A/N: From Barstow back to Burbank. Busy, busy. Thanks, as always, to those reading, and to those who've taken the time to review. If you're enjoying it, I'd enjoy knowing it.
So the tenth anniversary of Chuck has come and gone. What a grand show it was (and is)! This story is a tribute to the show for all the pleasures it has given me over the years, by no means the least being the pleasures of reflection. For all its local flaws, Chuck was a remarkably smart and a genuinely instructive show. It was was hopeful, and not in a shallow, optimistic way, but in a deeper, life-affirming way. It was, you might say, metaphysically hopeful. Chuck's posture toward Sarah was always "I hope in you for us" and hers toward him was always the same. (Always? Yes, there's the swamp of S3, but even in that sucking bog, they manage to find each other again.) That's a lesson worth learning, a posture worth taking in your own life toward those you love. For rational finite creatures like us, humans, a good life requires faith, hope, and love, and each of those three requires each of the other two. Chuck got that right (in an uncloistered way, of course).
So let's raise a glass together to a tv show that deserved better than it got, and continues to reward those who find it. Cheers!
I don't own Chuck. A few guitars, some books, some records. A few fountain pens...
CHAPTER 4 Chuck Me!
Chuck was up first the next morning. He found Casey's glass on the counter and washed it. He put it back in the cupboard. He grabbed a couple of bananas and an apple and an orange from a bowl in the kitchen. He peeled them, and, although he could not match Sarah's knife skills, cut them up to make a fresh fruit salad. He washed some grapes from the refrigerator and threw them in. Then he made coffee and boiled some eggs.
Chuck felt bad about walking out on them last night. He did not want handlers. Teammates, sure. Handlers, no. He especially did not want Sarah in that role. But he had been petulant, childish. Sarah hadn't meant what she said the way he took it. He knew that before she said so. He had just been so tired, suddenly, and so fed up with not being able to understand his situation: all of it, her, the book, Casey, mortals, Casters, Houses, her. Things seemed better this morning. He had gotten some sleep. He hadn't had a headache in over a day. The world looked sunnier.
He had everything done and the table set by the time Casey and Sarah joined him, lured by the homey sounds in the kitchen and the smell of hot coffee.
"Good morning, team!" He gestured for them to sit. They did. He did. For a few minutes, the only sound was the sound of silverware against the plates and of the sipping of coffee. "Sorry about last night. I was being a big baby. I appreciate what you both are doing for me. I'll end the petulance."
"It's ok, Chuck. We know this isn't easy for you. We will both try…" Sarah shot a sharp glance at Casey, "...to be more sensitive." Casey grunted unreadably at Chuck. He did nod, though.
"So, what is the plan for today? What do we need to do?"
Sarah looked at Casey.
"Graham and Beckmann have put their heads together. I talked to Beckmann. They've thought of a couple of spells that we can use that may help us understand your powers better, Bartowski. The books we need are upstairs, and my power combined with Sarah's should be enough."
"But that much power? A lot more than a Communication spell. Won't that allow others to figure out where we are? Won't we send up a flare?" Sarah did not seem to like the idea.
"The library upstairs is heavily shielded. Graham wasn't happy revealing that. But he did. So long as we cast only in there, we should be undetectable."
"Are these spells safe, safe for Chuck?" Sarah asked, worried evident on her face.
"Well, you know that no Casting is perfectly safe, either for the Caster or for the object of the spell, Chuck in this case. But these spells are not especially dangerous. They are both scrying spells, although neither requires a crystal ball. We will be careful, Walker."
"Yes, we will." Sarah's lips were set in a firm line.
"It'll take me a couple of hours to get everything ready. Why don't you two take a walk or something? Get him out of my hair, Walker. You know that if he is here he will insist on being upstairs and it will be like setting up a spell in front of a five-year boy."
"Hey," Chuck laughed, "five-year-old sitting right here."
Casey took that as his cue to leave. He grabbed his cup of coffee, refilled it, and headed up the stairs. When he was gone, Chuck turned to Sarah.
"What do you say to a walk? This place is great, but I could use a little fresh air and a stretch of my legs."
Sarah answered with a smile. Chuck gathered up the breakfast dishes and washed them while Sarah returned to her room to shower and change. Twenty minutes later, they were walking together along the inside of the fence line. The late morning sun was warm but not hot. A breeze was blowing. It was a good time to be outside.
They walked in amiable silence for a few minutes before Sarah stopped and turned to Chuck.
"You know, you don't have to let us cast these spells. You don't have to be Graham and Beckmann's guinea pig. We might be able to find out some other way. We have the hint from the Ouija Board. By the way, let's keep that to ourselves for now, if for no other reason than if you tell Casey he will make your life, and probably mine, miserable."
Chuck snickered. "Yeah, I bet he would. I am willing to let you cast the spells. I trust you, Sarah. I know you will keep me safe. And I want to know. I'd like to go home, I'd like to see Ellie and Awesome and Morgan. I'd like to be able to help protect them if that were necessary. Maybe the spells will give me a better understanding of my power, or make me better able to control it."
"Ok, Chuck, then we will do it." Sarah reached out and took hold of one of Chuck's arms for balance, then used her other hand to slip off her sandals. She picked both up by the straps. "You know, you really are tall. I am a tall woman, but unless I am wearing heels, you are quite a bit taller than me. She stepped closer and looked up at him, making her point. Standing there, so close to him, with the sun shining on her hair and the breeze moving wisps of it about, she created a deep ache in Chuck's chest. He slipped the arm she had balanced against around her waist and pulled her to him.
"Sarah, you are lovely, indescribably lovely." As he looked at her, he saw her eyes stray from his eyes to his lips. He put his other arm around her and then kissed her slowly and gently. She dropped her sandals and put both arms up around his neck. After a couple of minutes, she ended the kiss and rested her head on his chest. He kept his arms around her.
"Chuck, I don't know what's happened to me, or how it has happened, or why. I don't know anything except how much I want your arms around me. How much I want to kiss you. No matter what happens from now on, never, ever doubt that again, please. Never doubt that I want to touch you and to be touched by you. To be with you." Sarah said all of this in a small voice, almost a whisper, and said it into his chest. But Chuck heard each word, heard them in his heart, with his heart.
