Still not owning me any Chuck. Sorry for long wait, again.

Day 6:

They had timed it so that they got to the Castle just as Casey started work at the Buy More. Chuck had read the manual for the lie detector shortly after he got access to the Castle, and, like all technology, seemed to absorb and understand it all without effort. He opens the unit up and inspects it, then runs a diagnostic program to check it out. She figures that he wants to make sure that it hadn't been tampered with to ensure that he would get real answers. Considering what his mental state is and the organization that he is dealing with, it's probably a reasonable precaution. She sits down in the chair and puts on the sensors without prompting while he finishes his checks. She's terrified of some of the questions he might ask her, but this might be her only chance to fix this horrible mess they're in. She takes a couple of deep breaths and tries to slow her heart rate.

"Would you mind?" He's holding up a blood sample kit.

Another precaution. He wants to make sure she hasn't taken drugs to let her mask her physical responses and fool the lie detector. It's a fair request. She takes the kit from him, extracts a blood sample and hands it to him. He takes a few drops of her blood and drops them into different tubes in a test kit and shakes the tubes. After a few minutes, he checks the colors of the different tubes against the instructions, then sets everything to one side. He stands up and checks the sensors she's put on, then walks back over to the console.

He looks over at her and raises an eyebrow in question. She nods. She's ready.

"Okay, here we go. Is your cover name Sarah Walker?"

"Yes." The screen indicates True.

"Was one of your previous names Jenny Burton?"

"Yes." True

"Answer this as 'yes', please. Was one of your previous names Morgan Grimes?"

"Yes." False

"Answer this as 'no', please. Were you and Bryce lovers in the past?"

"No." False

"Okay, I guess we are calibrated." He looks away from her and asks very quietly, "Do you think of me as a mark?"

He sounds so forlorn that it makes her want to cry. "No." True

She doesn't want to leave it at that. "Chuck."

He looks at her.

She tries to project her sincerity to him, to make him believe her. "Chuck, you were just a mission to me up until about five minutes after I met you. That's how soon I started to fall for you. You are still my mission, but you aren't my mark, and you have become so much more than that to me. I want you to believe that. Okay?"

He gives her a weak smile, but he sits up a little straighter and his eyes have a little more life in them.

"Okay. Did you sleep with me because Beckman ordered it?"

"Yes." True

"And because I wanted to," she adds.

"Did you want to do it?"

"Yes." True

"Did you do it to control me?"

"No." True

"Did you do it to protect me?"

"Yes." True

"Did you enjoy it?"

"Yes. I enjoyed it very much." True

"Do you respect me?"

"Yes!" True

"Do you love me?"

"Yes." True

"Are you in love with me?"

"Yes." True

"Have you fallen in love with an asset or fellow agent before?"

"No" True

"Did you love Bryce?"

"No." True

He looks a little surprised at that. "No?"

"No. I thought I did at the time, but, in retrospect, compared to what I feel for you, it was like a candle compared to the sun. I didn't have a lot of love in my life to compare it to back then. I liked him. I still like him, although I'm mad at him for getting you involved with the Intersect. But I don't love him now, and I didn't really love him then." She knows that he is still pretty insecure about Bryce. The wounds there are deep. As deep as the ones she's just made, maybe.

He's quiet for a minute as he takes that in. "Would you kill me?"

She swallows hard. She hadn't been expecting that question. But what if Fulcrum had him, if they were going to cut pieces off of him until he cooperated… "Maybe. Yes." True

He is watching her very intently. "Would you like to elaborate?"

Yeah, that hadn't sounded so good. 'I love you, but I reserve the right to kill you.' She licks her dry lips. "If you were being tortured or were in immediate danger of being tortured or killed slowly without hope of rescue, I might kill you to save you from that. Death isn't the worst thing that can happen to a person. Sometimes it's a mercy."

He nods slowly. "Okay, I can accept that. Will you kill me because Beckman orders it?"

