A/N: In an effort to mirror Chuck's raw honesty here, while I'd thought about the possibility of a companion piece, I hadn't really planned on it. The motivation for this story was given legs by a guest review who felt that Sarah's actions stretched the bounds of OOC behavior to its breaking point. I disagree with that analysis, but the more I thought about it the more I wanted to explore it. Joe Watkins said it best in a thread on the "Chuck Fanfiction" FB page - character actions and behavior exist across a continuum that is subject to any number of internal and external factors (I'm paraphrasing). In this story, Sarah finds herself in a place she's never been before; mentally and emotionally for certain and perhaps spiritually as well. She's not a robot with preprogrammed responses; it would be impossible for this convergence of circumstances to not alter her behavior.
I truly love varying perspectives in a given situation. It can give so much more depth and texture to a story. It gives greater insight into the characters. With that said, it can also lead to repetitive sequences, especially with dialog, as is the case here. Also, be aware that I made minor changes to CvH after I first posted it so if certain parts here don't seem to flow the same, that's probably why.
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From a discreet distance, Sarah followed the cab that Chuck had called from the hotel after he adamantly refused a ride home from anyone else. She was still reeling from the night's events, from their innocent dinner together, to him casually disabling a bomb and saving hundreds of lives.
She found at several points during the evening that she had to keep reminding herself that she was on a mission and not actually on a date. Her disappointment at that fact seemed to grow stronger each time. At a few points she tried mightily to associate him with the file the CIA had put together, who's conclusion had basically been "maladjusted loser".
It talked about his early home life, abandoned by both parents while still very young, basically raised by an older sister with whom he still lived – hence one aspect of the 'loser' component of the file. While it didn't have specifics, the file accused him of being a cheater during his tenure at Stanford, which likely explained his stellar academic record up to the point that he'd actually been caught and expelled. It noted how close he'd come to pulling off a four-year con and actually cheating his way to a Stanford degree. Sarah was skeptical about this at first, but his failure-to-launch upon leaving school seemed to support that assessment, interpreted as his being unable to succeed in any environment where he didn't have the answers prepared beforehand. The one contradictory fact was his employment record with the Buy More where he worked, which was nothing short of exemplary. The psych profile dismissed this due to the fact that they considered his job, while technical, still fairly menial.
Needless to say, she failed miserably at trying to create that association. The psych profiles weren't always right on the money with their evaluations, but they were usually at least close to reality. Never had she encountered one that so completely and so thoroughly missed the mark. Part of her problem had been that she had allowed the psych file and the goofy picture from his work issued ID badge to improperly influence her preconceptions. Then she'd met the actual man and found herself thrown completely off balance.
The first thing to give her pause was that he was so much more attractive than she'd realized from his ID photo. He was simultaneously both cute and handsome, and she still wasn't sure how he pulled that off. She'd never been interested enough to wonder about her "type" when it came to the opposite sex, but whatever it was, the tall man she encountered at the Nerd Herd kiosk ticked every box. For the first time in her life, she was nervous about flirting with a mark, and it was one more item on the pile that served to confuse and unnerve her.
If that had been the extent of it, it would have had little to no impact on her. She was a professional after all, not one to be unduly affected by a pretty face, however it was but one of many things whose aggregate effect was to leave her at a loss for how to approach her assigned task.
The next thing to make her question everything they knew about him was the fact that he was quite skilled, not a technical dilettante who relied on others to do the heavy lifting as the file suggested. He'd fixed her phone in mere seconds and while it wasn't necessarily a difficult fix, his immediate understanding indicated he was indeed skilled well beyond their assumptions.
And then he'd shown her something she'd honestly never encountered before. A genuinely good person who had a deep desire to help those around him. She was just starting to find her footing with their flirting when a despairing customer had intruded, needing help. Sarah noticed the despondent young ballerina, saw Chuck notice her, then saw the look he directed at her. It had been brief, but it spoke volumes. He was making a conscious choice to walk away from her and help someone else. As much as he wanted to continue their interaction, he was going to choose against his own desires. A quick look, a heartfelt "I'm so sorry," directed at her, and he was off saving the day for one little girl and her technologically challenged father. In his efforts to help them, it quickly became apparent that Chuck was the center of gravity for the operation of the store. With one or two exceptions, the other employees deferred to him and responded to his requests with alacrity. He had a natural charisma that she could almost feel, though he seemed completely oblivious.
After the heartwarming spectacle, she'd intended to try and continue where they left off, a smile on her face that she quickly realized wasn't fake. It was a real smile because she was truly impressed with the man she'd been sent to investigate. Impressed by and attracted to. Too impressed. Too attracted. Too open. Exposed. Vulnerable. She could feel the encounter spinning out of her control and she needed to regroup. Everything they thought they knew about this man was wrong.
She was saved when another employee intercepted Chuck on his way back to her, one who seemed to resent his de facto authority with the other employees. She quickly jotted down her number on a card and made a quiet exit. She knew that when he called, she'd have the upper hand once again, be more in control of their interactions.
Except that he didn't call. Frustrated even further, she'd been forced to instead give him the upper hand by asking him out. She'd handled her inexplicable nervousness at their impending date by denying it, ignoring it. Instead throwing herself into preparing for the evening as if it were a high stakes espionage mission on foreign soil, going so far as to use long, neurotoxin coated pins to hold her hair in a stylish bun, all while wondering which style he'd prefer, up in a bun, or loose and flowing.
