A/N: We finish. Note the timeline's not linear.
A Comet Appears
Ooh, love of mine
Bright as the starlight shines
Into the night
Changing our whole lives
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, you trace the lines
Through space and time
Until you find they all align
You gave to me a memory
Just a melody I have to sing
— The Great Divide, The Shins
Time does not stand still, it unreels itself. Its passing impinges on the senses which strangely affects the mind.
— St. Augustine, Confessions
Chapter Eight: Coalesce
Sam dug her toes into the sand of the beach, wiggling them, enjoying the cool sand beneath the warm top sand, the top sand still remembering the full heat of the noonday sun.
Sam was remembering too, as she often did, remembering wading from the ink-dark ocean and up to Chuck on a different night and a different beach, a beach on the other side of the country. She had been reflecting a lot about time, reflecting on it, and on the way that human lives occupy it. She had never done that kind of thing before. That kind of thinking. Time had been nothing more than a marker for her, to the best of her memory — the day a mission began, the hour of a meet, the moment she was supposed to take a shot, pull a trigger. The clay of her life had been shaped by clocks, by hour, minutes and second hands, like the hands of a potter.
Or — Sarah's life had.
Sam had remembered more of Sarah's life, but, for reasons that remained unclear, those memories came back to her more as stories Sam had heard than as a life Sam had lived. Sarah remained at a distance from Sam, and Sam was happy to have it stay that way. Some of the memories, the worst, came to her like nightmares, raw and sickening, as the termination memory came the night she made love to Chuck, but they never quite seemed hers, as that one ultimately had not. Unfortunately, she had only realized that later, at Lola's, and the realization had not kept her in LA.
Sam had rented a car and driven from LA to San Diego. From San Diego, she got on a large plane and, after connections, she got off a smaller plane at Key West International Airport.
She began to build a life there, first finding a very tiny apartment (actually, just a bedroom and bathroom on the backside of a widow's house) and then a job at a French restaurant, Cafe Solo. She went into the restaurant one afternoon after noticing a sign in the window, and when the owner (and chef) came out of the back, wiping flour from his hands, and greeted her in French, she answered him in French — something she had not known she could do.
But the words were out, fluent, natural, pitch-perfect, comprehended by her and by the owner before she understood what she had done. The man, Jean, hired her there and then. She worked her first night in town and slept, exhausted, in her bed that night. The small room, decorated in pastel pillows and clashing throw rugs, still somehow seemed like hers. It was not Chuck and Ellie's apartment, but somehow the feeling of home, or her ability to be at home, had traveled with her. She thought of Chuck as she went to sleep, wondered what he was doing, how hurt he had been by what she had done, but she had feared hurting him worse, or doing worse than hurting him if she stayed.
A cruel calculation — cruel to her and crueler to him, but the math seemed to add up. Sarah was behind Sam, and Sam had no idea if or when, or how Sarah might overtake her. And who knew what hell Sarah might bring with her when she came, a hell Sam would not risk allowing to overtake Chuck.
She missed Chuck, not Sarah. And she would happily trade Sarah for Chuck.
She went to sleep that night imagining him atop her again, inside her, staring into her eyes with a surfeit of genuine emotion.
Love.
That night, later, she dreamt of drowning, ropes and buckles and cords and silken fabric — brightly colored but dull with water and darkness — twisted around her, pulling her to the bottom, the forever dark. She fought, fought, her lungs burning, her head burning, death clutching at her greedily from the deep. And then she was free, bobbing on the surface, gasping in huge lungfuls of air, determined to live, to escape death.
But the dream did not end there.
Her dream ended with a barefoot man standing before her and with her falling to her knees before him.
The scene seemed wrought with significance but she could not divine it before she woke to the rhythmic sound of the ocean, a feeling of peace suffusing her.
She got up and showered, crying a little there, mixing warm tears with hot water, and then she went down to breakfast with Mrs. Fitzsimmons (breakfast was included in her rent). Later, she took a long walk and then that evening worked a shift at Cafe Solo.
That schedule, with occasional small changes, became her life — it had been her life for two months. The only constant, other than the sunshine and sea breeze and Mrs. Fitzsimmon's biscuits, was Sam's yearning for Chuck.
Sam.
She thought of herself as Sam, not Sarah. She introduced herself that way too. Happily, although the ID that Lola gave her was for Melissa Samford, she was able to explain to everyone that her nickname was Sam, and everyone took that as a shortened form of her last name.
It was a lucky accident, and Sam took it for a sign that things would work out, as long as she did not waste away yearning for something — someone — she couldn't have.
On her second day in Key West, she remembered something else, something from a mission, but not the Brenner mission. Something from the mission before that.
But it was a strange memory because Sam remembered something that Sarah had not remembered.
