A/N: The end of our little story.

Maintenance

Chapter Five

Come the Resurrection

Now all those choices that you made
Asked more than you can give
And all of those worst-case scenarios
Become your one life to live

— Vigilantes of Love, Farther Up the Road

Sarah kept the boots.

She did not wear them but she kept them as she wrapped up the failed Barcelona mission. Javier's death killed the arms deal, and so any hope of learning more about the network to which Javier belonged. Sarah moved from Rita's apartment to a CIA Barcelona safe house, and she took the boots with her.

She interrupted the final paperwork for her mission to go to the Barcelona airport where, hair up in a hat, wearing sunglasses, hidden behind a menu, she sat in a restaurant and watched Chuck get in the security line.

Back at the safehouse, in her sterile room, she looked at the boots and she cried.

Her numbness was gone, and she was thankful, even if sadness had taken its place. Being sad was being alive. It was stepping forward, a willingness to be counted, counted among human beings.

But her sadness was deep and durable. It followed her from Barcelona to DC and became her roommate in her DC apartment. She found a copy of the Aztec Camera album Chuck mentioned to her on the terrace, and she listened to it, and to the song he sang her, Pianos and Clocks, whenever her sadness threatened to swallow her.

When her orders came for her next deep-cover mission, she asked to meet the Director.

The orders had made her sick to her stomach — not their specific content, it was a routine infiltration, nothing special — but the mere fact of them. She did not want to do it, to become someone else again. Her world had returned to her, and though it often hurt, it was real, it was hers.

She had not fully been Sarah until Chuck called her by name in that cheap Barcelona hotel. The burn on her cheek healed but the feeling of Chuck's careful fingers touching it did not fade. The so-called life she had before Chuck seemed a betrayal of that touch, of that calling of her name, like a betrayal of Barcelona and all those two days had meant.

The Director was a short, efficient man in his late fifties, short in stature and expression.

"You needed to see me, Agent Walker?" He was cautious around her as always. He knew she knew where lots of the bodies were buried.

"I did. I'd like to ask for a reassignment. I'm not at my best in the field anymore. You have agents who can do the job better than I can." Saying that had taken effort: she practiced the words in front of her bathroom mirror. For so long, being the best was all she had, but Mary had taught her the folly of that. "I'd like to move behind a desk, work as an analyst, maybe occasionally as a courier, just to get out of my cubicle. But no more deep-cover. You know my linguistic skills; I'd be an asset as an analyst."

He crossed his legs and tilted his desk chair back as if seeking a new perspective on her. "Geopolitical fates no longer move you to personal action, Agent?" He was observing her closely.

"No, Director. I'm not sure they ever really did. Maybe for a time Graham convinced me, caught me up in flag-waving melodrama, palaver about the Greater Good, but no more. Personal action isn't scaled to the plate tectonics of the geopolitical."

He obviously had not expected this response. "They say you're smart, Agent."

"They? Pardon me, Director, but coming from you, that use of 'they' sounds particularly paranoid."

His ears reddened. He was not used to her tone in his office. He uncrossed his legs, tilted forward. "I was referring to our psychologists. They've also told me that you are, to put it bluntly, 'on the edge of burn-out.' That was what they said even before Barcelona."

She nodded and did not dispute the judgment. "But you sent me anyway."

He leaned farther forward, put his elbows on his desk. His eyes hardened and he shrugged at her remark. "Your Barcelona reports left a number of issues quite vague, Agent."

"Such as?"

"Such as who exactly helped you escape from Javier Coosur, such as how a former CIA agent, one beyond salvage and given up as dead, Mary Bartowski, ended up dead alongside Coosur and his men, how a man's leather jacket, one of a jacket type purchased by a Charles Bartowski, who was in Barcelona on business at the same time, ended up as her death shroud? Issues such as those."

Sarah sat still and looked at the Director. "My report contained all the relevant information. The other things you mentioned are things I cannot explain."

He glared at her. "Interesting use of 'cannot', Agent. I haven't pursued these…details…but I could. I could, for instance, ask Charles Bartowski to visit me and tell me the story of his Barcelona trip, why he checked out of his room in the Hotel Pulitzer ahead of schedule, why we have no record of where he stayed his final nights in Barcelona, before his flight out. What do you think, should I phone him in Milwaukee?"

