A/N: Three words. This is probably my favorite episode in this stretch of misery. Not saying a lot, but, it is what it is. There is lot of communication that happens in this episode, only it is all indirect. He says the vault speech, she can't hear it. He's talking to her when he's talking to Karl. Every word they say is multi-meaning. And the whole thing is gut-wrenching. She is so mad at him in the dojo! She was forced to stay and train him and he's a fumbling mess and he ruined her life over it. The only good thing about that scene is that he KNOWS at last how badly he hurt her. Just a little wtf: Chuck has an IV. Obviously some CIA medics involved or something. There is never an explanation why a DEA agent has this mission, I don't offer one either. The vault speech as Sarah sees it is edited, based on what we heard while it was happening in real time, what Karl heard. Did Carina edit it? Also not explained here, but later. Two down, 11 to go. Let's do this.

Time may fly when you are having fun, but when you are miserable, it almost moves backwards. The days dragged, the nights were endless. I would lose track of what day of the week it was, each day the same as the one before.

I hated my life, everything in it. I suppose I always had, all 26 years before I met Chuck. It was only that brief little window when I was with him where I didn't. I wasn't happy, don't get me wrong. But I at least had hope. An endless expanse of misery filled days were all that awaited me. I wanted to give up; it was so tempting. I was depressed when I wasn't still experiencing flashes of anger.

Another whole month went by and very little happened. Casey and Chuck trained every day in Castle. I suppose I always had the option to train with him as well, but I couldn't do it. I didn't know how to be with him anymore, how to be as cool and detached as I told him he needed to be.

Around the second week of January, I got a call out of the blue from Carina. I hadn't seen her in over two years, with only a few lines of communication here and there in between. She was in Los Angeles and was hoping I had some time to catch up, no work, just some fun. I'd been feeling so badly for so long, it sounded like heaven, to just be off duty and relaxing. Even if it was Carina's version of relaxing, which was less tame than usual.

She wanted to go out, so she told me to be ready for the nightclub. I had been in nightclubs with her, but when we were younger. She was a little bit tamer now than then, I rationalized. I didn't have to participate, I thought with a shiver as I recalled my near-miss in the Prague hotel room. I wouldn't participate.

I spent some time getting ready. I couldn't remember the last time I had gotten ready like that without thinking about how I would look to Chuck. I felt triumphant and sad at the same time. Instead, I was dressing for myself. I curled my hair and laid my makeup on thick, heavy black eye-liner that I normally wouldn't apply. A tight little black dress and high heels and I was ready to go.

I met her at the club. We hugged hello and decided to get some drinks at the bar. We were drinking gin and tonic. She made me smile, telling me she was only in Los Angeles for a short time. L.A. was not her cup of tea. It was nice to smile. I told her I missed her, and it was the truth.

That was, until she started to ask me about why I was still in L.A. I got tense and asked her not to talk about work. Of course, she brought up Chuck. She accused me of sleeping with him…until she realized by the look on my face that it was more, and less at the same time.

She told me I broke the cardinal rule of spying. That is…falling in love. Not the general falling in love as one would think. We could be spies but we were still human beings. Granted, our job didn't lend to a rich personal life. But the falling in love taboo…that was marks and assets. All that did was compromise us. Take one look at my life up to this point and that's obvious.

Carina knew before that I wanted him, even though that was only after a few months of knowing him. She could plainly see that now, it was more. That I had real feelings for him. I'm sure she felt sorry for me, considering how hopeless the situation was. I thanked God that she didn't know I had tried to run away with Chuck. I would never have heard the end of it.

Carina and I were moving through the crowd when I saw him. Chuck was so tall, he was very hard to miss, even in huge groups of people. I was shocked, trying to cover quickly so Carina couldn't tell.

Why was he here? I saw Morgan a bit later, since Morgan was a lot shorter and harder to spot. Was Morgan getting him out of the house? Was he trying to meet a girl?

Did he follow me here?

He saw me, and then he approached us. I wanted the floor to open and swallow me up. Damn it, why couldn't I get away from him? Even when I was trying?