She blinks then swallows again. "No." True

"Do you know of any current termination orders for me?"

"No." True

"Did you know about the previous termination order for me?"

She blinks again and sucks in a deep breath through her nose. What termination order? What does he know? What hasn't she been told? "No." True She holds up a hand to stop the next question. "Can I ask a question?"

He nods.

"What termination order? How do you know about it? Is it still active?"

He smiles at her. "That's three questions. In order, Graham and Beckman issued a termination order for me when the Beta Intersect was ready to go live. I would rather not tell you how I know, but I don't want to lie to you about it. No, it was canceled after the Beta Intersect was destroyed, but it was nearly carried out by Casey. Okay?"

Her jaw drops. They were going to kill him. After everything he's done for them, for the country, they were going to kill him. She closes her mouth and presses her lips together in a tight line. She really hates this business. "How long have you known? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I've known since a few weeks after that. I didn't tell you because I wasn't sure if you were part of it. I had hoped that you weren't involved, but the way the timing worked out, you could have set me up for it, since it was going to happen while I was waiting for you to come to dinner with me. And knowing that Beckman would have me murdered instead of letting me get my life back was an important piece of information, and keeping that secret gave me a tiny advantage, which I badly need."

That was five months ago. He's been working with them for five months, knowing that Casey might kill him, and thinking that she might kill him, and he's still performed on the missions and kept it all to himself. She knows that he doesn't think that he's brave, and he may not have a poker face that lets him hide the fear he feels like she does, but still, that takes guts. "You thought that I would kill you?"

"I had hoped not, but up to that point you were telling me that we couldn't have a relationship and that the job came first. I honestly didn't know what you would do if your job was to eliminate me. I do have the Intersect in my head, you know. From what I had flashed on, I knew that you wouldn't be the first handler to terminate her asset when he was no longer useful. Truthfully, hearing you and Beckman talk this week didn't really reassure me a lot on that score. I've spent a fair bit of time wondering if this was going to be the end for me. Sometimes I think that having you be the last thing I see in this life would be the greatest gift that I could have. Sometimes it's my most horrible nightmare."

She closes her eyes for a moment. He'd started a relationship with her not knowing if she might kill him one day. For all he knows, he's literally been putting his life on the line to be with her, and here she is, afraid that he'll be upset by Beckman's damn order? She's an idiot. And then he overhears evidence that she is only acting under orders to be with him. It's no wonder he doesn't think he can trust her. She blinks some moisture out of her eyes. "Okay, I understand. That's why you said that you knew that the General would order your death and Casey would do it. You weren't just inferring that, you knew it for a fact. Thanks for explaining to me." She could apologize from now until she started collecting Social Security and it wouldn't make up for what they've put him through, what she's put him through.

"Can you-"

She breaks in. "Why did you start a relationship with me if you thought I might kill you? How could you do that?"

He looks at her seriously. "I decided that either you wouldn't or you would. If you wouldn't kill me, then being with you was the right choice. If you would, then I didn't know you at all, and I was in love with a complete stranger who would murder me with no regrets. If that was true, I wasn't sure that I would care about dying." He clears his throat. "To be fair, I'm so far gone with you that I can't really be rational about this. And whether we dated or not, you could always still kill me easily. I mostly just hoped that I was being paranoid and tried not to think about it much. I'm really good at denial."

She stares back at him. "You really didn't know that I wouldn't kill you?"

"No. I didn't think that you would, but I mostly just went on trust and hope."

She stares at him. Wow. He's so open that she thought she had understood everything about him, but there's even more going on behind those brown eyes than she knew. While he's distracting everyone with his constant chatter about whatever his current craze is, he's hiding some big secrets inside. No wonder things went so wrong on Sunday. She's going to need some more time to think about this, but today isn't about what she needs. "You can ask the rest of your questions, I don't want to waste the time we have here."

"Okay. Can you lie under the influence of truth serum?"

