A/N: Into every fantasy-type story a lore-sharing chapter must fall...

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Don't know how the weather is where you are, but here it is getting cooler, finally, a nip in the air this morning. Lovely. Hope it is lovely where you are.

Chuck ain't mine...

CHAPTER 15 Revelations

"We are all here, ultimately, because of two men. Chuck, here...and Langston Graham." Chuck heard Sarah gasp, Casey grunt and Beckmann curse all at the same time.

Orion then looked at Sarah and added: "Well, two men and one woman. Sarah is just as crucial a part of this story. But her part in it begins later, in a sense. Of course, sometimes later is earlier and earlier later, depending on where you are standing - and whether you take seriously that time can be likened to space..." Carina shot Orion a look and he focused again. "Ah, yes, ah...most of those close to Graham know that he is a Seer, with a minor prophetic power. What almost no one knows is that Graham long ago foresaw that a mortal would become a Reader, and that that Reader would fall in love with a Caster of unprecedented power, and that together they would change the future of Casting."

The room was all attention. "Graham covets power in a way that few Casters ever have. The story I have to tell you is largely driven by that covetousness. But to tell you about that, I have to start somewhere else. Somewhere closer to home. And the story is a sad one. I am sorry to have to tell it, but I must."

Orion looked at Carina. She smiled grimly at him. Chuck realized that there was clearly a bond between them, not romantic but real. Carina liked and admired the man, and he her.

"Many years ago, I worked for the CIA as a computer engineer and programmer. I was stationed here, at a secret lab in LA. My research partner and my best friend was your father, Chuck, Stephen Bartowski.

"We were young men then, full of dreams for what computing might become, how it might be used to keep the country - and more importantly, innocent people - safe. I was a Caster, but Stephen did not know that, not then, not at the beginning. However, Stephen somehow got convinced that magic was real and that there were people who had magical powers. I don't know what convinced him; he was brilliant; maybe he just reasoned his way to the conclusion. But he began to put in extra hours in the lab. He was convinced that magic was itself a technology, just one of a different kind than the technology he and I were working on. It was the only thing we disagreed on, and I believed he was wrong about it and he came to think so too... Anyway, he believed that computers and spells could be mixed, united. He was right about that, it turns out. I watched the work over his shoulder and started volunteering to help him. He was dogged, but of course, he had no access to magic, and so his work was entirely theoretical."

"You know," Chuck broke in, his voice in the present but his mind in the past, "when I was a kid we would read books together, sci-fi and fantasy, and he would always tell me that technology was magic and magic technology. We read my favorites together, "Automatic Tiger", The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant," Chuck glanced at Sarah, "The Lord of the Rings, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Gormenghast Trilogy...He would always tell me - 'It's all one world, Chuck. One world is enough; this world is inexhaustible.'"

Orion smiled, himself momentarily whisked to the past too. "Yes, Chuck, that was your dad...As you can guess, I eventually decided to reveal my power to him. And we began to work in earnest. We began to make progress mixing computing and Casting. They were not the same but they could...contact each other. Your father was particularly interested in powers and how they worked. Stephen made tremendous progress with a program we designed that was intended to act as a repository of information and power, but a repository that could be used to...move...or...transfer the information or powers to another person.

"We called it The Convergence. I know, I know...a completely stupid name. We did not realize it, but rumors of our work had begun to circulate in the CIA and among the Houses, but most particularly in Graham's House. He had a Caster friend who held a high position in the Agency and that friend had heard the whispers and shared them."

Orion paused and swallowed hard. Clearly, he dreaded the next part of his story. "The rumors circulating at the Agency caused the Director to assign a handler to Stephen. No one bothered with me. Most people thought I was just his buddy and helpmate, sort of Gilligan to his Skipper, and not in any way involved in the real work. I wanted it that way. And it was importantly true. Stephen was the primary creator of The Convergence. I began to work on another project; I will get back to that later.

