A/N: Do you think they keep ownership of Chuck in the same cabinet in Warner Brothers Studios that they keep the ownership of Bugs Bunny? That would be cool. I know Chuck would like that.
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Recap. Chuck, Sarah and Barry Longshore are at the extraction point on the roof to take Chuck and Sarah to the bunker. Casey and Amy have gone to Lizzie's apartment to intercept her, hopefully before she's had an opportunity to tell Fulcrum what she's learned.
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Chuck, Sarah and Barry Longshore climbed the flight of steps to the helipad on the roof of the downtown office building. The wind whipped at their hair, well, Chuck and Sarah's hair anyway. Longshore didn't have much in the way of hair. The lights of the city surrounded them on all sides, as if they were floating on a sea of sparkling incandescence.
Longshore said, "Let me reach out and see where we are with the chopper." He had to shout a bit to be heard over the sound of the wind. He reached into his pocket and took out his phone. That's when he jerked forward suddenly and a spray of pink blew out from his head.
Longshore's body was still collapsing to the ground as Sarah spun to face the threat, drawing her weapon as she went. Lizzie, who had been hidden by a large machine on the roof, stepped out behind Sarah and hit her in the head with the side of her gun. Sarah collapsed onto the roof deck and didn't move.
"Well, hello, Mr. Intersect," said Lizzie, pointing her gun at him. "Give me that fancy watch. Without touching the buttons on the side."
Chuck did as she told him to. He threw it to her. She dropped it to the roof deck and stamped on it with her heel, grinding it down. "I just have to tell you how happy I am to be with you right now. When I tell Delgado and Fulcrum that you are the Intersect and that I have you, they are going to pay me a ton of money."
"You didn't tell them yet, Lizzie?" Chuck asked.
"It's going to be a big surprise, Bartowski. They'll find out that Larkin is not the only one...or maybe he isn't one at all. Who knows? They can figure it out, I guess. The important thing is that you'll get to show them what you can do. And I'll get rich, of course."
"We'll pay you more, Lizzie. If it's just about money, we can pay you more," said Chuck.
"No, thanks. I want to live to spend it," she said. She reached down and threw Longshore's gun to the far end of the roof and then did the same with Sarah's gun. "Say goodbye to your girlfriend, Mr. Intersect. It's time for her to go now." Lizzie lowered the gun to Sarah's head as she lay on the roof unconscious.
Time seemed to stop for Chuck. Lizzie was going to kill Sarah. Sarah would be dead. Everything ...everything would be dead, over, finished, dark. Dread? That didn't come close to what he felt. The infinite horror of that fact grabbed at him and generated a terror such as he'd never known. A terror he felt to his very bones. A world without Sarah had no warmth or joy or color. A life without Sarah was no life at all. He forced himself to think clearly. A heartbeat later, he knew exactly what he had to do.
Chuck screamed, "NO, LIZZIE, NO. IF YOU SHOOT HER, YOU'RE DEAD!"
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Number 28 was in the middle of a row of apartments in one of the two story white buildings making up the complex. The stairs were outdoor and off the parking area. Casey and Amy, wearing vests over their green shirts and with guns drawn but pointed at the sky, made their way up the stairs cautiously. Stopping at the door to Lizzie's unit, they stepped to either side of it. They listened and didn't hear any sounds from inside the unit.
Casey looked to Amy. She nodded once, to show she was ready, brushing a stray strand of hair aside. He stepped back and, his body still to the side of the door, and kicked it once about three inches above the doorknob. The door burst open. They shuffled inside with their guns pointed ahead of them. Casey moved straight ahead, Amy turned immediately to the right, covering that part of the room. Casey pulled back the black curtain, to find the empty chair and telescope. He would focus on that later. At the moment, he had to find Lizzie if she was in the apartment. Room by room, door by door, closet by closet, they checked for her. Announcing "clear" to each other as they went.
