A/N (1) Previously on Chuck versus The Journey: Sarah has to get her act together for the third night of their inconclusive mission, the Saturday Night Dance, while under the effect of the video log by Graham that General Beckman made her watch. In the recording, Graham explained how he was responsible for the fact that Sarah ended up at the loft in Miami where she killed seven men and how this was the final "do-or-die"-test for candidates for his secret director's only unit of killers.

A/N (2) Please listen to me, folks, especially the ladies. Sarah is going to reveal the worst memory of her life to Chuck in this chapter. I am NOT pronouncedly explicit. I saw and read much worse in traditional media, but this is still a tough chapter, challenging Chuck and Sarah and also you, the reader. Bear this in mind, or, as always, the next chapter will summarize what happened in this one. (In all fairness, I should mention that you'd miss an epic Charah moment in case you skip this chapter.)

Chapter 38: Sarah vs. Graham

Chuck dropped the mobile in his hand to the table where he was sitting as if it had bitten him. He shot out of the leather chair and was at Sarah's side in the blink of an eye. Like going through a mini wormhole he just switched positions from here to there.

"What happened?"

Sarah closed the door to their honeymoon suite and halted. She seemed quite disturbed, similar to the night when she had her panic attack. She viewed him for at least a minute until he could not take it anymore.

"You look shocked," he broke the silence as she continued her thousand-yard stare. "Chuck," he pointed to himself without any humor. "The guy who loves you."

She thoughtfully nodded to convey to him how essential his love was for her and began to chew on her lower lip in deep thought.

"I know," she eventually said. "Believe me, I know."

She took his hands, and he understood she was preparing to tell him something. It did not ease his mind, but he was glad how she had changed and that she was not brushing it off with a face so stony that it could supplement Mount Rushmore.

"I heard something terrible that could destroy my whole life."

She didn't dare to say, our life. She had huge respect for what they had found, comprehending how unique it was. Knowing it was foolish, she aimed to keep that and her previous life apart, as if she could shield her new life from everything hideous in her past. In spite of that, she was realistic enough to know that this was make-believe.

You can hide from some of the people all the time, and even from yourself some of the time, but you can't hide from yourself all of the time. And you shouldn't hide from your boyfriend. He's the first person you should seek when you need a helping hand.

The final moment of truth, the last untold and worst chapter of her life, was about to be unearthed and brought to daylight, to how many people she could not even fathom. She would relive it all again - and again.

"You're worrying me," was all he could utter.

The lush suite faded into the background as they faced each other. Sarah looked at their hands, and her face became stubborn. She was not concealing her emotions from him, and Chuck could read her effortlessly – she was thinking about their relationship, and she was going to fight for it. But the fact that it seemed necessary to fight was unsettling for him.

"If everything comes out as they decrypt more of Graham's files, my days on the surface of the earth are over. They will bury me in an office cubicle on the seventeenth basement floor of a secret facility for the rest of my life, making sure that no one ever will be able to hear my story. It would be a devastating blow for the public image of the agency. Heck, I might even have an accident someday that will solve all their problems."

Chuck shuddered, feeling angst rising himself. She didn't have another panic attack, but he had a dark premonition that it was connected to it. Possibly even the root of all evil. Her demeanor looked similar, like in that night but Sarah was calm - and devastated.

Without waiting for any reaction from him, she recapped the video of Graham she saw only a few minutes ago as a mission report. She was composed and factual, her earlier worry suppressed by a yearslong routine. Chuck listened carefully, biting his lips repeatedly in the attempt not to interrupt her, looking crestfallen to hear how her director had betrayed her. When she finished, he controlled his voice as well as he could.

"I thought Graham was tough, but a good boss," Chuck confessed. "It seems I am still way too naïve for this business. Autocratic, megalomaniac, cruel, and detached from humanity - that describes him."

"And worse," Sarah added, which made Chuck's stomach somersault. It seemed there was yet more to come. But he could not envision what else Sarah had had to endure.

Or possibly I ignore reality. Think about your own life - it always can get worse.

"But they can't blame you for what Graham did," he nonetheless protested. "Sure, it would be a huge scandal if it ever becomes public how he treated you, even if it gets known only internally - how he arranged that you would be in a situation where you have to fight for your life, but they can't hold you responsible."

She smiled sadly, still holding his hands.

