Posted November 18, 2022
A/N: Chuck and Sarah had a fantastic under-the-cover-relationship, sleeping in the same bed, making out all the time, and once even showing together. Chuck didn't think everything was perfect, though. He wanted forever with Sarah, and she was calling their apartment "home." But how long? A few weeks before, she was talking as if she would have to leave if he got the Intersect out of his head. He'd have never made her leave him and wanted her to understand she always had a home with him.
At least his nemesis, Bryce Freaking Larkin, was in a deep, dark hole somewhere. Jill Roberts doesn't go up the river in this story, but that's because this is the second to last chapter. This story also ends before an appearance of Shaw, but rest assured that Bryce's cell was more secure than Shaw's was in the show.
October 19, 2008
In-N-Out
Glendale, CA
Chuck parked at the location of his mission. He was undertaking the most important non-CIA mission that he had ever been on. A few days ago, he had been closer to Sarah than ever before. His problem was whenever he was close with Sarah, he found a way to screw it up. That happened again. Chuck felt he needed to complete this mission successfully, considering his recent behavior.
Since the Von Hayes mission, Chuck had made several mistakes. It all started when Sarah came to Buy More and noticed a "customer" suspiciously watching them. Chuck's first mistake was listening in through Orange Orange surveillance when Sarah faced her. It turned out the suspicious woman, Heather Chandler, wasn't watching them. She was watching Sarah. More accurately, she was watching "Jenny." Heather went to high school with "Jenny Burton," Sarah's name at the time.
Over a year ago, the first time Sarah came to dinner at the apartment, she told Chuck her name was not "Sarah." Hearing Sarah's real name was too much fun to ignore, so he made mistake number two: he didn't stay down in Castle, where his protector/under-the-cover-girlfriend had hid him. Instead, he went up to Orange Orange and introduced himself as "Jenny's boyfriend." It wasn't a "big" mistake and was all for fun, until he flashed on Heather's husband, Mark Ratner. Chuck knew it was important to follow-up on the flash, so he got them an invite to dinner so Heather and "Jenny" could talk about old times.
Sarah ordered him not to call her Jenny outside the mission. He did as she asked, but he made other mistakes on the double-date mission. Under cover, Casey saved him and Mark from Russian mobsters. It's not like Chuck invited the Russians. They were after Mark. For some reason Sarah was convinced the Russians were Chuck's fault, making it mistake three, even though he didn't cause it.
Mistake four was how he covered for his flash on the Russians. Mark hadn't seen Chuck flash, but Chuck said he knew they were mobsters. Mark assumed Chuck was "the Man," so Chuck automatically slipped into his Charles Carmichael cover. This time, Sarah wasn't part of the cover, so she wasn't Mrs. Carmichael. He never should have assumed the cover without her.
Back to his current, non-CIA mission, Chuck ordered at the burger joint. The teenager at the counter called the manager because of Chuck's unusual request.
The manager said they couldn't give him what he had ordered, but Chuck had expected to have a problem and knew what to say: Sarah and Chuck were their "best customers." The manager said that didn't matter because of health department codes, so Chuck reminded him how two months ago, Sarah single-handedly stopped the restaurant from being robbed.
Back in August, Chuck and Sarah were having a regular lunch away from Buy More chaos. Chuck's always watchful protector saw a would-be-thief enter In-N-Out wearing a ski mask and holding a gun. She cleared a table, ran to the front, and disarmed the criminal before anyone was threatened.
The manager correctly assumed the reason for the unusual part of Chuck's order. "She did it again. Didn't she? Is she ok?"
"She will be."
The manager nodded. When he came back with everything Chuck had ordered, he said, "It's on the house. Take care of her."
"I always will." The important part of that response was "always." He didn't need this man to understand that. Chuck needed Sarah to understand that.
Back in the car, Chuck realized that he was lucky she let him go on this "mission" without her. She had been especially over-protective since the Black Widow mission. Chuck supposed that was his fault, for jumping off a building twice. It's not like he did that for fun. He'd never do it again…well, unless he had to do it to save Sarah, like the second time. He wouldn't tell her that, even though it was true. That were two mistakes before the next four mistakes.
When Sarah showed the first sign of easing up with her protectiveness, Bryce had returned.
Driving home from In-N-Out, Chuck thought back to what else he did wrong on the reunion mission for the CIA. He was up to four mistakes. His fifth was joking with Sarah about the reunion. He never should have asked her those "mission prep" questions about "Jenny." When she wanted him to call her "Sarah," not "Jenny," Chuck should have realized there was some bad history to avoid.
