A/N: Ownership of Chuck. I guess?
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"Sarah Walker, I love you more than I've ever loved anyone or anything. Will you do me the greatest honor of my life? Sarah, will you..."
Sarah reached out and put a gentle hand on top of the red box to keep it closed. "Chuck, stop."
He looked at her with a bit of panic and a bit of confusion. She leaned forward and gave him a gentle kiss to reassure him, then she took a deep breath and let it out slowly, centering herself.
She looked him in the eyes and said, "The name on my birth certificate is Samantha Lisa Banks."
She had felt this day might be coming ever since Ellie and Devon got engaged. She had been dreaming of this moment with almost giddy wonderment and maybe dreading it a little bit too. She was nervous...scared even. She didn't get scared in gunfights, but this was different. She had thought long and hard about this. If he was going to commit himself to her totally, for the rest of their lives, it was ...only fair...that he knew what he was getting into. That intention warred with those deep-seated parts of her that kept everything about herself secret. Over the last few months, the need to tell him had won out. Having finally decided...
"Nobody has called me that name for … jeez, decades. I'm Sarah Walker now. I was born on July 30, 1980, making me a few weeks older than you." She gave him a small smile for an instant. "So I guess no more random spontaneous birthday celebrations for me." She chuckled. "My father was James Banks and my mother Emma O'Donnell. I was born in a town called Ardmore, just outside of Philly. My mom still lives there."
Chuck sat back in his chair. He was listening with frightening concentration. He understood exactly what was happening and he could barely breathe he was so nervous. Elbows on knees, he was leaning forward to listen closely.
"My parents didn't get along and the most vivid memories I have of growing up with them were of them fighting. Not that my dad was ever abusive or anything...well, maybe verbally, I guess, I don't know. Mostly he just didn't seem to take anything seriously. He'd promise and promise and ...nothing. He was charming and funny, but totally unreliable. She'd be on his back to do stuff and ...well... anyway...
"My parents split up when I was seven. My mom got custody of me, legally, you know? But I ran away with my dad." She hung her head as she remembered. "It was a seven year old's decision. Mom was all rules and discipline. Not bad, just normal stuff. I mean, I know that now. Eat your veggies. Go to sleep. Do your homework. Normal parent stuff. Dad was fun and adventurous and exciting and … would let you stay up late and have Rocky Road ice cream for breakfast and dumb stuff like that.
"So, Dad and I, we hit the road. Changed our names and left town. It was a gigantic adventure. I was having so much fun with him. We played a fun game together." Somehow, she didn't sound like it had been a fun game at all. "We'd get to a new town...a new city... with new names. We'd pretend to be other people. We'd tell lies to people so that they would give us money. Then, when we had their money, we'd head to the next town and do it all over again. You see, my dad was a criminal. A con man. And he taught me...to lie, cheat, steal, deceive...all of it. I know hundreds of cons and pulled them with my dad all around the country. Sometimes I was just window dressing for a con. Sometimes I was crucial."
Chuck said, softly, "It's why you know how to count cards. How to manipulate the deck of cards." Sarah nodded her head. "It explains Sid Gold, from Vegas."
"Yeah, Sid and my dad were old friends. Pulled a few cons together over the years. It's why he asked me if we needed work. He was going to use us on some fresh con he had running."
Chuck took her hands in his from across the table and said, "I sort of figured some of this out on my own, Sweetie. When he asked if you were a gamekeeper now...he meant the other side of the law...I figured that was what he meant. I just assumed you knew him from a cover of some kind."
Sarah smiled softly to him, the man she loved more than anyone or anything in the whole world, and said, "Yeah, I can see that you might have. So, my dad and I kept playing this fun game. Except I'm not dumb and I pretty quickly figured out that what we were doing was illegal and that we kept changing towns to stay ahead of the cops. It took longer, but eventually I realized what we were doing was immoral...was wrong." Sarah started to cry. "Taking people's money with lies...but...I kept doing it...even when I knew it was wrong...I kept doing it. Dozens, maybe hundreds of innocent people, we stole their money. Sometimes a lot of money. Money they couldn't afford to lose. And then we'd just move on and do it again. Chuck, I'm ashamed of what I did then. Deeply ashamed." She looked totally bereft and was crying hard. Chuck moved his chair around the table so he could put his arm around her while he held her hand.
