A/N1 Difficult chapter to write. I've stayed in the first-person POV for obvious reasons.

Don't own Chuck.


The (Mis)Education of Sarah Walker

CHAPTER FIFTY

Darkened Engagements (Part Ten):

Spy in the House of Love?


I've waited too long to have you
Hide in the back of me
I've cheated so long I wonder
How you keep track of me

You could never be strong
You can only be free
And I never asked for the truth
But you owe that to me

I entered the game of pricks
With knives in the back of me
Can't call you or on you no more
When they're attacking me

I'll climb up on the house
Weep to water the trees
And when you come calling me down
I'll put on my disease

You could never be strong
You can only be free
And I never asked for the truth
But you owe that to me

- Guided By Voices, Game of Pricks


With Chuck, Morgan and Casey helping, I succeed in freeing the Gobbler.

I have to take him almost immediately to Volkoff's men, and then we have to get to the plane. They have worked out our exit, so that is not my problem. In a handful of hours, Yuri will be reunited with Volkoff. I doubt there will be tears, weepy eyes. Still, maybe Volkoff will begin to believe, relax toward me, and maybe I can find a moment with Frost, somehow.

The goodbye with Chuck is awkward. I cannot let myself be pulled to him again. I will never leave if I do. But the mission is unfinished. Chuck's mom is still with Volkoff. I wish I fully understood that 'with'.

After a clumsy goodbye kiss, made clumsy by my not getting out of the escape truck to say goodbye (although Chuck, as usual, blames himself), I drive the unconscious Yuri to the appointed place, Volkoff's men.

Soon, we are on board the plane to Russia.

No one sits near the Gobbler, I notice. Even the leering man gives up his vantage point on me to sit in the back, away from Yuri. I sit behind the Gobbler, and, thinking of Frost's warning, I tuck my feet under me and my hands under my arms. I do not sleep, but I cat nap, one eye open, dreaming of the kiss with Chuck in Castle. His lips, the sweet taste of him. He always tastes so damn good.

I hope I tasted good too. I want to taste good too.

I can still taste Chuck on my lips when we land - although it is perhaps my imagination. I want to be back in Burbank so bad that I feel hollow, as if someone had scooped my heart out of me, leaving only a moving shell. I wince a bit at my own imagery, a vague feeling of foreboding.

I escort Yuri from the car; the three men go with it. Frost stands outside, waiting for me. Relief and pleasure ghost across her face and then it goes stony. I am not sure what the reaction means.

Two men join us as we go inside, and they take Yuri with them so that he can get cleaned up and become presentable.

Frost gives me an amused, slushy smirk: "Alexei has a bit of a dress code. Orange is not the new black, not in Russia, anyway."

She walks on. I stand, unsure. Frost looks over her shoulder. "Sarah, follow me. We will be expected to present Yuri to Volkoff - or, you will, but I am expected to be there too - we don't have much time."

I take a couple of long, fast steps and fall into stride with her. We take the elevator but stop one floor below the penthouse floor. Frost, softly: "I am taking you to my private quarters. I will tell Alexei, if he asks, that you needed to freshen up. Your room, oddly enough" - icy smile - "was on the docket for some repairs today."

Frost keys open the door and we step inside. The room immediately reminds me of Burbank, of Ellie's. The taste expressed is the same. The room is deeply at odds with the penthouse, with the building, with Russia. It makes me relax a bit; I smile.

Frost smiles too, this time her smile is not icy. But there is something in her eyes, anger, panic.

"This room is not bugged. I demanded it and I sweep it daily." I nod, acknowledging what she has told me.

Frost takes a breath, then begins. She struggles to produce the words. "Sarah, you should not be here. I appreciate what you are trying to do. I am...touched. You must love my son very much." Her quick, tight smile is equally a grimace. "But you are trying to...save...someone...beyond salvage. You must be able to tell, you must know: I am...compromised. I have been compromised for a long, long time."

She waves one hand, the gesture so fraught it seems almost involuntary. "There's a story; I had...have...my reasons. But the story does not change...the bottom line. Volkoff is...in love with me. I have had to...make him believe I am in love with him. Make him believe it, Sarah. Make believe I am in love with him."

