A/N: We begin a new arc, Sealing the Deal. As is usual, we ease in…
The Missionary
There's a problem, feathers, iron
Bargain buildings, weights and pulleys
Feathers hit the ground before the weight can leave the air
Buy the sky and sell the sky and tell the sky and tell the sky
Don't fall on me (what is it up in the air for?) (it's gonna fall)
Fall on me (if it's there for long) (it's gonna fall)
Fall on me (it's over, it's over me) (it's gonna fall)
— REM, Fall on Me
Chapter 32: Stone
Two weeks passed and Thanksgiving was near, less than a week away.
Ellie and Devon were deliriously, still floating on the silvery waters of their new engagement.
Carina's visit, it seemed, had an effect on everyone. Ellie's jealousy of Carina made Devon realize that Ellie felt more committed to their relationship, to the thought of life together, than she thought he did. She was all in and she worried that some part of him was still dithering.
So, when Carina left the apartment with Casey, Devon collected his ring and bent the knee.
Chuck and Sarah had been careful not to intrude the news of change between them the first few days after the engagement. They wanted all the focus on Ellie and Devon — but, also, neither was quite sure what to say about the change between them. They parted at night with hungry kisses and touched each other often but chastely in Appocalypse. Yet they did not clarify matters between them or allow their goodnight kissing sessions to explore past the point of no return. Each of them wanted this to work, to last, but each of them knew all that had happened, and neither wanted to risk the growing, interweaving magic now between them.
At least, that was how it all seemed to Sarah as she stood on Monday morning, thinking, waiting for coffee and pastries at Staff of Life.
Margie, less floured than usual, shot Sarah a warm, knowing smile as she worked a lump of dough. "Daydreaming there, Sarah? I bet I can guess about what — I mean who. A dark, tall, and curly coworker?"
Sarah let herself return the smile, letting hers be warm and knowing too, and felt her blush.
She did not answer; she returned fire. "And what about you? Murphy still doesn't understand how much you'd like to kneed him, does he?"
Margie's eyes bulged and she rubbed her face, smearing flour across her nose. "Why, if I didn't know it was you, I'd say they replaced you with someone else. Risque puns?"
Sarah chuckled. "An old friend of mine was in town a couple of weeks ago, and she's devoted to risque puns. She rubbed off on me, I guess."
"And you'd like to rub on someone, huh?"
The question deepened Sarah's smile, her blush, but also threw her into another reverie.
In the past, her sex life, such as it was, had never really involved anticipation. What happened on those drunken nights Carina orchestrated was not anything Sarah had looked forward to. Those nights had been about beating Carina at her chosen game, not about sex, although sex was part of the game. And, during her time with Bryce, the first time had just happened in a flurry of need after a mission. That was how every time with Bryce turned out to be: something that just happened in a flurry of need. No one caught feelings. No one used any endearments, not even in passionate moments. It was always wordless, more animal than rational. Sarah's mind and her imagination had never been engaged.
But with Chuck, despite their not yet sleeping together, her mind and imagination were not just engaged; they were preoccupied. She had never anticipated anything so much in her life. She kept trying to rein herself in, temper her imagination, and not build up her hopes beyond what the two of them could possibly realize, but she was having a hard time. Her imagination was working overtime, creative as it normally was not, except on missions. To be honest, it had never been creative like this on missions, not in life-and-death situations.
Sarah wanted this.
She desired Chuck as she had never desired before. The desire went back to that night in the car, when she had touched Chuck, touched him there. That sensation had proven permanent. It came back to her often. She ached to touch him like that again. Compared to her past, it was not a matter of more desire: it was a difference of kind, not of degree. New horizons had opened up to Sarah, pushing back all that she had known, opening up a sky above her wide and blue and deep. She felt like she could stand taller and breathe easier; she felt like she knew a poise new to her.