"Sarah...I love you. I know it is too soon to say that; it's crazy to say that. But we don't know what will happen, and I can't stand the thought of you not knowing how I feel. I can't feel something this deeply and truly and not speak it."
Sarah looked up at him, her eyes wet. She held his gaze for a long moment, trembling in his arms, and then closed her eyes and hugged him hard. They moved to stand beneath a tree. They stood for a long time in the shade, beneath the tree and next to the fence, arms around each other, and talked together quietly. Eventually, they saw Casey on the back porch, waving to them to come inside. They walked back to the house hand-in-hand, Sarah still barefoot and carrying her sandals, swinging them in her other hand.
Sarah and Casey stood beside each other and in front of Chuck, who was sitting in a chair. Sarah and Casey joined hands, and then each reached out to take one of Chuck's hands. Casey mumble-grunted some Latin rhymes, and then Chuck felt the library begin to spin. But the three of them were motionless, like an axis around which the room turned. Chuck felt suddenly naked, exposed, and a sensation, like the sensation of being watched (but turned up to eleven), washed over him. It only lasted a few seconds, and then it was gone. The room began to spin more slowly, then it stopped. Casey dropped Chuck's hand, and then Sarah's. She kept Chuck's hand in hers.
Casey went to a book open on the table and paged around in it. Chuck looked up at Sarah and she gave him a reassuring smile.
"This spell was a spell that allowed us to determine if reading The Intersection changed you or harmed you physically. Casey is interpreting the results."
Casey walked back to them.
"He seems fine, physically. No problems. Well, for such a tall guy, he is surprisingly disproportionate…"
Chuck whipped his gaze from Sarah to Casey: "Hey!"
"But he is fine. It does seem like the spell had a physical effect though. His heart is larger, not enlarged, in the sense of a problem, but larger, stronger. His whole circulation system has altered to adjust. I doubt he can tell it during normal exertion, but I suspect it will make him physically stronger, increase his...stamina."
Casey widened his eyes in Sarah's direction when he said this. She blushed.
"Hey! Hey! Short guy seated right here. Use my name and talk to me, Casey." Chuck couldn't look at Sarah. He knew he would call her blush, maybe raise her a few shades of pink.
Casey laughed. He went back and put the book on the table and then made some notes in a small notebook. Sarah and Chuck finally looked at each other, smiling in embarrassment.
"He's going to pay for that," Chuck whispered to her with a quick smile. Sarah nodded firmly and squeezed his hand.
"Ok. Time for the next spell. This is trickier. It is in a sense the same spell, but it scries your psychological state, not your physical one."
Chuck felt hesitant. "Uh, so you both will be able to know what I am thinking?" He glanced nervously up at Sarah. "Everything?"
"Look, numbnuts," Casey growled, addressing first Chuck and then turning an amused look on Sarah, "Everyone here knows what you are thinking...But, no, this does not get at the finer structure of your thoughts. That takes a spell far more powerful and far more dangerous. Think of this as just revealing the...gross anatomy of your psyche." Casey hit the word 'gross' a little extra hard. "The details will not be available, thank God."
"But when you guys use telepathy spells, " Chuck asked, suddenly curious, "isn't that reading minds?"
"No," Sarah explained, "because all that is available telepathically are thoughts you are willing to share. Again, it is like texting, but without a phone. And it does not reveal emotions. This reveals more, although, as Casey said, it does not reveal...everything."
"Oh."
Casey and Sarah did not join hands this time, but they both chanted. The room began to spin again, and Chuck suddenly felt like his mind was...crowded. Like too many people were trying to sit on a small couch. Then he had a sudden, intense period of vertigo. He blacked out.
"Chuck, Chuck!" Sarah was calling his name in some deep canyon. He could hear it echoing off the rocks. "Chuck!"
Suddenly, Chuck regained full consciousness. He was still seated in the chair, but Sarah had her hands around his face and her face, her eyes, close to his. He'd gone from black to blue.
"I'm ok, Sarah. That spell just had...a strange finish."
"Yes, when contact is broken, it sometimes affects people strongly. You're sure you're ok?"
"Yeah, yeah, fine. Well? What did you find out, Casey?"
"The results aren't as clear as I would like. As far as I can tell, your empathy, your capacity to suffer, your emotional sensitivity, they are all...larger. Again, I don't know that you will be able to tell the difference in ordinary situations. But the results suggest that the larger powers are available to kick in. So far as I can tell, all that reading the book did for you is give you even bigger lady feelings."
"Casey!" Sarah warned, doing a good impression of one of Casey's growls.
"Look, I was on the roof," Casey added, "I know that's not all. But we don't know much more than we did when we started. The changes are not dramatic, and they don't go in any direction I would have predicted. The book just made Chuck even more Chuck."
After they had a late lunch, Chuck returned to the game he had been playing the night before. Sarah followed Casey back up to the library, to give more thought to the situation and the result of their earlier spells.
After they had sat down, Casey turned to Sarah. "So, is there anything you know about Bartowski that I don't, anything that would help us to understand what's happened to him?"
Sarah shook her head. Casey narrowed his eyes. "Look, Walker, I understand that you are protecting him. I even understand that you may worry that will mean protecting him from me. It won't, but I understand you worrying about that. If I were protecting someone I felt that way about…" Sarah looked away from Casey for a minute and then turned back.
"Thanks, Casey. I mean, nothing's settled. I'm not sure what is going on between us. Not exactly anyway."
Casey looked skeptical but didn't press the issue. "So there is nothing you need to tell me about your time with him. Things he might have told you? Things you noticed?"
"No."
"But," Casey continued, "you did notice what that second spell revealed, right? Even without the details, that kid is absolutely full of you, Walker. You noticed that I take it?"
Sarah's breath caught in her throat and her eyes watered. "Yes, Casey, yes, I noticed."
