A/N: A long chapter: lots to do. N.B.: The timeline of this chapter is not strictly linear, but there are internal markers to help keep it straight.
I have enjoyed the reviews and the PM's. Please keep 'em coming.
Don't own Chuck.
CHAPTER 13 Snake Dance
Carina's wrists were swollen and sore. The shackles bit into her skin when she changed position. She was still in what she had come to think of as the Dungeon of Stenches. The air was wet and still. The wall behind her back was clammy, as was the floor under her bare feet. The chains that held her were long enough for her to sleep, but there was no comfortable position to do it in. Every few hours she was brought food and a bucket. She had to feel to find each. When she finished, the tray and the bucket were taken away. Her eyes were starving for light, and it seemed the unending darkness had finally pushed its way behind her eyes and into her mind. She was starting to mistrust her thoughts.
Her sense of place and time was gone. She knew that she growing more confused, incoherent. She had spoken with no one in all the time she had been chained. How long had that been? Only a few days, she knew. But terms like 'day' were growing meaningless. She had always been a creature of sunlight and beaches, a lover of color and crowds. This dark loneliness was driving her mad.
"Carina!"
She gasped. "Who's there?" Her voice cracked. She hardly recognized it.
"Carina, be quiet," the male voice continued in a whisper, "we must not be caught."
"Who are you?" Carina whispered fiercely.
She heard the sound of fabric rustling. Had the man just bowed to her? In the pitch black of the dungeon? Some rescuer.
"I am chained."
"I am aware." He spoke some phrases very quietly, and her chains fell off her.
"How did you do that?"
"Patience, Carina. Oh, this place!"
"Yeah, it smells."
"No, Carina. You and I smell. The place stinks. And well, you do too. But that is not your fault."
A bow and a vocabulary lesson and, uh, a personal observation. What the hell?
"Take my hand and we will leave this place."
"Look, buddy, I'm normally game for lots in the dark, and I appreciate the bow, but, just now, I'd really like to know your name before we hold hands."
"They call me Orion."
The Charmer had a pit in one section of the factory he used as his headquarters. As they reached upward, the walls of the pit became heavy chain link at floor level, and the chain link continued up for about six feet. There was a wooden platform ringing around three-quarters of the pit on the other side of the chain link fence, providing room for a large crowd to view whatever happened in the pit.
This top area was full of flushed, laughing, shouting people, titillated by the prospect of blood, power, and death. It had only taken an hour or so for them to assemble. At each of the pit was an iron-barred door. On one end, the one Sarah was standing at, the barred door stood between her and the pit. Behind her, a stairway led up from the door to the level of the crowd. On the other end, the door opened into another section of the factory, and nothing in that section could be seen. The wall of the pit on that end simply abutted against a wall of the factory. Whatever was to emerge from that door was not visible. The floor of the pit was dirt, stained dark here and there, presumably by blood and other bodily fluids.
Above the pit, in the middle of one side, sat the old man, the Charmer. He had a throne, smaller than the one upstairs, and he sat on it without either his garlands of snakes or his bejeweled pets. His eyes glistened, like the eyes of the members of the crowd. Casey stood beside him, weaponless, his hands bound by a golden cord. He was looking steadily at Sarah, simultaneously letting her know that he believed in her and that he agreed that Chuck was worth the risk they were running.
Sarah finished wrapping her hands with tape. The Charmer's men had not, somewhat to her surprise, searched her, so she still had two throwing knives and her combat knife. Perhaps this was an expression of the Charmer's 'honor'. Maybe of his confidence in his champion. Her fingers began to tingle in the familiar way caused by the anticipation of the use of her powers. The door swung open and she walked into the pit. She closed her eyes and thought of Chuck. She remembered her dances with him the night they made love the first time. She had felt so good, rapturous. She had felt like only she and Chuck existed, she had felt weightless and free, limitless. She wanted something of that feeling now.
She would need it if she was going to live through the next few minutes. If she was going to die, she wanted to die with those dances in her mind.
She heard the door on the other end of the pit swing rustily open. Initially, she could see nothing but darkness behind it, and then she saw a larger darkness looming into view from the shadows, and the crowd gave a mighty, bloodlusty roar.
Mueller had stormed out of the lab, leaving Chuck strapped in the chair. Chuck used the time to concentrate. His power might be suppressed, but it was not gone. Maybe he could find a way to it, some ingress that would allow him to reactivate it, maybe even (at last!) control it. He had been passive in relation to it for too long. He had just accepted that he could not control it, and waited for a situation to call it into action, or for some spell to solve it, or some Seer to explain it all to him.
Sitting in the barber's chair from hell, he had finally realized: I am doing what I have too often done. Accepted that I have potential, and then waited for it to actualize itself or for someone to actualize it for me. It is time I recognized that I am the one who has to actualize my potential. No one can do it for me, any more than someone can keep warm for me. My potential cannot actualize itself. Come on, Chuck, you have Sarah Walker in your life. Find a way back to her. Do something!
Chuck calmed himself and then began to think about The Intersection. He let his mind relax. He simply opened his mind and waited for it to appear, or to re-appear. His waiting was a kind of call. For a long while, nothing happened. Chuck refused to allow his mind to tense, to struggle. He remained relaxed, open. Still, nothing happened. But then, he felt a faint stirring at the very edge of consciousness and he caught a glimpse of...something. And he knew that if he could hold still, allow it to move into the center of his consciousness, he would have found a way to access his power. He sat very still. Ever so slowly, the thing at the edge of consciousness centimetered slowly toward the center, slow and slow, on little cat's feet…
And then Mueller was back, and his nightmare babbling. Whatever it was that had been inching into view vanished from Chuck's mind. Chuck controlled his features, doing his best to keep his disappointment and frustration from Mueller.
