A/N: Well, we're back in the SteamVerse. I hope you don't mind, but it just felt like a universe I needed to revisit, get back into, and really sharpen my skills on. None of my fics force me to write better as much as this one. And I need that right now. Thanks for those of you leaving reviews the last time around. I hope you do the same here.
Disclaimer: I don't own CHUCK or its characters.
Last time: Sarah and Ellie had a heart to heart as Ellie worked her nursing magic on her, and Casey informs them it's time to leave their house and go into hiding, before he sets off in search of Devon while Chuck, Ellie, and Sarah go to a hotel.
Chuck pulled to a stop outside of the motel and quickly swung down from the driver's seat, making haste towards the door of the carriage. He opened it and looked up as his sister appeared. "Are you sure you want to stay here alone, Ellie?"
She clenched her jaw and nodded once. "I want to be here when John comes back with Devon." Then she spared a glance over her shoulder at Sarah who'd been sitting across from her and turned back to him again. "Not to mention I'd like to get my bearings…alone. Just for a little while. You two go and get Sarah's things from her house."
Chuck stared at her for a long moment, then nodded finally. He was uneasy leaving Ellie here alone. Not because he thought she couldn't take care of herself or manage to use Casey's name to get the right room. But the intensity and trauma from the day's events might catch up to her while they were gone, and perhaps she shouldn't have to be alone through that.
Then again, he'd come clean about everything to her after all of this time, and maybe he and Sarah both were part of the trauma and therefore she should be allowed to come to terms with it all on her own. Perhaps she needed to yell or cry or throw things or just…be alone.
He understood that need down to the deepest pits of his soul.
He moved to the side and reached up to help her down from the carriage. "You'll be all right, though, won't you?"
She nodded. "Yes."
"And you know the name is—"
"Garfield. Yes. I'll be fine. But…please hurry, won't you? I don't like the idea of everyone I care about out here right now. Wh-what we just saw on the way here…"
Chuck swallowed hard as her voice faded, shivering a bit. They'd seen what amounted to martial law, patrols everywhere. People were being pulled to the ground, hit, stomped on. Fruit vendors were harassed. He'd fought to look straight ahead and not make eye contact with any of the patrol in case it drew attention to him and they went after him and the two people in the carriage who meant more to him than anything else in the world. As much as he'd wanted to help innocent people being harassed by the patrolmen, he kept going. For Sarah. For Ellie.
Ellie grabbed him by his shirt collar and yanked him close, her green eyes flashing threateningly. "Do. Not. Stop. To. Help. Anyone." He winced. It was like she'd read his mind. "I'm serious, Chuck. I know you want to help. I know you want to do something, to save the world. And maybe you will…but not today. Today, you will stay safe. You get Sarah's things, you come back here, and you hide. With the rest of us. You hear me?"
He gently peeled her hands away from his collar and held onto them between his, squeezing. "You might have to worry if I was going alone. But I'm…not alone." He lowered his voice, feeling Sarah's presence behind him, leaning out of the door. "I'm not risking…"
His sister seemed to understand without him needing to finish that, and she nodded. In spite of everything, he thought he detected the hint of a smile on her lips and in her eyes. "See that you don't. Be safe."
Chuck nodded. "You, as well."
She kissed his cheek, then reached behind him to grab Sarah's bandaged hand that came down towards her. "Make sure he comes back, as best you can…"
He turned to watch as Sarah gave a solemn nod.
"We'll be back soon."
Ellie smiled a little and let go of Sarah's hand, and she turned to head into the motel alone as Chuck shut the door to the carriage and peered inside. "Are you all right?" he asked Sarah as she sat back against the seat. She was pale, but still sat with her back rigid and straight, her chin held high.
"I'll be just fine. Thank you," she seemed to add as an afterthought. Suddenly, she thrust a hat towards him, a short top hat. "This was under my seat. I think it was the driver's. You'd perhaps look less suspicious if you donned it."
Chuck could feel his eyes sparkling a little as he smirked at her, taking the hat, putting it on his curls and tilting it just slightly. "Or perhaps you just want to feel like a proper lady in a proper carriage with a proper driver."
That got an amused sniff out of her, but she was still quiet and withdrawn. Not that he could blame her for it any. "Oh, indeed. Though a proper driver wouldn't allow his coat collar to be tucked under like that." And she reached out, the backs of her fingers gracing his overheated neck for just a moment as she tugged the collar out from where it had tucked under itself.
"Oh. Thank you." He smiled up at her, teeth showing and all, then winked and ducked back towards the front, hurriedly hoisting himself up onto the driver's seat and letting out a "Heeyah!" as he got the horses going.
It took some time to get safely onto Sarah's street, and he even had to double-back to take a different, longer route to her home on two separate occasions due to violence in the streets, and one particularly nerve-wracking protest in which people had seemed to have gotten a few cornered patrolmen's weapons off of them. Chuck didn't wait to find out what happened to those patrols.
