CHAPTER 15
Preparing for a double date with Ellie and Devon felt as stressful as any mission, but if they all ended with Sarah on top of him kissing his jaw he might look forward to them more. It didn't help that Chuck was starting to feel a dark knot at the core of the warmth he usually felt whenever he was with Sarah. It felt like Pandora's box had long ago emptied and hope was fading. He could only lie to himself so much.
He was so caught up in his hourly contemplative misery session that he didn't hear the customer until she rang the bell at the desk. Sitting up with a start he turned with an automatic, "Hi!"
Across the desk was a short woman with long, wavy brown hair looking panicked as she informed him, "I keep pressing the button and nothing is happening!"
Despite her almost manic distress, it was nice talking to Lou. It almost felt like she might be into him, which certainly helped his sinking confidence. She was definitely cute and seemed fiery in a fun way, but the thing that made him feel best was the idea that she was actually into him, Chuck Bartowski. Not the Intersect or the Piranha, him. It would be nice to know, but with his luck she'd turn out to be some Italian spy sent to seduce him with her extensive knowledge of deli meats.
Walking back behind the desk he tampered his thoughts since it didn't really matter. Sarah was his cover girlfriend and he had a mission with her tonight. Or a double date. The thought made him sigh as he muttered quietly, "Not much difference, I guess."
The preparation paid off fairly well and though the talk off sex, or their lack of sex, was as embarrassing as ever things went well. Chuck felt a flicker of envy for his sister seeing her and Devon interacting, but shrugged it off.
Whatever he felt about his situation with Sarah gave way to pride seeing Ellie save some guy's life, though it soured when he flashed on the guy she saved.
Of course his panic over Ellie was briefly disrupted by complete embarrassment as Devon talked to him about taking his bike out for a ride. It was made worse by his seeing Sarah looking over her shoulder, clearly hearing what he was saying and understanding the entendre. There was no double about it, it was pretty blatant entendre.
The brief relief of Ellie's return was again cut when they went to their room and Sarah said there was something else she had to talk to him about.
"What's that?" He said taking a sip of the coffee she'd brought over.
"I'm a little worried about our cover," she started before quickly saying, "I think it's time for us to make love."
Choking on a mouthful of coffee, he watched her turn and take her own drink as he tried to play it off as a result of the hot coffee. He wasn't sure he'd ever heard something so bittersweet. He'd dreamed of a world where he could hear her say something like that, but here it was and it was like a knife in the stomach. Being around her and seeing her act the girlfriend and letting himself be fooled by it all hurt enough as it was.
Even knowing it wasn't great for the cover, it was still a relief to see Lou show up the next day and seeing her smile when she saw him. It felt completely real. Like there wasn't this veil or mask over it all, just someone who actually unabashedly liked seeing him and was enthused by the prospect of talking to him. She could have looked like a female Jeff and that alone would have been enough to make him return her smile as she waved to him. But she wasn't, she was a cute, petite woman with the mouth of a sailor who made him a sandwich she named after him. It was like she was almost the perfect woman… but then the perfect woman showed and Lou's enthusiasm and affection soured like old bread.
After a trip to the morgue to look over the guy Ellie tried to save, Sarah called him over to the Wienerlicious to prepare for that night's 'mission'. Hearing her call it a mission felt like a nail in the coffin, and all the innuendo didn't help.
Maybe that was why despite it all he rushed over to Lou when he saw her going to her car. And it was worth it, at least when she said she liked him. Hearing someone just say she liked him eased the knot in his chest. It felt a bit pathetic to realize how nice such a simple thing felt, and yet nothing could come of it as both agreed cheaters were scum.
So Chuck finished up at the Buy More and prepared for a night of faking it. He was still a bit raw over everything, which was why he made an 'oldest profession' crack. Hearing Sarah ask about his interest in Lou while Ellie yelled at Devon in the other room was frustrating. Ellie bursting in was pushing it toward distressing as she told him his hair was making animal shapes and words taste like peaches.
Chuck and Sarah followed them into the living room where Devon sat her on the couch and Chuck sat on the table in front of her. "El, are you okay?"
