A/N: More of our tale. This is a deep dive into a POV — everything here is Sarah, Sarah's, reliable or not. Details are crux.
CHAPTER FOUR
Overworld
Nearly finished dressing, Sarah froze, her hands still on the final little buttons of the blue blouse.
The clothes fit her perfectly, her size, her style, underwear included. The lacy French-cut panties, the matching pale blue bra.
The flush that cooled as she dressed returned. Bartowski knew her size, her taste.
Intimately.
And he undressed her, covered her in that sheet.
Working together in Burbank — if that was the phrase for agent and asset — he'd seen her in revealing outfits, swimwear, but he had never, never seen her naked. She had imagined it obsessively in Burbank, and many times since reassignment, but now it had happened, and she had missed it.
Bartowski's reactions to her, her clothes, were always visceral, real, complete. She learned to covet the first instant of him seeing her in anything new. Now, he had seen her in her native finery — the very way God made her, unclothed — and she had been unconscious.
Her flush of desire became a flush of anger, disappointment. Changed, intensified.
Cheated. Even though nothing had happened — obviously — after Bartowski undressed her, he had undressed her: she had been cheated of her moment, cheated of revealing herself, cheated her of the chance to revel in his reaction to that revelation, a reaction she had been anticipating for years.
Years.
"Goddamn it all to hell," she whispered fiercely as she plopped onto the bed, her hands fists.
Staring at her hands, she willed herself to unfist them, watching her fingers uncurl. She cursed again. Then she grabbed the socks folded in the chair, pulled them on violently, jammed her feet into the tennis shoes peeking out from beneath the chair. She tied them and stood, walked to the dresser, and looked at herself in the mirror affixed to it.
Her hair was pillow-lopsided, and she ran her fingers through it, rendering it symmetrical. She glared at herself until her anger became manageable.
She quietly opened the dresser drawers but they were empty. The room was empty except for the furniture. Sarah knew she could, should fashion a weapon from what was available to her — maybe remove a light bulb from the ceiling light and break it, giving herself an edge against Bartowski. Anything.
But as in Seattle when she had the chance, she did not act. She fashioned no weapon.
She left smoothing the wrinkles from her blouse.
Beyond the bedroom was a large room, both a living room and a kitchen — a long couch, two armchairs, all arranged around a fireplace were near her. Past them was a table with four chairs, and past it was the kitchen.
Above the low fireplace was a large painting, a hunting scene, but Sarah did not study it. Men, guns, dogs. To the far side of the fireplace, to her left, was a door, closed. To her right was another door, open: the bathroom.
She went inside, splashed her face with icy water. She dried with a hand towel from a stack beside the sink, then noticed a cup containing one unpackaged toothbrush, one packaged toothbrush, and a slightly squeezed tube of her brand of toothpaste.
She opened the toothbrush and brushed her teeth, ridding herself of the feeling that her tongue was gauze.
She searched the drawer beneath the sink, pulling it out part-way; it was stuck. Another packaged toothbrush was there, along with a comb, an unused Bic razor, and opened dental floss. She tugged hard on the drawer again, pulling it all the way out. When she did, she jumped. A box of condoms, large for the drawer, had caused it to stick. She fixed her eyes on the box for a moment, the internal Barnum-and-Bailey from Seattle returning.
She shut the drawer, feeling it catch on the box before the box gave way. She could hear her deep breaths.
Maybe the drug did have after-effects?
The medicine cabinet above the sink was empty, bone-white inside. The door to it was mirrored; Sarah kept the door angled so that she did not see her reflection.
She left the bathroom and walked to the front door, the far side of the large room. She opened the door and stopped, stunned by the view.
The cabin was high on a mountainside, almost above the treeline. No other human habitation was in sight anywhere in the panorama. The mountainside ran down, down, sloping down far below them, the foot of the mountain so far beneath them that it seemed to belong to another world, an underworld.
They were porched in heaven.
She did not notice Bartowski immediately, seated in a rocker on the porch, observing her reaction, her sharp intake of breath.
When she finally faced him, she was able to look at him without going completely circusy inside. Some of the self-control of her Langley encounters with him had returned to her.
It was the surprise in Seattle, his sneaking behind me — how did he do that? — that's all. That's all. And the dart. The sneakiness and the drug. I'm equal to him now, equal to interacting with him. I'm over him; I have been for a long time. It was just surprise, sneakiness, drugs. — That's all.
She now wished she had broken a light bulb and was not facing him without an edge.
"It's been a while, Bartowski. Over a year." She made it obvious that she was looking at the scar on his temple. "An eventful year."
She walked past him to the rocker on his opposite side and she sat down, keeping her eyes on him.
The morning sunlight streamed golden onto the porch, and in it, she could see better just how much he had altered. He was unshaven, but that only underscored the hardness of his jaw, that she had yet to see his smile, once so ready and warm. She had seen no hint of it. His mouth was a hard line beneath unsharing eyes.
"Eventful," he said. It was unclear whether he was agreeing or merely repeating her word.
He turned from her, gazing out into the sky, pensive. The gun was on his lap but not in his hand.
She shot her hand out, a cobra strike, to claim the gun. Somehow his hand was on it before hers arrived. Instead of grabbing the gun, she grabbed his hand.
It was warmer than she expected, harder too. Her hand stayed on his.
"Don't," he said without looking at her, still staring out into the blue. "Don't."
She removed her hand from his. "I'm not going to let you force me into...whatever it is you have in mind, Bartowski."
"He said you'd say that."
"He? Who did?"
"Your dad."
"My dad?!"
The feeling of melting became noticeable again, as in Seattle, extending up her legs, higher.
"I have him. Not here, and he's not currently in danger. But you are going to help me." He paused. "I've gotten to know him, your dad. And, getting to know him, I've gotten to know you."
She gaped at him.
"You have my dad?"
"I do."
"You are blackmailing me?" Her voice was small, human in the vast surroundings.
He frowned extravagantly. "Such a dark word between old friends, and on such a bright morning. Let's just say I'm negotiating — from a position of strength. You are going to help me."
He reached into his pants pocket and retrieved a burner phone. "But first, let's call Jack, — and then we can get to work."
