#answerisalways42

“If it wasn’t your birthday, Mrs. Bartowski…” He held out a few apricots in one hand, balancing on a branch that definitely didn’t look like it would hold his weight. And in spite of her fear for his safety, she opened the sack in front of her. He dropped them one by one and she caught them cleanly. 

“If it wasn’t my birthday what? What would you do exactly?” She moved the sack to the side a little and put her hand on her stomach. Nobody could tell yet, but she could when she had her hand there. The firmness, the small bump beginning to form. “I am carrying your child, after all.”

The look he sent down was now incredibly warm, and she suddenly wanted him to climb down for another reason besides just his safety. “I know,” he said simply. “Trust me. Not something I’m gonna be forgetting. Which is why I’m up here in the first place. Apricots are healthy!”

“Baby, there is a ladder in our shed. I can get it for you and it’ll be much s—”

“I am not letting you carry a ladder! Are you crazy?”

“Nope. Just pregnant.”

“Look! I’m fine up here. See?” He switched to another branch and her heart leapt into her throat. She was relatively certain Converse were not appropriate shoes for climbing trees. “I’m practically a capuchin.”

“Well, you kinda look like one, but that’s about as far as I’d go with the comparison.” He gave her an offended glare, dropping more apricots for her to catch. She did so deftly, catching them one by one in her hand and distributing them into the bag so that they weren’t smashed. “What?” she shrugged. “You’ve got those cute long arms and long legs. Soulful brown eyes. They’re pretty smart, too, capuchins.”

“Yeah, for a monkey!” he exclaimed, laughing. He went back to work, reaching out far enough for a bundle of apricots that his foot looked like it was about to slip. 

“Chuck, don’t do that! Seriously, it freaks me out!”

“But these are good ones! I’ve almost got ‘em…”

“I don’t care! You’re going to fall and break your head! I need you to help me raise this child, you nerd!”

He stopped reaching and gave her an exasperated sigh. “Fiiiine. Just so you know, you’re really overreacting. I used to climb trees all the time when I was a kid.”

She felt her heart rate slow back to normal, just a little, as he started climbing down out of the tree, thankfully being careful. As opposed to the wildly careless way he had clambered up the limbs when they first came out here to pick the apricots from their very own apricot tree, in the backyard of their very own house. 

“Yeah, Ellie told me when you and I were first cover dating how amazing of a tree climber you were. And the two separate occasions that you broke your arm. I believe trees were involved both times if my memory serves me right.” She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow as he dropped the rest of the way, landing easily and wiping his hands on his jeans. 

He moved close, his hand resting on her stomach unconsciously. It was a habit he’d picked up over the last month. She didn’t much blame him for it, as she found her own hand there more often than not. Maybe they were both feeling for something, anything, that would cement that this was all real. Evidence that there was a life inside of her, a life she and Chuck had created.

Evidence that things were different than they’d been after she lost everything. After she almost lost everything. She would have lost everything if she had ignored the way she couldn’t get him out of her head when she picked up her spy life again. She would have lost everything if he’d given up on her when she left to figure things out like he’d told her she should. 

Tears came unbidden to her eyes. She hated the random bouts of tears that came with the pregnancy, but she’d learned quickly enough to stop holding back in Chuck’s presence. He sat her down one day and flat out told her to stop. That nobody judged her. That it didn’t make her seem weak to anyone but herself.

So she let them flow, and he gathered her up in his arms, cradling her gently. He was extra gentle with her these days, and she knew it was because he didn’t want to break her or something, and it was such a silly, naive thing for him to do…but she needed less gentle right now. So she squeezed him tight, burying her face in the crook of his shoulder. Chuck seemed to understand as he tightened his arms around her in return. 

“Heyyy…I’m sorry I climbed the tree. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He reached up to tenderly push the wisps of hair that escaped her ponytail back behind her ear, his thumb wiping a tear from her cheek. “Apricots have iron. I don’t want you to get anemia. In those books Ellie sent us, it says pregnant women might get anemia if they don’t have enough iron.”

She giggled wetly, drying her face on his shirt and pulling back. “I’m not crying because you climbed the tree, Chuck. You goof. I’m just crying.”

“Oh, one of your random pregnancy cries. I gotcha. Well, I’m still gonna cuddle you.” And he did.

Her smile died a little, though, as she thought about how many things she still had to remember. Things that hadn’t come back yet. She remembered certain little things, like the conversation she had with Ellie about Chuck’s childhood injuries. Or the time Morgan walked into the kitchen as she was getting orange juice in the middle of the night and practically had a man-child breakdown that she’d had to quickly retreat from in order to save both of them from further awkwardness. She remembered parts of her wedding. Snippets of the trip he said they took on a train from Paris to the alps. 

But she didn’t have everything back. Not yet. There were still a few things she was foggy on. And it upset her more than she let on. She had a feeling it upset Chuck, too, maybe just because she was upset…because it was not enough to change anything. Everything was so good. And she hated that she let what happened two years ago affect her as much as it did…still. 

