A/N1 Here we are again, a day later. I guess I should stop forecasting updates. At this point, chapters are just happening, and it's not much up to me.
More context, back pages, and introspection. Some texting and a phone call. Unwelcome arrivals.
Our heroes have work to do.
Don't own Chuck.
Sarah vs. Omaha
CHAPTER TEN
A Million Miles Between Us
There's such a difference between us/
And a million miles
-Adele, Hello
Frustrated, Bryce rolled over. Again. The bed seemed hard and lumpy. A long dinner of surreptitious touches and double entendre from Garland, poured into a glass or two more wine than he should have been drinking on a mission (They were for the cover!) had left him tense and awake. He was just tipsy enough to consider going into the front room to see if Sarah would let him join her on the couch. To consider it, not do it. She had made it completely clear that she was not interested, and in a tone that suggested any further explanation would be violent.
He really did not get her. They were young, beautiful...spies...sharing a mission and a hotel room. Why not share the bed? They had before. And it had been a long time for Bryce, longer than any time he could remember. Matters were becoming urgent.
He knew he had screwed up. But he and she had made no promises to each other. The whole marriage cover was just that, a cover. And a helpful excuse for bedding your partner, since that could be treated as cover maintenance. It should have been a fun thing. They could enjoy each other when undercover, and go their separate ways when missions ended. Like him, she could have just about anyone she wanted. Why limit the options? Spies did not fall in love. Except that Bryce came to believe that Sarah did fall in love with him. Of course, she never said the words, but he thought it was there in her eyes, in her decision to treat the relationship as exclusive. She'd never said that word 'exclusive', either, but after a while, Bryce realized that she was treating the relationship as that.
On one hand, it deeply gratified his ego to think that Sarah Walker, Graham's Enforcer, the Ice Queen, had fallen for him. And for a little while, the gratification was enough to make him think that perhaps he wanted to treat the relationship as exclusive. But then the other hand: almost as soon as he recognized that thought, it spooked him. One woman, even Sarah Walker? One woman? It had been during that indecisive time that June Thorne came onto the scene.
He and Sarah were between missions. They had just gotten back to DC when she had been dispatched on an errand by Graham; she had rushed back out of town. Bryce had no idea where she had gone. All he could find out was that she would be back soon, maybe three or four days. This kind of thing had happened before, but not when Bryce was jittery about things between them, unsure he was happy for them to go the way Sarah seemed to want them to go. He shaved and dressed and went to a club, one distance from Langley, where he thought he would be unlikely to run into anyone who knew him.
He had been standing at the bar, wondering whether to take off his sport coat, when he felt an arm snake around his waist and heard his name. "Bryce Larkin!" He turned to see an attractive woman with black hair and strange eyes (they looked purple, but Bryce had thought it was the dancefloor lights reflected in them) staring frankly into his eyes. She clearly knew him but did not seem to expect him to know her. She smiled at him.
"You don't know me, do you?" She had to shout, the music was so loud. Bryce just shook his head. "Well, I obviously know you. And I'd enjoy knowing you better." She grabbed his hand and pulled him onto the dance floor, not waiting for an answer.
The woman turned to him once they were in the middle of the dance floor. She smiled again, the spinng lights from the ceiling crossing her face, creating changing patterns of illumination, making her seem more expressive than she had before, otherworldly, her eyes more capable of necromancy. She began to dance, a temple priestess before her dark god, and the entire club took notice. Sarah was a terrific dancer, Bryce knew, and capable of a focused sensuality on the dance floor that could hypnotize her partner. He wished he had seen it from her more often.
But this woman, whatever her name, she was wild desire unchained. Bryce had never seen anything like it. From the looks on the faces of other clubgoers, no one else had either. He was equal parts frightened and aroused, the two reaction melding, separating, melding again, finally one indistinguishable ache. She pulled him against her and managed in a few seconds to contact every part of the front of him with every part of the front of her. There was nothing coy about it, nothing come-hither. It was raw, deep, provocative and somehow burning, enraged all at the same time. Bryce honestly thought she was hardening him and melting him simultaneously.