He awkwardly said hi to Carina and then me.

I was sharp, too sharp, asking him what he was doing there and if he was spying on me.

He winced, surprised that I had accused him of that. He assured me that he was just having an innocent evening out with Morgan.

I had given too much of myself away, getting so defensive. Carina could tell too, I'm sure. I was screaming inside.

We were still standing there talking when a strange man came up from behind Carina and grabbed her, affectionately, kissing the back of her neck and calling her 'baby.' I watched as she spun the stone on the ring she wore on her left hand around. She had been palming it before.

She introduced us to her fiancé, Karl.

I knew right then that this was an assignment, part of her reason for being in L.A. Just like Carina, she introduced Chuck as my boyfriend. That part keyed him into her subterfuge.

Chuck played along, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and tucking me against him. I kept the phony smile on my face, trying to ignore how his touch on my skin made me feel. His arm was thicker, his chest more muscular than the last time I had been this close to him.

Chuck and I stood uncomfortably as they kissed and called each other pet names. I couldn't believe that extra little over-the-top display made Chuck think it was real. He was even concerned when he flashed on Karl.

Carina set him straight. It was a mission. And she needed our help with it.

My spirits, already low, crashed hard.

The next morning, I was in Castle with Casey when Carina showed up with Chuck. Carina explained the mission: she was after a weapon. There was a fake engagement party staged, where Chuck and I were to pose as a couple, her friends. Casey was supposed to be her father, but Beckman changed it to uncle at his request. I guess technically Casey was old enough, roughly 20 years our senior, but uncle was better.

Beckman asked Chuck if there was a problem. I wondered if he showed dismay at the thought of having to pretend we were a couple again.

I knew it was going to be worse, harder than it had ever been, because I couldn't even live in the fantasy that my pretense was remotely real. But it was my job, so I was going to do it.

Later that evening, I called Chuck to make sure he knew all of the details. Carina and I were getting ready in my hotel room. We helped each other into our dresses. While we were standing at the mirror in my hotel room, putting on jewelry and makeup, Carina grabbed the charm bracelet out of my jewelry box.

Inside me, I felt something crack when I saw it. She handled it so…carelessly is the only word I could think of. I didn't hold it against her. Why would she think anything I owned like that had any personal meaning? But it made me angry just the same. Her comments added fuel to the fire, as she said some sap who was in love would wear something like that.

Like I did, so many times…

I swallowed down the emotions that were threatening to rise to the surface. I told her it wasn't my thing, hoping she would just leave it be.

Unknowingly, she had torn open a deep wound with a fresh scab on it. I couldn't think of that bracelet without thinking of how he had touched my hand after putting it on me. How when I had told him it was something he should give a real girlfriend, he had told me he already knew that.

Was that all a lie? How could he say something like that…and then do what he did to me?

She saw something, because she asked me if I wanted to talk about what happened. I hoped my silence answered her, because my throat hurt too much to talk. She invited me on her next mission to St. Tropez, a very Carina way to try and cheer me up.

I asked her if she ever thought about us living a different life. Like if this were real, her engagement party.

She nipped that in the bud. I hated that I had even brought it up. I knew she could never understand. She was being nice, trying to help me, but she had no clue how I really felt. It just made me feel alone, isolated.

I went with Carina to Karl's mansion with the plan to meet Chuck there. He looked good; he smelled good. I put on a fake smile and chilled everything else down to freezing. I couldn't afford to let my emotions foul up the mission.

I was giving him very distinct instructions about surveillance, mission important details.

"Sarah, listen. I feel like there's been this-this thing…hanging over us. You know, ever since Prague, and I mean…I miss you."

I had to look away. I knew what his face would look like and it was more than I could handle in this situation. I wanted to scream at him, push him away from me. If he missed me so damn much, then why did he leave me?

"I miss this. I miss us." He kept going, and I wanted to scream and scream until he stopped.

"Karl's on the move." I said it flatly, plainly.

