A/N The real story of S3 is a very deep and tragic story, beyond my abilities to write. I compare it to a Shakespearean tragedy, which may explain all the Shakespeare references peppering the text. I wonder sometimes what would have happened if the story of S3 had been followed up on, in later seasons, if there had been any later seasons. I would have walked back from the drama of S3 slowly, coming eventually to another Barstow moment, but with Chuck and Sarah in a much better position to take advantage of it and move forward together.
I never liked that Shaw was supposed to be this super-agent yet made endless rookie mistakes. On the abstract, symbolic level, that was the whole point (in canon Shaw stood for the entire spy world that Sarah was trying to get away from and Chuck was trying to be part of), but this story doesn't go to that level. Instead I made him as perfectly competent as one would expect, just…damaged.
Sarah woke to an unaccustomed sensation. She was cold. Her husband wasn't spooned up against her, nor was she draped across him. She reached a hand out, found him in the bed at least, but whatever wasn't right was definitely wrong. She rolled over. "Chuck? Are you feeling all right?"
He groaned, pulling his pillow down over his eyes. "Don't tell me it's morning already."
She shrugged. "Okay, I won't." On cue, his alarm went off, and she rolled over him again to turn it off.
"What a waste of a good morning," said Chuck, moving his hand up and down her back.
"Must be all that making up for lost time, the night before. Or the food."
"Hey, don't go dissing Bob Evans," said Chuck. "It's working man's food, and last night I was a working man!"
She frowned. "Is it work if you enjoy it?"
"I meant work in the purely physical sense," squeaked Chuck, well aware of the sub-text.
"Purely physical, huh?" She grinned. "That certainly explains the strength of ten, doesn't it?"
His eyes widened. "Ten?"
"Isn't that one of your quotes, pure hearts and the strength of ten?"
"Yeah, but…ten?"
"I was thinking collectively."
He tried to get a count himself, but his memories of last night were hazy. In a good way. Must be a spy thing. "I'll take your word for it," he said, and grinned back up at her. "I always said we were better together."
She gave him that look. "Does that include showering?"
Body said no, mind said…maybe. "Right now?"
"Strength of ten, sweat of ten."
"I don't feel sweaty."
"Well, take my word for that too," she said, running her hand up his arm, "We both worked up quite a—you don't feel sweaty, do you?" She stuck her nose in close and sniffed. "You taking showers without me, Mr. Bartowski?"
"I can't even get out of bed, Mrs. Bartowski. You wore me out."
"Chuck?" He looked up at the strength of her voice all of a sudden. "After all that sparring you were doing, a little romp with me shouldn't have left you this exhausted. Didn't you sleep well?"
"I…don't think so," he said with a sigh. "I feel like all the dreams I had were real."
"Dreams?"
"All night long I dreamed I was working, mopping floors, scrubbing toilets, climbing over rooftops–"
She looked amused. "Rooftops?"
"All of my secret identities seem to do a lot of physical labor–"
"All of them?" She sounded amused. "How many do you have?"
"Well, Tough Guy and Good Boy Chuck do sort of overlap…"
"And what did we agree about Mr. Carmichael?" She did not look or sound amused.
"Uh, rumor mill and gossip?"
"Hiding in shadows and acting through an army of agents who don't even know that they're working to accomplish his ends. You wrote that yourself."
Chuck hugged the covers to his chest. "I said 'fell designs', and that was for my video game! You've been reading my files?"
"The description was so perfect, I thought you were just being a nerd and designing your character, the way you have those architectural designs for your sock drawer–"
"I was using them as props for the lost temple!"
"Whatever." She kissed him on the nose. "If you want to keep something secret around a spy, don't act so secretive about it."
Chuck sat up. "The Piranha is always secretive about his software!"
Sarah smiled. "Not so tired anymore. Good." She threw off the covers. "Let's go get that shower."
His software was still saying maybe, but now his hardware was definitely saying yes.
Sarah walked out their bedroom, dressed for the day, and stopped cold. "What's all this?"
Chuck looked up with a bland expression. "It's just breakfast."
It looked like every dish Morgan had ever made. "For who, the Russian army?"
"Casey would never forgive me."
"Chuck, you're a 'two waffles and I'm full' kind of guy."
"Well, dreaming about sweeping the floors is even more work than the real thing, who knew? Not to mention tandem showers." He sat and put most of the scrambled eggs on his plate. "No wonder I was so tired this morning. Maybe we should hold off on that museum trip. If Shaw didn't steal it last night, the Ring will be after it today, and I really don't want to get caught in that crossfire." Shovel, shovel. Chew, chew.
"What did you say?"
Swallow, swallow. "I said, maybe we should hold off on that museum trip, I'm feeling pretty tired." He looked up, caught the expression on her face. "That's not going to be a problem, is it?"
Chuck went out on his 5K run. Sarah twisted her ankle folding laundry and decided to take it easy this morning. The second he was out of sight the TV turned on to channel 0.
"He said what, Agent Bartowski?"
Sarah kept up a professional façade for the General. "The Mask of Alexander display that opens tonight is a Ring target, and that Agent Shaw might have stolen it last night."
"Doctor, are you certain Chuck had the data removed?"
"He has, General," said Ellie from her side of the split screen. "His MRI scans show no significant changes from the baseline."
"Then where did he get this data from? It wasn't in his reports yesterday."
"General, Ellie," began Sarah, "He read about the display and several break-ins at the museum in Burbank on one of his newsfeeds yesterday at breakfast. To the best of my knowledge that's the first time he heard of it."