Sarah kept her game face on. "Do whatever you see fit, but I've heard, grapevine, mind you, that the Agency really has less than zero interest in bringing Mary Bartowski to light, owning her. Who knows what stories she might have told before she died? She knew — who? — Director Dillard? — well, didn't she? The way," Sarah paused, letting the Director connect dots, whatever dots he wanted, "the way I knew Graham? Graham had secrets, in fact, Graham now is a secret, so what about Dillard?"

The Director lifted his elbows from the desk, rubbed his face with his hands, and crossed his arms. "I'll play your game, Agent, but only because you've earned the right to some slack over the years, some discretion over your missions. — Are you ready to put down your gun and take up a desk?"

She nodded. She needed to eat — but she was done with the field.

"Okay. Fine. Cancel the order into deep-cover. Agent Morrow, the new woman, Farm fresh, she's been lobbying for a deep-cover assignment. She thinks she's you. Even dyed her hair blond." He shook his head. "I'll give it to her. So, in the morning, report to Analysis."

For the rest of the spring and the summer, Sarah worked as an analyst.

Three times she made low-stakes courier trips, documents in a briefcase handcuffed to her wrist.

She was talented as an analyst. She was very smart, and her extensive fieldwork gave her a robust sense of the reality of situations, how they were likely to be, likely to go.

But leaving the field in person only to consider it, analyze it, reflect on it from a Langley basement, still felt too tied to her old life.

The boots in the corner of her closet were both a reminder and a caution. She looked at them each morning and thought of Chuck, wondered what he was doing, if he was still in Milwaukee, if he had been back to Barcelona, if he thought of her. She missed him.

Since coming back to DC, she slept on only half of her bed. The other side was reserved; each night it held a memory.

Summer became fall and she continued in the basement of Langley. She did her work, did it well, but she now knew it was temporary. She had been withdrawing from the spy life slowly, detoxing. Rising.

On the weekends, she scoured the newspaper and the internet, looking for other jobs.

She did not apply for any, but she enjoyed considering the possibilities. She had never imagined another life before Barcelona.

She had also never been in one place, in DC, for so long.

For the first time in her life, she had time on her hands. She needed ways to fill her nights and weekends — the help-wanted ads did not do it. Self-maintenance had lost its limited charm. Anytime she resorted to it, it only reminded her what she was missing; the increasingly attenuated relief came at the expense of a mounting emptiness. When her batteries died, she did not replace them.

She spent the holidays alone. Since returning from Barcelona, she had refused to look for Chuck online, to find his phone number or email address but the approach of the New Year intensified her memories, both in frequency and in clarity.

This had all started with her sitting in a bar in Barcelona, unable to remember where she was the year before.

This year she remembered clearly and distinctly, with a constant ache.

The longing to contact Chuck colored her entire Christmas season. The music, the decorations, all made her wonder what it would be like to share the season with someone. She had ignored it all in the past. Her childhood Christmases had shamed her. Her father had been a conman, always zealously active during Christmas, the conman's busy season, and he had enlisted her in various cons. When she was old enough to quit him, his cons, he had ruined Christmas for her. It had come to seem massive fakery, duping people into believing nonsense.

But this year, it seemed different. There was something in it, a piece of silver tinsel holding all the commercial gabble together, giving it life in spite of itself.

Loving someone, even if you did not have him with you, changed the season, endowed its many bromides with meaning.

She finally understood herself as she sat alone in her apartment on Christmas day, an early Epiphany.

She had not wanted Chuck to wait and hope for her, but she was waiting and hoping for him. He had come for her in Barcelona, come for her after knowing who and what she was, after Mary told him about her, against Mary's advice.

Chuck had made love to her knowing who and what she was.

She had been hoping he would come for her again, to save her again, not from Coosur's basement, but from Langley's basement, from the remnants of her spy life.

But Chuck had no way of knowing that she had that hope, no way of knowing that she was waiting for him.

He thought she had returned to the spy life and so did she, at the time. But that had not been what she was doing. She had returned to the spy life only to leave it, to leave it not as Mary had left it, on its terms. She wanted to avoid living as Mary had been forced to live, in the shadows cast by the shadow life.

Sarah wanted to leave it on her terms.

Chuck was one of those terms, the crucial one. He was in her bloodstream, and she was bone-tired of being alone, of missing him.

On December 30th, Sarah got another courier assignment. She was to carry an urgent package to Milwaukee the next day.

