AU story acknowledging canon until "Chuck Versus the Seduction" and going straight AU from there. When they embark on a new mission, old wounds are opened, and Sarah is confronted with her past, threatening to destroy every chance for a life with Chuck. The quest to heal these wounds takes them on a wild emotional rollercoaster ride that they can master only together. Charah.
Romance/Angst/Humor/Action/Hurt/Comfort, in a nutshell: Life.
A/N: This is my first attempt at writing fanfiction. It is with a good measure of "stage fright" that I post my story. If it had not been for WillieGarvin, I would not have had the courage. That said, I have to thank him for way more than just beta-reading. The extent of his support is staggering. I call him Sensei, he calls me Moron. Kidding aside, we don't call each other that way, but his mentoring made me stick to writing. The fact that you're reading this proves his (in his own words:) "bad influence." If this story keeps you reading, all the credit is on him. If you don't like it, send your complaints to me!
"Chuck vs. The Journey" is based upon a true story that has been on my mind for years. It is about something that happened to a friend of mine. I thought, with a few adaptations, it could be about Chuck and Sarah.
If you hate Bryce Larkin, feel welcome – he happens to be one character to hate in my story. I swear I didn't do it on purpose: He just stood around doing nothing, and I needed two bad guys for this story, so Bryce came in handy as one of them.
Other inspirations came from many sources (including, gasp, the show). The excellent work of so many FF authors in itself was an inspiration not to give up in the darker hours of the writing process. I want to thank especially the following: Marc Vun Kannon (with whom I had a very enlightening discussion), David Carner, Steampunk-Chuckster, halfachance, Dillwg, jwatkins, Grayroc, WvonB, Zettel (listed in no particular order and sorry to those I forgot). Don't let my bloody attempts at writing keep you from reading their brilliant stories!
Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck. If I did, I would have recruited some talented fanfiction writers, and the show would still be on air.
You've got a way of makin' me blue,
And I've got a way of hurtin' you too.
Oh, what terrible, tangled web we weave, don't we?
"Terrible, Tangled Web" (Billy Mize)
Chapter 1: Sarah vs. The Kiss (Burbank, 2007) - Prologue
Sarah entered her hotel room in bad mood and closed the door. She had postponed the rest of the day to confront Chuck about his flash that ruined the Lon Kirk mission, doing paperwork instead, and only drove over to Echo Park in the evening, hoping she would be calm enough to put him properly in his place. It turned out to be as futile as trying to make him stay in the car.
She leaned on the door in the darkness of her room and was angry, uneasy, and something else she could not put her finger on. And all three emotions had to do with Chuck Bartowski, her asset. She replayed the day to find out where they went wrong – aside from the asset faking a flash.
Chuck should not have been at the harbor in the first place and not only because he wasn't needed. In her Porsche the night before, she sensed that he was upset about her visiting Lon Kirk on his yacht on her own the next day. Sarah had strongly flirted with Kirk to gain that private invitation and certainly knew what he expected. Sarah also was aware that she couldn't simply tranq Kirk if he got too handsy; they've been warned that he was too important, and any mistakes certainly would backfire on a high level, making neither Beckman nor Graham happy. And everything that failed to make those two happy would end in a severe rebuke, leaving the team shamefaced and two of the team trying to silence the sputtering explanations of the third one.
Looking back, she was dismayed that Chuck had seen her with the complacent billionaire leering at her scantily clad figure. Herself, she had not felt anything that moment aside from concentration for the mission, but Chuck came from a different world.
Her host apparently could not wait to get intimate with her and led her below deck. The cabin was comfortable. She sat close to him, and he put an arm around her, ogling her over his champagne flute, which would offer her the chance to scan a good part of the room without him noticing because the last thing his gaze was seeking were her eyes.