"Back again? What's up, Doc?" Chuck chirped as cheerily as he could given how thirsty he was. Mueller began working on his devices again, typing into the computer and adjusting dials and knobs. "Say, Doc, could you put on some tunes? Maybe...oh, I don't know, that great old Thomas Dolby album comes to mind. The Golden Age of Wireless. You like 'She Blinded Me with Science'?" Chuck then launched into a loud falsetto: "She blinded me with science/failed me in biology, yeh, yeh".
"Quiet! Another word from you and I will tranquilize you, Bartowski. You fool. Why would the book ever have chosen you? You are nothing, a non-entity, less than zero."
Chuck was tempted to sing a snatch of an Elvis Costello tune but decided he had pushed his luck far enough for now. He watched as Mueller continued working. His heart fell when he realized that Mueller, at last, had a satisfied expression on his face. He turned a glassy, starving look on Chuck, a look suspended above a dead possum smile.
"Soon, Bartowski, you will be nothing but a memory. The Belgian will be a Reader. And I will be a very, very wealthy man. Famous among Casters. A hit with the ladies!"
In his head, Chuck sang: "Science!" in his best loud Christopher Lloyd voice. But he kept his mouth shut.
Before Sarah could see the figure clearly, its odor assaulted her. It was the smell of carrion and filth, death. Then the figure...crawled into view. It looked like - it was - an impossibly large cobra, its body the as big around as a telephone pole. But when its hood opened, it revealed the vague figure of a man's torso, and its face, reptilian, had a moving shadow of something human about it. Its black tongue flicked, as long as Sarah's arm. It began crawling toward her, its body undulating. Sarah guessed it was twenty feet long, maybe more, maybe much more. Her features settled into an icy impassivity.
*Well, here we go. Snakes, why'd it have to be snakes?*
Then Sarah smiled a supernova smile - a smile that could have been seen not only from space but from distant galaxies. Her smile flashed in Andromeda.
The monster crawled closer.
Walker had quoted Indiana Jones. Indiana Jones.
Chuck had gotten to Enforcer Walker. Chuck was everywhere inside Sarah.
Sarah knew she was ready now. She needed to defeat this damnation and find Chuck.
It was time to get married, time for Sarah Bartowski finally to fuse Sarah with Walker, to unite the woman and the Enforcer. She was all-in; she always had been. The recreated Enforcer Walker had been in love with Chuck all along, but so frightened of it, so sure not only that she did not deserve to be loved but that she also did not deserve to love, that she had wanted to run, to go - anywhere away from Chuck and the terror he created in her. Sarah had left Enforcer Walker behind but the potion returned her. But in the end, Sarah had been able to resist the recreated Enforcer Walker because Enforcer Walker had really wanted what Sarah wanted. They were both in love with Chuck. Or, better, she was all in love with Chuck. It was time to put this lingering potion-caused self-division behind her and wholeheartedly to love Chuck - their Chuck, her Chuck. Her Chuck.
When the massive snake-thingy crawled into the pit, Casey felt a twinge of doubt. He saw Sarah become Walker, and he was not sure that was a good thing. As he had told her, he did not want the cost of her survival (or the cost of his, though he hadn't said it) to be the loss of herself. So far Sarah had managed Walker, although Walker had clearly been part of the action. But a fight like this could destroy the delicate psychological balance he knew Sarah had been maintaining. He had been watching her shift from Sarah to Walker and back again for many hours. She had had no time for rest and was clearly always on the verge of a breaking down in panic and despair. Her worry about Chuck was palpable, an all-but physical presence shadowing her since Beckmann had dispelled the potion's effects.
Casey's heart suddenly filled with the face of Wanda. After the housewarming party, he had taken her home. They had stood awkwardly outside her door. Casey wanted to kiss her, but it had been a long time since he had taken a woman on a date, and he was no longer sure of protocol. She gazed at him expectantly.
"Would you...ah...would you like...maybe...to go out again?" Casey stammered.
Her face split into a smile and she leaped into his arms. She kissed him. Once, twice, three times. "I was so hoping you would ask."
Casey wanted to take her on that second date. His future seemed...well, it seemed like maybe he had a future. But it was in Sarah's hands now.
And then Casey saw Sarah smile. He smiled too.
{Mmmm...You look delicioussss.}
The cobra's thoughts crawled in the same way he did. Sarah hadn't expected to...communicate...with the thing.
{Cannot say the same, snake boy. Although I wonder: do you taste like chicken?}
Sarah saw the flickering tongue begin to make shapes in the air. The thing could cast spells! She lept to her side as a blast of burning force passed through the spot where she had been standing and splashed fire on the wall of the pit, a conflagration. She hit the ground and rolled immediately to her feet, casting as she did. She could feel the nuclear heat of the flames behind her. She moved the floor of the pit under the cobra; the ground moved like water. As the cobra slid toward her, she ducked out of the way and rolled several times, past the cobra. She came up with one of her throwing knives ready. It darted from her hand and flew true, embedding itself in the back of the cobra's hood.
{For that, you will pay. I will ssswallow you ssslowly and make sssure you are alive while I do. Alive while I digessst you.}
{What is it about being dark that requires you to overshare? Morgan overshares because he wants to connect. What's your excuse? Have you ever thought about that?}
Sarah sprinted across the pit and away from the flames and smoke gathering in the end where she came in.
