Lazy Sunday follows lazy Saturday. More reshadings from canon, apologies for the lack of new action.
Chapter 11
The next morning they started their day with a hike in the hills. Sarah reveled in the simple pleasure of scrambling over rocks like a mountain goat. They got falafel and ridiculous caffeinated drinks for lunch before they were ready to continue discussing the past. They started with Chuck's promise to talk about the dark days just before their wedding.
"Riley was truly evil," Chuck explained. "He did everything in his power to keep Hartley from recovering his memories. I think he got off on letting Volkoff terrorize people while he indulged his sadism safely in the shadows. When Alexei was finally imprisoned he was desperate to twist Vivian into Volkoff 2.0 because he was too cowardly to be the front man. I think the most twisted parts of Alexei came from Riley."
"Do you really think Vivian was an innocent?" Sarah asked, unconvinced. "That there wasn't some evil in her for Riley to work on?"
Chuck thought about it for a bit before answering, "I honestly think she was innocent. Riley couldn't have succeeded without the CIA's attitude toward human assets. The protocol is inhuman. If I hadn't had a beautiful and resourceful guardian angel I'm sure my time as an asset would have left me a bitter broken wreck if not a corpse. I also had Ellie and Morgan. Vivian had no one. She did something extremely dangerous, desperate for a meeting with her father. I promised her that and after she had performed flawlessly I callously broke that promise. She had just cause to hate me. I honestly believe that betrayal was enough for a manipulative jackal with unlimited resources like Riley to build on."
"So what do you remember about Vivian's attempt on your life?" he asked soberly.
Sarah concentrated, trying to pull all the fragments she could remember together. "I remember a terrible fever and a lot of worried faces. After I recovered I remember you telling me the CIA tried to stop you from saving me and that Vivian and Hartley had given you the cure. I also remember Decker took the intersect away from you. That's about it."
"The full story was a lot more complicated," Chuck admitted. "Vivian tried to murder you in revenge against me for taking Riley and Alexei away from her. I knew my only chance of saving you was to get to Alexei. When Casey and I broke into his cell, Decker had gotten there first and was transporting Alexei to a black site. He really enjoyed telling me he didn't care about the fact that his actions would kill you." Chucks anger was palpable.
"My only chance of catching Alexei's transport was the Nighthawk prototype. By the time I got there Decker had removed Alexei's intersect and only Hartley was left. Luckily Hartley remembered the development of the Norseman and was able to make a batch of the original counteragent. Unluckily, that counteragent wasn't strong enough to save you. My mom remembered hearing about a compound Alexei had developed that may have been a stronger counteragent. As we left the hospital, Decker captured me and took away my intersect. Casey broke me out and gave me a couple clean identities so you and I could evade the CIA if I could get the strong version of the counteragent and save your life."
"So you had no intersect and the only way to keep me alive was a compound at the headquarters of the woman who tried to murder me?" Sarah was aghast.
"Exactly. I was absolutely frantic. I had a plan to infiltrate Volkoff headquarters using Hartley to impersonate Alexei," Chuck was shaking at the memory. "When we got there Hartley lost his nerve. I had nothing left. So I told them I was there to be see Vivian because she wanted to kill me and they took me to her office. She was angry and prepared for some kind of manipulation but I had nothing but the hope there was still some shred of humanity left in her. Fortunately Hartley had found some backbone and made his way to his old office in time to let Vivian know that Riley had lied about how he had become Volkoff. The tension in the room was suffocating. I think you were the first person she personally tried to kill. You were Vivian's red test and she didn't think she had any option but to be Volkoff 2.0 after that."
"What the hell am I still doing alive?" Sarah wondered aloud.
"I could tell Vivian was horrified at what she had become. When she said she had killed you in cold blood there was nothing but shame in her voice. She thought she was trapped. I remembered the clean IDs in my pocket and told her she and Hartley could use them to make a fresh start. She accepted," Chuck summed up simply. "She gave me the strong version of the counteragent and called in a few favors to get me a Spetsnaz escort. Decker was there to stop me from getting into the hospital with a squad of agents but my escort got them to stand down. I can still remember the awful wait, not knowing if we were in time to save your life or too late." Chuck's voice was so choked with emotion she could barely understand him.
Sarah put her arms around him and held him as he cried silently. Eventually she said softly, "I'm so sorry you had to go through that but I'm grateful you shared it with me. I honestly don't remember any of that."
Chuck held her tight, then quietly admitted, "I never mentioned most of those details until today. I really believe Vivian and Hartley are good people and I wanted you to think of them as the people who gave us the seed capital for Carmichael Industries, not the people who almost murdered you."
After drying his eyes, Chuck grimly continued, "Decker, on the other hand, has earned his place in the ninth circle of hell. What do you remember about him?"
"I remember hating him," Sarah began. "I don't remember hating him as much as it sounds like he deserved. I remember he died but I don't remember how."
"Do you remember the Viper or the Omen Virus?" Chuck asked.
