I do not own Chuck
France 2011
"Bye Ellie, Bye Devon!" Chuck grinned as he waved at his sister and brother-in-law as they gave one last wave to the couple and turned their backs to head through airport security. He looked at Sarah, seeing her barely-hidden excitement as they contemplated their new life together.
It felt that all roads up until this point had led to this moment and he couldn't be happier. Falling for one another on the mission in Moscow. Sarah had told him she'd been attracted to him from the get go but had intended to keep their relationship on a friends basis because she'd never really had one. When she'd realised that they could be friends as well as lovers she'd jumped at the chance.
He, of course, had been oblivious to her internal discussions. He'd just been respecting her by going slow. He'd also been attracted to her from the beginning but not being someone who jumped in and out of bed with women, he'd simply been taking their relationship slowly and thought she had been as well. When she'd kicked up the pace on their third date, he'd been taken by surprise, but plenty happy to go along with the new pace. He'd already come to the conclusion that Sarah Walker was a special woman and he'd be lucky to have a relationship with her.
Nothing that had happened in the intervening five and a half years had changed that opinion. Here was a woman who risked her life on a regular basis for others who would never know her name or what she'd done. Who endured uncomfortable physical situations, beatings and broken bones to get the job done and who pushed her own mental wellbeing aside so that she could kill enemies of their country. Chuck knew the toll that took on the woman he loved. He'd held her enough times when she awoke from nightmares, seen the flashbacks that Sarah had in unguarded moments and reassured her he loved her when she broke down in tears after a particularly distressing mission.
Sarah thought she was a bad person for doing what she did. Chuck knew that bad people didn't think that way. Sarah was a good person who'd been put in difficult situations. Her upbringing hadn't helped with her self-confidence either. It had taken some time but Sarah had eventually trusted Chuck enough to tell him about her difficult upbringing, her estrangement from her mother and her life of crime with her father, before his arrest and her under-age recruitment.
Chuck had been shocked and dismayed. The fact that Graham had been killed by Fulcrum only a few months after Chuck had found out hadn't gone any way to remove Chuck's feelings of anger over the man taking advantage of Sarah at such a young age, but he supposed that the man had got his, so he couldn't tell the shithead what he thought of him. The fact that Fulcrum had got to Graham just ahead of the screwed up mission to Budapest which had eventually resulted in Sarah's resignation from the CIA was neither here nor there.
Sarah's decision to take on Katrina had only added to Chuck's admiration of her as a person. To give up her successful CIA career to do the right thing for a baby of people she didn't know, just because it was the right thing to do, again marked Sarah out as a special person. To put their relationship on ice, even though it was painful to both of them, just emphasised that. But it had been necessary in order for Sarah to disappear.
She had developed the Nicole identity but, when Sarah told him her plans for it, he'd improved it. They had worked together to ensure that Sarah and Katrina got away from the Intelligence Community cleanly and so that he could extract himself when the time was right. Before extracting himself, there were tasks that needed to be done and he'd accomplished the final one just months ago. It had taken a long time to extricate himself from the NSA, just as long to make sure that Sarah was safe. He had worked diligently to destroy Sarah's digital footprint, to break into government databases and destroy her facial recognition data, all photographs, background. All the time working to bolster the Nicole identity and create other identities in case they needed to run again.
In the mean time he'd worked hard to learn French and other European languages in case they needed to use the other identities. They'd only had remote contact for the first six months and it had been difficult, but after that he'd managed to get an encrypted laptop to her, the twin of one he himself had built, which allowed them to interact safely and without risk of being tracked. While her end was almost-certainly secure, he'd needed to call from a succession of hotel rooms and business centres to ensure she wasn't tracked through him. Maybe he was paranoid, but with Sarah's and Katrina's safety he'd rather be safe than sorry. Some of her tradecraft had clearly rubbed off on him.
Sarah's absence had left a big hole in their battle with Fulcrum, one that had been a struggle to fill. With the ructions in the CIA following Graham's death, the NSA had decided to go on alone, appointing an agent called John Casey as Sarah's successor. Casey was a good agent, if somewhat unique in his methods of communication! He and Rob worked well together and the two of them, as well as Chuck's growing team, had eventually started to build momentum again. Occasionally they worked with CIA agents and agents from other agencies, but the onus was on the NSA core team and they had managed to end Fulcrum about six months ago.
