Sarah vs Her Life

by Ironclad2022

First person POV. Sarah Walker lived a dark life, destined to trade her soul away for the work that she did. A life where all of her choices were made by others. Until she met Chuck, the light that finally made its way inside her to dispel the dark. He ransomed his own soul to save hers. Mature themes.

104. Chapter 104

A/N: Happy Thanksgiving! Football is boring (to me anyway) so I decided to finish this instead. Living Dead chapter, the largest WTF offender of pretty much any episode. I used to watch Three's Company reruns at my grandmother's house when I was little and this episode seems like a serious version of that. No one talks to anyone in this episode. Morgan and Chuck don't talk, Ellie and Chuck don't talk, Casey and Chuck don't really talk, Ellie and Devon don't talk. It works for the plot, but does it work for the sake of sense? No! But they made the big bucks writing it. Ugh. Chuck is lying non-stop to everyone, which is especially troubling to think it's during that sweet scene at the end. Dampens that vibe. Wtf's: why does Sarah just blurt out Shaw when she doesn't even realize he's talking to his father? Stephen has NO idea about the Intersect, training in Prague, that the 2.0 has been deployed in the field? What the hell did he do, just give up and live like a mountain man? We know full well how ridiculous the earring scene is-I did my best with a stupid thing. One thing I ignore is the fact that the penthouse was in Washington and all of a sudden now it's in LA. If that was in LA why was he living in Castle? Because it was supposed to be in Washington. But they couldn't all go across country, with Stephen and Justin, in one night. I just don't explain that because I can't. Why did Ellie stop for coffee (2) while she was waiting for Justin? Because it looks like she's cheating to Casey, duh, but really? She's doing a coffee run? And Casey wakes up after being clobbered by Ellie and does what...Chuck was in bed, so I'll wait until tomorrow when Ellie ran for her life in terror? And where was Morgan? He should have been home during all that. Yikes. This gets worse too, but I'm trying my best. Hang in there.

We made love right after I finally told Chuck that I loved him. We hugged and kissed in the living room, and then he lifted me in his arms and carried me to the bedroom. We were frantic to get undressed, but once we were, the pace slowed down. He pulled me close and kissed me deeply, gently pressing himself on top of me as we rolled.

I couldn't take my eyes off his face and the love shining in his eyes. I held his face in my hands. "I love you," I whispered before I kissed him. I owed him a thousand "I love you's" and I didn't think I would ever get tired of telling him, of hearing the words as they spilled from my lips.

He slipped inside me while I was kissing him in one long, effortless stroke. I moaned softly against his lips. I repeated those words over and over again, whispering them urgently as he thrust into me again and again. We came together, our utterances of love overlapping, until he collapsed, spent, on top of me.

There will always be a shadow of pain there when I tell this story. It was a monumental step for me, for our relationship, but there was a thin layer of dishonesty between us that kept us from the kind of union I had believed it to be. I had finally told him the complete truth–and he lied to my face about what the doctor said. The fact that he could make love to me that way, while he was keeping something from me, was devastating to accept once I knew the truth.

We worked our way through it all, and we were better, closer, because of it, but it created tension between us that didn't need to be there. I tried to be fair, look at things from his perspective, before I accused him too harshly. He was dealing with severe insecurity, which my silence exacerbated. Not to mention, I was still mostly reserved while we were having sex, which also didn't help at all.

It still didn't give him the right to lie to me, the one person he was supposed to be closest to. Or to continue to lie, even after we had the first discussion about it. I've said this before, and it's worth saying it again: our relationship wasn't perfect, no fairy tale by any definition. We had hiccups and setbacks just like everyone else–Ellie and Devon, Alex and Morgan, Casey and Kathleen. We were, as Morgan so eloquently told Chuck, crap communicators. But our love was solid and strong, in a way that everyone around us could see. We were with each other, for each other, and our bond was unbreakable.

This was the first time the strength of that bond was tested.

Chuck lied about the fact that the doctor said the Intersect still had the potential to drive Chuck insane. I think Chuck sort of put it in the back of his mind, thinking that was far in the future, or just a possibility and something that might never happen. But the first flash that caused an issue had been when he flashed on Generalissimo Goya in Ellie and Devon's apartment almost six months prior. Nothing really notable in between, so he had almost forgotten that incident, until the dreams started.

