A/N: I write in canon only. This is part 2. Within lies four months of flashbacks that are extrapolations from specific scenes from specific episodes.
Dislcaimer: This story contains one line from the episode "Chuck vs The Wookiee" written by Allison Adler and one line from the episode "Chuck vs Sarah," written by Rafe Judkins and Lauren LeFranc
July 5, 2012
LAX International Airport, Los Angeles, California
"Chuck, where the hell are you? What's all that background noise?" Devon shouted through Chuck's cellphone. Chuck had the phone pressed against one ear, his hand pressed hard over the other to block out a plethora of high decibel noise.
"The airport," he shouted back. "Look, is Ellie there?" he asked.
"She's gone to pick up Clara from a play date with the neighbor. Is everything ok? She should be back in like 10 minutes or so.."
He pulled his watch forward, checking the time. Afraid he would miss his flight, he shouted back, "I'm going to be late, Devon. Can you just tell her I'll be out of town for a few days? Nothing to worry about. Just...well, tell her, ok?"
"Ok, bro. You got someone to water the plants?" he asked.
An incredulous expression on his face, Chuck replied, "Um, yeah. Alex and Morgan can handle a ficus and a Christmas cactus." It only occurred to Chuck later that Awesome had been mining for information.
Normally in situations like this, Chuck would have asked his sister for advice, maybe even before he had asked Morgan. The physical distance between them had slowly become a barrier, though he had tried to do his best to minimize its impact. The time difference, their busy schedules, and a strong determination to be self-sufficient had not remedied anything. The fact that he was on his way to find Sarah, and that his sister didn't know, bothered him more than he cared to acknowledge.
He was so uncertain himself, so up in the air, talking to her would have grounded him, maybe even convinced him to not go, as he'd struggled for days with the decision to finally leave. Hearing her practicality in imagined conversations left him unable to provide legitimate retorts. What do you plan to do? What are you going to say?
The fact that he had no idea was no comfort. Telling his sister that out loud was more than he could manage.
He tucked the phone in his pocket, slung his bag over his shoulder, and ran towards his gate.
After he was out of sight, a man in a gray suit seated at the closest terminal quietly spoke into his watch. "The subject is on the move. Commercial flight."
He stood, regarding the message board in front of him. "St Louis, Missouri," he answered an unheard question in a heavy Russian accent. "No. Alone." he said. "We don't know. But we'll find out," he finished, and walked back in the opposite direction, away from the departure gates.
July 5, 2012
Cruising altitude 35,000 feet, somewhere over Arizona
Chuck's flight was not fully booked, and he found himself the sole occupant of the entire row on this 747. It was the last flight out of Los Angeles headed here, and it was late. Although there had been a short time when they had actually owned their own jet, most of his air travel had been done on commercial flights, usually much more crowded than this. It was a nice change. He flipped up the armrest in between seats, setting his laptop bag on the seat next to him as he worked on his computer.
He wasn't really working, as the security protocols needed to do so were just not achievable using airline WiFi. He was mindlessly working-balancing his budget, balancing his checkbook, answering generic emails. And even with those easy tasks, he was having trouble focusing. His eyes kept wandering to the window, scanning for the thin rows of lights that meant he had cleared the Sierra Nevadas and was flying over civilization again and not the desert.
He rubbed his eyes, surprised that he could feel so wound up, and so utterly exhausted at the same time. The computer screen started to hurt his eyes, and though he found sleeping on an airplane not usually possible, his extra space and his drooping eyelids made it extra appealing. He had at least two more hours, he thought. He folded his arms across his chest and rested his head against the cabin panel next to the window.
His brain didn't stop mulling over his problems, however, even as he drifted to sleep.
July 5, 2012
St. Louis, Missouri
Home, Sarah thought with a sigh, as she shut the door behind her, feeling like she was sealing herself inside a tomb. She flung her bag onto the sofa, following it down with her body as she flopped uncomfortably down next to it. The bile seemed to rise in her throat as the word banged around inside her head. Other people had homes. This was not home.
Had there ever been? What a question to ponder, and yet, she knew the answer. The problem, as always, was that the one place in all of her life that had been-she couldn't remember anymore. What it looked like, she was sure-wooden door, painted walls and cabinets, a comfortable sofa, a soft bed. But the feeling of home, whatever that translated to, was absent. It used to be home. Now she was lost. Again.
It took more than all of her fingers and toes to count the places she had lived. And they all looked like this place where she was now. Coordinated furniture, neat and tidy, with a well-swept floor and perfectly dusted surfaces. Barren walls, empty shelves, sterile decorations. This was her apartment, but after all this time, it still looked no better than a hotel room. Because she knew as hard as she could have tried, it would never feel homey. Nothing ever could.
