A/N: This chapter would not have been possible without my "literary coach" who played a critical role in helping me organize this chapter and all it's moving parts, as well as provided important feedback to hone it to the state where it now is. A thank you here was in order. :)
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The dawn to end all nights
That's all we hoped it was
A break from the warfare in your house
To each his own
A soldier is bailing out
He curled his lips on the barrel
And I don't know if the
Dead can talk
To anyone
"The High Road"
Broken Bells
July 14, 2012
Washington, D.C.
The street outside was quiet and deserted, as Beckman waited at the appropriate location. The clock was ticking forward at such a strange pace tonight, she thought. Spurts of mania where it seemed like the time was spiraling away from her, commingled with moments like this, where waiting seemed to stretch to infinity and yet no time was passing. She stood in the dark, away from the street light, knowing her presence here would draw attention, potentially disturbing the balance she was trying to achieve.
His cologne, mixed with the bitter scent of vermouth from his last shot of courage, was what alerted her to his presence. She had spent nearly thirty years wondering how he had attained his status as legendary spy while wearing an entire bottle of cologne on any given day. Sighing, she reminded herself the cologne was part of the allure. He wasn't a good spy because he could act unnoticed in the shadows, rather, he was a good spy because he was an expert at insinuating himself graciously into spots where he needed to manipulate information. Why he had needed it tonight, for skulking in the subterranean levels of a storage facility in Langley, she had no idea.
He was behind her, no audible evidence of his approach noticeable. "Success, my flower," he said dramatically, as always. He handed her a portable drive, and she slipped it into her pocket before she replied. "Although, I will tell you, it was only slightly more difficult than you described. There was the required charming of a sentry of sorts, if you will."
Beckman's pursed lips and raised eyebrow asked for clarification without words. Her auburn hair, always pulled into a tight chignon, was coming undone at the sides, a look Roan couldn't remember having seen on her. Her hair was either up, or down, but always impeccable. This was evidence of her difficult day, and how it had progressed to a difficult night. "She was someone John Casey could have sweet-talked, you see, so no real challenge for a man as debonair as myself," he drolled, a wicked smile gleaming in the dark.
"I'm sure," she said flatly. Serious again, she asked him, "You found what I asked you to look for?"
"You were correct on all accounts. There is an enormous amount of data on that drive that was being siphoned from the DNI mainframe. Faked authorizations, but all pointing back to the same person." Tilting his head, he asked her, "What are you going to do now?"
"Get the irrefutable proof I need to take him down. Once and for all," she said intensely, a hard glint in her eye Roan hadn't seen up close for quite some time.
"Would you like a hand, my dear?" he asked sincerely.
She snorted, briefly amused. "Between the two of us, we're almost as good as one young spy, right?"
July 14, 2012
Oak Park, Illinois
The time was approaching three o'clock in the morning, and Mary was making what she had hoped was her last call of the evening to Devon, all indicators pointing to the fact that Sarah would be done by the time the next hour approached. The middle of the night in a residential suburb was eerily quiet. She could hear the buzzing of insects around her head in the warm night air. She saw a raccoon lumbering across the street lazily, unbothered by her proximity as it searched for food in the trash left at the ends of so many driveways.
She pulled the phone out of her pocket, clicked it on at her hip, noting she was beyond the range of the jammer, which was about 200 feet from her daughter's front door. She was in the process of raising the phone to her ear when she heard what sounded like a bottle clattering on the ground. She looked, wondering if the raccoon had started tearing apart someone's trash. A tiny shadow skittered just beyond the edge of the nearest street light, and she attributed it as such. Devon had answered, but before she could reply, she heard the muffled click of what she knew was a gun. "Put down the phone," the faceless voice in possession of the weapon ordered her.
She clicked quickly, sending the text message she had left in the send buffer for exactly this reason. It was short, but to the point. "Tell Chuck. Get help."
July 14, 2012
O'Hare International Airport, Chicago, Illinois
Gertrude had a team waiting for them, and Chuck wasted no time. He still felt sluggish, jet lagged and slightly disoriented. Internally, he thanked Casey for in effect forcing him to sleep on the plane. He couldn't imagine how awful he would feel right now if he hadn't gotten a solid three hours rest.
