Part V: …in which Sarah changes her mind…

Canon Timeline Reference: Continuation; still between S02E01 (First Date) and S02E02 (Seduction)

Contents: The fifth and final installment of this movie night interlude. Please check out Ch 46-49 for the first four parts.

A/N: One last chapter but it was all leading up to this

Disclaimers and Easter Eggs: The author has made no profit or derived any other material benefit from this work. Any lyrics referenced are property and copyright of their owners. No ownership of CHUCK or Tron is asserted or implied. Also in this installment, no ownership of Daredevil and associated characters, Blade Runner, Raiders of the Lost Ark, or any songs by Evanescence is asserted or implied.

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114: Life Among the Dead

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"How can you see into my eyes,

Like open doors?

Leading you down into my core

Where I've become so numb"

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Bring Me to Life, Evanescence

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She was going to get him killed.

This sweet, brilliant, delightful man. She was going to get him killed.

All because he made her feel special. Wanted. Made her forget about the emptiness between missions and feel as though she might be worthy of something more.

Was that the truth she had been so unwilling to face for all these months that had caused her to keep him at arms length?

Going against everything she had been taught - everything that had kept her alive this long - for something as foolish as a romantic entanglement. An entanglement with someone who could do far better than her and which was unsustainable for very long anyway. Such a thing would not only increase the likelihood of her doing something catastrophically impulsive but make Chuck far more likely to do the same for her.

No. It wasn't worth it.

No matter how much she wanted to turn those stolen touches and cover kisses more purposeful. And more frequent.

No matter how much she wanted to show him how special he was to her. How special he made her feel.

No matter how much she wanted to experience those electric moments they had shared on a regular basis.

No matter how much she wanted him.

If she selflessly wanted to save him - and selfishly wanted to preserve this tiny inextinguishable light in her own world - she had to stop entertaining these foolish thoughts and play the survival game by its ruthless rules.

With that thought, the matter seemed decided in her mind and Sarah allowed herself to be distracted by the movie again. She lay across his thighs and held onto the side of his far leg. She felt him embrace her more tightly and sighed, now knowing this would have to be the last time she could indulge in this selfish half-measure of physical contact with him.

She would have to slowly wean herself away from that warmth and the weakness it caused in her. The lack of focus. He was doing half the work for her. He had once pried for details about the woman who didn't exist inside the empty shell but seemed to have rightly realized that continuing to push was only going to drive her away. There had been more than a few moments when their cover had become too real for her and she had felt a need to run as far from him as possible. If his protection were not her assignment she would have run from him long ago. Tonight she had asked as pointedly as she dared whether he could really see himself with her and he had stepped lightly around all the landmines surrounding whatever that part of her was that simply hungered for him. His touch. His laugh. His cleverness and kindness.

She would have to leverage that kindness. Like any other mark, she would use his nature against him. Leverage this reluctance he had developed to pushing her to share herself. Instead of subtly intensifying their cover, she would turn it the other way. Put a barrier between them that even his light could not penetrate. Let that barrier grow in strength and increase the width of the gulf it created to keep their overnight cover stays even more chaste and to drive down the PDA elements of their cover maintenance to an absolute minimum rather than teasing him so deliciously.

She took a shuddering breath - not really a sob but she had to choke back the pain of what she was turning her back on. It had taken three quarters of a crappy comic book movie to get there but maybe now she could cease these foolish thoughts - or at least drive them into a gradual remission where the loss of that hope would no longer be so painful - and be at peace with her decision.

Seeking a distraction, Sarah watched Elektra training for her revenge against the man she believed had murdered her father, twirling her trademark sai without dropping them but far from fluidly. Elektra was rocking too much - slightly off-balance - confirming in Sarah's mind that being slightly less than her best was unacceptable.

As Elektra started slicing up sandbags Sarah wished Chuck was awake so she could share some of her insights about how unrealistic it was. They could laugh together at the movie as he seemed to have intended from the start. Instead she smiled sadly to herself at how amused he always was by her insight into scenes like these based on her experience and training and how he would probably wonder if she knew how to use sai.

Sarah wasn't a master of the weapon but it had its uses. It was a decent piercing weapon but excellent for captures, joint locks, parries and stunning blows. But none of her experience involved said with a razor sharp edge capable of spilling the entrails of her victims - or sand from sandbags in this case - yet there was Garner preparing for a showdown wielding sai that cut more like short swords.

Sarah thought she'd have to get something like that made and try it out. A hybrid weapon; as much baton as knife or sword. All her knives were custom creations meant for similarly efficient slashes in close quarters. Maybe she could acquire blunt ones for her missions with Chuck and razor sharp ones when Graham's successor inevitably sent her back out to eliminate her next target. Of course, she wouldn't be fighting sandbags but that raised another question she would have liked to have posed to Chuck...

Who the hell was dropping the sandbags?

Sarah smirked at her own cleverness as barely dangerous sandbags continued to swing at Elektra from multiple directions, implying multiple assistants helping her prepare for battle against a nefarious league of killer sandbags. She also wondered if Elektra helped her assistants clean up all that unnecessarily scattered sand, as she also processed that same singing voice from a few scenes ago.

The music began light and melodic but became louder and more intense. The haunting voice from the funeral scene intensified along with it in power and urgency, becoming clear to Sarah as a sandbag helpfully dropped into the arena with a crude drawing of Daredevil's face.

Sarah's smile faded - no longer amused by Elektra's thrown sai piercing the Daredevil sandbag rather than a partly-pointed or completely blunt end being absorbed by the fabric - as she processed the words sung by that voice when the sandbag dropped.

