CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
All I have
All I need
He's the air I would kill to breathe
Holds my love in his hands
And still I'm searching
Out of breath, I am left
Hoping someday
I'll breathe again
"Breathe Again"
Sara Bareilles
July 14. 2012
Oak Park, Illinois
Sarah felt like time had slowed to a stop, as she was watching everything happening in front of her in freeze-frame slow-motion. She heard her own voice echoing in her ears, but couldn't remember having screamed. The gun clattered out of her hand, sliding on loose particles of broken glass. She was at Chuck's side, as he lay crumpled on the ground, and felt as if she had floated there, no memory of moving her legs or walking across the room. She saw Casey, a blur in her peripheral vision, running to the body of Leonid Poshenko, taking the man's gun and assuring himself that the man was dead.
She was in the process of putting her hands against Chuck's chest, covered with his body armor, when she saw on her other side a mass of arms and legs that ended up being Morgan, pulling Ellie away gently and helping her upright, then two seconds later, another blur that was Mary, soundless, but close to hysteria just the same. Sarah knew all four of them were talking, but she couldn't hear words, just noise. Her ears were ringing from the sounds of point blank gunfire, complicated by the fact that she felt herself beginning to disassociate from the moment as it felt dreamlike, or nightmarish, as the case turned out.
Without consciously thinking, she had pulled the hem of her dress up, pressing it to the bleeding wound she had seen inflicted by Poshenko as she'd bolted out of Ellie's office. Frantically, she reached for the area where she knew he was wounded. She could see the hole in his shoulder where the bullet had gone straight through from the back to the front. Blood was leaking out and pooling on the floor underneath him. A straight through and through like that was not that serious, and at the screaming pace her mind was moving, she couldn't understand why he seemed so incapacitated.
Until she saw the frayed edge of his vest. She could hear his breath, labored and rattling. Something worse had happened, she thought with sheer terror. The corner of his mouth was frothy with a pink film. Blood, she thought. He was coughing up blood. She heard herself screaming his name, but didn't remember making the sound or saying it out loud.
There was motion all around her, on every side, blurs that she couldn't focus on. Tears splashed down onto her hands, even as she was oblivious to the fact that she was crying. "Please, no, not like this, not...not," she wailed, on the edge of hysteria. What shook her and snapped her out of it, was the grip she felt on her wrists, pulling her up onto her feet from the floor. She knew without thinking it was Casey, holding her firmly, but not harshly, moving her out of the way so that his sister, the physician, could attend to him. "No, no," she continued to scream.
"Sarah," he said firmly, but tenderly, the gentlest iteration of his voice she had ever heard. Both the use of her given name, and the tone in which he had spoken it, stopped her dead. "Sarah," he said again. "Let Ellie help him." She knew without seeing his face the faintest touch of sadness that had to have been in his eyes, as she'd heard it in his voice-something so rare, its presence here frightened her. Casey was the only one in the room strong enough to move Sarah at all, in this state. She struggled with him at first, but eventually her legs gave out, and soon John was holding her up entirely, his arms wrapped around her as she sagged.
Everything else she witnessed happened like she was watching a movie, so removed from the action it felt surreal. She watched helplessly as Ellie struggled with the binding on his vest. "Morgan, call 911!" she shouted, reaching her hand under the side of his vest and pulling out a hand dripping with his blood. Ellie continued to speak out loud, yelling to Morgan as he scurried for the phone, nearly tripping over his own feet as he ran. No one observing knew she was doing so to ground herself, unable to completely professionally detach from someone as close to her as her brother, who had just been shot multiple times while protecting her. "One through and through in the shoulder. Second shot went under his vest, possibly into his lung." Unprojected, that was for her mother, who knelt beside them. Ellie's hands a blur as they quickly unfastened his vest, she pulled at the bindings to expose his wound. She could see it on his chest, the diagonal hole with singed edges, a million dollar shot hitting at the perfect spot and angle to pierce his chest cavity under his body armor. "I have a sucking chest wound!" she suddenly shouted, once she got his vest completely open and peeled away from his chest. "Morgan!" she shouted again. "I need something plastic and some tape, right now! First aid kit in the top drawer in the kitchen."
Morgan ran, his face white and sweating. Mary had run for scissors, and was now cutting Chuck's clothing away to expose his wounds for Ellie. Casey pulled Sarah further away, though she struggled against him. She could hear Casey's breathing, like a raspy wind in her ear. He's worried, she thought strangely. "He can't die, Casey. I need him...you don't know..." she moaned, as he lifted her and set her down on the sofa, worried himself, but much more concerned in the moment that he was going to watch her go into premature labor.
