A/N1 All good things come to an end, or so it is said.

Perhaps.

But this story is ending.

Thank you for reading and for reviewing! Thank you, thank you!

I'll add some parting comments after the story.

Another Land of Talk song title as my chapter title. Give it a listen. I have compiled a soundtrack of sorts on my Tumbler, fragmentsofruin.

Don't own Chuck.

Turned Tables

Land of Talk Mission

Sunday, March 2, 2008
Roark Industries
12:37 am

CHAPTER 36 Heartcore

Sarah dove to the floor, the rough concrete scraping her elbows. She had turned her head toward the door, and she saw Frost raise her gun and fire, even as Frost leaped to the side. Carina dropped immediately. Sarah saw bits of stone explode from the wall as she heard the machine-gun blast.

Then there was an eerie split second of silence. Sarah heard Roark cry out in pain. And then the fight really began.

Frost scrambled across the floor, chased by another blast from Gretchen's submachine gun. Just in time, she managed to wedge herself into a small opening between the wall and a computing tower. Sarah got her pistol up and fired at Gretchen, trying at least to distract her from Frost. Gretchen had crouched behind Roark's massive desk. Sarah's shot thudded into desk. Frost used the second Sarah bought her to squeeze more of herself behind the computer.

Sarah heard Roark emit a stream of curses. Frost had hit him. Hell of a shot. Sarah had managed to get into a spot similar to Frost's, although there was more room where Sarah was, and better cover. Chuck had rolled behind the heavy leather sofa that faced Roark's desk, and neither Gretchen nor the male Intersect could get a shot off at him without standing up, and neither was in a hurry to do that, since they would be exposed to the room. Intersects were not bulletproof.

"Hans, you stupid bastard, help me!" Roark screamed at the male Intersect.

Gretchen rose up enough to offer cover fire, and Sarah knew Hans was scurrying to Roark. Hans stayed low enough that Sarah almost certainly couldn't hit him. She decided not to waste a shot. Roark was moaning loudly—evidently, Hans was dragging him toward the desk. Good—not toward the secret escape tunnel. We need to end this here.

Gretchen rose and fired again. Carina had hidden behind a free-standing work station, more or less between where Chuck was and where Frost was. She stood to fire at Gretchen at the moment Hans finished dragging Roark. Hans fired and Carina went down.

Carina! Sarah screamed silently, as she watched her friend groan, sag, collapse, and lean limply against the bottom of the workstation. Sarah's eyes met Chuck's and they shared their terror.

"Give up." It was Roark. His voice rose from the floor behind the desk. "You have us outnumbered, but we have you outgunned. And these are Intersects, not mere Ring agents. This will not go your way, Chucky. Give up—save your women. We've already taken one. Are you willing to hazard Frost or Walker, I mean are you, really?"

Before Sarah could cry out or gesture, Chuck stood, and tossed his tranq pistol on the couch. "I yield, Teddy. Please let them go. You can take your Intersects, and your briefcase of evil, and get the hell out of Burbank. Just let them go."

"I will, I will. Tell them to lay down their arms—you know, drop their guns." Chuck looked at Sarah, his eyes pleading, but there was also a glint of something in them. Chuck had a plan. That actually scared Sarah even more, because he was fully willing, she knew, to die for her.

She glanced at Frost and saw Frost toss her gun out from her hiding place. Sarah took a deep breath and threw hers out too.

Hans reported the events to Roark. Roark ordered: "Okay. Okay. Um, Agent Walker, knives too, please, and the tranq gun." It took a moment, but Sarah complied, although she did not throw out the knives that were strapped to her calf, beneath her pants leg. Chuck might have a plan—but she'd keep him alive if it killed her. Chuck would get out of here alive.

Frost stepped out, her hands up. Sarah followed suit.

As she stepped out, she saw one of Carina's fingers—her thumb—move slightly, a subtle thumbs-up. She should have known: Carina would die hard, or not at all. As far as Sarah knew, no one else in the room saw the gesture. Carina's gun was not in her hand but it was near it. Carefully keeping her eyes from straying back to Carina, Sarah stepped forward again, making Hans keep his focus on her. Gretchen was cautiously eyeing Frost, who mimicked Sarah in stepping forward another step.