"Yes." True

"Have you lied to me under the influence of truth serum?"

Well, that's pretty specific, considering that he has only asked her one question that mattered with truth serum involved, and that was more than a year ago. He must have thought about that a lot. "Yes." True

"If it wasn't your job to spend time with me, would you have a relationship with me?"

"Yes," she says emphatically. True

"If our jobs didn't get in the way, would you have a relationship with me?"

"Yes," she says even more emphatically. True

"Do you think that you could settle for a life with someone ordinary like me?"

"Yes." True "But it wouldn't be 'settling' and you are the farthest thing from ordinary, you know. Even the fact that you don't know how exceptional you are isn't ordinary." He gives her a little smile, but she can tell that he doesn't believe her.

He takes a deep breath. "When this mission ends, are you going to leave me?"

She's silent for a moment, but he waits. "I don't know. I can't imagine living without you in my life, but the CIA has been my whole life before this. I know that I don't want to leave here, this is the happiest I can remember being since my mom died when I was little." She looks at him steadily. "A lot would depend on how the mission ended. If you had the Intersect removed, and would be safe without me, maybe. Particularly if you would be safer without me. If you were still in danger, no. If you want to chop it up into finer questions, you can confirm some of that."

"That's okay. It's still a hard question for you. I believe you. Will you betray me?"

"No." Ambiguous

She glances at the machine. "I won't do it on purpose, but I'm terrible at relationships, and the intelligence world is very good at manipulating people and situations. I might be tricked into doing it, or do it by mistake. As we've seen this week."

"Okay, after the last year and a half, I believe your qualifiers. Will you deliberately betray me?"

"No." True

"Should I trust you?"

Yes, because I'm the only one who wants you to be happy, the only one who cares about you as a person, not just the container for the Intersect, the only one who loves you. "Yes." True

"Do you trust me?"

She hesitates. The point of this is to not deceive him, even if he doesn't like the answers. "No." True

He looks at her sharply. "That's probably the root of our problem, in addition to the entire intelligence community wanting to either kill us or keep us apart. Do you trust me to not betray my country?"

"Yes!" True

"Do you trust me to not cheat on you?"

He's the most loyal person she knows. He'd think that even fantasizing about another woman would be cheating. "Yes!" True

"So you think that I'm loyal to my country and faithful to you. Hmm. Do you think that I would betray you?"

He'd never deliberately do anything to hurt her. She knows that the way she knows her right hand, or her favorite knife. "No." True

"Do you believe that I love you?"

"I did before this."

"Okay, listen for a second. I believe now that you weren't faking our relationship, and I forgive you for making mistakes in how you handled our really complicated situation, even if I am still upset by some of your choices." He looks at her. "Think about that for a minute. Do you believe that I love you?"

The lump in her stomach that has been her constant companion this week goes away. She closes her eyes for a moment and the tension in her shoulders flows away as she exhales. Oh, my. Is she really going to get a second chance? Thank you, God. She smiles shyly at him. "Yes." True

He smiles back. "Okay. An important one. Do you believe that I will always love you?"

Her smile stops, and her friend the lump comes back. The truth. She owes him the truth. "No," she whispers. True

He smiles sadly at her. "No, that's sort of what I thought. And that's probably why we are having some of these problems. You can take that stuff off now. I know what I need to know. Thank you for letting me do this."

They're stopping already? He's only asked a few questions. They've got another hour or more before they have to worry about Casey showing up. Is he giving up because of her answer? "Are you sure? Is that all you want to know? I meant what I said about nothing being off limits. We have lots more time."

"Yes, I'm sure. I'd like to know everything about you, but I'm not going to interrogate you like a criminal to find it out. I just needed to know where I stood with you, to know if we were real. I won't take advantage of you for offering me this chance. Maybe someday I'll show you that I'm trustworthy enough for you to share yourself with me because you want to. If I can't do that, maybe I don't deserve to know."

