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The Discovery
x-x-x-x-x
Sarah sat in the bar and slowly sipped her wine. As this was a favorite of the clandestine crowd, one of those out-of-the-way, off-the-grid places in the Capital district that looked like a hole in the wall but opened into an elegant hideaway as soon as you stepped through the doors, she was no stranger to this place. Though it was popular, it'd never been her scene, what with the abundance of young, good-looking, and lonely agents in one place. That sort of palpable frustration led to meaningless flings, and she couldn't count how many these red-boothed tables had spawned. Even tonight, without turning her head, she could pick out a handful of couples already on the path to wild nights and morning regrets. The interesting thing about this bar, however, was, because of the competitive and often headstrong nature of agents, it wasn't always men doing the pursuing. In fact, the male agents preferred this bar for the precise reason that they became the objects in demand. Sarah nearly snorted into her drink at the thought. Objects, indeed.
She sat down her wine glass with a sigh. She didn't want to be here at all. After the long day she'd had, she'd much rather be in her hotel room soaking in the tub.
For one thing, she hated the flight east across the country to Washington. The three hours that you lost to the time difference combined with the five hour flight meant you spent nearly a whole day traveling. So by the time she arrived at the office, it was already mid- to late-afternoon.
Still, the day had started off great, there's no denying that. Chuck was so sweet driving her to the airport. His glassy eyes told her that he hadn't gotten any more sleep last night than she had. But there was something important that she learned about him. He was really funny. He had her laughing out loud for the entire trip with his comments on the rude, reckless, and unbelievably aggressive Los Angeles morning commuters. She hardly ever laughed, and never out loud. It was exactly the honest expression of emotion that agents were conditioned to hide. More than anything, the fact that he could get her to laugh explained why Agent Sarah Walker had fallen for this guy so hard that she had once been ready to abandon her duty for him.
Maybe that little instance of eye-opening was the reason her goodbye kiss got a little out of control. A blush crept into her cheeks and down her neck even now as she recalled it. She was only trying to reassure him a little, especially since he was looking at her like he was terrified she'd never come back, and there was no better way to make sure he knew she was coming back to him than by kissing him in the middle of a crowded airport. She didn't mean to get pulled in by the warmth of his lips on hers, by the support of his arms snaking around her back, by the electricity that seemed to flow between them. She could get used to all that.
Chuck hadn't lied last night when he said that kiss on the beach wasn't his best effort. Sarah was never one to believe in fairy tales, but one goodbye kiss from him could get her to start believing in magic. It probably wasn't the first time that the morning commuters at the departing flights curb of LAX witnessed such an affectionate goodbye kiss, but it was clearly a first for Chuck. The redness in his cheeks broadcasted that to every passenger and pilot quite plainly. Still, he didn't shy away, at all, and she was left blown away by the intensity of it all. Now, sitting alone in the bar, she could admit to herself – had he asked her after that kiss, she would have climbed right back in the car, forsaken this trip, and gone back home with him to see where the kissing thing would have led.
But he hadn't. The only good thing about leaving him after that kiss was the warm afterglow of it made the long flight a lot more bearable. She, who hardly ever slept on a plane, or anywhere in public, was even able to get a nap in.
The official meetings were beyond boring. Come to find out, she was no longer a CIA Agent, hadn't been one for almost a year. Not that it came as a shock. She had been warned that was the case. The finality of no longer being on the inside, though, was a little jarring. As a civilian without any security clearance they wouldn't really tell her anything. All they wanted was to give her a physical, to protect themselves in case she ever filed a lawsuit, and get on record her account of the story with Quinn.
Sarah was seriously considering catching a red-eye flight back home, surprising Chuck, maybe seeing if they could recapture this morning's magic. She had an early morning meeting scheduled with General Beckman, but it was more social in nature. Sarah would have blown it off entirely had she not run into him in the hall, maybe randomly, but Sarah suspected not.
