See a doorway open on a darkened room

While in the garden, thread lies broken on the loom

See your face that's smiling flicker on the wall

And in the distance

Mountains waiting for the fall

"Crinan Wood"

Alexi Murdoch

September 29, 2021

Carmichael Industries, Los Angeles, California

"I almost didn't recognize you, Chuck," Cole said, stepping forward, an invitingly warm smile on his face as he stepped forward with his hand outstretched. He wore an athletically cut black suit, over a crisp white shirt, no tie.

Chuck shook his hand vigorously, a genuine smile on his face in return. "You look exactly the same," Chuck laughed. "Do you age?"

"A little bit of gray," he said, turning his head so his temples showed a small concentration of white hair that gradually spaced out into his beard, lightly peppered throughout. "Women like a little bit of gray," he said suggestively, his smile twitching.

"My kids made me this gray," Chuck laughed, fully aware he had triple the amount of gray hair as Cole, who was easily 20 years his senior, closer to Casey's age, who himself was completely white-haired now.

"I'm sure they did," he muttered quietly, smirking, a complex, unreadable expression on his face.

"We are waiting on a satellite link with Europe," Beckman addressed them. "Casey and I will give you two some time to…catch up." Beckman turned to Cole, a stiff smile on her face. "Thank you for being so readily available for us, Agent Barker."

"My pleasure, General…Generals," he said, bowing his head forward slightly.

Chuck motioned with his hand, inviting Cole to sit across from him. Casey and Beckman quietly filed out of the room. Cole just snickered. "Do you know how long it took me to figure out you and Charles Carmichael were the same person?"

Chuck actually laughed out loud, looking down at the table top, letting his mind scroll backward, thinking back on everything that had transpired since the time he had spent with Cole in the past.

"Fulcrum, the Ring, Volkoff Industries…in two years," Cole said in wonder, shaking his head. "Looks like you took my advice to heart."

"I never carried a gun, if that's what you mean," Chuck retorted, his smile still on his face.

"Of course you didn't," he laughed again, after his eyes widened at the comment. "I actually meant the other advice. About being a hero when you need to be. Or maybe, never taking no for an answer."

Chuck felt the heat rise on his face, from under his collar. Averting his eyes, he muttered, 'Yeah, well…"

Cole ticked his tongue against the inside of his cheek. "All that. And then you just walked away. I honestly couldn't believe it," Cole said.

The smile faded, as his jaw clenched closed. "They made me choose. The CIA," he said, his gaze intensifying as he looked upward.

"I heard about all of that, you know," he told Chuck. "Clyde Decker was a first class ass. But I'm sure you knew that," he added under his breath.

"So it shouldn't have been a surprise, then, that I would have chosen to walk away. I chose Sarah," he said passionately.

"Never a doubt in my mind, Chuck," he teased. After a few beats of silence, Cole added, "And it's true, that Vivian Volkoff–" Chuck opened his mouth, but Cole interrupted him first with the correction. "Sorry, Vivian Winterbottom, the woman who tried to kill your wife, works here with you?" he asked incredulously.

Chuck laughed, blowing out a loud breath, nodding his head. "They're friends, Cole. Good friends."

"Why doesn't that surprise me at all?" he laughed.

"Speaking of Sarah, shouldn't she be here?" Chuck asked him, feeling the strange sensation about the difference in the situation from the last time he had seen Cole. So much had happened in the last twelve years. Back then, he was just an asset, and Sarah was protecting him. The feelings they had had for each other, though real at that time, were not out in the open. He had removed that Intersect, then downloaded the 2.0, and almost lost Sarah because of it. But then they were together, and later married. He had almost lost her again, but she was here, nine years after that, with three little kids and a normal life. How much did he know? Chuck wondered.

"I wanted to talk to you alone, Chuck, at least at first," he stressed.

Shifting his gaze more quickly, nervously, Chuck said, "There's nothing you plan on telling me that you can't tell Sarah." Cole smiled, making Chuck think he must know about at least part of what had happened since he'd last seen him. Did spies gossip? he wondered. He knew at least Carina did.

"I wanted to be prudent, just in case," Cole muttered, suddenly looking ill at ease in the moment.

"O…kay," Chuck said, drawing out the word, waiting for more.

"This will all make sense, once I give my full report," he assured Chuck. "But for now, just trust that I'm telling you all this because I was missing information, and I believe you have some of those answers."

Chuck shrugged, open palms forward, inviting the explanation and subsequent questions.

