Sarah makes a momentous decision.

Chapter 11

Sarah woke up exhausted and unsettled. As she tried to remember the previous day random parts of her conversions with Zondra, Groucho, and Chuck mixed with fragments of her dreams, giving her a low grade vertigo. She winced as she remembered Zondra's parting summation of her interaction with Chuck. She was going to have to spend some serious effort putting herself in his shoes before she spoke to him again. She remembered considering bringing out her inner Sam and her gut twisted painfully. Sam was a troubling memory and she had more than enough trouble in her life already.

Poor Groucho. She had really run him ragged yesterday. She would have to find a way to make it up to him. Learning to face her emotions would be a tough job but she couldn't expect regular marathon sessions. Zondra wasn't a good choice for help in that department, nor was Carina. She really missed Ellie right now but after the way she had treated Chuck, Ellie could hardly be expected to be sympathetic. It really hit home how much of an emotional desert she had made of her life. Antonia might be able to help but she was away at the moment.

"How's your head?" Zondra asked her warily as they broke their fast and got ready to run.

"Mind still blown. Thinking hurts," Sarah admitted. "Thanks for the reality check last night, though."

"Just remember last night next time I get all cunty on you, OK?" Zondra smirked.

"I will Zee. I'll try not to make you wear 'The Nice One' any longer than I have to," Sarah said with a wan smile.

They ran in companionable silence. Zondra might not be the kind of friend you agonized over your feelings with but a woman who would have your back all the way to the depths of hell wasn't something she would ever allow herself to take for granted.

As they did their post run stretches Zondra asked, "What's your plan for today?"

"Intense therapy, emotional workout," Sarah said grimly.

"Better you than me, girlfriend," Zondra shook her head.

"Who do we know who could give me an idea for a thank you gift for Groucho?" Sarah asked. "Normally I'd try to find Antonia but she hasn't returned yet."

"No idea," Zondra admitted. "I heard some of the students mention a counselor on campus, maybe she knows him?"

It was Sarah's best lead so she went to the counselor's office. She soon learned that Groucho's favorite vice was Remy Martin Cognac and that he was particularly partial to Louis XIII."

Sarah briefly considered going Cognac shopping but decided it would be more prudent to stay within the estate's perimeter. She stopped by the kitchens and asked to speak to the sommelier. When she was quoted a price for Louis XIII she paled. She had emergency caches sprinkled around the world but hadn't dared approach them and the bulk of her wages from Family Shang were understood to be protection from questions and prying eyes. After some discussion of prices she was able to settle on a bottle of Remy Martin XO.

After the morning's Deflection session she had lunch with Zondra.

"My head is still spinning from last night," Zondra admitted. "Why did you ask Charles if he could ever love you again if you weren't even sure you wanted him?"

"I was drunk," Sarah began. "I don't know what the hell I was thinking."

"I got the idea you might have been starting to feel an attraction to Salvadore," Zondra noted.

"I was refusing to admit it to myself but yes, I was," Sarah admitted grimly "Salvadore had to explain to me he doesn't do causal relationships and couldn't date a woman with my history. I felt embarrassed and went back over my entire history of relationships with men. Hence the drinking. Salvadore talked to Chuck and Chuck came by to check on me."

"Ah, I get it," Zondra nodded. "You had decided there was no way ANY man with good intentions could want you and you were just asking Charles if he could prove you wrong. You didn't really want Charles, you just wanted to know if it were possible."

Sarah nodded. Well she MEANT to nod but her neck refused. She winced instead, "I haven't sorted out my feelings for Chuck. He's extremely important to me but I'm not sure how I want to fit into his life. I guess on one level I had assumed that I had destroyed any chance of being anything more than a piece of emotional baggage for him."

"So you expected him to tell you there was no way he could ever love you again?" Zondra asked.

"Absolutely. I guess a tiny part of me was holding out hope and I just wanted it to shut it up because hoping hurt too much," Sarah explained.

"Hmmm, OK, I guess I can see that," Zondra allowed. "You weren't TRYING to mess with his head. Still, the man topping the global female wish list of 'man to be stranded on a deserted island with' loves you despite the fact that you ghosted him when he desperately needed a friend. What do you do with that?"