"Anyway, the handler was your mother, Chuck, Mary. I don't know what her last name was - at least not until later when it became Bartowski. She was a remarkable woman, and...I fell in love with her right away. But, unfortunately for me, she fell in love with your father almost as quickly. We eventually shared our work with her, told her about powers generally, and my powers.

"At around this time, Graham contacted me. He began to ply me for information on our work. When he realized that I envied Stephen for having Mary, he used that against me and against Stephen. He got me to tell him about The Convergence. Graham wanted it the moment I told him. I should have feared the gleam in his eyes. But my eyes were green with envy, and I didn't react as I should have.

"But one thing about Graham: he is patient. He knew that The Convergence was at best a prototype and that it needed more time and development. He left me alone after that, and I eventually accepted that Mary loved Stephen. I became happy for them. I should have told them about what I told Graham. But I was ashamed and I thought...hoped...nothing would come of it.

"You see, I was busy with a project of my own, as I mentioned, one I kept secret from everyone, including Stephen and Mary. I am, I am...older than I look. I already had a history with The Intersect and I was still tied to it. It never chose me as a Reader, but it would...come to me from time to time. The book has a mind of its own. Really. Eventually, I realized that the book was seeking my help. It had been altered in some way, and the book...wanted to be restored to its original condition. I had made progress doing that in times past, and this time when it came to me, I thought I could finish the task. I realized that the book had never been intended to choose only Casters, but to choose someone, mortal or Caster, who could be trusted with the power the book gave. I was working to restore the book. - By the way, I also wrote The Skeleton Key around that time, but I...lost it. I sometimes...misplace even important things. Beckmann told me. Graham must have found it. It would have done him no good, he could not read it, only a Reader (or I) could. But he found a way to use it against you. I am sorry about that. Anyway...

"Stephen and Mary got married. She left the CIA because she wanted to raise a family. Stephen and I continued our work on The Convergence. Of course, the CIA understood our work as purely technological, and we did make technological breakthroughs as we worked toward a functioning Convergence. Those breakthroughs were more than enough keep the CIA satisfied.

"Things went on like that for several years. I finished the book and it vanished again. First Ellie and then Chuck was born. Progress in the lab was slow for me and Stephen. The work was hard and we had other projects that the CIA assigned us. Sometimes The Convergence project was stalled for months. But finally, we were getting close.

"Early tests on our new prototype were promising. That is when I realized that Graham was still keeping tabs on the project. That spooked me. So, I started keeping tabs on Graham (I have now been doing that for years, other than The Intersect, Graham has been my primary task). I learned that he was planning an assault on the CIA lab, to take The Convergence and to take Stephen. I went to Mary and confessed what I had done, and I told her what I had learned.

"She immediately reverted to an agent again. She and Stephen and I gathered up everything connected to The Convergence, hardware and software, notes, everything. We managed, by stealth and magic, to get it out of the lab took it all to a cabin in the woods, one Stephen owned but that Mary had set up to be untraceable. We bunkered down and got back to work, even as a CIA manhunt and a hunt by Graham's private army of Enforcers searched for us. We were hoping to find a way to use The Convergence against Graham, although we weren't sure how to do it exactly.

"But Dad and Mom, they left us behind?" Chuck asked, his voice breaking slightly. "They took The Convergence but left us?"

"They did not leave you, exactly, Chuck. Mary had CIA friends she trusted and I had Casters I did. I had my powers. No one, except perhaps the Belgian, was a match for me then. Other than Graham, no one but Sarah is now. But I have the advantage of knowing more, having lived longer. The mythology about me among Casters is partly that, mythology, but I do have power, real power." There was something about the small man's tone that was absolutely convincing.

"We knew how capable Ellie was, how resilient you both were. It was unfair and awful, and I have no defense of us now, but then we all hoped it would be brief. But we thought you were both safest if you were apparently on your own, if everyone believed (because you both believed) you had been abandoned. We made sure no harm came to you, and that you were able to live in safety and relative comfort and keep free of Child Services, but we kept from any direct contact. I don't think I have ever seen anyone more miserable and more controlled about it than your mom was during that time. And she had to hold your father together on top of everything else. He was inconsolable.