"Well, if you don't know what's going on between the two of you, you either had better figure it out, pronto, or you need to tell him that you are confused. Because he is not confused, Walker. Chuck loves you. I have never seen anyone so full of anyone else. If you play him, or if he even thinks you've played him, there is no telling what will happen." Casey's tone had taken on the sound of a warning.
"I. Am. Not. Playing. Him. Is that clear? I know. I know that the way I am makes that seem like it is always a possibility. I can't help that. Well, maybe I can, but it will take time. I have to unlearn a lifetime of habits. But I want to, Casey. I want to be available to him in every way, including emotionally."
"And your hesitancy has nothing to do with him being mortal?"
"No! Nothing. I admit I had never considered...dating a mortal. But not because I was in principle opposed to it, I just had never met a mortal I would consider dating. I've hardly met a Caster I would consider dating."
"Yeah, but what about that? What about Larkin?"
"Well, what about him?"
"Bartowski is no Larkin."
"No, thankfully. The Bryce thing is done. He was a part of my past, but he is not a part of my present or my future. Chuck is part of my present."
"Is he also part of your future?"
"I want him to be, Casey. But I am worried. Not about him, about me. Can I change enough to be the woman he will be happy spending his life with?"
Casey frowned. He couldn't believe he was sitting, talking to Sarah Walker, to Sarah Walker, about her lady feelings. Casey's world had indeed scrambled like an egg, everything mixed up. But, though he wouldn't admit it, he really didn't mind. He was not the hatched-under-a-rock lout that his reputation made him. He had loved and been loved. He even hoped to love again.
"Look, Walker, all I know is that everyone has always agreed: nothing is impossible for Sarah Walker. I don't see any reason to question that. If you want a life with Bartowski, you will have it. We know he wants it. Hell, he's already imagining a white house with a picket fence and a red door. It was everywhere you were. What's up with that?"
Sarah smiled and shrugged. But as she got up, her mind went to what she had revealed to Chuck outside that morning, standing in his arms under the tree, about the home she had always wanted.
Morgan looked at the clock. He had decided that the one sure road to immortality was to be an hourly employee of the Buy More. Time simply did not pass for such folks. The problem was that being an hourly employee of the Buy More meant you got to spend your immortality in hell.
Morgan pulled his phone from his pocket and checked it. No text from Chuck. Nothing from Chuck. Where had the guy gone? Had he shacked up with the beautiful blonde? One part of Morgan hoped so. Goodbye, Jill, and good riddance. But another part of him was nervous. If Chuck and the blonde became a real thing, what room would there be for Morgan in his life? Morgan was Chuck's best friend, but he knew that they were unequally yoked. Sure, Chuck worked at the Buy More too. They had lots of the same interests and hobbies. Still, anyone who spent much time with Chuck had to know he was in the wrong place in the Buy More. He did not belong there. Morgan did. From Morgan's point of view, Chuck's friendship for him was a bit of grace, a favor bestowed on Morgan by a universe that mostly ignored him or gave him the finger. That was ok, though; he had Chuck. The best friend a guy could ever have. Except that he had, apparently, vanished.
Looking at his phone reminded Morgan that what he did have were several text messages from Ellie, Chuck's amazing older sister and Morgan's life-long crush and obsession (although he had been getting over that lately, he had to admit). Ellie had been panicky the morning after Chuck's date, but the panic had been mixed with excitement. Maybe Chuck had finally found someone after all this time. Goodbye, Jill, and good riddance. But when Chuck never came home and was gone the second night, Ellie wanted to call the cops. Morgan talked her down, but if Chuck didn't break radio silence soon, Ellie would turn this into a federal case. While Morgan was staring at the list of text messages on his phone, it rang. He jumped. He did not recognize the number.
"Hey, Morgan. This is Sarah-the woman Chuck met the other day. We went out the other night."
"Oh, right. Hi, Sarah. Sarah, where's Chuck? Everyone's worried, especially Ellie."
"Sorry, Morgan. Chuck's phone is dead and I couldn't get through to Ellie for some reason. Chuck's with me. He, uh, he spent the night after our date, and early the next morning I got a call that my Uncle John was very ill. Chuck offered to come with me, like the sweetheart he is, and so we're staying at John's house, a couple of hours out of the city. Chuck will call you himself soon, but right now he is sitting with my aunt. You know how good he is with people. She's already very attached to him."
"Yeah, yeah, I do. He's the best. He always knows what to say, or knows not to say anything."
"Exactly. Can you call Ellie and let her know. Sorry to have caused you to worry."
"That's ok, Sarah. Tell Chuck I said hello. I will call Ellie right now."
Sarah hung up the burner phone Casey had given her and looked at Chuck. He wasn't happy about lying to Morgan, and through Morgan, to Ellie. She and Casey had told him about The One Ring. He understood that he could not use his own phone and that that he and Sarah needed a cover story to make sense of where they had been and how things would be when they returned. They were about to return.
The situation had changed. One of Beckmann's watchers had found the Caster who had seen Chuck, the man who had survived Sarah's attack in the club. The man had been nosing around the apartment complex where Chuck lived with Ellie. Spells cast after the man had been taken captive revealed he had not contacted anyone in The One Ring. The guy was an ambitious twit who had hoped to capture Chuck himself and thus to rocket up The One Ring's hierarchy.
The plan now was for Sarah and Casey to bring Chuck home, and for Team Bartowski to use the resources of Beckmann's House to try to understand Chuck's powers. Since Chuck and Sarah were now together (even if that 'together' was not well-defined), it was best to cement that bond in Morgan and Ellie's mind. Sarah's calling Morgan for Chuck ought to accomplish that. Sarah would hold onto her apartment, and Casey would take an apartment in the same complex as Ellie and Chuck. Beckmann got Sarah a job at a Deli, Lou's, near the Buy More. For now, Casey would divide his time between a cover job at the Buy More, already arranged by Beckmann, and the Curiosity Shop. So, tonight would be the last night in the ranch house.
After dinner and coffee, Casey had made a production of getting a glass and a bottle of whiskey and, saying twice in a couple of minutes, "Turning in for the night."
