A/N: Sing along! "Jill's making a list, she's checking it twice, gonna find out..." Ok, ok, t'ain't the season. I get it. I get it.

Continued thanks to all you beautiful creatures out there reading and reviewing.

Don't own Chuck.

CHAPTER 8 Regret and Relocation

The chanting of the Casters started low, with Beckmann's voice leading the others'. The voices grew in volume, circling around Cave, gathering themselves, spinning, intensifying, eventually creating a whirlpool in the room that could be felt but not seen - a whirlpool of power. Sarah listened and watched carefully. Casey stood behind her, with Jill beside him, and Chuck on the other side of Jill. Jill's hands had earlier been bound by Sarah, much as Jill had bound Sarah's before. Jill looked slightly nauseated as the chanting began, but Chuck knew that it was not the teleportation to come that was making Jill queasy, risky though it was. No, it was the thought that she was about to play her final trump card and that there was no way for her to save herself. Her hand had played itself out.

Sarah turned to Chuck. "Any minute now. When I step forward, follow. Stay as close to me as you are now or closer. There'll be a sense of dizziness, then a what will seem like a long, slightly painful feeling like your ears are going to pop, like on a plane. And then there will be more dizziness. And then we will arrive. It will all be instantaneous, even if it feels like time is passing. Clear your mind and think about pleasant things." She licked her lips slowly, making sure he saw as if assigning him a topic of thought. Then she turned her head to look back at Casey. He grunted. She faced forward and then took a step. Casey, Jill, and Chuck did so too.

[Dizzy...Pressure, pressure, pressure...Dizzy...Bank!]

The four stood in silence, recovering from the teleportation. The bank vault was dimly lit by the weak glow of a couple of security lights. The safety deposit boxes covered the walls around them. The vault was deep in a cool, tomb-like silence, and the breathing of the four seemed to violate that silence.

Sarah turned to look at Chuck. He seemed ok. In fact, he looked a little distracted, just as Sarah had intended. Jill looked a bit worse than she had in Cave. Casey, well, he was Casey. "Ok, Jill. Let's do this. Open your safety deposit box, " Sarah waved Jill into motion.

Jill stepped forward, took a moment to orient herself, then touched one of the boxes. It glowed for a moment and then looked normal. Jill turned the small combination lock. Chuck expected to hear the box click open. But instead, he heard a loud sound, a ripping noise, as if a piece of cloth had been rent in two. Chuck saw Sarah dive to the ground and Casey too, a split second after Sarah. Jill looked suddenly terrified. Shaw and another man and a hooded figure were in the room. Shaw's hands were already moving and a chant was on his snarling lip. He pushed his hands toward them and Chuck was spun around and thrown into the wall of boxes behind him. His head snapped smacked against one of the combination dials and he blacked out.

Sarah hoped Chuck had moved. There had been no time to warn anyone. She hit the floor and felt the power of Shaw's attack blow past her. She heard Casey grunt. He was on the floor too. But, she realized, neither Chuck nor Jill had been able to get out of the way. Sarah saw Chuck slam face-first into a wall of boxes and crumple to the floor. Jill was thrown backward into the same wall. She went down, but she was still conscious. Sarah heard Shaw shout out, "Sorry, Jill, baby." He didn't sound sorry. The man with Shaw had launched himself at Casey. The hooded figure was closing on Sarah.

She felt a deep sense of foreboding, a dread at her very center. It was radiating from the hooded figure, washing over her in waves. The creature reached out to touch her and Sarah saw its leprous claw extending. She instantly knew that if it touched her, she would be dead. She rolled to the side with an elastic dexterity, Casting as she did. The figure's hooded robe burst into flame. It stopped stalking Sarah and began to beat at itself with its clawed hands. It tore the flaming garment off and turned its yellow, cadaverous eyes on Sarah. Her stomach flipped. Besides the sense of foreboding the creature radiated, it stank of carrion. The burning robe had intensified the smell and added an extra acrid note to the stench. The creature's head moved in a way that reminded Sarah of a praying mantis, its posture insectoid. It smiled at her, if 'smiled' was the right word, and began to approach her again, its yellow eyes now alight and becoming fever-green with dark desire. Sarah needed another spell. She had to think of something fast.

