AN: Well, here it is. The final chapter, with a short epilogue to come. I don't remember where I originally intended to take this story, but I hope people still enjoy it. A decade in the making.

6 weeks later

Echo Park

"Well, that is the last of it," said Awesome when he set down the large cardboard box on the kitchen table.

He had a big grin on his face, and he looked expectantly at Chuck. "Pretty great we were able to get our old apartment back, huh? And now you have your own place across the courtyard. Nice!"

"Yea, uh, very great," Chuck said, grimacing at his ineloquence. He was fairly certain that Sarah and the CIA had something to do with the fortunate timing of vacancies in their old apartment complex. Thoughts of his former handler and 24-hour lover still tied his stomach in knots. He hadn't spoken to her since the day at the hospital in DC. True to her word, she was letting him have space, a lot of space. The longer he went without having to make a decision, the easier it was to delay making one. He had a powerful mind, and it was becoming an expert in mental gymnastics. A big part of him felt like taking Sarah back would make him a gigantic, pathetic loser. Like a puppy trailing after its owner, tongue hanging out of its mouth. Ugh.

The weeks cooped up with Carina in the cabin did not do much to soothe his soul or order his mind. After he burst into the cabin demanding that she tell him what the envelope meant, what it all meant, she clammed up. Perhaps the desperation pouring off of him made her realize she was meddling. She confirmed that the cover kit came from Sarah and that Carina thought it was one Sarah had made before their current predicament. All his further questions were met with diversion or entreaties for him to talk to Sarah himself, get answers from the source.

She was slightly more receptive to his probing about seduction. While she described how it was taught at various intelligence agencies, he compared it to his interactions with Sarah in Burbank. There wasn't a lot that matched. She did, somewhat reluctantly, admit that the methodology was geared towards tricking criminals, not normal people. Then there was the fact that every agent did things differently. Sarah would have developed her own style. But the inconsistency of her behavior towards him during their time in Burbank nagged at him. She ran hot and cold, like she was battling herself. He supposed that could have been part of a strategy to tie him in knots, keep him wanting. As angry and hurt as he was though, it didn't feel like something she would do.

While Chuck tried to answer existential questions about truth, love, and the meaning of life, Carina spent their month together restless. Spies were people of action, which made a trapped spy pretty unbearable to live with. They weren't supposed to leave the safehouse, and even if they could, she couldn't leave him alone and unprotected. That meant finding something to do indoors.

Although the cabin looked pretty bleak from the outside, it was comfortable and well kept inside. When he learned that there was a secret basement accessible through a hidden door behind a bookcase, it took all of his willpower to restrain his inner nerd in front of the DEA agent. The basement had a room full of spy gear, a gym, and a getaway tunnel. It was no surprise to him that Carina spent most of her time down there. She made a few passes at him, but they were half-hearted and, he guessed, likely out of boredom.

Once a week, she used a specially encrypted satellite phone to check in with Casey and Sarah. The pair had decided to take out as many of the people below General Beckman as they could without tipping her off that they knew she was involved. Thanks to the information he obtained while hacking Fulcrum's database, they knew the General was in the upper echelon of leadership. The real leaders used codenames, so they would need to rely on interrogation to reveal those identities.

In the first few weeks, Sarah and Casey quietly captured the double agents that they deemed essential. Those were the people they didn't want scattering if Fulcrum realized their organization was slowly being dismantled. Carina assured him that it was a good plan, and he saw the logic of it, but he was still antsy for things to move faster. He wanted the nightmare to be over. It was during week four of hiding when Carina came upstairs with a grin on her face. At first, he thought she was going to try and hit on him again due to some endorphin rush from exercising, but he was wrong. Apparently, Casey had called to inform them that the big show was going down that night. Casey and Sarah were going to apprehend Beckman, and a small army of trusted agents were going to take down other Fulcrum members around the world.

The end was in sight. He did not get much sleep, or any, that night. The next morning, he bugged Carina until she agreed to make an outgoing phone call instead of waiting to receive one. Thankfully, the raids had been a success. They captured most of the targets, Beckman being the biggest, with limited losses.

