A/N: And so begins the final book of CvBC, Book Three: House Bartowski? Thanks so much for sticking around.

Thanks, thanks and thanks for the reviews and PMs.

I haven't yet decided how I am dividing up the material, but Book Three will be at least two more chapters, maybe three or four. This chapter is short, an intro, if you will, to the Book.

Still don't own Chuck.

Book Three: House Bartowski?

CHAPTER 14 Glimmerings

The next day, Chuck was in Cave, talking to Beckmann and to Sarah. Beckmann had given the two of them a little time but now wanted to talk more about Thailand and what happened there. Casey was in Cave, but not with them at the central table. He was tending to items in the armory.

Beckmann asked Chuck about what had happened in the encounter with the Belgian.

"I could tell that the Belgian was incredibly powerful. Sarah is too, more powerful than before, now, but she was tired, almost exhausted. I couldn't let anything happen to her, so I stepped into the spell. I could feel his hate, deep and oily and awful, and I just let it wash over me, go through me, and I...released it. I didn't hate his hate back. I just let it be. And it wasted itself. I don't know anything more to say, really. Except that my power is still exhausted. I don't think it is permanently gone, I know it isn't, but I can't do that sort of thing...often."

"But you didn't have a headache afterward, did you?" Sarah asked.

"No, I think the headaches, and the nosebleeds, were mostly the result of my inability to control my power, and partly my body adjusting to the use of it. After my...uh...epiphany under Mueller's spell machine, I no longer experienced my power as alien to me, as something that was mine and not mine. It was just mine."

"And you, Sarah, your increase in power, how do you understand that?" Beckmann turned to Sarah as she spoke, looking at her with both curiosity and kindness.

"A change in me, I guess. I have always felt deadened or distracted or divided, like some part of me was unresponsive to, inattentive to, or just dead set against doing what I was doing or owning what I was doing. I had a moment, looking for Chuck, when I felt that interior...disjointedness finally fall away. I knew what I wanted, what I wanted, and with no internal reluctance or refusal. And it changed my power."

Beckmann was about to ask more when Casey entered. All three at the table looked up. Casey's face was flushed, his look strange. "I just checked his cell. Shaw's dead."

"How can that be, Casey?" Beckmann asked, standing up and moving to go down the passageway.

Casey gently reached out for her arm to stop her. "You don't want to see it. He did it to himself. He hung himself with his bedclothes."

Why Shaw had done it was a mystery. And it did seem that he had. There was no evidence to suggest that someone, anyone, had gotten to him. He had killed himself.

He had been increasingly erratic since his showdown in his cell with Sarah. Whatever descent he had been in that ended with him hanging from a light fixture in his cell, it had picked up speed then, but he had already been falling. Chuck saw it in his eyes when Shaw had interrogated him, after Jill had taken him and Sarah captive.

After the showdown with Sarah, Shaw had been uncommunicative, had stopped eating much, had been very unsettled. Beckmann had noticed. Casey noticed after returning from Thailand. But both had thought it the result of his incarceration, his giving up of the Belgian, the failure of The One Ring. Neither Beckmann nor Casey thought him a suicide risk. If nothing else, they knew of his long obsession with finding his wife's killer, and they did not think he would give up on that quest.

No one had liked Shaw, in fact, everyone had disliked him, but no one wanted this end for him. After the body had been taken down and taken away, they found a spot on the wall of the cell where Shaw had left what counted perhaps as a suicide note. He had scratched 'Evelyn' into the wall.

This was the one dark spot on an otherwise very bright time for Chuck and Sarah, their family and friends, and Beckmann's House. Chuck was busy, but he tried to pay close attention to what was happening each day. It was too important, it meant too much, to let it slip past him like a quick succession of busy nothings. The big day was the big day, sure. But that didn't mean that the days leading up to it were little, to be forgotten or rushed. In a good life, every day is at least a sort of big day.

Beckmann was overjoyed about the wedding, even seemed to think she deserved some credit for helping things along. Chuck and Sarah knew she was right about that. Ellie and Sarah used up almost all of Ellie's free time, planning the wedding. Beckmann's House had asked to pay for it, as a bonus to them for dismantling The One Ring. Her Casters would do the decorations, the cake, the music, the reception. It was going to be held at a small chapel not far from their apartment.

Plans were in place, and the day was approaching. One week to go. One week. Chuck was amazed by it all. Sarah and Ellie were finalizing everything with the wedding dress. He had ordered his tux. Morgan was furiously writing and rewriting the ceremony. Later in the day, Chuck and Sarah were going to buy rings.