Milwaukee. Chuck. New Year's Eve. The eve of another birthday.

She could not believe it. Chuck's home — or it had been. She yielded to temptation at last and looked for him online. She held her breath. Anything could have happened in a year.

He might have gotten sick.

He might have moved.

His business might have failed.

He might have fallen in love with someone else.

She found him.

He was not on social media, but he was listed and pictured on his company's website. A business phone number was listed.

She could call him. No doubt, someone else, an assistant, would answer the phone. She could leave him a message, see if he would meet her. She was going to arrive the next day, and fly out the day after, her birthday. Enough time to see him, to talk to him. But where? She searched online and found a perfect place. She tried to make a reservation, expecting to have no luck on New Year's Eve, but she did. The reservation was accepted.

But she did not want to force a meeting. She dithered all afternoon as she packed, each of her two trips to the closet causing her to stop and consider the boots.

She yielded again, picked up her personal phone, and dialed the number.

"Thank you for calling CB Edu-Ware. We are closed for the holidays, from December 21st to January 3rd, so that our employees can be with family. If you have an emergency, call — " the number was stated, "and leave a message."

Sarah was lost for a moment, unsure what to do. Then she called the number, expecting an answering service. Instead, Chuck answered the phone.

No, not Chuck, but it was a recording of his voice.

"Hi, if you've called this number, you have an emergency. We take that seriously. At the tone, leave your name, your location, the educational software you are using, and provide a brief description of your emergency. CB Edu-Ware will get back to you as quickly as possible. We appreciate your business and happy holidays."

His voice weakened her knees and her resolve. The tone sounded.

For a moment, Sarah said nothing, then she stammered. "This — this — this is not an emergency. Not exactly. Not a software emergency. And this message is for Chuck Bartowski, not for the company. This is — Sarah. Chuck knows who I am. I'll be in Milwaukee tomorrow. He can find me at 11 pm at…" She gave the address. "If — if he can't make it, I understand." She stated her phone number.

Ending the call, she held her phone, moving it up and down in her hand and biting her lip, weighing what she had done in the balance. She had done it. But what had she done?

Her phone rang and she jumped, gave a small cry of surprise.

Chuck? "Hello?"

"Is this — Sarah?"

It was a woman. Oh, God, he found someone else! Her heart twisted itself into a knot.

"Yes, this is Sarah."

"Hi. Chuck can't come to the phone. He's on campus here at Marquette. Marquette called with an emergency earlier today. Chuck, being Chuck, decided he would be the person on-call during the holidays."

Sarah was too confused, too panicked, to know what to say. The woman continued. "I'm sorry. Sorry. Hearing your name on the answering machine rattled me. This is Ellie. I'm Chuck's sister."

The two women were then both silent. Sarah remembered the name. Chuck and Mary had both mentioned her. His sister.

Ellie broke the silence. "I know he probably wasn't supposed to, but Chuck told me about Barcelona, about Mom, about you."

"Oh." Sarah tried to decide what to say. Ellie's tone had gone from surprised, apologetic explanation to a cooler wariness.

"Chuck's not been the same since Barcelona." Ellie's wariness was now mixed with sadness.

Sarah sank. "I'm sorry, Ellie, about Mary, about your mom. I'm sorry I had to leave Chuck alone with the emotional aftermath of Mary's death. I'm just…sorry."

Ellie sighed. "We lost Mom a long time ago. What happened was awful, but at least we know she did love us — in her way. "

"She did. When she told me about her history, she was trying to scare me, trying to convince me she was a hard woman, and she was, but I saw through it where her family was concerned. I saw her soften. I have no doubt, zero, that she loved you and Chuck and your father."

"You'd qualify as an expert on her sort of life."

Sarah felt defensive and worried. "Yes, I suppose so. — Is Chuck okay, Ellie?"

"Not really. But it's not Mom or not just Mom. It's you." Another sigh. "When Jill, his wife, cheated on him, it took him a long time to recover. Chuck doesn't do halfway, and he was all in. She hurt him so badly. This has been worse. He lost — we lost our Mom to spying. Chuck feels like he lost you to it too. But, he's not focused on his loss, he's worried about you, about what might happen to you, today, tomorrow, eventually."

Sarah's eyes stung. "I'm okay. I'm not in the field anymore."