It wasn't until the next day that he received news of his fate. Carina called him down to the basement and handed him the satellite phone. Assuming Sarah would be on the other end, he swallowed heavily and brushed his palms against his shirt before taking the device. To his surprising disappointment, it wasn't Sarah, it was Casey on the other end of the call. He wanted to discuss Chuck's future. Chuck reminded him of the troves of incriminating information he had socked away and what would happen if it became public. The threat wasn't necessary though because the government didn't try to play hardball. Casey literally just asked him what he wanted.

The answer came to him in an instant. He wanted back to the life he had before the Intersect.

Chuck was going home, his real home, Burbank.

A few days after the call with Casey, Carina announced that it was time to leave the safehouse. They took a slightly less clandestine path to the nearest airport, but there was still the occasional subterfuge. One cross-country flight later, he was in California again. Before leaving LAX, they stopped at the public lockers. Carina keyed in a code and pulled out a legal sized envelope.

Another envelope.

She ordered him to turn over his cover kit and exchanged it with the locker bounty. He waited until they were in the car to look at the contents.

A diploma from Stanford. A letter of commendation from the President. A sizable check written by the CIA. And, lastly, a formal job offer from the cyber division of the LA FBI office.

He wondered if there was anything that gaped more than a fish because that was what he must have looked like at that moment. The words "What?" "How?" "Why?" and "Who?" escaped his lips continuously and in random order.

Carina just ignored him and floored it. To not draw unwanted attention, she had been forced to hover around the speed limit when they were escaping DC. It seemed like she was ready to make up for it. Desperately buckling his seatbelt, he wondered if all spies drove like maniacs. After adjusting to the g-forces, his rational mind returned.

"Carina, what is this?" he asked, finally, tapping the papers in his lap.

"What does it look like," she scoffed.

"A giant bribe," he answered, frankly.

At that, she tilted her head to give him a seductive smirk. "You are smart," she joked.

"But why? All I wanted was to go back to my life before the government invaded. This isn't necessary," he explained, frustrated at the unending manipulation in which spies engaged.

"A little insurance never hurts," she replied, smugly.

Chuck just sighed and sank into his seat, tired of the game. When she was sure he wasn't looking, Carina studied him out of the corner of her eye. In a softer, more serious voice, she said, "Maybe it is an apology."

Startled at the thought, he whipped his gaze to meet hers but she was concentrating hard on the road. He knew she was pretending, but he let it go. "From Sarah?"

"Well, I doubt Casey cares much about your lady-feelings, as he calls them."

"True," he said, tilting his head to stare out the car's window and think heavy thoughts.

It wasn't until twenty minutes later, when Carina took the exit for Echo Park, that Chuck forced enough courage into his gut to ask the question he always feared the answer to.

He cleared his throat before prompting Carina and waiting for her to acknowledge him. Once she did, he let loose one of his last shields.

"Do you think Sarah really cares about me or was it all a lie?"

Nothing happened. Carina continued driving as if he hadn't spoken. Indignation rising, he tried to moderate the annoyance in his voice when he repeated his question.

"I said -,"

"I heard you," she replied, bitingly. "I am just sitting here wondering what I ever did in my life to deserve being in the middle of this high school drama."

"Hey, this is serious!"

Carina took a turn, a very tight turn, before pulling to a stop behind a moving van. Putting the car in park, she killed the engine and turned to face Chuck. Her look was flat, but she softened it slightly before replying. "I know it is, and it is also a bit ridiculous. What does Sarah have to gain now from lying about wanting to be with you?"

He couldn't think of anything, so he didn't respond.

Carina continued, "I have no idea if what happened at the beginning of this mission was a lie. I was only here for a few days, and from what I saw, Walker was conflicted."

Grabbing her handle, she pushed the car door open and pulled herself into the California air. Then she put one hand on the roof and one on the door jamb before poking her head back inside and giving him a sassy smile.

"What I do know is that Sarah is a 10, and, for some reason, she seems to genuinely want to be with you, so stop overthinking the gift you have been given."

He narrowed his eyes in displeasure at her insult. Before he could mount a comeback, she closed the door in his face.

"Well, that was helpful," he said, to himself.

Trying to tamp down thoughts of Sarah, he followed Carina's lead and exited the car. He took a deep breath and tried to exhale his worries. Several uniformed people were moving furniture about on handcarts, and he could see the courtyard fountain just beyond the iron entry gate to his right.

He was home.

