Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck, I don't own the 19th century. I'm taking time out of my busy schedule of trying to finish my Master's thesis on time, to get this chapter out to you.

Chapter 21:

Sarah found Chuck at the rail again when she roused herself. She was surprised she hadn't heard him get up, considering the usual lightness of her slumber, but she chalked it up to how comfortable she felt around him. Sarah didn't know exactly what to make of that notion, though. It was a conundrum, certainly; if she was too comfortable, she might miss a threat to herself or Chuck, but she couldn't just flip a switch and become uncomfortable around him. When she was around him, she was more fully herself than she remembered being in a long time, since before her foster parents had died.

She shook her head at the state she found Chuck in, half bent over the railing and still looking more green than a healthy pink. "Didn't you mention being on the rowing team at Harvard?" Sarah said. "I swear I remember you saying..."

Chuck nodded and swiped a hand across his mouth and hauled himself upright. "I was..." he said. "It's different when I'm an active participant in making the boat go. I had control, at least partially so I knew what the thing was going to do at any given moment, this monstrosity..." Chuck glared vaguely around their paddlewheel steamboat. "If a boat could waddle, that's what this would be called instead. A waddleboat."

Sarah grinned, and shrugged. "Whatever," she said. "Did you sleep alright?"

"Yes," Chuck said. "Good but not great." His eyes winced shut as the ship lurched through a current of some kind. The wood under Sarah's feet shifted, and she shifted unconsciously to keep her balance.

"Did it help being below decks, not having to see the shore moving by?" Sarah asked, but didn't give him time to answer. "There's a poker game forming up, and we could try our luck. At least it would get your mind off the ships 'waddling'."

Chuck frowned. 'What if we lose our money?" he retorted, "I don't think gambling is a good idea."

Sarah grinned and flicked a card out of nowhere, spinning it through her fingers in a flourish. "It's not gambling how I do it," she said.

Chuck grabbed the card out of her hand and leaned in, whispering even though no one was around to hear. "Cheating at cards? Sarah are you trying to get us killed?"

Sarah rolled her eyes. "No cheating," she agreed. "I don't have to. It's really mostly about math and reading people when it comes down to it. I'll look for tells, you do the math on the odds. See? A match made in heaven."

Chuck snorted. "Really."

"Really," Sarah nodded earnestly. "Speaking of which, I meant to talk to you this morning, but you'd already left."

Chuck eyed her warily. "What about?"

She held her hand up and turned the diamond on her ring finger with her thumb. "This. When we get to New Orleans, I think we should get wedding rings before we visit your sister."

Chuck shook his head vehemently. "You don't know Ellie. I show up with a wife in tow, it will be the End Times."

Sarah wrinkled her brow. "Why? Wouldn't she be happy for you?"

Chuck shrugged. "Oh, eventually, sure. But if we show up saying we're married, that would mean that I had a wedding without her, which... let's just say that would be a bad idea."

The wind blew Sarah's hair every which way, and she clawed it back into place. "Hmm... I guess I see your point."

But Chuck was shaking his head as it all came into focus. "Oh, God, I didn't think this through. If we show up engaged..." he closed his eyes tightly. "Please let that not be what that flash meant."

"Chuck," Sarah said harshly, clamping a hand on his shoulder to steady him. "Explain. You're not making any sense."

Chuck took a calming breath. "If we show up 'married,' Ellie will freak out and yell at me for several hours, and then it'll be just snide comments from then on out. If we show up merely engaged, she'll squeal and fawn over us for a little while, but then... oh dear God, then... she'll start planning the wedding. We'll be lucky to get out of Louisiana without a huge Gala wedding. If she has her way it'll be the social event of the summer."

Sarah grinned. "Which will probably get us killed by the Ring," she mused. "What's Ellie's stance on pre-marital co-habitation?" Chuck merely sighed dejectedly, and Sarah nodded. "So really you have two choices," Sarah went on, "A fake wedding now, or a honest to goodness shotgun wedding once your sister realizes we've been sharing rooms the whole trip."

"How's she going to find that... out..." Chuck trailed off as the reason for Sarah's grin became obvious.

Sarah snickered triumphantly. "Pick your poison, Chuck. Looks like you're stuck with me one way or another."

