Sarah's understanding the world endures a few revisions.
Chapter 9
Immediately after being shoved into the back of the car, Sarah was hooded and shackled at the ankles. Being a blind prisoner was unpleasant but it wasn't the first time for her and it gave her plenty of time to think. Clearly, Steven LaBarge had become something other than the bright young analyst she had known. He was always eager to please and he had made it his mission to dig in and spend as much time as necessary to find the answers she needed. She felt a little guilty for unconsciously leveraging his attraction to her to make him her workhorse. Had he resented her for it? As she mulled it over she realized the man who had held a gun to her head was focused on Chuck, not her. Chuck was the one he was talking to and he was the one Steven taunted. She was little more than a prop in LaBarge's power play.
She assumed the suppress or extract debate was about the intersect. If it was an either/or decision, suppression was probably irreversible and Chuck had lost the intersect for good. He could still be a patron of the arts and run his academy but he would never again be the spy who struck fear in the hearts of gangsters. From what Zondra said it seemed like he didn't do much of that any more anyway so maybe it was no great loss. Even so, the thought that she was the one who led Chuck into the trap that cost him his edge felt like she had viciously betrayed him again. She could have been honest with him and risked him not cooperating but she had chosen not to and now the consequences were all on her.
The fact that LaBarge had taken the three of them prisoner was not a good sign for any of them. She imagined Chuck would face sanction for going rogue and she and Zondra would be sanctioned as his accomplices. Under those circumstances there was little chance LaBarge would help clear her name. He had a lot more to gain by assuring Merriweather that she would never see the light of day again.
As Sarah was transferred from the car to a helicopter, her heart sank. A jet would mean transport back to the US and prison. A helicopter was more likely to be taking her to a European black site for interrogation. She didn't have much to offer except what she had learned in her brief stay at the academy. She cursed her luck at having heard Benito's story. The Company would be VERY interested in that. That one juicy morsel would be enough reason for them to work her over for quite some time in search of more.
The thought that she was bringing Zondra and possibly Carina down with her was more of a dull ache than the sharp pain of her betrayal of Chuck. The cats had worked as a team long enough that they had learned to share responsibility for each other automatically so she know the other women wouldn't resent her for it but the fact that the team had crashed and burned on her watch made her feel like a loser who ruined everything she touched. Her dreams of working her way into a spymaster position seemed pathetic in hindsight. She was a soldier, not an officer, and the fortunes of war had turned against her.
The first few days of interrogation she woodenly claimed ignorance of everything. Any strategy or engagement with her interrogator would tell them something and she wasn't about to make their job easier. She idly wondered what it would take to break her but was under no illusion that she might be unbreakable. Everyone talked eventually. She remembered Cole Turner's brush with torture at the hands of Fulcrum and allowed herself a small grin. He had been so confident he had resisted by sheer toughness and had managed to fight his way out of their hands all by himself. His naivete was absolutely adorable. MI6 apparently still had some sense of honor and didn't teach their agents much about the dark arts of torture. Sarah shuddered as she remembered her own training. The one lesson the CIA master torturer had hammered into his students was that torture was about breaking the client's mind not his body. A torturer turns a client's strength into a weakness. A classic approach to a tough guy like Cole would be to introduce a muscle relaxant that would impair muscle tone and cause incontinence. Then the team would take only token precautions and let the prisoner get free so the guards could toy with him and pretend to believe his incontinence was caused by terror. Personally, she preferred the neuroattenuators that induced palsy when the client was stressed. The bottom line was that Cole prided himself on his toughness so that would be the first thing a torturer would take away. Another line of attack might be attractiveness to the opposite sex. A torturer might introduce a vasoconstrictor to render him impotent, then have a female agent try to seduce information out of him, only to be disgusted at his inability to perform. She realized she was perseverating on torture and forced herself to stop.
Sarah was idly running down her muscle groups and doing isometric exercises when her routine was broken by some kind of alert buzzer. She heard the clack of automatic locks engaging somewhere and the drumbeat of running feet. A faint but truly disgusting putrid odor wafted its way into her cell. As the minutes dragged on she was surprised by how much that faint smell was affecting her and she tried to breathe through a sheet. The buzzer stopped and things got quiet. An experimental whiff of the air revealed the scent was still present so she tore off a strip of material and tied it around her mouth and nose. She was surprised that she hadn't spent much time thinking about how to escape her cell but now she focused on that problem with single minded intensity.
