A/N: A friend of mine got me looking at steampunk again and I knew I had to dive back into this fic. My current mood is really falling right in line with this dystopian world I've built here. And I'm not saying that because (gestures at things going on in this country right now, an entire party dead set on trying to strip human rights away from a vast majority of the American population)... I'm not nearly so cynical. Because I have fight in me. And I can't stand cynics. Maybe that's why I found a home in CHUCK. That show, and its title character himself, are so deeply rooted in hope, in fighting for the right thing, in not giving up. It's about light in the darkness. Chuck Versus the Steampunk Chronicles is also about light in the darkness. It's about the little people who fight the big and powerful evils, one step at a time, with love, with loyalty, with truth. And with trust. It's about the unlikely heroes discovering that light, the flawed survivor finding it amidst the shadows that exist within her, once she figures out what light even looks like as she spots it in the toymaker who, up until this point, has only ever read about heroes. I don't entirely get why, but this difficult period in our country's history is making me reach for this seemingly dark AU...for the hope that it and its characters give me. Blowing my own mind here, folks. But I sincerely hope you get something from it too. I hope you find some light here.
Disclaimer: I don't own CHUCK or its characters.
Last time: Our five outcasts continued their journey east through the desert, finding a small town to sleep for the night, and after a restless night, Chuck trudged down to the wagon where Sarah was keeping watch, where together they waited out the rest of the night...mind you, sitting mighty close to one another. Huh'wink.
He felt something cool against his neck. And then it moved to the back of his head, and back down again to settle on his shoulder. He felt something shake him then and he grumbled tiredly, wincing a bit as he blinked his eyes open and yawned, turning his face into his pillow.
When he realized the pillow wasn't a pillow but a person instead, he froze. And then he craned his neck to look up and found himself staring into the face of one Sarah Walker. Her eyes were warm and still reminded him of the icy caverns described in the adventure novels he used to read as a boy.
But then she swallowed, pursing her lips and twisting them to the side.
Chuck cleared his throat and reluctantly peeled himself away from her body, not quite sure how he'd ended up falling asleep in her arms, practically on top of her. The arm she hadn't used to wake him up had been wrapped around his shoulders, cradling him tightly against her.
He'd felt it.
But he forced himself to sit up anyway, Sarah's hands on his back and arm to help him up.
"Er…um, thank you," he breathed, his voice scratchy with sleep. He groaned a little, stretching his arms up over his head to make a few bits and pieces in his back pop and crackle.
He glanced back at her and watched as she quietly pushed herself up to sit straighter, leaning back against the side of the wagon. She bit her lip, shyly reaching up to fix her hair a tad and straightening her blouse.
Chuck hadn't forgotten her kindness in the early morning hours, how she had held him tight and let him grieve, as much as he'd allowed himself to grieve. Nor had he forgotten the feeling of her lips against his, the way she'd actually responded to his kiss.
The inventor wasn't sure what that all meant, and he wasn't pushing his luck trying to find out at the moment. He felt much too frayed around the edges, brittle. He couldn't handle another situation with big implications.
His best friend had been savagely murdered, and his metal parts and cogs and wheels and gears were all resting in peace in a trunk Chuck could see from where he was sitting.
Sarah must've caught onto what he was staring at, because she slid a hand up his arm, then back down again, her touch comforting him to no end. He was almost unsettled by just how much power that touch had on him.
"I'm so sorry, Chuck. You—"
She stopped because she must have heard the same thing he did.
They were coming back.
Sarah's hand left his arm and he scooted himself to sit across from her, tossing the blanket to her. She caught it and folded it quickly, tucking it next to her, so that when the flap at the back of the wagon was swung open, the morning light streaming in, John Casey saw two people sitting on opposite sides of the wagon.
"He's here," he said over his shoulder with a grunt. "You idjit. Thought I was finally rid o' ya when I woke up to find ya gone." He sniffed and shrugged. "Yer sister was worried though."
He moved so that Sarah could climb out first, and then Chuck clambered down, still squinting at the sunlight. It was a bright and cloudless morning, the sun warm against his face in spite of the city smog still reaching some of the way out herein the desert.
"Should'a known you'd come back out here." Casey added under his breath, "Glutton fer punishment, aren't ya, kid?"
Chuck understood the meaning, that Sarah Walker was a lost cause, and it got under his skin. Because Sarah herself wasn't a lost cause. She was flesh and blood, human…not the monster she and others painted her as, not a killing machine the way newspapers had insisted when covering her crimes. And especially after last night, the way she hadn't flinched or even paused for a moment when he'd needed comfort, he knew firsthand the warmth that existed in her.
She wasn't a lost cause.
But could Chuck Bartowski, inventor and toymaker, convince her of that? Enough that she'd let herself live, enjoy, have the things she wanted?
Whether she wanted him or not, he wasn't sure if he'd ever know.
And his heart was still aching horribly, so he wanted to think of something that didn't hurt so much.
Like food.
"Any leads on breakfast?" he asked as Ellie came up to him, a barely concealed glimmer to her features. She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him and he wrapped his arms around her to squeeze back. He felt that she needed it as much as she probably knew he did. He kissed the top of her head for it.
