A/N: Special thanks to my literary "coach" for the advice and guidance. It has definitely made a huge difference.

CHAPTER TWENTY

In the room is the steam

It evaporates, disappears

My point of entry is the same way

That I'll leave

"Keep Yourself Warm"

Frightened Rabbit

July 13, 2012

Oak Park, Illinois

Alex was seated at Ellie's computer when Sarah entered her office. The morning sunlight was overpoweringly bright, fading out the colors in the background from Sarah's vantage point. She could hear the soft staccato of Alex's fingers across the keyboard as she typed. "Morning," Alex called, flashing a quick smile, only looking up briefly from her work. She stopped, briefly, grasping the back of the chair and turning the top half of her body to face Sarah.

"It must feel weird, waking up this morning, feeling normal again, after so long," she said, grinning slightly.

"Weird, but very good. It's nice to feel like me again," Sarah explained. Sighing, and diving right into what she wanted to say, she began, "Alex, I know you know about everything that happened. You know you were the first thing I forgot. But that was-"

"Sarah, please, don't worry about that. I saw firsthand what that thing did to Morgan's brain," she explained, her eyes wide with sad understanding. "I know it was really Quinn to blame. I get it. But I hate the fact that my father had to react the way he did because he was protecting me. Maybe none of this would have happened at all if-"

Sarah was quick to interrupt her. "Alex, the fact that your father loves you was used against him, against us. We chose to live in that world, knowing all of those attachments could be used against us at some point. It was never your fault, please know that."

"I do," she affirmed adamantly. "My father told me the same thing after that." She smiled gently, turning back to the computer as it beeped slightly. She turned her attention back, her hands two spiders dancing on the keys again briefly before the screen winked off, then back on.

"Can I ask you something a little more personal, Alex?" Sarah started hesitantly, sitting in the chair against the wall. Sarah's fingers nervously traced the fringed trim on the gray throw pillow wedged into the corner of the chair. She tugged on the hem of her black dress, the folded ruffles tucked under her legs as she sat slightly forward.

"Sure," Alex said with a sweet smile.

Alex watched Sarah's face, the smile slowly melting into what looked like worry. "When I left California. And Chuck was there alone, after Ellie and Devon were gone. What happened? Chuck tried to tell me, but he left a lot out. I think he was trying to spare my feelings, or keep me from feeling guilty. Now that I remember everything, I can't stop thinking about it."

Alex swallowed hard, actually pulling her hands away from the keyboard and folding her arms across her chest. She swiveled the chair around to face Sarah. In a disconnected flash of thought, she realized Alex was dressed differently than Sarah had always remembered her. All of Sarah's memories of her entailed flowy patterned blouses, sometimes with a belt around her trim waist. This time, she had on a pair of light gray dress pants and a light blue silk shell that turned her eyes almost electric blue. In the time between Sarah's leaving and now, she knew Alex had taken a job working for Chuck and Morgan.

"I never dealt with any of it firsthand, I'll tell you that. It was all Morgan. I saw Morgan when he'd get back, or when he was worried, or when he was looking for him and couldn't find him," she said slowly, choosing her words carefully and speaking slowly. "Although Morgan talked to me. I guess Chuck sort of had a history of doing what Morgan called 'going off the deep end,' you know, before. He started out thinking it was sort of the same thing. But after a week or so, Morgan realized this was different. I guess Chuck sort of gave up, at least that was how Morgan described it."

"How long did that last?" Sarah asked, her voice small, her inflection muted.

"Really, really, bad like that? I think about a month, maybe a little longer," Alex told her. Alex's lips were pressed together, and she started chewing on the inside of her cheek in nervousness. "The, uh, the...worst part. Ellie had been trying to call him for two days, and he never responded to her. She started calling Morgan. Morgan looked for him, everywhere, for a full 24 hours. It took another twelve hours before Morgan found him, in your apartment. He stayed in touch with me, you know, while he was looking." She paused, emotion burning in her throat as she tried to talk. "I'd never actually heard Morgan cry before that. He was afraid that he would never find him, or that he was...you know. That he'd hurt himself somehow, or…"

Sarah seemed to whimper, a soft high-pitched cry that never completely escaped, because she never opened her mouth. She placed one hand on top of the other, pressed against the base of her throat. "Oh, God," she whispered, tears dripping off of her chin and splashing onto her hands and wrists.

