A/N: Here we go again.
Jeux Sans Frontières
Chapter Twenty-Four: A Stranger Now
When every wind's an afterlife out here
What language do you dream in when you're drunk?
And feel just like a map of where you've been
And all the smoke and mirrors you've hung
If only this one held the answer to the aching of our hearts
A little drop of poison in the rain
A little drop of madness in my heart
It's nothing but will nothing grow away?
Look nervously at things that come apart
If only this one held the answer
To our loneliness and all
Through days we love
Through days we disappear
To go for all the things behind a cloud
I'm a stranger now
And where will I undress to disappear
To go for all the things behind a cloud?
I'm a stranger now
I'm a stranger now
— Tallest Man on Earth, I'm a Stranger Now
The weight of Sarah's gun, now held in her hand, a familiar feeling, made Sarah's body ache, ache atop the pain of the gunshot.
The wrong thing — she was holding the wrong thing. She'd had Chuck in her arms for a second, minutes ago, a replay of having him in her arms when they danced together weeks ago.
All she wanted to do each time was hold on, hold on.
The weight of Chuck, she coveted the weight of him. She longed to hold him.
But the first time — dancing — she'd been too weak to do what she had whispered to Chuck she would do, give up everything to save him. She'd meant the words when she said them, in the moment, but she had not been able to bring herself to act on them. Not until a few minutes ago — just after he was poised to kill her — just as she looked down at him on the hotel room floor — had she been able to do as she said she would do.
Give up everything for him. Give him up.
Since she'd read his file that weekend months ago, a part of her clutched to the wish, the fantasy, that somehow she would end up with him, that somehow he would want her, that somehow he would see past the old her and see the new her. Somehow.
But even as she'd wished, fantasized, another part of her had known that it was merely wishful thinking, merely fantasy. The wishing, fantasizing part of her was the new her; the other part was the old her; it was the part that knew better, that insisted on 'merely'. That part of her had been right, the old her, but that part of her was now dead. The living part was the new Sarah, but the living part had been wrong.
She had held Chuck when he was drunk and when he was programmed. She had never held him as just Chuck.
Never will.
No somehow.
The somehow would never happen. Sad about that — she was already sad about that; she would be sadder later. But she had acted on her words at last. She would believe she had saved him.
The lights from Sarah's car and the stalled truck together lit up the alleyway, an island of light.
Resting her wrist on the dash, needing its support, Sarah aimed her gun at Palone's head.
Palone's eyes bored into her rearview mirror and down the barrel of Sarah's gun. A tiny shift of Palone's attention resulted in Palone boring into Sarah's eyes behind Sarah's barrel.
Sarah nodded once, hard, a command. Palone responded by opening her car door, shoving it slowly all the way out. Palone waved her empty hands out the door, and then she stepped out of the car, stood, turning as she did to face Sarah.
Palone blinked: Sarah clicked the Taurus' brights up.
Palone's blinking increased in speed; she put a hand up over her eyes like a visor. Sarah turned off the Taurus' engine.
"Well?" Palone asked, still blinking fast.
Opening her door caused Sarah to wince and her vision to swim for a moment. Her hand felt the blood on the edge of her seat as she rotated to get out.
She'd forgotten her bare feet. The dirty concrete of the alleyway felt gritty and cold beneath them. She stood, hiding her groan and struggling to keep her gun on Palone.
Palone looked around the alleyway; Sarah was unsure what Palone was looking for. No one else was around — for the moment. But someone would come along soon. The truck was clearly not abandoned.
"Well?" Palone asked again with more insistence. "I only had a tranq gun; it's in the car. I was supposed to tranq Chuck."
Sarah nodded. "Who was it I shot, what was his name? Bray?"
Lou frowned. "Yes. That's one of his names. In Pivot, he was Alpha."
"Why did you need to tranq Chu — ...Why did you need to tranq Bartowski? Didn't you have him programmed?" The wheels in Sarah's head were spinning again.
"Um…" Palone looked around again and then Sarah saw a tell-tale drop in her shoulders, a shift in her posture. She'd made a decision.
"We did and we didn't. I got Chuck programmed, or thought I did, and then he resisted the programming. Somehow. He...self-programmed...He used Pivot computers to study Termination, then he hacked his way into the CIA to study your file, Walker. He programmed himself to terminate you."
"Why would he do that?" Sarah had an idea but she asked anyway.
Palone held up her chin, braving Sarah's leveled gun. Sarah hoped that her car's brights kept Palone from seeing the gun shaking.
