A/N First of all I have to humbly thank everyone that took the time to read my story. I was thrilled with the response. To those that reviewed, favorited. or alerted this story I can't tell you how much that meant to me. It really is a great incentive to continue and get better. What really blew my mind were those that favorited me as an author. That was real shock especially when I see the others on their lists who are so much better at this than I ever will be. So again thank you all very much for the pm's, reviews and comments. They were great.
On to this chapter. I want to thank Esardi for looking this over and pointing some things out to me. I know he made it better.
I don't own Chuck because if I did Fedak would have known that adults who care about each other actually talk to one another about life changing decisions before they run off to another contrived love interest. All mistakes are mine and not a single thing is being made here except friendships!
Chapter 2
The Talk
"Sarah, I'm so sorry. I know it's late and I shouldn't be here but this can't wait till morning. I've going nuts here."
"Its ok Chuck I couldn't sleep either. I've been staring at these walls with so many questions and the more I think about it the less I know for sure except this. Chuck we have to run and we have to run now!"
"What?"
"Chuck we have to run it's the only way I can keep you safe"
"Sarah please, please just stop for a second. I really need to talk to you first and then if you decide that is the only way then like I have since that first morning on the beach, I'll trust you, I always have."
"But first I need some answers, Sarah"
Chuck looked into those amazing blue eyes, eyes he got lost in every time he looked at them. But he saw a desperation and confusion there he had never seen before even when they went on the run less than a week ago. Something was different now and he thought he knew why. He had downloaded the Intersect 2.0 earlier that evening and it had changed everything. He knew it would for him when he did it but now he saw how much of a change it was for Sarah as well.
Chuck reached out his hands and Sarah's bolted into them. Just like they had done at the helipad while waiting for Longshore to take him to the bunker he would spend the rest of his life in, alone.
"Please Sarah give me 15 minutes and then we will decide what comes next. You know I would never do anything to hurt or betray you, and I need to explain what happened but first I need to ask you a few questions. Incredibly important questions and I need you to be completely honest with me. I, we, are at a major fork in our paths and I just can't make the right decision if I don't know the answers. Please Sarah I have never really asked much of you but I need to know the truth now."
"Ok Chuck lets sit down and I'll try to answer as best I can. You deserve at least that from me after all you have been through. I…"
"Sarah, NO!" Chuck interrupted with a fire Sarah had never seen from him towards her. "I don't want 'the best you can" I need the truth! Can't you please give me that just this once?" His hands were noticeably shaking.
Sarah ran her hand through her blond hair and let out a sigh of understanding and acceptance. She led him to her bed and sat down facing him with his hands back intertwined with hers. She made small circles with her thumbs on the back of his palms that seemed to calm him just a bit.
"Fine Chuck, you're right. You don't deserve my best answer. You deserve the truth."
"Thank you"
Chuck looked over to the night table and picked up 'their picture'. "I've always loved this picture of us. We look like the happiest couple in the world."
We were. Sarah thought to herself.
He placed it back on the night table then took a deep cleansing breath, looked back down at their re-intertwined hands for a second as he calmed himself a bit more before he could begin.
"Sarah, why did you tell me you were leaving at the wedding?"
"Chuck ..I.." Sarah stammered. 'Boy he went right for the big one didn't he' Sarah thought to herself.
"What changed? Before the rehearsal dinner you said 'It is real'. And I know it was. After Barstow, after everything we have been through it was just you and me, Sarah and Chuck, not Agent Walker and her asset. It was two people, real people who finally had made it to where they belonged. I know you felt it. It was so powerful how could you not? I have never been absolutely certain of how you felt about me though I thought you felt something, but at that moment I knew you felt exactly the same as I did. But the very next day you tell me you are leaving and not just that you were leaving but you were leaving with Bryce!"
Chuck continued with a force in his voice that was both inspired and a bit scary. "Bryce freaking Larkin, your ex, my supposed best friend that destroyed my life in college, stole my girlfriend, and then each time he came back into our lives he tried to take you, the woman I love, away from me or he tried to get me to push you away so he could have you. How could you do that to me after Barstow?"
"Chuck.. wait …wh .what…?" Sarah shook her head for a second and then sat stunned looking into those deep brown oceans.
"You love me?" She asked completely forgetting about everything else Chuck had said but focused on the words a growing part of her had longed to hear for 2 years now.
