A/N: I always hated the scene where Chuck told Sarah he wasn't going with her on the train in Prague. More particularly, that he didn't explain himself and just walked away. I discussed this with Frank Suppa and have decided to write about what would happen if she stops him from walking away. This chapter covers that. It will be a stand-alone chapter until I have time to write more.
Thanks to Capt LiL for the beta. Much appreciated. Chapter 6 of his "Chuck vs The Corporate Pilot" will be out soon. I thoroughly recommend it.
Don't Walk Away
Chapter 1: On the Platform
It had been a lot of work, but she had everything ready for their new life together. She was now standing on the platform at the Prague station, waiting for him to arrive. She was so excited. She would be with him and no spy entanglements. Just the two of them. She looked at her watch, nearly 7:01, slightly after the time they were to meet.
She thought back to that conversation back in LA.
xxx
Chuck turned to her with excitement in his eyes. "Sarah, did Casey tell you they're moving me to a training facility? I'm going to be a real spy."
She hated his enthusiasm. She looked away and walked past him, muttering, "I know, I heard."
He stopped her leaving. "What... ? What's the matter?" He looked concerned.
She held his gaze and told him, "If you do this, if you go, you're gonna be a spy for the rest of your life. Every city is gonna be a new mission and a new identity, and you're not gonna be the same person." She emphasized that last bit, the bit she really didn't want.
He didn't see it her way. His eyes brightened. "Yeah. That's a great thing."
She certainly didn't agree with that. She offered an alternative. "Chuck, listen. We could..." This was the first time she had ever talked about her own desires or her feelings.
"We could what?" he asked.
She looked into his eye, willing him to see her feelings for him in hers. "We could run? Together. You and me. We go now, and we never look back."
He was surprised. "Are you serious?"
She absolutely was! She rushed on before she lost her nerve, "I have some money saved up. I'd have to get us some new identities and create an escape route. For now, go to the training facility in Prague, then meet me at Prague's main railway station in three weeks' time at 7:00, and then I can figure the rest out later."
Sometimes it took a lot of time for things to get through into that super smart brain of his. "What are you saying?" he asked.
Tears were forming in her eyes. "I'm saying I want to be a real person again. With you." He stood and looked at her, still doubting what she was saying. "This is what you want, right?" She smiled tentatively at him. " I mean, this is it, Chuck. Will you run away with me?"
She wondered if this was a mistake until a smile grew on his face. He said, with all the enthusiasm she had hoped for, "Yeah!"
Her heart soared. She was so happy. She beamed at him, and he did the same back at her.
xxx
He had left later that day, but he had managed to find time to briefly kiss her and tell her how much he was looking forward to their reunion in Prague. The memory of that kiss had kept her going for the last three weeks.
Now was the time for that reunion and the start of their life together as a couple.
She turned around and there he was, walking toward her. He looked so good. He had no luggage which was right. She had it all for them.
He walked up to her, looking nervous.
She handed him the items she had been holding for him. "Here is your ticket and your new passport." She looked at him. "Your name is Hector Caldaron."
He tried to interrupt her. "Sarah, wait."
They didn't have time. He had already made them slightly late. "We have plenty of time to talk on the train. Right now, we have to act fast." She grinned at him, her eyes sparkling at the thought of being with him. "Trust me, Chuck. It's all going to work out fine." She really was so very excited about this.
She closed the distance between them and started to kiss him. Something was wrong, though. Even though she tried to get him to open his mouth for a deeper kiss, he wouldn't do it.
She pulled back and the serious look on his face which frightened her and made her pull away completely. "That… that's not the kiss that I was expecting," she said. Why wasn't it?
He told her. His face still deadly serious. "Sarah, there is an entire facility here dedicated and designed to turning me into Intersect 2. 0." His expression changed, brightening. "I mean, think about it. Me, a real spy, you know, living a life of adventure, and doing things that really matter." That seemed to excite him. Unlike being with her!
They had talked about this three weeks ago. Why had he forgotten? She tried to get him to understand once again. "It's not that simple. You don't know who you're working for. It's complicated. Nothing is real. This..." She grabbed his hand. "This is simple. This is a real life."
The bells clanged indicating the train was getting ready to leave.
She could feel the tears forming, feeling that she was losing him. "We have to go, Chuck. This is it. Are you coming?"
He looked at her briefly, then down at their hands. He took his hand out of hers and placed the passport and tickets into her empty hand. "I can't," he said. "I'm sorry."
She was stunned. She nearly burst into tears. He was rejecting and abandoning her so that he could become a spy!
He turned to leave her standing there, bereft.
She grabbed his wrist, her faculties returning to her. In a cold, hard Agent Walker voice, she said, "You are not walking away from me without explaining yourself, Charles Irving Bartowski!"
He tried to pull away and then attempted to separate her fingers from his hand. She was having none of it.
She dragged him over to a bench and forced him to sit by kicking the back of the nearest knee.
"Stop behaving like a coward and talk!"
He looked away from her, and just muttered, "I have to go!"
She grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her. "The Chuck I know would explain such a shitty action, not slither off like a snake in the grass! Talk!"
He reacted to that cutting comment. "I'm giving up what I want in order to do the right thing!" he snapped.
"Sounds more like you just want to become your glorified view of a spy! Giving up what YOU want are you? What about what I want? That doesn't matter? You're giving that up for me, are you?" she snapped back.
"Sounds more like you just want to become your 'glorified' idea of a spy!" she snapped back initially. Then, she tried to understand what he was saying and how that made her feel. "You are giving up what you want... what about what I want?! That doesn't matter to you?" She felt completely irrelevant now. "What about us? Are- are you giving up on us?" She was now very close to tears.