{My boyfriend and I have talked about this. The Emperor in Star Wars? Talky. Thulsa Doom in Conan the Barbarian. Way talky. (Oh, hey, I bet you like that film. Well, until the end.) Anyway, I hate talky. Let's finish this.}
Sarah cast again, the same spell she had used against the SUV on the highway back from Barstow. Billowing waves of power rolled away from her outstretched arms. She had never before felt such power. Pure, deep, integral, clean. The waves struck the cobra and lifted his giant body from the ground, slamming him mightily against the burning wall of the pit. The force of it shook the ground, the entire building. The cobra lifted its head amid the smoke and flames, and then its head sank. Sarah grabbed her black combat knife from its sheath on her back and strode across the pit. She grabbed the head of the snake. She could tell that it was injured, badly injured perhaps, but not dead, at least not yet. She lifted the head and then brandished her knife. She yelled to the Charmer.
"Do I have to behead this thing, or are you going to tell us what we want to know." She saw the Charmer speak to Casey. Casey gave her a thumbs-up. She dropped the snake. The thing's odor was really sickening up close. She wondered if she would ever be able to wash the stink off.
The flames had not yet reached the barred door she had used to enter the pit. She covered her mouth and nose from the smoke and exited. Casey was waiting for her at the top of the stairs. They walked out of the factory among the members of the disappointed crowd. The members of the crowd were careful to give Sarah a wide berth.
"Where did that come from, Sarah?" Casey asked this as they sat in a cab, heading to the warehouse that was their base of operations. "I've seen no one cast that spell with such conclusive force. The Charmer was terrified. He immediately gave up the Belgian."
Sarah was thoughtful and quiet. "I think I am one person, whole, for the first time in my life. I have always been double, Casey, part of me wanting one thing, part of me wanting something...else, not really knowing what it was that was wanted, just that it was not what the other part wanted. The doubleness was made worse by constantly using a cover. By constantly having to lie.
"I never knew exactly who I was or what I wanted to be or who I wanted to share my life with if anyone. I was never wholehearted about anything until Chuck, and even realizing that I was wholehearted about him took time, the condition was so foreign to me. That damn potion may have been a blessing in disguise. It dredged up the problem. I was committed to Chuck, but so afraid of that commitment that I turned the fear of commitment into an imagined lack of commitment if that makes sense. Walker wanted to run from a commitment I had made and that she wanted, not from making a commitment. But there was a moment in the pit, when that thing came crawling toward me, when I knew. My fear of that commitment was gone. Walker's fear of it was gone." She paused, thoughtful again. "No one knows what the future holds, of course, but I know what I want it to hold, what I will strain every fiber to help it to hold: me and Chuck together, husband and wife, and, someday, fairly soon I hope, kids. A family. A life."
Casey could feel her blushing happily. "I saw the smile on your face, Sarah, couldn't miss it. I knew snake-boy was done. You were already the most feared Enforcer on the planet. I had a puncher's chance on that rooftop with you and Chuck; I would have had none in that pit. You are deadly, woman."
"No, I am a deadly woman. And we need to save Chuck This is already taking too long."
Casey grunted. He shared her concern. But then, grinning, he spoke: "Speaking of...there's a woman in Burbank I want to get back to."
"Wanda?" Sarah asked. Casey grunted affirmatively, almost musically. "I'm glad for you, Casey, and for her. She's great."
"She is, isn't she?" Casey smiled. Then he looked at Sarah. "The Charmer. You know, someone needs to do something about that guy."
"Yes, John, someone does. But not us, not today."
Chuck looked up at the monitor that showed his brain. Mueller was smiling ghoulishly. Chuck could feel nothing, or nothing much, but what the monitor showed was changing. Through some admixture of magic and technology, Mueller clearly was getting the result he wanted. In the monitor, the initial outline of Chuck's brain was still in place, but the representation of his brain's current state showed it as smaller than it had been, almost as if his brain were a shrinking corpse inside the chalk line that had been drawn around it soon after death. It was not hard to interpret the result. Mueller was draining Chuck's mind from him.
"Look. What a strange sensation it must be to watch yourself drain away, a vortex into nothingness!" Mueller was gleeful, flushed with power and the prospect of success.
A tall, thin man in a black cassock entered the room. Mueller immediately became stopped prattling and became obsequious. "Sir, come and see. The process has begun."
The man, clearly the Belgian, watched the monitor for a moment and then fixed Chuck with a look like a needle through a specimen butterfly. "How long will it take?" His voice managed impossibly to be oily and raspy at the same time.
"That is...unclear. The process is slower than I hoped. Bartowski is made of sterner stuff than he looks. But soon...Maybe twelve hours, maybe a day."
"Fine. Let me know if there is a change." When the Belgian left, Chuck suddenly became aware of just how malevolent his mere presence was. It was as if the room itself had held its breath from the time the Belgian entered until he left. Chuck shuddered. He noticed with grim amusement that Mueller did too.
Mueller checked his instruments again and then left the room. Chuck went back to trying to access his power. Again, he relaxed. As he did, something came into view, just on the margin of his consciousness. He made himself relax further. It moved slowly, delicately across the margin. Chuck couldn't make out what it was. White. It was white. White?
{Sarah!}
{Chuck?}
{No, Orion. I have Carina with me. She is safe.}
{Was she with the Belgian? Did you see Chuck, save Chuck?}
{They were not together. Chuck is yours to save. I am saving myself for the final battle. I'm losing this connection…}
Sarah was getting frantic. There was no way to teleport to the Belgian. They did not have time to assemble the necessary Casters. And although his location was not far from the city, she and Casey needed a four-wheel drive vehicle of some sort to use. Kamon was working on it, and they expected her at the warehouse soon. Each clock tick was torture to Sarah...
