Sarah realized that Sunday morning just how sexually inexperienced she really was. For all her work as a field agent with one of the most feared and hated intelligence organizations in the world, for all her successful missions, sex had never been a part of her repertoire. She'd never once had sex as part of a mission or slept with an asset to maintain control over them. She knew it happened, but early on in her career, she'd vowed to never cross that line.
That was not to say she wasn't a master of seduction, because she was. She had seduced men and women countless times, in multiple different languages, all over the world. But seduction wasn't really about sex. It was about creating the illusion of desire in another person. Once you had their attention, it became about making them believe that you wanted them and then making them believe they could have you.
It came easy to her because she discovered that it was easy to make people believe something they already wanted to believe – that a beautiful woman found them desirable. And of course, it helped that a lot of the bad people she'd targeted in this way were already extraordinarily arrogant and believed it of their own accord before her seduction even began – of course, this woman wants me, all women want me. Thus, when it did begin, for them it seemed to be a natural course of events. Those were often the easiest seductions and bore the most fruit when the seductress turned the tables. Arrogant egos were frequently the most fragile.
This was, to a certain extent, how her physical appearance, her beauty, had become somewhat abstract to her, not something she actively thought about and wasn't really part of her identity. It had become just another weapon in her arsenal, and she wielded it like a master when it was appropriate to do so.
Chuck was changing that about her. She was starting to see herself through his eyes, to understand and value herself, her physical beauty, not in a proud or self-centered way, but in a way that was more… grateful. More thankful.
She also realized in looking back at her sexual history, while she'd had a number of sexual partners in her life, some of them even recurring, it had something of a paint-by-numbers feel to it. There had been the heat of desire of course but it was more internally focused. The human body demanded periodic sexual stimulation as a matter of genetic requirement. When she was no longer able to suppress that bodily need, she would take steps to fill it as efficiently as possible and then move on with more pressing concerns. When your body needed nourishment, you ate. When it needed hydration, you drank. When it needed that, well, you figured it out.
So, when she found herself that Sunday morning, in her hotel shower, kissing Chuck passionately as the hot water crashed down onto them, she'd realized she'd never actually had sex in the shower. The idea had never occurred to her and would not have been appealing if it had. The shower was her own personal time. It was where she often ran through mission planning in her head, or performed mission post-mortems, analyzed what went right, what could have gone better and what went wrong. It was also her relaxation time where she used water as hot as she could stand it to relax her often over-used, over-taxed muscles and wash away the physical stress of any given day.
While Chuck was not sexually experienced in terms of the number of women he'd slept with, which by his own admission was only one, it was a relationship that spanned years. They'd had time together to experiment, discover at least some of each other's secret fantasies, learn about what they liked, what they didn't like. Perhaps even more importantly, they were able to learn about the things they thought they would like but didn't, and the things they didn't think they would like, but actually enjoyed.
Chuck specifically learned how to read his lovers signals. When to push boundaries and when to back off and more importantly, when to back off even when his partner might not recognize the need. To give them the opportunity to realize they might regret doing something after the heat of the moment had faded. This exact scenario had happened with Jill in the Stanford library. They'd been making out heavily in a rarely visited section on the third floor when she'd started making noises about wanting to go for it. He knew her well enough to know she'd regret it the next day, so he backed them down. And she had been extremely grateful he did.
In short, Chuck knew more about himself in this regard, and he knew more about how to approach a sexual relationship than Sarah did. To her surprise, she realized she absolutely loved it! She could feel herself giving over a certain amount of control to Chuck and it felt wonderful. Chuck was so transparent in his desire to please her, to show her what they were both capable of, that she had no reservations letting him assert a level dominance over the sexual aspect of their burgeoning relationship.
So, when Chuck stepped into the shower with her, she opened herself to him willingly, delightedly. The feel of his hands on her, in combination with the heat of the water was like nothing she'd ever experienced. After both of them were sated, Chuck helped her wash her hair and the feel of him massaging her scalp sent shivers down her spine. Never in her life had a simple shower felt or been so physically all encompassing.
A short while later, they were both on the bed, wrapped in the comfortable hotel robes after their magnificent shower together. Sarah was sitting up with her legs folded under her and Chuck was lying on his side, his head propped on his arm and they were sharing a bowl of fruit they'd ordered with breakfast.
They had done a great deal of walking the previous day, so they decided this day would be a little less structured. They lazed around together talking about various inconsequential things. It was mostly Chuck talking and Sarah listening. At some point, Chuck asked her about why she felt the need to drive so fast all the time and she laughed, not knowing how to explain it. There was a certain exhilaration she derived from the power and performance of a sports car. She asked him how he could stand driving so slow all the time and he seemed baffled that she didn't realize how dangerous driving actually was.