She saw a colossal swordfish, its body length probably bigger than her own size, mounted for presentation on a bulkhead. That would allow her to wrestle her shoulders free from Lon's arm, sashay over and admire the trophy, going all girlish excited and asking him about the story behind it – while visually checking out the rest of the room. She noticed a box sitting on the deck that was perfect to trip over, specifically if she needed to act the sexy dumb clumsy blonde. She could hurt her head or something when falling, having a good excuse to cancel everything Lon Kirk was expected to happen. Reassured to have everything under control, she put on one of the many fake smiles she had in her repertory while her eyes began to search the room.
It wasn't necessary. As Casey and his men stormed the yacht, Kirk had had no time to begin anything she would have had to stop. After the frustrating ceremony of ripping open some boxes to no avail was over, it was Lon Kirk who remembered he had a few urgent things to take care of. In parting, she gave him a sexy smile, but he didn't even invite her for another time. Obviously, his schedule had shifted, which was the only tiny hint of intelligence she took home, but it was a disaster nonetheless.
Sarah switched on the light and shuffled along to her bed. She slipped off her shoes and wriggled out of her pants to fall back on the pillows. She groaned. The bathroom was calling for her, to wash off the traces of the sun lotion Kirk's hands had applied and the anger she felt about Chuck.
She got up again and, within minutes, stood under the shower, still meditative about the day. If it had been any other asset, she might have roughed him up a bit. Nothing that would leave marks or scars, but beat him enough so that he learned his lesson. He was an asset, a precious one, but just an asset. He should know his place in the game by now. But don't upset the naïve asset too much.
Oh my God, she suddenly realized. Chuck wasn't only upset about her flirting with Kirk, about her visit to the yacht, but since she took hours to show up at his home after the failed raid, he probably also presumed that she went back below decks and slept with Kirk.
Idiot. For what reason should she have stayed after - the only outcome of his faked flash - it was clear from Kirk's reaction that they could dismantle the whole vessel and would still come up with empty hands. But she would let Chuck suffer and not put him straight about it. To think what Chuck imagined made her shudder. Why did it? She knew nothing had happened, and she should not care less what the asset and his vivid imagination made out of it.
Why did Casey ask her if she was compromised? Was she? And why didn't she have a proper answer to that? Chuck was her cover boyfriend. They had made clear everything what was – or never would be – between them. There was no reason to make him hope for anything at all, and no reason for her to ruminate over any kind of regular civilian relationship she had never known anyway. Sarah pondered on specific moments and dialogs. Hadn't she been the perfect cover girlfriend? She stared at the drops as the water sprayed over her body, rinsing off the day's sweat but not the day's emotions.
It was not her fault, she concluded. Still, she had to be honest with herself. There was a gray area now she had never entered before. She was Agent Walker, and she was cover girlfriend Sarah. Only on these two levels, interaction with Chuck must be processed. But she and Chuck communicated on a third level from the very first day: A personal one. It became so apparent the moment their argument over the Kirk-flash turned to the kiss. When he asked her if she wanted to kiss just anyone in front of the supposedly deadly bomb or if it was about him. She acidly told him it was a mistake she would not make again and ran away before she would succumb to punching him.
Some fine handler you are, girl!
But it had happened once more: With only a few words, he had crashed through the inner mental defense that had perfectly served her for many years. It had a laughing stock quality to it, but nothing had prepared her for Chuck Bartowski. Her emotional lockdown, her great focus on mission goals, her direct and targeted approach, and all the deadly skills she learned were what made Sarah Walker and what made her strong, dangerous, and successful. Losing only one of those meant she was in a dire situation.
It was perplexing. She experienced pretty good, warm, albeit confusing feelings that were connected to Chuck Bartowski, but she could not allow them to surface. Every time that happened, she was in trouble, professionally and personally. She was much safer when she blocked and quelled any emotions, something she had mastered like no one else in the past years. She hated the term, but she knew that The Ice Queen fit her well. She was invincible and unbreakable. Even all the ugly things in her past wouldn't affect her. Her inner balance and strength had carried her through situations others only would have left in a bodybag.
