A/N: I was mistaken. I thought the mission proper would start in this chapter, but Sarah has her own plans. She's determined to take her time as she and Chuck stroll the Bahnhofstrasse.

The Light of the World

Chapter Seven: Sunlight

I slurp the last of my soup from my spoon. I certainly was not born to privilege, but at the Farm, I was taught decorum and self-possession and manners. I forget all that and let myself go. The soup is so good, Chuck is — and had been at Blue Lemon — so good that I cannot restrain myself, blunt any pleasure.

Chuck turns from studying the bank to smile at me. "Enjoy that, did you?"

I feel my own smile as if I could also see it, the wideness of it, the unrestrained expressiveness. For a moment, I am that smile and nothing else. Eventually, I add a nod to the smile. "Delicious. I've never had anything so simple but so good."

Chuck tilts his head and gives me a mocking look, and it takes me a moment to understand that it is self-mockery, then I swat his shoulder with my hand. "You're not so simple."

"But I am so good?" He looks surprised by the boldness of his own question and ducks his head slightly, but he holds my eyes and I hold his, letting the meeting of our gazes speak my answer.

He blushes and looks away, as heated as I now am. "Do you want to order anything else? The soup's an appetizer, at least that's what it said on the menu. But it was filling."

I pick up a menu, one is still on the table, and start to examine it, mostly hoping to keep myself from reacting to Chuck's comment that the soup was filling, but also trying to decide if I do want more to eat or rather to wander along the Bahnhofstrasse, to go to more shops.

I have been to fancy stores before, usually undercover, on missions, often with men who wanted to impress me with what they could buy, and when it was my mission to be impressed by it. Even though I know Chuck and I are shopping for our mission, it does not feel like it to me, and it does not feel like he's trying to impress me.

He seems to be happy making me happy. For my own sake. No agenda. It is a wholly novel sensation, more delicious and warming than the soup.

Chuck turns from me as I look at the menu, and a moment later I feel him stiffen in his chair. I glance up, out the window. A short, wide man in a too-snug, wrinkled three-piece suit walks across the Paradeplatz and toward the doors of Credit Suisse.

"Blickensderfer," Chuck mutters softly, the name seeming to escape his lips involuntarily. "Altherr Blickensderfer."

My buoyant mood gets the best of me. "Blickensderfer? Isn't that one of Santa's reindeer?"

Chuck turns to me and grins but there's seriousness mixed in. "No, that's Blitzen. But Blickensderfer has a red nose."

I look at the man again, more carefully; he's halfway to the bank door, hurrying, carrying himself, despite his ill-fitting suit and his rosacea, like a man used to controlling things.

"Who is he? Not his name — who is he?"

"He's a Director at Credit Suisse, oversees the three-zero section. We'll — I'll — be facing him tomorrow. He's from an old Swiss banking family. Don't let his round appearance fool you; that's a sharp man."

Blickensderfer shoulders through the doors and I face Chuck, still not wanting to be distracted by the mission details, wanting to continue our lark.

"So, Mr. Black, should we do more couples shopping? We want Altherr to buy us as a loving couple, right?"

Chuck's seriousness recedes, leaving only his grin. "Our closed-fitting-room-door noises at Blue Lemon probably did that work, but there's nothing wrong with a little overkill."

Chuck pays and I stand up. Chuck helps me put on my coat and then he picks up my beret. He pauses before handing it to me, considering it. I'm immediately aware of how worn it is, the leather band showing wear, cracked. The threatening Cobra imprint inside.

"This is great. Where'd you get it? It looks well-loved." He hands it to me.

I take it. For some reason, Chuck's use of 'well-loved' on the heels of 'overkill' strikes me, makes me feel awkwardly self-conscious and reminds me of who I have been — and who I still am.

Aren't I?

"My lucky hat. I bought it in France, Oloron-Sainte-Marie. Just before Budapest."

Chuck seems to look through me for a moment; he does not blink as he looks at me. Then, he nods. "Oh, right," he says softly, "the Islamic terrorist group. Successful mission."