Their date had flowed naturally, the conversation easy, even though he'd been obviously nervous. He was respectful and attentive and inquisitive and unintentionally charming. He was self-deprecating yet extremely intelligent and articulate and she could only conclude the file was somehow wrong about his Stanford record as well. To top it all off, he was genuinely funny, catching her off guard with some quirky comment several times that had her almost crying with laughter. The only minor interruption to their easy banter had been when he zoned out for a few moments as they walked to a local club to watch some live music.
Then Casey had shown up with his goons. That had served as all the reminder she needed that she was on a mission and not on a date. Or perhaps a date that coincided with her mission. Without consciously realizing it, her immediate goal became to protect Chuck at all costs. She wasn't sure what Casey's ultimate orders were, but as a general rule he wasn't the one they sent when they wanted someone left to talk to at the end of the day. Of course, she wasn't either, but she didn't let herself dwell on that fact too much.
Once Casey caught up to them, everything had spun even further out of control, with Chuck admitting that he had seen all the images Bryce had sent, making the connection to the imminent attack on General Stansfield by utilizing the encoded information in his head. Then rushing foolishly and blindly into danger only to end up saving all their lives. She'd had to physically restrain herself from kissing him until he forgot his own name, or she forgot hers, whichever happened first. Wondering what kind of kisser he'd be had been skimming around the edges of her conscious thought pretty much the moment she'd laid eyes on him. She'd never in her life been this fully and completely attracted to a man and she had to admit, it was freaking her out more than a little.
As she expected, the cab seemed to be taking him home until about the halfway point the driver veered suddenly onto the on-ramp for interstate-10 towards Malibu.
"No, no. Nononono. Come on, Chuck. What are you doing? Just go home, ok? Please don't run. Please, please, don't run," she whispered fervently to herself as she merged onto the highway to continue following the cab. She fought to keep her distance from the cab, make herself wait and see how things played out, but she was more scared than she could remember being in a long time. She'd never really cared one way or the other how a mark behaved in the past, or been overly concerned with their well-being, except in how that behavior or well-being affected her mission. But at that moment she was terrified for Chuck. If he ran, Casey would kill him for sure, intersect or no. She was under orders to do the same thing but there was no way in hell she was going to do that. She actually found herself mentally running through scenarios on how she could stop Casey, short of killing him. Maybe even not so short.
That thought brought her up cold. She was actively considering killing a fellow government agent in order to protect a government mark. She couldn't hide from the fact that she was officially compromised. Any action that placed the well being of a mark above the needs of the government was grounds for immediate reassignment. In extreme cases it could be grounds for termination followed by prosecution and incarceration. She figured killing a federal agent would probably fall under the extreme cases heading, though Casey hadn't seemed particularly interested in keeping her alive earlier. A few millimeters off on her knife throw to activate those bollards and they'd still be picking pieces of her out of the grill of Casey's SUV.
"Where are you going, Chuck?" she asked the air around her as the cab exited the interstate. It didn't take long to figure out that he was just going to the beach and the wave of relief that washed over her served as a reminder to just how far gone she was. The cab dropped him off at a public access beach not far from the Santa Monica Pier. He seemed completely oblivious to the fact that he was being followed as he didn't even turn to look at her car as she pulled into the parking lot. The beach was officially closed but she assumed the government plates on the car would exempt it from being towed.
There was enough ambient light to follow him on foot and watch as he simply walked down the beach and sat down in the sand at a seemingly random spot. She took off her boots to make traversing the beach easier, and found a position next to a palm tree where she could still see him, but be mostly hidden from view should he turn around. But he didn't. He just sat there. She glanced at her watch and the glowing tritium arms told her it was a little before five am, so she settled in for a wait. She figured there was a good chance he'd stay until sunrise then call another cab to take him home. She told herself she'd approach him after sunrise, before he could make the call for a ride. In the darkness she couldn't see him very well, but it seemed he hardly moved at all and she was impressed with his fortitude. It had been a full day followed by a stressful night and he seemed to be committed to his current location for the foreseeable future.
She understood that the poor man probably just needed some time to clear his head, get a little clarity on everything that had happened to him. Was still happening to him. She was so relieved that he wasn't running that she mentally willed him to take all the time he needed and tried to convey to him that she would do whatever she could to help him. She thought he might be the most genuinely good person she'd ever met in her life, and couldn't ignore the fact that that genuinely good person was wrapped in a deliciously sexy, tall-dark-and-handsome package. She tried to pin-point the moment at which she'd become so thoroughly compromised and couldn't. It had been at some point after he fixed her phone and before he'd disabled a bomb with an internet virus; a fact that still left her stunned when she thought about it.
As she thought more about it, she realized how lucky they were that the psych analysts had been wrong about Chuck. Their maladjusted loser was actually a quiet hero. One made all the more impressive when contrasted against his life experiences. He was obviously a man struggling to find his way in the world, having been knocked down by life so many times, he wasn't sure what getting up again might mean. But in all his difficulties, he hadn't lost touch with his core goodness, his selflessness, his humor. His powerful moral compass. She had never felt so drawn to another person before, and while a killer smile and great hair was part of it, there was so much more about him that she couldn't define or articulate. She couldn't fault the file too much. It had been hastily assembled and everything about what they saw had pointed in one direction, which just happened to be the complete opposite direction from the truth.
