A/N: Another chapter of this little tale.
Spy vs. Spy vs. Spy vs. Spy
Chapter Three: Upbraided
One Week Later
Sarah stood on the Miami beach, the sun almost sunk, a soft breeze blowing wisps of her hair, escapees from her ponytail, around her face. Her chest was aching, really aching, as it had been aching since before Burbank, but especially since.
Shaw was in the hotel room, the one he was sharing with Sarah. They were posing as a married couple. The whole ordeal would have been funny if it were not so tragic. Shaw seemed to think that sharing a room with Sarah meant they would share a bed. She had told him, categorically, that was false. He was going to sleep on the sofa in the room. Sarah would sleep on the bed. If that did not work, they could rotate. But at no point would they be sleeping together.
Shaw had given her a why-fight-it? shrug and accepted her arrangement, but she had been forced into dressing in the bathroom and sleeping in more clothes than was her custom (an old t-shirt she had stolen from Chuck and a pair of shorts — that had been her custom). But Shaw's eyes, his Intersected eyes, roaming over her made Sarah slightly nauseated. She would let him see no bare skin.
And she could not shake the fear that she would wake up one night with him on her. She not only slept in full pajamas but with her knives under her pillow.
Bryce was in the room as often as he could be, evidently sharing and fearing Shaw's why-fight-it? shrug and convinced Sarah would, at any moment, stop fighting it. It was strange, but in the past few days, it had become clear that Bryce actually preferred the thought of Sarah having feelings for Shaw over that of Sarah having feelings for Chuck.
Maybe Bryce thought that Sarah orienting on Shaw would make it more likely that she could, eventually, re-orient on him. He clearly felt more comfortable with Shaw as the competition than with Chuck as the competition.
Shaw was no competition. Bryce was out of the sweepstakes altogether. It was all over. It was Chuck for Sarah. She was sure of that. And, since Burbank, she had begun to believe she could finally make that choice — if only she could have it.
They were in Miami chasing Ring chatter.
Chuck, or someone who looked a lot like him, had been caught on a video at the Bozeman, Montana airport. Chatter there had picked up at the same time. A man matching his description had then been seen at the airport in Columbus, although there was no video. Again, Ring chatter picked up there simultaneously. Sarah, Shaw, and Bryce had given chase, but could never catch up.
A street camera had gotten a shot of a man who looked like Chuck in Miami; predictably, Ring chatter increased there. The strange thing was that Chuck did not seem to be a captive. In the photographs, he seemed to be traveling on his own and by himself. It made little sense.
Sarah, Shaw, and Bryce had been in Miami only a few hours after Chuck — or the man who looked like Chuck — was photographed. The hope was that they had finally caught up with him.
Casey had gone after Amy. He had been following a trail that led north, toward Vancouver, and that was where he was currently. The trail had gone cold there, but he was trying to find a new lead, a new clue.
Casey.
Sarah had dreaded seeing him again when she got to Burbank. She had actually said a kind of spy-goodbye to him as she and Bryce left town, but his stern disapproval of her choice had been apparent in his posture and in his silence.
Sarah told Shaw and Bryce to wait in the rental car when they got to the Burbank apartment complex. She explained to them that it would be best if she went in and prepared folks, had a few minutes alone. "I'll text you when it's time for you to join me."
Sarah got out of the car and walked like a woman facing execution. She stopped at Casey's apartment first. She put her hand up to knock and the door opened before she could.
"Walker." Casey's tone was cool, contemptuous. He could have just said "Coward" because that was what he meant.
She was struck by how all the crap Casey had given her and Chuck during her two years in Burbank could be understood in two ways: as simply antagonistic, crap for crap's sake, or as an attempt to get one or the other, both, of them finally to do something, to end the interminable Yes, but.../No, but… dance they had done since their first meeting, to get one or both of them to make a declaration. Casey was not a maybe kind of guy. He did not find together/not together charming and exciting, but childish and self-involved. And so it was.
She ducked her head slightly, a concession to the charge. "Hey, Casey. Sorry to see you under these circumstances."
Casey glared at her, as if she were speaking a language he did not understand. "Whatever, Walker. Come in and I'll brief you."
Casey led her inside but did not ask her to sit. He turned and gave her a quick, exact rundown of what had happened, what he knew and did not know. He told her nothing of the sort she wanted, but as an agent, did not need to know: about Chuck's state of mind, about whether he ever talked about her, about what Amy thought of Chuck, how they got along. Casey seemed to know what she wanted to know and to be taking a perverse delight in supplying none of it.