"Wait." He took off, chasing me, cutting me off and distracting me from the target. "Look, what I'm trying to say is that even though we're on a mission, it feels good to hang out together, to talk as friends. You know, kind of like we did before. I mean what do you think?"

"It's just a cover, Chuck." The same thing I had always told him, more of the same. Like we did before? Before was…me being in love with him and not knowing what to do at any given moment. Having my heart broken every single day.

I stormed away.

I would find out later that Carina told him I loved him here, because he was ruining the op.

I remember balking at that when I learned it, only to remind myself that he would have no idea that was how I felt…because I never told him. I assumed that me asking him to run let him know that I did, but I didn't say the right words. I had done nothing but confuse him for two years, so I shouldn't have been so angry when he misinterpreted my actions.

That knowledge made things harder, though. Because instead of anger, all I had left was sadness. The sadness would slowly drain the life from me over the course of the next four months. Anger at least would have been easier.

After she told him that, he came running after me.

"Sarah, hey. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, Carina said something to me, and I know it's not the best time, but I really need to talk to you."

"Ok, Chuck, we need to focus on the mission."

We got the key from Carina just as the toast was about to be made. Chuck and I made our way to the vault. The entire time we were on the way, he kept nagging me about wanting to talk. The toast was too quick and we needed Carina to stall.

We opened the vault with the key, only to find it protected by a cadre of moving laser motion detectors. Chuck freaked out, sure he couldn't do it. I had to pep talk him again, telling him the Intersect could do it. He just had to focus.

He couldn't flash…because he needed to talk to me. His emotions were getting in the way again. I had to do what Beckman had ordered me to do. I told him we could talk about whatever he wanted to talk about once we completed the mission.

He flashed. He actually winked at me, he was so confident. He moved through the lasers with ease, using a series of acrobatics that left me dumbfounded and speechless. It was literally amazing. He made it all the way to the safe and back without setting off the alarm.

Until he carelessly swung the briefcase into the path of one of the lasers when he was standing in front of me and wanting to talk. The alarm started blaring and the door to the vault sealed him inside. He yelled to me that the room was filling up with gas.

I was terrified, and went into overdrive to repair the situation. I couldn't reopen the vault. Instead, I climbed up to the ceiling using the handle of the door as a step. I pushed the vent out of the ceiling and lifted myself up and through. I crawled through the duct to the gas canister and turned off the spigot. Once it was off, I saw there were guards outside the vault door. I dropped my lipstick through the opening as a distraction, then dropped down on top of them and knocked them both out with a few kicks and a punch, knocking the last one out by smashing his head with the door. Then I opened the vault.

"Sarah…I love you," he gasped as the door opened. He fell forward, unconscious, and I caught him.

He had been talking the entire time I was climbing into the duct and fighting with the guards. What I heard was only the end of a long speech, the contents of which I couldn't begin to imagine.

I remember wondering if too much gas had escaped into the room, because I felt like I couldn't breathe either.

I lowered him to the floor gently. I spoke to Casey through his earpiece, telling him the mission was accomplished but with complications and Chuck was hurt. I waited for Casey. He got us out the back way, no one at the party missing us or Casey.

I told Casey what happened, minus the emotional outburst part. He wondered if Chuck needed medical attention. I was worried too, but thought assessing him in Castle was wisest for the cover. Casey called the team of medics who had clearance to enter Castle.

Chuck's oxygen saturation level was a little low, but not dangerously so. They hooked him up to an IV and said after a little rest, he would be fine. We left him resting on a cot while we touched base with Beckman. Carina was ordered to take the weapon back to Langley on her way out. Casey was just frustrated because none of us had clearance to know what the weapon actually was.

Carina asked me if I had decided to come with her. I looked over at Chuck to make sure he was still sleeping. I told her I was considering it. The temptation to just walk away from what was hurting me so much, now that Chuck had started getting clingy with me again, was overwhelming. He had almost gotten himself killed because he was distracted by our relationship.

I called Beckman back.