"They will protect the agency from any damage to its image. That has more importance than one single agent who's more than ever an unpredictable wildcard after her boss is dead. But that's not all, Chuck. It's about what else they will find out if they crack the encryption on all of Graham's files."

"You're scaring me, Sarah," he said, his voice thin but his eyes firm. It was that manifestation of steadfast loyalty that made her decision easier than she thought.

She looked at her watch. "We don't really need to be down for the dance before 9 PM," she stated more to herself, "so we have time."

Sarah ruminatingly looked at the traditional bright-red love seat. She was calm until now, but she foresaw that the next minutes would churn her soul like a mighty cyclone churns the sea.

"Couch," she said, and this time she pulled him to the piece of furniture, made him sit down, and assumed their couple-counseling posture - Chuck resting against the love seat and Sarah sitting on him. Their healing ritual once more had begun.

She raised her hands and showed him her palms. When he reciprocated the gesture, she placed her hands on his, intertwined her fingers with his, and began to talk.

•••••••••••••••••••

"I was a juvenile criminal, never caught," Sarah dispassionately said as Chuck gasped. "My dad was a con artist, and since I was a little girl, I played a part in his schemes. That movie we watched with Ellie and Awesome, that father and his daughter…"

Chuck helped her out. "Paper Moon."

"Yeah, right. We'd been like that."

She was grateful that he did not make a nerdy comment.

"Over time, the stakes got higher, the loot got bigger. As I grew up, I should have dropped out of it when I understood that this wasn't a game, but people were ripped off and existences ruined. Eventually, daddy got arrested."

Chuck grasped that she was only reaching back into her childhood so he would understand what came later.

"That's when Langston Graham came on the scene. He told me that he put my father into preventive detention to save his life because dad had conned the wrong people. He offered to save my life as well if I joined the CIA."

Chuck raised a finger.

"Go ahead. Ask your questions. I have nothing to hide from you."

He had that Sorry-if-it's-a-dumb-question expression on his face.

"Wasn't that blackmail? And you were a teenager– how much of it all could you comprehend at that age?"

"In hindsight, he blackmailed me. He was friendly and, in a way, fatherly but didn't leave me a choice. That's why I agreed on the spot, so I never found out what would have happened if I had refused his offer."

He didn't want to interrupt her regularly, but a few things were so alien to his own way of life that he needed footnotes.

"Wasn't there anyone you could talk to? Friends? Boyfriend? Your mother?"

He looked desperate for a silver lining as she continued.

"My mom is not in the picture, and I never had a boyfriend back then," she replied and understood the incredulity on his face. A tiny smile ghosted over her lips. "Don't look that way. I was an ugly duckling."

Those big brown eyes oozed affection, and he did not hesitate one second with his answer. "I'm sure I would have fallen in love with you anyway right on the spot. You didn't change your eyes, did you? That was all it took for me."

Now she smiled a little bit more. Chuck had the sure instincts to say words that were a balm for her soul without taking her any less seriously. She sighed because it would be therapeutically soothing to stop her monologue and silently relish in each other's closeness. But she wanted to continue!

"From the very first day, it was clear that I was singled out. Not that I had it easier. I got trained and challenged harder than anyone else. Graham told me I was something extraordinary and that he would expect extraordinary results from me. Only days after my recruitment, I began to take a very basic Criminal Investigation Training Program that took about eight weeks. In the first week already, I had to report to a safe house nearby."

Sarah spoke low-voiced. She had no trouble recalling the events, but she struggled to articulate the words.

"Graham showed up after a while. He gave me a pep talk about how good I was doing, which even then felt ridiculous – what can you say after three days? I remember every word, every detail of the room, every second up to a certain moment."

Chuck had a bad omen but prayed inside himself that he was wrong. That was his beloved Sarah. The woman with the big heart she had hidden until she gave it to him to take good care of it. It couldn't be.

"Graham had me watch files on a computer. He tested me on how quickly I could read and memorize data. Then he put his hands on my shoulders. When I flinched, he ordered I need to keep working on those files and must not be distracted. I was very concerned by then. Next, his hands came down at my front, over my shirt, grabbing…"

She closed her eyes as they began to sting and blinked a few times to get over the moment. Her face felt a mite swollen, and her heart beat anxiously faster. Then she took a few deep breaths while he put soft, reassuring pressure on their intertwined fingers.

I can do this. I'm the one to save his ass, and he's the one to save my soul. We make a great couple and a great team. Nothing can stop us if we stand together.

"He grabbed you know what."

