A/N 5/26/13 -
Yes, Chuck has finally killed in the performance of his duty, and I know that's not going to set well with some of you. All I can say is that we were told many times by Chris and Josh that Chuck was on a classic Joseph Campbell hero's journey. In my opinion, and partly because of the woman he married and his quest for parity with her, this was a place he would eventually end up. Sarah and he are now equals, in every way. His journey is complete. Now they really do share each and every burden.
Thank you to all my readers who've favorited, followed, and reviewed this tale as we've taken the journey together. I appreciate it very, very much.
Don't own it, but it's been fun.
Chuck Versus the Lost Years
Act 15 - Devastation
- I -
"Still no sign of them, and as yet we haven't been able to get inside the underground part of the base, except for the areas around the hangars. The fires are almost out, but there is still too much smoke. We've begun ventilating the tunnel again. We should be able to send in a team in an hour or two."
"Thank you, Major," said Diane Beckman, gazing down the length of the table at the women sitting at the other end. "I expect to be informed the minute you're able to get in."
"Yes, ma'am, you'll be the first to know." The Air Force fire rescue officer followed the general's eyes and turned away quickly when Ellie looked up at him, then made his way hastily from the room.
Sarah stared blankly at a large map on the wall of the commandeered conference room. The situation was beyond bleak and she knew it. It had been hours since she'd received the text message from Chuck. She looked at the phone in her lap for what had to have been at least the hundredth time since he'd sent her that text.
They were convinced that Chuck wouldn't have sent it if he didn't think they would be making it out. Sarah knew him well enough to know if there was no hope the message would have been much different; that he would have said goodbye in that message, and asked her to look after his sister. So they'd both held onto the hope that the message represented and waited.
But he'd said he would be a little while longer, and the statement seemed so cryptic because what else did he have to do, or where could they have gone after bringing the facility down that would make them so late to appear?
For the first couple of hours, she and Ellie had stood and watched as the dense black smoke rose from what was left of the underground Fulcrum base, and that text message was the only thing that had helped them hold it together. Then Mary showed up and stoically passed along a message from Chuck's father. Stephen had lost contact with Chuck and Cole when the base was destroyed, and had been trying to communicate with them in some way ever since.
It was frightful to Sarah, seeing how emotionally detached Chuck's mother had been when she delivered the message. It reminded her of a recovered memory; when Mary had been so cold and manipulative when she allowed Alexei Volkoff to destroy the Bartowski's family home. The woman could compartmentalize things in such a scary way. There was a time when she'd done it herself, and that personal insight had left Sarah wondering ever since just what Mary wasn't telling her and Ellie. The fact she or Ellie hadn't heard anything from Stephen personally only added more fuel to the fire.
After hours of time spent alternating between pacing and sitting, the desperation was starting to settle in and take hold while they watched the rescue teams wait grimly along with them. Sarah could see it in Ellie's eyes as well, the resolve breaking down, even as they tried to support each other while they waited. Now it was taking everything Sarah had within her to keep it from showing as well, as they sat in this conference room of a small local air freight business that was now using the old fortified cold war aircraft hangar and crew facilities. The faint smell of burning jet fuel still hung in the air and permeated her clothes.
Someone had brought food in and placed in on the large table where it had gone untouched. Sarah looked up at Ellie, sitting next to her holding her daughter, stroking the infant's face with a shaky hand. Her face was becoming grief-stricken, and her facade was gradually crumbling in front of Sarah's eyes. When she placed her arm around Ellie's shoulders, her sister-in-law began to quake.
"Why'd he do it, Sarah? What was he thinking when he did that?" Ellie swallowed thickly, clearly struggling to stop the shaking, "If I'm responsible for this, I...I...don't..."
"Ellie..." Sarah took her free hand and turned Ellie's face to hers. "Ellie, this isn't your fault. I'm sure he had a reason. He's still our Chuck; the one who always manages to keep thinking on his feet and conquer the fear when it's at its worst. He had to have had a reason, an informed reason. We have to believe that."
"Oh, dear God, Sarah, we can't lose them, not now. Not after all we've been through."
Sarah's gaze traveled across the table to Mary and fell on her eyes, eyes that gave little or no hint of what the woman was thinking, but after a moment of unwavering contact, the hardened former agent blinked hard and looked sadly away. She felt a dark, dead weight in her chest. The special intimate contact she had been sharing with Chuck, that sharing of thought and spirit, it was completely broken, and the loss was tearing her asunder as she struggled to sense him.
She closed her eyes and tried again, but this time it was her own roiling emotions that were betraying her, as she tried to feel him...and he simply wasn't there. He's not there!
Standing bolt upright from her chair, she ran from the room. Because the only thing she could sense was her own heart shattering, and she knew she was about to lose it. Voices calling her were trying to penetrate through the dense black cloud enveloping her as she flew through the door into the blindingly bright afternoon sunlight, and once again took in the destruction around her.
Not knowing where to go, presently, she found herself sitting atop the grassy earthen roof of the hangar, staring out across the field, but not really seeing anything in front of her. All she could see was what she had regained, in vivid relief in her mind as the memories moved in front of her almost like a flash; sudden, stuttering, and convoluted, but strangely orderly and crystal clear at the same time. It was heaven, and it was hell, a razor-sharp double-edged blade being pushed slowly into her chest.
Sensing movement in her peripheral vision, she looked up to see John Casey studying her like he was trying to make a decision, his weight moving from one foot to the other. When Sarah reached out and put her hand on his calf, he stood like a statue for a moment, and then settled to the grass sitting very close to her, their shoulders touching.
"Why did he do it, Casey?" she said, repeating Ellie's question, struggling to drive the tremor from her voice, "What was he thinking? That was so un-Chuck-like for him to do."
Casey's eyes swept the devastation around them and settled on the large hole where the command center had once been. "Hnm, I've been trying to figure that kid out for years, why he does what he does. All I know for sure is that more than nine times out of ten it turns out to be the right thing." The big man turned to her, his face as hard as stone, but the pain clearly etched in his eyes. "I think we both know why he did it. I said it at one of the briefings."
Sarah nodded slowly, soberly, "To end it, once and for all."
"Yeah. I think he stumbled on an opportunity to finish this and grabbed it. He knew our cover was completely compromised by almost everyone in that base. And you know Chuck, once he makes his mind up about something..." Casey trailed off when he felt Sarah's head resting on his shoulder. He looked over his other shoulder, down the sloping grass roof of the hangar, to Gertrude and Nikki standing on the ramp, the two women giving him moral support with their eyes and their body language. He watched as Gertrude subtly nodded to him and then let his arm settle around his partner's shoulders.
"I never thought he had that in him, that he'd be capable of doing that," Sarah whispered softly. "I can't believe he would sacrifice himself like this, or take Devon and Cole along with him."
"I'm sure he had a plan, Sarah. Chuck always has a plan. But we both also know he'd give his life for any of us if that was the only choice he had."
"I know. He's almost done it so many times." She looked up at him, her face a torrent of emotion. "He'd never stay in the damn car. I'm so mad at him right now, John." Sarah's head fell back on his shoulder like she couldn't support its weight anymore. "Dammit, Chuck," she sighed.
Sarah felt the Colonel's arm tighten around her. "Let me tell you something, Bartowski. You remember when I once told you that Chuck wasn't wired like us? After I told you I shot the mole?"
"Yes. You said he wasn't a killer. That he didn't have it in him. That he wasn't like us."
