A/N: Not too late this time. Graduations and whatnot. Part One of Seduction. This is the shorter part, just had to find good place to break, because way too long as one chapter. Things to make sense of here: The days in this episode are strange, as in mornings seem to last forever. I interpret the morning in the parking lot in Buy More, finding Roan in Palm Springs, and then the morning later while Roan is in Casey's as three different days. Why would Sarah change 3 times in one day? Also-those photos of Chuck and Sarah were taken during this episode filming, so I added them here. Three all together, as she says. The hands clasped facing each other is only in the wedding rehearsal video. The one in her suitcase, in the frame in their apartment, on the wall in their apartment (later) is facing forward. The photo with his head tilted is visible a few times in the hallway while Chuck still lives with Ellie, and after Chuck and Sarah are "broken up." Just a teaser here, the next chapter has most of the action.
I didn't sleep all that well that night, not that that was anything new. You know, there was a movie Chuck wanted me to watch with him called Sleepless in Seattle. Just his type of movie, a romance, all emotional and sweet, a "chick flick" as Morgan would say. Yes, my husband loves "chick flicks" just as much as he loves sci-fi and superheroes. Some of the mothers I interact with now, because of our kids, complain about their overgrown children-husbands–I never partake; I just smile and nod. I am very good at dissembling, making them think that I agree when I never really say anything. Chuck isn't child-ish; he is delightfully child-like. Sweet, loving, never afraid to just be himself, just…be. He could find humor and joy in anything. He is the sun to my moon, day to my night. I think that's a song, or song lyrics…but I digress. (I think I may have just sounded a little like Chuck there–he's rubbed off on me, which actually is a good thing.)
Back to my point, for a year at this point, the first week of October in 2008, you could say I was sleepless in Burbank. Not that I ever really slept anywhere, for when I did it was like a cat, with one eye open and ready to pounce at a moment's notice. But that was at least catnapping. Never before had I spent so many hours counting lines in ceiling tiles as I did once I was in Burbank. Worrying about Chuck, the future, my feelings, his feelings…too much when life and death also hung in the balance. And the life and death…that was the easy part.
I went to work, though, first thing in the morning, to the Orange Orange, the next day. I had a slew of messages from both Beckman and Casey about damage control that was going on at the CIA. Casey was still the agent in charge, but now Diane Beckman was the sole oversight of Operation Bartowski. Like I said before, that was a blessing, for she had none of the same secret intentions as Graham when it came to Chuck. Chuck was safe, or at least as safe as he could be, as the most valuable intelligence asset in the world.
Director of the CIA is a presidentially appointed position Graham had been installed in 2005, in the second term of George W. Bush. In October of 2008, the U.S. was in election season. Regardless, we would have a new president come January, so the Deputy Director of the CIA was in charge in the interim. A man named Henry Gleason, someone I had never interacted with or even met. I think I saw his picture once at Langley. Anyway, he was only marginally briefed about the Intersect, so the NSA took over while Gleason was otherwise occupied, probably cleaning up all of the messes Graham left behind.
We went a long time without a CIA director. Gleason stayed into the new presidency, mostly because Congress was slow-walking many nominees through the various committees. The official role actually went to Clyde Decker, a real son of a bitch, worse than Graham in almost every way, so you can imagine how bad that really is. He wasn't installed until mid 2011, activated by a security breach our team actually caused. Getting ahead of myself again–we'll talk about that later.
Beckman called a few hours into my shift to let us know she was holding a briefing and we should summon Chuck for the meeting. I left the Orange Orange to retrieve him at the Buy More. I was standing in the doorway of the store, leaning on the security scanner positioned at the door, searching for him. He was usually pretty easy to spot, considering how tall he was.
I saw Morgan first, pointing at me and smiling. Then I saw Chuck.
The way he was looking at me…I melted like butter. I had seen him the split second before he saw me, while he was talking to Morgan. I could see he looked downtrodden, depressed. The change I saw on his face, from that defeat…to…relief is the best word I could think of. I know it sounds strange, that a look like that would cause me to feel that way. But to have someone you love see you and just the sight of you makes them feel better…it's a high I couldn't explain, a feeling no one could comprehend until they feel it themselves.
I was almost in a trance as I walked into the store. He was staring too, not blinking, the whole time as I moved closer. He had this sweet, goofy smile on his face. All my insides were rushing like a river, blood gushing down to my feet and making me feel dizzy. He said hello. I don't know what I actually looked like, but he saw something showing through. As if it was the most natural thing in the world, like it was something we always had done, he leaned forward, like he was going to kiss me. I didn't even think. I closed my eyes and kissed him on the lips.
