A/N: Here we go. What's Sarah planning?

The Missionary

So in order that you look your best
You save your money for a funeral dress
Skipped your dinner when you got the news
Maybe now you can afford the shoes

But you're alive
Each and every day you're alive
Counting every second you're alive
Knowing it'll never come again

— Wussy, Funeral Dress

Chapter Thirty: Funeral Dress

Sarah adjusted the bag in her arms and knocked softly on her own door. It opened.

Casey stood there in the doorway, grinning crookedly like a softening jack-o-lantern. His eyes were bright.

"Come in. She's in Sarah's room, on the bed. Out cold." He stepped out of the way, and Sarah could almost hear his internal, Snidely Whiplash laugh.

Sarah readjusted her bag and led Chuck into her apartment. Lately, and for the first time in her life, she arrived where she lived with the feeling of coming home. The apartment was welcoming, and warm. Not Ellie-Bartowski warm, but there was genuine warmth. Sarah was proud of the apartment, of her decor and furniture.

She walked through the apartment to the bedroom. Carina was face-up on the orange comforter. One of her stockings had fallen and was loosely gathered around her ankle. She was snoring like an asthmatic bulldog.

Sarah turned to Casey, who was behind Chuck. "Does she always snore like that?"

"You didn't know?"

"When we worked together, she rarely slept in the team's apartment," Sarah offered, without thinking. She saw Casey blink once, his version of a flinch.

"Sorry, Casey."

He grinned a bit madly. "It's okay. I know her body count's approaching the Battle of the Bulge numbers. It's not news to me. She tells me as often as she can. Her favorite pillow talk. I'm surprised she doesn't have an electronic counter over her bed in DC."

Sarah nodded, unconvinced by Casey's bravado. He might be able to live with it, but it wasn't okay. Chuck, also unconvinced, and reminded of the conversation in the car with Sarah, looked uncomfortably from Sarah to Casey and back again.

"Alright, boys, time to do this. Chuck, give that bag to Casey. I'll take care of Carina. Give me twenty minutes."

Chuck nodded and handed the bag to Casey. Casey took it and left the room. "I'll be in the bathroom," he said over his shoulder as he left.

Sarah put her bag down on the bed. She stood and faced Chuck. He realized that she was waiting for him to leave too. She reached out and squeezed his hand, and gave him a quick kiss. "Check Casey when he finishes. I want this to look right."

Chuck looked at snoring Carina. "That tranq. She's going to be alright, right?"

"Yes, no side-effects, no lasting effects. She'll wake up in the morning, groggy, but the grogginess will pass quickly."

"I'll check Casey when he's ready."

Sarah still had Chuck's hand in hers and she did not let him go. "Did that woman in the shop embarrass you?"

"No, no. I'm fine. I was embarrassed for you."

Sarah looked straight into his eyes. "I wasn't embarrassed, Chuck."

His eyes widened. She squeezed his hand again, an exclamation point. He left the room.

Sarah took a moment to watch him go, then she closed the bedroom door.

She went to the bed and began to take items out of the bag. Once they were all out and separated, she began to undress Carina, starting with the fallen stocking. She smiled as Carina twitched, and snored even more loudly. As she knew she would, she found Carina's phone in the waistband of her skirt.

Chuck sat down on Sarah's couch.

Lately, his days were often crazier than not, but today had been particularly crazy. He'd been the target of a seduction so seductive that it would have thawed Mr. Freeze. Thank God Sarah arrived when she did.

The more he thought about it, though, the more certain he became that Carina had not been trying to have sex with him, despite the sex super-saturated atmosphere she had created. She had wanted to have him in her power — that had been the real goal. Probably, as Sarah had said, so she could coax Chuck into telling her what he thought of Sarah, what he thought Sarah thought of him. He was also now confident that even if she had wanted sex, he could have resisted her. Her lasting effect on him was to help him clarify what he wanted — who he wanted. Sarah.

Carina's seduction was the second wrong that made things right for him.

And Carina's seduction of Chuck had a similar effect on Sarah. She had been jealous, and jealous enough to finally tell him what he had been wondering about, especially since their Fantastic dance at Halloween. Does she want me too?

