A/N: Nearly done. A couple of chapters to go.

Nothing Like A Train

Chapter Twenty-Five: The Wanderer

Sarah and I enter the dimly lit hallway, Mom's door closing behind us. The doctor who spoke to us earlier stands there, rocking on his feet impatiently. A young woman, his nurse, stands beside him. Casey is nowhere to be seen. I nod to the doctor; he and his nurse hurry through Mom's door. I stare at it as it closes.

Sarah's hand takes mine, warm and strong. "Are you okay? Do we need to talk?"

I smile to myself about being asked that, instead of being told it. Squeezing her hand, I shake my head. "No, I mean, not right now. Later. That...That was a lot. "

She nods softly. "It was. But she'll make it, Chuck. She's a survivor. She's...lived with her choices for a long time."

"I know, but I haven't. I just...I wonder if Ellie knew anything about that between Mom and Dad, and just never told me, or if she missed it too." I gaze at my shoe tops.

Sarah puts her fingers under my chin, making me look up, not down. "You were a boy, Chuck. All that went over your head, and it should have. You weren't old enough to carry their problems. They safeguarded your childhood, your innocence, and that was an act of love, or it was intended to be. Don't blame yourself for not seeing it, or them for hiding it. I wish my parents had...managed their problems differently…"

Her comment calls me out of myself and I really look at her. "I'm sorry, Sarah — and I apologize for Mom, her...treatment of you."

Sarah takes a moment. "I can take it, as long as you can, as long as she didn't...affect you. She...and I...we…" she struggles for words

"You are not the same, Sarah, despite the similar...employment histories, resumes. — You wouldn't have made her choices."

She narrows her eyes, bites her bottom lip. It's her turn to look down. "How can you know that, Chuck?"

"Because, since you walked into the Buy More, but especially since we jumped on that train in Prague, you've let me know you." I reach up with my other hand and brush her cheek. "I know you, Sarah Walker. You were never the woman you feared you were; you aren't that woman now."

A smile grows on her face, a slow spread of relief. Her eyes open wider, the self-command she had shown in Mom's room relinquished, a warm, responsive vulnerability takes its place, familiar from the train, from the yurt. She cannot see her own countenance, but the measure of the distance between her and my mother is made visible. I can no more imagine seeing that look in my mother's eyes than I can imagine seeing Sarah shrugging Mom's shrug, despite Sarah's comment about channeling the Void.

The backs of my fingers, curled, still touch Sarah's cheek. She takes my hand and kisses my fingers. "We'll have to talk about last names, you know, before the wedding."

I laugh quietly, back on familiar ground. Since Shakespeare has been on my mind and in Mom's room, I quote: "A rose by any other name…"

Sarah's smile turns teasing, her eyes narrow now in fun. She leans to me and whispers in my ear. "I didn't know you thought of yourself as a rose, Chuck." She breathes out a question. "What color?"

My blush answers.

Pulling back, seeing, Sarah laughs quietly too. "So, Chuck, what did your Mom's comment about...the wild East do? Did you flash?"

I look around. "No, I watched old reruns. C'mon, we need to find a computer here if there is one." Sarah's face becomes puzzled.

Just then, Casey comes down the hallway. He hears my comment. "There's a tech room, Chuck, a computer's there. You can use it. Follow me." He turned to lead us down the hallway.

Sarah speeds up, leaving me behind a step, catching up with Casey. "John, Chuck asked me to marry him...and I said yes." Her voice is excited, not embarrassed.

Casey stops dead and I walk into him. He ignores me as I rebound off him and he extends his hand to Sarah. She looks at it as I rub my chest. She starts to shake his hand but Casey, taking her hand, pulls her into a massive, swallowing hug, not letting go. "About damn time, Walker. Except, I always figured you'd be the one doing the asking. Congratulations!"

He releases Sarah and I see her gulp in a breath, blink. He turns to me. "I forget what you say to the bride-to-be," he winks at me, "I guess best wishes, Bartowski." And then he squeezes me til I see stars. With a grunt, he lets go and he is leading us along the hallway again.

After a couple of turns, Casey opens a door and light streams from it. We go inside. The room is full of gadgets, computers, monitors, and so on. Casey points to a chair in front of a keyboard. "There you go, kid."