Sarah finally could not resist the question. "So how was Chuck? How was he doing?"
Casey tucked his chin and looked at Sarah. "Well, let's see. The woman he's been in love with leaves with less-than-no lead-time. And with his damn nemesis. — You just had to make sure he lost the most important thing in his life to Larkin again, huh? — She never contacts him again. His father goes too, apparently choosing Bryce over his own son. Again. Stanford, or have you forgotten that shit?"
"I...I couldn't stay, Casey. My job, the CIA. Beckman."
"Bullshit, Walker. You could have quit. Taken a leave of absence. Hell, used up some of that backlog of vacation time." He stabbed her with his eyes. "You could have tried to get him to go with you, to take Beckman's offer. He turned it down because he thought you were willing to stay. Because he wasn't thinking clearly — the first time he'd not had that head-machine ticker-taping his thoughts. By the time he knew different, you were as good-as-gone. Fuck, you were just gone."
"But, John. The job. You've said it yourself. The greater good. Sacrifice."
He wrinkled his nose like something stank. "Shit, Walker. If I thought you left for any of those reasons, I'd do you the favor of arguing with you. I've come to a change of mind on all that. — Largely because of Bartowski, but I'd never tell him that. — But, bullshit, Walker. I call bullshit. You were concerned with the status quo, yours, not the 'greater good'. And you sacrificed Chuck, not yourself, or not in the same way. I suppose, given the look on your face, you did sacrifice yourself, but that was not the description you acted under. It wasn't what you expected, to get to DC and find you'd left your home behind."
Sarah gasped involuntarily. How could he know? Casey smiled ruefully, knowing he had won but not happy about it. "How was he? Angry, Sarah. And angry is not the best look for Chuck. Frankly, he scares me a little when he is angry."
"What?"
"All that love, two years pent up, desperate. It's getting channeled in other directions. I don't mean he turned evil, God, no, he's Chuck. But he started brooding. Stopped spending time with other people. Spent all his time in his room or in Castle before we finally sealed that damn hole up."
Sarah could hardly imagine such a change in Chuck. "You seem...different too, Casey."
"Well, there's not been much to do except sit and think, or hang out with Bartowski, or miscegenate Subway sandwiches with Morgan."
"Did you interact with Amy much?" Did Chuck?
Casey shrugged. "Some. Not a woman after my own heart. Clubbing is not my thing."
"It's still hers?"
"Yes, and she dragged Bartowski along whenever she could."
"Chuck...went clubbing...with Amy?"
"Yes, now and then. I don't know how he did it. Hell, he blushed when she showed up in those outfits. And that was before she started dancing, or wiggling, or whatever she called it." Casey let out a low whistle, not a wolf-whistle but a whistle of disapproval. "She was working him for all she was worth. Another blonde agent who took a tumble for Bartowski almost at first sight. If I could bottle the guy, I'd ask for a transfer to do liaison work with Swiss Intelligence, and I'd never spend a cold or lonely night."
Sarah let the remark pass. "Amy...liked Chuck? She took a tumble for him?"
"Yeah," Casey grinned, clearly enjoying Sarah's obvious stupefaction. He let her look at him pleadingly for several seconds, then went on: "I don't think she ever took a tumble with him, though. But not for lack of effort. That girl could be a gymnast, the contortions she went through the past few weeks, all to get Bartowski to forget you and think of her."
Sarah was getting angry, first at Amy but also at Casey. She tried to fight the anger back. "Do you think she was taken by the same people, the Ring?"
"It seems likely. Although I'm a little offended that they would take the two of them and leave me behind, the clumsy kid who gets chosen last."
"Was there enough blood at Amy's to suggest…?"
"...That she's dead? No, not at the scene. It was her blood, as you know, and quite a puddle." He paused. "I can tell you all this later. It's time for you to face the dragon, Walker. Ellie's been...eager...to talk to you." Casey smirked. "She's already raked her claws over me. I got to break the news to her about what's been going on."
"So, she knows about the Intersect, about Chuck?"
Casey nodded. "And about the cover relationship and that you are CIA."
"How'd she take it?"
"If 'volcano' were a verb…"
"Shit."
"You got that right, Walker."