"Bought some bread 'n cheese," Casey muttered, lifting a sack. "The doctor 'ere's already preppin' th'fire fer th'coffee." Chuck glanced over Ellie's shoulder as she continued to hold him tightly. Devon was, in fact, already leaning over to start a fire. Casey sauntered over to help him.
"I don't mind that you went to her for comfort, Chuck, but you scared me half to death disappearing like that," Ellie muttered, and Chuck flicked his gaze over to where Sarah checking the horses, spending extra time with Domino, he noticed, talking quietly as she rubbed the sweet creature's nose.
"I'm sorry, Ellie. Couldn't sleep and I thought maybe since I couldn't sleep, might as well come down here and keep watch so that Sarah might get some rest. No use in two of us being sleep deprived."
Ellie finally pulled back, squinting up at him in the sun. She'd always been able to read him better than everybody. And she probably always would be. She patted him on the chest, obviously not convinced, but she didn't let on with her words. Instead, she seemed determined to just let him have the fib. "Gentlemanly of you, brother."
They ate a quick meal together, the five of them finding trunks and rocks and boxes to sit on, as if they were a family on a nice picnic or something, munching on bread and cheese, sipping strong coffee that even made Casey choke a little before he thumped Devon on the back appreciatively.
But this wasn't a family, Chuck knew. Sure, he and Ellie were, and by extension Devon, but not the others. Instead, they were a group of ragtag miscreants, technically. On the run from the law, as corrupted and dysfunctional as that law was. Desperate. Heartbroken.
Just plain broken.
They were all broken.
Or maybe he was the broken one and he was so broken that he was pushing it onto the others.
The familial scene of breaking bread together wasn't punctuated by words, especially not by empty words. He was grateful to all of them for that. There was no talk of the lovely morning weather, no one wondering whether the day's journey would be too hot. No one said anything about Devon's attempt at coffee.
It was just silent, save for the sound of chewing, and slurping out of their small, tin cups.
Chuck rinsed the cups at the communal well and found his brother-in-law walking up to join him with the pot he'd scorched the coffee in. "Maybe tomorrow someone else can do the coffee, huh?" he asked sheepishly, a self-deprecating tilt to his mouth.
Smirking, Chuck sniffed in amusement. "Practice makes perfect, Devon."
"So…you're saying you want to chew on your coffee tomorrow as well?" He winced. "Brave man, Charles. You're a brave man."
Chuckling, he shook his head, sharing the water with the blonde so that he could rinse out the pot.
"There's actually something I, um, want…to say. If that's all right."
Chuck sighed and nodded, turning to look up at the doctor who looked uncomfortable and tentative.
"I didn't tell anyone about this, not even Ellie. I—erm, well, I suppose I was ashamed of it. Which is silly. Ridiculous, even."
"What is it?" Chuck asked, more than curious.
"My parents have been putting money into a fund. It-It's a trust fund, I suppose you could say. For me. It's quite a bit of money. As you know, my family is rather…well off. They were surprised, er, rather…dismayed even when I wanted to go to med school instead of learning the family business, taking over for my father. My brothers can handle that, though. I had a calling." He cleared his throat, looking even more uncomfortable now. "Last year, I reached the age in which I was able to collect that money. And I did. I have it."
Chuck's eyes widened. "You didn't tell anyone about it? Why? Why is that something to be ashamed of, Devon?"
"Trust me. I know how foolish it is now. Which is why I'm…telling you. And I'm going to tell Ellie, as well. I should've last night but for some reason, I suppose I just wanted to be able to talk to you about it first." He let out a rough breath.
"Is it because it's Ellie and she has a certain way she looks at the world and sometimes she struggles with the concept that other people might look at things a little differently, and she gets rather…intense about it?"
Devon winced. "Sometimes. Yes. Not terribly. She isn't closed-minded…" He was searching for the words he wanted to use, his blue eyes darting back and forth.
"No, it's not that. She believes everyone should be as heroic and care as much about progress and equality as she does, that everyone should want to fight for what's right at every moment in every situation, and sometimes it just isn't…"
"Realistic."
Chuck nodded. "I love her for it."
"So do I. Honestly, Chuck, I just wanted to talk to you first because it would prepare me for talking to Ellie. You're her brother. Sometimes you two are very similar. The heroism thing, it…runs in your blood too. She's less easy to budge than you are, but…you're the same in a lot of ways. The difference is, with you I don't have to worry about…er…"
"Getting kicked out of my bed the way you do with Ellie?"
Devon winced again and pointed at him. "That."
He chuckled and nodded as they moved away from the well. They stood off to the side still, and Chuck glanced at the camp they'd set up with their horses and belongings the night before. He could see Ellie and Sarah in the distance, loading things back up, helping Casey prepare the horses to continue their journey. "Devon, just talk to me. We're brothers."