I told Beckman I was concerned about Chuck's safety. I told her I was more a part of the problem than the solution, that she should assign a different agent to him. Beckman gave me the verbal equivalent of a slap on the face. She knew something had happened between us, and cared about the details about as much as Casey. She told me it was my job, so get over it, and teach Chuck to be a spy. She cut off the communication with an angry glare.

Worse, Chuck heard the whole exchange, then quickly pretended to still be asleep.

The inferno of rage had been lit once again, only this time, I was trapped inside with nowhere to run. I told him it was time to train.

We were fighting in the dojo with Bos. I was absolutely brutal and cold as ice. Lives were on the line, and if he wanted to be a spy, he needed to act like one. I rushed at him with the weapon and he flinched. He told me he was a real spy and I easily knocked the Bo from his hand. I told him he wasn't a real spy.

I pummeled him with the Bo, with him barely holding his own. I growled at him, telling him it was in the Intersect and he could do it. I was so furious I could barely restrain myself from charging at him head on.

He told me he couldn't flash…his emotions again. He wanted to talk instead.

I told him he needed to learn to bury his feelings, that they would get him killed. I could have clocked him across the face with the Bo, but I stopped just shy.

He grabbed it and told me to stop. I growled and went after him again. He had no skills, no coordination. I was screaming, ordering him to flash. I know I was thinking, if you wanted this so much, then do something! Prove it! I couldn't even get away from here because he was so inept!

He dropped the Bo, stepped back, and told me no in a hoarse voice.

Gritting my teeth so hard my jaw ached, I asked him why.

He told me because he didn't want to hurt me, looking away once the words were out.

If I hadn't been so enraged, I might have heard what he really meant here. It's worth explaining, because it was so important. I had already told him he needed to learn to bury his feelings. It wouldn't take a genius to guess I was speaking from experience, that I had always buried my feelings, where he couldn't see. Carina was the one to tell him what I had been hiding all those years.

Not wanting to hurt me…when he had just realized he had already hurt me more than anyone in my life had ever hurt me. He didn't want to hurt me anymore, though he knew now, based on the situation, he was going to continue to hurt me. He knew Beckman wouldn't let me escape.

He also meant that in a genuine, literal way. I would learn this as we grew close. He could not, would not, ever, cause me pain, any pain, the slightest pain. Knowing at last what he had done here caved him in. He began to hurt just as much as I did. And though I hated it, the only thing worse than feeling my own pain, was knowing he was hurting as well.

But anger made its last stand after that comment. I swooped the Bo under his lower legs and dropped him on his back, hard.

"Don't worry, Chuck. You can't." It was the biggest lie I ever told him. The only part of it that rang true was that I was already in so much pain, I couldn't imagine it could get worse. Oh, it did, but I didn't know that yet.

I left Chuck in the dojo so I could go cool off.

We got word from Beckman not long after that Carina had never reported, that she was missing, the whereabouts of the weapon unknown. Everyone was looking for her.

Morgan called Chuck in the middle of all of that to tell Chuck that Carina was at the party at their apartment. We verified it on the surveillance feed. We left for Casey's in order to handle the situation.

Chuck was concerned about us going in guns blazing, and he had a point. We were still deliberating when we watched Morgan tell Carina off, as well as the thugs she was with. It was going so well…until Morgan gave them the weapon. Not that he knew what it was, in his defense.

Chuck asked what the backup plan was for when his apartment could be infiltrated, where was the button. Casey very aptly reminded him that he was the button. That was the plan.

Casey played the part of the angry neighbor and hosed down the entire party until the area was completely clear of people. Then Chuck and I advanced. Without even thinking, I handed him a gun, telling him he would need it.

"No, no guns, I hate guns, you know that."

It struck me as unbelievably sad that I didn't know that, or at least, I had forgotten it, or thought maybe it wasn't true anymore.

I handed him a torch instead, and told him to use it as a Bo.

Karl was moving through the courtyard with Carina and his thugs. We advanced with our own weapons drawn and told everyone to drop theirs. Karl had Carina. Chuck shouted for us to drop our guns. We trusted him to have a plan. We disarmed.

