A YuleTie Tale
By Steampunk . Chuckster
Summary: Sarah Walker was dumped the day before Christmas Eve, and her Plus One at her work's annual Christmas Eve Soiree is now officially a Plus Zero. Her best friend Ellie Bartowski has a solution to her problem, and Sarah finds she isn't quite as sure about it as Ellie is. AU Christmas Charah.
A/N: Only a few more chapters. I really want to be able to give a sense of closure and show you folks the career paths of both Sarah and Chuck before I sign off on this story. And it took a little more than I figured on to do that. I'm okay with it. Thanks for reading and reviewing.
Disclaimer: I don't own CHUCK. I don't own the characters. I am poor and will remain poor even after I post this fic, because nobody's paying me for this.
This time, it wasn't Chuck's fault that she couldn't sleep.
He'd actually been paramount to her ability to falling asleep in the first place. With his chest under her cheek, she'd fallen asleep almost immediately a little after midnight, after they'd hopped into bed together to make love again, still a little damp and brimming with adrenaline after running from his car to her apartment's lobby door in the rain.
With the rain falling outside of her apartment, the quiet glugging sound of it snaking its way down the drainpipe outside of her window had seemed to disturb him a little. Not that he'd complained aside from pointing it out the first time. But she didn't think he'd had an easy time falling asleep. It was something she'd grown so accustomed to whenever it rained in LA.
"Is it a dealbreaker?" she'd teased, raising an eyebrow down at him. He'd quietly shaken his head, an amused smile on his handsome face. "No? If you end up spending the night when it's raining like this, that'll be what you hear. All night."
"I'll get used to it," he'd replied quietly, resolutely.
She wasn't sure he'd gotten used to it just yet. But at least he was asleep now.
No, he wasn't the reason why she couldn't sleep, the way he'd been the reason on Christmas Eve.
She glanced over her shoulder at him still sleeping in her bed, only a bit of the light from the street coming into her bedroom and slashing across her bed, and him in it. But she could see him well enough, still in the same position she'd left him in a half hour earlier, on his back, his face turned towards her, one arm disappearing under her warm covers, the other resting on his chest out of the covers. His hand was right where her head had been for the four hours she'd slept before her brain had woken her up.
And she'd had to crawl out from his warm, comforting embrace.
Diane Freaking Beckman.
That was what had wrecked her sleep.
The damn woman with her massive and life-changing ideas, ideas that seemed so implausible, so pie-in-the-sky. But the more she thought about it, the more she wanted it. And who in the hell was she to want to own one magazine let alone control an umbrella under which multiple magazines might thrive?
Money would be the worst hurdle, the one that would be the hardest to clear. Convincing people with money that she was worth investing in would be difficult, especially after she was passed over for the promotion at ROAM.
The fact that she was even thinking about this in the first place was batshit crazy.
She wouldn't be living as comfortable of a life as she was currently living as managing editor of ROAM Magazine, at least not for some time while she figured things out. Or maybe she could find a way to stomach sticking it out at ROAM for long enough to save enough money that she could stay in her current apartment and survive comfortably for some time. And they would never know what she was planning with Diane in the meantime.
That was a thought.
But she still had no idea how terrible of an experience work would be with Clyde Decker as her boss. Could she take the toxic atmosphere at ROAM under Decker for long enough to get something going with Diane and Roan? She still had to have a conversation with Roan about what happened with the promotion, but she felt like he might be avoiding her too. Maybe he was worried she thought he was also partly to blame for what happened and that Sarah would chew him out. Or maybe it was just general guilt that was making him not want to approach her right now.
After a few days of space between Christmas Eve and and now, she didn't feel like chewing Roan Montgomery out. How would it help anything?
Instead, she needed some direction forward. Wherever she ended up going, it had to be forward.
Sarah looked down at the binder in her lap. Perhaps she had more options than she'd thought. If she could depend on having sufficiently earned the faith of people she'd worked with and deemed really talented in the time she'd been working in journalism, and specifically during the lead up to what she thought would be her promotion, she might be able to build a stellar team. She'd need them to have faith in her and her vision, though.
And still, the money would be really important. People deserved to be paid a living wage for their work and she wouldn't rely on folks not taking paychecks to get whatever this was off the ground.
Why was she still thinking in a way that signaled she was doing this?
Sighing, she let out a long breath and pushed her hand through her unbound hair.
She heard the sound of sheets rustling over at her bed then and turned to watch as Chuck squirmed sleepily, blinking his eyes open. He looked so much younger than usual as he craned his neck to look down his body, as if expecting her to be there even if he didn't feel her weight on his chest anymore. Blinking again, confused, he turned, felt the empty other side of the bed, and finally lifted his gaze to find her in the chair by her window.
A cute, sleepy smile spread over his face immediately. "Hiii," he drawled, and she giggled at the entire series of actions.
"Hi. Sorry, did I wake you up?"
He shook his head, giving her a disgruntled Please look, and pushed himself to sit up slowly. Wincing, he stretched his arms over his head. She wasn't sure if she was imagining it or not, but she thought maybe she heard a pop or two all the way across the room. "You okay?" he asked, his voice low and gravelly with sleep.
"Yeah," she said. "Just have a lot on my mind."
"Mmm. As always." He smiled.
"Go back to sleep, though. Really, I'm good. Just thinking." She got that Please look again in response as he rolled out of bed.
He was such a cartoon character, the way he groaned and seemed to almost flail himself off of the mattress onto his feet and soar up to his full height in two wild movements. He must've realized then that he was only in a pair of boxers and nothing else. "Shit, it's cold! Gah!"
