A/N1 The final chapter of The His, Hers and Ours Mission. Some things get tied up, but there are loose ends that will string us along for a while.

The chapter title is borrowed from the final song on Matt Stalker and Fables' gorgeous chamber-folk album, Knots. You can hear the song on YouTube.

Thanks so much for reading and responding. I have been able to respond to almost all the reviews and PMs and will keep working on that.

Don't own Chuck.


Turned Tables

The His, Hers and Ours Mission


Sunday, January 11, 2008
Romney, West Virginia
CIA Safe House
1:37 am


CHAPTER 12 The Foreign Terrain of Now


Parks sent Chuck a searching look. Chuck threw up his hands. "I don't know what that means, Chris. But I do know that Lawton was dead. He was dead before he hit the floor. I'm not insisting on this because I'm proud of it—just because it is true. Why would anyone want Lawton's body? Like that guy wasn't coyote creepy alive…" Chuck stopped himself. He had killed the man.

"Chuck!" Sarah screamed his name from the bedroom. Chuck ran to the room, ran to her. He got to the door as she was screaming his name a second time. She was sitting up, rigid, her eyes filled with tears. When she saw Chuck come through the door and click on the light, she looked lost for a moment, then so profoundly relieved that she began weeping as she threw herself out of the bed and into Chuck's arms. She hugged him harder than he had ever been hugged in his life. He hugged her back just as hard. Parks had come into the room—but, seeing them, she backed out silently, paused for a second to watch them, and then turned and went back toward the kitchen. Chuck saw her enter and exit in the mirror over the dresser.

"Chuck!" Sarah pushed him away from her for a moment and looked at his chest. She put her hand there and moved it, staring in wonder, still weeping silently. After a moment of rubbing his chest, she came to herself. She stepped back a bit and wiped her eyes.

"You're…you're ok. I'm confused, Chuck." She looked around herself at the room. "How did I get here? I was in…a cabin…with Meeks Lawton." She shivered. "What happened, Chuck?" As she asked, she saw her notice the wound on his forehead and his bandaged hands. Gently, she took his hands in hers. She gazed into his eyes.

"I found you." He gazed back into her eyes and then glanced away.

"But what about Lawton? He had me bound to a chair. He gave me an injection…a truth-serum. That's the last I remember. Well, the last thing I remember I am…sure of. Talk to me, Chuck."

"I found you." He dropped his eyes.

"You said that. How did you get me out of there?"

"I…shot Lawton. I killed him. I had to, Sarah. He got a gun." Chuck whispered the final words.

Sarah stiffened as Chuck spoke. Chuck felt it, saw it.

"You killed him?" She dropped his hands.

Chuck sighed. "Yeah, I did. I get it. It seems…unlikely…"

"No, Chuck," Sarah said, "that's not it. You're the guy who won't stay in the car; I know…what you can do. But, I also know what you can't do. You aren't a killer. You aren't. You aren't…wired that way."

"No, Sarah, I'm not. But I won't let anything happen to you. I am wired that way. Don't you understand that, yet? I wasn't pretending that in Burbank, when I wouldn't stay in the car. I'm not pretending now. You are…you are everything to me."

Sarah blushed even as she frowned. She refocused. "Tell me what happened at the mine…and after. Tell me all about it."

They sat down side-by-side on the bed. Chuck told her what happened from the time he last heard her over the comms.

Well, he told her most of it. The threat against Coombs in the truck—he that left out, as well as getting sick after it. He also left out Sarah's conversation with hallucination-Carina in the truck, and her comment to hallucination-Carina when he put Sarah to bed.

Sarah listened carefully without asking questions, but gently took Chuck's hand when told her about what happened in the mine. As he told her the rest, she continued to hold his hand, stroking the top of it. She held her breath when he told her about Lawton. He ended the story when he got her to the truck.

As he finished, Chuck swallowed hard a couple of times, blinking. The thought of what might have happened to Sarah had gripped him, terrified him all over again. He wanted to hold Sarah but he was not sure what she was thinking or feeling. But he would settle for his hand in hers.

