A/N: Heading to the finish of the second arc.

Burying Dirt

Chapter Eighteen: "Alas, Poor Yorick"

Watched Chuck trudge into the apartment.

The assassin did.

Arise, walk. In newness of life…

...And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Amen and amen.

So.

So.

So be it.

Always. So long.

So long, Chuck.

No goodbye. Just the slamming car door. Weary trudge. Weight to bend him double but he stood straight.

The assassin was the crooked one. Bent. Double.

On the drive, Chuck busy not-looking at her. Rubbing his shoulder. Wiping his eyes. No words. The assassin was choking, love and guilt.

Chuck never opened the laptop. He had it beneath his arm as he trudged.

"You're going to kill him, you know." Ellie.

Why hast thou forsaken me?

The assassin settled the crosshairs on her own heart. "My heart hurts." Chuck.

Drove away. Had told Chuck she would return the car later, leave it. Needed to drive.

Out sidestreets, out highway, out, onto a backroad. No idea which, where. Continuous white lines equidistant from broken yellow ones.

Her life in lines. Taught by her father. Drilled.

"What's your line, Sam? What do you say if one of the church folks ask about your mother? Line!"

"Dead, Dad. My line: she's dead."

"Right. Never forget your lines. Never."

Speed increasing, tires squealing in turns. The sound of her, inside. Roaring, screaming.

"Your cover, Sarah. What's your cover? Walk the line. Don't look down."

Highwire over low deeds.

Teacher at The Farm. Drilling her.

"Cover, Sarah?"

"Eliza Pearson. Heiress. Debauched. Cunning, not smart. Family fortune dwindling."

"Good. And the target? Now, no hesitation."

"Horatio Churchyard. Guns. Drugs. Funding terrorism, assassination. Suspected of plotting US embassy attacks…"

"Method of execution?"

"Poison. Close-quarters. Churchyard has a known heart condition. Drug to overload his system, bring on an attack."

"Dead in?"

"Two minutes, give or take ten seconds."

"How will you cover the time?"

"Tear my dress, expose myself, claim Churchyard did it on the dance floor. Keep eyes on me, no sympathy for Churchyard."

"Good. Extraction point?"

"Top of the building."

"Good. If extraction fails?"

"Cyanide tablet."

"Good, good. You understand you cannot be taken?"

"I understand. If necessary, I will be my own target. And my record will stay perfect."

"Let's go over it again. Cover?..."

Car up on two wheels. Guardrails sudden in headlights. Ravine.

Turn the wheel, Sarah. Be your own target.

I can't. I can't leave him. Not even if he leaves me.

Left me.

Tried to gather her thoughts. Words in order.

Over the years, her internal words, disordered. Minimized. Disintegrated. Preserve the self by never allowing it to form, become determinate. The unformed and the non-existent: hard to tell apart.

Think only about the mission. Don't reflect. Collect. Recollect. Don't. Don't ingather your words. You'll see yourself. Formed and informed. Bitter harvest of regret and pain.

Ravine.

Pumped the brakes.

Chuck cannot save himself.

Stopped the car. On the berm, the edge. Engine idling. Headlights stabbing the California darkness.

Graham.

The assassin had the address. Carina.

A suicide mission. But she could do it. Kill Graham before he killed her. His agents killed her. The burned spy conflagrated, one last blaze of glory. Pyrotechnic. Graham and the assassin, joint funeral pyre. Creator and creature.

Where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched…For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.

Headlights slicing sideways, the assassin turned the car.

Back to the city.

ooOoo

Almost there.

Ingather.

Reflect.

I am in love with him. With Chuck. Maybe, maybe he loves me, loved me, loves me too. But I ruined it. It was damned from the beginning. Damnation like a contagion, like death.

Dead flies. Dead moth. Dead assassin.

He thought we made love. In the cabin. In the hotel. Chuck inside of me. A lifetime's worth. We did. Love. Loved. Made love.

Always thought the phrase a bit of self-hypnosis. Syrup on steroids. No.

'Made love.' The exact phrase.

Made. An act of creation, a making. Something made, something shared. Not just coincident feelings. The cohabitation of a reality.

Love. No experience with it but I feel it. I know it.

A lifetime's worth, Chuck.

Dead. Or, dying. The assassin.

Sarah struggling to life. ...When I would do good, evil is present with me...O wretched woman that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

Sarah.

Sarah, strong enough to redirect the shot at Chuck, not strong enough to confess.

End Graham. I will do it for Chuck. I will do it for me. I will do it for us. The us I hoped would be.

So be it.

I will end Graham. And I will end. And, lo, I am with you always, Chuck, even unto the end...

Amen and amen.

It was right that you left me.

ooOoo

The assassin, Sarah, the assassin parked the car two blocks from the address after driving by it once. Clearly, CIA safe house.

It would be a fortress.

She considered her handgun.

Loaded.

Uncasketed the rifle.

Loaded.

Let it rest, stock in her lap, barrel toward the passenger seat. Chuck's seat.

And then it struck the assassin. — She, Sarah, had known. Known Chuck would see. Had been wondering about the rifle. Thinking. Witnessed the shot at Carina. Knew he would figure it out. Not a confession of word but of deed. Showed him herself, guilty, even if she could not tell. Showed.

Strong enough for that.

She put the driver's window down. Wind had died. Air still, cool, fresh.

Sarah glanced into the rearview mirror. Nodded goodbye to the woman reflected. If she was strong enough for that confession, she was strong enough to get to Graham, fight her way in. One final termination.

Strong enough.

To do what was necessary. — This was what she had left. The right thing to do.

Payback is a bitch.

She put her hand on the door handle, drew a slow, deep breath. A breath so long, so slow, a deep breath of the cool air.

A lifetime's worth.

Her burner vibrated as she braced to open the door. Out of her pocket. A call from the other burner.

Soft, unsure. "Hello?"

"Sarah?"

"Chuck?"

"Sarah, don't."

A/N: Thoughts?

I am busy with the beginning-of-semester teaching stuff. It may be the weekend before the story continues.