She laughed as he made a grab for his zip-up hoodie strewn over the end of the bed and shrugged it on, zipping it up. He squeaked in consternation again and grabbed it, holding the front away from his torso as he shivered. "Jesus, the zipper's like ice!"
Shaking her head, she grinned and reached out a hand to wordlessly ask for him to join her. "You're a goofball."
"A sleepy goofball."
She dropped her arm with a huff. "Go back to sleep!"
"No! I want to know what you're thinkin' about," he said, padding over to her chair. "If it's a problem you're trying to figure out how to solve, I'm the perfect person to bounce it off of. No one can solve for 'x' like this guy." He poked himself in the chest with his thumb, trying to sit on the arm of the chair.
But she had a feeling with how hard the arm was, even if it was a plush chair, and with how bony his backside was, it was insanely uncomfortable. They'd only just gone on their first date hours earlier, but two years of deep and abiding friendship with this man made intimacy and affection feel so second nature. So she didn't even think twice about holding tight to her binder, standing up, and gesturing for him to sit in the chair.
"No, that's your ch—" She gave him an amused and droll look over her shoulder and he gave her an almost giddy, crooked smile, apparently understanding her intention. "Oh. Well, okay then."
He plopped down in the chair and she came around to the side of it, slumping over the arm and landing in his lap with an "oof" that made him giggle adorably. She slung her legs over the arm and shut the binder to keep the corners from gauging the poor guy. And then she swiveled a little so that her side pressed into his chest, and she smiled at him. "Hi there."
"Oh heeeeey," he mumbled, finishing it with an almost smug chuckle. He rounded her back with one arm to give her support and laid his other hand on her bare shin. It was large, warm, and comforting.
She felt drowsy suddenly and she wanted to just curl up into his chest and fall asleep again just like this. It had been a while since she'd felt this comfortable.
It was just so good. So right. It felt like exactly where she was supposed to be. And she didn't care how sappy her inner voice sounded. She felt a little sappy.
But she shook herself out of that thought, trying not to get too lost in this thing when they'd only been on one date. She realized how stupid that thought was immediately. She hadn't forgotten Ellie's insistence that Chuck had finally been pulled out of his depressive inability to move on from his college ex for years until Sarah had come into their lives.
And she couldn't stop thinking about the implications.
This was already a lot deeper than just one date.
"S'this?" He asked quietly, tapping the binder in her lap with his finger with a satisfying little taptap sound.
His hand went back to being draped over her knee this time, and he rubbed comfortingly. She sighed at the sensation.
"My binder."
"Hm." She felt his body tense a bit against hers. "Oh. Oh, is that the binder? With all of your editor-in-chief plans?"
"That's the one," she drawled, raising her eyebrows. She could hear the sarcasm and bitterness even as she tried to keep it out of her voice. "Lotta good it'll do me at ROAM now."
He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully as she looked up into his face. She was so close to said face, she could take in the angles of his jaw, the little dip under his bottom lip that swept into his strong chin. And he had long eyelashes. She lifted her hand from where it rested on her binder and she reached up to play with one of the locks of hair that curled around his ear.
Pursing his lips, he swung his gaze over to meet hers. "Well, erm… Maybe I shouldn't bring it up because you seemed…I mean, earlier it didn't seem like you wanted to… But if you owned your own magazine, or multiple magazines for that matter, that binder might come in handy, don't you think?"
Sarah raised her eyebrows up at him. "You really pay attention, don't you?"
"Sometimes. But all the time when it's you doin' the talkin'." His words plus the adorable wink made her melt against him, and she rested her cheek on his shoulder, scooting even closer to bury her face under his chin.
"I can't just walk away from ROAM, Chuck. Not like this. I can't bank on this extremely unrealistic dream situation that's so…different from anything I've ever done before. It's terrifying. Taking such a massive step like that? I don't think I can do it. I've got all my ducks in a line at ROAM—Decker being my boss now maybe throws that into whack—"
"What?"
"What?"
"Did you say 'throws that into quack'?" he asked.
"Whack. What is wrong with you?"
"Oh, that makes a lot more sense. But then I was like 'She said ducks earlier'."
Sarah cracked up and pulled back to look at him with her best what the fuck face. "I do not understand how your brain works. It's a marvel."
"Thanks?" He tilted his head. "Not sure if that's a compliment."
"It is," she giggled, and she slipped her hand down to his chest, idly playing with the zipper tab on his hoodie. "I'm scared," she sighed then, biting her bottom lip, feeling uncomfortable saying it out loud. "I don't want to leave my job, do this glorious quitting presentation in Clyde Decker's asshole face, go to try this new venture with Diane, and not be able to find any investors, not be able to get it off the ground, and then have no job and no way to continue writing, and I'll end up destitute or working some job I absolutely fucking hate. I can just see it going so wrong. This whole thing ending in a pile of ash, after all of the years of hard work to get where I am now."
His arm around her back shifted and she felt his hand settle on her hip furthest from him. "I don't think this whole thing is going to end in a pile of ash, Sarah. Know why?"
She eyed him for a long while, then smiled a little. "Why?"
He lifted his hand from her knee and delicately slipped his finger inside of the binder on her lap, opening it. "This. The fact that this binder even exists." She looked at him closely, not quite knowing what he meant. "You aren't like me. You don't let things stop you. You don't let the dust settle and put up with the life you've got. You get things done. You fight for stuff. You make impressively fat binders to prepare for your promotion so that you can hit the ground running. You aren't going to fail in this, Sarah Walker, because you don't let yourself fail, at least not indefinitely. Not for long. You have plans, you put together binders, you prepare, and you work your ass off. And if you don't know much about something, you sit down and you figure it out."
