Still to come
The worst part
And you know it
There's a numbness in
Your heart
And it's growing
"A Comet Appears"
The Shins
July 7, 2012
Oak Park, Illinois
After a soft peck on her lips, Chuck flipped back the blankets to climb into bed with Sarah. She was sitting up, pillows behind her back.
"Thank you for explaining to Molly why I didn't remember the things she was talking about," Sarah said, smiling, but a haunted sadness reflecting back at him from her eyes.
He smiled, looking down at his lap.
Sarah was certain something was wrong. He had emerged from Ellie's home office looking relieved, genuinely smiling at his sister. The four of them had talked over dinner, and everything seemed fine, a familiar sense that she had done this many times in the past overcoming her. Chuck kept smiling, but she watched him closely. The moment he thought she wasn't looking, his gaze shifted away from the table and his concentration away from the conversation.
After dinner, Chuck encouraged Sarah to call her mother. It had been an emotional undergoing, but necessary in her steps towards healing. Listening to Chuck talk to her young sister, the sweetness of him swirling around her like a soft embrace, had made her eyes well up. And now, when she eventually returned home to California, she had plans to see them both.
"I never thought I was ever going to see my mother again. Just knowing that she's there, waiting to see me, when we get back is just…" She had to stop, overcome briefly. "I still can't believe that you did all of that." She continued staring, hoping he would turn back to look at her. "But then again, yes, I can."
She waited, and he turned, the gentleness on his face creating a tender ache inside. "I have so many memories of you, just putting yourself in between me and anything that could ever hurt me. Making things better, whenever you could," she said sincerely.
A shrill alarm rang in the back of her head when he covered his face with his hand, and she heard his breathing become rough and shaky. "Chuck, please tell me what's wrong. You've been acting strange ever since you came out of your sister's office. I thought you two cleared the air."
"We, uh, we did. It's just...uh…" He made two tight fists, clearing his throat as he did so. "I need to talk to you."
"About what?" she asked, instantly dreading the answer.
"There...uh, there was one time, when I didn't. Or couldn't. You know, protect you. I tried, believe me, I tried. But I was too late and...now I feel responsible for what happened to you. Whatever happened. That we don't even know," he finished, a heaviness in his tone that indicated he was fighting tears.
She slid over, resting her head on his shoulder and wrapping an arm around his waist. "You aren't responsible. Please, Chuck, don't do this."
"Can you tell me, really tell me, how you knew the baby is mine? Even if you think it's too much for me to listen to. I have to know. Do you remember anything about having the Intersect or the bullet train or anything?"
"I don't," she admitted. "But I can tell you about being pregnant." She never took her head off his shoulder as she spoke.
"I was processed at Langley. Thank God I went to a CIA doctor because explaining why I had no memory of my cycle for the past five years was hard to explain to him, never mind a regular doctor, you know?" He continued to look down silently, the telltale crease between his eyebrows dark with shadow.
"The first test was qualitative. When it was positive, they sent out blood work to do a quantitative test. And scheduled an ultrasound. After that, I had to choose, so I told them I wanted St. Louis. Then they sent me back to the hotel to wait for the results. Where I waited for three days. That's the first time I called Ellie, even though I didn't say anything about what was going on. I felt like I wanted to scratch myself out of my skin thinking that...maybe...you know," she said softly. His only reaction was to crush his eyes closed, as if he couldn't bear to hear the words she was speaking.
Her voice was weaker, quieter as she continued. "I was so relieved I started crying hysterically when he told me during the ultrasound I was almost 3 months pregnant. I asked him, just to make sure, there was no way I could have gotten pregnant in mid or late January. He assured me I didn't. I almost called you- that was my first instinct. But then I started thinking. And I couldn't stop thinking. And then I was terrified. And I still couldn't remember what happened in between."
His arm came around, cupping her cheek in his hand and pressing her head against his chest in a fierce embrace. "I'm so sorry, Baby. That I couldn't stop him from hurting you," he said tremulously.
"Chuck, if you couldn't save me then, no one could have. I know that, no matter what I remember," she affirmed. He didn't feel deserving of her faith, but warmed inside at the notion anyway.
In a tone she was sure she had never heard him use, he said, "I, uh, I never really ever felt like I was capable of killing anyone. I thought I'd killed Shaw, the first time, when I was trying to save your life. The second time, I was so…" His voice failed, only for a moment. "Angry. Because he killed my father. But I knew I couldn't kill him, that that wasn't who I was. But, now, I keep having this feeling. Thinking about what he did to you, what he did to us—"
She sat up rapidly, holding his face with both of her hands. The self-reproach on his face broke her heart. "What he tried to do. He failed in the end, Chuck. He underestimated you." He wasn't sure what she meant, until she added, "That you had enough love in your heart for both of us, until mine woke up again." A faint smile touched her lips.
His heart soared, as if it had wings, despite the darkness that had crept inside during this discussion. "I love you," he whispered passionately.
"I love you, too," she whispered back, hearing it and feeling it at the same time, so new and yet so comfortingly familiar. She leaned back against his shoulder.
She felt his lips on her hair, kissing her head gently. Desperately, she quickly added, "There was never anyone else, never, not—"
"I know," he said softly. "I know."
