A/N1 Forward, let's hope.

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Don't own Chuck.


ACT III

CHAPTER EIGHT

Din and Prodigality


Ellie was tapping her foot. Beckman had called her after Casey. Morgan was drumming his fingers on the desk. It wasn't enough that the bad guys, whoever they were, were after Sarah, the damn good guys were after her too. Ellie stopped her foot.

Were there really any good guys in the spy world? She knew there were, but they were few and far between, hard to identify, and getting harder all the time.

Beckman had talked to Carina, who had borrowed a phone from the trucker who gave her a ride. Beckman explained to Ellie that Sarah had compelled Carina from the car, leaving her on the roadside. In spite of all the craziness and the desperation, Ellie smiled to herself. If everyone got through all this, Carina was going to have a hard time living down the fact that a memory-challenged Sarah had twice gotten the best of her.

Ellie chuckled to herself for a second. She had a sudden image of Carina lifting her skirt a little, like Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night, revealing some leg to get a ride.

So now it was Chuck and Sarah again, Sarah and Chuck, but she had no memories, just a faulty Intersect, and he had memories and the pristine Intersect. How was that going to go? The two of them could never catch a break. Never.

She glared at Morgan. He stopped drumming. She went back to work on the computer, hoping she could figure out what might have happened to Sarah. All the lights of Castle were off except for the one that created the island of light in which she and Morgan were seated. Ellie's foot started tapping again; Morgan's fingers started drumming.

Tap, tap, drum, drum.

ooOoo

Sarah made herself forget Chicken Pepperoni and remember the man driving the car. "Why is Burbank a bad idea? Start the story wherever you want."

Chuck took a moment. "Because the man who did this to you-the memory thing-he is still after you. And because the government has started a countdown to issuing a termination order on you. You've been tagged 'Beyond Salvage'. It is due to go into effect in about a day and a half."

Sarah kept her face expressionless. "So, the CIA wants me...dead?"

"Not just the CIA...a Committee...powerful, secret...that Committee gave the order. But the CIA, the NSA, some bowl of Frosted Alphabits, whoever, will enforce it."

"And...the man who did this to me...you know who he is?" Sarah could feel dread encroaching. She wanted the name and she did not want it.

"Yeah, his name is Nicholas Quinn."

Sarah's body arched in pain, violent, intense, and Chuck called out her name. But then she sank back into her seat, blinking rapidly, her hand to her forehead.

"Sarah, are you ok?"

She gulped and nodded. "Yes, I think so, but let's...not mention that name again anytime soon."

"No problem. Are you sure you are ok?" He looked like he wanted to pull over, but Sarah waved the gun vaguely at him. Then she nodded, the motion tentative, testing. Finally, she nodded again, with more confidence. "How...Why...would that man do this to me?"

Chuck thought. Sarah could see that he was trying to organize his thoughts.

"The how and the why are the same, really. It has to do with a top-secret piece of government intelligence. The piece isn't exactly a physical item-it is a program, a program that allows for the uploading of data and skills into the mind of a person, ideally…" Sarah felt an undercurrent of bitterness, "...into the mind of a spy. The technology brought you to Burbank, to me...to our Team. The...uh...program ended up in my head…"

"So you got it by...accident?"

Chuck shook his head. "No, not exactly…"

"Oh, so it was a mistake?"

Head shake again: "No, not exactly…Let's just say I didn't understand what I was doing when I got the Intersect. I didn't choose it. It sorta chose me…"

Sarah shook her head, trying to get the story to make some sense. Maybe it was her, maybe she didn't make sense, but she thought it was the story. "So you have that government... whatzit program in your head?"

"No. Yes. Not exactly."

"Can you please stop saying 'not exactly'?"

"Not ex...uh...yeah. Yeah, I can. Sorry, Sarah." When he finished, his eyes stretched a bit and she saw him glance at her in the mirror. His tone had been different, strangely familiar, intimate. She knew that phrase coming from those lips.