"Ok, I have an idea." Sarah said excitedly. "So, the Pacific Coast Highway. Have you driven on it?"
"Of course, but not in years." Chuck replied.
"Ok, how about if we take a drive up the coast a little bit, maybe stop and get a late lunch at one of those wonderful seafood restaurants I hear are all along there."
"Um, as fast as you drive, that sounds a little nerve wracking for me." Chuck said with a nervous smile.
"That's just it. We take my car, but you drive. You can get a feel for how fun it can be to drive a car like that. And since it's supposed to be a beautiful drive, and I've never been on that road, I won't really care if you drive slow."
"Ok, yeah, that actually does sound like fun!" Chuck said, suddenly excited about the concept.
Sarah had gone into the bathroom to change and when she came out, Chuck was rendered temporarily speechless.
"Uh, Sarah?" He asked hesitantly, finding his voice and looking at her with wide eyes.
"Yeah, Chuck?" She replied innocently, blinking at him with long eyelashes.
"Is that a good idea?" He asked, gesturing at her. She was wearing a frilly blue sundress with over-lapping layers of thin fabric that had a deep V-neck, exposing a stunning field of cleavage. The various layers of fabric created a complex, uneven hemline that ended just above her knees, but with some areas considerably higher. He also noticed that the dress had matching strappy heeled shoes which put her just a few inches shy of being at eye level with each other.
She put her pinky next to her mouth, bit her lip and twirled around delicately, feigning confusion. "What do you mean, Chuck? Is there something wrong with my dress?"
He noticed that in addition to being fairly low cut, it was also backless, swooping down low to expose the small of her back and he gaped even harder. He closed his mouth with a click of his teeth and couldn't help but stare at her for a long moment while she swished the dress back and forth, blinking at him innocently.
He smiled at her slowly. "No, Sarah. There is absolutely nothing wrong with your dress. It is utterly perfect. You are a vision. That dress with your eyes…" He paused, taking her in. "I have no words." He stated simply.
Sarah actually felt heat bloom on her cheeks ever so slightly. She'd hoped this dress would have an effect on him, but for him to look at her like this, especially considering what they'd done together in the shower not an hour earlier. It made her insides warm and fluttery. She intellectually knew that she was an attractive woman, but her time with Chuck were the only times she actually felt beautiful.
"Thank you, Chuck." She said quietly, stretching up slightly to kiss him. His hands immediately found the advantage to a backless dress as he lightly drew his fingertips down her spine.
"Wow." He breathed quietly as she pulled out of the kiss.
"Back at you, Chuck." She said smiling. "Ok, let's get this show on the road!"
As they walked hand-in-hand through the lobby of the hotel, Sarah was aware of several heads swiveling to watch the two of them walk out together, and saw the concierge do a double-take that reminded her of Chuck's first reaction to her. It was something she was sort of used to – she caught men staring at her all the time, but it had a new element to it today, as if she were noticing their reactions to her through a different lens. Because of Chuck, she had an ever so slightly changed perspective on how her appearance affected people. Even a couple of women watched them walk through, though she thought they could just as easily be looking at the tall piece of man-candy she was walking with.
As they got to her car, he once again opened her door for her on the passenger side and held her hand as she sat down. There was no hesitancy on his part now as there had been that first night, and she could tell he greatly enjoyed doting on her this way.
As he slipped into driver's seat, Sarah asked, "Do we want to put the top down? It's a beautiful day!"
"Ok, sure." He said.
"Go ahead and start it up." She said.
He seemed a little intimidated by the car at first. "It's really not that different than your Nerd Herd mobile." Sarah said. "Well, it is, but not in general operation. Some of your Nerd mobiles are stick, right?"
"Yes, and I can drive them, but they're not my preference." He said, looking at the various controls.
"You'll get the hang of it in no time." She said encouragingly. She let him find the important functions on his own, so he'd be familiar. He adjusted his seat, the mirrors, the steering column and found a comfortable driving position. He checked that the hand brake was engaged, disengaged the clutch, slid the shifter into neutral and started the car up. It was a performance car, but it had a relatively quiet engine and exhaust note at low RPMs.
"Ok, flip that lever there." Sarah explained pointing to a clamp that held the top closed while she unclamped the one on her side. "Now push and hold that button." She said, pointing.
He did as instructed and the top folded in on itself as it moved back and slid cleanly under a hard-shell cover that lifted out of the way, then back down as the top disappeared from view.
