CHAPTER THIRTY
And through it all she offers me protection
A lot of love and affection
Whether I'm right or wrong
And down the waterfall
Wherever it may take me
I know that life won't break me
When I come to call, she won't forsake me
I'm loving angels instead
When I'm feeling weak
And my pain walks down a one way street
I look above
And I know I'll always be blessed with love
And as the feeling grows
She breathes flesh to my bones
"Angels"
Robbie Williams
July 14, 2012
Oak Park, Illinois
Mary kissed her son-in-law and granddaughter, then pulled back and smiled. "I know it seems awful, but, please don't worry. Ellie is in good hands."
"I know, Mary, it's just…" He looked away, afraid his daughter would see him tearing up and become frightened. "It's hard to feel so helpless," he offered softly. "I know Chuck can handle things, way better than I could. I'm still worried."
"You wouldn't be the husband that she loves if you didn't," Mary said. "This will all be over soon."
His red-rimmed eyes and bleak expression told her still, he didn't have certainty that everything being over would end the way they were hoping. Mary saw a figure run at her left, seeing Alex's brown hair flowing as she hurried to catch up. She didn't look much better than Devon, but she put on her best smile for Clara, who reached out her arms for the woman as she approached. As they moved away, escorted by a CIA liaison who was on the scene, Mary saw, lurking on the edge of her vision, almost crouched down behind a row of parked cars, Hartley and Vivian.
She put her hand behind her neck, rubbing gently, using the motion to survey the area, making sure no one was looking that closely at her. Seeing a pathway, she moved as quickly as she could without attracting attention to herself, towards them. "Thank you, for getting yourselves out of harm's way," she said.
"Mary, I don't understand," Hartley asked softly.
"I know you don't. Chuck sort of left that out, I'm sure, when he saw you last. Alexei Volkoff is still in CIA custody as far as the rest of the world is concerned. And Vivian Volkoff has disappeared without a trace. We want everything to stay that way. Those identities Chuck gave you would go to waste if someone recognized you."
His eyes so wide they were popping, Hartley said a little too loudly, "What about your friend Jane Bentley? She saw both of us. I'm sure she knows who I am. Or was. Or whatever."
"Putting you back in prison isn't part of her orders, and believe me, she follows orders. The only reason she is here now is because someone used her. She's got a score to settle. She knows the whole Agent X story. Take it for what it's worth and just go, now, before someone in the CIA other than her sees you. Ok?" Mary almost pushed them along with her hands, to get them moving out of the line of sight.
"What about me, Mary?" Vivian asked her.
"Attempted murder of a federal agent, Vivian. If they want to make an example of you, you'll never see the light of day again. Even though you aren't the same person who committed that act," she reasoned.
"I still did it, Mary. Is it right for me to just take off? Pretend like it doesn't matter?" she asked, her shoulders slumping in her nervous state.
"We all know the truth, all of it. Chuck gave you those identities so you could start over. He didn't want you punished, Vivian," Mary explained.
"I never gave him a choice, Mary. Sarah would have died if he hadn't traded those away for her life like that," Vivian argued, tears edging her eyes.
"You saw Chuck, Vivian. He doesn't hold any animosity towards you. That's not my Chuck. He is a far better person than almost anyone I know. Your happily ever after was what he wanted, after all the misery he thought he caused you. Take that gift, Vivian. It's very rare," Mary said with conviction.
Vivian smiled at her father, wiping away the tears that had trickled out of her eyes. "Let's go," her father whispered. "We won't be far, Mary, just in case. And if you find out what happened to-"
Mary cut him off. "You know I will," she said.
They turned to leave, Hartley turning back over his shoulder to address her a final time. "Stephen would have been so proud of both of them, Mary. He always wanted to make the world a better place. I just wish he had known it earlier, that his children were his greatest achievement."
She choked up, and couldn't answer before they sneaked away out of sight. Once she was alone, she whispered to herself, "He knew, Hartley. He knew."