As the sky brightened behind them and her shadow stretched out in front of her, she occasionally saw him reach up and move a hand against his face. It took her a few moments to realize he was crying, that this was him brushing away tears and wrenched at her heart. She wanted nothing more than to fix this, undo this terrible thing that Bryce had done to him and she cursed her former partner's name for the nth time since he'd disappeared.
Once the sun was fully up, she gathered her boots and started walking slowly towards him. She had no choice but to school her expression, lest he see in her eyes how she felt about him. She had to protect him, keep him safe. She wasn't sure what his feelings for her might be, but his safety had to come first. She needed to find a way to get him to trust her, but given how they met, the deck was stacked against her. Christ, she'd been pointing her gun at him less than eight hours ago.
As she sat down next to him, she couldn't believe that she found herself in this position yet again, wanting with everything in her to protect an innocent from harm. When did the universe decide she was the woman for that job?
He didn't directly acknowledge her presence, but she thought she caught him looking at her out of the corner of his eye before he looked away. It was impossible to not notice that he was actively crying, and she was a little dismayed by his somewhat fierce expression so she let the silence settle between them for a few moments before she spoke.
She tried to infuse her voice with the compassion she felt for him, hoping he would get a sense of how desperately she wanted to help him. "Talk to me, Chuck," she said quietly.
She saw the barest shake of his head as he said, "I don't think that's a good idea right now. I'm not in a good headspace at the moment. I'm not sure I trust myself… to articulate…" He let the sentence hang unfinished as he waved his hand dismissively.
She hoped to put him at ease by praising his earlier actions. "Well, I want you to know again how impressed I was with the way you handled things at the hotel. You saved a lot of lives last night, mine and Casey's included. That deserves a thank you, so… thank you."
She was completely unprepared for his heated response. "Don't be nice to me right now. I need you to not be… nice."
She could see his jaw clenching and realized his fierce expression was a direct reflection of his emotional state. He was extremely angry and while she didn't know the specific root of his anger, he certainly had a right to it. She let his heated words roll off her, understanding that he didn't mean it personally. Hopefully, he didn't. She didn't expect him to speak again until he had a better handle on his anger, but he surprised her with a question in the guise of a statement.
"You said on the roof that you worked with Bryce at the CIA." His anger was muted but still very much present and Sarah wasn't sure where the question was leading.
"I did. We were partners," she admitted.
"And lovers," he barked at her.
His words wouldn't have been more shocking if they'd been accompanied by a slap to the face and her initial reaction was to bark back at him, but he held up a hand to stop her. The fact that she let him was another reminder of how strong her feelings were, how much leeway she was willing to give him. If anyone else had come at her like that, they might very well find themselves on the ground, bleeding. Profusely.
"I know it's none of my business. I'm aware of how childish I'm being, but I warned you that I'm not currently in a great headspace, so you're stuck with childish Chuck for the moment. And I know Bryce. There's no way he could have been your partner without eventually trying to sleep with you. If you didn't kick his ass and have him fired for sexual harassment, then the only other conclusion is that you were together." Sarah couldn't help but notice the hurt in his eyes at the thought and wondered why it was there. "You don't have to confirm it, but please don't lie to me."
She couldn't take the pain she saw in his expression, so she looked out at the expanse of ocean while she thought about how to answer him. Her feelings about Bryce were complicated but she couldn't honestly say that their relationship was. They were partners. Spies who occasionally had sex to relieve the constant tension in their lives. She maybe had aspirations for something more at some point, but it was more the idea of something more itself rather than with Bryce specifically.
She felt herself nodding as she once again acknowledged his right to be angry. "I guess I can't really blame you. Yes, Bryce and I were partners, and we were… together. It was," she grunted angrily as she struggled to define whatever the hell it was that they'd had between them. "The truth is, I have no idea what it was other than convenient."
"I'm sorry for you. About his death, I mean. It's hard losing someone you care about," he said suddenly, his anger, if not forgotten, certainly muted in the face of his compassion. It seemed every comment he was going to make this morning was going to flip her around in some way and she couldn't help the flummoxed look she gave him.
"What?"
She huffed her confusion with him into the wind. "You're just a strange specimen is all, Chuck. The guy sends you all the government's secrets and you're offering me condolences on his death?"
"I guess I am who I am, even in the midst of an existential crisis," he observed with a shrug.
She couldn't help but think that what he was, was an extraordinary man. One she still desperately wanted to help. "Can I ask you what the root of your existential crisis is?"
He seemed to deflate for a moment, then his posture changed noticeably, and she thought maybe he'd made a decision about something important.
"I realized during the cab ride home last night that you asking me out wasn't real and it sort of broke me. I let myself believe in something, even if just for a few hours. You would think I'd learned my lesson with that by now."
At least he was being consistent with his statements that knocked her on her ass. They each affected her in a different way, but on her ass she found herself, at least metaphorically, after each one. "Me asking you out meant that much to you?"
He shot her a disbelieving look and said, "Come on, Sarah. Don't try and pretend with me that you don't realize the effect you have on men. I'm not making any judgments or casting any aspersions on your character, but isn't that part of your job with the CIA? To seduce saps like me into telling you their deepest, darkest secrets? You asking me out was the highlight of the last five years of my life. To have that taken away hurt me," he couldn't seem to keep looking at her as he bared his pain. He shrugged and looked away. "Hurt is cumulative. I've had a lot already and that was too much. The last straw, so to speak."
