A/N: A part of this was written based on something Yokaputo mentioned to me long, long ago. Do you still remember Yok?
Oh, and I've put up a new poll, won't you chuck it out? (har har, i crack myself up sometimes)
Chapter 14. Chuck/Sarah vs the revelation
Chuck thought he might have been dreaming—or perhaps he'd simply died and gone to heaven. Life couldn't possibly get better than this. The bed was toasty warm, the sheets rested like soft, puffy clouds against his skin, and the most beautiful angel was sound asleep beside him.
He felt so peaceful, so tranquil—
—until he felt a sharp stabbing pain in his side.
With eyes still closed, Chuck absent-mindedly rubbed the spot between his two lower ribs. That was odd. Who would poke him with a stick?
"Chuuuuck..."
Something incessant began to buzz by his ear, growing louder and louder with each passing second. A bee? A wasp? A fly?
Chuck buried his face into the pillow and groaned. Whatever it was, he would deal with it in the morning.
The noise wouldn't quit though and the longer it went on for the more annoying it became until he had stuff his ears with the pillow just to make it stop.
The stabbing pain in his side hit again, only this time it felt less like the rounded end of a pole and more like the pointed end of someone's elbow.
"Chuuuck..."
He recognized that voice. It sounded vaguely familiar.
"Chuuuuck...get the phone!" In the bed beside him, he felt the mattress shift and a hand suddenly clobber the side of his head.
Chuck winced, finally forcibly jolted from his dreams.
"Picccck up!" the voice groaned, and the sheets and with it all the precious warmth, was sudden pulled away from him. He felt as if he'd just been thrown out into the cold.
In a minute, Chuck wanted to murmur but before he could even open his mouth to speak, he felt two hands and perhaps a foot as well, push him to the edge of the bed, threatening to throw him off unless he complied.
Chuck turned towards the nightstand and groped blindly for the phone madly vibrating across the wooden surface.
"Hello?" he murmured hoarsely. He rubbed his eyes but they still refused to open.
"Chuck!" came the frantic voice.
"Morgan?" Beside him, Chuck could hear Sarah's muffled groans, only half drowned out by the pile of sheets she's buried herself under. "Morgan, do you have any idea what time it is?"
He finally opened his bleary eyes and saw the time flash before him in angry red lights. It was well in the low single digits.
"Yeah, of course. Do you?" Morgan emphasized.
"Are we looking at the same time?" Chuck asked wearily. A part of him still longed to return to the bliss he felt so unjustly removed from and the other urged him to pay attention. This was Morgan of all people, someone who slept in until two in the afternoon if he could help it.
Well...it was the right hour but the wrong time of day.
"It's only two in the morning, Morgan." Chuck turned around and tried to pull back the sheets but Sarah wasn't having any of it. She held onto her end with a death grip.
"Did you set your clock to PM instead of AM again?"
Left with little choice, Chuck dug under the covers until he found the one he was searching for. Tactfully he snuggled up against her, forcing her to give up a share of the warmth or have it taken from her.
Sarah groaned and tried futilely to fend him off; ultimately surrendering a margin of fabric no wider than the width of his hand.
"You're so generous," he whispered, making Sarah grin.
"No, it's two AM," Morgan confirmed matter-of-factly.
Chuck groaned, burying his face into Sarah's shoulder. That just made it worse.
"But it's two AM, Morgan," he complained. "People are sleeping at two AM in the morning."
Sarah turned in her sleep and grabbed a handful of Chuck's t-shirt, pulling him up against her. "Tell him if he doesn't hang up now I will drive over there and bash his tiny skull in with that phone," she growled.
Chuck knew better than to laugh. Sarah was unspeakably adorable when she was disgruntled but her threats were not ones to be taken lightly.
"Yeah, it's two AM in L.A. but it's ten AM in London." Morgan laughed into the phone, sounding exuberantly pleased with himself for the fact. "We agreed to a last minute phone conference with the investors, remember?"
Chuck shot out of bed, landing feet-first on the cold hardwood floor. Hopping as if he were walking on a sheet of ice, he made a mad dash for the closet and tried to find a suitable suit in the dark.
"Chuck?" Sarah groaned, sitting up while fighting the urge to fall back asleep.
"Shoot! Morgan, buddy, I'm so sorry!" Chuck grabbed one of the hangers and flung it onto his now vacant half of the bed. "I'll be right there, I promise. Tell them we're having problems with the connection or the video feed or something."
Mentally cursing to himself, he hung up the phone and began to undress and redress in a frenzy. He sincerely hoped his hair hadn't become too unmanageable in his sleep. This was not the time for a full-on menagerie up there.
"Chuck, what's wrong?" Sarah asked, shivering as she pulled the covers over her bare shoulders.
"Nothing," he said though it went against every instinct in his body. Morgan's call had hit the accelerate button on 'panic' and he felt like his heart couldn't catch up with his mind.
For Sarah and only Sarah, he somehow found the will to sound eerily serene."I forgot I had something at the office. Go back to sleep."
When she didn't immediately listen to him, Chuck pushed her back down onto the mattress himself, taking the extra time to tuck her in.
"You're never going to get better if you don't rest." When he held the palm of his hand against her forehead, it was only slightly warm. Slightly warm was still feverish...right?
"I'm fine," she said, but her voice was hardly the sound of health. She cleared her throat guiltily but it wasn't enough. Sarah still sounded like a strangled parrot; woefully hoarse. "It's not going to kill me."
Chuck smiled. "It'll just make you stronger, right?" he teased. She had a habit of being too stubborn for her own good. "Seriously, Sarah, I want you to see a doctor. You've had the stomach flu for a week now and it doesn't look like it's getting better."
Sarah shook her head, obstinate to a fault. "No, it's nothing."
Chuck rolled his eyes. Luckily it was dark and she didn't catch on. "I don't want you crawling out of your deathbed just to prove to me you're still fine. You don't have to be tough all the time, Sarah."