He was Eric Gold, Agent Eric Gold to be precise. They had a little bit of history, as anyone in the agency tends to do. For an agent, he was a nice enough guy, if uncreative when it came to personality. In that department, he was just like everyone else in the CIA: he didn't really have one, preferring to rely more on his good looks and his confidence. Carina, back in their C.A.T. Squad days, had, typically, tried to fix them up. A hook-up in Carina's mind, though, was radically different from what Sarah thought of it, even if she wasn't quite able to verbalize it. She humored him a few times, let him take her to dinner and out for some dancing. It wasn't a romance even by agency standards, but she ended the brief fling when she realized she wasn't looking for simply release, and whatever she was looking for, Eric Gold certainly couldn't provide it.
When he'd invited her out for a drink today, she'd turned him down immediately. She had no interest in whatever he had in mind. Even if she weren't married, she was past that phase of her life. Then, just before the elevator doors had shut, he'd dropped the bomb, told her he had some off-the-record information about her assignment.
She'd stuck a hand between the closing doors, given him one extra moment of assessment. She wasn't even an agent anymore. Her former superiors had made that clear, made what they thought of her choice even clearer. Whatever assignment he was talking about couldn't have anything to do with her. Still, she may have traded throwing knives in a darkened alley for carving knives at the Thanksgiving table, but she couldn't keep the agent that still lived in her from being curious.
That didn't make meeting him for a drink something to be at ease about though. She knew him. His ego would read more into it than she meant. The bigger problem, the bigger problem that she would have to learn to make a priority, was her husband. Chuck seemed to know every single detail about her. He would know about the men in her past. His finding out about what he may very well consider a date with someone he may very well consider an ex, no matter how innocently she could explain it away, could hurt him, could damage their fragile relationship, already hanging in the balance. She couldn't risk that.
She had been so close to shaking her head one final time and letting the doors close on him forever, but then a thought flit through her mind. Her last official assignment had been the Intersect project. In the short time since her memory loss, she'd read through a good chunk of the files, enough to know that 'Intersect' may as well be synonymous with 'Bartowski.' If Gold had information about that assignment, she needed to find out what he knew.
So she'd nodded, and he'd grinned and given her a time and place, and now she was here, and the only thing left to do was hope that he would adhere to her very carefully laid-out expectations. This was a single drink. Nothing more. Though, if things went south, she could claim exhaustion without lying.
Despite Sarah's best efforts to set expectations, Gold walked in with a swagger that told her he was looking for more than just a drink. She scoffed lightly, fingers twirling her wine glass. She shouldn't have allowed herself to be surprised. Agents don't really change. She may have been the exception to prove the rule. Not all was lost, though. No matter what he was looking for, she was an accomplished agent. She could get the information and get out of here without much damage. She only hoped it wouldn't have to be physical. Gold was handsome, if you liked that nothing-special-about-him type of handsome.
Halfway through his opening flattery, she stopped him. "Eric," she sighed, "this has been a really long day. I'm not trying to be rude, but let's get to business. What is it you wanted to tell me?"
Eric's eyes flicked around the room, making sure they weren't overheard. "I'm sticking my neck out here for you, Sarah. If the right people find out I told you this, I'm in hot water," he said, voice low. His mouth twitched, and he narrowed his eyes meaningfully. "I hope you'll understand and be appreciative of that. How'd you like to be reinstated?"
Unsurprised though she was at the suggestive part of his statement, she bristled. There were always the exceptional couples, but being married didn't matter much to a lot of agents. Even if he didn't think her marriage was a fake cover one, like the majority of the acquaintances she'd run into today had thought, Gold belonged in the latter category. At least he was being mostly transparent with what he was really after.
But Sarah was no longer there, no longer truly belonged with people who thought that way. "How?" she asked simply.
"Bartowski," Eric said softly. "You have a connection with him. Listen, there's a group within the agency that wants to reform the Intersect project. The project is under the radar for now, but it's only a matter of time. The technology is simply too powerful to keep under wraps for long. At some point, we'll need Bartowski. You already have his confidence. If you could stay close to him, be in a position to deliver him . . ."