I try to rationalize it for my own comprehension. What was Chuck thinking at that moment? I know he had every intention of telling me exactly what the doctor said; he was trying to tell me when I blurted out that I loved him. I did start talking about our future, and how happy I was to be able to think about it. Him having to interrupt me to tell me, oh by the way, that future could be really short if the Intersect fries my brain like Dr. Dreyfus thinks it will.

To be honest, that would have crushed me. I know that. But I still would have told him I loved him. Dreyfus had convinced me that telling Chuck how I felt was important.

While we were working through all of this later, I would stop and wonder. Did Chuck really think that me finding out he was in danger of going insane would jeopardize our relationship? That somehow I would decide that I didn't love him, or I couldn't say it any longer?

The whole truth was complicated, and something that was revealed to me over time. It would culminate in the jungles of Thailand. It was a combination of his desire to protect me, which I could understand because my urge to protect him ran just as deep; and an almost innate insecurity that went back to how he saw himself. He was deeply wounded from his past, and though we were together, a part of him believed it was because of the Intersect, and not just who he was on the inside.

It just never occurred to me that he felt that way; it just didn't make sense to me. But it was something we never really talked about. Crap communicators…with lots of things we should have talked about and didn't.

It was early in our relationship, but all of that was still in play here, driving him to act the way he did.

Not only did he not tell me his true diagnosis, but he never mentioned that Shaw had been a frequent visitor in those bizarre dreams. It would have been understandable after their history, but the fact that the Intersect was pulling him into these flash dreams was important, and something we might have figured out earlier if Chuck had just told us.

The Intersect dreams were telling Chuck that Shaw was still alive. On the surface, that didn't make sense. I mean, how could that information have made it into the Intersect, especially considering there hadn't been an update to the Intersect since Chuck had downloaded it a year before after his sister's wedding. But what no one understood was that the dreams were even more subtle than Chuck's conscious flashes.

He had flashed in a bizarre and confusing way about Dr. Kowambe and his regeneration research. The truth was that the Ring did use Kowambe's research to revive Shaw after he had fallen into the Seine with three bullets in his chest. The Intersect made the connection–but a true flash would have been concise, and he would have told us he thought it was related to Shaw. The dream made the connections feel less real, and a consequence of that was him not being able to articulate it well.

There is a very dark and complex part of this story that I haven't mentioned yet–but it's important.

How did Ellie not notice that Chuck had been committed to the psych ward? It would seem a rather difficult fact to hide. That simple idea should have occurred to me then. Where was Ellie? Why hadn't she asked me about Chuck? Days went by where they had no contact, which wasn't like Chuck at all. Why hadn't I questioned why Ellie wasn't asking?

I had a legitimate excuse. I believed my boyfriend, the man that I loved, was slowly losing his mind and there was nothing I could do but watch him deteriorate. Ellie and Morgan and even Casey…all of that faded into the background.

Turns out…Ellie had a very good reason for not noticing. And it wasn't just Devon's "malaria." Ellie had unwittingly become an asset for the Ring.

The whole story was explained to me much later, after a makeshift memorial for Chuck's father. Chuck heard it from Ellie in a long, tense exchange inside Ellie's vehicle on a mountain road while I stood at a distance.

The agent's name was Justin Sullivan. He had bonafide CIA credentials, which of course he would, if he had been recruited by the Ring. That was always their plan. Ellie and Devon had met him in Africa, as he had claimed to be the Doctors Without Borders liaison. Whether he was on a mission for the CIA and somehow managed to get himself into the place he needed to be, or if he was totally rogue and the CIA had no idea about anything–we'll never know. It's sadly ironic that Devon's plan to protect Ellie from Chuck's spy life made them prime targets for manipulation.

Although I know, if they had stayed in Burbank, the Ring still would have done what they did–because Shaw was the driving force behind it. The approach just would have been different.

Once Devon was back in the US, his diagnosis remained malaria, though Ellie would later admit that none of the blood work run at Westside showed any signs of the parasite in Devon's bloodstream. Of course, his doctors had chalked it up to early treatment, and the excuse that multiple blood smears were sometimes needed to actually find milder cases of malaria. Ellie realized after the fact that Devon never really had malaria. It was merely a ploy to get the Woodcombs back to the US.

Justin approached Ellie and revealed himself to be a CIA agent. He told her an elaborate lie about her father–that he was in danger and that they needed to find Stephen. Justin asked her where he was, so that they could protect him. Ellie told him she had a way to contact him, and she would find out where he was.