"Sarah, you were a child. There's no way you can take responsibility for what you..."
She shook her head vehemently and said, between sobs. "No, Chuck. I can. I wasn't a child the whole time. I kept on with that life...the life of an itinerant criminal, preying on people, without a home or a name of my own...until I was 17. That's long past the time when I could have quit...gone straight...put my tail between my legs and crawled back to my mother. With a single phone call, I could have been out if it. But, I didn't. I didn't. It was complicated. I loved my dad...I still do. It was the life I knew and, even as I hated it...I was with my dad...you know?"
"I understand, Sweetie. I can't imagine how hard it must have been."
"I never had the things other girls did growing up. No soccer practice, Girl Scouts. No boyfriends...not even any real girlfriends to hang out with. No home. Just cheap rental houses and motels. I don't feel bad for myself. I got what I deserved. Trust no one, ever. Tell no one the truth. Never talk about yourself unless it was a lie. Hard habits to break and ideal for a spy. When I got older, I was also told not to fall for any boys. Love is a fairy tale and doesn't really exist. That's why it took me so long to understand and accept what was happening between us." She waggled her finger between them. She had stopped crying and Chuck gently used a handkerchief to wipe the tears from her cheeks. She gave him a grateful smile. "I never knew when I'd have to abandon everything and everyone and leave town, one step ahead of the cops. You asked once why I had experience with situational awareness even before I became a spy, well now you know.
"Dad got pretty good at forging school records, so he'd put me in school in whatever new town we were in with a new name and a fake history. Dozens of towns. Dozens of names. But since I was barely in any of the classes in the last town, or the one before that, I ended up having to teach myself everything I needed to know to pass the tests. So, when we weren't stealing from people or on the road, I had my head in a book.
"Dad always told me to be inconspicuous. Don't do too well on tests. Don't play sports and excel. He got me ugly haircuts and dressed me in ugly clothes. Don't draw attention. He didn't want me to stand out at all..."
"I'll bet that was impossible with your beautiful blue eyes," said Chuck with a smile.
She smiled back at him, but she still looked sad, remembering that time of her life. "Anyway, I was always hanging around with my dad's friends. Gamblers, con men, grifters, pickpockets, prostitutes. Those were the kind of people conmen knew. The underworld, but not the violent kind. No drug dealers or real heavy bad guys. Sort of the fringe people. I was just a little girl and mostly ignored. But some of the prostitutes sometimes, they were nice to me. They'd buy me sweets or help me with my homework or whatever. And I saw the men that they …. worked for...the pimps. I saw those men...brutalize some of those nice women...just casual cruelty like they were totally disposable or not even human." Her voice had grown harsh with anger as she remembered those incidents. "I saw it over and over again growing up and I hated it...I still do. One day, we were in Austin, I just couldn't take it any more. I broke a chair over the man's head and then used a chair leg to break his jaw in two places."
"How old were you?"
"Seventeen," she said. "Dad and I left town that night, of course. Changed our names and set up in San Diego. Jack and Jennifer...Jenny... Burton. Now you know why I have a problem with pimps. It's sort of deep-seated."
"No one can blame you for that, Sweetie," said Chuck. "And I won't be crying for any of them that get … your attention."
"So, San Diego. We stayed there for a while. We arrived in October and I started high school...senior year. James Buchanan High School. Dad had another con running. One of his most complicated yet, with a ton of moving parts, so it was taking a while. We had no idea, but some of the people he was dealing with were in the sights of the CIA and the Agency became aware of what he was up to. By the time the scam had come through, the guys he'd ripped off were going to kill him...and probably kill me too, although I didn't realize it at the time. Langston showed up. He arranged to have my dad arrested to keep him safe from the bad guys...well, the worse guys, I guess. That's where my dad is now. He's still in prison under the name Jack Burton. I haven't spoken to him in years."
