CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
And now my bitter hands
Chafe beneath the clouds
Of what was everything
Oh, the pictures have all
Been washed in black
Tattooed everything
"Black"
Pearl Jam
July 14, 2012
Chicago, Illinois
"How badly was Bartowski hurt?" Bentley asked Casey as he stood before her. She had ended up five doors down from Sarah, with a superficial gunshot wound. He could tell by her impatient and irritated tone that she had believed this treatment had not been necessary. She still wore the jacket with the bullet hole, her bandage just barely visible through the hole.
"Bad," Casey said harshly, then added nothing.
Understanding probably better than anyone else here, Bentley pressed on, not wasting time on emotional baggage that could be compartmentalized and dealt with later. "You know we have a bigger problem than Bartowski's injuries. Meriwether. Right now Beckman is on her own at the Pentagon trying to take down a three star general. She's going to need help."
"Why don't you fill me in on the details. Now's a good time, don't you think?" he asked her, testy over being left out.
"Daniel Shaw implicated someone other than Clyde Decker after he was moved to a Black Site for questioning, after he took Sarah Bartowski hostage in your spy base last year. Beckman knew that. She's been trying to flush him out all this time. I don't think she was sure until I was, only I never got the chance to discuss it with her," Bentley said matter-of-factly.
"Why?" Casey asked, still finding it difficult to believe. The man was a decorated military leader. What was he doing with Daniel Shaw?
"Didn't you find it odd that he sided so quickly with Shaw, after everything your team laid out in that report? You had irrefutable proof he was dealing with the Ring, and Meriwether just had Beckman hauled out of her office like a common criminal. Why would he take Shaw at face value like that?" she argued, her eyes narrowed to thin slits.
"We caught all the members of the Ring," Casey said to her. "Chuck played Shaw right into his hands, on camera."
"Yes, he did. Meriwether wasn't an Elder, not in the sense that you're thinking. Almost like a silent partner. The Elders never knew who they were actually dealing with. Shaw did, though. It was the only way he got such free reign, when he almost took over the entire DNI. Once Chuck took Shaw down, Meriwether made sure Shaw was under lock and key. He then used the Omen, as you know, but your team defeated him again. And once it was found out the Omen was causing him to deteriorate mentally, Meriwether thought he was in the clear. But he forgot about me," she added.
Casey looked at her, his eyes full of questions. "The Intersect Project. The one I recruited you for. Who do you think authorized that?" she asked him sharply.
Casey grunted, the sound emanating from deep inside him.
"Only to find out a year later, Bartowski's sister proved the Intersect was non-workable. He authorized Operation Restoration, and all the work that Dr. Woodcomb was doing for the NCS behind closed doors. I believe he already knew all that information about the Intersect, way before any of this happened, Casey," she said. He waited, knowing she had more to add. "Beckman read you in on the briefing Dr. Woodcomb had with the Bartowskis. You remember the original mission? Black Morning? When Corrine MacArthur was sent to the Soviet Union after the Iranian Revolution? Guess who was in charge of the CIA and giving Frost orders back then? Meriwether. He commissioned both the Intersect and the Norseman, and got Stephen Bartowski and Hartley Winterbottom secured as assets. This has been building up for over 30 years. And it's still not finished, Casey. Until we help Beckman finish it."
First he grunted, then he asked, "Do we have an idea why? What was Meriwether's long game?"
"Beckman knows," Bentley told him. "I have suspicions only. She's seen the proof, I haven't. It started with a double agent who worked for the NSA. Dr. Jonah Zarnow." Her eyes narrowed to thin slits. "I see you've had the pleasure of meeting him," she added, seeing the contempt on his face.
"He was peddling government secrets to the highest bidder, at least in 2007 when we encountered him," Casey told her.
"Very profitable for him, it seems, until Operation Bartowski shut him down permanently. Meriwether recruited him to the project after he was debriefed by the research team at Oxford. That's as far as I got before I had to come out here to secure the situation," she told him. "But Dr. Woodcomb just found out that the original file was workable, so the doctored program created Volkoff. Zarnow had to have helped him switch the files, without Orion ever suspecting a thing. It was a brilliant move. Stephen Bartowski obviously trusted Zarnow. He wasn't a spy at that point, just an asset. He only learned later that he shouldn't have been so trustworthy."
Apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it, he thought, thinking of Chuck when they had first met.
"Can you still not reach Beckman?" he asked.
"No," she said crisply. "And the only person capable of breaking into the DNI mainframe is incapacitated."