Ellie had no idea that her father was a spy. But Orion knew better than to tell Ellie his exact location. Spies trusted no one, not even their own children, at least to some extent. But Stephen loved his daughter, so instead, he decided to come to her, to find out what was wrong.

I knew none of this however, as I woke to the sweet smell of poptarts in the toaster. I rolled over, but Chuck was already out of bed, and out of the bathroom, my ears told me. He let me sleep, which was sweet, but I instantly missed seeing his face first thing in the morning and I got up.

I made sure Morgan was already gone before I went out of our bedroom in my revealing pajamas, but I hurried into the kitchen.

Chuck was on the phone. He was looking out the window and I couldn't hear what he was saying. Something about something being important in a relationship. Chuck hung up too quickly, suspiciously, and I asked him what he was talking about.

Chuck told me it was about Morgan and Anna. I knew what had happened while Chuck was dealing with his mental crisis. Anna had returned from Hawaii, and after seeing a different Morgan, had decided she wanted him back. Up to this point in his life, Anna had been Morgan's most serious relationship. He genuinely loved her before she broke his heart. Morgan stood up for himself and rejected Anna, which was a huge step for him. That's why I remembered it when Chuck said it.

Chuck did an epic deflection and then told me I was beautiful. He rushed out of the apartment without an explanation, leaving me wondering.

I got ready and went to Castle as usual, only to find Morgan was already down there. In the armory, wearing a bullet proof vest and touching fire power he had no business touching. I wondered where Casey was, because if he knew, I was sure he would have kicked Morgan's ass before kicking him out.

Something was up. I asked him what was going on. He deflected too.

I was a trained CIA officer; I interrogated people as part of my job. Who was Morgan kidding that he could try to hide something from me?

I went easy on him, very easy, and he cracked like an egg. We were friends, sure, mostly because of Chuck. Once Morgan knew I was a federal agent and not the yogurt girl, it's fair to say his attitude towards me changed. I was intimidating to someone like him, rightly so. In a way, I had been intimidating to Chuck, but he had fallen in love with me anyway. Morgan and I were new to this, so I took advantage of the situation.

In no time, Morgan told me Chuck was pretty sure Shaw was alive. He had a dream. I knew that meant potentially the Intersect, but it was weird. I had to find out what was really going on.

When I stormed into the Buy More, I was furious. Chuck was talking to someone, but I just blurted out, "Shaw?" right over the stranger's shoulder. Probably not the smartest move, but I was very upset. I wanted to know why he was keeping it from me.

The stranger turned out to be Chuck's father, who turned around when I spoke. I was visibly shocked, but Chuck reintroduced me to him.

I heard Stephen ask Chuck why his handler was here.

And then it occurred to me that Chuck was in the process of lying to his father. Stephen had no idea that Chuck had downloaded the 2.0. I never found out why he didn't know–I mean, he was still Orion. Had he completely shut himself off from the world? Did he know what had happened after Chuck ran after me when I left Ellie's reception? The DNI parts, including the redeployment of the modified Intersect, should have been in his purview. Did he naively think that Chuck had just walked away and Beckman and the DNI decided to play nice? After hiding from them for 20 years?

Chuck parsed here, telling his father that we were a couple. I knew something was going on more than on the surface, so I played along. I think I even slipped and called Chuck "Sweetie" which was a cover pet name I used. I never called him that as part of our real relationship. My subconscious just took over.

And then he bold-faced lied to his father and told him that he wasn't a CIA officer and that he wasn't the Intersect. I got roped into that lie, which was frustrating. I just wanted to talk to Chuck alone.

I had no idea the size of the web of lies I had been ensnared in. It was greater than I had ever imagined. The ease with which Chuck lied to his father should have been a hint to a spy like me. But I missed it.

At the first opportunity I had, I got Chuck alone in Castle and tried to talk to him. I asked him to tell me what was going on. He told me about Shaw being alive in his dreams, that the message of the dreams seemed to be that Shaw had survived being shot in Paris. I told him he needed to be honest with his loved ones, which included me. He needed to tell his father the truth.

He did apologize and he agreed with me. Shaw was a touchy subject between the two of us, and he did bring that up. It made sense at the time. I didn't know he was still lying in almost the same breath when I said he dreamt about Shaw for a reason, seeing that the doctor said he was healthy and to pay attention to the dreams. He agreed in one breath and then lied by omission in the next.