"Well, I was wrong. Wait, hear me out," Casey said when Sarah raised her head and glared at him. "What I meant, is that we're wired just like he is, really. There's nothing special about us Wa-Bartowski, except for possibly an unhealthy sense of duty. Deep down, we aren't any different than Chuck. The only thing different about you and me? We're trained to suppress the damage that killing does to us, build a wall around it, push it into the darkest recesses of our souls and ignore it... and we've done it... too damn much. Chuck never learned to do that, he wouldn't accept it."
Sarah looked up at him curiously through her veiled grief, the question obvious on her face.
"When Chuck was released from his training in Prague," Casey continued, "Beckman said to me, she said that he'd told his trainers they were full of crap. When they tried to desensitize and condition him about killing? She said he told them if he ever had to do it, he wanted to feel it, own it, live with it... die with it. Her words." John Casey took Sarah's hand and held it. The act shocked her and pulled her eyes to his. "That's what is different about Chuck."
"Oh, God," Sarah breathed. Her lip began to quiver. "Casey, we had to shoot several Fulcrum agents down there. Chuck told me he couldn't bear to let me take on that burden by myself anymore. He killed several men... to protect me. I'm so worried about him, John. The things I've done have damaged me so much. I never wanted Chuck to have to go through it too. If he blew this place up..."
Casey grunted like he really wasn't surprised to hear it at all, "Then he's going to need our help, in a big way. And maybe it's about time we admitted we need it too. We both know the Farm's desensitization training is bullshit, that what we've done eats at us, hardens us, damages our souls. I know you were worried the red test would change Chuck, make him something you wouldn't recognize anymore. Sarah, it's Chuck. Has he ever thought less of us because of what we've had to do in our pasts? Or even the possibility that we might have received a sanction order for him one day? Or did," he admitted.
"What?" Sarah stared at him, in stunned anguish, her lips pulling into a tight line.
"That's right. I was ordered to terminate the nerd when the replacement Intersect that killed Graham was brought online. I was in the apartment; gun in hand, when you told Chuck about the explosion."
Sarah sighed, closing her eyes and swallowing audibly, "I was so worried about the possibility they might do that. I should have seen it coming. Were you really going to do it?" she asked, opening her eyes to look at their clasped hands.
"I honestly don't know. It's the worst position I've ever been put in my entire life, but at the time I was bound by a misplaced sense of duty. Your nerd, he taught me something... that duty doesn't mean diddly, or the greater good squat if you throw away your humanity in the process. Apparently Beckman learned that too, judging by what she said on the plane. Eliminating... bullshit, call it what it was, murdering Chuck would have corrupted everything we were fighting for. We would have been no better than Fulcrum. And we now know it would have set us back years, possibly even let Fulcrum or the Ring win if we had done it. I think eventually it would have destroyed me, too."
Sarah took a long look at her partner, and a deep deliberate breath, letting go of his hand. She then laid her face in her open hands, like she was trying to block out the world. Sarah wasn't used to this sort of eloquence from Casey...no one was.
Something in her told her she should be angry about what he'd revealed, that she should be outraged by what killing Chuck represented; but fate, and ironically, Fulcrum, had spared all of them that. Her own troubling memories of the things she'd done, and accepted as the things she'd done in the name of duty, they tempered any judgment she could possibly think of passing on her partner. She was bitterly ashamed of more than one event in all her experiences with Chuck that came close to making Casey's admission pale in significance.
But the man she was beginning to see they were all starting to mourn as lost to this day's events, her husband, had let so much of it simply be forgotten, as completely as her own once lost memories. She remembered a time when she told Ellie that Chuck was like a duck, and indeed he was, the way it all rolled right off his back, like a light rain. "I'm afraid he's gone Casey," she said into her hands, as she started to shake, "that everything we fought for was in vain. I don't know if I can go on without him."
"I know, Sarah, but don't give up on your nerd yet. I only have to look back at the last couple of days with you two to know he wouldn't go down without one hell of a fight. Chuck is stubborn, almost as stubborn as you. And even if he is gone, none of this was in vain, Fulcrum is no more, and he saw to that."
Her partner was right. It wasn't time to mourn just yet. Chuck had always been full of surprises, and even if he was gone, she had to face it in her own time, and in her own way. "I can't stay here. I have to go."
Casey glanced at his watch. "Going to the train station?"
"Yes." Sarah looked up at him with barely contained tears. "He told me to meet him there. I have to believe he'll come. He'll be there... he has to be there."
Her partner climbed to his feet, taking her hands and tugging her along with him as he rose. Something told him it would probably be better if Sarah wasn't around when they found her missing husband and their friends, that it wouldn't be a pretty sight. "Then you better be there when he shows up," Casey said with a genuine smile. "I'll cover for you if anyone asks any questions."
"Thank you," Sarah said weakly, squeezing her friend's hands, before she turned and walked off the man-made grass covered hilltop, leaving John Casey there wondering if history was about to repeat itself in a very tragic and final way.
- II -
He choked in the oppressively dry heat. It felt like he was trying to breathe in a blast furnace as the rippling heat scorched his lungs. How strange to be awoken by the Intersect, and have it issue instructions to him in this way, forcing him from his delirium. He pushed himself closer to the small grate of the vent at the base of the wall and took a deep breath of the cool air in the breeze that came from it.
Ironically, the fire raging outside the heavy steel and concrete doors sealing the room was the only thing keeping them alive. The blaze was pulling the air into the room through the ventilation system, trying to feed itself through the leaky seals of the fifty-year-old blast door. The rush of air around the door whistled incessantly, a constant reminder of how close they'd come, and how close they were to being incinerated.
Chuck crawled over to Devon, and checked his pulse, followed by another slow crawl and then a check of Cole's pulse, as well. Then he pushed their faces closer to the small grates of the vents they too were huddled in front of; ducts designed to pull cooling air in from the outside to counteract the heat always being released by the constantly decaying radioactive fuel of the weapons once stored here. Both Devon and Cole were still alive, but their pulses were rapid and their breathing short and shallow.
He looked up at the heavy wooden pallets stacked around them that had once cradled nuclear weapons in this room, lit by the last remaining light from a chemical light stick. They'd stacked the pallets in a tight circle around them in an effort to protect themselves from the intense heat radiating from the door and walls on the far side of the dark room. Chuck forced himself to his hands and knees briefly, to take a peek over the pallets, only to drop quickly to the floor again because the air only a short distance above them was like an oven. At least the door wasn't glowing red anymore, which had to be a positive sign.
They'd barely made it into this room in time; one of two former bunkers built to store the tactical nuclear weapons for which this base once existed. Time had run out just as they'd slammed the huge door shut, and a blast front with a wall of flame behind it slapped the door like a giant fist. Throughout the rapid onslaught of events, the Intersect had been telling him what was happening, and what he'd done, and the impact of the decision had hit him like nothing he'd ever experienced. It almost shut him down completely, but Cole and Devon, seeing what was happening to him, pulled him back from the dark depths into which he'd started to descend.
Why did I do it? That question kept cycling through his mind. And though the Intersect always answered with the same very precise mathematical answer, it was this feeling that radiated from his chest that spoke the loudest, one he couldn't interpret, but for some odd reason the one most reassuring, nonetheless. His thoughts drifted to Sarah, and Ellie, and all those family members and friends who were so close to him. When he saw their faces he understood why.
