A/N: A short chapter that sets up our finish. Hang on.

Nothing Like A Train

Chapter Twenty: Boyhood to Manhood

As I step out of the woods, I hear Mom — Frost — give an order, her voice level, professional, detached. "Don't shoot. We're not to harm him."

I walk forward, my feet now almost numb. The mud beneath the snow punctuates each step with a faint sucking, suckling sound. Frost gazes at me, her face a mask, stiff and unreadable: Sarah's in the early days. I see my mother in the woman before me — but the mask and the years have changed her. She appears worn and hard. Time-ridden. My final memory of her is of her turning off the light in my bedroom, after reading me a bedtime story.

The light is still off, despite the dim, cold, wet, grey sunlight. But I have no covers and I am shivering. Boyhood exposed.

Mom.

Fiction. This all seems fiction. Surely, this woman, gun to Zariyah's head, impassive, is not my mother, not really. But, just as surely, she is. Really. Or was.

Was. Is. Was.

Change. Time present and time past. Time past and time present. — Can time be redeemed?

Does time have parts, parts in relation? If so, how is the whole one thing, time? What, not time, could divide past from present? If time has no parts, time does not pass and so is never present.

Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage we did not take

Beginnings and endings. What sense does this make?

My mom outside a yurt in Irkutsk?

As I walk closer, I see Mom's eyes drop to my feet, and for a split second, I see her face soften; maybe, but I'm not sure. She lifts her eyes and stares into mine a moment later, and she wills me not to acknowledge her. Her gaze is a silent shout. The Mom that was on my lips fades; I see her shake her head nearly imperceptibly. Everyone is focused on me, not her. Unsure exactly what she wants, I look away from her and toward Moe.

She is standing beneath her piled hair, and it's color blends imperceptibly with the gray above her, making it seem as if the firmament taproots in her skull, as if she comprehended the sky.

I shake my head and the spell breaks. Mom turns her gun on me. "Move, boy."

Moe shouted my name earlier. Frost knows who I am — and I can see it — but she does not want anyone to know what she is to me: mother, beginning.

Mom?

I glance down at Zariyah, her hands pressed together in prayer, her eyes shut. And then I see her hands part, pinky side, toward me, and I see the key to her Lada there. She does not open her eyes and I do not react.

My mother says my name and I feel like a kid again. "Chuck?"

She's good. My name sounds impersonal on her lips, a label on a can. I nod; she nods.

I wonder where Sarah is. And then the men behind Mom and Moe bristle.

I stand still, turning only my head. Sarah emerges from the underbrush, her rifle held above her head in both hands. I don't see her pistol, the Makarov that matches Mom's.

Mom glances at me for a second before she focuses on Sarah. I focus on Sarah too.

"Agent Walker, how nice to meet you."

The snow is still falling. The wind is blowing. I only notice it now because I see it blow Sarah's hair, see her squint against the flakes blown into her face. I turn back to Mom and realize she has been watching me, not Sarah.

Sarah stops walking as she nears us. "And who are you?" It's as obvious to Sarah as to me who is in charge. Not Moe, Mom.

Mom gives Sarah a humorless grin. Yorick. "Let's just say I am a...diplomat, here to...negotiate."

Sarah nods her face a mask-like reflection of Frost's. For a crazy moment, I feel like I'm Sarah's date for the prom, waiting for my corsage, and Mom is my dad, gun in hand, telling Sarah to be sure to get me home early.

I shake my head again.

This is all surreal — a 3D display at the Dali Museum. I took an Art History class at Stanford too. Well-rounded Chuck.

Sarah squats down slowly, puts the rifle on the ground, and I see her notice Zariyah's praying hands. Sarah stands back up. "So," she says, her voice as devoid of feeling as Mom's, "negotiate."

Mom blinks. A small smile of professional respect shows on her face. "I hold all the cards, Agent Walker. From what I understand," Mom looks at Moe, who's been standing, eager, shifting her feet all the while, "Mr. Bartowski here is a...weapon. One that the...party I represent...covets for himself." Moe frowns at the words but says nothing.

Mom walks past Zariyah and up to me. This close, I can see the color of her eyes, blue, as I remember. Complicated, as Sarah's so often were in Burbank. She reaches out and puts her hand under my chin. She's shorter than I remember, shorter than Sarah. She uses my chin to rotate my head and I let her. I feel like I'm on an auction block, being sized up. Still holding my chin, Mom looks at one of the men. "Go inside and get the boy some shoes. Fool's barefoot in fucking Russia."