The air was thick with danger in Los Angeles, an electric current running through the streets, buzzing past him, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
But they finally arrived and before Chuck could pull up in front of her landlord's home, he heard Sarah's voice through the small window to the front. "Bring it around the side. I don't want my landlord snooping."
Smirking a little, he looked down at her over his shoulder to tip his hat and brought the carriage around, carefully guiding it down the dirt path that ran along the side of her landlord's home, into the gravel back yard, pulling to a stop in front of the steps of her small home.
He hopped down as he heard Sarah pop the carriage door open herself, rushing to her aid as he found her trying to climb down. Her knuckles were white as she eased herself down the first step. But then he was there in front of her, holding out his hand.
She eyed it wearily, her eyes narrowing to slits.
He reciprocated the look as best he could and she seemed to smile in spite of herself, just a little, twisting her lips to the side to try to disguise it, before putting her hand in his and letting him slowly help her down to her feet.
Sarah let out a long breath, her brow furrowing—most likely in pain, he thought to himself.
Gritting his teeth, he stepped in and slung an arm around her, helping her up the steps to her door so that she could unlock it and push it open. "I just need one suitcase. And my trunk. That was why I needed your help."
Chuck walked in first and tried not to look at everything the way he inherently wanted to. It was just that this was her space, and he rarely found himself in it. Sarah stopped beside him, and then she slid in close as if she wanted something, or perhaps she had something to say… but then she diverted her gaze and cleared her throat, gesturing towards the bed in the corner.
"What?" he asked, eyebrows shooting up into his hat, practically.
"The trunk. My trunk. It's under my bed. I-I could carry it normally, but not…like this." She gestured to herself.
He let out a long, quiet breath, then nodded, whipping the hat off of his head and moving to the bed to drop it on top and lean down to grab onto the trunk, sliding it out from underneath. "This is it?" he asked.
"Yes. I-I'm going to pack a suitcase with some necessities."
Chuck nodded and put his hand on the trunk. "I'll take this out to the carriage. Do you need to put anything else in it?"
She glanced over her shoulder, already pulling her suitcase out from a small closet in the corner. "No. Thank you."
With another nod, he carefully slipped his hands into the handles on either side of the trunk and hoisted it up off the ground. He grunted, frowning. "This…this is heavy. What's…in this?"
"My weapons," she replied casually, pulling drawers open and dropping things into her suitcase.
Chuck swallowed, looking down at the trunk. "Oh. Er…knives, huh?"
"Mm. And guns. Wherever we're going, I want to make sure looters don't break in and steal those. I spent a pretty penny on them, and I have this niggling fear I'll need them. Soon."
The way she said that sent a chill down his spine. He opted not to respond, instead turning to move towards the door, awkwardly but successfully managing to get the door open again and hobbling out onto the porch. But before he could even get to the steps that led to the carriage, he heard the sound of glass breaking in Mr. McLeod's house, and then a strangled outcry that was quickly muffled.
A series of bangs out in the street made him jump as he whipped around to look in the direction of the sound. There were cries of terror and pain following it, somewhere down the street. And then another loud sound came from inside of McLeod's house.
Chuck didn't know what was happening, nor did his sister's parting words and his promise in response occur to him. He stooped to half-drop Sarah's trunk, then took off, leaping past the steps altogether and staggering towards the two story home, sprinting straight through the garden Sarah's landlord tended himself.
As he crashed into the door at the back of the house, the same door he knocked on when he came to help Mr. McLeod with his clock, he found it locked securely. As he heard more suspicious thumps and laughter somewhere inside, he backed up a bit and then ran straight at it, slamming his shoulder hard against the door.
It made a loud cracking sound, but didn't open, so he backed up and did it again, the door finally giving and swinging open. He was in McLeod's kitchen. But he wasn't the only one. A man was bent over his icebox, gun in hand, his mask pulled up on top of his bald head to leave his face uncovered. The man spun, a piece of turkey hanging from his lips.
Before the patrolman could get his gun up, Chuck brought his fist around to crack it into his jaw. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.
"Stop! P-Please, I'm an old—"
There was a thump and a pitiful whimper somewhere towards the front of the house. Chuck burst down the hallway, out into a dining room that was empty, and he kept running, finally crashing into the entry way that opened into a parlor of sorts. There were three patrolmen standing over Mr. McLeod, who lay in fetal position, blood gushing from a large wound on the side of his head.
"Hey!" Chuck barked, marching up to the men who were shocked to see him appear. It gave him a chance to get close enough to one of them to grab the gun he'd obviously been using to torture the elderly gentleman. The patrolman slammed his shoulder into his chest, though, sending him sprawling onto his back.
That feeling overcame him, a feeling he recognized, like a curtain slipping down over his eyes for a moment, a tingling in his limbs, a flash of something he couldn't describe. And then he went right from the floor into the man who'd knocked him down, tackling him around his middle and sending him crashing into the rug. He pinned the man's gun arm to the floor with his knee on his forearm, then hit the gun out of his hand, bring his other fist around to crack it across his temple, knocking him out cold.