Chuck and Sarah sat together on the couch, Chuck's arm resting on the back, behind Sarah but not touching her. Casey's all-too-obvious exit made them both self-conscious. What were they to do now? Sarah turned, putting the knee of one leg on the couch so that she could face Chuck.
"I should tell you something, Chuck. But I don't want to embarrass you or make you feel like I have (like we have) violated your privacy. When we cast the second spell, we couldn't scry details, like Casey said. But I was...everywhere...in your psyche. There was no way that either of us could fail to notice. I wanted to tell you, because I didn't want you to think I had taken advantage of you, knowing so much about what, uh, who is on your mind."
Sarah smiled sheepishly and waited.
"So you found yourself everywhere in my psyche? That's ok, Sarah, I am not embarrassed. Not much, anyway. I told you earlier today that I loved you. So isn't that in effect what I told you? That you are everything to me and everywhere in me? Isn't that what love is? You didn't see anything that I had not told you about already. I guess I just told you I love you in a different way during the spell."
"Chuck!" Sarah said his name like a prayer. She reached for him and pushed him down on the couch. She was prone on top of him and held his eyes with hers. "Chuck, I want to make love to you. But I don't want to confuse you or to confuse me. I want a future with you. I have every confidence in your part of that future. I don't have every confidence in mine. That's not because I am of two minds about a future with you, or because I have some reservation about a future with a mortal. It's because of my past; because of the girl I was and the woman I have come to be. I don't know if that woman has a place in any future that you deserve. So, I am not going to make love to you. I want to, so much. Look at me and know that is true. I can...I can plainly feel how much you want to. 'With the rich and mighty, always a little patience.' Let me work this out, work it out with you. Take me to your bed and hold me again, the way I woke up with you holding me in Barstow. Then tomorrow let's go back to Burbank and work out a future together."
Sarah pushed herself up and stood. Chuck stood too, then quickly reached down to pick Sarah up. She laughed into his shoulder. He walked with her into the bedroom and he saw a funny look in her eyes.
"What is it?"
"Nothing."
"No, really. What?"
"I'm looking forward to seeing Casey tomorrow, so I can tell him you are tall all over."
Sarah reveled in the thought of last night. It was wonderful. The motel was a surprise, unplanned, revelatory, but also disappointing. Last night, though, they went to bed and held each other. They talked about the last few days. Chuck told her about Morgan, and Morgan's role in helping him survive his mother walking out on him and Ellie. Sarah even told him a little about her childhood, enough for Chuck to have a sense of just how painful and shameful she found it. He didn't push, and she didn't offer much, but it was a start. Chuck rolled onto his back and Sarah fit herself against his side, her head on his chest. They basked in each other, in their closeness. After a little bit, before Sarah fell asleep, Chuck said her name softly.
"Sarah."
"Mmm...yes?"
"Sarah, on the roof. Two things happened that I haven't told you." He felt Sarah stiffen slightly in his arms, but she did not move otherwise. "I was able to draw power from the moon; I did draw power from it. And when you and Casey were beginning to fight, I could see you surrounded by a pale blue glow, and Casey by a pulsating red one."
Sarah did not say anything. "Does that mean anything to you?"
"Why did you wait to tell me?"
"At first, I was just too confused to sort anything out. I thought maybe I had been dreaming. And then I wanted to understand all this better before I blurted it out. I wanted to understand us better. The longer I waited, the harder it became to tell you. I now have the feeling that it means something, but I have no idea what. But I am not going to keep things from you anymore. No secrets, no lies. Please don't be mad at me."
"Thanks, Chuck. I'm not mad." He felt the stiffness leave her. "No secrets, no lies. It does mean something, but I am glad you told only me. We will have to tell Casey soon, though. I don't know what to say about it, except this. You have done something no mortal is able to do: read The Intersection. You can communicate telepathically. You have apparently attracted the attention of a legendary Caster long thought dead, Orion. You have also done something no mortal and no male Caster has ever done, drawn power from the moon. And you have done something that only the greatest of Caster Seers has ever done, seen the uncreated light that surrounds those with power. You, Chuck Bartowski, are breaking down all the barriers that give shape to my world. If I didn't love...If I didn't care about you so much, I think I would be afraid of you."
"I could say the same thing, you know, Sarah."
She was silent for a moment. "Yes, I know."
The next morning Sarah was the last one to leave the ranch house. Chuck was in the passenger seat of his car. Casey had already left. Sarah lingered in Chuck's room after he left. She wanted to remember waking up there earlier, waking up knowing she would be with Chuck. She wanted to remember the undemanding, loving way he had held her. She wanted to remember them whispering in the dark. She wanted to remember. It was a start.
She ran her hand down the length of the made bed. She did not want to go back to an apartment, but she couldn't very well come back to town with Chuck and just move in with him. That would be too fast for Ellie, not to mention too cramped. But it would also be too fast for her and Chuck. They were able to make it through last night. It had not been easy for either of them, as wonderful as it had been. And she was not going to expect Chuck, or expect herself, to remain in control indefinitely. She'd have to figure out how to manage all this without driving them both loopy with desire.
Casey had said that Beckmann wanted to meet with them that evening, to let them know all that she knew about The One Ring. Evidently, over the past couple of days, Beckmann had also fashioned a kind of base of operations for Team Bartowski, since running the Team out of The Curiosity Shop was not practicable. Beckmann's plan seemed to be to pit Team Bartowski against The One Ring. It was the kind of work Sarah knew well, the kind of thing that she mostly did for Graham. Speaking of Graham, he had lent Sarah to Beckmann for a while, to be part of the Team.
Sarah turned and looked at the room one last time. She hugged herself and made a promise: She and Chuck would soon have a bed of their own. She closed the door.
