A/N: Our third arc reaches its conclusion.


The Missionary


The smell of hospitals in winter
And the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters, but no pearls
All at once, you look across a crowded room
To see the way that light attaches to a girl

And it's one more day up in the canyons
And it's one more night in Hollywood
If you think you might come to California
I think you should

— Counting Crows, A Long December


Chapter Sixteen: Warehouse Blues


Sarah watched as Chuck slipped into his apartment.

The windows were all dark there; Ellie and Devon must have been asleep. The concrete step in front of Sarah's apartment was cold beneath her bare feet. She had no idea why she had forgotten to slip on shoes before going to Casey's, or why she hadn't noticed on the way to his apartment.

But she knew it had something to do with the man who had just disappeared from view. The man it was her self-assigned mission to protect.

She now knew that she had genuinely wanted him that first night, but that she had hidden that desire from herself — refused to know it, even though it shaped most of what she did that night. She would not have pulled the trigger. She knew that now as she stood there, her bare feet icy, under a mostly moonless LA sky.

She needed to tell him that, but she did not know how to make him believe her. She had only recently come to believe it herself — she had suspected it until he said her name, then she knew. His use of her name had her walking on air, so she had not noticed her shoelessness. Despite her cold feet, she stood in the dark for a while, just breathing. Chuck had been concerned about her, concerned enough not only to search for her through the windshield of the van but enough to back-burner an Intersect vision, his probable knowledge of Mattress Bob's warehouse. It didn't mean that he had forgiven her; it didn't mean he ever would forgive her. But at least the antagonism between them had diminished. It would be easier for her to protect him if he were not stonewalling her constantly, deafening her with targeted silence in the long hours at Appocalypse Enterprises.

Sarah was an old hand at controlling herself, and her desires. Diminishment was one strategy, denial another. She could control her desire for Chuck. It was important that she do so, not because he didn't reciprocate it — although he didn't — but because it might interfere with her mission. Chuck's aliveness, his goodness, were her reasons for protecting him, not her desire for him. If he could back-burner an Intersect vision for her, she could back-burner her bodily hunger for him.

She laughed to herself, recalling Casey's annoying talk of a lower abdomen litmus test. If Sarah had run one of those, it was on Chuck Bartowski, not on Bryce Larkin, and it had turned — lavender.

Maybe I am funny.

She opened her apartment and went inside, locking the door behind her. She looked around at the apartment, hers, and at the boxes, the clutter. She was too exhausted to do anything about it. She gathered up the coffee cups that she and Chuck used, carried them to the kitchen, rinsed them out, and put them in the dishwasher.

The meeting with Graham and Beckman had been long but unproductive, at least as far as Bryce Larkin's resurrection was concerned. Graham seemed to be unconvinced that it was Bryce that Sarah saw. Beckman did not seem to know what to think.

Sarah was glad Casey stepped up for her, telling Graham and Beckman that he believed her. Plans for a raid on Mattress Bob's warehouse had been worked out, at least. Casey was going to pick Sarah and Chuck up outside Appocalypse and they were going to meet a fully trained and equipped NSA team.

Bryce Larkin is not dead. She was sure of it; Bryce had been in Mattress Bob's den, the original Bryce, not some duplicate. It was not just voice or tone, it was the body language too, the way his posture spoke, his comportment. She did not need to see him for long to recognize the style of his movement, of his stance, of his gestures. She had learned long ago, first from her father and then from her instructors at the Farm, that each person's actions all embody a melody, a tune, that allows you to recognize them, even if you can't see the person's face or hear their voice. That melody, that tune, was what had to be mastered not only for identification but also for imitation. The gifted mimic, and spies often needed to be gifted mimics, could not only hear the melody or tune of another person's actions but play that melody or tune in theirs.

It was Bryce, at Bob's, she was sure.

Sarah's attempt at an honest self-inventory in light of that fact found little. She was largely unaffected. Neither his death nor his rising from the dead provoked deep emotion. Lingering anger and a slight curiosity were what she felt, all she felt: Bryce had abandoned her and she did not know why. But even at the time of the abandonment she had not felt especially wronged. Something between them would have needed to be real, to be right, for her to feel wronged.