McLeod made a loud sound in warning.
Chuck spun and rolled to the side behind the nearest plush chair, hearing the gun discharge and the sickening thunk of the bullet being buried in the cushion. He jumped up to his feet, still hiding behind the chair, and he hoisted it into his arms and threw it at the second patrolman.
The man's knees buckled and cracked beneath the weight of the chair as he hit the floor, crying out in pain.
"You sonofa—"
But the voice behind him was cut short as he heard a gun go off. As he spun, he watched the third patrolman go down, holding his neck as blood gushed out from between his fingers. A line of blood dripped down from the corner of his mouth and he went still, the life gone from his open, bloodshot eyes.
There was a second gunshot then and he turned on his heel to see Sarah standing in the doorway to the entryway, a smoking pistol in her hand, her face pale, and still there was a determination and hardness etched into her striking features. Chuck followed her gaze and saw that she'd shot the second patrolman he'd thrown the chair at. He'd somehow pushed the chair off and had been lifting his gun to shoot her, Chuck realized. She'd just gotten him first.
As she took a few steps into the room, her eyes fastening on Mr. McLeod still hunched over at Chuck's feet, there was the sound of the front door bursting open.
Before the patrolman could even get more than a step into the parlor, Sarah spun, dropped to a knee, and sank a bullet in his chest.
He looked down, stunned, and teetered back, landing with a loud thud.
She slowly rose to her full height and lowered the gun to her side, the muzzle still smoking.
Chuck looked down at his hands, one of his knuckles bleeding, most likely thanks to the jagged jaws he'd mashed his fist into. But he was…in control. He hadn't lost control to the Intersect. For once, he had known exactly what he was doing…the actions were his.
But then he realized belatedly that Sarah was on her knees beside him, slowly easing Mr. McLeod down to lie on the rug. He was shaking, blood caking his wispy white hair, dripping down his ear, his neck, and staining his collar and suspenders he'd been wearing when he was attacked.
"Mr. McLeod…? Can you hear me? It's all right," she breathed gently, cradling his head in one hand, putting her other hand on his shoulder. He sputtered a bit. "What happened? Why are they here?" she tried again.
"The city is…a madhouse. They f-followed…me home."
Chuck moved fast, ripping the coat off the nearest dead man, willing away his nausea and the headache that was only now starting, and he balled it up, pressing it against Mr. McLeod's wound. But his eyes were glassy, looking like they were losing focus.
"They followed you home?" Sarah asked, and she shared a gaze with Chuck. "Why?"
"I-I don't know what—Everyone—They are all—We're being…attacked. They're…turning on us."
"Who? The patrol?"
"The chrysanthemums bloomed in fall. When I was a boy. Now summer. It's the…air." Chuck knew enough from Ellie and Devon's stories they told about patients. Head injuries sometimes sent patients to rambling. Sometimes they reverted back to childhood, or slipped into a state of reminiscence…
"Are the patrols attacking citizens? Is it the same as what happened downt—" She went quiet for a moment and looked up into Chuck's eyes again. "The patrols are retaliating. Against all of us. The riot was all they needed to stop pretending they're tasked with our protection. I imagine their handlers have let them loose and now they're running around the streets causing havoc like a pack of rabid dogs."
"They're just…looting homes? Injuring old men?"
"Roses…" McLeod's eyelids fluttered and he coughed. "Mmm jacaranda trees… lining… the streets…"
"Mr. McLeod, you stay with us," Sarah breathed, but the coat Chuck held against his head was soaked through. He could feel the wetness, the blood against his fingers. With a sickening feeling in his gut, the ache in his head raging, he couldn't help thinking the old man wasn't staying with them for long.
"Sarah…" he breathed.
"We'll get you some help. Just…"
There was the sound of more gunshots, yelling and laughing, somewhere outside, down the street it sounded like. They both looked up, then looked at each other, eyes wide. "This place is a powder keg. We need to get him out and…" But her voice faded, and he watched as her gaze dropped to McLeod, her pupils shook, and her mouth formed a thin line. "He's gone."
A fist seized Chuck's heart as he followed her gaze. Sarah lowered a shaking hand to oh so gently close the elderly man's eyes. Chuck let go of the coat and sank onto his backside with a painful thud.
The sounds were getting closer.
"We need to get out of this house."
"Wh-What?" Chuck breathed, his throat feeling like it was closing. Patrols were attacking the citizens, looting…violence, destruction…a pack of rabid dogs. "What do we—what do we do?"
"We hide. Like Ellie said."
"No. No," he repeated in a stronger voice, grabbing her hand tightly. She winced a little and he let go, realizing she still had injuries on her hands. But her bandages had blood on them now, Mr. McLeod's blood. Come to think of it, he had the man's blood on his hands, too. "I mean, about…him."
