Chapter 19

That first morning of not loving Sarah had been miserable, but he managed to get through it. The next would easier, or so he told himself until he realized had to face another day without seeing Sarah.

Casey found him stood near the doors, staring across the parking lot again as if that would make the CIA skirt suddenly appear. Coming up behind him he asked, "Decided to take up bird watching?"

"Just breathing in the view," Chuck said trying to play it off despite knowing Casey wasn't near naive enough to believe it.

Casey teased him a bit but hoped Walker made the right choice. Either way he wanted the shoe to drop. Chuck didn't deserve to dangle over a pit like this. That thought alone was amusing to Casey, who realized he probably wouldn't have had it before their talk. But then it all felt different now. He had a kid out there. She was an adult, but she was still his kid. A daughter he never knew existed.

After Chuck found the counterfeit money on his install and they went to his apartment to call the bosses, both men shared a brief look when the screen came to life and they saw Graham in the office with Beckman. Casey had spoken to her about his conversation with Chuck but she said she would look into things and get back to him, warning him to not let Graham become suspicious of anything. He hadn't said anything at the time, but noted she hadn't mentioned keeping Sarah out of it, though maybe she suspected Walker was gone with Bryce too.

Once Casey told them what Chuck found Graham explained, "The serial numbers that Chuck flashed on are a strain of counterfeit currency that Treasury has been trying to crack for years… But perhaps we should wait to debrief you until Agent Walker arrives."

"Yes," Beckman said practically staring through the screen at Casey, "where is Agent Walker?"

"Um, ma'am, Agent Walker is currently-"

"She, uh-" Chuck cut him off, pausing to clear his throat. "Agent Walker is currently suffering from… a spastic colon, which acts up on her from time to time, so…"

"She has no history of that," Graham said narrowing his eyes slightly.

"Perhaps we should reschedule when Agent Walker is feeling better," Beckman suggested.

"I'm fine," Sarah said upon entering the apartment, causing both men to turn in shock as she walked up beside Chuck. "I'm sorry I'm late. Carry on."

The whole brief was a fog for Chuck, picking up that their target was the billionaire Lon Kirk and they had to do something at a yacht club. Hopefully it wasn't sail. As much as Charles Carmichael may have enjoyed it Chuck had little interest in the maritime activity.

He was a little surprised when after they were told their ins, Casey jumped in, "One question. Will Chuck and Sarah be going as a couple?"

"Unless they have a problem," Beckman said sitting back in her chair.

"No problem," Sarah said almost instantly.

Looking at her, Chuck was surprised at his own surprise. She was an agent. This was her job, right? "No problem."

"Good luck then," Graham said before disconnecting the call.

Sarah took off quickly and after a brief look to Casey, Chuck followed her. With a grunt, Casey almost smiled. Walker made the right choice at least. Hopefully she didn't screw this up for the kid.

"Hey, hey, Sarah, wait," Chuck said pulling the door behind her, following her toward the gate arch.

Turning to him she asked evenly, "What's up?"

For some reason it caught him off guard. Maybe her even tone. "Um… Nothing. Nothing, really. Just, you know, good to-good to see you." After everything he told him and all he promised he would do he still felt that flicker of hope inside him, so quickly squashed his smile before continuing. "Thought you'd be halfway to Bryce by now."

"Why would you think that?" She asked, and Chuck wondered if he'd offended her. It wasn't obvious, nothing was with her, but her inflection had shifted that way, or so he thought.

"I don't know, 'cause… he offers a pretty exciting life, I guess. Sipping Mai Tai's in Jakarta, or-or assassinating Afghani warlords, or whatever it is that you kids do for fun."

"I'm here because I have a job to do," she responded firmly.

Ah. Chuck was right after all. Good. He was making the right choice. "Right. Right. Of course, the job." That was what was important here. At least to her. So he should make it important to him too. "I better-uh, I better get going as well. I gotta punch in."

Chuck turned and made it a few steps before turning back toward her. "Sarah?"

She stopped and turned, Chuck catching the way her eyes practically rolled up toward him as she said, "Yeah?" It was almost the opposite of the other time. This time it had been her voice that hid it but her action that made her annoyance absolutely clear.

The last thing he wanted was to annoy her. That was basically the whole point of making himself stop loving her. "Should we-should we carpool on our date tonight?"

"Be at my place at eight," she said turning to leave him in the courtyard.

With a day at the Buy More to distract him, Chuck felt himself becoming numb. It was part of his plan, sure, but it still felt like crap. Fortunately he had Casey around to sneak up on him and scare the crap out of him.