That was exactly how she felt before she came to Burbank. Exactly what she was.

Maybe once was. Maybe still was.

Casey had called her on it shortly after they met and became partners - called her a ghost - but she had been feeling that empty for ages.

She set out to make the world a better place and to have grand adventures that a little girl who ran away from a happy home to travel the continent with a con man could only dream of. Sought out every thrill, every every test of her skills, every harrowing escape, every fight to the death, every briefly satisfying encounter with disposable men and a pantomime of a relationship with a handsome but equally empty partner. Along the way, she had become a non-person.

Become nothing.

Stunned for a moment, Sarah then reached out her leg and raised her foot to the coffee table, using it to slide the remote close enough to reach. She grabbed it and rewound the movie to the beginning of that scene. She ignored Elektra's sandbag battle this time and listened closely to the words sung by that voice.

To someone more eloquent than herself expressing the way she felt whenever Chuck looked at her in that way that made her think - let her know - that he saw more than he said. That he no longer asked her name or questions about her past not just because she had never been very forthcoming. Had never been very good at verbally expressing her feelings. That he had chosen to look deeper. Harder. To study her.

"I pay attention. I sort things out," he had said.

That even though he knew he couldn't get through to her directly, her eyes - ice cold to anyone else - were open doors to him.

All those changes to the rules of the game she had been contemplating... had he been playing that version of the game all along?

What he thought he saw deep inside her... he somehow knew he couldn't just show that part of herself to her and have her trust it. Somewhere along the way he had switched tactics and she hadn't even noticed. Instead of asking her to express what she was, he showed her every day what he was. Let her know that she could trust him. That she could count on him. Something she had been taught she should never do in various ways all her life... yet she did. She trusted him. And it had awoken something inside her.

Something different that that first night thinking he was cute and funny and worth having a little fun with before she had to disappear from his life. That wasn't what she wanted anymore. Or at least not all she wanted.

The light that he brought into her world made that tiny spark inside her burn brighter in an attempt to shine as brightly. Made that tiny ember want to finally pierce the darkness she had allowed to consume her. That was what she wanted more of.

Somehow he could see something deep within her that was worthy of more than the nothingness her soul had become.

The somehow untainted but long buried 'could-have-been' inside her responded to him.

That was what she felt when he looked at her.

And she exercised her prerogative to change her mind. She wasn't going to give him up. Not if she could have him and still keep him safe.

That part of her wasn't dead at all. Just lying dormant waiting for something to breathe life into it. The nothing that allowed her to be the best in the world did not define her.

It was what she did - what she became to make it through the darkness - not who she was.

And it had taken feeling this way for someone to make her start to believe that.

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"Bid my blood to run

Before I come undone

Save me from the nothing I've become"

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Bring Me to Life, Evanescence

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She appreciated the sentiment of the song but Sarah didn't think she needed saving. At least not in any literal way.

No more than she wanted Chuck because she desperately needed a man in her life. She didn't. She'd gone this long without physical intimacy because she didn't want it from just anyone. So she didn't need to escalate her relationship with Chuck because she was desperate for affection or due to any societal pressures. She wanted it. Wanted it from him and wanted it in ways she hadn't allowed herself to consider before.

Because that was part of what she adored so about Chuck. He wasn't offering to save her. He only offered his silent support while she sorted all this out.

Sarah smiled up at him. He had been patiently waiting for her to realize all these things were possible - to overcome her fear and distrust - and decide to make a change in their dynamic.

She still wasn't sure of the rules by which he was playing. Sometimes it was as though he had seen everything there was to know about her in the Intersect. He couldn't possibly - there would have been some indication - some reluctance to even look at her much less touch her - if he had processed all the horror she had wreaked upon the world.

That was still what terrified her most: that one day he would turn to meet her gaze without that look of wonder and adoration upon his face but rather the same terror he had shown before they really knew each other and he saw her mission as Elena Truffaut.

Every time she walked through the doors of the Buy More and raised to her full height and then some to seek him out - elevating up on her toes in the flat orange "Chucks" she had purposefully chosen as one of the branded colors of her cover business - she waited anxiously for him to feel her presence in that way he often did. Or for one of his creepy coworkers to point her out as they also had a certain sixth sense for virtually any female customer.

And her heart was in her throat every time until he turned fully and flashed that smile at her, the one that had won her over within hours - possibly minutes - of meeting him. She didn't even realize that the smile that lit up her face in return shone just as brightly.

That smile caused a fire in her veins to which nothing she had ever experienced came close. Started to thaw the Ice Queen. To bid her blood to run.

She didn't like to think back to it but the mission in Budapest had also stirred something inside her. Finally seeing her mother only to close the door on ever seeing her again was why she didn't like to think about it. She had thought she had done the honorable thing; sacrificed her last link to her true self to save an innocent.

She had made an effort but run away from the hard part. It had been a shock to her system but one that her frozen heart had endured without melting. She had finally admitted to herself that she was a failure as a daughter and a human being. Seemingly burned her last bridge back to her humanity... only to meet Chuck Bartowski hours later.

After their rough start, he challenged her indirectly every day just with the constancy of his faith in her. When his world had been collapsing he still thought she could do anything. When she had finally agreed to a date with him it was because she would finally get to fully experience that adoration from him without all the other worries that surrounded them... if only for one night. Had she been in and out of his life in the time she had intended, she could have remained frozen inside but the constancy of his presence - the literal and figurative warmth of him was unrelenting and impossible for her to withstand.