"When Sid asked where your dad was, you told him that he was away," said Chuck.
"Oh, you remembered that...of course you remembered that," said Sarah. "Yeah," she shrugged. "He's away. Anyway, that's how I met Langston. I was scared of him, at first. I didn't trust him." She shrugged. "I didn't trust anyone, really. He sat me down and tried to talk to me, but I refused to give him a straight answer to anything. I kept coming up with one cover story after another, just trying to find a way to get away from him. He was soft spoken and patient and kept talking to me until I had calmed down. Then he offered me a CIA scholarship to college.
"I told him I wasn't going to college. I hadn't taken the SAT's and hadn't applied anywhere and it was a terrible idea. And anyway, I didn't want to work for the CIA. So, we talked about the CIA and what it did to protect the country. I admit, I was intrigued. I had been a criminal for ten years with my dad and he was going to prison. I didn't really know what to do next. I could wander off and start being a conwoman. Get a job with Sid or someone like him...I knew dozens of people who would hire me. I knew I could do that job. But without Dad...anyway, I also knew I felt guilty about what we'd been doing...and here was a new way forward. Maybe taking a job with the good guys would make me feel better about all the bad I had done in my life. I don't know. I started to ask questions about the scholarship. They pay for college and you agree to work for them for six years. You would go to work at the Agency over the summers as a paid intern. I said to him again, 'But I can't get into college.' It was long past the deadline to apply. He told me not to worry about it...that he would take care of it. Didn't sound like a terrible deal. I agreed to do it. To join the Agency. Langston was really pleased.
"This was in April. He left me on my own for the end of school in May, which still sucked because everyone knew Dad had been arrested. I really hated it there. Anyway, it came time for me to graduate. I intended to skip the graduation ceremony...why would I care about that? But, the day before the ceremony, Langston and Anna showed up. They had bought me a new dress for graduation and took me out to dinner. That was when he told me that one of his best friends was in the administration at Harvard and I'd be going there in the fall under the name Sarah Walker. Can you imagine? Harvard...next to Stanford, the best school in the country..."
Chuck smiled and laughed.
"And paid for by the CIA, no less. I was beyond excited.
"The next day, after the graduation ceremony..." Sarah started to cry a little again, but they were happy tears this time. She wiped them away with her napkin. "...they gave me a beautiful bunch of flowers and big hugs. That was the first time anyone had ever given me flowers. Ever. I just started to cry. It was so sweet...I didn't even think about trying to cheat them somehow.
"They offered to help me pack, but I had everything in a single bag ready to go. I always did. Never knew when I'd have to bug out. They flew me back east. I figured they'd put me in a motel near the Agency or something, but...they took me home...to their home. Introduced me to Karen, who you know. Kevin was already married to Mickey, stationed at Andrews, and living near the Base. They gave me a room in their house. They included me in all the family stuff they were doing. All the family events, like I was just another one of their kids. I still remember Karen teasing me that I had no idea how to do dishes. I had been on the run for ten years...and...never did any family stuff with my dad. I must have been a misery for them. I was barely housebroken after all that time with my dad, but they never gave me a hard time. Quite the opposite, really. They were really warm and welcoming.
"Langston would take me to work with him and get people to show me around. I was making a steady salary for the first time ever as a CIA intern. I had a bank account for the first time. Anna took Karen and me clothes shopping. I was no longer under any obligation to my dad to dress in ugly clothes or get an ugly haircut or anything like that. Anna took me to the beauty parlor. I got my braces off. Karen and I spent hours playing with make-up...stuff most girls did when they were eleven, I did at eighteen.
"After the summer, Langston and Anna drove me up to Harvard and settled me into the dorm. My roommate became a close friend and we stayed roommates for all four years."
"Rachel," said Chuck. "From the boat story."
