A/N: On we go. Final preludial chapter for the third arc.

Burying Dirt

Chapter Twenty-Three: Family Values

Shower on. Sarah heard it.

Chuck in it.

Sarah, showered and stretched out on her bed, Chuck's UCSB t-shirt and a pair of shorts, the last bought on the road, Montana somewhere.

Bumby in her lap.

Warm all over, and still warming. Slid her feet under the blanket, reflex.

Her mind wandered to an hour or so earlier.

Outside the restaurant, conversation with Ellie. Chuck and Devon and Morgan in the restaurant, ordering.

Dinner.

Ellie gave Sarah a long, hard look.

"So, Chuck tells me that sleeping arrangements are changing. Devon and Morgan will be with me, you with Chuck."

"You told me that we needed to talk, Ellie. We finally did. I asked him to stay with me. So we can sleep. Tomorrow we go after Omaha."

Ellie, crossed arms, foot tapping. "This is a bizarre situation, you know. I find out that my brother has fallen for...an assassin and that she...has fallen for him. That the same assassin shot my brother— then saved him, and Morgan, and Devon and me.

"And then I find out my parents were involved in the CIA, and are dead — I sort of suspected that last part, maybe, in a perverse way, I hoped it because it was at least an explanation for their so-long absence — but they aren't just dead, they've been murdered, on an order given by your boss, and by a man, Osgood, whose place you took." Ellie stopped and uncrossed her arms.

"And now…" She closed her mouth as if she had run out of words. She huffed, started again. "Why are we talking about this? If Chuck wants you with him, I can't stop it."

Tired. Ellie looked tired. Spent. They all did. Who knows what happens tomorrow? "Because I want this to be okay with you too. — Why did you send him with me back in LA, send him with me to DC?"

"Because, crazy as this sounds, I can see that you two need each other. That you need him. And that he needs you." Ellie shook her head. "And because, unhappy or confused or angry or all of the above, Chuck is alive when you are around, despite the fact that you are...were...a killer. As much as I hate it, and as goddamn insane as it is, you shooting him brought him to life, or, rather, you did. His killer, his savior...Tell me what sense that makes."

Sarah shrugged. "Don't know, Ellie. I keep thinking about the sign over the booth, Chuck's booth, in front of the Buy More. Ask me how I can help you? My target, my savior. I was dead, Death, but now...I'm alive. And I hurt...and I'm confused, I see...but I'm blinded by the light. Adjusting." The clay washed away. "I can't make it make sense, not even if I were better with words than I am, Ellie. It just has...it has happened. Or, ...is happening. Change. Conversion. A life. A new life.

Ellie's jaw dropped. "My God, you...you actually do love him, don't you."

Blood pounded. Heart raced. One nod, all she could manage for a moment, then Sarah spoke. "I didn't deny it when you said it before."

"But you...you're planning on leaving. When this is done. Right?"

Another shrug, physically painful. "I can't...I can't say. I can't see the future."

"But Chuck's always dreamed of a future — a wife, children, a house. Not Norman Rockwell, maybe, but...normal. Good, wholesome."

Blinked. "And that's not me."

"You could be a mother, after being an assassin?"

"Your mother was," Sarah offered softly, a fact of hard record. "But...I don't know, Ellie. We have to deal with today first. Tomorrow will have to fend for itself for a while."

"And — that's another reason, Sarah."

"Reason for what, Ellie?"

"For letting Chuck go in LA, encouraging him to go today. My Mom. Our Mom. You. I can't stand in final judgment on you without standing in final judgment on her, and I now have no desire to do that. Her life...it must have been more complicated than I ever imagined, than I can understand. I love her and she was a killer. The woman who gave me life."

"But she stopped. The terminations. She was a good agent, Ellie. Her name echoes in Langley."

Ellie bared her teeth a little, her hazel eyes burning — it was no stretch to see her as Frost's daughter. "Let's hope it deafens that son-of-a-bitch, Graham."

Turned, went into the restaurant. Sarah still standing outside. Wet sidewalk shiny black but no rain. Watched dead leaves. Floated and down a drain.

Motel sign up the road. Canaan Village Inn. Near Canaan ski resort. Off-season. Nothing but small towns nearby. A good place to hide.

The restaurant, Sirianna's, a two-minute walk from the motel. Other than the bacon, the food was good.

Sarah followed Ellie inside.

Shower off. Chuck out.

Standing in the bathroom door, wreathed in steam, towel around his waist.

Wet. Her.

Wet. Him. Drip, drop, drip.

Please drop the towel and come to me.

Breath quickened. Unsure of Chuck's intention. His eyes on her, his gaze inscrutable above a barely-there grin.

Knock on the door. "Hey, you two. It's me." Ellie. Sarah got up, put Bumby down.

Door open. Ellie, white, standing there, eyes to the left. Empty ice bucket cradled in her arms. Carina, redheaded, standing to the side, gun in her left hand and against Ellie's ribs, visible.

"Hey, Sarah. Long time, no shoot."

"Carina?" Sarah. Disbelief.

"Get inside," Carina whispered, the gun pushing Ellie.

"Carina?" Chuck. Fear.

Carina closed the door, bandaged right hand. Grimaced. Gun still contacting Ellie.

Sarah. "How?"

"Fortune favors the fair, blondie."

"I don't think it goes that way."

Gun pushed Ellie toward the bed. Ellie sat, facing Carina. Bumby. Carina sees him, glances at Sarah, shaking her head. Eyes then narrowed.

"You shot me."

"I should have killed you. And I didn't shoot you, exactly. I shot the bottle out your hand."

"And the bottle into my hand. That was a foreseeable consequence of what you did. Thirty stitches. Four hours digging shards out. A mess."

"You hit Chuck. You were going to give him to Graham. You got less than you deserved."

"Bitch." Ellie.

Smirk, Carina, long smirk, gun moved to Sarah. "Looks like the Boy Scout softened you already, Sarah. I thought you were only interested in hardening him."

"How are you here, Carina?"

Longer smirk, trailing a shrug. "DEA, remember. You chose to hide out in the opioid capital of the world, basically. West Fucking Virginia. There're a number of DEA agents, men, who, let's say, are eager to do me favors. I sent out photos to a few, just in case you headed to DC.

"One of them was here, working an opioid scam case — nearby towns flooded with pills — and he was in the restaurant, this morning. Came in when you and Chuck were gone but he knew her," she jabbed the gun at Ellie. "Looks like you and I each know more about the other than the other expected, huh, Sarah?"

"Put the gun down, Carina. Don't make me hurt you again...Don't make me kill you."

"Sarah, don't," Chuck whispered from behind her, his hand holding his towel. Sarah glanced at him, back to Carina.

Sarah braced herself.

Carina's smirk turned artificial, the result of a command, not an expression of genuine smugness. "Don't try it, Sarah. Besides," Carina put up her hands, gun still in the left one but pointed at the ceiling, finger off the trigger, "I came to change teams."

Like a flash, Sarah was on Carina. The gun suddenly in Sarah's hand, Carina on the floor, holding up her bandaged hand and grimacing. "Shit, Sarah, I was surrendering…What kind of friend are you?"

"For now, your kind of friend, the unpredictable kind," Sarah said, the gun now aimed at Carina's head. "Talk, while I'm still willing to listen. Talk fast."

A/N: If you're out there and haven't responded or haven't in some time, I'd love to hear from you. Thoughts?