A/N: Our tale continues.


CHAPTER TEN


Misunderestimate


They sailed together through the air forever, as if they had ascended, breaking ties with the earth.

Memory.

The first time Sarah saw Chuck after reassignment was at Bryce Larkin's funeral, not Langley, truth be told.

A memory she skirted.

Bryce's second funeral. It had just been a glimpse, a glimpse of Chuck at a distance.

He made an appearance and shed no tears.

But then again — neither did Sarah. She shed her final tears for Bryce at his first funeral.

Chuck was wrong. Sarah had not left Chuck for Bryce. Yes, she had accepted reassignment, and, yes, she knew that meant she was to be Bryce's partner. But that was a foreseen consequence of her orders, not a choice of hers.

She should have explained that to Chuck, made the distinction for him. She did not. Cowardice vice-gripped her, as it had in accepting reassignment. She had been obedient for so long — so very long. The only time she had been disobedient was when she and Chuck ran to Barstow.

Barstow.

That morning in Barstow meant everything to her but she had made it seem to mean nothing. Even worse, she had made nothing of it at Ellie's wedding. Chuck believed that Barstow had changed everything between them but, at the wedding, she made it seem that it had changed nothing.

Barstow. Everything but nothing. All her doing.

When she parted company with Chuck after Barstow, back in Burbank, after she got back to her dark apartment, and even before her reassignment orders, she began to waver, to doubt herself, her feelings. She began to shove them from her, and then acted as if their resulting distance was proof of their weakness.

She had not explained about her orders, about Bryce, because she could not trust herself.

In the dark of her apartment, away from Chuck's eyes and hands, she lost her grip on her heart. When the reassignment orders reached her, her phone rang, she meant to refuse, to say No for the first time. But she hung up without refusal. Her heart pleaded No from deep inside her, but the plea died before it crossed her lips.

The curtains of her apartment were closed. She sat on the end of her bed and let her heart shout itself hoarse, shout until it lost its voice. And then she called and accepted the orders.

She had intended to explain it to Chuck. He did not have the Intersect anymore. His father had freed him. Sarah was unnecessary; she was baggage leftover from Chuck's sojourn among the spies. But she grew afraid of explaining in the dark, because she did not know if she could explain without revealing herself, particularly about Bryce. To tell Chuck that she was not choosing Bryce even though she was obeying orders — she did not believe she could do that Chuck hearing the contrary, hoarse croaking of her heart.

He almost destroyed her by inviting her on vacation. She had not expected it. It was not the question she desperately wanted him to ask and was completely terrified he would ask: to ask her to stay, to quit, to join him in normalcy in Burbank.

He invited her on vacation and this time she managed to say No, although her heart, voiceless, squirmed in her chest in frustration and despair. Chuck's face crumbled in front of her, feature-by-feature. He mumbled something to her. She did not fully hear it, although she knew how much she'd hurt him because his tone, registered, showed that he had tried to hurt her back, for him a sure sign of emotional extremity: he was a 'high road' guy.

Or he had been. In Burbank.

Before she betrayed them both.

She later understood that he had invited her on vacation as a half-measure toward asking her to stay, to quit. He had hoped to reprise Barstow, get it right, let that promising morning run its course. To move her cautiously toward asking her to stay with him, leave the CIA.

As usual, she'd underestimated him. What was that Presidential malapropism? — Bush: 'misunderestimate'. That was perfect, all too appropriate; that was what she did, habitually. Misunderestimate Chuck.

She tried to catch him after Bryce's funeral and ran to the spot where she'd glimpsed him — the edge of the cemetery, near one of its gates. But he was gone. The gate was shut. He might never have been there.

Tears came then, but not for Bryce. She had denied those tears and denied their object.

They crashed onto Chuck's bed, sudden descent, earthbound.

She landed on top of him, Chuck her landing gear. She was straddling his lap — furious, hurt, and hopeless. Forgoing her fists, her training, she started slapping Chuck's face with her open hands. Each blow was a crack in the air, a bedroom thunderclap. It took her a moment to realize that Chuck was not fighting back, was not dodging her blows, was letting her slap him.

"I am not a thing, not a thing, not a thing, not a thing!"

Red handprints marred his unshaven cheeks. His eyes were focused on her but retreating from her. His hands were palm up beside his head, open.

"Damn you, Chuck, fight back! Defend yourself!"

He shook his head, refused.

She leaned down, diving, chasing his gaze with hers. She felt like she plunged into a hazel abyss. Stone, she plummeted until she struck his lips.

Chuck!

He tasted like Burbank, like the past, like all she'd hoped for from the future but never acknowledged. He tasted like Chuck, although he also tasted faintly bloody. She must have burst his lip.

She let her weight sag heavy onto him, sliding her knees outward. His lips were soft beneath hers: his groin was hard against hers. Feeling him, she moaned into his open mouth.

In a lightning flash, her hands were pulling on his belt, his beneath her robe. Fury and hurt and hopelessness transfigured into epic desire, desire too large for her body, too large for the bed, too large for the bedroom. Her desire for Chuck became her horizon and her epicenter.

His large hands, rough, cupped her breasts, kneading.

Needing.

Fumbling, her fingers too slowly answering the wildfire pace of her desire, she found him. The robe she had been wearing, she was wearing no more — she had no idea where or when it had gone. She knew one thing: Chuck inside her, the omnipresent answer to years-long yearning, impossibly hot, molten.

Ablaze, conflagrating, they burned the cabin, burned the mountain.


A/N: Probably no chapters again until the end of the week.