A/N: Nearing the end of our little tale.
A Comet Appears
Your starlit eyes, the afterglow a sign you've set us wandering
So let me ride through the night 'til love is everything
Now an age has come out of the loneliness
Your hand in mine, oh-oh-oh (your hand in mine)
The great divide
A stitch in time
Then we recombine
The way it was
Well, dust to dust
Has led us here to collide
Ooh, the blind
Collective mind of man is all they're offering
Then you bring a breath of life out of the emptiness
Your hand in mine, oh-oh-oh (your hand in mine)
— The Shins, The Great Divide
Chapter Seven: Divide?
When Ellie got home late that night, Chuck's door was still shut
She left Devon at the hospital; he was prepping for an emergency aneurysm patient who needed surgery. She had expected Chuck to still be up, but also for his door to be open, at least a crack.
The shut door was strange. It felt wrong, like Chuck was cutting himself off from her, shutting her out.
She stood by his door and listened, trying to decide about knocking. No light showed beneath the door. The sound of typing and cursing, the sounds coming from his room when she left, were gone. She wasn't even sure he was in his room. Maybe he had left?
Her knock was soft, interrogative. At first there was no response, but then she heard Chuck, his voice as quiet as her knock. "El? Come in. Please."
Ellie opened the door.
The odor of the room, shut up for hours, was gamey. Chuck's eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed. Two two-liter bottles of Mountain Dew were on the desk beside his computer, one empty, the other nearly empty, a glass empty beside it.
His computer monitor glowed in the dark, displaying only text, some kind of form. Chuck clutched something in his hand but Ellie could not see what it was; his hand was closed around it so tightly that even in the dim monitor glow, she could discern his white knuckles.
His face was illegible, but she could feel him thinking as he looked at her, and could feel his internal tensions.
He stood up and walked to his closet, took out a folding chair, opened it beside his and gestured for Ellie to sit down.
She did.
She leaned forward and peered at the screen, the black words on a white background.
It was an internal Central Intelligence Agency memo, recording the assignment of Agents Sarah Walker and Lola Bowen to a mission infiltrating an LA company, Phish and Chips. Walker was to be in deep cover inside the company, and to obtain information on suspected arms sales by P and Cs owner, Maxwell Brenner. Bowen was to serve as backup, liaison.
Ellie scanned the rest of the document and then looked at Chuck, her mouth hanging open.
"Chuck, what have you done? How are we looking at this?"
"I got inside, El. I found her. This Sarah Walker is my Sam."
"You…hacked…the CIA? — My God, Chuck, you'll go to jail, someplace where you'll never get out. Someplace like Guantanamo Bay — "
"No, I won't." Chuck spoke softly but firmly. "And I'm not still in. I'm out. I just kept this one document up, but no one is going to trace any hacking back to me. I used to do this…a lot. I'm no amatuer."
Ellie stared at him. "Used to? A lot? You mean that's what you used to do in here by yourself before college. I thought you were looking at…"
"Porn? No. You taught me differently, El."
"But didn't I also teach you not to trespass?"
"Yes, but I never took anything, never damaged anything, other than other programmer's egos. I provided a reminder that anything that one person can create, another person can uncreate."
Ellie shook her head. There was no use now in arguing about the past. Various puzzling features of Chuck's senior year suddenly made sense. "So, why keep this document up?"
"I can use it to try to find Sam. The address of the apartment she was using on her mission is there," Chuck pointed to the screen, near the bottom, "and the address of her backup, Lola Bowen."
Ellie fought with herself for a moment but then faced Chuck. "Well, then go find her, Chuck, if you can. Find out why she left."
He held up a computer drive. It was what he had in his hand.
"First, I need to tell you what I know. It'd be easier just to show you."
He plugged the drive in and began to type. The document vanished and was replaced by an ID photo. It was Venus. V. Sam. No mistake.
It was her.
But it was not her.
Not Sam.
The blue eyes of the woman in the photo were sea ice, cold. Even in a photograph, Ellie found it hard to stare into those eyes. She had not known cold could be so intense.
"You say her name is Sarah Walker?"