She's speechless for a moment. "Chuck, you're the most trustworthy person I know."

"But you don't trust me. You just said so, and it was confirmed, although I already knew it was true. If you trusted me you would have told me the truth about Mauser. If you trusted me, you would have told me about Beckman's order. You were afraid of how I'd react, so you decided to hide it, for my own good, and because it was easier for you. I'm sure there's more that I don't know about that you were afraid to tell me. You might trust me to be a good person and to not cheat on you, but you don't trust me with the hard stuff, like your past and what you have to do for your job. Would it help you if I got in the chair and let you ask the questions for a while? We could do that."

She just sits in the chair, stunned by him, again. Every single time that she thinks she knows him, he goes and does something like this. She knows how curious he is about her past, she can't believe that he'd walk away from this chance just because he's worried about her feelings. No, that's not right. She can completely believe it, she just hadn't thought of it in those terms before. She knows that she hurt him, again, when she said she didn't trust him. But she can imagine the look in his eyes when he finds about some of the things she's done before she met him. She looks up at him. She wants him more than anything but she's so afraid of losing him. But that's why she hid Beckman's order from him, and look at how that turned out. She almost lost him, and they weren't out of the woods yet. Her mouth goes dry.

"The thing," she croaks out. She clears her throat and tries again. "The thing is, you're a really good person. Before I met you, I didn't know that people like you really existed outside of books or movies. And I have done a lot of terrible things. I don't see how you could still trust me or, or love me, if you knew about them. And someday you are going to find out anyway, and I'm going to see your eyes go cold, like I saw this week…" She starts crying. "And I'll lose you forever, and I don't know how I'll go on without you. I know you deserve someone better, someone normal, but I'm selfish, and I want to be the one who's with you."

He reaches down with his hand and cups her cheek, turning her face up towards his. "Why would you think that I could settle for normal now that I've had a taste of extraordinary?"

She gives him a wet smile for that, and feels her heart unclench a little. She doesn't know why his touch relaxes her so much, but the worst things in her life always seem better when he's touching her.

He reaches down with his other hand and caresses her shoulder. "I love you. Look, I've been playing in your world for a year and a half now, I've seen a lot of missions, met other spies, flashed on a lot of data. While I don't know the particulars of what you have done as part of your work, I have a pretty good idea of the sacrifices that agents make, and that female agents in particular make. I've held you during your nightmares and heard some of the things you cry out in the night. I'm still here, none of that has scared me off. I'm sorry that I didn't trust you enough to take your word for everything this week, but our situation is really hard sometimes, you know, and having you lie to me about things doesn't help me. Knowing that you really love me, and loving you as much as I do, I can't imagine anything that would make me leave you or not love you. Okay? I know your life was hard before the CIA, and even harder after you joined the CIA, but I'd like you to try and have a little faith in me, please? Haven't I earned a little of that? I spent five years mooning over Jill and how I thought she had betrayed me, and I still gave her a second chance. Admittedly, then she really did betray me, but still. Think about that. She isn't a tenth the woman you are, and I gave her a second chance. Do you think I'd do any less for you?

"If we hadn't worked through this today, I probably would have spent the rest of my life thinking about you and missing you, and you would probably have gotten a second chance at some point, too, after I stopped hurting so much. If you had wanted it. My affections don't wander as easily as you seem to think they do."

She captures his hand with hers and presses it firmly against her face. She sniffles a few times and looks back at him. "You've given me every reason in the world to trust you, but I'm still afraid of what you'll think of me. I'm proud of the things that I've accomplished in my career, but I'm not proud of some of the things that I've had to do to accomplish them. I know it's not reasonable, but I can't help the way that I feel. Keeping secrets has kept me safe up until now, and it's hard to let that go."