"Do you apologize to me a lot? I mean did you apologize to me a lot?"

Sarah put the gun barrel back against his head. But then she started absently rubbing it in his hair. She didn't wait for him to answer her, she just softly asked out another question, almost absentmindedly: "Is your hair curly when it is longer?"

And then it came together for her.

She liked him.

I like you, Chuck.

An echo of something.

Her teammate. Not just liked him but liked-liked him. (Really? High school emotional terminology? Oh, well, she was memory-challenged.) But she was married, and so was he. At least, he had been. Had they…?

Oh, God, she hoped not. No. Surely not. Cheater was not a role she would play. But did he like her? He acted as if he did. Yes, he did. Maybe that was why this was awkward…

...Well, other than the whole you-are-my-hostage-but-I-have-no-memory thing.

Maybe they'd been dancing around their mutual attraction?

But her surety weakened. She knew she was drawn to him. She thought he was drawn to her. But her attraction to him did not feel...out of bounds...like it was some sort of cheat. It felt right.

How could that be?

The whole thing maddened her.

"How long were we on this team?"

He was about to answer one of her questions when the car jolted. Sarah spun in her seat. Through the rear window, she could see the front of a heavy van as it closed to ram into them again. A van. Another flash of pain.

"Chuck, go!"

The car bolted forward and swerved at the same time. Chuck had changed lanes to go around an old sedan in front of them.

Sarah heard the answering roar of the van's engine as it sped up. The distance Chuck had put between them and the van allowed Sarah to look back through their rear window and the windshield of the van. She could see two men. She remembered neither (for what that was worth).

Maybe they could outrun the van. "Faster, Chuck, maybe we can lose them!"

Chuck floored the pedal. The car engine began to scream. Sarah stared, transfixed, as Chuck wove the car through the traffic, the angles perfect, the timing almost...electronic. The Intersect. She was witnessing it for the first time...the first time she could remember.

Gunshots.

The rear window glass shattered, small diamonds of glass showered Sarah. She fired back, both hands on her gun. She missed the driver, but forced him to swerve, nearly hitting a car in the other lane. The van slowed for a second and the distance between them and the van increased for a moment.

Cars jetted past, roaring.

Horns.

More gunshots.

The din added to Sarah's headache. She crouched in the rear seat. Suddenly, she was thrown into the floor; Chuck had whipped the car onto an exit.

"What are you doing, Chuck?"

"Too many people could get hurt. I know this exit, we...I stopped here before...a while ago...on the way to San Diego. It leads to an old industrial park. We can lose them there. Anyway, no one will get hurt."

Sarah watched, still stunned, as Chuck arced the car through the stoplight at the end of the ramp, running the red light and screaming, shooting between cars like he was threading a needle. She made herself look back at the van, away from Chuck.

The van had gotten caught at the light, had to slow almost to a stop, tires screeching. Sarah turned back and could see the group of old warehouses off to the side of the road ahead.

Chuck slowed exactly enough to navigate the turn, turned again, then plunged between two buildings and stopped in a spray of dirt and black cinders. "Do you think they saw us?"

Sarah had looked back. The van turned into the industrial park. "Yes, they did. They're coming."

Chuck smiled a grim smile. It electrified Sarah. She had a jolt of insight into why she had him as a teammate, and why she was attracted to him. There was mettle in the man, hardware, and not just programming, software. She matched his grim smile and made sure he saw it,

And, just like that, they were no longer hostage-taker and hostage. They were teammates again. Present tense. The gears meshed.

Sarah nodded at Chuck. He put the car in reverse and sent gravel flying forward. The car went hurtling back as it had come. The van had seen them enter the park but could no longer know quite where they were in it. Chuck aimed the car for the first intersection the van would reach.

"Down in the seat, Sarah! Now!" The rear end of the car missiled into the side of the passing van. The buildings had kept their car invisible until it was too late.

Sarah had gone deliberately limp in the seat and the impact had not hurt her. She heard Chuck grunt as he whiplashed a bit from the impact.