He was standing outside her vehicle when his phone rang. The second he saw the screen, with Captain Awesome's name and photo, he felt the adrenaline surge like a blast of wind inside him. He clicked on the phone, but only listened as Devon began speaking before Chuck could open his mouth. "Bro, listen, now. Your mother's in trouble. She missed the checkpoint and texted me to call you. They need help, Chuck," he shouted, frazzled as badly as Chuck could remember, even after he had been taken by the Ring. Instantly Chuck knew why. This time it wasn't him, but his family that was in danger.
Casey and Gertrude saw his eyes as he listened, knowing what he was listening to without having to ask. Making eye contact with Casey, Chuck spoke, in a clipped and direct tone. "We can get to them faster, Devon. We're on our way now." He listened to something else, at the same time gesturing for the other three to hustle. He clicked off the phone, his eyes on fire, and told them, "We're out of time. It's time to fix this. Right now."
July 14, 2012
Oak Park, Illinois
From the darkest part of the street, behind a row of cars parked on the sidewalk, Jane Bentley surveyed the scene in front of her. She knew which house belonged to the Woodcomb's, having supervised the installation of many security enhancements to her home once she had agreed to work for the NCS. The lights were on in more than one room, though it was the middle of the night. Everything appeared calm from her vantage point, but looks were more often than not deceiving.
The reason for her presence here, however, was because no matter how calm it seemed now, things would not remain that way. The secret surveillance she had discovered, compounded with her inability to reach anyone in Eleanor Woodcomb's home and her inability to use standard communications within the Pentagon for her or General Beckman, had told her it was time to act. The appearance of quiet was only a slight comfort, knowing she had not been too late.
The closest street light to Eleanor's home was the only source of light in the area. She could see the circle on the sidewalk, tracing the cone of light upward to the lamp that hung just above the tops of the leaves on the trees that lined the street. Out of the corner of her eye, she seemed to notice a shuffling in the shadows on the sidewalk, eastward up the street. Her senses turned up and focused intently, she waited, and eventually saw, wavering on the edge of the light, a long and humanoid shadow displacing the circle. Poised, she waited, and saw a flash of color, light blue that appeared gray once the figure stepped back into the shadow.
"Thank you, Mary," Jane said silently to herself, recognizing the form of Mary Bartowski's back, with her hair carving a dark patch on the light clothing she had been able to glimpse quickly. Had Mary been hoping someone was there to see her? Or was it just a coincidence that Bentley was there to see it? Mary was a world-class spy, after all. And Bentley really didn't believe in coincidences.
Bentley strained her eyes in the dark, seeing the light briefly reflect off of the firearm pointed at Mary. So she had not been perfectly on time, perhaps five or ten minutes too late. She reached for the burner phone she had acquired once she had known her communications had been compromised, and placed the call to the appropriate agency needed to request tactical support. She got the expected reply, that the closest response team was ten minutes away. Gritting her teeth as she clicked off the phone, she pulled her weapon out and began advancing toward the pair she could see on the sidewalk. Ten minutes was an eternity in this type of scenario. While waiting for support, but also for those standing in her path when it came to accomplishing what she came here to do.
XXX
Mary stepped forward, feeling the butt of the gun in her ribs, seeing the face of her assailant as the street light shone over her as she shifted on her feet. She had told Hartley five minutes, or come out and check on her, just as she had every time she had walked outside to call Devon. Time was slowly creeping by, and moving ever so slightly out of the shadows, as much as she could, was for the sake of him checking, hoping he would see she was in trouble.
Saying nothing else, the man with the gun nudged her backward, towards Ellie's house. He was facing her, not taking the time to turn her body, so that she faced away from him. One arm reached up to grab her forearm to turn her. She leaned forward slightly, seeing the face of Jane Bentley over the man's shoulder, her gun pointed at him. Mary motioned with her eyes, the slightest twitch, so Bentley was aware. A quick nod from Bentley, then her voice, projected loudly in the still night air, "Drop your weapon!"
Anticipating the next move, Mary grabbed at the gun pointed at her ribs, shifting it away from her body in the same instant Bentley knocked him on the back of the skull and sent him sprawling. "Thank you," Mary said softly.
