Posted August 24, 2021

A/N: Don't say that. Never say that. Hopefully Sarah remembers not to say that.

Disclaimer: Nobody else owns anything here, so why would I?
Disclaimer 2: No beta. However, if you PM issues to me, I'll fix them. There's no expiration date.

November 7, 2014
Casa Bartowski in the Casa Carmichael Complex
Echo Park, Los Angeles, CA

He did it!

Chuck couldn't help himself. Sitting in front of his computer, he bent his elbows to his sides, pulled his hands up to his face, and shook them around. Then he leaned down to the left and snaked up. He repeated the motion to the right.

"Oh yea-ha. Oh yea-ha."

He was about to go again on the left when he heard his gorgeous wife laughing at the door to their bedroom. He stopped and saw Sarah barely covering her smile. "You're so goofy. I love that about you. You might need to teach me that sometime, though I'm not sure I could pull it off, looking as cute as you do."

Chuck thought that was a ridiculous comment because he was only in a T-shirt and plaid pajama pants. He was in such a good mood, it didn't matter. He shot up and pulled Sarah close with one hand on her hip and their hands joined up to his left. He started rocking her to the side and back as they twirled around in a circle in a jerky, two-person dance. Sarah laughed again. Chuck said, "Even though you procure them a lot, you don't have to wear one of my T-shirts. In fact, you don't have to wear anything at all."

Sarah smiled and met Chuck's lips with her own. She only stopped the playful kiss to ask a question. "What are we celebrating?"

"I did it!" he exclaimed.

"What did you do?"

"I finished erasing all of the plans for the CIA's new memory-wipe device!"

A few weeks ago, Sarah finished her audit of everyone who might have a grudge and come after them while she was pregnant. She could do a lot, but even she knew she wouldn't be able to take on everyone while simultaneously protecting a growing fetus. Every slighted-spy and every shoe-string relative of a past enemy had either been neutralized or had been determined to not be a threat.

After her detailed review was done, they discovered what some idiot government scientists had done. These are the same people who couldn't figure out the Intersect to take it out of Chuck's head, how to reactivate it after it was suppressed, and thought Chuck was insane when all they needed to do was take his temperature to know a Governor was needed. This time, they took one of the Intersect's nasty side-effects, memory loss, and used the technology to intentionally erase memories.

If someone wasn't supposed to know something, don't let them find out. If they should forget something, you don't erase everything about them. That could backfire in the worst ways because that person could be manipulated. Chuck and Sarah had a personal bad experience with this side effect. You found some other way to protect the secrets, rather than erase everything in this memory.

When Chuck and Sarah told his mom, who was still in the CIA, she was shocked they were doing things like that with the technology that her late husband had invented. She thought they would've learned not to mess with something they didn't understand to avoid creating someone like Volkoff again. They hadn't learned from what happened with Fulcrum, Shaw, or Quinn. They were setting themselves up for something like the Omega Virus again.

The important goal for Chuck and Sarah was to make it so no one could use Stephen Bartowski's inventions to hurt people again. Chuck had been using Carmichael Industries' access to erase records of research and design plans from government computers. With CI's security contracts, he had broad latitude to do anything to protect the government. In this instance, he was protecting them from themselves.

Sarah asked, "Does this mean you're 'King of the World'? You know, like that hacker who kept saying that phrase in your favorite Bond movie—the one we watched for your birthday?"

Chuck stopped them turning and stared at Sarah, confused. "Remember that guy died because his ego was so big, and also…" He stopped talking just in time because he could bring himself to tell Sarah. She was so happy with that gift to him for his birthday.

Sarah narrowed her eyes. "And also…"

He had let too much out of the bad. Two words was too much. Chuck should have known he couldn't keep that a secret forever from his super-spy wife. When she suspected anything, he never could keep a secret from her. He rushed out "Andalsothat'snotmyfavoriteBondmovie."

