A/N: Part 3 of Nemesis at last. Tried my best to capture everything in Sarah's head, at least from my perspective anyway. Hope it continues to flow and makes sense. Also adding in my cohesion, if you will. Sarah talked to Bryce at some point without Chuck-Bryce tells Chuck this on Black Friday. My extra convo adds in my imaginary Omaha premise, nothing in canon contradicts it. Where did Bryce sleep overnight? Sarah heard that "one friend in the world" comment-Chuck's earwig was active. Was that why she's sadly staring into space in the CIA transport? Where did Bryce suddenly find a tuxedo? Why was Graham no where, when Bryce was CIA? The original answer to all of that is plot holes...I'm here with my literary cement. Thanks for reading.

I was still in shock…holding my gun at my side, trying to catch my breath. Both Chuck and Bryce were on the floor at my feet. It seemed to take an eternity, but I regained control of my autonomic functions. I dropped my weapon and crouched down on my knees next to Bryce. My mind registered the lack of blood…he was wearing a vest. I started calling his name, pulling the buttons of his shirt open to reveal his bulletproof vest. I saw the bullet, lodged exactly where the vest was meant to stop it.

My gaze flitted to his hand…and his gun, now loosened in his grasp in his unconsciousness. It was only then that it registered. He had told me he was unarmed. Worse, I had taken him at his word. He lied to me…in the same breath he was asking for my help. That feeling of unease, that burning in the pit of my stomach, intensified. Chuck's flash, his proof, was the only thing holding me in the moment. Bryce's stirring snapped me out of it.

He woke up and started coughing, a normal response when one is hit while wearing a Kevlar vest. It stops the bullet from penetrating flesh, but the compression against the chest can still be quite painful. Casey was coming at him, but I told Casey again to stop…that Chuck flashed and Bryce wasn't rogue. Casey lifted Bryce by his shirt and pulled him towards a chair. I followed.

Bryce started to strip from the waist up, removing first his shirt and then the vest. Standard to check for contusions or other bodily harm caused by the bullet. When Bryce's chest was bare, I saw the wound left behind by the bullet that Casey had shot him with in September. I felt my knees turn to rubber at the sight of it. It was a large puckered hole, only about an inch to the left of his sternum. How had he survived that?

Chuck started pacing behind me, which was distracting, almost irritating, as fretful as I was. Chuck knew I was shaken. I watched the way his eyes searched my face. I think he attributed my unraveling more to Bryce himself than the situation, as he believed my feelings for Bryce were much stronger than in actuality they were. Chuck was intelligent, and though he had no real experience with gunshot wounds, he also knew just by looking at Bryce that surviving that type of injury was miraculous. Chuck asked him again how he was still alive, and then he picked up the damaged vest in his hands.

Bryce said he had no idea what they did or how they did it. He surmised that they would have taken him to a European clinic. I recalled the package had come from Finland. The CIA doctor's hypothesis that Bryce had been either comatose or drugged, perhaps since September, appeared more and more likely.

I told him that he knew why they saved him. I wasn't asking; I didn't need to–I could tell by the tone of his voice. I remained cautious, reminding myself that he was capable of lying, despite Chuck's revelation that on the most basic level, he wasn't rogue. He turned around and looked at me, saying, "Yeah," softly. He looked surprised, maybe even comforted that I had figured that out. I don't know if he knew how suspicious of him I still was. It was such a minute thing–but it was Bryce and me working together again, however insignificantly. I leaned into that feeling. It was familiar, which was comforting in its strange way with me…because nothing in my life had ever been that way and I clung to the few things I had that were, or even that maybe could be.

He retold the story, starting at the beginning and addressing Chuck. It was initially a recap–stealing the Intersect, sending it to Chuck, running out of the DNI…and being shot by Casey. Then he said he woke up in an ambulance, surrounded by a Fulcrum team. They wanted the Intersect files. He lied to his captors, telling them he had downloaded them. It was the only way to ensure his own survival. They had kept him alive and sent him back to the U.S. to extract the Intersect files…that were actually in Chuck's head, not his. He finished by asking us for help. He needed to turn himself in to the real CIA; he needed to make sure Fulcrum was not intercepting.

