A/N: Caution: Temporal jumps.
Jeux Sans Frontières
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Aftereffects (Part One)
As shadows fall, I pass a small cafe where we would dance at night
And I can't help recalling
How it felt to kiss and hold you tight
Well, how can I forget you girl
When there is always something there to remind me?
Always something there to remind me
I was born to love her
And I will never be free
You'll always be a part of me
Oh whoa whoa whoa
— Naked Eyes, Always Something There to Remind Me
Ellie sat on the porch awaiting the sunrise.
Chuck was still inside, asleep. In the past four months, he'd made progress. The Pivot programming slowly lost its grip on him. Sarah and Ellie had broken it but it took time for it all to fall away. Time, and help from Manoosh.
And others.
The skills implanted in Chuck, or that he, programmed, implanted in himself, did not leave him. They were bone-deep, and they were not going away. Their presence was revealed in various ways: Chuck's picking the lock on the house when Ellie locked them out; his choice of places to sit in public; his keen awareness of situations; his surprising, newly discovered physical coordination, speed, power; his desire to exercise.
But mostly it was a methodicalness in him that had never been present before, a self-possession and self-control. An ordered clarity.
He'd always been a little random, a little at the mercy of circumstance, a little unfocused. That had changed. He was not rigid or robotic, but he was orderly, masterful and focused. Honed.
In many ways, it was as if he'd grown up fully, matured. He'd become who he was — the man he was meant to be.
The aftereffects of the programming all seemed surprisingly positive. But the aftereffects of Sarah Walker, — those aftereffects just seemed...surprising.
The tournament, Pivot programming, the circumstances surrounding it, had centered her in Chuck's mind. So had his own memories — and the stories that Carina and Ellie told him. Ellie knew Sarah preyed on his thoughts, that he still could and did recall her file. She'd seen pieces of paper with notes jotted on them, information on Sarah or her missions.
Ellie had found a small bottle of Brazilian Joia beneath Chuck's pillow.
Chuck had not mentioned her but Ellie knew Sarah was there, haunting the ranch, occupying Chuck's head. It sometimes seemed to Ellie as if Sarah had Chuck, the ranch, under surveillance again, although Ellie knew that was untrue: there was no one around them for miles.
The sun began to show itself, an orange rind just above the desert horizon, a new day. Ellie took a sip of the coffee in her hand. It was going to be hot.
Ellie heard noises in the house. Chuck was up. He normally rose just before the sun to do chores. He'd taken to living on the ranch, and although it was temporary, he'd thrown himself into life there. He spent the bulk of most days working with Hernan, the husband of the couple who lived at the ranch, and who took care of it.
Ellie was up earlier than Chuck for a reason. In the last few days, Chuck had changed. He'd grown quiet, more focused, intense. She had a feeling about this morning.
She heard the shower start and finish as she sipped her coffee.
A few minutes later, Chuck walked out onto the porch. He was dressed, but not as he normally dressed for a day's work on the ranch.
He was wearing new clothes: a gray, long-sleeve shirt, black jeans, and brown hiking boots. He had the diver's watch on his wrist that Ellie bought him for his recent birthday. In his hand, he held an old army duffle bag he'd bought at a resale shop in the distant, small Texas town they relied on for groceries and other supplies. The clothes, the full beard he'd been growing, and the deep tan of the Texas sun, all made him look different.
Ellie put down her cup and gazed up at her brother. "I thought so. You're leaving."
She was not asking a question but Chuck nodded his head. "I have to. I have to find her, talk to her. I'm not programmed but I still feel like she's my mission...I don't know how to explain it."
"Mom and Dad say it's too much of a risk. Deepak thinks it may be the last vestige of programming."
"You told them? You knew?"
Ellie nodded her head. "I could see it coming, could see it brewing. It was in your eyes. You tried to sweat the compulsion out of you, didn't you? Repairing fences, painting the barn, delivering cattle, tending to Sentinel..."
At the mention of the colt, they both glanced across the dusty front yard to the corral beside the barn. Sentinel, growing fast, was standing at the fence, stamping his hooves, and waiting for Chuck, and for the apple slices Chuck fed him each morning before chores.
Ellie chuckled. "He's more dog than horse, I think."
Chuck gave her an odd look but responded to her question, not her remark. "I did. I tried Ellie. Tried to sweat it out. Forget it all. Forget her, her file, forget that I tried to...terminate her."
"You know what she is, Chuck, better than anyone. Why chase her — again, why try to find her? Risk yourself?"
"I know what she was, better than anyone. And I need to talk to her, tell her I'm sorry and hear her story from her. I feel like all this won't be over until I do that. Face to face."