...Tick, wince, tock, wince, tick, wince...
Beckmann had teleported weapons and ammunition, kevlar vests and flashbangs and grenades. She and Casey had everything ready to go into the car. Kamon had insisted that she come with them. She knew the area, and another Caster could not hurt.
Sarah told Casey about Orion's telepathic call. Who knew how much power that had taken. Neither she nor Casey saw any reason to doubt either that it was really Orion or that Orion had rescued Carina. Casey had taken some of the time while they waited to cast a Communication spell. Beckmann concurred. It had been Orion, she thought, and they would take him at his word. Sarah shook her head. She had been contacted by Orion. The man she loved, that sometimes absurd always deeply lovable mortal man was turning all of Casterdom upside-down. Dogs and cats living together...mass hysteria. Sarah chuckled inwardly. For a moment, a little of her franticness quieted. At least Carina was safe. Now, Chuck. And she was frantic again.
Kamon pulled into the warehouse parking lot driving an old but sturdy looking Jeep Wrangler. Sarah and Casey began to load it immediately. Kamon got out and ran around to help them. No one spoke. In moments, they were in the car, heading into the countryside. Sarah had defeated the cobra late the night before. It was now nearly noon. Kamon told them it would take them about three hours to get there. They would have to leave the car at a certain point and approach on foot or risk losing surprise. And then they would have to wait for the cover of darkness...
...Tick, wince, tock, wince, tick, wince...
Darkness finally fell. Sarah was looking through a scope at the compound where the Belgian was encamped. She and Casey had been watching, watching and counting. The Belgian seemed to have around ten armed men in the compound. There was no fence around it, but the compound was embraced by a bend in a deep stream, effectively requiring anyone trying to enter from the side they were on to have to use the one bridge (heavily guarded and wired with explosives). Sarah knew all this from reconnaissance she had done just after dusk. Adding in the men around the bridge, the Belgian had a considerable force of fifteen men.
It was unlikely that any of them were Casters. The Belgian had not assembled many Casters yet, despite the fact that he took himself to have re-established his House. Undoubtedly, there were some. Sarah thought she had seen a couple of women, and a tall man with a grey ponytail and a decorated lab coat.
It was very unlikely the Belgian had any real intention of permanently re-establishing his House in Thailand. He had bigger ambitions. He wanted to re-establish in the States. It was likely that he had other Casters in place there, double-agents, as Shaw had been. The Belgian either wanted to somehow turn Chuck or to take his power from him. Unfortunately, the latter was far more likely. If the Belgian could usurp the power of a Reader, even Graham and Beckmann and their Houses would be sore pressed to resist him. Perhaps they couldn't. But although Sarah knew all this intellectually, little of it was part of her present concern. Everything she cared about in the world was somewhere in that compound, and she would leave with him or she would bleed out in the soil of Thailand. There was no third option.
Their plan was simple. Casey and Kamon would first swim the stream. There were two stands of trees close to the opposite bank. Each would take up a position behind one, and then Sarah would cross. Casey and Kamon would open fire and toss flashbangs into the compound. Sarah would use the noise and confusion to slip into the compound and to rescue Chuck. There were multiple generators near one of the buildings, and a power line appeared to be nearly strung that lead to it. The building was the largest structure in the compound, clearly of ancient construction. Heavy. Stone. That was the building, Sarah knew it in her chest. Chuck was there, a couple of hundred yards from where she now stood. She couldn't help herself. She tried to reach him telepathically.
{Chuck?}
No response. But that could be explained by the suppression, or by his being unable to access his powers. It did not mean...what she feared it might mean. Chuck, I am coming. I will always come for you!
Chuck stared at the monitor as his mind disappeared. It grew smaller and smaller. It was strange, watching yourself cease to exist as if you were up for bid at an auction: going, going, gone. Sold to the husk of a man who used to have a mind! Chuck was not in pain, but he knew he was in trouble. He was slowly losing his cognitive grasp on the world, his world. He could only sort of remember the Buy More. The Curiosity Shop was now just a name. Morgan's face was beginning to slip from him. He would have thought that beard unforgettable. But he could no longer picture it clearly. Panic and bile rose in him simultaneously. Morgan was one pillar of his life. If he lost him, it all could come tumbling down. Even Ellie and Devon. Even Sarah.
He had to try again to access his power. He forced himself to relax, to let go of his terror. He stopped watching the screen. He stopped listening to Mueller prattle. He waited, even while everything in him wanted to scream. He waited. There it was, the white on the margin of his consciousness. It began to move, as if with delicate caution, from the margin toward the center. He could feel Mueller siphoning more of him away, but he could not allow himself to react or to shift his focus for a second. The shape was now completely centered, but still out of focus. Rectangular. Smaller black rectangles.
And then it came into focus, with a red rectangle in the center of it, in the very center of his center of consciousness. The house Sarah dreamt of and that he had come to dream of too. He could feel that everything else had been taken from him. He had lost Ellie's boyfriend...what was his name? He stepped up to the red door, and he opened it. He had a sister, didn't he? What did she look like? Was she older than him? Standing in the open door was Sarah, dressed entirely in black, her hair and her clothes dripping inky water. Chuck stepped into the house, into her arms, and into his power.
And he knew Ellie, and he knew Devon, and he knew Morgan. He reclaimed the Buy More and the Curiosity Shop. And he was ready for the Belgian.
Carina looked at Orion. She had showered and gotten some sleep. Orion had gently bandaged her wounds. He had little to say; he seemed as preoccupied as it was possible to be while tending to her so carefully. She had no idea where she was. At Orion's. But where was that? She knew she was not his prisoner. Why was he keeping her in the metaphorical dark, though? She'd had a bellyful of darkness.