Well, at least, she was alone. Introverted by nature, being out in the world surrounded by people, was a drain on her energy. This job, pushing papers behind a desk in the federal building, working for DHS, was the epitome of draining. Dull and mundane, the days never changed-paperwork, coffee breaks, lunch at her desk, endless meetings that always came close to putting her to sleep. But it was a job, a job she needed to live. though not the job she had lived for, not all that long ago.
She hated the boring conversations, the idle chit chat and the gossip. Sometimes it was infuriating, listening to her co-workers complain about things that she knew just didn't matter. She had no sympathetic ear, ran from others who couldn't stop droning on and on about this or that, insignificant flotsam floating across a lazy stream, while she stood at the center of a hurricane that no one else could see or feel.
She checked the time, realizing she had sat still a little too long, evening starting to creep towards night, and she still hadn't eaten dinner. Dragging herself back to her feet, she walked into the kitchen, pulling a glass bowl with leftover beef stew she had cooked two nights ago from her refrigerator and sticking it into the microwave. While the timer ticked down as the machine hummed quietly, she pulled the binder out the kitchen drawer and placed it on her table.
Opening the front cover, she pulled out the laminated sheet, her step by step guide, and laid it to the side. She would do the meditation once she had eaten. She flipped to the tab for July, pulling the excess pages, full of her handwritten notes, back and settling them down through the silver binder rings. She drew one line down the middle of the paper, the other across the middle. Taking a deep breath, she tried to relax her mind and let her brain empty itself onto the paper. In one box she wrote Memories, in another Dreams, in a third Emotions, and lastly Questions. Then she let her mind wander, each word or thought she wrote in the appropriate box, drawing lines to connect things she knew were connected.
She did this every night, before she was too tired to remember the day. Most days it was productive, and helped her to sort the things from her day-and place them in time. Some were recollections of today, some were memories. Very old memories sometimes, others she knew that she was somehow pulling out of the cavern of her mind where shadows blocked what she could plainly see. She did this exercise for almost 20 minutes, realizing afterward that her stew had gone cold again and needed to be reheated.
She restarted the microwave, then flipped the back of her binder, creating a new line for each thing she knew was something she remembered. Everything, sometimes things as insignificant as a dress she remembered owning, or a meal at a restaurant. Then there were things like fighting in hand to hand combat in the jungles of Thailand to find her boyfriend.
She shook her head, wishing the action would somehow shake those thoughts out, having called Chuck in the middle of the night like she had. She walked to grab her food, her breath becoming heavier, a gnawing ache slowly churning behind her breastbone, as she flipped back to her page for today.
Anxiety. Loneliness. The words stood out on the paper, rising up and leaving the other writing in the background. Slowly, she flipped back, day to day, reaching back almost two months. Those same two words, in her Emotions block, every single day.
She had been alone almost all her life-but until this exercise, she had no recollection of ever feeling lonely. But she knew what it was-felt it whenever she heard Chuck's voice in her mind. It was never any specific words or memories, just the timber of his voice, the rise and fall of the tones, no intelligible words but the unmistakable sound of him speaking.
She blinked tears away, hating herself for not being stronger, forcing the food down her throat, even though swallowing made her feel like gagging.
You're running out of time, she told herself, like she told herself every day, and still procrastinated, even now, completely paralyzed with trepidation.
She ate slowly, as the night sky turned from burnished blue to a deep midnight black. The moon, full and beaming brightly, was visible through the window over her sink. Massaging her temples with her hands to relieve the dull ache, she was completely unaware of the hazel eyes seeing the same moon from the window of an airplane over a thousand miles away.
Their thoughts were similar, unaware of each other as they were, with the distance between them slowly growing shorter.
September 24, 2007
Maison23, Los Angeles, California
Sarah turned on her recording device, and took a deep breath before she began. Speaking into the camera, keeping her face neutral, she began, "I made contact with the subject as planned, Chuck, at the Buy More. I asked him to fix my phone, tried to flirt with him. He was awkward, a little insecure, but not what I expected. I don't know what I was expecting, really, but, well, not him. Not someone like him. Maybe it was an accident or...I don't know. I don't see how Chuck and Bryce would have interacted, especially after Bryce went rogue." She swallowed hard, worried for a moment that some underlying emotion was showing through. She paused, and breathed.
"He walked away from me to uh, help a customer. A little girl who needed a new ballet recital. He dropped what he was doing to help her. I think he even gave her a little pep talk." She looked down and smiled, despite her best effort to stay stoic. "He seems like a regular, nice guy, nice nerdy guy. I almost think maybe the CIA and the NSA are overreacting here, but I don't know yet. Anyway, I tried to remove his computer from his apartment, but the subject confronted me mid-grab. The computer was destroyed in the process, which was my fault. Graham recalled me, but I told him I wasn't leaving until I fixed this. Whatever Bryce did, whyever he did it, I won't let him hurt anyone else."
