A/N So here we are, the segment that hopefully you've been waiting for, the meeting at Nadrazi Station. I've been putting in little clues about Sarah's true state of mind all through the previous chapters, but I haven't been making a big thing of it. The proper functioning of the skills is also hinted at here.
"Alright, Chuck, what was that all about?"
"You watch too many movies, Bartowski."
"Don't kill me!"
"I didn't want you to leave without a proper hello."
Chuck woke in some morning, not sure which one, stiff, sore, and with a nasty case of tranq-head. He'd been tranqed before, part of his training if nothing else, so he recognized those symptoms, but the others were new. Only after he'd moved did he remember the lessons about playing possum until he'd assessed his own condition, but he'd already assessed the headache, so what the hell. He kept going, bringing himself upright on the bare mattress on a rusty frame in a run-down stone (he checked the condition of the door, especially the locks) cell.
Daylight. There were techniques for determining possible location based on the angle of the sun, but he didn't know what they were. Heat. More heat than he'd expect if he was still in Burbank, therefore he wasn't in Burbank. Someplace south of there, most likely. Rural, based on the sounds and smells from the window. Barred window. He couldn't hear any birds, so that was no help.
Keys jingled outside. The lock turned, and the door creaked open on rusty hinges. Chuck looked up as Javier Cruz walked into the room, dressed in black from head to toe, bald head glistening. "Oh, hi, Javier," said Chuck amiably. "You're looking a bit overheated. Have you considered toning down the all-black ensemble in the middle of the summer?"
"Shut up, Agent Bartowski," said Javier with voice as lively as his face. "Soon you will tell me everything you know."
"First you tell me to shut up and then you want me to talk? Make up your mind."
Javier removed his coat and started removing his shirt. Underneath he was extremely muscular. Yuri was a slow, fat, wallowing pig next to this man.
"You know, what I said about the all-black, I didn't mean you should start right away–"
"Shut up," said Javier again. "I have made up my mind. First I will amuse myself, seeing if you are anywhere near as capable facing me squarely as you are attacking me from behind."
"I didn't attack you," said Chuck. "In fact I even apologized, although I can see how you would have missed that."
Javier adopted a ready stance. "Fight me."
Chuck sighed. "Fine." He pushed himself and overbalanced, sticking out a hand.
Cruz grabbed the hand and pulled Chuck closer, striking him across the face.
"Hey," said Chuck, wiping his lip. Cruz was ripe for plucking, too angry by half. One flash and he would be out of here. "I wasn't ready. And you know you may be extremely ripped, but my mother's hugs have done me more damage." He held up his hands, but nothing came to him, no flash, no skills. The Intersect had once again abandoned him. Why today and not yesterday? Why Emmet and not Cruz? He threw a good punch, but to Cruz it was slow and obvious.
Cruz blocked and struck, his booted foot catching Chuck in the chest. The stone wall withstood the impact of his body against it, and he slid down slowly. "As I thought, coward. Once you have recovered from this beating I will administer another," said Cruz, his face blurring in the hazy light. "You will tell me all your secrets. Everything you know. Who you work for. And then you'll tell me about the girl."
Chuck winced, hiding his frown. Girl? What girl? Sarah? Jones? No, not Jones. He tried to recall a girl and could only picture a hazy golden light. Sarah. The last time he could remember seeing that was where? Oh yeah.
Nadrazi Station. But that was…
…Three weeks ago.
Bright sunlight caught her hair, flaming gold around her face. She glowed at him, for him. He almost could not bear to diminish that glow, but there was no going backward for him. It would be forward or nothing, for him and for her.
He couldn't really remember the short walk across the platform, his trainers would have been ashamed. But they weren't there, weren't seeing her for the first time in weeks. Years, or ever, she looked so happy. How had he made her so happy?
He reached for her hands, and she reached for his, papers waiting. "Are you ready, Chuck?" she asked, rushing on without waiting for an answer. Of course he would be ready. "Here's your ticket and your passport. Your name is Hector Calderon–"
"Sarah, stop."
"Talk on the train, we have to hurry–"
He reached up to touch her cheek, and she fell silent. "Sarah, you've been hurrying ever since I uploaded the new Intersect." She must have been, he'd learned the complexities of making new identities and three weeks wasn't a lot of time for setting up two new lives. "You've done wonderful things, I'm sure, but if anything, surely now is exactly the time to stop, to think. There will be no time for thinking afterward."
"I've thought about this," said Sarah. "I've thought about nothing else–"
"Neither have I," said Chuck. "Back in Castle I heard your thoughts, and I'm here. I will go with you, if you want, but before we go I would like you to stop and hear my thoughts. You're not my handler anymore, Sarah. We're partners now, and we always will be, if it's within my power to make it so."
"You promise?"
"I promise."
His given word didn't seem to relieve her mind. "You're making this complicated, Chuck," said Sarah. She reached up and gripped his hand. "This is simple. This is real life."
"Is it?" said Chuck. "How is 'Hector Calderon' a real life?"
"The life can be real, we can be real, even if it's a cover…"
Chuck looked surprised. "Like your life with your father? You hated that life. You still hate it, even if the CIA gave it a higher purpose."
"Chuck…"
"Sarah. You want to have a real life, I can help you with that, none better," said Chuck, holding her tightly. "This isn't how it's done."
She trembled in his arms. "Going off to be a spy isn't how it's done either, trust me on that."
"I trust you on everything, Sarah. You asked me to, and I have. And I'm going off to do what you told me to do." He loosened his hold. "I've finally accepted, begun to accept, that I am that guy. I can be him. Not a spy. Not the Intersect. The guy you saw before anyone, especially me. I can't just leave, that would be the most unfaithful to you that I can be, not to mention Ellie."