Reeling, sweating, not quite sure where he was, what he was doing, or why he was doing it, he lost himself in her dance, in her, sinking slow and deep into her raspberry-jam eyes. When the song stopped, she grabbed him and pulled him to the bar, ordering drinks for them both. She put the glass to his lips and tipped it up, giving him no choice but to drink it or have it spill down the front of him. She gulped hers and then pulled him back to the floor. He lost track of trips from bar to floor to bar to floor. He lost track of himself. Bryce was not the sort of guy who paid close attention to many songs, but he had to Prince's Darling Nikki. He had the strangest, briefest thought that he was living the song. She pulled him from the bar to her car, her car to her apartment door, her apartment door to her bed. She pulled Bryce onto her magically now-naked body and she started to consume him. He let himself be consumed.
The next couple of days were a phantasmagoria of sex. Bryce had no idea if the sex was good; all he knew was its intensity and the gripping hunger of the woman. The second morning she told him her name, told him they were co-workers, told him she's seen him around a few times, and told him she wanted him to stay another day. She had gotten up to go to the bathroom. He tried to call Sarah but she did not answer. He put the phone away and braced himself for another round.
He had tried to break it off. She seemed to think that two days in bed together was a de facto commitment. He began slowly to suspect that she had seen him around more than a few times. She knew a lot about him. His habits, preferences, quirks. He finally recognized her name. He knew her by reputation, a bad reputation.
Sarah's absence extended. Graham would say nothing except that she was fine and would be back soon. Unavoidably detained. Bryce did not mean to spend each day at June's, but he found himself there, unable to leave, unable to keep his hands off her, growing steadily more unnerved by her nonetheless.
She was deeply broken. That much Bryce finally figured out. For some reason, she thought he was her fix, that he would fix her. She seemed to want something from him but he had no idea what it was, but he could see an expectation in her eyes as she panted after each coupling. She would roll into him and cling to him almost like a child. But then, a few minutes later she would push him away.
When Sarah returned he tried to explain to June that things between them could not continue. It had been a fling, an amazing fling, but nothing more. He was seeing someone. She seemed to know that but called him a liar nonetheless. After that, she had said nothing but he could feel the rage rolling off her.
Graham gave Sarah some time off and a bonus, and Sarah suggested a trip to Cabo. Bryce, eager to get out of DC and away from June, and still trying to work out what he wanted with Sarah, if anything, was happy to go. But June followed them.
Bryce rolled over in bed yet again. Cabo had been bad. He had, of course, not been able to send June packing before having sex with her again. And yet again. He really had screwed things up.
ooOoo
Sarah could hear Bryce rolling around. She ignored it. He seemed unlikely to get back up. She had put off responding to Chuck's text until she could decide what to say. She stared up at the hotel ceiling. She took the text to be an explanation of Ellie's anger. But she took it to be more than that. It was a request from Chuck, a way of asking her questions. Leaving Burbank was a mistake; ok, but what does that mean, Sarah? Why are you there with him and not here with me?
Because I run. My resting posture is in sprinter's blocks. I've never let myself make a commitment, a real one, deep and whole, not before you. By avoiding real commitments I've kept Sam asleep; yes, unaware of the beauty she might have seen, but unaware of the ugliness too, the ugliness of my life from early on. But she is awake now and she is me and I don't know how to be me. I only know how to be someone else, anyone else.
She could not put all that in a text. And he deserved to hear all that from her. She had to get to Burbank.
Bryce and I are working together. Nothing more. Nothing.
She sent the text. She was surprised by an immediate response.
So you left for the job?
The job. It had to come up. She was not Chuck's handler now, he was not her asset. But she was a spy, on a mission with Bryce, a mission that might go on and on. She had left for the job but not quite as Chuck probably thought. She had left because she no longer knew how to do her job in Burbank. The job in 'Omaha', New Orleans, as it turned out, was a job she knew she could do. Or she thought she knew that until she got on the plane. Now she was not sure she could do it. She knew this much with undeniable certainty: her heart was not in the job in New Orleans. Whatever had driven her as a spy before, a tightly coiled pain that drove her forward, loosened and uncoiled in Burbank, responded to Chuck's presence. She had shuffled it off.
Of course, she was a professional and she could do what needed to be done, a strange conversation with Josephine Pollihue notwithstanding. Sarah's hands were not shaking now (not much) and she could breathe (almost normally). She could do the job in New Orleans, keep Bryce alive (because that's always been my share of our division of labor). But she wanted to be in Burbank, protecting the man she loved. Except her bosses would not let her protect the man she loved. Her job was keeping her from the job she wanted and trapping her in the one she did not.
No, I left because of the incident between us.
God, she was so pitiful.
Incident? Is that a euphemism?
She laughed to herself even as she winced. He knew her.
