A/N: May John Milton forgive me! Continued thanks to all who are reading and reviewing. We'll see if we can't get our heroes out of this slough soon.

Don't own Chuck.

CHAPTER 10 Sarah Agonistes

Sarah entered her old apartment and shut the door. She locked it quickly. She turned and leaned against it. Her head felt like a small-scale nuclear device had detonated inside it.

Turn around. Turn around. Go home!

*I do not have a home. I have this. I will never have a home. He doesn't love me.*

I love Chuck. He is my home. Go home! He loves me.

*No!*

Sarah put her hands around her head and slid down the door until she reached the floor. She had not wrested control of herself back from whatever the voice was inside her. But she was now able at least to resist. A little. But every effort of resistance created spikes of pain in her head and took a massive effort of will. Sarah had figured out enough to know that Enforcer Walker was now somehow in control. When she heard her voice as she paid for the cab, she knew: it was her own voice, her mission voice, and that voice was the voice in her head. She was not fighting an alien presence. She was fighting herself.

Even worse, the voice in her head, the voice she was speaking in, was not unfamiliar. She knew Enforcer Walker well, knew her tones. And for much of her life, she had been Enforcer Walker. It was as if her past self had somehow taken form in the present, and was now battling her present self for the one life available to her. For a few dizzying, nightmarish moments, Sarah had thought that Enforcer Walker was now who she was, that all her fears about her feelings for Chuck, her worries about her commitment to him, were a darkling recognition that Enforcer Walker was who she, Sarah, really still was. But if that were true, this mind-destroying doubleness would not exist, she, Sarah, would not exist. Enforcer Walker was the imposter, a thing of the past making a play for the future. Sarah knew that Enforcer Walker was a creature of magic, conjured and constituted somehow from her own history, her own lingering doubts and fears.

She did not doubt that Chuck loved her, not in the sense of any settled, long-lasting uncertainty. The opposite was true. Her settled, long-lasting certainty was that he loved her. But she was human and inexperienced in feeling this way, in housing a feeling so deep and wide and tall, and so, of course, she still had moments of uncertainty, moments when it all seemed too good to be true. There were still moments when she worried that her Enforcer mask would slide into place and lock and that she would be terrified of the turn her life had taken, and that she would run. But those were just moments, moments. Stray thoughts. Flotsam and jetsam. If she didn't have them, then maybe she really could be deluded about Chuck's love for her or his commitment to her. Those moments had not shown that Chuck didn't love her or that she wasn't committed, they showed that he did and she was. Because those moments, like soap bubbles, floated into her mind for an instant and then popped. One floated in: Chuck kissed her. Pop! Another moment, another bubble: Sarah daydreamed about a little girl with brown eyes and sandy blond hair, walking unsteadily with one hand in Sarah's hand and one in Chuck's, and Sarah already loved that little girl. Pop!

Her father had used these natural but transitory doubts against her, teaching her to treat them as insights into the essential sham of emotions, instead of as the effluvia, the backwash, of a genuine emotional life. As she had been taught to do and had done for almost her entire life, she chose shadow over substance. It was no wonder she could build nothing, that she had felt so empty all those years as Enforcer Walker. Her father in his way, and then Graham in his, had transvalued the values in her life, turned her upside down and told her she was the only one seeing correctly. The trouble was that her father's vision and Graham's vision were each skewed, so they were in no position to tell her that. The blind teaching the sighted to be blind. Optometrists checking visual acuity in the dark. Her dad didn't know any better. Maybe Graham didn't either.

Graham's pairing her with Bryce was proof of how little he could see. Bryce was upside-down too, and he made her think that being upside-down was being right-side up, that love was an act whose meaning was exhausted by physics. God, what a fool she had been! So serenely sure she was on the inside of the universe's secrets when she was wandering lost in some enshadowed antechamber distant from everything real and worthwhile.

*Bryce was right for me. Easy. He saw nothing but my flesh, asked for nothing but that. A woman to bed and to display. That is all love is, that is all love can be. Chuck is the fool. I am just flesh, nothing more.*

No!

Sarah thought with horror about the note she, Enforcer Walker, had left for Chuck. It had been crafted for maximum damage. She could not bear the thought of Chuck's feelings when he read it. She nuked him. Only someone as close to him as I am could have hurt him so deeply with so few words. He's been abandoned so many times. Sneaking out silently had not just been to ensure that Enforcer Walker got out of the apartment unimpeded, it had also been to ensure that Chuck found the letter without any preparation, to heighten his sense of abandonment. It had been an attempt not just to burn but to incinerate that bridge behind her.

She had tried to contact him telepathically, but Enforcer Walker would not allow the attempt to come to anything. It probably wouldn't have worked anyway, since Chuck could only communicate telepathically when his power was upon him or coming upon him. She was trapped inside her past self, a snake pushed back into a skin it had shed, new wine poured into an old wineskin. She was rejailed in her bathroom mirror.

Sarah realized then with luminous clarity that the spell she was under was possible only because of a fact about herself: all these years, what she had taken to be a praiseworthy self-discipline involved something else, not really praiseworthy at all. She had imprisoned herself. Enforcer Walker had been her warden. What was now the result of magic had first been largely the result of her own benighted choices. For years, the person she really was, her real desires and wants and emotions, had been fed nothing more than bread and water, had seen no sunlight, had been taught no vocabulary that would allow her to say, and so to see, what was best or noblest around her or within her.

She had to find a way to fight back. I will come home, Chuck, or I will die trying! I love you!