She realized soon enough that nothing was happening between them except what happened in darkened rooms: quick, intense unromantic aerobic exercise. It left her breathless but not in love.

She had saved Bryce's life a few times; he had saved hers a few too. But she was confident that she could treat Bryce as an enemy. The sadness Sarah confessed to Chuck had been her companion long before her involvement with Bryce, and so even longer before his 'death' — he had not been the cause of her sadness.

She still had no bed. She had taken the newspaper sales page to the office intending to buy one that afternoon, but that page had initiated a different kind of trip to Bedroom Dreaming. She shook her head ruefully. She would not be buying her new bed from Mattress Bob. Luckily, she had bought some bedclothes earlier, in preparation for the move and for buying a bed, and although they did not remotely fit the couch, some determined tucking and folding turned the couch into a bed for the night. She turned off all the lights except the lamp by the makeshift bed.

She reached under her sweatshirt and exited her bra, eventually working it out of one sleeve like she was Houdini escaping from a straitjacket.

Bra on the floor, she stretched out on the couch and stared up at the ceiling, the unfamiliar pattern of light and shadow on it.

Outside, faintly, she could hear the gurgle of the fountain and it lulled her to sleep.


Chuck stared at his ceiling, unblinking.

He was trying to sort the night, the mission to Mattress Bob's, the anxiety he had felt the entire time — not just from the moment Sarah went into Bedroom Dreaming, but from the moment he had seen her in that romper, those heels. Exposed. The anxiety had tightened until she was back in the van, and it was not gone until she came out of her bedroom in sweats, the romper gone.

That woman affected him like no other. Jill could not compare. But Sarah was who she was, what had happened between them had happened.

She asked if they could get past that night, their date.

He didn't think he could, or that he should. Unforgivable.

He sighed and rolled onto his side.

Two memories of Sarah's face rose before him — the flash of surprising hurt after his threshold remark the first day at the office, the brief, palpable vulnerability when she told him earlier that night she had been sad for a long time.

Guilt and sympathy welled up in him as he remembered. Damn. He capped the responses off and rolled over onto his other side.

She tried to kill me, he told himself as if he had forgotten that.

And now Bryce Larkin is back in my life.

Thinking of Bryce exposed the hole in the Intersect. It was as if Chuck mentally shouted Bryce's name and got back nothing but an echo.

Bryce…Bryce…Bryce…

Nothing. It made no sense. Radio silence.

Bryce Larkin. Chuck clenched his teeth.

Had they ever really been friends? Over the years since Stanford, Chuck had wavered on the answer. Sometimes — most of the time — he thought no, but sometimes he thought yes, maybe.

And Sarah and Bryce had been lovers.

Chuck was sure of one thing, whatever was true of the past.

I hate Bryce Larkin.


The next morning dawned bright. Echo Park sat basking in the early morning glow, the fountain gurgling with added exuberance, night gone.

Ellie was standing in front of the apartment, robed and slippered, sipping coffee and letting the sun, not creamer, supply her vitamin D. She was also hoping to catch Sarah before she left for work. She knew that Sarah normally went in earlier than Chuck, and she wasn't sure if that plan would remain in place now that Sarah was their neighbor. It would make more sense for them to carpool, but their strangely tense relationship made it doubtful that they would.

Sarah's apartment opened before Ellie's cup was empty. Sarah started when she saw Ellie, then recovered, smiled, and walked toward her. "Hey, neighbor!"

"Hey, yourself, neighbor! Settling in?"

Sarah shrugged and smiled. "Some. I have to order a bed today and have it delivered. Luckily, Casey will let the delivery guys in."

Ellie took a final sip, supercilious. "You and Chuck — you're awfully chummy with that big guy. I got up last night for a glass of water and saw the two of you go over there…" Ellie made no particular effort to hide her nosiness.

Sarah stiffened a bit. "Oh, yeah, well, Chuck and Casey have become friends. And Chuck and I had a late night at the office. Our boss was demanding a pitch for the new app, and we were brainstorming. When we got back, I needed to ask Casey a question about the apartment. I texted and he told me to come over. He hates technology."

Ellie laughed. "No surprise there. Every time I see him with his cell phone it looks like Og discovered fire."

"That's funny," Sarah said, chuckling at the image of Casey's face lit up by his phone.