If that smile ever turned back to an expression of fear or apprehension - if the only person who ever saw her as more than a criminal or killer looked at her as both - she feared it would utterly destroy her.

As she considered those lyrics and reopened a decision she thought she had resolved while returning some of her attention to the movie, the rest of the story played out like she had expected. After Daredevil sifts through some random laundry on a rooftop clothesline - mysteriously left hanging overnight - Elektra attacks the man she thinks killed her father. He refuses to really fight her and insists it wasn't him but she's having none of it.

How does Elektra not recognize his voice after he pleaded with her not to take this course of vengeance? How does she not recognize how he fights considering their strange hand-to-hand meet cute fighting in a playground? Instead she impales his shoulder and unmasks him.

In her blind rage she has injured the person who could have helped her survive the upcoming fight. She leaves Matt stabbed and bleeding but for some reason puts his mask back on. Her true enemy announces himself with an arrogant wolf-whistle and of course, having learned nothing, she runs straight at Bullseye.

Straight at her doom.

Sarah had the fleeting thought: that was what was going to get her.

She had run headlong into situations to save Chuck already that flew in the face of twenty years of staying one step ahead of the reaper. She had to be better than that. Dead agents don't complete their missions. And now she was quite sure, her mission was to keep this man alive - both unselfishly and selfishly - no longer just for his sake but for any future they might have - brief as it might be - to even be a possibility.

Bullseye proves his superiority when he catches a thrown sai. Sarah barely had time to mentally chastise Elektra for putting herself down to one weapon when Elektra had foolishly tried the same catch as Bullseye 'returned' it with his superhuman precision. She was back to two weapons but was now down one hand and still leaping straight at a man who had just proven how dangerous he was. She gives him her best shot with barely a nick and - in a brief exchange between a superior fighter and an injured inferior one - he easily deflects every subsequent attack and puts her down.

The music gives it away throughout. She's not going to win this fight.

"You're good baby," Bullseye says, raising the ghost of a similarly arrogant man whose brains Sarah had blown out the top of his skull, "I'll give you that, but me?... I'm magic."

Sarah's sick feeling intensified. That was something the woman she now knew as Carina used to say about her. Carina had practically begged Sarah to teach her to be as deadly as Graham's Enforcer. They had revealed to the other two CATS that they had worked together before and Carina had declared that Sarah "was magic". That they just had to get her within arms-length - plus a knife's blade - of the target and the mission would be over. Never mind that Sarah was just as deadly from a distance but this had been said after she slit a man's carotid in a crowd without anyone noticing - her victim included - until fellow pedestrians tripped over his fallen body, saw the rapidly expanding pool of red, and all the screaming began. She was magic.

And it gave her the worst kind of chills to hear a caricature of a psychopathic killer saying it about himself.

There had even been those missions Graham had sent her on as recently as three months ago. The ones where she had felt unable to wash all the blood away. Only a handful since she had known Chuck but she had crawled through his window, first with a clumsy excuse of 'checking on him' and most recently slipping into his room in the dark hours of the morning, silently stripping down to modest undergarments and slidding under his covers.

He wasn't a spy. He didn't startle awake. Instead he sleepily turned toward her and opened up his embrace. She turned her back to him - even had he been fully awake he could not know how significant it was for her to turn her back to him - and wrapped himself around her like a cloak against the cold and darkness she had returned from.

Unless they actually discussed it, she wouldn't really know whether he would do the same with any warm body - the equivalent of a blonde Teddy Bear slipping under his covers - or sought her specifically out in his sleep. The practical part of her assumed the former but a deeply buried romantic in her hoped for the latter.

She had slept over in such a surprise fashion almost as many times as they had done it by design. When they planned an overnight stay in his room, they started off each respecting the other's side of his bed. It was somewhere in the night when they drifted toward each other. Unlike other experiences in her past, she somehow did not feel suffocated or crowded. She felt safe. In the morning, they would often wake just looking into each other's eyes.

They didn't speak for an uncomfortably long time but somehow it wasn't uncomfortable at all. She often watched him sleep before he woke - much as she had been doing throughout this movie - to see him unburdened for a brief while. She would just watch him breathe or his eyes flutter if he was dreaming before gently blowing a breath across his nose, watching it crinkle at the sensation, then his eyes opening and that megawatt smile greeting her more brightly than the dawn.

When her stay with him was not planned, he would stammer at the shock of her presence as she woke more completely much more quickly than him. Often she was out of bed and redressed before he fully realized she was there. A 'Good morning' to Ellie, Devon, or both served the purpose of masking how much she had needed him the night before.

So maybe it was a denial to say she didn't need him - that she could get by without stealing that soul-replenishing contact with him if she had to - but it was not insignificant that she felt comfortable in his sleeping embrace. Calm. Safe.

It had been so incredibly long since she had felt that way. Certainly never once she became a full-fledged spy. Perhaps mildly comfortable early in her formal education but never calm. Never safe. She always expected a last second summons to some sort of impromptu training or unannounced testing. And on the run with her father she had never let herself get too used to any one place. There was always a constant buzzing in her mind that any day would be the day she had to suddenly and unexpectedly leave town.

Even that brief time in high school when they had supposedly "settled down" - only just before her father had been arrested had it started to actually feel like an actual...

Sarah startled at the thought. She looked up at a slumbering Chuck again, then slowly scanned the quirky apartment shared with his sister and her fiancé. This apartment had somehow become a sort of haven. The outside world ceased to exist when she was here.