“Chuck,” she said as they moved across their patio and into the back door of their home. “Give me one.”

He stopped in the middle of the kitchen, then quickly went into the sack he’d taken from her and pulled an apricot out with a closed-mouth smile, holding it up. 

“You know that isn’t what I meant, but…” She reached out her hand. “I actually will take one of those, too.”

She knew he understood immediately what she wanted. It was the way he tensed and clenched his jaw. Just for a moment. 

Nothing escaped either of them, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t stop trying. It almost made her smile.

He tossed her the apricot and she did smile, just a little.

“Alright, uh…” He sighed and ran a hand over the curls he had been growing out. He hadn’t had time to go to a barber in awhile because of Carmichael Industries, the pregnancy, the fact that they were still working on house projects. She’d cut his hair for him numerous times before, but she wasn’t going to offer unless he asked. Because admittedly, she liked his hair a little longer. 

It took him an entire minute before he spoke again, leaning back against the counter and setting the sack down behind him. “It’s your birthday—”

“Yes, I remember that.” He made a face and she shrugged innocently.

“What I was going to say…is that I gave you a birthday present a long time ago. The first one I ever gave you actually. Do you remember?”

She frowned a little, looking off to the side. “I—” Her heart sank a little and she tried not to let it show on her face. “I don’t remember. We were still cover dating?”

“We’d only known each other a few months. It wasn’t your actual birthday because…Well, you wouldn’t tell me your actual birthday. But I was kind of pushy and annoying back then—Don’t even say it, I know you’re going to say something—” She smirked at how well he knew her. “I just didn’t like the idea of not celebrating the fact that you existed, I guess. I wanted you to know I cared. So I gave you a present.”

Her heart thumped madly against her chest as she realized she did remember. Sarah stood up a little straighter and stepped closer. “You did. I just didn’t remember at first because we were talking about my birthday and that wasn’t my actual birthday.”

“I was about four months off, which isn’t half bad considering it was a wild guess.”

She grinned and hugged herself as she remembered him showing up at her hotel room late at night. And how weird it had been that he was there, considering she hadn’t invited him. He’d never shown up like that without being invited. Not that she would have minded. But she’d figured it was his attempt at letting her have a place of her own. Some privacy. A testament to how incredibly thoughtful he was. 

“You showed up at ten thirty on a Wednesday, I think. After your shift at the Buy More. Because I remember you being in your Nerd Herd uniform. Right when I opened the door, you said—”

“Happy Birthday!” he said, in the exact way he’d done it that night. A tinge of sheepishness, the unsure look beneath the warmth in his eyes. “Yeeah, I maybe was a little rash in my planning. As in, there was absolutely no planning involved. Whatsoever.”

Sarah giggled and sat on the edge of the kitchen table. “But you were so cute. And you brought me a plant.”

“I didn’t know you well enough to get you anything else. And at that point, I was not aware of your fondness for gardenias, either, so…gerber daisies it was.”

“You said it was good for air circulation.” She laughed when he let his head tip forward, his chin crashing into his chest as he groaned.

And when he looked back up at her through his eyelashes, he had a wide smile on his face. “So…you passed with flying colors.”

“I did, yeah. This time.” She looked down at her feet, raising her eyebrows and rubbing her arm.

“You know, it’s okay if sometimes you don’t. That doesn’t change anything.”

“I know.” She smiled at him and he pushed off of the counter, walking over to take her hand and pulling her across the room and out of the kitchen. “Where are you taking me?” she asked, her apricot still in hand.

“Upstairs to our bedroom where you will receive your first birthday gift.”

In spite of everything, Sarah Bartowski blushed at the implications, and he must have seen it because he stopped halfway up the stairs and smirked at her. “That, uh, wasn’t what I meant. Though, I mean, I figured that would happen at some point today. I have an actual, you know, physical gift to give you.”

“What I had in mind is pretty physical.”

This time, he blushed. And she grinned cheekily at his back as he tugged her the rest of the way into their bedroom. 

As Sarah opened up her first birthday gift, practically able to feel Chuck vibrating with excitement, she decided Chuck was right. Maybe there were a few things she didn’t remember yet. It was coming back…slowly, sure, but she could handle slow. As long as Chuck was here, in front of her, beside her, behind her, supporting her. 

Whoever this child ended up being, whatever they wanted to be, one thing was for certain, she thought as she opened the photo album Chuck had put together and saw photos of them from the last seven years…along with photos of Ellie and Devon and Morgan, Alex, Casey, their parents, Molly…this child was going to have a fantastic father. And a massive, loving family. Sarah’d had to wait for her massive family, and they were well worth the wait. But this child wouldn’t have to wait. They were all here. Ready.

And whether or not she ever regained all of her memories of those five years that were temporarily stolen from her, she was determined to be the best mother she could be. It took her a bit of time, but she relearned how to be an amazing wife. She was starting from scratch here, learning motherhood one step at a time, with Ellie as her guide.