Chuck came up with the solution. He offered to be present at the transfer and noted that if he didn't flash on the operatives sent to retrieve him, that everything would be fine. Again, more of Chuck's inexperience with the Intersect and his assumptions, more of us accepting his assumptions as fact. He had been doing better, learning how to interpret flashes more precisely. Erroneously, he believed that he would flash on every Fulcrum agent because he had flashed on Tommy, the man he had seen confront Bryce in the elevator at the CIA facility. By even what Bryce had been able to explain, Fulcrum agents were hidden throughout all the agencies, so the fact that any of them were in Chuck's Intersect was unusual. If it had been that easy, Chuck would have known that Jill Roberts was Fulcrum before anything ever happened with her, but that's a story for later. Chuck's full Fulcrum knowledge came from their Intersect that was uploaded into his head against his will, in the future from this point.

Chuck recommended the Buy More as a neutral place. Black Friday ensured a full store and huge crowds, lots of commotion that would distract from the operation going down. It also was safer if something went awry, since throngs of civilians sometimes deterred violence. Sometimes. Regardless, it was still the safest option.

Casey and I called Beckman and set up the details for the transfer we scheduled for the next day. It took a few hours before everyone had been debriefed and everything was set. The whole time I was working, I kept one eye on Chuck and Bryce. I knew there were probably a thousand more questions Chuck wanted to ask Bryce, but he stayed completely silent, pacing anxiously. As the night wore on, I told Chuck he should just go home and get some sleep, considering he had to be up very early for work the next day. He left without an argument, almost without a goodnight or goodbye, which bothered me.

I don't know if Bryce noticed the awkwardness between Chuck and me then, but he never said anything. I honestly think if he hadn't been so desperate and stressed, he might have. He certainly picked up on it the next time he appeared. He was also very focused on me…and us…and what he thought was us just being able to pick up where we had left off in Mexico, because to him, all of that had been just another mission; though he had been asleep for two months, he thought nothing had changed. I had changed, but I didn't have enough self awareness to know it at the time. Another part of my problem here.

Casey grumbled about the hour and then pointed out that Bryce needed someplace to sleep until the morning. Casey gave me this strange look, which I glared right back at him. His face was stoic, but he did offer to let Bryce sleep in his spare room, as well as to take Bryce to the Buy More with him the next day, making sure Ellie and Devon never crossed paths with him. Once that was settled, Casey went upstairs to bed and told us to be quiet. It was a very strange, loaded request.

It got stranger when Bryce and I were alone. "Where are you staying in L.A.?" he asked me.

I was terse and stiff, telling him facts only. I got the feeling he was asking because he wanted to know why he couldn't just stay with me. That thought terrified me. I was glad Casey suggested what he had, and I think maybe he did because he knew how awkward it could have been if Bryce had asked me to stay in my hotel room. I mumbled something about needing to get back to my hotel when he asked me to stay for a while. He wanted to talk.

What he wanted to talk to me about was Chuck. He wanted to know everything about how Chuck had been handling the Intersect, how it worked, missions, literally everything. I did tell him everything that we knew…but only because I knew more than he thought I did. I told him about the missions we had done as a team, very generically, minding their classified nature. When I finished, he seemed relieved, like all his decisions had been vindicated by the results. The end justifies the means, even if it meant Chuck's life had been ruined in the process.

I changed the subject, as I felt too focused on Chuck after Bryce's third degree. "What were you trying to do on Casey's computer?" I asked him. It didn't seem to jive with what he'd asked of us. Was he still lying or withholding information? I hated that I didn't know for sure.

"There is one contact. I don't always know how to reach him. I was hoping," Bryce murmured. He was being intentionally vague. It didn't help me trust him.

Talking to him like that, I was immediately reminded of the conversation Chuck and I had had after watching Fleming's disc. Bryce had been a contact of Fleming's. Was that whom he meant? Whatever he was talking about, I knew Bryce wasn't rogue. I forced myself to tell him everything I knew, allowing myself to trust him, even just a little bit, so that it was all out in the open.

