A/N: More of the Sealing the Deal arc.
The Missionary
There's the progress
We have found a way to talk around the problem
Building towered
Foresight isn't anything at all
Buy the sky and sell the sky
And bleed the sky and tell the sky
Don't fall on me (what is it up in the air for)
Fall on me (if it's there for long)
Fall on me (it's over, it's over me)
Don't fall on me
— REM, Don't Fall on Me
Chapter Thirty-Three: Separation Anxiety
Sarah looked at Chuck as he looked out the plane window. She knew he had not often flown commercially and so she could understand his interest in all that was happening, but she also knew that his interest was, to a degree, forced. He was afraid and she was afraid for him — and for herself.
There had been no declining the trip to DC. She and Chuck had talked through various strategies but none accomplished anything more than delaying the inevitable. To refuse to go would cause Langley to come to LA in the form of CIA teams, and who knew how that might end? Graham would not tolerate open-faced insubordination. His response would be quick and violent. Better to hope that by doing as he wanted, traveling to him, he would do what he promised. Dr. Astley would run tests for a few days, she and Chuck could take in some of the city, and they could return to Burbank no worse for wear, and perhaps better, if Astley could do something about Chuck's headaches.
Sarah had explained all that to Chuck, but she had also been honest about her fear. In DC, they ceded home-field advantage to Graham and put themselves substantially at his mercy. Graham was not famous for his mercy.
All that frightened Chuck, Sarah knew, although he downplayed his anxiety. His headaches had been better lately — but they did worry him and he was having a hard time keeping their symptoms from worrying Ellie, who had become increasingly concerned about Chuck's health. That made him want to go to see Astley. Sarah suggested again that they tell Ellie what was really going on, and involve her in the Intersect, but Chuck again resisted. He did not want his sister exposed to more danger than simply being his sister exposed her to. For her to come to know about the Intersect would be massively to increase her exposure to danger. Sarah thought that how much danger Ellie was exposed to for Chuck's sake should be Ellie's call, but Sarah had not argued with Chuck. The death of Zarnow and Zarnow's mother haunted Chuck; he had not shaken the specter of others sacrificing for him. And, though Chuck hated each time he had to lie to his sister, he quelled from the thought of having to admit all the lies, to admit how often and for how long he had been deceiving her. To tell the truth, Sarah quelled from that too. Ellie wronged was a target-seeking natural disaster Sarah would happily avoid.
So, Sarah let Chuck look out the plane, pretending it was only curiosity and not also anxiety that had him staring at the tarmac.
Ellie had accepted the trip without any protest, but she had pulled Sarah aside when Chuck made a trip to the store to pick up some travel supplies
"Sarah, are you two together?"
Sarah had not been sure what to say. Yes and no? Closer?
"We're doing better," was what Sarah eventually answered, not quite meeting Ellie's eyes.
"But you haven't slept together?"
"Ellie!"
"I'm not fishing for details, play-by-play, Sarah. I can see a difference in Chuck. He's wanted you since I've known you. I knew it. But he seemed to be fighting it, hiding it from you and from himself. But now, now he's not hiding it. He's Chuck, so he's sure not flaunting it. This is a man who is PDA-averse, remember. But it's going to happen, isn't it? All of it, him and you? You're over the co-worker thing?"
Sarah could not keep from smiling. She had already set out the lingerie she carried into the Buy More that first day. She had kept it folded in a drawer, at first not sure why but later hoping that she might be able to wear it for Chuck. Her plan was to pack it and wear it in DC.
"I'm definitely over the co-worker thing. I'm hoping it's going to happen, yes."
Ellie grabbed Sarah and hugged her. "You're good for him, Sarah. Never forget that. You rouse him, make him a better man. Even when he was fighting it."
Sarah was still not sure about that, but she hoped it was true, that she could affect Chuck for good as he affected her.
Sarah sat back and checked her seat belt. Chuck sat back too, looked at her, and smiled. He surprised her by taking her hand. Her heart swelled in her chest. He kept her hand and looked back out the window as the plane began to taxi.