I believe Chuck about the Intersect, but it still feels strange, him knowing that. The mission had been clockwork, aimed at preventing a terrorist attack on US citizens in Paris. I identified the terrorist planners and the plan and stopped them before they were able really to put it into motion. No shots were fired. Cooperation with French Intelligence had been smooth, not always the case. The French were notoriously difficult.

"I had some time when the mission wrapped up. I bought the beret then. I had it when I rescued Molly."

Chuck's gaze deepens when I say that and I wonder if he can hear my biological clock ticking because suddenly I can again. My imagination responds to the tick, tick, tock by supplying an image of Chuck holding a baby, not Molly, his — and mine.

Ours.

I blush at the image, surprised by myself, and I feel the heat radiate off my face, but if Chuck notices, he does not show it. He takes my hand and we leave the Zeughauskeller.

I fight to rein myself in. My imagination's officially out of control, officially on holiday.

Larking.

And hopeful. I haven't hoped for anything since I was little, not for myself. Maybe the last time was coming down those stairs at Christmas.

But I'm hoping now.

I'm so far in front of myself that I can barely see myself as I pass out of sight.

It feels like a joke but I know it's not.

The universe is now larking too.

I'm surrounded by clocks of all sorts and sizes and shapes, all ticking, not quite in unison. A choir of out-of-time ticks and tocks.

Chuck has led me into a shop that specializes in time. Or, rather, in timepieces — clocks and watches. The owner, a tiny, elderly woman with thick, clumsy glasses but delicate, graceful hands is showing Chuck a woman's chronograph. "It's an IWC Schaffhausen. Bronze and textile. The navy chronograph dial compliments the bronze case, as does the navy textile strap." Her English is almost accentless, clipped and direct. "Arabic numerals and baton hour markers." She looks up at me, pushing her glasses up her nose, her rheumy eyes huge through the thick lenses. "The watch will match…the beautiful lady's lovely eyes." Her hesitation. She's not sure what I am to Chuck.

"My wife," Chuck says, so automatically and so convincingly that I believe it for a few ticks of the clocks, "a present for her."

The woman nods and smiles. The smile contradicts her quick speech. The smile's soft and slow. "An anniversary? Perhaps she is newly with child?"

I'd forgotten Swiss frankness, although I'd gotten a bit of it last night from Gertrude, even if Chuck missed it.

Chuck turns to me and his eyes catch mine before he focuses again on the watch in the woman's hands. "No, not yet, but we're trying."

I suppose he says it for the cover. Of course, he says it for the cover. But I'm in a credulous mood, ready to believe him, and my imagination has prepared the way for his remark. My heart flutters and then pounds in my chest and the image of Chuck with our baby comes back to me. He gestures for me to come to him and I do. He takes my hand and extends his hand to the woman. I take off my gloves. She gives him the watch and he buckles it on my wrist and examines it there.

I glance down. The watch is striking. And then I see the price. Over $8000 US dollars.

"Honey, it's too extravagant," I say, a protest that's not a protest. The watch is too extravagant but Chuck chose it and I guess it's part of the cover.

Chuck looks up from my wrist and into my eyes. "Nothing is too extravagant for you, Mrs. Black, nothing. You deserve every good thing. Nothing's too extravagant for the future mother of my children."

I manage to suppress my gasp, but I hear it inwardly. I want to drag him back to the Blue Lemon, back to that dressing room, and start trying right now. I close my eyes to hide the depth of my desire.

I knew it before, I suppose, but it comes home to me now, the full import of what I know. This is no fling for me. This is not whatever it was I had with Bryce — call that a prolonged fling.

No, this is new. Simple. Real. I want this. I want Chuck.

I've wanted him since I saw that picture and heard about him — but I felt too grave then to understand the spark of life he kindled in me. I don't know why. A picture is worth a thousand words, so who knows what else a picture might be worth? And in the flesh, the glorious flesh, I know he is the man for me. I'd give up anything to have him, to realize what I'm imagining. Hoping.

I open my eyes to find Chuck staring at me, not as he had before when he looked through me. Was that the Intersect? Now, he stares at me, his eyes full of desire and promise, real under the cover. Desire and promise for me. I pull him to me and I kiss him — extravagantly — and I forget the watching woman, the cacophony of ticking clocks, the unpaid-for watch on my wrist.