Chuck groaned. "Point me toward the card tables," Chuck said. "I need something to distract me from my impending horrible death at the hands of Ellie."

Sarah looped her arm through his as they walked. "Relax, Chuck. I'll protect you," Chuck did the math on that one in his head, and frowned. Now he needed something to distract him from the apocalyptic battle that the idea of Sarah and Ellie at daggers drawn put in his head.

They had another couple of days on the slow boat south, and Sarah chewed her lip. All her talk of fake weddings was well and good, and it was too soon for her to even be contemplating an actual marriage. She shook her head and took her arm back to glare at him. This was all Chuck's fault anyway, that smile of his was infectious was what it was. Maybe she should have done more research on Chuck. Maybe he was a mesmerist, and was doing something to— Sarah mentally berated herself; the very idea was ridiculous. Still and all, it had been days since she'd really thought about herself as a Secret Service agent, and Chuck as a mission. That was an important line that she'd left well and truly behind her.

Chuck frowned adorably. "Is something the matter, Sarah?" he said with such genuine concern that she sighed and fought the urge to lay her head on his shoulder. She couldn't hold the glare.

"No," Sarah lied. "Just thinking about having to sleep on the floor tonight."

He opened his mouth to protest, and Sarah slapped her hand over his mouth to silence him. "It's my turn," she said. "No quibbling."

Chuck had to peel her hand off his mouth in order to be heard. "Anything you say, ma'am," and pressed a courtly kiss into the back of her hand.

Sarah couldn't seem to find the objectivity to stifle the retort that sprang instantly to mind. "Careful, Chuck. I might just take you up on that," she said with a grin and a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

Roan set the time and place of the meeting with Bryce and Tesla in a seedy tavern near the waterfront, just after noon. Even though the tavern was mostly empty, save for a table or two full of hard-drinking dockworkers, Bryce didn't spot him right away when Roan came through the door. Montgomery's usual combination of crisply pressed and neatly embroidered silks had given way to rough brown woolens that blended in just right to their ragged surroundings. The elder agent was already pulling out a chair next to Nikola when Bryce recognized the utterly transformed agent Montgomery.

He stuffed his pistol back into the pocket of his coat surreptitiously, hoping Roan hadn't noticed the overreaction.
"Excellent," he said loud enough to carry to the table of dockworkers. "My disguise is working."

Bryce shook his head dejectedly. "Announce it to the whole bar why don't you?"

Roan brushed lint from his lapel and rolled his eyes. "Please, agent Anderson, give me some credit."
"Larkin, who's he talking about? Who's agent Anderson?" Tesla said.

Roan arched an eyebrow. "Agent Anderson was supposed to be Mr. Larkin's cover identity, seeing as Bryce Larkin officially died nearly three weeks ago!" he said in a low growl that merely carried halfway across the room. Roan rapped Bryce on the temple. "Ringing any bells?"

Bryce glared at Montgomery. "Hey," he whispered. "What happened to secrecy?"

Roan gestured expansively. "This whole place's a Secret Service front," he said. "Everyone here is one of my hand-picked agents."

Larkin stared as if he'd never seen the man before, and glanced at the dockworkers. One of them grinned, showing pearly white teeth and a revolver polished to a mirror sheen. The illusion of poverty and desperation had been complete. "Then what was the point of sending me here for Tesla in the first place!" he bellowed.

The elderly agent smiled fractionally, then shrugged after a moment. "Trial by fire, my boy. Trial by fire. Every bird has to leave the nest some time."

Tesla took this exchange with a sort of stoic bewilderment, hardly doing more than shaking his head minutely, and trying in vain to figure out what was going on. He frowned quizzically. "He is your son? I am trying to understand..."

Bryce and Roan stared at Tesla in turn. "No," Bryce said finally. "He is most definitely not my father."

Roan shrugged. "Well, I don't know if we can entirely rule it out. I seem to recall having been in Boston several time in the sixties, and I can't remember all their names, so I suppose it's possible..."

"What!" Bryce snapped. "You—"

"Kidding, Mr. Larkin!" Roan said. "This was certainly entertaining, but I believe it's time we got down to business."

Bryce scrubbed his fingers through his hair in desperate exasperation. "Can we, please?"