An angry set to her eyes, she finished, "I'm going back to the Buy More tomorrow, to get a date with Chuck Bartowski." She clicked off the computer, surprised at the tiny smile that hid behind the fingers pressed over her mouth.
September 25, 2007
Burbank, California
"I'm going after him," Casey growled, as he was left standing alone in front of Agent Walker.
"No!" she yelled, stepping in front of him. "Major, you are not. Let him go."
"I have orders to bring him in alive. You, not so much," he threatened.
"He has the Intersect inside his head, as you are now aware. You know Bryce emailed it to him. Until we can figure out why, we need to work together," she demanded.
"I don't work with the CIA. In fact, I don't work with anyone," he grumbled.
She wanted to contact Director Graham, tell him what she had ascertained, but his blatant instructions for her to kill Chuck once he was of no more use to them stopped her. On the rooftop waiting for the extraction, she had finally realized how truly of an innocent bystander Chuck really was. Assets were usually assets because somewhere along the way, they had involved themselves in something unsavory, made themselves valuable by acquiring forbidden information. Chuck was just as she'd suggested the day before-a regular, nerdy guy, sent a top secret government email by a rogue agent for some unknown reason. A regular, nerdy guy, who instead of running away from danger, had run towards it, even when told not to, risking his own life to help them. And succeeding, no less. She and Casey would certainly have died trying to diffuse it. She owed her life to that regular, nerdy guy.
"Did you hear me, Major?" she screamed. "He is the Intersect! We need to protect him. Without disrupting his life. We can do that, can't we?"
"The NSA can protect him in a secure government facility, Walker," he argued.
"He isn't a criminal! He's a civilian. He's another victim of Bryce Larkin, and he risked his life to save you! Let me talk to the CIA before you do anything. Please," she insisted.
He grunted, half growling, saying nothing else. Over a secure communication device, they contacted General Diane Beckman and Director Graham together and explained the situation. She was able to do most of the talking, stressing Chuck Bartowski's heroism, persuading them to leave him in his life, with both her and Casey for protection. Beckman and Graham were willing to work together.
September 26, 2007
Santa Monica, California
By the time she was finished, it was very close to dawn. She was exhausted, aching and sore. Chuck hadn't actually gone home like he'd told them he would, she knew from the tiny GPS tracker she had attached to his jacket pocket right before they had entered the club the night before. She had trailed him, realizing he had gone to the beach. She had parked away from his line of sight, and stayed in the car as he sat alone in the dark, understanding how overwhelmed he was most likely feeling, and wanting to give him as much time to think as she could while staying close enough to protect him from danger, which was now her primary mission. She found him, sitting alone, watching the sun rise over the water, walking towards him with her boots in her hand. Compassion stirred inside her, deep from a place she had believed long frozen, a place she had to keep frozen to survive in her world doing her job. She had never met or interacted with anyone quite like Chuck Bartowski. It was her job now, to protect him, but this need to calm him, and put him at ease, as best as she could, was something she couldn't explain to herself.
So for once, she didn't try to make sense of it. She just sat beside him, earnestly wishing to assuage his fears. Later, she would realize what she had wanted to see, and was eventually rewarded with as she bumped his shoulder with her own, was his smile. Bright, crinkling his nose, genuine. She had known then that he had believed her, when she told him he could trust her. Nothing had ever been as important to her before, that he knew she was sincere.
October 1, 2007
Maison23, Los Angeles, California
After locking her hotel room door, Sarah sat at her computer to record for her mission log. She knew what was required, a calm, stoic face. Facts only. Only she hesitated to press record, because she wasn't calm. She wasn't sure what was more troubling-that she was worrying about what would happen to Chuck when the Intersect was out of his head, or that she was concerned with him at all. He was her assignment, she reminded herself. Why was she letting herself get so rattled?
She got up, took off her makeup, and dressed for bed, all the while trying to clear her mind and calm herself. She sat on the edge of her bed, and finally pressed record.
"Day 8. October 1, 2007. Chuck found out I have a cover job at the Wienerlicious in the same mall as the Buy More. He seemed surprised, but I had to remind him that both Agent Casey and I are here to protect him. I proposed the second date idea, with the intention of bringing him to Dr. Zarnow, the specialist who encoded the original Intersect, who may be our only hope of extracting the Intersect from Chuck. We took every precaution to protect Chuck's identity from him." She paused, as she pondered what the doctor had said. "Zarnow was amazed at the extent of Intersect information Chuck is able to retain. It makes me wonder, how an ordinary guy like that could exceed the designers' intentions for the Intersect. Did Bryce know something we don't?"