Frost's normal complete control is now gone. I see Ellie not just in the apartment now, but in Frost's animated face too, and it makes all this...worse, much worse. I cross to Frost and take her hand in mine.

"Mary, it's…"

She pulls her hand back at my touch. "No, Sarah, it's...not. I am not Volkoff's wife. I am not even his mistress...or, not exactly. Volkoff wants me but he...has trouble acting on that desire...I remind him of someone.

"So, we are a couple, but not a normal couple; I am his second-in-command, but I am not sleeping with him, although I do sleep with him. But in a second bed. I don't mean to try to excuse myself, though, or to suggest we have never...touched...each other…." Mary swallows, looks nauseated. I hear her whisper Stephen's name, barely audible.

I try to understand this. What does Frost mean? 'Trouble'? Although there is something pleasingly ironic about the idea of the world's largest and most notorious weapons dealer being unable to...weaponize, the exchange of looks between Frost and Volkoff after Volkoff stared wolfishly at the chef's bottom makes me think that weaponizing, at least in general, is not the problem. But Frost seems unwilling to explain further - the sleeping arrangements, anyway. What does she mean, she reminds him of someone?

"I have been at his side for years, trying to steady him, rein him in. I have prevented deaths and...atrocities, but to do so I have had to stand by him, stand by and consent to - watch, if nothing else - other horrible things. Your freeing of Yuri may get you into Volkoff's good graces; it is hard to predict his reactions. But he will not rest until he has changed you, Sarah. If he ever lets you go back to Chuck, it won't be until Chuck doesn't want you back…"

I can feel Frost's own sorrow now, feel her inability to separate my plight and hers. She wanted, no, she wants to go back, not to Stephen (dear God, it is too late for that, she knows) but to her family, her children. She does not think they will want her, not if they know, if they truly understand what she has become, what she has done.

We mirror each other, Frost and I. Standing there. Frost and the Ice Queen - both our hearts too long in cryogenic suspension.

I can see her plight as mine, as part of what kept me from Chuck for so long, and as part of the explanation for why I was so afraid of him seeing Agent Walker. I had a fear like hers when Chuck saw me in Castle. I have not completely outrun the fear now. I hear its footsteps behind me.

"Mary," I try again, "my file is thicker than yours, bloodier, but your son...he loves me." Mary nods but then she turns sharp eyes on me, a cool, assessing stare.

"You've told him - all of it - and he still loves you. The terminations, the details." I can't tell if she is stating disbelief or asking me a question.

It is my turn to ice over.

What do I say?

I have told Chuck a few things. Mostly as generalities, not specifics. He has seen things. Mauser. He has flashed on a few past missions. I have shared my treasures but not my horrors.

I make myself be expressive, defrost. I meet Frost's icicle glare. I speak for her - and for me. Words tumble out of me, surprising us both.

"No, not all of it. Not specifics. Chuck knows in general terms. He flashed on...some...missions early in my time in Burbank. He saw me...execute a man.

"But, no, not all of it. Still, Mary, he has seen that. He has seen a lot in the past four years. He has shot a man. Chuck is a spy. Not like you are, not like I am...used to be, but a spy. He will forgive you; he has already forgiven you. Forgiven that you and Volkoff are…" I search for an appropriate word, "...involved. Chuck is noble and high-minded, but Mary, he is not naive. He suspects. He worries. Ellie's not naive, either…" I reach out to Mary again. She lets me take her hand, hold it. I see tears in her eyes now, ice melting. One lone tear trails down her cheek.

"I don't know. I can't go back for as long as Volkoff is...in business. I can't. Maybe the kids can find their way...past...my past. But I can't face them until I finish the mission I came here to do, until he can no longer hurt anyone." She pauses, looks at me then away from me. "Until no one can hurt him. The mission is all I have. All I have left."

I still do not understand what Frost is telling me, not completely. She looks back at me. "Be careful, Sarah. Volkoff will try to corner you. He will give you no choice but the choice he wants you to make. I don't know when...I don't know how...I don't know where...But I do who. I know him. A reckoning is coming. I hope you fare better...than I did. I hope your corner is less...complicated."

I nod. My stomach is knotted confusion, sorrow, and fear.