"Given that said ghosting was a result of the woman in question being an emotional basket case, intense therapy," Sarah growled.

"No, I mean what do you do about Charles? Do you tell him you want to be his woman or do you cut him loose?" Zondra asked pointedly. "If you leave things the way they are you're just stringing him along in case you MIGHT decide you want him later. I doubt even Carina would play him like that under the circumstances."

Sarah wilted. The prospect of committing or cutting him loose was terrifying but drunk or not, she asked, he answered, and now he deserved to know whether she was in or out.

"You're right, Zee," Sarah croaked. She cleared her throat and continued, "Thanks for not letting me weasel out of it."

"Friendship isn't all inside jokes and drinking games," Zondra shrugged. "Get your head on straight and start being more yourself. I'm here for you no matter what."

After lunch, Sarah went to a secluded bench near a stream to think. Commit or cut loose? The tiny spark of hope that had blossomed into a cheerful campfire was all in on team commit. Ending flirtation with other guys was no big sacrifice for her. Opening herself up to all Chuck's feelings for her was what truly terrified her. She had lived in a world where people were ice cold. Chuck lived in a world of passionate emotional expression. Emotionally, she was an infant. It would take a supreme and sustained effort to mature into an emotional adult and even then she couldn't come close to functioning on Chuck's level. It was hopeless. She could never be his partner. She felt a profound sadness as she poured water over the campfire in her mind. She reserved a small dining room for a late supper and sent him a message asking her to meet him there.

She presented the cognac to Groucho at the start of their scheduled session and promised to keep this one short. They agreed that the most pressing item in her emotional rehabilitation was to figure out her emotions around Chuck. Groucho advised her to write down the emotional history of her relationship, including any particularly emotionally charged events. Then she should write what emotions he evoked now. Finally she should write down the emotions she most hoped to feel when she thought of him in the future and those she most feared.

Sarah wandered back to her bench to do the homework. At her first meeting with Chuck she was struck by his nerdiness and his sweetness. He was so awkward around her that she felt no need to keep her guard up or engage in the chess game of seduction. He was transparent as glass and the mildest interest from her was enough to completely unnerve him. He was respectful to her, sweet to the young ballerina, and supportive of his friends. He considered himself a loser but it was clear to her that he was the true leader and caretaker of the staff at the Buy More. She just wanted to be near him and bask in his goodness and normality. Emotionally she wanted to strip down to a bikini and sunbathe.

During those first days she had been frustrated with him and terrified for him. Her strong emotional attraction had been a constant challenge as she had to fight hard to avoid being compromised. Her relationship as his cover girlfriend was the perfect compromise. It allowed her to be as near him as possible without being in an actual relationship. Emotionally that meant she was never vulnerable while he was vulnerable on many levels. The asymmetry and unfairness of their relationship was striking. He risked everything and she risked as little as possible.

She hadn't realized how badly she WANTED to risk with him until The Incident when she thought they were about to die and she desperately kissed him. She focused on her emotions in that moment. She wanted all the walls down, she regretted the time wasted maintaining professional distance. She wanted to fuse with him and become one. Why had she gone back to professional distance in the aftermath? It had nothing to do with being professional, she realized. It was her terror at the prospect of extending that moment of complete emotional vulnerability.

Then Bryce came back into the picture. She remembered how it felt when he kissed her. The comfort of physical contact without emotional vulnerability was SO enticing. If she had sex with Bryce again, maybe it would take the edge off her longing for that terrifying vulnerability with Chuck. She broke the kiss when she realized it was just as likely to remind her of how completely empty her relationship with Bryce had been. She had deluded herself into thinking that physical and professional intimacy was love. That one brief moment of emotional intimacy with Chuck had shattered those delusions forever. She had never been in love with Bryce. He was a very cute, very skilled fuckbuddy.

It was ironic that Bryce thought she had trouble talking about her feelings. It had nothing to do with talking, she could never SHARE her feelings with him. Bryce could read what was on the surface but he never had a clue how completely shut out he had been from her deeper self. The proof of his ignorance was his belief that she had ever been in love with him. She trusted him professionally and it had been a deep blow to her pride that she never saw his betrayal coming. Embarrassment and hurt were the strongest emotions she felt around him.

