A/N1 The final chapter of Act IV. Act V is our final act, but it will run on for a few chapters. Things to do, things to do…my rabbits in a stew.

Wonderful responses to the last chapters. I appreciate your time and indulgence as I work out my cloud-covered story, as I slowly release all this pressurized heartache.

Don't own Chuck.

ACT IV

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Vows and Constants

Chuck stepped back as he heard Sarah unlock the bathroom door. She looked resigned. It worried him; it worried him a lot.

"Sarah, are you sure you are ok?"

She stepped past him and stood with her back to him.

"I remembered, Chuck, not...everything, but my childhood, I guess, up until I joined the CIA. I was a criminal, Chuck, a con artist, like my dad." Her tone steadily dropped in defeat.

Chuck stepped close to her and put his hands gently on her shoulders. She turned around in response to his gentle pressure, and he looked directly at her. "No, Sarah. You were a child. A minor. Your father was the criminal, the con artist. I like him, Sarah. But I've never forgiven him for what he did to you."

She flinched in his hands. "You know...Dad?"

"I do. He came to town a couple of times before we got married. The first time he gave me a lot of money...although the government took it back. The second time he gave you a lot of money...He paid for our wedding. But he...um...he didn't come. He calls me 'the schnook'."

Despite her shock and her interior chaos, Sarah chuckled quietly for a moment. That, 'the schnook', had the authentic ring of Jack Burton. But paying for her wedding. That seemed wildly out-of-character.

Still, if Chuck said so, she believed it.

"So you knew about my dad, my childhood?"

"Not much. Sort of like your spying. I had generalities...but you provided only a few particulars. But your mom told me some things."

Sarah looked at him, incomprehension tinctured with panic in her features. "My mom? How would you know her? I haven't seen her in...years."

"Not true, although I understand why you say that. We saw her recently. And your sister, Molly."

Sarah's knees weakened. Everything around her went out of focus for a second.

"Now, I know you are either making fun of me or confused, Chuck, I don't have a sister."

"Well…" As the walked to the car, Chuck began telling her about Budapest, the mission, the package, her taking the package to her mother. Telling her her story, again.

Sarah stopped and stared at him. "I remember a little of that; at least, I knew it as you told it. I did that? I did, didn't I?" Her eyes told her surprise.

"Yes, you did. Don't let what the Intersect told you eclipse all the good you've done, Sarah. You wanted to know about termination missions. But there were others, and even with the termination missions, there are detail and details, and the details make a difference."

Sarah was still, quiet. "But, Chuck, the details don't change the objective of those missions, or that I...achieved...the objective in all of them."

She looked away from him and got in the car before he could frame a response. Chuck got in and they sat in a grave, uncomfortable silence.

ooOoo

Archeus watched as Chuck stood outside the bathroom door, waiting. Although she was still delicately aware of her surroundings and her gaze remained fixed on Chuck, she allowed herself to slip into memory. Graduation was a time for remembrance.

Her father. She saw him only rarely. Most of the time during her childhood, she could barely remember what he looked like. Dark, thin, graceful, like a dancer. She'd inherited all that from him. Her mother was really her only parent. Their lives were hard, except for those times her father appeared, and then they lived like royalty. But those times always ended too soon.

They also came at a huge cost for Archeus.

Whenever her father came to town, he expected her to have increased her skills. He had taught her to pick locks. He had taught her how to handle a pistol and how to break it down, clean it, reassemble it. He had taught her how to hide in plain sight, how to use other people, buildings, trees, anything, to conceal herself.

He taught her to run and run and run, without stopping. To run until the hitch in her side was swallowed up in the screaming pain of her entire body, and yet to keep running. He had locked her in closets, stuffed her in boxes, left her alone in the dark for hours. Endless dark hours. He did it, he explained, so that she would become patient, learn to suffer panic without panicking, learn to accept pain, learn to accept the dark. Eventually, he had taught her to crave the dark, to hunger for it.

Her mother did not approve, was horrified by it all, but she was clearly terrified of Archeus' father, and powerless against him; she said nothing, did nothing, watched her daughter change in mute, impotent pain.

Archeus and her mother never knew when her father would appear or when he would leave. Archeus anticipated his arrival with hope and with terror. She anticipated his leaving in the same way.

She loved him; she hated him; he was her father. He had made her Archeus. He deserved the praise; he deserved the blame.

She had not seen him for many years when a package arrived one day in the mail.

Inside was a slip of paper with the numbers necessary to access an account in a Swiss bank. There were also several passports and credit cards and IDs, different identities, complete and untraceable. Cash, in various currencies, was included, and a plane ticket with an open departure date.