"When I was growing up, I didn't realize how much of a privileged life I was living. You know the Woodcomb family. We're rich. Old money going all the way back to the time of the Revolution. My father's father knew King George I, before he put the crown on when we won the war against Britain, not so much after. But he knew him all the same. When I actually went out into the world, saw the truth of the way other people were living, I began to resent the money I was inheriting. I know," he rushed out, shaking his head. "I know how I sound. Trust me. I know. I was an entitled brat. But I wanted to make my own way. So that trust fund was like…a sticker caught in my trousers. Always there, bothering me. But I couldn't let go of it because that's my family, it's my…my name. Especially when I met Eleanor Faye Bartowski, and I got it into my mind to marry her, I was determined to be able to take care of her, not with my family's money, but with my own. That I earned. Myself."
Chuck pursed his lips. "Devon, Ellie earns her own money. She can take care of herself. We both know that better than anybody."
"Oh, of course. And I knew it then too. That's why I fell so hard. Never met anyone so formidable, man or woman." Chuck had to nod at that. "When I was finally given access to that trust fund last year, I…accepted it. I took it, moved it to my own finances. And I didn't tell my family, I didn't tell you and Ellie. It just sat there. Because it embarrassed me. I'm not proud of it. But that's what happened." He huffed and scratched the back of his head. "I suppose I still think rather like a caveman in some ways. It was just important to me that when I became…a part of this family, the Bartowskis, when you two accepted me into your lives…" He paused, trying a different tack. "I know you and Ellie made something of yourselves, you built your own lives from nothing, both together and separately. You built your business, the Buy More. And Ellie's the smartest medical professional in the business, even if they won't allow her a doctorate of medicine, her mind runs circles around mine. But you never had anyone—I wanted to be able to be that one person who loved you both enough to want to take care of you. And then, you know, actually do it. Take care of you both."
Chuck frowned and looked away, his heart feeling…strange suddenly. His stomach churning. "Devon, I…appreciate how much you've taken care of my sister. But I'm-I'm not your responsibility."
"Chuck, you're the lynchpin to how Ellie's been as successful as she's been. You're the reason why she's put one foot in front of the other, no matter what's come her way, from the moment you were born and came into her life, 'til now. It's important to me that I look out for you, too. If anything ever happened to you, brother…" He whistled low and shook his head, sticking his free hand in his pants pocket.
He didn't know what to say to that. So he just reached over and thumped his hand on his brother-in-law's bicep, squeezing. He nodded, swallowing hard.
"What I really wanted to say, though, is that things went sour fast the other day, so I…I snuck to the bank and I withdrew most of it, whatever I could take. And I-I have it. I have it with me now. I know it puts a bit of a-a, um, target on our backs. But if we're careful with how we spend it, wherever we end up going, anybody looking at us would be none the wiser."
Chuck shook his head. "Devon, we can't do this. You can't waste your money, your trust fund, money that should be used for you and Ellie, starting a family, planning your future together, on this. You didn't ask for any of this. It isn't your responsibility to be funding this…whatever this is."
Devon put his hand on his brother-in-law's shoulder and looked him right in his eyes, disbelief in his face. "Brother, what world do you think we're living in right now? I was there that day." He swallowed hard. "I saw how easily this veneer of normalcy we've all been trying to keep up just crumbled, how everything caught fire, the violence and rage. The chaos. People feeding off of that chaos. It was like a powder keg. As if everyone had been waiting for the slightest provocation and when they got it, it triggered a bloodbath. Our society, our country, maybe even the whole world, is in turmoil. Divided. And nobody knows what the sides even are in this battle. I don't even know what normal is at this point. I don't know if there will be a future. I have the money. I have it now. And if we need it to continue to survive this journey, I'm more than willing to part with it. Damn it, man, I didn't even want it in the first place. But I have it. We have it. I don't know what things are going to look like tomorrow, let alone a year from now, ten years from now…"
Chuck dropped all pretenses and stepped in to wrap one arm around the older man, hugging him tight. Devon Woodcomb wasn't wrong. About any of it. Who knew what lay ahead? He squeezed him tighter. "Thank you, brother."
Devon nodded, hugging him back. And they stepped away from one another and walked together to the site where it seemed they were almost ready to continue on their way.
Chuck opted to take the reins for the first part of the day, and was a little frustrated with Sarah when she made Casey sit next to him on the seat and instead opted to walk. He knew she hadn't slept. She'd let him fall asleep and she'd stayed alert to guard their wagon and property. She'd stayed awake and alert for him. For all of them.
"Where we headed anyway?" Chuck asked after an hour's journey, the wagon rocking along beneath them.
"I'll let you know when we get there," came Casey's gruff reply.
Chuck sent him a look. "The hell you being so mysterious about it for? All four of us are going willingly, Casey. We're trusting you. But you aren't willing to trust us with what our destination is?"
He was silent, just looking straight ahead as though Chuck hadn't said anything at all.
Sighing, the younger man dropped it. He didn't have the wherewithal to argue at the moment. He felt a spite that didn't come naturally to him pricking at his chest and he suddenly wanted to be anywhere else other than sitting on that seat next to Casey.
And it wasn't even really about Casey and the way the older man was keeping mum about their next destination. It was all of it, everything. He'd just left his home, the only home he ever knew. And his sister and her husband were cut off from their home, as well. From their life's work. Their careers.
Their dreams dashed.