Sarah arched her brows, as he knew she would. Au contraire, Sarah Bartowski née Walker was simply too stubborn to admit that a little innocuous bug could take her down a few notches.
"Honey, either you see a doctor or I will tell Ellie that you've become violently sick." He knew his threat had hit home when Sarah went stiff with fear. "How you can't even get out of bed, how you've lost nearly twenty pounds—"
"What a liar!" she accused.
Chuck laughed and had he the skill, he would have cackled evilly. "Doesn't matter. Ellie will just hear the word 'sick' and drag you to the ICU. So what will it be? The emergency room or a quiet clinic?"
Sarah turned away, sulking under the sheets. "Don't you have work to get to?"
Oh right. That.
Chuck sat up, trying desperately to make up for lost time. He swore someday he would win a Nobel prize for proving that the nature of time could indeed change in the presence of a beautiful and brilliant woman.
"You owe me, you know?" she murmured just as Chuck was finishing with his tie. "No one wakes me from my sleep without suffering the consequences."
Despite her condition, Sarah had a perfectly mischievous look on her face when she raised her brows meaningfully at him.
Chuck couldn't return the look with a straight face. "I will happily compensate you for your loss," he declared and dove in for a quick kiss.
Sarah turned her face away; a rarity that. "I'm sick," she reminded. "And gross. And pukey."
"That's not even an adjective," he quipped. And then he smiled at her like a man who had all the time in the world. "I'm sure I could suffer through it."
Sarah thought she was trapped in some sort of terrible nightmare. You know, the one where you struggle into the wee hours of the night trying to coax the baby to sleep and then lie in your own bed worrying about whether you turned off the stove, locked the doors, secured the crib-latch, and the garage door and the office door until you're so exhausted you finally fall asleep only to be awakened by the most obnoxious sound?
Oh wait. It wasn't a nightmare.
Sarah blearily opened one eye, peeking at the time on the digital clock. It was way too early for any decent human being to be calling.
"Chuck," she groaned, giving her bed partner a kick.
No response.
"Chuck!" she said, louder this time, but to no avail. The obnoxious ring-tone and the occasional light snore were all that punctuated the bedroom.
If Chuck Bartowski had any special abilities, this would be it. The man could sleep through anything.
Sarah rolled her eyes. If only she could be blessed with the same skills.
"Sarrraah..." he moaned turning away from the noise. "Get the phone."
Sarah was about to box him in the ears with her pillow when she realized what Chuck had already deduced in his sleep. The noise wasn't coming from his side of the bed, it was coming from hers.
Turning on the nightstand light, she squinted, trying to shield her sensitive eyes as she snatched the phone off the surface.
"Hello?" she asked, trying not to snarl into the phone. This had better be good.
"Sarah?"
A chill runs down Sarah's spine as she registers the voice and the connotation. "Carol?" she utters, wrinkling her brows. Suddenly she's wired and ready to bolt.
"Carol, what's the matter?"
Sarah's deciphered codes and foreign tongues but the words coming out of her friend's mouth are impossible to understand.
"Slow down...Carol! You have to slow down..." she urged. Beside her, Chuck finally stirred from his sleep, no doubt startled by the urgency in her voice.
Sarah presses the phone against her ear so hard she's afraid it'll meld right into her skin. She tries to pick up everything; the static, the chatter in the background, the way her voice hitches inbetween each gasping sob.
"Sarah...it...he..." Before the woman can finish she's cut off. There's static, the sound of distant sobs, and finally a new voice, clear and in charge.
"Hello, Agent."
Sarah held her breath, feeling a chill crawl from the tips of her toes all the way up to the individual hairs on her head, leaving every inch of her frozen.
"Hello. Who's this?"
Even before he spoke, she knew the unthinkable had happened. She turned to Chuck, his hair adorably rumpled from sleep, and slid closer to him. She needed his warmth now more than ever.
"This is your new head of security. There's been an incident. Report back immediately to headquarters."
This was not a negotiation and the call ended with more questions than answers. Sarah dropped the phone, the weight of it suddenly too heavy for her to support.
"Honey?" Chuck rose sleepily, blinking from the bright lamp-light. "Honey, what's wrong?"
Sarah sat in silence, trying to determine just that. She was suddenly filled with dread and guilt. Dread that they were about to be plunged back into a nightmare she thought she'd left behind, and guilt that she'd done this to herself.
She should have quit. She should have quit after Washington and Chuck should never have encouraged her to stick with what she knew.
Damn it! She was supposed to do what would make them all safe. Screw personal satisfaction.
"I have to go down to the office," she said, taking care not to let panic enter her voice. She rose out of bed almost robotically, each movement decisive and planned with care, and walked carefully to the closet to choose an outfit.
Chuck blinked at the time. "At two in the morning?" he asked. "What the heck do they want you for at two in the morning?"
Sarah took a deep breath but she couldn't hide it from him for long. Selecting a conservative sweater-ensemble, she began to change, trying not to let him see how she was shaking.
"Sarah?" he asked when she hadn't responded. "Sarah, what is it?" Chuck slid out of bed and walked over to her. "Oh my God, Sarah, you're freezing," he remarked as he rubbed her arms.
Sarah chewed on her lip, debating with herself what she should say. They'd given up on false pretences a long ago but that didn't mean she couldn't soften the truth.
"Something's happened and they want me back at the office."
Chuck's eyes bulged. "What kind of something?" he asked. He was never one to hide his emotions and even if he was trying to, she saw right through him. He was freaking out and trying not to at the same time.
"A bad something?" he asked, his voice catching at the end.
Sarah didn't want to answer and thankfully she didn't have to. Over the baby monitor came a series of whimpers and broken cries. Without thought, they both turned towards the door.