Could it be she had finally found what she had been missing since leaving her mother's home all those years ago?

The new thought started to form in her mind that - especially for a wanderer like her - maybe 'home' wasn't a specific place at all.

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"Without a soul,

My spirit's sleeping somewhere cold

Until you find it there and lead it back…

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Home"

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Bring Me to Life, Evanescence

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A home. She hadn't felt it in so long, she had forgotten this is what it feels like. Comfort. Peace. Acceptance.

The idea was ludicrous but the door back from the practical decision she thought she had made was now opened wider. It would be challenging - both tactically and to both of them personally. She knew - eventually - the best they could hope for was some sort of half-life where she went away on missions and only returned when she could. It wouldn't be a home since she could never really stay. But as long as he was sure she would return - at least choose to return if she was physically able and she wasn't bringing trouble back with her - she knew he would do everything in his power to make it feel that way whenever she could find her way back to him. Wherever he was... that was where she wanted to be.

Again, as long as she kept him safe through this.

Mere seconds had passed and the movie drew her attention again when Bullseye produced an Ace of Spades from his sleeve. It reminded Sarah of Graham's deck of cards. She never knew the names and codes but that deck of cards missing half its 53 cards contained some of the most accomplished killers in the world. And she herself was considered the wild card of the deck.

Like his paperclip trick earlier, Bullseye partly slashed Elektra's neck with the card. Her righteous rage has buckled under the reality of how outmatched she was. He closed the distance and the image Sarah knew from her childhood was recreated on the screen. Elektra impaled with her own weapon. All her training, bravado, and rage culminating in utter defeat.

After seeing her memory of a poster in a comic store recreated on screen, Sarah saw her worst fear recreated as well.

"Stay with me," an injured Daredevil pleaded before his superhuman senses allowed him to hear Elektra's heart stop beating.

Her worst fear. In reverse. Having to watch Chuck die.

General Beckman's implied question came back to her: "are you compromised?"

Sarah's answer to herself had been and still was a resounding 'No'. She couldn't be. Too much depended upon it. But the fact that so much did depend on it - personally to her - meant she wasn't playing by the rules of survival. Was she lying to herself? Maybe. But he was relying on her. To keep him safe.

And to not die herself in the process.

She felt Chuck stir slightly but he did not wake. Just like when she so unfairly crept into his bed in the dead of night he unconsciously molded his body into hers and secured her in his warm embrace.

He offered so much. Comfort. Sanctuary. And really asked for so little in return. Maybe it was time for her to give something to him.

She smirked at her own dirty version of that in her mind. Not that she was considering her body as currency in any sort of trade for all he offered to her, but she was only just realizing the full range of motives she had for both wanting to and not wanting to drag him into his bedroom. It was selfishness. She selfishly wanted him regardless of all the rules and all the emotional complications, she just wanted him.

But, for once, she hadn't just taken what she wanted because she also selfishly wanted him to keep seeing her with all that wonder in his eyes without lifting the veil on the reality of her history. Without letting him down.

She had been willing to go on that real date because she thought she was on borrowed time. All the misgivings faded enough to make that choice when she thought her time here was running short. And that was all the more confusing because she had been putting off that first night together thinking it could be their last. What if she finally took that step with him and was reassigned the next day without a chance to explain? How much would that have hurt him? But if she knew - if she had advance warning that day was coming - would she wait one second longer?

She was terrified of losing what little they had. It was so much more real to her than any fleeting encounter from any prior time in her life. Maybe it was time for her to stop being so scared of what he might think of her and start to at least reveal pieces of her puzzle. Not just these uncertain and unfamiliar feelings she had for him but pieces of herself.

At worst, she would lose him completely once he truly saw her for what she was. But it was also possible that he would begin to understand that she certainly wasn't out of his league in any way.

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"Wake me up inside

Call my name and save me from the dark"

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Bring Me to Life, Evanescence

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A piece of the song came back to her as she thought about sharing pieces of herself. The old idea of power in a name. That him calling out her name could save her from the darkness somehow.

She couldn't even bring herself to tell him her name. But again, it wasn't because she didn't want him to know it. If they were just words - just two given names and a surname - she would be perfectly willing to tell him her real name. It flew in the face of all her training but, even early on she had broken through that barrier and given him a fragment of a piece of the puzzle.

She still didn't know if he had heard her whisper her middle name. The one that did not appear on the birth certificate with which Director Graham had once taunted her. Her true middle name. Her mother's mother's name.

Even then she had wanted to share that with him. To let him know that she wanted to allow him in more than she had ever allowed or wanted to allow anyone else. It just felt so unnatural. So terrifying. Her secrets were her secrets and she had always been taught that they could be used against her.

But not by him. She knew that in those early days here in Burbank. She knew he would not hurt or betray her like that. That was why - even so early on - she had been willing to share that small piece of herself as a good-faith gesture. Proof that she wanted to try. If only she had been able to find her voice and more boldly give that piece of her to him.

She had just never found someone with really trying for. So maybe that was how she would slowly push things along between them. By small degrees.

Rather than reducing the public displays of affection, she would escalate. Slowly and gradually but also while letting him know two things...

First, he's her partner in this. That part they can use to their advantage. She hoped she didn't have to spell it out for him. She could just mention such cover tactics in briefings as a matter of course. He's not a mark, he's an active participant in the show they are selling. When they kiss or touch in public, it needs to be natural and believable. Surely he would quickly catch on that the show is also for General Beckman's benefit. Casey too - to a lesser degree. Sarah didn't think Casey would really rat them out unless he felt it was affecting the missions. Or affecting the missions more than their awkward advances and retreats already had.