She almost erased the whole thing and started over. Was she still suspicious of Chuck? No, no. He was not some evil conspirator. He had the Intersect by accident, almost certainly. She hated waffling, being unclear. She knew both the CIA and the NSA were going with the hypothesis that Larkin had sent it to Chuck to hide it, not thinking he himself would be killed. What if it was more complicated than that?
She finished, "Anyway, Zarnow has what he needs. Hopefully soon, he can get Chuck back to normal and this will all be over." She flipped the device off, but couldn't shake the pall of melancholy that hovered just above her. She thought about his sister's invitation to dinner. She thought about his smile, as he'd thanked her for a second date. Thoughts that kept her awake, when she desperately needed sleep.
Hence, she was already awake when Director Graham called her to tell her Zarnow was dead, with the coordinates of a vehicle explosion outside of the city.
October 2, 2007
Maison23, Los Angeles, California
After her shower, as she dried her hair with a towel, she sat on her bed to record her log. Her hand trembled when she reached out; she clenched her fist hard to stop it from shaking, then flipped on the recorder.
"Day 9. After getting word in the middle of the night that Zarnow was dead, I tried to warn Chuck to stay away from John Casey. Apparently, he told Chuck to stay away from me. Casey and I suspected each other, which makes sense I guess. He doesn't trust me. I don't trust him. But I thought, at least, that Chuck trusted me. He listened to Casey and actually thought I was a double agent!" She paused, actually stopped the recording while she caught her breath. She was angry, but also hurt, which had begun to worry her.
"Once I realized that Zarnow must have faked his death, since he was NSA, and I attributed it to Casey in error, I was taken. I had a plan...but somehow Chuck, and I know it was Chuck, because Casey wouldn't have blinked if something happened to me, convinced Casey to go after me." Her eyes shifted away from the camera. "Chuck put himself at risk to try and rescue me. I don't know why Casey let him out of the car, but, well, Chuck can be stubborn. And as nerdy and timid as he first appeared, he is quite courageous when it comes to situations like that. But he still can't accept that being the Intersect means he has to put his safety first. He's heroic, even though he doesn't know it. Because he can't put his own safety first. It's making my job so much harder. I ended up having to talk him down, flying a helicopter. After he had subdued the suspect mid-flight." She chuckled in amazement.
She stopped the recording, intentionally leaving out the fact that she'd let him have it when he got out of the helicopter. Though factually correct, she had been unnecessarily harsh. After everything Bryce had done to her, Chuck thinking she could be just as treacherous had unnerved her. She kept telling herself being accused of being a traitor had sparked her rage. But wasn't anger secondary? Masking something else? It hurt her, in a place she didn't think she could feel anything anymore, that he could think that. That he had not in fact trusted her, like she'd asked him to.
Chuck Bartowski had now become her primary reason for not being able to sleep, after only nine days. It was not a good sign.
October 3, 2007
Wienerlicious, Burbank, California
Chuck took a huge bite of a badly burned corn dog, urging a genuine smile out of Sarah. She was an expert at faking smiles—but somehow she didn't need that particular skill here. At least, not when she was around Chuck.
"So, Sarah, this is your job?" Ellie asked as she approached the counter. Chuck sensed the confusion in her tone. She did, in fact, drive a Porsche 911.
"I needed something to get me by, you know, after relocating from across the country," Sarah said with a soft smile.
"What did you do in D.C.?" Ellie asked.
"I worked for the government. Boring paper pushing, you know? But the benefits were good." It frightened Chuck just a little at the ease with which she lied. Then forced himself to remember that it was her job.
Devon thanked her for his slightly burned food, adding, "Didn't you relocate for your job?"
"Oh, no. Not that," she said demurely, looking down at the counter.
Chuck leaned in to his sister, whispering, "She left because of her ex."
"Oh," she understood, her eyes wider. She nudged her boyfriend and gave him a look of consternation.
Sarah watched the idea pass through Chuck's family, and chose to speak up. "Don't worry about that. I did leave for a relationship reason. But that's in the past. Starting fresh here."
Chuck saw the briefest flashes of sadness behind her eyes before she forced the smile back into place. He had been so far away from her at Bryce's funeral, but even from that distance, he could see her red and distressed eyes. It made him question her explanation offered about her partnership with him.
"You're just like our boy here, Sarah," Morgan teased. "Nothing but potential." His burnt food crunched as he bit, then he smiled as he chewed what he obviously thought was terrible tasting.
Chuck was embarrassed, but the smile Sarah flashed, warm and bright, made it better.
October 3, 2007
Maison23, Los Angeles, California
At the end of her recording, she paused, cleared her throat. "I attended Agent Larkin's funeral today. I wish I had a better answer for why he did what he did. I guess I'll never know. But before—before, he was still…" She swallowed hard. "He was my partner."