When her door suddenly opened it took her completely by surprise as she was closely inspecting the seams in a wall. Zondra strode through the door, a smirk visible through a compact respirator. She held up a similar device and Sarah removed her sheet and secured it to her face. Zondra removed her shackles and Sarah obediently followed her down the corridor. They passed a dozen bound and hooded guards and Zondra paused just outside the detention block, using the hand signal for hold your position. Before long the familiar figure of Gomez appeared in a type of tactical gear Sarah had never seen before. Zondra and Sarah fell in behind him and they made their way to a waiting helicopter. Antonia gave them a thumbs up from the cockpit and she noticed the familiar shape of Vincenzo in the pilot's seat beside her. A ragged looking Chuck was strapped into the back with an IV in his arm. His head lolled to one side and he looked unconscious. Beside him was a hooded female prisoner in an army uniform and beside her was a hooded male prisoner wearing the same flashy Rolex she had seen on Steven's wrist. Even through her respirator she could tell the putrid smell was particularly strong here and was probably coming from Chuck.
The team lifted off and skimmed low over the water until they arrived at a helipad tucked into an unlikely corner of an island. They were all transferred to a second helicopter of a different type and immediately continued their journey. Eventually they landed in another facility that looked similar to the one they had just left. Gomez and Vincenzo took the prisoners away and Antonia woke up Chuck and unbuckled him, hooking his IV bag to a waiting stand and helping him out of the helicopter. Sarah and Zondra also got out and Zondra helped Antonia keep Chuck upright as staggered to a nearby elevator and they took him to a hospital bed in a negative pressure room. Antonia sealed the room and led them to a table just outside the building where they all gratefully removed their respirators.
"It will be several days before the scent clears Charles' system," Antonia began, "And he's probably not feeling up to answering questions at the moment anyway so he has asked me to speak for him. I'm sure you have questions."
"You're damn right we do," Zondra began angrily. "You can start by telling us what the hell is going on here!"
"LaBarge double crossed us," Sarah quickly explained. "Just before we entered the meeting with Chuck he deafened me through my earwig and put a gun to my head to force Chuck to surrender."
"And Charles just meekly complied?" Zondra wasn't buying it. Now that she mentioned it Sarah should probably have expected something different. Giving up when she was threatened was something her Chuck would have done but it didn't seem in character for Charles Galois.
"You are right to be skeptical," Antonia admitted. "Charles expected to be taken immediately."
"But they suppressed the intersect. Surely THAT wasn't part of his plan," Sarah frowned.
"Actually it was the weakest part of the plan," Antonia admitted. "Charles had been meditating while waiting for you. He was locked into a strong alpha pattern and probably didn't react at all when they used their suppression device on him. I told him no one would believe he was paralyzed by surprise and fear for your safety but apparently they bought it."
"So the suppression device didn't work?" Sarah was incredulous. She was also unreasonably angry that he had let her beat herself up thinking she had cost him the intersect.
"The current iteration of our intersect is strongly tied to an emotional context," Antonia explained apologetically. "Charles' alpha state was already tied to a white noise intersect similar to the one in the suppression device so it simply enhanced his ability to clear his head."
"Son of a bitch," Zondra whistled softly. "He let us think we were playing him when that sneaky bastard was playing us."
"Are we allowed to know the identities of the prisoners you extracted with us?" Sarah asked with a sarcastic edge.
"If you're both certain you want to be carrying that knowledge inside your heads, I have no objection," Antonia replied evenly.
Sarah and Zondra stared at each other briefly. Zondra nodded first and Sarah said, "Tell us as much as you're willing to share."
"Our prisoners are Col Marilyn Brinks and Officer Steven LaBarge," Antonia replied. "We have high confidence that both are Elders of the Ring. Col Brinks was the prize we were after. She rarely leaves the Pentagon and we've assessed that she is the lynchpin of Ring influence in the US government."
"I've worked closely with LaBarge," Sarah frowned skeptically. "I find it hard to believe he's any kind of double agent for the Ring, let alone an Elder."
