A/N: Ya'll have known something was up with this fic since it started. I've left a little hint here and there, but I'm pretty sure most of you haven't picked up on what has actually happened. Get ready, here it comes. You might want a hanky.

Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck

"Hey, Buddy," Chuck heard. He rolled over in his bed and saw him sitting there, in the desk chair, the smile he always got when he was around Chuck. "Not playing a lot of Call of Duty anymore. Something wrong?"

Chuck looked over at the clock. It was 4:15 in the morning. It was always 4:15 when this happened. "I'm sorry, Morgs."

"Dude, it's okay, we can play tomorrow, I know you have to work in the morning," Morgan told him. He stood up.

"Don't leave, Morgan," Chuck said, fighting the tears. "Please don't leave."

"I have to, Chuck," Morgan said with a shrug. "You know I do." Chuck watched Morgan head up the stairs.

He bolted up in bed, and looked around. The clock read 4:15 am. Chuck didn't even try to hold back the tears.

}o{

A half-hour later he parked the car, and blew out a rough breath. "Why the hell didn't I just tell you to stay?" he muttered to himself. He looked over at the passenger side, grabbed the six-pack, and got out of the car. He opened the trunk, grabbed his camping chair, and carefully made his way over to his destination. He set up his chair, making sure to place it in a walkway area and not over someone's grave. He looked down, bent, and brushed a leaf off of the stone. He stood, and stared at the writing. Morgan Guillermo Grimes. "Your mom did a good job with the headstone," Chuck said softly.

Chuck sat down in the chair, reached down, grabbed a can, and popped open a grape soda. "So, you're gonna love this, I got fired from the Buy More," Chuck said with a laugh. "I'm the one who got fired. Big Mike said it was because he was taking advantage of me, but in truth, he got scared by this Marshal I met, named John Casey."

Chuck took a drink and quickly winced and shook his head. "God, this stuff is foul," he muttered. "So there's this girl, no not like that," Chuck said quickly. "Well, maybe, I don't know. But anyway, she has been on the run from the mafia because of her dad. And the Marshal guy thinks I can save her by finding out stuff about this mob dude."

Chuck sat there a second. "I know, I know, I should do it, to keep her safe." He was silent a moment longer. "Morgan, I miss the hell out of you." He wiped at his eyes as the tears fell. "Dude, I'm so damn lonely." He shook his head. "I know told you I had to work the next morning, but you didn't have to leave." Tears were falling. "You could have stayed, and then that drunk driver…." He couldn't speak anymore. The emotions had overcome him and the guilt of the last thing he told his best friend was he had to work the next day. "I'm sorry, Morgs. I'm so sorry."

}o{

Sarah made her way to the kitchen, and pulled up short. It was clear by the look on Emma's face she felt it as well, something was wrong. She noticed Chuck wasn't around, and before she could stop herself she asked where he was.

Ellie glanced over to Mary who nodded. "Well, see, Sarah," Ellie began. She stopped. "You know what, why don't you get dressed. It would probably be easier that way."

}o{

The two pulled up beside a car a little while later. Sarah gave Ellie a look, seeing Carina and Zondra sitting in the car, drinking coffee. "Everything go okay?" Ellie asked, after she rolled down the window and Zondra rolled down hers.

"Yep," Zondra replied. "He left this morning about 4:30. Went to the cemetery. We watched him with our binoculars. He sat up beside the grave. Drank that god-awful grape soda. Talked…cried." Ellie shook her head and blew out a rough breath. "About 7:30 he came over here, did a walk-through of the place, and then headed out to the backyard."

"We stopped by yesterday," Carina added. "There's a lot of brush and stuff in the backyard along that fence-line that needs to be cleaned out. He'll probably be at it all day."

"Where are we?" Sarah asked.

Carina and Zondra shared a look and then Zondra looked over at Ellie. "You sure this is a good idea?"

"No," Ellie admitted. "But how the hell can it get any worse?"

"I am not interested in finding out," Carina told Ellie. "My fine ass has other things I'd rather do than watch him at 4:30 in the morning every damn year."

"Yet, you volunteered," Zondra reminded her.

"Will you knock it off?" Carina asked her. "I have a rep to maintain," she muttered.

"Hello?" Sarah said. "What are we doing here?"

"This is…Chuck's house," Ellie began.

"Technically that is true," Zondra agreed. Ellie snorted and shook her head.

"Why doesn't he live here instead of in his parents basement?" Sarah asked.

"Yeah, Ellie," Carina chimed in. "Why?"

Ellie glared at Carina, but Carina refused to back down, in fact, her smirk grew even more.

"You know, I think we three are the wrong ones to be telling this story," Zondra said. Not necessarily to cut the tension between Carina and Ellie, but more because she didn't want to have to listen to the retelling of the story. "The answer to your questions is in that backyard."

"What if he won't tell me?" Sarah asked.

Zondra snorted. "I have the damnedest feeling he will." Sarah gave Ellie a look and Ellie nodded in agreement. Sarah got out of the car and headed across the street to the house and the backyard.

"You two go home, I got this," Ellie said softly.

"You don't think she's actually gonna pull him out of this thing do you?" Carina asked.

"I can hope," Ellie admitted. She turned to the two women. "Thanks."

"He is our friend you know," Carina said, starting the car. "And the thing of it is, even if he won't admit it, we're his."