He held her for a long time, eventually settling down on the pillow, adjusting himself against her as she flipped to her side. The last thing he felt before slipping into his dream was her, pulling his arm over the top of her and cradling his hand against her heart like a security blanket.
XXX
December 24, 2011
Buy More, Burbank, California
"Oh my God," Ellie breathed, her face going pale, as she gazed at something over Chuck's shoulder, as they stood side by side in the empty Buy More, the adrenaline from the violent encounter with Shaw still fresh.
Chuck spun, to see through the window of the home theater room, what had caught his sister's attention. Casey and Morgan, holding Sarah in a chair carry, minus the actual chair. Before he started running, he had seen only one other thing. Blood.
He heard his sister's rapid footfalls behind him, knowing she was running too. Once he was in the room, he saw Sarah up close. All of her skin that was visible was gray, and her white tank top was covered in blood.
"Sarah...Sarah...no,no,no…" Chuck screamed, rushing towards them. A litany of things happened all at once. Chuck reached for Sarah, scooping her into his arms. He gasped at the temperature of her skin against him, through his shirt, feeling like he was holding a giant ice pack against his body.
At the same instant Morgan shouted over Chuck, "It's not her blood! It's not her blood! She's frozen solid, Chuck."
Ellie ran to Sarah, haphazardly having to catch John Casey as he collapsed once Sarah was out of his arms. "Oh my God, John, you're shot!" she yelled, falling into the couch from his sheer weight as his strength gave out.
Chuck sat heavily into another chair, cradling Sarah against his chest. He pulled his legs up over hers, entwining himself around her to keep her warm. Her breathing was slow and irregular, he worried.
"Where is Shaw?" Casey said through gritted teeth, as Ellie positioned him to inspect his wounds.
"I'm going to get an electric blanket," Morgan called back, running out into the store.
"He's out cold," Chuck said, his bottom teeth chattering at the coldness of Sarah's body against him.
"Morgan, make sure he stays that way until the cavalry gets here," Casey called out the door.
"Ellie hit him with a frying pan," Chuck mumbled, but loud enough for others to hear.
Casey grunted, the irony not missed on him, considering once Ellie had knocked him out the same way. Then he added, "I thought Chuck told you to leave."
"Come on, John. Since when do the Bartowskis do what they're told?" Ellie said with a smile. He grunted in return. "It's nice to be able to reciprocate, you know, for all the Bartowski saving you've had to do lately," she added sarcastically.
She pulled on Casey's shirt. "You are unbelievably lucky this one on your side went through your flank muscles. It missed your peritoneum by less than an inch."
"It's a Christmas miracle," he grumbled, shifting slightly as she applied pressure.
Morgan came barreling back into the room, tearing at the paperboard remnants of the blanket packaging. He pulled out the cord, fumbling to plug it in, and said, "I cuffed Shaw to the Nerd Herd desk."
Without looking up from Casey's wounds, Ellie called to Chuck. "Stay under the blanket with her. Your body heat transfers better."
"Why is she still unconscious?" Chuck asked her fretfully, not able to see Sarah's face for the torsion his head made around hers for warmth.
Ellie made a move of looking back and forth between both patients. "Help her," John said gruffly, blocking Ellie's hand.
Chuck looked at him, passing a silent thank you with his eyes. Ellie turned on her haunches, opening Sarah's eyelids gently, feeling her pulse on her wrist. "It looks like hypothermia was setting in. But they got her out in time. Just keep her warm, Chuck," Ellie said, turning back to Casey.
"Thank God, Morgan. You saved her," Chuck said, emotion muddling his voice.
"Casey's the one who got her out of the chair, and he carried her up two flights of stairs with two bullet wounds," Morgan admitted.
"You made it down there. The rest was moot without that. Don't forget it," Casey growled.
Chuck heard soft moaning, felt Sarah stirring in his arms. "Baby, are you ok?" he asked.
"Chuck," she said weakly. "You're ok," she sighed with relief.
"I am. What about—"
"Sarah, can you feel your fingers and toes?" Ellie asked, still turned away, tending to Casey's bullet wounds.
When she didn't answer, Ellie turned around. Sarah had her face pressed against Chuck's chest, as if he was the only source of oxygen in the room. Ignoring Ellie, she breathed, "He didn't want to kill me. He knew it would be worse if he killed you...and left me alive," she whispered.
Momentarily unable to speak, Chuck was glad she couldn't see the way his eyes had misted. He understood completely, knowing her life meant more to him than his own. "What about...the Intersect…" she muttered worriedly.
"The Omen canceled out the Intersect, thanks to our boy. He did good," Morgan praised.
"Like always," she mumbled, settling comfortably against him, letting the sound of his heartbeat lull her.
"Stay like that for about 30 more minutes," Ellie instructed.
"Beckman should be here soon," Casey told Morgan, who left to go get them up to speed. The rest of the conversations and actions faded into the background. Not long enough, he thought to himself. As warm as the blanket was making him, he could have stayed like that forever.
XXX
July 7, 2012
Oak Park, Illinois
Fifty yards away from the house where Chuck and Sarah were asleep in Ellie's house, parked on the side of the street among residential cars, was a black van. A man in a black suit, seated in the front seat, muttered to himself in a Russian accent, "The sister. Of course."