Part J
A/N: You people who saw a rape in Part I should be ashamed. 1. It was not 'M'. 2. It wasn't necessary. 3. You jumped to conclusions. Shame on all of you doubters.
The world is a comedy to those who think and a tragedy to those who feel. Anonymous.
Reagan/National Airport
Washington, DC
2AM
Chuck took a cab to Sarah's apartment in Arlington. There was little traffic at 2AM but the trip seemed to take forever. He was looking forward to waking her and telling her they had five days together. He was dreading explaining how he got dinged in the ear.
He glanced at the resident listing beside the call box. 'Larkin? The residents are named Larkin? Well, maybe she never noticed it. She did say she only stayed there between missions.'
He took the elevator to the 5th floor and walked down the corridor to the apartment number engraved on the key she'd pressed into his hand so long ago. It was very posh with thick carpeting and ornate plaster medallions lining the walls.
'Some bolt hole you got here, Sarah! Very nice place to 'hide out' between missions. I wonder if the apartment back in LA is up to your standards?'
He unlocked the door and quietly made his way inside, not wanting to alert her and spoil his surprise. The living room was – elegant was the only word he could summon up – and heleft his bags near the door and walked into the kitchen. He found the trash can and threw away his boarding pass and the LA Times he'd read on the flight out. He put the bouquet of her favorite spring flowers in a vase he found on the kitchen table and quietly looked for the ingredients for coffee. She'd want to talk about the blown mission and he didn't want to take business to bed.
"Chuck! What the hell are you doing here? Sarah said you weren't coming in until Friday night! Man, this is awkward…"
"Bryce! What the hell are you doing here?"
He was shocked and bewildered. What the hell was Larkin doing here in her apartment? Bryce was wearing only his boxers and looked like he'd just woken up. Chuck looked past Larkin and saw the open bedroom door and Sarah lying on her stomach, her hair fanned out across her back. The sheet covered her only to mid-thigh. She was obviously naked and…
"Chuck, Sarah and I live here. Where else would I be? We're both in town and working on our testimonies for the trial. Now, I've been real understanding about this 'engagement business' but surely you know it's just for the cover out there? I guess you can sleep out on the couch."
"Uh, no! Here. I won't be needing this. I'll go call a cab and find a hotel or something. I need to meet with Beckman on Monday so maybe I'll just head up there and get it out of the way." He put the apartment key on the kitchen table and started to walk out to get his bags.
"Hey, Chuck, wait a minute. At least have some coffee and bring me up to date on what's happening out in Burbank. What's with the bandages?" He'd been loud and Chuck had cringed knowing how acute Sarah's hearing was. The woman could hear a gnat fart at 50 meters.
"Bryce, I have to go. Tell – never mind. There's nothing to say. Be careful out there and take care of her."
Chuck left and Larkin grinned and walked over and poured himself a cup of coffee.
'Step one – Bartowski out of the way and out of the picture. Check.
Now for step two – Isolating Sarah from him and his team. Cell phone reprogrammed? Check.'
Step three involved avoiding Sarah for the remainder of the week. The weekend would seem like a lifetime to her and he'd be back on Monday and working with her at the US Attorney's office and he'd provide comfort and advice to her. He knew her better than anyone else.
He cleaned up, left her a note on the pillow apologizing and begging her to forgive him. He blamed it on a 'relapse' and told her he was checking back into the NSA facility. He wasn't safe to be around, he said. He might have hurt her and that's the last thing he ever wanted to do.
Sarah woke up and her 'spy senses' went into overdrive. 'Larkin! That bastard drugged me and…oh my God…' She ran into the bathroom and checked herself over. There was no evidence that she'd had intercourse and there were no marks on her body to indicate abuse or sexual activity.
Sighing with relief, she walked out and turned on the bedroom light and saw his note. She read it through several times and finally decided that he'd been honest with her – he wasn't safe to be around. She'd report this to Beckman after she was done with the day's testimony preparations.
'Thank God Chuck is coming out here this weekend! I need him in my life and these sessions in DC are keeping me away from him. 'Apart' is not nice at all.'
She threw on a robe and walked out to the kitchen. At least the bastard made coffee. She saw the bouquet of flowers and smiled. That was so sweet of him. Chuck always brought her….