Sarah pulled the Toyota into traffic as they began their trip back to LA. It was another sunny day. She felt good, hopeful, even knowing how much uncertainty surrounded her and Chuck. For the first time in a long time, she was doing something not just because of duty or orders, but because her heart was in it, in this case, fully in it. Had she ever done anything because her heart was fully in it? She could hardly remember. But if she had, it almost had to go back to her childhood days. Some degree of self-division seemed to be present from around the time she and her father hit the road together. She had wanted that, wanted it badly, at first. Soon, though, even as young as she was, she began to recognize that something was off. She hadn't liked being taught to think of everyone but her father as a mark, as someone potentially to con or gull. She had wanted to make friends, but couldn't, when everyone's parents were fair game to her dad. That knowledge kept a distance between herself and her friends, so much of a distance that they never seemed really her friends, but more like pretend-friends. But keeping the distance between herself and them had the consequence of creating distance between herself and herself. She sometimes seemed like she had only a pretend-self.
It had been years since she had allowed herself to think about any of these things. But the changes in her Chuck created had made her feel like she needed to think about them. She had even told Chuck some of this last night. She could hardly believe it was her, her own voice small and shaky, sharing some of these painful things as she was wrapped in his arms. She felt warm all over remembering that, even remembering her confessions. Maybe, just maybe, if she could talk about some of this dark stuff it would lose its hold on her. She would feel lighter. She already did.
"Sarah, they are coming."
Sarah whipped her head around. Chuck's head was back, his eyelids fluttering, and his voice sounded just as it had on the roof. Sarah did not wait to react. She pushed the accelerator to the floor and swung the car into the left lane of the highway. In her rearview mirror, still at a distance, she saw two black SUVs. She knew such cars; they were a part of her life. Heavy, armored, with powerful engines. They would eventually close the distance.
Chuck still seemed to be entranced, but he was showing signs of coming around. "Sarah," Chuck's voice was almost normal again, "they are here to kill you and to capture me. I know that, somehow."
"Ok, Chuck. That isn't going to happen. Our only advantage is that those things behind us are as spry as Panzer tanks. Hold on."
Sarah pushed the car to its limits. They sped past other cars, weaving deftly and exactly from lane to lane. Chuck's head had cleared, but he had a horrid headache. He looked behind them. They still had some distance on the SUVs. It wouldn't last long, though.
"Uh, Sarah, you've got a plan, right?"
Sarah shot him a quick smile. "Open the glove compartment and get me the gun."
Chuck did. "How did this get in here?"
"I put it in the other night when I took a turn around the farm. Spells are great, but lead will help in a bind. Hold onto that until I ask for it."
Sarah slipped past a tractor-trailer and then pulled into the lane in front of it, slowing down to match her speed to it, so that she was only about a car length ahead of it. She partially left her lane, straddling the white line at the edge of the road. She held her position and began to chant. Almost immediately the first SUV went speeding past the semi. The driver did not see them until he was more or less even with them. Sarah finished her chant and yelled for Chuck to take the wheel. He did. She turned in the seat and made a gesture like she was pushing the SUV away. Chuck felt the power roll of her in waves. The side of the SUV caved in as the car went airborne. It landed in the median and flipped a couple of times before coming to a stop, in a shower of metal and glass and plastic.
Sarah grabbed the wheel. Chuck watched her shoulders sag.
"That took a lot out of you, didn't it."
"I don't think I can do it a second time." Sarah gunned the car. The second SUV had held back, in no hurry to face the same onslaught that had claimed the first.
"They've got a problem. They want to capture you. So their options are limited. They can't try to do to us what I did to them. They're going to try to force us off the road, force us to stop somehow. If they can get us out of the car, they can try to deal with us separately."
"How can we lose them?"
"We need to do something they can't. Hang on tight, Chuck!" Sarah swung into the leftmost lane and hit the brakes. There was a crossover coming up, and after it, into the far distance, the median was unnavigable. If they could make the turn, the SUV would not be able to follow. They could almost certainly escape. Sarah timed the braking and the turn of the wheel perfectly. The little car dipped and swung onto toward the cross-over. But, at just that instant, the front tire blew. Sarah lost control of the car. They bounced wildly through the cross-over and into the oncoming traffic. A semi was heading toward them and there was no way that they could avoid it. Chuck screamed Sarah's name.
[And suddenly they were sharing the space of the semi. They passed through it or it passed through them. Everything was translucent, wispy. There was no sound.]
And then the car was stopped on the wide berm on the opposite side of the road. Sarah looked at Chuck. He was slumped over in his seat, held upright by his seat belt. His nose was bleeding. He was breathing. Sarah hit the accelerator and the car shot forward. She could tell from the response of the steering wheel that the blown tire was somehow whole again. She sped out of the median into a gap in traffic and shot down the freeway. They had escaped.
Sarah took the first exit she felt was safe. She wound impatiently through side streets until she found a parking deck. She drove in and found an empty spot in a dark section of the second floor. She stopped the car and turned off the ignition.
Chuck was still slumped in his seat. He had not regained consciousness. His nosebleed had stopped, but not before it made a mess of his face and his neck and shirt. Sarah grabbed her bag from the backseat and pulled out a blouse. She carefully wiped his face, getting as much of the blood off him as she could. Not too much of the blood had soaked through his shirt into his undershirt, so she unbuttoned it and worked it off him.
As she did that, he began to revive. His eyes opened a bit. He was clearly disoriented. He looked at Sarah. "Pretty. So pretty. Blue, blue, you and all around you…"
"Chuck. Chuck, are you ok. Are you hurt."
His eyes focused and opened more. He looked around him and then back at her.
"Where are we, Sarah? Is it nighttime?"
"No, no, Chuck. I stopped in a parking garage. It's dark in here. You've been unconscious maybe twenty minutes."
"What happened? I just remember thinking that I had to save you. And then nothing."
"Chuck, you somehow moved us through the semi all the way to the opposite side of the road. And, just for good measure, you fixed the tire."
Chuck smiled. "I did? Dad taught me."
"No, Chuck, not that way. You just...thought it fixed, and it was fixed."
He looked like he only half-understood. Sarah's panic, held at bay for so long, suddenly gripped her. She began to cry and to have a hard time catching her breath. Chuck took her hand and rubbed the back of it.