"What is going on, Orion?"
"The endgame, Carina. What is fate but a way of making meaning of chaos? What is chaos but a way of rejecting fate?"
"Oh, good. Cut the Delphic Oracle schtick and talk to me, remembering I am no Seer."
Orion's bespectacled face fell. Then he grinned self-consciously. "Sorry. I spend too much time conversing in corners with ancient things. I forget that others, rightly, find different forms of occupation. Let me start at a beginning."
"A beginning? How about the beginning?"
"The beginning is always a beginning."
"Orion!" Carina growled.
"Sorry! Sorry. Like so many stories, happy and sad, it starts with a friendship…"
Sarah watched Casey and then Kamon crawl onto the opposite bank of the stream and run, crouched, to one of the two clumps of trees. They were in position. Sarah ran to the stream, slowed and entered the water. It was black and cold and brackish. She swam strongly, with only her eyes above the water. Now that she was in motion, her worry, still wormy and live, had been pushed down. All that mattered was the mission and the mission was Chuck and Chuck was all that mattered.
She reached the opposite bank. She had chosen to take no weapons but knives. Her powers, her fighting ability, her blades: they would have to suffice. She would prefer to save the first for the Belgian. Given what she knew about him, she was genuinely worried about whether she would have a chance casting against him. Maybe she would if she could get off the all-important first volley. She knew she was more powerful than she had been. She did not know how powerful that was, though. She was also teetering on the edge of exhaustion. She'd worry about that when she had to. As she began to sprint toward the compound, she heard shots ring out. Casey and Kamon were firing. She heard yells, commands, and screams. Casy and Kamon were not just making noise. They were reducing the odds.
She made it to the outer set of buildings, mostly small huts and sheds. So far, no one had seen her. As she passed them, she heard explosions. Casey and Kamon were delivering the flashbangs and grenades. Sarah could hear confusion grip the compound, as smoke and contradictory or unintelligible orders filled the air. The fog of war.
She was twenty yards or so from the door to the building that was her target. She thought she was going to make it unspotted. But just then a group of three men with rifles ran from the other side of the compound toward the same building she was targeting. They saw her at the same instant as she was upon them. She dove to the ground, angling her body across their paths and rolling viciously into their legs. They all went down. Sarah, like a bowling ball emerging from a set of fallen pins, rolled past them. Then she sprang to her feet. She was on the back of the nearest one before he could stand. Her knife entered his upper chest in a blinding flash. She pulled it from his chest before he fell lifeless to the ground. One of the other two had managed to stand and to turn toward her. He raised the end of his rifle, but Sarah's knife left her had and buried itself to the hilt in his chest. She had followed her throw, and as the man fell backward to the ground, Sarah swept past him and retrieved her knife. The final man had turned in time to see that, and his response was to run. Sarah almost threw the knife again, but then she decided to let him go. The alarm had been raised already, and at the rate he was running, he was not likely to stop in time to factor into the final outcome.
Knife in hand, Sarah ran to the large heavy doors of the building. They were unlocked. She noticed as she dashed through them that they bore the ancient symbol of the House of the Belgian, like Shaw's lighter. The sound of continued gunfire registered on her. Casey and Kamon could not hold out long if the men in the compound were ever able to collect themselves and fight back in unison. Sarah did not have much time. She had to get to Chuck and get him out.
She entered what appeared to be an antechamber or vestibule. Facing her on the opposite wall was another set of doors smaller than but otherwise identical to the ones she had just entered. She sprinted to them. One was pushed back a bit. Sarah stopped, put her hand on the door, and took a second or two to reign in her breathing. Then she pushed the door open a little farther, enough for her to slide in.
She was able to enter soundlessly, but she realized it did not matter. In the middle of the room, she could see the man she had noticed earlier through her scope. He was standing slightly bent over something...someone: Chuck! The man was...dancing...laughing and exulting.
"Goodbye, Bartowski, and good riddance! A few more seconds and I will be able to isolate and take the book. Take the power. I hope the last few moments were awful. I wish I could have made them physically more painful, but I know they were psychologically hellish. You fought me hard, I give you that; I never imagined your mind would have such strength, such stamina, but still, the outcome was foreordained. I was always going to win."
Sarah threw her knife with her whole body, concentrating all her strength and fear in its tip as it found the back of Mueller's throat and sank so deeply that its tip emerged on the other side it. He started to weave but managed to turn around. "You were always going to die," Sarah said as she rushed past his falling body.
Chuck sat completely still in the chair. He was strapped in and his held in place by a metal band. Electrodes covered his face and his head. Sarah ripped them off him, undid the straps, and grabbed his face. "Chuck? Chuck? Please, Chuck, don't leave. Don't go. Don't be gone. There's still so much I have to explain, so much I want to tell you. I didn't leave you, not really. You have to know that, Chuck. Chuck? Chuck! Please! I want to be your wife, Chuck. Will you marry me? I'm so sorry it took me so long to get here." She kissed him with passion and promise, her wet hair hanging down into his face and hers.
Chuck stirred. He looked at her with a smile that was gathering strength. "Well...you know...Sarah, with the rich and mighty, always a little patience. Um, oh, yes, Sarah, yes. I accept. I will be your wife. Oh, uh, sorry, mind still scrambled a bit. Your husband. Mr. Sarah Walker. Oh, uh, well...that'll do." Sarah laughed through her tears. She was whole. She was home.
She had forgotten the Belgian.