That had finally meant that Chuck felt justified in looking to quit the IC. His team leader, Cassandra, who was now Deputy Director of NSA and a Brigadier, Rob and even Casey had tried to persuade him to stay, but he had not been for moving. They had negotiated a four month handover period, which got extended to five, but finally he was free. Chuck had been working on Devon quietly for about six months on the cycle holiday idea, dropping adverts for cycling in Provence into his LinkedIn and Facebook accounts and mentioning France in conversation, and finally an opportunity had come up with discounted flights, and Devon had gone for it.
And the best part was that Chuck had succeeded in the final one of his tasks just at the end of his extended notice period, so it had been worth staying with the NSA for the extra month after all.
And then all paths had led to this.
Grasping Nicole's hand, he led them back to the car. He had been surprised that Nicole's everyday car wasn't a sports car or even souped up, but he supposed he shouldn't have been. The aim was to fit in, after all. The five year old grey Citroen SUV was smaller than most SUVs in the US but about normal for what he'd seen in France. Cars as a whole were much smaller here.
Even though it wasn't a sports car, Nicole still drove it like a sports car, which had led to some white knuckles at times during their trip! Although that seemed to be normal here. Certainly the taxi driver who had brought Devon and Ellie to the airport, and whom they'd followed, had not driven noticeably slower than Nicole, and he had easily brought up 150km/h on the autoroute; that was nearly a hundred miles per hour!
He was surprised when she tossed him the keys and looked askance at her. "I've chauffeured you around for the last two weeks, Mr Bartowski," she grinned. "I've noticed you checking me out from the passenger seat. Now it's my turn!"
He grinned, embarrassed. He couldn't deny he'd been checking her out. After so long apart, Nicole-watching was one of his favourite pastimes after all. "I'm not used to a stick shift," he told her with raised eyebrows.
"You're gonna have to learn," she told him. "No time like the present." He guessed that was true. He'd driven stick shifts a few times over the years so it wasn't totally new to him. When he'd asked her about it she'd emphasised that it was important to have what she'd called a manual transmission because of the steepness of some of the hills in the area.
They got into the car. "You'd better fasten your seatbelt then," he told her, sliding the key into the ignition, and switching the engine on.
"Why's that, Captain Slow?" she asked, grinning at him. That, in itself, was a story. On one of his past missions in the UK he'd been watching TV one night when a show about cars came up. He'd resolved to mention it to her because she was pretty into her cars. At one point they'd had a drag race and the main presenter had called another one "Captain Slow". Sarah had gotten addicted to the show in her French exile and had adopted the moniker for him.
He promptly stalled the car with a jolt. "Because of that," he observed, smirking at her as she was jolted forward in her seat.
"Guess I deserved that," she agreed, reaching for her seatbelt as he managed to get the car under way. He was able to get them back without stripping the gears or doing anything too bad to the car. They took advantage of the fact that Katrina was staying with Marcel's family until later that evening to christen a few more rooms in the house!
"A penny for your thoughts?" Nicole asked. It was later that evening. Katrina had come back, eaten dinner with them and was now tucked up in bed and Chuck was sitting on the patio that Nicole had built, looking out over the beautiful swimming pool in the foreground and the fruit trees, vines and hills in the background. At this time in late-May it was light until late into the evening and he was enjoying the sounds of the birds in the trees, but apart from that the sound of silence.
"It's so quiet here," he observed.
"Yeah, apart from the birds," she agreed. She twitched. "Listen, did you hear that?" she asked.
"The lower call?" he asked.
"Yeah," she replied. "That's the owl. He'll come out later. You might see him. He stays away from the house but he hunts in the field."
"I'd love to see that," he noted. Nicole had filled him in on all the avian comings and goings around her, soon to be their, home. She had got quite into bird watching here; it was a key migration route from Africa to Europe and all sorts of different birds came through the area in Spring and Fall. He had brought a few bird watching books with him and hoped that it was something they could do together. He'd always enjoyed the natural world, after all.
He'd also ordered a telescope and hoped that astronomy could be something they enjoyed together as well. The stars were so beautiful and clear here with so little light pollution. He hadn't had a chance to do astronomy since school and was looking forward to rekindling his passion for it.
"Are you OK?" she questioned, setting a cup of coffee on the table in front of him and sitting next to him.
"I couldn't be better," he confessed. "Just sitting here, enjoying the silence, contemplating our new life together, something I've been looking forward to for years."
"I'm sorry we were interrupted," she started.
"You don't need to apologise again, honey," he told her, stroking her hand. "You did the right thing and the fact that you were prepared to do it when it didn't work out with your mom only emphasised to me what an amazing person you are."