"It's ok, Sarah. I'm ok. You're ok. But my head is pounding. Can we stop for aspirin?"
She nodded. She sat there for a few minutes, concentrating on the feeling of his hand on hers and on regularizing her breathing. Then she started the car. After a stop at a gas station, where Chuck cleaned up in the restroom while she bought them aspirin and bottles of water, they made their way back to LA. Sarah had gotten a look at the Caster in the passenger side of the car she destroyed. She had seen that man before. She was pretty sure she knew where she had seen him. The memory made her blood run cold.
Sarah drove to the Buy More. She was worried about taking Chuck home or to her apartment. But she also needed to talk to Casey and to Beckmann. They had a big problem.
{Casey!}
{Yeah, Walker. Where are you?}
{In the parking lot outside the Buy More. You?}
{I'm in Cave, beneath it. Beckmann found it and her folks worked overtime to make it...hospitable.}
{How do we get there?}
{Probably best to drive around to the loading bay. Come in the back and go into the employee break room. Touch the wall next to the lockers.}
{Ok. See you in a minute.}
Sarah stepped onto the stairs that appeared when the break room wall disappeared. Chuck followed her, his eyes big in his head. The steps were stone and clearly freshly cut. Small orbs of light dotted the wall, but a large central orb supplied most of the illumination. In the large central chamber, there was a stone table surrounded by wooden chairs. Against the wall at the end of the table were several large monitors with computer stations beneath them. On the wall to one side of the table was another table, with a bowl of water like the one Chuck has seen in the ranch house library. Beside that table was a bookcase stuffed with ancient-looking volumes. The wall on the other side of the table had two openings in it, and Chuck could see that each lead into a passageway dotted with orbs like the ones beside the stairs.
"Has this always been here?" Chuck asked in hushed awe.
"Of course not, moron." Casey shook his head in disbelief. Beckman found the central cavern with an earth-scrying spell. She sent a team of Caster Builders and they created the place. It took a bunch of them and all the power they had. They worked through the night and brought in the hardware after the place was empty. Damned impressive job."
"Yeah, yeah, " Chuck agreed breathily, still staring around him, "and so this is for us, Team Bartowski."
"Yes. But don't plan on buying Team t-shirts."
Sarah had gone to the table and touched the water in the bowl, then touched her forehead. In a moment, an image of Beckmann floated above the water. "Sarah, you've made it. I trust your trip was uneventful?"
"No, it was eventful, unfortunately," Sarah told the story of what happened on the road. As it ended, Casey was staring at Chuck in disbelief. Beckmann looked somehow both excited and nauseated.
"One other thing," Sarah said as she wrapped up the report, "I saw one of the men in the SUV that wrecked. I have seen him before. He belonged, belongs, to the Belgian's House."
Beckmann's nausea now clearly eclipsed her excitement. "But, Sarah, that can't be. That House was destroyed, all its members are dead or worse. No one belongs to that House. There are no members. There is no House."
"I saw what I saw. I'm sure, dead sure. Could the Belgian be the ultimate source of The One Ring?"
"If he is still alive, anything is possible. Let's hope not. No Caster other than Orion has ever been as powerful as the Belgian. I am going to have to talk to Graham and to the heads of the other Houses. If the Belgian is still alive, something is rotten in Denmark."
Chuck laughed out loud, but the look he got from Sarah and Casey told him that Beckmann was not trying to be funny.
"Uh, sorry."
"We will return to this topic soon. Right now, I want to know more about what you did, Bartowski. How did you do it?"
Chuck shrugged in ignorance.
"Sarah, did he teleport you from one side of the road to the other?"
"No. The few times I have teleported, the translation was nearly instantaneous. I was one place, I was then in another. But whatever Chuck did, the translation was in real time, I experienced it as it happened. We were still in time but not..or not exactly...in space. I could see the truck as we passed through it, but it had become...well, almost hologram-like. There was no sound. It was sort of like being in slow motion, although I don't think we were. It's hard to describe."
"Well, I will put our Seers to work on it. Do you have anything to add, Bartowski?"
"Um, I don't know. All I am sure of is that when these things have happened, when I have done something, I have only had an end, a goal, in mind. I imagined no means to the end. But I wanted the end, and my power supplied the means. I wonder if that shows that my power is a power for obtaining things that I want, or want badly enough, or want for the right reasons. I don't know, I'm new to all this."
"No, Bartowski, that is actually a quite cogent bit of speculation. Maybe we have been thinking about this the wrong way. Instead of thinking of your power as a means that can accomplish various ends, maybe we should think of it as a certain kind of desire for a certain kind of end that then creates the means to it. Less like, say, having a car and then trying to decide where you want to go, and more like wanting to go to a particular place and having that want create a way to get there. That's what you have in mind, right?"
"Yes, sir. I mean, ma'am. I mean, may I call you Beckmann?"
Beckmann actually smiled just a bit at that. "Yes, Chuck. I told you my name when I hired you, remember?"
"Oh, yeah. That just seems so long ago."
"Yes, it does. One last question. How did you know the SUVs were coming? How did you know the plan to kill Sarah and capture you?"
"Again (and I'm sorry) I don't know. I just got a feeling, and then I knew what was they were planning."
"Ok. Well, we all have lots to do. I will check in with you tomorrow morning at 9 am. I should have a plan for a first operation against The One Ring by then. And maybe I will know more about the Belgian."
Ellie was home when Chuck and Sarah finally got to the apartment complex. Chuck was overjoyed to see her. He practically sprinted to her after he unlocked the door and saw her sitting on the couch. She stood and threw her arms around him.
Sarah was struck at once by the similarities. They were both attractive, dark hair, dark eyes. The intelligence of each shone through their eyes, as did their fundamental kindness.
But as Ellie opened her eyes after squeezing Chuck hard, Sarah could see that the kindness gave way to curiosity and...a hint of suspicion. That hint seemed a stranger to Ellie's eyes. She certainly did not have a suspicious nature, Sarah realized. But it was there.
Chuck unwound his arms from his sister and stepped back so that Ellie could see Sarah.