She held up a hand, not needing him to go any further. It was true, agents used leverage to bargain with the agency all the time. If she had something they wanted, they'd bend over backwards to give her what she wanted, which, in normal cases, was being reinstated. Becoming a field agent again would only be the top of a very long list of demands. If the agency knew that Gold was the one to tell her how to get leverage against them, he would sink as far as she could rise.
In this case, what they wanted was Chuck. Her initial sadness at the thought of an innocent man constantly being trapped by the agency quickly bubbled over into rage. How much sacrifice did they expect from one man? Not just any man, but the nicest, sweetest man in the world? They had already screwed up his life, taken away his father, his mother, his wife, five years of his life. Using him again like that was going to happen over her cold, lifeless body.
She took a sip of wine to give her time to calm herself. The worst thing she could do would be to let her anger explode in front of Gold.
"I'll think about it," she said with more calm than she felt. "It's late. It was nice seeing you again, Eric. Maybe we'll run into each other again sometime."
Striding through the door and into the cool night air, she bent her steps back toward the hotel. The rage was tempered slightly, enough, by the chill of the wind, but her heart was still pounding by the time she reached the hotel. Chuck was no bargaining chip, and, with everything she'd seen of the CIA today, all the manipulation and ass-covering, she wasn't even sure she wanted to be an agent any more.
x-x-x-x-x
Chuck couldn't get over how different Morgan's apartment looked. Alex had only been living here a few days, but her influence could be seen everywhere. It was now a bright, cheery home where before it was just a place for two spies to sleep. A woman's touch made all the difference in the world, and he could see the gratitude in her face when he complimented her on it.
Naturally, he felt a bit guilty about intruding on one of their first evenings as a living-together couple. "Come on guys," he said, "I appreciate dinner and everything. But you guys have been living together for less than a week. You need some alone time. You don't need to be babysitting me."
"Don't be silly," Alex told him, waving off his concerns. "We couldn't stand the thought of you sitting alone in that apartment waiting for Sarah to come back. How long is she going to be gone?"
Chuck, settled in an armchair, couldn't help smiling, a far-off look in his eye as he thought of his wife. It was the million-dollar question, wasn't it? Sometimes, in his more self-torturous moments, he wondered if she would come back at all. Then he started thinking about that goodbye kiss, not something he could easily forget, especially since it was something the old Sarah wouldn't have done.
"She's not sure," Chuck replied truthfully. "She thought a couple of days, maybe three. Who knows with the CIA?"
Handing him a steaming cup of coffee before settling on the couch with her own mug, Alex asked, "Is she remembering anything?"
"Some," Chuck admitted with as much smile as he could manage, "but it's coming very slowly. That's a little frustrating." Or more than a little frustrating.
Morgan plopped down on the couch beside his girlfriend. "Dude," he said, "would you stop all this gloom and doom stuff? If you want Sarah to remember things, you're going to have to make her want to. Woo her. Wine and dine her. Take her dancing. You're a rich dude. Take her to Paris. Put on the full court press."
Alex shook her head. "That's exactly the wrong thing to do," she protested firmly. "That's what Sarah is used to from men. She fell in love with Chuck because he didn't do those crazy, in-your-face type of things." Turning to Chuck, she continued, "Sarah loves you for a reason, lots of reasons. All you have to do is remind her of that. Be yourself. That's who she loves."
"And who do you think knows more about romance?" Morgan asked. "I say sweep her off her feet. It worked on you . . . three times."
"Says the man who broke up with me via text message," his girlfriend replied, directing a subtle eye roll in Chuck's direction. "You do realize," she laughed, "that winning me three times also means you lost me twice, right? You want Chuck to sweep Sarah off her feet like you swept Bo Derrick?"
"Hey," Morgan said defensively, "I'm telling you that happened. Chuck, back me up here."