Casey was on it, of course, once we both explained. Although Casey was adamant that he wasn't bringing anything to Beckman until we were sure, or at least until we had more information. Casey's idea was the best way to get to Shaw was through me.

I was irritated and asked him why. Casey implied I had intimate knowledge of the target, which I did, but the way he did it–it was like he was intentionally trying to get under Chuck's skin. It made me very uncomfortable, but I went along with it, since I needed to know if there was any substantiation to Chuck's claim.

What that turned into was a two hours long comprehensive examination of everything in the books that had happened between Shaw and me. Six months worth of interactions that started with him surveilling me in Lisbon with Bryce's ashes and ending with our time in Washington before we returned for Chuck's final exam slash red test.

Chuck was quick to remind Casey that we were on a business trip, which was the reason I gave Chuck as to why I never returned his calls. He whitewashed that in his brain, I'm sure, not wanting to picture anything else, any more than I wanted to think about him in bed with Hannah. Casey, of course, had the proof in front of him that I had sort of stretched the truth when Chuck had asked me back then.

And then the trip to Tiffany's and my diamond earrings came up. Chuck couldn't stay seated next to me. It was so awkward, so awful.

Casey asked with this annoyingly smug face if I was wearing new earrings. I pulled my hair from behind my ears to cover them without even thinking.

Did Shaw buy me diamond earrings? Yes. Would I have still been wearing those earrings, a gift from the man who tried to kill both me and the man that I loved? Consciously, no. It was absurd.

The problem was, the truth was even more absurd, or at least, would have sounded like I was desperate and I was trying to minimize this ridiculous line of questioning.

I've said before, the only real jewelry that I have ever owned was from Chuck. His mother's charm bracelet, later my engagement ring and then my wedding band. Everything else was costume, for show. Did I own a pair of cubic zirconia studs? Yes.

Chuck helped me move my stuff into his apartment, which wasn't a lot, but was mostly clothes, but also the small amount of jewelry that I owned. Chuck had no idea Shaw had ever bought me earrings, and to be fair, I had forgotten. I stuffed the box in a drawer, not even with my regular jewelry. I wanted to forget them, and I'm sure my mind worked overtime on that.

This only occurred to me during this interrogation…that I was actually wearing Shaw's earrings. Chuck must have found them and just put them in my jewelry box, completely unaware, and then I had mistaken them for my old fakes. (The minute I was home after that, I went and checked, and of course, my cz's were there, under a larger pair of earrings.) I threw the ones I removed away in Castle before I went home.

Towards the end of that conversation, Chuck did flash when I mentioned Shaw's penthouse. Chuck's flash revealed that the CIA had installed a TR-15 safe in his penthouse, which was in the Hoff Building. We made a plan to scope it out later that night.

Another twist in all of this involved Casey and Ellie. Justin, in his manipulation, had convinced Ellie that John Casey was a double agent and after her father as well. And in another devastating twist, Chuck was worried that Shaw would go after Ellie, and he asked Casey to protect her. Which Casey did without hesitation, because he was Chuck's friend.

This is where it turns almost Shakespearean in the comedy of errors. The truth, all of the truth, would have burned this web to the ground. But everyone was lying and keeping secrets, which only wove it tighter.

Shaw knew what everyone knew–that was how he played us. Ellie not knowing about Chuck, Casey, and me allowed this all to happen. She would have known instantly that Justin was lying had she been read in.

But instead–Ellie thought everyone else would think she was crazy, that Casey was after her father, and that she was helping. Casey thought he was protecting Ellie, and then later thought that she was cheating on Devon. Stephen had no idea Chuck was in the CIA, Ellie had no idea her father was Orion. We were played like pieces on a chess board by a master spy, Daniel Shaw.

Chuck and I had to scale up the skyscraper using suction cups, but we made it inside. Being inside with Chuck was awkward, but I tried to ignore it, get the mission over with as soon as possible. The safe was hidden behind a photograph of the Eiffel Tower. We were interrupted by someone at the door. I told Chuck it was Shaw. I saw him in my infrared glasses. It was him, afterall, even though we thought later that we were mistaken. We ran to hide in the closet.

Shaw went into the safe and extracted a briefcase. Chuck's shoe squeaked on the floor, which gave us away. He pretended to leave, but then we ducked just in time as he fired four bullets through the door. We ran out afterward in pursuit.

We followed him up the stairs to the roof. We were unaware, but Shaw had made the hand off to Justin (who was supposed to be meeting Ellie but was called for this instead). I had a clear shot but Chuck stopped me, telling me we needed to know what he was after. He went after Shaw/Justin and I ran down to ground level.