"Bryce, both Chuck and I know about Fleming and Stanford…and Omaha," I said after a brief lull in conversation.

I had left him thunderstruck, I could tell. His mouth gaped open and he didn't blink his eyes for almost a minute. "How is that possible?" he asked in a raspy voice.

"Fleming left the recorder running when he thought the knock on the door was Chuck…when it was actually you," I explained.

His eyes got wider as he seemed to recall that interaction. Bryce had been newly recruited then, and inexperienced. He had no idea that evidence ever existed. "But–" he stuttered.

"Fleming copied all of that intel onto a disc and an enemy agent found out. We thought he was an independent contractor. Well, Casey thought that. Casey doesn't know anything about Fleming and Omaha, only me and Chuck do. And…Bryce, Fleming is dead," I told him, sure he didn't know.

"Oh god," he muttered softly.

"There's more, Bryce. More than Chuck knows," I started nervously. "Bryce, it wasn't in my file, but before I worked with Carina, Zondra and Amy…Graham recruited me for Omaha. Very generally. But I knew, in theory, what the Intersect was."

He huffed out his breath, chuckling with little humor. "Small world, I guess," he drawled. "We would have met two years earlier…maybe."

"You made sure that never happened…when you intentionally falsified Chuck's test results," I told him. He looked away from me, uncomfortable to be called out in such a manner.

He was silent for a very long time. I let the silence linger, uncertain what else I could or should say. "You understand why I did that now, don't you?" he asked me.

"Yes," I swore. In the saddest of ironies that I knew, Bryce had protected Chuck from me. I took a deep breath and continued. "What I don't understand is why you really sent it to Chuck. After you went through all the trouble of destroying his future to protect him. Why, Bryce?"

He kept his eyes on the floor, rubbing his palms together in between his knees. "There is more going on than you know, more than even Omaha. Someone else who knows about the Intersect and what it can and can't do. On our side…on Chuck's side. All I can say is that I knew sending it to Chuck was the only option I had. He was the ideal…just like Graham probably told you, although Graham has no idea that was really Chuck. And he can't know that. You have to ensure that he never will."

I nodded in silent agreement, although that was something I had already promised to myself a long time ago. Bryce sounded so determined, so confident, I didn't question. He still didn't trust Graham, although he seemed unwilling to elaborate, at least to me. But I questioned his words…his true meaning. If someone else knew about Chuck, someone none of us were yet aware of, then it was a risk, something I would need to handle. I told Bryce as such.

"There is no risk to Chuck, Sarah," he insisted, vehemently, stressing each word as he explained. "I promise you that."

How could I trust him? I asked myself again. I was hovering somewhere in between the old feeling I'd had about him betraying me…and a place where I trusted him the way I had when we were partners. Whatever trust I did have now, what was making me able to tell Bryce what I already had, was transferred to me from Chuck. Chuck chose to trust him…and somewhere in the mishmash of my brain, I believed in Chuck enough to do the same.

"How can you be so sure?" I asked him, thinking he was being overly cryptic again. Whatever facts he had, he wouldn't share them with me. I had a quick flash of insight. He wasn't authorized to share them with me…or with anyone. The words were deceiving–Chuck was at risk every day, every mission the CIA and/or NSA sent him on…because of what had been thrust upon him against his will.

"Because I am," he insisted once more. So Bryce-like again. No questioning him. If he said so, if he was sure, it was because he was right. He always thought he was right, and he never allowed himself to ever see anything from another perspective. His fatal flaw, if you will. All heroes have a fatal flaw; Bryce was no different.

And for all his arrogant bravado, Bryce was still a hero. Sure, he had dreams of James Bond, just like he'd told me when I met him, but that was not where I saw that heroism. He saved his best friend from a terrible fate when he was still very young. He saved me from a life that he knew was slowly destroying me. Despite it all, both of those things were enough to make up for any damage that he inadvertently caused with his overconfidence and arrogance.

