Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Okay, I am astounded at the positive feedback the first chapter garnered, and I thank all who reviewed. This chapter, as I stated, is sound, and I must admit it was probably the most difficult to write, aside from the next chapter which is smell. This chapter is a bit more subtle than the last, and you have to really pick out where the sense of hearing comes into play because it's a bit hidden beneath everything else. Anyway, here you go, and enjoy!

Chapter 2

Sound

Truths and Declarations

Looking back on the events that transpired after the infamous Intersect, Chuck recalls only one time when he seriously found himself dissuaded from the prospect of something more with Sarah. Ironically, he hears the person before he sees her. She's a whirlwind of licorice hair and a pert, small stature, the sharp cacophony of the service bell preceding her voice as both drift to his sense of hearing in the form of a high-pitched, frantic appeal evidencing her panic. He reaches for the slim Blackberry, only to have her yank it back with a rambled admonition warning him how her life was on that phone. Subsequently, if he can't fix said device, she is going to suffer an existential meltdown of epic proportions. Her mini paroxysm is cute, and Chuck can't really deny the fact that so is she. Through a short conversation, most of which consists of her spastic freak out and his attempts to calm her, he feels a connection with this girl – Lou, she said her name was. Oddly fitting. Quirky name, quirky girl – and this inexplicable pull she exhibits on him is difficult to ignore as she returns to collect her phone the next day. That day, Sarah pops in, seemingly out of nowhere, to provide the nagging voice that enunciates the exact reason he should be ignoring said pull. Accordingly, Chuck curses that dumb intonation echoing in his sense of hearing. Yes, he's kinda, sorta – not really, though most people aren't privy to that factoid – in a (complicated) relationship. But that pull festers, teasing him with snippets of her sprightly voice that ring in his ears. Dammit.

It was supposed to be simple. Forgo possibility for reality, but as Chuck has come to learn from his rudimentary study of physics, for every reaction, there is an equal but opposite reaction, and that reaction comes in the sound of Sarah telling him that it's time for them to make love…for the cover, of course. Immediately, his mind flashes to lazy mornings proceeding long nights of tangled limbs and a certain CIA agent posing as his girlfriend wearing nothing but his bed sheets. He would be a dirty, rotten liar if he denied that image wasn't arousing, but that vision is fake. This pull is real, and that fact stays with him as Chuck and Sarah lie together on opposite sides of a bed, pretending to make love for the benefit of Ellie and Awesome.

And as the pull piques with time and mounting frustration, he finds himself unconsciously comparing Lou and Sarah, much as he has done time after time with Sarah and Jill. To the naked eye, Lou and Sarah are polar opposites, complete contradictions of one another. Sarah stands taller than the average woman, even more than most men. She's slender but in those lean limbs are bunches of corded muscle meticulously managed as evidenced by her enticing Princess Leia costume. Her lustrous, sinuous hair streams down to the middle of her back in straight strands the color of the golden sunrise, and her eyes are the boldest of blue, sharply focused and intense, clouding true emotions behind a guarded mask. By total contrast, Lou's petite, dwarfing him by a clear foot-plus, and her slim physique is nothing but natural genetics. Her brown hair is wavy, just brushing the tops of her shoulders, and her dark eyes shine with a peppy, perky sheen he's not quite used to. It's unguarded, open, and most of all, honest. There is no wall he must bust through for something genuine because it's all out there in the open. No searching, no needling. Just there. But the biggest difference between Lou and Sarah, possibly the catalyst that propels Chuck towards the former, is one simple thing, a trivial thing, really, but something that Sarah had been skirting ever since he had locked eyes with her that first day at the Buy More. The truth.