'Oh, no, no, no…' She ran around looking for any signs that Chuck had been there. Surely she would have heard a confrontation between Bryce and Chuck? She finally relaxed when she didn't find anything. Larkin must have done it as another gesture of an apology.
Sarah snatched the flowers from the vase and put them in the trash. She wanted nothing in her home that reminded her of Larkin. She turned and walked into the bedroom to get ready to go to the office.
She was dressed and almost out the door, keys in hand, when something in her subconscious wormed its way to the front of her thoughts. She ran back into the kitchen and unplugged the coffee pot and left. Traffic was a bitch but the Metro stop was only half a block from the apartment. It was easier to walk and take rapid transit than to drive in DC traffic.
NSA Headquarters
FT Meade, MD
Intersect Lab
Wednesday
Chuck was waiting for the final steps of the download procedure. He had never had a 'willing' download and his professional curiosity prompted many questions that the techs were only too happy to answer once they found out he understood the explanations. It helped to pass the time and calm the butterflies in his stomach.
"All ready, Mr. Bartowski?" The techs were all in the control room with their protective glasses or goggles on.
"Let 'er rip." He gripped the arms of the chair and the download commenced. His last coherent thought was 'Sarah…'
Beckman's Office
Three hours earlier
Diane Beckman walked into her office and nodded to her secretary who handed her a cup of coffee and then quietly said, "General, you have a visitor. He was here when I got here at 6:30. He just said he was sure you'd want to see him and then he sat back and nodded off. Whoever he is, he's exhausted and hurt."
Beckman nodded and told her secretary to 'call security and have agents monitor my office' and then went in to confront whoever felt important enough to disrupt her schedule without a damned appointment.
Chuck was sprawled out in her visitor's chair asleep. She nudged his foot with hers and said, "Mr. Bartowski, what are you doing here?" She wondered if the seeds she'd sown had already ripened. She took in his expression and the bandage on his ear and head as Major Casey's report of the confrontation refreshed in her mind. 'He's lucky. That's half the battle in this game. Luck.'
Intersect Lab
Control Room
"Upload the original 2.0, gentlemen. He specified 2.0 not the watered down version. He can handle it."
The tech nodded and put another series of programs in the queue.
"All ready, Mr. Bartowski?" The techs were all in the control room with their protective glasses or goggles on. Everything was ready. The man was taking a great risk but he asked for it.
"Let 'er rip." The lead tech clicked a mouse button and changed the destiny of Chuck Bartowski.
Walker's Arlington Apartment
Friday evening
Everything was ready for his arrival. She'd put fresh sheets on the bed and had cooked their late night dinner and it was in the refrigerator waiting for him and her microwave. She looked at her watch and grinned. He would be landing in an hour.
She checked her watch and smiled. She did that a lot lately. His plane had touched down an hour ago and he was probably in a cab. She had everything in the microwave ready to heat or warming on the stove. Any minute now.
Two hours later
'Where the hell is he? He should have been here an hour ago. He'd call if he was going to be late.'
She tried calling his cell but it had gone to a 'temporary disconnect' message. She called Casey's cell and got the same message. Now she was really worried.
'Both team members have disconnected cell phones. That never happens unless the team has been disbanded or they're…dead. Then standard operating procedure was to disconnect the cell numbers for security purposes.'
She couldn't call Agent Wallace because she didn't have her number and couldn't get it from the CIA duty officer without a really good reason. She racked her brain for another connection to the team and called Billie O'Doyle. She'd know where Casey was for certain.
'Hello?'
"Billie, it's Sarah. I can't reach Chuck or John. Do you know where they are? Is there anything wrong?"
'Chuck went out to DC to see you on Tuesday, Sarah. Isn't he there? It's Friday for God's sake. Isn't he there with you?"
Sarah's stomach did a flip-flop and she felt almost light-headed. She'd had dinner with Bryce that night and he'd tried to…
"What time was Chuck's flight scheduled to arrive, do you know? It's really important, Billie."
'Um, Agent Wallace took him to the airport. Call her. We don't talk. She and Casey have been seeing each other – behind my back, Sarah! He was seeing her and then he'd come up here and…the bastard!'