Most importantly, without Bryce, I would never have found Chuck. At Ellie's wedding, Bryce saw something in me…I always believed he saw how happy Chuck made me. He wanted our old life back…but he let me go, thinking I was going to stay with Chuck. Things didn't work out the way any of us had hoped, and I never saw him alive again after that earwig conversation, but I choose to believe he would have been happy for us…both of his two best saves, who then also saved each other in return.

That conversation, as we sat side by side at Casey's table, was about Orion. Or Stephen J. Bartowski, Chuck's father, as we later learned. He hadn't been speaking about Fleming to me, he was talking about Orion, although he hadn't known what had happened to Fleming in the interim. It was years before we all knew what Bryce had alluded to so mysteriously here. Had he just told the whole truth, I don't think Chuck would have believed him. He had to see his father be Orion with his own eyes before he would have believed something so far fetched. Here, I was expected to just take Bryce's word that what he had done, sending Chuck the Intersect, was for the best.

I excused myself for the evening and left him to sleep in Casey's spare room. I was still in a daze, all the way back to my hotel and as I got ready for bed. I felt like all I had done was talk for almost eight hours…and I felt like I knew next to nothing. Everything I had been so sure of was now upside down. Once the CIA knew Bryce was alive and learned the truth, what was going to happen? My mind ran over and over every possibility.

I did fall asleep, but I woke up several times, from dreams that seemed to be giant riddles or puzzles that I couldn't solve. I woke up to a message from Casey that Beckman had requested I accompany Bryce when the CIA agents began the transfer. I told him I would, but I wondered why she would have requested such a thing. It was still odd to me that Graham wasn't involved even a little in all of it. I speculated in private…and stayed vigilant in my own caution with him.

Casey had Bryce with him, and I followed. Casey had already given Chuck the earwig he needed to communicate with us before we even arrived, since Chuck was due at work extra early. I spoke to Chuck through his earwig once we were in the store. We all just pretended to browse casually.

There was one contingency we hadn't prepared for–Morgan being able to identify Bryce on sight. Chuck had assured us yesterday in Casey's apartment that no one he worked with had ever met Bryce. Morgan hadn't actually physically met Bryce, but he had seen photographs and had even spoken to him on the phone a few times when Morgan had called Chuck at college to catch up. Morgan walked right up to Bryce and started talking to him…saying he looked like someone his friend had gone to Stanford with.

I exchanged quick glances with Chuck, who looked like he was about to faint. Bryce didn't recognize Morgan–that wasn't an act. A few phone conversations and a few pictures in Chuck's dorm room were not enough to keep him emblazoned in Bryce's memory. In a lot of ways, Bryce thought too highly of himself to worry about such minutia. Morgan…Chuck's best friend…he remembered Bryce instantly with the equivalent amount of exposure. That also is the difference perfectly on display–Morgan's and Bryce's true natures laid out side by side. Morgan cared. He cared about everything, even at his foolish, immature worst. Bryce hardly cared at all, unless it also benefited him in some way.

Being the good spy that he was, Bryce recovered quickly, and denied ever going to Stanford. Typical unfiltered Morgan…he let it rip to Bryce about what Chuck and his close circle thought of Bryce. I didn't think Bryce was capable of being hurt, not like that, but I saw a shadow pass over his features before he continued to play dumb. He honestly didn't understand why Chuck and everyone Chuck knew would hold him in such contempt. He had saved Chuck…but he was unsung. In truth, there was nothing Bryce hated more than being unsung.

Anna came and pulled Morgan away. Only a few seconds later, Casey gave me the signal that the CIA pickup was in the store. I signaled Chuck to do his pass to ensure everything was safe. He was nervous, but he did a casual walk-by that attracted no attention, almost like a professional. He told me he didn't flash. I signaled to Bryce that everything was ok.