Sarah had been sent to capture a rogue agent, a man named Ryker, who had managed to sell a stack of CIA secrets to the North Koreans. Following clues in chatter and a sighting, Sarah had gone to Germany, to Berlin, where Ryker seemed to be hiding.
It had taken her several days, but she eventually located him in a dilapidated building in what had once been East Berlin. As per her mission orders, she called the Berlin CIA office and asked for a cleaner team to be put on alert.
But she had captured Ryker without bloodshed. Once he had been tranqed, she called for backup to help her get him out of the building. She searched his grimy room and gathered up his personal belongings. She picked up his phone and noticed that a missed call was displayed.
She had not paid any particular attention to the number or the time stamp; she just dropped the phone into a bag with Ryker's other items. Capturing Ryker was her only job. Debriefing him and studying his belongings was for someone else, probably someone back in Langley, once Ryker was back in the States.
But Ryker never made it back. He died by his own hand while being held in Berlin. Sarah heard about it later in Langley.
And then, in Key West, Sam was entering an order on her second night at Cafe Solo, punching the buttons of the small, handheld computer the wait staff used, when the number on the Ryker's phone came back to her in a sudden burst of memory.
Sarah registered the number but without realizing it. Sam supposed that it was a reflex. Sarah had survived ten long, deadly years as an agent because she habitually noted the small things. She registered the number but without giving it any thought; and, the CIA cleaner team arrived as she glanced at the phone — that kept her from reflecting on the number at all.
Sam froze standing there, suddenly aware of what Sarah had not realized.
The call Ryker missed was a call from a number Sarah knew. It was a burner that Director Graham used, and used, as far as Sarah knew, only to contact her. Graham used it to avoid having to put anything on paper, to avoid any logging of certain calls.
Someone had used that phone to try to call Ryker, just before Sarah found him.
Sam was unsure what to make of it, what to do with the memory. She had no desire to implicate herself in any of Graham's plans. She was unsure until she remembered what Lola had told her about Graham's quickness to declare Sarah dead, his decision not to search for her, his eagerness to bury her, and put her star on the Langley wall.
And then it occurred to Sam what she might do — and she did it. It felt like the right decision, even if, as she realized, she was thinking like Sarah.
She sent one copy of the number, along with an explanation, to Lola, and she sent another to a lawyer, with very specific instructions. Sam did not think Graham would look for her, find her, but it would be good to have leverage if he did.
And if Lola ever needed any, she now had it too — repayment for the ID Lola gave to her.
Sam pulled her toes from the sand, sat back on her feet, kneeling, and idly used her hand to write a name in the sand, not one of her many names, but the one name on her mind.
She finished it with a flourish.
"Chuck?"
Sam looked up, the voice sounded unfamiliar and it made her jump.
Someone was standing over her, but the lowering afternoon sun was perched just behind the man and all she could see was an indistinct silhouette.
She put a hand up, shading her eyes, trying to see.
Chuck left Lola's apartment heartbroken but yet hopeful.
He had missed Sam by an hour.
He was going to chase her, and rush to the airport, bus stops, and car rentals, but Lola had convinced him that was a bad idea. Sam needed time to recover, to see if her memory returned, to see if that changed her mind about what she wanted.
"So, you know about her, Chuck? How?" Lola seemed less suspicious than impressed. "How?" She looked right into his eyes.
Chuck dodged the question. "I just know. Know her history as an agent. I haven't had time to assimilate detail, but the outlines, yeah, those I know."
Lola looked at him with new regard and did not ask again for an explanation.
"Ok, Well, Walker — Sam — was uncannily good at the job. That uncanniness should have worried me more than it did at the Farm. I noticed it there but I was blinded by her skills. Anyway, the job was not good for her; she was unhappy, Chuck. Deeply unhappy. Lonely.
"She didn't know that or let herself know that, during all the time she was an agent. But there were cracks. She seemed vulnerable. During our mission, she seemed different. Not dramatically, but noticeably.
"Before she left, she didn't tell me a lot about her time as an agent; I don't think she remembered more than a little, although that little is why she left you, it — "
"Made her sick," Chuck said, finishing Lola's comment, his voice soft.
She nodded. "Being with you stirred her up, the good and the bad, brought memories to the surface. But most of what she told me was about her time before the CIA, stories I never knew. As far as I knew, she was born an agent."
Chuck nodded. "So, she was Sam."
"Yes, well, she left here as Sam. Well, as Sam, but with a new identity I gave her. I will share the name with you — but you have to wait. Give her some time, time with no pressure, from her dad, the CIA or even you.
"The CIA believes she died when Brenner's plane exploded. They never even searched for her. If she wants it, she can be done with it all and put it behind her. That's what Sam intends but…"
Chuck frowned. "But we don't know Sarah's intentions."