Sarah took a deep breath. They were committed now. It made her feel less worried to know that Casey would fly to DC later that afternoon and that he would be there as backup. She had gotten used to the thought of him being there, ready to help. And Graham, if he were planning something, would not be planning on Casey following Sarah and Chuck to DC. Casey was Sarah's secret weapon; she crossed her fingers that she wouldn't need him.
Mattress Bob pulled his seat belt tight.
Bryce Larkin was seated across from him in the plush jet. They had arrived in a limo and boarded quickly. The blonde stayed behind in the hotel room, of no more apparent interest to Larkin than the hotel robe she was wearing. He left both in the room.
Bob hardly knew what to make of his time with Larkin. When Larkin first came to Bob's house, on the fateful night that Sarah Walker was there, Bob had underestimated, well, everything. Bob had come to understand how much he had failed to understand that night, not just about Walker, but about Larkin.
Especially about Larkin.
Bob missed that house of his, that life, the women. But if he had not run with Larkin, when Larkin told him to run, he would not be on a luxurious jet, heading to DC; he would be in a cold jail cell somewhere, awaiting trial for weapons smuggling. He was better off where he was, no doubt, even if Larkin sometimes creeped him out. Like in Mexico. Most of the time, Larkin was what he seemed that first night, a smug, smiling pretty boy — but he had moments when he seemed to change, to become inhuman, hard, cold, and calculating. Not a villain exactly but someone, something, beyond good and evil. Outside the reach of moral categories, the way a thundercloud or blizzard was.
But Bob had to admit that Larkin was eerily right, never wrong, about things; it was like he could see the future, like he was a prophet. And right now, the future seemed to center on Chuck Bartowski and Sarah Walker, although Bryce had yet to share his vision of that future with Bob.
The thundercloud, the blizzard, was following Bartowski and Walker to DC.
Bob took off his captain's hat and closed his eyes. It would all make sense — eventually.
Casey was about to close his suitcase and get an Uber to the airport. He was glad Walker asked him to back her and the kid up in DC. Graham couldn't be trusted.
But Casey also wanted to see Carina. He texted her to tell her he was coming but she hadn't responded. Not yet, anyway. It was possible she was on a mission. She was supposed to go to Mexico, to pursue Tyger and CJNG soon. Maybe she was already gone, maybe she had gone dark.
He didn't know. He closed his suitcase and picked it up, walked to his door, calling up the Uber app on his phone. He opened the door to find Lucy standing outside, hand up, about to knock. She was wearing a pair of old bibs over a white t-shirt and white tennis shoes. She gave him a warm smile and he smiled back.
"If you need help with the disposal, you'll have to call the office. I'm going to be out of town for a couple of days. They'll send someone."
She frowned. "No, the disposal's fine. I run some water and give it a little spin every morning and it seems fine." Casey was struck, more than before, by how pretty Lucy was. A person wouldn't notice her, or turn to watch her necessarily — not like Carina — but she grew on a person. There was something comfortable and comforting about her prettiness. It concealed no serrated edges. "I was coming to see if you wanted to take a walk, maybe grab a coffee or a sandwich since it's almost lunchtime. But," she gestured at his suitcase, "I can see you're leaving, and you just said so."
"When you get back?"
She smiled that comfortable smile. "Yes, I'd like that. Have a good trip, John, and be safe."
"Thanks, Lucy."
Carina got out of the dusty Jeep, looking out across the desert landscape with her binoculars. She'd been in Mexico for two days and driving most of the second. The man who was supposed to introduce her to the cartel lived in hell-and-gone, that was for sure.
She saw the house in the distance. It looked empty, although an old pickup was parked next to it.
She wished she had been able to talk to Casey, but her own stubbornness, and the suddenness of the op, kept her from it.
Walker's whole nuptial prank had unsettled Carina, as had the 'honeymoon' afterward. She had already been sleeping with no one but Casey, although no one else knew that and she lied to him about it. But now she was having not just feelings, but fantasies. White dress fantasies.
Damn it, Walker. You did this to me.
No one seemed to be stirring around the house. It looked safe. Safe enough. She swung back up into the Jeep and headed toward it along the dirt road, dust billowing behind her.
Chuck followed Sarah into the DC hotel room. She turned to face him as he closed the door.