Chuck regained consciousness all at once but thought for a moment that the world had turned red. He swiped at his eyes and realized his forehead was bleeding profusely. Some of the blood had pooled in and around his eyes. He rubbed his eyes and blinked, wiping his hands on his shirt.

As his vision cleared, Chuck saw three things happening simultaneously: Shaw opening Jill's safety deposit box, Casey rolling on the ground with another Caster, and Sarah facing an...insect zombie. For a split second, Chuck thought his vision was playing tricks on him, then he knew it wasn't. He pushed himself up, about to rush the creature as it moved like a doom toward Sarah. Chuck didn't get far. Someone hit him, hard, and he went to the floor again. Jill! She stood over him, her face stretched into a strange mask. Chuck had no time for her, no time for her anymore at all. He had to help Sarah. He reached up and grabbed Jill's bound hands. She had hit him with them. He looked deeply into her eyes for a moment, his eyes rolled and...

[...there was a flash of bright light, a moment of peaceful calm, the sound of tinny amplified music, a glimpse of a talking animal and…]

...Jill was gone and Chuck stood and turned toward Sarah and the monster.

Sarah had a thought. She twisted her hands and muttered as fast as she could. Then she pointed at the head of the lich. Sarah filled its head with a piercing ultrasonic sound. The lich's mouth split open in a cry of agony, but the cry was soundless. She intensified her focus, making the sound more painful. The creature wavered on its feet, then crashed to the ground, a greenish pus oozing from its head. But before Sarah could react to what she had done, she saw Shaw with the thumb drive in one hand and a gun in the other. Shaw must have expended all of his power on his attack just as he arrived. He had the gun pointed at Chuck, who had just gotten to the spot where the lich had fallen. Chuck was staring, dumbfounded and horrified, at the creature.

Shaw's finger tightened on the trigger. Sarah reached to her back and whipped her hand forward in one smooth, complete motion. Her knife embedded itself in the wrist of Shaw's gun hand. She was too late to stop the shot but in time to wreck Shaw's aim. He missed.

Sarah followed her knife, ramming her shoulder into Shaw's middle, hard. They went down in a tangle. Sarah managed to get her hand to her knife, still embedded in Shaw's wrist, and she drew it out, stabbing fiercely at Shaw's heart. Shaw was strong, however, and, though not as quick as she, he got his arm up and deflected her blow. Her knife came out of her hand and skittered across the tile floor.

Shaw had done her a favor by saving himself that way. He deflected her blow with the arm of the hand grasping the thumb drive. Sarah used her now-empty hand to grab Shaw's exposed wrist and twist it violently. She heard a loud pop, and Shaw gasp and felt him seize in pain. The thumb drive came out of his hand and bounced across the floor toward Chuck.

Chuck reached down and grabbed it. Sarah flipped Shaw over onto his stomach and grabbed his damaged arms. With the last of her power, she bound him.

In the meantime, Casey had overwhelmed the Caster who attacked him. Casey had a long gash across his chest, but it did not look deep. When Chuck went to him to offer him some help, Casey grunted him away. Sarah dragged Shaw to where Chuck and Casey were standing with the unconscious Caster, and, still holding onto Shaw's collar, she rubbed the enchanted gem Beckmann had given her, to let Beckmann know they were ready to return to Cave.

[Dizzy...pressure, pressure, pressure...Dizzy...Home!]

Beckmann was waiting for them with a keen look on her face. She looked at the group carefully.

"Where is Roberts? Where is Jill?"

A couple of the other Casters in the room took charge of the two prisoners. Beckmann's Healer took charge of Shaw after looking quickly at Chuck and Casey. They would both require minor healing spells but could wait. Sarah handed Beckmann the thumb drive. She took it, but still kept her searching gaze on them.

"Where is Jill? Is she dead?"