Frost stands straighter. She wipes her eyes. In a moment, she is the woman who threatened to butcher my traveling companions if they touched me. She hardens. I do the same. We mirror each other. She leads me from her apartment, back to the elevator, down to Volkoff's office, to Volkoff.

ooOoo

Yuri is waiting for us when we get off the elevator. Frost gives him a curt nod and then leads us past Volkoff's executive assistant and into Volkoff's office. He gives me an indecipherable look then smiles at Yuri. Frost and I step to the side, so as not to interfere with Yuri's homecoming.

Volkoff greets Yuri heartily but then begins to segue into a chiding tone, reminding Yuri of his importance and of the serious error he made in allowing himself to be captured and jailed. The Gobbler, a mountain of a man, shrinks visibly beneath Volkoff's tone.

Just when I fear something...bad...is about to happen, Volkoff declares that he is not angry with Yuri. Just disappointed. The mounting tension in the room reverses. Yuri visibly relaxes, stands taller.

Volkoff whirls and shots Yuri in the head.

Frost and I both react, wince. Neither of us expected that. Volkoff seems unaffected, except perhaps a trace of satisfaction. I knew I was in danger here. Frost has tried to make it clear. I am now fully aware. Volkoff's wishes are the reality here.

He climbs aboard Yuri's corpse, digging at Yuri's head. Liquid, sucking sounds, jello through a straw, fill the room. And then Volkoff, triumphant, brandishes Yuri's eye.

No, yes, no. It is...It was Yuri's eye. But it is glass. Not his natural eye. Volkoff circles to his desk, inserts the eye into a receptor, punches buttons. Hydra is then displayed before us, in its remarkable complexity. I realize that Yuri did not so much know about Hydra as he was a functioning piece of it. Not functioning now. I can smell the blood pooling behind us, around Yuri's ventilated forehead.

Volkoff explains that Hydra works because its pieces do not know each other, do not know they are part of a network. He punches more buttons, gloating, full of himself, Hydra. He then confesses that his use of Yuri was a mistake, the existence of the eye a mistake. He smashes it. For a moment, both Frost and I believe he has destroyed Hydra. But no, he has moved it to a secure location.

A piece of the shattered eye lands near Frost's foot, the data-bearing inwards of the eye. She covers it with her foot.

Volkoff looks at us - at me - and announces we have another mission. The jet is waiting. Frost looks at me, subtle warning in her glance, her face hidden from Volkoff. I am to be back on a plane, this time with Volkoff and Frost. Frost retrieves the piece of the eye and slips it into her pocket.

I can feel it now, the corner. Feel myself being forced. Feel myself on a shortened leash. The last of the warmth I felt in Chuck's arms drains from me. Unbidden, I remember the day at the Farm, the day of my make-over. The woman's advice about walking in high heels. One line.

I am walking a line now. I fear where it leads. All I can see is that it leads into the dark.

ooOoo

We are in Burbank.

That chills me. It can be neither an accident nor a coincidence. Frost warned me. But why now? Why so immediately? I brought Volkoff Yuri. But that seems to have earned me nothing from Volkoff.

A car takes us from the airport to a highrise building in the city, one under reconstruction, deserted. There are men there when we arrive and men who arrive as we do. Something is afoot, something has been...prepared. I shiver. Dread. I feel the corner, feel myself being backed into it.

We get out. Volkoff turns to me. He finally plays the ace he has been holding. He holds out a small electronic screen and asks whether the man whose face is displayed aided me in freeing the Gobbler. The man is Casey. The image is of the fake ID Casey displayed when he posed as a prison guard.

I explain. The man is loyal to me, so I used him. Volkoff gives me a vulpine grin, congratulating me on my answer. Again, I do not think he believes me. I do not think he does not believe me. He has something else on his mind.

With a flourish, much like that with which he brandished Yuri's eye, he tells me that I am here to kill Casey. For a moment, I feel faint. It is all I can do to keep myself upright, not to give myself away in my reaction. Frost is very still for a second.

So this is my corner.

I have to kill my friend in order to get into Volkoff's good graces, to give myself the best chance to save Frost. I can't kill Casey. That is off the table, unthinkable. But if I do not, Volkoff will, or his men will. Casey is in the building. He does not realize that he is trapped.