Chuck Bartowski couldn't help feeling like it all fell on his head. Whatever this evil force was that caused the bloody battle at the march a few days ago felt like it was reaching out for him somehow. Like tendrils of toxic smoke weaving towards him, seeping through his skin and wrapping around his soul, trying to take him, his brain. There was a…strange connection maybe.
It or He or Whatever The Evil Thing Was wanted the Intersect. He could just feel it in his gut.
All of this was for him. It was because of him.
He was ruining the lives of the people he cared about the most.
"I'm walking," he announced, then.
"Wut, you gotta take a leak or sum'at?"
"No, I just need to walk."
Chuck slowed the horses just slightly, shoved the reins at Casey, and hopped down, landing harder than he meant to. He winced a little and turned to start walking, letting the wagon get further ahead, walking off the twinge in his ankle from hopping down off of the wagon's driver's seat.
He looked straight ahead and just kept walking, trying to keep from absolutely losing his sanity.
}o{
Sarah watched Chuck walk from where she brought up the rear for a good hour and a half. Every so often, he'd snatch his hat off of his head, wipe his face with the handkerchief in his pocket, and slap it back on over his curls, never missing a step.
Something about the way he'd slowed down the wagon, jumped down, and sequestered himself off to the side made her think he wanted to be alone. She knew he had a tendency to get wrapped up in his own thoughts, lost in his head, but she would let him this time. She would leave him be for a while.
And she had, merely keeping her eyes on his back, every so often casting her gaze over the landscape around them to look for any potential dangers. All she saw was dirt, brown bushes, Joshua trees, and every so often, rock outcroppings dotting the horizon, majestic in the blazing sun, almost like shining white beacons amidst the brown scenery.
She took a swig of water from the canteen slung over the side of the horse Devon rode to her right, and then she passed it up to him. He thanked her, took a swig himself, and handed it back so that she could screw the lid on and let it fall against the harness again.
And as she looked after Chuck again, her pace sped up without her even realizing it, and suddenly, she was beside him, shoulder to shoulder. She didn't say anything for a good ten or fifteen minutes, just ambling along next to him. She didn't look at him, and he didn't look at her either.
Until:
"Did I mention how good you look in my hat?"
Sarah chewed on the inside of her cheek, pursing her lips, trying not to let him see how that affected her. A heat that had nothing to do with the scorching hot desert sun went through her, though, and she was glad she was already flushed from the temperature, otherwise he'd notice her blush. "I meant to thank you for letting me borrow it. See, I don't go gallivanting about in deserts often so none of the hats I own fit the bill."
"Oh, it's my pleasure, Miss Walker." She could almost feel him smiling a little as she squinted off into the distance. "If you weren't wearing it, it'd just be sitting in the wagon after all."
She smirked at that. "We can't have that."
"No we cannot."
She let the silence settle between them again, and for some reason, she found herself going back to that day so many months ago now, when he'd taken Aviator's Timepiece waitress Sarah Walker out onto a cliff overlooking the sea to eat pigeon sandwiches. The way he'd filled in the comfortable silences here and there, but then he'd eventually just let it exist there. How good it had felt, how safe and real it had made her feel.
Nothing about their situation now was safe. It didn't feel good.
And yet, this felt comfortable and real, this moment between them. He knew so much more about her now than he had back then, out on that cliff. And he was still here, walking beside her, his hat on her head, protecting her eyes from the scorching rays of the mid afternoon sun.
So much had changed since then.
For instance, she found she was the one to interrupt the comfortable silence this time. "Do you, er, do you need water? We've been at it for a few hours."
He finally glanced at her, giving her a bit of a searching look, and then he blinked once and shook his head a little. "No. Thank you. I'm all right."
She nodded. "You aren't tired after last night? You didn't sleep much."
"Neither did you."
"Well, sure, but I'm used to sleepless nights. I've learned how to fall asleep anywhere, how to sleep lightly enough that I could hear a pin drop and wake up, and how to survive without sleep for a few days on end," she informed him, counting it off on her fingers.
"Hm." He turned to face her, pursing his lips. "Might you show me how to do those things? Now that we're on the run, those seem like important skillsets for a fellow to have."
She smiled and shook her head, wrinkling her nose. "I think not. Let me worry about doing all of that for you—"
"I don't want you to." He didn't raise his voice, but the quiet hardness was almost worse. She turned wide blue eyes on him and he seemed contrite, even though he avoided her gaze. "I'm tired of you having to do everything for me. And Casey. My bodyguards, my protectors. Putting yourselves in these dangerous situations to keep me safe. I'd like to pull my own damn weight. For once."
Sarah found herself a bit speechless for a few moments in the face of his frustration. "Well, Chuck, it—it's just that Casey and I, we've been doing this for…a while, the two of us. And you—"
"Mhmm. The inventor, the toymaker, locked away in his workshop, hunched over watches and toys with his screwdriver. Defenseless. Hopeless."
"Don't," she said quietly. He gave her a questioning look and she stared straight ahead. "Don't talk about yourself, what you do, like that. Like it isn't…important. Like it's lesser. Chuck, I'm a God damned criminal. You-You saw some of the things I've done. Not everything they've printed about me is a lie. Some of it has been true. So please, please, do not put me up on a pedestal. And don't do that with Casey, either. What you do—"
"Did," he said, a hint of darkness in his tone.