It seemed like Ellie accepted the story, but now Sarah needed to let Chuck know it in order for it all to stay straight. This was the hard thing about moving in. She wanted to do it, and it gave her advantages in protecting Chuck, but it also called for an ever-increasing multiplicity of lies, lies that not only she would need to keep straight, but Chuck and Casey too. Living in deep cover meant living two lives simultaneously, lives that had to mix, and yet lives that had to be narrated separately.

It was maddening.

Ellie walked closer to Sarah and sat down on the fountain's edge. Sarah kept standing. Ellie looked up at Sarah.

"So, how are you and Chuck doing, working together? You looked, I don't know, kind of chummy last night."

Sarah twisted her lips to one side. "I think we're doing…better. That meeting, that date that morphed into a non-date," God, did it ever! "that's been a problem for us. It's hard to make professional a relationship that started personal, harder than the other way around, it turns out. It's like ringing a bell you can't unring. Trying to be professional seems like a personal refusal — if you see what I mean."

Elie looked past Sarah at the door to Ellie's apartment. "Actually, I do. I met Devon at med school, the end of a term, but we weren't in any classes together that term. We — well, we didn't take long, you know, as a couple, to couple." Ellie blushed, unsure why she was sharing so freely. Maybe it was repayment for being so nosy. "I wanted that man. — And then, just like the very next day after our first time, we started a new term and found out we were lab partners in an anatomy class. The med school didn't, couldn't prohibit students from dating, but it was unofficially frowned on. Med school's hell already without personal issues. So, we tried to keep our relationship out of the class, the lab, but it was just weird. Dissecting a cadaver with a man I'd just slept with. Weird."

"Good word," Sarah said, nodding. "Weird. It's been weird at the office. But I feel like maybe we made some progress last night. We talked. Not much but a little. More than we had since the fateful date. So…" Sarah shrugged hopefully.

"What, exactly, do you want to happen with my brother? I confess, Sarah, that his attitude toward you puzzles me — he dances across the double yellow line between getting along with you and wanting to get away from you. And you say you want to just be co-workers, but you also seem to…want that man." Ellie echoed her own earlier words.

This time, Sarah blushed. "I told Chuck we needed to be friends for professional reasons, Ellie. Not personal ones. I do like your brother, but it's sort of like what you said about med school being hard enough. This new job, this new town, new apartment, these new friends, it's all hard enough without having to negotiate a workplace romance. And, I think Chuck's attitude is confusing because I confused him on that date. The gear shift in the middle of it — I think that mortified him, really mortified him, and he's sort of stuck there."

Ellie nodded. "That makes sense, especially after Stanford, and what happened there. — Do you know anything about that? Chuck's had a lot of lessons in mortification. Stanford, Buy More, now you." Ellie kept her tone gentle; she was commenting; she wasn't accusing Sarah of anything.

Sarah's face lengthened anyway. "He's mentioned Stanford, the woman there." Sarah paused. "But I don't know the details. — Part of our problem is that I suck at apologies. I feel like I have to apologize for that night, but I also feel like trying to apologize will tangle us up in it all again, that one or both of us will say something that shouldn't be said. Something that'll make things harder, not easier."

"Well, I won't presume to know what you should do," Ellie said, standing and turning, brushing off the back of her robe, and then craning around to check it.

"You're good," Sarah offered. "But that's why I didn't sit."

Ellie faced Sarah again. "You know, Sarah, bad luck in the past doesn't necessarily mean bad luck in the future. Not all office romances are doomed. Look at me and Devon. We survived anatomy and here we are." Ellie leaned close to Sarah. "I'm expecting a ring any day, and I don't mean a door-to-door salesman."

"You mean, marriage?"

Sarah almost stumbled on the word, it was so distant from her own normal vocabulary. The last time she had thought about the word, the only time she could remember since the Farm, was when Chuck made his joke about the threshold of Appocalypse.

Ellie's eyes gleamed although she frowned. "Yes, but Devon's been slow getting around to it. I expected he would do it when we were out of town, you know, the weekend you arrived. But, no. And since, he's not even hinted at asking. When Chuck was little, a little boy, pre-teen, he was already planning his engagement. He had this whole diagram and even staged it all in his room with Hot Wheels cars my dad gave him. Morgan helped him plan it." Ellie had drifted briefly into memory; she pulled herself back to the fountain. "Anyway, I guess Chuck was an oddball. If Devon has a plan, he missed his calling as a spy, because I can discover nothing, no diagrams, no Hot Wheels cars."