"Yes of course I love you. From the moment you walked into the BuyMore I've loved you"
"Sarah I told my dad tonight right after you left to go help Bryce and it was the most natural thing I have ever said. It's like breathing to me, it's so natural. I'm just sorry that I said it to him and not to you first."
Chuck put his curled index finger under Sarah's chin and gently lifted her head so that he could once again look deeply into those amazing blue eyes.
"I love you Sarah Walker, I always have."
"Chuck ,…. I…" Sarah closed her eyes tightly trying to hold back the tears that were welling up from deep inside her.
"Sarah please its ok. You don't have to say anything about that. But I need you to answer my question."
"Just before Bryce died he said you weren't going with him. Then he was about to say something else but never got the chance. Sarah, were you leaving with Bryce or not and if you weren't then why did you hurt me by saying you were at the church?"
"Chuck, I….. I am so sorry I hurt you like that" Sarah spoke with a softness full of deep regret.
"I..I was scared. Everything was moving so fast. I had never felt anything like what I felt ever since we took off from the BuyMore to find your dad."
"That morning in Barstow meant everything to me. My God Chuck that was the most amazing intimate moment of my life and you never even got to second base!"
Chuck smiled ever so slightly trying to hide a chuckle.
"When we were going over to the rehearsal dinner and I said 'It is real', I meant it. Every word of it. My feelings for you were real, they always had been even though I tried and tried to make myself deny them. WE were real. But in the bar after the dinner when Devon said what he said, I panicked. Chuck, I'm a spy. I have been my whole adult life and now someone was saying I, we, might be next to get married. I had no idea how to process that. I was terrified. How could I possibly give you the life and future you deserved? I have no clue how to do that. You will never know how grateful I was that you calmed things down by suggesting we go home separately even though I wanted so badly to pick up where we left off that morning before. You have always known exactly what I needed you to say and you did it once again. Thank you for that."
Sarah paused and her voice softened even more. "But I didn't know how to handle it all. That next morning you had turned down Beckman's job offer and when she told me about my new assignment my head was spinning, Agent Walker took over and I reacted like I always had, I followed my orders."
"Chuck, I didn't think I was capable of giving you what you gave me at that moment and one day you would see how stunted I am emotionally and would move on to someone who would give you what you deserve."
"Sarah I would ne.."
"Chuck please you said you wanted the truth and that's what I'm trying to give you so please let me finish"
"Ok, I know how hard this for you, I'm sorry"
Sarah's head turned away as she couldn't bear to look at him knowing what she was about to say. "So I accepted my orders. But when I saw how deeply I hurt you when I told you I was leaving and realized that I was going to be a partner to Bryce Larkin's hurting his best friend once again, I felt horrible. I had become no better than Jill in a way. I was crushing the hopes of the most amazing man I had ever known all because I couldn't take a leap of faith that a huge part of me desperately wanted to take. You weren't pressuring me into marrying you. All you wanted to do was simply take me on a vacation. But I couldn't find the strength to say yes." She let out a huff as if disgusted with herself.
Sarah's eyes looked back up and she focused on those of the man before her. "Chuck, you once told me I was everything you ever wanted and more but the truth is YOU, Chuck Bartowski are everything I never thought I could ever want or deserve and so very, very, very, much more."
"When I saw once again what an amazing man you were in how you gave up everything the Government had finally given you for your service to our country just to make sure your sister had the wedding she deserved I knew I had made a horrible mistake. Even though I had hurt you so deeply you put that pain aside and could think only of one thing, helping your sister and your family. I knew then what I wanted in life. I just hoped you still wanted it too."
"So when we were at the ceremony on the beach I told Bryce I wasn't leaving. I think he already knew as he never really asked it as a question. He had finally accepted how I felt about you. I was going to tell you at the reception but then your father came in and I had to go help Bryce and keep Fulcrum from getting the Intersect."
"That was my next question. What were you going to say when we were on the dance floor?"
"I was going to say that I didn't want to save the world, I wanted a life, a real life… with you"
Sarah's face suddenly saddened and Chuck saw the loss in her eyes once more. She spoke once again with a resignation in her voice. "But then you had to run off and be the damn hero again and download the freaking Intersect and end any chance for that life."