"Oh, Sarah's got you all up in a tizzy," Casey said practically beaming, at least for Casey. As if it weren't obvious he enjoyed crapping on Chuck. "Flush out your headgear, new guy. We both know the Intersect needs as much room up there as we can get."

Despite the unabashed insult of his words, his tone was lighthearted, cutting most of the bite. Chuck turned to him shaking his head. "Okay, look, nothing is going on, okay?"

"Better not be. I need your A game tonight." Casey lightly poked his chest as he left Chuck to his coffee. "Stay sharp."

Looking into the dark swirls in his cup Chuck muttered quietly, "She's old news." At least he could tell himself that, but even he noticed how miserable he sounded saying it.

When it came time for their date Chuck noticed the knife holding Sarah's alarm clock to the wall. "Not a morning person I see."

"Well, it depends on the morning," she said from her bathroom where she was finishing up her makeup. "So we're clear on anything? Eyes and ears on anything that can trigger a flash?"

When she turned to him in that black dress which pushed her chest up he swiftly had to choke down not only baser thoughts but even the kinder ones. The ones that told him he should still try. That she wasn't with Bryce. That she had chosen to stay with him, so it meant something. The ones that told him he still had a chance to be the person he wanted to be with the person he wanted to be with.

"Our cover is that we're a couple. You're-"

"Charles Carmichael," he said with a nod. "Yeah, I got it." Maybe that would help. A night of not being Chuck Bartowski could only be a good thing. "It should be pretty fun, right?"

"It's work," she said coolly. She noticed his face shift just slightly, not quite falling but losing the lightness it had a moment ago. When she went to adjust his bow tie he moved her hand away.

"That's okay. I got it."

His cold tone surprised her. "Okay, well, uh…" Without thinking, for the first time that day her voice took a lighter note as she asked, "Ready to go to work?"

Resolving himself to a night as Charles Carmichael Chuck followed her out the door and onto yet another quiet car ride. He used that time to think on how to handle this. Not just her, but Carmichael.

Carmichael was rich. Rich enough to go to some private casino event. But he was still Chuck, still a young guy who enjoyed himself. The guy who maybe enjoyed his time at a frat, or at least their parties where he would go, win some cash off the guys who used to shove him into lockers, and spend the night with their girlfriends. Carmichael was a guy who enjoyed himself, he wasn't cocky but when he was on a roll he got boastful. They were going to be playing games, and he knew how some gamers acted when they won, Carmichael would be like that. Not an asshole, but loud in his fun, enthusiastic, looking to enjoy his life while he lived it, and enjoying getting one over on people who had seemed his betters all those years ago. He'd be the kind of person a billionaire might keep around for fun.

Arriving at the casino Chuck told Sarah, "If you're expecting me to hit the tables tonight, I'm gonna need a no interest spy loan or something like that. You'd be shocked what a government super computer pays these days."

"The CIA staked us," she said looking around the room before glancing at him. "You have a hundred."

"Wow," he said pulling a drink off a tray from a passing waiter, "a whole hundred dollars. No wonder they won't give me that raise."

Sarah rolled her eyes, barely hiding her smile as she said, "A hundred thousand, Chuck."

Chuck choked on his martini. "Dollars?"

Nodding, she motioned to the drink in his hand. "Since when do you drink Martinis?"

Clearing his throat Chuck shook his head. "I don't, no, but Carmichael loves 'em."

She tilted her head watching him take another drink, wondering what was going on until she spotted Lon Kirk at a table. "There he is. Let's go."

Chuck followed her to the table, not catching the smiles they exchanged as he looked it over. "Ah, Roulette, eh? My favorite game aside from Call of Duty." Setting his drink down and taking a seat he looked to Casey and put on a smirk. "Chips please."

"One hundred, Sir," he said sliding them in front of Chuck. "Good luck." He added in a pointed whispered, "Don't lose it."

"I don't believe we've met before. I'm Lon Kirk," said the shaggy haired billionaire. He was a bit older than Chuck, but he had a feeling his whole Carmichael thing could work. "I'm the host of this evening's event. I know the people of Taiwan are deeply appreciative of your generosity."

"Oh, well cheers. The names Carmichael. Charles Carmichael," he said shaking the man's hand.

"Pleasure, and your stunning-" he turned from Chick to Sarah, sitting up to kiss her fingers, "companion?"

"Sarah Walker," she said with what Chuck imagined was her first smile of the day. "Pleasure." Did they have to do that literally directly in his face? While he shared a look with Casey Sarah continued. "May I ask Mr. Kirk-"

"Lon, please."