"I have to go. Listen, call Casey and tell him to call me. His number's disconnected and so is Chuck's. I'm really worried about them, Billie."
She hung up and started cleaning up the dinner she'd made to surprise Chuck. He wouldn't be coming anytime soon. She was scraping food from a plate into the trash when she saw the wilted bouquet, a newspaper and something else in the bottom.
She dug out the paper – Tuesday's LA Times – and the cardboard card was Chuck's boarding pass. He'd been here! Those were his flowers! Larkin! That bastard. In a nanosecond Sarah knew she'd been played. In the next nanosecond she knew exactly how this was all going to end. Larkin had to die – and she planned on expunging his very existence from the planet personally and painfully.
She was throwing stuff out and clearing the table trying to figure out where Chuck might have gone when she found the key to her apartment that she'd given Chuck. She'd looked around the hardware store until she found a blank that was a heart-shape. She told him it was the key to her heart not just an apartment key.
She tried to imagine what had happened that night. She woke up naked and uncovered so – crap – Larkin had probably staged the whole thing. What must Chuck have thought when he found Larkin here? Oh, God, what must he have thought when he saw her naked in bed…he'd assume the worst.
This is exactly what she'd dreaded when she made up her mind to love Chuck the way he deserved, to try and have a normal life with the man she loved. She was losing her edge. She was becoming ordinary while her man was becoming extraordinary.
She went to flea markets, bought him clothes because she wanted him to look nice, not because it was a mission requirement. She made the bed, ran the dishwasher and never gave it a second thought. She was changing into exactly what she wanted to be and now she had really fubared.
She only went to dinner with Larkin because of one thing and only one thing.
Maybe if you found out what went wrong with us, you can avoid the same mistakes this time around.
It was the hook and he'd played her because he knew what she wanted and needed. She didn't want to blow it with Chuck. She didn't look any deeper than his apparently sincere desire to talk about what went wrong in their marriage so she could avoid repeating it with Chuck.
The bladder problem – that was pure genius – and she gave him a nod for that. So embarrassing, so human and so unLarkin that she'd forgotten who was even better than she at manipulating a mark.
She had to find Chuck and have a sit down in a neutral place. He'd never come back here, not ever. She'd have to dump the condo and hope it sold quickly.
Her cell rang. "Walker, this is Casey. What's wrong?"
"What's wrong? Chuck didn't show up tonight. His phone's been disconnected and so has yours. I've been trying to reach him since Wednesday and…"
"Walker, Wallace and I are up at Meade with Chuck. He took the damned download Wednesday morning and Beckman loaded him up with 2.0 without the fixes. He's alive but – I don't know."
"Casey, Larkin did something and Chuck – never mind. I'm on the way. Why are your phones disconnected? You have no idea what went through my mind and I finally had to call Billie."
"Our cells are fine. We'll talk when you get here. Beckman's brooding and that's not a good thing at all. She comes in to his room, looks at him and sighs and walks back out. If I didn't know her so well I'd think she was actually sorry she used him. Larkin's been readmitted. He's psychotic and raving about – look, just get your ass up here."
"Traffic. I'll be a while but I'm leaving now."
NSA Headquarters
Secure Medical Facility
God has a sense of humor. It's wry, dry and perverse but He does have one. Bryce Larkin had had plans. God laughed at his plans. Whom the Gods would destroy they first drive mad. Larkin was in restraints and allowed no visitors except the therapists.
Casey sat beside Chuck's bed with nothing else to do but count the holes in the acoustical ceiling tiles and listen to the beeping of the heart monitor and the wheezing of the ventilator. He heard the click-click of Walker's signature boots on the terrazzo floor and steeled himself for the coming onslaught.
"Hello, John. How is he?" Sarah stood in the doorway and took in the room, the machinery, her partner and her fiancé. She seemed preternaturally calm.
"He's – we don't know. The docs aren't saying it's a coma because his brain activity is off the charts even though he just lies there like a corpse. He can't breathe on his own and that's why they have him hooked up to that piece of equipment."
Sarah couldn't believe it. Her whole world was lying in a bed and no one knew what was wrong and thus no one could fix him.
"Here's my cell. Can you get it checked out, please? And move your ass, Major. You're sitting in my chair."