"I do know, Sarah," he said to her, pulling the cushions forward to support her, fearing she would just collapse out of the chair.
Her eyes lost their focus, and she found herself transported in time. It felt like she was dreaming, only she knew she was still awake. She couldn't remember feeling as desperate as she felt right now, but she had come close, once.
November 25, 2010
Castle, Burbank, California
"You're right, I'm different without Chuck and I don't like it," she said, her eyes flashing darkly behind the glass door.
"You let me out of here. You need me," Casey barked at her through the door.
"No, I need Chuck," she huffed, and stormed away.
She stopped before she got to the stairs, feeling suddenly almost too winded to climb them. A sick, nauseous wave seemed to boil up from her stomach, threatening to creep up into her throat. She felt like her lungs were on fire. She heard the words she had just said, not completely understanding she truly felt the way she did until this moment.
It explained so much. The raw, bleeding edges inside her throbbed. She felt like she was starving, emaciated, wasting away until nothing was left but ashes. Her body was affected physically right at this moment, but it was her heart and soul that were withering away.
She had been afraid before, worried that she would lose herself, if she lost Chuck. They hadn't been together then, but that really made no difference, she knew. How she felt, on the inside, about Chuck had never changed, almost from the first five minutes after she had met him.
It was acknowledging that she had hope, that she had the potential to be a person she thought had been lost, someone she could have been had her life gone another way, that made her see it. In the dark desert inhabiting her soul, Chuck had dug down deep, bursting into a spring that flowed, soaking the dust and turning it lush with life, thousands of colors of all shades blooming in every shadow. But any garden so vibrant needed sustenance. Without him here, it was all dying, an unquenchable thirst permeating every fiber of her being, everything alive inside her turning crisp and dusty each moment longer she contemplated what life would be should he be lost forever.
The rage mixed with her devastating guilt now had control. There was only one option. She was going to get him back, or die trying. Sarah Walker, the Sarah that existed this moment solely because he had loved her into being, ceased to exist if he was gone. Dying meant nothing when life meant nothing. She had always known that, and had only begun to realize there was a better life for her, once she had stopped fearing what it actually meant to live it.
She started running up the stairs, the blackness inside her giving way to a white hot glowing ember that had the force of a supernova by the time she was at the top of the stairs, on her way out. She could still hear Casey yelling, demanding to be released, but she knew keeping him there was best. This was her choice, her fight, and his career didn't need to be ruined because of it. This went beyond duty, or even friendship.
Half of her soul was gone, and the half remaining was dying. She was on her way to save two lives, not just one.
July 14, 2012
Oak Park, Illinois
How could she live, if half of her was dying? The same thought rose again, as she hung loosely over Casey's forearms as he held her upright, seeing the only part of Chuck Ellie's body wasn't blocking-his face, almost gray and frighteningly pale.
Sarah was distracted from her memory as she heard Ellie yelling, louder than she had been speaking up to this point. "Pressure, Mom! Push down. Morgan, tape three sides! His lung could collapse." Blood. God, it was everywhere. On her hands, dripping from the hem of her dress onto the floor, smeared over the cushions on the sofa where Casey had set her down. The front of Morgan's shirt, the cuffs of his sleeves, and his hands. Mary's hands and blouse front. Ellie's hands and arms almost up to her elbows. Pooled on the floor underneath him, splattered on the wall behind him. "Morgan, he could start drowning in his own blood!" Sarah's focus wavered in and out, the words incomprehensible as Ellie kept telling Morgan and her mother what to do...lift his head, make sure his trachea was unobstructed, listen for his breath...
Sarah had seen Chuck shot point blank twice, once by Bryce Larkin and the other by his own mother, both when he had been wearing body armor. A third time, she thought, as he'd shielded her from a bullet. She had seen him hurt before, but nothing like this. Feeling the hot poker stab to the center of her, she realized the worst she had ever seen him hurt was after she had attacked him, when he wouldn't fight back and risk hurting her even the slightest bit. This now was her darkest, deepest nightmare coming alive before her eyes, made exponentially worse, because all she could do was stand by helplessly and watch. She clenched and unclenched her hands, still captive as Casey held her up.