Chuck laughed into his coffee mug. "I think that's my signal to go home," he said, taking a quick sip and setting it on the table. "Thanks for cheering me up. I think I might actually split the difference between your advices. If she comes back I'll sweep her off her feet, but I'll do it my way."
"You don't have to leave," Alex objected. "It's still early."
"Well," Chuck said, shrugging as he reached the door, "I have some things to do. And even if I didn't, I really don't want to be here to see you fight. And I really, really don't want to be here for the make-up sex."
x-x-x-x-x
Back in her hotel room, Sarah flopped on her bed. Her stomach growled loudly reminding her that, in her fury over the news about Chuck, she'd forgotten to eat dinner. She rolled over to pluck the room phone from its cradle and ordered a soup and sandwich from room service. In a moment, her evening was planned out: eating a quiet meal, soaking in the tub for an hour or so, and collapsing in bed until her morning meeting with Beckman.
As she hung up the phone, she let out a low groan. She knew going into this trip that she would miss Chuck, even after a day. She just wasn't prepared to miss him quite this much. She wasn't prepared for the ache in her chest that wouldn't dissipate, and she wondered if that feeling was anything like the one on Day 564, the feeling that finally got her to admit it, even if only to a video log.
Missing him wasn't the only thing on her mind. She was haunted by Gold's information. She knew her agency, knew how they just took what they wanted, especially when they were taking it from a person like Chuck. There was no tactic off the table. They would blackmail, seduce, threaten loved ones, even kill. With so many methods to work toward only one goal, there was no room left for concern for the mark's wellbeing. After being a tool of theirs for so long, she knew the arguments: the needs of the many over the needs of the one. But this time, the one was Chuck, her Chuck, her husband, the man she loved.
She balked at the thought.
That was not a word she would ever admit to lightly, not even to herself, in her head, in the privacy of a hotel room.
Then she realized, dazedly, that a smile was gracing her lips. She reached a hand up to her mouth, covering it in silly embarrassment, making sure it was real. Suddenly, she knew what she needed: to hear his voice, his sweet, sexy, smooth voice that could reassure her and inspire her and make her laugh.
She looked at the clock. She knew that he was going to dinner with Alex and Morgan. Even though she knew Morgan hardly at all and Alex even less, she recognized the gesture. They were looking out for their friend. That was sweet. Someday she'd have to find a way to thank them. It would be good for Chuck to maybe get his mind off everything for an hour or so, and she certainly didn't want to intrude on that. So she decided she could wait for a while to call him. Maybe in between the room service and the relaxing bath she'd scheduled in for herself.
Right on cue came a knock at the door. "I'm glad you're here," she said as she opened the door. "I'm really hungry. It's been -"
Sarah stopped as soon as she saw it wasn't room service with her meal. Eric Gold, wearing a white dinner jacket and carrying a single red rose and a bottle of wine, waltzed into the room, smiling confidently.
"I'm glad I'm here too," Eric said suavely as he held the rose out to her.
She eyed it warily, no doubt in her mind about his plans. His smile never wavering, he withdrew the rose but set it and the bottle of Chateau Margeau down on the table.
That's when the flash hit. Not an Intersect flash, a memory one. It came over her in a rush of pain, like a wallop to the heart. Chuck had tried the Montgomery on her once, too, and wouldn't you know it, Bryce happened to pick that night to show up and try to insert himself not-so-neatly into their lives again. The look of despair on Chuck's face wasn't even the worst part of it, the part she knew would be seared into her memory permanently now. That was when she had been completely paralyzed, unable to think of a single thing to say to him to make it better. She was so worried about the long run, that Bryce might see through her and report her and take her away from Chuck, that she didn't worry about the short run, that she was causing Chuck pain. She made the only choice she thought available – she allowed a humiliated Chuck to slink away without an explanation.
Even now, years later though it felt so much closer, the pain of hurting him was awful. It must have been something they got over eventually, but she wondered if she had ever apologized to Chuck for that, if he really understood why she had to sometimes do the things she did. Apologizing wasn't really an Agent Walker thing, but she was starting to think that needed to change.