That was only the third time I'd kissed him on his lips, though not as passionately as the last time. It seems odd to say, especially juxtaposed to all the lurid details I've explained so far, but no one had ever kissed me the way he did that day. His mouth was soft, pliable, molded to mine perfectly. It was tender, gentle…with a torrent of emotion and passion behind it, barely restrained. I had never so completely lost myself, slipping up like that, letting my emotions show.
I pulled away from his lips, but he grabbed me around my waist with his right arm and pulled me against him, gently, because we were in public and he was, and even still is, adverse to public displays of emotion. I was playing with this tie, an excuse to touch his chest, anything to not lose that feeling, even if for just a few more seconds.
Murmuring softly, he asked me if that was a real kiss or a cover kiss. Of course, I evaded the question. It was both, that was what I told myself. I guess that was true. I used the cover as the excuse, rather than the reason. The real reason–I wanted to kiss him. Every minute I wasn't near him, I missed him. It was torture. He was worth it, even here, when it was so hard for us to feel the way we felt. I just told him we needed to go–national emergency. I brought him to the Orange Orange.
We were walking in the door when he asked me to go to Mexico with him. I was glad I wasn't facing him because I think I actually flinched. I had agreed to a real date a couple of days before, and despite the change in status that never actually came, he couldn't stop thinking that way. I don't blame him–I wanted it every bit as much as he did. But I had to break the bad news to him–that, as I had said before, we couldn't be together. He wouldn't leave it alone, bringing up Bryce and me. I had to tell him the difference–Bryce was a spy; Chuck was an asset. My asset. His life was in my hands. A relationship was out of the question. His life depended on me being able to do my job.
I didn't realize this was the moment when the seed was planted. I don't think if anyone had asked me then, I would have believed it, not while I was scanning my retina in the freezer security door the CIA had installed at the entrance to the new base underground, our Castle. I would never have believed what Chuck was capable of becoming. Chuck was always my hero, even when he didn't even understand that he was. It is quite humbling for me to admit Chuck's deepest, most fundamental reason why he went from a Nerd Herd Supervisor to spy, Intersect asset to Intersect Master Spy, was because of me.
I had been willing to trade away the spy life for a normal one, to be with him. He then traded away his normal life for a spy one, to be with me. Chuck saved me, and not the way it seemed. It was harder for him to become a spy than it was for me to become a normal girl, but he did it anyway. He didn't stay normal and keep me–a wild animal, in his world, restlessly chained and pacing, never sure where she belonged. No, he let me go free and followed me into hell and showed me the way out again. He let me choose his world for myself, and I could, because he had already spent his time with me in mine. He would still decry his messed up life, his longing for a normal one, but he also knew he couldn't really have both, and he wanted me more.
That was the first time Chuck saw the inside of Castle. He was surprised, gawking as he entered. He was intelligent enough to realize such an investment couldn't have been haphazardly planned–that they had been building it for a while. He even asked if that meant we were planning on staying a while–not something he wanted to hear after feeling he had been so close to being free.
Beckman explained the situation, although she gave a very generic explanation. I never knew her suspicions about it all, and I wonder if I always knew more than she did, or if she knew and just never shared. She told us the cipher that blew up the Intersect computer was a Trojan Horse, and that the real cipher was still out there. That actually never contradicted what I believed, that Orion had somehow, with Bryce's help, switched the device. How the real piece, which would have most certainly been a product of Orion and his team, ended up in Sasha Banachek's possession, no one knew. It was never explained…I never asked Bryce, for the next time I would see him other things took priority.
Beckman told us about an operative that she thought could help locate Banachek. Roan Montgomery. He was a true legend in the CIA, James Bond-ish debonair spy, as well as Diane's once and future love interest, although it was just a rumor at this point in time. Beckman told us to use the Intersect to find Montgomery.
I think it must have been what I said, right before we went downstairs about Bryce and why Chuck and I couldn't be together, because he became very irritated, declaring himself out, no longer compliant with what we were asking. He said he was all done and was leaving the spy work to the spies.
Beckman noticed right away that something was wrong. I told her I had the situation under control. It was time to handle him–it was, after all, my job. This was why we couldn't be together. I wished he could see that, that there was a way for me to explain it to him so he could understand. How could I be in a relationship with him, show him honest emotions, when it was my job to manipulate him to do the CIA's bidding, for the benefit of the CIA, as an asset? Of course, I never did my job the way I should have–far too little manipulation and far too much caring on my part, but I was still trying to do my job.
I stopped him before he ran out. He was quick to tell me I was right, he wasn't a real spy, he wasn't cut out for this work. I told him the sooner we found the cipher, the sooner it could all be over for him and he could have his normal life to live with who he wanted to live it with. That he could have everything he had always wanted.