Second, she needs to make it clear that she wants him. That it truly is more than just the show they are selling. It will be so much easier to show than to tell. She would try to find the words in case she had to explain but she hoped he would just catch on. It would be far more fun that way and she couldn't wait to see his reaction when she truly tried to seduce him. For real, and for fun, and for something just between the two of them.

But the important thing was combining the two. She needed to let him know somehow that he should have no problem "making" it believable or natural because it's not just for show. That the show they are selling is not to his friends and family and any random onlookers, but to her superiors.

The "thing under the undercover thing", as he once described it, would become the undercover thing that is a thing.

They weren't having a problem making outsiders believe they were dating. A problem was making insiders believe they were just selling the show. She would likely have to say potentially hurtful things if directly challenged or to avoid suspicion. Chuck might still doubt her motives if she doesn't make her intentions clear but hopefully he knew by now that she wouldn't hurt him by doing anything she didn't want to do for any reasons other than wanting to do it. The biggest problem as Sarah saw it was not only making Chuck believe that it was as real as it could be in their situation but also without overpromising anything while she figured out just how far they could take this.

How far she was willing to commit.

That was another reason she didn't want to just lay it all out and discuss it to death. She didn't really know if she could give him what he deserves. She knew she wanted more than one night. More than a casual fling. But that line of thinking led to places she wasn't prepared to go. They had miles to go before they entertained much beyond the confines of the current cover story. She had no idea where she wanted it to go beyond that or if it even would.

Until she decided that - and figured out what sort of arrangement might be viable - she couldn't just propose this 'reverse cover'. She'd have to get him comfortable with her setting the limits and her talking out of both sides of her mouth.

That last part was going to be the hardest. Chuck wasn't inclined to trust what he was seeing from her. Not trust what he thought she was trying to convey.

Smart man.

But he was distrustful because of his own insecurities. His long-term girlfriend, Jill, had abandoned him like nearly everyone else in his life. His one attempt at dating since then, Kayla, had simply been unwilling to move past a casual relationship. Anyone who knew Chuck could have predicted he wouldn't want to share and would see the mere idea as its own sort of rejection. He had to have seen that as not being 'worth' her giving up her lifestyle, much like Sarah herself would not be able to just abandon the spy game. Even though that last bit wasn't entirely within her control - there were practical reasons in addition to her own institutionalized comfort within the life she had built - but now he's just supposed to accept that the spy who poses as his girlfriend has changed her mind from all her previous misdirections?

As Sarah realized she might need to reconsider the approach of not spelling out to Chuck exactly what she was trying to do - that she may have to find the words to explain all the double-misdirections this entailed - she realized the movie had returned to where it had begun with an injured Daredevil crashing to the floor of a cathedral.

The showdown with Bullseye was all bubble gum. The organ pipes. The stacks of broken stained glass used as throwing stars which somehow missed Daredevil even though a back handspring follows a pretty predictable path. The inevitable church bells to disorient the blind hero's super-senses. Somehow recovering quickly enough to bait a sniper into shooting Bullseye through both hands, just like the machine guns hadn't disturbed him earlier but the train noise did. After destroying the assassin's superhuman accuracy, his arms extended to emulate a Jesus Christ pose with his bullet-pierced palms despite his complete absence of any redemptive qualities.

Why that was necessary before throwing Bullseye through a stained glass window into the reporter's car on the street below is anyone's guess. As was whether Daredevil intended to kill Bullseye but the car broke his fall or that was his intent. As was why the entire police force seemed to both immediately, simultaneously, and spontaneously realize that Daredevil was not the bad guy and allow him to leave the scene - still injured - to confront the Kingpin. Maybe they didn't just allow him but - with snipers deployed and Daredevil now exposed in the broken window - no additional confrontation was shown we just cut straight to Daredevil at The Kingpin's office.

Good lord, that guy is huge. As big as the extremely imposing Mr. Colt.

But why did Daredevil have to go after him that same night? Injured and disoriented, fighting an extremely tough and much stronger opponent, he is quickly at a disadvantage. Unmasked, he says that The Kingpin killed the people he loves - and maybe The Kingpin did his research - but why did he so instantly make the connection between the blind lawyer and the journeyman boxer he had murdered twenty years prior?

It seemed like a convenient short-cut to wrap up the movie as Daredevil - equally conveniently - is inexplicably reminded of seeing Elektra's face in the rain and uses the same trick - and the room's sprinklers - to allow him to locate and target his opponent.

Sarah supposed it might all be forgivable with an extreme suspension of disbelief, but she saw now what Chuck had been talking about. And what Morgan had been complaining about. Although, as the fight concluded, she could agree with the movie on one point: every man is the same size if you take out his knees.

What she didn't get was why Daredevil didn't just kill him. There was some movie-friendly foreshadowing earlier with him proclaiming that he wasn't the bad guy but that was after he attacked an underling of The Kingpin. He had killed the rapist earlier and tried to kill Bullseye moments ago. Why not kill the man responsible for all his pain?

The reasoning behind why The Kingpin would keep his secret was equally questionable but she supposed this messy movie ended with hope when Matt returned to 'their' rooftop. The one where he and Elektra had first connected - where he had first 'seen' her face in the rain - and a token left there for him to find.