Roark pulled himself up by clambering up his desk chair like a ladder. It kept trying to roll away from him, and had the situation not been so awful, the whole spectacle would have struck Sarah as a bad comedy skit.

Roark finally got himself into the chair, using only one arm, and doing his best to keep his shoulder from brushing against anything. As he got himself seated, Sarah could finally determine that Frost's shot had hit Roark in the shoulder. The fabric of his navy-blue coat was torn there and all around the tear the fabric had started to look dark brownish, as the red of his blood mixed with the navy-blue of the suit. He was in real pain—but Sarah's field medic opinion was that the placement of the wound meant is was, unfortunately, not mortal. Bastard's going to live.

Roark noticed her looking at him and he forced a smile to stretch his hell's-cherub face. "You can't get rid of destiny so easily, Agent Walker," he paused to groan as he tried to sit back, "as you should know.

"You were destined to be a killer, gifted to kill. No matter what you may believe," Roark smiled smugly as his eyes shifted to Chuck and then back to her, "or hope, if you keep that ring, all you will do is douse it in blood. Consider your life. What woman destined for anything else could have lived your life—gotten to this room, still alive, after all those missions? The Farm didn't change you, Agent Walker, it freed you to live according to your real nature.

"Look at me, Agent Walker, see me for who I am. The Old Man of the Mountain made new—now, don't laugh, I am not Shirley MacLaine, waving crystals around and claiming to have lived previous lives—and shit. I've gotten here by muscle, not mysticism. Although, I did like that movie, you know, the one with her and Clint Eastwood…Two Mules for Sister Sara. Ha! Sara—Sarah. Maybe that's why it came to mind. Remember, she was a prostitute pretending to be a nun. Does that kind of sound familiar, Agent Walker?

"Anyway…see me for who I am. I am the man you were destined to find, the one man who knows how to get the most out of you, out of your unique gifts.

"Look at me, Sarah, not at Chucky. He's one mule for Sister Sarah. Maybe Frost is the other…Look at me," Sarah realized that although Roark likely wouldn't die from his wound, blood loss and pain were making him…crazier, if that were possible, "look at me, Sarah.

"I am the spy life. The life you have lived for more than a decade began on the mountain centuries ago with the Old Man.

"Maybe he didn't invent spying or assassination, but he perfected them—even better, he incorporated them, turned them into big business, setting the course for the CIA, the NSA, the KGB, whatever GD acronym you like. Graham used the Old Man's work as a template when creating you, I'm sure of it," he watched Sarah's face and finally smiled a real smile, "…Aha, he did! You have discovered so. I knew it. And I see it in your face!

"It has all been leading you here. Step to this side of the desk, Agent Walker, and become what you are. Become your unattained but attainable self. Join me, assassin. Look at me. Join me."

Roark's voice had become a tenor sing-song, lilting and hypnotic. For a split second, what he was saying ensnarled itself with all of her fears—her past with Graham, the firefight at the abandoned mine, the clown battle, the kills at Nuit Blanche and on the street in Paris—and she wondered if Roark was right, if all she had worked for and hoped for and believed in with Chuck was just a warm, brightly colored fantasy, diverting her momentarily from the only future, the black future, she was destined to live out?

Maybe her future had been set ages ago, by some madman on a mountain, and she was to become the prized killer of his self-appointed heir? Maybe…

And then she heard Chuck chuckle. He chuckled, she knew, not at her or her fears, never that, but at Roark, at his all-encompassing blathering narcissism. "Teddy, you do not know Sarah Walker."

The spell broke. Sarah reoriented. Roark was a dumpy villain with delusions. No more.

Her life was hers.

Chuck continued: "Teddy, I have to say, you are so much smaller than I expected you to be. I don't mean physically—I, uh, I usually don't like to make comments about anyone's person, but you are pudgier than I expected, softer. I guess you must spend all your time in the workout room gazing at your own reflection, not actually doing any exercise."

God, Sarah thought, Chuck's insight into people was truly amazing. Deadly, even, if he wanted to use it that way. Roark winced visibly, his eyes hardened and he actually sucked in his stomach before he rotated to Chuck, and away from Sarah. Chuck's verbal jab had landed hard. Maybe too hard, Sarah suddenly realized, as Roark spoke slowly to Gretchen.