Sarah asked with more hurt now than anything else. "Chuck after seeing what they did to Bryce, how could you do that to yourself? How could you put yourself in such danger? Chuck they had just killed your former best friend and roommate."
Now with tears pooling in her eyes. "Chuck how could you do it?"
"Sarah, I'm so sorry about Bryce. I know you lost someone important to you not once but now twice. I'm so sorry I couldn't save him. I just got there too late."
"Chuck, thank you for saying that and it does hurt but I've known for a long time that I was never in love with Bryce. He was my partner and I guess a convenience. I know this even more now because the loss I feel at this moment is not because I lost Bryce but because I've lost that real life I almost had….. with you. Because I was too afraid to grab hold of it till it was too late."
"What do you mean, Sarah?" Chuck sat up straight and looked at her now with mostly confusion on his face.
"Chuck, you downloaded the 2.0 we can never have that real life now. The Government won't let us. They will want to train you into the machine that they have always envisioned the Intersect to be. They will never let you go. They will use you, bunker you or kill you. That's why we have to run. We need to get as far away as possible as quickly as possible. It's the only way I can keep you safe".
"Sarah, before I respond to that I need to ask you one more question and it's the most important one I have ever asked ok?"
"Chuck we have to go now!"
"Sarah please, just one more minute ok?"
"Ok, one minute"
Both of them flashed back to a similar moment when they heard that phrase before and had a faint feeling of déjà vu.
"Sarah," Chuck swallowed hoping to dampen his suddenly parched throat. "Sarah, do you love me?"
"What does that matter now?" Sarah replied with a stunned look on her face.
"Sarah, it's the only thing that really matters! Please just answer me!" Chuck looked at her with a pleading in his eyes she had never seen before.
She caught her breath for a second and flicked her hair out of her eyes while Chuck's hands began to shake ever so slightly again. After a tortuously long few seconds she simply said…
"Chuck, I can't fight this any longer. I don't want to fight this any longer…..Yes."
"What.. ah what?"
"Yes." She paused once again but then leaned in and cupped her hands on either side of Chuck's face. After a moment she finally got the courage to actually say it though just above a whisper.
"I love you Chuck"
Chuck's face glowed with that special smile of his. The one that made her heart leap from her chest whenever she saw it.
Gently he leaned in the remaining few inches and their lips touched with a tenderness that only people truly and completely in love can feel. It wasn't the desperation of the dock kiss before she thought they were going to die or the heat of the kiss in front of Roan or the desire in Barstow. But a kiss that meant so much more than any of those amazing kisses. Chuck Bartowski and Sarah Walker had just told each other "I love you" for the first time and it was a moment like no other in each of their lives.
As they slowly broke their first "I love you" kiss, Chuck again smiled at her and softly said "I love you too Sarah and its all going to be ok now. I just know it"
"Chuck how can you say that? You have the 2.0 and things will never be the same."
"You're right, they never will be the same but it's not because of the 2.0. It's because we love each other and because of that we can deal with whatever life, the Government, Fulcrum, The Ring, Chaos, Spectre or whatever silly named organization comes at us. You and me, Chuck and Sarah we can do anything. We have both told each other that as individuals before and now we are even stronger because of the love we share."
Chaos, Spectre? She'd ask him about those later.
"Chuck, my turn for the truth now."
"Ok"
"Why did you do it? I thought all you ever wanted to do was get the Intersect out of your brain so you could live the life that you want with the girl that you love."
"I know that I said that"
"Chuck, I so wanted to believe you because a big part of me hoped that girl you were talking about was me."
"It WAS you. It was always you"
"Then why when it was in your grasp did you put the damn thing back in?"
"Sarah, it all happened so fast for me too. Bryce was dead. You were leaving, or I thought you were."
"I'm so sorry about that" Sarah's eyes started to water again as she looked down at her hands clutching his tightly almost hurting him.
"You had always told me I was that guy and in that moment I finally knew you were right. I had to do it. Other people in my life have made every choice for me about the direction I was going in. My parents had left me. Bryce even if he was trying to protect me had made that decision about my future for me at Stanford. He had no right to take away my choices and destroy my life by doing what HE thought was best for me. Just as he had no right to threaten it all over again when he sent me The Intersect. Sarah, though I will forever be grateful to him for sending you to me by doing it, sending me the Intersect put me and everyone I love and care about it constant danger. Ellie, Devon, Morgan all of them have been threatened by my having the Intersect and I don't think Bryce ever thought of the consequences of his actions. It was always mission first for him no matter who it hurt and you know that better than anyone."