Sarah shot a look at Chuck. Casey took advantage of the silence to point out the need for Cleaners to get to the vault, remove the lich, and clean up the bloody mess. Beckmann nodded her agreement and with a sharp look sent one of the remaining Casters to see to it.

"Well?" Beckmann said, the simplicity of her question underscoring the seriousness of her question. She was demanding an answer.

"Chuck?' Sarah said, turning to him. "Where is Jill?"

Sarah watched Chuck turn red and swallow hard. "Uh, Beckmann, Jill is...ah...in a better place."

Complete silence fell on Cave. No one moved. No one spoke. No birds sang. Chuck looked up, then down, then to the side.

"You killed Jill, Chuck?" Beckmann asked in a harsh whisper, her posture shouting her disbelief.

For a minute, Chuck seemed deeply confused. Sarah could see wheels whirring behind his eyes. "Oh! Uh, no, no. I didn't send her to heaven. I sent her to...Orlando."

Now Beckmann was confused. "Orlando? From what mythology is that, Chuck? Is it Norse? Orlando?"

"No mythology, ma'am. Not Norse, South. Florida. I sent her to Disney World."

"Chuck!" Beckmann bellowed, above the shocked escalating laughter of Sarah and Casey.

Being at least a little pissed was more or less Beckmann's way of being-in-the-world so that by itself would not have had much of an effect on him. But Beckmann was pissed in a special way for Beckmann. And that had Chuck terrified.

Beckmann gestured violently for Chuck to sit down at the table, and for Sarah and Casey to join him. Beckmann sat down, took a very deep breath, paused while holding it, then expelled it with a deliberate slowness. "Chuck, explain yourself."

"I looked at Jill and I finally realized the truth. She is dark, but she regrets what she has done. Or a part of her does. She was...is...terrified of Shaw and The One Ring. I let her go."

"You shipped that...woman...the scourge of your life...to the Happiest Place on Earth?" Beckmann was almost shouting.

"Well, yeah. I get it. That seems like a bad idea. But I did something else, too."

"Chuck…" Beckmann growled.

"In the moment when I translated her, I realized that I could...erase...some of her darkness. I couldn't make her light, I am now sure that is beyond my power, but I could...reset...her. A part of her was genuinely sorry, a part of her wanted to change. I gave that part a chance. I couldn't have done it if that part wasn't there. It won't be easy, but she is no longer so far gone down the wrong path that turning back is an impossibility. So I sent her away and undid Sarah's binding spell." Chuck looked at them all, entreating them to understand.

"Sarah," Chuck said, "that...thing...would've killed me if I had gotten to it, wouldn't it." Sarah nodded. "Jill hit me. But she wasn't attacking me. She was saving me. I tried to save her back."

Sarah's vision got runny as her eyes filled. This was her Chuck. Jill was Jill, and Sarah would have been happy enough to see her imprisoned, but Chuck was Chuck. He just forgives. He would have been willing to see Jill imprisoned, Sarah knew, but he had found a better way. Jill was possibly still a threat, but Sarah thought it unlikely that Jill would find her way back into their lives. Sarah would have paid a lot of money to have seen Jill's face when she realized where she'd been sent. Sarah honestly hoped Jill could find a new life. Chuck seemed to have a knack for helping people do that, power or no power.

Beckmann spent a few minutes asking Chuck more about what he had done, but, as was usual, he only knew what he did, not how he did it. Beckmann could tell that they were all exhausted, and she knew that Chuck and Casey needed attention from the Healer. Chuck confessed that the headache that normally accompanied the use of his powers had settled on him. His nose was now bleeding a bit too, adding to the stains on his face and shirt. So, she ordered them to go and be attended to. After the two men left, Beckmann turned to Sarah.

"Do you think he is in any way out of control?"