"I thought we had escaped Graham. I thought that once The Convergence was ready, we could find a way to defeat him. I was wrong. He found us. He hit us with all the resources he had been stockpiling over the years. Even with my powers and Mary's formidable skills, we three could not resist all the Casters - and other things - Graham sent against us in that cabin.

"It was a sneak attack, carefully planned. I was blown from the scene early by a massive volley of power. It must have been the work of many combined Casters, and they must have thought it atomized me. The plan was to kill me with that all-important first Casting. I was unconscious for hours, I guess. When I finally came to in the deep brush, badly battered and with my collarbone broken and one forearm shattered, I struggled back to the smoking ruins of the cabin. Stephen and Mary were dead; I found their remains. Everything connected to The Convergence was gone. It had been taken and everything left was set ablaze."

"Everything?" Chuck asked, his voice hushed.

"Yes, Chuck..everything." Orion had tears on his face. His complexion had turned ashen.

Sarah moved her chair closer to Chuck's and put her arm around him. "I guess I always suspected they were dead. I could believe that they left. But I couldn't believe they could still be alive and make no contact for all these years." Chuck said this softly but everyone heard it.

"Ah…" Orion wiped his eyes. "Let me move now more quickly to where we find ourselves. I don't mean to be insensitive.

"Graham has thought me dead since that day. I have been careful to circulate and encourage the rumors that I am dead. But I have never felt that I was in a position to attack Graham directly. It took me a long time to heal, having to do it in secret. He had time to entrench himself. He had too many Enforcers, too many resources. And I am no assassin. I have worked against him constantly in small ways, frustrating his plans, but always from the shadows.

"Graham is on the move now. He has been working on The Convergence - or more accurately - a team of dark Seers has been working on it for him. It is now operational, and I fear Graham has operated it. He has used it to siphon all the data from the databases of the CIA and NSA. But he also has used it to collect powers from Casters, light and dark. And he has uploaded it all into himself. Graham now is The Convergence. What Chuck did to The Belgian pushed up Graham's timeline. Carina and I have been able to find out in general what he is planning. He is planning an attack, here, in LA, to attack you at your wedding but before your vows. I believe our only choice is to attack him first. I have a new spell, one that Carina and I have used, that will get us into his base of operations."

A silence ensued. The only sound was Beckmann grinding her teeth in seething anger. "Let's take a break for a few minutes. I know what we have heard is unpleasant." She looked kindly at Chuck and shared a small smile with him.

Sarah stood up when Chuck did and put her arms around him. He leaned into her for a few seconds, then leaned back and gave her a quick, weak grin. "I'm glad I know. It's sad, and I will be sad for a while, and so will Ellie, but I would rather know this than know nothing. They made choices I would not make, but they made them for my sake and for Ellie's."

A few minutes later, Carina gently grabbed Sarah's hand and pulled her out of Beckmann's 'quarters' and out of The Curiosity Shop. She stopped when they both stood on the sidewalk outside the Shop's window.

Carina glanced at Sarah guiltily. Sarah waited for her to speak.

"Sarah, I screwed up, I screwed up bad. Graham called me into his office at the House. Bryce was there. Together they told me a story - about you and about Chuck. Long briefing short, they told me he had you under a spell or that someone he was working with had you under a spell, and that the spell had proven too strong for them to break from the distance. They sent me in with the potion. They told me it was a cure.

"I didn't exactly believe them, but I didn't exactly not believe them. I had to see for myself. And then when I saw you, looking and acting so different than when we last saw each other, I started to believe them. Chuck seemed too good...to be true. But - and I am sorrier about this in a way than everything else - I just couldn't believe you were happy. I could see it. It radiated off of you. I could feel it. But I have never believed in happiness, Sarah." Sarah nodded sympathetically, again waiting for Carina to continue.