Sarah couldn't have stopped the tears if she'd wanted to. The pain she was responsible for could reach out and bite her at the most unexpected moments. That she'd hurt this incredible man affected her deeply. And by doing something she'd done so many times before, with so little thought. She truly hated what this existence had done to her. The unending cycle of pain and suffering she seemed unable to escape from. It had to end here. She couldn't let it harm Chuck any more than it already had. She had to protect not just his life, but his heart too. He needed to understand how real it was for her, even if the underlying reasons were false, her feelings for him weren't. Maybe by helping him understand, it would help her understand as well.
She swiped the tears away before she spoke. "I don't know what to say to all of that. I mean, of course I'm very sorry to have done that to you, but please believe me when I tell you, it wasn't all fake. Yes, I was sent here to find out your connection to Bryce, but I knew almost immediately that you were innocent of any wrongdoing. I found you charming, Chuck. I truly enjoyed our date. I really meant it when I said I liked you. You are a genuinely nice guy, Chuck and I live in a world where nice guys are like unicorns. I've been trained to believe it's just a horse with a fake horn. Rather than being something rare and beautiful, it's just another lie meant to deceive us."
She saw him look at her and she could tell he was desperately trying to read her, somehow divine whether her words spoke truth, or were themselves clever deceptions. For perhaps the first time in her life she found herself hoping to be completely transparent with someone, let them read her as clearly as she'd been trained to read others. She saw the same change in his posture that she'd seen a few minutes earlier, his mental commitment to a course of action.
"Sarah, I promise right now not to lie to you, to give you as much raw honesty as I can. I'm in the perfect headspace for painful, brutal honesty. In the interest of fulfilling that promise, I will admit that I don't know if I can believe you. I want to, but you're a spy after all. I have this ridiculous computer in my head and you guys still need my cooperation. I'm sure you have some kind of file on me. The CIA would know how to manipulate me."
She understood implicitly how important this honesty was to him and while it terrified her, she also knew that it fit him perfectly. In a moment of raw angst and pain, his final refuge, the thing that would give him the most solace, was unfiltered honesty. Even in the short time she'd known him, she still understood that it was just such a Chuck thing for him to do. The disparity between them formed an almost painful rift in her heart and mind. He wanted one of the most difficult things on earth for her to give, the anathema of her existence since she'd been a child. Instinct ingrained so deep it must almost certainly be a part of her genetic code at this point. The conflict in her was approaching critical mass when a question occurred to her. One she'd never thought to ask before, but shocking in its simplicity.
What did she want?
Beyond what Chuck needed or wanted, beyond what Graham wanted or needed, what did she want in that moment? She felt the conflict in her subside as she answered the question. She knew it might have unpleasant consequences. How could someone who placed so much value on truth and honestly ever be associated with someone who had lived so far from it for so long? She started by confirming what he'd already said.
"That's all very true. The CIA and the NSA will both do whatever they think is necessary to get your cooperation. They do have a file on you, but it's pretty thin. It was mostly cobbled together over the last few days. We know you have a sister that's about four years older than you. She's a neuroscience resident at Westside Hospital. She helped raise you after your parents abandoned the two of you when you were nine. Your mom left first, then your dad a few years later. You were kicked out of Stanford for cheating your senior year and you've been working at the Buy More since then."
She saw his anger spike and was afraid she had pushed him away. "The Cliff's Notes version of my fucking life," he muttered. She saw the fresh anger in his eyes again and it came through in his voice.
"Did the file tell you that I broke my mom's favorite charm off her charm bracelet the day before she left and for years I thought that was why she abandoned us? Did the file tell you that our dad couldn't handle our mom leaving, so he checked out mentally years before he left physically? Did the file talk about all the sacrifices Ellie had to make for us to stay together and avoid going into foster care or how goddamn hard we worked to earn our respective scholarships? I had a full-ride academic scholarship, and Bryce blew up eight years of my labors in a fucking afternoon, then stood around and played pool while I carried my shit to my car, the arrogant prick."
Sarah's tears started anew as she felt each sentence sting her like the snap of a whip across her spirit. He paused to take a breath and charged ahead, still more pain to unleash for both of them.
"Did the file talk about how he, my roommate and best friend, is the one who claimed he found the answer sheet under my mattress and reported me for cheating without talking to me about it first? Did the file mention how all my friends and professors turned their backs on me after I had busted my ass there for four years and maintained a 3.98 GPA? That I was only three classes short of getting my degree, with Distinction? That I never had a hint of any wrongdoing on my academic record and yet I was dismissed without so much as a hearing? Did the file mention how my girlfriend of three years, to whom I was going to propose, broke up with me and then slept with Bryce Fucking Larkin only days after that asshole had me kicked out of school?"
Sarah saw through her tears that he seemed to regret unleashing his anger on her as he looked away, his own once again spilling down his already tear streaked face. She'd known the psych analysts had gotten it wrong but just how colossally wrong she hadn't truly understood until that moment. That he'd lived with such heartbreak and betrayal without becoming embittered and resentful was an even greater testament to his strength of character than anything she'd witnessed so far. She wanted more than anything to convey to him how sorry she was for all of it. How keenly she felt the injustice of what Bryce had done to him, both then and now.