That was something that could wait a little though. The first thing she needed to take care of was this jerk in her room. He had taken advantage of her flash of memory to move farther into the room, walking that slow walk that made him look like nothing so much as a lion stalking its prey. But she was no prey.
"Look, Eric," she said, taking the high road. If he turned out to be one of those guys who didn't take 'no' for an answer, this could get messy fast. The least she could do was try to avoid that course. "Maybe you mistook me earlier, but I'm not interested. In fact, I'm married."
His gaze went to her left hand, fingers flexing in futile wish that her gun were in easy reach. "Funny," he said, "I don't see a ring."
"We're working on some issues," she said, "but I'm sure, if you leave now, we can chalk this all up to a misunderstanding."
Shaking his head, Gold stepped closer and grabbed her arm. "I don't think so. Are you really going to play hard to get? I thought we agreed that you were going to be appreciative."
She could smell alcohol on his breath as he leaned in to try to kiss her, which already meant she had a good advantage, even with his weight and strength. Fury rising in her chest, she grabbed his hand and spun his arm around until his fingers bent backwards. He arched his back and let out a shocked cry of pain.
"You must have misheard me," she seethed. "If you leave now, you can leave with all your fingers."
She looked into his eyes, fleetingly wondering what happened to him, if he'd always been like this, or if she was the one to change, to start caring about more than herself.
He gave her a good shove, sending her stumbling backwards, then pinned her against the wall. "Come on, Walker," he slurred. "What's gotten into you? These things have unbreakable rules. You used to know that. All I want is what's owed me."
If she weren't so close to the situation, she could have laughed in his face. Only a man with an enormous ego could believe he deserved sex for one tiny tidbit of information. Instead, she did the most logical thing – she kneed him in the balls. He went down with a howl of anguish, hands cupped over his groin, allowing her to deliver a knock-out kick to the head, and he went down fully, silent this time.
She stood over his unconscious body, breathing heavily, the consequences of her actions falling down on her. A guy like Eric Gold could be dangerous if he chose to take offense to her rejection. He knew how to hold onto a grudge and knew how to settle a score. There was not much she could do about it now, though, especially that another knock was sounding on the door.
This time it actually was room service.
"Thank you so much," she breathed, tipping the boy a twenty. "You have no idea how much I need this right now. Also, can you send up housekeeping?"
x-x-x-x-x
Sarah waited until after taking a bath, after calming down, to call. Clad in a tank and boy shorts, damp hair tied up in a bun, she stretched out on the bed and dialed his number, the number that she certainly once knew by heart but now had to depend on her phone's contact list to know for her.
He answered after the first ring. Even the sound of his "Hello" put a smile on her face.
"Chuck, hey, how're you doing?"
If Chuck was surprised by the call, it didn't show in his voice. All she could hear was concern as he said, "Sarah, it's almost midnight there. Is something wrong? What is it?"
A smile still gracing her lips, she shook her head at the question, though she knew he couldn't see. It was something that she was starting to get used to, his worrying about her. It was just another aspect of his sweetness. Not to mention, she liked the feeling of being worried about.
There was no way that she was going to tell him anything about what Eric had told her about the Intersect or his ridiculous and clichéd seduction attempt. She might someday, but that was a conversation that should take place in person. She bit her bottom lip, knowing damn well she should just tell him the truth, plain and simple, that she missed him and wanted to hear his voice. He would like that. It might even help him get through the separation, however brief.
She just couldn't bring herself to say it. She squeezed her eyes shut, silently cursing herself for not thinking through what it was she wanted to say to him. She thought enough about him during her bath. Surely she could think of one thing to say.
One thing she could do was answer his question. "No, nothing's wrong," she said softly. Her eyes sweep around the room, fall on the rose and the wine bottle, still on the table by the door. "I just, I wanted to tell you that I remembered something about us tonight."
"That's good," he replied, noticeably brighter. "What did you remember?"