And there was a letter.

Her father explained that he had raised her to take over the family business.

Her father was Carlos the Jackal. He was reaching out to her from prison in France.

He had arranged for her to be trained in Russia, by people he knew and trusted. He had made all the preparations, paid for everything in advance; in Russia awaited her deadly finishing school.

Her mother died that same day.

As Archeus sorted through the things in the package and tried to wrap her mind around her father's identity, her mother was run down in the street by a truck. It had been a hit-and-run, the truck and driver never identified, never located.

When the shock and pain of her mother's death dulled, she decided she had no reason not to do as her father wanted. She was on the plane before a cold certainty gripped her: her father had arranged her mother's death precisely to free her for the flight, to free her to become...him.

On that flight, she vowed to become what he wanted, and that meant that he had to die.

There could not be two of him at once. She was sure he understood that, knew that one day he would face the killer he created, the daughter he had fathered.

She excelled at her training. More than excelled. n a few weeks, her trainers were almost all obviously afraid of her. For good reason: a few years later, she returned and killed all the men and women who had trained her, all she could find, and burned to the ground every building that they had used.

No one could know who she was, or know about her training, her strengths, her few weaknesses. Only Carlos knew who she was, and she was confident he would keep his secret.

To the grave.

ooOoo

Archeus broke her reverie. Sarah had come out of the bathroom. She looked wan, beaten. She and Chuck were deeply engaged in conversation. Sarah had stopped. She looked shocked. Archeus wished she'd brought something that would allow her to listen to the conversation. Knowing what they were talking about would perhaps give her more to use against them once she had taken them.

She knew that Sarah had 'daddy issues', just like she did. Perhaps she was thinking about her father too?

Sarah got in the car. Archeus let them drive away. Her network would keep her informed of their progress in the city.

When night came, darkness would befall them both. Archeus would bring the night.

ooOoo

Beckman had Morgan searching Madeline Upshaw. She had had an out-of-the-blue but too fitting to be crazy thought: She told him to see if he could find any history of Madeline being in the same place as Olin Huntaker. Beckman had been a good spy. Her gut was telling her that this was all somehow connected, all one piece. What was going on, she did not know. But she was becoming surer of the players.

Morgan was not Chuck, but he knew his way around computers. Only his mad work avoidance skills had kept him from being far more valuable at the Buymore. Those skills, and his fear of the cage where repairs got done.

It took a while, but eventually, Morgan punched a button and a list of locations and dates came up on the computer. Madeline had a few times had a room in hotels hosting Huntaker campaign gatherings or dinners and at the same time as those events. It didn't prove anything, yet. But Beckman knew, she knew: Madeline and Huntaker were connected. She huffed to herself at the word: 'connected'. She could imagine. But she didn't want to.

One of the hotels was in Los Angeles. Huntaker had been there, giving a speech in support of a candidate for governor of California. Madeline had been there too.

Beckman called Roan. The conversation started awkwardly when she mentioned Madeline, but she did not think Roan sounded guilty of anything, unless it was guilty of knowing the rumors. She let it go. She needed him to work his magic. There would be staff at the hotel who would remember Huntaker's visit. Maybe they would remember Madeline too, and maybe, just maybe, they would remember the two of them together. Roan told her he would be in LA in a couple of hours. He would go right to the hotel.

Beckman patted Morgan on the back and smiled at Alex, who had joined them. She needed to figure this out. What was Huntaker up to? Was it all connected to the Intersect? Maybe Huntaker's opposition to it was self-interested somehow?

She checked her email. Still no response from Madeline. Damn. Still, it might be better to talk to her after she was sure about her connection to Huntaker. She'd give her a little more time.

And then it hit Beckman like a body blow: the rumors, Roan and Madeline. They were Madeline's doing. That bitch. That bitch. She played me. All this time. And she knew just how to do it.

This is why spies don't fall in love.

She blew out a breath, considering Roan and herself, considering Chuck and Sarah. Except that they do.

ooOoo

Chuck was driving but he kept looking at Sarah, eyeing her nervously. She knew he suspected something had happened in the bathroom, something more than her remembering her childhood.

They left the gas station.

She had decided to leave him. Not for her sake.

No, she wanted to stay with him, desperately. She wanted to reclaim her life, her husband, the future they had planned.

But she had that life and that husband and that future...falsely. Chuck had not known what he now knew. And although the acid of her past might not yet have begun to eat at Chuck, to eat through his feelings for her, it would, it would. Inevitably. He would wonder who he was married to, making love to, sleeping beside.

She would destroy him, maybe slowly, maybe not quickly, but certainly, eventually. She wouldn't mean to do it, she would fight it. But the past was fixed, unchangeable, always and forever what it was. And it would always enshadow their future.