When they had assured themselves that they were alone, only then did they begin to look around. The first stop was the hide she had constructed. Casey looked through the eyepiece of the telescope, careful not to jostle it from its point of focus. "Fuck. She's been watching Walker," he said.
Amy looked at the tape player next to the chair and the small plastic box next to it. In the box were small envelopes, each labeled with a date. She shook one out and found a tape. "Here are the tapes from the store." She looked in the player and ejected the tape. Yesterday's date was written on the label in pencil. "Yesterday's," she said, dropping it into the plastic box.
Casey picked up the rifle and viewed it with professional appreciation. It was a good weapon and could easily have made the shot to take out Walker or any one of them from that distance. He put it down and picked up the pad, dropping the pencil to the floor. Written on the pad was 'OPERATION 30?'. Underneath that was written 'BARTOWSKI INTERSECT?'. Underneath that was written 'STEFFEN BUILDING – ASAP.'
"FUCK," Casey shouted. He touched his watch, saying, almost shouting, "Sarah, Chuck, Lizzie knows about the extraction. She knows the site of the extraction. She knows where you are. Sarah? Chuck? FUCK."
He dropped the pad on the ground and lunged for the door, "Let's go. The extraction is blown. Lizzie knows where they are."
Amy scooped up the box of tapes and followed Casey out of the apartment at a run. Casey took the stairs three or four at a time and Amy did her best to keep up with him. By the time her butt was in the passenger seat of the Crown Vic, the engine had been started and the car was moving. Casey flipped a hidden switch and a siren began to wail and red and white lights began to flash. She couldn't be sure, but she suspected that he had reached fifty miles per hour before they had left the parking lot of the apartment complex. Casey barked, "Try their cell phones."
She did and got no responses. She left messages. Casey said, "Try Longshore." Amy held tight to her phone as she was thrown to the side of the car when it took a turn at high speed with all four wheels screaming in protest, the big car shaking violently. No result with Longshore either. He said, "Keep trying."
Casey was reciting a steady stream of curses of extraordinary imagination at the other cars on the road. In addition to the siren, he had the car horn blaring almost non-stop.
Amy had never been in a car driven the way Casey was driving. The fact that they didn't get into an accident or kill anyone was a miracle. She only screamed once, when he drove at 60 miles per hour for two city blocks...on the sidewalk. He was driving like a creature that had recently arrived and had not yet learned the laws of physics on this particular planet.
The Steffen Building was a downtown skyscraper recessed in a wide plaza area up a handful of shallow steps. Casey hit the steps at a ridiculous speed, sparks flying from the underside of the car as it bottomed out, and drove flat out across the plaza, skidding to a stop in front of the building entrance. The car was still shaking from the violence of the stop when he and Amy bailed out and ran to the front entrance.
He shouted something authoritative to the night security guard as they ran to the elevators. Casey stabbed at the up button. Then again. He looked up at the indicator lights and said, "Let's take the stairs."
Amy said, "Casey, it's thirty stories. We're better off waiting for the elevator. Really."
He grunted in the affirmative, hitting the button again.
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Chuck began to back away from her. Lizzie laughed at him. "I'm dead, huh? You going to kill me, Mr. Intersect? Good luck with that. I have a gun. What do you have?"
He continued to back up. "No, I'm not going to kill you." He was shouting over the noise of the wind, his hands raised in a calming gesture. "Not me, Lizzie. Not me. Tommy Delgado will kill you."
At the use of Delgado's first name, she paused. Seems that this team really did know about Fulcrum after all. "Hah. I don't think so, Bartowski. He's going to give me a reward. A big fucking reward. I'm bringing him the Intersect. He's going to be very, very happy with me...whether or not your girlfriend lives..."