He smiled affectionately at her, gently turning the pages of the binder and glancing back down at it, looking at the dossiers she built. "Ellie told me that about you once. That she admires you because if you don't know something, you don't just shrug and go, eh I dunno oh well. You'll grab your phone or your laptop and you'll look 'til you get the answer." He shrugged. "She's right. You do that. And that's why I don't think you're gonna fail at this, not in the long run."
Sarah nibbled on her lip, feeling the warmth of his words combined with the warmth of his body and his arms around her, and she thought for just a split second, that instead of doing any of this crap, she'd just stay right here forever. He'd have to agree to it, of course. He'd probably lose his job at the Buy More.
Shaking herself, she smirked a little at how ridiculous her brain was at this heinously early hour of the morning now that she was…well, halfway happy. Fully happy in her romantic life. She just needed to figure her work shit out and maybe she could be on the pathway to some all around happiness.
"Chuck, I failed at getting that promotion."
He shook his head almost violently. "No. Nope. You did not fail. Remember what I said about Nellie Bly?" She snorted. Yes, she did remember. "You couldn't fail at something that was set up with the prime goal of making sure you didn't win." He sighed and let the back of his head thump against the chair, looking up at her ceiling. "I know what failure is, Sarah. Okay? And that wasn't failure."
There was a tone to the way he said that. It made her stop. She shifted so that she was turned in towards him more, cuddling close, pressing a hand against his chest. "Hey, what was that?"
He shrugged, his eyes still fastened on the ceiling.
"No shrugging. What's that supposed to mean? You know what failure is…"
His sigh was harder, tinged with frustration. "I've been on a crash course of failure since Stanford, Sarah. Don't say it. I know, you're gonna use my words against me. You can't fail at something that was set up—blah blah blah. But this is different and I've been in a rut and in denial for five whole years. That's the truth."
Whoa.
Sarah frowned deeply. "Hey, where'd this come from?"
He rubbed his hand up and down her hip, before she felt his fingers curl around her and pull her closer, as if he needed it. Sarah thought she'd help him out, ignoring the binder still balanced on her lap and rounding his shoulders with her arms.
"Chuck, what is it?"
"I've been thinking about stuff. It's not a big deal. Anyway, this conversation is about you. And this binder. It isn't about me."
"I just made it about you. Officially. It's got a time stamp and everything." He furrowed his brow and made a teasing what face at her in amusement. "Shut up. Just go with it. You jerk." He giggled and she smirked, blushing. "Chuck, I'm serious. Talk to me."
He just looked at her in the semi-darkness for a while, then seemed to make up his mind, moving his arms so that they were around the small of her back and hugging her even closer. She felt a twinge in her lower back, her body twisted up into an awkward position, but she wasn't budging.
He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, turning his head a little to gaze outside where she'd pulled the curtain to the side for some light to look in her binder without waking him. She pulled an arm back to tap his chin with her pointer finger and bring his attention back to her. It worked and he was amused by it on top of that. She smiled back at him, then raised her eyebrows to prompt him to talk to her.
Sighing once more, he finally spoke up.
"I keep thinking about how surprised Awesome and Ellie were that you…Well, the part about me having feelings for you didn't seem all that shocking to either of them. Which is fair. Because you're an incredible woman. An incredible person. Any guy who spends enough time around you would fall for you. It's like…a rule or something."
"Stop it," she warned, blushing and giving him a bit of a stink eye.
He chuckled, his chest bouncing pleasantly against hers. He sobered up a bit then, biting his lip, just watching her. And then he dropped his eyes to her lap. "But the big thing is, they were shocked by you returning my feelings. I was, too. Obviously. I was big-time shocked. But that's just…me. It's that they were shocked. It was kind of a wake-up call I think."
"They're wrong," Sarah said resolutely. "You're the best person I've ever met, Chuck. You're always there for your people. For Ellie, Devon, Morgan…me. Even the crappiest workers at the Buy More can look to you for help. It was actually really easy to fall for you."
He grinned at her, and she saw his heart in it. She put her whole heart into her own smile back at him.
"Thank you, Sarah. But you fell for…all of this stuff," he said, letting go of her to squish his hand between their chests and gesture at his chest. "Which is…it's good. I think that's supposed to be the stuff you should be focusing on when you…fall for a person." She nodded vehemently at that. "Mm. Yeah," he giggled, nodding back. "But that aside, it doesn't change the fact that I'm sort of…wasting my life. And I think Ellie and Awesome see that better than anybody." Sarah was quiet, watching him. She wanted to deny it, but he just looked so sure of what he was saying, like he'd really been thinking about it a lot. So she stayed quiet, deciding not to interrupt him. Maybe the best way to respect him at that very moment was to let him get all of this out, verbalize whatever had been going on in his head since Christmas.
"They saw firsthand how I got when I was kicked out of Stanford and got dumped by a cheating girlfriend. They saw me get my ass handed to me. They saw me glued to their couch for six months in a deep depression. They were there when I finally put on real person clothes, outside clothes, and let them take me for burgers the first time. They were there when I shaved off the facial hair finally. They were there when I got a haircut. And Ellie drove me to the Buy More to get my job back that I'd had in high school. She knows better than anyone in the whole world…what I've got in here." He tapped his temple. "And even though it kinda stung that she initially was so shocked by the fact that a successful, sweet, radically awesome, stunningly beautiful woman like you could ever go for a guy like me, the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. And I'm not just saying this to be self-deprecating or 'cause I want you to refute that," he rushed out, cutting her off before she could do just that. "I'm capable of so much better than what I'm doing working as the supervisor of the Buy More Nerd Herd. Seriously? I created an entire video game in my almost nonexistent free time at Stanford. When I was, like, eighteen. And that's the third video game I've created. The first one was when I was twelve fucking years old. I have something. And I've just let it…rot in here." He pointed to his chest again. "Because of a set back five years ago. For five years, I've just been wasting time. And Ellie knows that. Awesome knows too. I can do better than this. I should be doing better than this." He blinked once, then looked her right in her eyes, brown meeting blue.
