CHAPTER NINETEEN
Wake Up
Or miss your vision
Dressed down
With indecision
"Wake Up"
Mackintosh Braun
July 13, 2012
Bucharest, Romania
With the crank window in the hotel room cracked open slightly, the distant sounds of traffic, echoing beeps and shushing wind from passing cars created the background music as the discussion continued. Seated in the small leather chair beside the computer desk where Chuck sat, leaning back in his chair, Corrine smiled, appreciating his confidence. A crooked smile turned serious again when she asked him, "Speaking of. Mary. What happened? I talked to her right before I got out of the U.S.S.R. But to protect my cover, I never tried to make contact with her again."
Corrine watched him, pushing back on the top of his chair, rocking gently back and forth. He unfolded his arms, stretching, the clinging olive green polo shirt he wore sliding up over his biceps as he moved. The crease between his eyebrows deepening, he thought for a moment before he answered, not sure if she knew anything, but knowing the whole story was rather troubling. "I didn't know myself, not for a long time. But the truth? She left, in 1990, once the CIA knew what Volkoff had become, to try and take him down, as well as Hydra, the network he constructed. My sister and I didn't see her again until about a year ago."
She looked away, wincing as if someone had struck her. The sunlight streaming into the room through the sheer white draperies reflected off her thin silver watch, flashing wavy circular rainbows against the drab walls and ceiling. "Oh, no. I was afraid of something like that. Oh, Charles, I'm so sorry," she said softly, reaching for his hand. He focused on her hand, the skin smooth and unwrinkled, her long and delicate fingers tapering to smooth, clear fingernails. On the same hand where a gold wedding band adorned her ring finger, a shiny, slightly puckered half-moon scar marred the otherwise perfect skin, a scar that went all the way through to her palm on the other side, as he saw when she moved her hand again.
"The CIA ended the operation she was part of in 1995. She went off the radar, and stayed with him. Once we knew about Agent X and that whole backstory, I understood why. My Dad was home with us. She felt obligated to stay with Volkoff, you know, because of everything that happened. Even after my Dad left, he never stopped trying to fix the mistake he made," he explained. She watched him shuffle his feet back and forth, scuffing against the plush gray carpet.
"And then somehow handed it down to you to fix, Charles, right?" she asked mournfully.
"It was the only thing I could do, after he died, you know. Finish his last mission," Chuck said with a weak smile.
"But you did, Charles. You did by yourself what the three of us couldn't do in 20 years," she said with force.
"My team. We're all only as good as each one of us," he said sincerely. His eyes drifted away, encompassing the full view that included Casey and Morgan. John stood at a table next to the bed, the blue damask bedspread resting atop his black boots as he leaned toward the window, constantly surveilling the scene on the street below. Spread out across the bed, nestled in a plush crease, Morgan laid, munching on a granola bar that filled the room with the heavy scent of peanut butter. Chuck's random stomach growls punctuated the silence.
She smiled, then added, "Charles, if I may be so bold. How is it that you ended up with three versions of the biggest regret of your father's life inside your head?" She threaded her fingers together, folding her hands into her lap, but pulling at the edges of her pale green tunic that ruffled across her lap.
He had never heard it phrased quite that way, although in that same instant he knew it was true. He remembered how disappointed his father had been, realizing he still worked for the CIA. Worse, that he had lied to his father about it. "Ohhhh," he said, drawing the word out as he sighed. "That could fill an entire day, if I let it. A very convoluted story. But the abbreviated version, which I only knew for sure was true about two days ago, my father started rebuilding another Intersect after the file he sent you was lost, or what he thought was lost. He was still trying to undo the Volkoff persona. I accidentally downloaded it when I was nine. With no ill effects."
"That's incredible," she said softly, searching his face as if somehow there was evidence there for how it was possible.
"Turns out my brain is 1 in 100 million, or so I was told," he said with humility. "My sister is a doctor. But she's also been researching the Intersect. To help my wife, and to help the NCS find you. Or that program." She did a magnificent job of keeping her face neutral, but something about what Chuck said alarmed her. He saw it flash in her eyes before she quelled it.
He paused only two beats too long, but he went back to his original point. "He used my brain as the template to create something he thought would be able to help. Then the CIA got a hold of it, and warped it into something he never intended. He went underground, left my sister and I, to try and fix it on his own. I got caught in the crossfire, but because, in the end, I think, my father knew whatever the CIA was trying to do with it, it wouldn't work unless it was in my head. It was never meant to be, but it was. And now it is, again."
"You don't sound happy about that," she observed.
"I didn't have a choice, downloading it, the last time. I mean I did, but I really didn't," he almost whispered. "It's caused a lot of misery, I will tell you. And my father wished I would have just destroyed it." He looked at Corrine and smiled, lopsided but endearingly. "All I do know, for sure, is that without it, I never would have met my wife. I can't imagine what my life would be without her. Even if I could change things, you know, rearrange things, so that none of that bad stuff happened, I wouldn't. Not if it meant that she somehow wasn't part of my life. She is worth all of it."