"Our assessment is that Officer LaBarge joined the anti-Ring task force to find and eliminate Ring defectors and to obscure any damaging intelligence it developed. He engineered the attack in Connecticut to create key vacancies in the intelligence community that could be filled by Ring operatives. There was an Elder at the conference who had locked horns with LaBarge in the past. After the success of the operation allowed the Ring to take control of the CIA, LaBarge was granted the post of the man he had killed," Antonia explained.
"So LaBarge wasn't really worried about Gen Merriweather coming after him?" Zondra asked. "And Merriweather isn't really trying to oust Gen Beckman at the NSA?"
"Col Brinks runs Merriweather's staff and she and LaBarge are thick as thieves," Antonia replied. "Merriweather IS trying to push Beckman out at the NSA though."
"So where does all this leave Sarah and I?" Zondra asked pointedly. "As associates of the team that abducted two Ring Elders I imagine we've just jumped to the top of the CIA's most wanted list. After Charles, of course."
"You and Sarah became some of the CIA's most wanted rogues in Singapore. Charles told me he had warned you," Antonia responded uncertainly.
Zondra thought carefully about what Charles had said. Then realization hit her, "He told us we would be considered enemies of the Ring and that the Ring operatives he killed were CIA working off book. What he did NOT mention was that the Ring had taken control of the CIA. If he had, I never would have requisitioned equipment from Rome station."
"That man can be maddeningly evasive," Antonia shook her head angrily. "On behalf of Galois Media, I apologize for carelessly putting you both at risk."
"So if we're all fugitives, where are we now and how exposed are we?" Sarah wondered.
"This is a Galois Media black site," Antonia explained. "We're on Italy's east coast in Sacra Unita Corona teritory."
"I didn't realize Charles had dealings with them," Zondra was surprised. "I thought he was only known to the Camorra."
"The Academy is very popular. Our Board of Regents includes representatives from Cosa Nostra and 'Ndrangheta as well," Antonia shrugged.
"Which of those organizations made up the support crew for your assault on the base we were just extracted from?" Zondra wondered.
"This was strictly a Galois Media operation," Antonia said, confused. "It was just the four of us."
"Do you honestly expect me to believe that a four person team was able to take over a CIA black site?" Sarah asked incredulously.
"You're the last person I would expect to doubt it," Antonia frowned. "You've seen what early versions of the intersect are capable of. With the refined and improved version the four of us can take down much tougher targets."
"Are you telling me that you, Vincenzo, and Gomez are also intersects?" Sarah was appalled.
"Of course we are. Even Charles wouldn't be reckless enough to defy the Ring if he were the only one," Antonia reproached her.
"Where did Chuck get the technology to create new intersects?" Sarah frowned. "Did Beckman give it to him? Is that why Merriweather is trying to oust her, because she shared it with a rogue organization?"
"Our intersect technology was developed by Charles and his father, with some help from his sister," Antonia explained patiently. "Galois Media has a biomedical research center but no one in the US government was involved."
"I've seen Charles in action at his sanctuary," Zondra noted skeptically. "There's no way he could run the sanctuary, the academy, a huge media company AND be a research scientist."
"Charles' greatest talent is in finding good people and putting them in positions where they can flourish. He doesn't spend much time doing administration for the academy or Galois Media," Antonia shrugged. "I would say Charles' obsession is the way the human brain processes information. I've heard some of our researchers describe his innovations in olfactory and somatic processing as genius level brilliance. The sanctuary is where he does most of his thinking." Her eyes sparkled with mirth as she added, "It's a running joke at Galois Media that whenever someone is stumped by a problem they need intense sexual activity to solve it."
Sarah felt a headache coming on as her brain struggled to come to terms with Antonia's insight into the mind of Charles Galois. Could he really still be just as nerdy as she remembered? Could a shift in focus from computers to neuroscience explain his radical transformation? She felt she must be missing something but had no idea where to look.
"So how does that putrid smell fit into the picture?" Zondra asked curiously.