Then his thoughts turned back to Sarah. They always came back to Sarah, and she appeared to him as clearly as if she was standing right there in front of him, talking to him with her reassuring voice. The thought that his actions might come to this, that he would lose her this way, and leave her alone in the world after all that they had been through together, it tore his heart out and left him empty. That connection they'd forged over the last few weeks, that odd sensation when they touched, and lately even when they were near each other, when it was gone, when she was gone, he ached.
Once again he'd overstepped. The escape plan was good, and the Intersect's calculated odds had weighed heavily in their favor. But, in spite of the simple elegance of his plan they had been overtaken by unforeseen circumstances. It wasn't the first time. This had happened to him before, and each time it had occurred, Sarah had pulled his ass out of the fire. But this time he had put more than himself in the fire. This time, he'd brought his brother-in-law and a close colleague into the blaze with him. And this time Sarah wouldn't be able to pull him out.
If it wasn't bad enough that he'd gotten them trapped here; the thought of the pain he was causing for those they were leaving behind, because of his mistake, it was eating away at him like acid. The idea that Sarah and Ellie would be widowed, and both have to endure his and Devon's loss, it was devastating his mind and heart, tearing him apart. He closed his eyes, wanting to weep, but the tears would not come because he was so dehydrated. It seemed like the Intersect had only awoken him so he could torture himself anew, he thought, before everything went black.
"You did the right thing, Chuck; made the hard decision. 007 would be proud," Cole Barker said, slapping his leg with a wry smile as the three of them huddled against the wall. "Decisions like this are never easy, but it's done. You didn't just end Fulcrum here today, you sent a message. What happened here will cause every nefarious bastard with ill intent for the world to go to ground, and think twice before becoming involved in something like this."
"I'm not sure if my motives were that noble," Chuck said with dark emotion, "They took my sister." He looked over at his brother-in-law and dropped his palm on Devon's knee. "And my brother. I think I was acting in anger more than anything else, although the Intersect was quite clear what the outcome would be."
"Thanks for getting angry, Bro." Devon placed his hand over Chuck's "Sometimes it takes hard emotions like that to get us through the rough spots. As long as we learn to let them go, it's cool, Chuck."
"I don't think I've ever seen you angry, Devon, at least not like that. Not the way I felt."
"Oh, yeah you have," Devon replied, staring up at the dark arched ceiling above them, smiling thinly. "For the record, yours didn't show that much today either. The only way I knew was by watching you fight those dudes. That was awesome anger."
"Always channel it in productively destructive ways, that's my motto," Cole chuckled.
The three men sat in companionable silence for several minutes, the sound of air whistling through the door seals and a distant roar the only accompaniment to their thoughts.
"Speaking of the Intersect, what's it telling you about us getting out of this alive, Chuck?" Devon asked with a ring of resignation that was predicting an answer he didn't want to hear.
Chuck sighed loudly. "The calculated odds were very good until I told it that the exhaust vents for this room don't appear to be working. Now I just don't know." He stared at his almost dead phone, lamenting the fact he couldn't replace the battery on the iPhone with a freshly charged one and that he'd neglected to bring a portable charger. "No signal down here either, communications went out when I destroyed the network and repeaters in this joint." He shut the phone off to spare what little battery power was left.
"I can't imagine what must be going through Ellie's head right now," Devon said softly.
"I'm thinking Sarah's a little pissed at me right about now."
"You and me, both," said Cole, looking over at Chuck with a slight smirk, "We all better get the hell out of this, because I sure don't want to face your wife as a sole survivor. May as well eat a bullet."
Chuck couldn't disagree with that assessment, and it brought a smile to his face, despite the grim nature of it. They sat quietly again for several minutes, feeling the heat steadily rising in the large concrete-walled room. Then Chuck looked around them and felt the Intersect processing new information.
"You know she's not mad at you, Chuck." Devon set his elbow on his knee and dropped his forehead into the palm of his hand. "Anger comes later," he grimaced.
"We're not cooked yet, Awesome. The Intersect is telling me that all this cool thick concrete might be our saving grace."
Devon looked over at the door across the room, lit by the eerie yellow glow of a light stick they'd stuck in the crack of a weapons pallet. Several layers of paint on the blast door were smoking, the wisps being drawn quickly into the edges of the door frame. "I hope it's right. Because it's starting to look like we'll be cooked."
- III -
Damn.He'd slipped into unconsciousness again, only to be reawakened by the Intersect once more, like an electric shock in his head. His mouth felt so dry, his lips rough and split. The room felt cooler, the breeze in his face from the vent almost refreshing even though it wasn't blowing nearly as hard as it had before. It's cooler! The thought pushed through the delirium hanging over him like a dense fog. It's cooler!
He heard noises. Voices? Shouting! That's Casey! It can't be, you're hallucinating. Metallic clanging filled his head, followed by the sound of a two-stroke power saw engine, and the whine of a carbide blade on steel. He tried to move, but his limbs were leaden and almost useless. Drifting in and out, in a lucid moment he turned his head to look at his two companions lying motionless near him. Blinking hard, his eyes felt dry and shrunken as he tried to focus them and see if Devon and Cole were breathing.
A loud mechanical screeching sound assaulted his ears and the breeze in his face suddenly grew stronger as light spilled into the room.
"Chuck me, they're HERE! Get that medical team in here, NOW!" Heavy footsteps came toward him, and he couldn't help but smile, recognizing the purposeful cadence of the gait.
"Chuck! Damn it, moron, you better still be with us."
Who would have ever thought an angel would sound like John Casey, and be spouting insults? It was almost disturbing. He tried to speak, but his voice failed him for a second as he looked up into the concerned face of his colleague and good friend.
"No need to talk, Chuck. You're suffering from heat stroke and you're severely dehydrated," Casey said, pulling the tube of a hydration bladder from the holder on his vest and letting the water dribble from it into Chuck's mouth.
"Devon...Cole," he weakly wheezed.
Casey looked over his shoulder at the Air Force medics attending to their friends, receiving a thumbs-up and a nod from one of them. "They're going to be okay, Chuck. You guys made it." Casey pulled Chuck's glove off his hand and began to roll his shirt sleeve up. "Gonna get an IV started to get some fluids in you. Sit tight."
"I don't think I'm moving anytime soon," Chuck said groggily between sips of water from Casey's hydration tube. "I can't make my limbs work." He looked around the room with sudden awareness. "Sarah. Where's Sarah? Why isn't she here with you?"
Casey could see Chuck was starting to become agitated, probably suspecting the worst since she wasn't here, and pushed him back down when he tried to sit up. "Take it easy, knucklehead, you told her to meet you at the train station, remember?"
"She's at the train station?"
The big man regarded him carefully out of the corner of his eye as he slipped an IV needle into a vein and then tucked the bag of saline solution under Chuck's armpit. "Yeah. She wasn't in good shape, meathead. We all thought you were lost. Frankly, all I thought we were going to find was crispy-fried Chuck, so I didn't try to stop her when she said she had to go."
"Oh, God, what time is it? How long has she been gone?"
"It's a little after 2:00, Bartowski, she left about forty minutes ago."
Chuck reached for his phone and powered it up looking at the display impatiently, but the phone remained blank. "Casey, let me borrow your phone."
"Are you out of your mind, numbnuts? You're not going to call her from my phone, she's expecting the worst if she gets a call from anyone but you."
"Then I have to get to the train station," Chuck said excitedly, trying to once again push himself up.
"Lie down, dumbass." The big man pushed him firmly back down.
"Can you please lay off with the insults? I have-"
"Listen, MORON," Casey interrupted with a growl, "you gave us all a huge scare with your James Bond bullshit, so the insults will not be stopping anytime soon."