The sound of three words, not even those Three Words, spoken candidly and without reservation sent Chuck into a flurry of concentrated contemplation that had him seriously rethinking the his current not-really-a-relationship relationship. Looking him right in the eye, no deceptions, no facades, just genuine candor, Lou declares that she likes him. In fact, she likes (almost) everything about him. She thinks he's cute, funny, and their vast (he really couldn't have supplied a better description, himself) height difference intrigues her. But she can't stand men who cheat. It's direct, it's honest, and it's refreshing. Chuck can't help but wish he could hear it again. He hasn't heard the truth for a good few months. His life has been a spun and manufactured fabrication of pretext, half-truths, and evasive answers, and her words are nothing but invigorating.

So when he, Sarah, and Casey fall under the influence of a dangerous truth serum, Chuck sees their precarious situation as an advantageous moment. Finally, after months of eluding the issue, he can glean the truth. He can at long last reap the motivation behind Sarah's lingering looks, intimate touches, and words inconveniently interrupted. It's the perfect plan. Chuck really should have predicted it would massively backfire the way it had.

"I'm sorry…No."

Subsequently, when Sarah intones her own set of three words, they elicit quite a polarized feeling than he originally anticipated. He really should have figured. The feeling that arises from three simple words lacks familiarity, and Chuck's sure familiarity with this type of pain would be a sad, pitiful existence. Even the with the experience of Jill leaving him for Bryce, even with the agony of getting kicked out of Stanford with scant weeks left in his senior year, Chuck had never felt the pain as the packed in the guise of those three words. It was a different kind of pain, one so foreign and different, yet familiar at the same time. With Jill, it was a sharp, sudden knife plunging into his back, one that Chuck barely had time to brace himself for, let alone react to. With getting kicked out of Stanford, it was a prolonged, blunt wallop to the head, one that came so rapidly but built to an overwhelming ache left the deepest of wounds in his innate innocence and sanguinity. It was the day Chuck Bartowski thought he learned the truth about the human condition through the actions of one Bryce Larkin. That day, he thought he had felt pain. But this pain…this pain was different. It was a combination of the ultimate blow of devastation blended with the numb throbbing of misconceptions and the painful reality of the truth. And to be honest, he would never wish that type of pain on anyone. It was the pain of the last vestige of hope, the final remnant of optimism disintegrating into a complete void of empty oblivion. Three words did this. The truth did this.

"I'm sorry…No."

The sound of her voice as she speaks, the image of her mouth as it forms those dreaded words, the deadened ache beating in his breast sensitizes his basic functioning systems as those words wash over him and consume his world. They resound through his subconscious, mocking him with their disregard. He's cognizant that yes, he's brought this on himself, as that same intuition derides him, but he sneers at that little voice. It's better to know now then have his hopes build up for an even higher plummet. The rationalization fails to alleviate the ache. It's still there. He knows it's not physically possible, but he can swear he hears the hollow clunk of his heart plummeting down to his gut. It's gonna settle there for awhile. Fester, if you will, and continue to mock him. He tries to let it all go, but the situation's got a vice grip around his heart. He battles sleep as those words echo in his mind, absorbed through his brain, and ricocheting off the walls to reverberate in his ears.

"I'm sorry…No."

Goddammit…

She likes to think that out of all her senses, she's honed her sense of hearing the best. As an agent, she has learned that sometimes one can't trust her eyes, so she relies on her ears to pick up everything from location to depth to, in the right circumstances, the breathing pattern of a target. But as Chuck Bartowski worms his way into her heart, situating himself stubbornly between her desires and her fears – and as hard as she tries, she doesn't have any sort of desire whatsoever to boot him out – she tends to curse her acute ears. For every time a gunshot that permeates her hearing, she fears that bullet was the One. As Casey was begrudged to point out, Chuck has remarkable survival instincts, but they all know that even the most cunning of espionage agents could still fall victim to a bullet. Every time she hears the scuffle of a rumble, she hopes it's not him in the middle of the chaos. Every time a girlish screech of terror pierces the air, she prays it's not his distinct scream. Each time the Intersect plunges them into the hub of their latest mission, Sarah never truly relaxes until the comforting sound of his panting breaths filled with adrenaline and his deep baritone shouting exuberances reach her ears.