Wasting no time on frivolity, Bentley told her in a flat, stern monotone, "We need to get him off the street. There'll be more. We have a tactical team en route, but they are ten minutes out. Defense perimeter inside Dr. Woodcomb's house is our best shot while we're waiting." She stooped, grabbing the unconscious form under his armpits, while Mary reached down for his ankles. They hustled, sharing his dead weight between them, as they walked-ran back towards the door.
"How did you manage to interrupt the Pentagon surveillance?" Bentley asked her, slightly winded as she struggled with the weight.
"Would you believe me if I told you the Nerd Herd?" Mary said, her voice showing the same strain.
Nerds, Bentley thought. Why would it have been anything else?
XXX
"Ellie, I need you to listen to me," Mary said calmly but forcefully, knowing her daughter was close to the edge of panic and it only had the potential of worsening. "Bentley is here. She discovered the surveillance. There's more, but it's not important right now. What is important is that I was just confronted outside. Bentley saved me, but the team she called is ten minutes out. The four of us out here are going to have to hold out inside until the team arrives."
Ellie backed away from the door of her office, covering her mouth. She sank down sitting into her desk chair, feeling like her legs would have given out if she hadn't. Eight minutes, she thought incredulously. Sarah had eight minutes before the program ran down to the end. After all that, was it really not enough? She couldn't find her voice, her mind reeling with all the possible scenarios where the outcome could be cataclysmic.
"Your brother is on the ground in Chicago. He is on his way, Ellie. Stay in here," Mary said, walking toward where Ellie sat. "You'll be safe in here, I promise," she reassured, reaching down and hugging her daughter.
"Chuck's never let me down, Mom, ever," she said, in a conversational tone that seemed out of place, until Mary realized she was calming herself by speaking out loud what she was convincing herself of. "I was poisoned, once, because of some spy thing that I interfered with and didn't know about. I only found out after I volunteered for this job, that he gave me the antidote when he only had one vial, and he was poisoned too. A Fulcrum agent held us hostage in the Buy More on Christmas Eve three years ago. And Chuck told the agent he had the Intersect, which I guess was a huge issue at the time, but he did it to protect Devon and I. He found Dad for me, even though Dad was hiding out at the time, because of all the spy stuff again that I knew nothing about. He saved Devon from the Ring and he saved both of us in Costa Gravas. There are other examples I'm sure I just can't think of right now because I'm so freaked out, but…" She looked up at her mother, knowing the pride in her mother's eyes was a mirror of her own.
She had faith in all of them, everyone who was positioned around her home, sworn to defend them no matter what. But, if the past was any indicator of the future, she knew, what she was truly waiting for here was her brother. He had yet to fail her, in anything he had ever promised. And although it hadn't been said in a way she could quote, she knew he was still following through, for her, and for his wife.
"I know, Sweetheart," she said softly, smoothing down her daughter's hair, then turning to leave. She smiled as she shut the door, leaving the grim determination for when the door was closed.
Ellie sat alone, shaking as if she were standing outside in the Chicago winter in her Los Angeles attire. She thought perhaps watching the timer might prove a distraction, as it slowly ebbed down past seven minutes, as she had sat here ruminating. It had the opposite effect, she found out, realizing how much longer she had to wait for it to be over. She moved to the sofa where Sarah lay, and sat on the ground next to her. No interaction was possible, but sitting closer to her somehow acted as a comfort. Although Ellie was unarmed, she was still here to protect Sarah, who ironically was the most vulnerable. It was bitter irony, she knew, because Sarah was probably the best defense any of them had.
Right before the clock passed six minutes, Ellie heard what sounded like firecrackers, or the sound of a car backfiring. She understood in her rational mind she was hearing gunfire, up close, being fired from inside her house outward. It seemed to last forever, and she resisted the urge to reach up and block her ears, feeling somehow that it was a sign of weakness for her to do so. She almost screamed when she saw the office door open just a crack, but caught her breath when she saw Jane Bentley slink in, her gun raised next to her face. She shut the door quickly, rushed to stand before her, towering over her seated position.
"Does that thing have a battery backup you can attach? We have to think about moving her out of harm's way, Ellie," Bentley said firmly, Ellie starting at the use of her nickname, something Bentley had never done to her face before.
"There's only six minutes left," Ellie lamented.