Stepping out of the shower, she reached for a towel and noticed her hand was trembling. Sarah stretched out her arm from the shoulder to her fingertips and willed the trembling to stop. Good.
Finally done in the bathroom, Sarah slipped in PJs as fluffy as a romantic love story with a never-ending happy end. She had eventually left the anger in the shower, however, she was not as calm as she wanted to be. Other feelings were welling up. But emotions were obstacles and traps! She remembered that the trainers at the Farm often preached along the line of, "Never get caught up in your feelings, or it will be your undoing. Whatever role your face and your body have to convey, your innermost must be calm and collected and goal-targeted; the agent has to disengage from the character you play completely." She almost laughed at the constant reminders – she had no feelings anyway; everything she did was a play, even the training at the Farm. Her father had seen to that.
But there was no use denying it. There had been an incident.
An incident that proved that not everything was a brilliant act by a gifted actress. Chuck had followed her foolishly to the bomb that would kill them both. She stupidly (Ok, ok, now that was foolish too!) had drawn her gun on him, but he wouldn't budge and insisted on staying with her to the end, till death do us part.
The irony was not lost on her. The bomb later turned out to be a deep-frozen or freeze-dried or artificial deep-sleeping or whatever Bryce Larkin and the effect on her would be as hard-hitting as if it actually had been a bomb.
Anyway. The incident was something else.
That kiss.
The bomb counter was almost down to zero, and I kissed him. I. Kissed. Him. With everything I could convey in those few precious moments. Chuck asked me tonight if the kiss was about him or if it was just convenient that he was around. As if I would have kissed anyone else! Baah. If it had been Casey and me, we would have gone up in smoke unkissed, probably shaking hands in mutual respect, because there would have not been enough time to stick one of his fat cigars into his face. But it was not simply about Chuck either – it was about us, about Chuck and Sarah. The one thing I wanted to taste in my last moments was what I could have had since I met him, what I wanted almost from the beginning, but didn't allow myself to have. Foremost I needed to make sure, having not much time for words anymore and not being the obsessive talker that Chuck is anyway, that he understood how I feel about him, how unique from everything else I've ever known my feelings for him are.
She had pulled him in hungrily, closed her eyes, and determined to not let go of him until the end of her life, literally. After a split second of shock, he responded in kind.
That was precisely when the bomb went off. Through closed eyelids, Sarah could see the sparks flying. She felt the heat on her skin. Burning flames were consuming both of them. Yet the explosion was strangely not tearing them into pieces but in a transcendental way amalgamating them into one being full of love, passion, need, understanding, caring, and a kaleidoscope of emotions that flooded over her like one of Chuck's flashes.
And then she realized that there was no flaming inferno around them, that they were alive – and that the explosion that had rocked her world had been that kiss. Briefly wondering if Chuck would be as good a lover as he was a kisser, she could not help but notice that she panted long after his breath returned to normal.
Sarah forcefully shook herself free of the memory and took a look around her room to ground herself. She sat down, grabbed her phone, and opened the image gallery. The photos of her and Bryce were still there. Cabo and Bryce, sand and sea, ease and laughter.
She liked Cabo. Usually rarely sightseeing, she was mesmerized by the limestone structure named El Arco. They took a boat ride to get closer and watched the sea lions congregating near the arch. They also took the short trip to the wonderfully isolated Playa del Amor. She loved the beach, the ocean, and the warmth. She faked the laughter as she tried to invest some of herself into the relationship, or whatever it was, with Bryce. She looked pensive at the photos. Was this her good old times she would someday look back to? If so, then she already knew it wasn't enough.