"That's so cool!" He grinned at her, obviously enjoying himself before he'd even driven an inch. She couldn't help but smile at his boyish excitement. He put his foot on the brake, disengaged the hand brake, then disengaged the clutch again and slipped the car into first gear. "You ready?" He asked with a smile.
Sarah rubbed her hands together. "I'm ready!"
"Then we're off!" He said excitedly. He let out the clutch and the car promptly stalled. "What the…?" He said, confused.
"You'll just have to get used to the clutch engagement in conjunction with the throttle. You need to give it just a little gas as you start to let the clutch engage."
"Ok…" He said glumly. He repeated the previous process to start the car up, put it in gear and stalled it a second time. "Ok, what am I missing?" He said, frustrated.
"Nothing at all, you almost had it that time. Let the clutch out just a little slower and give it just a little more gas at the same time. You'll get it." Sarah said patiently.
He sighed and repeated the process. Sarah winced inwardly as he overcompensated a little, letting the clutch engage a little too slowly, and giving it a little too much throttle, but the car started moving smoothly. "Hey, Hey! Third time's a charm!" He exclaimed.
"See, I told you!" Sarah said, rubbing the back of his neck.
He quickly got the hang of how the car operated and was shifting it smoothly after just a couple of stoplights. While they were stopped at one of those light, he was looking at the stereo controls. "Does the stereo have an ipod input?"
"I'm not sure." She said. "I've never really needed one."
"Aha! There it is!" He handed her a little electronic device as the light turned green and he pulled away. "Plug that into the port on the front of the stereo."
She did so and was greeted with music she didn't recognize coming from the stereo. "Oh, cool, I can even control the songs from the steering wheel controls!" He said excitedly.
She set the device in one of the cup holders as he started shuffling through songs. She smiled as he settled on pop tunes from the 80's. Songs she remembered playing on the radio when she'd be riding in the car with her dad as a young girl. They were bittersweet memories, but she enjoyed the music just the same.
"So, what we'll do is take the Hollywood Freeway to Santa Monica Boulevard, then take that west to the PCH, Then head west and north from there." Chuck said.
"Sounds good to me." She said smiling.
"That will take us through Beverly Hills. Have you been there yet?"
"Nope."
"Maybe tomorrow we'll head over there and take a stroll down Rodeo Drive."
"Are you going to buy me something pretty?" She asked smiling.
He laughed. "I'd have to sell a kidney first before I could afford anything on that particular strip of real estate. This car probably cost more than I make in three years."
She rolled her eyes at him. "It's a good thing I'm dating you for your body rather than your money, huh?" She said with a wicked grin, earning a blushed in return.
It only took them about 30 minutes to get to the PCH and Sarah was taken aback at the stunning expanse of it. "Oh, wow, Chuck. It's so beautiful! It's like the ocean melds with the sky and goes on forever!" She said breathlessly.
"It really is nice, but just wait until we get up closer to Malibu. It gets even more amazing as you get further north." Chuck saw an idea occur to Sarah, but she looked suddenly hesitant. "You just thought of something." He said quickly.
"I did but it's probably crazy." Sarah said uncertainly. She was sitting a little sideways in her seat, looking at him.
He looked at her and laughed. "Sarah, you realize that almost exactly 72 hours ago, you were at the Buy More asking me out on a date. Look at us now. I think the crazy ship has sailed! Let's hear what you were thinking."
"Ok, but if you're at all uncomfortable with this, you tell me, OK?" She said looking at him earnestly.
"Of course." He nodded.
"Well, when you were talking about how beautiful it is further north, I just had this idea the we could drive to Carmel-By-The-Sea and maybe stay in a Bed & Breakfast there and come home Tuesday. You don't have to be back to work until Wednesday, so…" She bit her lip pensively.
"Sarah, like no bullshit, that sounds truly amazing." Chuck paused. "But it does sound really expensive."
Sarah gave him an intense look for a moment. "Chuck, I make a pretty good living. This car is only 18 months old and I own it outright. I own my condo in DC. This would be completely my treat as it is my idea. We could pick up some cheap bathing suits, some casual beach wear clothes, go snorkeling, drink margaritas on the beach and have a little vacation together." She gave him a dark smile. "You could help me pick out a bikini."
"SOLD!" Chuck exclaimed laughing. "Sarah, I accept your proposal. I would love nothing more than to go on this mini-vacation with you." Chuck said smiling.
Sarah started bouncing up and down in her seat, clapping her hands. "Really, Chuck? You're sure?"
"I cannot remember the last time I was this sure about something." He said grinning.
"Oh, I'm so excited. Ok, you drive, I'll get on my phone and see if I can find us the perfect B&B. I want something as close to the beach as possible."