Sarah got to knock on Ellie's door, softly. She pushed her braid of blonde hair back off her shoulder. It was a door she had knocked on so many times when coming to see Chuck. Almost no matter what else was going on, what mission problems or dangers, what difficulties between them, she had knocked on that door with excitement, anticipating the look Chuck always gave her, spontaneously, when he first saw her. She had lived two years on that look, like manna.
The look Ellie gave her as the door opened was pure venom. Ellie said nothing in response to Sarah's meek hello. She just left the door open, turned, and walked back inside.
Sarah came in and closed the door.
Devon was seated in the living room. He saw Sarah and started to speak, but glanced at Ellie and choked the words back. He almost ran from down the hallway and into his and Ellie's bedroom.
Ellie turned to face Sarah slowly. Rage played on Ellie's features, flame on kindling. "Well, if it isn't my friend and my bridesmaid and my...double-agent, Sarah Walker. I can't say I am happy to see you, since I am unhappy to see you."
"Ellie, I…"
Ellie put her hand up. "Don't for one minute try to excuse or justify yourself. If you do, I will send you out of this house and I will make sure that Casey takes charge of finding Chuck. I'd do that now, except my dad, untrustworthy though he too is, called and told me that you were the right person for the job. You and your new partner. Shaw, is it?"
"Yes, Shaw."
"I figured you'd be partnering with Bryce. You know, breaking down his sidearm, or should that be his short arm?"
Sarah's mouth fell open. On a couple of girl's nights out, after a couple of drinks, Ellie would make the occasional, slightly suggestive remark, sly and shy, but this?
"Ellie, no, please. It's not like that. I left to work with Bryce, and I am, but I am not with him. I'm not. I never intended to be."
Sarah had intended to mollify Ellie — instead, she stoked Ellie's rage, it flamed to full life.
"That's...Oh, shit, Sarah, that's so much worse. You let Chuck believe, you left him here to believe, to imagine that you were partnering with Bryce. And he was imagining it, all the time. My God, did they put you through some perverse emotional Torquemada course at that fucking farm? Did they just cut out your heart and throw it aside like a goddamn vestigial tail, unnecessary for a fully evolved, emotionless CIA agent?"
It was too much. Sarah collapsed into an armchair, sobbing. Ellie made no move to comfort her. "Am I supposed to believe this, Sarah? The tears? You've shed them in the past but I now know they're just waterworks. You're a good little actress. All this time, I thought you were emotionally constipated when it turned out that, like a dog, you've been emotionally spayed. Just stop it so we can talk and you can get the hell out of my home. This is a place for family."
Sarah watched the Atlantic strangle the sun, Miami music playing off in the distance. The breeze was getting cooler although it was not cold.
She bent down and unbuckled her sandals, slipping them off and walking barefoot in the sand.
The rest of the encounter with Ellie had not gone any better.
Nothing Sarah said by way of explanation did anything but fire Ellie's anger more. They had gone around and around until Sarah stopped trying to be Sarah, yielded, and just became Agent Walker.
That banked the coals of Ellie's rage. They talked about what Chuck had been up to, the changes in him. Sarah kept her tone distant, professional, and Ellie seemed to be driving home a point: that was her only role in the apartment. She was there professionally, not personally. It was clear, once her anger at Sarah was no longer front and center, that Ellie was terrified for her brother.
When Sarah walked to the door to leave, she made one more effort. "Ellie, Chuck, I…" she leaned close so that only Ellie could hear, "I love him."
Ellie stepped back and glared at Sarah. "And that's true?"
Sarah nodded.
"Well, if it is, I hope it hurts like hell because that's how my brother has felt. He's never been so hurt. Jill was the Blitz. You were Hiroshima. I have no idea what you are really like, Sarah Walker, what life you've lived, what you've done, but I know this. No one who deserves my brother would be capable of treating him the way you have, not just at the end, but the whole goddamn time. Casey says you've protected him. Thanks for that. But what you shielded with one hand you tormented with the other. Now, go, Sarah Walker, and don't come back unless it is to give my brother back to me and leave. — Go do the job Casey tells me you're so good at. I guess I believe him about that."
Sarah could still feel the visceral hurt of Ellie's words, now, days later.
After a moment of walking along the edge of the water on the darkening beach, Sarah looked up, at the parking lot in the distance.
Chuck was standing there, looking at her.
A/N: Hang on!
Hey, not too late to start reading Hotel Detective.