She knows that she breaks his heart when she denies the thing between them (yes, there is a thing…), but it was for a certain preservation. He can't hold the hope of something more, even if that particular sentiment does exist, and she can't allow the possibility. Allowing the possibility would have her yanked away from him faster than Casey drawing his gun during a standoff and Chuck locked in some remote area with no human contact and deafening silence to keep him company. It's the only time she's blatantly lied to him, but it's to keep him safe. Really. So when that little spiel of his after the debacle with the manic gymnast with his ridiculous truth serum culminates in their inevitable break up, she knows she shouldn't be affected by his words. But who was she kidding? They echo through her ears, traveling straight to her heart. But, she argues, part of her is relieved. A part very, very deep down inside, but it's there. She just has to look. Really hard.

Through her own fault, the "thing" between Chuck and Lou ends as abruptly as it started, and Chuck returns his attentions to her. Not that she can blame him. That kiss…whoa. They leapfrog over various obstacles (Bryce's imminent return, Chuck's threatened extraction) but evade any serious damage (though Chuck argues that watching Bryce stick his tongue down her throat was pretty damaging, even more so than getting shot), and as she's come to expect with one Chuck Bartowski, he wears her down. In retrospect, she's not quite sure how he manages such a feat, but settles on his affinity to do the little things, the normal things she has longed for ever since beginning this accursed mission. Chuck Bartowski is nothing if not subtly persistent and exasperatingly endearing, and slowly but surely, he has fit himself in the places she has eschewed for a rootless existence filled with anonymity. Casey throws them both by supporting their illicit affair, though he does warn them that if the superiors catch wind of this forbidden development, they are both fucked worse than Nixon after Watergate (his words).

Surprisingly…or maybe not, she's the one to initiate it. It being the real Three Words, but it's not quite how she imagined it happening. In her mind, she thought of some big epiphany with fireworks and big explosions, a dramatic declaration complete with pomp and circumstance. In reality, the moment is actually very understated…well, on her part. Chuck's never been one to do something halfway.

Lounging on the couch on a lazy Sunday morning, basking in the aftermath of yet another completed mission, Sarah turned to Chuck. At the moment, he was engrossed in some show about a fake psychic working for the police forced to maintain the charade in order to avoid getting arrested. It wasn't quite the caliber of geekdom she used to in him, but it was amusing, and she loved hearing Chuck laugh at the antics of the charlatan clairvoyant.

"Chuck?"

"Yeah?" Completely engrossed in the hilarity of the program, Chuck grinned as the fake psychic flailed dramatically in the throes of a "vision."

Sarah hesitated. She has never said those words to anyone outside of her immediate family and certainly not in the last decade, at least not sincerely. She's unsure of how to proceed. There's still so much uncertainty between them, so many lines that could be potentially be crossed that honestly shouldn't even be considered in the first place. Still, she's a woman of stalwart conviction, and she's completely convinced of her feelings, even if she does doubt she's worthy of reciprocation.

"I…" Her voice caught in her throat before she composed herself and surged on. "I love you."

Chuck nodded absently, his eyes still fixated on the television screen. "Oh. Okay."

Sarah simply stared at his lack of reaction. She ran over her words in her mind, making sure she confessed what she intended to rather than something inconsequential like the grocery list she had been planning in her head. Yes, she said she loved him. Yes, she didn't stutter. Yes, she said the words in the correct order, and yes, Chuck completely failed to react. Sarah deflated in disappointment. For his part, Chuck paused, a crease appearing in his forehead as the sensation tingled through his perception that he'd missed something. As his mind replayed the last thirty seconds that had just transpired, Chuck froze, the moment truly registering, and he started, whipping towards her. "Wait!"

His face softened, and she saw all the emotions flickering in the depths of his amber eyes. One hand drifted upward to cradle her cheek, and her eyes fluttered closed at the tremors the simple gesture elicited. His thumb began methodically stroking her skin, and she felt the breath on her lips before his mouth tenderly caressed hers. Pulling back from the embrace, Chuck smiled a serenely content smile before he reciprocated. "I love you too."