She had the memory again of the little girl with the cookie.

Clara. Aunt Sarah.

"Chuck, does Ellie have a child, a little girl?" Sarah tried to keep sadness out of her tone.

He nodded. "You remember?"

"A bit, yes. Feeding her cookies." Chuck smiled and laughed. Some of the worry left his eyes. "She's crazy about you. We would babysit...sometimes."

Sarah glanced into Chuck's face and the unconscious hope it showed made her reel. Had they thought about kids?

Yes.

But a killer shouldn't be a wife or a mother.

But...Molly. She had saved that little girl. The memory was hazy at best, but it was there, and feelings too, although the haze made them little more than warm, hard to specify in any greater detail.

Maybe it was something to build on?

Not much.

Not...nothing.

Not nothing.

She had Chuck. She didn't recall the details of how she got him, but she had...she had suffered for him, suffered to have him; she was sure of that.

Could she keep him? Back in the motel room, she had tried to renew her vow to him with her eyes, in her eyes. For better or worse. But who could imagine this worse? Her worse? Could it get better?

Chuck was watching her face. "Sarah, what is it?"

"I'm starving, Chuck. We need to eat. I need to eat. Those two croissants...Oh, and you got none. You must be hungry too"

"Ok, next stop." He glanced at her again, out of the corner of his eyes. Worry, again, a suspicion that she was just changing the subject.

"Sarah, all those files, that information. I mean, I knew. Not the details. But I knew. I never lied to myself about your past."

She sat still for a moment. "No, but I lied to you about it-lies of omission."

Chuck was perplexed. "Can you lie by omission? It's true you didn't tell me. But even if you didn't tell me the truth, you didn't tell me any falsehoods. You never misrepresented…"

She broke his sentence in two. "Yes, I did. I married you. I represented myself as a fit wife and mother…"

"And that was...that is...true. Nothing I told you about yourself changes my mind about that. Not one jot, not one tittle. You are a wonderful wife. Someday...I hope...you will get to be the wonderful mother I know you'll be."

Sarah looked out the window and let Chuck drive on in silence.

She knew he was telling her what he really believed. But that didn't make what he believed true. Sincerity did not equate to truth. Lots of people sincerely believed the world was flat. They were sincerely mistaken.

And Sarah's world was looking increasingly flat. Dull.

Where would she go? What would she do? Could she be a spy again? She had the skills. But she knew she had no desire to ever do that again. She wanted to live and learn and love...with Chuck.

He was standing in his suit. He looked adorable and beautiful all at once. He'd vowed to always be there for her. He was as good as his word.

All at once, her vision was obscured, the obscurant a doily. Chuck lifted it and her vision cleared. They were practicing…

...And they had practiced on the Bullet Train. A different kind of practice. A drawing. A family. Oh, God, she wanted it then. And she wanted it now. But…

"Oh, Chuck, look. In-and-Out! Can we? Burgers?" She was so hungry it overtopped everything, even her worry and misery. But she really hadn't eaten much since the docks. Burgers, cookies, a croissant...rather, croissants.

Chuck smiled at her and pulled into the entrance, she saw him loosen his hold on the worry that had been on his face. He was hungry too.

They sat in the crowded restaurant and ate, chancing Sarah being identified, but trusting that her changed appearance and the inconguity of an assassin eating at an In-and-Out would keep them safe. It did. Sarah ate her burger with extra pickles, then picked the pickles off Chuck's burger and had them too.

Chuck watched her souse herself with pickles, a speculative look on his face. He flushed a little and Sarah raised an eyebrow, but his answer was a one-shoulder shrug.

Sated, full, she sat for a little while and had Chuck tell her the story of her wedding. It contextualized some of her recent memory images. She knew what was happening in the images: the actual wedding, their private 'rehearsal'.

It all made her so happy and so sad she felt like she would have to halve, binary fission, into one happy woman and one sad woman. She couldn't feel both emotions at this depth at the same time. It was too much. She needed to be two.

One to stay, one to go.

She stood, a touch peremptorily. Chuck stiffened. He grabbed at his worry again. She forced herself to smile and hoped he could not see the effort. If he did, he managed to hide that from her.

They got back in the car, each thoughtful. As they put on their seatbelts, their eyes locked. Each knew, knew what the other was thinking.

And the car filled with gas, colorless gas. But not odorless. They both smelled it before they lost consciousness.

Their world went dark.

A/N2 The course of true love never did...well, you know the rest, but this is pretty rough, even for true love. Tune in next time for Chapter 15, "Voices in the Dark".