"Just a moment," Roan said, pushing his chair back as he stood. He gestured for Bryce and Dr. Tesla to follow him to the bar. Roan glanced at his feet and shuffled to the side slightly. "Mr. Larkin, one step to your right please." Finally, he nodded in satisfaction and tipped his ratty bowler hat toward the barman. "Ronald? Open up."

The barman nodded and yanked something behind the counter. "Hellfire!" Bryce shouted. The floor dropped out from under them and they fell. The wind of their passage ruffled their hair as they flew down some kind of metal chute for several seconds before tumbling out into a dimly lit room in a cloud of dust. A loosely packed pile of burlap sacks holding what felt like goose down cushioned the impact. Bryce coughed dust and stared around in wonder.

"Where the hell are we?" he said when he caught his breath.

Roan was already on his feet and busy dusting his rough workman's clothes as if they were fine silk. The older man blinked and snatched his hat from the the air. It had popped free of his head during the trip down the slide and wafted gently. "Fifty feet below the street, in a maze of tunnels used by the old underground railroad. I took them over after the war, had them re-shored, that sort of thing."

"Why?"

Roan shrugged. "Why not?" he chuckled at Bryce's expression. "Fine, if you prefer a more detailed explanation. If not us, it would have been someone else. The Ring, or just smugglers, either way, I wanted a presence down here. In case of emergency."

"And is that what this is?" Tesla chimed in. "An emergency?"

Roan frowned and gestured expansively. "If this isn't an emergency, I don't know what is!" he found a lantern and lit it easily with a match that he produced seemingly out of thin air. "Come along!"

Bryce sighed and shrugged at Tesla. "If we want any kind of explanation, we'd better do what he says."

The scientist nodded. "I've dealt with Director Mongtomery before," he said knowingly. "Is for the best to just let him talk. Usually he runs out of breath after a few minutes."

"I can still hear you," Roan called from further up the dim corridor.

Tesla raised his voice. "I was counting on it."

Roan found the door shortly, though there was a bit of a production involved, moving what looked like decades-old debris away from the thing. Bryce grabbed what looked to be a piece of an old door-frame half gone to dry rot and looked a little closer. He blinked and held it closer to his face to be sure. "Are these toolmarks? It's fake debris?"

"Hand-carved fake debris, thank you very much," Roan said, snatching the length of carefully conditioned lumber and leaning it back against the wall. "For just the right touch of squalor, in case anyone wanders in from the hidden docks," Roan explained, and began running his hands along the edges of a heavy hammered-iron door. "Now where is that bloody—ahah!"

The door itself stayed in place, it was the wall that swung inward, revealing half a foot of iron set into the wall. Roan waved them through and heaved the disguised door shut again. The sound was like a tomb closing in on them. "Nice and homey," Bryce mused.

"Your sarcasm will soon be replaced by humble pie, young Mr. Larkin," Roan said, just before he knocked something over with a crash. The little bit of light Tesla's lantern gave off enough light to see each other, but that was all. Montgomery cursed under his breath, then there was a metallic thud and a groan of machinery somewhere far off. Electric lights faded up and revealed a conference room so richly furnished, Bryce half expected Rockefeller himself to walk in through the far door.

Roan turned and spread his arms expansively. "Welcome to the Castle," he grinned.

Bryce heard himself let out a low whistle. Roan's smirk grew even more smug. "Take a seat, Dr. Tesla. It's time I let the both of you in on the whole picture."

Tesla sat first, and steepled his hands, waiting expectantly. Bryce leaned against a wall and crossed his arms.

"Right. Without further ado," he said, taking a seat and turning a crank near his padded leather armchair. A panel in the center of the table began rising, slowly and creaking in time with Roan's efforts. "Dr. Tesla, dim the lights?" Roan produced a yardstick. A chart appeared, projected onto the far wall, with a series of grainy photographs of men in business suits. "These men are known members of the Ring. A splinter group made up of remnants of the Revolutionary era Culper Ring and more current recruits are attempting to seize power in our country, gentlemen. The men at the top of the chain are mostly unknowns." It took him a moment to circle back to the projector and shuffle the slides out by hand. Bryce's mouth tightened at the new picture. "Among them was this man, named Theodore Roark, who, with the aid of one Stephen Bartowski, Mr. Larkin's guardian, built a machine that somehow sees through time." Roan changed slides again, photographs detailing some of the debris. A shard of glass with goldwork lines. Bryce shivered, remembering the crackle of electricity off the cube, the thump and the just inaudible crack Teddy Roark's neck had made on impact. He realized he hadn't been following along for nearly a minute, and tried to catch himself back up. "The Ring was going to use the foreknowledge they gained from the project to see that everything went their way.