Volkoff hands me a gun. Not my shiny S&W, but a dark gun, one of his. I take it, moving on automatic pilot. My mind is racing, my heart is pounding. I walk forward into the building, backing further into my corner.

I climb the steps, trying to slow the progress of this nightmare. What can I do? I have to find some way to let Casey know I am here. I need to eliminate the possibility of simply executing him. I climb, but I have no definite plan. I want to retch, to heave the gun, to bolt from the building. I want to find Chuck and hide in his arms. I want...

My feet are so cold I cannot feel the steps I take.

One line. A thin, red line leading me upstairs.

I force myself to breathe, force the rising bile down - but it wants to climb as I climb. My throat is burning. My eyes are watering. The gun gets heavier with each step.

I reach the door I have been climbing toward.

So this is where I find myself at last. After all that has happened. My recruitment, my training, my years as Enforcer. The CATs. Bryce. Budapest. The baby. Burbank. Chuck. Three years of miserable waiting and wanting. Hope and disappointment. Emptiness - and then love. Almost engaged. Almost. Almost married. Almost.

And here I am, dressed in black, my hair black, a black gun in my hand, being forced into a black deed.

Did I labor for so long toward the light only to be swallowed by the dark? Was this always my fate, to be shown the Promised Land but to be exiled from it because of what I have been, what I have done?

I open the door since I have no answers and since Volkoff will not wait forever. I start the walk toward Casey, knowing I am on Volkoff's screen. One line, Agent Walker. I stop next to a pillar. I am reflected in the glass wall Casey stands before, looking out. I hope he sees me. I notice paint cans on the floor. I start toward him, making sure I jostle one with my foot, alerting him to my presence. He turns and I allow him to knock the gun from my hand. I need to talk to him; I can get close enough as we fight hand-to-hand.

Punch. I explain what is happening. Spin, block, kick. Casey understands the fix we are in, that Volkoff is watching. Casey suggests I shoot him in the shoulder. Punch, block, block. I tell him I am not going to shoot him. We continue to fight. He shoves me hard against the glass, pointing out a movable construction platform, a boom, below, a larger version of the boom window cleaners use. He tells me to throw him through the window. He can survive the fall to the platform; he's survived such falls before.

I do not want to do it. Too risky. Unsure of what to do, I do the one thing I can. I slip the inwards of Yuri's eye into Casey's pocket. I tell him to give it to Chuck. (Frost moved it to me, unnoticed, on the plane.) Casey's eyes show that he understands me.

Volkoff arrives. My heart sinks. And then I see Chuck. Chuck is with him. Chuck. I liquefy completely. All that I have feared is here, now. The reckoning.

I hit Casey hard. He goes down, genuinely dazed.

No. No, no, no, no. Anything but this, anything but this in front of Chuck. Volkoff is leering. Not at me, but at the situation, the pain he anticipates for Chuck. Frost: If he ever lets you go back to Chuck, it won't be until Chuck doesn't want you back…

Chuck's eyes sweep the scene. He looks at me with disbelief, horror. She is coming into hard focus for him now, Agent Walker is. Not a mask. Me. Volkoff picks up the gun Casey knocked from my hand and offers to kill Casey.

I tell Volkoff not to do it. I will do it. I will 'kill' Casey so that Volkoff does not kill Casey. But Chuck will see me kill Casey. This is so much worse than Mauser for so many reasons. Chuck pleads for me to stop, not to do it, his whole body, his whole being, begs me to stop. Watching me 'kill' Casey will kill a part of Chuck. It will damage, maybe destroy his love for me. I have to hope that Casey's living through my 'killing' him, and my delivering the Hydra information, will control the damage, but I can't know that. It was bad enough for Chuck to see me looking like an assassin. But for Chuck to see me assassinate, assassinate Casey, to do it at Volkoff's bidding, knowing that Volkoff intends Chuck to be a victim as well as Casey...

Prick! Damn him! Damn his games.

I have to act. I stand Casey up. I pull back my fist. I hear Chuck. I feel my heart shatter. I punch Casey as hard as I possibly can, and he is alert enough to aid me, throw his weight backward harder than my punch alone could have done. He times it perfectly. The glass shatters before the pieces of my heart rain onto the floor.