"As I mentioned, our intersects are tied to an emotional context," Antonia lectured. "Olfactory processing is located in the limbic system along with emotion. Charles developed that scent to generate extreme revulsion and tied a brutal intersect overlay to it. Our researchers have developed a synthetic cyst which Charles filled with the scent. All he had to do is rupture the cyst and the scent poured out through his sweat glands. The scent turned him into a berserker and made his captors sick. He's sleeping off an adrenaline hangover now."
"So what happens to me and Sarah?" Zondra asked. "There's no way I can return to my post at Tunis station and we can forget about clearing Sarah's name with the Ring controlling the CIA."
"You should be relatively safe at the academy," Antonia mused. "Even the CIA would hesitate to earn a vendetta from all the criminal clans of Southern Italy. Alternatively you could stay here while Charles and I complete our interrogations."
"I think I'd rather stay here," Sarah said. "Maybe I can help."
"That will probably not be possible," Antonia said slowly. "Our interrogation techniques are a closely guarded secret."
"You can tell us you have intersect generation technology but we can't be trusted with your interrogation technique?" Sarah was incredulous. "Zondra and I have both been trained in black ops. We're not squeamish."
"Perhaps, but not all Charles' applications are benign," Antonia said quietly. "I wouldn't consider Charles squeamish either but he's done a lot of soul searching on the ethical limits of the use of his technology in this way. He hasn't even shared it with Vincenzo or Gomez. With these particular clients the temptation to cross the line will be strong. Additional interrogators would be a distraction."
"So I take it Vincenzo and Gomez will return to the academy then?" Zondra asked, eager to change the subject.
"Gomez will but Vincenzo has already left to open a Galois Media office in Jamaica," Antonia replied. "It's just as well. He's been in a surly mood, worrying about Carina's exposure to the Ring. We assured him that there are no signs of Ring penetration of the DEA but we can't pretend they have a wonderful record of protecting their private contractors."
After a brief discussion Sarah and Zondra decided to return to the academy with Gomez. They accepted Antonia's invitation to be substitute instructors for her Deflection class while she was away. They soon found themselves back at the cottage they had left with such high hopes the week before. Sarah brooded about the fact that Chuck didn't want her to witness his interrogation. There was a time when Sarah worried that he wouldn't be able to handle knowing about some of her kills. The idea that he didn't think she could handle watching him work without interfering some how was humbling. She had just proven that she wasn't in the same league as Steven but it seemed Steven wasn't in the same league as Chuck. Forget her dreams of being a spymaster, she was no longer sure she could be a competent field operative.
Despite her feelings of inadequacy, Sarah resolved to do her best in running the Deflection class. She was pleasantly surprised by how quickly she and Zondra managed to get in sync with the players. Zondra continued training with Gomez and he persuaded her to help with some of Vincenzo's classes. Sarah needed very little coaxing to join her in that as well and was again happy to find that her skills in that area were also still formidable. Eager to continue her winning streak, Sarah also worked with Salvadore, demonstrating the firearms skills he taught. The students were stunned by Sarah's ability and the more competitive women began working harder than they ever had before.
At the end of their first week back there was a lavish reception in celebration of a local tradition and Sarah and Zondra had recovered their spirits enough to dress up and accompany Salvadore and Gomez. They were having a wonderful time as both men proved to be excellent dancers.
The four of them were taking a break near the refreshment table when they were approached by an older gentleman followed by a small but impressive looking entourage.
"I cannot remember ever seeing you quite so happy," the man said to Salvadore with a broad grin. "Can it be that one of these lovely young ladies has finally captured your heart?"
Salvadore laughed cheerfully, "No Signore, I am not quite ready to settle down and become respectable just yet."
The older man's eyes widened in alarm, "Please do not tell me that you are beginning to take after Signore Galois." He and his companions made a sign with their hands.
"No Signore," Salvadore assured with a wide smile. "I think anyone who tried could only make himself ridiculous. I remain a simple Neapolitan boy."
The older man did not look convinced but seemed content to take his leave without saying more.
"What was that thing they did with their hands?" Sarah asked Salvadore.
"it's a warding gesture to protect them from Malocchio," Salvadore explained. "Some of the Camorra suspect that Charles may have supernatural powers and that they expose themselves to danger by saying his name."
Zondra and Sarah exchanged a look of incredulity. Sarah said, "Are you teasing your American guests? That's not polite."