"I told him who you are, what you had done to him, what you were prepared to do to him. The original SpyCraft plan." Palone dropped her chin and peered at Sarah. "What I told him about you, about what you had done to him was true, but I wonder now…I wonder…"
"What do you wonder, Palone?"
"Call me Lou, Sarah. We might as well use our fake first names. Even though you don't quite look like yourself," she pointed carefully toward Sarah's hair, "I feel like I've known you for a long time."
"Known me?"
"You're trying to save him, aren't you, Sarah? Chuck. Sarah Walker, Graham's deadly pet, bites the hand that feeds her?"
Sarah felt heavy droplets of blood splash on her bare foot. Her head swam again. How could Lou know?
Lou laughed drily in the silence after her question; she did not need an answer.
"Look, Sarah. You're in trouble. I can see you're wounded. I can't see how seriously. But you left Chuck with Miller and Casey — didn't you just leave Chuck to the CIA version of what Pivot did to him, or worse?"
Sarah pondered the question for a moment, then stopped trying to find an angle; she was too spent for anything but the truth.
"His sister is with him. And Miller won't make a decision about what to do with him until she talks to me. As for Casey, — I'm willing to bet he will do whatever Miller asks him to do."
Lou took all that in. "So Miller's involved with Casey?" She sounded incredulous.
Sarah laughed softly.
Now, in the light of her own behavior, in light of the months since she took over SpyCraft, Carina's actions and attitudes about Casey looked entirely different. It had been obvious enough she still affected Casey. But Sarah had managed to miss that Casey had been affecting Carina, had been all along, since Prague. Carina had real feelings for Casey.
No wonder Carina had been so adamant about the inappropriateness of Sarah's feelings for Chuck! Sarah's feelings for Chuck were pressuring Carina toward dreaded self-discovery. Her anger at Sarah was sublimating anger at herself. Carina had been fighting Sarah's feelings to keep from knowing her own.
What a pair we are! — "Spies don't fall in love!' — "I'm immune to the stuff."
"Yeah."
Lou's face showed alarm. "Are you telling me this because you're going to kill me, Sarah?"
"Maybe. No. —Help me decide, Lou. I'm tired of this game. So goddamn tired. I'm tired of SpyCraft. I'm tired of it all. I want out."
Lou's face changed. She smiled in realization. "You aren't just saving Chuck Bartowski, innocent US citizen, are you? You're saving the man you love…"
"Lou…" Sarah gritted out through a spasm of pain, "...don't."
But Lou went on in continued realization. "All those months, watching you, watching, and I missed it. You're good, Walker, I'll give you that. I watched and listened to you and I never guessed until today. You've been in love with your mark all along!"
Sarah's eyes widened. "What do you mean, Lou, watching me, listening to me?"
Lou shrugged. 'I've been watching and listening to you for months, watching and listening as you watched and listened to Chuck, and to Chuck and Roberts. I've kept tabs on you almost as extensive as your tabs on him."
"Wait. You've been surveilling me?"
"Yes."
"My God," Sarah said, lowering her gun involuntarily out of surprise and pain, talking more to herself than Lou, "I was so focused on Chuck that I didn't even notice…I've been so distracted, so off my game... "
Lou's smile grew. "I knew it."
Sarah began to understand dimly, to connect dots, to understand it all, — the games within the games. "So, how did you and Alpha find Chuck, if he wasn't under your control?" She needed to know the answer.
"If I tell you, Sarah, do you promise not to kill me?"
"Will you trust me if I promise?"
Lou stared at Sarah. "I will."
"Then trust me, Lou. I promise." The new Sarah spoke, made herself heard.
"We found you because Chuck's phone contains a Pivot tracker."
"What? Roberts checked his phone regularly, how…"
Lou broke in as Sarah paused. "Can I get something out of the car?"
"Don't make me go back on my promise, Lou."
"I won't." Lou turned slowly, bent over, and reached into the car. She stepped back out with a tablet in her hand. She held it up, screen toward Sarah. "See, here's a tracker; the phone's on the move now."
Sarah felt sick. "So, if you two could follow the signal…"
"Anyone Pivot agent could, theoretically; if they know about it."
"But, wait, Roberts…" Sarah began, paused. "Roberts…"
Lou waited. Sarah stammered. "She...Chuck! Larkin! It was Roberts, Roberts all along. It's how you knew, how Pivot knew…How long?"