She had no problem talking about her boobs or playfully calling them boobies or other terms when flirting or making love with Chuck. Still, she did not want to name any intimate part of her body when talking about that afternoon. She needed to separate the words and the emotions and, yes, the body she shared with Chuck from that horrible experience, protecting what she had with him in that humble way.

Chuck groaned but did not break eye contact, though his features expressed pained disbelief, having heard the message but still processing it as his mind jumped ahead and made inevitable conclusions.

"I wanted to get up and get away from him. I cried, 'No!' and that he should leave me alone. His body pressed my chair and consequently me against the table. I couldn't get away. His hands let go of..., well, and closed around my neck and almost suffocated me."

Sarah untangled their fingers and grabbed Chuck's shirt. Once more, his nearness was the lifeline to the reality she needed – her new actuality that featured a man who loved her – to be able to proceed. He placed his hands gingerly on her shoulders, not sure if that would assure her of his support or if she would reject the touch in such a moment. It was a fleeting thought that came from the immense confusion her tale caused, but it was vaporized in an instant when he saw the loving gleam in her eyes as she understood and appreciated his move. The gesture strengthened her resolve.

"Graham shouted in my ears, 'You have to learn to obey, and you will eventually! It is up to you how hard it'll be!' He let me get up but then pulled me against him. I was no match for him, but my dad had taught me that the only person I could rely on was me. I tried to scratch Graham, hit him, run away, but you have seen him. He was a tall and strong man."

Sarah raised her voice as intense emotions reverberated with every word. A touch of a glassy look stole into her eyes.

"Graham slapped me in the face with a flat hand left and right, then bent me over the table. … I wore a skirt. He … tore that up and then also my panties away. I felt so … obscenely naked and mortified. It was as if my ... genitalia were on display on huge billboards all over the country. I know it's silly, but that was how it felt."

Sarah's eyes moistened for real. Her determination to finally tell someone, and someone she loved, notwithstanding, it still was a cruel, excruciating ordeal to relive that day.

"I grabbed the keyboard and wanted to smash it on his head, but only hit his shoulder. It was still a nuisance enough for him to refrain from taking me on the table."

She tried to blink the tears away, but it wouldn't work. She let go of Chuck's shirt, and her hand covered her mouth to subdue a first wet sigh, thumb and forefinger placed on her cheekbones as if she could prevent the impending flow from her eyes. Those most expressive eyes Mother Nature ever had provided, which Chuck, as he already knew before she continued, would not be able to keep from blurring and crying.

"Graham beat the shit out of me. … He tore me on my hair in the bedroom, I stumbled along screaming at him, … failed to kick him. He threw me on the bed. He kept calling me by my real name and ordering me to be a good girl."

Sarah saw and heard Chuck gulp and how he forcefully closed his eyes, pressing away a few drops of empathy.

"Jesus, didn't anyone see that you were battered later?" he exclaimed.

"I wore appropriate clothes for a while, long sleeves, high collars, like that. Remember, I was only in a preparatory course. There was no physical training or medical inspections."

She was close to blubbering out the rest of her memories, but she didn't care as it was strangely liberating to share her agony finally.

"I was still fighting like … a kitten fighting a bulldog ... hopelessly … when he gave me the final blow. He said that he had relocated my daddy to a secret CIA facility, and he could have him executed at the snap of a finger. 'You will obey, or your father will be dead. You can play along without fighting me, or you can try to resist. I don't care. You will be a good girl, Samantha Lisa, or else you know what will happen!'"

Chuck's sympathy suffused her like a warm and cozy bath, but the tears she saw filling his eyes hastened the release of her own.

"That broke me. … Much later, to understand what happened to me, I read so many abused women's reports. Women who were accused that they didn't resist enough, didn't shout for help - but it's not that these women played along. It's monstrous how little credibility a raped woman is receiving. But when you're broken and taken violently, you go into shock. You shut down, in kind of a protective reaction, both mentally and physically. I think … I held out longer than most due to my upbringing, but that was what eventually happened to me when he threatened to kill my daddy after I got a flogging that left me writhing in pain."

She felt a tear rolling down her cheek, then another one, then a third one, and quickly some more until she could not differentiate them any longer.

"Then… he raped me."

Sarah didn't hold back anymore. She sobbed and wailed, her head sunk against Chuck's chest, rattled by the memory she went through. The pain ricocheted through her all like a raging bullet. In this war with her past, her corpsman was Chuck, and he raced to her rescue as she expected, with his whole being.

