A/N1 After this chapter, a bit of a break. I have some other duties that will eat into the free time I've used to scribble these chapters. Once the extra duties are done, I head to the beach. It may be Thursday or Friday before the next update. We will see.

Folks have been very kind to react to the story. Thanks so much! I've enjoyed reading and responding to reviews and PMs. I am still behind on responses to a few, but I should catch up soon. Please continue to stay in touch. (I say more about this in A/N2.)

Don't own Chuck.

Sarah vs. Omaha

CHAPTER NINE

Moments of Vision

"The creation of the world did not take place once and for all time, but takes place every day."

― Samuel Beckett, Proust

Sarah held the word by its edges, turning it this way and that, afraid almost to breathe, to think, for fear that the word would escape her delicate grasp: 'love'. I am in love. In love. Love. Sarah put her hand to her lips. She smiled behind it. Love.

Bryce had claimed she still loved him when he had kissed her in Burbank. Although she had not responded, had not known her own heart well enough to respond, she could respond now. No, she did not still love him. That was false in two ways. She did not love him still. One. She had never loved him. Two. Bryce had always made assumptions about her, never tried to know her. That was her fault too, not just his. She was opaque, not transparent, not even translucent. Trying to get to know her had to be like trying to stare through milk white glass. She had no experience sharing herself. But that was what love demanded. She could feel Sam stirring in her heart. Sam was game, ready to try to respond to the demands. Sarah was too, but she was bewildered by it all. I want him to hold me, to let me tell him how I feel, if I can manage the word.

She made herself shift attention. As much as she wanted to linger in this sudden access of self-knowledge, to bask in this feeling, to learn what it was to be in love, she had far, far more urgent matters to face.

June Thorne was handling Chuck. Handling Sarah's asset. No, that was not right. My guy. Handling Sarah's guy, the man she loved.

The frowny face emoji that Chuck had included in his text had begun to panic Sarah. Chuck was not a complainer, not normally, a talker, yes, and he talked about his feelings, surely. Still, he was not one to let on or force others to hear about his own difficulties, sufferings. That made the emoji significant.

If he had included it, the situation with June had to be serious. Chuck would not have understood the emoji like that. He probably just meant to be funny, jokey, and to relax her. It was something he did for her often. By his stripes, she was spared. He often covered her discomfort with his self-revelation or self-mockery. But sometimes a joke was more than a joke. Sometimes a joke revealed.

She needed to see Chuck, ached for a moment of vision. He might reject her, he might never get past what she had done, but she needed to see him. To know with her own eyes that he was alright. She just needed a window; she just needed enough time.

ooOoo

Chuck grabbed the knob and opened the door, ready to head out of the apartment and over to Casey's. He was going to confess what he had done, going to give Casey the thumb drive and see if Casey could figure out what to do with it.

And there she stood. June Thorne. She was holding donuts. A box of donuts. She had a dark purple ribbon in her short hair and was clad in a gauzy lilac sundress. She had a pair of plain leather sandals on her bare feet. No makeup. No jewelry. For a moment, Chuck saw the woman, not the handler. She was lovely. Medium height. Statuesque.

"Hey, Chuck," her voice sounded merry, "I stopped by to see how you were holding up. I brought donuts." She was past him and into the apartment long before he could close his mouth, not to mention the door. He looked across the courtyard. He could see Casey staring out at him behind the partially opened shades. So Casey knew June was here. Chuck nodded at Casey then shut the door.

June had put the box of donuts down on the bar and went into the kitchen. She was rifling through the cupboards, the can of coffee already in one hand.

"I'll make us some coffee. I brought the cream-filled kind. They're my favorite." Everything June said was a little loud. Chuck finally caught on. It was all for the benefit of Ellie and Devon, should they be awake.

And, on cue, Ellie scuffed into the kitchen, her pajama bottoms long and partly beneath her feet, sleep still in her eyes. She saw June then glanced at Chuck.

"Oh, um, Ellie, this is June, June Thorne, she's the new manager of the Wienerlicious and an old friend of Sarah's. We've been...um...hanging out the last few days."