She had continued her asymmetric relationship with Chuck until Jill came back into his life. At first she thought Chuck could finally put some of his old insecurities to rest. He would date Jill a few times and get information out of her. Hopefully he would be able to see her for who she was before she was back to her life as a bio nerd, safe from the covert world. Then everything had gone sideways. With Jill on the inside Sarah had watched closely when she was with Chuck and and noted that she was missing all the little involuntary tells Sarah had to work so hard to rid herself of. Jill didn't love him and Chuck had a hard lesson in store. The less she was involved in that process the better. It was still tough to watch them together and she avoided that whenever possible.

It wasn't until the 49B that she was forced to face some hard truths about her feelings for Chuck. At first she had tried to deny the accuracy of Agent Forrest's analysis. Her emotional reaction to the prospect of being reassigned proved how compromised she had become. It was at that point that she realized Chuck meant more to her than her career. She had started to plan for life after the CIA. When she was tapped to lead the Intersect 2.0 team, she planned to do the job for six months or so in order to transfer her intersect knowledge to the team. Then she could retire and see if she could make a go of it with Chuck. When Chuck hit her with the surprise invitation to take some time off with him, she was shocked by how much she wanted to accept. She awkwardly started her explanation of the logistical barriers to an immediate vacation and Chuck quickly took it as a rejection. She didn't trust herself to set him straight and open up that emotional can of worms without throwing a wrench into Ellie and Devon's wedding so she decided to wait until afterwards. Then Roark dropped in and somehow Chuck managed to avoid the incipient bloodbath AND plan and execute another wedding before most of the guests had to leave town. After seeing him pull off that miracle she realized she couldn't wait six months.

Then, of course, Bryce got himself killed. Her first reaction was intense guilt. If she had only gone through with the original plan, she could have protected him. Before she had processed her guilt she got hit with another shock. Chuck had downloaded the Intersect 2.0 and took out an elite Ring strike force all by himself.

In the chaos that followed, Sarah had no time for feelings. She had to resist the intense pressure to join the revamped Intersect 2.0 project and create a plan to help Chuck escape from the CIA. It was the most intense and nerve wracking mission she had ever attempted and it pushed her beyond her limits. By the time she was ready to execute, she was running on amphetamines and pure adrenaline. Then Chuck dropped a nuclear bomb on her and refused to leave the program.

As she meditated on her feelings in that moment and in the immediate aftermath, her first reaction was pure shock. She continued executing her orders like an emotional zombie. It actually made her job easier. Chuck tried to contact her but she couldn't answer, she wasn't even ready to acknowledge his existence, let alone talk to him. As the grim reality of a long, emotionally empty career stretched before her she transitioned to anger. All that time Chuck had been begging her for a real relationship. She had called in every favor and used every resource she had to make that possible. She had stood before him, emotionally naked for the first time in her life and pleaded with him to join her but he had refused. The hurt cut deeper than she had any idea was possible.

Just when she was seriously considering hunting Chuck down and killing him, he barged back into her life. He had washed out and she sincerely hoped he was as miserable as she was. She wanted to strangle Beckman when she put him back on her team. It was the worst possible moment for Carina to drop by and force her to admit she still loved Chuck. Chuck's bizarre confession about wanting to stay in the program because he loved her was pure gibberish but the fact that he loved her hit like a sledgehammer. It shattered her anger but left her in pieces emotionally. She needed to keep Chuck at arm's length while she put herself back together.

She was still far from together when Shaw came into the picture. He immediately usurped her role as Chuck's handler and told her Chuck's problems were all her fault. He put Chuck in danger and had the audacity to hit on her at every opportunity. She was completely off balance. While facing death again she let down her guard with Shaw just as she had when she first kissed Chuck for real. She was desperate to make that elusive emotional connection before she died. He saved her life and she felt perhaps he was just as desperate as she was. He had lost his wife, she had lost her relationship with Chuck. Maybe they really could understand each other and help each other heal.