Knowing she didn't want to dwell on the pain, Alex changed the subject quickly. "But I guess, after that, Morgan made him realize that…" Her voice trailed off, as she remembered what exactly Morgan had told Chuck to snap him out of it. She made the split decision at that moment to tell her anyway, thinking she deserved to know. "That he needed to not give up, because you never would have wanted him to give up. Because you knew he was better than that, stronger than he even knew he was." Sarah still cried, needing to raise her hands to her face to cover the grimace pulling on her features. "He loves you, Sarah. Even on the darkest day of his life, you meant more to him than anything."

Alex stood, walked to the chair and sat beside Sarah. Even seated, Sarah towered over Alex, the younger woman's head only reaching Sarah's shoulder. "I didn't mean to make you upset," Alex offered gently, placing a hesitant hand on Sarah's shoulder.

"No, no, it's not your fault," Sarah said, taking a deep breath to steady herself. "I asked you. I needed to hear it."

"Chuck wouldn't have said it that way. He couldn't stand to see you cry, ever. Morgan told me a story once, about him being in Russia with Chuck, after you and my Dad got captured chasing after Volkoff's men. I guess you and my Dad thought you heard Chuck get shot, when it was actually just him, you know, using the Intersect. Morgan said when Chuck saw you, knew that you'd been crying, he realized that all that running around he was doing with Morgan without telling you was wrong. He never wanted to cause you any pain or make you worry. If he left stuff out, you have to know that was probably why."

Sarah knew exactly what Alex was talking about, remembering more than one occasion where she knew this had been true.

May 26, 2010

Los Angeles, California

"Casey, can you hear me?" Sarah asked frantically, raising the communication device to her mouth. Her other hand held Chuck's, as he lay on a pile of broken glass in Daniel Shaw's office, incapacitated almost completely by his malfunctioning Intersect.

"We have the Ring leaders. Waiting for the recovery team. What's the matter, Walker?" she heard over her comm piece.

"It's Chuck. He's...he's...he needs help. I need help to get him out of here," she said, trying to sound calm, so as not to worry Chuck anymore than he already was.

"How bad is it?" Casey asked tightly, Sarah assuming Casey thought he had been shot or injured in some other way.

"It's the Intersect. It's breaking down. Please, Casey, he needs help," she pleaded.

"Grimes is on his way," Casey said, a layer of confidence that would not have been there not that long ago.

Sarah only counted about five minutes before Morgan was in the room with them. "Hey, Chuck. I'm here," he called, meeting Sarah's eyes as he immediately crouched at his friend's side.

As he reached down, scooping Chuck up under his arm, motioning Sarah to do the same on the other side, he asked her, very quietly, "What's the matter with him?"

"Remember that concert Chuck took you to, and knocked out that man's tooth?" she said, her voice straining as she struggled to pull Chuck on his feet.

"He never told me, but the Intersect started causing his mind to deteriorate. I guess it's been gradually getting worse all this time. He said something about a governor or something...He said it like I should know what he meant, but I don't."

Sensing the strain in her voice, a thinly veiled anguish, Morgan spoke quickly, as he balanced Chuck's weight between him and Sarah. "If he didn't tell you, Sarah, it was only because I know he didn't want you to worry about him. If there wasn't anything anyone could do."

A sad disappointment flattened Morgan's features, and Sarah realized he was just as upset that Chuck had never said anything. "We need to get him back to Castle. Get some readings," she said, more to reassure herself than him as well.

Back in Castle, Chuck continued to drift in and out of consciousness, hooked up to monitors in a segregated section there. She wanted to talk to him about so many things, and she paced anxiously. When she saw his eyes open, she wasted no time. "Chuck, what is the Governor?"

"I...uh...forgot that you didn't know what that was," he said slowly, in between short breaths that indicated to her he was in pain.

"It was the watch, wasn't it? The one your father was working on in Castle. What is it, exactly?" she asked, worried that she was keeping him awake and in pain, but needing to know.

"It regulates my neural network, so the Intersect doesn't overwhelm my mind. My father had one, since he'd had an Intersect for almost 20 years. It worked Sarah. The second I put it on, I felt better. But now Shaw has it...and my father's dead...and…" He clenched his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut.

"I can't believe the amount of pain you were in, constantly, and you never told me," she said sadly. "How bad was it before, and for how long?"