While we were waiting, I watched Chuck walk over to Bryce and stand beside him. Chuck's audio was still live, so I heard their entire conversation. I heard Bryce apologize to Chuck. I wasn't sure what for…something about his living with his sister. Something Bryce had said to him when I wasn't there. Irrationally, I actually bristled when I heard that. What right did Bryce have to berate Chuck for living the only life Bryce had left him? That flash of anger dissipated when I heard Bryce tell Chuck about what I had explained to Bryce about Operation Bartowski. I was glad someone besides me told Chuck what an amazing job he had been doing handling the changes to his life, what good he had done working with us.

And then Bryce said something to Chuck that floored me. "I got one friend in this world. You got a home and a store full of them."

His one friend…Chuck. Chuck…who had spent the past five years hating him. I don't know why that made me feel so sad, but it did. I felt badly for Bryce and his cluelessness about the real damage his salvation had cost Chuck. I think a part of me felt sad too, because I didn't even have a pseudo-friend who could even try to hate me. Maybe sort of, if I counted Carina. I felt the vacuum inside my chest, wishing there was something I could do to make it go away. Bryce's admission of loneliness reflected back at me. It rang like a bell in the empty cavern inside me.

I watched Bryce say goodbye to Chuck, thank him and shake his hand. I approached them and told Chuck I was taking Bryce in with the other agents. Chuck's face was strange, almost like he had been after our fake break-up. He had retreated into himself, away from me, although I think this time, I had retreated as well. I couldn't tell where the greater distance was…from me, or from him. I didn't know what Beckman was going to tell me once we reported in. I know the possibility that I wouldn't see Chuck for a long time, or maybe ever again, crossed my mind. I gave him a long look before I left with Bryce.

I think about it now and I can't fathom how I did that so calmly…just walk away from him so abruptly. Truth is I was so confused and jumbled inside, I didn't know what I felt. I kept thinking about what Bryce had said to Chuck. Who was I to him…if all he had in the world was Chuck? What did I have if I were to be asked that same question? I had no one, no one at all, certainly not Bryce, not like that. He didn't trust me like that…I was just a spy.

Those words and those feelings hounded me as we walked outside. I wasn't concentrating–I was too lost in thought. We were seated together in the back seat. I was staring into space, pondering everything from the Buy More when he asked, "Are we good?"

I honestly thought he meant safe, like not being tailed. I turned quickly and told him we were clear.

His voice softened and he elaborated. "No. Us." It was a statement…and a question.

Us? What us? I thought. He had been my boyfriend, that strange in-limbo term that didn't mean to us what it meant to the rest of the world. Not even what it meant to me when I was faking it with Chuck.

I tried to sympathize with him, and look at things from his perspective. Three months had passed for me, but to him it was only a few days. We had been together in Mexico, pretending to be a married couple…and then he left. Graham sent me to Budapest with Ryker…and Bryce was doing who knew what for Fulcrum...and then Casey shot him. He'd been unconscious ever since. Whatever it was between us…it still felt current to him.

I told him I thought he was dead, hoping he would understand that time lag. I had lived my life while he'd been sleeping. Hating him, mourning him…allowing myself to fall completely under Chuck's spell. He wanted everything to be the way that it had been. But that past was gone, never to return.

He asked me to come back with him.

I spoke up immediately, citing my assignment.

"You were never good at this. The saying your feeling part," Bryce said, smirking and turning away. I thought of the Truffaut mission and what he'd said to me then.

"Well, I don't like to talk much," I answered, almost repeating what I'd told him then.

He turned back to look at me, and I felt like we were there again, like nothing else that had happened was in the way like it had been up to now. I just smiled. He leaned forward to kiss me. I was anticipating another kiss like he'd given me in Chuck's bedroom. I anticipated that same kind of surrender on my part. But before I could close my eyes, I saw a car heading towards us at full speed.

Glass shattered, metal crunched…and then nothing.

When I came to, I was lying on my side on the asphalt in the center of the road. I opened my eyes slowly, so no one who may have thought I was still unconscious could see them. I felt warmth on my right arm…Bryce, on the pavement beside me. The situation came into focus despite my pounding head. I twitched my foot ever so slightly against him, testing if he was conscious too. I felt the slightest of taps with his foot as an acknowledgement.