"We're not even sure she's alive, Chuck. Dad found nothing, no trace. How will you succeed if he failed?"
"I'm not the boy I used to be, sis. And I know her."
Ellie listened as Carina had finished her story about Sarah Walker, about SpyCraft and the fallout.
Ellie had supplied bits of the story she knew. Chuck had continued to listen patiently until the end. When Carina finished, he closed his eyes, but Ellie knew he was not asleep. He was thinking.
Ellie and Carina and Casey left the room, went to the room next door.
Ellie's phone vibrated in her pocket. She had completely forgotten it was there. She gave Carina a panicked look.
"Who is it?" Carina asked in a whisper.
Ellie checked. She did not recognize the number. She declined the call.
She started to put the phone back in her pocket when it vibrated again. The same number. "It's that number again," Ellie said to Carina.
Casey looked at her. "Answer it. The way this day has gone, it's probably friggin' Frigg."
"Hello," Ellie said tentatively.
A cool, precise voice responded. "Is this Eleanor Bartowski?"
"Um, yes, it is."
The cool, precise voice went silent. When it spoke again it was no longer quite so cool, quite so precise. "Good. I need to tell you several things, and I need you to listen, but first: Do you remember that day, the summer you were five, when you had a caterpillar you found in the garden, one you'd let out of your bug jar?"
The memory rushed back to Ellie though she hadn't thought of it in years and years. She answered without deliberating. "Yes…"
"And you accidentally stepped on it, killed it, and you ran to your mother, so sad and so ashamed, and she held you and told you it would be okay, and that no one needed to know?"
"Yes…" Ellie said, still caught in the memory, "...how could you know about that? I never told anyone that story."
"Neither did I."
Ellie's sudden intake of breath made both Carina and Casey jump. "What?" Casey said.
Ellie waved her hand at him and she spoke a word she'd never expected to speak again: "Mom?"
"Yes."
Ellie closed her eyes, tears in them already.
"Listen, Ellie, your father and I can help you. We know what's going on — Chuck, the CIA, Pivot. But we don't know what's happened in the last several hours. Can you tell me? Do you know where Chuck is?"
"He's with me. Mom? Dad?" Ellie could hear her own voice as if it were someone else's. It was becoming hysterical.
"Ellie, calm down. I know this is a lot," Ellie heard her mom sigh, "but we don't have time to sort it all now. Chuck's with you?"
Ellie forced herself to focus, to ignore the painful and miserable questions coursing through her, the collapse of all she thought she knew.
"Chuck is with me."
A sound of relief: "Thank God! How is he? Is he still programmed?"
"No, I don't think so. He's autonomous, mostly, anyway."
"'Autonomous'? You're definitely Stephen's daughter. — Ok, good. Good. Is Sarah Walker with you?"
"Sarah? No, she's not. She helped me with Chuck, saved him — and me, and then she left."
"So you two are alone?"
"No, Sarah's...partners...are here. John Casey and Carina Miller."
"Casey and Miller. — What side are they on?" The coolness was back, the precision, an edge of threat.
"Chuck's. Sarah's."
"Are you sure you can trust them?" The edge was still there.
"I am — but I don't think we really have any choice."
Ellie's mom was silent for a moment. "Alright. — No choice; you're right. We are where we are. — Do you have access to a car?"
"Yes, Casey and Miller have one."
"Will they drive you somewhere, a place I tell you?"
"I don't know...I can ask."
"Where are you?"
Ellie put her hand over the phone. She felt that doing so was simultaneously necessary and a betrayal. "She wants to know where we are. It's my mom."
Carina nodded. "We got that. Why does she want to know?"
"She says she can help us. I'm sure it's her — for what that's worth."
Elie watched Carina glance at Casey. He shrugged. "It's become a Bartowski party."
"Ok, Ellie," Carina said.
Ellie told her mother where they were. "Okay. That's not so far." Ellie heard her mother tell someone else the address. And then she heard a response. Her father. A muted exchange occurred, a back-and-forth.
It ended and her mother spoke, her tone commanding, familiar from Ellie's childhood. "Get in the car and drive. About thirty miles from you is a truck stop..." Her mother gave her the address and Ellie said it to Casey. "Drive there and wait. Trust us, Ellie. We have plans, contingency plans, for...this sort of thing."
"Okay...Mom."
Casey shook his head. "Collect your brother. I guess we're back on the road."
Chuck stared out the window.
Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad?! Ellie had to be wrong. But, then again, Ellie would not make a mistake about that, and Ellie insisted that it had been their mom on the phone, that she'd heard their dad.
Chuck was too exhausted to think anymore. As the car moved, he sank into dreams of blue eyes beneath ever-changing hair colors.