Sarah made that abundantly clear when she skewered a picture of the two of them by throwing a pencil through the glass of the picture frame. He thought she easily destroyed her favorite picture of the two of them. He'd have to print a new one and buy a new frame.
Fortunately, that fifth mistake was his last. At the reunion, right after they checked-in at the front of the gym, Chuck overreacted to a huge picture of Sarah in high school, taken when she was "Jenny." She had changed a lot since high school. Reacting to the picture could have been mistake six, but he made up for it immediately when he told her that he sometimes couldn't believe someone who looked like her was with him. She objected, saying that he was too good for her. Chuck had the perfect response. He said that he would have been lucky to have "Jenny" as his girlfriend in high school. If he had met "Jenny" back then, "Sarah" wouldn't have a chance today. That strange comparison could've been taken the wrong way, but Chuck said either way, his under-the-cover-girlfriend would end up with him, an idea she liked.
All night, Sarah had to introduce herself because no one recognized her. Every time, she introduced Chuck as her fiancé. Whenever anyone asked to see the ring, she said she had proposed earlier that night, so they didn't have a ring, yet. Chuck was confused how he had been promoted from cover-boyfriend to cover-fiancé. Privately, she explained to him that everyone at a reunion was either married or engaged, so being engaged was easier "for the cover." Chuck liked the idea of being married to "Sarah," or "Jenny," or whatever she wanted to call herself, so he didn't complain.
Chuck's spy protector made the mission a success, of course. The surprise to him was that the person behind the entire thing was Mark's wife, Sarah's high school nemesis. (They both had nemeses from school, either high school or college: Heather Chandler or Bryce Larkin.) The only surprise was that Heather did more damage to Sarah's face than even La Ciudad, an infamous and deadly arms dealer. Sarah said her dress in the school shower held her back, but that didn't make sense to Chuck. Against La Ciudad, Sarah was in a Wienerlicious uniform on the roof and claimed it was a lucky kick to the lip. Chuck figured this time it must've had something to do with latent bad feelings from high school, and he knew better than to argue.
The best part of the night was when Chuck got to dance with the reunion queen, none other than Jenny Burton, aka Sarah Walker, his under-the-cover-girlfriend. They were supposed to have one dance, but no one made them stop, and he lost track around the fifth song. They only left when Casey interrupted them and said an FBI team had arrived to arrest Heather.
When Chuck and Sarah got home last night, they were lucky to hold off Ellie from going into over-protective doctor-mode. That mode was almost as bad as her over-protective sister-mode. As Ellie's maid of honor and as Chuck's girlfriend, Sarah fell under that umbrella twice. Sarah had been cleared by CIA doctors, and they managed to stop Dr. Ellie by explaining that Sarah's old high school rival was mad she didn't win reunion queen, and that the authorities had her. Sarah insisted she was fine as long as Chuck held her all night. Ellie thought that was sweet, and Chuck did exactly that.
Sarah getting punched in the face so many times was the entire reason for Chuck's current mission. The instant Chuck entered the apartment complex's courtyard, Sarah opened the door to their home. She had been adamant about her condition for letting him go out: Chuck had to leave his tracking watch on. He figured she had been watching his location the entire time he was gone. So much for the surprise mission. (At least Bryce didn't show up this time.)
"Why did you go there?"
Chuck led her over to the table and handed her raw hamburger out of the paper bag he was holding. That burger was the reason for the trouble at In-N-Out. They generally didn't give out raw burgers.
Sarah smiled at Chuck's gift. "Isn't that supposed to be a raw steak?"
"Not on a Buy More salary, thank you very much." He didn't tell her it was on the house. He thought he was going to have to buy the burger, and he didn't have enough money for a steak. "I did, however, get you a cooked one as well." He pulled a second burger out of the bag.
"Medium rare with extra pickles?"
"Come on, who do you think you're dealing with here?"
"Well, I never doubted you, Special Agent Charles Carmichael."
The smile on Sarah's battered face meant the mission was a success. Chuck didn't know how much of a success, but it didn't matter. He'd do it a hundred times to get Sarah to look at him like she looked at him at that moment.
Sarah said, "I know you're sometimes worried that you don't make enough at Buy More. That doesn't matter to me. Only you do. You know I make a lot, but you should know… You can't tell anyone… A few months ago, I started putting CIA discretionary funds for black ops into an account in your name. It's effectively your paychecks from the CIA. You can't withdraw from it now because of the cover. No one knows you have it, but the money is yours."
Chuck didn't understand. "You're saying I have money and could have bought you both a steak for your eye and a full hamburger?"
Sarah nodded.
"How could it be mine? To get the money, I'd need to sign something and get something like a debit card."