They sat together without talking for a little while. Sarah's eyes began to droop.

"Sarah, you still need sleep. Let's get you to bed. Ok?"

She nodded. He helped her slide under the blankets. "I guess that rush of adrenaline is gone. I must've remembered my hallucination. That sounds weird, doesn't it? You were shot…in the chest…I couldn't reach you. I could only…talk to you. But wait! Chuck, you were there, weren't you, when I hallucinated that? I told you that…" She stared at him from the pillow. He looked at the blankets.

Silence.

"Chuck, Carina wasn't here, was she?"

Chuck shook his head slightly.

Sarah blushed. "Oh." She closed her eyes tight for a moment. Chuck could tell she was either fighting for or fighting against a memory. Again: "Oh."

She rolled over, away from him, blushing again. Chuck turned and clicked the light off. He was reaching out to the grab the door to close it when he heard her voice, small and unsure. "It was truth-serum, Chuck. I couldn't resist it."

"I know."

He heard her shift, roll back toward him. "Stay until I fall asleep, please." He went back and sat down on the bed. She patted the spot beside her. "Lie with me, Chuck."

"Sarah?

"Yes?"

"We need to talk."

"I know. We always do. We will. Later."

}o{

Chuck felt the exhaustion of the day claim him. He hurt all over, despite the painkillers.

He stared at the ceiling

He killed a man. Yes, there seemed to be some doubt about that, but Chuck knew he killed Lawton. Chuck also knew that in the same situation, he would do it again. He'd always wondered if he had it in him to pull the trigger if it really mattered. He did.

It had been a day of knowledge for Chuck—knowledge of himself and of Sarah. The self-knowledge was bitter, as self-knowledge almost always was. The knowledge of Sarah was, so far, at least, unactionable. Who said knowledge was power? A page of text blinked into Chuck's mind, its focal point these words: "…he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow..." Great, just great. Stupid photographic memory. Forgetting would be a luxury.

He fell asleep.

}o{

Chuck woke up and checked the clock. He'd been asleep a few hours. It would be dawn soon.

Sarah was snuggled against him, as close as her being beneath the blankets and him above them would allow. He watched her face for a moment, peaceful, content, without any trace of self-consciousness. What he wouldn't give to see her face like that when awake! He knew he never really had. She was a waking contradiction—at once the most self-conscious person he'd ever known, and the most in denial. She saw and didn't see, felt and didn't feel, knew and didn't know. It was the cost she paid to live the life she had lived, a life that began even before the CIA.

He slipped out from under her arm without waking her up. As he stood and stretched, the toll of yesterday rushed upon him. Damn. He was sore. His aches ached. His head hurt. It was difficult to open and close his hands.

He needed more painkillers.

He walked toward the kitchen, but was surprised to find Parks sitting on the couch in the living, her coat off but covering her legs. Her shoes were off, askew on the floor. She was holding her phone in one hand and coffee in other. She nodded toward the kitchen. "More coffee in there. I just made another pot."

Chuck followed the scent and poured himself a large mugful. The bottle of painkillers was still on the counter and he took a few, washing them down with coffee. He walked back into the living room and sat down in a recliner. It was nearly worn out. He sank into the seat, for a moment worried that the recliner would ingest him. Parks, watching, laughed. She looked worse than she had when they first saw her at the church building. The dark rings around her eyes were darker, deeper.

"Were you up all night, Chris?" Chuck saw that she was tempted to deny it, but then she admitted it, nodding her head.

"I…I just couldn't sleep. Stuff on my mind. Um…This weird shit with Lawton's corpse and Coombs. I've been hoping to hear something." She waved her phone. Her voice was thin and guarded.

Chuck recalled her face in the dresser mirror, when he and Sarah were embracing.

"Chris, I'm sorry about how things…worked out for us. Wrong time and wrong place." He felt bad about it all.