She had cried an ocean when she was younger until she hardened through the years, but this time, copiously weeping in his arms, she found reason and release. It was like washing away the debris that had cluttered up her soul.

She felt his chest heaving against her forehead and looked up to find his face wet as well. She wanted to protest as she didn't want him to suffer too, but he simply shook his head and pulled hers down to her chest again. Wracked by sobs, she continued to talk, some of her words hard to hear.

"When he was done with me, he stood up and put a foot on my throat. He asked … if he should have my dad killed now or if I'll be a good girl. He called me by my real name again … and again. I didn't say anything. I … couldn't. … But since I didn't protest, he knew he had broken me."

Sarah vocalized a miserable, yelping sound.

"I had bruises on my back, shoulders, arms, breasts. My-" Sarah gestured again, and Chuck suddenly understood that she did not want speak out any names for her sweet parts in that context "-ached like hell, and he carelessly left me lying there in my blood-"

"He beat you so bad that you bled?"

"Chuck," she wheezed. "Not that blood. Not that much. … I didn't put that right."

"What do you… oh my God, don't say that… oh my God…"

Chuck inhaled sharply and loudly, hardly able to listen to the words and not able to comprehend the torment Sarah had endured and lived with since that day. He strived to empathize, but he never could really comprehend what she had gone through.

Rape, like war, was something you needed to experience yourself to understand fully.

That was his adorable girlfriend. The dauntless agent that put the fear of God into all the bad guys and the tender woman that had chosen him to be her boyfriend. The girl that earlier today had been in his arms, soft, delicate, and giddy from joy. It was not fair - it was appallingly, monstrously, egregiously unjust.

A fantastic creature like her should always walk in the sunshine, ever should have a reason that this divinely charming smile was on her face. Something in his chest severely constricted as he knew what she was going to tell him. This was the epic pain that movie couples had to go through before the happy end, but other than in cinemascope, there was no glory in that trial of their souls. It was pure, omniferous agony for both.

Sarah melted against him. Her chin rested on his shoulder, and she whispered into his ear, barely audible, with a smothered voice.

"Chuck, I had never been with a man before."

These last words were more than both of them could bear.

They gut-wrenchingly bawled, cheek to cheek, heart to heart. After a minute or two, Chuck forced himself to regain his composure. Regardless of how much he hurt, the woman in his arms hurt a billion times more. Chuck heard her weeping uncontrollably. He listened to her convulsing sobs. Like in a flashback of the night before, he stroked her back and her hair while she soliloquized. Sarah was stunned by how much she had to unburden and how she managed to accomplish it with the same tenacity that saw her succeed in so many risky missions. There had been full weeks when she hadn't talked as much as in the past few minutes.

She needed to phrase the proper words to express her horror. How she was choking and gagging mentally every time this rape cut back into her life like a well-grounded knife, reminding how her human rights were brutally taken from her.

Sarah bundled all the love she felt for him into her mien, and hoped she also looked as thankful as she was. She had never been a talker, carried her baggage herself, and now she had someone she could share her past with - and suddenly she found that she could talk, and that she could express herself eloquently.

"I can never articulate the humiliation I felt and still experience. The pain in my soul and body returns as if I'm transported back to that place and that time. The impact of being degraded, of being reduced to a worthless piece of meat, tears me apart. No one can ever comprehend, and that brings ... debilitating isolation. … My mind is crippled. My body remained soiled and tainted, no matter how often I cleaned myself. The horror is ... incomprehensible. I look in the mirror and ask myself what is left of me. What of the person I see has survived the torture, what is dead and decaying, no use for anything or anyone anymore? I look into my eyes and wonder if I can ever see myself there again. I became a damaged shell, a piece of junk, … trash."

Chuck listened in extreme shock. He wanted to intercept, but she nudged her nose against his ear. Somehow, he understood that she did not expect any kind of reply. To get that nightmare off of her chest was all she wanted. She needed a friendly ear to listen, and he was the best candidate for the job – or better, the only. She knew for sure that she talked about the rape for the first and the last time ever.

He put his arms around her slender frame. He noticed with supernatural sensibility how strong and fragile she was and comprehended that this was no contradiction.

"I had to report to the safe house again the next week, and every one of those eight weeks I attended that introductory course."

Sarah shivered as she forced herself to continue. As healing as it was to share, as bitter it was to relive these times again.