"Here, take my cell and I'll call you." Casey dialed his own number and got the disconnect recording. He raised his eyebrow and looked at the cell and then said, "OK, call your cell phone."
It rang and Casey shrugged. "Someone's diddled with your SIM card I'll bet. Who had access?"
"That sonofabitch Larkin! I'll kill him. He's here somewhere. When Chuck's better, Larkin dies! You have no idea what he did to us – to me!"
"Keep it down, Sarah. This is a hospital. We'll handle Larkin once your fiancé is back on his feet. Until then…" He pointed to the chair and she nodded, glad to have the chance to spend some time with Chuck, even if he probably didn't know she was there.
"My ass is numb from sitting in that damned chair. I'm going to get something to eat and call Billie and update her on the moron. Y'know she and I…we hit a rough patch and I need to fix it. Give me an hour and I'll be back."
"Take your time. I'm not leaving this chair until he's awake and aware that I'm here for him."
"Fine. Maybe I'll grab some sleep, too. Call me if…shit. I'll get someone in Technical to look at your phone. Be back in a bit."
She walked around the bed to the chair and saw his ear and head bandages. "Casey, wait! What's wrong with his ear? His head? My God, I wasn't gone more than 48 hours and you let him get hurt! Some partner…"
"Hey! We ran the Napper-Chin op again. Everything was going swell until Chin decided Napper couldn't be trusted with all that money and changed the deal. He shot Chuck in the lower side and then when he was down, shot him in the…wait, Chin was going to pop him in the face but Chuck wrecked his knee with a kick and the bullet took off a chunk of his ear and burrowed through the scalp and ricocheted off the concrete. He's fine but man, did we ever have fun with him."
"What do you mean? Fun with Chin?"
"No. Chuck thought Chin shot his ear off and the doctor hadn't been really good about explaining it. He freaked out when I told him that you'd just have to be satisfied nibbling on the whole ear. It's just a nick, Sarah, honest. It was funny though."
"Chin shot him in the side? He should be in a hospital! Why isn't he?"
"Pamela guilted him into wearing a vest. Best damned guilty decision he could have made. Ribs must hurt like a bitch though."
Casey left her alone with Chuck and she scooted the chair over as close to the bed as she could get it. It was a little after 2AM on Saturday when she sat down and started her vigil. Except for bathroom breaks and an enforced 'nap' (Agent Walker, you will do Mr. Bartowski absolutely no good if you exhaust yourself. Go away for six hours. There's a bed in the next room that's empty. Use it), she hadn't left his side.
She dozed off, resting her head on the hand she held. It was almost 5AM on Monday morning when she was jolted out of a light sleep by Chuck's choking. She panicked for a moment before hitting the red panic button above his headboard. The room was immediately filled with doctors and nurses, Casey and Wallace.
"He's choking! Help him!" She lost all semblance of professionalism as she watched the doctors try and calm him down enough to remove the respirator tube.
"Calm down, Sarah. He's trying to breathe on his own and he doesn't realize the machine's doing it for him. You need to be calm. He can't see you panic." Casey had moved to stand beside her and restrain her if necessary.
Chuck stopped thrashing around immediately when he heard Sarah's voice. The doctors gave him breathing instructions and pulled the tube from his throat.
He tried to say something to her but he couldn't. His throat and mouth were dry and he couldn't even generate the spit to swallow.
The doctors and nurses tidied up and removed the unnecessary equipment and soon it was just Sarah, Chuck and Casey in the room.
"I'll go tell Beckman he's awake. Keep him calm and give him some water. His throat must be killing him."
She quickly poured a glass and put in a straw and let him drink small sips.
"Sa – Sarah." He smiled and touched her hand and she felt his warmth travel up her arm.
"Chuck, I need to explain about Larkin being in the apartment when you got there."
"Not…necessary. Tranked – you, right? Played our – fears against – us. OK. We're OK, right?"
"How did you know? I just figured it out. Yeah, the bastard played me and then tranked me. Some kickass ninja spy girl I turned out to be."
"Yes, you still are… the best. Tired. Love you, Sarah." He fell asleep and she fell apart. She cried herself to sleep still holding his hand.
They both awoke within seconds of one another.