She put her hand on his shoulder and felt his warmth soak through to her. "I'm so sorry, Chuck," she whispered. She thought she felt him lean into her hand ever so slightly and hoped she could provide some small measure of comfort. In this moment, with this man, she saw an opportunity that she never would have believed possible. An opportunity to just be a woman, sharing a painful part of her history with an incredible man. She didn't have to be Sarah, or Jenny or Rebecca or even Sam. She could just be herself. She took a breath and steeled herself against the promise she was about to make. "Chuck, even though I know you don't necessarily trust me right now, I'm going to make you the same promise. I'm not going to lie to you about any of this. There are questions I might not be able to answer - things I've given my oath to never talk about - but I'm not going to try and manipulate you. I'll do whatever I can to help you through all of this. I would ask you to trust me, but I know that would be completely unfair and a little patronizing right now. You have no reason to trust me and every reason not to."
Their respective tears finally subsided and after a few moments she felt him take a breath as he wiped his face. "There's nowhere I can run, is there?"
From an honesty standpoint, this was a softball. "Not from us. Not from the combined power of the CIA and the NSA," Sarah admitted. "But could you really run? I know we just had the one date – and I do consider it a date, Chuck – but could you go on the run and leave Ellie? I don't ask you that to manipulate you, but because I know how important she is to you. How important you are to each other."
She once again felt him take a deep breath as he nodded his agreement with her. "No, you're right. I could never do that to her. It would be just like what our parents did. It would destroy her."
She kept her hand on his shoulder, enjoying the contact with him, wondering if she could move her hand to his windswept curls, which were suddenly so inviting. As she was about to do just that he gave her a sidelong glance and asked, "How long have you been with the CIA?"
Instead of putting her hand in his hair, she put it in her lap. She'd made the promise knowing he would eventually make her live up to it. On the surface, it seemed like such a benign question, but for her the implications were so much deeper. The answer demanded an explanation, and it was one of the most difficult ones for her share. But she'd made the promise knowing this was exactly where it would likely lead.
"Ten years." The words seemed pulled out of her rather than spoken. "The current Director recruited me when I was a senior in high school, while he was still Deputy Director of Operations. I was seventeen when I started training."
As she expected, his response was nearly instantaneous. "Jesus, Sarah! How..? What…?" She couldn't fault him for not knowing what question to ask first.
"Chuck, I said I would tell you the truth, but I didn't say the answers would be easy for me to give." Sarah unconsciously clenched her fist in the sand, needing something to literally ground her to the moment. "We're getting into territory here that I've never talked about with anyone. Ever."
She saw Chuck mulling over her words in her peripheral vision and waited for his response before continuing.
"My initial instinct is to be understanding and tell you that you don't have to tell me, but I'm honestly not in a very understanding place right now. So if you can, I'd like to encourage you to earn the trust you're asking of me. It only seems fair, and I could use a little fair right now."
Sarah was disappointed that she would have to live up to her own commitment to honesty, but at the same time she was proud of Chuck for sticking to his guns. She nodded and once again steeled herself against her own past.
"Jesus, I can't believe I'm going to tell you this," she murmured, mostly to herself. She spent several moments trying to think of the best place to start this terrible story. Personal information about her that only two other people had any inkling of, one of whom being her own father. She couldn't bring herself to look at him as she finally began. "My dad left my mom when I was seven years old. I left with him. I chose him over my mom because he was fun. We had adventures together. My mom was the grown-up who wanted me to eat my vegetables and do my chores and go to school. She was a good parent, so of course I chose my dad who let me have ice cream for dinner and stay up late. Like I said, we would go on these adventures. Every few days, we would go to a new town and we would trick people into giving us their money. It didn't take me long to figure out that what we were doing was wrong, but I was having fun. I was having fun with my grifter dad, helping him con people out of their money. I eventually got to the point where I didn't want to do it anymore. I was fifteen and we got into a big argument about it. I just couldn't do it. Our last con had bilked a single mom out of her kid's college fund. I'd had enough. I thought about trying to call my mom and go home, but I had so much residual guilt about leaving her and doing what I did with my dad. I was afraid she'd reject me. Stupid, I know," she could only shrug at the reasoning behind her fifteen-year-old self. "So even though I stopped helping him, I stayed with my dad while he kept up his cons. We were living in San Diego when I came home from school one day and there were police all around our house. He was being led away in handcuffs, so I kept on driving." She had to take a moment as she couldn't help but remember the fear she'd experienced in that moment, watching her dad being pushed into the police car.
"Jesus," Chuck whispered, which she thought was appropriate, so she nodded in agreement.
"My dad and I had an emergency stash setup for me in case something like this happened. Some cash and documents that I could use to go on the run. So that's where I went. Director Graham found me there and offered me the chance to join the CIA. He said I could use the skills my dad had taught me in the con game, but use them for good. That's how he phrased it at the time though I know now he was manipulating me even more skillfully than my dad could manipulate the marks in any of his cons. He also implied that if I agreed, he'd make things easy on my dad. Make sure he got protection in prison, maybe a reduced sentence." Sarah was surprised she only had one tear to shed for this story. It seemed to deserve to fill the ocean she was staring at but not really seeing.
Chuck's anger seemed depleted in the face of her story. She heard only compassion in his voice and wondered how someone like him could be real. "So not only were you underage, you recruited under duress as well?"
"I agreed, of course. What else could I do?"
"Damn. Now I feel like an asshole for complaining about my childhood. I'm so sorry, Sarah."
"Chuck, just because I had it rough doesn't negate the fact that you also had it rough. I at least had my father and as crazy as it sounds, and as much guild as I still carry around about it, I really did have a lot of fun with him. For a few years anyway."