XXX
Sarah walked into Ellie's office and gently shut the door. Chuck sat beside Ellie at the computer, apparently just watching her as she worked. Sarah could see the screen, covered with what appeared to be documents overlaid upon other documents, MRI and brain scan images, a rapid fire stream of information that looked jumbled and confused. Ellie was rapt, her eyes scanning as fast as the images shifted. It was slightly intimidating to Sarah, understanding in that moment how truly brilliant Ellie was, that she had figured out something her father had worked his whole life on and hadn't succeeded. At least Ellie knew herself how invaluable her knowledge and efforts were, for they had cost her dearly to pursue for the government.
"Is that making sense, El?" Chuck asked her, looking blitzed as he watched her reading and clicking, not writing anything down, but nodding as if she understood it all.
"This is unbelievable," she muttered to herself.
"Really? It must be really crazy then, because-"
Ellie cut him off, spinning quickly and grabbing his arm intently. Sarah walked closer, sensing something important was about to be revealed. "This Meriwether guy, er, general, right? He's the one Beckman got this file from?" she asked.
"I would bet on it. Bentley knows what she's talking about, and Beckman wouldn't have been far behind. He had the opportunity to manipulate all of us, although why, I have no idea," Chuck said quickly. Sarah watched him nervously glancing between Ellie's computer and the clock, as the time counted down towards the impending confrontation with Poshenko.
"Chuck, this Intersect data is old. Older than the files I found on Agent X. The dates are in 1978 and 1979. Dad downloaded the Intersect into Agent X in November of 1980," she said.
"Dad was smart, but he would have had to have been working on it for a while, Ellie. I'm sure he could have started in 1978. It's not unbelievable, is it?" Chuck asked her.
"Chuck, this isn't the same file. This isn't Dad's Intersect model. At least not the one that created Alexei Volkoff," Ellie insisted.
Chuck sat up straighter, quickly glancing at Sarah, who was looking at him with a curious expression. "How can you tell?" he asked.
"The patterns, the algorithm, it's entirely in a different sequence. And it looks like it is patterned after a different sequence in the brain. This is as close to your brain pattern in any schematic of any Intersect, faulty or not, that I've ever seen. And I've seen them all, at least all but the one Poshenko downloaded," she said very quickly, the words rapid fire like bullets out of her mouth.
"But Chuck wasn't born until 1981, Ellie. How could Stephen have made a file based on Chuck's brain that early? He didn't know Chuck was different until he was nine," Sarah reminded them.
Ellie continued talking, but her words became too technical and Chuck automatically started to tune her out, knowing she could ramble on about her medical and technical knowledge like he could about computers, or Star Wars. He kept his eyes on the screen, feeling like something was familiar that he couldn't quite place. He heard Ellie say the word "eye," not certain even where it fit into the conversation, but with that picture in his head, scanning her files, something stuck out to him, making him stop dead. The date. October 15, 1978.
His mother had told him the story, years after the fact, when he'd asked her why in some pictures when Ellie was little she had glasses, and in some she did not. Her eye didn't quite work right, his mother had said. Lazy eye, she called it. Her glasses made it all better, she had said. Fast forward a few years, playing with his sister, probably when she was ten and he was seven. He was her patient, and she played make believe with him, dressing wounds, taking his temperature, giving him medicine. She had done that a lot when they were little, Chuck recalled. One instance, she was explaining how she was going to check his eyes by putting him in this giant white machine that could take a picture of his brain, to make sure his eyes worked right.
After he had fallen out of the tree in his backyard, and taken to the hospital, his sister had reminded him of that same conversation. He felt his heart start to pound as the memories flooded in. She had calmed him, in the room, while the nurse waited, by telling him exactly what was going to happen. Because she knew, she had said. Mom had taken her when she was very, very small, she had said. Because her eye didn't work, and she needed glasses. The date he saw was from when Ellie was a small baby, less than a year old. Lightning ran through the center of him when he realized what he was actually looking at.