"I'll let you decide how good it is," she said, trying to inject more levity into her voice than she felt. "You know Roan Montgomery, right?" She thought she read his name in one of their mission reports, but her mind was admittedly not quite focused on Montgomery at the moment.
"Yeah, of course. Did you remember one of our missions with him? We became . . . sort of friends, I guess you would say. Ooh, you didn't remember that he and Beckman are an item, did you? That was an eye-opening mission. And slightly disturbing."
She chuckled in spite of her low mood. "He has a move, a rather famous move in spy circles. Did he ever happen to tell you about it?"
"Ahh, you mean the rose and the white jacket? Yeah, doesn't work."
"That's what I remember," she sighed. "I left you hanging. There was nothing I could do about it. I don't know if I ever said this, but I'm sorry."
"I understand, but why are you sorry?"
She shrugged, turning on the bed to burrow into the plush, down pillow, and admitted, "I don't know. There was nothing I could do really. But I can still see the crushed look on your face. I feel like I should have been able to think of something to make that better."
"You did."
She perked. "I did?"
"Yeah," he told her, laughing lightly, "you came over later, ditched Bryce and brought me pizza. We sat outside in the courtyard and dodged Morgan. You were . . . you were really great about it, actually." He sighed. "Look, there's no denying we've both made tons of mistakes. Actually, I've made far more than you have, but please don't feel bad about something that happened four years ago, okay? We're way past that. At least, we were once."
She paused, lips pursed. He was right. She shouldn't be apologizing for something that happened so long ago, shouldn't be apologizing for doing her job. She had a mission to protect then. Now, she still had that obligation, but in a different way. Her responsibility was still the safety of one Charles Irving Bartowski, but now that he was her husband, that responsibility included his happiness too. Really, the mere thought that this guy, this amazing guy who in the brief month she could remember knowing him had already proven time and time again that he would faithfully stand by her when most wouldn't, was her husband made her secretly ecstatic. This was not going to be a hard responsibility.
"Okay," she finally said, "want to know the truth?"
"Uh, what?" he asked, a smile in his voice, understandably confused.
"The real reason that I called is because I missed you, Chuck, and needed to hear your voice. I . . . I know it's hard for me to admit things like that a lot, but . . . I'm working on it."
Based on the silence that followed, she could only imagine he was grinning speechlessly, and for some reason she was beginning to guess at, it made her heart soar.
"Don't feel bad about that either," he said softly. "If you didn't say a lot, sometimes I said way too much for the both of us. But I think we've both come a long ways. After two days we're already ahead of where we were after two years the first time. At this pace, we're going to be starting a family by the end of the week."
She couldn't keep in the giggle, not that there was any reason to try, and God, how she needed that laugh right now, that laugh that changed the tone of the entire conversation.
"Admit it," she said playfully, "you were jealous of Bryce back then."
"Horribly jealous," he said, mimicking her teasing tone. "Ridiculously childlike. Do you remember that?"
"No," she answered, still fighting the giggles. "I'm just guessing. By the way, don't give up on The Montgomery. It does work, but only when the girl wants it to."
"Good to know," he laughed. "Maybe I'll try it again someday."
"Goodnight, Chuck."
"Goodnight, Sarah. Get a good night's sleep, okay?"
"Okay, I promise."
"And don't worry about anything. We're going to be fine."
"I know we are."
"And Sarah?"
"Yeah?"
"I miss you, too. I'm . . . I'm really happy you called."
"I am, too, Chuck."
After the click on the other end of the line, she curled up, pulling her knees in, holding the phone close to her chest. His honest concern over her wellbeing was perhaps the sweetest thing she had ever heard. Maybe he was right. They had come a long ways. Still, they had a long ways to go. Her mind flashed back to the mission log Casey had given her. Now she understood a little better what that Sarah Walker was saying, why she was so conflicted. There was no longer any point in denying it.
She loved Chuck Bartowski.
And yes, maybe she still didn't know exactly what to do it about, but there was one promise that she felt entirely comfortable making to herself: she was going to figure it out.
x-x-x-x-x