There was a certain spark in him, a flare even. And it made her feel a little hot under the collar, so to speak.
"If you're going to be with me, and I'm going to be with you…if this is going to be a genuine relationship that we have going on here—and that's what I want, that's what I really, really want—then you deserve a guy who is living his life to its fullest potential. You deserve someone who is doing better for himself than just settling for an easy job that pays enough. You deserve someone who is using the talents and the skills he was born with." Sarah couldn't breathe, watching him, seeing the self-realization in him, the resolve, the determination. "So anyway, that's…what I've thinking about…"
Sarah wasn't sure what to say at first. And it bothered her. Because he always seemed to be able to figure out exactly the right thing to say, or at least, exactly what she needed to hear in that moment. And here she was, totally speechless, her ability to respond hampered by how big of a declaration, of a realization, this seemed to be for him. For his trajectory. For his whole life.
"Wow," she breathed.
He winced. And she winced back at him. Really? That was all she had for him? WOW?
"Shit, sorry," Sarah mumbled then, shaking her head. She felt herself blushing slightly. "I'm only good with words when I'm writing them down, I think. If you give me ten minutes and one of my notebooks, and-and a pen…maybe I can write up exactly the right response to everything you just said. But-But my mouth is just…crap." She huffed in frustration.
Bless him for chuckling good-naturedly. "I don't need you to write anything for me. I don't even need you to say anything. It's just something I've been thinking about. That's all."
"For me?" she heard herself blurt then. He blinked at her, question in his face. "I-I mean, you're doing this, all of this for me? Is that what you are saying? That what happened on Christmas Eve, and what's happened the days since then, with us, made you come to this decision to make some changes to your life?" This time he seemed to be the speechless one. Sarah slipped her hand up to lightly run her pointer finger down his jaw. "If that's the case, I'm not sure I like it. Honestly." He frowned and she rushed on. "I don't want to be the reason why you feel like you have to be something else, be someone else. I'm pretty fond of the guy who's sitting right here, doesn't matter where he works or what his income is."
Chuck smiled. "That means more to me than I can say. But it doesn't change the truth. I'm capable of more. This…this change in my relationship with you, finding out that you maybe sorta have the hots for me—no big deal—"
Sarah cracked up. "The worst possible way to explain what's happened here."
"Why thank you," he drawled teasingly, raising an eyebrow smugly, making her laugh harder.
He waited for her to sober up a bit before he continued, his smile a little quieter. "What happened between us has sort of made me see the way I'm living my life in such stark contrast from the life I…could be living if I just…applied myself. And I-I think that's what Ellie's been trying to get me to see all these years, ever since Stanford happened. And the problem's been that I always saw that awful situation as the end of my journey. I saw a degree from Stanford as the only path to legitimate success, the only path to what I wanted to do. When the opportunity was taken from me, I sort of just gave up. I never got back on the path because it just seemed so hopeless without Stanford. Because that was the easiest path. A computer engineering degree from Stanford? All those internships and lab jobs I had while I was there under my belt? I would'a been a shoo in at any top company in Silicon Valley," he said with a bitter smirk on his face.
Sarah stayed quiet, moving her hand to his neck and slipping it around to the back, rubbing comfortingly. He sighed, his eyelids fluttering. She kept doing it, picking up on his cues, and he seemed to almost melt further back into the chair.
"Sarah, I've gotta get back on that path somehow. And it's gonna be really hard, but I need to stop being lazy and citing what happened with Stanford as the only reason why I can't do this and I can't do that. Part of the reason is that I never saw any value in what I can do without that diploma, that validation from a big name university, the legitimacy of it. I-I guess I didn't see much value in me without that."
"That's bullshit," she said quietly. "It's a piece of paper. You're worth so much more than what they could fit on one piece of lousy paper from some lousy university. I don't care if it's Stanford or some hoity-toity Ivy League on the East Coast. You have value without it."
Chuck nodded. "I think you're right. Ellie and Awesome both have been trying to get through to me and I just completely ignored them until the moment I saw in their faces, faced with the fact that they just couldn't believe you would ever return my feelings." She still felt a bit of a sting about that. But she kept quiet, listening. "Sarah, it made me realize that every time I looked in the mirror, I saw a loser and I came to terms with seeing myself like that, and I…embodied it. I think Ellie's picked up on the fact that I see myself that way, that I project myself like that. And then here comes Sarah Walker…"
A warm smile slowly grew on her face as the corner of his mouth tilted up dreamily. She felt his hand slip down to her waist, lightly stroking her skin just above the waist of the boy shorts she was wearing.
"I genuinely don't think Ellie's shock over you crushing on me was that she thinks I don't deserve it. It's that she knows just how deeply I think I don't deserve it. It's this…energy I give off, I guess, and because her and I are so close, she senses it." He nibbled on his top lip thoughtfully. "Nobody believes in my potential more than my freakin' sister does. Nobody."
Sarah tilted her head and furrowed her brow. "Not even Morgan?"
Chuck wrinkled his nose cutely and she decided she wanted to feel his curls between her fingers so she reached up to start playing with his hair, reveling in how soft it was.