Then she stopped. Thought. He did. He knew her. He learned how to see through the white glass.
Yes. Sorry. The kiss. I left because of the kiss.
She bit her lip, anxious about Chuck's response but also involuntarily living through the kiss yet again.
Was it that bad?
She laughed again. Out loud. She listened; Bryce did not stir.
No. It was different from any other kiss.
She really needed to expand her vocabulary. 'Different'? That was all she could muster?
For me too. And I'm different now.
She caught her breath. She'd expected another question or a jab at 'different'.
Me too, Chuck.
She felt her abdomen melt in love and desire and wonder. She sent again.
Gotta sleep. Late here.
She was tired. Her nerves had been on edge all night. She felt peaceful now. The phone glowed.
Sleep tight. :)
ooOoo
It was early in DC. Beckman was sitting in a McDonald's, wearing civilian clothes. Not her normal breakfast place. She usually just got the Gallon-o'-Coffee from some coffee shop drive-thru and drank it as it became more bitter and colder all morning long. Sort of like her.
She was at McDonald's because it was the place where Susie Lou LaRussa had breakfast seven days a week. She lived alone and did not grocery shop, Beckman knew. It took one NSA agent exactly one day to work up a full dossier on LaRussa, just a brief tail and a few questions asked at places she stopped. Outside of whatever she did inside Langley, there was almost nothing to know.
She ate two meals a day. One at this McDonald's, a sausage burrito (Beckman trembled at the thought) and an orange juice. A second from a vending machine in a gas station near Langley. She would sit in the car and eat it, drinking Diet Dr. Pepper. Then Susie Lou would drive home.
The small woman came in, looking through her thick glasses in distraction. She seemed to be mumbling something to herself. She ordered her breakfast and slowly counted out the exact change. When she got to her table in the corner, Beckman watched her take her receipt and check the math on it. More than once. Susie fell back into distraction, chewing mechanically. It took Beckman a second to realize that Susie was counting each time she chewed, and that she took a sip of orange juice after every other bite.
Beckman got up with her tray. Nothing was on it but her empty cup and her receipt. She chose the trash can beside Susie's table. She 'dropped' the cup off the tray, just missing the can's opening, and it bounced off the top of the can and rolled between Susie's feet.
Spy bowling. Beckman still had game.
"Hi, so sorry about that."
Susie smiled nervously after looking around to see who Beckman had spoken too.
"Say, I see you love the burrito too."
Susie's smile widened. She was clearly glad to have company. "Yes, I have one each and every morning. Exactly enough for me, and so tasty."
"Did I see you checking your receipt?"
"Oh, yes. People think that just because the staff here is using computers that they are always being charged correctly, that the bill is being calculated correctly. And of course, most of the time it is. But computers are fallible too. I always feel better if I check."
Beckman nodded. "That's good to know. Thanks. Maybe I will see you again. I've retired and this place is near home for me."
Susie's face lit up. "That'd be nice. I usually don't have anyone to talk to when I eat."
Beckman gave her a genuine smile and left the restaurant. She felt guilty. She wasn't planning on returning, although she wanted to create the opportunity in case she needed it. She really just wanted to get a personal sense of LaRussa. Graham's gift for finding the vulnerable genius was clearly intact and engaged. He had been doing it for years.
ooOoo
Chuck was again scrolling through the text exchange from last night. It had made him feel good until it made him angry. She had left because of him, because of the kiss. Not because of Bryce. All this tormenting of himself with Bryce-and-Sarah images had been unnecessary. He was glad about that. But he was also frustrated with Sarah. She knew she would create those images. Knew it. She knew she would create them and they would haunt him against the memory of their kiss.
She had felt something. He knew Sarah's reductive, self-protective vocabulary. 'Different' in this context meant 'better than'. Of that, he was sure. She had felt something and still, she ran. She knew he had felt something, and still, she ran. She ran. It was like a kids book. This is Sarah. See Sarah run. It was her deal. When things got real, Sarah Walker rabbited. Gunfire, covers, pretense, lies... she held her ground nervelessly. A twinge of real human emotion (her own), the barest suggestion of feelings (her own)...and she cowered.
Chuck knew that wasn't completely fair. Yes, Ellie, I love her. But who knows if that is going to matter in the larger scheme of things. She's in New Orleans. I am in Burbank. She is a spy. I am the property of spies.