"At my age, being a special agent for MI6, I've directed many field ops concerning the Sentries over the years. I was in Great Britain in 2019, when the theft from the CIA substation in the U.S. occurred. MI6 briefed us on the situation then. While that was going on, I got information from the DGSE, French Intelligence, concerning a local traffic fatality. The victim's name was Jacques Robert. They had information that a well-known mercenary, known to U.S. intelligence as the Hungarian–Farkas Kovacs, was implicated in the accident. Surprisingly enough, he was also later implicated in the actual left as well.

"MI6 was after him, and they sent me to find him. After a lot of investigative work, I was able to find out the Sentries hired him to kill Jacques Robert, a completely uninvolved civilian who worked at an IT firm in Paris," Cole finished.

Chuck just listened, patiently. "I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop," he said, keyed up, thinking about all sorts of strange information that could be waiting to be relayed.

"Once he accomplished that, they hired him to kill Jacques' wife. You knew her, Chuck. Her maiden name was Smith. Hannah Smith. She was a passenger with you on a First Class flight to Paris, and she worked with you at the Buy More for about 3 weeks," he said, looking at Chuck's face and knowing implicitly, that was the other shoe.

Chuck's face was ghostly white when Cole looked up at him, noticing too how Chuck's entire demeanor had changed. He was shaking, sweating, trying hard to swallow over a dry lump in his throat that made him cough deeply and uncomfortably. "Hannah?" he managed to say, not able to make a sound above a whisper. "Why? Why would they…" Chuck seemed lost, his eyes darting back and forth in profound thought.

"I didn't think it was a coincidence, that this random civilian was marked by a mercenary, who happened to know and had previous dealings with you in the past. MI6 ordered me back to Britain, once I made the report. They wanted to use her as bait, to lure the Hungarian back out into the open. Back then, they weren't aware it was the Sentries that hired him. I went off mission, made contact with her. I got her out of France and back to the States."

Cole watched as Chuck's composure slowly deteriorated. "Chuck, are you all right?" Cole asked.

"They killed her husband?" Chuck finally managed to ask, his outrage tainting his tone. His daze lifted for a minute, fear mixed with a barely contained rage taking its place. "Are you telling me they went after her husband, and then her, because of me somehow?"

"That was over two years ago. I've been working on this since then. I don't honestly know, but I have a suspicion. Which is why, mainly, I wanted to speak to you alone. The Hungarian paid dearly for medical information about her husband. Apparently he had a stem cell transplant in 2016 for cancer. All of that information was stolen out of the hospital in France. They wanted proof that her children were not biologically related to her husband, which, as it turns out, they aren't."

Chuck looked worse, almost like he was sick to his stomach, and his eyes had glazed over with tears. "Her children?" he whispered.

"She has a set of twins, almost 11 years old. I couldn't let young children be put in the crossfire, no matter how much MI6 wanted the information," he finished, more and more concerned as Chuck seemed to dissolve in the chair in front of him.

Cole had been cautious about his word choice, but, seeing the way Chuck was reacting, he knew he needed to ask. "Chuck, is there any possible way that you could be the father of her children?"

Chuck dropped his head down onto his hands, hyperventilating. "Oh my god," he muttered to himself, before he quickly lifted his head, scooping his hand into his hair and holding his forehead. "Eleven, you said? I mean, I guess, technically, biologically speaking, it's possible."

Now it was Cole's turn to look stunned. He forced his mouth closed, realizing it was hanging open. After a long stretch of silence, Cole finally spoke. "I had to keep telling myself that what my suspicions pointed to had to be the underlying cause. I just couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that you would…you know…"

"That I would what?" he asked sharply.

"Be unfaithful," he said, almost apologizing as the words came out.

"I would never, ever do something like that!" he shouted, jumping to standing, knocking the chair he was seated in backwards as it crashed onto the floor. He stood there, seething, waiting for his breath to calm before he spoke again. "Sarah and I weren't together, not in February of 2010."

Cole was smiling, despite himself, pleased somehow that his initial impression of Chuck hadn't been so wrong after all. "You weren't together when I met you either, if you recall," he added.

"Exactly!" Chuck shouted. "She kissed you. I saw it," Chuck told him.

Half of his mouth turned up crookedly, Cole said softly, "More precisely, I kissed her. Her heart wasn't in it." He looked up at Chuck, saying very deliberately, "It already belonged to you."

"Wha…what?" Chuck stammered, surprised at his words.