"What you do," she emphasized, and he gave her a surprised look. She met it with a hard one, determination bristling in her. "…is a kind of magic, Chuck Bartowski." She didn't voice the extent of how she felt about that little shop in Los Angeles, the Buy More, with its gadgets and cogs and springs and the whimsical little toys…the joy that spilled out of its doors and windows. The childhood she'd lost long, long ago… she'd found it again there. In small moments, in the bobble of a ballerina's head, the flutter of a wooden bird's wings. "I know what I know about survival because I…I was forced to figure out how to survive."
He nodded quietly. And then he finally spoke up again after a few minutes. "I'm sorry for trivializing what you've gone through. I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to…glamorize it, rather." She felt the backs of his fingers brush against hers between their hips, and she stretched her fingers to wrap them around his, squeezing. A sort of silent acceptance of his apology. She wasn't even sure he owed her an apology.
"It's all right, Chuck."
He sighed, squeezing back. "I just wonder how I will be able to survive if…I don't know, if we end up separated. I mean, if I don't know the skills…to survive on my own."
Sarah bit her lip, squirming in discomfort. "Listen, I will try to teach you some of what I know, but…I'm not going anywhere. I'm not letting us get separated. And I'm not letting anything happen to you."
Chuck's entire hand engulfed hers and he stepped in closer, just looking into her eyes. It was…distracting. To say the least. "I know. But just in case… it feels important. Like something I need to know now that I'm on the run. …Thank you, Sarah."
She couldn't help but smile at him. "Well, it'll have to wait for now. I'm not overexerting myself in this blasted heat."
For the first time in a long time, she heard the sound of his laughter, and it lifted her spirits significantly. "I suppose that's fair—"
"Walker!"
There was something in the sound of Casey's voice, an urgency, that made her insides go cold. She squeezed Chuck's hand reflexively and looked up at the bounty hunter, seeing that he was looking well off to their left, in the direction of the Nevada Kingdom settlements.
Letting go of Chuck's hand, she trotted up to where the toymaker had climbed down a few hours earlier, leaping up onto the step of the moving wagon and hoisting herself to stand tall and look over Casey's head.
"See 'em?"
Yes. She saw them. Dark figures on the horizon. Her adrenaline spiked immediately. "Looks like a good group of them."
"Count close ta ten."
"Damn it. I can't tell who they are." She glanced over her shoulder towards Chuck who was watching them both in concern. "Did you bring a spyglass?"
"Whaddya think, we're sailin' the seven seas? F'course 'e din't bring a—"
"Yes! I'll get it!"
Sarah turned to smirk at Casey for a moment. She knew her toymaker. A scent of adventure and the inventor would bring something he'd seen the heroes in his adventure serials use. In a lot of ways he was still rather like a little boy, and she loved that about him.
But she couldn't dwell on that for too long because the figures on the horizon were getting bigger, and a lot faster than she'd anticipated as Casey slowed down just slightly so that Chuck could scramble back to the front of the wagon and toss his spyglass up for Sarah to snatch out of the air.
She did, holding on tight with one hand and bringing it up to her eye.
She could see that Casey was nearly right. There were eight riders on horses. White men from what she could tell by their dress, and definitely not in the usual dress of the First Americans…and the men seemed to be riding straight at them. But as she slowly swept her gaze along each of the eight men on horseback, a cloud of dust rising up behind them, she spotted the tell-tale mask on one of their faces. Then another. And yet another.
"Patrols," she said, her heart racing. "What in God's name're they doing out here?"
"Patrols?" Casey asked brusquely, and she lowered the spyglass and plopped down to sit next to him, grabbing the reins as she passed him the contraption.
She sped the horses up, then, ready to tell Chuck to jump into the wagon with Ellie because they were going to try to outrun the bastards.
But Casey grabbed her by her wrist. "No, don't. Slow it down. Slow it down!"
She glared at his tone, but followed his lead anyway. "Why? We can outrun them."
"Don't think we can. They're far enough away that we might have a chance, but you wanna take that chance? They catch us an' they'll know we're up to no good, on account of us runnin' like a pack o' criminals."
She had to give him that point. But she had the image of Morgan, mangled on the floor of the inventor's workshop, destroyed, and the inventor kneeling there with his head hung low, his fists shaking, but the rest of his body so terrifyingly still. For the rest of her days, her first inclination upon seeing patrolmen would be to want to kill them.
It would be difficult to face them if they really were headed straight for them, the way it seemed they were, without wanting to take Morgan's destruction out on every single one of them.
Slowly.
"Strange how it seems like they almos' came from up ahead but they rounded in that direction to come at us from th'side," Casey said thoughtfully, his brow furrowed. "I dunno, 'at hits me as purdy off."
"Almost as if they're ambushing us," Sarah mumbled. She leaned forward to glance past Casey and then she handed him the reins and nimbly hopped off of the seat to the ground, going straight for Chuck. "We have company and we need to act fast."