She looked away as another thought encroached. "Chuck was there. I was definitely surprised, after everything I heard from him. About how Bryce wrecked his life. Things I can't argue with." She shook her head. "Although, now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense that Chuck would do that. He is just a nice guy, all the way through."
October 9, 2007
Maison23, Los Angeles, California
She should have been exhausted, at the end of the long day, but she was still charged up. She was perky as she switched on the computer. "Beckman thought it was a good idea to send Chuck out on his first mission, since he flashed on La Ciudad, and she thought he might be useful." She looked away from the computer, gazing at the floor as she spoke. "He was so down on himself today, when I talked to him about his cover. Feeling very sorry for himself. And it seems, for whatever reason, that Bryce actually set Chuck up to take the fall for cheating. Even at his worst, I don't think Chuck would ever have cheated on anything. Still just questions that I'll probably never get any answers to."
She looked back up, her eyes lighting up as she did so. "But, I guess Beckman's trial by fire for him worked. He was threatened with torture and almost killed, and he didn't break his cover. We know what she looks like now, even if she did get away. We never could have done what we did without him. He's so much braver than he ever gives himself credit for." She shut off the computer quickly, afraid her face would show something she didn't want to record for posterity, when she remembered brushing his hair off his forehead as she inspected him for wounds, catching his eyes, calming him with a steady gaze.
October 10, 2007
Echo Park, Los Angeles, California
"That was quick, Chuck," Ellie called as Chuck shut the door, returning from walking out with Sarah.
He smirked crookedly, sliding both hands into his back pockets. "She's just really tired, you know."
"I didn't want to call attention to it, but what happened to her lip?" Ellie asked.
"Oh, that, that, she, uh, fell while she was jogging this morning. Looks worse than it is," he said.
Ellie patted the sofa next to her. He walked and sat beside her. "Remember what I said earlier? About Sarah?"
He leaned forward, rubbing his palms together between his knees. "Yeah?"
"You were getting all nerdy Call of Duty with Morgan so you stopped paying attention. She was looking at you. She didn't know I was watching, you know, but it was so...obvious. She couldn't take her eyes off you. And you were nerding out. I'm telling you, Chuck, it is not going nowhere, at least not where she's concerned." Ellie patted his leg and smiled, reassuring him.
He smiled back, skeptically. Ellie may not have been aware that Sarah knew she was watching. Sarah was, after all, a spy. She had to sell it, just like she'd said two days ago in the Buy More. To absolutely everyone.
October 18, 2007
Maison23, Los Angeles, California
"My middle name is Lisa," she whispered, closing her eyes, wishing she could have said it when he was still kneeling in front of her.
He walked back to her, handing her a fistful of napkins, using all of his effort to hide the fact that he had heard her say that, even though he had walked away. She reached for a piece of pizza. "You said you wanted to talk?" he asked innocently.
"Yeah. I, uh, wanted to apologize for being so harsh with you, in the car, at the beach," she said slowly. He closed his eyes, appreciating the irony now, after he had already apologized for the same thing. "I forget sometimes that you've only been doing this for three weeks or so, and that you don't really have any field training." She looked up at him. "You handle yourself better than I would have ever thought possible, but it's hard, you know, keeping your emotions away from your work. That takes years to master, and even then…" She looked away, her cheeks tinting lightly pink.
"You don't have to explain, Sarah. I get it," Chuck said softly. "I saw you at his funeral. You were more upset than just partners."
She struggled to remain neutral, and Chuck could tell. "I was telling you the truth, at least, when I told you we weren't friends. Carina's my friend. You know what she's like. That's what you end up having in this kind of life."
"So. Carina. She was speaking Swedish, wasn't she?" he asked, trying to change the subject, sensing her mood turning.
"Yes," she answered plainly.
"You speak Swedish?" he asked.
"That was Polish that I answered her in," she mumbled.
"But you understand Swedish? How many languages do you speak? Can you at least tell me that?" he asked.
"Several," she said hesitantly.
He smiled. "I only speak two. And one is not a real language," he laughed. At her confused face, he added, "Klingon." She shook her head slowly, her lips pressed together in mirth. "Bryce and I both spoke Klingon. Did you know that?" he asked, instantly sorry that he was pressing this.
She saw the compassion in his eyes, looked away briefly, shaking her head negatively. "He would never have paid attention to what I wanted on my pizza, though, either," she added softly.
He smiled nervously, touched that somehow she had managed to make him feel better. "I don't know how to be any other way than how I am. And I don't want to be. I know eventually I may not have a choice, but-"
"Stay the way you are, Chuck. You're a great guy. A great person. Don't let this life corrupt you. No matter what I said to you before, I mean that."
She was so adamant, so sincere, he held her gaze and smiled. It had only been three weeks, and Sarah was adept at lying, but somehow Chuck was certain he could see through to the truth, at least when it was in her eyes.