"I know, but we don't have six minutes. Vivian and your mother have less than four shots left between them. You and Sarah have to have precedence here. There are still at least ten men outside," she added, slightly out of breath.
"I can attach the portable charger," Ellie said, scrambling on her hands and knees towards the desk. As she reached up to open the drawer, she jumped at the sound of a crash, shattering glass showering down onto a hardwood floor. Ellie did pull her hands down over her ears at the rapid staccato of multiple guns being fired at once, much more intense than the random punctuations she had heard previously. She scrambled back, crawling to the sofa, laying herself on top of Sarah, tucking her arms around her so she covered her like a blanket. It was instinctive, beyond rational thought. She thought of her husband, and her daughter, and prayed that she would see them again somehow.
XXX
Gertrude pulled the binoculars away from her eyes, and turned her head back to address her three companions, crouched with her in a half circle. "I count at least nine, potentially more, on the other side of the house."
"How are they not inside?" Chuck asked her.
"I see at least three, potentially four, points of defense inside the house," she added, handing the binoculars to Casey as he grunted, his way of asking to look.
"Chuck, Jane Bentley is in there with them," Casey told him, the second after he lifted the lenses. "I don't know what Beckman is up to, but at least Bentley figured out they were in danger."
Chuck breathed out a sigh, knowing Bentley was as cold as they came, worse than Casey had been when Chuck just met him, but he had complete faith in her ability to protect his family.
"She had to have called in a team, right?" Morgan whispered from Casey's left.
"Of course she did, Moron. She knows they can't hold off ten men with four handguns. She's not FBI," Casey quipped.
"Casey, we aren't waiting," Chuck insisted.
"No, but we have to be careful. We don't need any friendly fire incidents," Gertrude reminded them. Her men, positioned behind them, were equipped with the firearms she had purchased that prevented such issues, but the government had no such technology yet. "We go in on the east side of the house, the other flank circles around to the west side. Take out everything in the way."
"Roger that," Casey told her, grunting softly as he saw Chuck, not even a modicum of hesitation visible on his face.
Casey moved first, Gertrude right behind him. Approaching at a 45 degree angle, Chuck was on their right, Morgan behind him. Between Casey and Gertrude, they took down three men before any return fire ensued. Chuck could see as Casey and Gertrude dove for cover behind a shed, while Chuck and Morgan hunkered down beside a raised metal bulkhead protruding from the side of the house. "Think your sister's HOA's gonna fine her for all this? I'm sure shooting up the backyard's against the rules," Morgan said, quietly, breaking the silence.
Casey's voice over the comm interrupted Chuck's reply. "Total remaining is nine, repeat, nine. Three on the west side. No clear path on the east side."
So six, Chuck thought. He knew the fastest and safest way out of this situation, just like a thousand times in the past, was the Intersect. When it came to keeping everyone else safe, it was an automatic decision. "Morgan, get back," he ordered. Morgan watched the flash contort Chuck's face briefly, then watched him as he stormed out into the open. He'd left his weapon behind.
Each from their own vantage point, the three of them watched Chuck neutralize the rest of the threat, one or two at a time. Seeing Chuck swerve his body out of the way of a speeding bullet was new, Morgan thought. He charged forward, chopping with his hands and kicking with full roundhouse kicks, and in almost no time, Chuck stood silently in the midst of the entire threat, now littered around his feet in separate heaps.
"Bartowski's an Intersect?" Gertrude asked Casey, her incredulity twisting up her features in confusion.
"The original and the best," Casey said, a grudging admiration there in his tone. "That's what it's supposed to do, not turn people like Grimes into complete asses." Gertrude tipped her head, motioning for Casey to follow her as they rushed through the space Chuck had cut for them with his confrontation.
The last three men were surrounded, Chuck saw, as they four of them closed in on the location, three of Gertrude's men completing the circle on the other side. "Drop your weapons!" Gertrude shouted. They appeared to comply, until the man in the front decided to lunge, reaching for Chuck.
Gertrude heard Casey mumble to himself, "That was stupid," just as Chuck and the other man crashed through the sliding glass door leading to Ellie's kitchen, a tangle of arms and legs locked in battle.
XXX
"Hold your fire!" Mary screamed, seeing Chuck and a man in a dark suit struggling in a pile of broken glass on the kitchen floor.