One of the thugs got on the phone and turned away from us. Bryce tapped my leg three times in rapid succession–his countdown for us to go. One, two, three, and we were on our feet. Working in tandem, Bryce and I took out all three men who had captured us. We retrieved our weapons. Bryce asked where Tommy was, the boss, the one who had saved him from death to retrieve his supposed Intersect.

They had gone after Chuck. I was certain. Somehow in the midst of all of that, Tommy had figured out that Chuck, not Bryce, was the Intersect. Catastrophic mission failure…letting enemy agents know the true identity of the Intersect. Bryce and I took off, headed back to the Buy More. That information needed to be contained at all costs. The fact that Chuck was in mortal danger with just Casey to protect him against an army of men screamed through my mind, but I left it unsaid. The mission was first–Bryce knew that. I used to know that. Before Chuck.

Now…I didn't know what I knew. Only that I couldn't bear the thought of anyone hurting Chuck, in any possible way.

I was driving the thugs' van, since the CIA transport had been badly damaged in the crash. We screeched into the parking lot of the Buy More plaza not long after. There was a huge mob of people standing in the lot outside the Buy More, still flowing out the front door as we headed for the back of the building. I wasn't sure what had happened, but the store was evacuating. Someone had thought to do something to cause a distraction. I just hoped that it was Casey and that Chuck was safe.

Bryce and I went in through the back entrance, near the loading dock. I did worry vaguely if we could potentially encounter someone who would recognize me, not having a way to explain me toting a gun. The store had emptied completely, for there was no one at all in the way as Bryce and I moved like a well-oiled machine, methodically, through the store, on our way to find Chuck.

As we entered the main part of the store, all we heard was gunfire. Many shots being fired at once. That meant Casey against…all of the others. We ran to assist. I saw quickly that Casey had been sheltering inside the Home Theater Room. All of the glass had been shot out. He was doing his best to hold them off. Meaning Chuck was behind him, hiding, probably under a table. It was his only means of protection.

Bryce and I sailed into action. He lunged across the Nerd Herd desk and I came kicking behind him. We fought side by side. At one point we ended up face to face. This look passed between us…it felt like it always had, when we worked together. When we trusted each other. That betrayal I had felt was gone. We took them all down in a matter of seconds without using our guns.

I was in the process of asking Bryce where Chuck was when we saw Tommy, holding Chuck hostage, with a gun to his head. Casey had been protecting him…but somehow they had neutralized Casey. I hadn't heard another gunshot, so I was thinking he had just been overpowered.

Bryce and I both pulled our guns and demanded Tommy release Chuck. Bryce started talking to Chuck, in Klingon, although I still didn't know that was what that was, only that was how Bryce had communicated with Chuck the day before. I had no idea what they were talking about. All I knew, Bryce apologized to Chuck…and then fired at his chest, point blank.

I staggered on my feet and almost lost the grip on my gun. I couldn't focus. The edges of my vision had darkened. What did I just witness?

Like I was watching a movie standing at my own shoulder, I saw Casey emerge from behind and slug Tommy to the floor. He had been thrown off kilter when Bryce shot Tommy's hostage out from under him. Tommy could have fired and hit Chuck in the process–a risk I'm sure Bryce had calculated and deemed acceptable at the moment.

I rushed past Bryce and asked him what he'd said. I didn't wait for an answer. I lunged on the floor next to Chuck, calmed by the whiteness of his shirt. No blood, just like Bryce the night before. I reached for his face first instead of his shirt. The feeling of my hand on his cheek was more to calm me than anything else. Then I pulled at his shirt, seeing his bulletproof vest underneath. Bryce had fired at a specific point, to the right and below Chuck's ribs, the safest place to shoot someone wearing a vest with a live round. Even if the vest had partially failed, Chuck's life was less in danger with that kind of shot.