Morgan was unsure what to say to Chuck. He had never seen Chuck so deeply hurt. Not even after Jill. That had been bad. This was catastrophic. He needed to say something, anything. He needed to try to get Chuck to do something other than dwell in his pain, get him to think. He had never seen Chuck's eyes, always alive with intelligence, this dead, this...unthinking.

"So, Chuck, Lou said she would go out with me again. I'm not trying to torment you, man. I just know that, since you are Chuck, even now you'll be happy for me. I really like her. She makes me feel different, like I'm walking around satisfied. You know what I mean? Wait, I don't mean sex. I haven't touched her. Well, I mean, I have held her hand and kissed her. But you know what I mean. And I won't unless I am completely sure that is what she wants. How is it that when you find the woman you want more than any other woman you've ever known, you are suddenly willing to wait?"

Silence. Silence. Then...

"It's because you know," Chuck's voice was thick, almost strangulated, "that you want her, body and soul, flesh and spirit, all together. You want her to give you herself, not a part or piece or aspect of herself. Because you know that what you will see in her eyes if you are ever with her will be more exciting than anything you see when she takes off her clothes. Anybody can sleep with a body; it takes a lover to sleep with a soul." Chuck's voice choked off for a moment. "I hope it works out, Morgan, and I am happy for you. And I am glad you told me."

"I know what...the note said, Chuck, but you know you were not just sleeping with Sarah's body. She was not just sleeping with yours. Don't believe that note, Chuck. That note is a lie. Listen to yourself."

"She wrote it, Morgan. Why would she lie? Why would she say such things unless they were true? Unless she had been harboring them all along. It's all mangled, Morgan. All these lies, they are what I thought was a life."

Morgan could not keep his eyes from filling. He didn't believe the note, but Chuck did, and his friend's misery was too great not to share. He sniffled.

"Do me a favor, Morgan. Could you put on one of my Psychedelic Furs albums?"

Morgan wiped his eyes. "Sure, Chuck, which one?"

"All of This and Nothing."

Morgan sighed to himself and then found the album among the many in Chuck's collection. At least Chuck hadn't started misquoting John Hughes films. Although maybe it would be better if he did. Morgan put the album on the turntable and carefully dropped the needle into the groove.

"Thanks, Morgan. I need time to myself. Tell Ellie I'm ok, as ok as I can be."

Morgan left the room as Richard Butler began to sing "Heartbreak Beat".

Casey knocked on the door of Sarah's apartment, none too gently. He heard sounds from inside, but no one answered, so he knocked again, hard. The door swung open and there stood Sarah. Casey looked a second time. No, Sarah had not answered the door. This was Enforcer Walker. She hadn't been around in Barstow or Burbank really, except for brief appearances in the bar that first night, and when Sarah and Chuck had been taken captive by Jill. Casey felt a sudden touch of fear. Enforcer Walker was a frightening woman.

"Uh, can I come in, Walker?"

She pressed her lips together tightly and he thought she was not going to allow him in. But then she stepped aside.

"What are you doing here, Casey?" Her voice sounded strange, almost as if it had been run through an audio processor, compressed and auto-tuned.

"Look, Walker, I just came from...your place."

"I don't have a place, Casey, and I won't have this apartment for much longer. I am leaving Burbank. What are you doing here?"

"I just wanted to check on you, Sarah." She blanched when he used her first name.

"Don't call me that. We aren't friends. I don't have a place and I don't have friends, except Carina."

"Carina? Has Carina been in town?"

"She was in town yesterday around midday. Stopped by for a visit. Seeing her helped me get clear, get out of the pink fog Chuck has had me in for weeks and weeks."

Casey felt a suspicion begin to harden into a certainty. "So Carina did not stay long?"

"No, she left. But she said she would be in LA a little longer. I think I will find her tonight and see if she wants to do something, maybe go clubbing. Tomorrow I am on a plane."

Casey knew that if Carina had cast a spell, Chuck or Sarah would have seen it. Carina must have done something, though. Casey knew her, even had a bit of history with her. She was trouble, always raising a ruckus. But she wouldn't hurt Sarah knowingly. They really were friends. So what could have happened? If Carina had done something to Sarah, Chuck's powers would have flashed. They hadn't. Why? What was going on?

Walker had not been pretending. Casey had been an Enforcer for too long, had seen too much. She could not have fooled him day in, day out, fooled everyone. You can't fool all of the people all of the time was a truism even Enforcers had to recognize. He had seen Sarah over and over in situation after situation, including when she believed no one was watching and she was watching Chuck. Casey had never seen anyone so in love - unless it was Chuck.

"So...did you guys have lunch with Carina?"

"No, she left before we made lunch."

"Well, since you hadn't seen each other in so long, did you maybe have drinks to celebrate?"

"No. Too early in the day for me. Carina only drank water."

The hair on Casey's neck stood up. "Did she by chance get it herself, maybe get you some?"

"Yes, Good Lord. Now, get on with it Casey, why are you really here?"

"Because of Chuck, Sarah. I didn't think that grief could kill anyone, except maybe slowly, but I worry the kid'll be dead before the day is out."

Casey stared into her eyes, searching out a reaction. The thick ice of the blue thinned for a moment, and it was as though Casey could see love and terror trapped beneath the ice, trying to break free, to get a breath, to scream.

He banked on his suspicion being right, and in that instant in which she was off-balance, he hit her hard. He knew he had to make his one shot count. She was capable of killing him. Luckily, the instant unbalanced her for long enough. She crumpled to the floor, unconscious. Casey said "Sorry!" as he bound her with a spell and called Beckmann. And then he called Ellie.

A/N: The shortest chapter of CvBC. But the one that may have taken the most work. Let me know what you think.