The answer was yes.

Chuck was unsure about the path forward, about exactly how it might wind or double-back, but he was now sure that there was a path forward, and that they were on it together.

He recalled Sarah's frank look into his eyes before he left her room. At the costume shop, the owner had asked them if they were newlyweds. She reported she had a sixth sense about such things and was never wrong.

Chuck stammered and eventually said no, but the woman gave him a skeptical look.

Sarah had not said anything, she had only looked at him, and then away, and smiled a wistful smile.

Carina was a bitch and a giant pain in the ass, that was abundantly clear, but she did make things happen.

A straw that stirred the drink — hers and everyone else's.

Sarah finished slipping the shoes on Carina, the final touch. She looked at her. The sight affected her, especially after the costume shop owner's comment.

That comment had been part of the reason she told Chuck the story of her time with Carina. In the time she had been in Burbank, 'marriage' had gone from a practically foreign word to a word that sometimes crossed her mind and lingered there. She had been wondering about Ellie and Devon, about Devon's curious delay in proposing to Ellie, and Ellie's subtly increasing frustration and self-doubt. Sarah needed to tell Chuck to talk to Devon, find out what was happening, and not happening. For some reason, he seemed oblivious to the situation.

That was not the only context in which 'marriage' had crossed her mind and lingered. It had done so concerning herself. As she started feeling more at home in her apartment, in Burbank, she was becoming more and more at home with the notion of having a home. The notion was vague and inchoate, and it frightened her, and made her question her worthiness for such a thing, but it kept returning. So, too, in her dreams had baby Skipper. The feeling of her in Sarah's arms, the scent of her, at once utterly familiar and utterly new, like a destination she had arrived at and was yet to reach.

Sarah had never known a home. Hers had broken so early. She barely remembered her parents as anything but embattled and embittered. She had spent her earliest years in the No-Man's land between her mother and father. It had only been at her grandmother's where she had any sense of stability — of belonging.

Sarah was finding that she longed to belong. She wanted to belong to Chuck and wanted him to belong to her. A mutual belonging that was not freeing, not confining.

She made herself end that train of thought. Later, maybe, she would return to it, when no one was around. She looked again at Carina and examined her handiwork. She smiled at herself and turned, walking to the bedroom door and opening it.

"Okay, she's ready now; time for a change."

Casey came out of the bathroom in a tux with tails. He hummed and then broke into song, his voice a surprisingly pleasing baritone.

Going to the chapel
Going to the chapel
And we're gonna get married
Going to the chapel
And we're gonna get married

He spun in place as he sang, stopping when he once again faced Chuck. He stopped singing. "Well?"

"I'd marry you myself," Chuck said, winking at the big man.

"The hell you will. Walker'd tag me before you made it down the aisle, then she might tag you. No more white wedding." He sang the last two words with a Billy Idol snarl, clenching his fist.

Chuck stared at Casey and then let the comments, and singing, slide. He did not want to know what Casey meant.

"How'd you know my shoe size? I forgot to tell you."

Chuck shrugged. "I guessed. And those were the largest black dress shoes they had, so…."

Casey nodded once sharply, a military nod. "So…let's get this show on the road."

Just then, Sarah opened the bedroom door.

"Okay, she's ready now; time for a change."

It took about an hour to take all the photos Sarah wanted. Before that, Chuck tinkered first with Sarah's phone for a few minutes before they took the photos, then with Carina's.

He helped Casey hang the banners in the living room and cover the furniture. Then, while Sarah took the pictures, they posed Carina like a white paper doll. The veil that Sarah chose covered Carina's face well enough for it to be impossible to tell that her eyes were closed.

When they finished, Casey carried Carina carefully back to Sarah's bed still dressed, and the three of them took down the banners and uncovered the furniture.

Chuck sent the photos from Sarah's phone to Casey's phone and Carina's.

Casey sent various photos to the other agents who had worked with him when he worked with Carina. A few minutes later, Carina's phone blew up.

Casey looked at Chuck and Sarah. "You two can spend the night at my place. I put sleep stuff on the couch for one of you, just unfold it and tuck it in; the other can have the bedroom." He gave them a look like he was wasting his breath, describing those sleeping arrangements.