Chuck tossed the lit torch into the fountain, which was overflowing with alcohol. A huge fireball erupted, disorienting everyone. Casey and I took advantage of the distraction and subdued everyone but Karl, who still had Carina hostage.

Karl was emotionally unhinged, more concerned with the fact that Carina had broken his heart than anything else. Chuck took the lead here, doing what he always did best. Talk to people.

What he said was very telling, very pointed. I know he was talking to me just as much as he was talking to Karl. He stood behind me while he was talking, but I know exactly what his face would have looked like.

"I get it, man. I get it, ok? You took a chance. You–you loved someone, maybe for the first time in your life. All you've ever done before is…is shut off your feelings. You-you bury them deep down inside because, in your profession–in your line of work–it's a liability, right? It's…it can…it can certainly be a liability. And I know…I know that you think that you messed up your life because you opened up your heart, but maybe you helped her open up her heart in the process. Maybe because you loved her…she's learned how to love, too."

I was glad my back was to Chuck. My eyes stung with unshed tears; I was sure anyone looking at me could have seen it.

Chuck's eloquent speech gave Carina the edge she needed to subdue Karl, lying to him and telling him that she did really love him. Only to laugh bitterly in his face and call him stupid for thinking that a spy could fall in love.

I scoffed with Carina, because it was easier than bursting into tears. Chuck took that the wrong way, of course.

I didn't want to hear him, but Chuck could do with only words something no one else I had ever known could do. He was awkward and he rambled, spiraled sometimes. When it really mattered, he almost never said the right thing, always talked over me instead of letting me talk. But then there were moments like that, where he shone. That was his superpower. Odd for a spy, but it worked for us. We didn't quite know how to harness it here. Shaw tried to smother it out of him, but Chuck was strong enough to resist.

That was his response to my raging attack in the dojo. He was telling me he knew how I felt about him, and that I'd hidden it, for my job. And that because I took that chance and loved him, he learned what love truly meant.

But what of that love, if we were never going to be together? What good did any of that do? I felt helpless, angry, and defeated.

We sat in Casey's apartment the rest of the night, waiting for the weapon to be picked up.

I tried to talk to Chuck one more time. He told me that I was right, that he wasn't a spy, he was too emotional and because of that he was a liability. I told him because of that, he was able to talk Karl down, and he saved Carina's life. It was an uneasy truce, but I left, not quite as angry as I had been. It was a start.

Carina came to say goodbye while I was working in Castle. I had to tell her I wasn't going with her to St. Tropez. She gave me a USB, told me to watch it.

It was the full speech I had missed while Chuck was in the vault. The words he said when he thought he was talking to me for the last time. I would hear it over and over again in my dreams for months as my world slowly crumbled. Those words dowsed the flames of anger completely. I stopped being angry at Chuck for what he did.

What remained was only sadness that slowly devoured me.

I can hear this now and know what he meant without any sadness or fear, because I have not only the blessing of perspective, but also because I know the only thing that was missing from this was the promise of what we could be when we each started to believe in us.

"Look, Sarah, I know…I know that you're probably very hurt. You're probably hurt that I didn't run away with you in Prague. I did that, and I'm…I'm sorry. You have to know that you were everything that I ever wanted. But how can I do that? How could I run away with you? How could I be with you knowing what I turned my back on, you know? Knowing that what I had in my head could help a lot of people? And you're the one that taught me that…that being a spy is about choosing something bigger. It's…it's about putting aside your own personal feelings for the greater good, and that's what I chose. I chose to be a spy for my friends and my family and you. I chose to be a spy because…Sarah, I love you."

He didn't choose to be a spy instead of being with me. He chose to be a spy because of me. Because he wanted to be the hero that I knew he could be. He wanted to be the best version of himself, for me.

Ultimately, he chose to be a spy because he knew the only way he could free me from that life was to live it himself, to show me he accepted every part of me.

If that isn't love, I don't know what is.

It would just take a long time before I truly understood that.