Sarah was puzzled by the question. "What do you mean"

"What he did was annoying and...amusing and sweet, Sarah, but the Heads of the other Houses may not see it that way. I have gotten to know Chuck; I know what he is doing, how he understands things. But other Heads are growing increasingly nervous about him. And now he has, in effect, usurped the Houses' decision on Jill. She was to be imprisoned, not freed. That will rankle. But the fact that he also claims to have...un-darkened Jill. That is a claim that will be denied. Many will deny it is possible. I would have thought that too, except I know Chuck. He is no liar and no boaster. If he said he did it, he did. Oh, it is possible he's mistaken, I suppose. But that seems unlikely. I hadn't expected Chuck's power to work like this, to be able to do such a thing. Of course, we still don't know much about this. But it will make both dark and light Casters very nervous, very nervous, for obvious reasons. Luckily, he still seems to have no real control over when his powers come, and so far it has always been in situations of distress, danger. And so far his powers seemed somehow keyed to you. So, I ask again. Do you think he in any way out of control? Can I assure the Heads that he is with us, that he will not go rogue, pit himself against us?"

"I have a suggestion about this," Sarah said, "I think Chuck and I should move in together. I will be honest and admit I want to do this for personal reasons, but it also makes sense given your question. Chuck's powers do seem to be keyed to me. Even though we have eliminated Shaw as a threat, we know The One Ring has people above Shaw. Let me be clear: I will not be his 'handler'; I will not 'spy' on him, but protecting him in my priority, and it would like to be able to do it 24/7. Of course, he will have to agree. Frankly, I just want to live with him."

"I've seen him look at you, Sarah. He will agree."

"There is an open apartment in the complex where Chuck now lives. Would your House arrange for us to have it?"

"Yes. It will be arranged first thing in the morning. But let me say one more thing, Sarah. The person who seems to be most nervous about Chuck is Graham. He has not asked me yet about taking you from Chuck, but I worry he is planning to do that. He wants you back and Chuck isolated. So, what will you do if he orders you back to DC?"

Sarah had worried this was coming. Graham had been furious at her when she talked to him in Barstow and they had little contact since. Graham did not hear refusals often, especially from her. She had been his personal Enforcer. Much of his safety and much of his power were due to what she had done for him, to the threat of her. She knew he had left her with Chuck hoping that, eventually, she would allow him to take control of the whole situation, to wrest it from Beckmann. He was not ready to let her go. Was she ready to let him go? Cutting ties with Graham would be a huge change in her life.

She had been at his beck and call for so long she hardly remembered anything else. She had chosen Chuck and committed to him. She had told Graham she would protect Chuck from him. But the possibility of Graham working against Chuck had not seemed a live one at the time, really. Now it maybe it was. Sarah knew that she was about to be tested. People made commitments, people kept them and ended them. Commitments don't keep or end themselves. Her old commitment to Graham had created and sustained her as an Enforcer. Could she end her old commitment to Graham? Had she already? Did it end when she committed to Chuck?

Chuck was in Sarah's apartment, sitting on her bed. Between them was the book that had arrived yesterday. Between them also was the completed lease for the new apartment. Beckmann had faxed it to Sarah at her apartment before Sarah and Chuck had awakened. Each was looking down at the things between them, and stealing glances up at each other.

"Look, Sarah. I know we need look at the book and talk about the apartment. But, before we do, I need you to help me with last night. We fought a...monster, Sarah, an actual monster. I mean, I know you said things about them before, but I thought you were exaggerating or kidding or something. But, monsters, Sarah. God, I am freaking out. I kept it in with Beckmann around, and Casey, but...Sarah."

"Chuck," Sarah said softly, reaching out to take one of his hands, "I wanted to put off this conversation. I wanted to tell you, but I did not know how. Monsters are real, Chuck, but they are rare. They are also not quite what you think they are. Monsters are the creatures of dark Casters: that is how they were made. And they are made out of other Casters, often themselves dark, but not always. The power required for these...transformations...is monumental, and to get it, dark Casters have to have help and they have to kill people. Blood, death, fuels the spells." Sarah paused, looking away from Chuck for a moment.

"Because the cost in power is so extravagant, there are few monsters created, but the few are enough, more than enough. The most important part of what an Enforcer does is to capture or destroy these monsters and their creators. It is an awful task," Chuck felt Sarah's shudder through their joined hands, "and it is impossible to forget that twisted up somewhere in each of the monsters is a person. Facing these monsters and their creators often changes Enforces. Remember, dark or dead? Just being near them exposes you to the raw, raging darkness they represent, and it can begin to...color...you, stain you. Like getting splashed with India ink." Sarah fell silent again, struggling with herself and, obviously, with her memories.

