now he does. He wants to be a spy and he wants to be with me.

But that can't happen. If you are a spy, you don't get to be with me. Because I would look at you every day and see that guy at the Buy More, and I would miss him, and he would be gone because of me. Enforcer terminated.

Why does he insist that this is possible? Us, together. He killed the mole, didn't he? He loves me. He wants to spend his life with me. What is the secret, Chuck?

And then Captain Awesome tackles Shaw through the restaurant window, glass shatters, and our talk ends. My half-and-half mood has shattered too and I ask Shaw to take me to my apartment. He sees that I am upset, knows I have talked to Chuck, and takes me there. We say goodnight outside the building.

ooOoo

The next day, Shaw's wife puts in an appearance. Eve. That's her name. He told me weeks ago. Since she is around, I guess I should call her by name.

Eve. How had I missed that? I've been thinking about the Garden. Castaways. And Shaw's wife was Eve. I try not to let that thought take me any place.

I expect Shaw to be upset about last night but Beckman's briefing about the Ring has his full attention. He hardly sees me. Beckman suggests a plan, perfectly workmanlike and workable. But it is not radical enough for Shaw. He volunteers for a suicide mission. That's crazy. I try to get Beckman to see it. Get Shaw to see it. But he only sees her. Eve. That's when I know she has put in an appearance. She is here, with him. He is with her. He is willing to die to get revenge. I don't love him but this is crazy. I try to stop him. Beckman agrees to the plan. What is he thinking? What is Beckman thinking?

He makes it plain to me when I question him. He will die to kill the man who killed his wife. He puts the plan into action. I keep trying to stop him; he grabs me and kisses me. It is a goodbye kiss, a final kiss. I return it. What can I do?

I lose Chuck and this is what I get. A man lost in his own past. I am a corpse's understudy. Eve, dead, means more to him than me, alive. Three's not company; three's a crowd. I am moved by his self-sacrifice, but…this is crazy.

Chuck shows up. I explain. I am still moved by Shaw's willingness to sacrifice himself, by the finality of that kiss. The craziness of it all. I decide I cannot let Shaw do this alone. He is part of my team. And what has happened between us has happened. I can't let him sacrifice himself. I try to locate him so that I can follow.

Chuck locks me in Castle. I don't understand. He is going to go to help Shaw. I ask him why he would help Shaw. I am with Shaw. Chuck said he would do anything to get me back. But now he is saving Shaw for me. Giving me up.

I am completely confused. This is Chuck the spy. But he is still acting like Chuck, my Chuck. The look he gives me when he tells me he is saving Shaw because he knows how much I care for Shaw...

Shaw went after the Ring for the sake of a dead woman. Chuck went after Shaw for the sake of a live one, me, the one he wants but is willing to give up, since he thinks that is what she wants, what I want. He leaves.

I manage to get Casey to come to Castle and free me. I go after Shaw - and Chuck. I tell it to Casey as if it is Shaw I am after. I tell myself that too, but I know better.

I arrive too late. The airstrike occurs. A hellish fireball erupts. But out of the fireball emerges Chuck, Shaw over his shoulder. Chuck, wreathed in smoke, a garland of victory. And I know, I know, who I was terrified for when the explosion occurred.

Chuck. But I don't know what to do about it. I have done what I have done. Made the choices I have made. He killed the mole.

What kind of a spy is Chuck Bartowski? What is the secret? Why won't he tell me? Why can't I understand? Why won't it come into focus? Doubts nag me. I saw what I saw. Chuck, gun, smoke, dead mole. But my doubt struggles against my relief for Chuck. How can I doubt him when I am so relieved? Doubt is possible, yes, but is it necessary? This is Chuck. Somehow different, somehow the same. I knew this before, at the stakeout, but I let it slip from me during the Red Test, in all my upsurge of despair, pain and self-loathing.

And then Chuck comes into Castle and he puts his heart on the line again. He tells me he loves me. He says it four times. Four. I know because I feel each one. Each is a jolt of electricity to my system, like the shock administered to a patient whose heart has stopped. He tells me we are perfect for each other. Perfect. That word. Shaw used that word. Last night with Shaw was nice. It was not, it could not have been, perfect.

I unknowingly reversed the structure of my shooting of Mauser when I saw Chuck and the mole...but I did not actually see him kill the mole...now Chuck knowingly reverses the structure of Prague: he asks me to run with him, to just go, to be together. He reverses the structure as a gesture, a profound apology for Prague. He will here run my risk there. He is asking me to go, not to go on a vacation, to go on...a life. To spend our lives together. I have waited for these words for three years.

I balk. I did not expect this. I am unprepared. He still has a secret. I don't know what happened at the tracks. I don't see how there could be another explanation. But he is so sure and he is so unaffected by what would have affected him.

