A/N: Disclaimer-this chapter veers away from the action for a bit to get into the thoughts Chuck and Sarah are going through. It is also on the short side. Not to worry, the next chapter jumps into the action with both feet. Literally. Also, thanks to everyone for reading and more thanks to those who have posted reviews. In addition to getting some amazing encouragement, a couple of the reviews made me add to what I had in the future chapters, making the story much stronger. With that said, the story was mostly written by the time I posted the first chapter, with plans to tinker with the story. With the upcoming additions, there have been more drastic rearrangements than just tinkering. I should still be posting every 5-7 days, depending on how many changes get put in and how much real life interferes with writing. I just want to make sure the changes don't interfere with the timeline-like a secondary character being seen to be killed two chapters before it happened.
Chapter 7: Chuck versus the Insecurities
Sarah let out a breath she barely realized she had been holding. It was moments such as this that she always feared. Moments when her true nature revealed itself to Chuck. She dreaded those moments when Chuck saw the Enforcer take over. She lived in a constant state of fear that something she would do, say or even wear would cause Chuck to flash on some of her past missions. Fear over his learning what she had done that had earned her the nickname "Graham's Wildcard Enforcer." Fear over how he would look at her, how he would be able to care for her, once he knew the gritty details of the things she had done in the past.
Sarah knew that on those missions it had either been kill or be killed. She also knew that she was a different agent, a different person, from the woman who had first walked into the Burbank BuyMore. She was aware that the men and women she had killed were so vile that they only qualified as human beings on the DNA level. But she hadn't merely killed, she excelled at it. She went into situations against impossible odds, and came out unscathed although often covered in the blood of her targets.
Despite the words, actions and looks from Chuck that proved how deeply he cared for her, Sarah could not understand how someone so inherently good could care for someone with so much blood on her hands. She saw the proof of his feelings on a daily basis, and knew without a doubt that Chuck would be empathetic to what she had done in order to survive those missions. Even now, his eyes shone with admiration for her skill at shutting down the blowhard O'Neil.
Those fears were also wrapped around Chuck's insecurities regarding Bryce Larkin. The haunted look in his eyes when he compared himself to Bryce, or the self-deprecating comments that proved that Chuck truly believed that he could never compete with the "superspy". But what Chuck couldn't, or wouldn't, see was that it was Bryce who did not match up to Chuck. No one she knew or even heard of could compete with his goodness, his intelligence, his care and compassion, and his boundless empathy for others, even when those others were his enemy.
Bryce had made many sacrifices along his path to becoming a spy. He was smart (a pre-requisite for attending Stanford), handsome, athletically gifted (a member of both Stanford's track and gymnastics teams), and popular on campus, yet Bryce had openly acknowledged that he had only one true friend (which spoke volumes to his relationship with Sarah when they were partners). Bryce had also willingly ended that friendship in order to try to keep Chuck out of the CIA's clutches.
Bryce still had to answer for that decision to sacrifice his one true friendship without giving his friend the right to decide his own future for himself. And it still didn't make sense. How Bryce could deprive the CIA of the best potential candidate for the Omaha project, yet refuse to disclose his involvement in the CIA to Chuck?
The thought of Bryce's comment that he had only one true friend in life brought back memories of his betrayal of their partnership when he stole the Intersect and sent it to Chuck. Why hadn't he trusted her with the Sandwall mission? Why didn't he get her help to steal the Intersect? Why hadn't he trusted her with protecting Chuck? While that betrayal still stung, muted by the reason why he kept her out and away from Fulcrum, Sarah was forever indebted to Bryce as it was his act of sending the Intersect to Chuck that caused her to meet the one man who loved her for who she was, rather than how she looked. The one man who filtered all of her actions so as to only see the positive.
When she and Bryce had been partners, Bryce had been willing to blur the lines between their professional lives and a personal relationship. He had been willing to put his life in her hands on mission after mission as the Andersons. He had expected her to put her life in his hands as well. Despite all of that, he wasn't willing to confide in her, to trust her with the information on Fulcrum and his gambit to steal the Intersect.
But, back when Bryce was her partner and lover (damn Carina for letting that particular cat out of the bag), her time with him had been superficial. They ghosted from mission to mission, country to country, creating classified memories but no roots. They had both bought into the line that spies don't fall in love. Sarah had never questioned that unwritten rule…until Burbank. Recently, she started to question it. A lot.
Although Bryce had made countless sacrifices during his career as a spy (and even as a student at Stanford), Chuck was the master of self-sacrifice. He absolutely loathed lying to his family and friends, not because it meant that he wasn't able to boast about how he had saved the day (again and again and again on a pretty much weekly basis), but because he believed wholeheartedly that it was wrong to lie.
Sarah clearly recalled when Chuck had effortlessly lied to Ellie and Devon, and the haunted look in his eyes when Casey had complimented him on being a "real spy" for lying so well. Chuck hated lying, because good guys are supposed to tell the truth-and no one was as good as Chuck. Without anything else, the self-loathing over lying was proof to Sarah of just how special Chuck Bartowski was.