"Ok, Gretchen, he gave himself up for them. So, kill him. He'll buy them a few more minutes. Once he's dead, we'll kill his Mom and his fiancée. Too bad about the redhead, though. She'd have made a nice…hostage."

"Speaking of hostages," a voice rang out from the door, one Sarah had never heard, "I have one that might interest you, Ted."

}o{

Everyone directed eyes to the door. In it stood Julie.

But the voice was a man's voice.

Julie stepped into the room and then Sarah saw Stephen Carmichael emerge from the hallway.

He was wearing a hospital gown as a shirt, but he had on an ill-fitting pair of jeans underneath it, and an oversized, battered pair of low-top red Chucks on his feet.

He was unshaven. His eyes were slightly wild. Julie looked genuinely afraid.

Stephen reached back with one hand—in the other he held a pistol, trained on Julie's back—and dragged Ilsa into the room by an arm. He pushed her off to the side.

For a long moment, Stephen looked at Chuck. Sarah could tell that he became momentarily unsteady; Stephen's eyes clouded. But then they cleared, and he looked on Roark. Fury glutted his eyes.

"Thirty-some hours on I-70 West, just to see you face-to-face, Ted. Leave Agent Walker, leave Sarah, alone. She's one of the good guys—she always has been, even if she sometimes didn't know it. It's hard to tell your hat is white if everyone keeps you in the dark. The same with your heart." He gave Sarah a quick, pointed grin. Then he pinned his gaze back to Roark.

"If you want to talk about destiny, Ted, let's talk about us. This is between us—and it always has been. It's about your ever-expanding ego and its pickled shadow, your envy…"

Stephen trailed off and Sarah began to panic. But then he refocused himself, although Sarah saw a tremor travel through him, top to bottom.

"You have my son. I have your daughter. I say we trade. My people leave, your people leave. And then we settle this, finally. After all, I've been quasi-catatonic for years, Ted, and if I heard Chuck right just a moment ago," Stephen smiled at Chuck proudly, and Chuck stood straighter, "you've been working out. Hell, I'm still in my hospital gown. What do you have to fear from me? Mano e mano?"

"Stephen. No." Frost commanded.

Stephen glanced at her for a second, his eyes surfeited with sudden feeling. "Mary, my love, I know you did the best for me you could. I can sort of remember those years below ground. But I am not just 'lucid', Mary, I am lucid. Give me this time.

"I'm Rip Van Winkle, awake after all these years. I don't know how long I have. Let me do what I have to do, Mary, just as you have all these years. Ted used to love irony—does he still?" Other than Carina and Ilsa, Julie and everyone else, even Gretchen and Hans, gave exasperated nods.

"Excellent. Because, ironically, his attempt to kill me is what woke me and brought me here. To finish the endgame of this long chess match we've played. I have your queen, Ted. Check. What are you going to do?"

Although everyone else, including Chuck, shifted attention to Roark, Sarah kept her eyes on Stephen. He was laboring. His features were schooled, but Sarah could see pain mounting behind them. His breathing was rapid, shallow. He was not going to be able to stay upright for much longer.

Sarah wondered what was happening back on the surface. Where was Casey? Had he and his men gotten past security finally? Were they coming?

Stephen's arrival had shifted things, but it was not clear that it would save them.

They didn't have much time. Stephen was fading. He was looking increasingly greenish. Carina was playing dead—but how long could she do it before she was no longer playing? Sarah could see Carina's blood on the floor.

"Are you asking me to believe you will kill my daughter, an innocent, just like that? Really? No, I mean, really? Go ahead, Stephen, shoot her. Kill her. Go on." Roark was beginning to crow, sensing victory.

Carina's hand flashed out and she had her gun. She couldn't stand, but she just let herself slump and it gave her the sightline she needed. She fired. Hans' head snapped back; he timbered to the floor.

Sarah ducked, pulling Gretchen's attention from Chuck and Carina. She was able to free a knife from her calf. Without standing, she hurled it at Gretchen. Sarah's hit her target, Gretchen's upper right shoulder.