"And since I didn't believe in it, I couldn't believe yours was real. It had to be a spell. I always preferred angst over fluff, Sarah, because I thought angst was real, and fluff fake. I thought that preference made me hard-headed, tough-hearted, realistic, brave. But it was really...a soft-headed, tender-hearted cynicism, a failure to want the right things out of life, out of myself. I was coddling myself and accepting less than the best from myself. I became a coward. I read my screwed up life into yours, Sarah, and screwed with yours as a result. Can you forgive me?"

"Of course I can, Carina. I already have. Casey didn't really have to convince me that there was an explanation for what you did. I already believed that. And I knew it when I saw you a little while ago. But where is all this coming from, Carina? I mean, self-examination has not been your, ah...meter, exactly."

Carina smiled a small, bitter smile. "I know. But try spending time with Orion. He doesn't sound like he's making sense, but then all of a sudden, he does, and he turns your world on its damn ear. I feel like I've been spending time with a mashup of Merlin and Socrates. I never thought that just getting to know someone could itself be an education."

Sarah smiled warmly at Carina and drew her into a hug of the sort Sarah had learned from Ellie. As she squeezed Carina she said, "I know something about that kind of thing, Carina, and how much harder and how much better it makes your life to change the way you see it. I love you, Carina."

"I...love you too, Sarah. Thanks for not believing the worst of me. I did enough of that for both of us."

When they reconvened, Orion turned to Beckmann and then the rest of the group. "Oh! I forgot. I should tell you. I know what happened to Shaw. I had information and then when Beckmann told me about his suicide, I could put it all together."

Orion went on in a low tone. "As you know, Shaw was working for the Belgian. But what you don't know is that the Belgian recruited Shaw before Shaw's wife died, shortly before it. When she died, Shaw became obsessed with finding her killer. Shaw was obsessive to begin with, brittle and self-righteous, and that is part of why he joined with the Belgian. He thought no one else capable of being the sort of pure, emotionally controlled Enforcer he took himself to be. The Belgian played on that feeling of superiority. As a sign of his favor toward Shaw, he gave Shaw a lighter." Orion scanned the room and everyone seemed familiar with this fact.

"The lighter contained an evil artifact, and the Belgian used it to delude Shaw, to force him to kill his own wife. She was a good woman, and the Belgian worried that she might be able to influence Shaw in the wrong direction. The artifact kept the memory of what Shaw had done hidden from Shaw. So, it turns out that, all this time, Shaw had been obsessively hunting for himself. When you took the lighter from him, he began slowly to suspect himself. The longer he was parted from it, the clearer and more compelling the suspicion became. In the end, he knew he did it. And so he finished his quest, his obsession: he took revenge on his wife's killer. That is the sad story of Daniel Shaw."

"I don't mean to sound heartless," Sarah said quietly, "but I wonder about Evelyn. What did she see in him? I just don't know how anyone could find him attractive." No one could offer an explanation. They all sat in prolonged seconds of wordless puzzlement.

"Where is Graham's base, Orion?" Beckmann cut in, utterly focused and back on task.

"Graham has a secret complex of caves beneath an abandoned WWII base in Virginia, Pungo Naval Outer Landing Field. He also uses a few of the old buildings. Luckily for us, Graham has stretched his forces thin. After he kills Chuck and Sarah, he plans...well, he plans to take over, to take over Casters and eventually the country. He is very sure of himself. Right now, he has a few Enforcers with him, and he has The Gobbler with him. But mostly he has Seers with him. He believes that he and The Gobbler are enough to destroy any attack."

"The Gobbler? I thought he was just a Caster bedtime story, the Bogeyman for little Casters. You mean he exists?" Sarah was incredulous.

"Yes, he exists, I am sorry to say, I always suspected that he did, although I only came to know that for sure recently, when I saved Carina from Graham's Pungo dungeon. The Gobbler would come to Carina's cell to...look at her, whetting his appetite."

Chuck, who was clearly still trying to process the earlier things he had been told, began now to catch up. "So, who or what is The Gobbler? Wait, he was going to eat Carina?"