Casey grunted loudly before speaking. "We have substitutes. You're really not going to like it. But they're our only shot at this point."
Casey saw the slightest twitch on her face, a tell that she was irritated beneath her cool exterior. "Not those two buffoons you had to intercept?"
"Don't get me started," he grumbled. "The problem being-those two buffoons completely deciphered the Omen virus as well as disrupted the Pentagon surveillance on Ellie's computer. They may not be Bartowski, but he taught them everything he knows."
She gave the slightest hitch of a sigh. "We need to get back to Dr. Woodcomb's home. Contact Verbanski and let her know you and I are headed back."
XXX
Unknown place, Unknown time
"That was almost five years ago. And, don't forget, Awesome taught me the female part. I lost all the real dancing with the Intersect," Chuck told her, as they stood in their pajamas, the dining table pushed towards the window to open a space for them to dance. Sarah's hair was pulled back in a messy bun, loose tendrils around her face that she continuously brushed aside with her hands as they tickled her nose.
"You can dance," Sarah told him, smiling sweetly at her husband as he shifted uncomfortably on his feet. "You danced on our first date."
"That was not dancing," he insisted, with a wry laugh. "That was me shifting uncomfortably back and forth on my feet while you were throwing knives at the NSA." He pulled her close, wrapping his arm around her waist, feeling the smooth satin of her nightgown under his hand. "Although, you fell for me then, didn't you? Who knew it was my nerdy dance skills that got the girl?" A broad smile lit his features.
She still smiled widely, her eyes almost twinkling. "It wasn't your dancing." She blinked, almost coyly, gazing away. He looked down at her, confused, unsure what she meant. "The ballerina. The recital," she said, reminding him.
"The what?" he asked, tilting his head and squinting his eyes. He was so completely oblivious, in the sweetest, cutest way that seemed to melt her insides like butter.
"The little girl without the video," she said.
"That was, what, five minutes after you met me?" he said, scoffing, until he realized she was serious. She watched the surprise, as he lifted his eyebrows, pursed his lips, as his eyes widened. She had left him speechless.
She was blushing, he noticed, as she shifted her gaze to the floor. "I knew there was more to you than what I read in the file the CIA gave me." He still regarded her face, his eyes wide with wonder. "Kindness like that is rare. And definitely not something I expected to find in someone who was suspected of stealing the Intersect from the government."
He stared at her, amazed. She stood up on her toes, shorter with her bare feet, so she could reach his lips. When he pulled away, she shook herself, telling him, "Ok. Again." She held up her arms, poised as they would be if they were dancing together. He stepped forward, and she clasped his left hand in her right, pulling his right hand to rest on her mid-back. "Look at my eyes, not my feet, and bend your knees," she told him. "Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow." She left him in the lead position, though she told him what to do. "Left, right, left, step right, left."
"Ugh," he cried as he stumbled over her feet.
"Your right. I'm moving left. Forget what Awesome taught you. You'll be backwards if you do that," she said patiently. And she started over.
Chuck realized he was watching this, standing back, though he remembered the instance as a part of the action. She had offered to teach him to dance, after he had lost the Intersect, and with it all of his dancing skills and coordination. They were like actors on a stage, the foreground and background faded to black and all that was visible were the two of them, holding each other and laughing.
"Did you know she loved you that soon? Did you know the reason, Chuck?"
Chuck turned, frozen in shock when he saw who had spoken. "Dad?"
"Sarah had a hard life, son, before she met you. She knew you were special, the moment she met you. You changed everything for her, in that instant. And she never looked back," Stephen answered.
His father's voice, always one of his greatest comforts, frightened him beyond reason. Why was he talking to his father? Why was he watching himself dancing with his wife, bilocated like he appeared to be?
"Don't worry, Charles," Stephen said to him, reaching for his shoulder, squeezing it amicably. "Everything is going to be alright. I promise."
His eyes filled with tears. "Dad, you're dead. How are you here?" he asked.
"How are you watching yourself? That was almost nine months ago, in California. You're in Chicago. In the hospital," his father told him kindly.
Hospital. Gun shots. Sarah screaming. His eyes overflowed with tears as he looked back at his father's face, lit with a soft smile, full of love and tenderness. "Dad, am I dead? Or dying? Is that why I can talk to you?" he asked, fear making all the words shake as he spoke them.
"No, son. Not dead. I promise," Stephen told him.
"Then you aren't real. I'm imagining this somehow," he told himself, reaching down and feeling his body, surprised at the tactile sense that he was touching something real.