I tapped both of his cheeks again to wake him up. He coughed the same way Bryce had. I knew he was all right, but once his eyes were open, I felt the relief surge through me. This felt different, now that it was Chuck, though I had seen the same thing with Bryce the night before. The blackness inside my chest threatened to swallow me whole…when I thought I could have lost Chuck like that. I was in the process of calming my breathing when they translated the Klingon. Bryce had asked Chuck if he was wearing a vest…and Chuck had told him he was, in a fake language that almost no one else would have been able to understand.

We pulled him to his feet and helped him take off his vest, his shirt, and his tie. He had on just his white t-shirt when the NSA cleaners showed up on the scene, remnants of the support Casey had called in from the Home Theater Room. It gave the perfect cover for the entire scenario–the fire alarm, the damage to the store, all of it.

For a moment, I turned, and I was standing there, facing both Bryce and Chuck at the same time.

I've heard that birds, because they have eyes on the sides of their heads, need separate parts of their brain to process what each eye sees. That's the best way to describe what that felt like. Two different worlds, two different vistas, needing to be processed at the same time. Each half of my body felt independent of the other. It quickly became too much…and I had to walk away.

There was a lot of standing around while the cleaners worked. Casey took a call from Beckman and told him she wanted to debrief Bryce in private. Beckman arranged a video call with just him on the monitor in the Home Theater Room. Chuck wouldn't look at me, but he was exhausted. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked like he hadn't slept in days.

After what seemed like forever, Bryce emerged. He was dressed in a tuxedo, something that had been provided by the cleaners, although we never saw the handoff. I found myself afraid of what he was going to say as he approached us. That almost-kiss in the car, added to the synchronicity of us during the fight, pulled me towards him, even as the other half of me was pulling toward Chuck and his palpable despair. If you have never experienced that type of split feeling, all I can say is that it is as painful as anyone could imagine…being ripped down the center. The pain lasted…and ended up clouding my judgment.

He explained what he was doing…that Beckman sent him undercover to go after Fulcrum. He was still officially dead…and going alone on his mission. He said goodbye to Chuck. Then he stood in front of me and said, "Well, Sarah, we'll always have Omaha."

It took all my strength not to cry out loud at that. It's a Casablanca reference, one I was actually familiar with. While my pop culture knowledge was lacking, old movies were something I had spent much of my youth watching, on staticy black and white televisions, in various hotel rooms while I was alone and waiting for my father to return. That wasn't why Bryce said it, though.

It was code. Not a pre-established code, which we had sometimes used in the past. Bryce was improvising, on the spot. He said Omaha because he was referencing the talk we had had the night before in Casey's apartment, when I told him about what I knew about Fleming and Chuck. He was leaving…but he would contact me before he left, so I would know where to meet up with him. Wherever Beckman had ordered him to go, whatever she had planned for him to do, he had made sure I was clear to go with him, essentially asking her to reassign me to work with him again. Graham was out of the loop, overruled. He would find out I was off Operation Bartowski when he called and I was no longer there. That was what Omaha meant.

His "are we good" was the only asking he ever did. Again, he assumed. He assumed the moment he waved his hand, I would take off and leave with him. That we were ok again, whatever that meant. Once more, taking my silence for concurrence. Or maybe the almost-kiss…which was partly my fault. Him not asking me what I wanted? That was his fault, although I think if he'd asked, I wouldn't have been able to give him a straight answer. I was so used to denying my own desires, I no longer had any idea what they even were.

I pretty much staggered out of the Buy More and to my car. I didn't even talk to Chuck, really didn't even look at him. Moving like a machine, unaware of what my limbs were doing, I got ready to leave. I showered and changed my clothes. I packed everything up into my suitcase and called the front desk to tell them I was checking out in the morning. I dressed to travel. I set my passport, my phone, and my open-ended plane ticket I'd had since arriving in Burbank in a row on my bed, next to my jacket. All I had to do was wait for Bryce to call me, so I could leave.

Torn in two, wanting to leave and wanting to stay. Wanting everything…and wanting nothing.