The paramedics arrived, the sirens screaming on the outside of the house. Sarah couldn't focus, couldn't listen again as Ellie shouted to them, the same thing over and over, listing off the damage in one devastating blow after another. They took over for her, lifting him up onto the stretcher. Ellie followed them out the door, running alongside her brother. She had sounded calm and collected the entire time she had knelt at his side, and only for a brief second did she see Ellie's face as she moved out through the front door. Irrational and in shock, Sarah actually thought to herself, How had Ellie been able to work on him with so many tears in her eyes? How could she have seen what she was doing?
Sarah started to see the edges of her vision begin to waver and darken, feeling dizzy even though she was seated. "Walker!" Casey shouted, though to her it sounded like she was listening underwater.
"Morgan!" she heard Casey shout. "She needs help."
"Sarah?" she heard, uncertain as to who spoke or where it was coming from. "Casey, what the hell is happening?" she heard again, a disjointed voice. And then another female voice overlaying it, completely distorted and unintelligible in her head.
"She's going into shock. Help me, damn it," she heard Casey yelling, wondering why he sounded so desperate.
"What am I supposed to do?" she heard Morgan shouting, a panicked hysteria she couldn't remember hearing from him before.
The last thing she heard was Casey answering him, "Take care of her." The black curtain descended completely, and the chaos in the room finally winked out. She was out cold before Casey had his arms around her again, to keep her from sliding onto the floor.
XXX
"Mary!" Corrine shouted, standing in the hallway on the edge of the room. Hartley was behind her, holding her hand. She quickly surveyed the room, a disseminated pattern of controlled chaos. Every window was shattered, broken glass scattered everywhere. Heavily armored men were dispersing throughout the house, in the process of securing the scene. As well as removing the body of Leonid Poshenko, she understood in a flash. But there was too much blood, far too much blood for it to have only come from the dead man. When Mary turned, and Corrine saw her face, she felt the sickness explode inside her when she realized whose blood she was seeing splattered like paint everywhere she looked.
The trauma of the situation receding for a moment, Mary rushed to her friend, pulling her into a tight embrace. "Thank God you're alright," Mary gushed, making eye contact with Hartley over her shoulder, half recriminating him for not leaving when she'd asked him to, half thankful that he was here anyway.
"Mary, was Charles hurt?" she asked desperately. Corrine felt her husband behind her, his breath becoming labored as he pondered the possibility.
Mary's composure slipped, ever so slightly, but her devastation reflected back at them in her eyes. "He was shot. Ellie went with him to the hospital. Sarah collapsed. Morgan went with her to the hospital."
"The baby?" Corrine asked, her tone full of dread.
"I don't know," she admitted, pallid and shaking as she thought of it again.
"Why are we standing around here? We should be at the hospital," Corrine said crisply.
"The hospital will be crawling with Federal Agents," Mary said tightly, shifting to stand in front of Hartley, understanding only then that the situation where she stood was just as potentially dangerous.
"I don't care," Hartley said defiantly, looking between the two women. "Let's go. I'll wear dark glasses," he quipped, rushing past them. "I'll let Vivian know she needs to meet us there."
He didn't see the tears that filled Corrine's eyes at the mention of her daughter. Mary squeezed her around the shoulders, then motioned for them to follow her husband.
The trio passed John Casey as they moved to depart the scene. "On your way to the hospital?" he called out to them.
Mary nodded without speaking. "You're coming too, I hope?" she asked.
"I have things to wrap up here-" He raised his hand, focusing his attention on his wrist communication device, as Mary realized he was listening to something else in his ear. Mary listened as he spoke. "Roger that. Gertrude, stay here with both teams while Bentley is en route to the hospital. Make sure those two idiots stay out of trouble for the time being. Let me know the second you hear from Beckman."
Casey turned his attention back to Mary. Her face a frozen mask of anger that seemed to shock Corrine and Hartley as they looked on, she told Casey, "You keep me in that loop, Casey. The minute you hear from Beckman. I'm getting answers, whether she wants to tell me or not."
He grunted in reply, with a tone Mary recognized as affirmation.
July 14, 2012
Chicago, Illinois
Ellie stood in the locker room at the hospital, in front of the sink, gazing at her haggard face in the mirror. The water in the basin was tinted pink, as she had washed the blood from her hands, wrists, and arms. Now she gazed at the blood on her face, a macabre tattoo that spread across her right cheek, onto her right ear, and dried in her hair in a crusty clump. Chuck's blood. Her little brother, hers to protect, as she had promised her father when she was only 12. His life was in peril, his blood saturating her clothing and skin, because he had saved her, putting himself between her and harm.