Casey falls. Terrified, I step to the edge, my foot crunching glass. I look down.

I take a breath, release it. Casey is on the boom. He will survive. I am about to turn and face Chuck and Volkoff, when I see the anchor of the boom give way, spilling Casey into the night air, and I watch him fall to the ground.

I cannot breathe. I meant to 'kill' him, but I killed him. In front of Chuck, I killed Casey. Enforcer, enforce! I rotate away from the window, and axle of a rapidly spinning nightmare. Casey, below and behind me, dead. Chuck, across from me, his eyes empty of his heart, filled with terror...of me...horror...of what I have done...knowledge...of what I really am. I am finally living my corpse dream; I am not asleep. This is an eyes-open nightmare; I am an undead thing. I do not exist, I subsist but above ground. A dream made rotten flesh.

Volkoff delivers the coup de grace before he knocks Chuck out with a savage blow.

"And she did it all for you!"

Bastard.

To kill Casey, to make me kill Casey, and then to make Chuck believe it is all his fault. My love, what have I done?

I kneel beside Chuck, checking him. He is alive but unconscious. Volkoff, mission done, is eager to go. I cannot stay. I cannot fight. Any resistance now will result in Volkoff killing Chuck. Frost watches, her skin perhaps paler than usual.

If he ever lets you go back to Chuck, it won't be until Chuck doesn't want you back…

I trail behind Volkoff, reversing my course from earlier. One line. A thin, red line. I know where it leads. Hell. The other corpses are dancing, danse macabre, dancing to welcome me home.

ooOoo

I sit on the plane. Frost is beside me. I keep trying to wipe my hands, to find some way to wash the blood from them. The blood I saw on Casey's broken body, the blood I chilled in Chuck's broken heart. Wipe, wipe, one hand, then the other. Frost takes my hand, a mirror image of my taking hers in her apartment. Her eyes are full of pain, reflecting my own back to me. I cannot live with this. I cannot live like this. In a frozen Hell, Volkoff the Lord of Flies, presiding over a legion of corpses.

Frost. "It gets easier."

I am unsure of the referent of 'it'. I don't know if I want to know. "How?"

"Distance."

Distance. Always distance. It will never close again.

Volkoff comes to us from the front of the plane. Frost takes her hand away before he can see.

My phone, the secure one, vibrates. Volkoff and Frost have moved away. I carefully remove the phone from my pocket, look at the screen. Chuck.

How can I explain? I killed Casey. I did not intend to kill him but I did. I cannot explain this in a text. I cannot bear to read an accusation from Chuck, and I know that is what he has sent. I saw the look on his face before Volkoff hit him. He looked at me and saw her. Only her.

My past self has claimed my future. My future is Agent Walker. Not Sarah Bartowski. Not Chuck.

Not Chuck.

I refuse the message. I am so inundated by pain and sorrow, so drowned by it, that I can neither plant my foot on the bottom nor swim up to the top. I cannot do anything, cannot think at all, much less coherently. I can only drown.

I turn to the window, staring out into the dark sky as it swallows the plane, swallows me.

Goodbye, Sarah. Goodbye, Chuck.

Distance.


A/N2 Our poor heroine. Hang in there. Things will get better. This is one of the darkest moments of the show from Sarah's POV. More next time, including an important non-canon conversation between Chuck and Sarah. Tune in for Chapter 51, "Darkened Engagements (Part Eleven): Full Circle".

I am a big Miike Snow fan (I used their lyrics in Omaha.) Their song, Silvia, is one of the truly brilliant song placements in the show (and that's saying something). Check out the lyrics. Heartbreaking (especially in context as the episode ends).

Why the show went to such lengths to parallel Sarah and Frost and then did so little with the parallel is truly perplexing. The Gobbler episode should have focused on Sarah and Frost. We did not need as much of Chuck and Casey and Morgan playing Risk, for example. But the show just could not let itself follow its own best impulses so often, and so Sarah and Frost get virtually no screen time except when sharing the screen with Chuck.

I give them some time here. I know the stuff between Frost and Volkoff is odd. Some of you have probably figured it out. It will not be explained until later. But the idea that Frost kept Volkoff waiting for twenty years, well...

Thoughts?