Chuck listened to her burn up the phone lines for several minutes. She hung up and giggled while stamping her feel playfully.
"Oh my God, I'm so excited! There's a place that has these little cottages just a block off the beach and because it's late in the season, I even got a reduced rate!" Sarah exclaimed, giddy with excitement.
"That sounds incredible!" Chuck said, finding her enthusiasm contagious.
She sat back in her seat and groaned. "Oh, Chuck, I can't tell you how good it feels just to get out of LA for a couple of days. This last month before I met you has been so stressful." She caught herself, not having meant to say that and on the verge of saying more she hadn't intended.
"Didn't you come out here to get away from the stress of your job?" He asked chuckling.
"Yeah, funny how that works isn't it?" Sarah said, trying to recover. "Ah, I can't blame the job for all of it. I mean I don't know what I expected, really. And I did get a lot of the things I was looking for, which mainly was separation from all the political bullshit in DC. It is a lot more laid back out here." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "Can I tell you something, Chuck?"
"You can tell me anything, Sarah." He said earnestly.
"I'm thinking of quitting my job. Finding a new line of work." She said cautiously.
"That sounds scary." Chuck said honestly. "But, really, people change jobs all the time, right?"
"I don't just mean finding a new company to work for doing what I do now. I mean finding a completely new career." She thought Chuck could tell that she was being more quiet than normal, more tentative. She was on dangerous ground right now. There was no law that said she couldn't tell him that she worked for the CIA, but she couldn't say one syllable about what it was that she did exactly. The official line was that she was a foreign relations specialist, which was laughable in the extreme.
Could she tell him? Just come out with it right now. Lay it on the line for him. It scared the shit out of her. When he went on about how she was out of his league, she wasn't kidding when she told him it was bullshit. He was just so effing… Good! Just such a good person. And she just wasn't. She'd don't some epically terrible shit in her tenure as a field agent. And not just killing. She'd tortured people. She didn't want him looking at her like the monster she felt like she was underneath the long legs, blond hair and pretty eyes. She wasn't sure she could handle that.
"Sarah, you just got a really serious expression on your face." Chuck said quietly.
She nodded and said intently, "I'm just thinking about something at the moment." She was at a loss for what to do, torn between giving him the version of the truth she was allowed to give and continuing the lie. Both prospects filled her with a different kind of dread. Uhg, one stupid slip of the tongue and now there was a cloud over their little impromptu excursion.
"Sarah, I'm going to say something that I hope doesn't make you angry. I really hope it doesn't make you change your mind about this trip. About… me." Chuck said with genuine concern in his voice. She looked at him with a confused expression.
"Sarah… You were talking about your job just now, and you got like this pained expression on your face. It was subtle, but I think I'm learning to read you pretty well." Chuck paused, then seemed rushed to get his thoughts out quickly. "I know you're not a… logistics manager, or whatever. I know that's not really your job. I kind of think I know what your real job is." He said so quietly she could barely hear him over the wind noise. She didn't realize her mouth had fallen open.
"What did you say, Chuck?" She could not possibly have heard him correctly.
"Sarah, I know you carry a gun!" He said quickly. "I know that until yesterday, you had knives you wore on your calf. Ellie is a doctor and Awesome is a doctor and I've seen stuff just kind of by being around them and I know that scar on your right calf is from a bullet wound and I think that one on your shoulder is too! And you have other scars that look like they might be knife wounds."
"Chuck…" She looked at him and saw that he was having difficulty. "Can you find a place to pull off, somewhere private that we can talk?" She said.
"Yes, of course. I can do that, there's a place right up here." Chuck pulled off into the visitors area next to the highway and parked the car as far off the main road as possible. "It's a sightseeing and picnic area. We're the only ones here-"
She put her hand on his arm. "Chuck, it's ok. I'm not mad or upset. I'm just a little.. disoriented I guess." Sarah said, trying to really identify the myriad emotions she was experiencing.
Chuck sighed, obviously relieved.
"Chuck, what is it that you think I do?" She was genuinely curious what he was going to say, but also afraid of the implications.
"I think maybe you work for the military, or maybe one of the government intelligence groups, like the NSA or something." Chuck said
"How did you know about the gun and the knives?" She asked quietly.
"I sort of saw them our first night together, when we were by the door of your hotel room." Leave it to Chuck to blush at the memory. "I saw you quickly unsnap the thing around your leg, and I saw what looked like the corner of a little holster."
"When did you suspect this? Why didn't you say anything?" She asked, dumbfounded. Of course, he knew, he was Chuck for Christ's sake! The guy kept showing her that he was a genius and he was obviously far more observant than anyone gave him credit for. Including Sarah Walker, apparently.