Bentley had already rushed back towards Ellie's office at the sound of the commotion approaching the house so closely. Hartley and his daughter were crouched at the windows in Ellie's living room. They both slowly rose to their feet, watching as Chuck lifted the other man off the floor, actually dangling him from just one hand. He dropped him, once Chuck was upright, and with one loud crunch, Chuck's fist connected with his head and knocked him unconscious.
Mary saw Chuck's face, his lips curled away from his teeth as he panted, out of breath. She spun quickly at a new sound, seeing Casey at the broken door, knocking the loose pieces of glass down with the butt of his gun, clearing the way for the three remaining outside to enter. "Outside is secure," Casey told them, but quickly turned his attention to Chuck, as they all seemed to stand and stare.
Gertrude heard his faint, breathy grunt of what she knew was admiration, not sure exactly why. Chuck stood still, breathing, until a calm slowly replaced the blankness on his face. Yes, Bartowski, Casey thought to himself, clenching a single fist in victory. Third flash, and he had it under control, the fears he had expressed at the onset now completely gone. Casey knew in that moment what the government had never been able to understand, no matter what proof they were presented with. Charles Bartowski could handle the Intersect, and in the end, he was the only one who ever could have. Amazing, yes, but Chuck had been amazing to him for five years, without a break in the action.
"Bentley's in the office with Ellie and Sarah," his mother shouted in a rush. Chuck was off and running.
"Where's Alex?" Casey asked Mary immediately after Chuck's departure.
"Panic room, in the back of the closet in Ellie's bedroom. Code is 0427," Mary said quickly. Casey tilted his head to Morgan, indicating he go now and get her out. Morgan took off running without another word.
Gertrude was speaking into her communication device when Casey turned back to her. "The CIA is here," she said, anticlimactically. "I'm on my way out to confer. We need reinforcements and a new defense plan for our next threat," she barked, stepping back out through the shattered glass frame.
God, I love that woman, Casey thought to himself, a twitch at the corner of his mouth as she met his eyes on the way out.
"Where is Corrine?" Mary asked Casey, expecting her to be with them and wondering at her whereabouts. Casey felt Hartley and Vivian approach, having heard Mary's question.
"She was taken by a man named Leonid Poshenko. He's an Intersect," Casey told her, as gently as his harsh manner would allow.
"Poshenko? As in Mitya Poshenko?" Hartley blurted out.
"His son. Corrine was with him in Romania all this time. He knew you were an Intersect and spent all this time trying to secure one for himself. Until he hacked into the Pentagon. Now he is one. He got away from us in Berlin, but he's on his way here with her. Chuck found him," Casey told them.
"Damn it," Mary swore to herself, regret pounding her, realizing Ellie's actions had inadvertently worsened this situation exponentially.
"How do you know she's still alive?" Vivian asked, keeping one eye on Casey and the other on her father, who seemed to be dissolving in front of her.
"He had plenty of opportunities to kill her and he didn't. He needs her for something. We'll get her back," he told them. Vivian put an arm around her father's shoulders and walked him towards the sofa, the broken glass crunching under their shoes as they walked. "What about Beckman? Have you contacted her?" he asked.
"We tried. I'm assuming you tried as well. Something is up at the Pentagon. I just hope she's taking care of it," Mary added.
XXX
Ellie saw Bentley rush to the door, both hands on her gun, outstretched in front of her body. Ellie ducked her head, closing her eyes, the sound of her own heart beating as loud as the gunfire. She heard Sarah's breath under her ear, as she laid her head down flat on her sister-in-law's shoulder. She heard the door bang open, whacking against the wall, as if someone had kicked it in.
But then nothing but silence. It took several seconds for her to register that she was still alive, and that she and Sarah were safe. It wasn't until she heard Jane Bentley say softly, "It's about time, Bartowski," that she felt the courage to look up.
The palest fringes of dawn were visible through the slits in the blinds covering her office windows, making the edges in the room soft and dreamlike. Towering over the head of Jane Bentley stood Chuck, covered in his tactical gear, a rather frighteningly large gun at his side. She saw his face in profile, looking as fatigued as she could remember seeing him. Incongruously, his eyes were so intensely fiery, it made him look like someone else, not her brother. She remembered that face, once, even remembering hoping at the time she would never have to see it again, because it meant that he was fighting for his life-not his own continued existence, but Sarah's. Add his child yet to be born, and she understood completely what she was seeing.