The man immediately shoulders his rife, an AK47, and hurries toward the yurt. I stare into eyes that are somehow mine and Sarah's all at once. I want to grab my mom and hug her but I don't. I keep staring into her eyes. My mom turns after a moment and gestures to Moe.

Moe has a bag on her shoulder and she opens it, fishes around inside it, and then produces a syringe, capped. She takes the cap off and checks it. Mom nods and Moe steps to me. Mom grabs one of my arms and shoves the sweatshirt sleeve up it. I hear the man emerge from the yurt behind me but I don't turn. Mom takes the syringe from Moe and looks into my eyes. Moe steps back cautiously, wary of me, watching.

The man behind me speaks.

"There was a trap door in the floor. That's how they got out." Mom stares into my eyes but nods acknowledgment to the man. As she pushes the syringe into my arm, she leans toward me, whispers. "You should've kept running, Chuck. You've grown."

I can't tell if that is a compliment or a condemnation or both.

Everything around me seems to melt. Become indistinct. I feel myself sinking, my entire body numb, like my feet, and then I see no more.

I come to consciousness slowly. I try to move but realize, after a moment, that I am restrained. I look around me. I am in a lab, gleaming, spotless. There are no windows and the only light is the light from a desk on the far side of the room. Moe sits there, looking at a computer screen that shines on her face. I can't see it.

I feel warm. Glancing down, I see that I have my shoes on, but also that my legs are banded by heavy leather restraints. Each arm is too, and one is around my chest. Moe notices the movement, my movement, and she stands. She looks at her watch, picks up a small notebook, and makes an entry.

She leaves the room, smirking at me over her shoulder. I realize she has a bandage on her forehead.

I scan the room more carefully. I am alone. I pull at my restraints. I am trapped. All the running, the trains, the yurt, only to end up in a lab again. Calming myself, I use the Intersect. It doesn't tell me where I am but it does tell me when I am. Twelve hours have passed.

Sarah! The name sounds in my head; I do not speak aloud. The door Moe used opens and my mom walks in. She's changed — changed her clothes. She is still a beautiful woman. She walks to the desk and punches buttons on the computer, then she walks to me. I realize she is limping. A bandage is on her arm.

She gives me a dark smile. "Agent Walker and Agent Casey are...impressive. A shame, really. Had they just let us go, I could've explained leaving them alive, but as it was…"

"Where's Sarah?!"

Mom's face shows sympathy for a second, but then her mask returns.

"Your...friends...are no longer party to our negotiation, Chuck. It's just...you now." She looks like she will say more but a man walks through the door. He is tall, handsome, well-dressed. He rubs his hands together as he walks toward us.

"Mr. Bartowski," he says, as if we were in a boardroom somewhere, not a lab, as if I were free, not restrained, "welcome to Moscow, or perhaps I should say, welcome back." Moe comes in behind the man. She walks to one of the lab tables and starts busying herself with items on it. I look at the man.

"Who are you?"

"I see Frost has not explained the situation to you fully, yet. I am Alexei Volkoff, and you are my guest here at my compound. We are going to work together, you and I. Weapons, you see, are my specialty, and you, Mr. Bartowski, are the most interesting weapon currently available on the planet. And you are mine, now."

I glance at my mom. She smiles at Volkoff's words and takes his hand. She steps aside and Moe crosses to my bedside. In Moe's hand, I see the massive needle from Prague, or one like it, the cattle insemination needle. She squirts a bit of liquid from it and it splashes to the floor. Volkoff gestures her toward me. She smiles and I tense against my bonds. The Intersect surges, but I can't move.

"Ah, yes, it's time for us to start, Mr. Bartowski. Fighting this will just make things...unpleasant. We will talk more later."

Moe pulls down the waistband of my sweatpants. I twist in the leather restraints but can't evade the needle. It sinks deep into my hip and my body fills with fire. One of Moe's eyes is black, the one below the bandage.

As I burn, Volkoff leaves the lab. Moe walks back to the desk, puts down the needle, and picks up her notebook, writes in it.

Mom leans down to my ear. "You don't know me, Chuck; I don't know you. Try to hold on."

And then the fire takes me and I begin to lose myself in internal flames.

As my consciousness burns down, lines of Eliot come back to me.

Here the past and the future
Are conquered and reconciled…

When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one…

Sarah is the final word on my lips as I burn.

A/N: Thoughts?

Tune in next time as we begin the final four chapters of our tale, the conclusion of this arc, Lucidities. Answers and action.

— Zettel