"A part of me is always with you, Charles. Part of this is in your head, like a dream. But another part is real. When you love someone, a part of them stays with you, inside, no matter where you go, or what you do. That's why she's here," Stephen added, gesturing to the couple who still stuttered a clumsy tango across the hardwood floor in their apartment. "And me too, Charles. You aren't alone."
XXX
July 14, 2012
Chicago, Illinois
Sarah could see Morgan's head, leaning back against the glass wall of her room. The nurse who had just removed her IV and applied a bandage over the wound smiled and told her, "You're all set, Mrs. Bartowski. You can go get dressed."
She moved into the bathroom, pulling at the hospital gown that gaped uncomfortably open in the back. Her dress hung on the hook on the back of the bathroom door. Shivering in the blasting air conditioned breeze, she hurried to pull the dress over her head, calmed as the fabric covered her arms and immediately smoothed down her goosebumps. It was as she was straightening the fabric down over her abdomen that she felt the hard, crusty edge of her dress hem.
She ran the hard circle of dried blood through her fingers, mesmerized, but sick to her stomach, knowing she was covered in dried blood. Chuck's blood. At least the dress was black, she thought, so it wasn't glaring to others. Just grating and irritating to her skin, which in turn ground on her heart like sandpaper, each movement reminding her of what she could lose at any moment. She felt unsteady on her feet, nauseous from worry. She sat back down on the bed. She heard Morgan knock gently on the door.
"Are you ready?" he asked. She felt sicker, seeing the blood still splattered all over his clothing. "Casey and Bentley went back to Ellie's house to contact Beckman. She's on her way after Meriwether and they're going to help," he told her.
"Shouldn't you go?" she asked him meekly.
"Nope. You're stuck with me, Sarah," he said gently. She still hung her head. Hesitantly, he moved to sit beside her. He wanted to ask her if she was ok, but stopped himself, knowing the only answer was no, she wasn't. He sat in awkward silence, waiting for her to move.
"Morgan," she started, an edge of desperation in her voice that worried him. "I need to ask you something," she said softly. He watched her constantly run her fingers over each other, pulling on her knuckles with anxiety.
"What, Sarah?" he answered, worried by her affect that whatever she wanted to ask, the answer was upsetting.
She lifted her head, turned her eyes to meet his. Her gaze was penetrating, pulling him inside, as he felt engulfed in their pools of sadness. She took a deep breath and asked him, "What happened to Chuck after I left?"
He felt all the air rush out of his lungs like he'd been punched. "Sarah, this isn't the time or the place. Please, you need to stay as calm as you can. You in labor right now is more than any of us can take. Sarah, please." He forced himself to sound rational, disturbed that he had only succeeded in making himself sound frantic, like one more word would put him over the edge. He needed to be stronger, and hated himself for the deficit.
"No, Morgan. This has been eating at me for a week. I asked Ellie and I asked Alex and they both told me you were the only one who knew the whole story, because you were there. I asked Chuck, but he avoided specifics. He didn't want me to feel worse than I already did, but, Morgan...I have to know. Please," she pleaded.
He looked at her, staying silent. He couldn't blame her, wanting the whole truth. Chuck had always reverted to keeping things from her that he thought would hurt her, or upset her. He had gotten better, as time had progressed, but the tendency remained. Saying what he thought Chuck would want him to say, always erring on the side of her feelings, he told her, "He doesn't blame you, Sarah, for any of it. That's why he probably told you just generalizations. He didn't want you to blame yourself."
"But I do, Morgan!" she admitted in a rush, startled at her own admission, so blatantly honest and painful. Her candor shook her to the center, and her voice was tremulous when she continued, "I left him there alone. Ever since I remembered everything, it's all I can think about." She started crying, shifting her eyes downward. "You have no idea what it feels like to know what I did to him, to all of you, and remember now how I feel at the same time. I know he forgave me, but I have to know the whole truth, Morgan. Even the things he thought he was protecting me from."
"I don't see how telling you that right now will make anything better," he argued with her, gesturing with both hands, sweeping them in front of his body.
"Not knowing is killing me, Morgan. No matter how awful it is, I need to know," she almost begged him.
Against his better judgment, but as ever, unable to resist Sarah's persuasion, he decided he would tell her. "You know the basics, right? I'm assuming he told you that part at least." She nodded.