Unnecessary harm, she admonished herself. She continued to second guess herself, worrying that everything would have been fine if she hadn't interfered. She had let herself become leveraged, when her mother and Chuck's pregnant wife had volunteered to stay behind to keep her safe. Part of her brain had reverted to that 12 year old girl, old before her time and mature for her age, but missing all the rationality of the adult. Whenever it came to Chuck, who had been all she had for the most difficult part of her life, she lost her rationality. Only now, it may have actually caused her to lose what she loved more than anything else.
She was about to bend to wash the blood from her face when she saw Devon's reflection in the mirror, standing in the doorway, a sadness on his face she had never seen, only once imagined, as she'd told him over the phone that her father had been killed. He was rushing to her as she turned, collapsing in tears as he grabbed her, encircling her in the safety of his arms. "What happened, Ellie? The CIA just told me to come here. The ER told me you were in here. Are you hurt?" he asked quickly, noticing the remnants of blood in the sink.
"Not me, Devon," was all she could manage to say through her weeping.
He clutched her closer, knowing for whom she wept. "Where is he now?" he asked sharply.
"Surgery," she gasped, strangled and distorted against his chest. "It's really bad, Honey. I-"
"Where is Sarah?" he asked pointedly, pulling her away from his chest and holding her by the shoulders.
Ellie's eyes were wide, and she was holding her breath, as the full enormity of the situation seemed to hit her. "I was with Chuck the whole time, even in the ambulance. She was with my mother, Morgan, and Casey. Devon-"
He released her, turning to bolt. "You finish cleaning up. I'll get some answers," he yelled.
XXX
"Sarah Bartowski," Devon repeated to the nurse behind the desk in the triage area of the Emergency Room. He realized he may have spoken too forcefully in his desperation, and inadvertently frazzled this poor nurse, who knew she was dealing with the Head of Cardiology. "She's my sister-in-law," Devon added, in a gentler tone, as a way to explain his urgency.
She flashed him a watery smile, then continued checking the computer. "Room 10, Dr. Woodcomb." She was in the process of pointing, realizing after he was already gone that of course he knew where he was going.
Devon walked quickly through the corridors, medical equipment blocking a clear path as he moved. Due to the overflow, there were people on stretchers in the hallway, nurses and orderlies moving about, smiling at him as they recognized him in his street clothes. He moved past open doors, in each room a little glimpse of misery he could not alleviate. He turned a corner, and saw John Casey and Morgan standing in front of the room.
Morgan saw him first. "Devon!" he shouted, startling himself at the volume of his voice. As Devon approached, his pallor seemed to change, as he saw firsthand how covered in blood Morgan was.
"How's Sarah?" he asked, looking through the glass instead of at Morgan, his appearance too reminiscent of the current tragedy. She was conscious, lying on her side, an IV of fluid attached to her hand. There was dried blood in her hair and on the side of her neck. Her eyes were fixed on the wall, staring at nothing, the whites of her eyes bright pink and her eyes glistening, evidence of prolonged bouts of crying. He could see the monitor strapped across her abdomen, and the readout on the screen next to her bed.
"Dehydrated," Morgan told him. "They told us she's fine, baby's fine. Seeing Chuck hurt that badly just...you know, overwhelmed her," he said, the strength flowing out of his voice at the picture in his own mind. "Right now she's about to scratch the face off the next person who goes in there, she's so out of her mind to see him…"
"What happened to Chuck?" Devon asked, seeing Morgan turn away, his face crumpling as the last vestiges of his composure disappeared.
Casey answered, in a voice Devon never believed he was capable of using. "Crazy shot at an impossible angle. His left lung. He's in surgery. Sarah killed the bastard who did it," he added, a deep growl of what Devon alarmingly thought of as satisfaction emanating from deep in his chest.
"I know the Chief of Surgery very well. Let me go get some answers," he said, wishing there was more he could do, but determined to do at least what he could.
XXX
Morgan waited alone in the hallway, his eyes on Sarah, but his mind fluttering like a bat trapped in a tiny room. At the end of an unbearably stressful stretch of time, compounded with a chronic lack of sleep, and now potential devastation and tragedy that was slowly unraveling his ability to think straight, he could no longer sit still. There was more to do, more problems to solve, as he surmised by Casey's in and out presence, sometimes talking into his wrist communicator. At least as a small consolation, Casey had known better than to try to talk to him, knowing how little he could hope to retain in his state of mind.