Having fought with an Intersect before, Sarah did not expect to incapacitate Gretchen completely, but Gretchen was right-handed, and at least it would make her handling of the submachine gun slower, clumsier—and make it hurt. It worked. Gretchen squeezed off a burst but it went wide of Sarah, and caused a shower of sparks and electronic whines from the computer tower behind Sarah.

Sarah saw Chuck put his hands on the back of the couch and swing his legs over it. He landed on the couch, bouncing his tranq gun up into the air. He grabbed it out of the air—and fired two darts into Gretchen, and one into Roark. It happened so fast Sarah was still crouched down when it was over.

Gretchen swung the submachine gun at Chuck. She was fading—still, she would kill Chuck before she lost consciousness. But then two more shots rang out, Stephen's gun, and red flowers blossomed on Gretchen's chest. She looked down at herself and then up at Stephen. She fell forward onto Roark's desk.

Roark was somehow still conscious. Chuck jumped up from the couch and ran around the desk, grabbing Roark's briefcase. Roark slowly turned in his chair. Chuck opened the briefcase, swung off his backpack, retrieved another thermite charge and threw it in the briefcase. He then threw the briefcase into the tunnel behind the massive monitor. He grabbed the detonator and punched the button. There was a blinding flash of white light and then the smell of heat and hiss of frying leather.

"What have you done, you stupid son of a bitch. My life's work, my destiny, was in there. The Intersect technology. Power. Power! Raw power. And you just…destroyed it. Do you think the CIA's going to take kindly to that decision? Do you think the US government wouldn't want that?"

Chuck stepped toward Roark deliberately, looming over him. "Teddy, I don't give a shit what the CIA or the government would've wanted me to do with that briefcase. I did what I had to do. I'm done." He looked at Sarah. "We're done. And you're done too."

"I am not done! Do you know how many lawyers I have, how much money, how much influence? What proof do you have of wrongdoing? Julie knows nothing. She proves nothing. The Paris meeting mentioned my name. So what? It proves nothing. Not given my resources. I am untouchable.

"You know what the Old Man of the Mountain said as he died? 'Nothing is true; everything is permitted.' That's the motto of my life; it's the motto of the spy life, Chucky! You can't touch me."

Chuck said nothing in response. He stepped past Roark to Roark's desk and punched a button. The massive monitor's picture rolled for a moment, and then it showed Chuck and Sarah as they first entered the room. Roark's voice as he welcomed them was clear…

"Thanks, Teddy," Chuck looked back over his shoulder at Roark. "You recorded it all for us. Now, that's irony that even Alanis Morissette would appreciate…don't cha think?" Roark forfeited consciousness as Chuck began to sing:

Well, life has a funny way of sneaking up on you/
When you think everything's ok and everything's going right…

Sarah ran to Chuck, hugging him before he could reach the chorus. Carina mumbled weakly from the floor—"Thank God!".

Frost ran to her and began to check her wounds, calling Martin on the comms. He told her that Casey and three of his men were on their way down. They each had medkits. Ambulances had been dispatched. Beckman had been called.

Julie turned around and put Stephen's arm around her shoulders. She began walking him to the couch. After a few steps, Ilsa grabbed other arm and put it around her shoulders. He thanked them both. After Stephen was seated, Julie went to her father.

Casey came running into the room, his men behind him. They spread out and went to the wounded, friend and foe.

Hans was dead. Gretchen was barely hanging on. Roark was unconscious.

Carina's situation was touch-and-go for a few minutes, but as Sarah said to her, holding her hand while Casey tended to her, Carina was too shameless to die. "Besides, Carina, I've got a friend you need to meet. Her name's Liz. You two will either become buddies—or your meeting will end the universe as we know it."

Medics—real medics—showed up after a few minutes, and soon after cleaner crews, teams to deal with the volunteers and RI personnel still below ground, and NSA agents dispatched by Beckman to handle LEO's and the press.

Everything seemed ok. Frost grabbed Chuck, hugging him fiercely.

And then Stephen collapsed.

The medics rushed him to the hospital with Carina.

As the ambulance pulled away: WwwweeeeewerrrWeeeewwerrr…

}o{

When Sarah and Chuck got home, it was nearly dawn. The darkness was lifting. They'd gotten word from Carina's doctor that she would make it. Her wounds were serious: she had an extended hospital stay and then weeks of physical therapy ahead of her. But she would live and likely be nearly as good as new.