After Carina's strange comments, he couldn't help but wonder. And he was worried, at least a little bit, if it might be true.
October 24, 2007
Maison23, Los Angeles, California
Wiping the smirk off her face, realizing she was still making herself laugh thinking about Chuck and his sizzling shrimp stakeout delivery the night before, she clicked on her computer. "So Chuck Bartowski did it again. Disregarded a direct order by Casey to go home, to protect himself, and came inside to help us again. But he managed to save us again, too. As quirky as he can be, he can't stand to see people in trouble and not help them. It's quite an important thing to him. He convinced China's best spy to defect, by appealing to her love for her brother. I kept telling him he needs to pull back, not care so much. But he keeps proving me wrong, because his caring so much is what works. What keeps saving us."
She shifted in her seat. "But, for the first time, being the Intersect really affected his regular life. He feels like he let Morgan down. And he missed what he described as a very important dinner with his sister, to help us. It makes me wish, just a little, that he could tell them. The people he cares the most about think he's leaving them in the lurch, like he's flaky or something. It's hard, and it's something he didn't ask for. It's not fair. But life isn't, is it?"
October 25, 2007
Echo Park, Los Angeles, California
Chuck shut the door, grinning at her as he moved to walk her to her car. "It was nice of you to come," he said.
"Like I said, your sister wouldn't take no for an answer," Sarah said with a smile.
"She does think...you know…" He reddened, not wanting to finish, not wanting to tell her the rest.
"How old were you when your mother left?" she asked bluntly. She watched his smile fade, his eyes glaze slightly with a pain he kept well hidden.
"Nine," he said.
"I'm sorry, Chuck, I didn't mean to upset you," she said gently.
"It's ok, Sarah, really. She was just here, and then she wasn't. My father...was...is... crazy. Eccentric. Scientist, always working on something we couldn't understand. Ellie was 12 years old when my mother left, and she did almost everything after that. Cooking, cleaning, helping my father do pretty much everything that a wife should have done. But she also took care of me, even then." He sighed, looked away. "My father left when I was 16. I haven't actually seen him since either."
He saw the concern, the sympathy on her face. "My God. I didn't realize…" She looked at the ground, mumbling to herself, "No wonder yesterday is important. I'm so sorry all this spy stuff ruined it for you."
"I still got tonight. She forgave me, like she always has," he said.
"So you graduated from high school, went to Stanford. Your sister was what, a sophomore in college? And she put herself through medical school? And you through Stanford for almost four years? That's incredible," she said.
"We are Bartowskis," he kidded, trying to lighten the mood, knowing no matter how much he wanted to talk to her, talking about his family hurt too much. "We don't give up. My sister told me that, when I was nine."
She smiled comfortingly at him, thinking but not saying, how she already knew that, without his having to tell her.
October 31, 2007
Maison23, Los Angeles, California
She folded her Princess Leia costume, then turned on her computer. "Chuck diffused another bomb today. This time under the Santa Monica pier. And he missed a real job interview at Buy More to do it. He won't get that job now, and he most definitely would have, I know. He made the choice, once again, to help when he could. Even after he found all the bugs we left in Ellie's apartment, including the one in the picture I gave him. Standard protocol, but you know, he took it offensively, as I could have expected."
She sighed, fidgeted with her hands gently in her lap. "You know, Chuck felt really badly that he trusted Laszlo, that he was so easily fooled. He thought his willingness to trust people made him stupid. I had to learn a long time ago not to trust anyone. And although needed, it's not a good thing. And no matter what I do, when I'm around Chuck, my guard is down. I asked Chuck to trust me, but, the truth is, I know I can trust him. And as much as I wish it were, I don't know if that's a good thing either."
November 8, 2007
Echo Park, Los Angeles, California
Sarah wiped furiously at her eyes as she left Chuck's apartment, clutching the disk in her hand. She was on her way to deliver it to Casey, to make sure it was safe, and would never fall into the wrong hands. However, showing up at Casey's door all weepy eyed was the last thing she wanted to do, or have to explain. She paused, stopping to sit on the edge of the fountain in the courtyard, feeling like her knees had weakened.
She had questioned before, what had Bryce known? Why send Chuck the Intersect? At the very least now, she knew the truth about Chuck being expelled. Bryce had done it to protect him from the CIA. Chuck had been dumbstruck as he'd watched, amazed that his five year hatred for Bryce was misdirected. He'd even wondered about how hard it must have been for Bryce, to do so much damage, and never tell him the truth. She had been so conflicted over Bryce herself-seeing him, knowing what he had done, had torn open that same wound. She felt better and worse at the same time-at least she knew that the person she had loved was not a complete lie. But he was dead, and he'd died while she believed he was a traitor.
