Author's Note: So I thought I was going to have to put a "mature content" warning on this chapter. But then, as I was writing it, I realized that some things are better left to the imagination.
Enjoy!
Chuck had computer parts strewn all over the dining room table. There were parts from at least a dozen different computers, along with two XBoxes and a PS3.
Morgan had asked him what he was doing two nights earlier. Chuck’s answer was that he had had a flash of inspiration the other night on how to build a computer that was at least marginally self-aware, but that he needed lots and lots of computer components, not to mention his own custom code (which filled a Word document 97 pages long right now).
“Well, if I were you, I’d hope that Sarah Connor doesn’t show up, pistols blazing,” Morgan warned him. “That sounds like the beginnings of Skynet to me!”
Chuck just looked at him. “Morgan, you do understand that there is a dividing line between fiction and reality, yes?”
“I’m just saying, Chuck,” Morgan continued, “don’t blame me when a T-1000 shows up here and you’re not ready to face him.”
Chuck shook his head and rolled his eyes.
And so it was that on a fine Saturday morning in mid April, when Chuck should’ve been out doing something productive like hiking a mountain or tanning at the beach, he was in his apartment, trying to build his very own artificially intelligent life form.
“That’s just not right,” Devin whispered to Ellie, peering in through the window.
“No, it’s not,” Ellie replied. “But what’s worst of all is that she’s almost as big a nerd herself. She’ll never admit it, but she is, which is why she’s willing to put up with this.”
“We’ve got to put a stop to it,” Devin decided. “It’s not healthy for two human beings to have such feelings for each other and not do anything about it.”
He stood up and struck a pose, like he was making a grand announcement. “And I should know, because I’m a doctor.”
At just that moment, John Casey hobbled out of his apartment, saw Ellie crouched down by the window, and Devin standing in grand announcement pose. “Morning, John!” Devin called.
“Shhhh!” Ellie hissed.
Casey just shook his head, lifted a crutch to them, and continued on his way.
“Pretty amazing that he’s already up on crutches,” Devin said.
“Would you SHUT UP!” Ellie whispered.
But it was too late. Chuck had heard Devin, and was headed toward the door. “Shit,” Ellie cursed. “I’m gonna go. Keep me in the loop on your part of the plan.”
Ellie disappeared around the corner just as Chuck opened the door. “Oh, hey, I thought I heard you out here, Devin.”
“Yeah, I was just saying hi to John,” Devin said. “How’s Commander Data coming along?”
“Right, very funny,” Chuck said sarcastically. “It’s coming… slowly.”
He returned to the table, took a seat, and resumed his attempts to daisy-chain multiple motherboards. “Goddamn Sony bullshit,” he muttered to himself.
“Uh, Chuck,” Devin said, sitting down at the end of the table. “Mind if I interrupt for a minute?”
“Yeah, sure,” Chuck said, not even looking up from his work.
“So, I, uh, I know it’s not really much, if any, of my business, but… I know you and Sarah, um, kept up certain appearances when you were faking your relationship, but now that it’s real, um… have you guys sealed the deal yet?”
That got Chuck’s attention. He put the motherboard down, and didn’t speak for a moment. When he finally did, it came out something like, “Uh… well… there’s… um, compli- no.”
“That’s kind of what I figured,” Devin sighed. “If you don’t mind my asking, why not?”
“Sarah!” Ellie called as she saw the tall blonde get out of her car. “Over here!”
Ellie was seated on the patio of the Starbucks down the street from the apartment. Sarah saw her, smiled, and joined her at the table.
“How have things been?” Ellie asked Sarah by way of opening.
“Oh, you know,” Sarah said. “Burnt hot dogs on Monday, burnt hot dogs on Tuesday, took down an international drug cartel on Wednesday, burnt hot dogs on Thursday… that sort of thing.”
Ellie couldn’t help but laugh. “You really have opened up a lot in the last month,” she said.
“Well, that has a lot to do with almost dying,” Sarah replied. “But it has even more to do with your brother. He… he just really brings out the best in me, I guess.”
Ellie smiled and nodded. “Better than hearing that he brings out the worst in you, I guess.”
Sarah winced. “I actually told him that once,” she admitted. Then she backtracked. “Of course, it was partly because he had just said the same thing to me, and partly because I thought a bomb was about to go off, and he wouldn’t run… yeah, that was bad.”
“He said you bring out the worst in him?” Ellie was shocked. “You want me to slap him for you?”
Sarah laughed and looked down at the table. “No, I think I’ll be okay. It was almost five months ago, anyway.”
Here we go, thought Ellie, taking a deep breath. “Anyway,” she said, “I actually wanted to talk to you about Chuck. I don’t want to sound overly interested in my brother’s romantic life, but I know that you and he had to convince us all that you were… intimate… when your relationship was just a cover story, but I can’t help but ask – have the two of you actually… slept together?”
Sarah blushed bright red and looked down at the table, suddenly engrossed in playing with a loose thread on her sweater. When she finally looked up, she looked unsure of herself, uncertain of what to say.
“Well… we have slept in the same bed… but if you’re referring to us making love… no, no we haven’t.”
Ellie leaned back and folded her arms. “Hmmm.”
“You see, Devin, okay… um…”
Chuck was trying to think fast enough for his brain to stay ahead of his mouth. “I’ve always viewed sex as something with huge emotional attachment to it… it’s not something I embark upon lightly.