Chuck considered trying to sneak away from Thorne, to get to New Orleans. See Sarah in person. He needed to look into her eyes. He could find her in them sometimes. Sometimes she let him; sometimes he stole upon her. Maybe they could figure something face-to-face.
Chuck thought Casey might actually let him go. Maybe he would insist on coming. Then Chuck thought of Beckman: maybe Casey would not let him go. The flight would take basically six hours, non-stop. He would need time to get to her if she would agree to meet.
But he knew Thorne's plan. She had called him and told him. Brace yourself, she told him. Starting the day after tomorrow, the next few days were all going to be file days. Casey was going to try to get Chuck a few breaks. Also looming in a few days was a video conference with Graham, an evaluation of the results of the file day he had done with Thorne and the file days he was about to do. Weird, really, that video conference with Graham. Ominous. Chuck would have no chance to try to get to New Orleans for at least several days. Even if Casey were willing to let him go, or to go with him, it would be hard to pull it off. His freedom was muzzled, as it had been since the beginning. He was stuck in Burbank alone.
Well, not alone; he had Casey. And Thorne. Sarah's warning about Thorne was fresh in Chuck's mind. So too was June's implied threat to his family. He was stuck. He was not going anywhere right away.
Somehow, there was always a gulf fixed between Sarah and him, first the emotional distance, and now the physical distance. And trying to cross the distances always seemed to endanger other people he cared for.
Maybe he had chased her for long enough. Maybe it just was not meant to be. She had not chosen Bryce. That was something. Not enough, but something. It was different from any other kiss. It was. Chuck was different now. He meant what he told Sarah. He knew who he wanted to spend his life with. Sarah. It was impossible, though. He could see no path forward for them.
He wished he could get the anger he felt toward her finally to pass. Sarah had joined his parents in that strange overlap of circles on Chuck's emotional Venn diagram, the overlap of the circle of people he loved and of the circle of people with whom he was angry.
ooOoo
Casey read over the reports again. Nova was good. As far as Casey could tell, Nova got in and got out without a trace. Casey would do what he could for the hacker. He had managed to keep June from getting her hands on him. That was already a sizable favor, especially since June blamed Nova almost as much as Chuck for what she took to be a black mark on her record. Casey had done what he needed to do with the drive, then he sent it on its way to Beckman.
The reports were what Casey expected, what Casey feared. June Thorne was certifiable. More than one CIA psychiatrist had recommended not only that she be removed from the field but that she go into treatment immediately. She was a danger to herself and to anyone around her. Langston Graham knew this, he must have known this, and yet he had suppressed it. Graham's signature was on the original documents. What are you doing, Graham? Keeping this woman in the field was cruel to her, and, God, to her marks, assets...victims.
Casey knew only too well that intelligence services often ran agents on the edge and kept them in the field when indications were unfavorable. This was so much worse. It wasn't like Thorne was walking the edge of psychopathy; she had plunged in head first.
It was as he had expected, feared. The documents told him little that was new about June But they told him of Graham's complicity. He would get the reports to Beckman by back channels. Maybe she could twist Graham's arm and get June re-assigned. Probably too much to hope we can get Walker back. It'd sure make the kid happy, though.
ooOoo
Bryce had a very early breakfast meeting with Garland's financial friend. Bryce was convinced the man was Fulcrum or was the gateway to Fulcrum. There was a breakfast meeting, then a day-long tour to see various properties in and around the city, properties Bryce had told Garland he might be interested in. Bryce got up early and dressed casually, as Garland instructed, since they would be doing a lot of walking. He put on a light blue t-shirt and jeans. After putting on his socks, he started hunting for his Chuck Taylors. He eventually found them under the bed. It must be housekeeping. He needed to talk to one of the staff, to find out why his shoes kept ending up there.
ooOoo
Sarah disembarked in Burbank in the late morning, local time. She left Bryce a note, saying that she would be back late, but not explaining where she was, or that she was leaving town. She did not have much time. She needed to see Chuck.
She had called Casey while she sat on the plane, waiting for passengers to finish boarding. She used her phone from Burbank. It was brutally early in Burbank, but she was not going to just reappear on her partner after she had just disappeared on him.
Rings. More rings. Then: "Uummmmmhheelllo?"
"Casey. Walker."
A pause, away-from-phone grumbling. "Walker. Surprise."
"Bad about those lately. Sorry."
"Yeah. And…"
"I'm coming to town. Be there in a few hours."
"Huh. Bringing Bryce?"