"The first time, those first two weeks, he was a mess. The kind of mess I had seen before, after Jill. And after, well, after I came back from Hawaii after Anna cheated on me. You know, when he came home after dropping out of training. Sleeping too much, not eating, or, at least, not eating anything but cheese balls. He would sleep until noon, not shower or clean or do his laundry. He snapped out of it, when you came back, but then you were gone again," he finished with a sigh.
"I started out thinking it was just more of the same. But it only took a few days, and I knew this was different. It was like he just fell, and kept falling, down this bottomless pit. It scared me to death. I didn't know he had the potential to be the way that he was. I thought he was drinking. I mean, he was drinking, at first. The whole bottle of chardonnay in five or ten minutes, half a bottle of whiskey in a few hours. But as it turned out, that was for a very short time. Once he remembered that when he flashed, he didn't feel anything, he, well...he didn't want to feel anything, because everything hurt." He checked Sarah's face, seeing her cringe at the words, knowing how he chose his words next was crucial to keeping her calm, even if a bit upset.
"I just found out the other day, but, it was the Intersect, all along. No one knew, though, right? Except you and Casey. Beckman was keeping it a secret. He was using it like novocaine," he said, his voice lower as he pronounced the last sentence, knowing how ashamed of himself Chuck had been over his weakness and failure.
"He told me that," she said softly, almost a whisper.
"It sounds crazy, but it at least makes sense now, knowing that. Before it was like, you know, like he was a different person. And it terrified me. I couldn't reach him, I didn't know how. And Ellie was relying on me to help him, and I couldn't. But I think, as appealing as it was to do what he did, there was a part of him that couldn't stand being numb. He disappeared a lot. I think he was fighting...I don't know, drunks outside bars, people in alleys, whatever. He broke one of his fingers, one of his thumbs, took all the skin off his knuckles so many times."
He heard her sniffling, wiping at her cheeks with her palms. "It just kept getting worse, and I couldn't do anything other than check on him, make sure eventually he made it home."
He sighed shakily, flexing his fingers on his chest as he thought. "It came to a head, though. In the middle of March. I wasn't sure if he was home, so I went to check on him. He was sitting in the dark at the table with this little purple pouch in front of him."
She gasped, covering her mouth with her steepled hands, her eyes enormous and full of tears. Afraid he was about to send her over the edge, he put his hand on her back, attempting to soothe. "I didn't know what it was. He wouldn't open it. But he told me it was yours, that you'd left it, after you came back to pack when you left the beach."
"His mother's bracelet," she said, her voice rough. "He gave that to me during that Buy More hostage situation." Quieter, almost to herself, she added, "It was the first real piece of jewelry I ever owned."
Morgan shook his head, at an angle, bending his head forward and rubbing his forehead with his palm. He had never known what that had been, the knowledge now blowing a hole in his stomach at the thought. Before Morgan had known they were spies, and pretending, he had listened to Chuck tell him that he wanted to give that bracelet to Sarah, and that he hoped his sister would understand, as so few pieces of their mother were left at all. That had been the moment, in that one moment in the conversation, when Morgan had understood how much Chuck loved Sarah. Sure, it was supposed to be pretend, but it hadn't been, not then. The look on Chuck's face had been unmistakable, all joking and back and forth aside. This was real, and forever. God, no wonder Chuck lost it after he saw that.
"I didn't remember him giving it to me, not when I left. I didn't even see it, when I was grabbing my things," she said, sounding like she was about to lose her voice.
"Well, you left it there. Now, what he said makes sense. He said it was a perfect symbol. Everything he wanted to give you, that you wouldn't take from him. He told me he knew you weren't coming back." He checked on her again, now seeing her wincing, like he had caused her physical pain with the words. It was difficult to keep talking, knowing he was hurting her, but the faster he got through it, he rationalized, the sooner he would be done. "He, uh, you know, he wasn't what I would call suicidal. But he didn't want to live anymore. He completely gave up. He tried so hard, did everything he could possibly do-including telling you to go if you needed to. But he never wanted you to go, to stay away and not talk to him for that long. He lost faith, you know, that things would work out. Without you, he was just lost. You could never see that side of him, Sarah, because the second you were near him, that Chuck disappeared. Like you in Thailand." She gasped, wiping at her cheeks again, knowing exactly what Morgan was talking about. "Only you were fighting to get him back. He was wasting away, thinking you weren't coming back. Like how you were when you found his proposal plan in his shirt. That kind of lost. How you would have felt if you had known at that moment that you were never going to see him again."