"Oh. And you're going to be here tomorrow, in Milwaukee? I came to visit Chuck for Christmas. I fly out later today, so I won't be here. I'll make sure he gets your message."

There was another awkward silence. "Why did you call him, Sarah? Why do you want to see him? He's not happy yet but he's — he's steadier. This is between the two of you, but — well, it's between the two of you."

Sarah wasn't sure if Ellie had canceled her questions or not. "I miss him," Sarah confessed simply.

Ellie did not respond immediately. "You know he's not the Same Time, Next Year sort, right?"

Sarah did not recognize the reference but she understood it. "I do."

"Okay. Look, Sarah, what happened in Barcelona was not your fault. It wasn't anyone's fault, although Chuck blames himself for all of it. Mom, that Henri guy, what happened to you. I've tried to tell him that he's not to blame. He was out of his depth; he didn't understand what was happening until he was already in the middle of it."

"I lied to him, Ellie, deceived him."

"I know, Rita. Chuck told me it all."

"Right, of course, he did."

"For what it's worth, Sarah, and although he doesn't know I know, he keeps your goodbye note in his wallet, looks at it when he believes no one's around."

A tear trailed down Sarah's cheek. "Thanks, Ellie."

"Good luck, Sarah. To you both."

Sarah hung up the phone and finished packing, then she sat down at her computer.

Sarah arrived in Milwaukee late in the afternoon.

The cold in Milwaukee was brutal. A car was waiting for her and she delivered her briefcase to the small CIA office, the briefcase was uncuffed; she signed the necessary forms, then the car drove her to her hotel. She was too nervous to eat, although the restaurant in the hotel was supposed to be worthwhile. She rode the elevator up to her room, undressed and took a long, long shower, and then dressed carefully, the clothes she had chosen — a blue cable sweater, jeans, a pair of tall, black boots. She pulled back her hair into a ponytail and put on a black beret. She put on her coat.

A cab took her to the Cafe Benelux, a short trip. She stopped at the host's desk, and then he escorted her up to the terrace to be seated. The Cafe had several rooftop igloos on the terrace, each a kind of geodesic bubble, transparent, and each sealable, each with its own heat source. All the others were occupied.

Sarah sat down at the table inside the igloo, already set for two. The lights of Milwaukee glowed and blinked and sparkled all around her, the cold, clear night making each light utterly distinct. The view was not as impressive as the terrace view from the Hotel Pulitzer in Barcelona, but it was lovely nonetheless.

Sarah checked her phone. She was there about ten minutes early. She had not heard anything from Chuck, nothing more from Ellie. She had hoped Chuck might call her, if for no other reason than it would have eased her nerves.

She never got nervous, not during years in deep-cover, but she was trembling as she sat there. Very deliberately, she put her hands on the table, using it to steady them.

A deep breath helped to steady her more. She felt like she was on the eve of a new life, not just the New Year. Half her life was gone, was behind her. Forty-one was fairly old to be starting over. She wanted to start over, though. She had wanted that from the night a year ago when she first slept with Chuck. It might have taken her a long time to realize that if Mary had not shown up soon afterward, if all that then happened had not happened.

Twisting her torso, she looked toward the terrace door. Chuck had not arrived. But only five minutes had passed. She brushed the sleeve of her jacket. It had warmed enough in the igloo to take it off, so she did. She picked up the menu. A moment later a waiter entered the igloo, wearing a cap and coat to keep him warm as he walked among the igloos.

She ordered an expensive bottle of champagne and a plate of appetizers. He left, resealing the igloo behind him. She shivered; the waiter had brought the frigid outside air inside with him. But in a moment, it had warmed inside the igloo again.

11 pm. She looked at the door again. No Chuck. She took a deep, slow breath, and focused on what she wanted to say — and not to say.

The waiter brought two champagne flutes and the champagne. He put the flutes on the table and opened the champagne, but Sarah asked him to wait to pour it. With a nod, he left.

Sarah turned as he left and checked the door. It opened, a man walked in, but not her man. The man hurried to another igloo.

Sarah looked at her reflection on the china plate in front of her. The burn on her cheek left no scar. But the years had changed her, the last year more quickly. Worry lines, frown lines, the beginning of a chin crease, light lines on her neck: all showed that she was no longer young.