It made her think of their beach; where she had found Chuck after that first mission when his life had been turned upside down. She also knew he sometimes still went there to think. She followed him when he did and made sure he was okay. She hadn't approached him since that first night, opting to let him work out whatever was on his mind, but she had visited by herself. She went there occasionally and about many of the things that had intruded on her thoughts tonight as well as thinking back to that 'getting acquainted' date they weren't supposed to talk about. If every day with him could feel like she had felt that day this was all worth the risk.

Maybe one day they'd go back there together.

Daredevil returning to his special place he shared with Elektra made Sarah feel like he'd always be waiting for her. She supposed that was the intention. The Braille pendant was some kind of promise. He'd asked about just such a good luck charm earlier in the film and whether they were available in Braille. She was still out there somewhere. She wished she had something like that to share with Chuck . A charm. A promise... of someday. Those in the know would realize that Elektra hadn't shown herself because she had been resurrected by a murderous league of ninja assassins but still... where there's life, there's hope.

And maybe that was the best lens through which to view the bloody path that brought Sarah to this wonderful place. Cradled in a kind and wonderful man's arms because he viewed her as something precious and extraordinary.

In the movie, the vigilante killer / hero hadn't fallen into a trap that Chuck had described earlier. Earlier he had killed someone who would otherwise escape justice. Maybe it was what that rapist deserved but that execution wasn't carried out because Matt had any skin in that particular game. When fighting the man who killed the woman he loved - and he man who had ordered the deaths of both her and his father - Matt wanted to kill them. But that wasn't a good enough reason for him to do it.

He had killed and he probably would kill again. So would Sarah. But now she was awake again to the right way to handle such things... if she could.

The movie wrapped up with the reporter typing an article exposing Daredevil's identity. So much for The Kingpin keeping his secret but at least they didn't reverse the reflection in his glasses this time just so the viewer could read the article. The reporter completed his article before he chose to delete it, condoning the man he had been trying to expose for the entire movie.

She knew Chuck hated voice overs too. He and Morgan had gone on and on about different versions of that futuristic cop movie with the actor that played both her and Chuck's all-time favorite heroes. She remembered Chuck arguing that the director's cut was far better because it didn't have that awful voice over.

That didn't stop the Daredevil guy from proclaiming himself to be "forever in darkness".

Incredibly on the nose since he was, of course, blind.

But he had one thing right. Sometimes it took someone who knew the darkness to protect others from it. And she felt like his final words described her perfectly. Both her and Casey.

A guardian "angel" couldn't get the job done.

They were guardian devils.

.

.

Sarah let the credits play as she contemplated that. The notion of a guardian devil. That the Ice Queen - Graham's Wild Card Enforcer - the CAT Squad's Pale Horse - the Reaper's Mistress - the Black Lily - and dozens of other noms de meurtre - was uniquely qualified to keep this wonderful man alive.

And she hoped that song she had heard would play again over the credits but even though it didn't the words were burned into her mind.

Wake me up.

It haunted her how it so perfectly described the small change that had become a seismic shift inside her over the past year.

How could he see inside her so well? And was he truly watching, waiting, anticipating, and second-guessing as much as she was now almost convinced he was?

Why did it seem like she came back to life when she met him? She started off thinking he could be just like any other guy she had crossed paths with who had helped her forget for a few precious hours the awful things she had just done and would soon do again.

But unlike any of them he made her think of a life outside the life she knew. In whatever way they could coexist. To whatever extent they could carve out room for the two of them.

Why did he feel like a home she never really had?

Sarah extracted herself from his embrace just long enough to slip away to the bathroom. She was suddenly extremely tired. Not just from the non-stop missions recently but from the years and years that led her here. She leaned against the vanity and stared at herself in the mirror. Looking for those invisible scars to etch their presence under her skin into its surface. And she smiled again at her own favorite bit of movie wisdom from her favorite hero:

It's not the years. It's the miles.

Miles and miles to get here and miles and miles to go before she could promise him anything more than an uncertain temporary arrangement and returning to him whenever she was able. But when she thought of a future where she had to inevitably go away for a while but they found a way to meet up for a while somewhere safe - or better yet, she was able to periodically return to him - to come home to him - the idea made the corners of her mouth rise and her tired eyes to light up with excitement.

No. It may be completely selfish, but she knew what she wanted. She always had. She wasn't going to distance herself from the man who made her feel this warm inside.

She wasn't going to give him up.

She didn't know how she was going to pull it off. She did know she didn't want to do something as completely cold, calculating, and unromantic as try to lay it all out logically for him. She didn't want to do that for two reasons: first, she wasn't sure she could articulate it clearly and she was done with waiting until she did find the perfect words; second, she thought it would be fun. Fun to ambush him initially with a touch or a kiss that lingered a little too long and then not run away or deflect or make excuses. Ultimately to have him stay over at her place - where there were no cameras or listening devices - and convince him to join her in bed just as innocently as they had done dozens of times before. But this time she would simply discard her sleepwear, snuggle back into him, and see what happened. She could kiss him awake and pounce on him, grind against him until he got the point, or just see if he noticed enough to wake when he found his access to her was completely open as he reached out for her in his sleep.

The other part would be harder. The keeping up appearances part. She would have to be cold and calculating in her interactions with Beckman. Keep her thinking that the Ice Queen was just maintaining the cover. The General apparently appreciated that mindset. If she could convince Beckman that Chuck was playing that part of a spy partner, that would be ideal. It would be okay if his goofy demeanor thawed her a little as long as they performed their missions successfully and efficiently.