Chuck had reached the edge of the roof, which was a single step behind him. The drop was over thirty stories. He focused everything he had not to succumb to the terror. Sarah's life depended on this. "But if you pull the trigger, Lizzie, if you kill Sarah, you won't be bringing him the Intersect. You see, if you kill her, I'm going to jump. I'm going to kill myself. It's simple, really. I love Sarah and I cannot live without her. Literally. I won't live if she's gone. I won't. You may be able to bring him the body of the guy who used to have the Intersect, I guess. If you scrape me off the street down there. Think Delgado will be understanding if that's the case? He'll forgive you? He'll give you a promotion? Think he'll pay you?"
From her semi-crouched position over Sarah's unconscious body, Lizzie looked at him with shock and a little panic. She shifted the gun away from Sarah to point it at Chuck. "Bullshit. Get away from the edge."
Chuck shook his head. "Oh, come on Lizzie, you're going to shoot me to stop me from jumping? That's a brilliant fucking plan. Well done. Did you go into this line of work when you became bored with brain surgery? Idiot."
She began to walk towards him, Sarah forgotten, saying, "Bartowski, get back from there. Get back."
"No. Fuck you. Put the gun down," he said.
She shifted her aim to his leg, "I can just wound you, you know." Behind her, he saw Sarah start to stir.
"Wow. You really are stupid, aren't you? Guess you better hope I don't fall backwards when you shoot me, huh? And think, Lizzie. I know thinking isn't really your strongest skillset, but give it a try. You shoot me in the leg and what? Even if I don't fall backwards off the roof? What? What's the next part of your plan? You carry me? You're probably in decent shape, but I have to outweigh you by maybe a hundred pounds. You really going to do that?"
She started to lower the gun. She said, "What do you have in mind, Bartowski?"
"Wow. This must suck for you. Your whole life if you point a gun at somebody they do what you want them to. You have the leverage. I'm guessing this is the first time that it isn't working for you. The first time you are dealing with someone who just... doesn't... fucking... care. I have all the leverage here, Lizzie. All of it. If Sarah dies, you get nothing. Nothing at all. And then Delgado kills you. I've read his file and he doesn't strike me as the forgiving type. And you won't be able to spring your big surprise on him. Won't be able to tell him that I'm the Intersect. No go." Sarah was up and moving silently across the roof. Any noise she made was whipped away by the sound of the wind. She had looked around briefly for her weapon, but hadn't found it.
"Get on with it," Lizzie barked.
"Here's the deal, Lizzie. She lives. Sarah lives. I'll go with you. Not exactly willingly, but I won't fight you. But she lives. Period. Non-negotiable. Now put the gun down," said Chuck.
"Bartowski, I can't let her live. You have to know that," she said. He lifted a foot and began to shift his weight backwards. She screamed, "Stop. Stop. Ok. Ok. I'll put the gun down."
She squatted slowly to the roof, one hand lowering her weapon, the other raised placatingly towards Chuck, motioning for calm. As she began to stand up, leaving the gun on the roof, Sarah kicked her in the side of the head with a roundhouse kick. She tumbled to the side, rolled and came to her feet in a fighting stance. "You fucking bitch," she screamed.
She rushed at Sarah and threw a low kick at Sarah's forward knee combined with a left jab. Sarah picked up her foot from the ground, allowing the leg to move freely with the strike. The kick hurt, but didn't damage the knee as there was no weight on it at the time of contact. She blocked the punch. Sarah dropped the foot down and moved in with a left right left combination of strikes, two of which landed and staggered Lizzie back. Sarah followed up with another roundhouse kick, which Lizzie blocked.
Chuck noticed that Sarah's balance seemed a little off. She had been unconscious moments before and that was entirely understandable. Sarah must have sensed the same, as she moved in closer to Lizzie and concentrated on strikes rather than kicks. As Lizzie tried to move backwards to achieve kicking distance, Sarah followed her closely to prevent that.
Grappling with Sarah, Lizzie moved in for a throw, but Sarah shifted the balance point and threw Lizzie to the roof instead. As Lizzie rolled, trying to break the impact of the fall, she found one of the guns she'd taken from Sarah or Longshore earlier. She started to raise it, but Sarah tackled her and knocked it aside.