"There's no need to apologize, Chuck. We both thought we knew what we wanted. I wanted the spy life. You wanted a normal life. I was wrong…" Chuck opened his mouth to say something but Parks went on. "I know you never looked at me like you look at her. I never imagined she could look at anyone the way she looks at you—when she thinks no one is watching. She is in love with you, Chuck. The Ice Queen in Love." She shook her head, bitterly. "That sounds like the title of one of those sword and sorcery books you like so much." Her bitterness seemed to exhaust itself in that remark. She smiled tiredly.

"I wish you two the best. You know that Graham is dead-set against the two of you as partners. He's not said so to me, but it's there in between the things he's said, and it's there in his decision to send you two to me. I don't know what he thought would happen, but he was hoping something would, that I would…complicate things between you.

"If Graham is against you two as partners, imagine how he will be if—when—he knows you are a couple. Apoplectic. He obviously suspects something like that, or he wouldn't have sent you to me. But, don't worry, Chuck, I won't say anything. In fact, I sent my resignation in last night, electronically. Effective as soon as the mission here wraps up. I'll be in DC for a while after I finish here. Debriefs and paperwork. Making decisions. You can find me, if you…want me." She put down her coffee cup and her phone and sat back, staring down at her hands.

The first light of dawn was showing through the window. Snow was falling again. Chuck looked past Parks and watched the snow fall for a little while. He was lost in the snowflakes for a little while, envious of their unmarred, weightless perfection. He felt marred, heavy and imperfect.

Eventually, he realized Parks was sobbing softly. He looked at her and, after a beat of hesitancy, opened his arms. She got up and curled into his lap, her head against his shoulder. He stroked her hair as she continued to sob.

"I'm glad you are getting out, Chris. But you are wonderful—smart, capable, funny, beautiful. You will shake all of this off and find your way, find what you want."

She sat back and wiped her eyes. "Thanks, Chuck. I'll be…ok. Will you? You killed a man last night. I know you. That will take its toll on you, once the reality of it settles on you. How long can you live this life, even for her?" She was staring straight into his eyes and he could not turn away.

He looked back out at the snowflakes. "I honestly don't know. Before last night, I would have said 'for as long as it takes'. But I don't know how long that will be. And I don't know how long I can last. I…believe I can live with last night. But I…don't believe I can live with many more nights like that. I want Sarah either to choose me or choose this life. But the longer I live it, the more compromised," he paused for a self-mocking huff, "…the more compromised I become, compromised by the life itself. And if I become compromised enough…there'll be no reason for it to seem like an Either/Or any longer. It will just seem like she can have both. I'll start wearing Bryce Larkin's spy shoes. I won't do that."

Chuck felt Parks stiffen. She jumped up, off his lap. He realized that Sarah must be standing there.

"Good morning, Sarah." Parks said, too lightly. No answer. Chuck got up and turned around. Sarah made eye contact with him. He saw hurt but not anger.

"Good morning." Sarah spoke the words. Then she went to the kitchen. Parks put on her shoes and her coat and slipped her phone in a coat pocket. She took a large drink from the coffee cup. "I'm going to my hotel. I will get back with you two in a little while. I will collect my things from the motel. I'm expecting a call from Graham. I hope he'll have some information for us." She put her cup down on the coffee table.

Sarah had poured herself a cup of coffee and she turned around, leaning against the counter. Parks passed her with a nod. She nodded back as Parks left the safe house. Chuck watched the exchange then he carried his coffee into the kitchen, and sat down at the small table.

Sarah watched him sit down. After he did, she stepped to the table and sat down too. She kept her eyes from Chuck as she took a deep breath. She exhaled and met his gaze.

"How much of that did you overhear," Chuck asked, softly.

"Really just the Either/Or stuff. The stuff about Bryce's shoes."

"Parks submitted her resignation last night. She finishes up here and she is done."

She shifted her gaze to her coffee cup. "Do you know that Greek myth, Chuck, the one about Orpheus and Eurydice?" She met his gaze again.

"Yeah, sure, I remember. Which version?"

"I don't know. I'm only thinking about the basic story. We learned about it in high school. Eurydice dies and is translated into the underworld, and her husband, Orpheus, treks into the underworld to find her, free her." Sarah's voice was almost inaudible.