June shut the cupboard she currently had open and turned a brilliant smile on Ellie. "Hi, Ellie! Chuck's told me a lot about you. Sarah told me some too. I feel like we already know each other."

A glint entered Ellie's eyes. "Hi, June. I sorta feel the same way. Let me help you." Chuck felt like he was in some bad existentialist play, everyone talking but no one sharing an agenda.

Samuel Beckett in the Kitchen.

There was a knock at the door. Chuck knew who it was, but did not let on. He went and opened the door. "Casey!"

"Kid. Thought I'd see if I could bum a cup of coffee. I'm out and haven't been to the store." Casey walked into the kitchen and Chuck followed him. "Hey, June. It is June, right?" Casey asked, pleasantly enough.

Ellie chimed in. "Oh, you two know each other."

"Yeah, she's been in the Buy More, talking to your brother. The other day she sold me a weenie on a stick."

Chuck was not sure where Casey was headed with that remark, so he spoke. "It's her specialty." Everyone in the kitchen looked at him at once. June in warning, Ellie in uncertainty, Casey in amusement.

"The kid's got a way with words, huh?"

June seemed to think that was her cue. "He does. He really does. I love to listen to Chuck talk." June's attempt to sound breathless sounded more like panting. It didn't matter. She was not fooling anyone, except herself, since she thought she was fooling Ellie.

Ellie started making coffee. June crossed to the donuts and opened the box. "What'll it be, Chuck?"

"But they're all the same," Chuck answered, glancing into the box. June gave him a hard look, aimed so Ellie could not see it.

"No, they aren't. They're all the same kind, but they are not all the same. If they were, there would only be one in the box."

Ellie turned from the coffee maker, her mouth open. The coffee maker gurgled and for a moment, it seemed to June and Chuck and Casey as if Ellie had made the sound.

June tried to laugh off the exchange. "Chuck always makes me talk a little crazy."

Casey turned away, clearly biting his tongue.

Ellie reached out and took June by the hand. "Hey, since we can, and since you brought the treat, let's let the guys finish up here. We can sit down. You can tell me all about yourself. Chuck mentioned you to me. So, you're the manager of weenies?"

As they left the kitchen, Casey sidled up to Chuck. "Did you know that was coming?" Chuck shook his head. "Guess she wanted the advantage of surprise. Love the Girl-Next-Door look. Guess it would be more convincing if you lived next to the Hellmouth."

"Huh? What?"

"Look, Bartowski. I own a television. And the Duke's movies don't play 24/7. I see things."

Chuck nodded, but his attention had shifted to the living room. His sister was good. She was chatting away with June. Chuck knew Ellie would happily fork June in the thigh. But it did not show.

"Company! Awesome." Devon strolled in, annoyingly wide awake as he was first thing every morning. He walked to the living room. "Hey, El. Who's this?"

Ellie jumped to her feet. Anyone who knew her would have seen the stress on her face, but June did not know her. Ellie crossed quickly to Devon and took him by the hand. "This is Chuck's friend, June. I told you about her, remember?"

Devon's face was blank. Then it was not blank. Then it looked troubled. Then he knew. "Oh, right, June. Yeah, the Chuckster told Ellie and she told me. You know how news travels."

June shot Chuck a questioning look, but he shrugged. He was glad her attention had shifted away from Devon. "Hey, Dev," Chuck called, "June brought donuts!" Devon made an Mmmmm sound and kept making it all the way into the kitchen. Chuck stepped gently on Devon's bare toes and Devon finally stopped the sound. He gave Chuck a hurt look.

Ellie sat back down and re-engaged with June. Chuck took them both a donut and coffee. He stood in the kitchen and ate one himself, alongside Casey, who did the same. Devon seemed a bit lost, but he finally started eating his.

Chuck did not know what June and Ellie were talking about. But the conversation seemed to be progressing fine. He relaxed a bit and drank his coffee.