"Comp—Company? Who company? What?"
She grabbed him by the arm and took him around to the back of the wagon where the flap was. "Make sure Morgan's trunk is locked and covered with something. There are blankets in there. Cover him up. We don't want their attention drawn to him."
Chuck followed her gaze and saw the approaching patrols. "Who the…?"
"Patrolmen," she said, walking along behind the wagon next to him.
He spun on her. "What?! The hell are they doing all the way out here?!"
"Casey says they came from ahead and rounded back towards us from the side. That's the behavior of somebody who means to ambush. My guess is they got a wire from Los Angeles's patrols requesting back-up. If they already know about the fugitives," she gestured between them, "they'll be sure to stop everyone from here to the city."
"Uh, Sarah?!" Devon brought Domino around, alarm in his face. "You see that over there?! Who are they?!"
Ellie popped her head out from the back of the wagon. "What is it?"
"Patrols," she explained. "I think they're from either Arizona province, maybe even New Mexico, depending how fast emergency wires move down here."
"Patrols?! Those damn bastards," Ellie growled, anger lighting up her face, her green eyes crackling. "Do we have weap—" Her eyes fell on Sarah, and then she glanced over her shoulder. "Oh. Of course."
"Weapons?!" Devon exclaimed. "Ellie, that's ridiculous. None of us know how to use weapons!"
"Yes, well…watch me try it anyway if I'm face to face with one of those rat bastards," she snarled.
"And shoot one of us or yourself instead of them?" Chuck asked. "Not a chance, El."
"Look, we have to move fast. We need to make ourselves seem less like the people they were obviously looking for when they showed up at your shop, Chuck," Sarah cut in before Ellie could argue with her brother. "If they see two women, three men, and a busted up automaton, they'll immediately know we're the ones who escaped from the rally I'm sure their compatriots in Los Angeles told them about."
"So we put Casey in a dress?"
Sarah just shook her head at the toymaker. She didn't need that imagery stuck in her head. "I was thinking more along the lines of trying to appeal to their better natures. Ellie, I'm sorry to do this to you but…think you could find something in the wagon that you could shove under your shirt and make it look as if you're with child?"
She noticed Devon go white as a sheet, even as Ellie nodded, ducking back into the wagon, disappearing for a moment. When she reappeared, she turned to the side and showed them her "stomach" protruding under her blouse. "How's this?"
"Perfect."
"You don't think they'll try to attack a woman who's with child? After everything they've done, and everything that you've all witnessed?"
Sarah looked Ellie in the face. "They might. But this at least puts a thread of doubt into their minds. If they got word of us, nobody would've mentioned a woman who's with child. Anything we can do to put them off our scent and have them go on their merry way."
"Hey! They're getting closer! What's the plan?" Casey barked over his shoulder from the front.
"Just keep driving!" she yelled back.
Then she crawled up next to Ellie and scampered to the other side of the wagon bed, grabbing some of their things and pulling them down from where they'd been stacked on her trunk where she kept her arsenal.
"What are you doing?" Ellie asked breathlessly, still adjusting the bundle under her dress, an uncomfortable look on her face.
"Preparing for a fight in case it comes to it."
"It's going to come to it, isn't it?"
Sarah was careful not to meet the brunette's eye. "It…might. Patrols aren't exactly known for their humanity."
"Let me have one."
She jolted in surprise, turning wide eyes to the other woman.
There was a look of determination on her face, as well as fear. It filled Sarah with the urge to throw her arms around her and hug her close. But she stayed put, instead reaching out to put a comforting hand on Ellie's arm. "Casey and I will handle that part of things. We're…used to having blood on our hands. I won't have today be the day the three of you get blood on your hands."
She wouldn't have any day in the future be that day either, if she could help it. Eleanor Bartowski had the same innocence in her green eyes that her brother had in his brown ones. In spite of everything they'd been through as children, and what they'd seen growing up, things she still couldn't possibly know even the half of, that innocence of having never taken a life, having never watched the soul leave a person's eyes right in front of them because of something they'd done, was still in both of them. And Devon as well.
Ellie grabbed Sarah's arm in a vice grip. "I'm not some prissy thing unused to seeing violence, Sarah. I've taken bullets out of boys too young to shave. I've seen death. Plenty of it. And I've also seen plenty of violence." She squeezed Sarah's arm even tighter and the younger woman fought the urge to wince as Ellie leaned in closer. "This is about keeping my family safe. My husband, my brother. My friends, Sarah." She grit her teeth. "Everything I have left is in and surrounding this wagon, and I'm going to protect it with my life if I have to."
Sarah worked her jaw, fighting back her own fears, and turned to the trunk she'd opened. She reached in and pulled a knife out, one of her larger ones, not the throwing knives she strapped to her person at all times. She took Ellie's hand and slapped the hilt into it, using both of her own hands to close the other woman's fingers around the knife and nodding seriously, meeting her gaze. "Don't use this unless you absolutely have to. Please."
"I know how to shoot a gun, Sarah."