"No, Sarah, I know it sounds strange to you but to a Neapolitan supernatural powers are very real," Salvadore said soberly.
Apart from that discordant note, they all had a wonderful time. Sarah had to grudgingly admit that she got a kick out of the fact that people seemed to take care not to crowd them on the dance floor. It was a guilty thrill to wear the dark glamour of an agent of a supernatural power.
Sarah awoke the next morning in a better mood than she had managed since her ill fated trip to Rome. She had finally been able to stop brooding about what dark techniques Chuck and Antonia might be using on the Ring Elders. She had also stopped chafing at the thought that she was trapped. Teaching at the academy wasn't so bad, she told herself. Despite her best efforts she found herself wondering what it would be like to live there on a more permanent basis. She told herself firmly that she was NOT interested in dating Salvadore, that he was just good company who helped her take her mind off of the tangled web of treachery that was the spy life.
She assured herself that she and Salvadore were just fellow outcasts from the dark worlds they had grown up in who were both trying to find their way in the world of normal people when she posed a question as they were stowing the gear from Salvadore's morning class.
"I noticed that there is another reception coming up next week," Sarah told him casually. "I had so much fun last night I was wondering if you'd like to do it again."
"I'm sure Gomez and I would be happy to dance with you and Zondra again," Salvadore replied with a polite smile.
"I think Zondra and Gomez are going to be working on a new krav maga class they're developing," Sarah clarified. "It would be just you and I."
Salvadore looked troubled. Eventually he said, "I was very serious when I said I was not like Signore last night. I am old fashioned and could never go on a date with a woman with whom I knew I could never have a serious relationship."
While she had been careful not to consciously consider the outing a date, Sarah's subconscious felt the full sting of rejection. "You could never have a serious relationship with me?" Sarah asked, stunned.
"Surely you understand how important it is that the next generation of Vicos steer clear of our past," Salvadore replied earnestly. "How could I possibly marry a former assassin? If one of my sons were tempted back into the old ways how could I tell him how utterly wrong it is when his mother had made her living that way?"
He shook his head sadly, adding, "A Neapolitan whose mother had trained Signore Galois would instantly gain a measure of grudging respect from the Camorra. The temptation to use that respect by returning to that way of life would be too great. It would break my grandfather's heart. I did that once and would rather die than do it again."
"Yes, I see your point," Sarah acknowledged awkwardly. "I would never want that for you either and will respect your wishes."
She turned away quickly to hide her tears. "I will see you tomorrow," Sarah threw the words over her shoulder as she quickly walked away.
She went back to her cottage and changed into running clothes, then left a note for Zondra, put in her earbuds and headed for the trailhead. How could she have been so stupid? Of course Salvadore could never have a serious relationship with a former assassin, especially one so closely connected to Chuck. It could destroy everything he was working so hard to build. With the temptation of old associates so near Salvadore could not afford to compromise. What had she been thinking? Salvadore might be able to life a normal life but she was too tainted to qualify for one. She was a woman without a place in the world.
As she continued to push her pace she remembered the men in her life: Bryce, Chuck, Casey, Shaw and now Salvadore. Casey was the only one she never considered getting involved with but she couldn't take credit for that. He had been very blunt in telling her it was never going to happen before she ever considered the possibility. Why did she continue to compulsively attach herself to the men she worked with?
Zondra was right, she was an utter disaster when it came to relationships with men. Being burned by Shaw didn't teach her a damn thing, did it? She danced with Salvadore for just one night and she'd already managed to put another check mark on her wall of shame. She was drawn to decent men or at least men who seemed decent to her at the time. The problem was that really decent men stay away from women whose primary skills are grift and assassination. She smirked grimly at her predicament. She would NEVER want a decent man she cared about to have anything to do with a woman like her. As the sweat covered her face she allowed herself to add some tears to it.
Bryce was an asshole, Shaw was a predatory sociopath, Salvadore could never be with her, Chuck was the only decent man she ever had a chance with. Then Chuck rejected her for the spy life. He didn't have the balls to run away with her. He thought he could have both her AND the life. Ridiculous. Spies do NOT have relationships. She may have told herself that Bryce and Shaw were relationships at the time but there was one key difference between those and REAL relationships. They were different because even though she liked them, depended on them, and even slept with them she never really LOVED them. Everyone knows spies don't fall in love.
