A/N: Sorry it's been a while. I will be back at this regularly now until it is done.


CHAPTER FIFTEEN


Unempty and Empty


Chuck took a moment and flipped through pages of the file again.

Then he slowly closed it. He gave Sarah a look that was momentarily regretful, then unreadable.

"Clarke is dangerous. You know that, but it's worse than you might know. He's unbalanced, volatile. He and I have...crossed paths a few times; he doesn't like me. But I have a certain value to Fulcrum, and so he's willing to put up with me. As I told you, he knows of you, generally. He fears you; he fears you more than he fears me. But that is part of my plan. As I told you, finding you here with me with disturb him, unbalance him somewhat, and that will help me to discover what I need to discover. I need you to…convince him you are really with me, that any move against me would also be a move against you."

"It would be, Chuck; I've told you. I'm on your side."

Chuck gave Sarah a look so frankly intense that she trembled. She did not know whether he was going to curse at her or kiss her.

He did neither. He stood up, walked around the room. Pacing back and forth, he kept his eyes on the floor and seemed lost in thought.

After a few moments he seemed to have reached a decision. He lifted his eyes to hers. "I believe you. Look, Jack's not in any danger. I told you the truth. I do have him, but he's in no danger."

Sarah could feel a shift in Chuck and she did not want to endanger it. She responded obliquely.

"You said you'd talked to Jack, talked to him about me. When was that?"

Sarah was almost afraid to breathe. Chuck dropped his eyes and began to pace again, but he only took a few steps before he halted again and faced her.

"It wasn't that long ago."

His tone was not hostile but it did not invite further questions. Sarah filed the answer away, and she noticed him reach up and rub the scar on his forehead.

"I don't know when Clarke will arrive tomorrow," he said, shifting topics. "He's coming because he believes I know something he wants to know. And I do. But he's going to tell me what he knows that I want to know.

"He won't want to talk in front of you, but I need him to see you, and I need you to make him believe that you are on my side, Fulcrum's side."

Sarah nodded carefully. "What did Jack tell you about me?"

He started to reach up with his hand again but seemed to catch himself, stop. He smiled, though. "He was worried about you. He told me about Reno, all about Reno. He didn't know what you could do, didn't know what you were.

"Anyway, since you dumped him at the bus stop that night, he's reformed. Genuinely. He blames himself for…"

Chuck stalled. Sarah continued, despite feeling as if hands had closed round her throat. "For what I am?" She took a moment, swallowed. "He blames himself for me being a killer?"

Shaking his head hard, Chuck replied. "No, nothing like that. What you did in Reno shook him up but he doesn't think you are a killer. I made sure he knew that you weren't. No, he blames himself for cheating you of your future, for closing off your options, so that you had no choice when Graham made you his offer, recruited you. Jack blames himself for your being unhappy."

Sarah felt her eyes sting and she held her breath, holding back the incipient tears. "It's late in the game for him to blame himself for that. Maybe if he'd worried about my happiness when I was twelve…"

She had looked down and now looked up. Chuck had crossed the distance between them silently, as silently as he snuck up on her in Seattle. She looked up and he was there, at arm's length. She gasped and lost the contest with tears; one rolled down her cheek.

Chuck extended his arm and cupped her cheek, stopped the tear with his thumb and wiped it away with a gentleness that Sarah felt to the soles of her feet. "Better late than never. Really, better late than never."

His gaze was so imbued with significance that Sarah could hardly bear it. He seemed to be telling her something, something as long and difficult as one of the Russian novels in his room.

Sarah reached up and gently grasped his arm at the wrist. She tugged his arm downward softly but insistently. His hand trailed down her cheek, down her neck, and into the open top of her robe. She tugged and turned slightly, not stopping his arm until his hand was warm around one breast.

She leaned in and kissed him and he stiffened. But then he relaxed, made a whimpering, surrendering sound, and he kissed her back. The fire between them reignited. He pulled her against him and kissed her hard. She put one arm around him and with the other she unknotted her robe, pulled it open. He slipped his other hand inside it and rubbed up and down her bare back, before his hand settled on her bottom. With it, he pressed her lower body against his.

Sarah leaned back, parted her lips from his, and she looked into his eyes, summoning a significance into hers that matched Chuck's earlier.

She held his eyes with hers for a long moment, and then she whispered, the whisper a strum of heartstrings.

"I love you, Chuck Bartowski. Always have, always will." The words were music, a tune she'd carried for years.

His hands froze on her, his eyes widened. She could see him trying to process her words.

She kissed him before he could speak, and then she leaned back again, laughing softly. "Better late than never."

He said nothing but he scooped her up into his arms and carried her into the bedroom. She sloughed off the robe as he put her on the bed.

Their earlier couplings left him unable to enter her, but he found other, glorious ways to induce her to cry his name. His devout attention caused her to weep and shake as she finished.

She could not stop either, the weeping or shaking. He held her as she went on weeping, shaking, endless days of pent misery finally leaving her body.

At some point, she slipped into sleep, cradled in Chuck's arms.


When Sarah woke, she did not feel right.

Wrong. She felt wrong.

She felt like she did when she first woke up in the cabin.

Drugged.

It was not the lovemaking that made her feel that way.

She sat up, and her head swam woozily.

Chuck was gone.

She got out of bed, using her hands to steady her as she stood, and stumbled to the door. She caught the handle, regained her balance.

"Chuck?"

No answer. The cabin seemed to be changing size and shape.

She opened the door. The large outer room had been wrecked, the furniture toppled.

The kitchen table was smashed, and all but one of the chairs in pieces.

The unbroken chair was unempty.

Randolph Clarke, his face badly beaten, bleeding but recognizable, was slumped in the chair, securely tied to it. He was unconscious, his chin pressed to his chest.

Sarah turned and saw a note thumbtacked to her bedroom door.

She rushed awkwardly to it and pulled it down, struggling to get her eyes to focus.