A/N: Forward.
Someplace Else
Stairs
Sarah's vision still swam, making the handwritten lines seem to bend and curl, but she was at last able to read the note.
Dear Sarah,
'Dear' — Sarah stared at the word. She'd been 'Walker' for most of the time since Seattle, and only rarely 'Sarah', but now 'Dear'. She felt the full weight of that term all at once instead of just reading through it as a perfunctory salutation. She was dear to Chuck.
Dear Sarah,
I'm sorry. Not the vacation for you that I planned. Nothing's gone as I planned, but maybe I should have expected that, planned expecting the plan to fail. — Is that a paradox?
Sarah laughed out loud. Only Chuck.
I had to keep you from terminating Clarke. I needed to know what he knows. And I needed to give you a chance to stop, to change, to free yourself. I wish a different life for you. I know how much unacknowledged sadness you carry, I know partly because I carry my portion too.
I'm sorry I've been so angry with you, so harsh. I didn't want to be but I couldn't help it. Too much unacknowledged sadness for too long, and I suppose I've been angry with you since you left Burbank, terribly angry. And I suppose I've blamed you some for all that's happened since you left. But I'm now sure that was unjust.
It wasn't. I deserved it all.
Carina and Jack taught me to understand you in ways that I hadn't before, not really, and although to understand all is not necessarily to forgive all, I've been on my way to forgiving you. How could I not, since I love you so desperately?
He loves me; I knew it.
I didn't intend to bring you here to make love to you. The plan I said I had was the plan I had. But you were too much for me.
Make love...
And Clarke showed up early.
After you went to sleep, I drugged you again, God help me! But I did and I do believe you now, Sarah, as well as trust you (remember, back in Burbank?): You are on my side. That means everything to me. But I can't let you be on my side now. Not now. And if you were conscious, I know I couldn't stop you.
I realized when you told me you loved me that I cannot resist you. I've lived in your absence for too long to withstand your presence.
Or me yours.
I was sitting up, thinking, when I heard noises outside. Clarke wanted the advantage, intended to catch me asleep. I let him creep in, and creep to the bedroom. He saw you in the light of his flashlight, and my expectation that you'd surprise him was fulfilled: I grabbed him as he stood there, shocked at finding you, and, well, we fought and I won.
After some encouragement, he told me what I needed to know.
I've given you Clarke as a gift, a bit worse for wear. You can give him to the CIA, but, please, Sarah, be what you said you were — done. Find the life you were meant to live, a life you choose, not a life chosen for you. Be free.
We won't see each other again, but I want to say — although I said it already, I guess — I love you too. Always have, always will. I wish I could have looked into your eyes to tell you that, but nothing between us is ever easy, is it, ever works out? As far as timing goes, we've got none.
None. Worse than none. Only bad timing.
I called and freed Jack. He wasn't ever in any danger; I told you the truth.
There's this passage at the end of Dante's Inferno. Dante and his guide are trying to escape the Inferno and to do it, they have to climb Lucifer himself, making handholds of his matted, bloody fur. Dante's guide tells him: "Hold on tight now, for by such stairs as these one must depart from so much wickedness." I memorized that. I've spent a lot of time thinking about that passage. Maybe I'm taking the quotation out of context, but maybe not. Anyway, I'm going now to climb such stairs.
I do love you, and I do not regret your coming into my life. You've been a blessing, a complicated blessing.
Yours always,
Chuck
Tears fell onto the page, several, before Sarah knew them as hers.
Complicated. Always.
Outside, she heard an engine, approaching the cabin.
A/N: We are heading into our final few chapters.