He undid the bowtie around his neck, let the ends fall, and took off the jacket. "I'll stay here and keep an eye on Sleeping Beauty. Don't worry, I'll keep her safe. You may want to wait until I text you to come over in the morning. It sure won't be pretty. But I'll be sure that I get photos of the first reaction."

Casey sat down on the edge of the bed after Chuck and Sarah left. He reached out and tenderly touched Carina's face, running one of his large, blunt fingers ever so lightly over her lips.

He shook his head. "Why'd it have to be you, Miller? I could have fallen for somebody else, somebody who wouldn't remind me I have a heart and then delight in shitting on it."

He had to admit, though, that she was lovely laying there, white from head to toe, on the bed — Sleeping Beauty but with the soul of Maleficent.

Casey grunted. That isn't quite fair. But it wasn't far wrong.

Chuck finished tucking the sheet into the couch and he fluffed the pillow and put it down.

Sarah was in Casey's room and, Chuck knew, the door was pushed closed but not latched.

Chuck gazed at the door for a moment, then stretched out on the couch, his clothes still on. He had texted Ellie to tell her that he was working late, maybe all night and that he had sent Sarah home to meet a friend from out of town.

Ellie did not respond, but he sent the text late, so he did not worry about it. It was not the first time he'd claimed he spent the night working at Appocalypse.

Chuck kicked off his shoes, turned off the lamp, and laced his fingers behind his head. Thoughts came and went but he made no effort to halt any, let them all slip past him. He yawned.

He heard the door to Casey's bedroom open, a slight squeak of the hinges. Odd that Casey had not fixed that. The man liked his can of WD40 almost as much as his gun.

A moment later he heard Sarah's voice. It was distant. She had opened the door but returned to the bed, getting in it. Chuck wanted to peer above the couch, but he forced himself not to do it.

"Ellie's been waiting for Devon to propose. Do you know that?"

Chuck stiffened. "No, I didn't." They were both silent for a minute. "How do you know?"

"Spy, Chuck. Besides, Ellie told me a while back. I can tell it's eating at her. She expected him to do it when they were out of town, you know, the weekend…"

"The weekend you came to town," Chuck said, supplying her finish.

"Yeah. You should talk to him. Find out what the delay is. I have a hard time believing that Ellie read the signs wrong, especially Devon's signs."

Chuck laughed. "He is a human billboard. Except I missed it."

"You've had a lot on your mind, Chuck."

He laughed again — with a hint of bitterness and a hint of self-mockery. "The weight of the world."

"I know. I never forget that, Chuck. I don't know how you do it, live with all that. Not just your mind, but all those others, all that data. What was it like, that night, when you realized you had it?"

"Overwhelming, sublime, terrifying. Like touching the face of God, or maybe the face of V'Ger."

"Who?"

"Never mind. I'll explain it another time. It's not important."

They were both quiet for a moment.

"What do you think will happen when Carina wakes up?" Chuck asked.

"She'll think she's dead."

"Dead?"

"For her, a wedding dress is a funeral dress."

Chuck snickered. Another silence stretched out. He wondered if Sarah thought that too.

Sarah spoke, her voice soft. "Why did you carry me over the threshold of Appocalypse, Chuck? It didn't seem funny to me."

He took a moment before he answered. "I thought it would be funny, but it didn't seem funny to me after I did it."

More silence.

"Goodnight, Chuck."

"Goodnight, Sarah."

Chuck wanted to go to her. But it wasn't time yet, not yet. So, he blew out a breath and reveled in being alive.

He had waited his whole life to feel so alive.

Graham was annoyed. No, he was pissed. He had tried and tried to call Carina Miller but he did not get any answer. He called an analyst and asked if he could locate Miller's phone. It was a long shot, but Graham gave him the number and told him that she was supposed to be in LA.

A few minutes later the analyst called Graham back, surprised that he had located the phone; he had not expected to be able to find it.

"I located it, sir. But Miller's — her phone's — not in LA; she's — it's — in Las Vegas."

"Where?!"

A/N: One final chapter left in this arc, Present into the Past.

Continued thanks to Neil Horne!