One Week Later

Echo Park

He, Ellie, and Devon managed to get all of the furniture arranged before dinner on their first night. They ordered pizza and drank wine in celebration of their return to Los Angeles. Well, Chuck tried to put on a celebratory mood. It didn't translate well to reality, so he begged out of starting a movie marathon and headed for his place.

His own place. Across the courtyard and up one level. He had never had his own place before as an adult. Or ever. In his dreams, it was always a positive development. Independence. Upon waking, the empty apartment echoed the feeling in his soul. Ellie said his despondence was a natural reaction to everything that had happened recently. Plus withdrawal from the antidepressants and other psych meds he had been on. Being abducted several times by government agents and fleeing for your life wasn't very conducive to proper medicine maintenance, and he had decided he wasn't going to restart them. His sister, a doctor, encouraged him to continue them and to talk to mental health professionals to process and heal.

In a fit of bodily autonomy, he told her no fucking way. Well, he was somewhat nicer in his actual delivery, but there was absolutely no way he would trust himself to drugs and doctors for a long time, if ever. The notion was absurd.

Instead, he spent most of his days playing video games and trying to ignore the disaster of his life. Moving boxes still littered his living room and kitchen, but he had managed to fully unpack his bedroom. Each day he put at least one new thing away. A pathetic accomplishment, he knew.

With the bribe money from the government, and his seemingly rent free apartment, Chuck didn't have any pressing financial worries. Ellie and Devon quickly started back to work at their hospital, so he hadn't seen much of them except for a few mornings of coffee. On his first day back, he made the mistake of telling Ellie about the offer letter from the FBI. He thought she would find it as offensive as he did.

Instead, she said, "Why not? You studied it at Stanford. You are good at it. Maybe it will open some doors for you. If you don't like it, quit."

He gave her a pointed look, but she didn't relent. So, like clockwork, five minutes into almost every coffee break, she asked him if he had made a decision. He hadn't. The offer letter was still in the envelope, attached to his fridge with a Sbarro magnet. Maybe he would work at Sbarro, he thought. Their pizza was delicious. He assumed that free pizza would come with the job. A fringe benefit. That sounded easy, simple. Uncomplicated.

He was imagining what sort of pizza combinations he could invent when someone knocked on his front door. He checked his phone for the time. 2 p.m. He wasn't expecting anyone, but maybe Ellie was up from her post-shift nap. Sighing, he pushed himself off of his couch and ambled towards the door.

Not again, he thought, when he saw Carina Miller's annoyed face in his entryway.

"Carina, wh-what are you doing here?"

"I am not a postal carrier, Chuck," she growled, ignoring his question.

Confused. He drew his eyebrows together, causing wrinkles on his forehead. "O-k," he replied, his voice rising on the second syllable. He moved aside to let her in, but she shook her head and reached in to poke his chest. Damn, the women had strong digits.

"Nope, I am not coming in. I am not spending an extra second as the sexual go between for you and Walker," she bellowed, poking him again every few words.

At that moment, he realized that Carina Miller had probably never been in love. He didn't have time to explore that thought more because she traded poking him for shoving something against his chest. On instinct, he raised his hands to prevent it from falling when she let go. He secured his grip and held it out to get a look. While it was the same color as the manilla envelopes he'd been given twice before, this time Carina had given him a folder.

"What's this?"

Carina tightened her grip on his door frame where she had set her left hand after poking him. "That," she said, nodding her head towards the folder in his hands, "is from Walker. I had to meet her in a godforsaken library to get it, swear on my honor that I wouldn't open it, and sit in premium economy for six hours to bring it to your doorstep."

"Did you?"

"Did I what?"

He looked down before meeting her gaze. "Open it."

She drew her eyes together and tightened her jaw. For a moment, he thought she was going to attack him. He tensed. She turned on her heel and walked away from him.

"Carina, wait," he pleaded, rushing into the hallway. She threw her hand up in the air, dismissing him.

"Fish or cut bait, Chuckles. Read whatever is in there, and give Sarah an answer. I don't want to see your face again unless it is at your wedding," she said as she turned the corner for the stairs. "Or your funeral." Her parting shot echoed towards him.

He stood in the hallway for a while, frozen. The folder felt heavy in his hands. Hot too. Somewhere nearby, a dog barked. Chuck retreated into his apartment, locking the door behind him. He stumbled back to his sofa and plopped onto it, ignoring the burst of air he created. The folder sat on his thighs. It was thin, but there was something inside of it. Something Sarah wanted him to have. Something important enough that it needed a spy escort across the country. It was a bomb. An emotional bomb.