Chuck came out the door as Ellie finished, and Ellie gave Sarah a momentary Don't-let-on look.

Taking the two of them and the morning sunlight in, and after a moment of squinting and decision, and an involuntary yawn, Chuck held up his car keys in Sarah's direction.

"Do you want to ride together?"

"God, Chuck," Ellie said, a mother-hen peck, "you look like you didn't sleep at all."


Neither spoke on the way to Appocalypse.

Sarah did not know where to start and was afraid of undoing the night before. Chuck was too tired and too exasperated with himself to trust himself. He felt like any conversation might cause him to snap at Sarah.

He was exasperated with himself — but because of her. He knew that could easily move the target from himself to her. Last night had convinced him that while he could not forgive Sarah, he could at least be decent to her, and behave. He could exert himself that far; he didn't want to hurt her again or stir her sadness. Two wrongs, even if one was an outsized wrong like Sarah's, didn't add up to a right.

Subjecting someone else to indignity was an abortive strategy for dignifying yourself.

Anger seemed to have deserted him. Resentment lingered, but he could manage it. He wasn't a grudge guy, not even if he wanted to be, not for long anyway. He had never been that proud, and he didn't aim to be.

They got out of the car in The Marshall Building parking lot. Murphy was standing outside the main entrance, a broom in his hand, a pair of large, mirrored sunglasses making him seem hidden behind two small two-way windows.

As they approached, they could see themselves reflected above his wide smile.

"Hey, hey, it's the Appocalypse crew. How are you two doing? Don't think I've ever seen you arrive together…"

Chuck nodded. "Right, I'm going to run to The Staff of Life and get us coffees. Would you like one, Murphy?"

He nodded, using one hand to lower his glasses and expose his eyes. "Cold brew lavender latte, oat milk."

Chuck grinned. "Really?"

Sarah grinned too. "Lavender?"

"What, a man with a broom can't enjoy a lavender oat milk latte?"

Chuck shook his head, held up his hands, smiling. "You can have whatever you want. After all, as you said, you're the man with the broom. Be back in a minute."

Chuck walked away and Murphy called to him. "I'll be upstairs with Miss Walker."

Chuck did not turn around but he waved his acknowledgment.

"I like that man," Murphy said, replacing his sunglasses over his eyes. "Just something about him…"

Sarah watched Chuck walk away. "There is."

Murphy turned to her, his sunglasses revealing Sarah to herself, the wistfulness in her eyes.


Shadows were long by the evening, everything of any height standing beside its own dark geometric image.

Chuck looked out of the rear window of the van they used the night before. Casey was driving, and Sarah was beside him. They were both armed, both wore vests.

The NSA team was already in position, poised for the raid. Despite Sarah and Casey's equipment, none of the three of them was planning to enter the warehouse with the NSA team. And Chuck, in particular, was under strict orders not to get out of the car — unless Sarah or Casey expressly invited him to exit it.

As eager as both Graham and Beckman were to capture Bryce Larkin, neither wanted to risk any part of Overlook to do it.

The hope was that the NSA team could secure the weapons as well as capture Mattress Bob and Bryce Larkin. If all went as hoped, the NSA team would confiscate the weapons and capture the two men, and that, later, once the two men were in custody, Sarah and Casey could interrogate them — with Chuck watching and listening from somewhere he could not be seen.

Casey had not been happy with his part in the plan. He saw no reason why Sarah could not keep watch over Chuck while Casey went in with the team. But Beckman had vetoed his objection, his request. He was still stewing and steaming about it.

Sarah, for her part, liked the plan. It kept Chuck away from the center of the action, and it meant that if Sarah ended up face to face with Bryce, it would be in a situation where she was in control.

Casey parked the car one block down, one block over from the warehouse, and shut down the engine.

Casey turned on the radio in the van, adjusting the frequency. He finished twiddling the knobs and then looked at his watch. "Ten minutes 'till go-time."