"Chuck!" Ellie screamed, jumping to her feet, diving towards him and wrapping her arms around his neck, so forcefully he almost lost his balance. He closed his eyes, reveling in the comfort he felt, holding his sister and knowing she was alright. Over Ellie's shoulder, he saw Vivian MacArthur, a gun still in her hand, but pointed at the floor, standing just outside the threshold of the door in the hallway. It was the strangest sensation, remembering the last time he had seen her with a gun it was pointed at his head, now instead a line of defense for his wife.
"I need to use the computer to disable the communication jammer," he said, looking like he wanted to say more, but losing his voice at the sight of Sarah, lying on the sofa. "How much longer?" he asked her, anxiety raising the pitch of his voice.
"Five minutes," Ellie told him. She still hung onto him, feeling him lean forward, as if propelled by some undetectable force to his wife. Chuck felt his sister shaking, her nerves frayed and her composure destroyed. Her hair looked slept on, but he could tell from the dark circles under her eyes that she hadn't slept.
"Everybody's in one piece out here, Chuck," Casey called as he stepped over the threshold, entering the room halfway. "Situation secure. You need to track down Poshenko again, see what kind of time we're looking at here," he instructed. Chuck's eyes drifted to the timer, now almost at three minutes.
Ellie could see everyone through the door, a thought suddenly occurring to her. "You don't have Corrine MacArthur with you, do you?" she asked.
Chuck's mouth twisted into a crooked line. "Poshenko took her and got away via helicopter. But he's on his way here, with her, the last we checked. That's why I need the computer."
Ellie looked like she was about to cry, such a strange reaction in relation to what else she had just endured. Chuck understood it was just her overwhelmed state, hoping it was over, but now knowing there was more still left to be done. "We'll get her back," Chuck assured her, comprehending he was just offering a soothing voice with soothing words to calm her frazzled nerves.
She jumped when the timer went off. She felt the muscles in Chuck's back under her hands tense. She moved away from him, typed for a while on the keyboard, and the flickering black screen suddenly switched to the normal background of the CIA symbol. Spinning, she saw the monitor still reading all green. She pulled off the pulse indicator, pulling on the blood pressure cuff and sliding it underneath her arm. "She's unconscious, Chuck. That's normal, though, right?" she asked.
"That happened to me almost every time, El. That makes sense," he said, speaking like he was in a trance, talking to Ellie, but not able to take his eyes off Sarah. Chuck could see Ellie moving out of the corner of his eye, clicking the computer back from the dark screen, and unplugging the connection to the device attached to Sarah. He reached up, loosening the bindings on the strap that held it in place over her eyes. "How will you know if it worked?" he asked worriedly, pulling the device away from her face. He saw the angry red creases across her nose and under her eyes from the pressure caused by the device.
"I'll have to do an MRI, to be sure, but she may be able to tell. You said you felt different, once it was removed, right before I got married, right?" He nodded, not paying close attention to her, instead gently pulling back Sarah's hair that had adhered to the sides of her face under the straps. Her blonde hair was like silk through his fingers, and he couldn't pull his hand away, feeling the back of his fingers brushing against her cheek. So simple, yet it hit him, in that moment, what the next few moments would mean.
She would wake up, and would be alright. Or something could have gone wrong, and everything he had moved towards, every obstacle in his path he had removed, would now become an impenetrable wall. His hand trembled, the impending doom and sense of loss overwhelming him.
"Sarah," he whispered, gently, choosing hope instead of fear, as he had always done when it came to her, in all things.
Her eyelashes fluttered, as he heard a soft intake of breath, like she would have done upon waking in the morning. She opened her eyes slowly, reaching up her hand to rub at her face absently. He watched her eyes, starting to focus, seeing his hand on the cushion on the other side of her face. Her eyes flew wide, as she immediately shook off her stupor, lifting herself off her side to sit up and face him.
"Chuck!" she screamed, grasping him desperately, like a life preserver tossed to a drowning soul.