When Chuck saw the gun in Lizzie's hand, his eyes went wide with fear and he lunged forward onto his hands and knees on the roof deck.
Astride Lizzie, Sarah punched her twice with her right hand while her left was holding Lizzie's pistol aside. Lizzie worked her left hand free and hit Sarah again on the side of the head with the gun. Sarah rolled off the other woman, riding the blow to lessen its impact. Lizzie quickly stood up with the gun in her hand, while Sarah, moving a hair more slowly than usual, was just starting to rise from the roof deck.
Scrambling on his hands and knees, not even feeling the rough gravel under his palms, Chuck desperately snatched Lizzie's gun from the roof before him. The metal was cold in his hand and the weight of the gun was unexpected. Just as Lizzie brought her gun around to point at Sarah, Chuck's gun came up to eye level. Chuck instantly sighted down the barrel, using the luminescent sights he centered his aim at the oval blob of Lizzie's head. With a bare moment's hesitation, he shifted his aim to her far shoulder and fired. The gun in his hand bucked hard, the noise and recoil startling him. He dropped the gun to the roof.
Lizzie flew backwards, her own gun falling from suddenly powerless fingers. She landed on the roof on her back. After a moment she began to curse and look around frantically for the gun she'd been holding.
Sarah stood up from the deck and picked up the gun Lizzie was looking for. She looked at Chuck for a moment in surprise, but then turned back to Lizzie. Sarah stood over the other woman and pointed the gun at her. Her right arm useless, Lizzie raised her left arm towards Sarah and held the palm out. With her feet she was pushing herself away from Sarah on the roof, although God only knew where she thought she was going. She left a wide red trail of blood behind her, like the slime behind a slug.
"Please," she begged. "I won't tell anyone. I promise. His secret is safe. Please. I won't tell anyone." She was screaming desperately. "Please. It's safe. His secret is safe. I won't tell anyone. I swear. Please. Mercy. Please. Mercy."
Sarah said, "You know Chuck is the Intersect. You're a threat to my family. You're a threat to my Chuck." Sarah's face was as hard as white marble and her eyes held all the warmth of blue ice. There was no mercy at all to be found in those eyes.
Lizzie stared at Sarah with terror and her last thought was 'The Ice Queen.'
Sarah fired twice and Lizzie stopped.
From the stairwell Casey yelled, "Sarah..."
Now that it was over, now that she had neutralized the threat to Chuck, Sarah found herself afraid to turn around. She was afraid of what she would see in his eyes. Revulsion? Horror? Pity? He'd seen her kill enemies before, but never like this. Never in cold blood. He'd never seen the Ice Queen. Had she ruined everything? Could he still love her after what he had just witnessed? She felt his gentle hand on her arm, then his other hand on her other arm. As she stood there, looking at Lizzie's body without really seeing it, the heavy gun in her hand still smoking, she felt his arms encircle her from behind and his chest press into her back. She felt the warmth of his breath on her ear as he whispered, "Let's go home."
She nodded once. Not looking at Lizzie's body any longer, she moved over to pick up her own gun from the roof deck, as the one in her hand was Longshore's. Holstering her weapon as she walked, she and Chuck made their way across the roof to Casey and Amy.
Amy was on her knees next to Longshore. Chuck and Sarah went to her first. "Sorry, Amy," said Chuck. Sarah put a gentle hand on Amy's shoulder. Amy looked up and nodded, wet streaks of tears running down her cheeks.
"Thanks," she said. "Sometimes he was a pain in the ass, but overall he was a pretty good partner."
"I know," said Sarah. "I'm sorry."
Chuck turned to Casey. "She didn't tell them. Lizzie didn't tell them. She wanted to bring me in with the news and make a big production of it. Big surprise. "
"And you contained the spread of the information, Sarah. Good job," said Casey to Sarah. He spoke more gently than usual.
"Hmmm," said Sarah. She handed Casey the gun in her hand, "Longshore's weapon."
