Chapter 5

Bryce managed to convince Chuck to go to June's with him instead of returning to the hotel, which hadn't been difficult as Chuck needed to get his mind off whatever Sarah was doing.

It had confounded Bryce as well. He couldn't think of who this 'friend' could be. It certainly wasn't him, although he had entertained the notion a little but, she didn't know he was alive yet.

"I thought she could trust me," Chuck lamented as they climbed the stairs to Neal's apartment. Bryce had already explained that he 'rented' the place from June and that he hadn't told her about his side activities as a spy. "We were working on it. Telling each other little things and rebuilding our trust in each other."

"You don't trust each other?" Bryce questioned as he pulled out a fine bottle of Chardonnay wine.

"Well, we trust each other with our lives," Chuck responded in a non-nonchalant way, "but, it's the little things, you know? She skims over details when I ask her how she's been. We don't talk anymore and, if we do, I'm the one initiating it. She offers to cook and just gets the food brought in, which wouldn't be a problem except she lies about it to me."

"Ouch," Bryce responded, taking a sip of his wine.

"Got any advice?" Chuck asked earnestly.

Bryce chocked on his wine and coughed.

"Are you kidding me?" he wheezed, "my last girlfriend dumped me because 'we're different people'."

Chuck's eyes widened.

"Isn't that part of it, though?" he questioned, "I mean, Sarah and I are very different people-" Bryce held up a hand.

"I've heard the speech, thanks."

They sipped in silence for a few moments before Chuck commented, "I always thought you were the kind of guy who could get any girl he wanted."

"It's not getting the girl that's the problem," Bryce responded, "it's keeping her. You seem to be doing okay with that, seeing how there's a ring on your finger. Or is that a cover too?"

"No," Chuck responded, his hand fiddling with the silver wedding ring on his hand. "It's real. We're married."

"You're married and having problems?" Bryce questioned. It wasn't like he hadn't heard of it but, they had been in love with problems when he last saw them. Their love had been enough that everyone could see it; enough that Sarah had turned him down in order to stay with Chuck, but they were fighting it for some reason.

Bryce downed the last of his glass and poured another, topping up Chuck's as well. It was going to be long night.

Sarah stepped out of the taxi and stared at Ryker's residence. Or the Burke house, if she thought of it like everyone else did. An ordinary townhouse in New York, the exterior was even painted white.

Feeling nerves flutter in her belly, she walked up the steps and knocked on the door. To keep calm, she mentally went though the list of weapons she hid on her person.

"If anything happens to me," she said as soon as Ryker opened the door, "Chuck gets a message with everything written in it."

Instead of looking annoyed or acting pleasant, he just sighed and moved to let her in.

"Is she here?" an excited female voice called down the hall.

"Yes, hon!" Ryker called back.

Sarah was surprised to see a woman with long dark hair and bright, curious eyes bounce into view. For a moment, she was reminded of Ellie, Chuck's sister.

"Hi!" she greeted with a smile. "I'm Elizabeth Burke, Peter's wife." She laughed and then added, "but, I guess you know him as Kieran Ryker, huh?"

Sarah nodded and pulled up a pleasant mask. She could play the gracious guest.

"Sarah Bartowski," she introduced herself.

The was a quiet 'woof' from up the stairs and a large, golden dog came patting down the stairs. It looked like it wanted to jump at Sarah, choosing instead to curl around her legs until he reached down to pet it.

"That's Satchmo," Ryker said, "he's not allow to jump on guests."

Married with a beautiful home and a pet dog, the only thing missing was;

"Why don't you have any kids?" the question burst out of Sarah's lips before she could stop it. She realised what she said a moment later and gasped, covering her mouth as she apologised. Ryker quickly excused himself to the kitchen, leaving her with the wife.

Elizabeth took her hands in hers and looked her straight in the eyes.

"Have people been asking you about that?" She made a sympathetic noise as she guided Sarah down to the dining room.

Sarah felt her jaw drop a little; how had she known? She wasn't exactly right but, it was close enough that it was scary. It was like she had seen through her in that one moment.

"No," she responded as she sat down. Ryker brought them wine as he opened his own beer. "But, there's a picture Chuck drew and it was something I forgot about until I found it again." She glanced over at Ryker. While his wife might be a comforting presence, his was not. She took a moment to pull herself back together. "But, that's not important. I'm interested to know how a civilian ends up married to a spy."

Elizabeth and Ryker exchanged looks before she spoke.

"Well, I thought I was getting an FBI agent, not a CIA and FBI agent rolled into one," she started.

"I failed her," Chuck said, after he finished telling Bryce about the events with Quinn. "I couldn't protect her, I let her get hurt at the hands of that megalomaniac and I failed to bring her back."

Bryce frowned and then growled.

"Bullshit. You didn't fail. She's still by your side, isn't she?" Chuck's gaze slid to the seat next to him, as if he expected Sarah to suddenly appear there. "Even after Quinn, you've been able to go through your day with her by your side and work missions together. Tomorrow morning, you'll be able to hug her, kiss her and reaffirm your love for each other."

"She hasn't said, 'I love you,' once to me since then," Chuck said, but his voice was a little stronger than it had been before.

"But, she's still there," Bryce said, "and she'll say it again someday." Bryce had seen it himself; whether she could admit it or not, Sarah was in love with Chuck.

Chuck mumbled something under his breath.

"What?"

"I miss..." Chuck cleared his throat before speaking again, "we haven't been intimate since then."

It took Bryce a moment to understand that. When he did, he laughed.

"It's not funny!"

"It is!" Bryce responded before sobering enough to add, "but, that's probably a good thing. It's probably better for you two to get your feelings sorted out beforehand."

"What about you?" Chuck asked, as he was tired of talking about himself and his relationship issues.

"What about me?" Bryce raised an eyebrow in challenge.

"Uh, that last girlfriend," Chuck said, trailing off as he realised he didn't know how to phrase what he wanted to ask.

"Her name was Sara," Bryce said and then proceeded to spell it out, "S. A. R. A."

"Oh. She's not blond, is she?"

"No," Bryce responded in an offended tone.

"Okay."

There was an awkward silence for a few moments.

"We should talk about the case," Bryce suggested.

"Mission," Chuck corrected as he nodded his agreement.

"That's what I said."

Peter looked over the files again with fresh eyes.

"Is it possible that whoever stole the painting knew that Bryce Larkin had this Intersect?" It was Elizabeth who had made the suggestion as she collected the dishes. "It sounds like something that people would want to get their hands on."

"If they knew that the painting hides something," Peter mused.

"The Intersect is imaged-based," Sarah added to the theory, "so, either this painting contains information only the Intersect can decode or-"

"Or it either leads to something about the Intersect."

"Bryce was in charge of the Intersect 2.0 project before his death," Sarah explained.

"Maybe we need to start there," Peter continued, "look into anyone who knew about the painting and who knew Bryce Larkin."

"They'd have to be in New York during the time the painting was stolen too."

"Unless it was a hired job. Neal has a guy who can look into that but, I'd really rather not get them involved."

"If it was a hired job, our underground contacts would have heard about this," Sarah countered, "I'm thinking whoever did this did so with little outside help."

Peter nodded in agreement.

"We located the delivery guy and he said that he only delivered what was ordered, so he might not be a part of this," he added, "just a guy doing his job. But I did have Agent Jones pull camera surveillance from the streets around the building and we can check those around the time of the delivery."

Elizabeth watched them discuss and decided to put on a pot of coffee. She had feeling they would be working late into the night.