Justin dropped the briefcase when he jumped to the next building, but that was intentional, a way to eventually trick us into believing that Shaw was still dead. Chuck followed.

Once I was on the street, I could see Chuck dangling from the top of the adjacent building. I felt my heart pounding in my throat. I saw a man approach, a ski mask lifted up to reveal his face. This was Justin, although I couldn't see his face all that well from the ground, only that it wasn't Shaw. He tried to push Chuck from the ledge, but I shot at him. I don't think I hit him, but he left Chuck alone and fled the scene. I ran for the building, desperate that I wouldn't be in time before Chuck fell.

Chuck and his father met me at the door. Apparently, his father had followed us, and ran to assist him after I had chased Justin off. Stephen looked furious. He turned a disapproving eye on me, I'm sure believing somewhere in his heart that his worst fear for his son, that he would become a spy, had happened at least in part because of me. He was just as disapproving of Chuck. Chuck was embarrassed and silent the entire way back to Caste.

I went to work trying to open the briefcase. While I was working, I heard Chuck lying to his father again. Stephen was very smart, and Chuck's ridiculous explanations just weren't adding up. First, he was done with the CIA, then he was just an analyst, now an analyst who went out on missions. I mean, in the past, that sort of was what Chuck was, but now was certainly much more.

Shaw's spy will was inside the briefcase. Or at least, a spy will. We were led to believe that the Ring was looking for it, and that he had to be dead. Was that real? I don't know. But I had to explain to Chuck what that was. I had been delivered two of these in my life, but because they were from Bryce, I never brought them up. I had one and I'm sure Casey did too. Chuck, however, did not. It wasn't part of his training, so how else would he know?

I started to read it, but Chuck's father interrupted. He was still upset. He let Chuck have it, saying how disappointed he was, how dangerous being a spy could be and that he had never wanted his family anywhere near it. He ended up storming out, but the words he said dug into me.

We were in a dangerous business. I could lose Chuck at any moment, or he could lose me. We just sort of lived every day one day at a time, but it was true. Did Stephen still blame the part I played in the danger Chuck was in?

All of this drama distracted us from Ellie not coming home. Casey overheard her, but he went to Morgan instead of Chuck because he thought Ellie was cheating on her husband. Morgan went to Devon to try and figure out what was going on.

Once Stephen stormed out, Casey took Shaw's intel and uploaded it to Beckman. I was doing some research of my own, trying to see if I could find out where Chuck's father was living. I took his driver's license without him noticing, a little trick I learned courtesy of my father. The address was fake, but I was able to locate a cabin far off the grid in Bishop county that had no utilities but consumed more electricity than any other location in the county. Seemed highly plausible this was where Stephen was hiding. I had a feeling he might disappear again and I wanted to give Chuck an opportunity to find him, so he could tell his father the truth.

Of course, while I was doing this, Stephen threw a knife at Chuck's face to trigger the Intersect to fire, to confirm his suspicions. And also–Ellie had returned and planted a tracker on her father as he was leaving, so that the Ring could find his hideout. She thought she was helping, but also never went inside to see Chuck. Chuck–who had no idea about the weird things that Casey and Morgan knew, but never told him.

I got home and found Chuck in front of his computer, alone in our apartment. I asked him where his father was and Chuck told me what had happened. I tried to be supportive, telling Chuck his father must have had a good reason, because he loved Chuck. I know he did. That was why Stephen was so upset. He had spent his entire life trying to protect Chuck.

It was very poignant to hear that Chuck acknowledged that his father loved him, he just didn't know him. Very sad, but very true. Chuck wasn't the 16 year old boy Stephen had left behind. He wasn't even the man Stephen had left when Ellie got married. Chuck explained to me why he chose to be a spy, but I asked Chuck if he told his father that, and he admitted that he didn't.

Chuck said he couldn't tell him now, because he didn't know where his father was. I told Chuck I'd found him. We decided to leave right away since it was a bit of a drive.

Chuck talked a lot to me about his father on the drive, more than he already had. He needed to talk, to sort of get it out before he confronted his father. He understood now why his life had been the way it was, but there was still a lot of hurt inside him, wounds from his childhood that would never completely heal. Every day he learned to live with it a little more. This was a big step.

I asked Chuck if he wanted me to go inside, but he said no. He kidded that if he wasn't back in 20 minutes, that I should come save him. He kissed me and got out of the car. I waited outside.