"Yes, although there's no record of her ever having any other name before that. She's had a lot since, different names on different missions. I found her original Company papers — and that took some serious grave-robbing: those records were buried. She signed the original papers as Sarah Walker. But I've found no record of any Sarah Walker who looked like her or who was in the right place at the right time to sign the papers. I'm pretty sure that Sarah Walker wasn't her name, her real name; it was her first Company alias. She was hired under an alias."
Chuck paused, shrugged. "It's weird. It's like she came into being as she wrote her name on those papers. But I don't think she was lying about Sam. That was her name, although I can't find any Samantha who's a candidate to become Sarah."
"So, what about Sarah?" Ellie asked. "The woman we know never looked — so hard."
Chuck's eyes saddened; Ellie thought he was remembering something. It took him a moment to speak.
"No, she didn't. Never. But — well, let me show you." Chuck typed again and several photographs together filled the screen. Ellie blinked.
Each was a photograph of a corpse. Medical school generally, and anatomy class particularly, had taught Ellie how to divide the quick from the dead. A couple of the corpses, the ones in the first photos, left to right and top to bottom, were of corpses with no marks of violence. The others all had wounds — bullet or knife or explosion — that suggested the story of their ends.
"Dead, Chuck, they're all dead. Murdered."
Chuck swallowed, then shook his head. "No, killed. Among Sarah Walker's missions were several termination missions, as they're called. These are the results, all sanctioned, performed under orders."
Ellie turned from the screen, searching her brother's face in the faint glow. "Okay, so under orders, but, God, Chuck, the woman you slept with is a killer — even if she's not a murderer."
Chuck blew out a breath. "I want to go find her, Ellie. She did these things, yes, but the orders matter. I couldn't do such things, you couldn't — but we know there are people who can, and who do, and we tacitly consent to it, we just never expect to meet those people, face to face." He gazed into Ellie's eyes. "We never expect to care for them."
Even in the emotion of the moment, Ellie caught the pun. Chuck had slept with Sam. Chuck was in love with Sam. But Ellie had doctored her, and even befriended her guardedly.
"You can live with this much death, Chuck?"
"It's what she's done, El; it's not who she is. Accident, not essence. She's killed. But the woman I held, the woman I made love to, is not a killer. There are lots of other missions, not terminations, missions where she saved innocent lives or risked her own to save other agents, assets. The terminations are not all, El."
"But even if you find her, what if she's Sarah again, now? Go back to that ID photo." Chuck did. Ellie gestured at it. "Would that woman have come to you, shared your bed, Chuck? Would that woman have even talked to you?"
Chuck stared at the photo. Eventually, he shrugged, the movement of his shoulders almost imperceptible. "I don't know. But Sam did. And that's Sam. At least it's Sam too."
Ellie sat back and gathered her thoughts. "Look, Chuck. You two had a couple of super intense, super strange days together. She was vulnerable, her memories gone. I don't deny there was something between you, but maybe what happened, maybe that was just her way of thanking you. Maybe it didn't mean to her what it meant to you."
Chuck nodded slowly. "I get it, El. I worried that was all it was. I even tried to stop it, at the beginning. And she did thank me, but it wasn't only thanks. — And, by the way, it feels really strange talking about this to you, especially in my room."
Ellie smiled; she couldn't help it. All these years, and her brother could still surprise her, make her smile. It was part of what she loved about him. She considered him again. The resolve she saw in him that morning was still there, a steel inside him that had been missing for years. He was going to go, to try to find Sam. Or Sarah. She could not stop him, not if she wanted to. And she wasn't sure she did. One way or the other, he needed to know. Part of the reason Jill demoralized him so badly was that she left him behind with no explanation, no closure.
Still…
Ellie reached out and took Chuck's hand. "Can you love an assassin, Chuck? Can you see that woman as the mother of your children? Bullets in the diaper bag?"
Chuck stared at Ellie for a moment, then dropped his eyes. "I don't know. But I love Sam and Sam is Sarah. So what does that mean?"
"God help me, Chuck, I have no idea."
He took a deep breath. "I'm going to get a little sleep, then I'm going to go."