"James Bond?" Chuck glowered at his partner. "Let me tell you, pal, if I was trying to be James Bond, Sarah would have been here with me and you would have interrupted... well, you know what."
"Ugh."
Chuck heard a soft feminine chuckle and looked up to see his mother stepping forward where he could see her. "Casey's right, Chuck. It's good to see you're alive, but a lot of us aren't very happy with you at the moment."
"I did what I had to do, Mom. You of all people should know that. This is over. It's done. And I'll have to live with the consequences of my decision."
Mary pursed her lips and nodded, meeting her son's penetrating gaze. "I know, Chuck. You did what I would have done. I wish I didn't have to admit that, or it had to be you who did it, but you definitely have some of my temperament in you."
Casey grunted in affirmation. Chuck took a long pull of water, looking back and forth between his mother and the big NSA agent. He'd never really considered where that harder, colder, more decisive part of him might have come from. The revelation was a bit startling. "Mom, I have to get to the Nadrazi Station. If I miss that train..."
"Take it easy, Chuck," she answered calmly, "I agree, but you're in no shape to be driving. Let's get you out of here first and get you a change of clothes, then I'll drive you to the station. We'll get there in time."
Chuck studied his mother for a few seconds, and then nodded as he pushed himself up with a rasping breath. This time, Casey didn't try to stop him. "Okay. We have a lot to talk about, Mom."
"Yes, we do. And since we're going to Budapest, I assume spending some time with your father is also on your list of things to do."
"Yeah, it is," Chuck smiled weakly, "Time with both of you, together."
Act 16 - What is Normal?
- I -
Sarah sat on one of the few benches that were sparsely spread around the high arched roof concourse at Praha Hlavni Nadrazi, the main railway station in Prague. Her 'go' bag was at her feet. She looked at the two train tickets she'd purchased on an act of faith that were now resting in her lap. The last time she'd been here, nearly three years ago, had been one of the most difficult days of her life. She'd made a monumental decision three weeks before, the decision to run away with Chuck.
It would have meant living a life off the grid, in hiding, and almost assuredly, constantly pursued by the government. Thinking back on it now, with the benefit of twenty-twenty hindsight, she realized it would have been a disaster. It would have probably broken them apart much worse than Chuck's sudden refusal to go with her here at this station that day.
She knew now how much she loved Chuck back then, like no other before, and she'd wanted to protect him, to just be with him. But leaving everything they knew and cared about behind, Chuck's family, his friends, their friends, and living life on the lam, it was fraught with grave danger. They might have been able to make a go of it for a while. It might have even drawn them closer because they'd have had to rely on each other like they never had before.
But the CIA would have eventually caught up with them, and Chuck would have been thrown into protective custody, locked up in a house-arrest version of WITSEC somewhere. And she would have been thrown into prison, never again to see the light of day, or possibly even dead.
There were way too many 'buts', and she should have seen them, but her heart had blinded her to the realities of what they'd faced. She'd allowed herself to be deluded that they could stay hidden from the army of pursuers who would have been relentlessly hot on their trail. It was all wrong, and as badly as Chuck had handled it, she realized he understood that. And she'd made him pay for his choice that had saved both of them far too harshly, and for far too long. Her stubborn pride wouldn't let her forgive him, or let her see the error of judgment she'd made.
She'd told herself she didn't want the CIA to change him, turn him into something neither of them recognized anymore. She'd watched as he did change, become a little more cold, and more calculating, and confident as he began turning Charles Carmichael on and off like a light-switch. What she didn't see was how hard Chuck was fighting to hold on to himself, and how he was reaching out to her, asking her for her help, to desperately hold on to who her Chuck still was.
Sarah hated the idea of Chuck becoming a spy so much that she'd imprinted a great many negative attributes onto him that simply weren't there, things she saw in herself. But Chuck had always hated many of the ways the CIA and NSA operated. He struggled with and resisted the by-the-book concepts and the training he was given. He re-examined them, and then reinvented them to suit who he was.
What had always made him great, what had made him and by extension his team so successful, was the way he did it his own way; the way his genius refused to fit within the CIA box. He'd always been an amazing operative, and a hero, almost from day one. And that anyone would want to change what he already was, it simply defied all logic and common sense.
Why Sarah couldn't see his resistance to fit into the mold in his quest to be a spy was also a mystery. Somehow she'd finally figured it out when he'd come to rescue her from Daniel Shaw that afternoon out in the desert, after his fervent declaration of love to her in Castle. Chuck cared so much he'd even brought a tank. It wasn't until later that she'd understood how close she'd come to being murdered by Daniel that day.
Then Chuck had also shot and killed Daniel Shaw on that bridge in Paris, to protect her. But it hadn't turned him into an unfeeling hardened monster like she'd feared. He was still her Chuck. Now after talking with Casey about it she understood even more why that was the case.
Then there was his perception of her. Chuck knew about so many of the things she'd done as an agent and as a con artist, yet he saw very clearly through them, saw her through all that very painful veneer. He accepted her, and loved her, it had never wavered. Even when she had told him she 'had done her job too well'. She'd said it like he was just another deep cover assassination mission, something that defied so many things she knew about herself but for some reason accepted from Nicholas Quinn at face value.
That admission had painted such an ugly picture of her. That she had been willing to accept the idea of that form of institutional use and abuse of her for the sake of a successful mission; to allow the CIA to pimp her out like a prostitute, even marry Chuck... to kill him. It went way too far.
The Central Intelligence Agency didn't operate that way, and she should have known it; she did know it, but she'd lived the lie so long it became real. She'd been left so damaged after being run by Graham as his enforcer, and handled by that devious bastard of a case officer, Kieran Ryker. It seemed anything was possible after those experiences. Quinn really hadn't been any different than Ryker, either. He'd known about almost every detail of her past, and fitted into Ryker's manipulative role perfectly, and she'd fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker.
A tear rolled down her cheek. Because she knew now what Chuck had done to help change her, to nurture her, and help her allow herself to change back into something she once was, had always wanted to be. It broke her, like a glass shattering on the floor, that the person she was, just before she'd met Chuck, would say that terrible and damaging thing to him in their own home, memory loss, or not. She should have realized that something was horribly wrong. The shame of knowing how badly she'd been duped had precipitated her running from Chuck, sent her into hiding from the very source of her own rebirth into the person he could always see in her.
And somehow he had forgiven her.
Through the Intersect, Chuck had seen so many details of her past that others had used to use her. For so much of it, she'd been living in a bubble, created by both her father and an agency often using it for their own agendas. Chuck had burst that bubble, and he'd been a catalyst for growth and change, showing her a world she'd previously only imagined. And for all that he knew that was trapped in that bubble he never used it against her.
The irony of it all was now knowing what she had done to bring Chuck back from his own deep, self-induced dungeon of despair and worthlessness. By being given the awesome responsibility of the Intersect, Chuck, with her help, had reached a level of human potential so few ever achieve. He'd risen to the challenges the world had thrown at him when his very life and the lives of his family and friends were at stake, and she had helped him face those threats and challenges. It was a source of great pride that she, hardened and damaged CIA agent, Sarah Walker, had been able to help him see the hero he'd always had within him. They had rebuilt each other, together, into something so much more than their individual parts.
The two of them, along with Casey, they had become the most successful team in the history of the CIA, and for most of it Chuck wasn't even officially an agent. The things they had achieved together were driven by a force it had taken her years to understand or face down. She loved him. She'd loved him from almost the very beginning. Their bond had been there all along, barely held apart by artificial forces that eventually crumbled in the face of something she had finally allowed herself to acknowledge. A force of love so strong they had repeatedly put their lives on the line and fought across the earth to protect and save each other.