"I forged your signature when I opened it. The debit card is my underwear drawer. You're allowed to get it anytime." She winked.
"So next time—"
"Next time you do something sweet like you did this morning," Sarah explained, "you can get money from your account." Chuck thought he could use it when he bought Sarah a new picture frame.
Sarah continued her explanation. "For the cover, people can't know about it, but small amounts are ok. 'Under the cover,' you are getting paid what you deserve. Graham authorized my plan. Because this is partially a CIA operation on American soil, it's from the black ops budget, like my hotel room was. Graham's only condition was that you don't start using it extravagantly, blowing your cover when people noticed you spending money you shouldn't have."
A thought popped in Chuck's head. "You mean we have a joint account, like a real, committed couple."
Sarah shook her head. "No. It's your money."
"You have access to the debit card, and you can sign for me. It's both of our money."
Sarah jumped to the wrong conclusion and didn't like the implication. "I would never steal from you."
"It's not stealing if I say it's both of ours." Chuck wore a small grin.
Sarah kept her mouth closed. He could see the corners of her mouth start to go up as she realized what it meant if they had a "joint account," under the cover. Even if she didn't use it, having a joint account meant their relationship had advanced to another level.
After his meaning fully sunk in, she said, "Okay, fine. I'll answer one question about my past. You've earned that much."
"Hmm." Chuck looked down and briefly thought of the question he always asked. He decided to not ask that question, though, because he never got the answer he wanted and he had learned it would upset Sarah. When he looked at his under-the-cover-girlfriend, he saw her looking back at him like he could do no wrong. "No, thanks. I don't need to know more—not about who you were, because as much as you don't think so, I know who you are: a girl I'd like to share a cheeseburger with."
They looked into each other's eyes deeply. They were seconds away from forgoing the burger. He broke the moment before the burger got cold and asked, "Should I get a knife? I'll get a knife." He started to the kitchen.
Sarah stopped him. "That won't be necessary." She flipped up the bottom of her yoga pants, revealing a set of knives in an ankle holder. She pulled out one and handed it to him.
"That's awesome…and a little disturbing." He mentally added, And kinda hot.
Sarah didn't drop her previous offer. "Seriously, I know you have a question. You always have questions. How about the question you always ask?"
Chuck sighed. He had already ruled that one out. "What would be the point? You always tell me you're telling the truth, and if that's the case, then I don't understand what we are under the cover. I could ask you, 'Do you love me?' but how could I believe your answer?"
Chuck cut the cheeseburger and kept the bigger half. Then he opened the top of both halves and gave all of his pickles to Sarah. He liked pickles on his cheeseburger, but he wanted Sarah to have all of them because she liked them more.
"Yes."
Chuck knew Sarah would like what he was doing, but why would Sarah say that? She must really be excited about the extra pickles.
"Chuck, I fell for you a long, long time ago—after you fixed my phone and before you started defusing bombs with computer viruses. So, yes."
Wait a second. Was she answering the question that slipped out? Was she saying she loved him? He wished that was true so much, but how could he believe it? "You told me the first time you came here that I should trust you, but I shouldn't believe you."
"I've had to tell you things for a mission, but I don't outright lie to you. I also don't lie when we're in bed together or when we are alone, like this. I love you." Chuck wondered if he was dreaming because she had said it again, but this time as more than an answer. "That answer is free, since you obviously didn't know you were asking me a question. If you want to ask me a new question, you can ask me something else, like when my birthday is."
With Sarah's big revelation, he didn't care. There was no point of asking that question anyway. "I already know when your birthday is."
Now Sarah was confused. "You said the dress for the reunion was a birthday present."
"That was a joke. I've known your birthday for five months." Sarah's eyes widened because Chuck had just cited the correct month. He could tell Sarah wanted to know how Chuck knew, so he explained, "I woke up when you got up, just before midnight of the start of the special day. You got back into bed and snuggled up to me wearing your 'birthday suit.' I couldn't fall asleep for hours, but after I did, I had fantastic dreams. When we woke the next morning you were dressed in your sleeping clothes again, thinking I never knew."
Chuck could see Sarah's coy smile behind the raw burger on her face. "That was fun. Since you knew, I'm a little disappointed you didn't return the favor on your birthday." Sarah raised and lowered her eyebrows. It didn't matter that her face was obstructed. She was getting really good at the eyebrow dance. "When I was in high school, I hated the 'Jenny' cover. What about my birth name?"
Sarah loved him. Why would he care what her birth name was? Except… what she said didn't make sense. "I don't understand what you mean by 'cover name.' You wouldn't have been in the CIA when you were in high school."
