A/N: Appreciate that you've stayed with me.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Stockholm Syndrome
Sarah woke, unaware she had slept.
The fire in Chuck's bed had blazed and blazed and blazed.
Three times she had screamed his name, a rapture she'd never known sounding through her, echoing into the valley. At first, they had been desperate, clumsy — two people nearly starved trying to feed themselves, each other.
Wolfing, ravening each other, insatiable.
Later, they had slowed, their caresses less lupine, their kisses less ravenous. As she climbed up and over the heights, transcending her body for the third time, she collapsed into a happy, dreamy, bone-satisfied slumber.
She rolled over, off her stomach. Reaching out, she disturbed the slag heap of sheets and blankets next to her, expecting to find Chuck.
The bed was empty. She reached across the pile to the other side of the bed. It was cool to her touch.
Pushing herself up, she scanned the room. It had all been a blur to her earlier. There had been Chuck and only Chuck. Everything else had receded into distant background.
The room looked lived in, unlike the rest of the cabin. Nightstands posted on each side of the bed held stacks of books — hardbacks, paperbacks, graphic novels, comic books. She recognized titles from Chuck's room at Burbank, but there were other titles too, classics, mostly Russian: Dostoevsky, The Idiot; Gogol, Dead Souls; Solzhenitsyn, The Cancer Ward; Kafka, The Castle; there also was a well-handled copy of Dante's Inferno, face-down and open on the top of one stack.
Sarah knew Chuck had read such books at Stanford, in college, he had mentioned them now and then, but they had never seemed like his books, just books he had been assigned.
One side of the room held a long desk. Several computers were on it, cords running from one to another, all attached to one very large, wall-consuming monitor. The monitor was dark, but she could hear a faint electronic hum. On the opposite side of the room was a worn-out armchair, the seat split, springs and stuffing visible.
Chuck's Tron poster from Burbank was on the wall behind the chair, above a dresser, the only touch of decoration. Otherwise, the room was bare.
Sarah started to call Chuck's name, then stopped herself — vertigo gripped her, whirling, confounded elation and despair.
She'd slept with Chuck — no, made love to Chuck. On her side of the bed, at least (not that she had stayed on one side, or even stayed on the bed), it had been love-making. It had been frantic, frenzied, yes, but still, love.
What did Chuck feel?
He had wanted her: that was beyond doubt, certain. He had been just as frantic, as frenzied, had matched her wildfire pace.
But — he was her kidnapper and blackmailer.
— How could I? How could I, a hardened agent, have let myself do this, come to this? I'm behaving like I have Stockholm Syndrome.
Except that she had been in love with her captor, had been Chuck's captive, since Burbank, long before he had taken her captive in Seattle.
— What have I done, what have we done? — Did it mean anything to Chuck?
She jumped out of bed.
— Where's Chuck's gun? Does he have another one hidden here? She looked at the long desk more closely. On the far end was a gun-cleaning kit, a cloth neatly folded beneath it. — No gun.
The desk had fold-out legs, no drawers. I haven't seen Chuck's gun since I went to take a shower. She noticed a stack of paper range targets next to the kit. They'd been used, the groupings were tight, perfect.
She ran to the dresser, carefully, quickly, searched the drawers, dizzy. Socks and underwear, top drawers. Pants, middle drawer. Shirts, bottom drawer. Just like Burbank. As she finished searching the bottom drawer, her hand struck a sharp corner.
A picture frame was face down beneath the shirts. She pulled it out, turned it over.
It was a picture of her. Burbank. She had never seen it before, had no idea Chuck had taken it. She was sitting outside the Wienerlicious, her cover job, in that demeaning uniform — a Bavarian Hooters girl. Her chin was on her hand; she was staring into space.
She fell into the picture, the moment; she remembered. She'd been ruminating, thinking hopeless thoughts about Chuck.
— Had he known? — Had he stared at the picture with similar hopeless thoughts?
If he had, the irony was exquisitely cruel. She shut her eyes, fighting vertigo.
She put the picture back. No gun.
She found the robe on the floor near the armchair and she slipped it on, shutting it carefully and knotting the belt tight.
She left the room, looked around. Chuck was not inside. She thought she heard his voice from the porch.
Moving quietly, she crossed to the kitchen. In the top drawer was an old, cheap butcher knife. She picked it up and slid it beneath her robe.
Vertigo was still twirling her. As she reached for the door, to go out onto the porch, it worsened.
Chuck was sitting in one of the rocking chairs, fully dressed. His phone was dangling in his hand. He seemed to have lost himself staring into the sky. He did not turn as she came outside, did not acknowledge her.
Something — the view? — worsened her vertigo more. She held onto the doorknob, steadying herself, half out and half in. Her heart felt like it was skipping beats.
"Chuck?"
She said his name softly, softly — barely audibly.
He closed his eyes in response but did not turn to her.
After a long silence, he spoke: "Walker, …" Her heart stopped beating altogether, she'd hoped so for 'Sarah', "...that, what happened, it...it doesn't change anything."
"Yes, it does." For once, with him, her bravery rose, despite the vertigo, her stilled heart. "It changes everything. You wanted it as much as I did, no matter what you've done, what you say."
He looked at her then, recognizing the near-echo of his own words to her.
Shaking his head: "Barstow. Since Barstow, ...it'd been there, between us, an unanswered question. We've answered it, I suppose, but our situation, it's materially the same." He held up the phone. "I still have Jack, and you are still going to help me."
She stepped out, closed the door with both hands, feeling the cold metal of the knife against her breast. She inhaled slowly, exhaled. She walked into the path of his outward gaze, forcing him to look at her.
"Chuck, I'll help you. I promise. Let Jack go. You don't have to coerce me." She caught his eyes and held them, hazarded a small smile, letting her heart speak. "And now I won't have to pretend to be your lover."
His eyes narrowed, his voice sharp. "But if you help me, without coercion, you won't be pretending to be a double-agent, you will be one. And what about your precious CIA, your sacrosanct orders? Agent Walker, disobedient — to the point of treason?"
The words were out before she knew she meant them. "I'm done, Chuck. No more CIA. No more orders." Her heart re-started, a decided thump, thump. "I'm...with you, for you. From now on, I'm on your side."
For the first time in years, she felt like she was in agreement with herself. Maybe that is what freedom is.
She retrieved the knife from her robe, holding it out with her thumb and forefinger, and dropped it, clattering, onto the porch. "Done."
He dropped his head for a long moment, kept his eyes from her as he stood, then stooped and picked up the knife. She noticed his gun in the waist of his pants.
When he stood again he looked pale but resolute.
"The CIA believes you are dead, Walker. I engineered that. When we are finished here, after Jack calls, like him, you will be free too, really free — of course, you can always go back to DC, and tell the Director what happened, and start your still-life up again." He shrugged, frowned. "Or you can leave here and start again, a new life, a real life." He swallowed. "But, either way, it won't be with me."