Now, looking at her watch, Sarah was trying to face the possibility that it might all have finally caught up with them, that Chuck was gone. She'd always thought it would be her, that Chuck would be the one picking up the pieces after losing her, not this. The idea that he could be gone forever shook her to the core, and she started to tremble there on that bench, wondering how she would ever pick up the pieces if it were true.
The train to Budapest pulled up to the platform, and as the people started to file off of it, she began to silently weep. She'd made the decision she would get on this train, whether Chuck showed up, or not. It was how she would mourn his loss, by running away with him in spirit, if only for a little while. Then she would return, and help Ellie get through it. She had a sister now that needed her, a family and friends who relied on her. She wasn't going to let them down. Duty had another face now, and love was what drove it forward.
Sarah took one last look at her phone, read Chuck's message, and wiped another tear away, schooling her features as the disembarking passengers and riders waiting to board bustled around her. She felt eyes upon her and looked up to see a very young girl, maybe three, with long blond hair and hauntingly familiar brown eyes, watching her closely, her arm wrapped around a young woman's leg. It was too much. She tried to give the little girl a smile, but it broke into shards as the tears started to stream down her face, and she shook uncontrollably. That little girl represented something she and Chuck had come to realize they both wanted so much, something that would never be. She covered her face with her hand and choked into her palm in grief.
Then she felt her phone vibrate in her other hand, and looked down with a start, at the green text on the black screen.
Look up to your right.
Sarah looked quickly up and spotted a security camera looking back down at her from the overhead atop one of the decorative support columns, the red light on it blinking. Stephen, she thought, trying to get a hold of her runaway emotions. Her phone buzzed again.
Don't give up, daughter.
It's not over. Wipe your
tears and look down the
platform to your left.
She swallowed hard, her breath catching in her throat as she wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. Then she turned and looked down the platform through the throngs of passengers making their way to the main concourse. Sarah blinked back tears, trying to see through her misty eyes, and then gaped almost disbelievingly when her eyes fell on a tall, dark, very red skinned man walking slowly down the ramp toward her. He was leaning on a shorter brunette haired woman dressed in black, making cautious and measured steps. It seemed like the people around them were parting as they moved through the sea of humanity.
"Chuck," she choked, as the man looked up from his carefully placed steps, and their eyes met. Oh, Chuck!
Sarah rose quickly but stood frozen next to the bench, unsure if she should believe her own eyes. After a moment watching and finally seeing the soft smile on his mother's face, her feet started to move without thought, and she strode slowly toward them across the platform. He had this look on his face like he thought he might be in trouble, maybe a little worried about how she might react to him being here. But his expression softened when he saw the look of relief and elation that she knew had to be radiating from her like a bright star.
Time slowed, like an old romance movie, as they moved through the dwindling crowd that had turned into still, gray shapes around them. When they came within a few paces of each other, Mary stopped and hung back, while Chuck continued to carefully walk to her. Sarah's pace quickened, and she swiftly closed the gap, coming within an inch of him, but not touching; and they gazed into each other's eyes, searching them for some proof of reality.
Chuck's face broke into a guilty forlorn smile, "Sarah," he hoarsely rasped, "I'm so sor-"
"Shush," she whispered, showing surprise at the sound of his voice. Her hand slowly came up and touched his cheek, tracing his jaw, then settled on his chapped lips, stroking their roughness. It was like she was still trying to make sure he was real and her mind wasn't playing some vicious trick on her to help her cope with the desperation that had begun to overwhelm her.
Sensing her mood, Chuck's hand came up to hers, stroking her fingers. "It's me, Sarah, I'm real, you're not imagining it...and...I...I, I think I need a vacation."
Sarah snorted a laugh and burst into a beaming smile, even as tears began to stream down her cheeks. Then she suddenly but carefully embraced him, her face buried under Chuck's chin. "I think I need a vacation too, Chuck, a looooong vacation," her muffled voice said into his chest.
"I love you, Sarah. I'm sorry I made you worry, made you think the worst."
Sarah rose up on her toes, planting a tender kiss on her husband's split lips, and ran her fingertips across his cheeks into his almost brittle feeling hair, resting her forehead on his. "I love you. We're done with this, Chuck. No more missions. From now on we run the business, and teach, and make babies. We'll let other people save the world."
"I'm all for that," he responded with a raspy chuckle. "But promise me you'll do one thing for me."
"What's that?" she asked, brushing her lips across his once more.
"I know you said no more missions, but never, ever, ever, say 'one last mission', ever again."
Sarah looked up at him, seeing the intense love, and something more, lurking in his troubled eyes, and she forced a smile, "It's a deal, Chuck. My lips are sealed."
"I'm sorry, kids, I hate to interrupt, but that horn means the train is getting ready to leave," Mary said, placing a hand on each of their arms.
"Then I think it's time we started our vacation, don't you, my red-faced husband?"
"I do. Sarah Bartowski, will you run away on a vacation through Europe with me?"
"Why, yes, Charles Irving Bartowski, I thought you'd never ask."
- II -
"So that's how I got away after the Ring revived me. The place was in such complete chaos after you took down Shaw and the Elders there was hardly any security left in the hospital wing they had me in. They even left me my Bronco with the keys still in it. Idiots."
"I wondered what happened to that... uh, car?"
"Truck. It has a truck chassis, so it's a truck," Stephen said in a professorial tone.
"Okay," Chuck grinned, "Truck. I always liked that Bronco. You and your Fords. Ellie loves her old Mudstain."
"Them's fightin' words, son," Stephen Bartowski, snorted, grinning back at him. "But the Bronco is waiting for you in storage if you can avoid any disparaging remarks about it."
Chuck's brows raised when he turned his smile on Sarah like a spotlight beam as she sat next to him on the front porch of the Hungarian farmhouse; a house that could have easily been at home in almost any middle American setting. He had a blanket over his legs because he'd been fighting an intermittent case of the chills after his experience with the intense heat he'd been subjected to in the underground weapons bunker.
His body was having trouble regulating his temperature, but Ellie had assured them his condition would quickly improve, and it was already getting better after only a few days. Ellie and Devon would be arriving on tomorrow's train after Ellie finished tending to her husband and Cole Barker's recovery. Both men were now ambulatory, and Ellie had sent them a cute picture of Nikki doting over Cole while he was in the hospital. It looked like they were quite struck with each other.
"Oh, God. You? In a four-by-four? I'll need a prayer circle whenever you're out driving it. And leave it to men to fight over a stupid car," Sarah quipped, sliding her hand under the blanket.
Chuck almost did a spit-take of his iced tea. "Excuse me? Says the lady who drives like a maniac? And almost killed a teenager for leaning against her Porsche while it was parked in front of the Wienerlicious?"
Sarah returned a wry grin. "I've had special maniac training. And hauling the little punk off by his ear does not constitute deadly force. Besides, I got over all of that after it got blown up in front of our apartment. I've learned to let it go," she purred, instantly regretting her choice of words. Damn it. Blown up. She cringed. The mere mention of deadly force or anything exploding showed painfully in Chuck's eyes. It's done. Let it go, Chuck, she thought, pulling him closer to kiss him as her hand stroked his leg in an effort to keep his mind in the moment.