The waiter returned with the appetizers. He put them down and Sarah's mouth involuntarily watered. She had eaten nothing since a small breakfast that morning. The waiter left again. 11:10 pm.

Still no Chuck.

She stood up, facing the door. "C'mon, Chuck. Please."

And then the door opened and he was there. He looked flushed, flustered. The host led him to Sarah's igloo. Chuck stopped outside it when he saw her. He stared at her — for a moment, the quiet disbelief in his eyes made her feel like a mythical creature. He had not expected her to be there.

The disbelief passed and he gave her the smile that had replayed in her thoughts for a year. She opened the igloo and he stepped inside. She reached out to him and he to her, and then each became self-conscious, stopped his or her gesture. He looked at her and she looked at him and they both smiled.

"Hi, Chuck."

"Hi, Sarah. Thanks for this. I've heard about this place, the igloos, but I've never been up here. I've — um — I've sorta avoided terraces since you — since, you know." His grin was clumsy, unsure.

"Sit down, Chuck," Sarah said as she took her chair again.

He did. The waiter came in and poured the champagne. Sarah could feel Chuck staring at her. She watched the waiter pouring the champagne, and when he left, she met Chuck's eyes. "What is it?"

His eyes glistened. "I never thought I would see you again. I thought you didn't want to see me again." He grimaced. "I mean, I understood, you were doing it for me. Like Mom, protecting me."

Sarah nodded, frowned. "Yes, but I was also protecting myself. I was — I wasn't prepared for you. I was always prepared, always ready, but not for you."

Chuck looked at her for a long time. "Me?"

Sarah nodded. "You. None of my training, none of my experience, readied me for Chuck Bartowski."

He shook his head. 'I don't guess I will ever understand that. I'm just — me."

"Yes, you are."

She looked at him for a moment, making no effort to hide her feelings for him, the incandescent happiness that made the igloo feel tropical.

The sky had clouded over as she waited for Chuck, and she had not noticed. But now she noticed the result. Snowflakes, heavy and wet, began to fall.

Chuck saw it too. They both marveled at it, sitting at a table in a sudden snowstorm. Sarah grinned at Chuck, the magic of the moment making her tremble.

He grinned back. "It's like a reverse snow globe. The snow's flurrying outside and we're snug inside the globe. Amazing."

She leaned toward him and he leaned toward her and they kissed. When they leaned back, Sarah picked up her flute and extended it toward Chuck. "To you, Chuck!"

He dipped his head, and then said, cautiously, "To us!"

He watched her face and she let herself smile with all the joy she felt, all the joy the toast created. "To us, Chuck!"

They clinked glasses and sipped their champagne as snow swirled all around them.

A whole world, just the two of them together — they were a whole world, spinning in space, the snowflakes passing stars.

They were finishing the champagne and the appetizers as midnight neared.

Chuck looked at her. They had let themselves drift in small talk and long kisses, Sarah's chair moved close to Chuck's, his arm warm around her shoulders.

He put his finger beneath her chin, the gesture feeling extraordinarily intimate to her, making her gasp, and he lifted her eyes to his. "God knows, I'm not complaining, and, God knows, I'm afraid to ask, but I have to ask: why are you here, Sarah, and not in DC, or Jakarta, or Timbuktu?"

She held his gaze. "I don't work in the field anymore, Chuck, no more deep cover. I quit all that after Barcelona." She gave him a playful grin. "Barcelona ruined Jakarta and Timbuktu for me."

He kept his finger beneath her chin, then let it trail down her throat. She kept her eyes on his.

"Oh, okay," Chuck said, "so what are you doing?"

"I'm still at the Agency, working as an analyst, most of the time, but occasionally, like today, as a courier."

He shifted a bit in his chair. "A courier? You mean, briefcases handcuffed to your wrist, top-secret files with 'Top Secret' taped to them? They still do that?"

She laughed. "Yes, they do. There are still documents no one wants to trust to computers, not that you can imagine that, Mr. Edu-Ware."

"Wow," He shook his head, chuckling, "handcuffs."

"That's what you focus on?"

"Did they let you keep them? Because I'll show you my Edu-Ware if you show me your handcuffs."

They looked at each other, the heat from Barcelona between them again, but increased.

Chuck made himself look away and she saw the exertion it took for him to refocus. "But that's only part of the answer to my question, Sarah. That answer explains you in Milwaukee. It doesn't explain you here, with me."