"Lon," she restarted while Chuck reached for his drink, "I was wondering how you came to focus your charitable efforts on Taiwan."

While Chuck suffered through Lon giving his bullshit noble spiel, Chuck went about placing a few chips around the board. He'd never been to a casino before, but they had a few nights at the frat where they played casino games… And he'd had a few nights where he played Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, which beyond the volleyball that was an excuse to observe the game's breast jiggle physics, also had a lot of casino games you needed to play to get money to buy the girls gifts. He'd never been great at it, but knew enough from that and a few other games that had casino games.

While he spread his bets out a fair bit so he wouldn't lose it all, he set the bulk of his chips on number twenty one . That seemed to catch the attention of Lon Kirk, as well as Sarah and Casey. Downing his martini, Chuck laughed. "Let the games begin, eh?"

Kirk gave a wary nod, smirking as he looked to the board as it spun. Chuck subtly took a breath, watching the wheel spin and thinking over how he would play it off. He'd make a crack about losing for charity, say how he's taking it easy because it was all in good fun. He'd convince Kirk that money was something he didn't mind losing because it was for charity, but normally he'd be more focused on keeping it because ultimately it was power for him, power over people that had power over him all his life until he took it by taking their money. Of course, what better way to take that power than to counterfeit currency.

But then the ball landed on twenty one. Casey and Sarah exchanged looks while Chuck stared, letting out a small laugh before rising from his chair exclaiming, "TWENTY ONE! SU-" He stopped himself from going further, turning it into "-ooo good!" With a laughing cough he pointed to a waitress and yelled, "Another Martini!"

The girl almost leapt out of her skin before nodding and hurrying off. Lon Kirk laughed at the display. "Congratulations, Mr. Carmichael."

"Ha," Chuck said sinking back into his seat. "Sorry about that. Winning sometimes brings me back to when I was taking money of jocks at the frat house."

Kirk grinned, nodding. "Been there."

"There was a special kind of joy in taking it from them," Carmichael said with a sly smile. "I remember thinking they had all the power back when they shoved kids into lockers, but all of a sudden I stole it all from them." Sarah's eyes widened slightly when he put his arm around her, his lips curving into a lascivious grin. "Then of course I took their girls. And while tonight is obviously all for charity, I guess I can't help it when that feeling comes back."

Before Kirk could talk someone came to whisper in his ear, and he excused himself with a wink to Sarah which she returned. Once he was away from the table Chuck asked, "Did you really just wink at him?"

"Did you really just risk eighty thousand dollars in a single round?"

"Did I?" He said with a shrug. "I like to think it more as I won the feds more than I make in a year, which they should appreciate since, you know, only two us at the table are being paid for tonight."

"Moron," Casey said looking toward Kirk and the Asian man he was arguing with. The Asian man who Chuck flashed on.

He told them all about Rashan Chen, a dirty attache to the Taiwanese premiere using the charity as a front to launder counterfeit money.

"Okay, something's wrong. I'm going to go over there," Sarah said leaving her seat. "Chuck, you stay at the table."

"Wh-what?" Chuck said turning to the empty chair, then the other way to watch her walk off as Casey slid over his now larger stack of chips. "But we have an in, don't we?"

"Better safe than sorry, playboy," Casey said shaking his head.

Chuck shrugged. "Carmichael's petty and holds a grudge." He watched Sarah walk over, putting her hands on Kirk and whispering to him. Chuck scoffed. "She's being a little obvious, don't you think?"

"Relax, Chuck," Casey said, slyly taking a few of Chuck's pieces and placing them on the board before spinning the wheel again. "She's just doing her job."

Watching her flirt with Lon Kirk, he shook his head. "I thought the cover was a couple."

Casey arched his brow, a slight smile taking his lips as he took the chips off the board. "Guess some guys can't resist a taken woman."

Chuck met his eyes, drolly letting his head slump to the side. "Really?"

"Don't need bugs to know you've gone to bed miserable ever since her boy toy pulled a Lazarus."

Chuck put a few chips on the board, sinking back in his chair with a shrug. "I was miserable before her. I'll be miserable after her. No point trying for the sun when I know I'll never reach it."

"You're not Icarus, Chuck," Casey said watching the ball land on one of Chuck's numbers and pushing some more chips his way.

"Yeah I don't have wings," he said watching Sarah start to make her way back to the table with Kirk following a few feet behind. "I just have a computer stuck in my head."