"I hoped you would not have to be exposed to them, Chuck. I hoped it so much. I hoped it for me and for you. I spent years chasing through the underworld, through sewers and tombs, to stop them. And I have seen such things, Chuck, such things...I can't unsee them. I want to be different for you...I don't know...innocent, I guess, maybe naive, childlike. I don't want to come into my life with you or...to be the mother of your children, and to harbor such memories, and to have such blood on my hands."

"'What bloody man is that?'" Chuck whispered, almost to himself. Sarah narrowed her eyes, puzzled.

"What was that?"

"Just a line from Macbeth. You've been a soldier, Sarah, fighting in a war. I know it will take time, but together, together we can face your past and work through it."

Chuck looked into the blue eyes of his girlfriend. Rarely had she allowed the shadow that sometimes swirled around the edges of her eyes to move front and center, but she did so now. He could tell that doing so frightened her. He put his other hand around the hand of hers he was already holding. For once, he decided to just be silent. He made sure that he kept his gaze steady and sure, and that she could see that he was holding her gaze carefully in his.

Sarah eventually broke their eyes' communion. She bowed her head and he saw she was crying gently. Chuck kept her hand in his, rubbing his thumbs across the back of hers. After a little while, she looked up and gave him a small smile.

"Can we talk about this more some other time, maybe outside in the sunshine?"

Chuck nodded. "You know, I feel the same way about the book. I want to put it off for a little while. " She nodded. "Let's talk about the lease, the apartment."

Sarah's mood brightened. She picked up the pages and waved them at Chuck. "Our own place, Chuck."

"I know. But this is your idea, right, Sarah? No one is ordering you to do it, are they? Ordering you to check up on me or to monitor me? I want this. But only if you do too."

"Well, the idea was mine. Beckmann liked it. The House is footing the bill. And it will make protecting you easier for me, and so ease my mind. But I asked because I had been...dreaming about it for a while now, fantasizing about having a home with you, wanting it more and more. This place," Sarah let go of Chuck's hand to gesture around her apartment, "is more hotel than home. I want a place we can settle into, relax into, a place that is ours. A place where I can make omelets for us. I liked Barstow that way." She smiled shyly. "What do you say, Chuck?"

"Yes, Sarah," Chuck smiled, "oh, yes." Chuck pulled her to him and kissed her.

A little later, Chuck picked up the book Orion had sent him. "Should we look at this?" He waited and Sarah nodded. Chuck opened the book gently, turning the front cover back from the block. A slip of paper fell out. On it was written a note. It looked like it had been dashed with a wide nib fountain pen.

Chuck,

Be sure to read it backward.

Orion

Chuck had held it up so that Sarah could read it at the same time he did. She shook her head; she had no idea why that would matter. Chuck flipped to the back of the book and turned to the last page. He began to read. Even as his eyes traveled right to left, he had a distinct feeling that something was happening to him, in him. With each page that he read, he felt...different. At first, the feeling was welcome, like unshouldering a burden he had not known he was carrying. But as he turned the final pages, it began to feel like something that was his, a part of him, was being taken from him. Before he could even try to resist, he turned the first page.

He looked up. Sarah was watching him, holding her breath. "The pages looked blank to me, all of them. Did you read them?"

"Uh, yeah, yeah. I did. But they look blank to be now too. Like before, with The Intersection. Something happened while I read, but I don't know what."

"Was it bad? Do you need something? Water? Aspirin?"

"No, no. I'm ok. I guess we'll just have to wait it out, see what happens. Let's keep this between us for now, ok? I don't want to tell Casey and Beckmann and have them watching me to see what this reading will do to me."

"Ok, Chuck. Do you feel your power, feel like you can access it if you want to? Casters can feel their power, sort of like a very low hum in the background. Easy to ignore, but there to remind you."