"We'll take care of Mr. McLeod later. We're in a house full of dead patrolmen. We need to leave. Now."
She grabbed the coat Chuck had been using to try to stem the blood on the side of Mr. McLeod's head and draped it over his upper half. It provided the man some semblance of respect and peace in death, hopefully. And he felt something churning in his chest at the fact that she'd done it.
And then she was on her feet again. But this time she seemed to sway a bit, shutting her eyes tight. Chuck was right beside her, holding her steady. "I'm all right," she breathed. "Check out the window. See if the coast is clear, if we can get back to the hotel."
Reluctant to leave her side, he paused for just a moment, but she put a hand on his chest and gave a gentle push. He rushed to the window and peeked out, first right and then left. It was as he looked left down the street that he saw a group of ten or twelve patrolmen rounding the corner. "They're coming," he rushed out, and he lunged to her side. "We don't have time to get everything and escape."
"Then we stay and hide," she said, her voice deep and steady. "Come on. Let's get back to my house."
Chuck spared McLeod one last look… Jacaranda trees lining the streets…
They hurried through the house and out the back door, back through the garden and up the steps. Chuck halted, then, turning to look over his shoulder. They were getting closer still, the sound of glass breaking and gunshots just a few houses away.
"Chuck!" Sarah hissed.
"The carriage," he said. "Go in—go inside. I have to—" It would take too much time to explain, he decided, so he leapt down, clearing the steps in one move, and he grabbed the strap around one of the horses' muzzle, yanking. "C'mon, my friend. C'mon, let's go…"
He walked them to the stable off to the side, unhooking the horses as fast as he could and letting them wander further in to feed, knowing it would draw less attention to Sarah's home if the patrol saw the carriage and horses at the stable instead of in front of her stoop. And then he tore across the yard and up the steps where Sarah still waited, watching him. He saw realization dawn on her face and she sent him a small smile as he stooped down to grab her trunk and lug it back inside with a strained grunt.
Sarah shut the door behind him, bolted it twice, and then she shut all of the curtains tightly, sealing them inside.
"Put it in the corner," she said, her voice strained. "That one."
He followed where she pointed and finally set the trunk down. But as he turned, he saw her gritting her teeth, leaning over the arm of her small couch, trying to shift it. "Sarah, you're injured!" he hissed, lunging across the room and carefully moving her away.
She pushed her hair out of her face. "Fine. Angle it against the corner where you put the trunk."
Chuck had read enough serials about the Wild West, the outlaws barricading themselves in a saloon by tipping over a table and taking cover behind it so that they had a shield of sorts when the lawmen came a'knockin' and the shootin' started.
He had an idea that was what this was. And he felt dizzy as he did what Sarah told him to do, angling the couch against the corner, the door in plain view if that was what the patrols used to try to come inside.
Chuck tried not to think of how easy it would be for them to break the windows and just crawl in if they decided not to kick the door in.
Instead, he focused on helping Sarah get behind the couch, easing her down to sit on the wooden floor. He hopped over after her, wedging himself in between the trunk and the con artist. She was already on her knees, leaning across him, flicking the latch on the trunk and swinging it open, grabbing not one but two large pistols, a handful of knives, and moving to sit back beside him, panting for breath as she leaned her back against the wall.
"Shit. These aren't loaded. Can you—the bullets?" she asked, blowing some hair that escaped her braid out of her face.
Chuck reached into the trunk. "Uh…which box is it?" he asked. There were a few and he didn't know about… But then his eyelids fluttered, a whoosh of disorienting lightheadedness going through him when he fastened his gaze on a particular box, specifically the emblem emblazoned on the lid. He reached in and grabbed the right box, the Intersect imparting him with some extra knowledge on arms and their ammunition. But he'd gotten something else… These boxes of bullets and some of the actual weapons were reported stolen more than two years earlier, from a large manufacturer in San Antonio, Texas.
"That's the right one. Hand it over."
Chuck did, slowly pulling back and leaning against the wall again, staring straight ahead at the back of the couch. He could see Sarah loading the guns in his peripheral. Even with her hands shaking, probably from pain rather than nerves, because she was who she was—a steady head and hand when she was under fire—Sarah Walker was working methodically, skillfully, quickly.
It was when she cocked them both and set them to the side, letting her head fall back against the wall, that Chuck found himself saying it. Quite by accident.
"Y-You stole those. The weapons. And bullets. They're stolen. All of it."
Sarah appeared to blanch, slowly pulling her head forward from the wall and blinking straight ahead again. Then she lowered her gaze to her lap and worked her jaw a bit. "Is that a guess?" she asked quietly, and yet her voice didn't shake even a little. Not even a quiver.
"I flashed," he said, keeping his gaze on her.