"I didn't say anything because I figured it's not really my business. I mean, you don't owe me any explanations, Sarah. About what you do or anything really." Chuck said, looking at her finally, with his ridiculously solemn chocolate brown eyes that she thought she might fall into. "As far as when I suspected, it was when you broke that guys hand at the club and started screaming at him in Russian. I mean who but someone military trained or a government agent could even do that? And then later, when I saw the holster, it sort of clicked."
"You watch too many spy shows." She said quietly.
"Maybe," he replied, still looking in her eyes. "But that doesn't explain your scars."
She nodded closing her eyes for a moment. She took deep breath, then opened her eyes and looked back at him. "Chuck, I work for the CIA. I got the scar on my calf in a training accident. I got the scar on my shoulder in Budapest about 4 years ago." That information alone was enough to get her in serious trouble, sanctioned at a minimum, but she didn't care. She already trusted Chuck more than anyone she'd ever met in the CIA. By a lot. By an order of magnitude.
He was giving her that look of reverence again, but this time it didn't warm her heart and make her insides flutter. It made her feel like a fraud. "Chuck, please don't look at me like that right now. I don't deserve that look, certainly not from someone like you." She said, more harshly than she'd intended.
"How can you say that?" He asked, sounding genuinely distraught.
"Chuck, you have no idea the things I've done in my job, the things I've had to do. I've killed people, Chuck. I've.. hurt people." She couldn't bring herself to say the word torture to him and felt like a coward. "I wasn't kidding before when I said you're out of my league. You're a genuinely good person, Chuck. I'm not a good person." She looked away from him. She couldn't maintain his gaze while he had that expression in them.
He slowly reached up and pushed loose strands of hair back behind her ear. It took significant control not to jerk away, but she knew it would hurt him. "Sarah, look at me, please." He asked solemnly. She gazed back at him and the look was still there, but she held steady. "Before I just make a blanket statement disagreeing with you, I want to ask you some questions. If you can't answer, I understand. Is that ok?" She nodded. Chuck took a moment to collect his thoughts and continued. "These people you killed, did you kill them simply because you felt like it?" He asked sincerely.
"No." She replied
"Did you do it because you were ordered to do it or because they posed a threat to you or other members of your.. team?"
"Yes."
"These people that you.. hurt. Did you hate doing it?"
"Yes. It made me sick."
"Did you do it because they had information you needed to get? Information that could save lives?"
"Yes." She said.
"And did you get it? Did it save lives?"
"Yes. To both."
"So, you're telling me that you've gone against your own desires, done things that you find repulsive, all to protect other people? To save the lives of people who never knew their lives were in danger."
"I see what you're doing, Chuck. It's not that simple!" Sarah exclaimed, frustrated.
"Maybe it's not, Sarah, but who the hell am I to judge you? Who am I to say you're a monster because you've done these things? What have I contributed that gives me that right? I can barely function in the world, Sarah! And you're out there trying to make sure it doesn't burn down! You've risked your life so guys like me can waste theirs!" By the end, Chuck was almost shouting. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell at you. I think I was really yelling at myself there."
"Chuck, you're not wasting your life." Sarah said quietly.
Chuck looked skeptically and said, "Put a pin in that for a minute." He took her hand. "Listen, I just want you to know how much I appreciate what you've been struggling with these past few days being with me. Telling me things you didn't want to because they weren't true. I saw you having difficulty and I didn't know how to tell you that it was ok. I asked you questions I know I shouldn't have and that was selfish of me. But I also want to thank you for telling me now... about what you do."
He saw she was about to say something, but he squeezed her hand gently. "Let me finish, please." She nodded. "I know that maybe I don't get the full emotional impact of what you were trying to tell me before, but I want to be clear on this. You hate some of the things you've had to do in your job, and you think it makes you a bad person." She nodded again, looking down. "No, Sarah, look at me." She looked back up. "That is the irony of what you're telling me. Just the fact that you care enough about these things to even wonder about it making you a bad person, means you can't possibly be as bad as you want to believe. A really bad person wouldn't care about all the terrible things that they've done. But you do care, you care deeply." He paused to take a breath and emphasize his point. "Sarah, those two view-points are mutually exclusive! They can't co-exist!"
Sarah looked thoughtful for a few moments. "Chuck, you make a compelling argument, but at a certain point, caring just isn't enough. You have to take action."
"And it sounds like that's the place you're at now – the place where you can take action against the terrible things you have to do in your job. You said you were thinking about quitting. Finding a different career. That sort of further proves my point. A bad person wouldn't care enough to change jobs to avoid having to do bad things."