I sit down and start work. Sarah stands behind me, bending down, one hand on my shoulder. Defusing the bomb on our first date comes back to me. Who knew that would lead us here, in a CIA safe house in Moscow (well, less a safe house, than a safe building, it turns out), an engaged couple, on the run, sort of, from rogue spies and the US government.

I make myself concentrate; the Intersect rises in me; it is me.

The Intersect allows me to deftly handle the Russian. I find the website for Russian Railways and I begin to dig, forcing my way into the system. As I do, I find that my old hacker skills have gained levels, like, several levels. Like Dungeons and Dragons. The computer screen suddenly seems less like a screen than a passageway I enter. Instead of 2D, it all seems 3D, colorful, vivid, present in disembodied fullness. It's like I'm in Tron. I lose track of non-virtual reality as I blaze past the security, the firewalls, all of it palpable, like an obstacle course spread out around me but somehow in a third realm between my mind and the screen.

"Странник," I mutter to myself repeatedly in increasing volume.

I hear Casey, right behind me, as if he were miles off, "What?"

Sarah translates. She seems far away too. "The Wanderer."

Casey responds. "Right, I know, but what the hell?"

And then I find it. As I expected to find it. Volkoff's most closely guarded secret. "Got you." I say it with quiet conviction.

I sit back and slowly exit the screen. I realize that much more time has passed than I knew. It felt like seconds; it has been almost twenty minutes. Sarah is across the room, getting a cup of hot tea. Cassy is seated behind me.

"I found him. Volkoff. I'm sure of it."

"The Wanderer?" Casey asks.

I nod. "Casey, you must remember the TV show, The Wild Wild West."

Casey says the words silently to himself then nods a couple of times. "James West. Artemus Gordon. Sure, I watched it when I was a kid. James Bond on horseback."

"Right, but remember how they traveled around the West?"

Casey's eyes widen. "A train! An engine and a couple of cars, right? It was called The Wanderer."

Sarah joins us; she's been listening. Casey goes on. "And the fancy car had hidden gun racks. And there was a lab."

"Chuck, Alexei Volkoff's secret headquarters, or whatever it is, is a ripoff of an old TV show?" Sarah sounds surprised

"Yes, and it's weird, but maybe it makes a kind of sense too. What Mom told us about Hartley, his personality traits, some things, seemed to have stayed around, been reincorporated into Volkoff. And, as villainous plans go, it makes sense. The train is listed as part of the Russian Railways rolling service stock; it's supposed to travel to Russian Railway repair or construction sites. Volkoff keeps the entrance to his system mobile. He's there, tonight, and the Wanderer is stopped about two hours away from Moscow by car, less by 'copter" I point to the flashing cursor on the screen, the map displayed. "There it is. There he is. Volkoff."

Casey leans down on one side of me, looking at the cursor. "Jesus, kid."

On the other side of me, I feel Sarah kiss my cheek. She then asks: "So, what do you want to do, Chuck?"

I pull out the thumb drive Mom gave me. "I propose a train robbery…"

We tell Casey about the thumb drive, Volkoff, the story of Hartley, and my mom and dad. It takes him a minute to believe it all and when he does, he looks around. "So, the CIA created its Enemy Number One, he's its Frankenstein?"

"Yes, and we're going to bring him down."

Casey gives me a flat look. "Kill him, Chuck?"

I shake my head. "No. That's not the plan. I don't know if Mom and Dad did the right thing, trying to save Hartley all these years, but I won't just waste their efforts. I'm hoping we can take him alive. The manifests for The Wanderer, assuming they can be trusted, put four people on board. There couldn't be many more. The Wanderer is scheduled to return to Moscow just before dawn. We have enough time to get to it and try to undo Volkoff. Rescue Hartley, if he can be rescued."

I look at my watch. "But first, we need to talk to Beckman. Casey, can you give us a minute?"

He leaves the room and closes the door. Sarah takes his seat. "You have an exit strategy?"

"Yes, if this works, it's huge. We could end the Ring, destroy Volkoff's arms and terror network, and rid the CIA of a nightmare of its own making. I'm thinking we can parlay that into guaranteed freedom, guarantees from Beckman, and from above Beckman — if that's what you want, Sarah."