Sarah nodded slightly because she painfully knew how true those words were.
"Whatever his reasons were he had no right to do what he did to me but the saddest part of all of that was I let it destroy me after Stanford. I got lost in a funk of my own doing. Bryce Larkin betrayed his best friend but I betrayed myself, my sister and my friends by letting it affect me the way I did. I never knew how badly I had until you walked into the BuyMore."
"But at that moment in the Intersect room for the first time in my life the choice was finally mine and mine alone. I couldn't let Fulcrum win and even though a part of me hated Bryce, I still cared about him. I couldn't let his death be in vain. Watching him die really affected me. I couldn't let them gain the Intersect and I couldn't just destroy it as Bryce wanted me to do. That choice was no longer his and I wasn't going to let him make it for me."
"I stood at that moment in my life and for the first time I picked the direction to walk in."
Chuck looked down at the intertwined hands and took a breath as if he was dealing with the enormity of that decision all over again.
"So you chose to download the 2.0 knowing full well what it meant and how your life would never be the same" Sarah said with an awe in her voice that here he was again sacrificing himself for others. Even those who hurt him deeply. 'Typical Chuck'
"Yes, I downloaded it for my friends, my family and you."
"For me?" Sarah's eyebrows lifted up in confusion.
"Yes, a part of me hoped that if I downloaded it we could go back to the way we were because even being your asset meant you would at least be in my life again and that was infinitely better than losing you."
"But I also did it for me. I realized in that moment I, Chuck Bartowski, BuyMore Nerd Herder could actually make a difference in this crazy world. Sarah you yourself once said it was the job I was meant to have and in that moment I knew you were right."
"But you do know that things can't ever be the same. They won't let you be just an asset. They will want what they paid for, a fully functioning super agent, an emotionless killing machine."
"Killing machine?" Chuck began to slightly tremble again.
"Yes Chuck. The 2.0 has all kinds of special features that enhance an agent's abilities in many many ways. One of them being as the most effective tool for "Covert operations and assassinations" ever known."
"I can't do that Sarah."
"I know and that's what I'm afraid they will try to change you into. I can't see you become Casey or even me before I met you."
"I don't want you to become Beckman's 'Wild Card Enforcer', Chuck. I've been there and it is not a Chuck I ever want to see."
"Ok so what do we do now?"
Sarah glanced over to her "run" bag lying on the love seat. "We run. I have enough money to get us through a number of weeks saved up. Passports, drivers licenses. We will have to get new ones later on but we have to go now. They want you in Castle at 9 am to meet your new protection detail before I expect they will transport you to the Farm or more likely a training facility probably in Eastern Europe or Australia. Somewhere far from here where you won't stick out if you are seen in public."
"Sarah what about you? If we run you will be committing treason. They will probably just grab and bunker me but they will "dispose" of you. I can't let that happen, I won't. I'd rather go into a bunker than risk having anything happen to you."
"Chuck I'll be fine because I'll be with you, the man I love."
"Sarah, you said you wanted a real life. What kind of a real life would that be? Constantly looking over your shoulder for who was gunning for us. Never staying in one place for long, never putting down roots, never feeling the safety of a real home."
"A life of constant worry and threats is not the real life I want for us. Never being able to show my friends how incredibly lucky I am to have you. Never being able to show you what simply sitting on the couch watching TV in silence with the one you love can feel like."
"Sarah, besides I can't ask you to give up the only life you have ever known for me. It means everything to you. You are incredible at it, the best we have and I can't run the risk of ever seeing doubt or disappointment in those beautiful eyes of yours. I can't have even the tiniest possibility of you blaming me for taking you away from that life. I won't allow that to happen"
"Chuck it won't. I promise you. I know the job was the most important thing in the world to me but that's all changed now. It's changed because I met you, a nerdy, adorable genius with a heart as warm and open as the Sahara. Believe me I've been there. You are the most important thing to me now, not the job and I need to protect you because if I lost you or I saw you change into someone I can't bear to imagine, a change that I was responsible for pushing you towards, it would end me. The world needs Chuck Bartowski, nerd extraordinaire far more than Charles Carmichael, super spy. "
Chuck reached out and pulled Sarah in for another more passionate kiss. He pulled back and looked into his eyes with a smile of both love and surprisingly, confidence.