Carina laughed but she visibly shuddered as she did so.

"He is a very ancient Caster, maybe the oldest now living, who achieved his long life and great power by dark Casting on himself, effectively turning himself into a monster, a massive, twisted, ravenous thing that can only stay alive on a diet of living human flesh." Orion gagged a bit as he spoke.

"Yeah, he eats people alive," Casey clarified. "At least, that is how the stories go. But he cannot stand exposure to the sun. He can only exist in darkness and shadow."

Carina broke in. "After Orion rescued me, I realized that The Gobbler had been staring at me in the dark of the dungeon. We figure Graham promised me to him."

"How did you end up there, anyway, Carina?" Sarah asked.

"Bryce and a group of Casters attacked me at my hotel after I left your apartment. They overpowered me. I woke up in the dungeon. It is deep below Pungo."

"What do you recommend, Orion?" Beckmann looked at him hungrily, like she knew the answer to her question but was just waiting for him to voice it.

"I say we take the fight to Graham. I say we go to Pungo and force the bastards out of their hole."

"My thought exactly," Beckmann commented, her lips in a grim line. "But how does Sarah fit into all this. She is the Caster in the prophecy?"

"Oh, yes. She is. Let me explain." He looked at Sarah as he continued.

"All of those missions you ran for Graham, Sarah, missions on which you took prisoners, Casters or creations of Casters, - Graham used those missions to feed data and power into The Convergence. You were doing good, but Graham was moving behind you doing evil. The prisoners rarely survived the process, the ones that lived would have been better off dead. The technological magic Mueller used on Chuck was an early form of The Convergence. Chuck is the only person exposed to that early version of The Convergence who has both stayed sane and lived. I knew he could survive it."

"Wait. So you are saying that Graham was using me? All this time? I was the tip of the spear for an evil madman?" Sarah's face was white.

"Yes, but it is worse than that. Graham started trying to fill in his prophecy. He knew that certain things were going to happen unless he stopped them, but he did not know who would do them. He did not know Chuck would be the Reader or that you would be the Caster. At least he didn't at first. But then he found an ancient manuscript that provided details. The manuscript was in bad shape, fragmented and incomplete, sort of like the poetic remains of Sappho," Orion scanned the room but no one seemed interested just then in the remains of Sappho, "but it gave him enough information to make an educated guess that the woman who was his becoming his prized Enforcer was also one half of the biggest of all dangers to his plans. So he began to manipulate you. He separated you from your parents, particularly your mother - a lovely woman, by the way - " Sarah looked at Orion in shock, "and from friends. He particularly wanted to keep you distanced from and indifferent to the mortal world, so that the chances of you meeting any mortal man who could attract you was as low as possible. But mostly he tried to just keep you so busy that you could never really understand your own heart, your own powers. And, frankly, he chose the worst, the deadliest missions of all for you, thinking that you would either eventually be dark or dead. Either one would have...satisfied him."

Sarah's sat in stunned silence. She had thought her life as an Enforcer was a collection of lies, but the life itself a lie, the whole thing, a lie told by Graham and one she embraced for years? It was a shock. She felt like she would scream or sob or get sick, or all three. All those lies held together in one bigger, uglier lie.

"Luckily, I found another, better-preserved copy of the same ancient manuscript. I had more information than Graham and it allowed me to get ahead of him. I had more faith in you than Graham. I knew you would not become dark. I worried about your safety, but I had to trust to your skills and to your heart. For the prophecy to be fulfilled, you had to find Chuck. Graham wanted to prevent the fulfillment of the prophecy; I was not going to try to force its fulfillment. I had to run the risk, and worse, let you run the risk."

Casey spoke. He knew both Chuck and Sarah were processing, struggling with all of this. "But why the hell would Graham do this?" He motioned to Chuck and Sarah. "Put these two together? He had to figure Chuck was the mortal Reader prophesied. Makes no damn sense."