"No."
"Huh. Coming to see the kid?"
Sarah closed her eyes. She knew this trip would not be easy.
"Yes."
"He's...hurting. But he's keeping his head up."
She closed her eyes. "He's Chuck."
"Yeah, he is. What's the point, Walker? Why come back? You'll ruin him again, and the kid has troubles enough." An edge crept into Casey's voice.
Sarah felt her throat close. "I...I just have to see him."
Casey was silent a while. "Right. Something you should know…"
"What?"
"The kid...found...a thumb drive on a mission here. Information a hacker got on a deep dive into government computers. Thumb drive had current and past information on lots of agents. You, for one."
Everything went out of focus for Sarah.
"But the kid didn't look at it, Walker. He said he didn't. I trust him on that."
She was still reeling. "Why tell me this, Casey?"
"A welcome-home gift. Look, Walker, the kid doesn't care about your past. Curious, yes? Deal-breaker, no."
"But, Casey, the things I've been assigned to do...the things I've done."
"Me too, Walker." They were both funeral silent.
Sarah finally spoke in a whisper. "He didn't look?"
"No."
"But I have to tell him."
"Why? The kid's no fool. And he has an active imagination."
Sarah laughed but was immediately serious again. "But imagining is not knowing."
"We are still talking about Bartowski, right? The kid? Captain Imagination? Look ahead, Walker; don't keep looking over your shoulder. Didn't do Lot's wife any good. Bartowski didn't look over your shoulder."
Sarah took a minute to ponder all that, then caught the reference. "Oh. The pillar of salt story." She could not keep a note of surprise from her tone.
"Why is it no one thinks I read books or watch television? I wasn't hatched...Jesus!"
Sarah suppressed a giggle. "No, you weren't. And thanks, John. Anything else I need to know?"
Pause. "Um...no, nothing the kid won't tell you. You are welcome. Kid's shift at the Buy More doesn't start 'till late afternoon. Ellie and Devon are working doubles, I think. G'luck, Sarah."
She ended the call.
Sarah planned to see Thorne too. A chat. But she had decided to wait on that until she talked to Chuck, and could find out more about June, how she was handling Chuck. Sarah felt a spike of anger and...jealousy. And anger. Anger most.
She walked through Bob Hope Airport. She had brought no baggage. Her return flight was in six hours. Chuck. She was filled with excitement. And fear. Fear too.
ooOoo
This is the spot, Max Anders thought to himself. The final ping on Tommy Delgado's phone was here. Anders was standing in a parking lot facing a host of storefronts, large and small. Cursing Delgado to himself, he looked from store to store. Grandstanding ass. Always trying to get all the glory. Claimed he found 'the Holy Grail'. But only wanted to turn it over on his terms. No doubt those terms involved moving up the Fulcrum food chain. And now Delgado was missing, with his team; the folks at the top of the food chain had begun to wonder what he had been up to and where he had gone.
The Holy Grail. That had been the phrase Delgado used last when he talked to Anders-well over a week ago. Delgado had to mean the Intersect. What had Delgado found? Had he found the Intersect or just found something that might lead to the Intersect? Anders was not sure. Not for the first time, he regretted the fact that spies were not exactly big on the sharing of information, rogue spies especially. Fulcrum was more dysfunctional than the organizations it intended to replace. At least Fulcrum pays well.
Anders finished considering all the storefronts. If I were the Intersect, where would I hide? Large Mart? Maybe. Cavernous and cold, though. Too Big. Underpants, Etc.? What the hell was the et cetera? Maybe. No, too embarrassing. The Buy More? Anders laughed as he realized he had been thinking like Goldilocks. Yes, the Buy More. It was just right.
He walked inside.
A/N2 And we break away. Tune in next time for Chapter 11, "Love Goes On". I could provide previews, but I'll let you use your imaginations. Review, please?
A/N3 I've been reading SalishSea's Bodyguard. Nice story. Tense. WilieGarvin has a new one-shot Hail Mary. One thing I like about it is the satirical undertone of the serious story. WG does a nice job of making clear just how mind-numbing the suspension of disbelief required for the final episodes is, on both Sarah's part and the viewers. Outside of fanfiction, I am reading Knausgaard's My Struggle and H. D.'s Tribute to Freud. If you are looking for something on Chuck to read in celebration of the show's anniversary, I offer my book, Chuck: Real Love in the Spy Life. It's free on my website. kellydeanjolley dot com