"Oh, yeah, right. Oh! Right." Comprehension suddenly registered in Chuck's tone. "And you are Eurydice?"

Sarah nodded. "Yes. Or sort of. Orpheus finds her there, and he plays his…lyre…so beautifully that Hades' heart is softened. He tells Orpheus he can have Eurydice back, so long as he leaves Hades without looking at her. She follows Orpheus as a Hadean shadow, a shade. He is leading her out. She cannot become a real woman again, a woman of flesh and blood, until she passes beyond Hades. But Orpheus grows anxious, impatient; he cannot hear Eurydice's footsteps behind him. Finally, he looks, and she is whisked back into the underworld, forever to remain a shadow."

Chuck put an elbow on the table and rested his head in his hand. "And…?" He reached for Sarah's hand and she took his.

"And I'm coming with you, Chuck, I'm following you, even if you can't hear my footsteps. I don't want to live in this underworld any longer than necessary. But I can't leave it in one step, like Chris. I need you to be patient, and I know how risky that is. For us both. If I lose you, or if what we have were to collapse somehow into what I had—and didn't have—with Bryce, it would kill me…" She paused, swallowing hard.

"Look, Chuck, I seem dimly to remember a conversation with Carina last night, a conversation I know did not actually take place. I suspect though that I said…things…aloud…and that you heard them?"

Chuck frowned and nodded. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ask. I asked how you felt, physically, and you took me to be Carina…"

"…Asking about how I felt, emotionally. And I told her." Sarah's smile was brief, but there before it was gone, Chuck was sure.

"Yeah, yeah, you did. Do you…remember what you said?"

"Mostly, yes." Sarah glanced around the kitchen. Then she got up and walked into the living room and stood staring out the window.

Chuck stayed in his chair, but turned it so that he could see her. He waited.

She finally spoke but kept her back to him. "I love you, Chuck. I know that despite not knowing exactly what it means. I'll have to live it to understand it, I guess. But I do know two things it means: when we are on a mission, I cannot keep you within the mission parameters. And when you are with me on a mission, I feel the mission. I cannot shut my feelings off.

"I have been worried about Graham and what he might do—but I admit I have also used that as an excuse, to justify shutting my feelings off during the mission, used it as an excuse to do what I am comfortable doing. But it won't work, it doesn't work. Not in Batumi. Not in Romney. Even if Chris hadn't been here, I'd have ended up kissing you, holding you at some point. And I would have been in love with you every minute, and known it.

"I just need to take this change from shadow to flesh slowly. I need you to be patient. I keep falling back into my old habits—but they don't fit me anymore. I will keep doing it for a while, I'm sure. I'm becoming something, someone else, maybe the woman I was meant to be, whoever she is. The only thing I'm sure of about her," Sarah finally turned and sought Chuck's eyes, "is that she loves you."

Chuck stood up as she walked to him. She had reminded him of Shakespeare's line about lovers. She had told him she loved him while hallucinating a conversation with Carina. She had said 'I love you' with her back turned. And then she turned to him but said it in the third-person. One day she would say while looking at him—and in the first-person. But he could wait. This would do.

He took her in his arms and kissed her, his world contracting to her, her heart, her lips. This would do.

}o{

Chuck was finishing in the shower and Sarah was putting on her shoes when her phone rang.

They'd allowed themselves to kiss a while longer, before forcing themselves apart. Sarah had almost sprinted to the shower. Chuck went into the kitchen and started washing bowls and spoons. Anything to get his mind off her, freshly kissed and now naked in the shower. He wanted her so much that his hands were trembling. He ended up shattering a bowl when he lost his grip on it. The water was stinging his sore hands and the stiffness made him ham-fisted. Finally, Sarah had called out that the shower was free and he was able to get in. Even on that bleak midwinter day, he stood in the icy water until he got his mind—and the rest of him—not straight, but right.

Sarah answered the phone. "Hey, Chris. You have? Good. What did he say? Today? Alright, we will see you here soon." Sarah ended the call and looked at Chuck as he poked his head out of the bathroom.

