A/N: Thank you for the kind reviews of the first chapter, and rest assured that there is a direction to this whole story. :)
I can't remember if I put a disclaimer on the first chapter, so it's going here: I don't own "Chuck."
I felt every ounce of me screaming out,
But the sound was trapped deep in me.
"Shit!"
The curse is out of her mouth before she can stop it, and the blood's running down her hand and onto the bagel she's holding before she can do much more than register the pain.
Chuck looks up sharply at her sudden outburst, and his gag reflex kicks into full drive when he sees the red liquid covering her hand.
"Oh, geeze," he mutters, squirming. "Is that blood?"
Even through the pain, she manages to find his aversion to blood amusing, and she rolls her eyes. "Yes, it's blood. Turn around while I wash it off."
He complies readily, and, smiling despite the situation, she moves to the sink and washes her wound. Her hand is throbbing, the blood coursing swiftly through her veins, and she lets out a tiny gasp as the water rushes against the open gash.
Curious, he asks, "How'd you do that anyways?"
"I was trying to cut this damn bagel," she explains, her lips stretched thin, as she wraps a profuse amount of paper towels around her palm.
He snorts, and she's sure if she could see him he'd have a smirk on his face.
"Aren't spies supposed to be good with knives?" he teases.
Tossing the bagel into the garbage and wiping up the blood on the counter, she smiles slyly. "We're especially good when we have a specific target in mind."
Chuck gulps audibly and clears his throat. "Is there anything I can do?"
She pauses, surveying the damage. The counter's clean, but the blood's already beginning to soak through her impromptu bandage. Her hesitation is long enough to pique his interest.
"Is it safe to look now?" he asks, but turns around before she can answer.
Sarah looks up at him, taken aback by the concern in his eyes. She swallows, scared by the two options that appear in her mind. The first: she can allow Chuck to take care of her and drive her to the ER to get stitches. The second: she can sacrifice her hand to save her heart, drive herself to the hospital to keep herself as far away from Chuck as possible.
"Sarah?"
His voice pulls her out of her distraction.
Exhaling shakily, she tells him, "I'm fine. I just need to make a quick trip to the hospital, that's all."
"Are you kidding me?" he chuckles lightly. "You cannot drive yourself to the hospital. Not with that hand. Besides, do you want to get blood in your precious car?"
She turns her head, protesting weakly, "You have work."
He doesn't answer, and when she turns back to look at him, he has one of his I-know-you're-going-to-agree-with-me smiles on his face.
Biting back a smile, she huffs, "Fine."
They head into the living room, but he doubles back, saying, "Wait. Those paper towels are almost soaked through. Let me get you something heavier."
He disappears down the hall and returns with a terry-cloth towel to wrap around her palm, and when he confidently tells her to apply pressure, she can visualize him years down the road, kissing scraped knees and putting band-aids on invisible booboos.
They head out the door, Sarah's head filled with forbidden possibilities.
Chuck tries to go back into the ER with her, but he's stopped by an unreceptive nurse who thrusts a clipboard into his hands and points him back toward the waiting room.
His face falls at the prospect of filling out paperwork, and Sarah quirks a half-smile as she follows a doctor. Thank goodness he doesn't go into the exam room with her, because she's sure he won't be able to handle the needles and the blood and the . . . general hospital gore of it all.
But she's out soon enough, her palm stitched and bandaged up. Back in the waiting room, she looks around expectantly for Chuck.
"Sarah!"
She spins around to see Ellie, in her scrubs, walking toward her.
"Hey, how are you?"
"Great," Sarah replies, somewhat puzzled. "Where's Chuck?"
"Oh, he ran to grab some food, but he should be back in a couple of minutes. He called me when you got here, so I just popped down for a few minutes. How's your hand?"
She holds it up for the doctor to inspect it. "Yeah, it's fine. A lot better."
Ellie, eyes narrowed in scrutiny, nods her approval. Her expression brightens. "Good. But be more careful next time, okay? No more daydreaming while cutting bagels."
Sarah chuckles, her face reddening the slightest bit. Ellie's probably the one person in the world in whom she can confide, but before she gathers the courage to open her mouth, the moment passes.
"But hey!" Ellie exclaims. "There's Chuck."
Sarah turns, a smile spreading across her face as she sees him crossing the crowded waiting room.
"I have to get going," Ellie says, giving her a quick squeeze. "But I'll talk to you later tonight, all right?"
"Sure."
Ellie walks away, stopping to greet her brother, and Chuck steps up to her, a smile on his face and a shopping bag swinging from his hand.
"Hey," he says softly.
"Hey," she smiles.
"How's your hand?"
He's close to her now, their bodies almost pressing up against each other.
"Fine," she murmurs, holding up her palm for him to look at.
He takes her hand gently, fiddling with the bandages. "I'm sorry I wasn't there with you."
Smiling, she reaches a hand behind his neck to pull him closer. "I don't think you would have liked it anyways."
"No?"
"No," she replies, her voice low. She realizes that the tone of their voices and their proximity are leading them into dangerous territory, but there's something about his smell, about the way he inclines his head that makes her want to live for the moment. "Blood. Needles. Not really your thing."
He chuckles lightly. "I still should have been with you."
Touched, she can see the regret in his eyes, so she changes the subject, asking playfully, "Whatcha got there?"
An eyebrow shoots up. "Huh?"
"In the bag. Whatcha got?"
Grinning, he takes her good hand and leads her out of the hospital. "Just a few things I picked up at the gift store."
She tries to sneak a peak into the bag, but he's too quick for her, pulling it out of her grasp with a laugh.
"Well, I thought since we may not be doing mission things for a while –"
"Yeah, if you can keep that brain of yours from flashing on anything," she laughs.