"Since I started having those nightmares, about two months ago. It's only been getting worse. I couldn't stop myself from flashing, and when I did it felt like a short circuit inside my head, like a zap from a live wire. Even when I'm not flashing, I always have what feels like a migraine headache. It takes all my effort to concentrate when I'm trying to think." He stopped, panting, still in obvious pain. "I'm sorry, Sarah. I didn't tell you because...because…"

She sat beside him, touching his forehead, as if by sheer force of will she could remove the pain from him. "I know why. But you don't need to protect me. We're in this together. No matter what, ok?" she said.

He gave a weak smile, and a gentle squeeze of her hand. Not long after, he was unconscious again.

July 13, 2012

Oak Park, Illinois

It was awkward at first, something she knew she hadn't ever really done before all of the awful stuff happened, but Sarah put her arm around Alex's shoulders companionably. "Chuck told me you cooked for him, like every night, the whole time," Sarah said with a smile, wiping at the tears on her cheeks.

Alex seemed embarrassed. "I was already making dinner, you know. I just made extra. I like cooking. It's soothing to me. Helps me feel like I can do something, even when there really isn't anything I can do." She smiled. "Chuck only knows how to make two things, and they're not that good. He was appreciative."

Sarah laughed then, genuine laughter. "I know. Whichever gene Ellie got skipped over him, I think, although I'm not really any better," she laughed again, self-depreciatively. "I guess you'll have to teach me. Looks like I'm going to be a stay-at-home Mom for a while, pretty soon."

"That would be great, Sarah, really great," Alex said with a smile, squeezing Sarah's hand briefly in reciprocation for the hug.

Alex stood and walked to the computer. She made a "hmpf" sound as she looked at the screen. "This thing is running so slow today for some reason. I'm going to have to restart this computer to reboot it again."

"Isn't that running off the government server?" Sarah asked suspiciously. "It shouldn't be that slow."

"I know. It's weird." She reached down, held the button on the processing unit, counting the seconds, until the machine shut down. She counted another five seconds to herself, then restarted it. "I'll try this one more time. If it's still acting wonky, I'll let Ellie know."

July 13, 2012

Bucharest, Romania

"The building is completely secured, where the computer is. It's in Poshenko's compound, în Timișoara. It's about a six hour drive from here," Corrine explained, as she pointed to the diagram on display on the computer screen. The reflection of the screen wavered on the desktop as Casey and Morgan moved behind them.

"That's almost in Serbia, isn't it?" Casey asked, scanning the map to get his bearings.

She nodded, a grim set to her blue eyes that glinted like steel. "I followed him there, when I left the U.S.S.R. It took a while for me to convince him that I was on his side. Especially considering his father did this to me," she said, raising the hand with the scar for them to see. "It was easy to convince him that I wanted the Intersect myself, considering my having witnessed firsthand what it could do. He never knew how I really felt, and as far as I know, he never suspected me of trying to thwart him, until you three showed up yesterday."

Chuck studied the diagram as well. "This is in the middle of nowhere. I mean, it's secluded. What was he doing out there?"

"What do you know of the Romanian Revolution?" she asked tightly.

Chuck and Morgan exchanged blank stares. It was Casey who spoke up. "The last Warsaw Pact nation to dispel a commie despot. Ceausescu. They did it in nine days, and got the troops home for Christmas. Bloody as all hell."

"Very good, Mr. Casey. You are a student of history," Corrine said to him primly.

"This man carries pictures of Ronald Reagan in his wallet like a normal person would pictures of their kids," Morgan said, smirking, pointing at Casey, then curling the finger up as he realized what he was actually doing.

Casey quirked an eyebrow, a twitch on his lips that affirmed Morgan was accurate, despite his teasing tone.

"Poshenko was an arms dealer. He went there when the civilians started uprising against the government in late 1989. He smuggled weapons in for the Securitate, the Romanian secret police, after they turned against the communist government. Once the regime fell, and Ceausescu and his wife were executed, he could operate freely, moving weapons in and out of eastern Europe. He made a lot of money there. The computer is there, the one with the degraded file," she said, pointing a delicate finger at the center of the diagram.

Chuck sat up straight, staring hard at the schematics, seeing a familiar pattern almost subconsciously. It was the nagging feeling of deja vu that made him focus hard. He pointed, tracing the outline with his finger. "What does that look like, Casey?" he asked urgently.