The truck stop was busy with breakfast eaters. Cars and eighteen-wheelers crowded the lot.
Ellie looked around, trying to see her mom or her dad, breathless. Chuck was asleep in the backseat beside her.
Carina parked the car. A moment later, another car pulled into the adjacent spot. Casey had his gun out but was holding it well below the window so that it was not visible. The lights from the truck stop reflected on the window of the car — Ellie could not see who was inside it. Then the door opened and a small man, his face swollen, one eye black, got out. Carina gasped.
"It's Manoosh Deepak. Roll down the window, Casey." Casey did.
Manoosh nodded to Casey and Carina. "We don't have much time. Mary and Stephen rescued me from Pivot. Jill Roberts picked me up at the airport, took me to their lab. She did this to me.
"I'm going to take Ellie and Chuck. Their parents have a plan for them, and I will help Ellie with Chuck, if necessary, help with his recovery, his deprogramming. This way, the two of you can claim that you never found Chuck and that Ellie is missing too. You searched for them but — no luck. You need not face any trouble for what you've done. You're clever"
Casey gave Deepak a hard look. "Why should we think...Mary and Stephen Bartowski...have a workable plan? Why should we trust them?"
Ellie started to protest but Carina gave her a sharp look. Ellie sat back in the seat Chuck stirred but did not wake.
Deepak smiled and it looked like it hurt him to do so. "She said you would ask. Here's her answer. She told me to give it to you verbatim: 'I am Columba.'"
Deepak waited.
Casey turned to Carina, his eyes huge. "Columba. Jesus fucking Christ, who the hell are these Bartowskis?"
Carina shook her head, her eyes as huge as Casey's. "Columba…"
Deepak went on, clearly expecting that reaction. "She shared that with you by choice. If either of you ever shares that information with anyone else, for any reason, — she will find you…"
Ellie was lost. "Who is Columba? I don't understand. — Where are our parents?"
Deepak nodded. "I'll explain it to you in the car. Please hurry. Wake Chuck, we need to go. We have a distance to travel."
Casey shook his head. "Columba. Shit!"
Chuck woke up enough for Ellie to get him into the car, but he was asleep again almost immediately.
Ellie began to worry, to try to wake him, but Deepak, driving, shook his head. "Don't, Ellie. Let him sleep. Sleep is part of the deprogramming; it gives his mind a chance to cope with all that's happened, the intrusion and extrusion of the programming. I'm guessing that before he slept, he complained of his thoughts feeling weak, maybe...distant?"
"Yes, he did. Why?"
"The program effectively alienated Chuck from himself, from his own spontaneous thoughts and emotions. It will take a while for him to completely reclaim them. Particularly his emotions. Expect him to seem a little...impassive for another day or two."
Ellie nodded. She wanted to ask about Columba, but now that Carina and Casey were gone, she was afraid to do so. "So, you were with my mom and dad?"
"They saved me — and a few others. They were able to get us out of Pivot's lab, Pivot's building."
Ellie wondered who the others were but that did not seem the most pressing question. "My parents...Mary and Stephen Bartowski, did that?"
Deepak looked at her in the mirror. She and Chuck were in the rear. "Yes, it turns out that your mother…" she saw him struggling for phrases, then shook his head, "it turns out that your mother is...infamous in intelligence circles. She is known only by a codename: Columba."
"What makes her...infamous?"
"She is a very expensive, very...picky...contract killer. She's never failed on a contract, they say, and she turns down most of the ones she's offered."
Ellie shook her head this time. She shook it again. That couldn't be right. Her mother? "And my dad?"
"He's not infamous. He's not known at all, except among computer hackers, but no one ever connected Serpens to Columba. — But it's long been speculated that Columba has a handler, a partner, and that she does not work alone."
"So, you're telling me my mother's a hitwoman and my father's her...sidekick?"
Deepak smiled humorlessly. "Yes. She told me to tell you she will talk to you soon, when we get where we're going."
Ellie looked at Deepak's battered face. She could at least focus on being a doctor, even if she had no idea whose daughter she was. "When we stop, let's get some medicine and bandages for you. — Where are we going?"
"To Texas. Eventually. I have a route your mother gave me. We'll stop soon and change cars. She's a...remarkable...woman."
"When will I see her, will we see her?"
Deepak looked in the rearview mirror and shrugged.
Ellie watched as Hernan and Chuck got in the rusty pickup. She wanted to run to the truck, stop Chuck, but she couldn't. She knew he had to go.
A Bartowski family trait.
Ellie and Chuck had ridden with Deepak for hours. They'd changed cars twice. Ellie had tended to Deepak's bruises and cuts and he'd told her his story. He was helping them because of his part in SpyCraft, and because Mary and Stephen saved him.