He acts hurt, causing her to giggle, and responds, "Geeze, you try to do something nice for a girl and she wants the world!"
Sarah shoves him with her shoulder, but they're connected, her good hand still laced with his, and the momentum causes her to fall towards him just as he's recovering. They meet in the middle, their shoulders bumping together again. She stumbles, regaining her footing only when he holds out an arm to steady her.
Laughing, he says, "Fine. Fine." He grumbles under his breath as he pulls out a few magazines from the bag. "I picked you up some reading material in case you get bored. They didn't have a very good selection, though, so it occurs to me that you may want to borrow some of my books."
He looks at her expectantly, and she knows that if he pulls that puppy dog look, she's going to agree to read his top ten science fiction favorites. He's been asking for a while now, just hasn't brought out the look yet. He holds off now, too, and she's able to resist. Until his eyebrows creep upwards, and his lips push outwards, and his eyes widen.
No, no, no. She can resist this.
Then he frowns, his lips quivering, his brown eyes as large as saucers, and she's gone.
She rolls her eyes and turns her gaze back to the sidewalk. "Fine, but start me out with something easy. One that's really good, too."
He lets out a victory whoop as he drops the magazines back into the bag. "Yes! And what are you talking about? They're all amazing!"
"Clearly," she says dryly, unable to stop a smile from growing on her lips.
Chuck pulls out a box of Mike 'n' Ike and holds it in front of her.
Letting out a small shriek, she stops walking and turns to him. Of course he'd somehow know to get her favorite candy, and she hasn't had them in so long.
"How'd you know?"
He shrugs modestly. "You mentioned it before."
Yeah, she did mention it once – over three months ago during an in-depth conversation with him and Morgan about their favorite movie snacks.
Impulsively, she leans forward, her lips brushing over his.
What's only supposed to be a thank-you peck on the lips turns into much more, and she comes away from the encounter dizzy with emotion. If a simple three second, closed-mouth kiss can have that effect on her, she can only imagine what real, honest-to-goodness, I-want-you kind of kissing would feel like.
From the look in his eyes, she's caught him off guard. She caught herself off guard. They stand there, his arms around her back, her good hand on the side of his face, stunned.
"Thank you," she manages to say, though her voice is unsteady.
His hopeful gaze shoots up to meet hers.
"For . . . everything," she says in a weak attempt at clarification.
They make the rest of the walk to the car in silence. Chuck is tense behind the wheel, glancing over every once in a while at her hand.
She asks him to drive her home, even though her Porsche is at his place. Because, although she knows it will be awkward tomorrow morning when she goes to head to work and her car's not there, she can't spend one more minute in his company than she needs to. Not when there's a look in his eye that tells her exactly how happy he'd be to take care of her for the rest of their lives.
After a few minutes of not speaking, he clears his throat and asks, "Does it hurt?"
She lifts her hand, studying the bandages, and shrugs. "Eh, they gave me some pain medicine."
"But did it hurt?" he presses, his lips tightening.
Realizing what he's fishing for, she takes a deep breath. "I've had worse," she answers simply.
He nods, clearly unsatisfied.
Her heart racing, she stares out the window. The hum of the engine pounds in her ears, making the silence seem even louder. Without looking at him, she whispers, "It was my third assignment." She notices him tense up but acts like she hasn't. "In Spain. We were compromised, our covers blown. I was captured, but not before my partner could get away."
Chuck grimaces. "You were tortured?" he ventures warily.
She nods, memories of that day flooding her mind. He tenses up even more, and she knows he's fighting his instincts to reach out to her. She pushes past the helpless feeling and says, "It was seven weeks before I recovered, and another month before Graham would give me another assignment."
Chuck's grip on the steering wheel tightens. He bites his lips, looking as if he wants to say a thousand things to comfort her. But instead he asks, "And your partner?"
A dry chuckle escapes her lips. "He escaped with barley a scratch, at least physically." She glances down at her lap, adding in a barely audible voice, "We were split up."
When she realizes that he's not driving back to her hotel, she questions him.
His voice strained, Chuck says, "I don't think you should be by yourself."
"Because of my hand?" she asks a little too sharply. "I can take care of myself, you know." Her voice is snippy, and her temper's close to the breaking point.
"I know," he concedes, "But Ellie's expecting you in a few hours anyway. . . . And you shouldn't have to be alone."
She wants to break, to scream and rage. Don't you get it? she wants to shout at him. If I go home with you now, the next time I get hurt, I'll expect you to be right there waiting for me, ready to kiss my wounds and make everything better.
Or maybe she wants to just crumple up and cry. Either way, he makes her weak by cutting her off from the solitude, the secrecy she craves. She stares at him, her chest heaving, and attempts to calm her breathing. Because he deserves more than an angry backlash from an emotionally-stunted government agent.
Her anger dissipated, she's able to see the intentions behind his concern.
The fact that he cares so much makes her melt.
She rests her uninjured hand on his arm. In a soft, controlled voice, she tells him, "I'm sorry for snapping at you."
He relaxes a bit.
"You're always so good to me," she continues. She doesn't have the courage to add, I don't deserve it. I don't deserve you.
His gaze flickers over for a split second, and the beginnings of a smile form on his face. The rest of the ride is quiet, but a comfortable kind of quiet. They reach his apartment soon enough, and they have a night full of Ellie's good cooking, and Devon's good company, and even Morgan's good humor to look forward to. As he walks swiftly across the courtyard, she hangs back a bit, torn between two lives.
Noticing that she's not by his side, he swivels around and holds out a hand, a disarming grin on his face. She walks toward him, smiling as their hands connect, and they walk inside together.
Chuck had accused her of wanting the world, but that's not quite right.
The truth is she just wants him.