"She was ours when she started with the CIA." The light blinked on the tablet.
Sarah stood shaking her head. "Why are you telling me this, Lou?"
"Because I'm tired too. Because you killed Alpha and...freed me."
"Freed you? But you were running..."
"From you. I didn't have a promise then, did I? And, yes, freed. Alpha would never have let me go. Let's just say I was Alpha's favorite Pivot agent, and that I didn't enjoy that distinction."
Sarah nodded, then she jerked. "Oh, Oh! Shit. I guess there's no HR Division in Pivot."
Lou laughed bitterly. "No, no retirement plan either. When I leave here, I start over, Zero."
Sarah reached in and clicked the brights down and grabbed the keys. Lou blinked again, her eyes readjusting.
"So, you're done, Lou?"
"Yes. I promise. Fuck darkness; I crave light. There's gotta be a better life out there — somewhere."
"Somehow," Sarah added quietly.
Sarah walked to the rear of the Taurus and opened the trunk. A moment later she came back around.
She tossed one of the two go-bags she'd hidden there to Lou. The toss caused Sarah to moan. She stifled it.
"Not zero. There's cash in the bag, no fortune, but...enough. A couple of credit cards. Some other things you might need."
Lou had caught the bag with one hand while holding the tablet in the other.
When Sarah finished Lou began. "You need medical attention, Sarah."
"I know. But…" Sarah gestured at the tablet.
"Right, Chuck. You think the phone's with him?"
Sarah nodded. "Or with someone with him."
Lou walked cautiously toward Sarah, the tablet extended, green blinking.
"Here, you need this. So you can find him before someone else does. " Lou looked down at the blood now pooling on and around Sarah's foot.
Sarah looked down too. "I need to go."
"Sarah, be careful. Roberts — Omega, we call her...She's...well, Larkin. Dangerous. And, Roberts and Alpha, they weren't lovers, but they were...something to each other. She's not going to forgive what you did."
Sarah listened, let herself show her pain, pressed her hand on her abdomen. It was still oozing blood; it burned. "That makes two of us."
"I thought you were out, Sarah? No more games. Tired."
"I am tired, tired since forever, tired since the end of the day Graham first found me. I feel like a badly folded map of where I've been, of all the places I don't want to revisit."
Lou sent Sarah a wondering look but did not ask the question most on her mind. "Still, one last mission?"
Sarah nodded, gritting her teeth. "One last. I'll take care of the phone and get Roberts. Then I am out, I'm gone."
Lou looked at the tablet screen, the moving, blinking green light.
She put the screen in Sarah's bloody hand. "Save Chuck," Lou said with quiet urgency. "Good luck. — Too bad we never really knew each other."
"The nature of the game — the players are pieces, not persons," Sarah responded quietly and watched as Lou walked back to her car. Spies don't fall in love.
Sarah got in her car, placed the tablet and the gun in the passenger seat, stifling another gasp of pain.
She backed out of the narrow alley. Lou backed out after Sarah. Then they drove in different directions.
Carina pointed the car north on the I-5.
Beside her, Casey was twisted in the seat, checking behind them. "No sirens, no sign of anyone after us, Carina."
Glancing up into the rearview, Carina saw Ellie. Chuck was slumped against her, his eyes closed. His head lolled on her shoulder. Ellie, Carina realized suddenly, was not only rubbing his hand, but she was also singing to him, quietly.
Casey had started to listen; Carina did too.
Please don't cry
For the ghost and the storm outside
Will not invade this sacred shrine
Nor infiltrate your mind
My life down I shall lie
If the bogey-man should try
To play tricks on your sacred mind
To tease, torment, and tantalize
Wavering shadows loom
A piano plays in an empty room
There'll be blood on the cleaver tonight
And when darkness lifts and the room is bright
I'll still be by your side for you are all that matters
And I'll love you till the day I die
There never need be longing in your eyes
As long as the hand that rocks the cradle is mine
Ellie lapsed from words into low humming.
"What was that?" Casey asked, his voice breaking a little.
"It's an old Smiths song Chuck loves, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. When we were younger, kids, going from foster home to foster home, I used to sing it when he got upset or frightened," Ellie answered softly.
"It seems kinda scary itself. Who puts cleavers in a lullaby?"
Carina chuckled and glanced at Casey. "Your kind of song, John."
Casey glared at her for a moment. Carina kissed at him, her lips to the air. He grinned.