"Look, I love love love the Bearded One. Truly. We've known each other since we were tiny little kids, you know? But I think he already looks up to me a whole bunch, has me up on this pedestal as if I'm perfect like this, working a non-challenging job that doesn't pay me enough, but allows me to squeak by paying my living expenses." He sighed, a soft smile on his face. "Ellie is my sister. She pushes me. She tells me the honest to God truth. And sometimes it's…kind of harsh. Like that night on Christmas when she barged in and basically told me I better not have taken advantage of your looking for a distraction from being upset about the promotion."
She winced. "That was…pretty harsh."
"Yeah, but I appreciate the shit outta her for it. Even if it pisses me off or annoys me sometimes. Heh. For five whole years, she's tried to get me to wake up and reach for something better. And I've ignored her and rolled my eyes and resented it at times, but mostly just shrugged it off as typical Ellie doing her typical big sister shtick."
Chuck reached up then and curled his fingers around her hand that was playing with his hair, holding onto it tightly and lowering it down to her lap. She threaded their fingers and held on just as tightly. "Sarah, it wasn't until you came along, all driven and hard-working and successful and resilient and-and adventurous, that I felt this stirring like…maybe I gotta be more and do more than this. Awesome's response to finding out that you and I slept together was the jolt I needed. And Ellie's shock over it was the…freaking lightning strike to the chest I needed. It isn't just that I'm doing this for you, or because of you. Because I want to earn this chance to…be with you. I won't lie to you, that's definitely part of it."
He shook his head. "But I also want to do this for me. I didn't deserve what happened at Stanford. I worked my fucking ass off in high school to earn an almost full-ride. I worked two jobs, went to school full-time. Ellie also worked her ass off and probably…" He looked miserable for a moment and her chest ached. "She probably suffered a lot more than I even know to try to help me succeed in high school, taking out a massive loan on the mortgage to get a used car 'cause the bus just wasn't a viable way for me to get to the robotics team after school, or to the shelter where I volunteered, all stuff that got me into Stanford ultimately. And then I worked my ass off at Stanford, got multiple jobs to try to help pay for school and send some back to Ellie while she was trying to pay for med school and just… Fuck, getting kicked out like that, for something I didn't even do, would never do…"
Sarah couldn't stop herself from leaning in and wrapping her arms around him, hugging him tightly, letting him press his face into the crook of her neck and cling. After all of the heroics he pulled on Christmas Eve, letting her sob in his arms more than once over her disappointment, but still allowing her the respect and dignity in the way he was the exact opposite of awkward or uncomfortable…Sarah wanted to be that for him. She wanted to ease his pain.
"I'm so sorry, Chuck. I never…" She let out a rough, shaky breath and held him even closer, kissing his hair, rubbing the nape of his neck comfortingly. "I didn't realize how hard things were for you two. Ellie's never really talked much about it."
He shook his head. "And she probably never will. At least, she'll never tell me everything she did to make sure we were okay, to help me get to Stanford and on the path to fulfilling my dreams. I don't think she wants me to know 'cause she knows I'll feel guilty."
Sarah smiled lovingly into his curls and nuzzled him. "And she's right about that?" she asked quietly.
"Yes," he muttered a bit glumly. "The brat."
She giggled, squeezing him.
"I let her down."
"What?" She moved her hand to cup his face, gently pulling his head up so that she could look at him. "You did not."
He sighed, frustration in his face. "Okay, fine. Maybe I didn't. But I had the potential to make something of myself, to be what I always told her I'd be when we were teenagers, talking late into the night instead of doing our homework. I'm not doing any of that now. I'm just lazing around playing video games, reading comic books, and going to work to play stupid pranks on my idiot coworkers, fix people's laptops, try to keep the store from being burned down or sued for harassment," Sarah winced at that last one, this poor guy, "and I'm done with settling for this. I'm done letting that setback with Stanford be the thing that defines me."
Chuck moved in the chair so that he was sitting up straighter. And he looked her right in her eyes, reaching up with his free hand to tap his temple. "This is what defines me."
Sarah felt something rising in her, an adrenaline almost, a passion, and a determination to do whatever was in her power to help him, however she could, in whatever it was he planned to do now. And she felt a deep, deep love settle itself inside of her in a way nothing in her life ever had.
She tenderly moved their still clasped hands to his chest, and she flattened his palm over his heart, draping her own hand over it. "And this," she said quietly. "This defines you, too."
"You know what?" he asked, a warmth and almost excitement in his voice.
"What?" she asked, grinning giddily.
"I'm absolutely terrified."
She sighed deeply, beaming at him, overcome as he let out a bubbly giggle.
And then she grabbed the binder that was in her lap and reached to the side to hold it over the floor, dropping it with a loud smack against the wood.
Chuck's eyes popped. "Your b—"
"I don't care," she rushed out breathlessly, climbing up to straddle him and grabbing the hem of her shirt she had on. It was gone in two seconds flat, fluttering down to land on top of her binder, even as she dove in to cup his face and kiss him hungrily.
Nothing else needed to be said. They didn't even bother making the ten foot journey back to bed. Instead, they made hard, desperate, ungraceful work of undressing right there in the chair, or at least getting things out of the way enough to join and lose themselves in one another, staying there long enough for the sky outside of the window to lighten from black to deep blue, and finally to a foggy sea gray.
}o{
A week since Christmas Day and Sarah's double-announcement had passed by the time Sarah found herself back in the elevator, on her way up to Chuck and Ellie Bartowski's floor.
In that time, she'd gone on two dates with the younger Bartowski, and she went out for drinks and dancing with the older Bartowski.