"Yeah, Rachel Bernstein from New York City. She's a pisser. You'll like her. Anyway, I loved Harvard. There was no one to tell me not to stand out...not to be different...not to excel...so I did. I already told you I was double majoring in Linguistics and Romance Languages. I loved school. I aced my classes. I graduated Summa Cum Laude for Romance Languages and Cum Laude overall plus Phi Betta Kappa. I played on the women's volleyball team and made All-American. I took dance and karate. I acted in two plays." She smiled, "I had my first boyfriend. I worked at the library for money. I didn't get a lot of sleep at college." She barked a quiet laugh. "Parents' Day, everybody's parents came to see them and see how they were fitting in..."
"And you didn't have someone to visit?" asked Chuck gently.
"Oh, no. I did. Anna and Langston came up with Karen. Every single time, all four years. Not always with Karen, of course, but Anna and Langston...every time. On breaks, Thanksgiving, Christmas, summer...I'd go home to the Graham's. Kevin taught me to fly...which, by the way, is the coolest thing ever. Langston would still take me to work and got me into the shooting range at Langley and I'd spend hours shooting while I was waiting for him to drive me home when he was working late. If the weather was nice, he and I would spar in the backyard of the house. He's a very tough guy, by the way.
"Yeah," said Chuck. "I saw him knock out Bryce with one punch."
"Yup." She chuckled at the memory. "He put up a heavy bag for me, hung from a tree. It's still there. I saw it in back when we visited last month.
"When I graduated..." she was crying again a little, but again they were happy tears, "...the whole family was there to congratulate me...give me hugs, flowers. Even Kevin and Mickey came up, with baby Jimmy. Kevin in his Air Force uniform..." she laughed. "...Rachel was drooling he was so handsome."
"I went to the Farm after that and became an agent. Turns out, I was pretty good at it. I could lie and deceive better than anyone." She snorted a small laugh without humor. "I'd been doing it my whole life after all. On some of the skills they taught, I set records there that still stand, at least so far as I know. But it's why I didn't want you to go there...to learn that stuff...those techniques...how to be a liar. You're a good guy. An honest guy. Spies...well, I didn't want you to do it. To learn how to do that stuff.
"Once I graduated from the Farm, Langston began to send me out on missions. I never failed him. I went wherever he sent me and did the job. Once, one of them got … got violent and I had to kill someone in self-defense. I...I handled it well. I didn't freak out or have a breakdown or anything like that. I just did it. As it turned out, and you sort of know this already, I was good at it. Langston began to send me on missions where that was the mission. Kill someone...not in self-defense...just kill them. He made damn sure that I knew what the reason was and I never killed a person who was innocent, or even had a straight face claim to innocence...only straight up bad guys. A bomb on their fishing boat. A sniper rifle from a hundred yards away as they were getting into their car. Two silenced pistol shots in an alleyway while they were taking out the trash. The more I succeeded, the more I seemed to get those jobs. I earned a reputation in the Agency. Behind my back they call me the Ice Queen. Stone cold and ruthless. Graham's wild card enforcer. It's a….dangerous reputation. I have lost count of the deaths I am responsible for, but it's a lot. I'm not ashamed of that part of the job, but I'm glad I'm not doing it so much any more.
"Eventually, Langston decided to take my training up a notch. If I was going to have to know how to take out a protected target, I had to know how target protection worked. Langston assigned me to the Secret Service for a year."
"That's where you met Pat Kendler," said Chuck.
"Yeah. A great agent. I like her a lot. She was a bit of a mentor to me while I was with them," said Sarah. "After the year, he moved me back from them and I ran missions for a while longer. Eventually, they had an idea to combine a few CIA agents and a DEA agent into a Spanish speaking team to take on threats from the south. So, they put together the Clandestine Attack Team Squad, the CAT Squad."
Chuck started to laugh, "The Clandestine Attack Team Squad? Who named you guys, the Department of Redundancy Department?"