Corrine watched his face change when he started speaking about his wife. His light olive complexion, dull from worry, flushed across his cheekbones, down the soft angle of his jaw. The shadows playing across his upper lip and chin disappeared when his lips curved slowly into a gentle smile that exposed his pearly teeth. His hazel eyes, when turned to her, appearing so much more green next to his shirt, were soft with emotion.
The beeping of the computer broke into their conversation. The scrolling green characters' dizzying race came to an abrupt halt, leaving the screen dark, with a single blinking cursor left only in the corner, as they both saw as they turned to look at the computer. Corrine said, her accent clipping the ends off some of her words, "Looks like we're one step closer to getting you home to her,"
July 13, 2012
Oak Park, Illinois
Sarah woke to the sound of a little voice giggling down the hallway past her bedroom door. Rolling over clumsily from her left to her right side, she saw the sky through the window between the filmy white curtains, a pale gray scattered with diffuse sunlight, indicating an overcast sky. She heard the gentle hum of the air conditioned air rushing through the vents on the floor next to her bed. Brewing coffee and toast wafted through the door, making her mouth water, as she realized how hungry she was.
She heard a gentle knock on the door, calling to whoever it was to come in. Ellie stood in the doorway, a sweet smile on her face. She was already dressed in a simple blue dress cut just above her knees, her long dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. "Chuck called last night. Really late-he didn't want to wake you. He should be back in a couple days. I think there's just a few loose ends to tie up, from how he sounded." Still smiling, but tilting her head to the side, she added, "I told him, you know, that you remembered."
Sarah smiled, flopping her head back down on the pillow at the picture that painted in her mind. There was something magical about him, when he was truly happy. She pictured his eyes, the softest green with haloes of golden brown flecked throughout, twinkling and bright, while he smiled like the sun, his entire face lit up and glowing. The gentle creases on the slope of his nose stretched beneath his eyes, the closest thing she had to an embrace from him without his arms actually touching her.
Before yesterday, so many pictures of him in her mind were from when he was already troubled, burdened and distressed from the tragedy of her memory loss. As selfish as it had been, she knew now, she had run from the tortured look in his eyes, because somewhere inside she had known he could be the other way, and wasn't, because of what had happened to her.
Inside her head, she could hear his voice. No specific words, no remembered conversation. Just the rise and fall of his speech, as if it were music. How it sounded when he laughed, when he was animatedly telling a story, or when he was whispering against her ear as he lay beside her. She knew the difference between how his voice sounded when her head was laying against his chest, or when his head was resting in her lap. When strong emotion made the timber of his voice change, or when carefree laughter raised it to a higher pitch.
She missed the warmth she associated with his body close to her, transferred from his skin. She thought of the delicate tickle of his warmest, softest breath against the back of her neck, while the pleasant weight of his arm across her waist held her snug against him. The exquisitely gentle way he touched her, the electricity she felt beneath his fingers whenever they were in contact with her skin.
He had been gone for only a few days, but inside her it felt like years. She couldn't remember feeling like this before. She had no basis for comparison. Even in the past that she now remembered, there was nothing that compared to this chasm she felt so desperately in need of filling.
"So he's all right?" she called, the multiple layers in her sentence not lost on Chuck's sister.
Ellie smiled again, adding quietly, "I think John may have had to shake him a little, you know, snap him out of it. But yes, he's all right. Wanting you back to normal was the only thing he's been living for these past months. So for the first time in a long time, he is actually all right."
He knew, wherever he was and whatever he was doing, that she was all right. She was humbled by the fact that news about her made such a difference to him, but she knew it had. That was how much he loved her. Some of that pain she had seen was gone, and whatever was left she would work every day to help alleviate. Although she thought, part of what she needed to do, what she had always been so afraid to do, was tell him. Let him know that she felt the way she did. After all of this, that was the least she owed him. It was still frightening, but nothing compared to what he had done, in comparison, for her. Things that in perspective had been so much harder for him.
"Sarah, can I ask you a question?" Ellie asked, stepping into her room, watching as Sarah lifted herself up on one elbow, her blonde curls flowing forward over her hand.
"Anything," Sarah answered, smiling, understanding for the first time that she didn't need to preface a conversation with questions about what she remembered.
"You told me before, you know, how you and Chuck were not really together, then you were, with your cover and whatever. I feel like you and Chuck broke up," she made air quotes with the fingers on each hand, "what, three times? Was any of that real? What really happened?"