She could still see the sympathy in his eyes. "Yeah, and as bad as it was, Ellie and I had each other. She really had it worse than I did. She saw to it that I got to be a kid at least sometimes, hid from me some of the more difficult things she was dealing with. And I had Morgan, along with a few other friends in high school. I can't imagine how lonely your childhood must have been, always on the move, never making friends."
It was true but she'd reconciled herself to it when she was fifteen. She later viewed it as a sort of penance. "I never really had any frame of reference. I was lonely, but I just thought that's the way life was."
Chuck looked at her intently and she couldn't help but feel the weight of it. Not judgement but acceptance. An appreciation for how difficult sharing that part of herself had been. She couldn't help but feel a little exposed before him. "Thank you for sharing all that with me, Sarah. I really needed that… I don't know, I guess just that intimacy."
God, he got under her skin in the most incredible way. "You're welcome. It honestly wasn't as hard to talk about as I thought it would be."
"If I asked you what exactly you do for the CIA, would you be able to tell me?"
Her immediate thought was that he'd easily accepted the story of her childhood, maybe he would be as forgiving of her work as an adult. Ultimately it didn't matter. She intended to keep her promise, even if it drove him away. She tried to figure out a way to reduce the impact, soften the blow but she eventually realized that would be deceptive. So she just said it.
"I'm a killer, Chuck," she admitted softly. "I had orders to kill you if you ran."
"Could you have?" She could hear the fear in his voice even though he was trying to hide it.
"No," she answered quickly. "I guess I haven't lost my soul yet because once I realized you were innocent, I knew I couldn't intentionally hurt you. The only thing that gives me any solace is the fact that of all the lives I've taken, I've prevented the deaths of at least that many. I knew as soon as you helped that little ballerina that you were innocent."
He smiled at her. She just admits that she had conditional orders to kill him, and he smiles at her. She wondered if she would ever get used to him knocking her on her ass.
"Well, just for the record, I really wanted to keep talking to you."
She couldn't help but smile back at him, remembering the look he'd given her before he'd run off to help them. "I know." She was completely charmed by the laugh he gave her.
"See, I knew you were lying about not being funny."
"But I was honest about having a lot of baggage. A plane load."
He smiled and she thought she knew what he was remembering. "As cheesy as the line was, I was honest about being your baggage handler."
It had been one of her favorite moments, in a night filled with a lot of really great moments. The way his voice has suddenly gotten low and intense. It was at that moment that she suspected he might feel as strongly for her as she did for him, and she felt her cheeks heating up at the memory. "That wasn't cheesy." He replied with a deadpan stare and she laughed. "Ok, maybe it was a little cheesy. But since we're going on the record here, I really, really liked it."
They had a few moments of comfortable silence between them when he suddenly voiced his core fears about her. "I know that it's possible that all of this with us right now is a manipulation. That this is simply you being a really great spy and finding a way to connect with me and win me over. And it's working. Or rather, it has worked. But just know that down the road, If I discover any deceit about any of this, I'll… I'll…" She could see him realize that his available options were limited. "Will shit, other than come here and cry my eyes out again, I don't know what the hell I'll do."
She knew how right he was, how if it was any other woman sitting there, it almost certainly would be a deception meant to manipulate him. Only more honesty would help him. "That's our hurdle right now, I know. Attaining that trust. And to be clear, yes, you are correct that it is theoretically possible for this to be a manipulation. I can think of a couple of other female agents I've worked with that could pull it off, but I couldn't. I'm a good spy but this kind of subterfuge was never my strong suit and on one hand I'm glad for that, but on the other, my strong suit is killing. A long time ago I reached an agreement with Graham that I wouldn't run seduction missions. I don't regret making that deal but I sometimes wonder why it's so important to me. I mean, a tainted soul is a tainted soul, right?"
Sarah saw him physically shake as he pondered the question. "I can't begin to fathom how a person could even be presented with such questions, much less discern how to answer them." Sarah appreciated that he wasn't going to try and armchair philosophize about her life choices. "I'm sorry for my earlier comments about you and Bryce. I'm only just now coming to appreciate how lonely your life must really be. Not just yours specifically, but the spy life in general."
"It's ok, Chuck. Given what Bryce has done to you, I think you can be forgiven for feeling some animosity towards the man."
He nodded a murmured agreement. They sat in silence for a few minutes and Sarah let herself enjoy just being in the moment with him. She would sit here with him as long as he wanted.
He eventually spoke up. "So what happens next? I mean, over the next few days?"
Sarah already had a pretty good idea how Graham wanted things to go. He'd been quietly impressed with Chuck disabling the bomb, but they would want total and complete control over his life and the only way to do that would be to make him a government asset. He would have basically no rights and she knew she couldn't let that happen.
"I can make some predictions. The intersect itself is a highly classified piece of technology, not to mention all the information that came with it. Like I mentioned before, they'll find a way to force your cooperation. I won't help then do that, Chuck. I won't force you. But if you refuse to help, they'll have no choice but to take you into custody."
She saw his expression darken. "That's basically the same thing as killing me, just slower."
The thought sent a spike of physical pain through her as she agreed with him. "You're not without some leverage here, Chuck. Your actions last night at the hotel were truly remarkable. I think you could use that to your advantage. Like you told me and Casey last night, they need you."
Chuck seemed to accept that. "Other than keeping my life, what else should I try to get out of this?"