Sarah walked through the door of the jewelers. Chuck held the door for her, and she smirked at him - she was willing to give him these little things once in a while. He really did do them out of respect, not any notion that she was weak or needed to be babied.

The jeweler's shop was not part of a chain. Beckmann had suggested the place. It was out of town but she told them it would be worth it. Sarah had been teasing Chuck mercilessly about what sort of engagement ring he wanted - since, after all, he had accepted her proposal and agreed to be her wife. Chuck pointed out each time that his mind had been almost sucked from his head, and that he should maybe get a pass for that mistaken response. And of course Sarah agreed. It was just too much fun to let it go too soon.

"So, Chuck, do you know what you want? Maybe a tiny solitaire with a prong setting. Delicate, like you? Yellow gold, to bring out the amber and topaz highlights in your eyes…?"

Chuck sighed in mock-defeat. He held out his arm to her, his hand hanging down limply from his wrist. He looked at her from beneath batting eyelashes. (Oh, those eyelashes! She felt something in her lower abdomen tighten gently.) "I suppose if it is going to go this way," his voice slid into an exaggerated Scarlett O'Hara silky southern, "then you ought to get down on one knee and do this right." He drew out the last word as if it had three or four syllables.

By the time, the elderly man working behind the counter had finished with the other customer in the store and reached them. He had overheard the exchange and now he was watching with merry curiosity. Sarah noticed the man, and she knew Chuck had too. Chuck had cleverly painted her into a corner, but with her help. She wanted to keep the joke going, but was she going to get down on one knee and make a formal proposal? And what was Chuck prepared to do in response to it? Sarah was happy she had proposed, and she had been enjoying the joke, but...

But Chuck turned to the man and let her off the hook with a wink. He asked the man to see engagements rings in white gold and wedding rings in the same. Sarah shook off her bemusement and joined Chuck at the counter. "White gold, Chuck?" Sarah knew she liked it, but Chuck had never talked of gold for himself, white or otherwise.

"Ah, yeah, I was hoping you might like it. I thought you did. You mentioned it once when we were window-shopping after dinner. But, I also kinda like it because of, you know, Thomas Covenant."

"Who?"

"It's a book, a series of books, actually. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. Covenant is a resident of our world, kind of a miserable son of a bitch, who is suffering horribly, suffering from divorce and from leprosy. He gets translated into a new world, The Land, where his leprosy heals but his psychological damage remains.

"He has power in that world, keyed to his white gold wedding band, which he refuses to take off. I know it sounds weird, but the character struck a deep chord with me as a boy. He fights to learn how to control his power, it is a wild magic, capable of undoing the world, and he starts using it to shave, 'shaving with the white gold', he calls it. Later, that line became a mantra for me, a way of trying to force myself to overcome the loss of my parents, to face the unknown, to embrace the deep mysteries of life, the things that make life worth living, instead of denying them or running from them.

"I think I lost my hold on that mantra for quite a few years after Jill. I let myself suffer but with no attempt to take command of that suffering, to assimilate it into something good. I made no attempt to take control of myself, my potential. Until you.

"In my life, Sarah, you are the white gold ring, the wild magic, and living with you is - pardon the phrase, but I hope you know what I mean, and that I mean it in the best possible way - living with you, Sarah, is shaving with the white gold. I never want to forget that."

"Then white gold it is," Sarah managed through tears.

They chose a simple, modest white gold engagement ring with a beautifully cut small diamond. Sarah thought the diamond shone with a light all its own. Their wedding rings matched it, plain bands of white gold. The jeweler waved their money away when they tried to pay. Beckmann had told the man that she would personally pay for the rings. Chuck explained that he was at least going to pay for the engagement ring. He had sold his guitar (it just sat around in his bedroom these days, and he had never been good at playing it) and several of his prized, collectible comics so that he could afford to buy Sarah's engagement ring. The jeweler accepted the compromise, and Chuck paid for the ring.

Sarah's phone buzzed. "Beckmann. She wants us right away."

"To Cave it is," Chuck responded.

"No, she wants us to meet her at the the Shop." They exchanged looks of surprise.

Chuck pulled the old Toyota off the road and into a parking lot. Sarah, who had been lost in daydreams while staring at her engagement ring, looked up in surprise.

"Chuck, where are we? Beckmann's text sounded urgent."

"Well, Sarah, we are stopping because there is something I need to do and I am not going to miss my chance. C'mon." He jumped from the car.