Waiting with no definite time of the end made me a little anxious. I spent the time looking out the window at the city lights, a spectacular view from the floor I was on. Each little speck of light twinkled, a dot of someone's life somewhere below. I had never been in any one specific place for as long as I'd been here at the Maison23. I felt a nostalgic pull, thinking I would wake up tomorrow somewhere else and not see the sun rise over the Los Angeles skyline.

I would wake up tomorrow…and I would never see Chuck again.

Waking up…that thought twisted my stomach into knots. Bryce thought things would go back to being how they had always been with us.

How could I do that? How could I sleep with Bryce after…after…

After what? All I did was kiss Chuck. In the grand scheme of my life, it was just a few seconds. But those few seconds had opened up my world, opened up my heart…in a way I had never thought was possible. And I was walking away from all of it…to go back to the emptiness of life as Bryce's girlfriend, his partner, and his cover wife.

On this day, November 23, 2007, I had been in love with Chuck for almost two months. Why then did I pack up my things and wait for Bryce to call obediently? A very good question, one I wouldn't allow myself to ask while I waited, looking out the window. The answer, able to be told far in the future, was that I was lost and hopeless…and running was easier than fixing the mess I had made of handling Chuck.

I had completely screwed everything up, failed miserably…something I had never done before. Graham had lauded me to others in the CIA. I was the best. And this entire mission was compromised. Worse, I had no idea how to fix it. Truth was–I loved Chuck desperately, but the only way I could effectively protect him was to not ever let him know that I felt that way. Had I already given too much away? It made me feel like I would be walking around with a dagger sticking out of my thigh and trying to walk normally.

Running with Bryce was easy. It was familiar and safe–my definition of safe anyway, which here meant unchallenged. The only person who has ever truly made me feel safe was Chuck–and contrarily, Chuck always challenged me to be the best person I could be. Again, I was relying on that useless, crumbling building that guided every stop and start. It never occurred to me then that tonight, I was standing inside that same building, only I had been living in it for two months…and the only thing keeping it standing was my presence.

I could feel my loneliness, roaring inside me, while I waited for Bryce. Ironic, wasn't it? As painful as the situation with Chuck was, I had never once thought about that bleeding wound I had been tending all my life. With Chuck, it had actually started to heal, so much so that I had almost forgotten it was there. But now it was open again, aching and bleeding, with no hope in sight of it ever stopping.

Leaving was for the best, I had tried so hard to convince myself. I tried to not think about what would happen to Chuck once I was gone. Who would protect him? Who would keep him with his family?

Someone who wasn't compromised, I argued with myself. Someone who could maintain a professional distance and not dream about him every night. Someone who could make him forget about me…

I lost my breath, thinking that once I left…he would just move on. That there would be some part of his life that I didn't know about…that I wasn't a part of…

It was why I needed to go! I argued back once again. Nothing good could come of this, only heartache…for both of us.

I knew the truth here–that any amount of pain I would endure was worth seeing his smile and knowing it was for me, just me, and no one else. I knew it, but I continued to deny it while I looked at the city lights.

And the phone on the nightstand rang. The analogue phone, Bryce calling into the front desk because he didn't want any trace on my cell phone. I jumped when it rang, but I turned away from the lights, thinking as I crossed the room that I had looked at the city that way for the last time. I was almost at the ringing phone, ready to pick it up…when I heard my cell phone buzzing on the bed.

It was Chuck. I saw his picture, which always showed up whenever he called me. His face on the screen pulled all my attention, focusing it like a laser. The ringing, though loud, faded into the background…and the buzzing, though soft, became so overpowering it was deafening. I picked up the phone and held it in my hand.

Two phones ringing…and I couldn't answer either one. Answering would be choosing…decisively. I was incapable of that. I ended up choosing it by default. Answering no one meant I stayed. Oh, believe me, I stayed for Chuck. I chose him at that moment. Everything was about him and only him–always had been, always would be. But I had to lie to myself here, because I couldn't accept that was really what I did. It would come back to haunt me, very soon, but I let the lie convince me.

Both phones stopped ringing…and I was alone.

About to endure one of the longest nights of my life.