Margie was laughing and the sound called Sarah back to Staff of Life. "Sarah, you got it bad. Bad, bad, bad. I almost feel for Chuck. He'll have no idea what happened; you'll be a consuming fire."
Sarah smiled and shook her head. Another customer came in and so neither she nor Margie said anything more on that topic.
As Sarah left, her phone rang. She balanced her bag on the cup tray and answered the call, stepping into the doorway of the shop next door to the bakery. Her stomach sank when she saw the screen. Langston Graham.
She had not interacted with him since before Carina's visit, and since that visit, she had only interacted with him by video, Chuck with her, in Appocalypse. It had been clear when Carina left that she was not going to give Sarah up to Graham, tell him how Sarah felt about Chuck, but Carina had not contacted anyone in Burbank since she left. Casey had been growling for two weeks, alternately angry and downcast, hoping for a call he had not gotten. As a result, Sarah had no sure sense of Graham's reaction to Carina's report, whatever exactly it had been.
"Walker, secure. Sir?"
"It's the morning where you are, isn't it, Agent Walker?"
He knows that. "Yes, sir. May I ask why you are calling?"
"I need to prepare you for a video conference I want to have with you and Bartowski later today. I've decided I need Bartowski in DC, in person, for at least a few days. I need you to make sure he agrees to make the trip, and that it all goes…smoothly."
"DC? But, Director, it's the holidays."
"He can miss Thanksgiving."
"But his family?"
"You'll sell it to them too, a business trip. Very important, very last minute. I want you on a plane tomorrow. Tickets are already sent to your Agency account."
Sarah's stomach found that it had hit a false bottom; it sank further. Her spy instincts were jangling like old-time fire bells.
"May I ask why you need him there?"
"Tests. I have a replacement for Zarnow, and she needs to see the Intersect do its thing in the flesh, so to speak. Nothing painful or invasive. I've let him operate this long without bringing him here because of his situation, because of Zarnow's fate, but now I — the Agency — need to understand better how it is that he's managed to not only survive the download but to manage an almost-normal life when he's wearing the total intelligence of the United States government as a hat. And, frankly, I'm worried about the headaches you've reported. The new doctor, Astley, is hoping to help with that."
The headaches. Sarah had been reporting the headaches — because they were worrying her.
She knew that Chuck suffered from them often; they were sometimes so intense that they seemed almost to blind him, incapacitate him. He had been better the last two weeks or so, but Sarah was still worried. Losing him was now the primary fear in her life. The headaches worried her enough that she had seriously considered telling Ellie everything, so as to allow her to treat Chuck.
But Sarah had not yet brought that possibility up to Chuck, partly because he was intent on downplaying the headaches (even though Sarah knew they worried him too) and partly because, as the spy life became clearer to Chuck, he wanted his sister farther from it. He viscerally hated lying to her, Sarah knew, but he hated the thought of forcing Ellie to live a lie even more. Sarah had to admit that the possibility of a life without lies, something she could once not imagine, was now seeming more and more attractive to her too.
"Astley? I've never heard of her."
"No, she's new. I found her at another Agency and brought her in. She's been getting up to speed on Zarnow's work, as best she can."
"Tomorrow?" Sarah needed time to think, time to talk to Chuck. Maybe to Casey too. "I'll talk to him. We'll be there." Sarah's mind was spinning. Graham might be telling the truth, although he had not seemed especially interested in Chuck's headaches before. In fact, he had just piled more work on Chuck, pushing him almost daily to exhaustion. But then, Graham had done the same to her for years. Graham was not gentle with his tools.
"Good, good. I'll make sure that he has some downtime. I don't think he's been to DC; he can see the sights. You can take him if you want, or we can hire him a car, a guide."
Sarah had lived in DC, technically, for a long time. She had never seen the sights. And the thought of seeing them with Chuck, discovering her city through his eyes, did have a certain charm.
She needed to talk to Chuck. They needed to be ready by the time of the video conference.