Chuck saw him enter the room. Chuck's eyes rolled in his head slightly and the metal band opened, and the straps holding him fell away. He stood a bit shakily. Sarah had seen the look in his eyes before the flash of power and she spun to see the Belgian advancing toward them, his hands twisting in front of him as he spat out quiet words. His hands began to glow a yellow greenish-yellow.
A blast of power slammed into Sarah and surrounded her. Her senses were overwhelmed. It was like being dunked in virulent hatred, repulsive and emetic. She fought back against it, casting even as she drowned in the power of the Belgian's hatred. Chuck could see Sarah's pale blue, hard and diamond-like, burning inside the bile green of the Belgian and his casting. Sarah was powerful, more powerful now, Chuck realized instantly, than she had been before. Still, the Belgian was succeeding in squeezing her. The problem was that the last few days had exacted a cost from Sarah. She was tired. If they had been outside, under the moon, she might have been able not only to resist but to defeat the Belgian. But the contest was going against her. Chuck stepped decisively in front of her, into the blast of power, and was himself surrounded by it.
The hatred he felt was alien, not only because it was the Belgian's, but because Chuck was not a hater. Even so, Chuck allowed the hatred of the Belgian to suffuse him, to soak into him. The more of it the Belgian poured out, the more Chuck absorbed. After a few long, long seconds, the Belgian began to look panicky, unsure. No one had ever fought him by not fighting him before. Eventually, even the Belgian's hatred came to an end. Chuck seemed to be an abyss of reception. He could contain more than the Belgian could generate. A few more seconds passed, and the Belgian's legs buckled. He fell to his knees. Chuck walked to him and put his hand on the Belgian's head. The Belgian fell forward onto his hands. Then he fell prostrate.
Chuck turned to Sarah. "He won't be a problem anymore." Sarah's mouth was hanging open, her eyes wide with shock and confusion.
"Oh, my God, Chuck, you killed him?" Sarah was genuinely frightened for Chuck.
"No, Sarah, I just...well, I took the fight out of him. When he comes to, he will still be himself, but without power. I have taken his power from him. He'll still be a bastard - unlike Jill, he had no desire to change - but he'll be a Get off my lawn you freakin' kids! kind of bastard, not a Try to take over the world! kind of bastard. We can leave him here to figure it out. Although I suspect his employees or enemies may have something to say about how it all turns out, that's between them."
Sarah's mind raced to process what Chuck had said. She giggled suddenly, only then realizing how funny Chuck's image was. She could see the Belgian with a water hose, shaking his fist impotently at children running gleefully and purposely through his yard.
"Come on, Sarah. We still have an apartment, a home, to finish getting in order."
Sarah looked pained, suddenly all-too self-aware. "Chuck, about that…"
Chuck smiled, looking exactly like he did on at the Nerd Herd desk the day she met him. "Tell me about it while we plan the wedding."
[Chuck took her hand, and they moved through the compound and were standing with Casey, and they moved again and were standing with Kamon, and they moved again and were at the Jeep]
Sarah looked at Chuck as he climbed into the jeep. He now had a deep pallor. What he had done was showing its effects. But his nose wasn't bleeding and he did not seem to have a headache. There was no physical pain in his eyes. He just looked exhausted and a touch haunted. "Chuck, are you ok?"
"Yes, Sarah. Or I will be. I just need to sleep. It was a lot to...take in." And with those words, he fell over onto her shoulder and began to snore softly. Sarah ran her fingers through his hair. What kind of man was this, her husband-to-be? A fresh thrill of wonder and desire ran through her. My Chuck. He was hers. But he was too big to be hers. Except that he was hers, because he had given himself to her, and held nothing back.
With a choking voice, she told Casey and Kamon the story. When she finished, no one spoke. The silence spoke for them, full of unguarded, ungrudging respect. Sarah rested her head on Chuck's and fell asleep too.
Casey looked at the two of them leaning on each other and smiled...inwardly. So far, this last mission had sure had its ups-and-downs, but he knew it was worth it. His mind ran ahead to home, to Wanda. He'd call her when he got back. That would be the first thing he would do. The second would be to see her and to kiss her soft lips. He'd been missing that hair-trigger smile.
He wanted to get Chuck and Sarah home, and himself home. 'Home'. A word that had been foreign to him, even as it held a place in his native language. Maybe it was time to recognize the word as the vital expressive resource that it was. His life had been for too long without the structuring principle of a home, of a place that marked the boundary between private and public, a place where lovers create space, breadth, and freedom for each other, a world within the world, sheltered, heart-warming. Casey had crisscrossed the planet but always as a stranger. He wanted to be able to go home, not just go...to the next place. He was starting to feel that way about Burbank. About Chuck and Sarah and Ellie and Devon. Morgan. And Wanda was making him feel it more.
Beckmann and her team of Casters teleported them home. They had said goodbye to Kamon. She and Sarah had sat and talked while waiting for the spell. Sarah found that she really liked her. That was happening to Sarah more and more. She was finding that there were good and interesting people all around her, people worth knowing. She had been trapped so long in her father's world of marks and gulls, and Graham's of fear and monsters, that she had never really looked at or listened to the people around her, not as people.
While Sarah talked with Kamon, she kept a careful watch on Chuck. He was napping in a cot, now awake, now asleep. She had felt the Belgian's awful casting. But she had not stood in it with the spigot wide open. Chuck had, and he had emptied the Belgian, outlasted his hatred. Even worse, she knew that Chuck was always soft-hearted and empathetic and that his power made him more so. How had he stood it? He mostly seemed ok, other than being exhausted, and that was completely understandable.