A few minutes later, June stood up and announced that she needed to get to the restaurant. She thanked everyone for their hospitality. Chuck walked to her and escorted her to the door. She turned back to the rest of the group. Chuck had the strangest feeling that she was about to curtsy. Instead, she gave everyone a cheery wave. "Nice meeting all of you." She turned and made a point of taking Chuck's hand. After he opened the door, she stood on her toes and kissed his cheek chastely. "Good job. Nice family. I'd hate it if anything happened to them." Then she was gone. He saw her untying the purple ribbon as she neared the parking lot, trailing it in the breeze as she neared her Jeep.

ooOoo

Chuck walked with Casey back to Casey's place. Ellie had thrown the box of donuts on the floor after June left, and jumped up and down on it and them, all the while testing the size and dexterity of her off-color vocabulary. Devon had retreated to the bedroom, hiding his second donut from Ellie's gaze for fear she would stomp it too.

As they left the apartment, Ellie's was in the midst of a tirade, ranting about strangling June with June's purple ribbon.

When they got inside Casey's, Chuck pulled the thumb drive from his pocket and dropped it wordlessly on the table. Casey's eyes darkened with anger, but then they returned to normal. He faced Chuck. "Why, Bartowski?"

"I don't know. It was all too much. Sarah leaving. June arriving. I just had to do something, disobey in some way, for my own peace of mind."

Casey weighed Chuck's words. "I don't approve, kid, but I get it. A bridge too far?"

"Something like that."

"Did you look?" He nodded at the thumb drive.

"No, well, sorta. I opened it. There's a lot on there." He paused. "Sarah's file is on there."

Casey's head lifted; he had been staring down at the drive. "Really? And you looked?" Casey's voice took on a defensive edge.

"No, Casey. I didn't. I admit to being tempted. But no, I didn't."

Casey reached out and put a hand on Chuck's shoulder. "You'll do, Bartowski, you'll do." He grabbed the thumb drive. "I'll take care of this. Go calm your sister. I've never seen such blatant cruelty to pastries." There was a half-smile on Casey's face. Chuck left him standing there, tossing the thumb drive up and down in his hand, a thoughtful look on his face.

ooOoo

Casey sat down across from Nova. He put the thumb drive on the table between them. Nova gazed at it. Casey reached down and opened the bag he'd been carrying. He took out a laptop and put it on the table beside the thumb drive. Casey opened the laptop and waited for the wireless connection. When it appeared, he turned the laptop to Nova.

"You and I may be able to work something out, get all this to land on you less heavily. I need you to get me in another place like the one you entered to get that." Casey glanced at the thumb drive. "Any chance you can make that happen, from right here, right now. In and out without getting caught? No one else is here; the other agents are at lunch. This will be just between us. I will remember you; I'll do what I can for you. I have some pull." Casey could see the hunger with which Nova was looking at the laptop, the flashing cursor. An addict. "So, can you make that happen?" Nova interlaced his finger and extended his arms palms out, cracking his fingers. He smirked and started pounding on the keyboard, the sound like a tiny machine gun. Casey grunted in satisfaction.

ooOoo

One lesson Beckman learned a long time ago. Good intelligence work mostly never involved intelligence.

Rather, it involved mountains of sheer drudgery and an ability endlessly to sift through details. She had decided to take that approach against Graham. She put a team of NSA analysts to work checking government documents generated soon after Larkin destroyed the Intersect.

She knew it would likely be a waste of time. But now and then, there really was a needle in the haystack. This evening, late, they'd found the needle.

It was a set of hiring documents, submitted to secure government insurance for a new CIA lab worker. Her name was Susie Lou LaRussa. She was a computer expert. AI. High powered if her degrees were any indication. When her analyst mentioned the documents (they were in a stack of documents the analyst had brought to her office), she stopped him.

"Wait. Tell me more about this person, this Susie Lou…" Beckman could feel the needle. She had it. She'd get Graham, that prick, yet.

ooOoo

Sarah glanced up at the stained glass wolf above the door of the Garland house. It made her nervous. She just wanted to get this dinner over with. Respond to Chuck, what he sent.

Sarah had to get through tonight first. Patience. A spy's best friend. But she could not be patient. She was getting more and more worried about Chuck, about Thorne. Bryce had made it clear that June was seriously unstable. Really, the mere fact that she had responded to being jilted by following Bryce and Sarah to Cabo, well, that said almost all you needed to know. But Bryce had knowledge about a couple of her missions, the bloodbaths at the end of them. Sarah's hands were far from spotless (I don't want to think about that right now) but the stories had chilled her, left her hands clenched tight.

