Every time he sees her wearing the charm bracelet, Chuck gets this funny tightness in the back of his throat, because it immediately makes him flash, not Intersect-flash, just plain old retina-scarred-in flash, to the way she brought the gun up in that determined murderous arc and cut down a man right in front of him, in the shaded recesses of the tree farm.

He wonders if it shows on his face or if she just knows him too well, because after the first few cover dates with Awesome and Ellie, Sarah just stopped wearing it, explaining that she wanted to keep it somewhere safe, not risk losing any of the charms. Since their dates, with no warning at all, can turn into gun battles or hostage situations, he can't fault the logic.

Even so, he's sure that the day she's suddenly gone, he'll find a padded envelope in his mailbox with that bracelet tucked inside, like a returned engagement ring.

She can't take any of him with her. Even this much is too much, skirting that delicate line, kissing her full-out the way he always wanted to just because Roan demanded it. During their mission briefings from the General Sarah had kept that hand behind her back, gently turning the bracelet against her wrist, avoiding the question. Now she clasps her hands in front of her, wrist bare, smooth orange tank top emphasizing her curves, as she listens with rapt attention to whatever the General is saying.

It's as disconcerting as that first flash he had on her, just after they'd met, this double vision of her. Sweet and flirty and terribly dangerous. Blades strapped to her thigh.

He backs off that thought.

"So you and Chuck cover the surveillance. Casey, you could run this mission in your sleep. Wear a camera so Chuck can flash without direct insertion. We'll reconvene here at oh-one-hundred, and go from there."

"Oh-one-hundred?" Chuck can hear himself on the verge of a whine, but Emmett has been on his ass for every second of time Chuck can't account for, and if they have Sarah schlepping frozen yogurt, he's terrified of the cover-story job he'll get if he ever loses his position at the Buy More. Not to mention the destruction Jeff and Lester will manage to rain down on Burbank if left unsupervised. "Is this really so important that a good night's sleep won't help?"

The General fixes him with a glare. "If we don't recover that pendant in the next fifteen hours--"

"I know," Chuck mutters, defeated. Ellie's pep talks always involve his being more assertive, but he has felt increasingly more boxed in with every mission, every set of expectations. And he's nervous at the thought of spending more than two minutes alone with Sarah.

Not the usual nervousness stemming from the unspoken tension between them.

"We'll be fine, won't we, Chuck," Sarah smiles. But she looks just as nervous as he feels, somehow, something in the light tapping of her foot, the purse of her lips, the convulsive tightening of her fist as she gathers their printouts.

"Sure."

When Chuck calls to tell his sister he won't be home for dinner, Ellie teases him that Sarah is due for another night in, popcorn-and-movie, snuggled on the opposite end of the couch from her and Awesome. Ellie hasn't and won't go full-scale Bridezilla, but her joy is infectious. Knowing that Chuck gave Sarah the charm bracelet has made Ellie begin to gently rib him about when she'll get to be one of Sarah's bridesmaids in return.

They need to break up, he knows. Completely break up. Ellie can't bond with Sarah. He has to take each day as it comes, especially when even the prospect of reservations at a restaurant is too much of a commitment.

He knows that.

She's dressed in black when she picks him up, fingers tapping the steering wheel, her smile quick. "I'm sure it'll all be over soon," she apologizes, just before the acceleration drives him back against his seat.

Casey, in the black van, is wearing a pair of safety goggles with the built-in camera, and he greets Chuck with a disapproving glance and a muttered remark about his missing toe.

"Look, Casey," Chuck begins, but Casey just gives him that look again, and Chuck can only be thankful that it wasn't the Crown Vic.

Then Casey heads out, leaving Chuck and Sarah alone in the van, the three of them waiting for the guards' shift-change. Sarah retests the earpiece, fingers flying as she scrolls through the surveillance feed, even tapping into a retasked satellite feed to make sure they have full coverage of the area. Chuck sits beside her with his hands clasped in his lap and he can feel it between them even if she can't, what he can't dare ask her, thickening in the air.