Sarah took another minute to search her memory. "The Viper was a contract killer used by the CIA. I remember we crossed paths with her but not the details. The Omen Virus was something Shaw planned to use but we stopped him. That's about it."
"Do you remember when Morgan got the intersect?" Chuck wondered.
"THAT I do remember," Sarah affirmed. "He got super arrogant and betrayed us somehow. I think the thing that really made me mad was when he dumped Alex by text. Did you have to convince me not to hurt him?"
"Believe it or not, YOU had to remind ME not to give up on my oldest friend," Chuck laughed. "Casey was the one who really wanted to hurt him."
"I remember he got a back to his old lovable self after we removed the intersect. Wait a second, the Viper accepted a contract on Morgan. There was a CIA kill order because he was an intersect. She pretended to be my friend and almost blew me up with a car bomb!" Sarah eagerly remembered.
"That's right," Chuck said. "Decker gave the Viper the contract because he knew she went dark as soon as she started hunting and couldn't be recalled. We were her first failed mission. Casey predicted Decker would try to use her against us again and he was right. He ended up taking out the Viper and her entire team in self defense. Decker used that to charge him with murder and planned to ensure he died in prison unless we got him the Omen Virus."
"That part I don't remember," Sarah frowned. "I have this weird memory connected to the Omen virus but it makes no sense at all. Did you and and I join a nudist colony?"
Chuck laughed. "The designer of the Omen had joined a cult and we had to get naked to infiltrate it. Gertrude Verbanski offered to be our sniper so we could get Casey back."
Sarah nodded, "I remember loving, hating, and respecting Verbanski. She's ex-KGB but a woman who loves Casey can't be all bad, right?"
"She was with us when we delivered the Omen to Decker to get the charges against Casey dropped. Decker, being the world's biggest scumbag, told us he was going to unleash the Omen and frame me for it and had no intention of freeing Casey. Gertrude picked his pocket to switch the Omen with a bomb. She triggered it and killed him. I'll always be grateful to her for that."
Sarah nodded slowly, "Listening to the story I think I loved her for that too. So if she got the Omen back how did it get out?"
Chuck took a deep breath. "That was me being a complete idiot. After Decker was killed the CIA came after us. We got away but an agent named Robin Cummings abducted Ellie and Devon and demanded we deliver the Omen or she'd kill them. I was convinced the Bartowskis were cursed so I grabbed the virus and tried to trade it for their lives on my own. I gave it up when Cummings threatened to disfigure Devon and she uploaded it. I was lucky you and Casey rescued us before she killed all three of us."
"Shaw was behind that, right?" Sarah asked. "I remember being shackled and freezing."
"Right," Chuck nodded grimly. "The Omen unlocked his cell and he broke into Castle. He threatened to kill you unless I delivered the Macau Device to him. The Omen was programmed to extract data from government servers and send it to Castle. Shaw needed it cold because otherwise Castle's server racks would have melted under the data load. Shaw planned to use the Macau Device to compress all that data and upload it into his own head as the Intersect 3.0."
Sarah paled at the thought, saying, "Well I know it didn't work but I don't remember how you stopped him."
"I had Jeff and Lester analyze the Omen so I knew what it was doing and guessed Shaw's plan," Chuck recounted. "I overwrote the main compression algorithm in the Macau software with the Omen virus. When Shaw tried to download, the virus extracted the intersect 2.0 from him instead."
"Nerd power for the win," Sarah smirked. "I bet that really burned Shaw's ass. Come to think of it he was 100% ass so it must have really hurt."
"There aren't enough nerve endings in the human body to carry all the pain he deserves," Chuck agreed. "As a parting shot he told you about an email he sent to Ryker telling him Molly was still alive."
"So THAT'S how I ended up getting in touch with Mom again," Sarah connected the dots. "I don't remember the details, just my desperation to get to Molly and Mom before Ryker did. I also remember the relief when I saw Ryker die."
"It was wonderful to have your Mom and Molly at the house with Ellie and Devon. It was the best unThanksgiving ever," Chuck remembered happily.
"I'm so grateful to have them back in my life and know that Molly is safe from Ryker," Sarah said.
After savoring that happy thought for a while Sarah asked, "So what happened next?"
Chuck's face fell. "Not long after that Morgan recovered a phone he'd lost while he had the intersect. Messages on the phone led us to a pair of intersect glasses and to Nicholas Quinn. He abducted me and his offer to exchange me for the glasses was a trap. You downloaded the intersect to escape it and rescue me but the intersect started breaking down and causing stabbing headaches with each flash. Quinn got away with you and forced you to flash again and again. The next time I saw you, you thought he was your handler and that I had killed Bryce and Graham."
There were plenty of tears but no more words as they both remembered that soul crushing incident. They ended up holding each other for half an hour before Chuck was able to say, "So that's the story of the missions before your ordeal. After we beat Shaw, we got an offer to rejoin the CIA. I wanted to use the signing bonus to put a down payment on your dream home but you wanted no part of it. Knowing there are still people who conspired with Quinn and Shaw in positions of power there it's obvious to me that once again I was saved from disaster by my highly intelligent wife."