Stephen's condition was more unclear. Other than being badly dehydrated and in need of food—he had driven the second car he stole (the first was the intern's) for over thirty hours without really stopping to eat or drink—he was physically fine. He'd evidently found the pants and shoes in a duffle bag in the car (along with half a box of strawberry pop tarts, his only food on the drive).

Predictably, the problem was his psychological condition. The drug Ellie gave him had a remarkable, almost miraculous effect. Stephen not only became lucid, genuinely lucid, but had been able to somehow piece together enough of his past and current situation to allow him to take action. He'd know where he had to go.

Even Frost agreed that during the standoff with Roark the man standing there had been her husband, the father of her children, as she had once known him. But the doctors simply could not predict whether he would ever wake up again, and, if he did, whether he would be the Stephen of Castle or the one at Roark Industries. Frost had called Ellie and shared everything withher—and Ellie had called Devon. They would arrive in LA later in the day.

Frost stayed with Stephen. Martin volunteered to stay with Carina. After a nurse examined the place where the shot grazed Chuck, Chuck and Sarah had been ordered by Frost to go home and get some sleep.

Julie had left in an ambulance with her father. He was in custody despite being unconscious still. She had promised to call them later and let them know how he was doing—and how she was doing.

}o{

They plodded through the door into the apartment. Sarah went to the couch and sat down heavily. Chuck knelt before her and unlaced her black spy shoes, and gently pulled them off her feet. He put them on the coffee table, and then he rolled off her socks, putting them in her shoes. He sat on the floor and took off his. He stood with his in one hand and picked up hers with the other. He walked over to the trash can and dropped them in. He walked to her, helped her up, and, barefoot, they walked to their bedroom.

March 20, 2008
Echo Park
Chuck and Sarah's (Temporary?) Apartment
3 pm

Sarah pulled a plastic lounge chair near the fountain and positioned it so that she could hear the water and sit in the sun. She had put on sunscreen everywhere exposed by her tank top and shorts, and made herself an amaretto iced coffee.

She sat down and took a sip of her drink. She wiggled her bare toes. Closing her eyes, she let the sound of the water and the warmth of the sun work on her, savoring the complex, bittersweetness of her drink.

The last few weeks had been complex and bittersweet.

A week ago, she and Chuck had an exit interview in DC with Diane Beckman and the CIA's Interim Director, Jocelyn Robeck. The two women started the meeting unhappy.

Although they never said so explicitly, it was clear that they were frustrated and disappointed that Roark's best Intersect technology was, in fact, destroyed. Although they had managed to round up some of Roark's research team, it turned out that he had kept them working in isolation from one another, so that no one had the full picture of the tech or how it was supposed to work. Also, key members of the team turned out to be missing. The bodies of a couple were eventually found. But the others never were heard from again.

Roark's effort to make sure no one could steal his tech meant no one could easily recreate it.

The Intersect tech recovered from Gretchen and Hans, and the other two Intersects Chuck and Sarah fought, turned out to be seriously flawed, technologically behind the tech Chuck had destroyed, the tech that was intended for the 'volunteers'. It gave the NSA and CIA a place to start, but word had spread in the intelligence community that the tech would soon kill the implantee—and so no one was eager to become a guinea pig for further research.

The NSA and CIA had a joint team working, but progress, if there was any, was slow. Maybe there would be more Intersects, but it would not be anytime soon.

Roark himself was no help. He had lost the will to live. A few days after the raid on RI, he had slipped into a coma. A few days after that, he was gone.

As Julie said to them, in a moment of black humor in the midst of her grief, it'd been destiny or bust for her dad.

But on top of Beckman and Robeck's frustration and disappointment about the Intersect, the two women were annoyed to find that their increasingly attractive offers to Chuck and Sarah were all firmly refused.

"Sarah," Beckman explained, "you are a spy, the best. How can you give that up to do…what?"

Sarah shrugged. "I haven't decided yet, not for sure. But I want to get my teaching certificate. I'd like to teach kindergarten, I think. Luckily, Chuck and I have some money, so we're not in any hurry to make a decision.

"Right now, I am spending time helping Frost—and Ellie and Devon—with Stephen. Oh, and helping Carina Miller with her physical therapy. Or, helping Martin help her. But I've had no downtime to speak of in…ages."