"Oh. Well…I needed them. And…" She paused, her tongue darting out to lick her lips. "Well, they didn't. Need them, I mean. So I hijacked a carriage tasked with transporting the product to their shipping house from the factory, and I made off with it. Abandoned it two towns away, bought this trunk, and it's…all been with me all this time." She turned and eyed him closely, and he felt breathless. "I have money. Of course I have money, but I stole it anyway. It was easier. Less questions being asked about why a woman would need so much ammunition. And…maybe I just wanted it. So there that is."
She turned away, leaning her head back against the wall again and taking a deep breath.
He didn't know how to respond to that. But he could feel her almost goading him, daring him to say the obvious—that what she'd done was wrong, that she was a criminal through and through, not just stealing to survive but doing it because it was easier, because she'd wanted to. He wasn't going to point any of that out. He didn't much like the idea of it, but then again, he didn't like guns. He hated the sound of them. He hated how much damage they did. He hated that they were one of the few things human beings created with the prime purpose to kill another living thing. And he found he didn't like the idea that Sarah coveted these enough to steal so many of them, put them in a trunk, and lug them to Los Angeles with her after Bryce blackmailed her to protect him.
But he just stayed silent for a full minute.
"You have nothing to say to me about it?" she asked finally. Almost as if in spite of herself.
He watched her, then shook his head. "No. And I'm sure you're very confused about that. Perhaps I am confused, as well. I don't know. But let us both just accept it as it is."
Chuck felt the exhaustion creeping up on him, but he still flinched as he heard the gunshots out in the street.
"They're shooting into the air," Sarah said finally after a few minutes. "It's as if they're celebrating. As if they're free from the shackles of the law. They can do whatever they want to do until the royal troops arrive to put down the uprising themselves."
"And how long might that take?" he asked, swallowing hard. Shivering.
"I don't know. I don't have much faith in the queen or her lackeys. Something tells me they'd act faster to protect land and their coffers than they would to protect breathing, living people."
Chuck sighed and nodded. "Something tells me you're right."
"And so…it's up to us." He spun to give her a wide-eyed look at that, and she quickly backtracked. "I mean 'us' collectively. As in the citizens. I-I didn't mean us, you and me. And Casey." She shifted against the wall to face him better and he didn't miss the slight wince she tried to hide. "I know that it's your strongest inclination, Chuck. Being a hero. You're…rather good at it. In small ways, and in big ways. But Ellie's right. I don't…like the idea of you making this your fight."
"This," he said quietly, shifting to face her better as well. "What's this? The Inquisitor business?"
"Mmhm. But also Bryce. The horrific activity going on out in the streets of Los Angeles right now." She paused. "Even the trouble your sister is going to face, the potential end to her entire coalition, her movement. You want to protect her from that. I know you, Chuck. That's how you operate." She looked at him for a long time then, and he felt the hurt from the day, from everything, start to bubble up again, even in the midst of the dangerous situation outside, the sound of the rebelling patrols near McLeod's house. "You can't fix all of society's ills. With or without the Intersect, Chuck, no one person can turn this world around. Or the people in it."
But then there was a look on her face as she dropped her gaze to the side, almost as if she was second guessing what she'd just said for a moment. And then it was gone, and she shook her head resolutely. "The most important thing is that you're safe."
He nodded. "I know. I meant what I said, about making sure I stay safe for your father. I mean, to keep him safe."
She blinked, a surprised look on her face as she met his gaze. And then she shook her head again and let a corner of her mouth tilt up in a semblance of a smirk. "Is that why you charged into a house full of patrolmen to try to save my landlord a few minutes ago?"
Chuck winced. "That is a fair point."
"But I also wonder how on Earth you could still think my wanting to keep you safe is only about Bryce holding my father's freedom over my head." Chuck blanched a bit and turned to look at her, his brow furrowed in question. She just met his brown eyes with her blue ones, and continued in a steady voice. "Surely you have to know by now…"
Before he could respond, they heard guns going off in the yard between McLeod's house and her own, and Chuck went fully tense, turning to look at her. There wasn't fear in her face. Instead, her features turned to steel, and she slowly slid her hand over one of her guns, curling her fingers around it and picking it up.
The small stripe of light squeaking past the side of the curtain went away then as someone moved past the window, blocking the light altogether. Sarah leaned in close, her face right next to his, hand on his chest. "Sh," she warned quietly, "Don't even move."
He felt her breath play with one of the curls near his ear and he shivered. Then he nodded minutely, and stayed frozen.
"Oy! The old man took out a few of us. Right ol' warrior," Chuck heard outside.
"Better warrior than he is a gardner," another of the patrols said. And Chuck heard the stomping of boots moving away.
"It's only a matter of time before they come back to see what's in here," Chuck whispered, and as he turned, her face was still so close to his. But her blue eyes were fastened on something past him, her features twisted in deep thought.
"I don't know if they will or not, but we're ready if they do."
"Are we? How many of them are there out there?" he whispered, aware she could probably hear the desperation.
"I don't know, Chuck. But I'm not letting this be it. We both have more to do, and I'll be damned if I let some twisted excuses for lawmen be what finally takes me out of this world."