"I'll get her," Chuck said and left the room. Sarah finished changing and by the time she had straightened her sweater, Chuck was back with Charlotte sniffling in his arms.
"Chuck, what are you doing awake?" she asked.
The baby stared at her with the most inquisitive blue eyes. Sarah had no idea how she knew, but Charlotte always knew when something was wrong.
"It's okay, Piglet, don't cry," Chuck cooed and for once, Sarah didn't bother correcting him. She took solace in the fact their daughter was still easy to subdue.
"Sarah, talk to me," he pleaded, while rocking their daughter back and forth, trying to coax her back to sleep. Charlotte didn't look in the least interested. Her gaze hadn't left her mother's since entering the room.
"I don't know," Sarah confessed. She wasn't going to lie, but she wasn't going to give him a list of scenarios either. What he didn't know, couldn't perceive, was a gift.
Sarah wrapped her arms around them both, stretching to bring her hands back around. She pressed her body against Chuck's, with their daughter safe between them.
And to think...well, she didn't know what to think.
"I would never let anything happen to us, you know that right?" She gazed up at her husband. They'd come so far, gone through so much; it just wasn't fair. They'd both fought too hard for this; she couldn't let them take it all away.
Chuck nodded solemnly. She would fight to the teeth for them. Even Charlotte, young as she was, had a look of unwavering faith in her mother.
Chuck finished the phone conference with the London investors by four in the morning. While it may have been lunchtime for those in the British Empire, it was still too early for any decent human being in L.A. to be awake.
"I should head back, get in an hour or two," Chuck said, barely suppressing a yawn.
"No!" Morgan tried to convince him he didn't need sleep, not when there was the modern day advent of Red Bull.
Chuck just smiled and shook his head. He still hadn't found a way to tell Morgan that he couldn't stand the stuff anymore, not since it had been practically forced down his throat during his captivity.
"I think I'm allergic to that stuff," Chuck said. "I get...uh...a really bad rash."
Morgan looked horrified. "But that's part of any staple diet!"
Chuck could only shrug. He wasn't going to touch any of that stuff ever again.
"Video games then? You can't say no to video games!"
Damn it. Chuck really couldn't. Not when it was part of their livelihood.
"And Sarah's probably already asleep. You don't want to wake her up again, do you?"
Chuck looked at his friend with undisguised awe. Since when had Morgan so perfected the art of persuasion?
"No, of course not," Chuck said slowly. "So of course you and I have to play video games."
Morgan clapped his friend on the back. "Right! We're doing this for her sake."
Chuck laughed. He couldn't wait to see what Sarah would think of that.
.
Morgan was completely right, and Chuck wondered how he could have ever doubted his little bearded friend. You really didn't need sleep. Not with the modern invention of the video game console, second only to the caffeine concentrate.
The second his hand touched the controller, it was just like old times. Marathon game-nights turned game-mornings in the basement with his best friend for as long as it took for someone to realize they hadn't been seen for an inordinately long period of time. Usually this was Ellie. Sometimes it was Bolognia.
And now it was Marie.
The young secretary strode into the office to find her highly esteemed employers sitting in their most expensive suits surrounded by crumbs, empty chip bags and soda cans.
"You guys were here all night?" she asked, scanning the litter in the conference room with a look of disbelief.
Chuck wiped down his suit guiltily. They had gone through enough food to sufficiently feed twice the number of pimply teenagers.
"Sleep is for the weak!" Morgan reiterated, guzzling down his grape-soda-caffeine-shot mix.
"Is it really nine already?" Chuck furrowed his brows. That couldn't be right.
Marie suppressed a smile. "Actually, Mr. Bartowski, it's ten."
"Ten?" he choked, dropping the controller as if it were scalding his fingers. "Oh my God! How can it be ten?" He jumped to his feet and all six hours of staring at the screen in a zombie-like state while staving off sleep hit him at once. It was like driving into a wall without a seat-belt on and Chuck had to sink slowly back into his seat to ease the vertigo.
"You okay, man?" Morgan asked. For someone who had just had the equivalent of about nine cups of coffee, he looked surprisingly calm.
"The 'mystery cheese' flavor chips are not sitting well with me right now," Chuck confessed, staring down at his shoes. Perhaps he'd caught Sarah's flu after all.
"Did you need a coffee, Mr. Bartowski?" Marie asked. Even though she was still young, she was like a second Ellie to him. "Water? Breakfast—a real, breakfast," she emphasized when Morgan gave her a look. "I have some Aspirin if you have a headache—"
"No. No. I'll be fine." Chuck smiled and took a deep breath. "I think I'll start answering my messages from last night and the morning. That'll settle me down."
Marie grinned at the suggestion. "Well, I know you like to answer them in the order you receive them but..." She pulled out a bright yellow sticky-note. "Mrs. Bartowski's called twice for you already. Perhaps you'd like to respond to her first."
Chuck frowned as he accepted the note. There was nothing specific other than her name and their home phone number. "Well she could have just called my cell—"
"You forgot your cell at home."
Chuck blushed. Right. He'd been half asleep when he grabbed his bag and drove down here.
"Oh. Okay, well I'll just call her from my office then." He bid goodbye to Morgan, who looked like he could still continue on for a few more hours, and prepared to head out.
Marie tilted her head and smiled. "Oh, and Mr. Bartowski?"
Chuck stopped at the door. "Yeah?"
"I've got a feeling Mrs. Bartowski knows what you and Mr. Grimes were up to, so I'd just tell her the truth if I were you."
Chuck blushed even harder if that was possible. "Thanks, Marie."
.
"So?" he greeted, skipping straight to the point.
"So?" she replied. He could nearly see the smile creeping on her lips. "How many hours of video game time did you clock in this morning?"
Chuck kept quiet. It was as good as a confession anyway, but two could play this game.
"So have you seen a doctor yet?"
The response was a loud and resounding groan.