"Sarah, would you call a nurse for me. I want all this crap out of me – especially the plumbing arrangements. I'd like to get dressed and take a walk outside – just the two of us. I want to explain why I uploaded 2.0 and some surprises I got. Please?"
The puppy dog eyes got her every time. She needed to work on her resistance exercises or she'd never be able to say 'no' to him again.
"Fine, but ask the doctor about walking and going outside first. I don't want anything to happen to you. What the doctor says, goes, deal?"
"No. I want to talk and there are probably more listening devices in this room than you could count. Outside."
An hour later Sarah was pushing a thoroughly pissed Chuck around the grounds in a wheel chair. They were heading to a picnic bench under a tree to have their 'chat'.
"I can't believe you told him I was shaky on my feet, Sarah! That was not cool at all. I'm not an invalid."
"A deal's a deal, honey. Live with it." She pushed him through the grass and he hopped out of the chair and plopped down on the bench. Sarah sat across from him but reached across the table and took his hand in hers.
"OK, talk, Bartowski. Details. No lies, Chuck. It's just you and me here."
"When I showed up at your apartment Bryce came out of the bedroom and made sure that I saw you lying on your stomach naked. Right away I knew something was fishy but I was really thrown by Bryce being there. That's no lie."
"Chuck, please, I…"
"Hush, babe. My story, remember?"
"When I asked him what he was doing in your apartment he said he lived there and then cautioned me about not taking the engagement seriously because you were just working a cover. He told me I could sleep on the couch and that he'd find someplace for the weekend so we could – you know."
She tried to interrupt but he plowed on.
"I was angry and confused and I left my key on your kitchen table and left. I was so damned mad and decided that if you didn't want me to take 2.1 that I'd do it to spite you."
"Chuck, that's crazy! Bryce played…"
"Sarah! My story. You can talk later. I was replaying the whole thing in my mind while a rode up to FT Meade in the shuttle. I guess I had an epiphany of sorts. I realized it was all a psyops thing."
"How? Everything he did was so damned logical and realistic."
Chuck laughed and she squeezed his hand to get him back on track.
"OK, OK! First, he came out of the bedroom wearing cheap cotton boxers and a t-shirt. You wouldn't let your man wear anything like that."
She smiled knowing he was right. She wanted her man in silk boxers or nothing at all. Preferably nothing at all.
"Then he couldn't find a coffee cup right off. And I know my Sarah, she can hear a gnat fart 50 feet away and she always wakes up at the sound of my voice when I come in late no matter how quiet I am – and you didn't. And finally…Bryce has always been a slob, Sarah. I noticed there were no beer bottles or take out wrappers in the trash and that your apartment was immaculate just like you keep ours back home."
"But that could…"
"Sarah, if Bryce Larkin lived there and worked on the trial it would have been a pig sty despite your best efforts. Face it, he's a pig and when you two were together he probably expected you to follow around behind him cleaning up, right?"
"Yeah. It was one thing that really got on my nerves. He is a pig but not for long. I'm going to kill him, baby. Casey will have my back and they'll never find the body."
"Sarah, he's sick. He's not in control. Back off, please? He's worse than my dad and you know how bad it is with him. The early intersects carry a heavy price, honey, the sanity of the host. I could feel myself losing it a little bit every day and I was scared I'd lose you."
She was around the table and beside him in an instant. "I won't ever leave you, Chuck, no matter what. We'll go away and find someplace where you'll never flash and we'll just be Chuck & Sarah. I won't let it happen to you."
"It won't happen. That's why I was in a coma for 4 days after downloading 2.0; it learns, and it knew from monitoring the reports from the system it inhabits that Larkin was losing it. It figured out that it couldn't survive outside the system unless the human survived so it slowly integrated itself into my mind instead of the hammering I got from the original and that Bryce got from 2.0. 2.1 made it worse. He's hopeless, Sarah, incurable. I'm sorry but I can't figure out how to help him. Six doesn't know either."
"Six? Who the hell is Six?"
"I'm Six, that is, the 2.0 was 2.0 but…crap. Ah, when a program system as big and complex as the intersect is written, there are always lines of code, stray algorithms, and bits of logic that are left over from a rewrite, a defrag or a debug. They're useless and meaningless alone but if somehow they connect, get absorbed by the program and become part of it, well, the Rule of Unintended Consequences comes into play."