Stephen smiled at the sight of his son, and Sarah, so obviously in love with him, trying to keep him grounded after such a traumatic event. Sarah was trying so hard. He'd found a new respect for his daughter-in-law over the years of watching them from afar. "Some cars deserve our special care and respect, but not nearly as much as our children," he said, the double-meaning hanging in the air while keeping them on the safer topic at the same time. "I know you'll take good care of the Bronco, and I'm glad that old Mustang is also getting some TLC. Ellie used to love riding between your mom and me with the top down."
"Hmmm, yes," Mary replied, curling her arm around Stephen as they swayed in the porch swing. "Something about the feel and sound of that V8, and the wind, it made her sleep all night long."
"Food for thought," Chuck winked at his wife, "I wonder if a Porsche would have the same effect."
"I have a Lotus now, Mr. B," Sarah retorted with a pout, not even phased by her husband's other implication, "But it'll probably work just fine too."
"Oops. Right. Lotus. Forget you saw what the other hand was doing."
Sarah turned very deliberately to study him, and cocked an eyebrow, "What are you trying to say, Chuck?"
Chuck just showed her a tight-lipped grin and zipped his lips with his fingers. Then he jumped when Sarah did something with her hand under the blanket, "Oh, that is so not fair as an interrogation technique."
"Tell me, Chuck. What have you gone and done now?"
"Guess you'll have to wait till we get back to the states to find out. But I suppose we could stop by the factory since your birthday is in a couple of weeks if you want a brand new one instead of a collectible."
Sarah's face abruptly turned to an expression of abject shock. Collectibles?
"Hey, don't go and act all surprised," Chuck said defensively, grinning at her with mischief. "I can't help it if someone stuck your birth certificate in the Intersect, and I happened to flash on it during a fit of nostalgic desperation when I thought I might die."
Sarah shared a brief look of unwashed love with her husband at his admission of how she had been dominating his thoughts during that dire time, and then she slowly turned with a mock glare to Chuck's father.
"Hey, don't look at me," Stephen said, holding his hands up placatingly, "I wish I could take credit for that - if you haven't told him by now - but my spy instincts tell me you should talk to Ellie and your mother about it."
Sarah spread the exaggerated glare around. "A girl's most closely guarded secret is her true age. This is very troubling," she said quietly, looking at Chuck from the corner of her eye with a wry grin.
"Cradle robber...Owwww! Stop that!" Chuck exclaimed with a snerk, watching her stare at him with her mouth agape.
"If it makes you feel any better, Sarah, I'll share my age too," Mary said with a snicker.
"Huh. Yeah. Something tells me you could tell me you were younger than me and it would come off believable," Sarah mumbled.
"Oh, that had to leave a mark," Stephen said with a laugh.
Mary drew a very credible expression of injury on her face and then smiled with a humorous huff. "I'm good, but I'm not that good. I can't lie my laugh lines away anymore," she smirked, drawing a laugh from the other three.
Chuck smiled when his wife rolled her eyes toward him, and then looked surreptitiously at him askance through her eyelashes. It wasn't really a disapproving look, but it wasn't endearing either. He also knew that expression wasn't directed at him. His mom had always looked at life like it was a chess game, even with her family, and he knew that irked Sarah to no end. His mother and Sarah had developed an oddly co-dependent relationship when Sarah had gone undercover to bring down the Volkoff organization and to rescue Mary. They had a lot of mutual professional respect for each other, and had forged an uneasy friendship; that was obvious.
But they still had trust issues between them because of some of the very questionable and dangerous things his mother had done in the name of protecting Chuck and Ellie. And possibly, Mary's concern that Sarah would once again tread down a road she herself regretted ever traveling upon. Chuck had to admit, seeing his mother and father together like this, after all those years filled with so many difficult times, and such a long separation; it had been a huge shock to the system. He had never thought he'd see this day, but he knew that if his mom and dad could rise above all that, he and Sarah could face and defeat any obstacle in front of them too.
Listening to his father and mother's story about how they'd found each other, and then rebuilt what had been taken from them, it reminded him so much of what he'd gone through with Sarah. Then his parent's had joined forces with Ellie to help Sarah. It had been an amazing story, and an overwhelming gesture of dedication and love. He hoped with all his heart that one day Sarah and his mom would break down the remaining obstacles left between them, and forge something enduring from their mutual history and new sense of family.
It wasn't going to be an easy road for any of them, but they were making progress, and the fact that Sarah and his mom could snark at each other and still laugh about it spoke volumes. And it was good to be in his parent's home and spending time with them, even if it was hidden well off the grid in Hungary.
Chuck leaned over to the love of his life, resting his head on her shoulder as his arm wound around her and he began to stroke her hair. An easy mutual sigh passed both of their lips when Sarah rested her head against his, and he looked up when he heard his dad chuckle, seeing a delighted look on both his parent's faces.
"I don't think I've ever seen a more incredible sight, and I can't believe I was so blind to that for so long," Stephen Bartowski said with mirthful astonishment coloring his voice.
- III -
Later that night, Sarah was awoken again by her husband. She'd been sleeping more lightly since the last mission; caught up in the uneasy aura that was emanating from Chuck since he'd narrowly escaped and returned to her on that train platform. He was shivering again, and his body felt like ice, but this time there was something more to it. Sarah cuddled close to him, rubbing her hands over him and trying to bundle him up tighter in the blankets. He began to jerk and twist around like he was trying to run in the bed and then started to mumble between gasping breaths. Then he went stiff as a board and shouted out incomprehensibly, followed by the very clear word 'no', dragged out in agony.
One of the things that had worried her was now happening. Sarah had been through this before herself, lived with frequent nightmares, which for some reason had almost completely gone away when she'd started sleeping with Chuck. She'd hoped her own presence in their bed would help prevent them from happening to him, but she could see now that was not going to be the case, at least not for a while. Sarah knew she had to wake him and to attempt to get him to talk about it while the dream was still fresh in his memory. "Chuck." She gently shook him, "Come on, Chuck, honey, wake up. It's a bad dream, Chuck, wake up."
His eyes shot open, but he wasn't looking at anything in the darkness here, he was still somewhere else as he gripped her arms tightly, cold sweat rolling off his brow.
"Sarah...Sarah! Oh my...G-" He took a sudden shuddering breath as he looked at her but didn't see her. Sarah could feel the darkness of the place he was in all too familiarly but held on.
Rapid images flashed before her, violent and claustrophobic chaos, and noise, and fury...and death.
"Take it easy, Chuck, it's okay. I'm here. I'm here, Chuck." Sarah tugged her arms free from his grasp, interweaving the fingers of one hand through his as she began tenderly stroking the side of his face with the other and she gazed into his eyes, trying to pull him back. "Come on, sweetie, I'm right here. Look at me."
Presently, she saw his eyes focus on her, and her husband swallowed thickly, and then choked when it didn't go down right. Sitting up, he coughed and sputtered while Sarah rubbed his back. After a moment, he clamped his eyes shut, squeezing tears from the corners of them when the fit ended. "Sarah," he exhaled forcefully, "Oh, Sarah, I blew them up. I saw their faces when I did it, looked them right in the eye, then I blew them up!"
"Saw who, Chuck?" She looked at him a little confused, holding his face in her hands while their eyes connected, "Sweetheart, you made a very difficult decision, but you did what you had to do, to get the three of you out of there, to end it. Fulcrum is gone, Chuck. They'll never darken our doorstep again."
"No you don't understand," he said weakly, "I saw their eyes, saw the terror in them."