"He did not rape me ever again, but he didn't give me a chance to process what had happened because he always reminded me, so the attack remained fresh in my memory. He said those words you know by now, he told me to come to him to get my reward. That was a commendation for my progress, and later, for a successful mission. He would put a hand on my-" she pointed at her behind "-thus letting me know that he could have me anytime he wanted and that my father's fate is in his hands."

She felt that she momentarily had no tears left and quickly pushed her story along. It was imperative that Chuck knew.

"Every time I had to report to him at a safe house personally, I was reliving that day when he raped me. After the basic course, I relocated to Camp Peary... The Farm. I got the full program there. Six months of that time, you're more or less barracked without any contact to the outside world, which saved me from much contact with him, and when I qualified, I went from mission to mission as fast as I could, volunteering for everything that kept me away from him."

She scrutinized his face that showed some tentative understanding.

"Is that why you're so good to take on a cover?" he simply asked without any judgment.

He is brilliant, Sarah mused. He is on the right path. Still, he can't even guess to what extent I lived that life. But I can tell him because he will understand.

"Yes, to some degree. I lived my life in cover identities. I transferred… it's hard to describe… myself into each new fake persona as she would be a happier person than I, myself, ever could be. I became a master of living the life stolen from me under other names without ever compromising my cover. Close, but not too close, remember! I tried to erase my own identity. I shouldn't have been, however, I was immensely ashamed of myself and hoped by ignoring who I am, I could escape that horror."

Sarah checked his face if Chuck could follow her and was not surprised to see he did.

"Like, the men … I had… it happened using cover names, trying to convince myself that I am a different person, a carefree young woman, … like Ms. Anderson. In a strange way, Sarah Walker never had intercourse in her life except for being raped once. It was my cover characters who had. I wanted Samantha Lisa to disappear altogether and restrict Sarah Walker to the essential minimum. Sam and Sarah were defiled women. Woman. … Whatever. I didn't want to have anything to do with myself. The spy life offered that, but-" she heaved a deep, wet sigh "-it never really worked because I had to live as Sarah Walker as well, inwardly Samantha Lisa seeping through."

Sarah paused to emphasize her next line. Talking about the worst day of her life on the best day of her life meant that she had not forgotten how drastically everything, and mostly herself, had changed.

"But I never pretended today. We are together as Chuck and Sarah."

She strained her memory to remember the words he concocted a day or two ago and added, not in the least trying to be funny, but underlining how their togetherness was genuine, "All Charah."

She softly cried while she talked. Chuck was aghast again, or still continuously so, what rape did to a woman. His heart was with Sarah, but he was aware that this extended to all womankind. Sarah was the essence of being tough and indestructible - so what must rape do to women who had not had her training, her mission-hardened willpower, the option to slip into a different character and hide there from reality. Chuck's stomach revolted and sent a wave of nausea through his system.

"I heard that Samantha Lisa line countless times, and I sensed he was brainwashing me, but I had no defense because I didn't know how to handle his blackmailing. … It meant that I had to obey, no matter what. He played with the power to be able to rape me again every time. It got so bad that the mentioning of my real name and all that shitty talk made me panic – you have witnessed what it did to me. If you'd ask me what hell is, this is it. Dying would have been salvation, but I wasn't allowed to die either because I didn't know what would happen with my father then. … I read psychological books, and many instances apply to a situation like mine, one of them the battered person syndrome. "

"Did this ever stop?" Chuck pressed, unable not to notice that with her quivering lips, red eyes, wet cheeks, and smeared make-up, Sarah Walker still was the most resplendent female he ever was allowed to look at.

"Yes. It ended the day after Miami, in a safe house in Charlottesville."

•••••••••••••••••••

(CIA safe house, Charlottesville, South Carolina, the morning after the Miami massacre – Sarah remembering)

I wake up. I ache from a handful of unimportant bruises, and I quickly find out by feeling up my skin that the bullets that grazed me last night – was it last night, or how long had it been? – have left two scars that would make me ineligible for the next Miss USA contest. I have no idea how long I slept. I note a series of band-aids on my body and feel like something even the sharks of Miami Beach would spit out.

Checking myself out, I realize someone had washed me. Or did I shower myself? The blood of seven men was gone. I wear something, which was an improvement to my last moments of remembering. They certainly gave me something to sleep.

