Hey everyone! This story is a bit different for me, but my friend and I were discussing what Chuck and Sarah one year later on the same beach might be like, and this basic scenario is what immediately popped into my head. It was really hard to write, and I'm really unsure about mostly this entire thing because I think these characters' voices have finally escaped me, but I guess the one good thing about that ending is that I can write stories like this one and not have to mark them as AU. As always, I own nothing :)

The soles of her boots sink into the cool sand beneath her feet as she walks along the Malibu beach. She had wanted to feel the sand between her toes, but as the cool wind whips through her hair, she's glad she opted to leave the shoes on. Sarah hasn't been to this particular beach in a year, and though she's already wandered about a mile from the small lot she left her car in, her feet continue to propel her down the shore. She doesn't know where her exact destination is, but she knows she'll know it when she sees it.

Sarah thinks she'd look like an oddball if anyone were to watch her walking along the beach. Most people look towards the ocean, out into the unknown, when they're on the edge of land, but Sarah's looking towards the landscape. She finally comes up on the palm trees that are burned into her memory and stops, sucking in a breath. Everything's the same as it was a year ago, but as she twists the rings that have only recently taken up residence on her finger again, she knows nothing could be further from the truth.

She turns to walk down the sand, towards the water, and a small smile graces her lips as she realizes she won't be sitting on the beach alone.

"Well," she says in a raspy voice as she approaches the man sitting peacefully about halfway down the beach. "Fancy meeting you here."

The pained look on the man's face softens slightly as he looks up at his new companion and instinctively does a double take as if he can't believe she's really here with him. He's dressed in jeans and a striped sweatshirt, and Sarah can tell he's already been there a while. She shoots him a small grin, and he returns the pleasantry.

"Hey," he says.

She takes a few more steps towards him and gestures to the sand. "Can I sit?"

"Of course," he says, smoothing out the sand next to him.

Sarah sits down close to him, folding her legs underneath her body. Chuck watches her carefully as she stretches the arms of her gray sweater down over her palms. She catches him staring and laughs nervously.

"What?" she finally asks.

"Your hair…you just…you just look so different," Chuck says.

Sarah fingers the ends of her newly strawberry blonde hair. Side swept bangs wisp across her forehead, and she knows it's a lot longer than it was the last time he saw her.

"Good different?" she asks. She feels a pang of anxiety in her stomach, somehow afraid that he won't approve of her new appearance.

"Uh…yeah," he smiles. "I like your hair. I mean, I liked it before, too. I've pretty much always liked…" He sighs, and she smiles at his nervousness. "You're always beautiful, Sarah."

"Thank you," she says. "You look really good, too, Chuck."

"Ah, well, you know…" he teases, shrugging his shoulders as she laughs again.

"It's so good to see you," she says, warmth and honesty shining on her face.

He scoffs lightly, mostly to himself, though she still hears it. He looks back towards her and asks, "What are you doing here, Sarah?"

"I…" she stutters.

Her smile fades, and she's taken aback by his abrupt change in demeanor. She glances out at the ocean and takes a breath. She knew better than to expect this to be easy.

"This place is important," she finally says.

"Yeah," he nods. "But you can't just show up and act like things are normal. I haven't even heard from you in…four…months."

The "four" in his last statement sounds like a question, and she doesn't have the heart to tell him that it's really been more like five. She just looks down at her sweater-covered hands and nods her head.

"I know," she says softly, her voice filled with guilt.

"How did you know I'd be here?" he asks.

"I didn't," she says. "I wasn't looking for you, exactly, but I was hoping you'd be here."

"Why?" he asks.

"Well, it's been a year to the day since…"

"You decided to leave," he interrupts. "The first time, anyway. Or was that the second time?"

She sucks in a breath at the hurt behind his words and nods. "If we're counting the courtyard goodbye, I guess that would be the second time," she says quietly. "But that's…not quite what I was going to say."

They sit in silence for a long time before he says, "I honestly didn't think you'd know what today was."

"You were always better at remembering things like that," she agrees.

"So if you weren't looking for me, why are you here?" he asks.

"Because this place is important," she says again. "And I wanted to celebrate surviving a terrible thing that happened to me. Isn't that why you're here?"

"To celebrate?" Chuck asks in disbelief. "Yeah, not the word I would've picked for this particular anniversary."

He looks directly at her, and Sarah feels tears springing to her eyes as she sees how hurt he is. "Chuck, did you really think a magical kiss would work? It was a great kiss, but you didn't really expect everything to be okay just like that, did you?"

"No," he admits. "But I really thought you'd stay."