Ellie leaned forward and kissed his cheek. "Welcome home, Chuck."
He gave her a surprised look and then he understood, the surprised look giving way to a crooked smile. "Sometimes a comet can be a good omen…"
I hope so, brother. I hope so.
Ellie stood and left Chuck staring at the ID photo.
Sam stared at the documents in her hand, then pushed them back toward Lola.
Sam was standing beside a suitcase, a different one than the one Craig brought to the apartment. It was one of Lola's that Sam asked to borrow. Sam wouldn't touch her own.
Sarah's own.
"You can't give these to me," Sam said, waving the documents. "They're your safety net, your way out, if you ever need one."
Lola pushed them back toward her. "No, Walker, — Sam, you need them worse than I do. They're clean, complete. Created by a true artist. A new identity."
When Sam had finally come out of the bathroom and Craig had moved Sarah's suitcase out of sight, Sam and Lola had talked for a long time.
Not so much about Sam's history as about her possible futures. Many of her memories from childhood had returned, but only a few of them from her time as Sarah Walker. And those memories, corpse-full, had not encouraged her to want more.
She wanted to leave Sarah Walker behind. She was adamant about that.
So, after a while, Lola woke Craig — he was asleep in her bed — and sent him to fetch the clean identity she had purchased a few years ago, when it occurred to her that she might, at some point, want to leave the CIA when the CIA did not want her to leave. After a few kisses that had them both sneaking glances at her bed, he left.
Lola then explained to Sam that the CIA already regarded her as dead. No one other than Lola had been looking for her. No one knew Lola had found her.
Sam could walk away from Sarah Walker, leave her dead and buried, and live as a new creature.
"What about money?" Sam finally asked.
"The identity comes with a bank account and there's money in it. A couple of credit cards. It's not a lot, but enough for you to get away, to start again."
Sam had looked down. "Again. It seems like all I have ever done is become someone else."
"This could be the last time, Sam." The name still felt strange to Lola, clumsy in speech, but it had been clear that Sam did not like either 'Walker' or 'Sarah'.
Sam had gone to sleep on Lola's couch before Craig returned. He and Lola tipoted to her room where they lay down together and slept themselves.
Lola wanted more than just to sleep with Craig, but she feared waking Sam.
The next day, Lola had kept the identity documents out of sight, trying to avoid putting any pressure on Sam one way or the other. Craig left to go to work and Lola followed him outside her apartment to kiss him goodbye. She gave him a look after the kiss that promised things.
Lola did not have to go to the CIA office that day, so she spent it with Sam, talking when Sam wanted to talk, and reading or watching TV when Sam fell silent. It was obvious that Chuck was on Sam's mind, preoccupying her thoughts, though she only mentioned him once or twice and did not dwell on him in talk. Lola was curious about him: what kind of man could have affected Walker, — Sam — so deeply and immediately?
But part of the mystery was the relationship between Sam and Walker. Had Chuck only affected Sam, or could he have affected Sam without also affecting Walker?
After a moment, Lola yielded the questions. They belonged to Plato or Freud, not to her. She was no specialist in divisions of the soul.
Late in the day, after dinner, Sam announced that she was going to leave the next morning. Lola insisted on her taking the identity. Sam said she would sleep on it.
That led to the early morning scene with Sam pushing the documents toward Lola and Lola pushing them back toward Sam.
It was mid-morning when Chuck knocked on the door of Lola Bowen's apartment. He had gone to the apartment Sarah Walker had used first, but no one had answered.
So, he had made the short trip to Lola's. A moment after his knock, the door opened. A small woman opened the door. She had large, intelligent dark eyes and dark hair.
She looked at him as if she had been expecting him.
"Chuck?"
He almost jumped at the sound of his name. It took him a few seconds to gather himself for a response. "Yes, I'm Chuck, Chuck Bartowski. How did you know?"
Lola smiled at him, then glanced around and reached out to pull him into the apartment. "Come in, Chuck. We need to talk."
His heart thumping, Chuck let himself be pulled inside.
A/N: Final chapter next time. Lots of Sam and Sarah, but that's not all.