"Ellie," he said slowly, his face slack with wonder. "That's not my brain. That's yours."
XXX
"When the hell is Bartowski planning on going over this with us? We are running out of time," Gertrude said to Casey impatiently.
Sucking in his breath, adjusting the straps on his body armor, Casey said to her, quietly so Morgan couldn't hear, "You realize all the firepower outside is just a buffer, right? Poshenko's an Intersect. You would need an army to stop him. The CIA was a little conservative on their numbers estimate."
"The Intersect is not unstoppable, John. Just a little trickier," she argued.
"Not unstoppable, no. But the only thing that has ever successfully worked to take down an Intersect is another Intersect. It's a fact," he told her.
"So what is all this, then? Just to tire him out first, before Bartowski gets his hands on him?" Gertrude said, sarcastically.
"Pretty much, yeah," Casey deadpanned. "But they're evenly matched. Bartowski has a very slight edge due to his age, maybe, but that's it. The last time, I clubbed him unconscious. They would have just kept going until someone dropped from exhaustion. And Bartowski's good, but he's as close to exhaustion as I've ever seen him. I don't have a good feeling about this," he told her, shaking his head sharply.
Gertrude was quiet for several beats longer than necessary. "We'll keep him safe, John. That's why we're here," she reassured him quietly.
He grunted, very softly, and she didn't bring it up again, worried she was distracting him with talk of emotions, which he abhorred.
"He knows you love him, Casey," Morgan said facetiously from behind them, as he readjusted his own body armor.
Growling now, Casey turned and snapped, "Anyone ever told you eavesdropping is impolite, Numb Nuts?"
Morgan simply shook his head and moved away from them. Casey looked back at her, noticing the weak smile on her lips. "What?" he demanded.
"He's your almost son-in-law," she said, vaguely sing-songish in mockery.
"Ugh. Don't remind me," he grumbled.
XXX
Both Ellie and Sarah stared, open mouthed, at Chuck's deduction. "El, your lazy eye. The glasses, remember? You had an MRI. When you were a baby. Dad had your information too," he said in awe.
"That doesn't make any sense. I'm not...I'm not…" Her voice trailed away, her eyes darting back and forth as her mind raced. "How would I know if my brain has the same connections yours does? I never had myself scanned. Why would I? I never knew this even existed!"
"Wait, wait," Sarah interjected. "What does this mean? This file that Beckman sent you? I don't understand."
Ellie took a deep breath, folded her hands in her lap as Chuck saw them start shaking. "This was the first file my father created. Not the defective version that created Alexei Volkoff. This is two years earlier."
"So how did Volkoff end up existing then? If Stephen had the correct sequence and data in 1978?" Sarah asked.
"This file, none of the information in it, was in my father's laptop. He was starting at the beginning, with the program that damaged Hartley. The one he said he never tested," Ellie said. "But this version was tested three times. Only not by Dad. He made notes when he tested the Intersect, in every piece of data I've seen. This had nothing, absolutely nothing. And it wasn't run on any computer that Dad was using."
"But it's Dad's program, right? So how did it get away from him, onto General Meriwether's computer? Or whatever he was back then," Chuck asked, baffled by this turn.
"This version was copied. I can tell because of the tacks in the corner. That's how Dad kept track, like an internal forensic marker. I don't know computers like you do, Chuck, but I know he did that. It was visible in every puzzle or numeric sequence of Dad's I ever solved. Copied from his computer, before it was erased and replaced by the file that I found, the Agent X documents," she finished, just short of shouting ta-da, from the tone Chuck could tell from her voice.
"Oh my God," Chuck said, the astonishment saturating his voice. "Oh my God," he repeated, meeting Ellie's eyes, understanding the same thing in that instant. Tears spilled over onto her cheeks, and she grabbed for her brother's hand.
"What, Chuck? What is it?" Sarah asked, a tightening of her facial muscles indicating her concern.