All that to protect Chuck, and then sending him the Intersect anyway, putting him right back in the CIA's path. Why? It didn't make any sense. Well, not completely. Bryce knew about Chuck's ability to retain information, something that was apparently unique about his brain way before the Intersect was a gleam in anyone's eye. Maybe he had just come to a point where he felt he had no choice but to send it to Chuck, even though he wished he'd hadn't needed to, because he knew Chuck could manage it. But why? Why did he steal it in the first place?
All the while, she had told herself that she would never completely understand why Bryce had done what he did. But now it was different. Maybe he hadn't been as completely traitorous as everyone else believed. After almost ten years in the CIA, if she had learned anything at all, it was that everything was way more complicated than it appeared on the surface.
New tears welled in her eyes as she thought of Bryce's assessment of Chuck. A good person, without the stomach for cold-blooded clandestine work. A good person now thrust into that same world, and she and Casey were left to protect him. Knowing what she knew now, she had more than just Chuck's personal safety to protect. She vowed to do her best to keep this life from destroying the innate goodness in him. She owed it to both Chuck and Bryce.
November 15, 2007
Maison23, Los Angeles, California
"Day 49. Today Chuck broke up with me. Fake...fake broke up with me," she stammered, not able to look straight at the camera as she sat on the edge of her bed. "This will complicate our cover, I think, but the subject...Chuck...well, he believes this situation is becoming too difficult to maintain. I'll have to figure out where we go from here." She shut the computer off as she felt the tears begin to accumulate on her lower eyelashes.
How did she end up like this? She asked herself. This is what you do, she told herself angrily. All that lecturing Chuck about not letting his emotions get the best of him. And yet, she now had done the same thing to herself. For not the first time. Only this was different, worse. He was her asset, someone she was sworn to protect with her very life. Feeling the way she felt about him put everyone and everything at risk.
Feeling the way she felt...The thought jangled around in her brain and would not quiet. Standing in that room, still poisoned with truth serum, it had literally taken all of her strength to lie to him. Was it a lie? Well, maybe not really. They could never be more than what they were...cover boyfriend and girlfriend. It was the way he had asked her the question that gave her the ability to lie under the effect of the serum. The thought now filled her with panic. What if he had asked her plain out if she had feelings for him? What would she have said then?
When I put my head down on your pillow, the one you usually sleep on, the pillow smelled like you...I got jealous when I saw you with that other girl, and remorseful at the same time because this situation is keeping you from really being happy...I think the fact that you didn't even hesitate to give your sister the only antidote that we had at the cost of your own life is the perfect example as to why you are so much more than you think you are…
She shook her head, as if doing so would clear all those thoughts away. It didn't work.
November 22, 2007
Echo Park, Los Angeles, California
The apartment was dark and quiet when Chuck made it back home. Ellie and Awesome were asleep. He realized with a start, because he hadn't talked to his sister in a few days, that they must have thought he was out with Sarah again, not with Lou. He had never even mentioned Lou to his sister. Because it was hard to explain why he wasn't with Sarah, his fake girlfriend. God, was he tired of being in this twisted, convoluted situation, stacked with lies and fakeness.
Sarah. Just saying her name is his head made him feel light-headed, almost dizzy. He had had proof, under truth serum no less, that the relationship was not, couldn't ever be, real. He'd even tried to move beyond that. But she seemed jealous. Seemed. He'd convinced himself it was just her job, her need to protect him, being the Intersect and all. In a heated moment of stress, trapped in the trunk with her, he'd been overly nasty towards her, not understanding at the time why or how he could be, other than he was tired of his spy life interfering with his real one. The anger lingered, even as they were tied up. But once the bullets started flying, she'd kicked his chair hard to clear him from danger.
He'd crashed into a pile of boxes, tipped over, still bound to the chair. All he felt after that was her, throwing herself on top of him, shielding him from gunfire with her own body, at the same time struggling to release his restraints. It's just her job, he told himself, even as he'd seen her worried face, how she quickly scanned him to make sure he was ok. That was why he followed her, instead of running away. She was so willing to help him, he could not, would not, walk away and leave her without the Intersect in the face of a bomb.
A chemical bomb only added to the tension between them, to the point of her threatening to shoot him because he wouldn't run away. His argument to her made perfect sense. But his comments to her didn't. She brought out the best in him, not the worst. The tension of the moment had frayed everything, looking death in the face. He wasn't afraid, not really, as amazing as that sounded. In that split second, he made the decision, if he had to die, if they both had to die, he was glad, at least, that they were together. He closed his eyes, prayed quickly for forgiveness-for a thousand different things, mostly from her, for his failure to help her.