Yep, the cleaners had come, some of them had vomited, and most of them had unfiltered fear in their eyes when they looked at me.

A tiny Latino woman was not afraid of me, and the first thing she did was take me in her arms. The woman was not worried that she got blood all over her protective suit, and the human nearness did so well. We exchanged a few words first, then had a real conversation later. I begged her to make sure no one gets the video captures from the security cams, and the tiny woman got up and ordered everyone around in determined words. She returned to me and told me that she would walk me to the shower and help me clean up if necessary. Her first name was Sara, that's why I remember it, but I forgot the rest – some name like an actress.

"I'm sorry, but you'll get panties and a shirt that won't make any impression on your boyfriend," she joked and explained that the CIA wasn't very generous on these things. She continued that she would be there while I was examined and treated and that they would whisk me away to a safe house as far away and as soon as possible.

That had to be this house, wherever it was.

I close my eyes again and think about last night. Anger wells up. Graham's decision to add one evening was sound, but I had had a gut feeling and was furious that his ignorance nearly cost my life and ruined the mission.

I hear a door, then familiar footsteps. An imposing man suddenly stands in the doorframe.

Aw fuck. Not him. … Graham.

I will not bow down anymore. I will fight for my dignity if it costs my life, my father's life, and Graham's. I look forward to the last one with joy. I've had enough. There is only so much a girl can take until she goes crazy in the need to get the semblance of an existence back.

"Samantha Lisa," he exclaims. "So good to see you doing well!"

Doing well? I feel like that woman from this Science Fiction horror movie who hardly escapes the alien monster that bursts out of people's stomachs, and he thinks I'm doing well.

Whatever movie that was, Graham is the monster. And you really should work on your contemporary movie knowledge, Walker. Who knows, someday you have to fit into the mindset of a geek in a cover role, and he would refuse you because you're utterly clueless about his world.

"Graham," I slowly say, and he doesn't hear the menace as I spoke his name while he was wringing his hands enthusiastically. He had better moments. He is almost euphoric about what I did while I don't know how long I will need to come to terms with it.

"You were perfect, Samantha."

Don't call me Samantha. I know where that leads up to, which won't happen after last night - if it was last night.

"How long did I sleep?" I ask, but he ignores me.

"I've seen parts of the security cam recordings. I'm sorry you had to go through this. I initiated an investigation about why that restaurant owner had not been screened properly, but you exceeded all my expectations."

His name was Tony, you ass. I thought about possibly sleeping with him. Even if I had decided otherwise, he was a nice man who shouldn't be shot to death by some mobster. And Graham's selection of words makes me uneasy, but then, I am way beyond uneasy currently, so I can't properly evaluate and categorize that gut feeling.

"You are the best, bar none. You will be my wildcard. You will be – finally! – the executioner I always wanted to form."

I have nothing to say about that. Seven men killed, seventy men killed, seven-hundred men killed. Where's the difference. Does a gambler care if he wagered seven, seventy, or seven-hundred dollars?

We understand together what I understood last night. I am a killer now. As the public would call it, I am in the elite of the people licensed to kill. Only I don't feel glamorous. I feel shaken and stirred, and no Martini or sophisticated British agent would have lifted my mood. Just hand me the bottle of Zyr directly from the freezer compartment and leave me alone in my misery.

Nothing is glorious. I am a broken shadow of a human being, doomed to repeat my deeds over and over again, wherever I am sent to do my bloody duty.

Graham sits down on the edge of my bed and pulls the covers away. I still wear only non-flattering cotton panties and an equally cheap t-shirt, but it doesn't seem to bother him.

"You were formidable," he praises as he lays a hand on my thigh. "It's time to get your reward."

Reward? Seven men tried to reward me last night. I can't believe it. His hand moves up my thigh and, as I lay on my stomach, eventually rests on my behind but does not touch me further. It's his usual game of wrecking my mind and reminding me that he could have me anytime he wanted. And he calls that a reward.

If you think I am getting all wet for you, you are as wrong as Hitler was about conquering Russia.

Let's see if my instincts worked last night, even though I can't remember it. My hand inconspicuously slips under my pillow, and triumph washes over me.

Yup, I can rely on myself even if I don't remember it. There is lovely cold steel under my pillow. My hand grabs it, my knees come up, and I push Graham down to the floor. I am over him in an instant, pressing that knife against his throat until a thin line of blood appears. My other hand fixes his head to the floor, one knee his chest. He would be strong enough to toss me off, but he knows that he will not be fast enough to avoid the deadly cut.