I try to tell him everything with that kiss: how much I've hated my life and the things I've done and the shame that haunts me and the guilt and all the wrong I feel I've done and all the wrong I feel I am — and how it's all righted in his arms and how I am presently facing the future and not the past. He's turned me around. I try to tell him I love him.

I shouldn't. I can't. I do.

When we part lips, I see a hint of the reluctance I saw in him before, that I saw last night. There's something he's not told me and that he's worried about telling me.

It's not a reluctance about me. It's mission-related; I can tell that now. Last night, I couldn't.

He kisses me quickly but softly then takes the watch off my wrist. "We'll take it. Say, my wife recently lost her wedding ring. Long story — but is there a jeweler nearby?"

"Yes, Tiffany's is just a few shops further along the street, but I may have something the lady would like. I don't keep rings on display but would you like to see what I have? The selection cannot rival Tiffany's but all my rings were made by Swiss craftsmen. Since you are buying the watch, and since I can see how much you two love each other, I'll be happy to discount the ring."

Chuck looks a question at me, at once about the ring and the woman's use of 'love', and I nod. He smiles brightly.

"Sure," he says to her but still facing me.

The woman walks to another counter and pulls open a drawer. She takes out a velvet box and opens it. Inside is a profusion of rings, yellow and white gold. Some are plain, varying only in width, but others are decorated with diamonds or other jewels.

I step closer and lean in. One of the rings catches my eye immediately: It's yellow gold, slightly wider than usual, with two interlocked knot shapes, one with inset rubies, the other with inset diamonds. I point to it and the knowing smile on the woman's face surprises me. "The craftsman who made that was my husband, Hans, may he rest in peace. I had a feeling you might be drawn to it."

I take it and put it on my ring finger. It slips on perfectly as if it were made for me. I hold my hand out, the back of my hand toward me, admiring the ring. It's large and vintage-looking and sentimental and not my normal style and —

"I want it, Chuck," I gush, telling myself as I do that I am saying it for the cover but despite my credulous mood I don't believe me. I want it.

The woman takes my hand and examines the ring's fit. "Exact. As if Hans had seen you coming. Will you take it too, sir?"

Chuck nods and puts down a credit card. I see the name on it. Charles Black. It's a black American Express card. He used francs at the restaurant and at Blue Lemon. It puzzles me that the Company would allow him to spend quite this freely. I look at the tiny tag on my ring. Over $2000. I guess being a secret secret agent has its perks, the way that being Graham's Enforcer had its perks for me until Budapest.

I take the ring off and the woman removes the tiny tag. "Would you like to wear it now, since it fits?" she asks me.

"Yes."

She comes around the counter and hands the ring to Chuck, not to me. "You should put it on her, now that it belongs to you."

Chuck takes it and takes my hand and he slides the ring slowly down my ring finger. It is the most romantic and the most sensual and the most hopeful act anyone has ever performed for me. I melt then evaporate in my own shoes, becoming more an atmosphere defused in the shop than a material being. I don't know what to say and I don't dare say 'I do'.

So I say "Thank you."

Chuck leans toward me and kisses me. "You're welcome."

I'm sure anyone watching would be buying all of this. I am, every last bit of it. This is a cover and this is real all at once.

The woman smiles again, her enlarged eyes damp. "Good. You've kissed your bride." She hands Chuck a bag and a receipt and I realize she took care of the purchase while we were…doing what we just did with the ring.

As he takes the bag, several of the grandfather clocks along the walls begin to strike the hour. Not quite in unison but close enough.

We leave the shop to the sound of bells.

Just a few steps beyond the shop, on the corner, is a man vending hot chocolate. Chuck stops and asks me if I want one and I say yes. He steps to the cart and orders while I admire my ring in the December sunlight. I'm carrying my gloves now; I couldn't bear to hide the ring.

It shines red and white and gold in the sunlight and my heart shines inside me in response.

Chuck turns to me with a cup of hot chocolate, a dollop of whipped cream on top. He has one too. He gives me mine and looks at my ring, on my hand as I take the cup. "It's beautiful, Sarah. It reminds me of my mom's wedding ring."

"I'll make sure you get the ring and watch back when we finish," I tell him, although the words almost choke me.