She looked him in the eye and he made sure to keep eye contact to show to her how truthful he was being. She smiled and looked down, holding their enjoined hands up and briefly kissing his, still wrapped in hers.
"I'm still sorry we had to waste so much time," she said sadly.
"I'm not gonna deny it was tough," he admitted, "Especially those first few months when I couldn't even video call you. But I'm sure it wasn't easy for you either?" She smiled wanly and he knew it had been tough. Taking care of a kid, not your own, in a foreign country with precious-little support. She was lucky that Marcel and his family had taken her under their wing. He'd always be grateful to them for that.
"But we got through it," he continued. "And here we are. With a proper relationship, with a home, living together and hopefully safe." He touched the wooden table as he said it and was surprised to see that she also touched it. She had made fun of his expression when they'd first known each other, but it seemed that she'd now started to embrace it!
"I can't believe that we've got a home," she said, and he could almost see the wonder in her eyes. "I never imagined in my wildest dreams that I would ever have a home, a little kid, a partner who cared about me." She sniffed, and he reached out for her again. "Those were all fairy tale things to me."
He pulled her into a hug. "Well Nicole Moulin," he told her, "They're quite real now. And we're gonna build a life here together for the both of us. And the only way you're gonna get rid of me is if you kick me out."
"Not gonna happen Mr Bartowski," she said, nuzzling his cheek. "I've waited long enough to get you here. We've got a lot of lost time to make up for."
"Yes, we have," he agreed. "Shall we go and make a start on that now?"
He saw the twinkle in her eye and their coffees were forgotten as he led her into the house, locking the door behind them, and up to their room.
Chuck looked around his study with pride and happiness. The attention to detail in Nicole's work was amazing. Not only had she refurbished the outhouse for his study, installing electrical connections and server room, air conditioning and plumbing, but she'd also built him a beautiful wooden desk and shelves. He had been overcome when she'd first showed him the room; the beautiful Provencal stonework was complimented by the varnished pine shelves and beautifully-carved desk that she'd hand-made for him.
Now he had added his own touches – his hand-built computer equipment, books and photographs, some showing older pictures like the few of Ellie and him together as children, and some slightly more recent like Ellie and Devon's wedding day, and a few of Chuck and Sarah on dates. He'd decided to hand build his computer equipment so he could make sure it was clean of any bugs and monitoring devices. He wasn't sure he entirely trusted the NSA and wanted to make sure that their home was entirely clean, plus there were a few things left to do before they'd be totally free and clear.
He started up his computers and his printer and set about preparing what he was going to say, then he called Sarah for what he hoped would be the last time.
"What's up Chuck?" she asked, coming into the room, taking off the gloves she used for gardening. Her hair was done up in a bun, with a cap on top and, even wearing just a T-shirt and loose gardening pants, she looked absolutely beautiful. She'd been pruning and training the vines, an important past-time at this time of the year and one that he'd helped with on and off over the past few days.
She ground to a halt as she saw the picture of the man on the screen.
"Fuck!" she exclaimed, lip curling in disdain. "Ryker."
"Yep," he agreed. "I managed to get a trace of him just before I left the NSA, but he's tricky. I've only just managed to pin him down."
"Have you found the bastard?" she asked hopefully.
He nodded slowly. "He's in Palermo in Sicily," he explained. "I understand he's been helping the Mafia out with some work down there, but I've finally managed to lock in on where he's staying."
She took a deep breath. "You know what I've gotta do?" she asked, sitting down.
He sat down next to her and grasped her hand. "Yes I do," he agreed. "I understand that you can't truly feel safe until you do it." He took his own deep breath. "I can stay here with Katrina if you want?" he offered.
She looked sharply at him. "No, I'm gonna need you there with me. For back up, and for moral support. I don't know if I'll be able to go through with this – even for him – if I don't have a reminder there of what I've got to lose." She pulled him into a hug.
He leaned over to nuzzle her ear. Nicole Moulin truly had subsumed Sarah Walker, and he was pleased. For the woman who had been one of the CIA's premier assassins to admit that she mightn't be able to pull the trigger unless she had a reminder of what she had to lose was a big admission. It meant that Nicole Moulin had put the CIA a long way behind her. When this job was done Sarah Walker could truly fade away.
"Katrina can stay with Marcel's family," she added, reaching up for his lips with hers. "Then we can deal with the trash and finally get on with our lives."
"We can," he agreed, wrapping up the woman he loved in a hug. "We finally can."
So, lots of answers in this chapter. But still a few more to come. What did you think of it? Please drop me a review if you're able.