Sarah wanted to get to Burbank. She wanted to see June Thorne. Chat with her. Spy to spy. And if Sarah got to Burbank, she wanted to see Chuck, even if only from a distance. She wanted to look at him while knowing that she loved him. She'd never gotten to do that with him. Maybe it would only happen once, maybe she would never see him again, but she wanted it to happen.

ooOoo

Earlier, Sarah had sent Chuck a text while she dressed for dinner. In the bathroom, she took out the burner.

Tell Casey if June oversteps. Be careful with her, Chuck. Do what she says.

A few minutes later, she got a text in return.

Like, stay in the car? ;)

Sarah laughed out loud, then covered her mouth with her hand.

If that's what she says. Promise, Chuck.

Just before sending it, Sarah realized what she had typed. She erased 'Promise, Chuck." How could she ask him for a promise, what right did she have?

If that's what she says.

She finished putting on her lipstick before another text arrived.

Ellie hates her. Ellie's not happy with you either.

Sarah shook her head.

Why? She saw me. Awkward but ok.

There was a long pause. Long. Longer. The burner glowed. Instead of a text, there was a picture of Sarah sitting at a table, Bryce's hand in hers. She immediately knew how it looked. She was about to respond when Bryce knocked on the door.

"We have to go, Sarah, or we will be late."

ooOoo

So now she had to face dinner with Garland with that picture on her mind. Why had Chuck sent it? What did it mean? What was he thinking? She had not mentioned Bryce, but she had hoped that telling Chuck that leaving Burbank was a mistake would suggest the truth, that she was not with Bryce. Not that way. But of course, it wasn't clear. Milk white glass. She needed to let Chuck know that nothing was happening with Bryce. To somehow let him know was happening inside her.

Garland's butler let Sarah and Bryce into the house. He led them through several rooms to a smaller, more intimate dining room. Sarah had expected to eat at the massive table that held the buffet. But no, the scene had shifted. The butler poured Sarah and Bryce each a glass of wine. After that, he quietly disappeared.

A door other than the one the butler used opened and an elderly woman in a wheelchair rolled at considerable speed toward the table. She used her hands to stop the chair just before she contacted the table. The chair halted, the woman looked up at the two of them with a friendly smile.

"You must be the young couple come to have dinner with us. Gretta told me about you. Said you were both lookers. She wasn't lying. I'm Josephine Pollihue. I'm Gretta's monster-in-law. She married my adopted son, Tony Garland. Welcome! Take a seat. Mine travels with me." She grinned warmly.

The door Josephine used swung open again and Garland entered the room. She had on a very red dress, almost the color of a fire engine. She was as perfectly groomed as Sarah had yet seen her, more so than on public occasions when Sarah had seen her. The red dress left little of Garland to the imagination. Bryce reacted immediately, moving to Garland to pull out her chair and help her sit down at the head of the table.

"What a beautiful dress, Gretta," Bryce breathed out. Garland could not hide her relish in his reaction.

"Thank you, Bryce." She turned to Sarah, still smiling. "And welcome, Sarah."

"Very pleased to be here," Sarah offered in response, making sure to look and sound pleased.

"Please, both of you, sit." Gretta rang a small bell and servants began to bring in the meal. Bryce was seated at the end of the table nearest Garland. Sarah was beside him. Josephine was in her chair at the opposite end from her daughter-in-law.

It became clear quickly that Garland intended to talk with Bryce. She made only a token effort to include Sarah or Josephine. As Sarah ate, she chatted with Josephine and watched Bryce and Garland talking, engrossed. Sarah tried to keep her mind off of Chuck, the picture, June. Unexpectedly, Sarah heard Josephine whisper beside her.

"Can you stop it, or will you just have to live with it?"

Sarah whipped her head around. "Pardon me, Josephine, what did you say?"

"You heard me, Sarah. I'm the one who's sort of deaf, not you. My daughter-in-law is wearing her hunting dress. She plans to bag your husband. By 'bag', I mean fu..."