"He has an Intersect room in his compound?" Casey asked sharply.

"An Intersect room?" Corrine parroted. "What in the world is that?"

Turning to her, his eyes wide with shock, Chuck asked, "You've never seen an Intersect room? It's a white room, the size of a football field. The computer at the center usually runs the program but it needs all that space to encode the information. It's the controlled environment needed to download it. Although, by that look on your face, I'd say when my father ran it for Hartley, it wasn't that complex."

"It was a program on a computer. Complex, sure, but not to the extent that you're describing," she explained.

"The government beefed it up," Casey said. "The versions Chuck downloaded were much more complex."

"Does the government still have this room in the U.S.?" she asked.

"No," Chuck said, shaking his head. "It blew up in an explosion. Three separate times."

"A lot of things blow up when you three are around, wouldn't you say?" she quipped.

All three of them nodded, mumbling "yeahs" under their breath.

"Poshenko was selling all the information he could to the highest bidder, but he was still just dealing for himself. He wanted the technology to finish that, didn't he?" she asked, seeming to understand something she had never realized before.

"How many times were you in that compound, and you never saw it?" Chuck asked, still disbelieving.

"He only trusted me so far. I did try to kill his father. I was a means to an end, at least or so he thought." She looked up urgently at Chuck. "Can he have downloaded that degraded file into that computer?"

"It may not have run if it was defective. It can't be functional yet, or he wouldn't have been looking for Charles Carmichael. Do you agree with that assessment?" Chuck asked her.

"He could be very close, from all that you've told me, all that I've learned. We should get there as soon as we can. Can the virus you created work in that room?" she asked him.

"Don't worry about that," Chuck said, smirking. "Something we do very well is break and/or destroy Intersect computers. We've got that down to a science. Six if you count that defunct Fulcrum model that fried all those people's brains."

"Seven's the magic number, then?" she asked, half her mouth turned up in a smile.

"Let's certainly hope so," Chuck said softly, as he scanned the schematic on the computer again. "I've had just about as much Intersect as one person can take in a lifetime. I'm ready to be done."

As much Intersect as one person can take, she thought, his words echoing in her head. What an odd comment, yet somehow she and Chuck could commiserate about it. She understood perfectly. A breeze from the window attracted her attention away, as memories of the happiest day of her life flooded in. And how the happiest day tragically had morphed into the saddest, at the same time.

June 3, 1981

Somerset, England

Corrine and her new husband, Hartley Winterbottom, stood beside the fountain in the courtyard of a country estate where their wedding had occurred only hours before. Her dress was simple, a tea length ivory lace gown, sheer from her neck to the top of her bustline. Her long red hair was braided, the tiny white daisy-like flowers she loved woven throughout. I don't care if they're weeds. I love them, she had argued with the hairdresser. It was, after all, her wedding day, a once in a lifetime moment.

It was a subdued ceremony, less than 15 people there together, including the two of them, and Mary and Stephen's young daughter, Eleanor. Her life as a spy had left her isolated from most of the world, providing little opportunity to broaden her social horizons. None of that mattered, she knew, because everyone she loved, truly loved, had been there. That was all that mattered.

"With all the hubbub about Charles and Diana, we sort of slipped under the radar, don't you think?" she teased, reaching for his hand and holding it, loving the feeling of the cool metal of his new ring between her fingers.

"What was that, Darling?" he asked her, seeming distracted, but by what, Corrine had no idea.

"Charles and Diana, Hartley. Did you not hear what I said?" she asked. There was no one on the face of the earth that didn't know who Prince Charles and Lady Di were in the summer of 1981. Especially not in Great Britain.

"Oh, right, yes, of course," he said quickly, hiding from her the fact that his smile was forced. More adroitly hiding the fact that he did not, in fact, know what she was talking about, but also knowing to admit to her that he didn't would alarm her, and he wanted nothing but happiness for his bride on her wedding day.

Never able to hide anything completely from her, she looked on, a fretful crease to her forehead. "Have you still been having those headaches, Love?" she asked him, touching his shoulder.

"What?" he asked, distracted again, like he couldn't focus on what she was saying. "Oh, no, not really. Much better thank you," he said, worried at the way she looked at him, as if what he said didn't make sense.