He watched her, completely covering her mouth with her hand, pulling down, crying but making no sound. "Sarah," Morgan called her name gently, trying to pull her out from the place he had sent her with his words. "Hey, it's ok, you know? You're here now. That was the only thing he ever wanted." It took her several seconds before she collected herself.
"It's worse than that, though? You aren't done," she said with a heavy sigh.
"I made it worse," he admitted, cringing himself at the memory. "I couldn't take it anymore and I let loose on him. It made me so angry, just watching him quit on life. I said awful things I shouldn't have said, in the worst way I could have said them. It makes me sick now remembering how awful I was. We ended up in a fight, a physical fight, which, you know, him being the Intersect and all…although I didn't know it…well, he completely kicked my ass. It took a really lucky distraction and an even luckier shot. I ended up having to break a bottle over his head and I knocked him out."
Sarah groaned, covering her mouth at the sickening picture now plastered inside her head.
"He disappeared for a whole day, and half of another after that. And when he finally came home his hands looked like he'd beaten them against a brick wall for hours and hours. We had to take him to the emergency room afterward," he said, shivering as the memories darkened his mood.
"That was the day you got through to him, made him stop," she said, the tears making her voice heavy and uneven.
His eyes red-rimmed and his jaw trembling, Morgan replied, "By making him understand that he owed it to you to be better, be the person that you loved, even if you were gone." He forced his breath out in a tight gush, adding, "He was afraid, Sarah. Once Beckman found you, he hung around in Burbank for three days before he made up his mind to go. He didn't call you after he knew you'd gotten your memory back because he was afraid, thinking of that stupid curse again and thinking he was too close to being happy and something was going to take it all away again. I even know he couldn't have survived that a second time."
She leaned against him, gasping for breath as she cried. "Morgan, you saved his life by doing what you did, you know that, right?"
"He would have done the same for me, in a second, without a thought," he affirmed.
"I know," she whispered, knowing full well what he was capable of sacrificing for those he loved, and hoping this time hadn't been the last.
XXX
"That must be Sarah," Corrine said, as they stood as a trio, farther down the corridor, as they watched Morgan walking with a pregnant woman in a black dress with shoulder length curly blonde hair.
Mary breathed a sigh of relief, knowing at least her daughter-in-law and her unborn grandson were alright, physically anyway. No harm had come to them after the shock of seeing Chuck wounded before her eyes as he had been. They walked closer, much faster than Morgan and Sarah were moving, so they caught up very quickly. Closer now, Mary could see how tired Sarah looked, pale and shaky. Morgan looked only slightly better.
Morgan saw Mary as he turned. A brief glance served as a greeting under the circumstances. "Any news?" Mary asked him, at the same time she smiled at Sarah and grabbed her hand, squeezing it gently for support.
"Devon's on his way down. He just had to go put Ellie in a cab to meet up with Alex and Clara," Morgan said softly. As if on cue, Morgan saw him coming towards them as he exited the elevator.
Devon only gave a tight smile, as he felt all eyes on him expectantly. "It's been two hours. His lung did collapse, but they inserted a tube and a drain. He should be out of surgery in another 20 minutes or so, then another few hours in the PACU. Prognosis is good, all things considered. They just have to keep a close eye on him, make sure there aren't any complications," he explained.
Mary felt herself breathe a sigh of relief that seemed to lift a lead weight from her heart. Chuck still had a ways to go, but the information was much better than she had anticipated after seeing him loaded into the ambulance looking an inhumanly white color.
Morgan gestured briefly for Sarah to sit, so she wasn't standing for a prolonged period of time. Devon put his hands on his hips and added, "They did clean out the blood bank during surgery. He lost a lot of blood. He's stable now, but they have a call out to the Red Cross. Chuck's O negative, which is very restrictive if you need blood, and what they use for everyone else in a life or death situation. Are any of you O negative?" he asked, spinning slowly, encompassing the entire crowd with his gaze.
"I am," they all heard, in a delicate British accent, as a young woman in a green blouse and denim jeans approached the group from behind. She looked tired, worn, but her hair was in place and her face made up. She, at least, had gone back to the hotel when Mary had asked her to.
No one noticed the strange look on Sarah's face as she regarded Vivian MacArthur, or Vivian Volkoff, the woman who had tried to kill her. All eyes instead were focused on the older woman, who looked as close to a mirror image of her daughter as was possible with their age difference, wavering on her feet and grasping for her husband's arm as she regarded the woman she had last seen as a small child.