"I know you told me it was only professional between you two. But she was in love with you. You honestly didn't know that?" he asked.

"Not…not then, no I didn't." He waited, then asked, "Did she tell you that?"

"She didn't have to. It was obvious. To me anyway. When she thought you were hit, she focused on me for a reason. She didn't want you to see her face." He sighed, covering his face with his hand. "I thought the idea of you cheating on Sarah was far-fetched. But the only other explanation was that somehow you weren't together then. I knew you two were married, and I just thought…"

"It was complicated," he said, fliching, hating that he had to use that word again. "For a long time, she thought I chose being a spy over being with her. How I felt about her never changed. That's why what happened with Hannah was so…unfair to her. The biggest regret of my life was hurting her the way I did. It was very selfish of me."

"There's the Chuck Bartowski I knew," Cole muttered quietly.

"Am I their father?" he blurted, his terror as he waited for the answer palpable.

"She told me it was someone she met in Dallas at the airport. I went back a long way, since the CIA doesn't have your blood type on file. But for the same reason her husband couldn't have been their father, you can't be either. She has type B blood, and her children are both AB. You're O. Not biologically possible. Only the Sentries don't know that," he said. "Her children were born two months premature, in October of 2010. Can you see why they went after her? They think her children are yours. They were after her son."

"Where is she?" he asked, lifting his chair off the ground and righting it.

"In a safe house in L.A. She arrived safely this morning. I've already checked on them, and they're fine," he told Chuck.

Sitting back down heavily, Chuck asked, "This morning?" he asked in shock. "You said you got her out of Europe in 2019."

"She's been in Santa Barbara since then, near her parents," he explained. "The same courier that had all the Ultima Intersectio data also had a different set of data on his as well. Information used to obtain false passports, other types of false identification. Dealers usually helping terrorists disappear into Europe. I had to use unofficial channels to get her out of Europe back then, because I was off mission. Somehow that data ended up in their possession. They knew where she was. I came back first and foremost to get her safely here. That's the last bit of background, before we call everyone back in. The courier also had information about Sarah." Chuck sat still, absorbing the information.

Whatever fear Cole had seen was gone when Chuck sat forward, instead an intense, scrutinizing glare. "What about Sarah?"

"Did she ever obtain a falsified passport outside of the intelligence jurisdiction?" Cole asked bluntly.

Chuck's mind was racing. He knew, of course, but was still after all the time that had passed, he chose not to speak of it, only the least of reasons being it was illegal what Sarah had done, as a preparation to run away and hide with him. He nodded, but said nothing else. "But so did I, at the same time," he added cryptically, hoping Cole would ask no follow up questions.

"They only had her info, and there were no dates that I could find. But it made me concerned enough, combined with everything I already knew, that I decided to get you involved. I hope you understand," he finished.

Chuck only nodded again, all this new information swimming in his brain and fighting for dominance in his thoughts. "Can I see her? Hannah?" he asked suddenly. "I mean, where she is. Is it safe for me to see her?"

"I can get you in safely," he said hesitantly. "If you–"

"I need to talk to Sarah first, but I owe Hannah an explanation, at least a better one than the one she got," he said, rubbing his hand over his eyes.

"I had to tell her some things about you, Chuck. I was amazed as it was that she decided to drop everything and leave France based on one conversation she had with me. I wasn't sure she'd believe me if I didn't offer at least something," he explained.

Chuck opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted as the door to the conference room opened, and he looked up to see his wife in the doorway. She actually gasped out loud when she saw Cole, stopping dead in her tracks with her hand on the doorknob, her mouth hanging open.

Chuck jumped up. "Hi, Sweetie, you remember Cole Barker?" he said with a smile and a hand gesture. Chuck found he was bracing, waiting for Cole to look leeringly at his wife. He was pleasantly surprised, and a little relieved, when he simply stood and smiled warmly at her, no trace of his usual ogle.

"Well, hello, Agent Walker," he said slowly, "Or, pardon my faux pas, I guess it's just Mrs. Bartowski, now isn't it?"

She recovered quickly, her shock dissipating as the smile lit her face. "There's nothing just about that, but yes, that's me. It's nice to see you again," she said, a wan and cautious smile on her face.

"You haven't aged a day. As beautiful as ever," he crooned, as Sarah walked into the room.

"What can I say, motherhood agrees with me," she smiled coyly in return.