Fifteen minutes had gone by when I heard banging coming from inside the cabin. My spy senses kicked on and I was on my way in. I didn't have my gun but I was able to grab an axe that was outside the door on a pile of wood.

I kicked in the door to a scene of mayhem. Men in fatigues were fighting with both Chuck and his father. My rapid-fire assessment showed that Chuck had done most of the clean-up, with his father's help, taking out almost everyone. Chuck turned mid-fight when he heard me break in the door, which distracted him from his assailant, and a knife headed straight for his head. I just reacted and threw the axe, hitting the knife in mid-air and deflecting it away from Chuck. He was still reeling when I kicked the last man across the face and knocked him out.

I heard Stephen ask Chuck if I had an Intersect too. I smiled at Chuck, relieved, and amused, when he huffed, "No, Dad. That's all her."

It was never lost on me how much Chuck admired the badass side of me, as he called it. Perhaps intimidating, like Morgan saw, but he loved that about me. He loves everything about me, even the things that I hate. Just one of many reasons why I love him so much.

Getting rid of the bad guys was a little tricky, since Stephen refused to give away the location of the cabin. We couldn't just call a tactical team. Chuck and I left in my car and Stephen said he would take care of it, and meet us back in Burbank. I have no idea what that entailed; I only know Orion was as adverse to guns and killing as Chuck was.

Chuck and I were confused about the whole mess. Why was the Ring looking for Chuck's father? What did they want? Chuck was intentionally obtuse, not wanting to explain the governor, and potentially reveal his lie. I went back to Castle to try and make sense of it, try and figure out what it all meant–Shaw's spy will and the Ring's visit to Orion's cabin. Unfortunately, I was missing several large and important pieces of the puzzle.

While I was doing that, Casey was breaking into Ellie and Devon's apartment to try and figure out if she was cheating on Devon. Ellie came home unexpectedly. Justin's plan was to have Ellie eliminate Casey. Fortunately, she didn't like guns either and instead she knocked Casey out with a frying pan, then ran from her apartment and straight into Justin's waiting arms.

Casey came too before Devon got home, I know that. I don't know why Casey didn't tell anyone–not Morgan or Chuck–that Ellie had clobbered him. Casey, for his part, thought she thought he was an intruder and didn't realize until too late that it was him. I mean, why would Casey be in her house? Of course she would have reacted that way. Casey didn't want Chuck to know that Ellie could have been cheating.

Morgan came home and left us alone, because we were in our room. Maybe Morgan went to bed before Casey texted or called? I don't know. Morgan wasn't expecting a catastrophe, just reconnaissance. So the urgency would have been missing.

When we had been getting ready for bed, I decided something important. I wanted to give Chuck my spy will. He was my boyfriend–he was everything to me. If something happened to me in the field, he was the only one I would want to have that. I trusted him more than anyone I had ever known. It was just doing it, telling him, that was going to be hard.

I was sitting at the edge of the bed when he came in from the bathroom. He asked me what was wrong after he looked at my face. I just patted the bed, beckoning him to sit next to me. He never took his eyes off me as he walked over and sat.

"I've been thinking about what happened at the cabin and how you almost died." I saw him tense, watched as he looked away, keeping his eyes trained on the wall. I had to look away too, the meaning in my words too troubling. He looked at me and our eyes met.

"You know, everything that your dad said, about the life we've chosen…he's right. What we do is not safe." He looked concerned, sympathetic, and understanding. He was intently listening to me.

"I want you to have this." I handed him my spy will. "My spy will." He took it, looking up at the ceiling, like he was collecting himself.

"Why are you giving me this?" he said sharply.

"Chuck, this is me. It's everything I know, it's my life, and if something were to happen to me…well, if anyone's going to have it, I want it to be you." I smiled, though it was difficult, because of what it meant. He was everything to me, absolutely everything.

His eyes went through me. "Nothing's going to happen to you." It sounded like wishful thinking, but I know what it was, what he meant–he wouldn't let anything happen to me. "You're not going anywhere. And neither am I." He kissed me gently, and I leaned into him, resting my head against his, nestling against his shoulder.

It was a very important moment for the both of us. I try to forget that even in the midst of all that, or perhaps because of it, he was still lying to me.

Once I was asleep, Chuck got up and wrote his spy will. Fortunately, I've never read it. But I think I know an inkling about what it says.