"Are you?" Ellie asked reaching out to grab his shoulders. "Sometimes I look at you and you see some happy but other times you seem so sad, but I don't understand why and I'm worried it's me. That I let you down."
"Ellie," Chuck said shaking his head, "you never let me down. If anyone did, I let myself down, and I'm sorry."
"I was supposed to protect you," she pouted, leaning forward.
Chuck met her in a hug, but felt something on his jaw, some hard bump on her neck. "Ellie," he said, but when he tried to pull back she slumped further into him. "Ellie?" He pushed her off and saw her eyes closed. "El?" He tried to shake her.
"Ellie," Sarah whispered, helping Chuck move her back to the couch.
Chuck brushed a hand across his jaw before reaching for the spot he touched on her neck and peeling off a bug just like they had the man in the morgue. "Oh god."
They rushed her to the hospital and Casey arrived shortly afterward, having gone through the security footage from the courtyard.
Chuck wasn't sure how he managed to keep it together, but he knew he had to. He wouldn't let her die. He couldn't. He'd failed Morgan. He wouldn't fail her. He'd find a way to save her. Which was why he used the bug to get the poisoner to come to them. And inevitably he screwed it up and poisoned all of them while losing the codes.
Of course it was never a question what his choice would be when Sarah gave him the antidote. Just like he told Casey before Halloween he chose her over himself, just like he always would. But it wasn't hopeless as he found Payne's tracker and they sped toward his apartment dosed with his truth serum poison.
At least he had that as an excuse for his proclamation of Sarah's beauty and Casey's chiseled jaw. Thankfully he was still clear headed enough to remember the villain should sample the antidote first, and after a shot to the knee and another dose of truth poison, he told them where the antidote was.
Before Sarah could down it he held up a hand, "Wa-wa-wait, not yet, not yet."
She looked up and met his eyes asking, "Why, what's the matter?"
"Nothing it's just that this… this will probably be the last chance that I have to know the truth," Chuck began solemnly. "I know you're just doing your job here, but sometimes it feels so real, you know? So tell me. You and me. Us. Our thing under the undercover thing… is this ever going anywhere?"
He watched her eyes dart around his face before closing as she looked downward and he felt like he was falling. Not in love, but out of a plane toward a pit of spikes all aimed straight for his heart. And they all hit as she said, "I'm sorry, Chuck… No."
Forcing himself to breath again, he felt a thousand spiked push through his body like pillars supporting the shell he'd become in that moment. It felt like he would crumble if not for the tension that seemed to fill every inch of him fighting to keep himself from showing any of it. He couldn't let her see.
"Got it." He barely managed that first nod, but the second and third came a bit easier as he took another breath. "Got it. Thank you for being honest." He even managed a weak laugh as he added, "Even though I guess you don't have a choice in the matter."
That antidote might have tasted like cotton candy and a pony's dreams but it was still the most bitter thing he ever tasted. He was nauseous the rest of the day, barely paying attention to their debrief with Beckman. When he made it home and saw his sister happy in bed with Devon, Chuck managed a weak smile because as miserable as he was he was still happy for her. He just wished he could have something similar… which was why he broke up with Sarah.
It took a single date with Lou for his spy world to kick the door in thanks to a poster for her ex's club. With that some part of him knew it was doomed, even before they forced him to take her on a second date to her ex's club while Sarah and Casey watched from the van, at least until Sarah decided she needed to check in on him in person and Lou had enough of it. On top of it all the other Herders spent the morning laughing at him being dumped after dumping Sarah.
The first good moment he had since the end of his first date with Lou was when Sarah caught him leaving another voicemail for Lou. While that itself was embarrassing, hearing her say their time together didn't feel like work felt like a defibrillator. It was quickly dampened by the tip about Lou's favorite flowers, but he shrugged it off and went to a florist before heading to the deli.
For a moment he pulled it off. Some daisies and flirting over a sandwich got him a kiss that put some pep in his step before stumbling when Sarah and Casey told him Lou was somehow involved in the illegal shipping with her ex. Of course that was when the Bartowski curse kicked in and everything went to shit, resulting in the pair tied to chairs about to be tortured after an argument in the trunk of a car.