Or it could be something good. The opposite of a bomb, maybe. He wondered what exactly the opposite of a bomb was before shaking himself out of the impending spiral. His palms were sweaty, so he rubbed them on the outside of his pants before flipping open the folder. There were several photographs, mostly wallet sized, but a few larger ones too. They looked old, had the fuzziness and hint of yellow that he saw in the photo albums his parents had made for him and Ellie before they disappeared. The top one clearly showed a child with blond hair put up into two ponytails. He hurried to grab the sheet of paper behind the pictures, hoping for an explanation. He recognized Sarah's scrawl.

Dear Chuck,

My real name, my given name is Sam, Samantha. Honestly though, I think of myself as Sarah now. I love chocolate croissants. My favorite color is-

He threw the paper and the folder to the ground. What the hell was that, he wondered. A confession? Is that how spies confess? Aren't they supposed to be good at communication?

What. The. Hell.

He heard a rapid knock on his door. His ears rang from the pressure in his head. Did Carina come back? Maybe she could explain.

"Yo, Chuck, open up bro," said Awesome's familiar boom.

He picked the documents up off of the floor and went over to open the door.

"Chuckster, who was the hot redhead I just saw leaving your place? Up high," Devon said, grinning and holding his hand up for Chuck to join in celebration.

Chuck puckered his lips and heaved a big sigh before walking over to the couch and flopping down again. Awesome frowned, the worry causing his eyebrows to squeeze together.

He stepped into the apartment, closed the door behind him, and said, "Whoa, bro, you do not seem bien. What's going on?"

Chuck laid a hand over his face to rub his eyes. "Tell me about it," he mumbled. He removed his hand and looked directly at Devon. "The "hot redhead" was a friend of Sarah's playing delivery person," he explained, pointing to the documents on the coffee table.

"Those are from Sarah, I take it," Devon said after surveying the pile of paper.

Chuck shoved both hands into his curls and pulled, letting out a frustrated, "Yup."

Devon looked at the coffee table and then back to Chuck before turning slightly to lay his bent right leg on the sofa. Now facing Chuck, he dipped his toe into serious waters.

"Chuck, I know I didn't say much when all of this went down, and I regret that. But we are brothers now, and that is a sacred bond."

Chuck dropped his hands from his hair and looked at Devon, waiting for him to continue.

"How can you forgive Ellie but still be mad at Sarah?"

Chuck's mouth popped open, wide open, overtaken by shock. He couldn't believe Devon would say such a thing.

"She's my sister!"

"And Sarah might be the love of your life," he countered, putting a comforting hand on Chuck's shoulder. "I won't pretend to know what you are going through and have gone through, but I do know what I have seen. You loved that woman harder than most people can dream. And she seemed to love you right back even if she didn't realize it at the time. From everything you have told me, she has been moving mountains to help and protect you since she came back."

"How can I trust her? Her claims to care about me? She chose to do something that destroyed me. She didn't care about me enough to protect me."

Chuck was fighting back tears at that point. Devon squeezed his shoulder.

"In medicine, we have a principle of 'Do No Harm', but it is almost impossible to live up to. In fact, a lot of our job is doing harm to bring about an ultimately better outcome. If a patient has cancer, we might have to give them chemotherapy, which is a punishing regimen that destroys a lot of good cells along with the bad. There are less painful treatments we can try, but with certain cancers or certain phases of cancer, the patient's best shot is the most extreme. It seems to me that Sarah was faced with a similar choice. Let you be killed, take you on the run, or commit you. There were no unharmful options. If she told you about her plan, then there was no plan, it wouldn't work if you knew. And if she loved you even half as much as I love Ellie, she made a monumental decision to put your safety above her feelings. I am not sure I could have made the same decision."

Silence hung heavy in the air after Devon's analysis. Chuck was stunned. Too stunned to speak. He dropped his head against the back of the sofa, staring at the ceiling.

"The thing is," Devon said, sounding more tentative, "I'm not sure any of that matters."

Chuck tilted his head to give a skeptical look. "How can it not matter? My life was destroyed."

Devon nodded. "It was, monumentally. And we can't do anything to change that. Can you think of anything Sarah could do to eliminate your anger and uncertainty?"