Sarah took a moment. "I just wanted to see you so bad, Chuck. I've missed you every day for a year."

His eyes told her that he had missed her daily too. "So, this, I don't mean to presume, Sarah, but this is — this is just tonight."

"I can't do just tonight with you, Chuck. I tried and it didn't work. I told you that — or I wrote it in my note."

He nodded. His hand trailed over the front of his jacket, where his pocket must have held his wallet. "But you also wrote that we couldn't be any more than we'd been in Barcelona."

She pushed herself away from him a little, wanting to make sure he heard her, understood her. "Have you ever said something that was true, but in another way than you meant it, Chuck?"

"You mean, like, realized something meant more than I intended?"

"Yes, something like that. I wrote that it couldn't be any more than it had been — but I now know that's not because Barcelona was the end, but because Barcelona was everything, everything, Chuck, real and true and simple. I was afraid that I was like your Mom, and in lots of ways, but not all, I am. I thought I didn't know how to love you." She swallowed, continued. "In the last few months, as I've detoxed from the field, from missions, I've realized that loving someone is one of the things you can only learn how to do by doing it."

He was listening. "Like swimming or riding a bike?"

"Yes. I'm a woman of many skills, Chuck, and…"

He bent toward her, nuzzled her ear, whispered, "You certainly are…"

She trembled, her desire raging, but exerted herself, controlled herself. They were talking about what she wanted to talk about. "...And I thought of loving someone as a skill — maybe that was the result of the Farm, my father, I don't know, but I thought I should know how to love someone before I loved someone. But it doesn't work like that, at least not the first time. Maybe never."

His eyes sparkled, almost as if they were full of the bright snowflakes still falling around them. "You know that all you've just said implies at least that you love me?"

"At least. I do, Chuck."

"I do too. I mean — you. I love you too, Sarah. Desperately. I've been miserable since Barcelona, although I learned to live with it."

"I'm sorry, Chuck. All that happened in Barcelona, all that happened before it, it took me a while to work it out, to work myself out."

"Sarah, maybe I shouldn't ask, but — the man who ran the division of CB Edu-Ware responsible for translating our software interface into different languages, he retired at Thanksgiving. I haven't replaced him — yet. You'd be ideal at that."

"Ideal, huh? Are you offering me a position, Mr. Bartowski?"

"Yes, Miss Walker, I am. Many positions."

It was her turn to nuzzle his ear, whisper. "I remember them all."

She kissed him, wet and deep and commanding, and all around them, they heard shouts of Happy New Year.

They pulled apart and stood up to join the cheers. Fireworks lit up the sky, glowing against the low gray clouds, bright despite the falling snow.

They kissed again, Chuck this time dictating the depth and pace. When he finished, he gave her a look of pure desire and it filled her with flame.

"My room's not far."

He nodded and they left the igloo.

Early the next morning, before dawn, she snuck out of the bed, careful not to wake Chuck.

She found her phone in her coat pocket, her coat on the floor. She walked silently into the bathroom.

She looked at her email. The draft of her resignation letter was there. She opened it and re-read it. It was just a couple of sentences. Short and sweet, the opposite of her career, long and bitter.

When she sat down at her computer in her DC apartment, she began to draft a request for a leave of absence. And then she thought of Mary Bartowski: "I took a leave of absence. A fucking leave of absence. That indecision was a harbinger of things to come."

Sarah deleted the request and wrote her resignation instead. She had only needed Chuck to ask, to save her again.

He had.

She sent the email and put her phone down on the bathroom counter and looked at herself in the mirror.

She considered herself. Happy Birthday, Sarah Walker. I'm beginning to know you, beginning to like you. Sarah smiled at Sarah.

That young feeling that Chuck had given Sarah in Barcelona had never left her, despite her sadness, despite missing him. And now she was happy, she was with him, and she felt youthful, vibrant, all over.

How many people get resurrected without dying? Chuck had called her from the dark. She thought of that Bond movie (she knew it only by title) — You Only Live Twice.

She walked back into the bedroom. Chuck was sitting up, and he turned to her, a look of desperate panic on his face. "Sarah!"

"Chuck? What is it?"

"I thought you were gone again."

She sat down on the bed and pulled him to her, kissing him, then hugging him, waiting for his breathing to slow. "No, Chuck, no. I'm here."

A/N: Thanks for reading.