Chuck did his best to ignore the little looks Lon Kirk kept giving Sarah, like he was getting one over on Chuck despite being friendly and even inviting him out to his yacht later that week. When the night ended Chuck shook his head as he handed the case of cash he'd won off to Casey. Part of him felt like it was his winnings so he at least deserved part of it, but he knew better than that. Government property didn't deserve anything. It made the thrill of winning feel hollow and worthless, or maybe that was just his heart.

Pulling up to the complex in Sarah's Porsche he certainly didn't feel like a winner. Once they came to a stop he asked Sarah, "So, uh, what did you and Lonny talk about before you guys came back to the table?"

"Uh, he invited me to his yacht tomorrow afternoon."

"Oh?" He blinked, shaking his head. "Okay, what time should I be ready?"

"No, just me," she said as though it were obvious, which it probably should have been.

"Oh, just you. Alone on his yacht." Chuck nodded, pushing down the bile burning his throat as he remembered he told himself he wasn't in love with her. He was just her partner. And partners joked about this kind of stuff, so with a smirk he asked, "Kind of disrespectful to your boyfriend, don't you think?"

Sarah rolled her head, a trace of indignation in her voice as she said, "Chuck, Bryce is not my boyfriend. And even if he was he'd understand this kind of work."

The outburst caught him by surprise, which was obvious to her as he said, "I meant Carmichael… actually." She turned away realizing what she'd done, but Chuck continued with his own hint of indignation. "But don't worry, Carmichael's booked up tomorrow anyway. Very, very busy schedule, so… good luck and good night."

Getting out of the car, Chuck heard her switching gears and turned to watch her leave rather than stick around to watch him go to the door. A couple weeks ago he might have felt pretty good about that. Taken it as a sign that she trusted him, had stopped seeing him as a kid who needed to be watched that closely, but now it just felt like she didn't care. Like she just wanted to get away from him as quickly as she could.

It was only when he was back in his room that he realized what she'd said. "Bryce isn't her boyfriend," he whispered while sitting on his bed with his laptop. He leaned his head against the headboard and sighed.

They separated because of him. Because she was stuck working with him. That must be why she was pissed at him. She was forced away from the guy she loved because she was stuck with Chuck, pretending to care about him and be attracted to him instead of the super spy she should be with. No wonder she seemed to practically hate him all of a sudden.

Bringing up a blank black website, he pulled up the source code and started typing, quickly editing the page so it read:

Orion

Need contact.

I know about B.

-C.

It was along shot, but apparently Orion had been tracking him somewhat. Maybe this would finally get his attention.

And thousands of miles away in Singapore apartment Orion saw a message appear telling him an instance had been found on the program he had tracking Chuck's activity. Seeing the message on the page, he connected to the camera on Chuck's laptop and found only darkness, so switched to the one on his desktop which looked into his room. There he found the laptop folded, the screen up just enough to not to to sleep as Chuck walked back to his bed with a small box.

Sitting on the foot of his bed, Chuck looked at the box somberly before opening it just as he had the days after the kiss, before he found out the bomb was just a Bryce container. Only then he'd been smiling, full of hope instead of looking forlorn as he took the old charm bracelet from it's box and brushed a thumb over a dangling silver charm. It was a bit cheap for most people, definitely not worth of who he'd considered giving it to before Bryce showed up, but was one of the most important things Chuck owned.

His father bought it for his mother the day Ellie was born. It could have been tainted by his parents abandoning him, but he didn't see it that way. His father had given it to his mother as a promise and a reminder. No matter how hard things got they would be a family, they would be together, and they would be happy. It was a promise that was broken years later, but the bracelet was still tied to that promise, and it was the one good thing Chuck had from his mother. Like the Tron poster was a connection to his dad, the bracelet was his link to her. It was the kind of thing he'd hoped to give to someone for the same reason, but he set it back in the box and tossed it aside, slumping forward and burying his face in his hands.

On the other side of the camera feed Stephen Bartowski sighed seeing his son mourning something he couldn't have. He couldn't help but frown seeing his son so downtrodden, especially as it seemed it was because he was hoping to follow in his father's footsteps, even if he didn't know it.

"Don't worry, Charles," Stephen said with a solemn nod. "I'll get the Intersect out of you and you can live a real life."

AN:

I mostly made him win at roulette just for the hell of it. I don't think it would change much. Plus I get to throw in a Yo! Video Games reference for the hell of it and it plays into the start of the next chapter for a bigger drop with Casey.

I'm sure people want to see Chuck pull back a bit more after his pledge to stop loving her, or be more angry, but he's still trying to be friendly here. But don't be too disappointed. There's a section coming up for those who like to see Sarah tortured by Chuck just like she tortures him. It's not as bad as some might like, but it's more than this.