He had to tell her, but should've used a code—something like Klingon or even Pig Latin. The truth was it didn't matter. Sarah was a master with her tongue…with tongues… She was good with languages, and he had simply spoken English quickly. She understood what he had said, even if she didn't understand why. She said, "You and Morgan were talking at dinner a few months ago, and you both said the gold Bond movie is the best. Even Alex agreed."

Sarah's incorrect choice of his favorite Bond movie suddenly made sense. "There's more than one Bond movie with 'gold' in the title."

Sarah frowned, "And probably now silver or platinum. I'm sorry. After how you thanked me, I thought—"

"That wasn't a 'thanks for watching my favorite movie with me.' That was a 'thanks for being the wonderful person that is my wife.' You know. That was like any Tuesday. The only difference was we joked about us both being in our birthday suits when it was only my birthday.

Chuck and Sarah smiled and the memory and kissed. He pointed out, "It was a good gift. I do really like Goldeneye. It was that actor's first Bond movie, and possibly his best. He was so much better than the previous three actors that played James Bond. The one before him wasn't that bad, but he didn't seem like James Bond. He only was cast because this one couldn't get out of a contract. There's also The Man with the Golden Gun, which I'd put in the bottom five. Some people might count Goldmember, but that's not really a Bond movie. It's Austin Powers. You know, the third in that spoof series I told you to definitely avoid."

Sarah nodded, "About the shaggy man who isn't Morgan."

"Right. That one. The movie that almost everyone says is the best Bond movie is Goldfinger." Thinking of Hitchcock's North By Northwest, he said, "I know you don't like spy movies that don't have trains. Goldeneye had a train, which probably confirmed to you it's my favorite. A couple other Bond movies also have a train. From Russia with Love, even has a great sleeper car scene. It doesn't matter. We don't have to watch any more of them."

Sarah pulled Chuck into a full-body hug and said, "Maybe we can watch your actual favorite for your next birthday. It won't be a surprise because I should double-check with you about the title."

Sarah's grip tightened even more. Then she leaned back to confirm. "We're finally done with Operation Batten Down the Hatches? We're free? No more stupid government plans to bring back a broken Intersect, wreaking our lives and jeopardizing our future?"

"No more of that. We can finally start a family!"

Sarah smashed her face into Chuck's. After a moment or three, she stopped and said, "I feel like celebrating. How about you show me how to do your celebration routine with my clothes off? It might help if yours are off too."

They immediately started getting ready to celebrate.

A while later

Sweaty and breathing hard, Chuck laid back on the bed with his arms spread wide.

"Not that I didn't love that, but what are you trying to do to me, wo—" he almost slipped and used the wrong "w" word. "What are you trying to do to me, wife?"

Sarah started growling but immediately stopped with Chuck's correction. She was breathing a little hard, too. She smiled as an answer to Chuck's question, then asked a landmine of a question, "Chuck, do I look fat?"

Chuck wasn't falling for that trap. When he and Ellie were in high school, before he took a girl on a date the first time, his big sister taught him that the right response was to not look and automatically say, "No. Of course not." Men were supposed to know—not that it would come up on a first date.

The naked blonde in his bed knew what he was doing by not looking, and called him on it. "Seriously, do I look fat? I weighed myself this morning. I'm up 9 ounces."

Oh boy. Barely half a pound. Chuck knew he was going to have trouble getting out of this one. He tried something. "You know muscle weighs more than fat."

"Are you saying I had fat to replace or are you saying that I was out of shape?" Sarah swatted him on the arm. "It's not like I asked if my boobs look bigger. Please look and give me your honest opinion."

The things Chuck had to do… He turned and looked at a naked Sarah Bartowski stretched out before him and involuntarily froze.

Sarah prompted, "Well?"

Chuck shook out his head. It's not like he hadn't seen that glorious sight before him many times before. He explained, "I looked, and it was like angels were singing. You're glowing."

Sarah quirked an eyebrow. "Glowing?"

"You always are. You're the most beautiful woman on the planet."