He kneels down next to her and hugs her to him. He whispers in her ear. "I won't say that I understand what you are going through. But I will say that I love you, and that I don't think that your secrets are going to scare me away. The thing is, if you expect us to not work out, we are probably not going to stay together. Making any relationship work is hard, and with our special circumstances, it is going to be even harder. If you are expecting us to break up, we probably will. I think that would be a shame, because I think we are so great together, and we could be even better. After being with you, I can't even imagine being happy with anyone else. "

She hugs him back as hard as she can and sniffles into his shirt. "You fell in love with Sarah Walker, not everyone I was before I met you. I'm afraid you won't love me when you really know me."

He snorts a little. "And I'm afraid that one day you will realize that you could do so much better than me and leave me to find someone who deserves you or that you will get bored with me and my quiet life and leave me to go back to the exciting life of a spy. So now you know two more of my very few secrets. We are both nervous about our future together, which makes us like a whole lot of other people in the world who are dating and working out their relationships. The question is, what are we going to do about it?"

She pulls back. "Chuck, I don't think there is anyone better than you, and the exciting life of a spy is really overrated. It's a lot of dull time working in boring cover jobs or doing surveillance when nothing happens, punctuated by having to do horrible or dangerous things to get the mission done. Yeah, there are fun parts, and knowing that you are helping to keep the country safe is a great feeling, but it is much less exciting than you think it is. And it's so lonely. Casey may complain about this duty, but he wants to do more Special Forces kind of stuff. This has been way better than most of my normal assignments, where I might spend three months setting up a cover before anything real happens. Except for the Weinerlicious, that part wasn't so good. Smelling like sausage all the time sucked."

He gives her a little smile, but he doesn't look convinced. "Thank you for trying to make me feel better, but methinks the lady doth protest too much. I've seen your face after an exciting mission."

She growls at him. "Am I this annoying when I don't listen to you? 'Cuz you are really irritating me." She glares at him for a moment. "Get back over there." She jerks her head towards the lie detector.

He stands back up slowly and moves over to the lie detector.

"Ask me if I think that you're gorgeous."

He blushes a little, but asks, "Do you think that I'm gorgeous?"

"Yes." True "Ask me if I have ever enjoyed another lover more than you?"

He clears his throat. "Have you ever enjoyed another lover more than me?"

"No." True "Ask me if I think there is any guy better than you."

"Do you think there is any guy better than me?"

"No." True "Ask me if I want to go back to being a spy without working with you."

"Do you want to go back to being a spy without working with me?"

"No." True "There, now do you believe me?"

He gives her a medium wattage smile. "Yes, although I am having problems reconciling your answers with a lifetime of experience with other women."

"Well, what do their opinions matter? Other than Ellie, I'm the only woman whose opinion should matter to you. Listen to me, forget about any other foolish women you've run across, it's their loss. Particularly forget about Lou."

That surprises a grin out of him. "You make a good point." He clears his throat. "You are doing a good job of reassuring me, for which I thank you, because after this week I needed some reassuring. But what about you? Can you think of anything that would make you feel better about us? I meant what I said before. We have so many things going against us, if we don't trust each other, I don't know how we'll make it. Can I do anything to change your mind?" He looks down. "It breaks my heart that you don't trust me enough to let me know you better. Is there anything I can do to convince you that you might be wrong about me?"

"I'm afraid."

"I know and I can completely empathize with that fear, but I am really afraid that it is going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy if we don't do anything about it. If you think that us spending more time together will fix this, that's fine, but if not, then I'm afraid of leaving the situation this way for too much longer. Does that make any sense to you?"

She nods her head. "I know that I'm not being rational, and I know that it's effecting my judgment. You're right, I should have told you about Beckman's order, but I was afraid to, and I hurt you so much because of that. I'm so, so sorry. I heard you crying that first night and you never deserved to feel like that."

"Yeah, that wasn't one of the best nights in my life." He gives her a little smile. "It's okay, I'll get over it, with a little time and your help. I'm tougher than I look, at least in some ways. Are there any other secret orders that I should know about?"