Turns out–that was me. Sometimes I have to pinch myself, tell myself that really is true, and it had been for all those years, ever since the beginning. Someone like him…thinking someone like me was his dream come true.
I thought I was manipulating him, handling him. Truth be told, I never actually once handled him the way I would have if he had been someone else. I never lied to him, I never just told him what he wanted to hear to placate him. I always told him the truth. What I said there was the truth. It's hard to accept that I had committed to finding a way for that to be true, to keep my promise, no matter what happened. That would be challenged as time went by, but that truth never really changed.
He agreed to help us. Casey and Beckman thought I did my job. I was searching for a way forward for us, despite the brick wall we had just hit the day before.
Chuck flashed. The next morning, Casey, Chuck and I drove to Palm Springs to extract Roan. Chuck asked me about him and I told him what I knew. Casey didn't like Roan, I gathered, probably because Roan flunked Casey in seduction school.
We thought Roan's home had been compromised, as the front door was open. Casey and I went first, guns drawn. The house was such a mess we thought it had been ransacked. I have never seen so many bottles of alcohol in one place, even in a bar. Turns out, Roan had just had a typically wild night and was passed out drunk on the floor, his company from the previous evening still in the house with us. She surprised us, then left when she saw the guns.
Getting Roan out of his house and back to Casey's apartment literally took an entire day. It took over an hour to get him off the floor and conscious. Casey didn't trust Roan to not vomit in his Crown Vic, so we waited around. The view from Roan's house was magnificent and Chuck and I walked around the grounds while Casey stayed inside with Roan, trying to get him going. We didn't say much to each other. We were sort of in limbo, and I think he was afraid to tip the scales, change the dynamic. Hoping against hope.
Eventually Casey got Roan to go take a shower and get ready. While Roan was doing that, Casey came outside to find us. I asked Casey to take some pictures of Chuck and me together, since we were supposedly one year into our fake relationship and all we had for photos was a fake Comic Con photo and the picture I had taken in Chuck's room on Halloween.
Casey was already irritated about the mission and irritated about Roan's sorry state. My request almost put him over the edge.
"Who do I look like? The paparazzi?" he griped.
"You're protecting our cover," I told him firmly. Both in general and specifically, since Chuck's absence for the day was now explained with the photos.
Chuck was in a strange mood. A reluctant participant already, but hopeful, I think he was trying to make the best of a bad situation. He was less than enthusiastic at first. I don't think he was in the mood to fake a smile, and was probably trying to look forward to a time when we wouldn't need cover photos, not looking to be stuck in the present.
It was Casey's outrage that broke the ice, as Chuck found it hysterically funny. He teased Casey, exaggerating a pose and making silly faces. Right after that and a grizzly grunt from Casey, Chuck grabbed both of my hands while I was facing him, like we were about to dance. We both turned to the camera, our smiles genuine.
That was the first time I think Chuck held my hand for real. I say that because there was a very definite distinction. The fake hand holding, palm to palm, was what I had started with us, and he always complied. When he would grab my hand, he threaded his fingers into mine. It was secure, possessive. I loved when he did that. He did it for the first time here.
This image was on Casey's phone. We never made an actual photo from it. Somehow, it ended up in a video montage made by Jeff Barnes to play at our wedding rehearsal. Funny thing about that video—the first time, I didn't remember it. I didn't remember anything about our rehearsal dinner, because I almost died of radiation poisoning during it. I watched it after our honeymoon…and again, while I was trying to regain my memories. I remembered the rehearsal dinner during that rewatch, which surprised Chuck because I never had before.
How Jeff ended up with that photo, I don't know. I do know, somehow, that Jeff broke into Casey's locker…so…maybe? The whole thing is very strange.
Casey told us to quit clowning around. We found a good location to stand, where the vista behind us was breathtaking.
"The view is beautiful!" I exclaimed as I stood, looking out over the scene, facing away.
He was standing next to me, looking only at me, when he replied, "Absolutely." I blushed like a little girl.
"Come on, while I still have my hair!" Casey complained.
Chuck moved very quickly: he grabbed my hand, jumped behind me, and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me tightly against him. I could feel him all along my body where we touched, warm and comfortable.
The looks on our faces in that photograph are genuine. Real. We kept that photo even after we were finally together, because it was real. I loved that picture of us. I kept it in my suitcase forever after that. When I had been brainwashed to believe Chuck was an enemy agent, finding that photo in our apartment made me think twice about my orders, for the first time. I knew the look on my face was real, even if it made no sense at the time.
There was one more photo that Casey snapped right before Chuck let me go. I was still looking at the camera, but Chuck turned his head, breathing close to my ear, like he was about to kiss my cheek. It took all my willpower to not turn and kiss him when he did that.
It might have happened, if Roan hadn't interrupted us.