Mr. Larkin, you and Charles Bartowski smashed the machine, and the scheme, for the most part. Dr. Tesla, you've seen a handful of the pictures, imagine if you had millions of them. What could you glean from them?"

Tesla let out a low whistle himself. "You were there, Larkin? Did you see the future?"

Bryce shook his head. "No, Roark had some kind of goggles that did some science thing, so we didn't really notice."

Tesla brightened up at this. "Ah, so the machine polarized light in some way, then?"

Bryce shrugged. "I don't know. Chuck understood more how the machine worked. He lost his goggles, too. But, he died in the explosion."

Roan grinned. "Well... not exactly. I sent him on the run with my best agent, and put some misdirection in the newspapers. I just had word from her yesterday. She and Chuck were in Cleveland, but heading south."

"Son of a bitch," Bryce growled. "You lied to me?"

"I kept a secret from you. And you seem more angry than surprised, so really, I don't quite know what all the fuss is about. What part of Secret Service did I not explain properly?"

"He does have a point," Tesla put in, in what Bryce imagined was meant to be a helpful tone.

"Whose side are you on anyway," Bryce demanded tartly.

Tesla scratched his head. "I don't understand the question. Are we not all on the same side?"

Bryce shook his head. "Whatever. So, Chuck's alive. How does that help us? Wait. She?"

Roan nodded. "You met, I believe. Sandra, was her cover name."

Bryce's jaw dropped. "Son of a bitch. She's Secret Service?"

Roan nodded. "She does leave something of an impression, but Agent Walker can disappear as well, when the notion grabs her."

"I knew there was something wrong with her," Bryce said. "Lord, I still didn't expect her to be working for you..."

"You say this Charles, he saw what the machine did," Tesla said into what might have become an awkward silence, nudging the discussion back on track. "Perhaps we can use what he knows to discover the Ring's intentions."

"That's what I was thinking," Roan said. "But, I think he's ruined my agent."

Bryce frowned. "Ruined? What do you mean?"

"She claims in her report, that Mr. Bartowski remembers nothing of the future," the formerly dapper Secret Service man shrugged. "Nothing whatever, which I find difficult to believe. Now, of course, I am not an expert in matters of science, but zero recall seems less likely than at least some retention of information. She seemed oddly protective of him in her reports even before you and Charles stormed the Roark mansion, but... I don't think it goes beyond that..."

Larkin grinned. "Wrong, Director Montgomery. I got to witness it as it happened. Love at first sight."

Roan cursed under his breath. "Walker? In love? You must be mistaken. She's as unsentimental a woman as I've ever met. What you saw was just her cover. I'm seldom wrong in these matters."

"I'm seldom wrong in these matters, either," Bryce said smugly. "It was mutual. I saw what I saw. Leave them out there on their own for another few months, your agent Walker'll come back Agent Bartowski."

Roan wrinkled his nose in disgust at that notion. "In any event, I suggested in my latest communique to agent Walker, that she and Charles seek out Dr. Lowenbruck in Baton Rouge, if they're already heading south."

Tesla nodded. "A fine idea. He's come quite a way in debunking phrenology, and I hear he's had some trouble with the local constabulary for dissecting the brains of murder victims. He likely knows what he's talking about. At worst, their contacting him can do no harm, so long as he isn't working for the Ring."

"I trust the man," Roan said, tabling that discussion for the moment. "Which brings us back to the matter of your little misadventure of three days past. The device they stole from your lab, Dr. Tesla. How does it fit into their plans, have you any idea?"

"It's an earthquake gun, for God's sake. I can think of one thing they might want it for. Causing earthquakes?" Bryce said.

Nikola was immediately shaking his head. "That's not what it does," Tesla protested. "It's actually not as useful as all that. You'd have to know the composition and construction of a structure to a fair degree. Out in the open plains, against a cliff-face, it would be all but useless."

"Then how did they use it so fast, and to such good effect on your building?"

Tesla shrugged. "I was... testing it," he said, "Under controlled circumstances of course... but..."