And he saved Shaw for me. He was the hero, Chuck was the hero. I slept with Shaw. Still, I can leave Shaw but Beckman expects...No, stop. Enough of expectations, orders. What the hell do I care what Beckman expects? Chuck asks if he can kiss me. I do not say so but he sees permission in my eyes.

The kiss is not the kiss before the bomb. It is not the kiss goaded on by Roan Montgomery. Chuck has changed. It is the kiss of a man who knows who and what he wants. It is a hello kiss. The first time I am kissed by Chuck the spy.

What kind of spy is Chuck Bartowski? He says Shaw would have done the same for him. Is that true? I am not sure. I doubt it. Shaw was willing to crater Castle with Chuck inside when the Ring agents found it. Perhaps Shaw's nobility was just his single-minded pursuit of revenge? What Chuck did for me, whatever else is true, I know that was noble. I know that he meant it when he told me four times that he loves me. He put my desires ahead of his own, even when he believed satisfying mine would have destroyed his.

Shaw slept with me then abandoned me for the sake of revenge. I don't know what to make of that, exactly, but I know which of the men put me first. Whatever kind of spy Chuck Bartowski is, it is not the same kind that Shaw is, that Bryce was, that I used to be.

Maybe he can be spy and Chuck too, my Chuck. Maybe I am not his corruptor. Maybe he can still handle my baggage. Maybe he already has, a lot of it, anyway. Maybe there is something else for us to be. Lovers, friends, and lovers, but lovers in every sense of the term this time.

He will wait for me at the train station as I waited for him. He did not try to convince me. He is taking a leap of faith, overcoming his doubts. He knows I may choose Shaw. He will let me choose.

I go home and start to pack. I am not going to DC. I am going to run. I start putting my things together. I look at the picture on my nightstand. The picture of us - of me and Chuck - the same one I have in my suitcase and that I have never been able to put away, despite the past months of misery. The one I looked at in DC. Lovers. I pack in the light of that thought.

My doubts have been overcome. Excluded. I do not know how it is possible that Chuck did not kill the mole. But I believe it. I believe in him. Is it logical? I don't know: probably not: I don't care. But logic has not overcome my doubts. Love has. Chuck has. I love him and I have never stopped and he loves me and he said it four times and we are running away together. I pack to the rhythm of that ridiculous run-on sentence. Saying it to myself over and over. Chuck has an endless capacity to get me to leap. .

And then Casey shows up. He is going to plead Chuck's case, I think. But I have faith now; Chuck does not need his case pleaded. I am choosing by faith and not by sight. But Casey is not here to plead; he is here to put me in the know. He does, and I am transported from faith to knowledge. The darkling glass is shattered; there is no more possible doubt to overcome: Casey killed the mole. Not Chuck. Casey saved Chuck and then he saved me, he saved Chuck and me, saved us.

My apartment lights the city.

I light the city despite the daylight.

I am a sun, huge, alight, ablaze. I warm worlds. The universe spins around me.

I was going to leap. I was leaping. Now I know. My heart leaps in sheer joy. He is Chuck. He is a spy - some kind of spy - and he is still my Chuck. And we are going to leave Burbank together. Leave the spy life behind. He would rather be with me than be a spy. I made that same decision months ago. Finally. Finally. Chuck and Sarah. Sarah and Chuck.

I take my gun out of my bag and throw it on the bed as I head to Chuck. Three's a crowd.

I'm coming, Chuck! For once, I make up my mind in good time. I am not too late.

Paralyzed?

But I never make it. Not as Chuck planned, not as I expected.

A couple of days later, I am standing beside Shaw on a Paris street that starts to seem familiar. I know I am the one who killed his wife. He knows. Beckman thought he could handle it, be okay with it. I guess I thought he could too, despite all the reasons he had given me to wonder. He seemed okay. Chuck even believed it. Or tried to.

Shaw has brought me here to kill me. Revenge. I am 'the man' he would die to kill. He fooled us all. Because we all thought he was a good spy.

I should have wondered on the plane trip to Paris. But my head and my heart were so full of Chuck. Still, I should have wondered. Shaw never tried to touch me, kiss me. I was so relieved that he didn't that I did not consider what it meant. I was planning to tell him about Chuck - to end it - but I thought it best to do it later, after the mission. I needed to tell him. Our night together was a mistake. I was thinking of someone else.

But so was he. I know that now for sure. Eve is here, too, in Paris. Three is a crowd. Shaw is going to make it two. Himself and his ghost. Leave my body behind.

I draw my gun and then I feel the drug. Paralysis begins, sets in. I freeze, become frozen. I can see, hear, think, but I cannot act. Shaw has reduced me to me, my pre-Burbank self. He takes me to a chair in the cafe and begins to explain himself to me. But I am not listening. I am thinking and feeling.

Shaw showed up and kept me from going to Chuck. I could not reach Chuck by phone. Could not explain.