Then he was out one side of the car and she was out the other, automatically dividing the targets. Chuck ran to the passenger side. The window had shattered from the impact and he sent a...dart?...into the man seated there, who was still groggy from the collision. Sarah went around the van and saw the driver stumbling out. She fired, hitting him in the shoulder. He went down, his gun flying through the air, out of his reach. But he wasn't after it, he was writhing in the gravel and dirt of the roadway.

Sarah got to the driver's open door and swung her back to it, so that she could see into the rear of the van. No one was there. The man in the passenger seat was unconscious. She went to the man she shot. He was hurting, but she had deliberately made sure the shot was not lethal. She wondered at that for a moment, and at Chuck's use of a tranq gun. It was a good thing. They had possible sources of information, and they were in a place that offered numerous hiding places. She walked over and grabbed the man's gun.

Chuck had gotten to the man. There had been a clear pause when he looked at the man's face. Chuck blinked.

"What is it, Chuck did you just...flash?" She did not know where the word came from, but it surged up and out of her, the fated end of the question, irresistible.

He looked at her incredulously for a second, but then grinned just a little, shrugging. "Yeah, it's different...now."

"Now?"

"Um, yeah, that was what one of the not exactlys from earlier was about. The Intersect I now have is the new, pristine one. It...affects me differently than the other versions I have had. I'm still..." he paused for a word, "...adjusting."

"You've had more than one version?"

Chuck shrugged again. "The Intersect seems to hate seeing a Vacancy sign on my forehead. Everyone else thinks one belongs there." A small grin, again.

"Why do you have it again?" She grinned back, couldn't stop herself.

Chuck looked away, back down at the man. "We can talk about that later. Right now, I'm trying to understand our odd couple here..."

"How do you know they are a couple?" Sarah was flummoxed.

"No, that's not...anyway, this guy here, the one bleeding..." as Chuck spoke, he was examining the man's wound.

The man had passed out from pain. Chuck reached into his pocket and pulled out a red-handled knife, Swiss Army. He peeked up at Sarah. "I know, I know, a big boy scout." He cut the man's shirt sleeve off, folded the sleeve into a thick compress and then held it hard against the wound.

He picked back up with his earlier comment. "...This guy here, not bleeding so much now, is a CIA agent, a good one, at least so says his file. The other guy, with the peculiar dart shaped growth on his neck, is a very bad guy, an underworld type with ties to the mob and recently, to terrorists, a real charmer. What the hell are the two of them doing together, chasing us?"

"You mean chasing me, right?"

"No, us, because I am going to be with you until this is...over." She saw a shadow flit over his face but then it was gone. He gathered himself, smiled at her. "You can count on me."

She allowed herself to show the smile that lit her up inside. He was with her. She had help. She was not alone.

"Look, Sarah, I take it that we can dispense with the whole hostage/hostage-taker thing now, right?" She nodded sharply as he paused. "'Cause we need to think. Why are they together? How did they find you?"

"I don't know why they are together. But I have had people tracking me since I...woke up, woke up on the docks…"

Sarah saw the curiosity and concern in Chuck's eyes, but he let her go on. "I thought I had missed a tail. But I don't think that now."

Sarah went to the rear of the van and opened it. Together, they moved the wounded man into the van. Then Chuck got behind the wheel and Sarah got in the car. They drove deeper into the industrial park. Eventually, they found an old building that had served as a garage. Sarah got out and shot the lock on the garage door and was able to open it. Chuck drove the van inside. Sarah left the car between buildings nearby, invisible from the highway, and she joined Chuck inside.

They left the men in the back of the van. The interior of the warehouse was cooler than outside, dim.

They found the spot where trucks unloaded and sat down on the concrete platform. Sarah found she was able to look at Chuck now without excruciating pain, although there was always pain.

She didn't understand it. Looking at him, and hurting while she did so seemed itself familiar, although she was unable to remember anything clearly enough to know what the nature of the old pain had been. Perhaps she had developed feelings for him, fallen for him, a long time ago, but his being married and her being married...had meant that the feelings had simply existed unspoken, unacted upon, tormenting.

