Chuck vs. Treason

"That's treason, Sarah."

"I know,"

"Are you sure you know? We could turn around and go back or you could let me go. You could tell them that I ran away and you couldn't catch me."

"Who'd believe that?"

"They don't have to believe it, they just have to not be able to prove you're lying."

"Chuck…you'd never survive on your own."

"So you've decided to join me in being imprisoned for life?" Chuck asked.

"Maybe they'll let us share a cell?" Sarah asked.

"Casey can come visit us."

"And tell us who the president is," Sarah finished. They shared a smile. That was all either seemed capable of at the moment. They were fugitives. The weight of it was threatening to crush the little Porsche as they ran.

"How far do you think we'll get?" Chuck asked.

"Far enough."

"How far is that?"

"For tonight, we have to get to San Diego."

"What's in San Diego?"

"My boat."

"You have a boat?"

"Technically, Alicia and Robert Smith have a boat."

"Do we know them?"

"We should, when we left the Buy More, we became them." Sarah pulled off the freeway at a downtown exit.

"We're married?"

Sarah nodded. "Well, our covers are married."

"Damn, I don't even remember the wedding."

"Maybe that's why you always forget our anniversary," Sarah joked.

"Seriously, shouldn't I know something about myself?"

"I'll let you read your dossier when we reach the boat," Sarah assured him. "Right now we need to catch a train. I'm afraid we are going to have to run a few blocks."

Sarah pulled the Porsche into a parking garage and popped the trunk. She produced a hat and a heavy coat for Chuck. She put the hat upon his head. "No more shaving for a while, I'm afraid." Sarah quickly tucked her hair into a tight bun and donned a reddish brown wig. She stripped out of her jacket and put on a red one. "Sorry," she said absently.

"What?"

"I know you don't like red…that's why I never wear this one and the wig and…"

"Sarah, what are you talking about?"

"You don't like red," she stated as if it were obvious.

"I like red just fine. I went to Stanford."

"You…" Sarah trailed off. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, it's one of my favorite colors."

"You and I are going to have a very long talk," Sarah huffed. "Come on, we're wasting time." Sarah put the keys to the Porsche under the floor mat.

"Sarah, won't somebody steal it?"

"I certainly hope so, but hopefully not for a day or two." She grabbed Chuck's hand and tugged him out of the parking garage. They zigzagged blocks, taking the oddest path Chuck could imagine until they got to Union Station.

"Sarah why are we running all over the place if we're just coming here?" Chuck wheezed.

"Traffic cameras, we have to stay out of the cameras as much as possible."

"Are you saying you know the exact location of every traffic cam in Los Angeles?"

"Well…not all of them. Our train leaves at nine, and we have to hurry."

"Sarah, what about my Dad?"

Sarah shot him a sympathetic look. "Chuck, I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do about that. We don't know where he is and even if we did, we're on the run. We have to keep moving."

"I know where he is."

Sarah froze. "What?"

"He's at a Fulcrum facility called Black Rock, it's not that far from here…"

"When did you… How did you… Chuck it doesn't matter, I can't save your Dad alone. We need to hide, or they'll put you in a bunker and your dad will be out of luck anyway. I promise as soon as we lose the heat, we'll figure out searching for your Dad."

"Sarah, if he finished their Intersect…"

Sarah shook her head. "We can't worry about the NSA's problems anymore. We're on our own side now. They broke their alliance with you and now they're the only one without an Intersect. We have to worry about us." Chuck nodded sadly. "It'll be okay. We just have to lose them first."

Sarah bought their tickets and they huddled in the one corner that Sarah said was safe from cameras. While they had a moment of waiting Sarah was nestled against Chuck, presumably to sell that they were a young couple in love. Chuck decided he had to know something. "How long have you been planning this?"

"Since Longshore"

"You've been planning this for a whole year?" Chuck asked in surprise.

The only reason I didn't shoot Longshore and take you then, was because I didn't have a plan. I didn't have anywhere for us to go. I didn't have a safe house we could have reached. I was kicking myself on that roof. I was going to lose you, because I didn't have a plan."

Chuck reached up and ran his fingertips along her face. "Does this mean you…you know…love me?"

Sarah who'd been cool as a cucumber throughout their flight from Casey, suddenly looked terrified. "Um, well, you know, I do, but this is mostly just…this is because I can't let them do this to you. You trusted me, to prevent them from putting you in the bunker…" Sarah swallowed harshly. "And…because last time you told me to find something to tell Ellie that would make this okay and I couldn't think of anything."

"So you're rescuing me to avoid an awkward conversation with Ellie?"

Sarah shrugged. "What can I say, I don't like awkward conversations."

"But you did say you loved me." Sarah nodded. "That's all I needed to know."

***

Sarah sat at Chuck's side with her head on his shoulder most of the way to San Diego. She seemed sad. "Are you okay?" Chuck asked.

"You can't ever go back," Sarah replied.

"I know."