When they were safely back in Cave, Beckmann debriefed them. She listened to the story of Sarah's defeat of the cobra and Chuck's of the Belgian with shining eyes. For a moment, when Sarah finished telling the story, Beckmann's eyes had a speculative look in them, like she was weighing evidence, thinking something through.
"I will have to give all of this careful thought. Most careful thought. The world we have lived in is changing in fundamental ways. Chuck is unprecedented. I need to decide how much of this to share with the heads of the other Houses. With Graham. I already have reports that most of those we suspected to be The One Ring's agents have gone missing. The rats are abandoning the sinking ship. Poor Shaw has all-but come apart. After Sarah scared him to death, he needed his lighter even more. Without it, I am unsure he will live long. But we cannot return it to him. I have Seers considering his case, but I am not optimistic.
"Two moments in your story are of great importance. Orion has shown his hand. He is personally involved in what is happening, not just involved by rumor or by name. No one has heard from Carina, so I think it is safe to assume that she is still with him, helping him, I hope, although that is a team I never remotely imagined." Sarah and Casey smiled, as did Chuck. "Be that as it may, the other thing of great importance is Orion's comment about a 'final battle'. Orion does not think this is over, yet. Either The One Ring is a more complicated, deeper group than we knew, or it has been created or used by someone else. But for what? As a distraction? As something else? I admit I am flummoxed by this."
No one said anything. The flummoxing was general, everyone felt it. Beckmann continued, "We will just have to wait for someone to make a move, or for Orion or Carina to break radio silence."
Chuck and Sarah returned home. They showered together, washing away Thailand and potions and computer screens. They held each other under the warm water. Then they napped. Sarah woke in the slanting yellow sunlight of the afternoon. She had propped her pillow behind her and was sitting against it, holding her knees in her arms, pensive. Chuck watched her. He knew she was preparing herself to talk to him. He waited.
"Chuck, do you remember in Barstow, at the safe house, when I told you I was not of two minds about you? I want you to know, no, I need you to know...what I said was not only what I believed, it was true. Despite what happened. I know Beckmann talked to you last night about the potion Carina gave me. That potion had the effect of dividing me, but not because I was divided. It took the fact that I had been Enforcer Walker for so long and used it against me. But it used her fear of being so committed to you against me. She loves you as I love you. I have loved you since said you would be my baggage handler. A promise you have made good on ever since, by the way, my love...I loved you then but I did not have the emotional or...conceptual resources to understand what I felt as anything more than liking you. I've thought about that date a lot, Chuck. Remembering it is one of my favorite things to do."
She paused. He could tell how hard this was for her. But she was telling it to him. She had changed so much, he knew. And he was long-suffering. She was worth the wait. Always.
"I now realize I actually told you I loved you first, there in the restaurant. I know it doesn't count as that. I didn't say the words. I didn't know I meant them. But I did. I want you to know this because I want you to know that I don't process things like a normal girl. It takes longer with some things for me. The feelings are there but under so much restraint and denial and obliviousness...I didn't worry about committing to you. I did, almost immediately. By the time we left that roof together, I had proposed to you already. I was planning to be your wife. I just didn't understand myself or what I was feeling. My problem was not making the commitment, it was recognizing and accepting that I had made it. My problem wasn't being afraid to fall in love with you, I did that easy, one, two three...No, my problem was being afraid to admit it. I guess that's all backward, but it seems to be how I work, with you, at least. And I don't work with anyone else.
"Enforcer Walker kept insisting that I didn't love you and that you didn't love me. But she denied it because she knew it was true and she did not know how to accept it. She is not me, not all of me, Chuck, she never was. She is part of me and always will be. But that does not worry me, and should not worry you because I discovered for certain in a pit in Thailand that she does love you. Hear me, Charles Irving Bartowski: I love you, with my whole heart. Sarah and Walker love you, and they are not two people, but one, me."
Chuck sat up too. He took a minute and then he kissed her. "Sarah, let me tell you about where and how I found my power. Mueller could take everything from me...except what is everything to me." Chuck told her about his struggle to access his power. "You, in the white house with the red door. I found that and when I entered and held you, I knew my own power. You are key to me, Sarah, key to this power. I don't think I was meant to have it and not have you. You are bound to it somehow because I am bound to you.
"And I am sorry, Sarah. I should have known something was going on, that you would not have just left me like that, that the note was not the truth. Morgan was right. But I have been left so often, and it happened in the morning before I had even had a chance to wake up, and you were gone, and your suitcase too, and you are a miracle, and there was that suppression problem…"
Sarah put her finger gently on his lips, getting him to stop. "Shhh...Don't spiral, Chuck. It's ok. It was awful for both of us. Someone did it to us. I don't think it was the Belgian ultimately, given all that we know. But someone has a lot to answer for."
Chuck's phone beeped. He had a text from Ellie. "She's on her way over. She wants to see us with her own eyes and make sure we are ok."
Ellie came over and inspected them both. They passed whatever sister-cum-doctor test. Then she demanded the story. Beckmann had kept her updated on the search for Chuck and had told her when he had been found. Still, she knew no details of what happened. Sarah started with Casey showing up at her apartment after she left Chuck and ended with the decommissioning of the Belgian. Ellie knew the first part. But she held her breath through much of the rest of it, her fists white-knuckled as she heard about the cobra and Mueller and the Belgian. She cried quietly during the proposal. Afterwards, she hugged them both hard, hard even for Ellie.
"I need to share this, all of this, with Devon, guys, I can't lie to him." Ellie's eyes pleaded with them. Chuck turned to Sarah, who nodded Yes with a small smile.