When the drill spun Chuck swiftly exclaimed, "Alright, I'll talk! I'll talk!"
"No, Chuck," Sarah began, but Chuck continued.
"We know all about the imported salami and-and-and we're cool with it, man. The real crime is that it's illegal to begin with. Honestly, there's no need for torture Yari."
The older man laughed. "Mr. Bartowski I'm not going to torture you."
"Great, great, we're on the same page," said Chuck.
"I'm going to torture her."
"NO!" Chuck yelled, lurching forward and to the left slightly, as if to move in front of Sarah despite still being bound to the chair. His eyes hardened as he said loud enough his throat hurt, "If any of you touch her your families will suffer!" Yari and the others looked amused as Chuck stared at them declaring, "Everyone you love will pay. Everything you care about will slip through your fingers. Touch her, hurt a single hair on her head, and you're going to wish you put that drill through your temple instead."
Sarah stared in stunned silence at Chuck's icy tone. She might have been even more baffled by the outburst than Yari and his men, who shared confused looks.
Yari snickered, looked for a loose strand of hair and yanked it from Sarah's head. She hissed and glared at him as Yari broke the hair and looked at Chuck. "Is that a threat?"
"It's a promise," said Chuck, having found the Piranha's next targets. "Everyone ever associated with you is going to lose everything they have, and I'm going to make sure they know it was because of you. So when we're done here and you're all in jail they'll know who to go after when they're sent to join you. I'm sure all of them are fine, upstanding people who will never do anything to your loved ones while they're all on their own while you're locked away in jail… right?"
While they shared more concerned looks, Chuck saw the watch on the goon Yari handed the drill to and his flash made him smirk. "You killed a whole family outside of Yerevan. You stole their heirlooms and sold all of them on the Russian black market except for that watch."
Panic painted the man's face as he gaped at Chuck. "How you know that?"
Turning, Chuck flashed on the tattoo of another thug. "Your name is Vladimir Snell. Last year you were paid forty thousand dollars to kill a man named Leo Koloff."
"You told me we were paid twenty," said the first thug.
"He's lying," said Snell, "he'll say anything to get out of trouble."
"He knows about Yerevan. He knows everything." Looking from Chuck to Snell the thug drew his gun on Snell until Yari shot him in the back of the head.
"Well, that settles that."
Yari stepped past starting to aim his gun at Sarah until a man appeared behind tthem exclaiming, "The package is here." Both captives looked past Yari to see the tablet the man held up. "Berth Nineteen. We've got five minutes until it expires, sir."
Again Chuck flashed on shipping containers and chemicals.
"Alright, let's go." Looking to the thug Yari declared, "We'll just have to kill them."
"There's a weapon in the shipment," Chuck said quickly, "I think it's some kind of chemical bomb. We have to get to it before it blows."
He barely noticed Sarah looking far to his right rather than at him as his attention was on the man aiming his gun at her.
"Do that and you'll regret it even if you die!" Chuck's threat made the creeping Casey smirk while Sarah fought off her surprise to finish getting herself free and kick the thug in front of her before kicking Chuck's chair away and running after it.
Again Chuck was surrounded by bullets, at least until Casey told them to run and once Sarah freed him they did.
"Chuck, I want you to get as far away from here as possible," Sarah said as they ran toward Berth Nineteen.
"I'm coming with you."
"No, Chuck," she said stopping and grabbing his arm. "You're not going anywhere near a live bomb."
"Do you know how to defuse a bomb?" He said, his voice raising as he asked while tapping his temple, "Do you have an Intersect in your head? I didn't think so!"
When he turned and fled she exclaimed, "Hey! Chuck! Wait!"
Coming to a stop before the large wooden crate, Sarah tossed him a crowbar and he helped her peel the side open, revealing it's contents. Seeing the counter attached to the massive bomb tick down, Chuck and Sarah took a moment to gape before Sarah rushed forward.
"Okay," Chuck said exhaling. "Okay, Intersect. Flash. Show me how to do this."