"Thank God for the hubris of evil, Casey. I do every day. Graham really believed that he manipulated Sarah to a point where love for her would be impossible. He thought he could control her and through her Chuck. I believe he fell in love with the idea that he would eventually be able to get Sarah to kill Chuck, effectively ending any threat against himself in an act of evil poetry. He...ah...overestimated his effectiveness.

"He knew he had early on, but by then he was committed. He had to play it out. He used The Belgian and Shaw and The One Ring as a smokescreen. He'd been doing that for years anyway. The Belgian was a tool for Graham, a way of redirecting everyone's attention while he finished The Convergence. Graham's hubris even led him to give The Belgian's organization the name: The One Ring. It was a dark joke he liked. It was his way of declaring war on the possibility that a Caster and a mortal Reader, that Chuck and Sarah, would marry."

"Wait. You mean it wasn't just a lame Lord of the Rings reference?" Chuck asked in disbelief.

"No," Orion chuckled through a frown. "it wasn't a Rings reference at all. Graham understood the fragments of the ancient manuscript to refer to a wedding ring. But, again, I had fuller fragments and better judgment. The ring is an engagement ring. So the first order of business for us, since there is little doubt Graham has mobilized, is to get you two engaged."

Sarah spoke. "We have been engaged for a while. In a way, we've been engaged since our first date, I think. But I asked Chuck to marry me when I found him in Thailand, and he accepted." The memory made Sarah so happy that she smiled at Chuck despite all that Orion had revealed.

"Oh! Good. But was a ring given in pledge?"

"No, not there," Chuck said, "but I asked Sarah today, just before we arrived, and she accepted. She has the ring."

Sarah held it up her hand to display her ring. Everyone looked at it. It was lovely, but as they looked at it, the ring flashed pale blue, a sudden glint of undoubted power that illumined the room for a split second, like an incredibly powerful flash bulb. Sarah blinked - and then gazed in wonderment at her ring. Everyone turned back to Orion. He was smiling. "Congratulations, you two. Good. Very good. Graham is going to get more than he bargained for."

Graham sat in the darkened office of his secret headquarters, the only light a faint avocado glow enveloping his entire body. His body crackled with power, power upon power, power beyond power. He felt like a god, omnipotent with gods. He had waited so many years for this. Only one problem remained. Walker and Bartowski. He would kill them both - he smiled and licked his lips hungrily and wetly in anticipation - but slowly, and each in view of the other. He would do...special things to Walker. Walker would pay for not becoming what he wanted her to be, what she was supposed to be. Bartowski would pay for being the usurping mortal that he was. Others would die too, many others. But they would be mere appetizers or side dishes. The main dish was the resilient and recalcitrant blond and her soft-hearted and soft-headed boyfriend. Soon, soon. Maybe, if things worked out right, he would even be able to watch the Gobbler eat Beckmann. That would be a sight to soothe sore eyes. The little woman was a giant pain in the ass.

"But there is one thing I do not understand," Chuck said suddenly.

"Just one?" Carina smirked but looked kindly from Chuck back to Orion.

"Well, at least one. If there is a prophecy that Sarah and I will somehow change Casting, how can anyone, including Graham, stop it? Isn't it necessary?"

"Ah, mysteries. I do not have time now to discuss all that needs to be discussed, " Orion's eyes showed that he wished he did, "but let me say this. Don't fall prey to the illusion that the future is fixed in the way that past is fixed.

"The future is unfixed, riddled through and through with contingency. What we call prophecy is a glimpse ahead, to what may happen, given what is and has happened. But the future is always vulnerable to the present. What is 'foreseen' in prophecy is the way that the world is working itself out. Some futures are more deeply implicated in the past and the present than others, and so those futures are harder to influence, hard to keep from coming to pass.

"For instance, that you and Sarah would cross paths and be gravitationally drawn to each is deeply implicated in who you both are-character is fate, to an important degree. But what the two of you make of that path-crossing and that profound mutual attraction is not as deeply implicated in who you both are. The future cannot foreclose entirely on free will. The realm of law cannot jettison love and magic. The world is a daring and startling place; it could always have been different than it is. It always surprises, however much we may wish it did not. Forces are at work in it that require us to be humble, to own our own ignorance and ultimate impotence. The gift of prophecy cannot blunt that requirement. The future foreseen is best thought of not as what must happen, but also not as what merely can happen, but as what may, what might happen."