Her heart stuttered as this time, she deflated in disbelief. "Really?" She didn't want to doubt him, but nagging feelings tended to make their presence known at the most inopportune of times. "You don't know me…"

"I know enough," Chuck answered candidly. "And what I do know I admire and I love." He shrugged, searching for the right words to alleviate her reservations. "Love has a lot to do with trust," he stated, "and I trust that in time, you'll tell me all I want to know."

Chuck pressed a reassuring kiss to her forehead, a gesticulation so unsullied, so innocuous, that she was tempted to shy away from the tenderness of it all.

"Just being with you is enough," he murmured. "The fact that you're defying just about everything to take this chance and love me…" Chuck trailed off, unable to truly vocalize his emotions, and he shrugged. "I fell in love with Sarah Walker, and if that's who you want me to know, then I can forget about whoever you were before. Sarah Walker is all who matters to me. You're all who matters to me…all aliases, all parts."

Thrown by the declaration, Sarah let the tiniest, most miniscule particle of doubt materialize to the surface before chastising herself at the thought. She should have known exactly how receptive he would be to this development. Chuck Bartowski loved wholly and without reservation. But even with that grain of knowledge, she still attempted to dissuade him from the prospect of even possibly breaking his heart with the deceptive nature of her job. Backwards thinking, perhaps, but she understood with perfect coherence the risks of involvement with an agent, especially an agent like herself. And she's willing to let him go if that's what he truly wants.

Taking a deep breath, Sarah readied her tenacity. This was for his own good. "I'm a trained assassin, Chuck. I've killed…deceived…tortured…" She faltered with her subsequent query, not quite wishing to hear his answer for fear of her own anxiety. "Are you truly okay with that?"

Chuck quirked that smile of his, and Sarah felt her resolve waver. "Since you've obviously found your way around assassinating me, I'm alright with that. You do what you have to do to protect the country…" He leaned in, eyes dancing with mirth. "And it's kinda sexy…"

"Chuck…"

He caught her warning tone, and a furrow appeared in his brow. Sarah looked away. These were the times where she cursed his keen acuity to her feelings.

Chuck scooted closer, refusing to allow her to place space between them. "Why are you doing this, Sarah?" She couldn't answer and once again cursed inwardly. She desperately wished he was yelling. Anger, although very rare in Chuck's emotional repertoire, she could take. But this tone of hurt and pain…Sarah could feel her heart preparing to shatter.

Chuck dipped his head, forcing her to meet his eyes. "You told me you loved me, and now you're thinking up every excuse to try and convince me that I don't love you. Considering how many times I've stared various forms of death in the eye, you're gonna have to do better than that." The slightest bit of humor dashed his tone. "News flash, Sarah, I've loved you since the moment you crashed the Nerd Herder down a flight of steps with an insane NSA agent trailing us."

Sarah laughed weakly, offering out a feeble joke. "Don't let Casey hear you call him that."

Chuck only shrugged, flashing a grin. "I've called him worse to his face." He turned serious. "I love you, Sarah Walker. Whoever you place before me, I'm still gonna love her. You can give me whatever manufactured pseudonym you want to label yourself, but it's not gonna change the person you show to me. You can't hide that. You can try to mask it, and I've seen you do so, but your true you always shines through." Chuck's voice resonated with such stout fervor, such genuine sincerity that Sarah couldn't help but heed his words.

"That's who I fell in love with," he stated simply. "That's who I am in love with."

"I'm enigmatic, Chuck. I'm secretive. You've accused of as much yourself. I haven't had anything remotely stable most of my adult life. Do you honestly know what you're getting into?"

Chuck halted her with a gentle finger to her lips. "Sarah, I have the entirety of our government's secrets stored within my brain. You're really asking me that question?" She shook her head at the irony, and Chuck cocked an eyebrow. "You know, for a woman who's taken down a roomful of armed men, you're really making this a lot more difficult than it really should be."