"Ellie, this is Sarah." Chuck could barely contain himself. Even knowing that Ellie was going to be angry with him, he was so excited for his sister and Sarah to meet. He knew they would like each other, and he knew, once Ellie got over being angry, that she would be overjoyed for him. He just wished he could tell her everything.
Ellie walked to Sarah and looked at her with a disconcertingly appraising look.
"So you are the woman who has turned my brother upside-down? I understand that now." Ellie opened her arms and suddenly Sarah was getting squeezed as Chuck had. Sarah wanted to squeeze Ellie back, but the hug happened so suddenly she had no time to react. Ellie stepped back and looked at Sarah again. "I don't know that I have ever met a woman as beautiful as you are, Sarah. Are you an actress, a model?" The way Ellie said 'actress' and 'model' made it clear that Ellie was hoping for a negative answer in both cases.
"No, neither. Although I am flattered you think I could be either. No, I am at the moment working at a sandwich shop near the Buy More. Lou's. Do you know it?"
"Oh, sure! And I know Lou a bit. She's had a bit of a thing for this guy for a while, " Ellie said, tilting her head in Chuck's direction, "but I could never get him to ask her out. She even named a sandwich after him. But my brother! The woman eats The Chuck Bartowski every day at lunch, and Chuck is too diffident to ask her out." Ellie said all of this in a breathless rush. Again, this was not the way she ordinarily talked, Sarah could tell: she was relating all this for Sarah's benefit, to see Sarah's reaction. Knowing that did not allow Sarah to prevent her reaction. She felt herself tense and could feel pink spots on her cheeks. The truth was that what Ellie told her made her chest tight and made her cheeks burn. Jealousy flamed through her. Her boss wanted Chuck? That was going to complicate things. Sarah tried to regroup.
"Oh, well, I don't know Lou well, or the menu. I really haven't even started yet. I just moved here and am still getting...established."
"Well," Ellie said, with a smile that appeared only on her lips, "you seem to have moved in quickly."
"I didn't bring much with me," Sarah said, knowing that would provoke puzzlement in Ellie. It did. "I met Chuck just after I got hired. My phone wasn't working and he fixed it. We had a great time the other night, " Sarah blushed at the way that sounded, though of course what Ellie would think that meant was not what it meant, "and (as I hope Morgan explained) I got a call the next morning that my favorite uncle was seriously ill. I was so upset, but I wanted to go to see him, and Chuck volunteered to take me. He made it all so much better. And my uncle seems to be on the road to a full recovery. I'm really sorry that we made you worry. We would have called today, but we knew we'd be home soon. And we couldn't get Chuck's phone to work, and mine would barely get a signal. I probably need to change carriers now that I live here." Sarah finished with a repentant smile, asking for Ellie's forgiveness.
Ellie, though, was not in a mood to forgive yet, although Sarah's visible jealousy at the information about Lou had gotten rid of the hint of suspicion in Ellie's eyes. "I still don't understand how technical difficulties could have kept Lord Nerd Herd here," Ellie again tilted her head at Chuck but kept her gaze on Sarah, "from being able to get in touch with me directly. But, seeing you, I guess I can not only understand, I even think it likely that he would short-circuit for a day or two. Ok. No harm, no foul. But you should both apologize to Devon too. He loves Chuck, and I think he was as worried as I was."
Ellie turned back to Chuck. He walked to her and gave her another hug. "Thanks, sis. Sorry. We'll apologize to Devon."
Sarah had spent the hour before her shift started at Lou's talking with Chuck and Casey and Beckmann. There was no new information on the Belgian, but Beckmann was clearly more convinced today than yesterday that he was still alive and somehow in the picture. She said it was just a hunch, but that it kept growing stronger.
The Seers tasked with working on the nature of Chuck's powers were doing just that, but they had as yet no theories to offer. Beckmann did have a task for Team Bartowski. The Caster who had been caught sneaking around Chuck's apartment complex had been sponsored for the House of Beckmann by a Caster named Shaw. At the mention of the name, Casey grunted forcefully. Everyone turned to him.
"Shaw's an ass. As stiff as a Ken doll and just as anatomically incorrect."
"Shaw has an exemplary record as a member of the House, Casey. But, even so, I find it puzzling that he would have sponsored this man. Shaw's permanent residence is a penthouse downtown."
Chuck whistled. "Rich, huh?"
"Family money," Casey growled. "He inherited it from his wife when she was murdered. The last I knew, he was spending all his free time on a bent quest to avenge his wife."
"Well, I want you to visit his penthouse. I have scheduled a meeting between him and an informant for later tonight. The informant claims to have information on the murder of his wife. The information is genuine, but it will turn out to be information Shaw already has. The meet is on the other side of town. You should have at least an hour to scour the place. See if you can find anything that links Shaw to The One Ring or to the Belgian."
Sarah had to hustle from Cave to the deli. When she got there, Lou poured them both a cup of coffee and had Sarah sit down. She had Sarah fill out some paperwork. They talked about the schedule Sarah would prefer, and then talked about policies. Lou clearly took two things very seriously: the quality of what she sold and the satisfaction of her customers. She explained that the shop was usually a madhouse from 11 am-2 pm. Mornings and afternoons were much slower. The shop opened at 7 am and closed at 4 pm. Lou stressed several times that even during lunch, especially during lunch, it was important to get orders right and to be sure customers were happy.
That last was a lot to demand, but it was one of the reasons that lunch was a madhouse. If the madhouse were not managed correctly, the deli would never survive. Pastries, cakes and coffee and so on helped to keep the doors open, but it was the sandwiches sold at lunch that did the heavy lifting.
For the next hour, Lou showed Sarah around the shop and then had Sarah make a couple of sandwiches, so that she could begin to get used to where the ingredients were and so on. Lou set the sandwiches aside for her and Sarah to eat after the lunch rush.
Sarah was disposed not to like Lou after what Ellie had told her. But Sarah couldn't help liking her once in her presence. She was smart, funny and pretty. And tiny, but clearly mighty. Sarah really couldn't seriously fault Lou for finding Chuck attractive. Lou didn't know that Sarah was in the picture. Sarah wondered how things would go after Lou knew.