"I guess only Chuck Bartowski could have managed that. Turning the CIAs best agent into a, what do you Americans call it, a soccer mom?" he teased.

Sarah walked closer to Chuck, her body brushing up against him as he turned. "That is definitely true," she crooned, smiling at Chuck.

Sarah was looking at Chuck, trying to read the bizarre expression he had on his face. The closest thing in her memory was when she had seen him after he had just spoken to his mother for the first time in 20 years. Like he'd seen a ghost.

And while Sarah regarded Chuck, Cole was watching Sarah. The look on her face as she turned to Chuck was unmistakable, the same look he had seen on her face when he'd said goodbye to her so long ago, knowing she had refused to leave with him because she was in love with the man now standing at her side. Only now, there was no strain, no dilemma or angst keeping her from being with him. She was just happy. Her happiness warmed him in a strange and unexpected way.

"What's the matter?" she asked, leaning towards Chuck and speaking into his ear.

Chuck's answer was to encircle her waist with his arm, guiding her back out through the doorway. "We'll be right back," he said to Cole.

XXX

Cole saw the same expression on Sarah's face as he'd seen on Chuck's when she had accompanied him back into the room. She was faintly pale, a troubled furrow to her brow. The hand she placed on top of Chuck's on the table was meant as a comfort, Cole knew, watching the way her fingers ever so slightly caressed the top of his hand.

Generals Beckman and Casey were back as well, standing at the head of the table, as the satellite connection was waiting for acknowledgement. When the screen came to life, two familiar faces filled the screen.

"Hey, Chuck," he heard first, seeing Zondra's face and her small smile. "Sarah!" she yelled, more amicably and congenially to her friend.

Slightly to the left, and behind her was Carina, wearing a matching smile. "Hello, you two little domesticized lovebirds. How's life in the real world?" she teased.

Chuck and Sarah smiled at the screen. "No complaints," Sarah said with a tight smile.

Carina laughed. "Considering the last time I saw you, you were drunk and singing karaoke at your anniversary party, I figured as such."

Sarah actually blushed, covering her face. Chuck actually turned to her, his eyebrows high on his forehead. "How did I miss that?" he asked quietly. Sarah shrugged, her lips twisted to the side to contain her mirth.

It was Zondra who actually answered. "You were calling the baby-sitter or something like that. Checking on the little rugrats."

Barely containing a smile, Chuck tilted his head at her. " Nobody Does It Better, wasn't it?" Carina snickered.

"Yes, it was," Beckman cut in dryly. "Now, if we can save the family reunion for later, we have some business to conduct, people."

Casey cleared his throat, waiting as the attention in the room focused on him. "The check I ran on Liam was relatively clean, all things considered. However, we did find evidence of some rather large deposits in several of his bank accounts. Not traceable with any usual mode of detection, which is highly suspicious. Nothing seems above board, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily as bad as it could be. He could be embezzling money from his company, dealing drugs, any number of things that have nothing to do with any of this. We've been hard at work trying to sort all that out."

Cole spoke up. "One of those accounts is in Britain, which is how I got looped in. He's traveled back and forth, always in the company of his girlfriend at the time, Vivian Winterbottom. Always with the story of visiting her grandmother in Somerset."

Quick to defend Vivian, Chuck spoke up. "She visits her grandmother frequently. All of those visits are legitimate."

"For her, perhaps. He definitely took advantage of the travel. Every trip coincides with a deposit of some kind," Cole informed them. "Go ahead, ladies," Cole told the two women on the screen.

Zondra took the lead. "We can make this short and sweet. Agent Barker, your suspicions were correct. It took a bit of finessing," she stressed, with a wicked smile, directed at Carina, "but we have proof that the payments made to the Hungarian coincide with every single deposit Liam made in England within a few hours. We couldn't pinpoint the funding source, or prove that the Hungarian paid Liam for anything, or what he paid Liam for, but you were looking for evidence of suspicion, and I'd say that's enough to warrant that. His legitimate business is data destruction. Most of his clients are in the medical field–hospitals and such. There was too much medical information obtained by the Sentries for it to be implausible that he was selling information."

"I trust you'll keep working, ladies," Cole told them. "We need to know for certain." Zondra and Carina nodded in unison.

"Wait," Chuck nearly shouted, his lips curled back over his teeth. "Casey," Chuck said, looking up at his old friend imploringly. "Is this as bad as I think it is right now?"

"No, Chuck," he answered, his face set like stone, but a soft sympathy in his clear blue eyes. "It's worse."