"So, you're going to tell him the news today?"
"Yes, in a couple of hours. You might want to do a little prep." Yes, I might. "I will call you again this evening to find out how he took it and to make some final arrangements."
The phrase, 'final arrangements', made Sarah's internal jangling louder.
"Yes, sir."
Graham ended the call. Sarah stood for a moment, her heart racing, then she started quickly for Appocalypse.
She did not notice the man in the Captain's hat seated in a car across the street, his eyes on her, a small listening device pointed at her.
Graham put down the phone. That had gone well. Carina had made it clear to him that although Walker was not indifferent to Bartowski, she was still in control of the situation, still the committed agent she had always been.
He almost believed Carina. Almost thou persuadest me. Maybe he did believe her. But he had deliberately called Walker out of the blue in part to hear her unprepared reaction. So far, so good.
The trip to DC was about Bartowski, it was about his headaches. But it was about much more.
Reconstruction of the Intersect lab in West Virginia had gone faster than Graham expected, faster than he hoped. It would be up and running soon, at least the levels below ground. Once the rubble of the explosion had been removed, a big, slow operation, the corpses gathered, it turned out that there had not been tremendous damage there.
Unfortunately, Zarnow's lab and all the Intersect data and computers had been in the flattened, obliterated, above-ground section. Gone forever. But Astley had, like a high-tech archeologist, reconstructed some of Zarnow's work. A surprising amount. To do more, she needed access to Bartowski. With him in the flesh, she thought it might in time be possible to reverse engineer him and create new, working Intersects.
That thought excited Graham.
Of course, Graham was worried about Bartowski's headaches, but only in a maintenance way, tool upkeep. He didn't want Bartowski to break, but he didn't care if he hurt.
This was a matter of national security at the end of the day, something infinitely more important than the physical, mental, or moral integrity of any person.
But Graham's plan was not to bring Bartowski to DC for a few days. That was a lie. He would tell Walker the truth when he had her in his office when he could see her reaction with his naked eyes, not merely hear it or see it on a screen. The trip to DC was about Walker too. It was time for an in-person declaration of loyalty.
Efficient. Lots of birds, one stone.
The thought of a stone brought ancient tombs to mind, tombs sealed by a stone rolled over the entrance.
Graham planned for Chuck never to leave DC.
Bartowski was going to go below ground in West Virginia and he likely would never see the sun again. It was time to seal the deal, to seal the Intersect underground.
Casey was surprised when Walker called him. He'd been fixing the garbage disposal in the apartment of a new tenant, an attractive if a conventional woman named Lucy who had moved in only a couple of days before but who had already managed to kill her disposal.
"I thought it would work for lemons, you know, slices."
Casey looked at her as he put his hand down the sink drain, checking to see if all the debris was out of it. She was wearing a yellow robe, and her mention of lemons suddenly made her look like one in color, not shape. Casey smiled and looked away.
"I doubt it was you, your lemons. Sometimes these things just get rusty from disuse. Had you run it before you tried to use it on the lemons?"
"No, I hadn't, I don't think so, anyway."
Casey smiled. "I'll have it going in a jiffy. Run it once in a while, running water while you do, to keep it from freezing up."
She nodded. She was pretty in a grows-on-you way. Like that woman Helen on Andy Griffith. Casey could feel her eyes on him as he worked.
He wished Carina would call, write, send a smoke signal, something. She had left him trembling and exhausted and deeply satisfied when she left for the airport, and then she left him hanging, hanging for days and days now. Unsatisfied.
Fish or cut bait, Carina. Are we a couple or am I just another in the queue?
He tried to put Carina out of his mind, focus. The truth was that he liked this cover as an apartment complex manager. He understood disposals a lot better than he did Miller. WD40 he got; KY jelly not so much. Although combining the images of Carina and WD40 was strangely arousing. He made himself change mental channels. That channel was NSFW.