"Are you sure? You've got me concerned, Love," she said, reaching for him, tucking her arm around his waist.

Forcing himself to calm down, he told her, "It's just the day. My nerves and all. Please don't worry, Corrine. Everything is fine, I promise," he swore to her.

When she looked into the icy blue depths of his eyes, she saw the gentleness she had always associated with this man, by far his most endearing quality to her, what had drawn her to him as they had worked together those few years ago. When he had come to the Soviet Union to rescue her, he had been someone else. An entirely different person. He had tried to explain to her what had happened, what Orion had created that allowed him to act that way, the very opposite of his true nature.

Standing before her, the blood of the people he'd killed to extract her on his clothing and his hands, she had recoiled in horror, not understanding how the man she knew, who would carry a spider out of his lab on a paper towel rather than squash it could somehow blaze through a protectorate guard with a firearm without flinching. The computer program, she kept telling herself. Regardless of what he may have had to do to find her, he had saved her life, single handedly. When they returned, Stephen had removed what he said he needed to remove from him, and true to his word, Hartley was back to normal, almost not remembering what he had done while in the process of rescuing her.

She had thought nothing of it, at all, until he'd started having nightmares. Horrid, screaming terrors that left him shaking in the middle of the night, frequently inconsolable and distant from her, unable to explain what he had dreamed about. At first they were frequent, but soon they dissipated, happened less and less, and she almost forgot about ever worrying at all.

Six months removed from that time, she was now his wife, and this was the happiest day of her life. She smiled, breathing in the delicate scent of the roses that filled the garden beside them. A myriad of rose bushes of all colors tangled on the periphery of where they stood, creating a natural wall of thorny twine and delicate petals.

He pulled her against him, turning her chin up with his index finger and kissing her tenderly. This was the man she loved, such soft sweetness in his eyes when he pulled away.

July 13, 2012

Bucharest, Romania

It had become almost second nature to her by that point, to rationalize away the things that troubled her, explaining it with stress or fatigue, or something else. Scrolling back in time, after it was too late, she knew all the signs, knew she had seen them even now, as far back as this. Even wished sometimes that she could find a way to travel back in time, and warn herself what was coming. Foolish, useless hoping that had occupied so much of her time while she had been his virtual prisoner in that house.

The strange inexplicable coldness that seemed to radiate from him right after she pulled her hand away she dismissed, telling herself it was her wedding day, and she was going to be happy. She had time to worry about all these fears on another day.

Corrine shook herself out of her reverie, realizing Chuck had asked her a question she hadn't heard. "I'm sorry, Charles, what was that?"

"How many guards? On a normal day?" he asked, glancing between her face and Casey's and Morgan's.

She turned back to his schematic that still filled the computer screen. Her finger traced the perimeter at the bottom. "Usually four outside, five inside. Although after I took off, he may have increased security, considering he thinks I'm a threat now."

"Nine," Chuck said out loud. "Can we handle nine?"

"Sure," Morgan said, without thinking, getting a reproachful look from Casey.

"Cole Barker took out nine by himself, right?" Chuck said with a nervous laugh. "Only I'm not Cole Barker," he mumbled under his breath.

"No, you're not. You're Chuck Bartowski. And don't forget it," Casey snapped. "You can still use it, Chuck. If we need it," he said quietly, only for Chuck's ears.

Using his given name wasn't unheard of, but something Casey did infrequently. It was his vote of confidence, as demonstrative as Casey would ever be. Paler, Chuck said slowly, "I know."

"You don't need it. But it's a good Plan B, if you get me," he reiterated.

"What is he talking about?" Corrine asked.

"The Intersect," Chuck replied warily. At her confused look, he clarified. "All the previous versions after the first one, and the Fulcrum one, had skills added. It's gotten us out of more than a few jams."

"This is still your call, you know," Corrine added seriously. "I feel somewhat responsible, asking you all to risk your lives for my mission. You didn't ask for all this." He stood, crossing her arms and beginning to pace. Several stray blares of a high-pitched taxi horn drifted through the open window from the street below.

Chuck was already shaking his head negatively, even before she finished speaking. "Beckman sent us to get you out of here. But we can't leave until it's finished. My father wouldn't want me to leave it half done, not after all that's happened all this time. And leaving things half done has a way of coming back and biting us. Trust me, I know."