He looks away from her again, the feeling of not even being able to look at her overwhelming his body. Like every other time he's seen Sarah in the past year, part of him wants to be mad at her, and part of him just wants to reach out and hold her.

"I didn't know who I was, Chuck. I didn't know how to live in my own life," Sarah says, her voice almost pleading with him to hear her. "And I knew I had to figure everything out before I could really be anyone's anything."

"I know," he says, and deep down, he does believe what she said to be true.

"And I had to go away to do that because…because it was just too hard here."

"Too much pressure," he adds. He's heard a variation of this before.

"Yes," she says.

She sits, looking at him, waiting for him to turn and meet her gaze. He stays still and silent, staring out into the sea. The wind picks up briefly, and a wave crashes hard against the shore. She opens her mouth to say his name. She wants him to just look at her, but she stops herself and swallows as she closes her lips again. Sarah looks towards the ocean as well, sighs, and moves onto her knees.

"Okay…" she says softly, scarcely nodding her head as she readies herself to stand.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew there'd be a breaking point. She's gotten his hopes up one too many times, left one too many times, not called one too many times…she's not sure what did it, and she's not sure she'll ever know, but she knows her chances have run out, and this is finally over. Tears threaten to fill her eyes again, and she turns her head away, not wanting Chuck to see her cry.

She says, just loudly enough for him to hear her, "I think I should go."

"You don't have to…" Chuck starts. He finally turns his head to look at her again, but she doesn't notice. He instinctively reaches out a hand to stop her, afraid, as he always is, that if she leaves, he'll never see her again.

"No," Sarah says, brushing his hand off her knee. "You're upset, and I'm making it worse, and I never wanted to hurt you, so I need to go. I'm really sorry, Chuck."

"For what?" he asks tenderly.

"For…everything."

She stands, brushes the sand off of her jeans, and starts to walk away. He calls her name, a tear falls down her cheek, and she hurriedly brushes it away as she keeps moving. Chuck calls her name again, a little more urgently this time, and she stops, remaining in place with her back to him.

"I just…Sarah, I just don't want to do this anymore," he calls.

She turns, and, though she's only a few steps away from him, it feels like miles. She takes a steadying breath, afraid of the answer to the question she's about to ask.

"So…you want a divorce?" she asks.

It's the first time either of them has ever used that word, despite what happened and despite Sarah's absence for the better part of a year. She realized, several months down the road and only after Carina had asked, that asking for one had never even occurred to her. She knew it wasn't what she had wanted a year ago, and it definitely wasn't what she wanted now.

"No!" Chuck says almost instantly. "But…would you come back here, please?"

Sarah returns to Chuck's side and sits back down in the sand. She pulls her sweater down over her hands again and gives him an apprehensive look, afraid she's about to say goodbye to the marriage she's barely gotten to know.

"I came here to think," he says. "About what's happened between us in the past year and what's the right thing to do, you know, moving forward. I came here to make some tough decisions about what to do if I ever saw you again."

"What do you mean by 'tough decisions'?" she asks.

"I slept with someone," he says.

Her mouth drops open slightly before she can catch herself. Though they had never explicitly discussed their relationship status over the past year, his admission still astounds her, and a slight stinging settles into her heart.

"Oh," she breathes. "But you just said you don't want a divorce."

"I don't want a divorce," Chuck says definitely. "I don't even like thinking about putting you and that word in the same sentence."

"But you're seeing someone."

"That's not what I said," he says.

"Chuck, I'm confused," Sarah says with a nervous chuckle.

"After you left in July, Ellie told me to stop doing that to myself. She told me to grieve what we had and just try to move on," Chuck says. "But I loved you, and I knew you'd be back, so if all I got was a few days or weekends with you until you figured out what kind of life you want, I was okay with that."

Sarah sits silently beside him, taking in his words. He's never talked to her like this before. He loved her when she was home and gave her space when she was away and asked her how she was doing when he called, and he never asked for more. She figures someone else has taken in the brunt of his feelings over the past year, but it wasn't her.

"But then…when you left again in September, Morgan started saying that maybe I should think about moving on, too, and that, you know, was a stronger message coming from the best friend who had always believed in our relationship with everything that he had than it was coming from my overprotective big sister."

"That makes sense," Sarah agrees.

"There was just so much hope, you know? I meant it when I told you I just wanted to be someone you could call if you needed me, so, even though you ultimately decided to leave, I waited to see what would happen, and then when you came back for our first anniversary…"

"You feel like I've been leading you on," she interrupts.

"I don't," Chuck says. "I think maybe Ellie does, but…you remembered the date of our wedding anniversary all on your own. Nobody told you, and it was little things like that that gave me something to hold onto, even if I knew you'd be leaving on another mission when the weekend was over."