Chuck returned his eyes to the ceiling, biting at his bottom lip. "A taped confession of her feelings for me from before Gateways, maybe. But that would only solve the uncertainty part," he conceded.

"Exactly," Devon agreed. "I think what really matters is what you want out of your future. Do you want to chance happiness with Sarah or chance it without her? Either one is a risk, and they will both require a lot of work."

Devon swallowed quickly, "And, I think the reason that you are still able to have the relationship with Ellie right now is because you know she will be part of your future. It isn't even a question for you. So, on some level, your anger isn't boiling up at her because you know there will be time to work through it. Maybe the same could be true with Sarah?"

They remained silent for several minutes until Chuck mumbled, "When did you get so wise?"

Devon laughed and gave Chuck a hearty shove on the shoulder. "I'm a heart doctor, Chuck. It's part of the curriculum," he joked.

Devon stood up and headed for the door. "I'm here if you need me, bro. And I will help you in any way I can, whatever you choose to do," he called over his shoulder as he exited.

The door clicked shut.

Chuck looked at the folder.

"Shit."

Two Day Later

Eastern Shore, Maryland

As he turned the corner of the wrap-around porch, he took in the sweeping views of the water and the tall bay grasses swaying in the breeze. It was an awesome sight, one that filled him with energy. Then he saw something new, something arresting. Sarah was there, leaning against the railing, her hair mimicking the wind. She turned around, sensing a presence. When she realized it was him, her face took on a look of surprise, then hope, then fear. She settled into a look of anticipation, but didn't speak. She only stared at him, waiting.

"You loved me," he said. It wasn't a question.

Sarah answered anyway, nodding her head. "Yes. I didn't recognize it for what it was at the time, but I realized later that it was love."

Chuck moved closer to her.

"You thought you were doing the right thing with Gateways."

He was close enough then to notice the glassiness in her eyes.

Chuck was still speaking matter-of-factly, but Sarah felt compelled to give responses. "I don't know if it was right. I've agonized over it these last three years. But, yes, I didn't think there was a better option. I wasn't sure I could be enough for you if I took you on the run. Both as an agent protecting you and as a woman in love with you. I was too scared to risk failure. I'm sorry."

She couldn't stop the tears then, her voice cracking through her last few words. Chuck rushed forward and gathered her in his arms. She desperately returned his hug, squeezing him as hard as she could. He rubbed soothing hands up and down her back while she gathered his shirt into her fists to prevent his escape or draw him closer, Chuck wasn't sure which. He realized he was crying too. Their emotions were building on one another's, their bodies sharing the grief they'd felt over the intervening years. As one, they moved down to the ground, no longer wanting to bear the burden of gravity. With their backs against the porch's railing, their crying eventually subsided, but they continued to cling to one another.

"You still love me?" Chuck asked, unable to convey the certainty of his previous statements.

Sarah pulled back from their embrace to look into his eyes. Her shock was plain to see. Chuck swallowed heavily, worried he was about to face an Agent Walker wrath. But then, her face softened and saddened.

"Yes, I don't think I ever stopped once I was able to recognize it. I tried to forget, to erase all my emotions really, but you are in there pretty deep." She said the last bit with a shy grin and then buried her head back into his shoulder.

After another few moments of silence breathing in his scent, Sarah pulled back slightly to address him. "You read my letter?"

"No, not really," he confessed with a slight frown. She tensed under his hands, and he knew she was about to pull away. He tightened his hold, pulled her closer, and rubbed a hand over her back.

"I don't want to read about you in a letter, Sarah. I want to uncover your mysteries in person, together."

He looked down at her just as she rotated her head to look at him. Tears were welling in her eyes again. His too. Their lips were inches apart.

"That's pretty romantic," she said with a smile.

He smiled in return. "Well, I do have a secret thing for romcoms," he joked.

Sarah swallowed the tail end of his chuckle with her lips. Surprise gave way to fire, and he returned her kiss desperately. She shoved her hands into his hair and tugged, eliciting a groan from him. He snaked his hand under her shirt where it met her waist. Her skin felt amazing.

Chuck broke the kiss and set his forehead against hers. They were both panting. He opened his eyes and saw that she had too. Her eyes felt like a rip tide.

"I love you," she said softly, tentatively.

The tide changed, and he knew what she was hoping to hear. What he had not yet said that day.

"I love you too."