Sarah blinked. "Ellie?" Somehow she'd forgotten her almost-sister.
"Yes, Ellie. Whether I see her again or not, she made me everything I am, she made me that guy every bit as much as you did. More. I can't betray her like this, any more than I can betray you."
Betrayals lay all around them. "She wouldn't want you to be a spy. The lying, the deceit…"
A good point. Ellie would expect better. "No, but she would want me to do what I could, if I had the power to do it, and I do. I don't want it, but I have it. I'll just have to figure out a way to use it without lying." A path that led through the CIA, but didn't end there.
"They're going to want you to lie," said Sarah. "Cut ties, abandon principles, do what they'll tell you has to be done. It weakens you, so you'll be dependent on them."
"I'd rather be dependent on you." He reached into his pocket. "You have my mother's charm bracelet?"
"Of course." Packed away in her bag, safe and hidden. "Why?"
"Here," said Chuck, holding up a little envelope. He shook out a little silver charm into her palm. "This is my heart. You hold it for me, so I can't lose it while I go to do what I have to. I need you to keep my heart alive, Sarah, you more than anyone know what that means."
"I do." She folded her fingers over the charm. This is mine. His heart in my hands. "So. We stay. You learn to be Charles Carmichael. I'll hold on to Agent Bartowski for you."
"I know you will." Chuck folded his hand over hers. "This is how it's done, partner."
Pain in his chest brought Chuck out of his pleasant reverie. Heart. She holds my heart. Which was good, since it looked like Javier held everything else. And Sarah. Did he know about her? He must, but how? Did he have her, too?
He couldn't remember! He'd been going to the Buy More to talk to Morgan. Javier must have been in the Buy More, something had led him there. Did he get Morgan, too? Unlikely. Cruz was a pro, he wouldn't waste time on a someone like Morgan. He wasn't even a somebody, he was nobody. He even had the paperwork to prove it.
I really hope someone was watching the monitors…
Back in Castle…
Casey checked the last monitor, not expecting much. He was wrong. Well, Emmet's looked better…
Somewhere in a stone room…
Chuck got up and tried the grillwork on the window, which he hadn't had a chance to do before, but the rods were firmly planted in the stone. The door was the only way out and Javier was the only way to open the door. He needed to flash! He ran through every exercise they'd tried before in Prague, but this time none of the movements, thoughts, or images had any effect. "I am completely dead."
"Chuck?"
"Sarah?" Damn, he'd hoped she was out of this. He went to the bed, knelt by the wall. "I hope you have a plan."
"Yes, I do," she said. "You beat the crap out of Javier, get the keys and open this door. I don't have any picks and the lock's all rusted anyway."
He liked this plan even less than the last plan. "I can't beat him, Sarah. The skills aren't working."
"Don't be silly, Chuck, of course they work. You just have to find the right trigger."
That's what they'd said in Prague, and look how that turned out. "But I've tried everything."
"So maybe you shouldn't try. It didn't look like you were trying last night."
"I wasn't," said Chuck. He thought about what had happened. "I was just trying to get to you, or to Casey, tell you about Javier not being a courier, and that lady pushed me up onto the stage."
On the other side of the wall, Sarah shook her head. "You were trying to warn us."
"Yes."
Any other agent would have tried to save the day. "Chuck, since you went to Prague I've worked with a lot of spies, but you want to know what they aren't?"
"Here with us?"
"No, Chuck," said Sarah with a laugh. Locked in a cell by a professional killer, and she was laughing. "They aren't you, and you aren't them. You aren't just a spy, just the you-know-what. You're that guy."
"I'm that guy."
She put her open hand against the stone wall. "Yes, Chuck. Be that guy." Be my guy.
"I can do that. I can be him." A slight pause. "Uh-oh."
In Chuck's cell…
Keys jingled outside the door, and Chuck took his hand away from the wall. He got off the bed, speaking more loudly. "Something's happening."
"Don't freak out, Agent Bartowski."
The door creaked open and Cruz walked in again, secure in his control of the situation. "She can hear you," he said. "That's good. She will hear everything I do to you, everything you tell me." He shrugged off his jacket. "I won't kill you, though. I will let you listen to everything I do to her."
Chuck flashed. "Me first."
Sarah listened to the sounds of combat, a single crash and nothing more. "Chuck! What's going on? What's happening?"
"It worked, Sarah," he called to her. "I flashed."
A few seconds later she heard the keys in her door, and Chuck swung it wide. He held up a pistol like some form of lure. "Gun for the lady?"
Sarah went for the gun. "Let's go."
"Where?"
Cruz came out of Chuck's cell, saw the gun in her hand, and threw himself down the stairs before she could get a shot off. "Looks like up," she said.
Up above, not too far away…
"We're approaching the coordinates, Colonel," said the navigator.
"Roger that," said Casey, readying his mini-gun. It looked like he would get a chance to use her after all. Some days he really liked Bartowski. "Keep an eye out for explosions."
The pilot looked to his left. "Will fleeing civilians do?"
On the ground, having gone up only to go down again…
Chuck and Sarah stood, surrounded by goons with rifles as Javier took his time lining up a kill shot. "Sarah," said Chuck. "There's something I really should say, since it looks like I may not be able to say anything soon."
Sarah lifted her head. "Chuck, I'm listening."
"Sarah, I l–"
"Get down!" Sarah tackled him as bullets chewed through the buildings, the vehicles, the bad guys, well, everything, really. Except them. Over the helicopter and the gun they could hear Casey's shouts of battle joy. Well, he deserved it.
Time to go home.
A/N2 If you liked what I did with that scene, or even if you didn't, please let me know in the comments. One more chapter to go for this episode.