The Love Boat

A/N: *Note the author is not responsible for your die a betes*

Disclaimer: I don’t own Chuck

Then [redacted]

They walked into the store and Chuck gently took her wrist in his hand. “I get you’re having some fun, and I’m not against it, but also, please find something you like and are also comfortable. I have a sister, I know how some of these….clothes, aren’t built with comfort in mind.”

She gave him a half-smile that she had found herself giving quite a bit since she met this man. “See, that’s the problem I’m having with tonight,” she said turning to him, lacing her fingers through his. His eyes widened and she felt the half-smile grow more into a smirk. “I would think I wouldn’t wear much of anything.”

He barked out a nervous laugh. “Are you trying to kill your new husband?”

She was starting to think that might be a very achievable and very fun objective.

She knew he said it playfully, but then, it hit her. A black credit card. Lack of love life. What Bryce had done. “Chuck, can you do me a favor?”

“Anything,” he said.

“I believe that,” she said softly. “I want to continue this, but I also think maybe we need to have a conversation, and not a bad conversation,” she added quickly.

“Why did you add that?” he asked. “You say you don’t know me, but yet…”

“You’re right, I do know you,” she said with a shrug. “You’d have spiraled about that for the entire time I was in here.” He nodded. “Let me do this by myself and then we go back to the cabin, relax, and have a conversation.”

“Okay, as you wish,” he told her. He watched her freeze. “Did…did I say something wrong?”

“No,” she said. “It’s just…those words…”

“It’s from The Princess Bride,” Chuck told her. He chuckled. “To be honest, I’ve nearly said it to you every time you ask me to do something.”

Sarah looked at him for a moment. Somehow, that made the words more dangerous than they had any right to be.

“Give me ten minutes,” she told him. “Go to that table,” she said, pointing to it. “And I’ll come get you as soon as you’re done.”

“Okay,” he said. She started to turn, but didn’t. She stood there. “Something wrong?”

“Just making sure you didn’t have anything else to say,” Sarah said.

He grinned. “As you wish,” he said, and walked away. She stood there a second, gathered her thoughts, and then moved. She had a mission. She wasn’t going to fail.

Eight-year-old Sarah was currently having another Princess Bride-related medical emergency.

}o{

She sat on the bed, and patted the spot beside her. He walked over and sat down. “Chuck, they don’t give a black card to anyone.”

“No, they don’t,” Chuck said. “So-”

“Wait,” Sarah said. “There’s something I need to say. You’re married to me.” He nodded. “Really, married.” Sarah watched the words settle between them. The joke had been easy. The reality was complicated.

“I know,” Chuck told her.“If we got divorced…” Sarah trailed off. “You could be…”

“I thought we’d get it annulled,” Chuck told her.

She sat there for a moment, the half smile on her face, watching him trying to be cool. He finally glanced at the pillows on the bed and then back at her. His face….she would add that to the calculus of what all colors this man could turn.

“Uh,” he managed to get out.

“Eloquent,” she said, grinning. His vocabulary would apparently return once his brain rebooted.

“Sarah,” he began.

“I don’t think either of us needs to pretend what is going on here,” she began.

“I’m not pretending,” Chuck told her.

She leaned forward. “I know.” She watched him fall apart in front of her, and she decided that she was going to enjoy putting him back together. “I’m not either.” His eyes snapped up. “But there are big boy and big girl conversations we need to have.”

“We do?” he squeaked.

“Yes,” she told him. “You were screwed over by your friend…my ex.”

“Screwed is an interesting term as he also did that to my girlfriend,” Chuck muttered.

“I see,” Sarah said. “How long have you been alone?”

“Oh, I haven’t been alone,” Chuck told her. “I have Ellie, Awesome, my best friend Morgan.”

“Uh-huh,” she said in a tone that said, “I will play this silly little game with you.”

“There’s a bird on the tree next to my apartment that I talk to,” Chuck continued. “It’s quite judgmental.”

“Birds are,” Sarah agreed.

“It has opinions about everything,” Chuck went on.

“When we get back, I’ll have to have words with it,” Sarah told him.

He blinked.

Chuck stared at her. “You're taking this seriously?”

“You said it was judgmental.”

He was processing what she said.

She continued while Chuck's brain continued trying to catch up.

“Chuck, we could go fifteen days without consummating this marriage,” Sarah continued.He made a choking sound.

“I don't want to,” she said softly. “And I need you to know, what I'm feeling isn't just physical.”

“It’s not,” he said in a voice that was cracking in more ways than were describable.

“No,” Sarah said softly. “Every. Single. Time. I tell you what I’m going through, you try and make it better without taking into account how much it could hurt or damage you.”

“That’s not true,” Chuck told her. “I’ve thought about it. Each time. About what it would…could cost me,” he said, standing up, and pacing the room, unable to look at her. He finally lifted his head and met her gaze. “I just don’t care. It’s money. It’s…stuff I don’t care about. Since Stanford, I have protected myself, lost myself in my work and a woman…a woman I didn’t know walked up to me and said she needed help. A woman in a disguise needed help and she chose me.”

“It could have been random,” Sarah said.

“No, not with you,” he told her.

“How?” she asked. “How could you know that?”

“I have no idea, but I do,” Chuck said. “I see you calculating every single move you make, except…for one instance.”

“And what instance is that?” Sarah asked.

He walked up to her, held out his hand. She took it, and stood. He looked her right in the eye. “When it comes to me. You are making calculations. I see them, but it’s not what is the right thing to do, what is the best thing to do.”“What calculation do I make?” Sarah asked.

“How do I be with him, protect him,” Chuck answered. “It’s the head tilt, and the little smile you get. That’s your tell.”

“You think you can read me, Chuck Bartowski?” she asked with a challenging grin.

“No, I know I can, just like you can read me,” he told her.

“Then what am I thinking?”

“How the hell can two people fall in love this fast?” Chuck told her. She didn’t say a word. She couldn’t. She was currently being deafened by her inner eight year-old screaming. “Just like I’m thinking, how can someone that had shut everyone out miss the crack that you not only slipped through, but that has blown open? I thought my heart was shut off from anyone that wasn’t friends or family. I was wrong. It was only open for you.”

“How do you know I’m not playing you?” Sarah asked.

“Because when I kissed you at our wedding…” he trailed off.

“That’s it?” Sarah asked.

For the first time since she met him, she saw a confident grin on his face. “That’s everything,” he said softly.

}o{

Now

“He cracked this?” Graham asked, holding up the USB.

“In minutes,” Sarah replied. “He’s not working for you.”

Graham sat there, nodding. “But what if you two worked with me?”

Sarah looked at Chuck. Chuck grinned. “Is there anything you’re wrong about?” he asked.

“Hang around fifty or so years and see for yourself,” she told him

“Deal,” Chuck answered.

A/N: the. angst.