He didn't know why that was what made him want to kiss her. But he held back, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth and fighting the ache in his lower stomach, just behind his belly button. "Hand me that other gun."
She balked at him a little. But to her credit, she reached over and grabbed the other gun, passing it to him. "Do you know how to use it?"
"No," he readily admitted. "I hate these damnable things more than I can say. But I'm not ready to leave this world, either. Perhaps now isn't the best time to bring it up, but you kissed me this morning…" He took the gun from her and felt the weight of it in his palm. He hated how it felt. He hated everything about it. "…I'd like to live long enough for you to be able to do that again. Whenever that may be." He cleared his throat. "And since we're currently in this situation, I might as well be completely candid; feel free to do it again anytime you see fit in the future. To say I enjoyed it would be a magnificent understatement."
He fought off a blush as he felt her hand fold over his on the gun. And then she pressed her face into his shoulder. He tried his best not to look at her, afraid of what he might see. If he saw regret, he'd crumble. He truly would. But she just stayed there, and gently nuzzled him, her fingers tightening over his.
Then she slowly lifted their hands, the gun in them, and she reached over with her other hand. "Here," she said, her voice quiet. It almost sounded shy. "You pull this back to cock it. You point it. Look down the barrel. This right here will help you aim." She lifted his hand more and put her hand under his elbow to straighten it. "Look through that there. And you squeeze the trigger."
Chuck gulped and nodded. "All right. I'll do my best."
"You always do, Chuck. And I'm right here next to you. I'm not going anywhere."
There was a lot of weight in what she said. He felt it settle in his chest.
And when he turned to look at her, he felt the weight increase exponentially.
}o{
The first thing Sarah Walker saw when she opened her eyes was a brass belt buckle, square frame, the leather of the belt cracking around the belt hole that the prong was going through. She blinked tiredly and realized her head was on someone's lap…on Chuck's lap…
She shifted and hissed in pain. Whatever Ellie had given her had verily worn off after all of these hours.
And they were still hiding behind the couch in her house, flanked by guns, she realized as she craned her neck to look at her surroundings.
"Feeling all right?"
She blinked up at him with a soft grunt. "Not entirely, no."
"Pain?" She just grunted again in response. "Careful, Miss Walker. You're starting to sound like a certain bounty hunter we both know and love."
She sniffed in amusement and carefully shifted onto her back from where she'd been on her side, letting out a slow breath to try to get some semblance of control over the pain. Then she opened her eyes again and looked up at the toy maker. "Love might be somewhat of an exaggeration."
Chuck tilted his head with a doubtful sound. "I do believe the man's an acquired taste."
She spared him a wan smile, then winced as a wrong move sent an ache through her ribs. Her head hurt something awful from the hard knock she'd taken. Everything felt like it was throbbing. She just wanted to sink into the floor and stay there forever.
"How long did I sleep?" she asked. She hadn't meant to. They'd been forced to wait in hiding for a while as they heard McLeod's house being ransacked, raucous yelling and laughter from the patrolmen who apparently weren't too unhappy about the untimely demise of their brethren in the house. Nor did they seem to wonder how an elderly man had dispensed with so many of them before he'd died from his own wounds. Or, for that matter, how he'd ended up with a coat respectfully laid over his face after his death.
That was something that had occurred to her, something she hoped didn't occur to them.
For some reason, however, as she and Chuck stole themselves for yet another battle with patrols bursting into her house, they'd just skirted the building, overlooked it, walked around it, their shadows passing under the door, past the windows with the curtains drawn…but they never tried to get inside. And some time into their tense ordeal, she must have been exhausted enough to drift off.
Chuck's coat was over her, pulled up to her chin, and he'd apparently laid her down as she slept, her head cradled in his lap. It was probably the most comfortable she'd felt in some time, minus the excruciating pain. She stretched her legs out and hissed through her teeth at how much even that hurt. And as the pain passed, she found her hand surrounded by Chuck's. Or…rather, she thought perhaps she'd reached out for him and he'd met her halfway, letting her take his hand and squeeze the hell out of it. She let go quickly and saw him flex his hand subtly. "Sorry," she breathed.
"Please, don't be. Do you have any alcohol in your kitchen? Whiskey or rum or brandy?"
She shook her head. "No. I don't spend enough time here to have much of anything. Perhaps a loaf of bread. Cheese. Nothing to drink. Are you looking to be inebriated?"
"Sounds wonderful, but I'm not sure that would be the best idea, under current circumstances. I thought perhaps it might ease your pain, since we don't currently have access to Ellie's medical bag of wonders."
She shook her head, licking her dry lips. She felt like her mouth was full of cotton balls. "No. We should stay here, anyway."
Sarah still heard sounds in the neighborhood that reminded her of war—the thud of gun fire, flames licking at buildings, yelling—sounds that plagued her memories she'd prefer to forget about entirely. McLeod's yard was most likely vacated by the ruffians by now, but she wasn't comfortable leaving their makeshift sanctuary until the war sounds in the residential streets of Los Angeles faded.