His mind reeling a thousand miles an hour, he thought in a split second what being incinerated at point blank range would feel like. Would he feel it? Heat? Pain? What he felt instead was a double-fisted grip on the front of his shirt, so hard it pulled at his chest hair, and Sarah's mouth, suddenly hard against his lips, kissing him ferociously. His eyes had flown wide, unbelieving, but only another nanosecond later, he was returning the kiss, pulling her against him, lifting her slightly off the ground to ease the strain. He forgot about the bomb, forgot about everything, maybe even his own name. Maybe this was heaven, he thought straily, wondering how anything would ever make him feel better than he felt right then…
He lost track of time, kissing her, not wanting to pull away from her. Whatever timer was running had to have run out. Where was the explosion? Reluctantly, he opened his eyes to see her, confused and chagrined. He couldn't catch his breath.
He still couldn't quite catch his breath here, thinking about it. Uncomfortable situation, she had said, and then tried to pretend as Casey and the others arrived that it hadn't happened at all. We both thought we were going to die, he kept telling himself. It was just a knee-jerk reaction.
As he lay awake, staring at the ceiling in his bedroom, he kept trying to convince himself that same thought. She kissed you, was the only thing that worked its way past the confusion. And the only thing he wanted to do was kiss her again. Because a part of him knew, without question, that she would have kissed him just as passionately, regardless of the circumstances. Which made him question everything he thought he knew as truth.
Thoughts not very conducive to sleep, he lamented with a sigh.
January 30, 2008
Echo Park, Los Angeles, California
It was a nightmare.
Chuck was asleep, but for whatever reason, when he remembered his dreams, he also remembered that while he was actually dreaming-he knew it. Strange scenario that he associated with the Intersect.
He was standing on a windy rooftop in the middle of the night. His hands were cuffed together in front of him. And he was alone.
He turned, and saw Bryce Larkin, wearing a tuxedo, a very smug and arrogant look on his face. "You did this to yourself," he sneered.
"No, you did this to me!" It had the strength behind it to be a bellow, but the sound was only a whimper, his voice emaciated in his dream.
"I'm sorry, Chuck, for everything," Bryce said, then raised a gun from his side and fired.
He found himself flat on his back, gasping for breath, feeling like he had been hit in the ribs with a baseball bat. He heard someone else gasp, and turned his head toward the sound.
Sarah. She stood, breathtakingly beautiful, in a long black evening gown. Her face was set like stone, but her eyes were ablaze with some pain he could not begin to fathom. Bryce moved to stand beside her, and they both looked down at his prone form.
"I thought you were coming to Omaha with me," Bryce said, pulling her against him in an embrace.
"I can't go with you. Chuck is my job, my responsibility. I don't have a choice," Chuck heard her tell him, saw tears as they streamed down both cheeks, smudging her eye makeup.
"You kissed him, Sarah, didn't you?" Bryce demanded.
"It was a mistake," Chuck called from the ground, though they seemed to no longer be able to hear him. "She made a mistake," he repeated, feeling something rip inside his chest, like it had after she'd walked away from him after saying the same thing. "You kissed her, Bryce. I saw you."
"I saw your face, when you thought I shot him, Sarah," Bryce said, backing away from her.
"We're friends," Sarah said. Chuck saw she was now wearing a red blouse and a black skirt, but she wasn't crying anymore, she was smiling. She had an alarm clock in her hand.
"You believe me, Sarah, don't you?" he asked, knowing the answer, wondering why he was asking. Of course she did. She believed him without question. Of that, he was certain.
"Maybe we'll have time to find out how we really feel," Sarah called. He was on his feet again, handcuffed. She stood in front of him, her bottom jaw clenched tight as she struggled not to break down. He watched helplessly as she cried, defeated, and grabbed both of his hands.
"Tell them I love them. Morgan and Ellie and…" He was crying too, his life evaporating in front of him as he waited here. And you, Sarah.
He opened his mouth to tell her how important she was to him, but no sound came out. All he could hear were the sounds of bullets whizzing by his head. "Get down, Chuck, now!" Sarah screaming, Casey screaming.
He watched Sarah wrestling with Lizzie, punching and kicking, and felt all the breath leave his body as he watched Sarah roll over the edge of the building, still in Lizzie's grasp. Casey was behind him, and he rushed to the edge, holding his breath, terrified that he would look and see her broken and dead on the ground-
"No!" he screamed, sitting up hard, panting. The darkness of his room was disorienting, and he wondered where the dots of city lights had gone. He put his hand to his chest, feeling his heart pounding. Easy, he told himself. Not real.
He eased himself back down, slowly taking deep breaths. Sarah was safe. He was home, not in some underground bunker. Sarah and Casey had saved him from that, at least for now. And his sister was getting married. She had Awesome's great-grandmother's ring Chuck and Sarah had spent all night the night before fishing through a dumpster to recover. Everything was all right.
Well, at least as all right as it could ever be again. At least until he could find a way to get this Intersect out of his head.
The hope of that calmed him enough that he could fall back asleep.