"Are you comfortable with us both staying in one room, Chuck?" They both knew what she was asking. He blushed, his ears turning bright red.
"Yes, but are you?"
Sarah had reserved two rooms, in case Graham checked, though Sarah did not expect him to do so. Carina should have been convincing. And Sarah made the reservations at the last minute, just as they left the plane.
Sarah pulled Chuck toward her — he had her bag in one hand, his in another.
"C'mere, Mr. Baggage Handler. I'm not just comfortable, I'm excited." She let him see the pent-up anticipation in her eyes.
She felt him tremble and she trembled too, an echo of his. "We just have to go meet Graham. After that, dinner, and then we…come back here."
"Why can't Graham wait?"
"He's got Astley there with him. She wants to meet you and set up a schedule with us. But we're supposed to have quite a bit of time to ourselves. This will all work out best if we comply with Graham, apparently happily. So, we let him call the shots but we'll be careful."
"Okay." Chuck gave her a kiss that threatened to become a wildfire. They both pulled back, knowing how close to the edge they were.
"Let's get this over with. I confess to a morbid curiosity about Langley."
Sarah nodded, looking at him seriously. "Okay, and remember, once we're there, we're no longer…whatever we are." Sarah glanced away.
Chuck caught her hand. "Boyfriend and girlfriend, I believe."
She felt her own smile all over. "Me too."
Langley was a behemoth of a building. It seemed to be impressed with its own weight and bulk. Chuck had seen pictures — he had a head full of pictures. But all were external. He had no pictures of the insides.
They were not at the front entrance but at the rear entrance, as Graham had told them to do. Chuck was wearing a hat and had the collar of his jacket turned up. He felt very much like a spy.
He'd seen movies with scenes that took place inside, supposedly, but he was sure those were sets. As he and Sarah got out of the taxi, careful to get out on opposite sides, he gazed up at the building the way that Frodo must have gazed up at the Black Gates of Mordor.
The Watchful Eye of Graham.
He swallowed hard. In a way, he was the Ringbearer, the Intersect. He was going someplace he had never been but in some way, he was going home.
Sarah looked back at him but did not wait for him. He circled the back of the taxi and caught up with her, jogging a bit. She gave him a look and made sure he kept his distance.
They went through the doors and were almost immediately met by heavily armed guards and metal detectors.
No one seemed happy to see them. No one seemed to recognize Sarah. There were only frowns all around. Chuck kept his head down.
"Agent Walker, reporting for a meeting with the Director. This," she gestured to him offhandedly, "is my plus one. I assume the Director left instructions."
The massive, orc-like guard nodded slowly as if he was made of granite and might crack if he moved quickly. They passed through the metal detectors and into the building. They had walked a few yards toward the elevator when a tall, gaunt woman in a white lab coat stepped out of an office door.
"Agent Walker?" the woman asked, but her eyes were on Chuck.
"Yes, can I help you?"
The woman's eyes on Chuck's were as intent as a hawk's. "I'm Dr. Astley. I'd like to take…our guest…with me for a few minutes, to take some blood, so we can run labs ahead of tomorrow. It won't take long."
Sarah was unsure what to do. She had not expected anything to come of this initial visit, other than some posturing by Graham, attempts to intimidate Chuck. She had not expected Astley until tomorrow. Sarah glanced at Chuck.
"Go on," he said with a slightly forced smile. "I'd rather you missed my fear of needles, to be honest. It might undermine our working partnership if you heard my little screams."
Sarah tried to smile good-naturedly in response. "Okay, I'll go on and talk to Graham." Sarah shifted attention to Astley. "Will this take long?"
"No, not long. Ten minutes. I'll bring our guest to you once I finish. I have things ready in this office."
"Okay, ten minutes," Sarah said, underlining it. Astley gestured for Chuck to go through the door she had exited. He did.
Astley nodded to Sarah and followed him, closing the door. Sarah took a deep breath and walked on toward the elevator, a new urgency in her steps as if hurrying to Graham's office would hurry Astley through the procedure.
Chuck walked into the office. There was a chair of the sort he associated with doctor visits, a chair with an enlarged arm, made to rest his arm on while blood was drawn.