"Would you like some coffee when you finish?" Lucy asked, opening the coffee maker and then facing Casey with a shy smile.
"Sure," he said, as he flipped the disposal switch and it whirred to sudden life.
Casey had finished his coffee and said goodbye to Lucy when his phone rang.
It was Walker, and unexpected.
"Casey, you have time to talk?"
"Sure," he said, surprised by the urgent edge in her tone. She had been almost as happy as Ellie and Devon were lately — but unlike them, Casey knew that what she most wanted to happen and be happening had not yet happened. Unconsummated. He had to give Chuck credit. The kid could keep it in his pants. Walker wasn't Casey's type, but she was Chuck's. And Casey could see how she affected him. How the kid had restrained himself was unclear to Casey. Appocalypse crackled with sexual tension like a sleeve of cheap crackers although the two of them were always on their best behavior in the office.
"I just got a call from Graham."
"Shit, what's up?" Casey felt his gut tighten.
"He wants Chuck and I to fly to DC tomorrow. He has a new doctor who wants to run some tests on Chuck. She needs him there in person. We'll be there during Thanksgiving."
"That won't make Ellie happy."
"No, and I hate that, but I'm more worried right now about Chuck. Graham thinks this new doctor, Astley, can maybe help with Chuck's headaches."
"I know they've been worrying you."
"You do?" Sarah asked, surprise in her tone.
"Yeah, when he has one, you rub your temples out of sympathy, Walker. If he's miserable, so are you."
"Huh," Sarah said as if what Casey said was news to her. It probably was. Walker had changed a lot in Burbank but she was still oddly out of synch with herself. Better than before, but still…
"I don't see how we can refuse to go, but I don't trust Graham."
"Am I invited?"
"No, I assume he'll want you to stay here."
"Well, I can fly to DC too. Be there if you need me."
Sarah was quiet for a moment. Casey could almost hear her mind working. "Ok, so long as Graham doesn't task you with something that requires you to be here. You know that if you make the trip, that could come back and bite you on the ass."
"Haven't been bitten there since Carina left town. Kinda miss it."
Sarah chuckled softly. "TMI. But, really, if I need you in DC, it could almost only be to resist some plan of Graham's."
"Well, remember, I don't belong to him. I'm Beckman's boy, even if she's been shouldered out of the picture. Don't underestimate her ability to shoulder back in. Graham rates her as weak but she's not."
He paused and then shared a secret. "She's been keeping in touch with me about Overlook. She's not just ceded the op to Graham."
That made Sarah feel better; she had suspected Casey was keeping Beckman informed, but she had never asked, so as to preserve deniability. "Good. So, we'll talk again tonight after the video conference Chuck and I are to have with Graham at Appocalypse."
"Graham's gonna deliver the invite by TV?"
"Yes."
"Just remember, Walker, Graham needs Bartowski doing what only Bartowski can do, and he needs him to be willing to do it. He needs Bartowski."
"I worry he needs him the way the ax needs the turkey."
Sarah slipped her phone back in her pocket as she rode the elevator. She shook herself gently, putting on a smile for Chuck.
She did not want him to see how anxious she was.
Mattress Bob took off his Captain's hat as he walked into the hotel and got on the elevator. He rode up to the 13th floor and stepped off. The room at the end of the hall was his destination. He took out the key card and opened it.
Inside the room, Bryce Larkin was seated on the plush couch, wet hair and a damp robe, fresh from the shower. A blonde was laying across his lap, her hair wet, her robe damp too. Bryce had a hand inside the robe. He left it there when Bob came in.
"So?"
"So she got the call from Graham. Like you said she would, and almost to the hour you predicted."
A/N: And so we're off and running with the next arc, Sealing the Deal.
Our story's overarching plot is now moving back into the foreground. Characters who've been out of frame are moving back in frame.
Drop me a line, please. Love to hear from you. Look for the second chapter of Vanishing Woman on Sunday if you're following my Christmas tale.