"Saw whose eyes, honey?" she said softly, "Talk to me, Chuck. Tell me what happened. Let me share your burden. I want to help." She could feel him shivering under a cold layer of sweat, and pushing him back down, molded herself into him, drawing the blankets up over them again. Then she tried to wait patiently for him.
"When we set all that C-4 to explode, I created a diversion...so we could get away," he finally said very quietly. "They had all these men searching for us. We were trapped. So I attached a puck explosive charge to a block of C-4. I was going to shake them up, make them go to ground for a while so we could slip out, maybe scare some of the less dedicated ones into leaving. I jumped across the corridor to throw the explosives into a room on the other side. There were bad guys all over the place, some right down the hall from me, and they saw me. When I opened the door to that room there were four Fulcrum guys in there, all staring at me when I tossed that block of C-4 in...I could see it in their faces...the fear...of what they knew was going to happen. I can't get their faces out of my head, Sarah."
"You didn't know, Chuck." Sarah ran her fingers over his temples and through his hair, all the while gazing into his eyes and holding that connection between them that she had missed so much when they were separated. "They were after you, and Devon and Cole. You didn't have a choice...and those men probably never felt a thing."
She couldn't tell him they never knew what hit them, but what Chuck had done had ended it very quickly for those men. Sarah wondered if he would be as troubled about the men he'd shot to protect her, and Carina and Zondra; or the men they'd killed together in what had apparently been one of the guards quarters. There would probably be more difficult moments for him; however, she suspected those experiences had been easier for Chuck because of the immediate threat to her.
Sarah knew she needed to make him understand what had happened there was to protect Devon and Cole, too; that they would never have made it out if he hadn't made that hard decision. Her biggest worry was what might happen to him when the full impact of the destruction of the base hit him. She wasn't sure if he'd completely processed that choice yet, but it seemed that he understood the result of the destruction he'd wielded. Chuck was mostly having troubles with the more personal elements of the things he'd done that day.
It was the same decision Diane Beckman had made when the first Fulcrum base had been destroyed by an air strike in Barstow. Chuck had made a command decision bearing tremendous responsibility, with a huge cost in life. And, on top of it, he'd personally carried it out. He seemed to be holding up okay, and was calming down as he spoke, but Sarah wondered if he would be able to compartmentalize it and realize what he did would have ultimately happened on either General Beckman's or Captain Messner's order to do so anyway.
Diane Beckman was a little stunned to hear of the decision Chuck had made, and even somewhat grateful and humbled.
Looking at the veiled pain lurking deep in his eyes, Sarah could see that this wasn't over, that there would be more nights like this, and maybe a few troubling days as well. But she was resolved to her new mission to help him through it, and maybe help herself in the process too. "Sweetheart, you and Cole saved Devon, you got the three of you out. We'll never have to worry about those people threatening us again. You did the right thing, Chuck, and you have to let it go. Let it go."
He turned to her, searching her eyes for a long moment, those deep pools of blue that had such a calming effect on him every time he looked into them, yet could still make him want to hide under the bed on occasions. "I'll be okay, Sarah," Chuck whispered, "Like you, I'll learn to live with it. I never wanted to have to do something like this, and I did everything I could to avoid it. The odds...they, they just caught up to me...to us. I couldn't expect I'd be able to tilt them in my favor forever, and I couldn't let you do it...not again, honey. But we'll get through this, together, like we always have...and I'm starting to ramble...again."
Sarah smiled at his attempt to lighten the mood. "Together. Remember that." She kissed him tenderly and then ran her fingertips over his chapped, but healing lips. "Always together, Chuck, from now on. We'll help each other through this, and we'll be okay. I need it as much as you."
"I love you, Sarah Walker...always have."
"Chuck-" she started to mildly admonish, and halted when he held her eyes locked with his and pulled her tight against him.
"Do you remember when I said that to you?"
"Yes," Sarah breathed. He'd said it exactly like he did that day. It was unmistakable. "You said it in Castle...after you rescued...Daniel."
Chuck nodded, cupping her cheek in his hand with a melancholy smile. "Then I need you to know when I say that, I mean I love all of you, from everything you were as a little girl, to Sarah Walker super spy extraordinaire, even the one through our most troubled times. The woman who could care about Daniel. The woman I want to raise my children with, and grow old with, out into the far-flung future. You're everything to me, Sarah. Everything about you. The whole spicy nacho platter."
Sarah burst into a short, loud laugh, and clamped her hand over her mouth, before deciding Chuck's lips would make a more effective gag, and kissed him deeply, and fervently. "Make love to me, Chuck," she whispered when they came up for air.
Chuck's eyebrows shot up, "Sarah, my folks are right next door," he intoned, pointing at the wall over their heads.
"Quietly."
Chuck began to shake from a silent laugh.
"I promise, I'll try," she giggled, kissing him on the neck as she let her hands wander.
"Okay," Chuck croaked helplessly, drawing the word out under the onslaught of his wife's skillful lips and touch. "How can I refuse when you put it that way."
- IV -
Four days later, after some very important quality time spent family bonding with Ellie and Devon and their reunited parents, Chuck and Sarah boarded a train for... nowhere in particular. They'd reserved a private sleeper berth on a touring train without any plans to get off, except to take in the sights at their whim. Their loose plans revolved around visiting most of the countries in Europe, but for the last two and a half days they'd only seen the inside of their private berth.
It was like a replay of their train trip from Paris to Zurich, and everything the dream had once showed Sarah, and so much more. Over two days of almost constant lovemaking; interspersed with room service meals and moments of lounging around naked, watching Europe roll by out the window. And watching and touching each other like teenagers. There was barely a moment they weren't in intimate contact, drawn to each other like magnets.
The one thing that had been different so far was that neither of them had flashed and thus been tempted by their sense of duty; one amplified by their shared gift and curse. As they laid on the bed, with a bowl of fresh strawberries resting on Chuck's bare chest, sipping champagne, Chuck thought to himself, this must be what it's like to be a comic book character.
He strenuously resisted using the term super-hero. It was the last place he wanted to go, in his mind or anywhere else. But he was constantly aware - and he knew Sarah was too - that at any moment circumstances could throw them back into the fray, maybe to do something dangerous again, take risks that they really didn't want to take. That was the curse born from the awesome responsibility of possessing the Intersect.
And even though they'd had a perfectly good reason to be holed up here, consumed by each other's love and desire, and a need to shut out the world, to devote themselves to each other even as they traveled across it; Chuck wondered if they might be a little afraid to step out into that world. Because the Intersect just couldn't be shut off. It would always be telling them things as they interacted with people and the environment around them, and he knew they were both concerned it might make them break a promise, utter those words that Chuck had asked Sarah never to say again - one last mission.
"What are you thinking about Chuck?" Sarah asked, taking a strawberry from the bowl and placing it halfway in her mouth, grinning around it.
He smiled at her and leaned over to bite the berry in half under a kiss, then looked at her intently as they chewed the fruit. "That's a rhetorical question, right?"
She smiled back a little sheepishly and shrugged, causing her breasts to bounce in a way that made her giggle at Chuck's wide-eyed reaction. She hoped he would never lose that sweet teenage innocence and attraction to her, the same one she felt every time he gave her an opportunity to admire his charms. "You know, eventually we're going to have to leave this room. We can't let this thing in our heads make us paranoid and turn us into something like Elvis or Howard Hughes. We're going to have to find some sort of balance while living with it."
"Do you think the 'no more missions' rule is unrealistic?" he asked, finally voicing a conversation they'd already had multiple times without saying a word.