"My father didn't create Volkoff. Meriwether switched the files somehow. My father and my mother spent their entire lives chasing down a mistake that he thought he made...it wasn't him. My father's program worked, only it was corrupted without his knowledge. The only mistake my father made was in not testing it. If he had, he would have seen the modifications made right away." Chuck sat forward, pressing his hands over his face. "It was all a lie."
"Beckman needs proof. I have to send this back to her. Can you break back into the mainframe?" Ellie asked him, breaking him out of his stupor.
Her question was enough to ground him. He grabbed the keyboard, typing furiously. Ellie's gaze drifted away as he worked, as she absently focused on his fingers without thinking. Something was rising up inside her, like magma boiling slowly to the surface of the earth. Her life, her brother's life, altered forever, their family taken asunder, for nothing. Worse, her father had gone to his death believing he had destroyed the lives of everyone he had ever cared about. Help Orion OLT, Beckman had typed in the message.
"Chuck, Beckman knows. The Orion reference. She figured it out, she had to have," Ellie told him. When she focused again, Chuck was in, and transferring the file back. It took five minutes, while they all stayed silent, separately absorbing this new reality. Ellie's tears returned when she saw the message Chuck sent Beckman seconds before the secure connection dissolved.
Orion is exonerated.
XXX
"Chuck, five minutes," Bentley called, opening Ellie's door without knocking. If she noticed how strange they all seemed at that moment, she gave no outward sign. "Progress in here?" she asked.
Ellie answered her. "Beckman has the decrypted file. I'm still searching here. If there's a reason why all this happened, why my family was ripped apart forever, I'm going to find it."
Chuck stood, watching Sarah as she tucked her firearm behind her. He touched her arm, guided her over to the sofa and gestured for her to sit. He sat beside her. "Please be careful, Sarah. I know you will, but I won't feel better until I say it," he said softly.
She took his face in her hands and kissed him. He pulled her close, sliding her closer to him. She was breathless when she pulled away. "Chuck, there are some things I need to say. Right now," she told him. He rested his forehead against hers, waiting. "Nothing happened. While Quinn had me. Not what you were worried about. The baby and-" She stopped, hearing how raggedly he was breathing.
His eyes were pressed closed tightly, and he sighed out heavily. "You remember everything else, though, don't you?" he asked her, anguish twisting his voice.
"I do," she admitted, hating how her own voice rattled unsteadily. She heard him moaning softly, unable to block the roaring pain. She grabbed his face again, forcing him to look at her. "None of that was your fault. You told me to stay and I didn't. You did everything you possibly could have to rescue me, Chuck. I know that," she said fervently.
She eventually had to look away, tears streaming from her eyes. "Before, when I couldn't remember, I felt awful about what I did to you. Remembering both things at the same time is the worse kind of torture there is. I can't erase that picture, no matter what I do, how badly I hurt you."
He lifted her chin up. "That wasn't your fault. Please know that. I forgave you while it was happening, Sarah," he said, his voice breaking as he heard her cry softly as his words affected her.
"Leaving was my fault. Walking away, not talking to you, keeping you out of my life, that was my fault," she lamented.
"I understand why you did that, Sarah. I do. All that matters is that I have you back. That's all," he said, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close again.
He felt her moving, looking down to see her pulling something out of the side pocket of her dress. His vision clouded briefly as they burned with tears, as he saw the magazine page folded in her hand. She tucked it into his pocket and zipped it closed. "Remember, that's what we're fighting for," she whispered. "And we're fighting together." His smile grew slowly. He kissed her forehead and then stood.
She watched the stone set in his eyes, and he left her, not looking back, as he went to fight the last battle of this seemingly endless war.
XXX
Chuck knew where everyone was positioned outside, saw his companions inside poised in position. The tension in the air was thick, but he was ready. Ready to fight, ready for this to end. He had been fighting too long, and it was time to be done.
In the distance, Chuck could hear the sounds of an altercation, guns firing, things breaking.
"Right on time," Casey grumbled.