He put his head in his hands. "You deserve better than someone earning $12 an hour at the Buy More. I can be that better person with this training."
That stopped the tears and made her angry again. "Fuck that, Chuck! I don't want you to change, you're what I want, without that. Especially without that!" He didn't look up. "You agreed to come with me. And you are dumping me to become a spy?"
He looked at her, shocked. "I'm not dumping you! I'm becoming better for you."
She glared at him. "That's bullshit, Chuck! And you know it!"
"Is it?" He demanded. "You want to be with a good for nothing, waste of space rather than an equal?"
That stopped her. "Is that what this is about? You feeling inadequate?"
He winced at that word, but than firmed up. "Of course I feel inadequate next to you. You're perfect."
She snorted at that in spite of her anger.
He continued, "Anyway, you told me before that I can't hide from the CIA and the NSA, so how can the two of us do it?"
So, he was ignoring her capabilities! "What do think I have been doing in the three weeks since we agreed to do this together?" He winced again. She emphasized that last part again. "Us agreeing to be together." He had no idea, of course. "I have been making all the necessary arrangements so that we can keep off grid and not be found. I can do this because I know the mindsets of the agencies and the people in them."
He looked at her. "Thank you, Sarah. That just emphasized my point about you being perfect." When he said things like that, it diminished her anger. "But that life, spent in hiding all the time. Might as well be locked up in a bunker."
Her jaw dropped. "Being with me would be like being locked up in a bunker?" she whispered.
He said nothing. She sat and thought about that. She had to admit, she'd just focused on getting him away from the spy existence and not thought about the type of person he was, a very sociable one. He 'needed' interaction with others.
"I'm sorry, Chuck. I thought just being together would be sufficient. The two of us away from this awful spy life. And it is awful, Chuck. But, I guess you need more than that."
The train pulled away as they sat talking. Neither cared about the train now.
He gripped her hands. "I love you, Sarah. More than you can possibly imagine, but that is not the life I want with you."
She could see that now. It would have been sufficient for her, but not for someone like him. However, that didn't excuse what he had tried to do earlier. "How do you think I would have felt if I hadn't stopped you just now?" she asked quietly.
He dipped his head again. "I hadn't thought about it. I had to get away or I would just cave in. I had to do it, for us."
This reminded her of a few months ago. "You've done this sort of thing before. You decided we couldn't be together after Bryce left us the second time and just told me what would happen with no discussion."
He couldn't argue with that, so stayed silent.
"I know I'm not good at talking, Chuck, but you've taught me that it has merit. This discussion has helped me. I now know I hadn't considered your needs, just what I thought we both said we wanted back in LA. You broke our agreement because you thought of a better plan, but didn't discuss it." She held his gaze as she said, "We both messed up."
"I am so sorry, Sarah." She could see he really was now. Maybe he had been earlier, but it hadn't shown.
She nodded. "Let me tell you why I don't want you to become a spy. I thought it was obvious, but I was wrong."
She explained the need to be able to kill, both for defense and the sort she specialized in, assassinations. "That is sometimes the entirety of the mission."
She explained the Red Test and how that was the worst day of her life, but was needed to fully become an agent. "It changed me, Chuck. It's part of why I feel unworthy of your love."
He tried to interrupt, but she held up her hand and he kept quiet.
"You know a bit about seduction training, but we were taught to do so much more." She hated telling him about this, but he needed to know. "I had to do things that I am ashamed of in that training. I've never had to do it in the field though, in spite of you thinking that I would with Lon Kirk. However, that's because of my other talents, particularly being an assassin."
She held his gaze as she said the next part. "Male agents are always more willing to fuck their way through to successful missions, if needed, and often do." She didn't say it, but thought he would understand that if he was going to behave like a typical male agent, he would do that.
Chuck looked horrified through most of this.
She continued, "Some missions are just about collecting evidence and not being caught, but most require an agent to kill, if only to escape or to save others."
She sighed. "So, Chuck, I was trying to keep you out of this. I don't want you to become a killer, like me, and I am selfish wanting you to only make love to me. We haven't done that yet, but my anticipation is high."
He looked at her for quite a while before he spoke. "Thank you for telling me all of that, Sarah. I don't want to kill anyone. I don't think I could. And the thought of making love to you would be a dream come true, but we don't need to do that for me to love you. I do already, with all my heart."
She held his hands. This scared her too, but as they were being so open, she decided she should. "I think I love you too. I say that because I have never been in love before, but how I feel for you is overwhelming sometimes."
He gripped her hands. "I'd like to kiss you now, Sarah, if you're not still mad at me."
She leaned forward and the kiss they shared was tender, but full of their feelings for each other. So unlike the earlier one.
"Sarah, I am going to go ahead with the training," he stated as they separated. Sarah tensed up. "I will do all that I can. It has got to help us when I get back home, but I won't shoot to kill anyone. Ever."
She looked him in the eyes. "Then, you'll fail the training, Chuck."
He looked angry. "I won't become a killer, but I will be more help on missions. Less of an encumbrance."
He calmed down a bit, then looked nervously at her. "Will you wait for me? Give me a chance?"
She placed her palm on his cheek. "I will."
They kissed again, then he stood. "See you when they send me home in disgrace," he joked. However, they both knew it wasn't funny, but the most likely thing to happen.
She stood and placed her hands on his chest. "You will have passed as far as I'm concerned. You'll still be my Chuck."
After a quick peck on her lips, he walked away, but not out of her life as he would have before.
She watched him go, knowing it was going to be hard waiting for him. She would worry about him, but she knew now, he wasn't rejecting her and he would come back to her. She was now convinced they would develop their relationship further when he did.
A/N: Another starter chapter, but like with the first in "Casey Did It," one that can stand on its own until I get a chance to write more.
What do you think of it so far?