"No, I don't. We only have to find a way to make sure the risky things get handed off to someone else that wants to take them on." They both already knew the answers to these questions. They were already being addressed. New Intersect operatives like Nikki and Cole, and a list of other younger candidates would soon pick up the mantle of the riskier responsibility, and allow Chuck and Sarah to be their trainers and case officers.
"I want a family," Sarah continued restlessly, "We can't keep this up the way we have and raise kids. I don't want to orphan my children, and I never want to experience again what I went through when I thought I'd lost you," she added softly, looking away, her lip quivering almost imperceptibly.
"Hey, come here," Chuck said, setting the bowl of fruit aside and taking her up tightly in his arms. "I will never put you through that again, babe. From now on, if it ever gets that dicey for us, we'll face it together. Of course, if given a choice I'd rather not ever be put in that position again."
"Our track record with this sort of thing isn't very good, Chuck," Sarah murmured into his neck. She pushed back a bit and gave him a watery smile, running her fingers through his lengthening curly locks. "I wish the evil doers would just give us a break."
Chuck grinned at her. "I do, too," he said, with a short chuckle punctuated by a gentle kiss. "In the meantime, let's go face the world, and ignore the evil doers for a few more weeks." He grinned at her devilishly. "If we happen to stumble onto a really nasty villain, we'll just call Auntie Becky and let her take care of him... or her. It seems to be an equal opportunity world for evil doers these days."
Sarah snorted a laugh, "It's been that kind of world for a while now, Chuck," she said, giving him a peck. She bounded gracefully from the bed and pulled her husband to his feet. "Come on. Let's give the steward a break and get some dinner in the dining car. If we run into any Basque terrorists this time we'll call Interpol and let them handle it."
- V -
As it turned out, Chuck and Sarah had to call Diane Beckman and the Carmichael Industries office several times during the almost eleven weeks they spent traveling around Europe. At one point, they even spent an afternoon in the Berlin CIA substation, briefing the Chief and his staff about a group of Chechen terrorists they had flashed upon who were attempting to smuggle weapons grade Plutonium across the border. It had taken every ounce of their willpower to stay out of that one; the people involved being very dangerous and nasty individuals indeed.
It proved to be dicey just doing the briefing because the station Chief kept asking questions about how both Chuck and Sarah could know so much about all the highly compartmentalized information contained therein. He'd started to get belligerent in his quest for information he wasn't cleared to see. And he'd been a loud mouth, and even threatened to put them in lockup; a threat which almost got him severely injured by Sarah before Chuck intervened and defused the situation with his typical rambling and confusing nerdspeak.
It ultimately boiled down to them making a surreptitious call to General Beckman to have her lay down the law to the overly curious CIA administrator. He'd come out of the conference call with Diane and the National Security Adviser with a pale, green pallor, and silent.
Despite the occasional brush with the Intersect, Chuck and Sarah took it all in stride and had a wonderful extended vacation on the continent. But they knew that it had to end at some point. Their lives were simply too important for them to fall off the grid forever, and eventually they found themselves in the United Kingdom where they were given a personal tour for several days by Cole Barker.
The MI6 agent had had a lot of questions for them about Nikki Lawson. In typical operative fashion, he'd approached it carefully, like an operation, as he casually pumped Chuck and Sarah for information about the woman he was thinking about asking to be his partner. Chuck and Sarah took turns teasing him about it, feeding him all sorts of humorous half-truths, and a few very scary facts about just what the SIS man could be getting himself into if he pursued his current course of action. It had become obvious to both Chuck and Sarah that Cole's interest went beyond the professional where Nikki was concerned.
They exchanged knowing looks at each other as Cole drove them through the Scottish countryside on their way to meet their jet that would whisk them back to the states. Cole would be making the trip with them to join the project if he followed through.
"So, Cole, are you really sure you're up for this? You're completely sure this is what you want to do?" Chuck asked, following the protocol they'd set up for Intersect candidates to the letter and making sure he had every opportunity to back out of the life changing decision he was about to make. Because as yet, they had not found a way to completely suppress the Iv4 program once it was downloaded, and much to everyone's surprise, the process at this point couldn't be reversed.
"Oh, I'm not changing my decision, Chuck. I made my mind up about that long before our mission in the Czech Republic. Besides, I've seen you and Sarah in action together, and I'm much too curious about it now to think about backing out. Plus, the attractions far outweigh any misgivings I may have. And I'm tired of being a lone wolf in this business." Cole looked at Chuck and Sarah in turn, passing an, oh so, British wry grin to each of them. "I've also heard some rumors that are somewhat hard to ignore... and I've seen it firsthand."
"Oh, yeah?" Sarah said, grinning at him, "And what, pray tell, would those have been?"
"Something about a symbiotic connection between Intersects," Cole said speculatively, glancing at them in the mirror. "Wasn't sure if I believed it at first, but it seemed very obvious on that mission, and I've seen it several times the last few days, the way you and Chuck talk without saying anything."
"Have you talked to Nikki about this? Asked her about us?" Sarah said, looking at her husband while biting the lower lip of her smile and squeezing his knee with her fingertips.
"Oh, yes, we've talked, about a great many...things. However, I could never pin her down on any details. She kept saying it was a matter of decorum and privacy. And something about continuing to be welcome in your home."
"Well, that's comforting," Chuck deadpanned with a roll of his eyes. He gazed at Sarah, returning her playful pinching with his hand on her knee, and she continued to bite her lip even as the corners of her mouth continued up with that glint in her eye as they both squirmed in the seat under each other's tickling grip.
"Just so you go into this with a complete understanding of what you may be getting into, we'll tell Nikki she has our permission to say more...within reason. That way you'll be fully informed about the 'attractions' you mentioned," he added, with a devil-may-care tone that elicited a suppressed giggle from Sarah.
Cole turned, and looked back and forth between them with a raised eyebrow, clearly fighting a flush, "Blimey, you two are beginning to scare me."
"Oh, good," Sarah laughed, "that was the idea. Just want to make sure you're okay with your partner being able to access all of your thoughts."
"This Intersect stuff is dangerous business, Cole, much more than meets the eye," said Chuck melodramatically. "Nikki is going to have the inside track on everything you are thinking...everything."
Agent Barker's eyes stayed glued to the road when his companions behind him kissed, and they rode in silence for a few minutes. "I can hear him thinking, Chuck," Sarah said teasingly.
Cole shot her an incredulous look as he turned the Land Rover onto the remote airport ramp surrounded by the green hills of the Scottish highlands.
"Don't worry, she can only really do that if she's touching you," Chuck quipped.
The British agent shook his head, clearly biting his tongue when they pulled up next to the Gulfstream G-IV with the Carmichael Industries logo on the tail, parked alone on the ramp.
"Heh, Cole Barker, speechless. That's a first," Chuck chirped, sharing another playful smile with Sarah.
Those smiles spread huge across Chuck and Sarah's faces when the air stairs lowered, and they watched as Nikki Lawson came down the steps with John Casey close behind her.
"Oh, this is just beautiful," Sarah declared with a devious snicker, rubbing her palms together "Both Nikki and Casey. We are going to have so much fun on this trip, Chuck!"
Chuck leaned over and gave Sarah - his smart, beautiful, passionate, deadly, and suddenly very hormonal wife, and the love of his life - a playful kiss, passing a message to her through their smiling lips that caused her to positively glow at him. "From now on Sarah Bartowski, fun is going to be our biggest mission in life."
A/N - It's not the end. There is an epilogue and some attributions next.
Thank you for reading and reviewing,
Mac