Chuck sighed. "Sarah—"
"I feel better!" she declared. "I feel great in fact!"
"That's what you've said everyday for the last week. I'm calling Ellie."
Before Chuck had even reached across the table for his contacts list, Sarah cried out a torrent of excuses.
"No! I will see a doctor. Just not today. It's going to be a waste of time if I'm already better. Waiting at the clinic is like waiting in a cesspool of germs. Do you want me to come down with another flu?"
Chuck shook his head. "If I didn't know better, Sarah, I'd say you had doctor-phobia."
"That's not a noun," she retorted. "Let's go for lunch down by the pier today."
He knew she was just trying to change the subject but his brows still wrinkled in confusion. "Because eating processed food will prove to me that you've recovered?"
"Just because I'm sick doesn't mean I don't go hungry," she grumped. Her voice alone was enough to make Chuck laugh. Because Sarah never got sick, she was fast becoming the worst kind of patient—the kind still in denial.
"Well?" she urged.
"See the doctor first so you can tell me what you have before we have lunch."
Sarah breathed into the phone, almost like the sound of a bull before it charged the matador. "Fine. It's just as well anyway," she said, her voice still heavy with annoyance.
Chuck held his laughter in just long enough to ask why.
"Because, Chuck, you better watch out," she said, her voice only softening at the end. Then with an ominous laugh of her own, she added: "You're going to be next."
Sarah parked her car in the usual place and made her way down to the front doors. It unnerved her how many cars were parked here at night. Give it six more hours and this would be completely normal, but six hours removed and it was downright eerie.
There was a security guard she didn't recognize at the door. He had a hand hovered over his gun holster as he opened the door for her—but his wariness was quickly dropped once she'd flashed her building card.
"They're in the main conference room," he informed and promptly locked the door after her. The main lobby was crawling with suits and guns.
What the hell happened here?
"You should be more careful, ma'am," he said, pointing a lecturing finger at her.
"I beg your pardon?" Sarah asked, craning her neck to look up at him. He was taller than the usual doorman and noticeably stockier too.
He smiled but she couldn't help thinking he was leering at her. "A pretty woman like you walking alone at night?" He shook his head. "That's just asking for trouble. You need someone to protect you."
Sarah cocked her head to one side, greatly amused. "Someone like you?"
The man tried not to look too smug but he was nevertheless pleased with her quick assessment. "Yeah, someone like me. Someone who's got a gun and knows how to use it." He winked at her. "You have to have someone like that in your life, you know?"
Sarah thought she could have the man on his back, unarmed, in under five seconds but she was entertained by the prominent stereotype that all analysts were pencil pushers.
Sarah held up her hand, flashing the solitaire diamond. "I already do, thank you for your concern." Without waiting for a response, she headed for the elevator.
.
The conference room was as packed as that 'comic con' event her husband was such a fan of. She'd gone with him once on a whim and since then fully encouraged him to visit with his best friend, Morgan, and leave her in the peace and quiet of their home.
But there was no buzz of excitement or manic hysteria here, only a dour sombreness usually reserved for wakes and funerals. She was lost in the sea of suits; even the familiar coworkers from her day to day work became like strangers in this setting. The only person who wasn't wearing a death mask appeared to be Carol, who sat surrounded on all sides by the most unsympathetic men Sarah had ever seen.
She felt for her friend and wished she could steal her away and let her express normal human emotions without feeling like such a freak. As it were, the room was packed and there was only one seat in the back still unoccupied.
The man at the front of the room suddenly rose to the podium. "Alright, looks like we're all here. Let's begin." Sarah recognized the voice. It was the new head of security she'd spoken to on the phone.
Slipping quietly into her seat, she ducked her head, trying to prevent herself from being identified as that late straggler.
"Carol Hoffman, will you please step forwards," the man said.
Hoffman? Sarah wrinkled her brows. That wasn't her friend's last name.
Carol was as pale as the screen behind the man at the podium and when she stood to her feet, she looked like a ghoul floating aimlessly towards the front of the room.
What on earth?
The security head didn't wait for Carol before speaking. "As you are all aware, we have had a security breech."
This was met with hushed voices. Familiar and unfamiliar analysts looked to one another down the aisles of tables, but it seemed there was a general consensus that this was indeed a fact. A fact Sarah hadn't been aware of until now.
"Carol Hoffman's husband, Eduard Lombard, has been identified as a mole and an enemy of the state."
The declaration sent the poor woman into a fit of tears. Sarah watched in horror as the security head continued to defame the woman's husband right in front of her.
None of it sounded right. Carol followed the company line and lived under the guise of working for an insurance agency. How could he have known? How long had he known? And why this agency of all places? Sarah had specifically relocated herself to low risk analysis.
"Luckily his plans to sell government secrets onto the black market were apprehended before any irreparable damage occurred. I would like us all to take the moment to applaud Miss Hoffman for her act of bravery and for serving her country well."
The form of address was not lost on anyone. The security head grabbed Carol by the wrist and pulled her towards the front of the podium, urging the audience to applaud.
Sarah was frozen in her seat as others in the rows in front looked nervously to one another and began to applaud in a weak, half-hearted wave. Some zealots had the gall to give her a standing ovation, and then there were others like Sarah who couldn't bring herself to even look at the front.
The poor woman. Carol's face was twisted in a grim line, and she looked like she would like nothing more than to dissolve into a puddle and melt away.
Sarah was torn. A part of her sympathized for her jilted friend and the other was still a hard-liner for justice. Eduard Lombard got what he deserved; and the new head of security was justified for his callus speech. The loyalty to the nation stood above that of family, friends...
And if it were Chuck?
Sarah found it suddenly hard to breathe as her own traitorous heart threatened to turn her in. She tried to imagine herself in Carol's shoes; forced to face her superiors and peers and be praised for betraying the one person she loved more than anything in the world.