"I know," Ellie replied. Zondra gave Ellie a wave and the car pulled away. "He doesn't, but I do.

A/N: Oh, look, double chapter.

She walked around the corner of the house, and saw him, pulling weeds, shaking his hands every few seconds where something had cut him.

"Hey, you should be wearing long sleeves and gloves doing that," Sarah told him. Chuck spun, startled, and landed on his backside. "I'm sorry," she said, helping him up. "What are you doing?"

"Baking a cake," he muttered. She gave him a flat look. "Sorry, sorry, just…you startled me, okay?" She nodded.

"I am sorry about that, but what is it with this house and no one telling me the truth?"

"What do you mean?" Chuck asked, confused.

"I asked where you were this morning, and instead of telling me, Ellie drove me over here, then I asked where we were and Carina-"

"Carina's here?" Chuck asked, stunned.

"Yeah, apparently she and Zondra have been tailing you all morning," Sarah told him. "They said you started out at a cemetery?" Chuck looked away. "Hey, you were there for me, how about you let me be here for you?"

"It's a long story," Chuck told her.

Sarah looked around, found a few chairs that were near the house, walked over, grabbed them and sat them down. She plopped down in one. "Oh look, I found somewhere to sit."

Chuck sighed, and sat. He looked back at the house, and over to Sarah. "That used to be my best friend's house. He bought it for him and his mom when we made it big."

"You made it big flipping houses?" Sarah asked. Chuck shook his head.

"When I came out of college I started a computer security company," Chuck explained. "We had the best product on the market and we had made it, or so I thought we had. We weren't millionaires or anything, but Morgan moved him and his mother out of their tiny apartment and bought them a house."

"That's a good son," Sarah said. Chuck nodded. He wiped his hands on his pants.

"So, I was the ideas guy, we had a small team that built the products, some business folks, and Morgan…Morgan was the guy making the supply chain decisions and all of that stuff. Morgan bought him mom a house, I moved out of my parents house and got an apartment."

Sarah was silent, it was obvious he needed to work his way through all of this. "Morgan had finalized everything, for our grand launch. We had both been working like a dog and he mentioned to me that we hadn't played Call of Duty in a while. I told him soon." Chuck blew out a breath and looked away. "I had a meeting that night, somewhere overseas, I was trying to move into foreign markets, I got greedy."

She watched his face and saw pain that she knew, and it was then it dawned on her who's grave he had been at that morning.

"So, I told Morgan soon, which he took to mean that night," Chuck continued. "He was taking the next day off, and I had two meetings in the morning. He went over to my apartment and let himself in my bedroom window…he called it the Morgan door. He apparently waited for me and fell asleep on my couch.

"Meanwhile, I'm on this call that I think will last no time at all." Chuck snorted. "They wanted me to talk to this person, then that person, and it went until three thirty am, and I had another meeting at ten that morning. I drove home, and found Morgan asleep on my couch."

Chuck put his head in his hands for a moment. He lifted his head, blew out a rough breath, turned to her, and tried to smile, but it never reached his eyes.

"I told him I had to sleep," Chuck told her, emotion thick in his voice. "He told me he understood, and walked out of the apartment. That was at four fifteen, am."

He looked away again. When he turned back, tears were sliding down his cheeks and as he spoke, his voice cracked. "My phone rang an hour later. A drunk driver had hit his car."

"Oh, no," she murmured, her hands steepling on either side of her nose.

"I got to the hospital, and they kept saying that it was bad, but it would be okay," Chuck told her. "Three hours later, a blood clot went to his heart and killed him."

"Oh, God, Chuck," Sarah said, getting up and squatting in front of him, taking his hands.

"I didn't know what to do, my best friend…he was dead. He called himself my hetrosexual life partner." Sarah couldn't help but snort at that. "I bought this place, to make sure his mom was okay. I tried to run the company, and while I knew how to make the product, I couldn't do what he did."

He lowered his head and Sarah moved a hand to the back of his neck and gently rubbed it. He raised his head and looked her in the eye. "I tried to run the company the best I could, but I don't know if it was my grief or what…." He trailed off. "See, it started out when a product didn't ship out like it was supposed to. We were in a crunch so I threw money at it, to be expedited, and I thought that fixed it. The product got to where it was supposed to go."

"I was doing two jobs, helping to bury my best friend, and one day I just snapped. I sat in my office and cried for hours, and hours, and I tried to pull myself together, because people…people were depending on me," he told her. He just sat there, unable to speak.

"Did you lose the company?" Sarah asked. Chuck nodded. "Chuck, it's not your fault." He tried to speak, but couldn't. He felt the tears well up in him and suddenly he was being held as he let the tears fall, her holding him.

A/N: Okay, warning now. Next chapter HINT of angst, but let me remind you, it's me….it's Christmas, it will be fine. Sometimes you need a firm but to the buttocks to make you go forward in life. You're still here? Oh, I know what you want.

He walked into the kitchen, and he could see Morgan there, happily cooking. Chuck remembered how Morgan talked about how this was a safe space, how he felt the love that was in this house, whether it was just him and his mom, or Chuck was there, or whoever.

Morgan had talked about how it was perfect for him mom. A neighborhood that she would be fine in if he left. Chuck found his hand lightly gripping the molding, strumming his fingers against it, thinking. "Maybe it's time," he said softly.

Hug your family folks, tell em you love em…..MAKE IT WEIRD. Take care guys, and thanks for all the support. Love you.

David