"I get it," Sarah broke in softly but insistently. "I know what you mean."

Josephine's eyes were sympathetic but challenging. "So, can you stop it? Stop Gretta from wishing your husband luck with a capital 'F'?"

Sarah was stuck. This was an eventuality for which she was completely unprepared. And her mind had been drifting.

"I don't know."

"Well, Gretta will eventually want you to know. She'll make sure you know."

Sarah turned more fully toward Josephine and locked eyes with her. "Can you stop it, Josephine?"

"Hell, no. She really only invites me to dinner to make sure I see the man destined next to share her bed." She smiled bitterly, looking down at her chair. "I'm a captive audience at the peep show preview."

Sarah was still trying to recalibrate. Josephine fixed her with a speculative look. "You don't love your husband, do you?"

Sarah sputtered quietly. "Love him? Of course, I love him. He's my husband." Love. I love Chuck.

"No, you don't. You've sat here watching the two of them in nauseating soup-course foreplay, and you've said nothing, done nothing, but watch it play out. And you knew what you were watching. You are no fool, Sarah Anderson." The woman redirected her watery eyes toward Bryce, studying him carefully for a moment. "Huh. Pretty. I can see why Josephine's put on her red dress, I guess. Four-alarm fire. But you don't love him."

Exasperated, trying a new tack, Sarah ignored the claim and asked, "Is there any way to stop it?"

"Take your husband and run. If things have gotten this far, Gretta will see them through. No coitus interruptus for my daughter-in-law, not of any sort. If he's within reach, she'll sleep with him. Especially since, and I am sorry to say this, Sarah, but one blessing of age is that you can finally call them as you see them...She'll succeed in sleeping with him, especially since he is willing to sleep with her."

Blinking, Sarah looked at Josephine and then at Bryce and Garland, laughing softly together. Josephine was right, of course. Bryce was willing to sleep with Garland. His talk with Sarah last night may have left him disappointed about a relationship with Sarah, but it had freed him to pursue whatever the mission would allow. She could tell that he judged the mission allowed him Garland.

"Thank you, Josephine. But I tell you: I do love my husband. I will stop this if I can." Damn cover. Damn lies.

Josephine stared at her strangely, as if Sarah were transparent, then she shrugged. She left the topic alone for the rest of the meal, making small talk as if the serious talk had never happened.

ooOoo

In his room at the apartment, Chuck took out the burner. He scrolled through the exchange of texts with Sarah. She had not responded to the picture. Yet. Chuck was not sure he should have sent it, but he needed her to tell him what exactly was going on. What's on your mind, Sarah, in your heart? If her leaving Burbank was a mistake, did that mean she would try to return? Or was she just registering regret, nothing more. He looked back at the photo. It could show nothing more than the cover.

The more he studied it, the less sure he was about Sarah's facial expression. She looked upset, not captivated. She was hard to read, but he had studied her. He was not fluent, native, in Sarah, maybe, but he could decipher more than she thought. The burners had been a big gesture, but he still was not sure exactly what it meant. Sarah had a gift for words and actions that were ambiguous. He needed her to declare herself so that he could decide what to do. Tell her Ellie knew. Tell her how he felt.

What are you thinking, Sarah? What are you feeling?

A/N2 Challenging chapter to write, given the things I wanted to happen and the differing natures of the scenes. Tune in next time. Chuck thinks about sneaking to the Big Easy. Sarah thinks about sneaking to Burbank. Fulcrum makes an appearance. Bryce recalls his involvement with Thorne. Chapter 10, "A Million Miles Between Us".

I've been reflecting on fanfiction and the fanfiction community, the things I like about both and dislike about both. But it has become clear to me that the thing I like best is the feeling a writer has at times of pure story-telling, like sitting with friends around a campfire and saying, "Listen, I want to tell you a story. Once upon a time..." Everyone settles in and listens, reacting freely to the story as it is told; it is a deeply communal act. Writing here allows for a virtual re-creation of such a scene, such a communal act, and it is the reason why reviews and PMs matter, at least to me. They make real the communal aspect of what is happening.