She knew what she was about to tell him could get her in a lot of trouble and she also knew that she cared not one bit. "The main thing is to get them to make you either an NSA or CIA analyst. Or maybe a consultant. But you should adamantly refuse to become what's called an asset."
"Why? Assets have value."
"Yes, and they can be disposed of with little or no regard for the individual. Being an asset would basically make you the property of the government. Property doesn't get a say in how it's treated. Property does what it's told with no recourse."
"That makes sense. What about you and the mean, angry NSA guy, Casey?"
"Well, assuming they decide to let you stay in your current life, since Casey and I are already cleared into the Intersect project, we'll probably be assigned to be your protectors. Director Graham and the NSA Director, General Beckman will want to send you daily intelligence briefings to see if you can use the Intersect to filter out connections, like you did with Stanfield last night. You work with us and we'll protect you."
"How do we explain you and Casey suddenly being in my life all the time? That's going to be weird for my friends and family."
"Well, explaining me is fairly easy. Casey, I don't know but we'll figure something out."
"How is explaining you being around all the time fairly easy?" he asked, obviously confused.
"By telling everyone I'm your girlfriend, Chuck. Man, I thought Stanford grew them smarter." Sarah couldn't bring herself to admit out loud that she'd already assumed that Graham would ask this of her. She was equal parts excited by and terrified of the prospect, and didn't fully understand either reaction. In the past, such an assignment would have been met with resigned acceptance, quickly followed by a pointed conversation with the asset about boundaries and the consequences for crossing them. She couldn't help but wonder what his reaction would be and was a little dismayed by his laughter. She had expected a more measured response from him, perhaps one even tinged with a bit of excitement to match her own.
"What's so funny about me being your girlfriend, Chuck?" Apparently he noticed that his laughter at the concept was not appreciated because it died down quickly as he heard her tone and saw her expression.
"No, Sarah, it's not you," he started to explain then thought better. "Well, actually it's totally you. No one is going to buy you being my girlfriend. You're so far out of my league it's honestly a bit of a joke. Albeit not a very funny one."
She'd momentarily forgotten about his deep-seated self-esteem issues. "You know what, I'm not even going to debate how ridiculous that analysis is. I'm just another pretty face in a city full of them, Chuck."
He obviously wasn't buying it as he looked out at the ocean. "Yeah, right," he muttered. "Because every other pretty face in LA has what it takes to be a bad-ass female 007. Not to mention those pretty faces don't hold a candle to yours." Sarah was completely beguiled by his response. She wasn't sure he even realized he'd spoken aloud. He looked at her and she saw his expression change suddenly as a new thought occurred to him and he looked away quickly.
"What is it? You just had another thought pop into that big Intersected brain of yours." After a few moments she wasn't sure he was going to answer so she pushed him a little. "It's ok, Chuck. I want us to put all our cards on the table. This morning is all about honesty, remember? Nothing is out of bounds."
"Yeah, but this bit of honesty hits a little close to home," he admitted under his breath.
"How so? Tell me, Please."
He turned and she felt the full weight of his gaze as his eyes bored into hers. She saw him immediately open himself up to her and felt his raw vulnerability as if it were her own. There was no guile or trickery in him in the least. He was fully on display, baring his soul to her, more open at that moment than anyone had been with her in her life. Maybe in his either.
"Ok, you want honesty? Here you go. If you start pretending to be my girlfriend, there's no way that I'm not going to fall hopelessly in love with you, Sarah. I can already feel it happening. You're the most amazing, most beautiful woman I've ever met. Even after the soul-crushing realization that you weren't asking me out because you were interested in me, but because you had to. I knew there had to be a catch because women like you just don't ask guys like me out. I know because, hello, I'm that guy and it. Never. Happens. Then when it does happen and I'm over the goddamn moon, I find out later that no, sorry Chuck, it actually didn't happen. Realizing that killed a small part of me. It killed a part of my hope. My hope that I might actually be in your league, or maybe someone like you, someday." He took a deep breath and while her brain was already spinning, she knew he was just getting started.
"You mentioned before that you found me charming and you meant it when you said you like me, but I have to tell you right now, if there's no real future for anything between us, then I want you to go. Leave right now and ask to be reassigned. Please. I'm begging you because given the nature of our situation, I can't handle falling in love with you only to have our relationship be some kind of cover. Never being able to really be with you but also never being able to be with anyone else either because first off no one could ever compare to you and second because it would interfere with our cover. I can't think of a worse cage than one whose bars are composed of unrequited love. I for one refuse to live there. The thought terrifies me. May as well put me in a bunker because while either option would be slow death, at least the bunker wouldn't include daily torture."
He slowed down, his voice becoming even more intense than it had been previously and other than the roaring of her own pulse in her ears, it was all she could hear. Everything else around her shrank to nothing except for the incredible man in front of her. Even as he looked away, he still had her rooted in place with his words.
"I've never felt this kind of attraction to another woman before, Sarah. Ever. If the CIA picked you as my seductress, man they knocked it out of the park. Grand-Slam home run. That ball isn't ever going to land. And it's not just physical, either. It's like I can feel your damn spirit drawing me in, whispering sweet nothings to my own. Like there was a Sarah Walker shaped hole in my life before that I didn't know was there. It might sound corny… Fuck it, it is, it's insanely corny but I don't care because it's true."