Chuck, sitting beside her, told them that he'd picked up a class, teaching at The Clown School in LA—"But no makeup," he had quickly added, causing Sarah to smile indulgently, and confusing Beckman and Robeck. Other than that, he explained, along with Sarah, he'd been spending time with his family, and with Carina and Martin.

"So, you really are leaving—both of you?" Beckman finally asked, surrender at last in her tone.

"Yes, Diane," Chuck responded. "We've seen the light—the light at the end of the tunnel. We're done. We want a home, a family. We'll muddle through."

What neither Chuck nor Sarah shared was that, although it was true that Sarah had money squirreled away, a spy's rainy-day fund—kept against a sudden need to run or a sudden need to bail her father out of jail, they were actually living on money that came from Julie Roark.

Julie had put corporate sleuths to work on the books and files at RI, now her company, and they had discovered proof in the files that Roark had, indeed stolen ideas from Chuck's father.

The final settlement would be a huge, large enough that there would never be any need to worry about Stephen or Frost, or, Ellie or Devon, or really about themselves. They would be, not independently wealthy, perhaps, but independently comfortable, surely.

Frost had taken the initial payment and given most of it to Chuck and Sarah as an engagement present—and she had made it clear that a generous portion of the final settlement would be theirs as well.

Sarah took another sip of her iced coffee. Stephen had finally awakened a week or so after the RI raid. He awoke lucid. Then he went back to sleep. When he woke up the next time, he was 'lucid'. Ellie was hopeful that with time and more of the experimental drug, that she might stabilize him in the present. She told them, though, that all the drug might do is keep him having lucid days, and never eliminate the 'lucid' ones. At the moment, he was sometimes present in the present, and sometimes present in the past. But he did not seem unhappy, even on his lucid days. Chuck spent a lot of time with him, no matter whether Stephen was lucid or just 'lucid'. Sarah was quickly becoming very fond of Stephen. So much of Stephen was in Chuck-but there was Frost there too.

Another sip. She picked up the bridal magazine that Ellie had brought over. Sarah wasn't sure she wanted the big traditional wedding, but she did want a wedding, one at which all of her new family and her friends could be present.

She and Chuck still hadn't set a date, but they would soon. They were waiting to hear from Casey and Ilsa. He'd gone back with her to Paris—it turned out Casey had stored up a huge amount of vacation time—and they were giving them a try, testing to see if they could recapture the magic of their earlier days together.

If their behavior around the apartment complex before they left was any indication, the magic was definitely being recapturable. They had been moving slowly, carefully. Casey understood Ilsa's struggle, and he did not push. But when they left, they had been happy. Sarah's spy intuition told her that Paris would cement them together more firmly.

"So, tell me, Casey, before you run off to…France…" Casey had grunted at her in response, "did you really believe I was a traitor?"

Casey had looked at her for a minute and then he shook his head. "No, not really. Not after the first few days, anyway. But Carmichael was so in love with you, and you were so in love with him, and both Graham and Beckman were suspicious…So, I told him you were likely a traitor…and I told you that you were compromised, hoping to keep you two apart for long enough for you to be cleared. I had to convince you both…

"I knew that you two would eventually find each other once that obstacle was out of the way. And…If you hadn't, I would've engineered it. Never tell Carmichael I said this, but he is a good spy when his heart is in it—maybe he could even be a great one. But his heart was always with you, Sarah, and yours with him. I'm glad you are both getting out."

"John," Sarah went on, enjoying his wince at her use of his first name, "thank you." He shrugged and went on packing. "What about you two, will you and Ilsa get out?"

He looked pensive. "She will. She plans to resign once we are in Paris. I've got eight weeks of time off. We're going to see some of Europe together. If I come back, it will not be as a field agent. A buddy of mine keeps trying to get me to become a drill sergeant for Marines boot camp in San Diego. I'm giving that serious thought. San Diego is a good town. Ilsa has a friend at UCSD who teaches in their Foreign Languages and Literature Department. She could get some work there, if she comes back with me."