"No, I don't feel any different now than I did before I read this." He waved the book in the air. "I felt something as I read it, but I don't know what it means if anything."

"Come here, Chuck. It would probably be a good idea if I gave you a thorough going-over, head to toe, just to be sure nothing is wrong…' She smiled hungrily.

"The Houses did not react to Chuck's freeing of Jill as I feared," Beckmann reported to Sarah the next day, "but they were unhappy about it as a group. Despite my best efforts, they have decided to bench Chuck for a while. They have created a special subcommittee to consider Chuck and his power, and, well, everything Chuck…"

They were standing in the late afternoon sun, watching Chuck and Morgan and Devon finishing up moving Chuck's stuff into the new apartment. Sarah hadn't needed any help since her belongings almost all fit into her suitcase. She and Chuck had made a couple of trips and had her moved in before lunch. Chuck, on the other hand, had lots of stuff. But now finally it was nearly done.

"So, you mean that one of the things they are 'considering' is my involvement with Chuck?"

Beckmann looked up at Sarah and shrugged. "I suppose so. Interestingly, although Graham ended up on the subcommittee, he did not push for it. I am having a hard time getting a read on him. Have you heard from him?

"Not a word. He seems determined to stay out of contact. He knows we don't see eye-to-eye on Chuck. So, what do I tell Chuck, how should I break this to him?"

"Make sure he knows I am completely on his side. And I suspect this subcommittee, like nearly every committee, will just be a device to waste time, coffee and donuts. I am sending out Enforcers to round up the people on Jill's list. That will take some time. Casey will help me coordinate the operation. So why don't you and Chuck make the most of this time? I'm not benching you, but I will grant you a vacation if you want it. Settle in. Get to know each other better. Enjoy the fact that that...exasperating...man loves you so much, Sarah Walker." Beckmann smiled at Sarah through 'exasperating'. It had been clear over the past few weeks, and especially last night, that Beckmann had been warming to Chuck, as Sarah had immediately and as Casey had fairly soon afterward. Chuck had an inexplicable ability to drive you crazy and to make you love him while he did it.

Sarah smiled back. "Thanks, I will."

A figure stood in front of the desk in the darkened office. He...or it...was tall, too tall, and he wore a heavy, ornate robe over a midnight cassock. He reached out a twisted hand and put a vial of green liquid on the desk, in a small pool of moonlight gathered by a window. An eerie quiet settled over the office. The other figure, seated behind the desk but clearly in charge, reached into the moonlight and picked up the vial, turning it this way and that, watching the thick liquid slowly stretch and pool as the vial moved.

"So this will do it?"

"Yes...The victim must drink it...It will act quickly, but not immediately, several hours after ingestion...You have my...payment?"

The figure behind the desk put the vial down and pointed to the deeper shadows of a corner of the room. A young woman was bound and gagged there, slumped against the wall, her eyes bulging in terror. The standing figure nodded and breathed heavily.

"How does it work? It destroys love, is that right?"

"Yes...and no...Magic cannot destroy love...Magic is an efflux of love...And so it cannot destroy love...Only time and unfaithfulness destroy love..."

"So what does this do?"

"It...stretches and distorts other emotions...particularly fears or anxieties, even small, inoperative ones...across the love, obscuring and hiding it...The victim will be unable to access...feelings of love...The feelings will be there, and may have consequences for the victim...but they will be inexpressible...in word or deed. The person's words or deeds will belie the love."

"How long will it last?"

"That varies across...victims...A week, maybe…"

"That is long enough for my plan. Is the experience of the victim, um, unpleasant?"

"Extremely...Imagine having the need to scream but being unable to do so...The inaccessible love...aches horribly, demands expression but the victim will not be able to do anything about the ache. Some victims have killed themselves...some have gone mad..."

The figure behind the desk picked up the vial and tossed it up and down. "Take your payment."

The only sound in the office was the young woman's gagged attempt to scream.

A/N: Chapter-closing music: "Secret Meeting" by The National. - Oh, I know that Norse/North pun was grossly self-indulgent. Chuck just couldn't help himself...