A/N: Here we go.

Burying Dirt

Chapter Seventeen: Gutshot

Rooftop ledge.

Wind and decision.

Company.

Wanted him with her.

Needed him with her.

He should not be with her. Absolutely. Should.

Not.

Told him to stay in the car, work on the computer. Chuck agreed but now he was with her. On the ledge. Followed her to it.

A different rooftop, downtown LA.

Rifle case open. Little box casket. Gun out, conditions tested. Wind whipping around. Calculations made. Scope rendering the distant scene bright, close.

But now, Chuck. Beside her. No words. His eyes followed the gun barrel, the silencer, extending it toward an apartment window. The lights had just come on.

Scoped, the assassin could see her, Carina. Redhead, cross-hairs.

Unscoped, Chuck saw her too, same distance, less bright, deathly intimacy. Distant. But he knew her. The assassin heard him gasp.

"Carina? How did you know where to find her?"

Eye away from scope. Chuck's curls dancing in the wind.

The assassin's mouth a line, flat as her rifle barrel, but she spoke. "Carina's not the only one who knows things. Back when we worked together, I paid someone to dig into her DEA files. Got it all. Never work with someone you don't know...know about. She's owned this apartment for years. Alias." Fiddled with the scope.

"Who knows where she got the money? —Back at the cabin, she slipped but didn't realize when she told me, told me she was in LA before I got here. Figures she'd be at this apartment, Carina likes to live soft, but she didn't know I knew here was here. But I do." Eye back to scope. "Payback is a bitch."

"Sarah…"

"Don't, Chuck, this is...hard enough. I mean...the shot. Technical...I mean. Lots of variables. More distance than I like. This wind."

"Sarah...Sarah, don't."

Carina, open fridge. Removed a bottle, beer. In her hand. Digging in drawer. Bottle opener. Opened the bottle. Cross-hairs settling. Breathing controlled.

"Sarah, don't. Don't!" Harsh whisper. Prayerful.

Cross-hairs settled. Carina takes a drink of her beer. Long, visible sigh. Upset. Finger on the trigger, gentle, gentle. Breathing. She hurt Chuck. Was going to give him to Graham.

Carina was standing in front of the large window, staring out, toward the night skyline. Bright lights, big city. Little box casket.

The assassin relaxed. Carina, framed in glass. Another drink. Another long sigh.

"Sarah, I know what she did, but, Sarah...this? Don't."

"I'm going to do what I came to do." The assassin shut her eyes. Carina blacked out for a second. Re-opened them. Cross-hairs settled. Trigger.

Squeeze.

The rifle coughed once. Brief. Carina. Bitch.

Beer bottle in Carina's gunhand exploded, glass shards and foam suspended mid-air for a second.

Carina gasped. Gasp seen, unheard. She shook her hand, red running in the gold liquid. Looked at the window. Sees the bullet hole.

"Sarah?" Chuck.

Carina extended her arms. Walked to the window. One hand bleeding, blood running, now more copious than the beer. Made herself into human cross-hairs. Stands in the window, framed in glass again.

Waits to die.

"You...missed." Chuck.

"No, perfect shot. Direct hit." Sarah's voice sounds choked. Thick and unfamiliar.

Carina waits. Sarah watched through the scope. Chuck watched, naked eyes.

Long, hard moments.

Crucifix moments. Carina suspended on the cross-hairs. Carina's hand, blood.

Bile, Sarah's throat.

Chuck's labored breathing.

Nothing stirred. No one. Only the wind, blowing.

Two.

One.

Zero.

Finally, Carina backed away from the window. To the kitchen counter, visible. Same drawer. Rummaged. Found a cloth, pink, wrapped bloody hand. Finds another cloth, white. Grabbed a sheet of paper. Pen. Wrote with her non-gunhand. Left hand. Right hand bleeding into pink cloth, reddening.

Carina walked back to the window. Waving the white cloth. Flagging. A flag. Surrender.

A smirk on her face and pain in it. Still waving the white flag, she held up the paper. In the scope, Sarah could read it.

An address. Graham.

Sarah turned, knelt, quickly put the rifle in the case. Looked up. Chuck knelt beside her, watching.

Face as white as Carina's flag. Eyes intent with thought, deepest brown.

He shouldn't be here. I need him too much. He sees.

Together, they hurried, elevator, car.

Drive. Payback was a bitch.

In every way.

ooOoo

"Pull over. I feel sick."

Chuck was no longer white. He was chrysanthemum yellow. That was worse.

Pulled into a parking lot, lit but deserted. Rifle case in the backseat. Chuck kept turning to look at it.

Chuck got out. Slammed the passenger door. Bent over, doubled, hands on knees. Swayed. Retching sounds.