She still felt a bit embarrassed when she thought of the other night, how she hadn't let herself get completely wasted since the ROAM Christmas Eve Soiree bullshit, and how all Ellie had to do was tell her she could do whatever the fuck she wanted 'cause she earned it, in those words, and promise to take care of Sarah if she did get full-on drunk. Well, Sarah had gotten higher than a kite off of gin and more gin, martini after martini after martini after martini…she'd lost count. (Though apparently Ellie hadn't, like the true friend she was.) But it also loosened the hell out of her lips and she hadn't blacked out at all, thanks to Ellie's attentiveness to what she put in her body, which meant she remembered every word of the whole "what if I just have really bad daddy issues and it's manifesting itself in how bad I need the way Chuck—a guy, you know, a grown man—makes me feel?" conversation. God, how fucking awkward. But Ellie had taken it like a champ, refusing to believe that theory was at all the case.
Then there was the long conversation after an hour of dancing a lot of the alcohol out of her system, in the car in the parking lot, waiting for Ellie to be comfortable enough to drive as she guzzled water, only to realize she needed to call Chuck to pick them up because she didn't feel any more sober than she had an hour earlier when they first walked out of the club. A conversation that meant reliving moments of their friendship, yes, but also moments when Chuck did things that made her heart race. Like the time he'd stayed up all night with her right before a mid-morning deadline, sitting at her table next to her, doing whatever he could to get rid of a virus that had plagued her shoddy, old work laptop as she used his to try to write the story in time. And Ellie had just listened and smiled and laughed, even though it had probably been uncomfortable for her to hear Sarah gush in full drunken lovesick mode about her brother.
Didn't help that when Chuck had arrived complaining about only LA having traffic at two-thirty in the morning, looking all sleepy and comfortable and mussed from being woken up by their S.O.S. call, he'd slung her arm over his shoulders to help her to his car and she'd sloppily kissed the side of his face with a, "Well, hey there, who called the Super Sexy Nerd Cab Service? I know I didn't!"
Ellie had groaned behind them as Chuck nearly lost both their footing laughing so hard, blushing just as hard.
They'd tucked her into Chuck's bed wearing Ellie's pajamas and she'd passed out cold.
And she hadn't heard the end of the 'Super Sexy Nerd Cab Service' line at her early dinner date with Chuck the next night, before his end of year inventory overnight shift. She hadn't heard the end of how lights out drunk she was from him, either. I've never seen you like that, Sarah. I gotta admit, even though you were sloppy as fuck, you were also cute as fuck. Cutest drunk ever. He'd gotten a genuine smack to the shoulder for that.
She hadn't seen Ellie since the doctor changed her clothes for her while Chuck got aspirin and water, then tucked her into his bed, giving her a protective, loving kiss on her forehead, then threatening Chuck with her well-being before Sarah conked out altogether.
Now here she was, two nights later, walking down the hallway to Ellie's apartment again. This time, very steady on her feet, not a drop of alcohol in her system.
As it so happened, as she got about ten feet away from Ellie and Devon's door, she heard the sound of another door opening down the hall and Chuck stepped out of his apartment, spinning on his heel to shut and lock his door behind him.
He turned towards her and she realized he had a glittery gold bowler hat on his head and a bag of noisemakers in his hand. A smile burst onto his face the moment he saw her.
"Oh, awesome. Perfect timing."
"Oh?" she asked, tilting her head as she shifted the strap of her backpack on her shoulder.
"Mhm," he muttered and approached her quickly. "Before you even knock on the door, we can get this out of our system." And he lunged at her, wrapping her up in his arms. He leaned down to try to kiss her but the hat bumped her forehead. "Damn it," he hissed. And then he gave her a raised eyebrow, pursed lip look, before he reached up to push the hat back further on his curls, leaving them poking out at the front, making him look like a weird little early twentieth century teenager.
His lips covered hers then, and she felt him move them both until her back was pressed against the wall beside Ellie's apartment door. She let her backpack fall from her shoulder to the floor at her feet and she rounded his shoulders, kissing him back with the same voracity he put into the embrace.
She hummed with satisfaction at being kissed like this again, when she'd felt a little bereft early the evening before having to say goodbye to him before his Buy More overnight shift with nothing but a chaste kiss at their cars.
Ugh, she was in so damn deep with him.
Sarah Walker could feel it in her bones. She was in so so deep.
And it scared her.
But it felt like she was flying, and also that she was also weirdly…settled with her feet on the ground. And the fear felt…manageable when she was with him. Like she should just enjoy this.
And God, was she enjoying it…
He finally broke the kiss with a quiet grumble, squeezing her hips with his hands, the noisemakers down on the floor beside her backpack.
"Get it out of your system?" she asked in a flirtatious, low drawl, tilting her head back and pressing a slow kiss to his jaw.
"Nnnnnope, but oh well. It was fun anyway."
She giggled. "Tired after that inventory overnight?"
"Sure, yeah," he said with a shrug. "But I'm used to it. It was a lot easier knowing that at some point, perhaps in the near future if I'm lucky, I won't be doing any overnight inventory shifts." She grinned at him, proud. "I also took a massive three hour nap after I got home and I feel like a million bucks now."
Sarah bit her lip, reaching up to flick the hat on his head before leaning back and surveying the crisp navy blue blazer he wore with matching blue suit pants and a black T-shirt underneath with the cover of a Miles Davis album on it. Of course he had his black Converse sneakers on, too. The beat up ones.
She ran her hand down his shirt and eyed him, that flirtation still there, the air between them charged deliciously. "Only a million? From where I'm standing, it's a couple billion. At least."
"Oof. You are so good for my ego." He leaned down and kissed her again, stooping even as they kissed to grab her backpack and his bag of noisemakers in his hand before standing to his full height again. He broke the kiss with a hum, "Mmm'let's get inside before Ellie uses her know-it-all powers to sense us out here in the hallway."