“The thing here is that, well, first of all, I haven’t had sex in something like five years. Secondly, I’ve only ever had sex with one person, and thirdly, she kind of, well, stabbed me in the back, and so I’m just…”
He stopped to think for a moment. “Terrified. I’m terrified that I’ll have sex with Sarah, grow even more emotionally attached than I already am, and then something bad will happen.”
“Even more emotionally attached,” Devin mused. “What exactly does that mean?”
“Um…”
“Listen. You and Sarah love each other, right? I mean, I’ve heard the two of you say it to one another. You’ve said how much you’re in love with Sarah.”
“This is true…”
“So let me ask you this. The first time you slept with Jill, had you told her that you loved her?”
Chuck had to think. When he realized the truth, his eyes went wide.
“No. No, I hadn’t!”
Sarah looked across the table at the older woman. “It’s not that I don’t want to,” she said, holding up her hands. “It’s just… there’s something that’s making me hold back for some reason.”
Ellie just looked at Sarah, the expression on her face encouraging Sarah to continue.
“See…” Sarah paused. “Despite all the training I received at Langley, despite the fact that we’re taught that sometimes sex is a necessary tool in the field… I’ve just, well, I’ve just never been able to reconcile myself with that idea. Maybe it’s because of my upbringing…”
And with that, Sarah crossed a line. She hadn’t talked about growing up in the six years since she had joined the CIA, but now, it was all about to spill out of her.
“I grew up in a pretty conservative Catholic home,” she explained. “My parents tried to instill in me this idea that sex was for marriage, and only for marriage. And I mean, when my mom died, I kind of left the church in the dust, and I certainly didn’t save myself for marriage, but there’s something about everything they told me that has put this feeling in me that sex is unquestionably the closest expression of intimacy you can have with somebody.”
Then, Sarah realized. “Oh God,” she said. “Ellie, you have to forget everything I just said.”
“Don’t worry,” Ellie replied. “I’m not going to tell anybody about your past. Not even Chuck – although you should, maybe, consider doing so yourself. Just a thought.”
She stopped to collect her thoughts. “But basically, if I’m understanding you correctly, if you’re going to have sex with Chuck, it’s going to be because you want to show him that you want to have intimacy in every area of your shared lives. Am I about right?”
Sarah nodded. “And the thing is,” she said softly, “I’m afraid that if I allow myself to be that open to Chuck, and then something were to happen between us, or worse yet, something were to happen to him…”
She stopped. “It would just totally devastate you,” Ellie finished.
Sarah nodded. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with that,” Ellie said. “In fact, I really think that says just how much you do love him. But you’ve got to open yourself up to that risk, Sarah. Look at you. You’re this big, bad spy who, in your own words, took down an international drug cartel between shifts at the Wienerlicious. You could probably disable every single person at this Starbucks before anybody realized what was going on.
“But you can’t have that element of control over every part of your life. You’ve got to let yourself be vulnerable somehow. You have to take a risk. And I may be biased in my judgment, but I think that my brother is a risk worth taking.”
Sarah looked down at her hands for quite a long moment. When she looked back up at Ellie, her eyes were shining with tears.
“You’re completely right about everything,” she whispered. “Chuck is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. He’s definitely a risk worth taking.
“I just have to convince myself.”
“Okay, Chuckster, well, there you go. You made sweet, sweet love to Jill –“
“Devin!”
“Alright, well, you get my point. You’re in love with Sarah, you want to be intimate with her… what’s holding you back?”
Chuck thought about it for a moment. “Nothing, really, I guess,” he said. “It’s just, I worked so hard to get to this point, I don’t want to move before she’s ready and lose all of that.”
Devin looked at Chuck like he would a small child. “Chuck,” he said patiently, “I have seen the way Sarah looks at you. You will not lose ‘all of that’. I’m pretty sure she wants to be with you just as much as you want to be with her.”
“How sure are you, Devin?”
Devin leaned forward, a grin on his face. “Chuck, I was in a UCLA fraternity. I like to consider myself an expert on these things.”
Chuck nodded. “And there, you just went and made it creepy. Thanks, Devin.”
Devin laughed. “Awesome.”
The door opened, and Ellie stepped in, with Sarah behind her.
“Hey, babe,” Devin said, as Chuck shot to his feet.
“Hey, Devin,” Ellie said. “Listen, I think we should go. I’m pretty sure these two have some things to talk about.”
Chuck looked from Devin to Ellie to Sarah and back to Devin. “Wait a second,” he said. “This whole thing was a setup?!”
Sarah had a look of amused disbelief on her face. Chuck was just straight up shocked. “I had no IDEA you two could be that devious!”
Devin just grinned as he joined Ellie. “Don’t have too much fun, guys.”
Chuck started babbling out an apology as the door swung shut behind Devin. “I’m so sorry,” he said, “I have no idea what they were thin-“
His words were cut off as Sarah kissed him. “I don’t care,” she whispered. “Chuck Bartowski, I am madly in love with you. I need to stop trying to rigidly control my life, and that starts with you.”
About half an hour later, Morgan came ambling into the apartment courtyard. He crossed behind the apartment, reached up, and swung open Chuck’s bedroom window. He boosted himself up and in –
“What the hell?! Chuck?! SARAH?!”
“MORGAN!”
“GET OUT!”
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