Since spies don't fall in love, Chuck's choice to be a spy was a choice not to love her. He realized that, right? You can't even get to know someone until they stop spying let alone fall for one. No one could be naive enough to think they could be falling for the person beneath the mask.
Sarah's guts twisted as she realized the flaw in her train of thought. HER Chuck WAS naive enough. He thought he loved her when she was still a spy. Someone that clueless would assume spying was a vital part of her identity. Would rejecting the spy life mean rejecting HIS Sarah? Could Chuck's embrace of the spy life be a misguided attempt to embrace all of her without condition, without demanding she remove her mask? Did he actually think he was embracing the life for BOTH of them and sparing her the pain of leaving behind everything she was good at? It was exactly the kind of anti-spy logic that ran through her Chuck's brain. He wasn't rejecting her, he was telling her he loved her mask and all. He wasn't choosing spy life OVER her, he wanted to join HER spy life.
The realization hit her so hard she stumbled over her own feet and came crashing to the ground. She got back up and continued running to avoid the spectacle of someone finding her sobbing and beating her fists on the turf. She could have been Antonia. She could have been the second most important part of Ring's greatest adversary but for real, not as dupe of the Ring. She could have done it with someone who really loved her despite every dark deed in her past. She could have had it all if she had just been strong enough to let go of her own hurt feelings. She mercilessly pushed her body to the breaking point. Eventually she limped back to her cottage.
Sarah stripped off her sweat soaked running clothes and stumbled to her room. She found a 750ml bottle of Jameson 18 Years she had hidden away and a shot glass. Then she kicked back on her bed to watch trashy Italian TV with the sound off. Every time she saw an onscreen kiss she downed a shot. She was making good progress when someone started banging on the cottage door. She tried to ignore it but her visitor refused to give up and go away. She put down her glass and staggered to the door to tell her visitor to piss off.
She looked through the peephole at a very worried Chuck.
"Piss off Chuck!" Sarah yelled at him.
"Open the damn door!" Chuck growled in a voice that brooked no argument. She complied automatically, only remembering that she was drunk and stripped down to her underwear after he entered.
"Sorry, I didn't realize you were changing," Chuck said, averting his eyes. "I flew over after talking to Salvadore. He's really worried he may have offended you."
Sarah pulled out a chair and turned it around so she could sit down and drape herself over the chair's back, "No, Salvadore was a perfect gentleman. It's not his fault I made the choices I've made."
"Don't be too hard on yourself, you've really turned Salvadore's life around," Chuck said quietly. "The Vico family owes you a tremendous debt of gratitude."
"Yes, I can go down in the history of the Vico family as a legendary hero. A hero who is too tainted to ever be accepted as one of them," she said bitterly. "Do you have any idea what it's like to be put on a pedestal with an unbridgeable gap between yourself and your admirers?"
"That's something I have a LOT of experience with," Chuck muttered.
Sarah stared moodily back at him. Yes, it must be lonely being the legendary Signore Charles Galois. He carried the full weight of the fight against the Ring on his young shoulders. Never again would he have the luxury of vegging out and playing video games all night.
"Do you ever wonder what our lives would have been like if I had accepted your invitation and gone to Italy with you?" she asked sincerely.
Chuck was startled. After thinking a moment he admitted, "No, I honestly can't say I ever do. I'm sure things would have been completely different but I have no idea what that might have looked like."
"I've been thinking about some of my life choices today. I don't know what it would have looked like either but I'm thinking it would be a damn sight prettier than this," Sarah gestured to herself. "One thing I realized soon after I started in on a bottle of fine Irish whiskey is that I never actually came out and asked you a question that's very important to me."
Chuck raised an eyebrow and said, "Ask away, I promise to give you an honest answer."
"Okay, just once, for the record. Do you think there is any way you could ever find a way to love me again?" Sarah blurted out.
Chuck took a deep breath.
"Oh God, I don't believe I said that out loud," Sarah said, mortified. "I'm sitting here, windburned and drunk, in my underwear, asking the man I ruthlessly cut out of my life if he could ever love me again. I'm making a complete fool of myself aren't I?"