She just looked at him. She understood the point he was trying to make, it just felt selfish to try and apply it to herself. "It's true. I do want to quit. I can't talk about the why, but before I met you, Chuck, the past few months, especially these past few weeks since they sent me to LA, have been hell. I was just so goddamn angry all the time. Morning, noon and night I just had this raw pit of anger in my guts, eating away at me. It had coalesced around a specific event, but I think it was building for a long time and I was just so focused on doing my job that I didn't recognize it for what it was."
"That sounds.. literally unimaginable to me. I can't even begin to understand what that must have been like." Chuck said, holding her hand tighter.
"I didn't know what to do, I only knew what I couldn't do, which was go back to doing my job the same way I did before. For a lot of reasons, not the least of which is what I've already mentioned. But it's the only life I've ever known. I was recruited out of high school." She paused to gather her thoughts. "We're sometimes forced to make compromises that alone are maybe ok, but it's like they have a cumulative effect on your psyche. Each compromise you make is a pebble or a stone or a boulder that now you have to carry around with you."
"But isn't the weight of those stones offset by the good that you're doing? Maybe I'm naïve but, I gotta imagine that you've stopped a lot of really bad guys from doing a lot of terrible things. Does that knowledge help you carry the weight at all?" Chuck asked sincerely.
Sarah nodded. "It used to but even that has its limits. And after a while, you feel like you're trying to empty an ocean with a spoon, but that's not even a very good analogy because the ocean doesn't just represent all the bad guys doing bad shit. It sometimes represents even your own people working against you, or the politics that complicate really simple situations and hamstring your ability to do your job."
Chuck looked thoughtful. "I had a friend in high school that went into the Marine Corps instead of going to college. He couldn't afford it and the military offered some cool college benefits. I had an interesting conversation with him a few years later that I didn't fully understand until this moment. He said that one of the most difficult things for him in the Marine Corps, as a grunt, an enlisted soldier, was that, at least as it pertained to combat situations, he had to completely relinquish nearly all moral authority for the decisions that he made. That it was about trusting the chain of command to know things you didn't know to make the correct moral decisions. He said that as you got higher in rank, you incrementally got back a little bit of personal moral authority but not all of it." He looked at her. "Doesn't this apply to you, too? I have to assume that the CIA hierarchy is similar to that of the military."
Sarah nodded. "Yeah, they have classes in OCS that actually talk about that exact theory. And yes, it does apply to me as well. But in my job, things don't necessarily come with explicit instructions. You're ordered to complete a specific task but given a lot of leeway on how you do it. The intelligence services, unlike the military, have the unique ability to look the other way a lot of the time, especially when it comes to.. my line of work, because they can disavow us if the need arises."
"Sounds an awful lot like walking a high-wire without a net." Chuck said quietly.
"It sort of is, but it was the life I chose. Well, sort-of chose." She didn't elaborate on that last comment, and Chuck didn't ask. The silence stretched out between them for a few moments before Sarah spoke again. "And don't think I'm going to forget about that thing you put a pin in. I don't think you're wasting your life." She said solemnly. He gave her another dubious look. "No, I mean it, Chuck. Could you be doing a different job that gives you more personal fulfillment, makes you more money? Yeah, sure, but to me, it isn't the job you have that matters, it's that you do it well, that you do it to the best of your ability. That's you, Chuck. I saw it in the first 5 minutes of our meeting."
Chuck laughed softly. "You want me to believe you're not a good person and then you say something like that? That it doesn't matter what job you have, only that you do it well?" He shook his head disbelievingly. "Yeah, Sarah. You're pure evil." He laughed harder, putting his hands up in mock fear. "Ahhhh, don't make me to my job well, evil secret agent woman!"
She smiled in spite of herself, slapping his arm. "Shut up!" She said affectionately.
He sobered up and looked at her again. "Sarah don't ask me to not look at you like I did before. I look at you like that because that's just how I see you. It's easy to get tripped up by how physically beautiful you are, but in your list of impressive attributes, it's like third or fourth – behind what a good person you are, whether you want to believe it or not. You deserve to be looked at like that and I feel like the luckiest man on this earth to be the one who gets to know you well enough to look at you like that. You haven't pulled the wool over my eyes, you haven't conned me in to thinking you're someone you're not. I'm in this with my eyes wide open." He raised his eyebrows a little. "Apparently wider than you realized, right?"
