Chuck vs. The Psychological Wall

This is what I thought could have happened in between season 2 episode 22 and season 3 episode 1. I thought it was a bit abrupt how we went from Bryce's death to Sarah asking Chuck to run away with her, so I thought I would add justification as to why Sarah was so sure she wanted to take the next step with him. This is my first fan-fic. I actually wrote another Chuck one about Chuck waiting for Sarah to wake up in the hospital in season 4 episode 24, but then I saw someone already wrote one like it, so I decided against posting it.

PS I don't know if there's already a story like this out there, being that I only discovered fan-fic about a month ago (and am now TOTALLY addicted) and only made it past page 10 or so in Chuck stories, but w/e.

Oh and… I don't own Chuck.

I thought this was going to be a oneshot, but it was getting kinda long (on my word doc, anyway. now it actually looks kinda short...), so now I'm thinkin' maybe like 3 chapters? Stay tuned!

Chuck watched Sarah's face as she walked into the blinding white room and saw Bryce, her ex-partner and lover, lying dead against the wall. It broke his heart to see her in so much pain. "I'm sorry…" he mouthed to her as the guards closed in around them. His Intersect 2.0 activated, and Sarah and Bryce Larkin were temporarily pushed from his mind.

The next day…

"Sarah?" Chuck shyly asked upon finding her in a darkened Castle room completely alone.

"Oh hey, Chuck!" She quickly stood up and brushed her hand over her face and gave him a smile. "What's up?"

"Nothing… I was just…" he looked at her still smiling face and noticed how forced it looked. "I was… I'm just worried about you," he reluctantly admitted. "How are you holding up?"

"What do you mean?"

"Sarah, please. You know what I'm talking about. I'm not stupid."

She sighed. "I know, I know… I'm sorry. It's just that it's part of my job, you know? I need to be able to handle stuff like this. Unexpected things happen. You lose people that you care about, which is why they tell us we shouldn't care at all…" she paused and looked up at him. "You know what? I'm fine. Really. I should go. I'm late for my Orange Orange shift."

With that, Sarah gave him one last bright smile and swiftly brushed past him. Chuck stared after her, feeling completely helpless and downright dejected. He had no idea what to say to her. He just loved her so much, and it hurt him to see her hurting. Yes, he was totally in love with her. Once he said it out loud to his father ("Dad, I love her."), he knew there was no going back. Even though it pained him, too, to lose Bryce Larkin, his old college roommate and friend, he felt even worse at seeing Sarah fall apart as a result of his death.

Footsteps behind him shook him from his reverie. He turned around and saw Casey approaching. Casey nodded respectfully in his direction with a knowing look on his face and continued on to the computers.

Chuck walked up behind him a few minutes later to see him updating Bryce's file, changing his current status to 'deceased.'

Chuck frowned and cleared his throat. "Casey, I'm worried about Sarah."

"Us agents are trained to handle situations like this, Bartowski. Trust me, she'll get over it."

"Yeah, Sarah said the same thing, but I don't buy it."

Casey merely grunted without turning around, so Chuck took that as a sign that their brief conversation was over. Just before he walked out though, he turned around. "You know, I don't care how you guys are trained. No amount of training can prepare you for the loss of someone you care about. No human is strong enough to completely shut off their emotions. Not even spies. Not me, not you, and not Sarah." With that, he turned and walked out.

Later that evening in Castle, Beckman contacted Team Bartowski. "Good evening, team. Until the higher powers figure out what the next step is going to be regarding the Intersect 2.0, you all will have the next few days off. As for Bryce Larkin's unfortunate death, his Spy Will states that he wished to be cremated, and we will honor that. Agent Walker? You will be the sole decider in what will be done with those ashes afterward, as also stated in the will. That will be all." Beep.

Chuck carefully observed Sarah and watched as she continued to stare at the now blank screen. After a few seconds she turned around and began to gather her papers. She soon seemed to realize that Chuck was still staring at her. "What?"

"Sarah, we have to talk," Chuck said. Casey, realizing what was happening, grunted in annoyance and quickly withdrew from the room.

"Chuck," she sighed, clearly exasperated. She looked firmly at him, "Fine. What do you want to talk about?"

"Not here. Would you like to come to my house later? Or your hotel room? Whichever."

He could tell she was starting to become very uncomfortable. "Uh… why can't we just talk here?"

"Sarah, that's not… no… I'm not thinking like we're going to be all… y'know… I just want to go somewhere comfortable where we can have a nice talk!"

"I know! It's just that…" she quickly shook her head and began in a much stronger voice, "Okay. Chuck, I know what you're going to want to talk about, and I don't think I can give you what you want to hear. We all have our ways of coping. I know you think I'm struggling with Bryce's death, but you have to trust me when I say I'm fine! Yes, we were once more than partners, but that was a long time ago-"

"Not that long. And I remember seeing you a couple years ago at his funeral. You were clearly really upset-"

"Because then our past was much nearer! Though he betrayed me, I was still dwelling on our relationship. I still had feelings for him, and I hated thinking that he would never get a chance to explain himself to me, that I would live the rest of my life with a negative view of him. Chuck, I've grown up since then." She paused after she realized how fast her words were tumbling out and how her eyes were welling up.

"Sarah…" Chuck whispered as he stepped closer to her. She was finally opening up to him. He slowly took her hands in his and pulled her closer. He was surprised when she didn't pull away. Before he could totally envelope her in his arms, she finally pulled back and quickly looked away.

"Sarah, you can talk to me."

Sarah kept her gaze fixed on some object across the room and gave a small smile. "I know, Chuck. And I want you to know how much I appreciate it," she turned her gaze back to his face as they locked eyes, "but really, I'm okay." She took a deep breath, "I'm going to go get some rest. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

Chuck, looking entirely unconvinced, gave a little nod. "Yeah. Yeah, okay. See you tomorrow."