"I can check the dataset for references to this Mask, but I know he has no traces of the Intersect in him at this time, and he wouldn't have had any when he read the article."
"He asked me if I wanted to go see it, yesterday. I asked him if he flashed, but he said he didn't."
"Attend the opening," said Beckman instantly.
"General, Chuck was very tired this morning. He actually wanted to not go, but that's not what came out of his mouth. When I asked him to repeat it, he didn't seem to know he'd said anything else."
"Why was he tired?" asked Ellie.
Sarah blushed.
"I'm sorry," said Ellie instantly, blushing herself. "I'm sure it's none of my business."
Sarah looked down and composed herself. "He did, uh, he did say he'd had some powerful dreams, him doing strenuous physical activities, like those related to his covers. And he ate a lot for breakfast."
"No doubt an effect, rather than a cause," said Beckman, lips twitching.
"It could have been his brain processing data while he slept," said Ellie. "Not the Intersect but the process of intersection, so to speak. He was supposed to be an analyst, it's not too much of a stretch to think that the Intersect could be enhancing that."
"Why now?"
"I don't know, Sarah. There are too many theories and no way to choose between them at this time."
Sarah glanced at her clock. "General, Chuck will be back from his run soon. Can we reconvene after I get into Langley?"
"Certainly, if we need to," said Beckman. "But first, I want you to find Agent Shaw and talk to him about this Mask. We'll reconvene after that. Dismissed."
"Oh, good morning, Chuck."
"Agent Shaw." Chuck shuffled away from the elevators. "You're not supposed to be talking to me, sir. Agent Walker said."
"That's true, Chuck, but I spoke to Agent Carmichael last night and he didn't seem to have anything against me saying 'Good Morning' to you. I assume he and Agent Walker have agreed on the matter."
"You spoke to Agent Carmichael…last night?"
"Yes, I assume you told him where I would be."
"I didn't say anything, Agent Shaw."
"It's all right, Chuck, I don't mind."
"But–" I didn't say anything.
"In fact, I have to thank you. Agent Carmichael said it was your report that made him decide to involve himself, which really made my mission easier. So thank you, Chuck." The elevator dinged, and Shaw gave Chuck a friendly nod and walked away.
Behind him he heard someone say, "I'm sorry about your wife, Agent Shaw."
Shaw turned and frowned at Chuck, standing alone in the hall, staring evenly back at him. He started to open his mouth, but whatever he might have said was cut off by the elevator doing what elevators do.
Chuck watched Shaw's scowling face vanish behind the closing doors. But I didn't say anything.
Shaw sat at his desk, pulled out his stick and plugged it in the port. He called up several documents, but he didn't read any of them. They were only there to make it look like he was working as he flipped through the images in the folder on his stick.
She was tall, brunette, and more beautiful than any other woman in the world. The photos were candid shots, mostly, in a variety of settings, but they didn't really look like the usual run of surveillance photos. They were images of a happy woman, a woman on vacation, a woman in love. In love with the man behind the camera, her husband, Daniel Shaw, so rarely in the picture because he took the pictures. So few photos of them together, except for the staged pictures, wedding photos mostly.
The man in them wasn't the man looking at them now. He looked so different. Shaw couldn't recall how to smile like that, like the happy, lucky man he'd once been. They'd trained him how to smile in the Seduction School, that was the only way to smile he knew now.
Now that she was dead. She'd been dead for a long while, but it always seemed like now. Immediate, like a fresh wound.
"I'm sorry about your wife, Agent Shaw."
How did Chuck know? Was that even Chuck who spoke? The voice sounded so different, so calm. Like the Chuck he sat with at lunch, the one who recognized that he'd been shot from the smallest of clues. He could see that Chuck deducing his museum visits and telling the Carmichaels. No doubt he told them everything. What a resource, to see so much from so little.
"Agent Shaw?"
He lifted his gaze from the images of his dead wife to the face of another man's living wife as she walked up to his desk. Sarah Walker, Sarah Carmichael. He stood, out of habit. "Agent Walker. To what do I owe the pleasure? Or do you go by Carmichael now?"
She sat, as did he. "Either will do. Once upon a time it mattered that I was not known as the wife of Charles Carmichael." Her face became somber. "It doesn't, now."
"I understand." He closed the folder of images. Perhaps if Eve hadn't taken his name so enthusiastically she might still be alive. "Is there something I can do for you?"
"I would like to consult with you on a matter of some importance. Perhaps a Quiet Room?"
"Certainly." Courteously, he indicated the direction, even though they were all in the same spots on every floor.
Once in the room, Sarah came right to the point. "I would like to know what is going on with the Mask of Alexander exhibit."
He expected the request, of course. "Three months ago, in the National Museum of Damascus, a Ring team broke into the museum but didn't take anything. We believe that they are using items of art, such as the Mask, to smuggle small items through Customs."
"Like the coffin ploy on the plane."
Shaw nodded. "Exactly. I was supposed to steal the Mask and replace it with a copy in LA, but their security system went off and I had to leave without it."
"What happened?"
"The vault used a vacuum as a fire prevention measure, and the Ring likes to booby-trap their little presents, two good reasons to have an oxygen mask with me. I just had to wait out the alarm and get out the hatch before the guards came in through the front door."
"Sounds like a no-brainer."
"Pretty much. The museum here had some good security too, not as extreme as the one in LA, but I had no time to prepare for it. If it hadn't been for your husband I could never have accomplished my mission."
"My husband?"
"Yes, Agent Carmichael was waiting for me on the roof." He cocked his head to one side. "Didn't you know?"