But Chuck's self-sacrifice wasn't limited to betraying his personal code of conduct by lying. Chuck routinely sacrificed his time, energy and even dignity at his meaningless job at the BuyMore. He never thought twice about making those sacrifices for co-workers who frequently didn't acknowledge, usually didn't notice, and most assuredly didn't deserve his good deeds on their behalf.
Then there were his actions that he blindly failed to recognize as being heroic: saving a hotel full of innocents from a Serbian bomb; saving his best friend (as well as the Chinese ambassador) from a Triad bomb; saving his sister with a poison antidote while being poisoned himself; running into a contaminated conference room to save Casey from a deadly toxin; stealing back crucial technology from a gang of heavily armed mercenaries while armed only with his considerable wits (not to mention saving her and Casey in the process). Even his actions at their first meeting, walking away from a beautiful woman who was flirting with him in order to save the day of a young ballerina.
Chuck had also saved Sarah by offering to share his roots in LA with her, welcoming her into his family, making his roots her roots. With Chuck there came the opportunity to be part of something both normal and extraordinary. A member not just of a family, but the Bartowski family. The best part of that was to Chuck, Ellie and even Devon, it wasn't unusual, it was just the way they treated family. But to anyone else, particularly Sarah with her roughshod upbringing, it was heartwarmingly special.
Devon was thrilled to have someone eager for the extreme sports that he enjoyed, and more thrilled by the way Sarah brought Chuck out of his shell and had him finally living up to the potential that had always lurked behind the Nerd Herd uniform. Ellie accepted Sarah as the most important person in Chuck's life, ceding the title without any acrimony. But Ellie had also embraced Sarah as a friend in her own right. A smart, beautiful, truly incredible woman who accepted Sarah as her equal, without any clue as to Sarah's real occupation.
Sarah's time with Bryce had been fast-paced, exciting, dangerous, sometimes glamorous, and sometimes in exotic locales. Other times that life had been experienced in run down bodegas, hearts of jungles where humidity seemed to exceed 120% and mosquitoes were nearly as big as the elephants, where snakes would assume that a sleeping bag was a new home intended for them rather than the CIA agent. For her part, Sarah had never been willing to find out whether or not those snakes were poisonous. She erred on the side of poisonous and got as far away as possible, as quickly as possible, without spoiling the mission.
With Bryce there had been plenty of adrenaline, a fair share of passion, but no care, no compassion, no real comfort. If Sarah wasn't able to keep up, she knew that she would be left behind on the mission, and the same held true for Bryce. Sarah never doubted that Chuck would leave her behind, even when she would want or tell him to-his actions against Dr. Zarnow established that fact early in their relationship…partnership, early in their partnership.
She had been somewhat distracted in thinking about Chuck and Bryce, but she was distinctly aware that she was being closely watched. She strapped on some body armor, being sure to run her hands over her body as though checking to make sure it was secure. In reality, she was checking to make sure of her effect in distracting her observer. It took a lot of discipline to keep from laughing at the way Chuck's mouth dropped open at her blatant display.
Chuck had been enjoying discretely watching Sarah as she geared up for their mission to save Casey. It was always a rare event when he was able to watch her without her knowing, to see her without the various mental shields that she used to convey whatever image she chose to her audience. As he watched her sensuously strap on her kevlar vest, a part of his mind realized that she must have spotted him observing her, but his higher brain function started malfunctioning, before seizing completely.
As always, he felt a sense of awe over the woman who was Sarah Walker. He knew that she had gone by hundreds of names in her career with the CIA, and in her cons with her father before that. He was aware that she had been called upon to perform some horrible things in order to keep the world a safer place. He also knew that the person that existed behind the Sarah Walker persona was a special person, an incredible, unique and intelligent human being. She was fiercely loyal, not only to Chuck, but also Casey, Ellie and Devon.
Ellie had picked up on how special Sarah truly was, without even knowing about her hidden life and the things Sarah had done for the country and for Chuck. Ellie had noticed Sarah's tendencies to do small, kind gestures when no one (except for the eagle eyed Ellie Bartowski) was looking. Not trying to get accolades or thanks, nor draw attention to herself had endeared her to Ellie early on.
After one of their couples dinner parties at Casa Bartowski, Ellie had let Chuck in on some of these secret gestures. Sarah had noticed that Chuck's wine glass had gotten perilously close to the edge of the table. When Chuck had reached down the table for the tray of green bean casserole, Sarah had casually slid both elbows onto the table, pushing the wine glass forward several inches in the process with her left elbow. There had been the time when Devon had jumped to his feet to cheer on a UCLA play in a football game on the tv, and Sarah cleared away his dirty dishes in the blink of an eye, so that Awesome could focus on his team.
Turning away as Sarah finished gearing up before the flight, Chuck marveled once again at the fact that such an amazing woman found him to be worthy of her. As Sarah checked the clip on her Smith & Wesson before placing it into her tactical thigh holster, Chuck realized that it was time for him to focus all of his energy on the mission ahead. Casey needed them. Time to go to work.