He really did hate needles. And there were needles on the desktop next to the chair. Astley gestured to the chair much as she had to the door. Chuck sat down.
"Take off your jacket and roll up your sleeve, Mr. Bartowski." His name sounded strange coming from the vaguely vulturish woman.
"Alright. I hope you're good at this. Some nurses have told me I'm a hard stick, they have to chase my veins. That," he said as he put his jacket in another chair in the room, "hurts."
"I'm very good at this, don't worry."
Chuck sat down and extended his arm. She put a rubber tourniquet around his arm, tight, and she looked closely at the inside of his elbow. "No problem. Make a fist a few times, please."
Chuck squeezed his hand a few times, trying to keep from looking at the needle as the doctor prepared it. "Alright. You'll feel a small pinch."
He did. He glanced at the needle, not meaning to but unable to help himself. He noticed something wrong. She was injecting him with something in the needle, not extracting blood from his arm.
She looked up and into his eyes and he felt a burning sensation in his arm and a freezing one around his heart.
"Hey," he said weakly in protest, slumping to the floor as the sky somehow fell on him, indoors.
Sarah entered Graham's office and found him behind his huge desk, dressed as usual in a gray three-piece suit. He was standing as she entered.
"Welcome home, Agent Walker. I assume it's cold outside."
She bit her tongue. "Yes, it is." She unzipped her jacket as she spoke. "I was surprised to find Dr. Astley waiting for us, for Chuck." She sat.
Graham smiled and sat too. "She's been very eager to meet Bartowski, to get to work. She wanted to get the preliminaries out of the way so that tomorrow she could begin Intersect testing."
"She thinks she can help with his headaches?"
"She does. She's hopeful about that in particular."
"Good," Sarah said, careful not to let on how much that pleased her, how hopeful she was that he could be helped. She had meant it when she told him she was always aware of the weight he carried.
Graham looked at her closely. "What do you make of your…partner, now that we can talk face-to-face and without him in the room?"
Sarah felt the question for what it was and she summoned all her deep cover experience, and lied, making sure she sounded clinical, detached. "Bartowsk's fine. A bit overwhelmed by the necessities of the field, green, you know? But he's learning. I tolerate him, even like him enough to keep him happy. Disliking him would be disliking a puppy. His relationship with me replicates some features of his relationship with his sister. But the tone is professional, not personal."
Graham kept his eyes on her, nodding. "Very good. Are you ready to be reassigned?"
Sarah's throat constricted but she made herself speak. "Reassigned?"
"You are too important to me for you to be indefinitely in an office in Burbank, California. I need you back in the field, back in deep cover. Bartowski needs to learn to work without you."
"But we're a good team, sir, and, as I understand it, I'm not just working with the Intersect, I am protecting the Intersect. I've taken that as my primary task. It seems important enough to me, given Bartowski's importance, his strategic, tactical importance to the Agency"
"Well, yes, but so far as I can tell, no one seems to have any suspicion of the Intersect's existence. Larkin did us a backward favor when he destroyed the facility. He made it seem like the project was dead."
"But it is dead, right, I mean, other than Bartowski? The Intersect is dead, except for the living one?"
Graham took a moment. He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his desk. "Right now, Agent Walker, Dr. Astley is transferring Bartowski to the new Intersect lab. He will continue his Appocalypse work there, while Astley studies him. As of a few moments ago, you are no longer Bartowski's protector."
Sarah felt bile rise in her throat. But she could feel Graham's eyes on her. One wrong reaction and she might not leave Langley for a long time. She knew for a fact there were cells in the sub-basement. She had interred prisoners there, prisoners who had never been charged with a crime, much less tried and convicted.
"Oh," she allowed herself to say, "that's unexpected. But I understand. What is my new assignment?" She managed to sound as she needed to sound. She was not the woman she had been, but she still had that skill set.
She would save Chuck. But she would have to save him later.
First, she needed to get out of Graham's office, out of Langley. And then, she had to figure out where they had taken Chuck.
A/N: This will likely be the last chapter of The Missionary before Thanksgiving, so Happy Thanksgiving if you are celebrating.