Shaw and I are supposed to be after the Ring, higher-ups, but we end up in a building in which no one is present. There is a monitor. A video. A woman. I see it, her. She looks familiar. I have seen her before. I see her face in a file. A file Hannah Traylor gave me in Paris. My Red Test. And then Shaw tells me. The woman is his wife. Was his wife. The woman who had been with us all along. Eve Shaw.

I cannot tell if Shaw blames me or believes we share a tragedy. He holds me and I let him. Eve. The Garden. Life and Death. Good and Evil. I don't know how to process it all.

Chuck finds us like that. He has brought an army to save me. He thinks I chose Shaw. Nothing works for me.

I cannot let on in the debriefing. I cannot let Shaw or Beckman suspect that we were planning to run. I try to let Chuck know that I did not choose Shaw. I thank Chuck for coming for me, tell him I appreciated the tank. But I can tell he does not understand. He leaves, trailing defeat.

I finish up as fast as I can. Beckman gives me new orders. Chuck is to be part of the op. My chance comes, at last. I rush to his apartment.

I find him, a little drunk, worse for both ice cream and whiskey. Morgan is tied up in game controllers. I free him and he leaves me alone with Chuck.

Chuck's sadness washes over me. But I can make this right. This time I am here. He tells me that he believes I am leaving with Shaw. Before I can deny it, he asks me if I love him. I asked him at the restaurant when Shaw got up and Chuck sat down, what he wanted me to say. He is asking me to say it now. That he wants to know, needs to know, and believes I am leaving, that he asks me 'just for the record' - it all breaks my heart. I would have a hard time answering without the sadness. It takes me a minute to find my way to speech. He takes my silence to be an answer: no. He asks me, ashamed and self-conscious, if he is making a fool of himself. I finally answer. Not that last question, the early one, the big one. And I do not answer just for the record. Yes. And for once, I try to explain and do. I kiss him after I tell him yes four times. I didn't count then, but I do now. He tastes like whiskey and ice cream. He tastes like love.

I can taste him even now, paralyzed. Shaw is still talking. A tear runs down my cheek. I feel it but can do nothing about it.

I feel it but can do nothing about it.

The epigraph of my life. I suppose it is fitting that I die here, like this. I lived like this until Burbank. I was prepared to live like this again. And then there was a Casey ex Machina moment, and I thought I might, at last, be able to feel and do something about it. The taste of whiskey and ice cream. The taste of love. I never got to make love to Chuck.

This is all sad. But, strangely, I am reconciled to it. I do not want to die. But the secret I had been keeping for so long, the secret that had caused me so much pain and trouble and joy, I finally told. Chuck knows I love him. I did not say the words - I would have, someday - but he knows. He tasted love on my lips. I know he did. I told him that when I got back to Burbank, it was all going to happen, me and him. I guess not, now. But for once, I closed the distance between my heart and my lips. He tasted the love on my lips. He kissed my heart and I kissed his, and if I die, I die a woman in love, in love with a man who knows she loves him. I finally expressed myself. He knows me. Me. How I feel.

I do not want to die this way. But I can die this way. This time, I have not caused my own paralysis. This time, I resolved and acted in time. Yes, Chuck, yes, yes, yes. I love you.

I want him so much, miss him so much, that it is like he is there, in Paris, with me and Shaw and Eve. And before I can decide if it is appearance or reality, I slip into unconsciousness. Blurred images follow me into the darkness. Chuck. Shaw. A river. A river of unconsciousness.

Consciousness. Awake. Blurry then focused. Chuck. A hotel room. A bed. Chuck. Chuck. Chuck. What happened? Chuck tries to tell me. Images come. They piece together. I take over the narration. Shaw. Tried to kill me. Chuck. Saved me.

Chuck killed Shaw and saved me. It was not a dream. Not an illusion. Not a hallucination. It was Chuck. Chuck. Chuck. I could say his name forever.

Chuck is upset. He had to kill Shaw. But he is still Chuck. Yes, he is still Chuck. We kiss. Beckman interrupts, computer, but we shut her up. The computer. And her.

Chuck starts a spiral. I feel warm all over. No, hot all over. Molten. I am already lava. Volcanic. Ready to erupt. I am awake to my dream. I tell him to shut up and kiss me. I can do something about this. Reality, not appearance. Not more or less real. Just real. Real. I am still here. He is still Chuck. I am no longer paralyzed.

We can make time.

We make love. Time and again. For real. For keeps.

A/N1 Tune in next time for a long train ride, skimpy lingerie, and copious conversation. Chapter 38, "New Traditionalists (Part One): Spy Novel". That will be the first chapter of the final S3 story (mostly non-canon).

The pace will ease up for a while now. I have travel coming and new classes to teach. But I expect to post 38 before I head to Spain.

A special thanks to David Carner and WvonB for all the supererogation! (And not just with (Mis)Ed. Over a million words in 15 months, and you have been with me for almost all of them. What a kindness!)

Zettel