They were in the parking lot of a beach. Chuck walked determinedly out onto the beach, into the sand. Sarah followed, perplexed. When Chuck reached a spot on the beach that suited him, he turned and waited for her to reach him. And then he went down on one knee. Sarah's heart leaped. He took her hand and, with beautiful care, he removed her engagement ring. Then he held it up to her. The sunlight danced on it as it was dancing on the water behind Chuck. Sarah was surrounded by glimmerings. She felt her insides take wing, monarchs, a kaleidoscope of butterflies. Chuck's eyes were exultant and full of promises, of promises kept and promises to be kept.

"Sarah Walker, you are my life. Do you take me as the father of your children?"

She laughed warmly, recognizing the vow. "I do, Chuck."

"And do you take me as your husband?"

"I do, Chuck."

And will you marry me?"

I will, Chuck, yes!"

With the same beautiful care, Chuck replaced the ring on her finger. Sarah knelt in front of Chuck and swept him into her arms, kissing him with exhilarated kisses. She had proposed to him already. He proposed to her in reverse. But that was her, that was them. They were always somehow farther along in their relationship than they were. They were not a normal couple. But they were the couple each wanted most to be.

After a few minutes, they got up and left the beach hand in ringed hand.

Chuck called out as he the counter of the shop, as he first had weeks ago. In a moment or two, Beckmann opened the door and stuck out her head. She looked relieved when she saw Chuck and Sarah.

"Good. Come in, quickly. The situation is fluid and complicated."

Chuck stepped through the door. Neither he nor Sarah had ever been through that door. Neither had entered Beckmann's inner sanctum.

"It's like the Tardis!" Chuck exclaimed, turning a slow circle in wonderment. What he had taken to be a small room or two at best, was the foyer to a massive space.

"The Tardis?" Then Sarah dimly remembered the Dr. Who episodes she and Chuck had watched one night, as part of her increasingly eager education in popular culture. "It's like a phone booth?"

"No, its bigger on the inside than the outside, way, way bigger."

There were people everywhere, almost all in motion. Some were at computer terminals. Others were involved in Communication with 3-D images of distant Casters. Still others were staring into crystal balls. Most everyone was really, really good-looking. Beautiful creatures. There were stairs, going up to another level where still more people were busy poring over ancient tomes, mixing items for spells. Hallways lead toward more distant spots, identified by signs: Spell Casting Rooms 1-4, Dojo, Infirmary, Apothecary, and so on.

Even Sarah seemed impressed. Casey walked up to them. He was obviously proud of all they were taking in. "Welcome to the nerve center of House Beckmann. Yes, impressive. But we don't have time to gawk. Someone has shown up - unexpectedly." Casey's alert eyes saw the ring on Sarah's finger, and he smiled at her, and punched Chuck hard on the shoulder, grinning.

"About damn time. But I thought she would buy one for you." Sarah hid a smile behind her hand.

Beckmann stopped to talk to a young Caster who presented her with a file. "Go ahead with Casey. I will join you in a moment."

Casey led them down the central hallway. They went through a large, heavy wooden door at the end, only to find themselves at the near end of a long table. At the far end sat Carina, her hair a mess and her clothes dirty. Beside her stood a unprepossessing, balding man, wearing glasses. He too looked worse for wear, his clothes torn in places and his hands covered with dirt and ink. Casey turned back to Chuck and Sarah as he led the way to the other end of the table. "This is Orion. This hot mess, as you know, is Carina."

Orion stepped toward Chuck and Sarah and extended his grimy hand. Chuck shook it and then Sarah. "Orion is not my real name, obviously. My real name is Howard Busgang. I am so pleased to finally meet you both face to face. You two have no idea how often I have looked forward to today. I just wish the circumstances were less...dire."

Sarah turned to look at Carina, who had so far mostly kept her gaze trained on the floor. Sarah could not recall ever seeing Carina look so upset, so deeply...ashamed. Sarah knew then that Casey's suspicion was correct; Carina had dosed Sarah ignorantly or unwillingly. Chuck in that moment walked to Carina and extended his hand to her, palm up. She looked at him - a question. He grinned and shrugged, and she took his hand and and stood. He pulled her into a hug, and Carina's features relaxed. She smiled at Sarah over Chuck's shoulder and mouthed I'm sorry. Sarah gave her the smirk that she so often gave Carina, the How can I help but forgive you? smirk and they shared a familiar glance: later.

Orion waited for everyone to sit and for Beckmann to join them. She sat last. She gestured for Orion to begin.

A/N: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant were written by Stephen Donaldson. I was lucky enough to interview him once for my college newspaper. A good guy.