Sarah shut the engine off. Got out. Quickly to Chuck, arm around his shoulder. He had moved away from the spot where he had gotten sick, but he had bent over again.

He trembled when her arm went around him. Shook it off. "Don't."

"Chuck?"

"That shot. That rifle. That miraculous shot. A beer bottle from that distance. The wind. I thought you took the rifle because it was all that guy would sell you. But no, it's your...thing. It was what you wanted."

He stood. Unsteady. His eyes were burning. Sarah stepped back involuntarily. He took a shaky step toward her.

"That shot. She knew it was you. Expected you to kill her, finish her off. Offered herself up." He shut his eyes, his right hand to his left shoulder.

"That shot. It was...you. Graham sent you to kill me." Chuck's eyes burned, burned with awful certainty.

"Chuck, I…"

"You're the same as my mother. The same sort. A killer, an assassin. I was your target. I don't know what happened. But I was…" He pointed at her, his finger shaking, tears wetting his burning eyes. He wiped his mouth with his other arm, his forearm.

"You shot me."

Long, hard moments. Silence.

Sarah could not make her mouth work. Her heart was in it, thumping, ricocheting. A mouthful of blood and…

...Love. I love him. I know that...now...of all times.

Chuck spit on the pavement, spit again. Looked up at her. Certainty still in his eyes. Horror, too. Of her. The assassin.

"And the shovel, pick, those were for me? You were still planning to kill me even after you 'saved' me?"

Chuck's arms wide, he made quotation marks in the air as he said saved. Arms out, for a moment, looked like Carina in the window. Then he winced, grabbed his shoulder.

"Chuck, please, just let me try to…"

"And then, then you slept with me. With the man you shot. And you held me, kissed me. And I thought...I thought we made love in that cabin, in the hotel, even if it couldn't last, that that was what happened...even if neither of us would say it. A lifetime's worth. But I am a fucking fool. Carina tried to warn me…"

"No, Chuck. That's not. That's not how it was. I mean, not the way Carina says, you and me. Yes, Graham sent me but…"

"But what? Did someone else shoot me? Someone else pull the trigger?"

Chuck glared at her, finger-pointing again, stabbing, stabbing, a physical accusation.

"You won't understand, Chuck, I'm not sure I do...but...yes, someone else. Someone who's dead, or anyway, who's dying." She stepped toward him but he held up both hands, warding her off.

Chuck, please. Hold me. Need.

"You told me the person who shot me was dead. But that was a lie, and you're lying now."

"No, Chuck. No, no, no. Not like you think." Tears ran down Sarah's cheeks, babbling brook, broken. Could not stop them. The whole world a rain of tears.

Over already.

Dripping on the pavement. Tears and spittle. Bile and regret.

"Chuck, have you ever...ever been so hungry that you hated yourself for it? For being capable of hunger? Have you ever been so hungry that you tried to tear your own stomach out?"

Chuck reeled. "What's that mean? I don't understand."

"I chose this life without understanding. Was buried in it before I knew it was killing me. I've been so miserable for so long, so hungry for something else...but I had no glimmer of what it was until now, until you. I just tried not to know how hungry I was. Until you smiled in my scope. The shot went the wrong way — revelation, you to me, not assassination me to you. I was the unknowing target of that smile.

"— Oh, God, Chuck. I pulled the trigger, yes. That makes me sick. It's been killing me. But I missed too, made sure the shot would not kill you. Me. I did both." She reached out her hand but his stayed hanging at his sides. "I didn't realize it until I knew I couldn't...that I couldn't do it. Couldn't let anyone else do it. Never. I buried the shovel, the pick, not you, Chuck. I buried her, the assassin. Graham's assassin. She wouldn't have missed. She wouldn't have saved you. Come back for you. She wouldn't have shielded Morgan…That makes me hope."

She stopped, sounding hysterical, desperate, out of breath. Panting.

Chuck stared at her, his eyes like twin scopes, as if he could not see her without visual aid.

Sarah went on, still panting. "She would have killed Carina. I'm not saying it makes sense. I'm just saying it's true."

They stood facing each other in the wind. Tears.

Both ways. Every way.

Chuck put his hands over his face, wiped it. He turned and leaned against the car, using only his right arm. He spoke without turning back to her.

"I stink of vomit. I don't know how to understand any of this. My heart, my heart hurts. And my damned shoulder. Take me back to the apartment —I can finish this without you. Save myself. You can go be Nobody with somebody else."

The assassin nodded and wiped her eyes and got in the car and drove.

Drove.

So long.

A/N: How could this be easy, pleasant? Tune in next time for Chapter 18, "Alas, Poor Yorick". If you're liking the story, please let me know.