"I wasn't ready…" she starts. He stops her.

"Sarah, I know," he says.

She smiles. He's the one person in the world who would have every right to demand an explanation from her, and he never asks for one. His lips curve into a small smile in return and he continues.

"Anyway, you always came back. Every six or seven weeks, you'd call and say you were in town, and it was so good to see you, and it was so good to be with you, and when we were together in our home and in our bed, it was like nothing had happened, but then you'd go back to work, and even though I understood why you did, it was hard, and…I don't know if you remember this or not, but I don't handle things like that well."

"Busted out the cheese balls again?" she teased, a small smile on her face.

"Let's just say the only time my face was visible this past year was when I knew I'd be seeing you," Chuck laughs.

"Your face is visible now," she says, touching his smooth cheek.

"Maybe I was hoping you would be here, too," he admits.

"Chuck, who did you sleep with?" she asks, her smile fading.

"Some woman that Ellie used to work with when she lived here," Chuck says. "She started asking if she could set me up last August, to try and help me move on, and I kept saying no, but when three whole months passed, and I hadn't even gotten a text from you, I started thinking you weren't ever coming back, so, despite my better judgment, right before Christmas, I agreed to the date Ellie offered. I don't know why I did it, Sarah. I had a better time than I ever thought I could, and that surprised me, and I just…things…" he stutters.

"Things just got out of control?" Sarah offers.

"Yeah," he says. "I let it get out of control. I knew it was wrong the moment it happened, and we barely got going before I got up and left, and now I just feel terrible about it."

"Why are you telling me this, Chuck?" she asks.

"Because it made me realize that moving on in that way wasn't an option because I only ever want to be with you, but I can't do this anymore. I can't have you for a few days and then watch you leave with no closure or no idea what's coming next. It's not as bad as when it was all a cover, but I don't think this is fair to either of us, either, so we have to stop, Sarah, and just…and just try to move on."

"Chuck, I'm staying this time," Sarah says.

"Sarah," Chuck sighs, and she knows he thinks she's saying that just to talk him out of letting her go. "I'm not going anywhere, okay? I'll still be someone you can call, no matter what. We can't keep doing what we've been doing, but I don't want to lose you from my life, either."

"No, Chuck…"

In an act of desperation, she pulls the gray sleeve up past her wrist and offers him her left hand. His face changes as he looks down and sees the rings, the rings he gave her so long ago, wrapped around her finger for the first time all year. He reaches up and holds her palm in his hand.

"I quit the CIA, Chuck. You haven't heard from me in so long because they put me on an undercover mission where I couldn't contact you. I think they might have been testing my loyalty or something because I tried every way I knew how to contact you, and they blocked it every time," Sarah explains. "And when I was all alone on that mission, I realized that I don't want to live like that anymore. Not when I can have this."

Chuck doesn't say anything, but he laces his fingers through hers and thumbs the diamond, shifting the ring around her finger.

"I didn't call before I came this time because I wanted to surprise you. Chuck, I came here to tell you that I'm your Sarah again," she says. "As close to your Sarah as I think I can ever be anyway."

"Babe, you've been my Sarah since that day on the beach a year ago," he tells her.

"I'm sorry it took me so long so get to this place, but there were a lot of times when I wasn't sure I ever could, and I'm sorry I strung you along for the ride, but I'm not leaving when the weekend is over this time."

"You're not?" Chuck asks.

"No," Sarah whispers. "Unless too much has happened, and you don't want me to stay."

"How do I know you're not going to change your mind in a few days?" Chuck asks.

"You don't," she says. She smiles slightly and adds, "So I guess you'll just have to trust me, Chuck."

He chuckles slightly and mutters, "Déjà vu…"

"Look, Chuck, I know a lot of time has passed, and I know things are different, and I'm not expecting everything to be perfect right away because I know there are things to talk about, and it's not that easy, but do you think we could start with dinner?"

"You really want this?" Chuck asks, looking into her eyes. Sarah nods. Chuck smiles. "I could go for some dinner."

She smiles and squeezes his hand before letting him go. They stand from their places on the sand, and he pulls her in, cupping her face as he captures her lips in a tender kiss. Sarah caresses his neck as their kiss deepens, and Chuck reaches down to playfully grab her ass. She breaks the kiss on a giggle, and he shoots her a mischievous grin until she leans in for another kiss. He laces his fingers through hers again, and together, they head for the parking lot where Chuck left his car, leaving the sparking radiance of the setting sun behind them.

Thanks for reading! And, before it happens, since I know it's coming - I agree that Chuck & Sarah likely went home together after the beach in the show. Just wanted to explore what a scenario where the happily-ever-after doesn't come so easily might look like.