The only thing he had seen before the tears obscured his vision had been the only thing that mattered-Sarah's eyes, clear and bright, and the expression on her face, one he knew by heart in that split second, but hadn't seen since he'd kissed her as they sat up in bed on the bullet train in Japan. The relief he felt turned everything inside him to liquid, a swirling sea of thoughts and emotions.
It was as if the last six months were just some awful, shared nightmare that they were only now waking up from. He had been in that horrible place, desperate, needing her and not being able to find her, for longer than anyone else could have imagined. He could hear her, trying to speak, but her tears were mangling the words, her grip on him almost painful, it was so intense. It didn't matter-nothing mattered in that moment at all, except that at last, his wife had finally come home.
He rested his chin on the top of her head, shushing her, saying her name under his breath like a whispered prayer. She hadn't released her grip on him, but he raised his hands, placing one each gently on each side of her face, and lifting her head until he could look into her eyes. "This is finally over. I finally have you back," he whispered, an echo of what he'd told her right before he had downloaded the Intersect again, what he had sacrificed in order to save everyone else.
"It's gone, Chuck. The Intersect. I can feel it. It's like you said in the car, with your father. I feel so much lighter," she told him. Even the sound of her voice was different, he marveled, instantly comparing it to the way she had spoken when her memory was damaged. No more hesitancy or doubt. Just Sarah, and the way she had always spoken to him. Trust, he thought wildly, understanding. That had been the hardest thing to know was missing-her trust in him. He had asked her to, on the beach, just as she had done to him five years earlier. Part of why she left, he knew, was because she was too afraid to blindly trust him. She had started to, once he had found her, but the solace he found now, knowing it was certain, soothed every nerve and calmed every fear remaining.
"Thank God," he whispered, pulling her close again. The salving of his wounds had begun, the relief still flowing freely like a river through the very center of him. Sarah lifted her head, reaching for him and taking his face in her hands. The cloud in her eyes was gone, that vague uncertainty that lingered after some of her feelings for him had returned. The chasm between them, once almost insurmountable, all the while shrinking as memories and feelings resurfaced, was now closed, the fine invisible wire that connected them at their hearts firmly in place again. "Oh, God, I missed you," he sighed, an enormous smile that beamed like the sun on his face, despite a few errant tears trickling from his eyes. Her kiss on his lips erased it, the only thing that could have possibly done so.
He felt her eyelashes brushing against his as she closed her eyes, continuing to kiss him, not caring who else was in the room watching. He heard the soft cry in her throat, audible only to him, a tell for him that she felt the same. His smile lit up again as she pulled away, and he pulled her against him, not willing to let her go after what felt like an eternity without her. "I wanted to talk to you so badly and tell you that I remembered everything," she admitted, her words muffled, spoken against his chest as he smoothed her hair back with his hand.
"It's gone," Ellie said, with a heavy finality, turning away from the computer. At the three questioning looks, she elaborated, "The program. It's destroyed. I didn't have a choice, Chuck. I'm sorry," she apologized, remorse twisting her face. He understood she was apologizing because she had wanted to remove it from him as well. It was a wish of their father's she had meant to fulfill in the end.
"You put everyone here at risk by building that program and not telling anyone, Dr. Woodcomb," Bentley admonished. "The program was copied during that unauthorized surveillance," she told them, a simmering anger steaming under the surface.
"I know that now. I did what I thought was right at the time. I did that a lot, it seems, and I made a lot of mistakes. There's no apology or anything that makes that better. But this is what I wanted," she said, gesturing to Chuck and Sarah entwined on the sofa. Bentley seemed irritated at the emotional outburst.
"Ellie, I saw you shielding Sarah with your own body when you didn't know it was us," Chuck told her, the words aching in his throat as he forced them out past the emotion. Sarah turned her head, still resting her head on Chuck's bicep, but looking at Ellie, her eyes warm with gratitude.
"Everything that we have now, everything we have back, is because of you and what you did, Ellie. We owe everything to you," Sarah said with conviction.
"I was done watching you suffer, Chuck. Both of you. You need Sarah. You need each other. We all know that now," she said with a crooked smile.
Bentley impatiently interrupted them. "There's more here that you aren't aware of. We aren't out of danger yet, not even counting your friend Poshenko. Keep your head in the game, Bartowski. The night's not over yet."