"I don't doubt that. But you and Chuck both lost a…" She gulped. "Lost a good friend at the hands of patrol bastards." She could almost feel the Morgan parts in the trunk behind her, covered in blankets and luggage to hide it from plain view. It almost felt like he was burning a pattern into her back. "I know firsthand how easy it is to let vengeance take over. And you don't know what you've done until it's over and you're…neck deep in blood." She took a rough breath and blinked hard. "And then everything is different. Everything. You're different."
Ellie gave her a sad and curious look but Sarah blinked the rest of her tears away, swallowing the lump in her throat as she grabbed two guns, slipping one down the back of her trousers, the other in the holster at her shoulder. She grabbed a brown jacket slung over a nearby chest and shrugged it on to cover the gun at her shoulder. And before she could do anything about the sleeves that were too long for her arms, Ellie was there, rolling them up to her wrists for her.
"Th-Thanks."
Ellie wordlessly nodded, worry in her face. And then she spoke up, her fingers stilling against Sarah's wrist. "We're not losing anybody today. Not to them. Not to anyone. Right?"
Her voice shook.
Sarah grabbed her hand, making Ellie meet her eyes. She hardened her face. "Not to them. Not to anyone. Especially not today. I promise you."
Ellie gave a brittle smile and nodded. "Devon's a good shot. He and his brothers did plenty of hunting up in the mountains when they were boys."
Biting her lip, Sarah huffed. "All right." She scooted back to the flap and hung her head out. "Devon…" He turned Domino and trotted back, his eyes still on the northern horizon. She followed his gaze. Oh God, she could see how much closer they were. And they were definitely coming right towards them. There was going to be some kind of altercation. She just knew.
She turned back to the surgeon. "How are you with a rifle?"
His usually friendly and open features hardened in a way she hadn't seen from him before. He nodded. "Not bad at all, Sarah."
"Well, all right then." She went back in, grabbed the rifle out of the trunk, loaded it with a precision and speed that left Ellie gawking, and she scooted back to the flap, thrusting it out towards Devon. "Don't use that unless absolutely necessary. For all they know, you're the one who picks off the coyotes, wolves, or any other unwelcome predators as you move your family across the country. Right?"
"Right." He grabbed it with a serious nod, swinging it over his shoulders by the strap.
She went back in, grabbing another rifle for Casey, as well as two handguns. She poked them out towards Chuck who was still trotting behind the wagon, concern in his face. But she saw something else there too. Anger. She didn't blame him for it one lick. "Bring these to Casey, please, Chuck."
He grabbed them and disappeared to the front. Not half a minute later, he was scrambling up into the wagon with her and Ellie. "Give me one, too."
Sarah spun on him and gave him a steady look. "No, Chuck."
"What?! Why?! These monsters are closing in on us and you'll have me without protection? You think I don't know how to handle a g—"
"I'm sure you'd handle it just fine, Chuck. But men who looked just like them dismantled your best friend with a cruelty and a violence that—" She swallowed hard. So she would have to say this again, only to a different Bartowski this time. "Killing in vengeance…it has a certain effect on a person that lasts for a lifetime. I don't want that for you."
"I don't care what you want for me, I need a gun."
She sent him a wide-eyed look.
"Chuck…" Ellie tried.
But Sarah felt something rise in her, a frustration with everything, and she knew it wasn't his fault, but he was kneeling right there in front of her, with an inflated sense of rebellion and bravado that was misplaced and naive. He didn't understand. He had no idea.
"You don't need a gun, Chuck," she said in a quiet and dangerous voice. She put a hand on the side of his face. "You don't need to be the one who puts a bullet into one of those men. You don't need to see his face every night before you fall asleep for the rest of your life. Every time you shut your eyes." She took a half moment to let her words settle in him. And then: "You're not getting a gun."
Obviously angry with her, he pulled away, brushing her hand off of him, and he backed out of the wagon, hopping down, out of view.
Sarah felt a comforting hand on her arm as she stared hard after him. But thankfully Ellie didn't speak. She just gave her a silent gesture of both approval and understanding. And it helped. She knew Sarah was protecting her brother, and Sarah felt her appreciation.
"We're migrants making our way east from California for a quieter, safer place for you and Devon to raise your child. Chuck's your brother, I'm his wife, Casey's my uncle."
Ellie nodded. She grabbed Sarah's arm tighter. "Please be careful."
"I will be. Don't worry, I'm staying in here with you for now. If the men can't take care of this, then…I'll have to leave you alone."
"I can handle it."
Sarah smiled a little at Chuck's sister, the undaunted hardness in her face. "Oh, I know, Ellie."
She ducked out of the wagon again, hopping down and landing gracefully. They had maybe two minutes before the patrols reached them. "I think the best course of action is that we have you be the one to talk to them, Devon."
He turned wide eyes on her. "Me?"
"I would do it, as I'm absolutely better than anyone else in our party at lying convincingly, but a woman taking point even in something as simple as a conversation with patrols who've happened upon our party won't sit right with them. Your wife is on the leadership committee of a coalition trying to win rights for women, including the vote. I'm positively certain those men won't share your radical views on treating women like human beings." Devon smirked at that. "The safest bet is if I stay out of sight, especially while I'm wearing trousers."
"No guns a'blazin' then, huh?"