But where was her husband in all this?

She needed a timeline, something to help her. She looked at Chuck, at his wedding band. She saw him notice and then notice her bare left ring finger.

His face remained impassive, but actively so. He was forcing himself to subdue his reaction. But he was hurting. Hurting. He looked away from her and up and out a broken skylight in the roof of the building.

She broke the long silence. "I pawned my rings, at least, I take it they were really mine. At first, I didn't think they were symbolic of anything real...then, later, I realized that they were." Chuck continued to look up at the skylight. She could not see his eyes. He kept his face tilted away.

"Have I been married the whole time you have known me?"

Chuck lowered his eyes and smiled at her again, a smile so complex and enigmatic she could not begin to decode it. His smiles made her head hurt, but she found herself rating each one worth it. She gazed into his smile even as her pain increased.

He shrugged. "Um, no, not the whole time. You've been married...about a year, actually. And you were engaged for a while before that, and dating before that...But you have been involved with your...eventual husband since early in our time on the...team."

She tried to process that. Years involved with someone. But she was a loner, wasn't she? It must have been...serious. But if so, why this attraction to her coworker, teammate?

"How long ago did you lose your wife?"

"Not long ago at all, although it seems like...forever. I still feel like I could just reach out and touch her." His smile was infinitely sad; it cleaved Sarah.

She needed to change topics. She wanted to weep. So much emotion, so deep, so sudden. She could not support it.

"So these two guys? Why are they together, Chuck?"

"My guess is that both sides are now after you, Sarah. The bad guys, um...the boss, I'm guessing, since Qu...since the underling...uh, washed his hands of you. On the dock?" She nodded once, grimacing. "And the good guys, the ones doing the bidding of the Intersect Committee."

He paused for a while, rubbed his palms along the legs of his jeans. He seemed ready to share something.

"Speaking of which...you...Sarah, you...have the Intersect too." He did not give her time to respond; he rushed on. "It's part of the story about your memory loss. There is a faulty version, sort of an Uncle Fester to the one I have." Even in her shock, Sarah squinched her eyes, trying to understand the reference, and Chuck noticed. "Sorry, bad pop culture reference. So, anyway, your intersect was causing you to have memory problems before Quinn took you. But it got worse, or Quinn did something to you, because, before he took you, you had lost details. Now...well…You've lost more than details. But I think someone wants you, maybe wants you dead, because of your Intersect, somehow." He stopped.

Sarah looked at him, at the ground. The Intersect. She had it. Had one of them. In her head.

"But why would my...Intersect be of interest to anyone, Chuck. It's faulty. It...hurts me. It's cost me my...life…"

Chuck winced and was unable to hide it. Really, Sarah realized, he simply hadn't tried hard to hide it. He did care about her. A lot. It was showing.

"I know something about that cost...Um, I mean that the Intersect had...has cost me too. Mine. Mine has. And I don't know why your Intersect is of interest. But it is the only thing that makes sense."

Chuck looked around. "I need a phone. I wish you hadn't felt like you had to make me throw them out of the car."

Sarah got up and went out to the car. Her bag was still there, in the front passenger floorboard, where Chuck had put it and then forgotten it. She dug into it and found the burner phone that she had gotten from Carina's bag. She went back inside and handed it to Chuck.

"Yours?" he asked.

"No, Carina's."

Chuck looked at the call log. "Oh."

"What?"

"I see she's only called your burner…" Chuck quickly shut his mouth.

"So that's my burner cell number? And you know it?" Her fear came back. How did he know that? What was going on? What had been going on between them? Maybe it was an Intersect thing?

"Yeah, yeah. I do. You told me." She stared into his eyes; he was telling her the truth. But she did not do things like that. She wouldn't have told Carina the number if she hadn't been using it. She shared nothing.