That seemed to placate the irrational question, and Sarah snuggled into Chuck's side. Both Bartowskis sighed in unison. After a minute, Sarah said, "You actually finished it," meaning getting rid of the Intersect-based memory eraser. Then she gave a more complete answer to Chuck's earlier, slightly sarcastic question. "Of course I'm not trying to kill you. I will always protect you, even when we are both in our nineties. All I was doing was celebrating. Baby Bartowski was never going to be in the same grade as Clara, but maybe he—"

Chuck inserted, "she." Sarah always said she wanted a little-Chuck named Irving. He wanted a little-Sarah named Katie.

"—can be in the same grade as the next Baby Awesome. They can be cousins and best friends."

Chuck pulled Sarah even closer, to her favorite spot, though after what just happened, it seemed unlikely she'd stay there because that would mean no round two. After a minute, Sarah said, "I can't believe it's over. Are you sure you got everything so they can't find some new, dangerous, and stupid thing to do with Intersect technology? You're the only person that it worked well with because you're special. Hartley became the world's most dangerous arms dealer. Your dad… Well, at least he didn't disappear because he was arrested like mine. Shaw was evil. Morgan betrayed us and was a douche, breaking Alex's heart. Fulcrum killed a lot of agents. Quinn almost killed hundreds of people just trying to get it. Now, the CIA is using it to intentionally erase memories. That never goes well. When it happened to me, I almost lost you because I didn't know any better."

Chuck was particularly proud of how thorough he was, so he couldn't keep it to himself. "Thinking of what Professor Flemming did to get an Icelandic spy after him, I checked security logs and found a breach when one scientist made copies of plans and took them home. I reported the breach, so we should bill the NSA, under our Carmichael Industries contract. They might not clean up the mess thoroughly enough, so I used a social engineering attack to break into his home computer and fry his hard drive. He had a lot of other things there, where they weren't supposed to be. It could have been really bad if he was hacked by some enemy agent. At the least, he should lose his security clearance. Just in case I didn't find all the breaches that way, I broke into the home computers of twelve other scientists who had access. There were no problems, and I remotely upgraded the personal computer security of most of them. The fact I could break in and change the virus protection is a bad sign, but they are fixed now."

Sarah gave Chuck a squeeze and nuzzled further into his neck. "That's great, Sweetie. How did you get the glasses?"

Suddenly concerned, Chuck pushed her back so he could look at face. "What do you mean?"

"The glasses that they had made to remove memories. They've already built them. Their use was the reason we found out what they were doing and could erase memories."

"I can't hack them from the computer in this room and install a virus like I did with the 3.0. The glasses aren't left hooked up to the Internet. Because they erase and aren't constantly updated with new intel, they aren't left hooked up to CIA or NSA mainframes."

Sarah slid in close again. "That's ok. We'll do one last mission. Then we'll be done."

Chuck rolled Sarah off of him. "What did you say?"

Sarah rolled back to her favorite snuggle spot. "We must get the glasses. When I was in the CIA, I went on a lot of missions for devices in some labs. Sometimes I would destroy them. Sometimes I would steal them so they could be reverse-engineered. These glasses should be destroyed. Since you deleted the plans, someone might try to reverse-engineer them.

Chuck pushed her back even further so she might realize how serious it was. "No, not that. That other thing you said."

"'One last mission?' It's no big deal. We can be done by this time next week."

Sarah tried to nuzzle into Chuck's neck, but he held her at arm's length, where she'd have less control over him. This was really serious. "You said it again."

"Why does saying it matter? It's what it is. One more, and we're done."

"You don't say that because it never goes well. I thought you knew this. We've been watching all these shows together."

Sarah wrinkled her brow. She said, "Those are fiction. Also, they never talked about 'one last mission.' There's 'one last job,' but not 'mission.'"