They still had to safely find their way back to the hotel where Casey and Devon had hopefully made it before hell broke loose.
"I don't hear anyone outside, at least not in this immediate area. I could at least go to McLeod's and borrow a few things from his pantry. At the very least, I can replace your bandages." She was already shaking her head at him, but then his last offer had her freezing, head still propped on his thighs. He must have seen or felt it, and realization of how that sounded hit him. He backtracked quickly. "Your hands. The bandages on-on your hands. Not…" Underneath the dress Ellie had let her borrow. Chuck didn't have to finish his sentence. "There's blood on your bandages and on your hands. It's…his blood. But even if it wasn't, I think it's probably—We should make sure your hands are taken…care of."
"It's all right, Chuck," she interrupted, trying to rescue him from his own mouth. "My hands don't feel as poorly as the rest of me."
"Where is the pain the worst?" he asked.
"An easier question to answer is where is there no pain? There is perhaps a spot on one of my elbows that isn't throbbing and that's probably the whole of it."
Chuck winced sympathetically. "I'm sorry. Wait here and I'll find something in McLeod's house."
She grabbed his arm, putting up with the pain that caused to her ribs. "No. Chuck, you aren't leaving this house. If they're out there, they'll shoot you. No questions asked. How easily you forget the day we met. That patrolman was willing to shoot you for saving a boy's life. That was even before these horrible riots began, before they were let off their leash."
He sank back against the wall with a sigh. "It will take me five minutes at the most to sneak in, grab everything, and sneak back here. What if your hands become infected? What if your pain becomes unbearable?"
"Both scenarios are preferable to either of us being murdered by vengeful lawmen."
Chuck clenched his jaw. "You're going to be very angry with me, so I'm just going to apologize ahead of time…"
She gave him a confused look, but then he scooted out from under her. "Chuck!" she hissed, trying to roll over to grab him again, but he shifted out of her reach and climbed to his feet. "Are you mad? You're going to get yourself killed!"
"They're not out in the yard anymore, Sarah. I haven't heard them for nearly an hour, since you fell asleep," he replied, his voice hovering at a level just above a whisper.
"And if they're out there lying in wait for us to come out?"
He just shook his head, and crawled over the back of the couch, peering down at her over the top. "I'll be a few minutes. Stay here."
With the way she ached, she didn't have much choice. "I'm going to kill you if they don't do it," she saw through gritted teeth.
But he was already moving across the room to the door. She stole herself for the horrific sound of a gun going off, the strangled cry of shock and pain from Chuck's lips. But it never came. Minutes passed as she lay there in complete agony, physical pain and mental anguish plaguing her.
She was close to just willing herself through the pain and going after him when the door opened again. There was a dull thud as it was shut and bolted. And within moments, his head poked into view over the top of the couch and she jumped.
She shut her eyes in annoyance and relief both. "God help me, you are an incredible pain."
"You say that to the man who's just risked his life to rid you of actual, legitimate pain?" She resented the teasing glint in his eye as he climbed back down behind the couch, a burlap sack slung over his arm. "Anyhow, I'm back in one piece, and I bear gifts."
He set down the sack and then gently, tenderly slipped his arms under her back to help her sit up. Her ribs cried out in pain and she grit her teeth, shutting her eyes tightly, until she felt her back against the cool wall coated with flowery paper. She let out a breath in relief and blinked her eyes open again.
"You all right?" he asked, letting go of her, but keeping his hands hovering near her just in case.
"As all right as someone with pain shooting through their body can be."
Chuck frowned and tilted his head. "Well. I might have something for that." He knelt in front of her and reached into the bag, pulling out a bottle of whiskey. "It feels wrong, stealing from him, even if he has no use for any of these things anymore. Just in case you were wondering how I'm explaining this within the confines of my moral obligations."
She hadn't been wondering that, and perhaps that said quite a bit about her own sense of moral obligations.
"But I found this in a cabinet in his washroom." He pulled out a small labeled vial and shook it gently.
"Is that laudanum?" she asked.
"It is. I recognize it as something my sister keeps in her bag. Also, it's labeled." He tapped the label with his finger. "The only problem is that I know nothing about the proper dosage."
"At this point, I don't care. I just want it inside of me." She took it from him as he smirked and offered it to her, pulling the small cork out of the top and throwing it back. She didn't take too much, considering how awfully bitter it was, and she didn't want to be rendered useless by it. "Whiskey," she gasped, making a face. It truly tasted horrific. Chuck opened the bottle and handed it to her as she took a swig, practically swishing it around in her mouth before swallowing. "Oh, thank you," she sighed, tilting her head back in relief.
When she looked back at Chuck again, she found him rummaging in the sack. He then pulled out some fresh bandage. "Was that in my landlord's house as well?"
Chuck nodded and thrusted his hand out between them. "May I?" he asked, his brown eyes fixating on her hands.