"If you want to take a little break, while we're waiting," Sarah says, and then she flashes him one of those smiles, the kind she only gives him when they're actually alone.

"Not really," he admits, lacing his fingers behind his head, elbows out, and she eyes him worriedly, doubtless thinking about a hundred clumsy things he's managed to do in situations just like this. He lowers his arms, shrugging.

There is no casual way to segue into it.

"So, that guy... the Fulcrum agent on Christmas Eve," he says, not looking at her. "There's no chance he'll be getting out, before the next Intersect comes online."

"Definitely," she says, confidently. "Fulcrum knows you're connected to Bryce, but you don't know where he is, so..."

"Except the next time someone puts a gun to Ellie's head and demands to know where he is," Chuck says, bitterly.

Sarah has no response to that. "We just need to concentrate on getting the new Intersect online," she says finally, scrolling through the surveillance again. "Then they won't be looking for him, or you, anymore."

With the loss of the Intersect will come his loss of Sarah. She's never claimed anything different. "Yeah," he says quietly. "You know, Christmas Eve, Morgan saw Anna kissing Lester."

She grimaces. "Hope it was some misplaced mistletoe. Or, really, not."

"Not," he confirms. "I can't imagine kissing lips that have kissed Lester's. So you'd better tell me if something like that happens," he jokes.

"After I slap a restraining order on him," she agrees.

Three more minutes until the guard shift-change. "Sarah," he says quietly, studying one of the GPS panels.

"Everything okay? Did you flash?" She glances over in concern.

"I saw you shoot the Fulcrum agent."

In his peripheral vision he sees her visibly deflate, going perfectly still. "Then you know why I did it."

"He said he was ready to be taken away!" Chuck bursts out, hands flying in frustration. "And you told me he was locked up!"

She turns to him, blue eyes wide. "Chuck, it... so you didn't hear the whole thing."

"What whole thing?"

Both of them startle when three rapid gunshots ring out. Casey is grappling with one of the guards, but waiting until the shift change has guaranteed that there will be twice as many. Casey barks out urgent instructions as he bears the man to the ground, and Sarah glances over at Chuck, all hint of vulnerability gone.

"We have to get in there," she says. "Ready?"

He's still breathing too quickly, braced for the ugly conversation they were about to have, flushed with anger, but he nods and they head out, quickly.

--

"I would've been fine, if not for my missing toe," Casey snarls, wincing as Sarah puts alcohol on a cut.

"Fine, I'm sorry I managed to cripple half our nation's defense by going to work on Christmas Eve," Chuck shoots back, massaging the feeling back into his throbbing left foot. "It's a toe!"

"Shh," Sarah says to both of them. Her shoulder has been field-dressed, but a line of blood is seeping through the gauze. She runs a weary hand across her forehead.

Back at the Castle, after the General's disapproving debriefing, the video screens are black in mute condemnation. Casey's tapped to do recon; Sarah will try to stop the meet, and Chuck is finally, thankfully, out of the loop. Emmett will be thrilled to have him at the Buy More to harass and wheedle, even though he always stops abruptly whenever Morgan's around.

Chuck had always been the one standing up for Morgan when they were little. It was comforting to know that Morgan somehow had his back, although Chuck wasn't quite sure he wanted to know how.

"Until next time," he says, giving Casey a lazy salute, and heads for the stairs. "Don't worry about me, I'll take a Nerd Herder home."

Sarah glances up at him, but closes her mouth under Casey's watchful gaze. Chuck shrugs again, bone-tired, angry again, as he has been every time he's seen her since.

If he hadn't let himself develop feelings for her, it wouldn't matter. He wouldn't have gone back to make sure she was okay; between the two of them, she was always the one who was competent enough to take down five armed men without breaking a sweat, and he was the one who couldn't manage to hold a gun with any modicum of accuracy. He wouldn't have seen her shoot that man in cold blood.

He wonders how many other times something like this has happened, and he just didn't know.