Vivian knew from her father's phone call that her mother was here, at the hospital before she left. It wasn't shock, then, that made her legs seem to shake, and she dug her heels hard against the floor to keep her knees from knocking together. It was instead a thousand different emotions-confusion, sadness, joy and anger, all crashing against her like waves as she looked at the woman she knew was her mother, just by looking at her, but had no memory of at all.
Corrine couldn't speak, both hands covering her face as her emotions overwhelmed her. Hartley held her up, cradled her in his arms and held her at his side, at the same time he reached for his daughter's hand, pulling her closer. "Vivian," he said softly, the softness on his face a comfort in her frenzied state. "This is your mother," he said, a hitch in his voice.
Vivian stared, her eyes wide, her head tilted to the side, as if she didn't quite believe what was in front of her own eyes. "It's my fault, you see, that you were apart from each other for so long. I took you away from your mother when you were very small," he said, regret and remorse thickening his voice.
"Dad, you didn't remember doing that," Vivian defended him.
"I tried, for so long, to find you, Vivian," Corrine said, her voice mangled behind her hands as she wept.
"Vivielle," Vivian said, squinting her eyes and tilting her head, struggling to remember something. She stood up straighter, her eyes wide, at the same time her mother pulled her hands away from her face, wonder and amazement in her eyes. "You used to call me Vivielle."
Corrine nodded. "You couldn't say Vivian, when you were so small."
"I remember the doll-the ballerina," Vivian said, tears running in smooth rivulets down her porcelain cheeks.
"That's all you ever wanted to do. Twirl and twirl. You'd watch your skirt, dancing so it spread out, over and over," Corrine smiled, despite the tears. She reached out for her daughter's hand, and nearly lost her breath when instead of taking her hand, she grabbed her mother and pulled her into her arms. "I'm so sorry for all those years you were alone, Sweetie," Corrine told her, gasping for breath as she wept on her daughter's shoulder.
Twenty years and two lifetimes in between them, but being held in her mother's arms again was a comfort Vivian had only dreamed about, not understanding how much she had missed something she had forgotten about until she was surrounded by it again. The last frozen piece of her, buried deep inside, started melting in the warmth of her mother's love. Vivian sagged against her, at last knowing what it felt like to cry tears of joy instead of sorrow.
Corrine felt Hartley's hand, stroking her hair, the closeness of him and his faint cologne a pleasant warmth. He wrapped his arms around both of them, pulling them in close, for a brief moment his broken family whole within the reach of his arms.
Vivian sucked in her breath, extricating herself and stepping forward. Morgan stepped forward, interjecting himself between Vivian and Sarah. He could hear Sarah behind him, her breath heavy and audible. "I'm Morgan, Vivian. Do you remember me?"
"Of course," she said briskly. "Charles' friend." She looked past him, at Sarah, who's eyes were frozen like ice. "Sarah-" she started, but was interrupted.
"Don't," Sarah said sharply. "You tried to kill Chuck multiple times. You're one of the few people who've tried who are still breathing."
Morgan's heart dropped, as he absorbed the harsh words. Worried that something new could upset Sarah's tenuous balance between calm and hysteria, Morgan tried to intervene. "We've all had a long, awful day, Vivian, no one more than Sarah, ok?"
"I understand, really, I do," she offered quickly. "But, please, Sarah, just hear me out. I understand if you hate me, couldn't forgive me, or don't want to talk to me. But I want you to hear me. My family," she said, gesturing back at her parents, who stood in each other's arms watching from afar, "is in one piece again because of your husband. Even after everything I did to him, the worst of which was to do anything to harm you. But let me help, Sarah, please. That's all that I want to do. Giving blood is nothing, literally nothing, compared to how much of your husband's blood's been spilled while he was trying to help other people."
Sarah couldn't ignore the truth of her words, seeing that blood splattered on Morgan's clothing as he stood in front of her. Morgan felt the tension between the two women like a fog in the air. Morgan turned to Sarah, over his shoulder, and said, "She's trying to help, Sarah."
"The hospital is in a very bad predicament. Even one pint would help," Devon said. "I can take you to the donor center," Devon offered, gesturing with his hand for them to follow.
Vivian nodded, accepting that she would do this. Everything stayed quiet, as Morgan took Vivian's arm and walked away with her, both of her parents slowly following.
As they were about to turn the corner, Sarah called to Vivian, "Thank you." One corner of Sarah's mouth twitched ever so slightly.
Vivian bent her head once in acknowledgment, then continued, turning the corner out of sight.