"Ok, sis. But make sure he knows to keep it secret. We're going to have to fill Morgan in on it too. He's already spinning ninja attacks and the little Casey told him into God knows what."
Ellie then grabbed Sarah's hand. "So, when? When will you two get married?"
Sarah turned to Chuck, and gazing into his eyes, said: "As soon as possible. Two weeks? Just a small wedding with our friends," Chuck nodded Yes and Sarah turned back to Ellie, "and our family. Will you be my Maid of Honor, Ellie?"
"Yes, yes. I would be honored, Sarah. Now, come on. Let's go to my apartment and get down to the details."
Morgan accepted the story as Chuck and Sarah told it, with all it entailed, Casters, monsters, powers, as a matter of course. He was excited, cheering his way through the battles and hissing at the bad guys. Morgan's reaction made it clear that he had always suspected that the world was like this, more like a movie or a video game or a comic book, than other people knew or were willing to admit. He felt vindicated. And he found it no stretch at all to believe that Chuck and Sarah could both be heroes in the world he always suspected was real.
"I always told you, Chuck. Life is an adventure, man. You're either Allan Quatermain in your own life or you're half dead. What are the titles again, Reader and Enforcer? Cool. So. Damn. Cool! And, marriage, man! That's so great!"
Morgan wanted both to officiate at the wedding and to be best man, but Chuck explained that he couldn't be both. Morgan ended up deciding to officiate. He had gotten an online license a few years ago, one night after he and Chuck had eaten too many of Lou's sandwiches and Morgan was deep in his cups of grape soda. It's been a joke between them. But now it meant that Morgan could perform the ceremony. "I'll do a good job, Chuck. You two mean the world to me."
Sarah left Chuck to finish unpacking in the apartment (it was hard to believe they hadn't really yet begun to live there) and went to talk to Lou. After talking to Morgan, they had decided not to yet bring her into the whole story, but Sarah wanted her to be a bridesmaid if she was willing. Sarah showed up at about the time Lou was locking up.
"Oh, hey, Sarah. Your aunt, Becky?, called me to tell me you'd had to go out of town to see about your uncle. Is he ok? You are on the schedule for tomorrow, by the way."
"Yes, Lou, uncle John is fine. And I will be here. I came to tell you something and to ask a favor."
Lou stopped. "What is it, Sarah? Is everything ok?"
"Better than ok, Lou. Chuck and I are engaged. We are planning to get married in a couple of weeks, just a small ceremony, but I wanted you to be a bridesmaid."
Lou's face wore a wide grin. "Wow! That's great, Sarah. I knew you two wouldn't wait long. I've seen you together enough to know. Of course, I will do it."
"Oh, and Morgan is officiating."
"Really? Can he do that? That guy...full of surprises."
"How are you two, Lou? Morgan seems really happy."
"Me too, Sarah. I've never seen anyone change so much before, Sarah. Not up close. He's a boy in a way, and always will be. But he is also a man or becoming one. I don't want a man who loses contact with the boy, I've decided. Maybe that's what the nerd thing is really all about, at its best anyway, holding onto that boy, that capacity for fun, for wonder, for just being alive and being happy about that. For finding joy in little things and not being ashamed to be pleased by them, entertained by them. I don't know...I just know that I like him, I like him a lot...a lot more than I bargained for. Here's the thing, Sarah. If Morgan Grimes loves you, it's not halfway. Does he embarrass me once in a while? Yes. Do I care? Not very much. Because he also makes me proud too, almost all the time."
"So are we going to start serving the Morgan Grimes here, now?"
"No, I don't think so. I'm planning to make that...sandwich for him soon, and only for him, and at home."
They shared a significant look and both broke into slightly self-conscious smiles. Then a devilish gleam lit Lou's eyes.
"Extra mayo."
Sarah joined in Lou's joyful laughter. "Too. Much. Information."
Casey got to Wanda's apartment. He'd been tied up at Cave, helping Beckmann with the plan to mop up the mess of The One Ring. Then, Wanda had to work. They were both finally free to see each other.
Casey had never felt like this. He had not only wanted to get home after the mission. He wanted to get home during the mission. Even stranger, in his experience, he had kept thinking of home while on the mission. And thinking of home meant thinking of her, of Wanda.
She answered the door wearing a large, loose yellow sweater and grey yoga pants. Her hair was swept back and held by a rubber band. She had told him she was going to cook for them. Casey had a bottle of wine in his hand. He felt his pulse pick up and his throat grow a little thick. She hesitated a beat; she could tell he wanted to say something. "Good to see you. Really. Good to see you."
She stepped forward, but not to take the bottle. She put her arms up around Casey's neck and drew him in for a very amorous kiss. When she broke it, she put one hand around Casey's jaw. "I've been thinking about that chiseled, Michelangelo jaw ever since you left on that business trip. It's just as...effective...as I remembered." She kissed him again quickly and then took the wine. "Come in, Casey."
She moved beautifully, Casey noticed. She had been a dancer before her work at the gym. It still showed. She had a grace that spoke to Casey. For all his strength and power, for all his mastery of fighting skills, Casey thought of himself as a plodder, graceless. Just watching her as she moved around the table in her small kitchen, straightening the utensils, lighting the candles, opening the wine - just watching her made him glad to be home. He took a deep breath, maybe the deepest he had taken since he enlisted in the Marines long ago. He exhaled slowly, feeling his own heartbeat. Maybe this was what it was like to be completely alive?
End of Book Two: The One Ring
A/N: "You're either Allan Quatermain in your own life or you're half dead." Morgan Grimes
Intermission Music: "Down in the Cockpit", XTC