Sarah was pretty sure that Beckman already realized there was some affection between them but she could emphasize that Chuck had now put his dating life on hold - unlike the Lou incident - to commit to their cover. Keep the General thinking that they each thought the other was too different to be anything more than partners and that the end game was to return Chuck to his old life not transition Sarah into a more personal role in that life.

She didn't yet know if she could pull off a version of the escalation Beckman had implied in a way that the General would also be comfortable with but Sarah providing around the clock protection was an appealing idea. If a little terrifying. She had never lived with anyone else for any extended period of time. Her CATS teammates were fun party friends for the few days or weeks of their missions, she spent plenty of time in close quarters with other partners on surveillance, and shared hotel suites with Bryce several times but not for long. And not nearly as intimately as the nights she had simply slept in Chuck's embrace.

The idea of actually living with him both thrilled and terrified her. She would love to wake up next to him and love to experience something as simple as helping each other make their breakfast together. Or, if she had unfettered access to him, to do wonderfully dirty things to him before they got up to feed themselves. But she had been alone for so long - only answering to herself as a refuge from all the other time spent reacting as her cover identity dictated - she didn't know if she could give up that precious solitude.

Sarah took a deep breath and splashed cold water on her face. She was getting ahead of herself and inducing a mild panic attack. She wasn't quite ready for that but she didn't need to be yet. She needed to take things slowly and adapt as required before moving to whatever the next phase might be. The idea of moving in with Chuck was far away on the horizon. It made her feel a little better both that it was far away and yet that it was not completely out of sight, which had to mean something. Sarah borrowed some of Ellie's makeup remover and face cleanser and decided that was a problem for another day and certainly not her biggest or most pressing concern.

The biggest concern was if Chuck was present when Sarah had to put on her Ice Queen act for Beckman. He might react badly to that. That was an understatement. And she might react badly to his reaction. She'd have to be careful not to overreact to every little thing as they worked through this. She might have to actually voice some of her thoughts in that regard. Just enough to let him know that she wanted them to have two lives within the constraints of their cover. That she had a lot of fears about the whole thing but mostly the big three: reassignment, rejection, and a failure to adapt.

Beckman could reassign her based upon her own judgment of what was and was not professional. Chuck could tire of - or simply not accept - the clandestine approach they would need to take to manage the first risk; or continue to figure out more and more about her and decide that she wasn't what he thought she was. And maybe it would help with both of those if she explained to him that she needed to be very aware of how well she adapted to the changes. That hshe might have to take a clinical approach to his safety sometimes. She couldn't allow her ability to protect him to slip or it was all for naught.

She really didn't have it quite worked out yet. How she would show Chuck more than tell him that their cover maintenance was anything but a cover. That she wanted to be with him as much as they could manage while balancing the concerns of superiors who had no tolerance for personal attachments. Somehow convince him that when she said one thing to them, it was him with whom she she really shared a secret.

Possibly find the courage to tell him exactly what she was thinking... hoping... even fearing... for them.

They would be a 'them'. That idea left Sarah smiling as she made her way back into the living room and even the idea of possibly telling him her true name - letting the Intersect do what it does and seeing if he truly believed what he said about her not 'being' the dreadful things she had done - suddenly seemed a little less terrifying.

The idea of that still gave her chills. As did the idea of somehow voicing these feelings and desires she didn't really understand.

Baby steps.

First she would just suggest they ramp up their affection. Maybe sell Beckman on the idea that as an active participant in this cover, Chuck needed some rudimentary training in selling it. Get the surveillance on Chuck relaxed so they could practice to "help him" become more comfortable with it. They would need to practice in private to gain some comfort and familiarity to make sure they could sell it even more effectively in public.

Lots and lots of practice.

Chuck had slipped down to lie on his side on the couch. He now had his head on the armrest and his long legs bent a bit to fit on the couch. Sarah looked down at Chuck's peaceful face and unruly curls and considered that she should just leave. But given that she had just decided to try to give things a chance with Chuck she found she could not.

She had made a choice.

This wonderful man. "Whoever you choose to be..." he had said "...the woman you finally choose to become..." Had said he knew she would be extraordinary. She hoped they would be extraordinary. Extraordinary enough to survive her unforgiving world. Extraordinary enough to overcome all the fears she had just battled into submission, at least for tonight.

Sarah backtracked to the hallway closet to claim a light fleece blanket. Sarah wondered if Ellie ran hot like her brother because they kept the apartment very cold and Sarah often had a blanket across her lap when lounging in their apartment.

Sarah turned off the lights and the TV then knelt down next to the couch and brushed Chuck's hair back so she could see his closed eyes. She briefly considered kissing him awake and discussing all of this but he was exhausted and she was fading. Instead she leaned in to kiss him softly on the cheek, then turned to sit in the middle of the couch before flipping the blanket up and over them and tucking her body into the contour of his in one smooth motion.

She shifted just a bit more to get comfortable and felt Chuck stir. Just enough to stretch an arm out to pull her closer as he molded his body to fit against hers. And he mumbled into her hair, "You okay?"

Just that half-conscious worry about her well-being - perfectly natural for him - made her well up slightly and also made her certain she had made the right choice.

"I'm perfect, Chuck", she answered in a whisper.

"Yeah ya are," he mumbled into her neck and Sarah smiled and closed her eyes.

Sarah dozed off against Chuck smiling to herself at his response. No matter how affected he eventually was by the full accounting of her history, their starting point was that he currently thought she was perfect. Maybe even a tremendous fall from such a great height would still leave him with some measure of that wonder in his eyes when he looked at her. It was a hopeful last thought before she succumbed to the warmth of this sweet, amazing man holding her protectively against him.