Morgan hated feeling helpless. It hadn't been that long ago, he knew, that he wouldn't have cared. Everything that had transpired since Chuck's birthday party five years ago had changed him, just as it had changed everyone else around Chuck. How ironic, he thought suddenly, how Chuck was the only one who hadn't. Who Chuck was now was who he had always been, on the inside, from the very beginning. His life had beaten him down over the years-losing his mother, then his father, his hopes and future at Stanford, and his first love. It had taken him a while-to understand and accept who he truly was, what he was truly capable of. Most notably, it had taken him seeing it in the eyes of the woman Morgan could now see through the glass, to believe in him, to let him become all that he had been capable of being.
He had seen firsthand what Sarah without Chuck looked like, and it was a frightening memory. Pregnant now, it was unsustainable. Take care of her. Casey's words blazed across his mind. There was so little he could do, but he could do that. For his friend, who would have asked only that, before anything else, even protection of his own life.
He took a deep breath and walked into Sarah's room. She jumped as if he'd startled her. "Morgan, have you heard anything?" she asked, struggling to sit upright.
"He's still in surgery. Devon's here. He went to go talk to someone, try and get some more information. How are you doing?" he asked, stuffing his hands down into his pockets to hide their shakiness.
"They're so worried about my blood pressure," she grumbled. "Staying trapped in here is making my blood boil."
"There's nothing you can do for him right now," Morgan said gently, speaking more slowly than his natural cadence, in an effort to steady himself. "Except take care of yourself and your baby. Because you know Chuck. That would be his biggest concern."
She turned the upper half of her body, to face upward at him. She blinked several times, looking like she was trying to say something. Tears crept from the corners of her eyes. "How bad is it?" she asked, her voice almost squeaking. "I kept asking the nurses and no one would tell me."
"They're...uh...they were just trying to keep you calm," he told her.
"I am calm," she said softly. "I can't remember everything Ellie said in the house. He has internal injuries, doesn't he?"
"Uh...oh…" Morgan stammered, weighing the balance between telling her the truth, and keeping her calm. "One shot in the chest. They were worried about a collapsed lung...or internal bleeding-" He stopped talking when he saw her face, the deep furrows between her eyes, as if she was somehow experiencing the pain herself.
"But he's gonna be alright, Sarah, you know that," he swore vehemently, rushing forward and reaching for her hand.
"He's never been hurt like this, Morgan. We always managed to escape before anything bad ever really happened. To any of us," she said, staring at the ceiling, looking lost.
"Casey would disagree with you on that, but I know what you mean. Things could always have been worse, because you guys were so good." He sat on the hospital bed next to her. "The worst thing I remember was sitting in the hospital with you, you know, after you were poisoned. You don't remember it being really scary bad, Sarah. But it was. Ellie and Devon kept pacing around, looking pale. There were doctors from other departments that came in to look at you, and take notes, because they couldn't believe you weren't dead. You broke the record in the ER at West Side for the highest adult body temperature ever, you know."
The look she gave him, slightly exasperated, but questioning, was a look he was used to. Get to the point, Morgan, he told himself. "You survived that, though. And you could list off a million reasons why you defied death, but there really is only one reason. Chuck loves you, and you love Chuck. He tore the world apart for you, and you wouldn't let anything come between you, not even being poisoned by the Norseman. He's fighting, Sarah, maybe harder than he's ever had to before. But he won't give up, no matter what. Even if it means staring death in the face, so he can come back to you."
He had to look away from her, afraid she would see the hopeless sadness in his eyes, the worry that maybe she was right, the brief lapse in utter faith he had in his friend, only missing here because he had pressed his hands against the bleeding wound on Chuck's chest and heard the gurgling wheezes as Chuck had tried to breathe…
His spiraling desperation made him not see Sarah, sitting up hard, and wrapping her arms around his shoulders, hugging him from behind. He felt her rest her head on his right shoulder. Aside from her wedding, Sarah had never hugged him, and certainly not that fiercely. "I hope you know how much you mean to him, Morgan."
He patted her hand, unable to speak, afraid a choked up reply would undermine the pep talk he'd just tried to give her. He simply nodded, looking up at the same time, so the tears streaming from his eyes stayed on his face, and didn't drip onto her hands.