Sarah smiled, looking down at the floor as she thought of the ridiculous explanation in her head. "That's about right, I think. While I was still working at the Wienerlicious, because he wanted to try to have a real girlfriend, right before Thanksgiving. That was a fake break up, because our relationship was fake. The next year," she looked up quickly at Ellie, animation on her face when she realized Ellie knew exactly what she was referring to, "after that car explosion where you got my MRI, that mission?"
Ellie nodded, studying Sarah's face with curiosity. Ellie left pale footprints on the plush carpet where she walked, closer to the edge of the bed, and then sat down. She smoothed the ivory bedspread resting atop Sarah's legs.
"I actually got hurt because I went off the mission plan, to protect Chuck. Once I was out of the hospital, I hesitated to make a shot that could have gotten Chuck or myself killed. I think Chuck knew at that point my feelings for him were a liability for me. He broke up with me to protect me, sort of. If that makes sense," she added, flopping her head back down onto the pillow, a swift rush of cool air swirling around them.
"When I asked you to be my bridesmaid," Ellie remembered.
"That was real, Ellie. No matter my cover. Me agreeing to be your bridesmaid, asking you to be my maid of honor. All of that was real. You were the first real friend I think I ever had," Sarah said in a rush, comprehending it in complete truth there, in that instant.
Sarah felt the gentle pat of Ellie's hand on her leg under the bedspread. "What about when Chuck was gone for all that time? When he was actually in training, right?"
"That was as real a break up as we ever really had," Sarah said softly, the darkness descending over her features like a cloud. "At your wedding, I was ready to quit and just stay with Chuck. Have a normal life. But you know what happened when he left." Ellie was amazed, seeing the slightest shadow of sorrow in her eyes even this far removed from that instance. "I wanted him to run away with me." An apology reflecting back at Ellie, Sarah added, "He couldn't leave you. He walked away from me so he wouldn't have to. So that he could become all that he wanted, even if it meant he couldn't be with me anymore."
"He was such a mess when he came home from that. It makes sense now, that I know everything. I didn't have much sympathy for him, then. I just thought it was on again off again Chuck and Sarah, as always. If I'd understood it all, I wouldn't have been so hard on him," Ellie said, tilting her head.
"We weren't together together until right before you left for Africa," Sarah said wistfully.
"How did that work, after all that time?" Ellie asked.
Sarah searched her thoughts, knowing telling her the entire story the way it had played out was too strange. So she told Ellie something she knew reading a mission briefing would never have taught her. "We had been apart almost an entire year. He just came and gave me this heartfelt speech about how much he loved me. Poured it all out, and he kissed me. He actually came out and asked me if I loved him," she added with a soft chuckle, blending the two times into one.
"Really? Chuck did that?" Ellie asked, her nose wrinkling as she laughed.
"He did," she smiled, remembering the kiss that had changed everything. How she could still taste the mint ice cream on his lips, and the lingering scent of whiskey on his breath as she'd pulled away. "I told him I fell for him the first day I met him. And that was the truth. It took a while for me to realize it, but I did."
Heart-warmed, Ellie finally stood. "I'll let you get ready. Alex is testing the program again this morning. Take your time getting ready," she said, as she cleared the door and disappeared down the hallway.
Sarah soaked in those memories, fresh and pleasantly intact, basking in the warmth they created inside her. Eventually, the sounds from the kitchen amplified as she lay there, through the door Ellie had left ajar. Clara laughed again, a high-pitched shrieking giggle only capable of being produced from a pure and unbroken heart. She could hear Devon and Ellie, talking to each other, and talking to their daughter, noting how the pitch changed when they addressed the little girl. The pleasant aromas of breakfast seemed to intensify, as Sarah thought, because she was so hungry herself, her mouth almost watering.
Only part of the hunger she felt was for food, she realized as she lay there, listening as the air conditioner hissed and rumbled. She was listening to the sound of something she had secretly hungered for all her life-a family. A normal, regular family, something she had never known as a child. Her dream, including the picture perfect house, had always been just that-something unattainable, something out of her reach in her unorthodox lifestyle she had always lived, whether with her father, or with the CIA. But what she heard now, what she smelled, was real, something she was part of, thanks to Chuck. And soon, she and Chuck would have the same thing, a nuclear family as an extension of what already surrounded them.
Never had she felt the sensation that it was this close to her, so close she could literally taste it. As sweet as maple syrup, and as rich as butter. God, she was hungry, she thought, as she sat up to get out of bed.
XXX
"Clara, food goes in your mouth, not in your hair," Ellie told her gently, as the little girl looked up at her mother, laughing as her chubby hands stuck to her hair, as they were slathered with strawberry jam. "Devon, she's really sticky," Ellie said to her husband, as she touched her daughter's hand and felt her fingers adhered to Clara's soft skin.