"What did she say?"

"Finish up and I will tell you. It'll be a little while before she gets here."

Chuck wrapped a towel around his waist and slipped from the bathroom to his bedroom. Sarah saw him and then cursed herself, as her temperature, cooled by her shower, began to rise again. She remembered all at once explaining to Carina that she had not yet slept with Chuck—and the heat of her embarrassment added to her overall heat. Parks needed to arrive soon or…things…were going to get out of…hand. Even though she had not understood that she was saying the things she said to Chuck, the fact that she had said them and he heard them made her feel like shackles had been taken removed. That was good. That was bad. She was burning up, burning down—burning.

Chuck came out of his bedroom—mercifully and unmercifully fully dressed. "So, what did Chris say?" He was wrapping his hands with gauze. Sarah helped him finish up. "They're feeling better. More limber." Sarah did not meet his eyes.

"Um, Parks'll be here soon. But she talked to Graham. Evidently, although Lawton's body was not in the cabin, there was a very large blood stain, human, on the floor. It is almost certain no one could have bled that much and lived. So, Graham accepts that Lawton is dead. There were tire tracks behind the cabin. Lawton must've parked his car there. The car is gone, so that's another oddity. There were tracks of a second car. At least two people must have gotten to the cabin after we left." Chuck was shaking his head. "What, Chuck?"

"I could've just taken Lawton's car, not walked you all the way back to the truck. I never saw it and I never thought about it. Casey was right, I am a moron."

"You had other things on your mind, Chuck, don't worry about that. The real question is why anyone would go to the trouble of taking Lawton's body. How could they have known that…unless they were there to kill Lawton, maybe to kill Coombs too. Maybe they were at the cabin expecting to make Lawton a corpse, not to find him one already. Lawton let it slip that there was someone else—someone other than Coombs, I'm sure—involved in the trap for us. But nothing he said or did at the cabin suggested he expected to see anyone but Coombs there. Maybe Lawton was using Coombs and someone else was using Lawton. Lawton never seemed all that interested in the guns or the money. He wanted to know what the CIA knew about him. Maybe he suspected that he was or would become a liability, expendable, if the CIA knew certain things…"

Chuck was listening closely. He had the nagging feeling that there was something here he ought to know or understand. Pieces of knowledge, memory, that were individually clear, that fit together but that maddeningly were stored apart.

Parks walked in, carrying the cold with her. After taking off her coat, and joining them at the table, she told them again about the bloodstain at the cabin and the tire tracks. Sarah told her—and Chuck, since he had not heard it yet—about her conversation with Lawton about their…work.

She finished by talking about Lawton's reference to someone other than Coombs, and then explained her thoughts about what might have occurred. Parks listened closely.

"One thing worth remembering about Lawton," she said as she was processing Sarah's speculations, "is that he was at the top of one food chain and the bottom, or so it seemed, of another. He was one of the people in charge of Fulcrum, but he was a toady of the Ring. We believe the Ring is run by a group of people—Elders, we have heard them called—all of whom are highly placed in the governments of influential nations: the US, China, the UK, and others. So far, we have nothing more than that. There could be lots of reasons why someone at Lawton's level would become expendable. The very fact that we were after him might have been enough, although I don't think that was it. No, there is something else about him he was worried that we might know, something that would get him killed. Frankly, it was very unlike him to keep you alive, Sarah. I was worried that…you would not make it. I was terrified of…what Chuck might find. Lawton was acting out-of-character. I understand that he would find you…interesting, Sarah," Parks flitted a glance at Chuck, "but I'm sure his overriding purpose was to find out if we knew something that would create real trouble for him. He kept you alive for that. Otherwise, he'd have killed you on the ridge without so much as a backwards look."

Chuck glanced over to Sarah. She had seen Parks' glance but seemed more interested in his reaction to it than she was in the glance itself. He smiled and she blinked. She hadn't expected that. She smiled back, a thank you.

Parks went on. "Sarah, did you tell Chuck about Graham's orders?"