"Yeah, well, I guess somebody really wanted it to spell CATS because it was four women. Frat boy joke." She wrinkled her lips in distaste. "Me, Amy, Carina and an agent named Zondra Rizzo. It went pretty well for a while, we were very successful, until we started to go after a bastard called Gaez. Then we got messed up. Somehow, he was always a step ahead of us. I found a transmitter in Zondra's boot heel. She passed a polygraph on it, but the damage was done and the team broke up somewhat acrimoniously...at least as far as Zondra and I were concerned. In hindsight, I blame myself. I should have been more trusting of Zondra. She said she didn't put it there and I should have believed her. She was a good friend, even better than Amy was at the time. But that's only a conclusion I've reached since I've known you.
"I was solo for a while again after the CATS, until Langston assigned me to work with Bryce. We were a great team and did a lot of good work. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson was the cover. We began a relationship, but I didn't know what a real relationship was...I mean I wasn't a nun or anything...I wasn't a virgin and I'd had boyfriends in college...afterwards one-night stands, whatever." She looked at him, squeezed his hand, and smiled, "Like I thought I was having when I met a certain charming nerd who ended up stealing my heart...anyway, that sort of thing sometimes...but never anything that I thought meant anything. At the time, I thought I had something real with Bryce, but I didn't." She shrugged. "Since I've been with you, I understood that what I had with Bryce was nothing serious. But anyway, as a spy team we were very good. We were given a bunch of difficult assignments and handled them with success. And then one day, he disappeared without a trace. Just ...poof.
"I went back to being solo. I had several missions in the months between Bryce's departure and my assignment to Burbank. The last one...the last one...was different. Langston assigned me to contact the COS in Budapest, a guy named Kiernan Ryker..."
"The guy who went rogue," said Chuck.
"Yeah, well, I know why he went rogue even if the Budapest office doesn't. I was to work under his direction for that mission. Ryker told me to go to a mansion in Budapest and kill everyone inside. Told me it had been approved by the Director. It was weird, but he was the Chief of Station, so...but when I got there, I found a family already dead. I had Ryker on coms and he told me that the family had been killed by the men still there. The dead family … the bodies pushed into a corner. Their killers, eleven of them, were sitting at the table drinking the family's booze. It was disgusting. So, I did as I was ordered and killed those men. When I was done, I heard a baby crying. I told Ryker on coms and that there was a baby there...and he...he..." She took a deep breath. "He told me to kill the baby."
"What?" gasped Chuck.
"Yeah. That's what he told me. So, that's when I knew that he was off the reservation. That Langston had nothing to do with this and I had been tricked into doing Ryker's personal shit. I told him to fuck off. I took the baby with me, out of the house. The dead men, their friends had arrived and I had to fight my way out with the child. I don't know how many men I killed that night, but I'd have killed hundreds to protect that innocent little girl."
"It's no wonder you shuddered when I set up the meet with Yuri in Budapest," said Chuck.
"Yeah. True enough, I guess. Later I confronted Ryker and wounded him in a gunfight, but he got away. That's when he went rogue. As we heard from Tim Brown, the kid in Budapest, there's a burn notice out on Ryker. Kill on sight. I told Langston what happened, but … I lied to him. I didn't want him to get any blowback for what I had done. If I was going to get in trouble for it, it would be me alone."
"Killing the men in the house?" asked Chuck. "It sounds like they deserved it."
"No, Chuck. Not that." She squeezed his hand. "I took the baby. I took her. She's hidden in a place where no one will ever look, because no one knows, not even Langston. As of right now, there are only two people in the world who know where the baby is. Ryker is still on the loose and probably still wants to kill her. So, no one knows... but now you will... Chuck, I took her to my mom." Chuck gasped in surprise. "My mom is raising her in Pennsylvania. I called my mom...I hadn't talked to her in twenty years." Sarah was crying again. "But … I gave her the baby. And...to keep them both safe, now I'm in a spot where I can't see her anymore or I may expose them both to Ryker if he's keeping tabs on me. But at least she and the baby, whose name is Molly, by the way, she and Molly are safe."