Sarah glared half-heartedly. "I know she's your sister, and I'm your girlfriend now." And she felt the heat rise again as she realized she had just said that out loud for the first time ever. Her chest constricted. "But I'll not have you taking shots at her, you butthead. She's my best friend, damn it."
"Butthead?" He cracked up, then stepped back from her and bowed low. "I shall try to keep that in mind—whoa! No, hat! You cannot escape me!" The hat had tried to topple off of his curls and he fumbled a bit, but caught it.
That unfortunately meant he had gold glitter dotting his fingers once he put it back on his head. "Aw mannnnnn, I hate glitter so muuuuch."
She was still laughing as she opened the door and pushed inside.
Ellie turned from where she was standing on a step stool, taping the string of a HAPPY NEW YEAR banner against the ceiling. She grinned. "Hi, Sarah! Happy New Year!"
"Happy New Year! Do you need help with that?"
The stool wiggled a little under Ellie's feet and her eyes went wide for a moment, before she sent Sarah a sheepish look over her shoulder and climbed down altogether. "Uh, no. No, I'm good. Think I'll come down from there and save us all a trip to the ER on New Year's Eve. That'd be the pinnacle of irony. Jumping through all these hoops to get today and tomorrow off, only to end up there anyway because I crack my head open."
Sarah laughed, opening the door wider behind her for Chuck to come in after her.
Ellie smirked at seeing him. "You two come together?" she teased, considering he literally lived a few doors down.
Devon walked into the room from the kitchen and stopped dead. "That actually doesn't happen as often as the romance novels want you to think."
Sarah's jaw fell open as Ellie gave her boyfriend the most annoyed look ever. Chuck made a choking sound behind her.
"Oh come onnnn. You're the one who said it!" Devon tried, laughing.
"Come together like drive together! I was making a joke because he lives down the hall, you freak. Honestly, I'm gonna push you off of our fire escape."
"Love you, Captain Awesome, but you know I'd have to help her hide the body," Chuck said.
And Sarah found she couldn't help adding. "Don't do the dumpster thing. They always find bodies that've been tossed in the dumpsters."
"Jesus Christ. Psychopaths," Devon said, chuckling even as he gave them freaked out looks, bringing a bowl of pretzels over to the table. "Happy New Year, psychos!" He wrapped his arm around Ellie. "New Year, new vibes, right?"
"Hell yeah, Awesome." Chuck high fived the other man.
Sarah watched the exchange and sent Chuck a significant look. He widened his eyes and gave a little bit of a head shake.
Sighing, she moved to take the bag of noisemakers from him, holding them in both hands and inspecting them, wondering why Chuck still hadn't told Ellie about his revelation he'd talked at length with her about the other morning. But she wouldn't be the one to spill those beans. They were Chuck's beans to spill. When he was ready. She was sure it was stressful and scary for him, after all of these years of doing what was easy and comfortable and safe.
She thought she'd ask him about it privately later.
But for now, she asked instead, "What all is in here, anyway?"
"Loud things."
Sarah gave him a droll look. "Hence the word 'noisemakers' printed on the side of the bag?"
Chuck snickered with his tongue between his teeth.
The four of them eventually settled with snacks on the couch and Devon put some college bowl football game on. Sarah didn't pay attention, not particularly taken with sports that weren't the literal Olympics, and she thought if this new magazine conglomerate went through with Diane and Roan, she'd task Diane the Sports Queen with any sort of sport direction they might eventually take. She and Roan would be useless there.
She was leaning against Chuck's side, idly watching the players throw around the puffed up piece of leather, trying to glean what in the hell the stupid yellow flag kept doing flying through the air. It was annoying. Every single play, the stupid yellow flag and the whistle. Chuck had even taken his hat off and lobbed it at the TV in annoyance when the referee had tossed the yellow flag on a touchdown play.
Bored, she leaned up to kiss Chuck's jaw, untangled herself from his arm he had slung over her shoulders, and stood up, stretching. "Want anything? Drink refill?"
Chuck shook his head and smiled. "I'm good, thank you." He raised his eyebrows at her as if asking if she was okay. She grinned and nodded, walking around the couch and stroking her fingers through his curls as she moved past him.
She found Ellie in the kitchen preparing some sort of alcoholic punch or something. "What's that?" she asked.
"I have no idea. I found a recipe online, it looked good, and I bought the ingredients." As Sarah sidled up next to her at the counter, Devon's voice interrupted the peace.
"Oh! Almost forgot about this! IT'S GAME TIME, BRO! ALMA MATER V ALMA MATER!"
Smirking in amusement, Sarah felt the smirk die when she caught sight of Ellie. The doctor had turned from her concoction and was looking out over the bar counter towards the television with an annoyed look on her pretty face.
"Is he seriously doing this right now? Ugh."
"What?" Sarah asked, frowning.
Ellie just shook her head, her mouth thin and tight. "My boyfriend can't help himself. I swear, the guy has the tact of a circus clown."
Sarah just gave her a questioning look. "Are you mad at him for putting on…football?"
"No, no. I don't care about the football thing. Devon played wide receiver at UCLA for a few years and quit for med school, so he gets super intense about the UCLA football program. But I've told him Chuck gets sensitive."
Damn it, but the speed with which Sarah immediately felt a protective stab of concern go through her…
She stood up a little straighter and moved in closer. "Sensitive? About football?"
"It isn't the football." She waved a hand through the air. "I've asked him before not to parade these UCLA versus Stanford football games in front of Chuck's face. I don't know if he forgets or if he just thinks Chuck needs to come to terms with the whole thing and move past it. But I can tell it upsets Chuck watching Stanford out there, seeing all the fans in the stands wearing the colors, in the same stadium where he used to go watch the games with his friends back before he got kicked out. He'll never say anything because he doesn't want to put Devon out or make him feel bad or whatever."