"No, I mean, not ever, we can never go back there. You can't call Ellie, you can't write to her, you can't ever go back. Even if we could find a way to remove the Intersect, you still can't go home."

"I know."

"Doesn't that bother you?" Sarah asked. "We're going to miss Ellie and Devon's wedding and we won't get to see their kids grow up and now neither of us will really have a family."

"It does bother me, but given all the choices. I'd rather be here with you, then in a bunker being force fed information to see if I flash on any of it."

They were silent for about forty miles or so when Sarah asked. "Do you really like red?"

"Yeah, I mean, Stanford isn't the greatest set of memories for me, but I've always liked red."

"Then why did you say it wasn't your color?" Sarah asked.

"What, when?"

"When we were getting ready for the party at Von Hayes house, you said red really wasn't your color."

"I did?"

"Yes! I haven't worn anything red since! Well except that horrible hooker disguise."

"You really haven't worn anything red in almost a year?"

"CHUCK! I threw away every red piece of clothing I owned except for this jacket!"

"Huh… I really don't remember that."

Sarah was glaring at him. "I'm going to have to buy a red bikini."

"A what?" Chuck's mouth was suddenly dry.

"We're traveling by boat…"

Try as he might he just couldn't get the image of Sarah in a red bikini out of his mind.

"So no more lying to me, no more hiding the truth, no more protecting me from having to tell information to other people. From now on you tell me everything," Sarah warned him. "I don't want to spend another year thinking you don't like baby carrots when really they're your favorite food. I don't want you tell me you feel differently about me, than you really do."

"Does that go for you too?" Chuck asked. Sarah's eyes got large and she swallowed hard, but she nodded. "Really not good at trusting people are you?" Chuck asked.

"You're my first," Sarah replied.

Chuck couldn't help himself he gave her a wide smile and leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. She responded immediately pressing him back against the seat as she moved to a more dominant position. They spent the last few miles of the trip necking ever more desperately on the mostly empty train car. Chuck felt if their mission was to lay low, that they'd failed miserably. The passengers that had shared their car either gave them dirty looks or appreciative ones depending on the person.

From the train station it was a short trolley ride to the marina and less than five hours after Sarah told him take off his watch, they were on a boat called the 'Schnook' and headed out into the open ocean. "Did your Dad have something to do with this boat?" Chuck asked.

"Maybe," Sarah smiled.

They cruised along the coastline for a while and then Sarah found a channel marker and headed off to the west. She killed the lights and they trudged along in the dark, she was tracking their movements on the GPS and scanning the horizon with binoculars every few minutes. She glanced over at him a few times, but hadn't said a word. They'd been moving along slowly but steadily for an hour when she announced. "You're too far away."

"What?" Chuck asked. He'd been sitting in the navigator's chair the whole trip, while Sarah had the captain's chair. She'd been doing both jobs, but Chuck hadn't moved. Sarah hoped out of the captain chair and stood in front of it. She pointed at Chuck then she pointed at her chair. Chuck moved over to the Captain's chair and Sarah leaned back against him as she piloted the boat.

"How far are we going?" Chuck asked.

"Eventually, our next stop is in Mexico, but tonight, I'd like to get twenty or thirty miles off the coast and set an anchor. I just want to get far enough away from the coast so we're hard to find. We have to get back to land by Friday."

"What happens on Friday?" Chuck asked.

"There's a storm coming, we need to be out of its way. Plus we only have fuel for a few hundred miles. Chuck wrapped his arms around Sarah's middle while she steered the boat. "There that's better," she sighed.

***

A few hours later Sarah cut the engines and dropped anchor. "Where are we?" Chuck asked.

"Far enough," Sarah replied.

"Far enough for what?" Chuck asked.

"Far enough, to stop running for a while," she said as she turned around in his arms and kissed him. They were alone in the middle of the ocean and nobody knew where they were. "Come on," Sarah said tugging Chuck to the ladder for the bridge.

"Where are we going?" Chuck asked.

"To release some tension and get some sleep," Sarah replied easily.

"Tension?"

"Yes, tension."

Chuck followed Sarah down the ladder and then froze as she removed her shirt before walking below deck. "Oh…tension." Chuck stared after her. As he began to follow her he called out. "You know, um, I don't want you to get your expectations too high. It's been a while and I'm out of practice."

"Shut up, Chuck." Sarah's trousers had somehow gone missing and she attacked him. She was clinging to him while she pulled him to the bed in the front of the boat. It wasn't slow and gentle or soft and caring, making love to Sarah was like skiing a mogul run for the very first time. Terrifying, jarring and exhilarating once you realized you weren't going to die. Afterwards when Chuck was waiting for his heart to stop sounding like Secretariat at a full gallop, he turned and faced her happy smile.

"Is it going to be like that every time?" he wheezed.

Sarah's grin got wider. "Probably just the first few times, I've had quite a lot of tension. You should get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a very long day."