Chuck saw Sarah check her watch, the force of habit. He even looked at his, although he had no real role to play in what was happening and no habit to serve; he didn't want to feel so left out.

The radio emitted only a dull hum, sparked by an occasional crackle. They sat in silence until a voice came over the radio, speaking just as the sun disappeared below the horizon.

"This is Red Unit Leader. All Units in place? Eye in the sky said three trucks arrived forty minutes ago. Unloading should occupy most of the men in the warehouse — but, damnit, we don't have a definitive count. Be careful. Know what you're doing before you pull the trigger."

"Blue Unit. Outside front door."

"Green Unit. Outside rear door."

"Good. Red Unit has made it up the fire escape, now on the top of the building. One guard by the interior stair door, but he's down. We don't seem to be expected. On my mark, thirty seconds, then we go. Mark!"

Chuck felt his heart begin to race. Casey was drumming the steering wheel, keeping time. Sarah had her head down, concentrating hard on the dashboard as if imagining what the team would see.

One command came over the radio, Red Unit's voice. "Go!"

There was another long, crackling silence, then voices all at once.

"Green Unit. More men than we anticipated, lots more! Automatic rifles! Pinned down! Need help, crossfire!" Gunshots sounded on the radio, rapid-fire. "Blue Unit. Two men hit."

"Men down all over the warehouse floor. The lights are off. Can't tell who's who."

Casey slammed his hands on the steering wheel. "Hell, I'm going! Watch the kid!" He vaulted out of the car and started toward the warehouse, cutting diagonally across the block.

Chuck grabbed the door handle but Sarah turned in the front seat. "No, you will just be another person in the confusion, and you have no gun. Let him go; he's a soldier, or he was. We stay here, Chuck."

She hopped over into the driver's seat.

They watched Casey loping along. A moment later he disappeared from view, swallowed by a dark that seemed to have materialized suddenly, impenetrable and immovable.

The radio went dead.


Casey reached the warehouse, his lungs burning. He pulled out his gun. He went in the side door. It was standing partially open.

Inside, all around him, was carnage in dim light. Four of the remnants of the NSA team were crouched over others, administering first aid. One had three men in front of him on their knees, hands on their heads, his rifle trained on them. He was wearing a headset. Crumpled bodies were everywhere.

Casey's boot slid underneath him as he came to a stop, and he looked down to see a smear of blood where he slid, a dead NSA agent near him supplying it..

The man holding the rifle turned it on Casey, then back on the prisoners after seeing Casey's vest. Casey knew the man, they'd worked together years ago. Smythe. Red Unit leader.

"Casey?"

"Yeah, what can I do?"

"I've got men down on the stairs. See if you can help them."

"What about the ringleaders, the two men you were to capture."

"They got away." Smythe nodded to a doorway marked 'Office'. "In there."

Casey nodded. He ran to the office. There was a door but no windows. He kicked the door, splinters flying. Gun up, he plunged inside. It was darker there. He used his ears as he waited for his eyes to adjust. He saw a dim glow coming up from the floor. A trap door! He found the handle and pulled it up. A wooden stair extended to the floor. He thought about giving chase but then ran back out of the office. "There's a damn trap door. A tunnel! Shit, I should have known, given Bob's goddamn house."

Smythe nodded and Casey heard him relay the information into his headset.

Casey ran to the stairs, the man splayed unnaturally on the steps.


The radio in the car crackled. "Two men escaped, the leaders, on foot. Tunnel under the building."

Sarah heard a car engine roar to life nearby. She pulled her gun and reached over the seat, pushing Chuck down into the floorboard.

A moment later, a dark sedan, headlights off, sped by them.

As the car roared past, Chuck pushed himself up. "Was that them? Bob and Bryce?"

Sarah nodded.

Bryce had been in the passenger seat, his face lit up by a pickup passing in the opposite direction.

He had looked toward her car as his car rocketed by. She didn't know if he saw her, if the passing pickup headlights had lit her car too, as she held Chuck down.

But Bryce had smiled just as the illumination on his face died away.


A/N: This ends our arc, Revaluations. Tune in next time as we start our fourth arc, a longer one, The Will to Believe. My continued thanks to Smatterchoo.

Drop me a line if you have a moment.