Sarah looked at him and realized the truth of his words and felt humbled. Humbled and grateful and so many other things. "Yeah, you're right." She smiled at him. "You kind of threw me for a loop there, Chuck. I slipped up with that statement about work stress and then I got caught up in my head about if I should just come clean with you about my job, but I was a little scared with how you might react. I thought you might want to get out, take a bus home and never see me again." She paused for a moment. "I'm not really ready to not see you again." She said quietly.
"I'm not ready to not see you again either. I don't see ever being ready for that, honestly." He said holding her gaze yet again for several long heartbeats, then shook his head a little and looked at his watch. "Yeah, if we want to get to Carmel before dark, we should keep this train moving." He looked at her. "We are still keeping it moving, right?" He asked hopefully.
"Are you kidding? Didn't you hear the part about how I need to get out of LA? I still see LA back there!" She said pointing. "Take me away from here, Chuck." She sighed.
Sarah felt a little giddy from their conversation. He'd known something was up with her the entire time and not said anything. She was buzzing with the knowledge that he'd figured things out on his own, yet at the same time, completely unsurprised by it. It occurred to her that he would have made one hell of a field agent, but she pushed that thought aside quickly. His innate goodness would have gotten him killed probably before his first mission. The man captured spiders and let them go outside for God's sake. He'd never have been able to hunt terrorists and arms dealers.
She looked at him as he drove just soaking him in. He really was gorgeous. And she'd been so closed off to him, so reluctant to answer questions. "Chuck, I know you've had a lot of questions about my past and everything, and I also know you've caught me deflecting and changing the subject. If you want to ask me questions, you can. I might not answer all of them and some of them I might be legally prohibited from answering, but if you want to ask, I'll do my best to answer."
He looked at her briefly. "At some point, in future conversations, questions might come up about your history and if you feel ok with talking about it then, that's great. But I don't feel the need to interrogate you. I don't need to know that stuff right now. You're here with me in this amazing car, on this beautiful day, driving on one of the most beautiful roads in the world. We're on our way to an exotic beachfront destination to spend two amazing days together as a capstone to the amazing three days we've already had. I've got everything I need, right here, right now. Anything more just feels greedy." She sighed and wondered how he managed to say exactly the right thing at exactly the right moment.
As Chuck drove, Sarah marveled at the ocean panoramas that spread out before her, the surf rolling in on the beaches, the vastness of it. Sometimes the road would rise to an elevation hundreds of feet above the ocean and to see the never-ending expanse of the blue Pacific was awe-inspiring. It made her feel insignificant and at the same time, more relevant for having experienced the unending beauty of it. She found that the two seeming disparate thoughts coexisted just fine with each other. With all of these stunning scenes unrolling before her, she was also with this incredible man who seemed to have an infinite capacity to surprise her. The first civilian in her life that she'd shared who she was, what she did. He knew the truth about her, or the larger part of it, and he hadn't run away screaming. But he deserved more credit than that, running away wasn't in him. As she leaned back and let herself bask in that perfect moment she thought that it just couldn't get any better.
Almost as that thought struck her, she felt Chuck's hand reached down and settle on her leg as he started idly drawing circles and figure eight patterns on her thigh, almost absentmindedly.
Yes! it's about freaking time!
He would occasionally have to shift gears to adjust for the flow of traffic, but his hand always found its way right back onto her leg. She noticed that each time the hand came back, it was just ever so slightly further up her thigh. She smiled a secret little smile to herself, head leaning back against the headrest, looking slightly away from him. She adjusted herself in the seat just enough that it would help his hand on its journey.. He eventually made his way up and discovered what she'd been waiting for him to discover. The car swerved side-to-side suddenly, but he recovered quickly as he looked at her, his mouth open. "Sarah?" He said, shocked.
"Yes, Chuck?" She answered sweetly.
"You're not wearing any underwear!" He exclaimed, blushing.
She laughed at his expression and said, "Oh, my God, it took you long enough to find out!" She found she wasn't able to pay much attention to the scenery for a long time afterwards.
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Many miles later, her head leaned back against the headrest, in a moment of deep contentment, she looked over at him and saw he had a quiet smile on his face, with his hand once again drawing lazy circles on her leg. "You have a very self-satisfied look about you at the moment, Chuck." She said. "Care to share what's going through that big brain of yours?"
"I was just thinking again how lucky I feel to be the guy who gets to make you scream like that."
"Well, as the girl doing the screaming, I gotta say, I feel pretty lucky myself." She grinned at him lasciviously. "I find myself wondering if at any point on this trip I'll be able to return the favor!" She burst out laughing at the expression on his face, which could only be described as scandalized.
"Oh, my God! We would so die if you did that!" He exclaimed.
"Yeah, but what a way to go, huh, Chuck?" She said, laughing again at his expression. "And besides, you drove just fine while you were taking care of me."