She scoots her chair nearer to me, her knees pressed against mine. "What we had on the train, in the yurt, that's what I want. Later, I'll want to find a meaningful job, one that I can simply be proud of. And," her shy smile shows itself again, "I may have...some hopes for...a family of my own, one day. You know, maybe, down the line. But all of that, really doing it, that requires getting out. — If it's what you want, Chuck."

"It is what I want. I don't know if I can get the Intersect out of my head; I'm not sure it matters. But I can refuse updates. I won't take another. My data will lose relevance. I'll share what I know, all I have put together, the kind of stuff I talked about in the yurt, when we used the atlas, but when I've shared that, I'm done. We'll have done all that can be fairly asked of us."

I take a moment. "When I met you at the train station in Prague, I worried that we couldn't make it, that pity and love don't mix…"

Sarah draws her brows together. "You thought I pitied you?"

I stall and glance down at our in-contact knees. "I worried that you would. That you'd come to pity me. And maybe I thought you did already, a little. You said that you kept telling yourself that running with me was you doing your duty."

Surprisingly, Sarah smiles. "As I more or less told your Mom, Chuck, what I believe I believe or don't believe, and what I actually do believe or actually don't believe, those have two often been two different things. And if that sounds confusing, think what it's been like to live it. — I've never pitied you, and I never would have. Don't you understand how highly I regard you, how much I admire you? Don't you understand the...esteem, the gratitude, I feel for you, to you?"

I grin at her, my response to her smile. "I hope you don't just feel...esteem and gratitude." I lift and drop an eyebrow.

She shakes her head. "So says the man who has seen the full rainbow of my lingerie…"

I blush again. Sarah gives me a quick kiss, her hands on my thighs as she leans toward me. "So, are you ready to face the General?"

"No," I think I need more lip-administered courage."

She kisses me again, allowing her lips to linger, opening them a little, and tasting my bottom lip with her tongue. "Now?"

I nod. She gets up and brings Casey in.

"The nurse came by," he tells me. "Your Mom's resting."

He sets up the video call to Beckman.

As Casey works and as the call is placed, I try to pull myself together, call myself before myself.

So much has happened outside me and inside me since Prague. My no there somehow, unbelievably, led to Sarah yes here. The endgame. The rings, our rings. Engaged.

And my head is not hurting.

I hadn't noticed until now. Too much happening, way, way too much. I still have a metallic taste in my mouth, the residue of Moe's, Kilgari's, fire needle, but the pain is gone.

I look around me. Sarah, Casey, the computers and monitors. it all feels wholly impossible and scripted at the same time. I cannot be and I was meant to be standing here, my wife-to-be beside me, ready to bring the Intersect saga to its conclusion. My family's curse to its end.

Maybe this was why I downloaded the Intersect all those years ago. Maybe Dad saying I was special was his darkling intuition that I would one day be in this position. It wasn't just the CIA that created its Enemy Number One. The Intersect did it too. Volkoff, Hartley, is the Intersect's creation as much as I. Volkoff's the Intersect's shadow.

It seems fated that we would face each other, he and I, that the Intersect would face the shadow it cast off.

The Intersect that I uploaded as a boy, my Intersect, was not just a...blip or a stage...something that showed itself for a time and disappears. — No, it has remained at the bottom of me, my mind, throughout, as fundamental. And, remaining, it contained within itself all the later developments in me that transcended it, like Bryce's birthday gift, or the upload I chose after Bryce died. It not only contained the developments, but it has also somehow been their judge. My innocence mixed with it, as Hartley's dark ambitions mixed with the FC. In my case, the child has been father to the man.

My life has been the Intersect's and the Intersect's mine. But it took Sarah to complete the developments, the growth, to complete Intersected me.

I hope that Intersected me completes her.

One plus one plus one is one. New math, ancient theological math. An equation I do not understand but stand inside.

I don't know how many can be one, but I know they can. I have no theoretical solution but I am a living, a practical solution. A solution to an unsolvable problem, like Eliot's Four Quartets.

Sometimes what counts as solving a problem is living past it, outmoding its very terms.

Beckman appears on the screen. It's time to parley: me, the Intersect, Chuck vs. US intelligence.

"Chuck," Beckman says, trying to smile and affecting normalcy, "Sarah, Casey."

They nod and I speak, smiling slightly in anticipation of my own words. "Hi, General, we need to talk."

A/N: You didn't think we were done with trains, did you?

Happy Fourth of July to those celebrating!