Chuck scooted over so that he could put his arms around Sarah as they fell asleep. She snuggled into him and took a deep breath. "It was totally worth treason," she murmured before she fell asleep.

***

Chuck watched Sarah as she scrambled around on the deck getting ready to change the position of the sail. The Schnook was dry docked in Puerto Vallarta, waiting for them to return for it someday. The Vicky Vale was an actual sail boat, which had extended their range and allowed to them visit the world. They were a day outside of Sydney. Sarah had insisted that they sail to Australia as soon as they'd rescued his dad from Fulcrum, but it had taken a year before they'd actually been ready to set sail.

Traveling by boat had definitely changed Chuck. He missed the internet. He missed video games. He even missed television, but watching Sarah scramble around in her red bikini was totally worth it.

"You're a very lucky man," his dad's voice forced him to break off staring at his wife.

"I know," Chuck replied looking over at his father.

"I think I'm going to disembark in Sydney and make my own way for a while," his dad told him.

"What?" Chuck sputtered. "Why?"

"Well you kids need your space and spending these last eighteen months with you has been great, but I need to get back in the lab and see if any of these plans I've designed will actually work. You're in good hands. I trust Ali to take care of you."

"She does take good care of me," Chuck agreed.

His dad nodded. His hair was all white now, colored by the stress of working under the threat of Fulcrum, but he looked much better than when they'd broken him out of Black Rock. "Dad," Chuck said quietly. "I'm sorry I was angry at you for so long."

His father gave him a weak grin. "It's okay, that's the cost of things I suppose. Everything has a price. When you're someone like me and you have a great family, the price is that sometimes they end up hating you."

"Dad… I mean, we just didn't understand. Ellie probably never will, but I do. I understand your sacrifice, Sarah's sacrifice…I just wish Ellie hadn't lost her whole family. If only Mom had stuck around."

"Chuck…" his Dad started but then seemed to think better of it.

"What?"

"I'm not sure if I should tell you."

"Tell me what?"

His father seemed to struggle for a moment. "Your Mom, she didn't leave because she wanted to."

"What? What do you mean she didn't leave because she wanted to?"

"Well there were a lot of things you didn't understand when you were a kid. Things we couldn't tell you. Your Mom was an agent, like Ali. She was sent to protect me when I was working on the designs for the first Intersect. Even then, there were people trying to steal it. She and I, well it was difficult at first, we didn't get along particularly. She was always so concerned about doing her job, that she interfered with me doing mine. I didn't have much in my life besides work, but eventually the two of us decided we'd better be friends if we were going to be stuck together all the time. It wasn't like I could date and neither could she, so we became friends…and then more than friends. Your mother is an amazing woman, capable of self sacrifice like few people I've ever known. Well, eventually, we made a mistake and she got pregnant with Ellie and I used my leverage with Intersect project to allow us to get married.

"We had a nice little family. It was the happiest time of my life, but I started having doubts about the Intersect project. Mostly about how they wanted to use it and who I was working for. I shared my doubts with your mother and she agreed that I should stop working on the project. So, I did, we took the moral high ground and I refused to finish it. The agency got angry and reassigned your mother. She refused at first, but they threatened to hurt you and Ellie if she didn't leave. She couldn't protect all of us, if she stayed. We couldn't run with two kids in tow and so she left, to protect us. That was the worst day of my life."

"Oh, my, God," Chuck gasped. "Mom was an agent?"

"Yeah, I'm afraid so."

"What happened to her?"

"Well I only saw her once after she left. I was grabbed by a couple of goons from some agency or another and they tried to haul me off to finish the Intersect. We were in a car accident when they were hauling me away and somebody rescued me. It was your mother. She told me I had to run…that I had to hide. That Perseus, my old assistant was close to finishing the Intersect, but that he couldn't figure everything out and they needed me and that I was no longer safe."

"I left to protect you and your sister. It wasn't safe around me anymore. I guess Perseus figured it out eventually. I haven't seen your Mom since."

"Do you know what happened to her?" Chuck asked.

"No, but I heard a rumor she moved to Australia, I reckon that's why Ali's been wanting to come here so badly."

Chuck whistled. "Holy Schnikies…you really think Mom is here?"

"That's a question you'll have to ask Ali."

***

Six days later Chuck watched his parents hugging in the hallway of a small home in Wollongong Australia. He could scarcely believe it. It had been twenty one years since he'd last seen that. Sarah took his hand as his own tears started to escape to match those of his parents.

"How did you…" Chuck looked at Sarah and trailed off.

"When I ran your Dad's name through the computer, I'd already committed the crime," Sarah shrugged. "I figured in for a penny, in for a pound. I'm just glad she was still here."

"I wish we could tell Ellie… I mean to her, we're all painful memories. It seems unfair to keep this from her."

"Someday," Sarah murmured. "Someday, we'll fix all of it."

A/N: Chuck's Dad refers to Sarah as Ali, because her new identity is Alicia Smith and he never really knew her as Sarah.