"Right. Rough night for you two. Go home. Amy and I will take care of things here," he said.
"Thanks, Case. Yeah, this sucked. Just happy it worked out ok," said Sarah.
"Here, take the Crown Vic. It's out front. I'll meet you guys later. Amy and I will get the cleaners and call off the chopper."
"Right, thanks," said Chuck, taking the keys from his friend. "Remember to tell Beckman and Graham too."
"Yeah," said Casey.
Chuck and Sarah took the elevator to the building's lobby in silence, each lost in his or her own thoughts.
Chuck stopped for a second out the door to the Building when he saw where Casey had left the Crown Vic and noticed the long lines of rubber on the pavement behind the car, evidence of a high speed stop. He knew his friend had driven to them as if their lives had depended on it. 'Thanks, Case,' he thought to himself.
Chuck took the wheel and they began to drive back to Echo Park.
They were very quiet. Into the silence, Sarah said, "That was a brilliant bluff, Chuck."
"Hmmm," was all he said in response. Was it a bluff? Would he have killed himself if she was really dead? It was a bluff, wasn't it? Wasn't it? All he knew for sure was that the idea of losing Sarah was the single worst thing he could even contemplate.
That train of thought didn't sit well with him at all. Without warning, he pulled the car over to the side of the road, opened the driver's door and leaned out to vomit. All the terror and violence and horror of the evening had taken its toll and he was ill for several minutes. The heaving went on for a while even after his stomach was empty. Sarah rubbed his back and made soothing noises. When he had finished, she handed him a bottle of water she'd found in the car to wash out his mouth.
As they began to drive once more, Sarah felt she had to explain her actions. Explain why she had killed Lizzie. "I had to do that, Chuck. I had to kill her. We couldn't be certain that the information about you wouldn't leak out otherwise. No matter how deep the hole we dropped her in, there was a risk that someone in contact with her would be Fulcrum and she would get the word out. I couldn't take that risk, Chuck. I couldn't. You have to be safe. It's the only important thing to me. You have to be safe."
"I know, Sarah. Of course, you did. I know. From the moment we found out she hadn't told Fulcrum about me, I knew what had to happen. I knew." He looked at her and said, "It's ok, Sarah. It's ok. I knew all along. There was no other choice."
Sarah was relieved that he understood, but she knew it had been hard on him too. Chuck had shot the woman. He had really shot someone in real life, not a video game. Sarah thought about his performance with the video game the other night, his skill and accuracy. 'Oh, God,' as a thought occurred to her.
She looked at him with surprise. "You deliberately shot her in the shoulder." It wasn't a question.
"Yeah."
"Knowing that I'd kill her a minute later."
"Yeah."
Silence. Then she said, still looking at him, "We make a good team." He gave a quiet snort, not really a laugh. Sarah reached for his hand. It was cold, as was hers. But they held each other's hands and waited for the warmth to return.
A few minutes later Chuck's phone made the noise designating an incoming text message. He took the phone out of his pocket and handed it to Sarah while he drove. She opened the phone and said, "It's from Devon. He wants the ring. He's going to propose tonight." As bad as the day had been so far, this news made her smile. She texted back that they were on their way home and would get him the ring within the next half hour or so. "I guess he's not going to do a super elaborate proposal...with skywriting and a marching band."
"Guess not," said Chuck with a small smile.
When they arrived at Echo Park they went into Casey's apartment using a key each of them had. Chuck dropped the car keys to the Crown Vic in a bowl by the front door. While Sarah stopped by the door to deactivate the unit's alarm, Chuck made his way over to the safe, built into the wall and hidden behind some books on the bookshelf. He entered the combination to open it and held his hand over the biometric scanner as well. The door opened and revealed its contents. Chuck took the ring box, opening it to make sure the ring was still inside, and closed the safe back up.
Chuck texted Devon to meet them by the fountain while Sarah reset Casey's alarm. Moments later Devon came out of the apartment. Chuck handed him the box with the ring.