Sarah wiped away her tears and said, "And then I arrived in Burbank hoping to get a lead on what my newly dead ex-partner had been up to and instead found the most wonderful man in the world who makes me happier than anyone else has ever done before." She smiled at him with all her love.
"Sarah, I..."
"No, Chuck. Here's what I need you to do. Promise me you will do this. Tell my story to Ellie. She deserves to know who you are inviting into the family."
"But Sarah, it's your story to tell. I shouldn't..."
"No. Please. It was hard enough to tell it once. I don't want to have to do it again," she said. "Then, after you talk to Ellie, if you still want to, ask me the question that you were going to ask me tonight. Please. I needed you to know … these things...about me...before you commit yourself to me for the rest of our lives. I'm not going anywhere. I'll be here when you are ready. Oh, gosh...spoiler alert for what my answer is going to be. If you don't...if you've changed your mind now that you know...I'll understand." She shook herself.
Chuck took her in his arms and held her close, saying, "Shhhh, shhhh." His mind was moving as fast and hard as it had ever moved as multiple plans began to take shape.
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A/N2: I gave Sarah Yvonne Strahovski's birthday, but my Sarah is two years older than Ms. Strahovski who was 25 (not 27) when the show started.
A/N3: That is a real CIA college scholarship program that Graham put Sarah into in my AU. I modified it a little bit in that the tuition reimbursement is more limited in real life and would not cover the entirety of Harvard's tuition (although the reimbursement is more generous if you are studying STEM). Otherwise it is the program Sarah did, including working at the Agency as an intern over the summers (although that part of the program wouldn't have started until she'd finished her first year at college).
A/N4: Andrews is Andrews Air Force Base (now a part of Joint Base Andrews) and is located near Morningside, Maryland, a Washington, D.C. suburb. Kevin wouldn't be living with his parents, but would have been nearby. I don't think there were any bombers based there in the late 90's, but I put Kevin nearby anyway to teach Sarah to fly (so a little unrealistic I guess).
A/N5: Ok, I know I just changed the plot of Chuck versus the Baby, but I mean, come on, steal the baby and you get the fortune? Really? Exactly how are you going to accomplish that? Walk into the bank with a child in a stroller and they'll write you a cashier's check with no further questions asked? That's absurd. I honestly have no idea what the canon writers were thinking. I don't know of a single country in the world where the physical possession of the baby would get you anything beyond the necessity of changing diapers. When I get there, my story line will hinge on Hungarian trusts and estates law (which should be a real snooze for anyone still hanging around here).
A/N6: Covered a lot of ground here. I thought it made sense though. Was it out of character for canon-Sarah to do this? I expect to hear that criticism and will answer it here and now. My answer is, yeah, probably. But the canon writers used her paranoia about her past to add tension to the relationship with Chuck to a degree that frankly made no sense to me. So, I fixed it. My Sarah would have wanted to get this stuff off her chest before the engagement so she wouldn't have to worry about it anymore. She's all in, and the only stumbling block she could see was her own history, so she decided to get it out of the way. And just to use one example, in canon, her refusal to let her team (and her husband!) into the secret in Chuck versus the Baby was really nuts. (I just watched it again.) These guys were the absolutely top spies in the nation, if not the world, and she didn't think they could solve the Ryker problem so she could reunite with her mom? Ryker isn't tough enough to shine Casey's boots, much less take on the whole team. It made no sense not to trust them with the truth of the situation. I understand that they had to give her that paranoia to explain why this aspect of her history didn't show up until Season 5 (when they thought of it one afternoon in the writer's room). I have no such need.
A/N7: One of the coolest things about jumping into the hobby of Chuck fanfiction is the wonderful folks I've met here, many of whom have become friends. Among that crew is my good friend LetsGoRed who was kind enough to give this chapter pre-reads for me. His excellent suggestions vastly improved it and the parts you like come from him. The rest is mine. Hey, dude, next time we have lunch, I'm buying.
A/N8: Please let me know if you agree with what I've been up to here. I know I left canon behind again, but I hope that I've been consistent with my AU thus far.