Sarah sighed. She was so glad she quit when she did. So glad she could sit on the sidelines and judge. Work a normal nine-to-five and go home to her family every evening. But even this quaint little life could be hazardous.
Was there nothing safe anymore?
It seemed to be the thought on everyone's mind. Sarah's seen her share of terrible things but to these people here, these innocent albeit brilliant minds she worked alongside everyday, this was the most dangerous thing that's ever happened in their quaint, normal lives.
The security head shook Carol's hand as he took the front again. "Our team will continue with this investigation. We will be conducting interviews with all of you in due time. Please consult the notice in the cafeteria for your specified timeslot.
"We will be providing additional security measures for your added safety. There is no reason to worry. Work will continue as normal at oh-eight-hundred." The man smiled humourlessly. "I repeat, there is no reason to panic. Thank you. That is all."
The woman beside Sarah turned to her. "It's frightening, isn't it?" she whispered in a conspirative voice.
"What is?"
The woman pointed to the waif of a woman formerly known to them as Carol Lombard.
"Knowing that none of us are safe...that it could happen to you." She stared nearly menacingly at Sarah. "You could be next."
It was just past noon when Chuck and Sarah walked hand in hand down the boardwalk. Under the hot summer sun, he had to admit she had recovered admirably from the sight she'd been last night and this morning. Her pallor was still paler than usual and their pace was more leisurely than what Chuck was used to but at least she wasn't wallowing in misery.
"So what did he say it was?"
"Who say?" she asked, hiding a smile from her face. Even though her eyes were covered by sunglasses, he could have seen the mischievous glint in them from a mile away.
Chuck squeezed her hand, threatening to catch her if she tried to evade. "The doctor. You did see a doctor, didn't you?"
Sarah sighed as she rummaged through her purse and pulled out a single white sheet of paper folded in half. "I did. I even got him to write me a note so you'd see how good I was."
Chuck took the sheet, much amused. "And what did he say?"
Sarah shrugged. "Stomach flu, I told you."
"That's all? Did he give you anything?"
She shook her head. "Didn't want any." She grinned weakly at him. "I didn't need any."
Chuck was torn. She was one part helpless damsel in distress and one part absolute Equus asinus. He really didn't know what he was going to do with her.
Even dressed in sweat pants with her hair in a sloppy ponytail, he didn't know anyone in his life more beautiful. He knew with just one look he'd fall for her all over again.
"Okay," he sighed as he wrapped an arm around her. "Fine. Have it your way." Chuck hated to lose, but as he'd come to understand losing to Sarah was an inevitable part of life. "Is there anything I can do for you? I can take the rest of the day off you know."
Sarah smiled up at him. "You know we should really redecorate the office."
Of all the things he thought she'd say, it really wasn't the response he was expecting.
"Why?" he asked, wrinkling his brows.
Sarah shrugged. "Just because." She moved to the edge of the boardwalk along the decorated lampposts when they were walking too slow for even the elderly couples that passed them by.
"And maybe you could change the kitchen cabinets too. They're looking a little old," she said, taking his arm again.
Chuck tried to hide the confusion from being etched all over his face. Did she really trust him with a hammer and nails—if those were even the tools you used to change cabinets?
"Oh, and we should get some new furniture for the living room."
Chuck looked at her strangely. If this kept up, Sarah might as well ask for a new house.
"Uh...sure." He had the sudden haunch that Sarah had spoken with his sister. Ellie had just convinced the good captain to renovate their bathroom. "If that's what you really want," he said.
Sarah just smiled as she leaned into him. Yep. He'd probably just caught her after a talk with Ellie. "And maybe we could clean out the spare room and redecorate it."
"The spare bedroom?" Chuck asked. "Uh, okay. But we're not even using that room."
"I know," she said. "But I think it's time we cleaned out all the junk and made it useable."
"Oh. Why? Is someone coming to stay with us?"
Sarah nodded.
"A friend of yours?" Sarah lets go of his arm to walk a little ways ahead, but when she turns to look over her shoulder, the smile was still etched on her face."Or is it one of those friends that I'm supposed to remember but I don't?"
Sarah shook her head slowly as she removed her sunglasses and looked at him with the clearest blue eyes he'd ever seen. "No, Chuck," she said, her voice growing soft.
She said something to him but he couldn't be sure. He heard her alright but the words were deafened by the rush of blood to his head. In any case his body didn't have time to react; he was lost staring into those frank blue eyes and the next thing he knew, he'd walked headfirst into a lamppost.
The embarrassment hit him harder than the actual pain of face-planting into a metal pole. He stumbled back, wanting to say something, hold, feel—anything, but the only thing he could do was—
"And this will be your new door-code, your new door-code, please memorize this as your new door-code," the man droned, like an overworked auctioneer who no longer had the will to speak rapidly. He gestured to the front of the screen. "Your new door-code, please don't write anything down. Please memorize your new door-code."
Sarah sighed as she glanced down at her phone. Ever since the security head had departed and left this man in charge, things had crawled like a snail through peanut butter. She could tell from his stiffly pressed suit and the thick pomade in his hair that he wasn't someone from the field. No. Too prim and pretty for that. The man probably paid weekly for his neatly manicured nails.
"Does everyone have it memorized?"
Sarah was tempted to call home but she couldn't risk waking Charlotte a second time. Then again, if she didn't call to make sure Chuck wasn't indulging any bad habits, she'd probably get the same result in the morning.
"Excuse me."
Sarah didn't realize she was being spoken to until all eyes in the room were on her. Ducking her head, she slipped the phone back into her pocket and sat up in her seat, struggling to hold a straight face.
"Please don't record the number," he said, giving her a lecturing finger for good measure.
"I wasn't," she said.
"Lying to me is the same as lying to your country." He gave her a tight-lipped grin. "So don't do it."
"I wasn't," she repeated, quickly losing her patience.
"I saw you look at your phone. You've barely looked at the screen."