Switching to more recent photos, she enjoyed the one of Chuck and her as that silly Star Wars princess. A smile broke over her face. Chuck had looked at her like he would faint. It had been so endearing to realize that he hadn't stared at her boobs (well, possibly being stunned by her toned stomach), but he was utterly overwhelmed that she had taken the time to meet his nerdism in the choice of her costume. She thumbed through more of the photos of the party supplied by Ellie. Chuck's feelings were plain to see, which did not surprise her. But she was amazed at her own face and body language. She seemed carefree and happy – not to onlookers, that was intended, but to herself! In wonder, she touched the screen of her smartphone and put a finger on her image. Where did that woman come from that she could see there?
Sarah took a deep breath. That was a problem. It was a cover relationship. She was not allowed to be happy or to enjoy it. She should be calm, distant, and aware of protecting him, instead of sincerely grinning into the camera. The point was she wasn't acting. She even could smile in retrospect about the lewd gazes she got from a few men. Or better, their meltdown into disbelief when she did not acknowledge their looks. Instead, she sidled up to Chuck to press her metal bikini against his back, cover his eyes from behind, and playfully purred, "Guess who?" His brain-locked grin as he turned around and put his arms around her waist like it was the most natural thing in the world (well, it was for boyfriend and girlfriend), the pure love that he gave so freely although she was treating him usually with so much distance - it was a glimpse into a world she had never known.
How was it to be loved and adored, not only to be physically lusted after? Not that she would mind if a man wanted her body and she wanted him too. But she had seen the lust in men's eyes often enough not to be fooled by it. It was just that, nothing else. Ever since she met Chuck at the Nerd Herd, her mind occasionally pondered what it would be like if lust combined with love – which meant she would have to find out about the uncharted territory of love first. That, admitted, was as far from her mission objectives as Casey was from voting Dem.
She looked out the window at the dark sky. She had neither to satisfy in Burbank: Neither a man for lust nor a man for love. The risk-taking part of her wondered if Chuck Bartowski could be both, but at the same time strictly ruled: He was off-limits. First, he was an asset (how many times had she told herself that now?), second, experiencing true feelings was like walking on thin ice. Even now, alone in her room, she could feel how risky it was to even think about feelings. Her pulse slightly quickened for no apparent reason, and she felt a soft pressure on her temples.
She put the phone on the nightstand, lay back, and concentrated on a spot on the ceiling.
I am Sarah Walker; I am strong and unbreakable; the blood in my veins is as cold as ice.
After only a few repeats of that familiar mantra, she relaxed. She grabbed for the covers and prepared herself for the night. It felt like one of those nights when she would dream. She didn't like it. All of her dreams were bloody. Mostly reliving old fights, seeing previous kills, but sometimes her mind concocted the craziest of dangerous situations that she had to solve with deadly violence. Sarah didn't fear those dreams, she was as strong and invincible in them as she was when she was awake. Still, she didn't like it, as there was one that made her uncomfortable.
She does not recognize the room. It is nondescript, no home. It looks like a room where she would spend days, weeks, or sometimes months, and then move on without ever looking back. It seems like a metaphor for her life: Never at home, always on the run. Whether with her dad, or later as a CIA agent, she would not stop moving, leaving everything, including her short-time names behind, and move on to another room, another con, another mission, another fake name.
At first, Sarah has no clue about the man who is also there. While she can't see his face, he is very familiar. When he speaks, his tone is friendly and appreciative:
"That was excellent. Everything worked out as we planned. I am very proud of you. Next time, we raise the bar and see if you are up to the challenge."
"Thank you," she hears herself say and realizes she is much younger. Hearing the youth in her own voice, she suddenly is afraid. Even considering her criminal upbringing, she was easier to manipulate then compared to now.
"Now be a good girl, Samantha Lisa, and come over here to me!" the man says softly.
She does not know why, but the effect of being addressed with her real name is so disturbing that she wakes up every time, unfocused and uneasy as if it was an omen that someone, even if only in her dreams, would know her real name.
She also woke up at that moment this time. Damn, Chuck, she cursed, before I came to Burbank, I almost gotten rid of those dreams.
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A/N (2) As the big guys and dolls always say: Feedback is welcome.