"As a CIA agent, I became a professional at what I was doing for years. I like the name 'Sarah' best because that's who I was when I met you. It happens to be my legal name, which I changed to when I entered college, meaning it's on my CIA pay stubs."
For a second, Chuck wondered what Sarah did before the CIA, but it didn't matter to him. Sarah would tell him when she was ready. "I don't need to know your birth name, I don't need to know why you went by 'Jenny,' and I don't need to know what you did back then."
She seemed satisfied with that response at the moment, so they quietly ate their burgers. The entire time, Sarah looked like she was going to devour him. Chuck thought maybe she wasn't getting enough food, so he asked, "Do you want more than that? I can get something from the fridge."
"I'm thinking about something other than food." Maybe she was going to devour him like a lioness. The thought of being mauled by Sarah was not completely unappealing. She said, "I still owe you. I know you want to ask me the question you always ask me. I answered one question with the truth, but you weren't really asking it, so it was a freebie."
Chuck sighed. He loved that Sarah said she loved him, but maybe it wasn't true and was like the question he always asked. "Either you were lying a minute ago or you'd lie if I asked you that question. We've known each other for a year. You said you loved me that whole time. I've loved you that whole time. Even if what you said is true, you always tell me that we don't have a future. When I imagine my perfect future, you're always in it. Casey told me you can lie under the effects of truth serum, but you don't even have to do that when you don't feel the same way."
Sarah sighed. "Yes, I can lie under the effects of truth serum, but I didn't have to. Casey suspected something, so I had to tell him that I could resist truth serum, or else I might have compromised myself. He knew you and I were close, so I implied I lied. However, I didn't tell him I actually lied. I told you the truth."
She told the truth? That meant she didn't think they were going anywhere. "How is that any better? When I ask—"
"Stop." Sarah placed her hand over Chuck's mouth. "The problem is your question. Do I think our thing under the undercover thing is ever going anywhere? No, because I could be reassigned at any moment. Do I want our thing under the undercover thing to go somewhere? Absolutely. Do I want a future with you? I've never wanted anything more."
Chuck could hardly believe what he was hearing. The only thing between them being perfectly happy under the cover was his word choice: "think" instead of "want"? Was the other wonderful thing also true? "You really love me?"
"Yes, I love you. I always have."
"And you want a future together?"
Sarah slowly and assertively nodded.
"No matter where you're sent by the CIA, you always have a home to come back to, with me." Sarah had a raw hamburger on her face, but she wore the biggest smile Chuck could remember. "Why didn't you tell me you want a future together?"
"I didn't think it was possible. You didn't seem to want to do more. I didn't want to force you."
Chuck let you single laugh. It wasn't because he thought it was 'ha ha' funny. It was because he realized he had been an idiot and Sarah's statement about forcing him was ridiculous. "You always said I wasn't forcing you, but you could have forced me. Although, you couldn't call it 'forcing' because I wanted it too and wouldn't have put up a shred of resistance. When have I ever stopped you?"
Sarah dropped the raw burger from her face. Her eyes sparked. Chuck thought again that Sarah was going to "devour" him. Sarah was still hungry and had obviously found the next thing on the menu. Chuck wouldn't stop his girlfriend, but first she had a question. "Why did you hold back?"
"Because I was an idiot."
Sarah immediately countered with an angry proclamation, "Don't call my boyfriend an idiot!"
Chuck realized that Sarah being so vehement about calling him her boyfriend and making sure no one disparaged him, even himself…that was very "her."
Sarah explained more about why she held back. "I said you couldn't force me, and I wasn't going to force you. I trusted you, and trusted whatever reasons you had. In the meantime, I love what we do most nights and mornings under the cover. I never wanted to jeopardize that."
Her teeth shined in her huge smile. "Does this mean you don't have a reason to hold back? I don't want to hold back. Does that mean… you know?"
Does that mean… Chuck didn't want to complete that thought in his head. Thinking it might make it not true. Before Chuck answered, he had a question. "Before I answer, I need to know what you mean by you never lied to me in bed. Does that mean you were telling the truth, the night after we returned the ring for Devon to propose?" Did she mean it when she said she would say 'yes' if he asked her to marry him?
Sarah slowly nodded. "You heard that?" Chuck nodded. "That was the complete truth," she confirmed.
Chuck's heart raced. It was true! It had been true for months! Sarah loved him for almost a year! There was no longer any reason to hold back. He took Sarah's hand, and she understood. They hurried to their bedroom, together.
A/N: Finally
Next chapter is the last one, and we'll see what Sarah thinks afterwards.