Sarah closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Five-one-oh-five-five-seven-nine-oh-two-three. The elevator code is seven-nine-one-three, the floor code for the first is seven-two-oh-one, second is nine-one-two-three and third floor is eight-two-oh-two-three." She opened her eyes and looked at him pointedly. "Satisfied?"
The man narrowed his eyes but gave no response. Spinning around on the spot, he marched back to the front of the room. "Now this is the north door code. North door code. Please memorize the north door code."
A series of groans emitted from the room.
Oh great. There's probably a code for the coffee-machine now too.
Sarah glanced down at her phone, her fingers itching to call Chuck. But it was only four in the morning, and he probably wouldn't hear it anyway.
It was just proof the powers who ran the agency were insomniacs. Or robots.
She shook her head.
And only earnest paper-pushers with their sheep-like tendencies and their desperate desire to please would sit here and memorize numbers so obediently at a time no decent human being should ever be forcibly kept awake.
"Okay, moving on," the man at the front declared, giving Sarah a disapproving look. "This is the door-code for the south door. South door. South door."
This time when the other analysts groaned, Sarah joined them.
.
At six in the morning just as the first hints of light began to filter through the darkness, they were finally dismissed with a new keycard and a dozen new codes that no one would likely remember after a night—or morning's sleep.
Sarah grabbed her bag and took off, not willing to spend even a second longer than she needed to at the office. At the main doors the same security guard who'd offered to be her personal bodyguard held out a sheaf of papers for her to take.
"What are these?" she asked, reluctantly accepting the offering.
"Falsified police reports. The company line is that there's been a break in and you were needed for a statement." He winked at her. "That should be enough but in case you need more, be sure to call."
Sarah had to use all her concentration not to burst out in laughter. They sure think of everything here.
"Oh, and a 'victim's counsellor'..." he said, physically making airquotes. "Will be making rounds to all the families. To help you 'cope' with this kind of traumatic event."
Sarah bristled. "What do they want?"
"You have to be careful who you can trust. Pretty girl like you, probably doesn't even realize how many bad guys there are out there." He smiled at her in that same leering way he had before, making every inch of Sarah's skin crawl with goosebumps. "They'll be conducting interviews with your family. We're gonna flush'em all out."
Sarah wanted to scream and threaten to have him disposed of if he so dared to step foot into her home. Thankfully she had the sense to know that he wasn't the real culprit here.
"Fine," she said, forcing herself to shrug nonchalantly.
Her ambivalence came as somewhat unexpected to the security guard. "You think you know someone," he lectured. "But you don't really. It's always the trusting ones that get burned."
Sarah clamped down on her tongue. The man was right. It was precisely why, even now, there was still only one person she trusted above all others.
"Thank you," she said, throwing him a great big plastic smile all the while gritting her teeth. "I'll keep that in mind."
Walking out the door into the early morning light, Sarah tossed the falsified papers into the trash while in full view of the security guard, flashing him another great big smile before heading home.
.
The sky was all shades of pink and orange by the time Sarah stepped through the front door and dropped her keys onto the kitchen counter. She stepped out of her heels, shrugged off her coat and crawled into the family bed where Chuck and Charlotte were already asleep.
Charlotte made the softest mewing sound with her nose when Sarah snuggled up against her and the furrows that formed across her forehead were so entirely reminiscent of her father's that it made her heart swell and threaten to burst with love.
Chuck opened his eyes sleepily, a slow smile curling on one corner of his lips in greeting.
"Is everything okay?" he whispered, his hand sliding protectively over Charlotte's chest.
Sarah smiled at him. Even if it weren't, he looked too contented to care.
"Everything's fine," she said, her own hand sliding up over their daughter's chest to meet his. Their fingers interlocked, spread across like a blanket over her little body. Charlotte gurgled something in her sleep, turning her head slightly to rest against Sarah's forehead.
"Go back to sleep, Chuck," she whispered, to no one in particular. She closed her eyes and felt every muscle in her body give way to exhaustion. She slept as if she hadn't slept in years. Security could say all they wanted but there was nowhere she felt safer than here at home.
"Oh my God!" The sharp voice beside his ear made Chuck wince with pain.
Softer, please. I'm trying to sleep.
"Chuck! Please wake up! You can't do this to me!" With every break her voice picks up with urgency until she's quite literally screaming into his ear.
Do what? What did I do? Chuck winced again and the second his brows shifted, the pain flared across his entire forehead, threatening to evolve into a full-blown body-crippling migraine.
"Chuck, wake up!"
But I am awake. He groaned and forced his eyes to peel open. It was so unfair. This was the second time today he'd been robbed of sleep.
"Chuck!" she gasped, stroking his face over and over in a desperate attempt to hold some part of him. Chuck looked past her at the others he didn't recognize standing over them, surrounding them.
He had no idea why Sarah was hovering, why the mattress was so hard and why there were strange people in their bedroom, until he realized he was lying flat on his back against the boardwalk planks.
And then, like a flashflood, it all came back.
The embarrassment that set in was so acute it paralyzed him from head to toe. He wanted nothing more than to melt and disappear into the cracks between the planks. He wanted to fall into the ocean, never to be seen again.
"Chuck!" She shook his shoulders gently, tears flowing in a constant stream down her cheeks. "Please, say something!"
He stared blankly at her, trying to avoid the looks of all the bystanders who wanted to gawk at the idiot who'd walked straight into a pole.
What did she want him to say? How was he supposed to respond to a bombshell like that? After an incident as humiliating as this?
When he doesn't respond, the white's of Sarah's eyes threaten to engulf the watershed blue. "Oh my God," she utters, covering her mouth to stifle her own horror. "Blink if you can hear me."
He blinked.
Sarah sighed with relief. "Thank God," she said, new tears forming under her eyes.
"What's my name?"
Huh? He stared at her, wondering why she would want to know; what it could possibly prove.