"I am your favorite killer since last night, I get it," I shout. "You have deflowered my body and now my soul."

"Samantha Lisa," he says unruffled. "You better be a good girl, or you know what will happen!"

Good girl? Yeah, isn't there something good in everyone – even if it is only my knife in his heart? Blind rage engulfs me.

"I don't care anymore. Have you heard? I don't care," I yell. "Use me as your assassin, but never touch me again. Never. Ever. I'd rather die and be responsible for my father's death before I allow you to touch me again. Never! Ever! Again!"

I press the knife harder. Fear appears in his eyes, but also calculation. A man of his power possibly can never stop playing his games.

"Put that knife away," Graham pants. "How long do you think you would last if you kill me?"

I am not impressed but put a bit more pressure on the blade. There is more blood now. Graham realizes I'm out of control and begins to sweat profusely.

I move the shiv slightly to begin my game again until another thin red line of blood appears. I watch it and start to crave it like a vampire. Didn't it taste so well last night when I was the last one alive?

Graham must see something in my features as I detect panic rising in his.

"Okay, okay, Samantha. We'll have it your way. I'll never touch you again, but if you don't obey my mission orders, your dad will be dead."

I can't believe what I hear, but he is serious. He will not back away from that deal he is offering. He is Langston Graham, top officer of the CIA, for a good reason. I quickly decide that this is as much as I can accomplish. Who knows what will happen to my dad if I kill Graham now, but I will kill him if he ever…

I am damaged for life. I should kill him! Or get away and live somewhere. Or go to the media and tell them what happened to me. But I think I have to compromise. I not only love being an agent - it's also all I know and all I can do. If I can keep the spy life, be free of the menace of Graham's abuse and keep my daddy safe, then I will achieve more than I had until now.

I could try to get away with killing the director of the CIA. I could try to survive being on the top of the most wanted list if I disappear into never-secure anonymity. I could try to crash the Graham system by going public. Any of that has as many imponderabilities and risks as landing a rover on Mars.

The house always wins. I know I'm still not tough and experienced and, honestly, good enough to challenge the whole agency. Not yet.

"Ok," I say. "My dad will remain safe, and I'll be your wildcard. But if you ever touch me again, I will kill you."

I back away, and he pulls back, feeling up the blood on his neck, and sneers at me, quickly recovering from the shock.

"I underestimated you," Graham growls. "You're even better than I thought. But you are wrong if you think I will ever give up on your services as a killer."

I know that's the truth. He has ambitions. The CIA is not his last step. He is greedy for power and influence, and he would rather die than to let me go - his guarantee to remove any human obstacle he might stumble over on his way up. I am not his slave anymore, but I am a slave to his ambitions nonetheless.

At least I could put the humiliation of being abused or harassed behind me for good. He'll never touch me again as I made clear that I would sacrifice my dad and myself to prevent that. The fear in his eyes clearly showed that I had not won the war but a battle, nonetheless. But dad's life still is at the mercy of Graham's hands.

That's the way the cookie crumbles.

I am content, though. I accomplished something.

•••••••••••••••••••

(Back to today)

Sarah closed her narration of the day after Miami, when she had regained control over her body but not yet about her life, as tears streamed down her face making her view so blurry that she struggled to identify the expression on Chuck's face.

"Oh my God, Sarah, what about your dad now?"

"The truth is, I don't know," she admitted. "Graham blackmailed me but never gave me any hints where he kept him."

She began to swing back and forth on him like in a rocking chair, the pressure of the atrocity she endured and the worry for her dad overwhelming, her nerves fluttering. Her body needed to move to alleviate some of the strain. If it weren't for his healing presence, she would pace the room like a caged animal.

He is the perfect man for me. And it looks like I am the ideal woman for him. Why did it take me so long to see this? … Some things are unfathomable. But I won't let it slip out of my hands.

"I have no idea if he's still alive. If Graham's threat was of the foresighted kind, you know, like every Friday, he has to confirm that Jack Burton was allowed to live another week, then dad is already dead. A dead man's handle, they call it. Yes, Burton is the name that stuck with him as that was his name when he was arrested. It's not his real name, though."

As unpleasant as the outlook on Jack Burton's safety was, that was all Chuck needed to know for the time being. His most crucial concern was the woman on his lap.