"My answer is yes," Chuck said firmly.
"Oh God," Sarah buried her head in her hands.
Chuck lifted her head by the chin and stared directly into her eyes saying slowly, "Yes of COURSE I could love you again. What in God's name makes you think I ever stopped?"
"Because you've been having a ridiculous amount of sex at your sanctuary. Because you tried to set me up with Salvadore. Because you let Antonia send me away when you questioned the Elders. Because..." she trailed off helplessly.
"What I do at my sanctuary is about inspiration, not long term exclusive relationships. I thought you and Salvadore could relate to each other and help each other heal. Loving you doesn't mean wanting to chain you to my side and jealously guard you against contact with any other man. If you couldn't trust me after one kill why would I think there's a snowball's chance in a supernova you'd be able to trust me after hundreds?" Chuck was ranting.
"I'm sorry, Chuck. Dear God there are no words to express how sorry I am," she whispered as the tears streamed down her cheeks.
"I'm sorry too Sarah," Chuck said softly. "I'm sorry I let you walk right into LaBarge's trap so I could capture him and his partner. I used you like an asset."
"Fuck you, Chuck," Sarah said quietly. "I invited you to a meeting completely blind. I was using you just as much as you were using me. I took a risk with my eyes open and I lost."
"Yeah, OK," Chuck acknowledged. "I had no right to think I could protect you from yourself. My bad."
Strangely enough, Sarah felt respected by Chuck's willingness to let her own her consequences. "Hey, can you even remember what was it like when you were clueless and I was the superspy? I've got to admit it's a lot easier now that you're a legendary spy and I'm clueless."
Chuck opened his mouth but stopped himself before the words spilled out. He shook his head and said, "Believe it or not I was actually sad when I found out you were never part of Gentle Hand. It was easier for me to think that you were a vicious traitor who had cold-bloodedly executed the most devastating terrorist attack in the history of American intelligence than the hapless dupe of an imbecile like Shaw. How fucked up does that make me?"
Sarah laughed, "OK, Captain Competitive, you have me beat there. You're even more of mess than I am. So let me get this straight. You thought I was traitorous Gentle Hand terrorist and you still loved me?"
"We've already agreed that I'm a mess, why should that surprise you?" Chuck asked blithely. "I thought you were a terrorist and I was happy you had gotten away with it. Hell you could have stabbed me in the back and my last thought would have been to hope you got a good payday for killing me."
"I'm a long way from deserving anything like that kind of devotion," Sarah said as she tried in vain to wrap her mind around it.
"You're damn right you are," Chuck agreed. "I have every right to carry a massive grudge against you for what you put me through. But I can't. Hearts aren't logical." He shrugged, then pulled her to her feet. He led her to the bathroom and peeled off the rest of her clothes, then started the shower and took off his own. He led her into the spray and gently washed her hair and body, then dried her and carried her to her bedroom. He put her in a nightshirt and laid her on the bed.
"Sorry I didn't think to bring oil," he apologized quietly. His hands moved over her sore body, gently coaxing as much tension out of her muscles as he could. He lingered on a few pressure points that made her groan with grateful release. She dozed lightly while he busied himself in the kitchen. Eventually he came back with a large pitcher of flavored water and asked her to drink a tall glass of it.
"Wow, is this how you treat women at your sanctuary?" Sarah asked, still slurring slightly. "I'm starting to see why you get so much action."
"No, this is a much cheaper version, though no less kindly meant," Chuck admitted.
"So are you gonna make me audition before you invite me there?" Sarah asked.
"If you'd like you can live there, and I'll stop inviting other women," Chuck said simply.
"Haha, that sounds like crazy dream logic but I'm really enjoying this dream," Sarah said blissfully.
"Have another glass of water, tipsy lady," Chuck said, laughing softly.
She did as he asked, then used the bathroom and brushed her teeth.
"Stay with me, Chuck," Sarah said, fading fast. "I want to fall asleep thinking I might wake up next to you."
Chuck did as she asked, spooning in behind her. Sarah snuggled back against him happily. This was the best dream ever. She never wanted to wake up.