She stirred just enough when Devon and Ellie entered to recognize them as no threat. She felt as much as heard the deep rumble of Devon's voice as he tried to speak softly and the swish of Ellie's whispers, then felt the blanket gently adjusted on top of her and her human pillow. If Sarah knew Ellie - and she thought she did - there may even have been a picture taken of her sleeping in Chuck's arms.

Good. They had been seen. Mission accomplished. Cover maintained.

But she also felt the heat of Chuck's body and the gentle, kind, and patient touch of his embrace. She turned to lie halfway between on her back and facing him and burrowed more deeply into him. She felt the rise and fall of his chest like the swell and retreat of the ocean. And she feigned an uninterrupted sleep for the cameras, tucked her face deeper into his chest, felt his arms involuntarily close more tightly around her, and felt the sophistic lullaby of his breath in her hair before falling back asleep even though this was not necessary to maintain her cover.

Whatever the risk, he was worth it.

She didn't need him to save her from the dark - from the nothing she had become - because he had given her the hope she needed to begin making that change within herself.

But he had breathed new life into her… given her the will to make herself real…

She still had a lot to figure out - both for their situation and where she saw herself in a future she had thought to no longer be reachable - but she was looking forward to showing Chuck at every new step the woman she was incrementally choosing to eventually become.

Nothing was settled yet, so maybe just lying here enjoying him was small and inconsequential.

And maybe it was pathetic and cowardly.

But for the first time in her adult life, she didn't want to spend the rest of her days trying not to die.

She wanted to live.

And this first step... this quiet moment of giving herself permission to become what she wanted at the expense of what she needed to be...

This she chose.

.

.

"Breathe into me and make me real

Bring me to life"

.

Bring Me to Life, Evanescence

.

END OF LINE

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AN2 - Lots o' Notes! Story is over! Only read if interested!

Thank you all for the recent reviews, follows, and favorites! They prod me onward even though it may not always seem so. I will try to catch up on responses soon. With that in mind, congratulations to cavemenftw as the contributor of the 1000th review! (I love that screen name and hope it is the Buffy/Angel cavemen vs astronauts reference I think it is.)

Chapter Notes: For those unaware of the "Mushroom Treatment", I'm quite sure the version of it which Casey would recite is "keep 'em in the dark and feed 'em a lot of shit".

The massive Kingpin in the Daredevil movie, of course, is the same actor who portrayed the very imposing Mr. Colt. The unforgettable Michael Clarke Duncan.

PLEASE Don't think I don't realize that Daredevil is a horrible movie. I mean, its really bad. So bad. Like MST3K bad, which I try to capture some of the spirit of here. But, structurally, it was useful that it is so imagery-driven for prompting certain thoughts.

I do enjoy the NetFlix show, especially Élodie Yung's 'Black Sky' version of Elektra. One scene stands out to me as equal parts horrifying and heartbreaking and aspects of that version of Elektra may have found there way into my Sarah in this story.

And of course it led up to the use of Bring Me to Life in this chapter! I believe all lyrics featured within the breaks are audible in the cut-up version used in the movie (so, heard from Sarah's POV, just in a different order) with the exception of the chapter title (also from the song). Bring Me to Life - or at least the increased exposure to it - was probably the best thing to come out of the Daredevil movie, and this scene above was one of my earliest drafts before it ballooned into a novel of its own.

Those of you familiar with Marc Vun Kannon's nine2five series (specifically, nine2five 1,3 Larger Than Life) may recall - and can still see in the comments - that I completely geeked out over the use of Evanescence's Bring Me to Life because this scene was already coming together inside my brain. Here - over six years later (yikes!) - I am pleased to finally share my version with you!

Story Notes: I know many will disagree or simply prefer a different kind of story but I do think Sarah (like Chuck) has many psychological and emotional barriers to successfully pulling off a 'secret relationship'. I'll lave the enumeration of them to the story but it mostly comes down to various flavors of fear. I think she's a runner. I think she's self-destructive. And when I describe her thought process, I am not necessarily asserting what I think to be true, I am describing my interpretation of what SHE thinks is true.

I also understand that this story is a little slow and a little dark for some people. I'm trying to open up her motivations using Sarah herself as a somewhat unreliable narrator at times but she has a lot of fears and failings. Hearing that readers are feeling them on her behalf is a huge success for me! Even if it becomes so uncomfortable that those readers walk away because, after all, a version of that reaction from Chuck has become Sarah's biggest fear.

Becoming is what it is and I hope some of you enjoy it but know many will not. Readership really dropped off over the course of this arc so I think I may have pushed some readers too far but I hope some of you who remain are still finding it interesting. I'd rather stick to the vision than try to make it more broadly appealing.

My current job plus commute has really cut into family time and writing time comes in third place. Those prods of all kinds do make even more of a difference as I struggle to make my ramblings into something hopefully worth reading. I am constantly working on this story - just not necessarily on the 'next' chapter. I'll do what I can to keep this train rolling!

This arc grew larger than intended but my hope is that this interlude helps set the stage and avoid some repetition in the episodes to come. I will be playing with the structure and style a bit in hopes of covering more ground more quickly. Roan is being rather stubborn about his part in the next installment(s). I will post again once I have his full arc defined and we will see how Sarah's plan / decision plays out against canon happenings. It's past the outline stage but I can't keep him sober for more than a few paragraphs…

Thanks for reading!