Sarah had never really understood the power of true honesty until that moment. Unwavering, unapologetic honesty, spoken by someone who fully expected to lose the thing they most desired because of it. Everything she'd been taught in her life, first by her father, then reinforced and expanded upon by the CIA had built on the idea that such a thing didn't exist. That the vast majority of people had only a passing familiarity with honesty, at best, and only when it served their interests.
The power of his honesty stripped her of her inner defenses. Everything fell before it. It battered down the walls she'd spent a lifetime building. It exposed the twisted cycle of self-flagellation she'd been living, punishing herself for the work she did by embracing that work ever more tightly. Subsisting on nothing more than the concept of unwavering professionalism, regardless of the cost to herself or others. She understood now that it was a path which led inevitably to her death.
She realized that his truth was also her truth; that to be with him would be to love him. He would have a permanent home in her heart and as the tears streamed down her cheeks she knew she would have a home in his as well. It was everything she never knew she wanted. She barely felt herself move as she stood up and moved to stand in front of him. He'd closed his eyes and she knew it was because he expected her to leave. She'd make sure he understood that wasn't the case.
She waited until she opened his eyes and she looked at him with the pure emotion she felt in that moment. No hiding behind masks or walls. She showed him the woman behind all the names, all the aliases. The woman he'd released from her self-constructed prison of guilt and despair.
He looked at her with a combination of fear and hope. The fear she meant to eliminate, the hope she wanted to nurture and reinforce until it became certainty. She sat down in his lap and took his face in her hands. Without speaking she simply held his eyes with hers and let herself understand what it would mean to be with him. He would hold nothing back from her. He would love her with every fiber of his being. She never realized she could not only accept such a gift, but that she could return it in kind, happily. Eagerly.
She gave him the first unfiltered truth that came to her mind, whispered from her soul to his. "Chuck, that was the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me." She leaned in and he accepted her kiss hungrily, returning it in full. She moaned softly as her hands wound through his hair and she realized they were even softer than she thought they'd be. She opened herself to him in a way she'd never understood was possible, unselfishly, wanting only to share of herself.
She withdrew reluctantly, pulling his lower lip with her ever so slightly. She needed to put to rest once and for all any residual fears he might have. "Three things, Chuck." She couldn't help but smile at the dazed expression on his face. "First, who said anything about pretending or being your 'cover' girlfriend?"
Her amusement deepened with her desire as it took him a moment to find his voice. "I, uh, I just… that is I didn't want to… uh, no one said it. Uh, I inferred it, I guess," he admitted finally, his voice husky.
"Ok, well let's just dispel that particular notion right now. I will not be pretending. We will not be cover dating. We will be dating, dating. Exclusively. Is that acceptable to you?"
He gave her a small, cheeky smile. "Uh, yes. I find that to be an agreeable arrangement," he whispered. His smile amplified her own and she couldn't resist smothering his irresistible lips with her own once again. She had no idea how much time had traversed when he pulled back to catch his breath and she remembered she still had two additional items to make clear to him.
"Second thing, Chuck. I felt the same thing you felt, from the beginning. Your spirit whispered sweet nothings to mine first. Mine was simply responding to yours in kind. You were nothing like what I expected. You turned everything upside down, just by being yourself. My motivations aside, as far as I'm concerned, last night was our first date, regardless of why I asked you out. Our first of many."
"Okay," he whispered fervently. "Can we go back to heaven-on-earth?"
"The kissing," he explained to her questioning glance. She couldn't agree with him more as she felt her entire body calling out for his lips on her, his hands on her, his body on her. She pushed him back in the sand as she straddled him. Feeling his body responding to her, his blatant desire fully manifested, separated from her by only a few flimsy layers of cloth, she gave serious thought to risking indecent exposure in that moment. Reason finally prevailed as she pulled back and panted her own desire into the warm morning air. It would happen and it would happen soon. But not here.
"Third thing, Chuck," she gasped. "I never want to hear you talk about being out of anyone's league ever again, especially mine. Is that understood?"
She felt him tense to push back and put a finger over his mouth. "Just nod your acceptance, Chuck," she whispered. "There will be no negotiation on this point."
"Good," she said as he nodded. She laid down fully on him, resting her arms in the sand while her hands ran through his silky hair and sent vibrations of joy down her spine. She captured his eyes with hers once again. "Chuck, I am the daughter of a conman. A child grifter who grew up to become a CIA assassin. Who am I to think I'm worthy of the love of a kind and caring man? A beautiful man with an amazing smile and wonderfully soft, dark curly hair that I can't get enough of? Doesn't that man deserve more than the tainted, bloodstained love that I might offer him in return?"
He tensed again and this time she stopped him with her lips on his, stealing his words before they could be voiced. "Shhh, Chuck. These are rhetorical questions." She smiled again at his expression before continuing.
"What I'm telling you is that we're both coming into this not just with baggage, but our own personal demons as well. These demons whisper in our ear and tell us we're not worthy, that we don't deserve what the other is offering and the other deserves better than what we can offer them. I have my demons just as you have yours. When I made the observation that I could become your girlfriend to explain my presence in your life, I did so unconsciously realizing the same thing you consciously realized. That falling in love would be a forgone conclusion. Of course it scares the crap out of me. I was less scared standing in front of that bomb last night. But I guess I don't care. If you're willing to take that leap with me, then I'm ready to jump. Maybe we can hold each other as we fall together."
She saw him nod ever so slightly as he said, "I'm ready, too."
She kissed him again and held him as she fell.
~ The End ~