Sarah shifted in her chair, looking again at the bridal magazine. A gown had caught her eye. Ellie was so excited about the wedding. She was of course helping Sarah plan it. She would be the matron of honor. Carina was to be a bridesmaid. Ilsa too. Sarah had called Jan and Liz and they'd enthusiastically agreed as well—although Liz wanted to know if she would get a chance to toast the couple at the reception, since she thought she might have a thought or two about things to say. That call ended with Jan and Liz singing an impromptu duet of "I'm Getting Married in the Morning". This time, they said, they sang it for real, for an engaged couple.

Circus Maximus was due to be in LA next week. Chuck and Sarah were both excited to see Jan and Liz in person.

One of the sweetest things in the past few weeks had been the reunion with her mother and Molly. They were both well. Molly was clearly thriving and had worked wonders on Sarah's mom. Having a mother again—and a sister—was precious to Sarah. She'd even talked on the phone with her dad, and he had told her he'd come to town to meet Chuck. She knew that there was no telling when he would come. She didn't expect him at the wedding. But she did expect him.

Sarah heard footsteps and looked up. Chuck had gotten out of his car and was walking toward her. He was carrying something. A cheap outdoor grill-the tailgating kind. Why?

Seeing him walking toward her made her think about Chuck and Frost. They seemed to be in a satisfactory place. Stephen's reactions to Frost and to Chuck when he'd shown up at RI had made changes in them both—in how they felt about themselves, and in how Chuck felt about his mom. Frost was Frost. She would never be easy. But she was a remarkable woman, and she was deeply repentant about what she had done. Sarah had wondered back in Batumi, if she and Frost were friends. The answer was she now knew was yes. They were.

Frost had left town for a few days. She'd gone back to DC to finish up work-related things there. Frost too, believe it or not, was leaving the spy life. She had retired. It had taken all the life she was willing to give, she said.

Chuck got to Sarah and gave her a grin that told her he was up to something. Of course, the grill clutched clumsily under his arm had given that away anyway. He sat it down and leaned over and kissed her—much more deeply and hungrily than she'd expected.

"Wow. I should let you go run errands more often! What was that all about?"

"That was all about making sure you know how all about you I am, baby." Chuck's grin remained.

"I got a call from Robeck on the way here. The CIA is going to give up these apartments soon and she's going to make sure you and I, and Ellie and Devon, are given the first option to rent them. I checked on movers. We can get our stuff from DC, from both apartments, shipped here, as well as our cars. Mom's planning on remaining bi-coastal for a while. What do you want to do?"

Sarah was sure. "I want to stay here. No more DC for me. We can always stay at your mom's, if we find some reason to go back, or if we want to visit her while she's there. Do you think Ellie and Devon will want to move here too?"

Chuck smiled. "Yeah, sis hates the winter. Mom just told me they both have interviews with the UCLA Medical Center. If those jobs work out, they'll resign from the CIA. Robeck wasn't happy about that, but, nonetheless, Mom's sure she put in a call to the folks at UCLA. I think their chances are good. But, whether they get that job or not, they are both remarkable doctors. They'll find work. It looks like we'll be neighbors."

Sarah sat for a while, a touch delirious, a huge smile on her face. She had daydreamed about this while she'd believed Chuck was Chuck Bartowski—about living here, about being near Ellie and Devon. And now it looked like it would happen.

After a moment, she noticed that Chuck was checking his watch.

"What is it, Chuck?"

Sarah noticed a man walking toward them. An agent: Sarah knew it immediately. She tensed. Chuck saw it. "It's ok, Sarah, I'm expecting him." The man was carrying a briefcase. It was chained to his wrist.

Chuck stood up and took a step toward the agent. The agent took a picture out of his pocket and looked at it, then looked at Chuck.

"Code phrase?"

"Overcoming Life Church."

The agent nodded once sharply. Chuck fished around in his pocket and produced a key. Sarah, puzzled, stood, better to see what was happening. Chuck unlocked the chain. The agent took out his phone.

"Package delivered."

A moment later, Chuck's phone rang. He answered it. "Package received."

The man shook Chuck's hand, glanced curiously at Sarah, and left.

"Chuck, what's going on?" Sarah could feel her pulse race.

Chuck didn't answer. He turned and put the briefcase on the side of the fountain. Then he removed the top of the grill. Leaning it against the fountain, Chuck used the key he still had in his hand to unlock the briefcase. Opened, he stepped back so that Sarah could see.