"Don't worry, Babe, Dad to the rescue," Devon said, a wet washcloth in his hand as he approached the back of her highchair. Clara giggled like crazy as the washcloth scrambled the hair on the top of her head as he rubbed. He made a silly face when she looked up at her father, realizing he had been the one doing it. He repeated the act several times, until she was clean, and her baby hair stuck out in all directions like a messy plate of spaghetti. Ellie and Devon laughed at her predicament.
Ellie was reaching for her phone to snap a picture of her daughter when she saw the cue that she had several messages. She still took the photo, then mumbled to herself, "I didn't hear the phone. That was odd." She opened the phone, seeing the flagged message from Jane Bentley.
"My Mom should be here any minute to take Clara to play group. We're still working from here today, the three of us," Ellie told him. "I need to go take this in my office," she said to Devon.
"Are you telling your Mom that we're moving back to California?" he said with a smile. He dried his hands on a dish towel, then adjusted his dark purple tie, smoothing it down on the surface of the complementary shade of darker purple shirt he wore with it.
"Soon, probably not this morning. Tonight when you get home, does that sound good?" Ellie said to him, pecking him on the lips, then kissing her daughter on the top of her head. Her hair wasn't sticky, but she still smelled of strawberries, Ellie thought.
Ellie took her phone and disappeared into her office.
XXX
The blinds were all drawn in Ellie's office, making the room appear dark, though the sun was out. She walked slowly across the gleaming hardwood floor, her heels making muffled clicks as she walked. With a calculated twist, she turned the handle and the wooden slats rose at an angle, lifting away from each other to allow the gray light into the room.
She sank into the gray leather chair, turning on the computer with one hand while she adjusted the rest of her equipment with the other. The shiny black surface of the desk reflected the colors on the screen as the computer came to life, eventually settling on the emblem for the CIA. Several more seconds ticked by, and that emblem was replaced by the living portrait of Jane Bentley, her mocha skin smooth and perfect, no smile to furrow her forehead or wrinkle the skin around her mouth. The same austere bun, pulled tight at her temples, was visible at the top of her head.
"Good morning, Dr. Woodcomb," she said plainly. "I hear you have an update?"
"Yes, yes I do. First, Chuck checked in late last night. He found Corrine MacArthur. He confirmed she did not download the program that my father sent her in Russia, rather she ran it and copied it instead. I believe he will make that full report to General Beckman when he returns, which should be within the next few days," she said. Bently's face was an unreadable mask, although from having dealt with her almost daily for the past six months, Ellie knew by the telltale way her eyes slanted slightly to the side that she was thinking.
"Did your brother explain how he was certain? He was unaware that his own wife had an Intersect still embedded in her brain," she said evenly.
"Well, no," Ellie admitted. "But my brother knows what he's doing. If he had any questions about her, or how she was acting, or anything like that, I'm sure he would have brought it up." Ellie felt the vibration in her fingers as she drummed her fingernails on the surface of the desk, catching herself and clenching her fist to stop it.
Bentley seemed to contemplate something, but said nothing else about what she had mentioned. "As long as your brother gets her safely here, we can determine what her actual status is. I would say if she were acting erratically, or manically, like Alexei Volkoff, it would be undeniable. Truth is, we just don't know."
Ellie nodded, understanding why the Director would question, but feeling herself that she trusted her brother's judgment more.
"Are you planning on continuing all your work from your home, Dr.?" she asked crisply.
"Yes. The other part of that update. I was able to completely restore Sarah's memories, after I had her here to run my tests. She is 100% as of last evening," Ellie said, knowing the effusiveness in her tone was unbecoming to Bentley.
"That's incredible, Dr. How did you manage that?" she asked.
"My brother had control of his Intersect at all times, even when he believed he didn't, even when his own emotions were interfering with its functionality. My father told him he could flash on demand, and he did. He realigned it himself when it was malfunctioning, subconsciously. Sarah had a different version than he did, and her download worked in a different way, but under extreme duress, she had control over it as well. It was the exact opposite from my brother's difficulty. Strong emotions shut his Intersect down. Strong emotions gave her complete control, without her conscious knowledge. Memories are stored all over the female brain, not in the same way a male brain retains memories. That's an evolutionary advantage-women thousands of years ago had to remember all sorts of different things-where certain foods grew, what foods were safe and what foods were dangerous, things like that. I just figured out how to unlock it," she finished.
"So she really had no memory loss?" Bentley asked, a curious expression turning her lips down at the corners.
"No, she did. On the train while her Intersect was breaking down, she forgot someone she knew very well. That female memory loss is almost proven, from the data I have. But it's not permanent, as you saw in Captain Dunwoody," Ellie told her.
"Very well, Dr. Carry on. We'll be in touch," Bentley said, signing off.
Ellie couldn't shake the sense of inexplicable unease she felt, once she was alone in her office, listening to the sound of the air conditioner shushing, the white noise making her feel even more isolated. She shivered, reminding herself to turn the temperature up as she rose to leave.