She gave him her left hand first and let him oh so carefully untie and unravel the bandage Ellie had put on her a few hours ago. The scratches and sores were still there, as well as her banged up knuckles from the punches she'd thrown.
He was careful and methodical as he treated her wounds, she noticed, and she bit back winces of pain as he cleaned them, not wanting him to know he was hurting her. He switched to her right hand after re-wrapping her left and repeated the process, and when he finished, he kept her hand trapped between both of his.
"Feeling all right?"
Sarah nodded.
"Not too tight?"
She shook her head.
She shifted so that she could lean against the back of the couch and let her eyes drift shut. She listened hard and found she couldn't hear anything outside. "We can't stay here, Chuck."
"I know. But I don't hear anyone outside. We should be in the clear to make our way back to the—"
"Los Angeles." She opened her eyes as the silence pervaded, seeing that he was frowning down at the floor thoughtfully. "…We have to leave Los Angeles, Chuck. It isn't safe for you to stay here. It isn't safe for any of us here. Not after that rally."
He was quiet for a long while.
And then: "I can't do it, Sarah. I can't leave. I won't leave my family behind. It's especially dangerous for Ellie now. She was a leader of the Coalition, an organizer. There's a target on her back. I'm not going to abandon her when she has a target on her back."
"Chuck, I know." She shook her head, wincing as she shifted closer to him, dropping her hand on his arm. "I know you would never leave her while she's in this much danger. That's why we must all leave."
His eyes widened as he stared at her. "I don't…I don't know that she will leave, Sarah. Her life is here. Both of our lives are here. Her career. My shop. Devon's practice is here."
"Does any of that have any meaning now, when things are so…catastrophic outside?" she asked, leaning closer, fixing him with a serious gaze. "The rule of law is gone in Los Angeles, to the point where nobody is even pretending it's still there like they were before. It's anarchy."
He looked terrified as his head slumped forward, his chin resting against his chest. She wanted to push one of her bandaged hands through his hair. It would comfort him, she knew, but she wouldn't be able to feel the softness of his curls the way she would be able to if she weren't injured, and she felt a spike of bitterness at that, as trivial as it was in light of everything.
"We can lie low for as long as we need to, and then we need to pack everything up that we can and move…I don't know which direction. Casey will have ideas. I'm so used to running alone, and I-I don't know what to do with so many people. I'm at a loss. This all has me…at a loss." She huffed and let her head roll back to thump against the couch.
She hated this feeling. She had no control over any of this. She didn't have a plan. Not even one, let alone the one plan with the three or four back-up plans she usually had. It felt horrible, being so lost. She was scared. That was what it was. Fear. And it was coursing through her.
"We'll discuss it all when we get to the hotel. There will be resistance. This is my home. It's all I've ever known, Sarah. Everything I've worked so hard to build is here. I built it all from nothing."
She ached for him, but she knew she had to be the one to make this decision. As hard as it was for him to hear.
"And maybe someday, you can come back. Rebuild. Open the shop again." She wasn't sure if she was being optimistic for him or for herself, but it was completely out of character. And she thought perhaps a lie, as well. She didn't know what might happen to them, or to this place. "But for the time being, it is not safe for you here."
His eyes slipped shut and she thought the conversation was over as the minutes passed with nary a word from the toymaker. He finally spoke up again, his voice nearly a whisper.
"For a moment, I thought there…might be some normalcy. In my life. A chance to be a regular man with a shop and a family and…well, a regular life. Just for a moment, as I stood in my workshop this morning, I felt as though things were falling into place. …I was an utter fool."
She didn't voice that she'd felt the same way before Casey burst in here and shattered that perception for her. Completely. She'd even let herself dwell on the way Chuck had held her against him, as though he wouldn't let her go for anything. She'd allowed herself to smile and even sing as she thought of how he'd touched her, kissed her. She was an even bigger fool than he was. Infinitely more foolish than he'd ever be.
Because she knew what this world was better than he did.
He'd felt the harsh realities of the world so acutely, just as she had. But while his experiences had all happened in this one city, this community, hers had followed her the world over. It was bad everywhere. It was hard to live, to survive, no matter where you went in the world. There was no peace. There could never be peace.
Not for her, at least.
And for as long as Chuck had the Intersect in his head, there would never be any peace for him, either.
A/N: Somebody told me that I'm too hard on myself, that I'm too reluctant to give myself credit and praise. So here it is: This behind-the-couch stuff is honestly some of the best Charah writing I think I've done. Chuck may not know what was on Sarah's face in that moment after he says he wants to live to be able to kiss her again, as she nuzzles his shoulder, but we all know.
Thanks for reading. Please review. It means a lot, and this is definitely the most difficult story of any of the stories I've ever written. Easily the most difficult. And because I'm a glutton for punishment, I have ideas that are just going to make it harder and harder to write. Ha ha good luck to meeeee.
-SC