"Not unless my hand is forced." He nodded and he looked nervous, even through the determination. "Devon." He looked at her again, away from the approaching renegades. "No one here is more equipped to negotiate with these men than you are. You're a doctor who handles patients day in and day out. This is what you do."
"That's right," he said, his tongue darting out to lick his lips. "Don't worry," he said, and she could see his brain was going a mile a minute behind his blue eyes squinting out into the sun. "I will handle them. I'll get rid of them."
She didn't think he would. But she still smiled at him and nodded. "I know, Devon."
She knew Chuck was angry with her, but she approached him anyway. "I'm staying in the wagon with your sister like the good little woman," she said, taking in the twitch of his jaw, the hardness in his usually soft and warm brown eyes. "It's best I stay out of sight. But I'll keep her safe. I'll keep you safe, too. Trust me."
"I do trust you. Though it seems you don't trust me the way I trust you."
"That's not true." Sarah grabbed his arm. "That is not true." He turned his eyes on her. They softened just slightly. "This isn't about trust. I do trust you."
There was a bit of regret in his face, and then he shook himself and wiped a bit of sweat from his temple with a handkerchief from his pocket.
"I have a bad feeling, Sarah. They aren't coming over here for anything peaceable."
"I don't think they are, either."
"I'm not losing my family."
She tightened her grip on him. "No. You are not. I'll kill every last one of them before they lay a hand on any of you."
His eyes softened further. "So it's fine if you add a few dozen faces to the ones you're already seeing every time you shut your eyes?"
Sarah Walker felt that strike her right in the heart. She gulped, fighting down the urge to yell up into the incoming clouds. How unfair all of this was. "Yeah," she muttered instead. "It's fine. The first one's the worst. And they get easier thereafter."
"Some might call that an endorsement."
"It isn't," she said quickly.
"I know," he said quietly. She watched him kick at a small stone with the toe of his boot as they trudged along. "It isn't that I want to know how to use a gun. I don't even want to touch one of those things," he said, shaking his head. Sarah looked at his profile closely, watching as he shoved his hands in his pockets, still working his jaw, his brow furrowed. "And I definitely don't want to learn how to…kill someone. I-I mean, killing someone and being able to just keep living my own life as though I didn't take someone else's. But…what they did to Morgan…" His face hardened.
"That's exactly why I—"
"I know that," he said. "You're right, as much as I hate to admit it."
She couldn't help the small smile. Even in the worst emotional anguish and pain, even in grieving, he was truly the most complete person she had ever met in her life. He surpassed anything she might've dreamed up even when she was a child, before her life had been turned on its head and the world became so much uglier and harsher. He seemed all the more impossible now.
Yet here he was beside her. Real. Flesh and blood. Alive. And he'd stay alive if she had to die to keep him that way.
"If they start shooting?" he asked. "If they shoot at me? How do I protect myself?"
"Stay out of the open," she said. He gestured around them with his arms outstretched at the vast expanse of desert and nothing else. "I mean use the wagon," she said in a flat voice.
"Oh. Yes. I see." His shoulders slumped. "This isn't going to be like The Desert Rascal. I'm not Billy Anson. I'm just a toymaker. Look at this." He took one hand out from his pocket and held it in front of her. "Look at how I'm shaking. Billy Anson didn't shake like this when faced with his foes."
"Billy Anson isn't real, Chuck. You are real. This is real. There are real stakes here. And those patrolmen are worse than any of the villains in your serials you read growing up, because they're also real."
"You're also real, Sarah Walker. And your hands aren't shaking."
"Don't do that," she said, grabbing his hand still quivering slightly in front of her. She looked him right in his eye. "Don't begrudge yourself your fear. It will keep you alive, Chuck."
That didn't seem to move him much, but he nodded just the same.
"I'm going to get back in the wagon with Ellie, but…" She took a deep breath, feeling fear rise in her own chest. "Whatever you have to do to stay safe, no matter what you see or hear, do it. We're going to be all right."
She wasn't sure how much he believed her but he squeezed her hand.
And for a split second, she saw a need in his face, and it echoed the ache she'd been feeling in her chest. For even just a split second of comfort. Feeling his arms around her. His lips under hers. And just as she decided to throw her arms around him, to give him as much strength for what was coming as she meant to take from him…
"Walker!"
Shit!
Licking her lips, she pulled away from Chuck, hearing the thunderous approach of horses's hooves as the patrol neared them. She dove into the wagon. Ellie was huddled in the corner, the knife Sarah had given her out of sight, a lump under the stomach of her dress. It looked real enough. Those men wouldn't know the difference if they even saw Ellie in the first place.
"Ey!" She heard the unfamiliar barking voice over the thunderous clomping, iron crunching over dirt and rocks. "Stop there!"
Casey slowed the horses down.
Sarah took a deep breath, meeting Ellie's eyes, and she slipped her hand around one of her guns, cocking it.
A/N: To be honest, I'm actually scared for the patrolmen. Ellie and that knife? Booooys, you're in deep doo doo.
Please review. Y'all have no idea how much of myself I leave on the page when I write this particular fic especially. Phew.
Thank you!
-SC