Carina smirked again. "Now, Chuck, is everything clear?" Orion looked at her, a little hurt. But she smiled indulgently at him. He smiled back in an avuncular way. Clearly, he had warmed to his topic and said more than he really had time to say, and much more than he had time to explain.

"Well," Chuck said, thinking, and smiling a very small, melancholy smile, "it's more coherent than the Terminator timelines."

Sarah was trying hard to pull herself together back together after all that Orion had told them. She knew that Chuck was doing the same. She and Chuck had found an empty room down one of the long corridors. They were taking a moment for themselves. He was sitting in a chair at a small table. She was standing just behind him, to one side, her hand rubbing his neck. She could see his foot tapping quickly on the floor, a sure sign he was processing.

"Chuck, I am so sorry about your mom and dad. I want to be there with you when you have to tell Ellie."

He glanced up at her and smiled sadly. "Thanks, Sarah. I have had a long time to prepare for this news. I expected it. Well, not this story, of course, but the result of it, my parents being gone. It seems like they've always been gone. The only difference is that I now know there is no chance of them returning. I haven't so much lost them today as a hope I've cherished since they left."

Sarah walked around the table and took one of Chuck's hands in her. She rubbed the back of his hand gently with her thumb. She felt his foot-tapping stop. They were both quiet for a while.

"What about you, Sarah. Graham...?" Chuck didn't know exactly which way to take the question.

"I always knew he was manipulating me, " Sarah said. "But I thought he was that manipulating me for good, if you understand, that his means were justified by his ends. But it turns out that any good I did was really never good he intended, even if he realized it would happen - because what he really intended was to use me to find fodder for his damn Convergence thingy. But I had no idea that he had separated me from...mom and dad as a way of trying to destroy me, that he sent me on mission secretly hoping I would go dark or die, or that he thought he was so deeply embedded in me, so much in control of me, that he could use me to kill or control you. Orion is right: Hubris." Sarah stopped talking, then she spat out a word. "Bastard."

Chuck shook his head in agreement. "You know, an ancient philosopher, a guy named Heraclitus, once commented, 'Hubris should be extinguished more quickly than flame.'"

"Well," Sarah said, flashing an embittered smile, "Let's put the flaming bastard out."

Chuck nodded. "We need to stop him, not so much for the sake of our past, although he has so much to answer for...but for the sake of the present and the future."

Now it was Sarah's turn to nod. She wanted to ask Chuck another question.

"Chuck, how does it feel, knowing that we were...fated...to meet? Do you feel - I don't know - like ours will be an arranged marriage?" She smiled shyly at Chuck.

Chuck thought for a moment. "Sarah, no one chooses who they fall in love with. It just happens. Is it chance? Ok. Is it fate? Ok. The point is that we fall in love, it happens to us. We can no more make it happen than we can make ourselves getting born happen. If I understood Orion, his point is that we are together because of who we have been and who we are, not because of some malevolent or benevolent or blind cosmic force. And even that, who we are, didn't make us fall in love with each other. That just happened. And it didn't make us work to find a way to be together. From my point of view, Sarah, that we are together is miraculous, not the clicking-over of massive cosmic tumblers. If anything made my heart respond to you, it was you. If anyone tells me that is because I was made that way, then my response is simple: I got made right. Does that make any sense? Maybe I've spent too long today listening to Orion. The guy's an earworm. Once you hear him, it's hard to get him out of your head."

"Does it make sense? If love made sense, Chuck, only grammarians would fall in love." They both chuckled.

Chuck stretched himself to his full height, and then spoke, in a professorial voice: "As I once said to my colleague here, it's a subject/object thing."

A/N: Next chapter-"Apocalytic". Soon.