It turned out that question was not long getting answered. As Lou and Sarah finished up, Chuck came in. He had a piece of paper in his hand and a wad of cash. He had come with lunch orders for folks at the Buy More. He had come early to beat the rush. He had also come, Sarah could tell from his glances at her, because he just couldn't stay away. That made Sarah smile.
When Lou saw Chuck, she quickly came around from behind the counter. She grabbed the paper from Chuck's hand and gave it to Bob, who Lou had introduced as the world's fastest sandwich maker. Bob set to work. Lou called out to Sarah.
"Sarah, let me introduce you to the inspiration for my best sandwich."
Sarah walked around the counter. She could tell that Chuck was unsure how to handle the situation. He would follow Sarah's lead.
"Hi, Chuck! I didn't expect to see you until later."
Confusion crossed Lou's face.
Chuck, unable to help himself, shot Sarah a wide smile. "Hey, Sarah. Well, the Buy Morons were hungry and I decided to get sandwiches before the whole place fell into a cannibalistic frenzy. Can't have the Nerd Herd eating its own young."
Sarah laughed and then realized that Lou was trying to catch up. Chuck noticed it too.
"Oh, Lou, Sarah here, she is...uh, my…"
"Girlfriend, Chuck. That's the word you are looking for." Sarah shot him a quick, meaningful and happy glance. She wanted him to know that was the right term: 'girlfriend'. I am Chuck Bartowski's girlfriend.
Just as that thought sent a rush of warmth through Sarah's core, it chilled Lou's. Her face fell.
"You two are...an item? But, I thought...I hoped…Um, I'm happy for you guys. You make a striking couple. Do want to take a break, Sarah?"
Sarah misunderstood for a moment, and she frowned. Then she understood. She also realized she would be doing Lou a favor since Lou was looking for some way out of the predicament.
Sarah reached demurely for Chuck's hand and led him outside to one of the small tables. They sat down, and Chuck glanced back into the shop sympathetically. Sarah fell for him again in that moment.
"You just have to let her get used to the idea, Chuck. She had other plans for you. That sandwich wasn't just her being nice, it was her way of granting you her favor, of marking you as her intended."
"Really?"
"Why would you find that hard to believe? She's a smart, impressive woman. Why wouldn't she want you?" When Chuck shrugged helplessly, Sarah put her hand on his chin, forcing him to look at her. "You know, Chuck, this weird 'league' thing that you and Morgan like so much, "She's out of my league!", and so on, all that is just so much crap. Even worse, it is borderline misogynistic crap, although I know you don't mean it to be. Look, a woman is as fully a person as a man, I am as fully a person as you. Do you only care about a woman's looks, Chuck?"
"No, I don't."
"So why would you believe that a woman you like for more than her looks couldn't like you for more than yours? Why would she have to be more superficial than you are? Or are you wrong when you say that you don't only care about a woman's looks?"
"No, I am not wrong."
"You like me for more than my looks?"
"Yes."
"But you also like my looks?"
"Yes."
"I like you for more than your looks, but I like your looks. So unless you secretly think all women are superficial, or unless you really are superficial yourself, you should recognize that someone (me, for instance) could care for you in a way that involves no thoughts about 'leagues'. And if we are going to have to use baseball metaphors, I am in a league of my own, Chuck, and so are you; and, I don't know about you, but I'm all in favor of interleague play."
Chuck sat in rebuked silence for a moment, then recognized her joke and laughed.
"Hi-ho! Batter up!" He leaned in quickly and stole a kiss.
"Chuck!"
The rest of the day with Lou was strained, but not bad. Lou had been watching them through the window, Sarah knew that Lou had been watching, and she knew that Lou saw what Sarah saw too. Every look and gesture of Chuck's was a look and a gesture of a man in love. Lou was a good person; she wanted Chuck to be happy. She had hoped to be an important source of that happiness, but she wasn't going to begrudge him his happiness because she wasn't involved. Sarah could see this all playing across Lou's features when she thought no one was watching.
For her part, Sarah was sorry for Lou, or at least as much as she could be consistent with her own happiness. The jealousy Sarah felt had gone dormant. She wanted to get along with Lou. She hoped that this would not prevent them from becoming friends. As the day came to an end, Lou and Sarah walked out of the deli together. Lou stopped.
"Sarah?"
"Yes, Lou?"
"How long have the two of you been together?"
"Not long. Really just a few days, I guess. It's all pretty new still."
"What's it like? Being Chuck's girlfriend?"
Sarah never talked much, if at all, about her emotions, although she had certainly been doing a lot more of that in the last few days, even with Casey. Sarah was beginning to understand that part of having proper emotions was avowing them, to yourself at least, and sometimes to others. She looked at Lou. The question seemed motivated by a genuine curiosity, with perhaps an admixture of regret.
"Lou, I don't want you to think I am rubbing this in your face. I'm not. I like you and I hope the fact of Chuck doesn't prevent us from getting to know each other and maybe becoming friends. That said, it wouldn't be fair to you or fair to Chuck except to tell you the truth. Being Chuck's girlfriend is great, the best thing that has ever happened to me. It's...magical, really. Chuck is a great guy."
"I think so too," Lou confessed, "I had been hoping for a while that he was interested in me. I guess I sort of knew he wasn't, or wasn't seriously. I mean, if you name a sandwich after a guy and he still doesn't ask you out, that's got to be a sign, right? But I have gotten to know him and I not only like him, I admire him and am protective of him. The way he looks at you...I would have given a lot to be the one he looks at like that. Don't hurt him, Sarah."
Sarah reached over and took Lou's hand. "I am not planning on it, " she said softly. "For what's it's worth Lou, I know I am the lucky one."
"Yes, you are lucky, Sarah. But from what I have seen today, so is he. And just so you know, having to watch the two of you together is a little like falling into a cotton candy machine, all soft and pink and sickening."
They both laughed and Lou squeezed Sarah's hand. "I think we will be friends, Sarah."