There is no predicting what piece of information about yourself will be your undoing. So share nothing. Forget where you were born. Forget that you were born. Forget your first, your last, your middle name. You have no name but your cover name. Your identity is under erasure. You do not exist outside of mission parameters, and inside them, you are whoever the Company tells you that you are.

"We were...we are...friends, close. You tell me things. I tell you things..."

Friends? Close?

"And your wife was ok with that?" Sarah tried to control her tone, but her confusion was swamping her. "My...husband is ok with that? How close are we, Chuck?"

They heard a siren in the distance and both tensed. It came closer. But then it faded, passed them.

Chuck pressed his lips together. "We will talk about that, I promise. But right now, we need to figure out how these two found you. And we need to get out of here, get to a motel. We need to hide until we have figured all this out, talked to Ellie and Beckman."

They went to the van and began to look through it carefully. Under the front seat was a device. Chuck picked it up and fiddled with it for a minute. "There's a tracking program on here. He walked around the van to Sarah and she heard the beeping sound the device had been making speed up.

"Well, I think we know how they found you. You have some kind of tracker hidden on you…"

She felt her eyes widen. "But I...checked myself...shortly after I woke up on the docks. I wasn't looking for a tracker, specifically," she looked away as Chuck's head shot up, a question in his eyes she was not comfortable answering directly, "but I think I would have noticed. I didn't. Everything...everything was fine. I was beat up, but fine." Chuck nodded, his relief palpable. But then he realized it was and turned away. Sarah flushed. She felt as relieved for him now as she had for herself then.

Why?

He turned back to her. "But then maybe it was something you drank, ingested. There are possibilities in the Intersect." And then Chuck's eyes got big. "Wait. Wait. I was able to access files in the Intersect actively. Not just passively, by seeing or hearing something. I just accessed data: data in my head that I did not...put there. Hang on…"

Chuck's gaze turned weirdly introspective, internal. "We can counteract what Quinn gave you. We just need a drug store...and a hardware store. Let's go." Chuck started to the car.

Sarah grabbed his arm. "Chuck, what about them?" She pointed to the odd couple.

Chuck smiled calmly. "The one guy is stable, so says the Intersect, but he's not going anywhere. The other guy will still be out for a couple of hours. We'll call 911 with the burner once we are gone."

"Ok, but after we make me invisible, we talk, right? About this...Ellie and...Beckman?" The names felt at home on her lips. "About the Intersect? About...us? Decide what to do?" Sarah looked at Chuck hard.

He swallowed before he answered. "Right. Right. We will talk. As soon as we get settled someplace for the night."

ooOoo

Despite the freezing air billowing from the air conditioner, his body was covered in sweat, and his hair matted to his forehead.

He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, and then bent over to pull up his pants from where they had dropped around his ankles.

She looked back over her shoulder, smirked at him as he finished moving. She raised up from all fours, so that she was kneeling on the bed, and she pulled up her underwear, and pulled down her tight skirt, wriggling to work it back into proper position. She looked over her shoulder again and he was now smirking back at her.

She took her long, gray-streaked red hair into her hand and pulled it off her neck, trying to cool herself.

"Well," Madeline commented, her cultured voice sounding strange in the room against the recent echoes of other, inarticulate sounds, "that was...intense. The prodigal comes home...It's been a while, Olin." Her smirk warmed into a smile.

Olin Huntaker buckled his belt and gave her a cold look.

"Don't get mouthy, Madeline, not unless I ask. A line like that more properly belongs to my wife. That...intensity…" his smirk grew, "had more to do with things outside this room than….anything inside it."

Hurt darkened Madeline's face for a moment, but then her smirk returned. "Has the Intersect got you all hot and bothered, Olin?"

Huntaker gave her his best funereal smile. "We took care of the pristine one for good. We'll kill off the faulty one soon enough. And then…"

Madeline laughed lightly but her eyes were dark, unreadable.

"And then…" She stood up and began to button her open blouse.


A/N2 Ahem. More next time in Chapter 9, "Heart Attack". See you then, sometime after the Fourth of July.