They reached Texas, the ranch, without incident. Chuck slept for the entire trip. At the ranch, Hernan and his wife, Sylvia, were waiting for them. Mary and Stephen had planned for this possibility long ago. The ranch was not only a place to stay, safe and isolated, but Hernan had documents for Ellie and Chuck, new identities. The identities came with fully constructed lives, backstories.
But Mary and Stephen never came, never called, never wrote.
Ellie and Deepak worked with Chuck. Chuck worked with Hernan. Days passed. They settled in.
About two weeks after they arrived at the ranch, Hernan brought a newspaper with the headline: CIA Director Graham Found Dead in His Home.
The next night one of the burner phones at the ranch rang. Hernan answered it and handed it to Ellie.
"Hey, Ellie, it's Carina. A burner arrived at my apartment today with a note to call my sister. I understood. How's Chuck?"
"He's doing better. Better every day. Sleeping. He still sleeps a lot. How are you, you and Casey?"
Carina laughed. "Casey's here at my place. He's beside me. We're in bed."
"You two didn't get in any trouble?"
"In bed or out of it?" Carina laughed. "No, no trouble. It was touch-and-go for a while, but we stuck mostly to the truth, with certain omissions. Sarah got most of the blame, and Pivot, of course. Graham seemed distracted, unsure, odd. He debriefed us, but it wasn't as harrowing as we expected. He did send us both packing back to the NSA — which was fine with us.
"Beckman took us back without much fuss or fanfare, without too many questions. Made Casey my partner, by the way." Ellie heard a grunt and then heard Carina say, off the phone, no, it's not the other way around. "I believe Graham and SpyCraft had spooked her if you'll forgive the phrase, and she was happy to disentangle herself, us, from him, and it."
"But he's dead, Graham's dead."
Carina was quiet for a second. "Yes, he is. You saw the news?"
"We did. Was it natural causes? The story was...vague."
"Hard to tell. The whole thing's strange, hurried, hush-hush. Rumors abound that evidence was found at the scene connecting Graham to lots of dirty dealing, including…" Carina paused, "...a contract-kill on an American citizen…"
"Do you think he was killed by…"
Carina made a sound equivalent to yes. "Casey does. He says the MO matches other...putative kills...of hers."
"Wait, a contract, on a citizen? Chuck?"
"That's what Casey thinks — and he's convinced me. Graham wasn't going to let anyone have Chuck unless he had him."
"So, she...Columba…" — Mom — "killed him? For hiring her to kill Chuck?"
"Yes, that's the thought. Sorry, Ellie."
"No, Carina, it's...okay. I may hate the idea of what Mom is but I'm slowly...adjusting...to it. Chuck is too. — But we haven't heard anything from her or Dad."
"There's more, Ellie. The newspapers haven't pieced any of it together, and presumably, they won't, but there've been a few other deaths...killings...in DC. All government personnel, some in the CIA, all with links to Pivot, or so Beckman believes. Key players. If Pivot isn't done, it's on its last legs."
"Mom, again?"
"Yeah, Ellie, Casey and I think so." A pause, a drop in Carina's voice. "And Jill Roberts too; she's dead."
"What?!"
"She was found dead in her hospital bed. Justice was served — although officially Jill's death was treated as the effect of her injuries, her severe blood loss."
"Columba's...good...at what she does."
"Reminds me of someone else — in some ways," Carina said quietly.
"Anything there, Carina? Any news? Communication?"
Carina sighed. "Nothing. Not a sign or trace."
Ellie heard that news with a surprisingly heavy heart. She'd come to care about Sarah Walker the more she thought about Sarah Walker. "Sorry, Carina."
Carina responded with forced brightness. "She's hard to kill, Ellie. And she's good...at what she does. If she wants to hide, she'll hide. No one will find her."
"Tell Casey we said hello, Carina. We thank you two — for everything."
"We were glad to help. So — are you two under forever?"
"We have new identities, histories. My new identity has a medical degree; Chuck's a degree in computer science. But we haven't put the identities much in play, haven't looked for work, and won't for a while. We have a place to live, money."
"The costs of this game," Carina said softly. "You two lived — but lost your lives. I suppose there's no way around it, though. And don't say anything more about the new identities, nothing that even suggests where you are now, who you are now. It's best if I — if we — have no idea."
"Right. — You know, Carina...it's not so bad. The lives we were living weren't true, though neither Chuck nor I knew it. It was worse in his case, but my life was also fake too, in its way. Maybe now, as new fakes, we can become real. Know who we really are. — That sounds insane, right?"
"No, it sounds...hopeful."
A/N: Still threads to tie in Part Two, obviously.