In his bedroom he strips off the jeans and tee shirt, heads for the bathroom to brush his teeth. When he walks back into his room Sarah's sitting on the foot of his bed with her legs crossed, her bandage still stained in red.

Ever since Jill, Sarah hasn't been in this room. What he tells Ellie are romantic trips away are overnight missions, so there's been no need; besides, whenever they get too close, it's like Bryce knows, like he comes back just to rub in Chuck's face how out of his league Sarah really is, and the thrill of being with her when their guards are down is nowhere near enough to make up for the agony of seeing her with Bryce.

At least, that's what he tells himself.

"I know that I keep a lot from you," she begins, her voice low, pointedly not looking at his boxers. "It's for your own good."

"Don't you think I should be the judge of that?"

"Of course not," she snaps, her forehead creasing. "What you know right now is already enough to get you killed; I don't need to give them any other reason to go after you."

"So you lied to me because...?" He sits down on the bed beside her, fighting the desire to grab a pillow to hold in his lap.

She glances over, to where he knows one of the surveillance cameras is hidden. "He told me that no matter what, he was going to make sure every Fulcrum agent knew where you were, what you were. That he would not stop until they had you."

He thinks of Ellie at gunpoint, of Mauser telling him that he would never see her again.

"I couldn't let that happen."

"So you killed him?"

Her eyes are shining a little. "Chuck," she sighs. "I know. But I wouldn't take it back. These guys are pure evil, and you can't forget that. You can't ever forget that."

Chuck shakes his head. "I just..." he says, and sighs too.

Sarah gets to her feet, her hand in her pocket. She pulls out the charm bracelet. "I've seen the way you look at it," she says, and opens her fist, offering him the bracelet laying on her palm. "You regret giving it to me."

"Sarah..."

"It's all right." She takes another step forward, proffering the bracelet.

"It's not all right," he says, angrily. "Every day of this is like a noose tightening around my neck. I need... I need something real. But I can't leave the Buy More, I can't make my own life, I can't walk two steps without flashing on a bad guy or a piece of computer hardware or an ex-girlfriend. So, you know what? I want you to keep the bracelet, Sarah. Because I'm sick of pretending and sick of wanting, and if this is all I can have right now, if all I can do is stand in front of you and tell you that I promised your dad I'd take care of you and you're wearing the bracelet my dad gave my mom, if that's it..."

Sarah looks heartbroken. "Chuck..."

He runs his hand through his hair. "Just for one day, I want to pretend that this could work, you know?"

"Yeah," she says softly. "I know."

And then Sarah bends down and kisses him, hard, his hands coming up to tangle in her hair, and he's panting when she pulls back.

"Camera?"

"Disabled."

He has never heard a sexier word in his life, not until she's gasping his name in his ear, the charms faintly cool against his cheek as she touches his face, and even if her name isn't Sarah, he gazes up at her, her hair a pale halo from the lamp. Angel-hair.

Then she moves against him, over him, angling her hips, and he thinks guiltily of Jill and jealously of Bryce and thinks that this, this shared history, this complicated set of desires, is more real than what most people have, anyway.

"Jenny," he breathes.

"Sarah," she corrects, and he arches under her, groaning as her hips sink flush to his. "Oh... God, Chuck."

He's daydreamt, dreamt about this countless times, but when it happens, when she rises, naked in the moonlight save for his mother's bracelet, her head tipped back, lips parted in pleasure as he arches his hips up off the bed to meet the rhythm of her own, it still manages to be infinitely better than anything he possibly could have imagined.

She's panting when it's over, and it wasn't long enough, not by far. He pushes her hair back, strokes his fingertips down her spine, feeling her tighten in response.

"You should stay here," he whispers, lightly touching the bandage on her arm. "For our cover," he adds before she can protest.

Even so, she moves away from him, onto her side. "Is this enough?" she whispers, more to herself than him, her brow creased.

"No," he says, pulling the covers over her. "But it's a start."