"That was... more difficult… than you might imagine." He said, blushing.
"Chuck, were you about to say 'harder'?" She asked. He laughed as his deep blush answered her question and she joined his laughter until tears were trickling at the corners of her eyes. As her laughter finally receded, her stomach gurgled loudly.
He looked at her, tears of laughter gleaming in his own eyes. "Again with Chewbacca?"
She punched his shoulder. "Shut up and find us a place to eat."
"Yes, ma'am."
It wasn't long before they came upon a sprawling seafood restaurant that sat on a bluff overlooking the ocean, the views just mind-bendingly spectacular. It was late for lunch and early for dinner, so the restaurant was fairly empty. Sarah saw an empty booth for two in a secluded alcove and asked the hostess if they could be seated there.
They ordered iced tea to drink since they'd both be driving at some point in the evening and because they were on a little bit of a timeline, they ordered crab cakes and calamari for dinner with their drinks. The booth was in a corner alcove against a back wall so that it would be impossible for anyone to come up behind them. While Sarah would almost always choose the seat with the most outward facing view, she instead chose to sit facing him, giving him the view outward to see if anyone was coming towards them. She could tell when she saw the layout of the room and position of the little booth, that it would offer an interesting level of privacy. She glanced around looking for security cameras and didn't see any. She sat a little forward, her forearms resting on the table, which naturally emphasized the low cut of dress and her cleavage. The booth was a little on the smaller side and as Sarah was leaned forward, Chuck found that he could easily run his finger down the V-cut of the front of her dress, down her cleavage. Her eyes got big as he did just that, but it was exactly what she'd been hoping he would do.
"Hello Chuck Bartowski's hand!" She said giggling, as his finger drew a line back up her cleavage.
He tilted his head a little and looked at her with a smirk. "Didn't you guys just meet, like an hour ago?" He blushed a little as he said it, but it didn't ruin the affect. Sarah's mouth fell open as she blushed as well.
Just as he was about to draw a more aggressive line down her cleavage, the waitress started walking towards them with their drinks, so he casually withdrew his hand as she approached.
She set the glasses on the table. "You're food should be out in just a few minutes. Can I get you anything else while you're waiting?"
"No, thank you!" Chuck replied politely.
As the waitress walked away, it became apparent that Chuck was not going to continue his previous teasing, so Sarah picked up where he left off. She mimicked his actions to tease him instead, thinking of their time together as she did so. After a few minutes, the unexpected result of her teasing him was to feel a wave of bliss roll through her as she gasped at the suddenness of the experience. She had to grip the edges of the booth and focus on not crying out.
It took a couple of minutes for her to regain her composure, and she looked at Chuck, a little embarrassed. "I'm sorry about that." She said quietly. "I didn't expect that to happen."
He looked at her adoringly. "Never apologize for that. It's like apologizing for the Sistine Chapel, or the Mona Lisa or some other amazing, beautiful thing. I don't think I could ever get tired of that. And we're fine, nobody saw anything. We're so cut off back here we could almost have sex and not be seen." He said with a quiet laugh.
"I know, but still, that was.. disconcerting how quickly my body jumped into high gear like that. I just wanted to play a little, tease you, but it backfired in a kinda magnificent, kinda mortifying way."
Chuck sat back and very deliberately picked up his tea while looking at her, then took a drink. Sarah looked down to make sure her dress was situated appropriately and picked up her tea as well. A few seconds later, the waitress showed up with their food.
"Here you go, guys." She said setting the plates down in front of them. "Let me know if you need anything else."
"Ah, this looks great, thank you!" Chuck said with a genuine smile. The waitress smiled back and walked away.
"Sarah, hold on to the magnificent part of that thought. It could have maybe turned mortifying if someone had seen that, but they didn't. That thing that just happened, when it's between us, it's just magnificent, full stop. I think we both know we've got some next level chemistry thing going on between us. It feels sort of.. I don't know, rare and wonderful, I guess is the best I can come up with. I don't want to second guess it. I just want to hold on to it and see where it takes us." Chuck said, looking at her intently.
Sarah looked at him and smiled. "I think rare and wonderful is a pretty accurate analysis, Chuck" She started piling food onto her plate. "And I agree. I want to hold on and see where it takes us, too." She wondered if he meant that the way she'd interpreted it, because whatever this rare and wonderful thing was, it was a part of them, not a thing separate from them. So, to hold on to it and see where it took them only required them to hold on to each other. She knew she had no intention of letting go of Chuck Bartowski any time soon.
A/N: I've begun living my life by WWCD. Yeah, I'm a jackass.