He looks at me. "We'll worry about all that later." He sips his chocolate and I do too and we are both silent but clearly both thinking about later.

He motions to a bench and we move to it. It's free of snow and in the sunlight, so we sit down to enjoy our hot chocolates. We sit together watching the tourists walk by. I bask in the sunlight and the decorations and my ring.

"I didn't show them to you yet, but I have weapons for you in the hotel room. I bought them after I arrived. I know your preferences, so I hope you'll be comfortable with them."

I'm sure I will be but the mention of weapons cools me, despite the warm cup in my hand. Mission details. I've been trying to forget or postpone them but the day is advancing, and tomorrow we do what we are here to do.

At one time, missions were, for all their danger, my safe haven. During them, I could forget everything else, forget myself, child and woman, and simply focus on the objectives, on the means to those ends. If I thought about the past at all, it was hypothetically and abstractly, treating it as nothing more than a repository of strategies and tactics, a resource of experience, but never as mine, as my life.

I have lived my life hypothetically and abstractly. Almost all of it.

How do I know? Because as I sit here on this sunlit bench with Chuck beside me, beringed, I am living my life categorically and concretely.

This is what life is. This, here, now.

This is as close to ordinary, to feeling ordinary, as I can remember being since I was a child. I sip my chocolate and reach for Chuck's hand and hold it.

Without facing him, taking advantage of what the woman had said to us, I ask: "Do you want kids, Chuck?"

He sips his chocolate slowly. Pensive. "I did before Bryce sent me the Intersect. I mean, I still do but I'm not sure that's going to work out. Most of what I hoped for hasn't worked out — but that was true before the Intersect, so I can't just blame it or Bryce. I deserve my share of the blame too."

I decide not to ask for details. I nod and say nothing. He looks at me. "What about you?"

I don't immediately respond so he goes on. "I'm guessing no since you took Molly to your mom?"

I've only ever talked about this once and I have spent the two years since trying not to think about it. But I answer Chuck. "I thought about keeping her. God, did I think about it! But all I've ever been is a spy and I couldn't keep her and keep this life. Mom tried to convince me to quit and keep her. She wanted to help me raise her, not to raise her herself. But I couldn't do it, quit. I had no clue how to be a woman, a mother."

"Had?"

I realize the tense I used. Do I mean I now had a clue? "Well," I pause, "I still don't have a clue, but I feel like maybe I'm on the trail of a clue."

I still don't face him. But I hear his quiet chuckle. "The hint of a scent of a trail of a clue?" he asks through the chuckle.

"Something like that."

We sip our chocolates a few more times and then he says lowly but with conviction: "You have being a woman figured out."

I recall that earlier in the day I was sure that I was not a monster. That I was a woman. And maybe I do have that sort of figured out. With Chuck, I have a clue.

More than a clue. This sunlit, chuckling Sarah was inside me all along as potential but it took Chuck to actualize it.

Her.

Me.

I face him finally. He's got a bit of a chocolate mustache and a white spot of whipped cream on the tip of his nose, like frost. I kiss him slowly, open my mouth and let my tongue sneak out, lean back slightly and run my tongue in a protracted caress along his upper lip, tasting sweet traces of his hot chocolate.

When the kiss ends, I put out a finger and wipe the whipped cream from his nose. He's adorable and he smiles that adorable smile.

Another moment I could never have shared with Bryce.

I don't care about the cover or the mission. We'll take care of later later. My weapons and Altherr Blinkensderfer and three-zero accounts and Credit Suisse — that's all later.

What happens after all that, what happens to us — that's later too.

I know what I want to happen, hope will happen. I want Chuck and I want a different life, one in which I can be a woman and a mother.

That's the life I've been dreaming of dreaming of — until yesterday; now, it's the life I am dreaming of.

I'm wearing Chuck's ring. Hope on my hand.

A promise.

"We need to buy you clothes for tomorrow. Then I want to go back to the room."

"You do?" I ask, lifting my eyebrows and smiling lasciviously.

He smiles back, giving one of his eyebrows a waggle. "I want to get to bed early."

"That sounds like a plan."

We stand and walk in the sunlight together.

A/N: More soon.