"Chuck's tastes have always been a bit...strange," Ellie said, talking to herself as much as the others. "His favorite book when he was a kid was Dickens' Captain Murderer."
"Is that the story where the Captain marries women, murders them, then eats them in pies?." Carina asked, shaking her head.
"That's the one," Ellie confirmed.
"Christ on a cracker," Casey commented, shaking his head.
"How is he?" Carina asked Ellie.
"He seems fine physically. His breathing's gotten deeper and more regular. I have no clue what's going on in that head of his."
Carina nodded. "What did you and Walker do? We missed the beginning of it all. — Why does Walker have black hair?"
"It's like the game," Casey offered. "I saw the VR as Bartowski was playing. Walker was in it but she had black hair."
Carina scoffed but Ellie confirmed it. "Right. Long story short, I layered several moments, the moments, of Chuck's history with Sarah on top of each other. She dyed her hair black, like the game. She put on a dress, like the one of yours she took to dance with Chuck in. She washed her dyed hair with that shampoo, Brazilian Joia. And we had opened several bottles and dumped out shampoo in Dixie cups in the room. God, it stank in there!"
"Hey, that's my brand!"
Casey grunted, laughing, looking at Carina. "I wondered what that was." Carina glared at him. "Hey, I like it. What's she mean? When did Walker dance with Chuck?"
A buzzing sound answered Casey. Carina grabbed her phone from her rear pocket. "It's Walker."
"Sarah, Sarah? Where are you? How are you?"
Sarah's voice sounded weak, weakened but Carina knew her tone, determined. "I'm okay. Shot, but not fatally, at least I don't...Anyway, I have to tell you something. Two things."
Carina knew it was pointless to argue. "Okay. What?"
"First thing: Chuck's phone is bugged. Pivot. I'm pretty sure it's in the car with you. Are you northbound on the I-5?"
"Uh-huh."
"I'm guessing Ellie grabbed it or grabbed it along with the stuff from my purse."
"We'll get rid of it, toss it."
"No! No. On the I-5, a little ahead of you, there's an exit, a rest stop. Make sure the phone's silenced, and find a place to hide it. Call me and tell me where. I need it."
"Why?"
"That's the second thing: Jill Roberts planted the bug; she's Pivot, a double-agent. She killed Larkin"
"Roberts? Damn. The bitch. I never liked her." Carina muttered. "You're going after her?"
"Yes, then I'm gone, Carina. Sorry but that's how it has to be. Maybe, after a while, when...Maybe I'll find a way to get into contact with you."
Carina sighed and looked out of the corner of her eye at John. "Ellie said you were gone. I'm sorry too. There are things I would've liked to...talk to you about."
"I know, Carina. I can't tell you what to do, God knows I'm no role model, but don't act or not act because you're afraid, and don't let some bureaucrat's edict run your life. And, Carina?"
"Yes, Sarah?"
"Chuck — what are you going to do with him?"
"What did you do with Palone?"
"I let her go. Gave her one of the go-bags I secreted for me and Chuck."
"You did?" Carina could not suppress surprise.
"I did."
"But she…"
"She did bad things, regrettable things. So have I. She wanted another chance, rebirth."
The final term added to Carina's surprise. Carina had underestimated the depth of Sarah's changes, but then, Carina had underestimated the depth of her own. She had been wrong about them both, herself and Sarah.
"I'll make sure they stay hidden from Graham and Pivot until Ellie can figure Chuck out."
"He's still unconscious?" Sarah's worry was audible.
"Yes, and Ellie's singing him lullabies."
Sarah laughed — then groaned in pain. "No! I wish I were there."
Carina's throat closed and she did not speak. Please don't cry. Sarah went on. "If he comes to, if he's himself, tell him I'm sorry, Carina."
"I will, Sarah. I'll tell him about you, the real you, all the stuff that matters, the stuff that Graham never filed. Take care of yourself. Let me know you're okay...sometime."
"Sometime, yeah. Thanks, Red."
Carina wiped her eyes as Sarah ended the call. Casey squeezed Carina's leg gently.
A/N: Ah, songs. — Songs, words and melodies, play an intimate role in most of my writing. Obviously, Peter Gabriel and his Jeux were significant here, but so too was the Tallest Man on Earth song that provides the epigraph for this chapter and the Smiths song that Ellie sings. I've been playing the TME song on my guitar kinda obsessively since I started writing the story. (I write with my guitar on my lap.)
What of Serpens and Columba, Stephen and Mary? Jill Roberts? Tune in next time!