She shakes her head. "That's the only one that really effects us. I have lots of contingency orders, but none of them would surprise you. You know, what to do if Beckman is killed, or Casey is turned, that kind of thing."

"Well, that's good. I'd prefer to be unsurprised for a little while, if you can manage it. I need to let some things scab over and heal a little." He sighs. "Our situation is more complicated than most people's. It makes sense that our mistakes are going to be even worse than most people's, too."

She thinks about that for a few seconds. He's usually right about them. If he thinks this is going to break them up, he's probably right. She can't let that happen. She takes a deep breath. "I know that you're still upset with me, but will you come back to our bed and hold me tonight, please?"

He smiles reassuringly at her. "If you'll have me, yes. There's no place I'd rather be."

"If you'll hold me tonight, I'll tell you one of the things that I'm afraid of you knowing in the morning. I need to have a night with you before I can do that. If you're going to push me away, I'd rather you do it for what I've actually done, not over another misunderstanding."

"There's the kick-ass ninja girl that I love."

"I'm not going to hurt you again with something that I was too afraid to tell you. I'm probably going to hurt you again, but it's not going to be from that."

She takes the sensors off, stands up and walks over to him. He opens his arms and she wraps her arms around his waist and lays her head against his chest. She stands there long enough to listen to his heart beat half a dozen times, then pulls back to look at him. "I'm a really good spy, Chuck, but I'm a really bad girlfriend. I don't know if I can make this work."

He pulls her close again and whispers in her ear. "This isn't something you have to be perfect at and it's okay to make mistakes. You just have to try, and you do get points for effort. Okay?"

She nods.

"I know that this hard for you but you aren't alone in this. I'm there for you when it's hard, even when I'm the problem. There's a relationship secret that you might not know: You don't have to make this work, we have to make it work."

She hugs him hard, feeling his warmth all around her, listening to the slow beat of his heart. The whirling in her head stops and her mind clears. She pulls back a little and looks him in the eye. Is it that simple? "Really?"

He laughs at her, but it's kind laughter. "Really. And we are so good together, Sarah, what can't we do together?"

He's right, she knows it. She keeps looking him in the eye and answers him with complete certainty. "Nothing. There's nothing we can't do if we both try."

"Exactly. If we both remember that, it will all turn out fine, no matter what the world throws at us."

She gives him a slow smile. "How did you get to be so smart? Is this an Intersect thing?"

He smiles back. "No, this is something that Ellie and I learned together when we were younger, but it's true for you and me, too."

"You're still pretty smart. I'm sorry that I'm such a slow student."

"I'm sorry that I'm such a poor teacher. I guess we'll have to schedule some review classes."

"Do you think I might be able to do some extra-credit assignments to bring up my grade?" She looks up through her eyelashes at him, and bats them extravagantly.

Chuck tries to play it straight. "Miss Walker, if you think that you are going to influence my evaluation by your actions..." He skids to a stop as she leans forward and starts to blow softly in one of his ears. "Then you're probably right."

She traces the outside of that ear with the tip of her tongue, then whispers, "If you'll call in sick to work, I promise to take you home and take very good care of you. After I'm done taking care of you, we can talk about some of the things that have been scaring me. And then maybe you can take care of me for a while. How does that sound?"

"Like a really, really good idea."

"Why don't you make that call, then we can go home together. No more secrets between us."

"No more secrets."

A/N. And I think that I'll wrap it up there for now. Went full-frontal Charah in the end, because I just can't help myself, despite my weakness for excessively angsty melodrama. I wasn't super thrilled with the ending, but, after five weeks of staring at this, I decided that I wasn't a good enough writer to make it any better right now, and that I owed you guys some closure. Regarding the killing questions, I'm assuming that Chuck learned about the termination order from the Intersect update that Bryce slipped him at the end of "Chuck Versus the Break-Up" and has been a little less innocent ever since. Thanks for reading.