Looking back on herself at that time she was disgusted by her stupidity. A man who relentlessly hits on a subordinate right from the beginning of their professional relationship is a sexual predator. She had called him on his violation of professional boundaries and he had admitted it. Somehow in that near death experience she made herself forget all that. He ruthlessly exploited her vulnerability and she was too new to vulnerability to protect herself. She swallowed Shaw's lies about Chuck hook line and sinker. She couldn't have been more gullible if she were a rube who had just fallen off the turnip truck. She let Shaw call the shots and just followed his lead. When he told her she was an impediment to Chuck's future she accepted it.

She summed up her emotional history with Chuck as 1) admiration 2) love with a barrier, 3) love more than career 4) love without limits, 5) unbearable pain, 6) love and confusion about how to connect and 7) acceptance that connection was impossible.

So much for history, what did she feel now? She cleared her mind and dug deep. No words, just feelings. She heard music in her head. It was an old Beatles song: All You Need is Love. Old Chuck, New Chuck, My Chuck, Her Chuck. It didn't matter. He could tell her he already had committed to sleeping with other women six days a week and she'd eagerly sign up for day seven in an instant. She loved him without reservation or condition. Deep down she knew it right to the marrow of her bones. Tonight she would tell him that.

Her hope for the future was that she could share every deep dark part of herself and still be loved. Her fear was that if she did that, disgust would extinguish whatever love Chuck felt. But she had spent a lifetime trying to protect herself by hiding and she knew that wasn't a life worth living.

As she floated through the surreal new world toward her supper with Chuck she asked herself if she were dreaming. How had the fire she had just extinguished before her session with Groucho been reborn as a bonfire that totally consumed her? Her brain had poured the water to douse the flames but her heart still burned. Leaving her brain in charge had gotten her captured. It was time to lead with her heart.

She felt strangely calm as she sat down and sipped her water. She looked up with joyful anticipation as the door opened and Antonia walked in.

"This isn't a good time," Sarah told her patiently. "I'm waiting for Chuck."

"He never got your message," Antonia replied bluntly

"What are you talking about?" Sarah was completely thrown off.

"When Charles told you he never stopped loving you, you told him you couldn't say the same, correct?" Antonia challenged.

"I was wrong, I've given it a lot of thought and I realize I've always loved him too," Sarah replied hesitantly.

"I want my friend out of this," Antonia pressed relentlessly.

"I'm sorry but I can't lie to him, I have no choice but to tell him the truth," Sarah replied.

"You don't get it," Antonia continued. "Charles feels deeply, with every fiber of his being. He's got too much heart to be in a relationship with an emotionally stunted manipulator like you."

"That might be an all too accurate description of me but I can't pretend I don't feel what I feel," Sarah's face burned with embarrassment.

"That's how you feel now, yesterday you felt different, can you honestly tell me you'll still love him tomorrow?" Antonia's anguish was raw.

"No I can't," Sarah admitted sadly. "Just hours ago I had decided to tell him to let go of me."

Antonia gave a strangled scream as she began pacing. Sarah could understand Antonia's fears and the fact that they were well founded made her doubt that telling Chuck she loved him was the right thing to do. Finally Antonia stopped and stared hard at Sarah.

"If there were a way to be certain you were in touch with yourself with regard to your feelings for Charles, even if it were dangerous to you, would you do it?" she demanded.

"Yes," Sarah said. There was no doubt in her heart.

"Good," Antonia was relieved. "Follow me."

Antonia's pace was quick and Sarah had to push herself to keep up. They crossed the estate to a recently constructed building built into the side of a hill. Antonia waved a key card near a sensor to get them through the doors, then led them to an elevator that required retinal scan. The elevator went down a number of floors and they approached an imposing reinforced door that required Antonia to put her hands into scanners and repeat several snatches of song before the door unlocked and let them in. She closed the door behind them and punched in a code to lock it. Then she led Sarah to what looked like a science fiction version of the Medieval Iron Maiden.

"Strip down, we need all skin surfaces exposed," Antonia commanded. With a fey smile she added, "Let me introduce you to the Intersect 3.0"