"This is one arena I'm completely inexperienced at…" she admitted furtively.

"And if you can find someone who truly is, I'll let Casey use me as a punching bag…" Chuck shook his head. "No amount of experience in relationships can prepare you for love, Sarah. Each love's unique. That's why it's so great. You're not gonna get the same thing every time." Chuck took her hands, his beautiful brown eyes earnest and warm, and indolently, the thought skated through her mind that she loves those eyes.

"Stop thinking rationally about this," he reprimanded gently. "It's not rational. You won't be able to reason your way out of what you feel. For once in your life, let go of reservations and just feel."

"What if I screw this up, Chuck?"

If Chuck was shocked at the sheer vulnerability prevalent in her tone, he hid it well behind an unapologetic shrug. "We'll fix it together. Take a chance, Sarah."

"Chances get me killed."

"And caution stops you from living," Chuck countered. "You've lived your life with structure and rules and superiors telling you what you can and can't do. Forget all that." He inched even closer, almost placing her in his lap. One hand drifted upward, cupping her cheek, ignoring the absolute fear that shone so clear, so lucid in her eyes.

"Love me," he entreats. "You already know I love you back. What's stopping you?"

"Fear…uncertainty…"

"Life's full of fears and uncertainties. Take them head-on the way you do your missions. You gotta believe we can work, Sarah. Even if you believe it's you that's stopping us."

Acknowledging the fact that reason probably won't completely sway her, he acted on instinct, halting whatever excuse she readied with a kiss. Whatever lingering protest vanished as Sarah tensed, the shivers rollicking up and down her body. The blood pounded in her ears as his lips caressed hers, prompting, convincing, urging her to yield to him. And, for the first time in her life, she acquiesced to emotion. Feeling her go pliant, Chuck deepened the kiss, eliciting a small moan to escape from her vocal chords.

As they parted, Chuck's harsh breaths provided a steady melody she keeps in time with. She released the desperate grip she has on his hair and retained distance between them, composing herself before looking in his eyes. She saw the love there and heard his sincerity as he whispered one last appeal to her.

"I love you, Sarah Walker. I truly, deeply, ardently love you, and if you still hold any doubts about anything, know for certain that I mean that. And, if you let me…" Chuck shifted closer, invading her personal space again, and she found she didn't mind one little bit, "I'll make sure you hear that every day I'm with you."

Not trusting herself to speak, Sarah conveyed her response through actions. Winding her arms around his shoulders, she clambered into his lap and burrowed her face into the crook between his neck and the slope of his shoulder. She couldn't see his face but instinctively, she's positive he's smiling as she wrapped herself around his torso, and rotating slightly, she ghosted a reassuring kiss to his pulse point. Gently, he tipped them over, lying down onto the couch cushions and cradling her against him, and automatically, his body curled over hers. Snuggled into the circle of his arms, she delighted in their flawless fit. Her eyelids leaden with the excitement of what had just transpired, and she slowly began to drift off, the reassuring beat of his heart and his warm breath ghosting in her ears, lulling her to slumber. The sound provided some illogical comfort, and in the depths of her own cold, now just a bit less fractured, heart, she idly ruminated that she could get used to falling asleep to that sound. It's a dangerous thought, one that could possibly compromise everything, but it's a thought that doesn't stay fleeting, and the last sound that perked her ears before she traveled to a world of cogent dreams surely populated with the image of the man beside her was his voice, barely a whisper but ringing as clear as if he had shouted.

"I'll love you forever, Sarah Walker."

Those words have cemented themselves in her brain, and Sarah Walker knew right then and there: she was so screwed.

And cut! I apologize if this wasn't as blatant as the previous chapter, but this sense was a bit more challenging than I had previously anticipated. Regardless, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and the next installment will feature the sense of smell. Until next time!

Roxy