Peeling off the number pad, Sarah looked over her shoulder. "Did you flash?"
"No. Nothing." He grabbed his head and turned as if to pace. "Come on! Come on, come on, come on, baby, don't fail me now!"
"Okay, Chuck, that's enough," Sarah said turning to him. "Run. I'm going to try and stay and defuse it."
"No," Chuck said turning to Sarah and the bomb, saying as though it was obvious because to him it was, "I'm not leaving you here."
"Go. That is an order."
He countered her demanding tone with an indignant, "No."
Sarah stared at him for a second, baffled by the man before her. Getting to her feet she drew her gun and aimed it at him. "I said go!"
"Oh, I see," said Chuck. "So you're going to shoot me to prevent me from being blown up? That's a great plan."
"Why are you so stubborn?" Sarah said shaking her gun.
"Actually, I consider this a rare moment of courage. I don't know where it's coming from, I guess you just bring out the worst in me."
Tucking her gun away Sarah stepped forward almost seething. "And you in me."
A beep stole the anger from them as they turned to see the last seconds of the device's countdown. Turning back to each other brown met blue and Chuck found himself lost in a maelstrom of thoughts that lasted a fraction of a second.
He wasted so much time. He wanted her to know how much he appreciated her, even if he couldn't be with her. He wanted to save her. He wanted her to know that even if it hurt him to realize it was false part of him was still glad for the hope she gave him. He was glad she knew, because she made it worth it and that would have been enough for him. She was a good friend even if he wished she could have been more. He wanted her to know he was at least thankful for the Intersect bringing her into his life.
He tried to condense it all as much as he could and said with absolute sincerity, "Knowing you was worth it all."
It was as if she could see it all in his eyes. The flicker of hope and affection for her that gave way and left him broken and defeated, but resolve won through with a slight smile as he took a breath and closed his eye in acceptance.
If his final words hadn't stunned her and wrenched her heart she would have moved a second earlier, grabbing his jaw with both hands and closing the gap between them, standing on her toes to take his lips in hers. She wanted her final seconds to be together.
His eyes widened a beat before closing again, reaching a hand behind her head and returning her kiss, which made her press herself into him more, but that wasn't enough. He grabbed the small of her back and pulled her against him, tongues brushing past each other as she pulled on his shirt as if they could somehow be closer.
The sound of their lips smacking against each other seemed to fill the air now that the beeping had ended. Something they only noticed well after it had happened. Sliding their lips from one another, their eyes opened and brown met blue once again.
Sarah sank to her heels, still gripping his shirt until he turned his head toward the bomb and she followed suit.
Catching her breath, they looked to one another and Sarah said lightly, "Well the good news is we're alive. And the bad news is that this is kind of… an uncomfortable moment right now."
His world completely upended, Chuck declared, "It's completely comfortable on my end." When she stared at him and gave a small nod he added, "Just sayin'."
Their eyes met again and Chuck started to feel it. The pull. It was maybe the strongest he'd ever felt… but she turned and left the berth calling back, "Stay here! I need to help Casey!"
Sarah was glad he couldn't see her wincing as she said that, her brow shaking as she fought to keep the regret from her face. Whether it was for the kiss or leaving she couldn't say, but in the moment she knew she needed to do both.
Chuck watched her leave and let out a grim laugh. It felt like everything had been floating around him and suddenly came crashing down. It hurt seeing her run off again, but he found himself smiling as he felt his heart beating in his chest for what felt like the first time since they took the antidote for the truth serum.
Maybe it was the adrenaline, but he felt like he did when he first met her, before their date was invaded by NSA agents. Maybe she thought he was worth it too.
AN:
Originally I was going to alter the Lou stuff, but Chuck wasn't where I had thought he might be at this point and I like Lou giving Sarah a bit of a kick in the ass, so decided to keep her in. Since it's mostly the same as canon it's largely glossed over, so on the page here she doesn't have much presence, but it also helps me focus on other stuff since I'm assuming everyone reading at least knows what generally happens in canon. The shorthand available in fanfiction is one of its appeals, I feel, so I'm using a bit of it here.