"Chuck!" she screamed when he doesn't immediately respond.
Huh?
"Please...don't do this to me...this can't be happening," she said. Then, suddenly turning on the people watching them, she pointed an accusatory finger at no one in particular. "What are you looking at? Why aren't you calling for an ambulance—"
"No ambulance!" Chuck suddenly blurted. As if this day couldn't get any more embarrassing. He sat up despite the rush of light-headedness and wrapped his arms around the woman, trying to steady himself and to keep from falling back.
"It's okay, Sarah. It's okay. I'm fine."
At the sound of her own name, Sarah burst into tears again, hugging him and sobbing into his shirt.
Chuck hugged back, smiling despite himself. This was nothing like how he'd imagined their lunch together and yet somehow, this was so typically them.
"Don't you ever do that again!" she threatened when she finally let go. In case he was apt to forget, she punched him in the arm for good measure. "Did you hear me?"
Chuck winced and rubbed the sore spot, of which he now had two. One self-inflicted and one newly bestowed. As if I would want to! he wanted to say, but he didn't have the heart when she still had fresh tears in her eyes.
"Okay, nothing to see here, folks, I'm fine!" Chuck announced as he rose slowly to his feet. Sarah helped him up, dusting off his suit and lovingly rearranging stray curls from his head. "Nothing to see, keep moving..." he urged, flushing bright red.
When the passersby didn't immediately mill out of their general vicinity, Sarah glared at them. "He said there's nothing to see!" she reiterated in much the same volume. Yet somehow her voice carried ten-fold the authority and the strangers sped-walked out of their way.
"Are you really okay?" she asked, visibly cringing as she brushed her fingers ever so gently across the swollen bump. "You're going to have a nasty bruise."
Chuck smiled apologetically at her. He removed her hand from his head and held it, taking her attention off the embarrassing reminder. "I didn't hear you the first time, I'm sorry. Could you say it again, please?"
Now it was her turn to blush. She shrugged free from his grip and turned away, looking uncharacteristically timid. It was uncanny for her to shy away from anything.
Chuck smiled. They both knew exactly what she'd said, but he needed to hear it again, now that he was prepared for it.
"Is it true?" he asked, when she wouldn't repeat herself.
Sarah gives him a slightly flustered look and turns back around but by the time Chuck catches up to her, her face practically glows with the news.
Sarah smiles for the security guard as she walks through the door. He's determined to get to her and she's determined to show that he can't. If Chuck wasn't staying home with Charlotte today, she would have brought him with her to prove her point.
No guests in the building for the next thirty days, her conscience chimed. At least someone had been listening to the security bulletin.
Sarah walks down the main lobby into the cafeteria. Her assessment isn't until the afternoon but she feels like she ought to be here.
There are plenty of seats available but she picks one in particular. Sarah sets down one of the coffees and pushes it over to the woman sitting opposite.
"Extra large. One cream. Five sugars." Sarah waits for the woman to raise her head and give permission to sit but Carol just stares at her like a deer in headlights. Her brown eyes are so drowned by grief they are hardly lucid.
She reaches out hesitantly for the coffee, her hands shaking as she enclosed her fingers around it and brought it to her lips. "Thank you," she whispered.
Sarah drops her bag and sits down across from her friend. It's painfully noticeable that everyone at the office is avoiding the poor woman. As if this betrayal could be infectious. As if their sensibly minded loved ones could one day turn on them against their will.
Just as well, Sarah wanted to declare. All the more room for them.
"How are you holding up?" she asked.
Carol licks her lips, still shaking with nerves. For a second Sarah wonders if it's a mistake to give her friend the usual instead of decaf. "I really thought I knew him."
Sarah feels her stomach twist in a knot. She knows better, but her friend? She's more civilian than agent, just a girl who wanted to do her part for her country and nothing more.
Like Chuck.
So much like Chuck; brown hair, brown eyes, ready smile and everything, that she wished she could make all this go away for her.
"I really thought I knew him!" she repeated, her face breaking with anguish. "He was my husband!"
"I know," Sarah said. She was afraid to make eye contact, afraid to have her shout back that she couldn't possibly know what all this felt like. She'd never been betrayed by the one she loved most.
"I've been thinking about everything that's ever happened..." Carol said, nursing her cup of coffee. Her eyes were glazed over with tears; the light in them was gone. She was physically here but her mind was a thousand miles away. "Our first meeting, our first date...was it all a set up?" She shook her head. "I don't know anymore."
The knot in Sarah's stomach tightened, threatening to suffocate her. Her mind instantly thought of Chuck and the first time she ever laid eyes on him. She hated herself for the first impression she had of him.
"I'm sure it's not," she said, squeezing her friend's hand. "It couldn't be. No one could pretend all the time. No one."
"How can you be so sure?" Carol asked, her voice as innocent as a child's.
"I just know," Sarah said, wary of saying too much. "Trust me on this. I've worked longer than you have."
Carol wasn't entirely convinced though. "He said he loved me..." Her face twisted as if she were being tortured this very instant. "But he was a liar..." She clutched onto Sarah as if she were drowning and her hand was all that could preserve her. "If he loved me he would never have made me choose."
"He loved you all the same." Sarah said no more on the subject. Chuck and Carol may have their similarities but she refused to think she was anything like Eduard.
He had married her though, thrown himself into the role. It had to mean something. Carol needed to believe it meant something.
"How can you know?"
How can you be so sure?
"I saw it in the way he looked at you." She was blatantly lying now. In the few years they'd worked together, she'd seen Eduard Lombard less than a handful of times. Still, she hoped with all her heart that Eduard hadn't seen her friend as just an easy mark. That he had some semblance of a soul, some heart to realize what he'd done.
Carol shook her head. "You know what this has taught me?" she asked, finishing the rest of her bitter coffee as if she were shooting hard liquor. "You really can't trust anyone."