"Meaning that some things happen that weren't intended to happen? Yeah, I can see that but so what?
"So, I had 1.0 in my head already. It was primarily data but there were also logic strings, orphan algorithms and crap floating around but unused. Then comes 2.0 creeping in and scooping up all the debris of 1.0 and integrating it and the data into itself. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts but in this case – fucking hugely greater. 1.0 + 2.0 = 3! Or 1.0 + 2.0= [1.0 x 2.0 x 3.0] or Six."
"Holy crap! Does Beckman know? Does anyone?"
"Nope. Just the three of us."
NSA Headquarters
Training Facility
Four days later
"Bartowski, you watch your ass out there. Those three characters are bigger and faster than I am. Remember to keep your guard up at all times and don't let them separate and surround you. Keep moving."
"Casey, you worry too much. Let's get this done. I've got a lunch date with Sarah in town. Those three are obstacles to that date. Can you say 'toast'?"
"Don't get cocky, moron. Those are experienced agents out there."
Two minutes and 16 seconds later the training exercise and evaluation was over and Chuck was taking off his sparing gear. Pamela Wallace was busy making notes and taking more digital photos of the 3 sparring partners.
"How much of that shit was you and how much was the intersect?" Casey had been amazed at how Chuck ripped those three apart.
The three had advanced in a loose arrowhead formation figuring that when the lead attacked, the other two would come in from the flanks and pummel him into the mat. Wrong.
The first sparring agent attacked frontally trying to pin Chuck's attention to him while the two other agents came in from the side. He shot a right cross at Chuck's head and then followed it up with a spinning back fist. Both missed and while the agent was moving to adjust, his body was completely exposed on the right side and Chuck hammered him into the mat with a sidekick that cracked ribs and drove the air from his lungs.
One down and two to go.
The two remaining agents attacked simultaneously from both flanks with kicks aimed at Chuck's head and midsection. Sensing the plan, he withdrew to the edge of the mat and waited for the two agents to regroup and attack. He was patient. He glanced at the first Agent who was back on the bleacher bench, leaning down and holding his side. A medic was checking him out.
His glance took in a large clock on the wall. Shit! He was going to be late. He felt the familiar warmth and tingle of 6.0 kicking in and attacked the second agent, driving him to the mat with an axe kick that would have broken his collar bone and shoulder if Chuck hadn't 'pulled' it at the last second.
The third agent hesitated and Chuck closed the distance between them and knocked him out with a front kick to the chin. He cringed when he heard the 'snap' of the agent's neck and he grabbed him and lowered him to the mat and signaled the medics to check him over. He was just out cold, not dead.
"How much is me? All of it. It's me and I'm it. Cool, huh? Now I have to shower and then I'm outta here. I'm spending the weekend at Sarah's apartment but call me anytime if they hear anything on the RatBastard. He just can't have disappeared from a secure facility without a trace."
"Nothing on the tapes and no one saw him leave. Beckman suspects that he had help from inside. She's going nuts reviewing personnel files."
"Good. Keep the old crone focused on Larkin instead of me. That's a win-win situation. Did you ask Billie to come out for the weekend? There's a display of rare African gems at the Smithsonian. She could pay for the trip out of her gleanings."
"Not funny, Chuck. She's coming in tonight and we're going to spend time just doing the tourist thing. She's never been to DC. Want to hook up Saturday and have dinner? She misses you, Bartowski, although I can't figure out why."
"I'll check with Sarah and have her give Billie a call. I'm glad you two buried the hatchet. Sarah missed having Billie around."
The both watched as Pamela stormed off in a huff.
"OK, so she's pissed, Casey. You made your choice and it wasn't her. At least you don't have to work with her any longer. Who's the new partner?"
"An NSA agent. Beckman's profilers are trying to find the perfect match up for us. I told her no more married partner covers. I got my own girl friend and don't need the hassles."
A messenger came up to the pair and asked for 'Mr. Bartowski' and said 'Personal from the General' and handed Chuck a thick manila envelope. He opened it and grinned and sealed it back up.
"Beckman keeps her word, Casey, I'll give here that. I'm out of here. I hope we can all get together Saturday."
Next: The nutcracker
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