In the briefcase was a thick file. On the top of it was a photograph of Sarah—a photograph maybe a couple of years old.

As Sarah reached into the briefcase and picked up the picture, Chuck explained: "Mom got the Oversight Committee to force the CIA to give this up. It's Graham's file on you. So far as Mom could determine, it is the only non-redacted version of your file that exists, electronically or on paper. Graham was jealous of it. Mom and I arranged to get it here. She FedExed me the key yesterday."

Sarah's eyes filled with tears. "But, why, Chuck?"

"Because…because I was thinking, thinking about us the other day, about our mission to Batumi and that Orthodox Church, remember?"

Sarah smiled wetly and nodded. "Anathema."

"Yeah, right. That got me thinking about Orthodoxy—in particular, a story I read about Orthodox Christians in Russia. When the revolutionaries took over, and when the churches were closed, many of the faithful snuck in and retrieved the icons—the paintings of the saints and prophets, of Jesus and Mary and the angels—and stole them away.

"Keeping them was dangerous, but the believers didn't want them in the hands of infidels. So, many of the icons were burned. The phrase that I read, and saw in my head the other day, was this: 'They burned their icons with reverent fire'. I don't know—that made me think of this file, its iconicity for you—and for me. And I thought…"

Sarah handed Chuck the photograph. She reached into the briefcase and took out the entire file. "Do you have a match, Chuck?"

He put the photograph down on the fountain, and pulled a book of paper matches from his pocket. Sarah put the file in the concavity of the grill. Chuck handed her the matches.

They stood for a moment, looking down at the file—then Sarah lit a match and held it to a couple of the loose pages. The nascent flames flickered for a moment and then gained strength. A moment later, the file was burning in earnest. Sarah reached over and took Chuck's hand.

He looked at her. "Do you know what today is?" Sarah thought for a moment, then shook her head. "One year ago today I met with Graham about an agent named Sarah Walker and about a mission in Burbank. One year ago today I saw that file. I had no idea…"

Sarah took hold of Chuck's shirt and drew him to her. They kissed as the file burnt. When the kiss ended, the file was nearly gone. Sarah reached over and picked up the photograph of her.

"Should we keep that?" Chuck asked. Sarah scrutinized the photograph. She'd been older then. She was younger now.

"No, Chuck, we don't need a photograph of Agent Walker. She's in the past, with Agent Carmichael. It's just Sarah and Chuck now." She dropped the picture into the waning flames. It caught the flames, burned.

"You know, Sarah, there is still one copy of that file…"

She smiled at him. "I know it. In your head. But my past is safe there, Chuck, and my future is in your hands." She leaned in to kiss him again, spies no more.

THE END

A/N2 Cue Modern English's "I Melt With You", the exeunt theme as our players leave the stage.

Apologies to Bob Dylan for stealing the line from "My Back Pages".

A hearty thanks here to WvonB, Grayroc, David Carner, Rachel Smith Cobleigh and michaelfmx for looking over chapter drafts, talking about writing, and providing inspiration and good cheer. I'm in your debt.

To those who have reviewed the story—especially those who have done so faithfully, chapter after chapter—thank you so much. While a writer writes to be read, nothing is better than being read and then told about the reading. When a story is in progress in real time, as this one was, reviews from good readers are the only way the writer has of telling whether it's working or not.

I am not leaving. I will still be around and be reading. But, as I said a few chapters back, I have no plans to do any further writing. I have a finished draft of an original spy novel now and want to spend the extra time I have used for this story (and the others) re-drafting that.

I didn't know fanfiction existed until a year ago, roughly. I had not thought about writing fiction. Reading Chuck fanfiction changed that. I've really enjoyed writing for you, good folks.

Speaking of which, I do plan a Postlude to this story. I am going to take a break and head to a lake. Read some Thoreau and Merleau-Ponty, hang out with my wife and my kids. So, I don't expect to start on the Postlude until next week sometime. But it will post eventually: tune in for Chapter 37 "The Prose of the World".

Please, please—do me a solid: write a review. Let me know about the final chapter and the story as a whole. (Throw me a bone!)

It's been fun. Bye for now!

Zettel