"Right. But they're — she's — ultimately one person, not two. Wait two months, Chuck, and I'll give you the name. If she contacts me or goes back to Langley, I'll let you know. We can meet if you want, but we shouldn't meet here again. I'll be moving from this apartment soon anyway."
Chuck spent the two months working at home. He quit the Buy More and cashed in all his sick days.
He had projects that he had started at Stanford and abandoned, a video game and two apps.
By day, Chuck worked on those restarted projects. By night, before sleep, he read slowly through Sarah's file. He talked to Ellie, picking his sister's neuroscientist's brain, trying to understand Sam, her amnesia, and her recovery.
"The brain is a dark planet, Chuck. And the mind, somehow distinct from the brain, is a fragile construct. Both are adaptable in ways that we've yet to understand, both can survive terrible trauma and yet both can shatter for no apparent reason.
"My best guess about Sam, given my time with her, given what you've told me, and given the psych evals in her file, — my best guess is that she's suffering from what I'll call double amnesia."
"What's that mean?"
"It means that she, in effect, forgot Sam when she became Sarah. And then, when she took the blow to the head, she forgot Sarah too. Double amnesia. But, thanks to you, she recovered Sam before she recovered Sarah. Maybe — my theory, anyway — is that she recovered Sam first because Sam is who she is, her deepest self, her true identity, but, for some reason, Sam retreated when she became Sarah. Maybe she was already in retreat before the CIA. You said she helped her con-man father before she joined the CIA, right?"
"That's what Lola said the other night when we met. I asked her as you told me to. She believes Sam was traumatized early, and then often afterward. That Agent Walker's skills were responses to her trauma, ways of managing it."
Ellie bit her bottom lip, thinking. "For someone as open and spontaneous as Sam to become someone as closed and deliberate as Sarah Walker seems, seemed, to be…It would take shock — perhaps not one, massive shock, but a series of smaller shocks, with no recovery time…"
"I'm trying to give her time to recover, to sort herself if she can."
"That's good, Chuck, but she may never be able to sort it all, not fully or exactly. Or she might sort it and return to her old job, her old life. But she's strong; she could never have gotten this far if she weren't."
"Yeah, she is, Sam and Sarah both." Chuck looked at the floor, then back up. "I'm prepared to lose her — but I'm not prepared to lose her without fighting for her. I did that with Jill, waved the white flag, and quit the field. Even if I have to follow her into Langley, face down the CIA director, I will talk to her again."
The day after his conversation with Ellie he sold his video game. The company called him faster than he imagined was possible. He had submitted it on a lark. He suddenly had enough money in the bank to begin to design more ambitious games and to stop worrying about when his Buy More money would run out.
Sam put up her other hand too, using both to shade her eyes.
"Sam?"
"Chuck?"
The figure moved and sat down on the sand beside her.
It was Chuck. He had a large suitcase with him; Sam could see the trails of its wheels on the sand of the beach. Chuck could handle baggage.
She felt her chest tighten; her face flush. She could barely breathe. How did he find me?
He almost was as unexpected for her that afternoon, emerging from the sun, as she had been for him the night she rose from the water.
He was careful to avoid sitting in his name where she had written it in the sand.
"Looks like I've been on your mind." He gave her a sudden, happy, relieved smile. "You've certainly been on mine. Ever since I found you on that other beach, or you found me."
She reached out and took his hand and tugged him toward her. He leaned in her direction and she took him into her arms and kissed him, hard, all of eight weeks' yearning energizing the kiss. Her heart exploded inside her.
As the kiss deepened, Sam's memory opened. Sarah's memories came rushing in, blood red and shadow gray, riding Sam's rush of emotion. The rest of Sam's came too.
She pulled back, catching her breath.
She looked at Chuck, his eyes at first closed, then open, gazing into her eyes. Into Sarah's eyes. For a moment, Sam was Sarah again, as well as Sam. She saw double, two Chucks — and then he slowly coalesced into one.
She did too. One. Her long internal division was ended. She knew herself completely, the good and the bad, but with Chuck beside her, the good was uppermost.
She leaned toward Chuck and renewed the kiss, pulling him as close to her as possible.
The kiss went on and on, and when it finally ended, Chuck put his fingers under Sam's chin, tilting her face up, so that her blue eyes met his, so that he could gaze into them.
"Sam?"
She understood his question. It took her a moment to answer, a slow, wide smile claiming her lips. "Lisa." Her laugh was like a melody.
Chuck's eyes narrowed in confusion, even as her laughter made him smile. "Lisa? Another alias?"
"No, Chuck, no. No alias. Lisa's my middle name."
She grinned and kissed him again, a new woman, newly configured of old parts, ready to face her future, Chuck's hand in hers.
The End
A/N: So, there it is. A ditty celebrating the show's anniversary, and giving canon a shake. I hope folks enjoyed it. — My thanks to Smatterchoo for pre-reading and conversation.