It was always so hard arguing with Sarah. When she looked confused, Chuck stood even less of a chance. Not only did she always look gorgeous, but she looked more adorable than usual. When she was naked, like she was laying in bed with him… No. This was important. He had to stick to his guns. "Job, mission, same thing. That exact word might not be in a movie, but it specifically came up before… I'm talking about before what happened to you. Even Morgan heard you. It wasn't just Morgan. Casey even realized you should never say that. We thought it was almost over, then I was kidnapped, you downloaded the Intersect, you were kidnapped, you stole the Intersect, you threatened to kill Eilie, and we fought each other in the bad house I never wanted to go in again because of bad memories."

"Then you saved me there."

"Yes. Then you left me."

"Then I came back."

"Then we had to stop Quinn."

"And then you saved everyone. All of that wasn't the fault of saying 'one last mission.'"

Chuck's stomach was doing somersaults now. "You said it again. A few years ago, it wasn't the last one of those because we had to keep doing more things. People almost died, and I almost lost you."

Sarah nodded like she understood. "I understand. Bad things happened, and it took a while, but we ended up together after I found our spot and you found me. It'll be ok."

Chuck wasn't any less concerned. "This time we did what we just did, celebrating before we're actually done."

Sarah twisted her mouth in a smith. "If we're being honest, we were having sex tonight even I hadn't seen you there wiggling around. What do you expect, wearing that so close to this bed?"

That didn't make sense. "I was just in a T-shirt and pajama pants."

"Less to take off," Sarah pointed out. Her face switched into mission-mode like when she had a plan. "I might have jinxed this mission for me, so here's what we're going to do. First step, you track down the glasses—"

That step was easy. Chuck said, "I know where they are. They are in the DARPA Headquarters downtown—the same place we broke into to destroy the last Intersect a couple years ago."

"Good, that makes it easier. We already know how you can get inside."

It wasn't easy anymore because that step didn't make sense. "Don't you mean 'we can get inside'? What about you?"

"I have to recuse myself because of what I said."

Chuck couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You're going to let me—"

"You have the final, super-Intersect. You'll be fine." Sarah's face held a mischievous grin. "From reports, I know that before the 2.0, you were almost never supposed to go on missions. You were supposed to stay in the car, but that didn't always happen. One thing I've remembered from a mission is yelling at you about not staying in the car and being relieved you were safe. Since I don't remember everything, and knowing you, I assume it happened more than once." Sarah stared at Chuck as if to read his mind. "A lot more than once. This time, I won't go on the mission and will show you I can stay in the car. I'll even let you order me to stay in the car. And then I'll do it." Sarah punctuated that with a quick peck on Chuck's lips.

A mission without Sarah shocked him, but a solo mission shocked him even more. Morgan wouldn't be allowed to go with him as back-up if Alex had anything to say about it. "What about Casey?"

"He's with Gertrude for who knows how long. You know she finally got him back to South Beach—this time for a real vacation. We can't wait for them to get back."

"Why can't we wait? I can wait."

"They might reverse engineer the glasses before then. We should go tomorrow before they know what you did tonight and the place is locked down even more." Sarah gave Chuck another full kiss, but didn't try to snuggle closer this time. She actually rolled away and turned her back to him. "You're right, though. We shouldn't jinx it further. That means no more sex tonight—as much as I'd love to."

Chuck held in a whimper. He wanted that, too. Sarah was right though. No sex would motivate him to do what needed to be done, even more. He couldn't use that as motivation, though. He realized getting the job done had to be enough motivation when Sarah reached behind her and pulled Chuck close into her back and up to her back. Looks like they were going to sleep like that. Oh well.

A/N: Uh oh. Sarah didn't know it.

Obscure reference: Babylon 5, 3x04, "Passing through Gethsemane." In that fictional future, serial killers weren't put to death. Their memories were erased, and their personalities were changed so they would be gentle, contributing members of society. When mentally altered, former monster-of-a-human-being found out, he was genuinely upset that he didn't know what he should feel guilty about. It didn't end well for him and created another murderer when a family member got even.

Song: "Celebration" by Kool and The Gang