"Then let's not let that happen"
"What?"
"Sarah I can't run and leave my family, my friends and everything I've ever known. I can't be my father and abandon my family. I will not do that. So Sarah, please help me."
"Chuck?" Sarah said with a very surprised look on her face." Help you how?"
"Help me not become that man you could never love. Help me become a different kind of Agent. Sarah if I can pass this training I can become an agent and we can finally be together for real, out in the open. We can have a shot at having it all, of truly making a difference." Chuck was now grinning in that special Bartowski way.
Chuck stood up, pulled her up and placed his arms around her waist "Sarah, how about we show up at Castle and tell Beckman that I'll go to her training but I insist that when I return our team stays together. That the single new Intersect is now too valuable to have me work solo and that I need to work with people I can trust completely. The only people I trust completely are you and Casey. Do you think she would go along with that?"
"Possibly, she's only concerned about results and if us still being a team brings those results that's all that should matter to her. But Chuck she isn't going to let me speak with you when you are in training. All contact with the outside world is forbidden and how can I help you keep from changing the way they want you to? They are very good at manipulating trainees especially when they are isolated from the outside world".
"Hello? Intersect boy, Orion's son" Chuck reached up and tapped his temple.
"I'll find a way to communicate, I promise. Besides it will be incentive to get back here to you."
"Chuck, one more thing. We are going to have to keep our feelings a secret and we can't be openly together until you become an agent. I don't want to be reassigned while you are gone. They won't be as open with a 49B this time."
"Yea, I kind of figured that. That's why I think we need to cool things down just a little bit between us as well. I don't want to be lying in bed wherever they send me missing your kisses and the feel of my arms around you. I mean I still will miss you desperately but maybe it's better if I don't think about what it was like making love with you all the time. I don't want to have that classic movie story of a soldier going away to war with one last night where he finally makes love to his girlfriend and something happens to him because all he can think about was that one night of passion. It's just too cliché."
"Well it's not like we're not experienced in keeping our true feelings a secret. We are freaking experts at that." Sarah added with a warm smile and a chuckle.
"But this time it will just be the opposite people we will be lying to and finally telling the truth to Ellie."
"Sarah, what really matters to me is that I know that your feelings for me are real, that you care about me just as much as I care about you. That's all I ever wanted. I know we have a lot to go through and a lot of rough times are probably ahead for us but I love you and you love me. That's all that matters. Everything else is just part of our journey."
"Chuck, ok I trust you that we can make this work and I know that running was simply the only way I knew how to protect you. It's what I've done since I was a little girl with my dad. When faced with an emotional choice it's always been flight for me but this time I'm going to choose to fight. Together we can find a way somehow to fulfill this mission. But I have to warn you this will be a mission to me and you know how dedicated I am to accomplishing my mission. I expect nothing less from you as well. If I push you away in public there is a reason for it and its not that I don't care or not love you. It's what I feel needs to be done to accomplish this mission."
Chuck reached over and took her hand once again and said "Remember, you always said we were better as a team and you were right."
Chuck kissed her tenderly once again and then held his love in his arms as if the most important piece of the puzzle of his life fell into place finally.
"We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow and I think we should get some rest. Once we meet with the protection team at Castle at 9 we have a conference scheduled with Beckman for 11. We should try and talk a little before the conference about how we are going to handle it."
Chuck furrowed his brow a bit and asked, "Do you think we should talk to Casey? See if he wants to keep the team together?"
"Hmmm, probably but absolutely nothing about us, you got me?"
"Perfectly!"
Sarah leaned in and gave Chuck a tender kiss on the lips. It wasn't as passionate as before but it had a confidence to it she hadn't felt since before the rehearsal dinner. She could do this. Chuck could do this. They could do this.
With that they lay down on the bed and Chuck pulled Sarah into a loving embrace and just before they drifted off to sleep he whispered, "I love you Sarah."
"I love you too Chuck."
A/N 2 I've got about 3000 words written for chapter 3 so I wanted to get this posted. I can't promise it will be less than a week for that one but its well on its way.