Sarah's face fell. No! she wanted to scream. It didn't have to end like this.
"Thank you, Sarah. You've been a real friend." She nodded towards the end of the hallway. "I've got to my assessment now. Talk to you later?" Carol didn't wait for a response, she grabbed her bag and with a newly built wall around her heart, marched stoically towards the conference room.
Sarah watched her go, feeling as if she'd failed.
Like she'd failed Chuck.
Out of impulse, she reached for her phone and speed-dialled.
The phone picked up after the first ring. "Hello?" she heard the familiar voice ask. In the background she could hear something that sounded like a glass spilling over and then the most delighted squeal follow thereafter.
Sarah couldn't help herself. She felt tears well involuntarily in her eyes as she blurted the first thing that came to mind.
"Thank you."
Chuck laughed. "Most people say hello first, Sarah."
"Hello, Chuck," she said, only because she'd been prompted.
"You're welcome," he replied. "I like making breakfast for you. We both do, don't we, Piglet?" There's a peal of laughter in the background and Sarah finds it suddenly difficult to keep her composure.
"Not that, silly," she said, keeping a stiff upper lip.
"Then what?"
Sarah hesitated. Even after all these years, she's still terrible with words. "Today I realized just how lucky I truly am."
She could almost see the grin split across his features. "How do you know I'm not selling government secrets while you're at work?"
Sarah couldn't believe it. "Chuck!" she hissed, ducking low at the table. "You know what they would do to you if they ever recorded this call?"
Chuck gulped. "But I was kidding!" he exclaimed in his own defence.
"These people don't really have a sense of humor," she reminded, but even she couldn't hold the tone for long. "You're going to be in big trouble if they ever find out."
"Fine. I take it back," he said. "I'm not selling government secrets," he informed, extra-loud in case anyone was taping the conversation. Then his voice grew serious. "You know I would never—right?"
Sarah wished she could be there with him to shake some sense in him. Why did he have to say it as if he wasn't sure? As if there was any chance she could doubt him?
"Of course not. I trust you," she said, even though she didn't think she needed to say it. She said it anyway for his sake. Sometimes she thought her husband was a little hard of hearing.
"Thank you."
"What did I do now?" Chuck teased.
Sarah looked around the cafeteria. People were staring, not just at her but everyone else. Her coworkers looked to each other as if they were all suspects; potential traitors to the cause. This incident had everyone afraid to turn their backs.
And she could just as easily have been just like them.
"Hello? Sarah? You still there?"
She could have been just as alone.
"Thank you, Chuck," she finally said. For saving me from what I might have become. For giving me a home, a life, a purpose... "For everything."
Chuck and Sarah decide to take it easy and sit down at a nearby bench. He pre-emptively closes in on her until the sides of their legs are touching and their feet are nearly crossed, and just in case, takes her hand and holds onto it too.
He knows how she feels about these kinds of talks.
"Are you okay?"
She tilts her head to one side and frowns. "I think you're asking the wrong person here," she teases, brushing her hand gently against the swell on his head.
Chuck relished the warmth from her finger-tips but it's a distraction he can't have. "Are you sure you're okay...with this?" He removes her hand from his face and clasps them in both of his. "I mean...you didn't really want—"
"How can you say that? Of course I did!" she exclaims.
Chuck bit down on his tongue. "No! I mean I know you weren't that enthusiastic about it and Ellie's just been going on and on and dropping hints and we never really—and I just feel like it was forced—"
Sarah presses her hand over his mouth, forcing him to swallow his thoughts. Her eyes shift from periwinkle blue to a deep, dark cobalt; and when she stares at him, he can't find the will to tear his eyes away from her.
"Are you happy?"
Cautiously she removed her hand from his lips, but they hovered. prepared to silence him at an instant's provocation.
"Yes, of course," he says. He feels light-headed with joy in fact, although he's not completely sure it's the news or the blow to the head. "Are you?"
Sarah frowns and shifts in her seat, almost as if she's taken aback. Her hand traces over her own lips, as if she's afraid of what she will reveal.
"Of course I am," she says, in a quiet, thoughtful voice. Then she looks at him, the blue of her eyes becoming more and more like sapphires with each growing second. "More than happy," she emphasizes, her voice gaining conviction.
She takes his hand and leans into him. "I couldn't imagine being anyplace else but here with you."
Chuck grows very still. He's known his wife for years, they tell each other everything, but she's not one for words. She'd rather rescue him from a burning building, make him the most elaborate meal for dinner and attend the most boring computer-jargon meetings with him than actually express the same in words.
So he's not used to it when she takes him off guard with a confession. He doesn't know whether to tease, to cry, to laugh and smile—so he does the only thing he can and breaks the habit.
He shuts up and listens.
"I've been blessed, I know," she whispers, a blush spreading across her otherwise pale cheeks. "Blessed in more ways than you realize, and that's okay. So long as I know. I remember it every day I wake up next to you, Chuck."
Chuck didn't know what to say. He just stared at her and smiled.
"Hey, Sarah?" he whispered, interlocking her fingers with his own.
"What?"
He smiled at her and she smiled back, like she knew exactly what he was going to say. Like she couldn't believe it either.
And it didn't really hit him until he said the words out loud, as if saying them finally made it true.
"We're having a baby."
.
A/N: So, i'm all out of ideas. Thanks again for reading and supporting and indulging me in this AU. I've put up another poll for the later half of this story (chpts 9-14).
Why should you vote? Don't you lurve me? (hmm, maybe not) Well i'll make it worth your while...depending on how things go, this might not actually be the end...
Or maybe it will, i guess it all depends. Have you had enough? Are you glad it's over?
Until then, thank you all so very much again for reading. I wrote another AU fic to go with this fic entitled "Chuck vs One Sunday Morning" that may have been missed by some of you; we can pretend it's chapter 15.
--Malamoo