"Thanks, bro. That's awesome," said Devon, looking and sounding nervous.
"Good luck," said Chuck with a broad smile, shaking Devon's hand.
"Thanks, Chuck," said Devon. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Gotta calm down. Gotta get my heartrate down." He reached up to his throat with two fingers.
Sarah leaned in and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "You'll do great, Devon. I know she's going to be thrilled. And the ring is beautiful."
"Thanks," said Devon. Taking another deep breath, he said, "Well, here it goes." He squared his shoulders and went back into the apartment. Chuck and Sarah spared a glance through the window of Ellie and Devon's apartment and saw a table fully set for dinner complete with candles and a bottle of wine chilling in a bucket. They smiled at each other and, with their arms around each other's waists, went into their apartment.
Chuck was almost dizzy from the events of the day, his discovery that Fulcrum might know he was the Intersect, his decision to go to a bunker to protect his family, his threat to jump to his death if Lizzie killed Sarah, his shooting Lizzie himself and then watching Sarah finish the woman, and now the ebullient joy at Ellie's engagement.
When Chuck returned to the living room after brushing his teeth, Sarah had taken a bottle of Ketel One vodka from the freezer and put it on the table with two short glasses. Chuck sat down next to her and poured the liquid into the glasses for each of them, so icy cold it was almost viscous. They raised the glasses to each other and Chuck said, quietly, "To Barry."
"To Barry," said Sarah. They touched glasses and together downed the fiery smooth liquor.
Sometime later, Chuck was doing the dishes after dinner while Sarah cleaned up the kitchen. They had been quiet and somber since returning home, drinking the vodka rather than wine with dinner. The events on the roof earlier in the evening had affected them both deeply.
The knock at the door wasn't wholly unexpected. Sarah opened it to find Devon and Ellie, with wide smiles and a chilled bottle of Schramsberg Blanc du Blancs champagne.
"Hi, guys," said Sarah with a wide smile of her own.
"Look," said Ellie, holding up her hand to show off the ring. "I'm getting married."
"Oh, my God," said Sarah. "Congratulations. It's lovely." Laughing, Sarah pulled Ellie into a hug.
Behind the women, Devon bellowed, "She said yes!"
Chuck smiled happily as he looked at his sister and Devon, how overflowing with joy and love they were. How excited they were at the prospect of their marriage. The shadow of his horror at the idea of living without Sarah entered and left his mind in an instant, but it echoed the deep impact it had made earlier in the evening. He stared at Sarah, who was laughing with Ellie, holding her hand admiring the ring. She sensed him looking and turned her smile to him. Her smile was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen and it flooded him with wonder that this amazing woman who he loved more than anything or anyone in the whole world loved him back. He blew her a kiss. She blew one back. And with that kiss, he made a decision.
He wondered who he should talk to to get a recommendation for a good jeweler.
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A/N2: Lizzie's plan on the roof, in canon, sucked. Blasting away with a gun in each fist? To what end? My Lizzie, here, was only marginally smarter. She never considered the possibility of simply not telling Delgado that Chuck was the Intersect. Chuck's whole plan depended on Delgado knowing and being mad at her. If she never told him, he wouldn't have anything to be mad at her about. Luckily for Chuck (and Sarah), she didn't think of that.
A/N3: As to Sarah and Chuck's actions on the roof in this chapter, I think they made sense. Was Lizzie less dangerous to our friends than Mauser in Chuck versus Santa Claus? Because Mauser bragged about his importance and Lizzie didn't? I don't buy that as an explanation. The reasons for taking each of them off the game board were really identical. But, unlike Mauser's death in canon, there are no lies accompanying Sarah's actions here.
A/N4: Please join me again next Saturday, as the ramifications of Team B's responses in this arc continue. Things will never be the same in this AU.
A/N5: And please be safe, everybody. This virus thing has to be taken seriously. Listen to the scientists.