"No, I never got to it. Other things…came up." Sarah worked so hard to keep from looking at Chuck when she said that that he blushed. Parks saw it and bit her lip. Chuck knew Parks had misunderstood, at least in part, but he was not about to try to explain.

"So, what are the orders?" Chuck waited for an answer.

"Graham wants the two of you back in DC. He wants a meeting with you two tomorrow morning. I'm to finish up here in the next couple of days. Evidently, he's going to give you my Ring work and my files. I suspect that means you will be heading to Europe soon.

"You two need to be careful. This mission was compromised; we know that. We still don't know who did it. Keep your circle of trust as small as you can. And keep Graham out of it as much as possible." Parks stood up. "Agent Walker, Sarah, I'm very glad to have met you, and not just as a fangirl. Getting to know you has changed…my view of myself. Maybe I won't get all I hoped for, but I know it's possible for me to change, to find another life." She and Sarah hugged.

Parks stepped to Chuck. She looked at Sarah—a question—and Sarah smiled and nodded. Parks gave him a gentle kiss on the lips. "Chuck Carmichael, you are a wonderful man. Don't change; stay. And don't let the bastards get you down." She turned toward the door, and, summoning a degree of cheerfulness none of the three believed she fully felt, she smirked and shrugged. "And with a cliché, she slipped away. Good luck, you two." Her tired eyes lingered a moment on Chuck and then she was out the door.

}o{

Sarah put her suitcase in the trunk of the car. Someone from one of the follow-up CIA teams had brought the Camry to the safe house shortly after Parks' left. She got a text telling her it was there. The CIA's version of the personal touch. Chuck came out of the door and put his suitcase beside hers.

"His and hers. You know, Sarah, I'd like more ours." She looked at him but said nothing. They got in the car, she to drive, he to ride.

They were quiet for most of the drive. Each had a lot on to think about. Each was fidgety. Really fidgety. It was a long couple of hours.

Sarah drove them to Chuck's apartment. He got out to grab his suitcase. She popped the trunk and got out too. He grabbed his suitcase and then stared at her when she grabbed hers. She smiled at him and closed the trunk. He started inside and she followed him.

The doorman—it was Derrick, and he gave them a Cheshire Cat smile—welcomed them home. On the elevator, Chuck was looking at Sarah, but she did not look at him. She followed him out of the elevator and to the door of his apartment. He chuckled and shook his head as she waited for him to open the door. He was unsure what was happening, but willing to play along.

When she got inside, she put her suitcase near the end of the couch and turned to Chuck. He was bent over, untying his shoes. She toed hers off. She walked toward him, her eyes locked on his. He licked his lips in nervous excitement.

"Ah, Sarah, how many dates have we had, officially? I mean are first dates additive? Have we had two dates, or have we had one first date, and then another, but still haven't managed a second either time? I mean, you know, third dates…and so on and so forth and…"

"Chuck."

"Yeah?"

"Shut up and take me to our bed."

He did.

]o{

His, and hers, then hers, and his. Theirs. A sighing interlace of lips and limbs. His hands everywhere on her. Her lips, his flesh. Her hands everywhere on him. His lips, her flesh. Hers, and his, and then his, and hers. Theirs.

They made love all the afternoon and into the evening. They had so much to say to each other—but neither needed a word. Each gave wordless answers to unasked questions. Answering over and over.

As darkness fell outside, Chuck swept his gaze up Sarah's naked body. She was on her stomach, still breathing hard, her eyes closed, her lips stretched in an unselfconscious smile. She opened one eye and looked at him, arching her eyebrow.

He asked one question. "Our bed?"

She stretched her arms out, one across him, her hand reaching for the edge of his side, the hand of her other arm reaching the edge on her side. She closed her eye and her smile grew. She felt...special.

"Our bed."


A/N2 A good place to finish the mission, I reckon. The next chapter will be another DC interlude. It will include the meeting with Graham, Burbank flashbacks—and a family dinner at Frost's. Fun will be had. After the interlude chapter, we will begin the next mission: The Circus Days and Nights Mission. Tune in! Tell your friends! Make popcorn!