"If the ring hadn't stolen it, you'd have brought your building down on your own head," Bryce declared, halfway between amused and alarmed. "Wouldn't you?"

Tesla shook his head. "Larkin, you just don't understand the scientific processes," he said. "To make an omelet you must of course break some eggs, yes?"

Bryce snorted. "Don't you mean buildings? Still, Roan's right. What's the point then, in stealing the damn thing? Why did they take it, unless they planned to use it again? Maybe a bank vault somewhere they want to crack open? If we knew where they were going to strike, we could do something about it, lay an ambush or something."

Roan grinned. "Quite right, Mr. Larkin. Quite right. This is why we are convened here, in Castle. We shall endeavor to find out many things using this state of the art facility. I always have a plan..."

"Great," Bryce said. "Why don't you share it with us?"

Roan cleared his throat. "Yes, quite. You see the thing is... it may need a few last minute... tweaks."

"Such as?" Tesla inquired.

"Most of the bits that involve actually solving our problem. But I'm sure a breakthrough is near!"

Bryce shook his head. Tesla rolled his eyes.

The telegraph operator didn't bother to look up when the bell on the door jingled. "One moment, please," he said. "I'm just finishing up a supply request. There. Now what can I do for— yeugh!" He looked up and blanched visibly white, his stomach lurching. The man's left eye socket was a gaping hole with a ragged scar dragging down the side of his mouth into a constant snarl. The slice started at the eye socket itself and zigzagged down almost all the way to his jawline. The operator supressed his first instinct, to demand why the man didn't just wear an eyepatch, as it hardly seemed prudent. The man facing him wore a brace of pistols at his hips, and a second pair in holsters sewn into the bandoliers that made an X across his chest. He was dressed in a rough leather trenchcoat, the telegraph man saw, with a hastily patched bullet-hole where the man's heart should have been.

"H-how can I help you?"

"Telegram for Smith," the man said in a horribly calm, and somehow civil tone. It was unnerving that a man who radiated such terror could be so cool and collected.

The operator nodded vigorously, and turned to pop open the safe under the far counter where certain telegraphs were held until called for. His hand shook briefly before he threw the lever and hauled the door of the safe open. Finding the correct telegram took only another few seconds, and then he turned again to hand the missive to its intended recipient. He paused for a moment, then, unsure if he'd asked for some form of identification. He cleared his throat... "Excuse me, sir," he managed to squeeze through his voicebox. "I need to confirm your identity before..."

The scar where Smith had lost an eye shifted grotesquely as the man grinned. "Of course," he said in that same unnerving calm. The operator had a moment to let out a sigh of relief.

Then the knife took him in the gut, just below where his ribs met in the center of his chest. He tried to gasp a lungful of air to shout, to send out the alarm and complain that he was being killed, but he couldn't breathe, his lungs somehow refused his call. Smith twisted the knife and the telegram operator jerked into a convulsion, staggering backward and collapsing across the open safe. He stared in horror as Smith carefully cleaned the murder weapon with a handkerchief that he threw to the ground once he'd restored the blade to a mirror sheen. Somehow, the man hadn't gotten so much as a drop of blood on his clothes. The telegram operator slipped into shock and knew no more.

Vincent re-sheathed his knife and opened the telegram. About what he expected, the Ring never told any of its operatives the whole story, for operational security in case of capture. Not that Vincent ever expected to be caught, but he understood the precautions.

His eye widened when he got to the last line of the telegram. Blond woman. His hand came up to his left eye socket involuntarily, and he growled. It would be good to get another shot at that bitch. There could be no doubt it was her, given the trail of bodies she'd been leaving behind since leaving Boston. A Ring crony with the Pinkertons put her and Bartowski heading south, so maybe she was coming for Perseus. If that was the case, he'd set up a nice down-home southern welcome for her. Riverboat could get her to Louisiana in a day or so.

Vincent stormed out to the half dozen surviving members of the Fulcrum gang, all still sitting their horses. Good. He hoisted himself easily into his saddle. "We ride for Baton Rouge," he bellowed. "Got an old 'friend' to visit.

TO BE CONTINUED...

A/N: I'll try to get updates happening more often on this story, once I defend my thesis in two weeks. Reviews will distract me from how badly my Preface is going.