"Sarah, what can I do to make you…"

Chuck was close to saying 'forget', but understood that that was impossible. It would be with her indefinitely. It was a part of her.

"What can I do to help you find peace? How can we heal those wounds?"

"You already do so much. But there are things we can't control. They will decrypt Graham's files one by one, and analysts will pour over them. I'll have to undergo hearing after hearing to verify my part of the story. Relive and retell it again to people who should have no right to poke around in my past."

Chuck was silent for a minute and shifted a little before talking. He looked like he was contemplating something, but she was too occupied with her own thoughts to call him out on it.

"I can't live knowing you've been hurt so much and have to carry that load alone. Please, let me be your baggage handler. Sarah, I love you for all eternity, and I want you to be happy because eternity is quite a long time."

Ditzy lovable Chuck - you are already handling my baggage. But I can't tell you now. I have a couple of more tears to shed over my horrible past and my promising future, being sad and happy at the same time.

She rested her cheek against his. They cried together again, sharing the pain and the anguish through the love that connected them.

"I'm happy because of you," she eventually said and was amazed at how sincere the statement was amidst all the terrible memories filling up the room like thick black smoke.

"My humanity was stripped away. … I was dehumanized for the sole purpose of forming me into the best cold-blooded killer possible. Since that day, I desperately wanted to be a human being again and break out of the cage that kept me like a dangerous maladjusted animal. But inside there, I cultivated my own disease, … my plague of the mind."

If her black smoke metaphor was true, then Chuck was the fresh breeze that dispelled the fumes. The only smoke allowed now was a white one, fumata bianca, to herald that her quest was over and that she had found the man who set her life straight by merely loving her. Habemus Bartowski.

"You gave me back my humanity, Chuck."

Now, she thought. She suddenly felt wondrously calm and determined. The nervous energy that made her fidgety before now canalized into the predominant emotion she felt. In her earlier attempts, she had waited for and tried to force a special moment when she would confess her love to him.

I've been wrong. I don't need a special moment. It will be something special because my words make it so.

She lifted her head and saw that her make-up had left stains on his face and shirt and knew she looked ghastly, but she didn't care. There was only one thing she cared about. That was the man that had given her back her life by allowing him to enter it and turn it upside down solely through the feelings she harbored for him. He took her in his arms and shared his love with her so generously as if he had endless supplies of it. She knew it was true, because she found a bottomless well of love for him in her soul as well.

And the moment wasn't romantic and wasn't passionate and wasn't glamorous and wasn't joyful.

But it was perfect.

"I love you, Chuck Bartowski. I love you so much. You are my everything, I told you before, you're all that and-" she made a short pause to let him know that she listened to him, remembered his words, and that she selected the next word referring to his own a day ago "-magically so much more. It's so great to tell you, so hear me again. I love you, God, how do I love you."

She placed a trembling hand on his cheek, and the hand that mirrored the gesture on her own damp cheek trembled as well. Then she kissed him, slow, conscious, savoring the softness of both of their lips, tasting the salt of both of their tears, feeling these mixing and contemplating that it was like their lives mingling.

It's so heavenly to be his.

It's so heavenly to have him.

It's so heavenly to love him.

It's so heavenly to tell him. Let's repeat it.

"I love you, Chuck."

•••••••••••••••••••

A/N (3) Hey, I'm just a guy whose heart is breaking when confronted with the harsh reality of female life. In chapters 34 and 35, we dealt with the fury and anger that comes with abuse - how Sarah prevented it and went to war on those scumbags. That, of course, is not the whole story of what women go through. In this chapter, we looked at the pain, hurt, and sadness that abuse brings. I didn't exploit it but, bear with me, I could not gloss over it. As you know, that part of my story is rooted in real life, and I did not want to make it a tool for you going, "Ah, such a poor girl." No, it was imperative to express that agony. And it was the hardest thing I ever wrote, almost giving up the story at this stage. I did my best to describe Sarah's torment with dignity and empathy but not whitewashing it. If you agree that I meandered my way through a most serious topic within the boundaries a Charah story allows successfully, not exploiting what abuse means, but pointing a big fat finger at the horrible fact that this is still happening every day, then I'm glad. If you don't think I managed that, direct your critique to me. My beta-reader did all he could to make me reach my goal. If I didn't, it is my fault. In my clumsy ways, I tried to make statement while telling a story. But probably it is better to refer to my beta, so please don't forget the famous words by WillieGarvin: "Don't be an asshole."