Sarah moved away from Ellie's side and went to stand by the stove, looking out towards the couch and staring at the back of Chuck's head. Devon pointed at Chuck and let out his friendly laughter, before tossing a pretzel at the younger man. Batting it out of the air, Chuck laughed back, seeming perfectly fine.
In spite of everything he'd said that early morning as they'd sat together in her chair by the window, she knew what happened at Stanford would always be a sore spot for him. Even if he found a way to stop letting it define him.
Unlike Ellie, she wasn't annoyed with Devon for putting on the game. He meant well, she knew. And Chuck probably didn't even begrudge the heart surgeon either. And so he would sit there and watch a large part of his past unfold for other students who would fulfill all four years of their degree, graduate, walk across that stage…
All things Chuck probably yearned for even now all these years later.
She moved back over to Ellie and shrugged. "I'm sure Devon doesn't mean any harm."
"No, he never means any harm and still…it's just annoying kind of." Ellie huffed, lifting the wooden spoon out of the punch and setting it on the counter. "I have to resign myself to the fact that my brother is never going to get over what happened to him there. And it's always gonna be a soured memory for him. And it's gonna trap him in this constant loop of thinking he isn't capable of accomplishing more than getting Employee of the Month at the Buy More for fifty months in a row."
This was making Sarah feel a little bit nuts, hearing Ellie say almost to a tee the same things Chuck had said the other morning, confirming what he thought was going through his sister's head most of the time. And Sarah knew he was doing something about it, that he actually did know he was capable of accomplishing more than that, that he was starting to step up, that he'd made a monumental decision. But it wasn't her news to share with her best friend. Damn it.
It would make Ellie Bartowski so happy, so proud.
But Sarah merely chewed on the inside of her cheek, nodding slowly.
"Nothing I can do about it now, though," Ellie said, raising her eyebrows, an attempted oh well look in her face even though Sarah saw the frustration beneath it. "And I'm not letting it ruin New Year's Eve for all of us. Can you grab some of those shorter glasses in the corner cabinet for me and pour? I'm gonna get the artichoke dip and crackers."
"Sure."
Chuck swept into the kitchen then, his hands tucked in his pockets, his shoulders a little slumped as he swept his gaze back and forth between them, his lips pressed together in something of a smile. It was his I'm fine smile. She'd seen the same smile on his face that day she showed up at his place after he got ditched by a date and his prototype got passed up. It was very easy to see through.
"Anything I can help with? I make a mean fruit salad. We ready for the fruit salad yet?"
"Oh hell yeah!" Devon called from the couch. "Bro, do the fruit salad!"
"You got it, Awesome!" Chuck called back, pointing to him. And then he moved to the fridge and began to pull everything out.
"Chuck, you don't have—"
"No, it's okay, I got it, El. I actually want some too. And I want Sarah to try it." He grinned toothily at her. "Your boy is the fruit salad champ. You try this stuff and it'll be extra incentive to continue putting up with me."
"Oh, shut up," she laughed, pouring. "Putting up with you, my ass."
"If anybody needs putting up with, it's that idiot over there," Ellie mumbled drily. She came up behind Chuck and put a hand on his arm. "You okay? I didn't want him turning that on," she said quietly.
Chuck squirmed in discomfort and Sarah knew Ellie had seen it too. "Pfft. Yeah. Come on. It's just a football game. And that's Devon's team. His old coach is out there. It's a big deal for him. I'm not making him turn that off, even if it bothers me to see Stanford playing, and it doesn't. It definitely doesn't."
It bothered him at least a little, and everyone currently in the kitchen knew it.
"Hmm. Fine." Ellie gave him a dubious look, then leaned in to kiss his cheek and ruffle his hair.
"I was actually thinking I might like to take a little walk, get some air," Sarah piped up, eyeing Chuck closely. He gave her a questioning look, but she was a lot better at the mask than he was, and she merely smiled nonchalantly. "It's not too cold out and I haven't gotten any exercise really the past few days. I haven't even been taking my morning runs." Because most of the mornings since Christmas morning, she woke up in bed with Chuck and leaving that insanely comfortable situation was not something she wanted to do for anything.
"You're on vacation and you can do what the hell you want to," Ellie said emphatically.
"I'll go," Chuck said, his voice a little chirpy. "I never get exercise ever, for any reason, so…"
Sarah snorted. "You're dating me now. That's not gonna last very long."
"HA HA!" Ellie pointed at him and stuck out her tongue, making Sarah crack up. "Good girl, Sarah."
He groaned, still chopping fruit, then tossing it in the large bowl he'd gotten out. "Just kidding, worth it," he sang, sending her a toothy smile, his nose wrinkling. "Look at this, Ellie. Not only is this woman going to make my emotional health better, she's going to make my physical health better, too. Can you imagine it? Me? Dating someone this good for me? Different, huh?"
Both of the Bartowskis peered at her, and she spotted the affection and even adoration in both of their faces. She was sure she was bright pink as she ducked her head.
"Different, yes," Ellie said quietly. "But I can't imagine a better fit."
Well.
She thought they probably could've seen the glow from her face down on the streets below, beaming out of Ellie and Devon's kitchen window.
A/N: A breakthrough on the Ellie front! The next chapter will pick up right where this one left off. And then there will be an epilogue after that. I still don't quite know what is gonna be in the epilogue, so be patient with me while I figure that bit out. Thanks! (And please review. You're so appreciated!)
-SC