A/N: More.


Patriot Tours


Chapter 6: What Makes Things Blue?


Sarah took a closer look at Anong as she turned away from the men. She was a lovely girl, probably seventeen or eighteen.

Her white tennis shoes and her gymnast movements, even without the sweater's logo, would have sufficed for Sarah to know her as a cheerleader.

Sarah had envied cheerleaders back in her faceless, bad-hair-and-braces high school years. Anong's perfect posture and confident habit of throwing back her heavy black hair as she flashed her dark eyes were all too familiar to Sarah.

Along with her posture, Anong's skin was perfect, a velvety golden brown. A one-time wallflower's intuition told Sarah that Anong was likely the captain of her squad: Anong was fit to withstand the gaze of millions of high school boys — and Anong knew it without overtly displaying that knowledge, but it was covert in all she did and all she was.

Sarah had noticed the diamond earrings and the expensive watch. Anong clearly had parents who were rich enough to present her to the world in finery, her bearing and clothes looked like the product of a finishing school, if any existed anymore.

The men did not look at Anong, but she kept track of them as Dan moved the group around the Hall of Fossils. Sarah stepped away from Chuck, who was talking to Tim about the dinosaur skeleton, and slipped in beside Anong, matching her slow walk.

"So, you're the captain of Woodson's cheerleaders?" Sarah asked, smiling slightly, allowing her eyes to be curious and to fall to Anong's sweater and then rise back to her eyes.

Anong smiled too, pleased and surprised. "Yes, I am. How'd you know?"

"Well, the sweater — but more, it was just you. May I ask where you're from? Anong Suwan — your name is Thai, isn't it?"

Anong's smile grew more surprised but also a bit wary. "Yes, my mother and my father are from Thailand. They moved here many years ago and became citizens. Have you been there?"

Sarah nodded. She had, more than once. A number of her earliest missions were in Asia. Only recently had she mainly been working in Europe. "I have — a few times. I've never been able to stay as long as I would like. I've always sort of thought I would go back."

"What do you do? What took you to Thailand?"

Sarah decided to stay close to the truth. "I work as a translator, traveling with businessmen who need help in meetings or negotiations." Sarah let herself slip into Central Thai, adding, "I love the language," in that language.

Anong's eyes stretched. She understood Sarah but did not respond in kind. "My parents speak the language, and speak it to me. I mostly understand, but I stopped speaking it myself back before junior high. But, yes, it is a lovely language. I'm an English speaker. But I can say that your pronunciation is flawless, though. My mother would be delighted by you."

Sarah nodded, scanning around them, making sure that no one else had heard her. She'd rather not have to explain again. "She must be lovely if you look like her."

Anong nodded — or perhaps she bowed slightly. "Thank you. She is beautiful. I would be honored to favor her. And I am honored a woman as beautiful as you should notice me. " As Anong spoke, her eyes trailed to the two men, behind Jill's group but still in sight.

Sarah let her eyes follow Anong's innocently. "Do you know those men?"

Anong met Sarah's eyes. "No, but my father is…overprotective. It would not be unheard of for him to have sent an…envoy…to keep an eye on me. Men like those." Anong said all that in a quiet voice. Now she was looking to see if anyone else was listening. No one was.

Sarah filed away the word, 'envoy'. Not an expected term from a high school cheerleader, from any high school student. Anong's formal speech patterns also struck Sarah. She did not have a high school student's vocabulary — or syntax. "That must be difficult, to have people keeping watch over you."

"Yes, but I'm not sure that those men are here for me. If they are, they know their business better than the men my father usually sends." Anong looked back from the men to Sarah, her expression curious. "What do you think of our tour guide?"

"Dan?" Sarah asked, looking at him as he explained the exhibit they had just reached, a display of waxen Neanderthals huddled around a fake fire, an orange bulb making the lean-to of sticks seem to be emitting warmth.

"No, not him," Anong said with a touch of impatience, "Chuck." Anong's eyes settled on the tall, curly-haired man as he talked eagerly with Tim. "He's…fetching, isn't he?"

Sarah had not expected 'fetching' but she had to agree. "Yes, he is."

Anong stared at him for a moment longer then faced Sarah. "He fancies you, I think. That other tour guide, Jill, thinks he does too. She doesn't like it." Anong's tone made it clear that she did not like it much either.

Sarah shrugged. "I'm just an interloper. Chuck's been nice, trying to include me."

Anong shrugged, not satisfied with Sarah's attempt to gloss over the nature of her interactions with Chuck. Sarah wondered if her interest in him showed on her face, whether Anong could see it now or had seen it earlier.

Genuine interest in a man was so rare for Sarah that she was unsure she could school it out of her features. It was hard to quell a new expression, hard to recognize it from the inside as it took form.

Chuck had moved away from Tim and he touched Sarah gently on the elbow, smiling at her and at Anong as Sarah turned to him. Anong was already facing him. "Dan's always slow at the beginning of the tour, then he speeds up. I've never found this display of much interest. I feel sorry for those Neanderthals, with nothing but a weak fire to ward off a world of toothy predators."

Chuck's words made Sarah feel a sudden identity with the wax figures.

How much of my life has been spent like that, huddled next to a faint light against darkness, deathly predators? Men like Marcuse. She shivered.

Chuck noticed her shiver and he immediately doffed the gray hoodie he had been wearing.

"It's just cold enough in here, right? Too warm for a coat but not warm enough without one — and that leather jacket of yours is…nice, it fits nice, but it's not…toasty. No lining. Trade? I'll carry your jacket and you can wear my hoodie?"

Sarah managed to keep her jaw from falling, barely. Hoodie chivalry! How often had she longed, in high school, for a boy she liked from afar to make such an intimate gesture, to single her out and care for her like that? To show that he did?

She immediately slipped out of her leather jacket and traded it for Chuck's hoodie, pulling the hoodie on and zipping it. She could smell Chuck once it was on, a tantalizing scent of soap tinctured by subtle aftershave. Anong was staring at Sarah as Sarah inhaled.

Sarah realized that too late. All she could do was smile weakly, good-naturedly, and shrug.

Anong turned sharply, frowning severely, and walked toward Dan as if she had become interested in his final words about the display.

Sarah watched her go then smiled her thanks at Chuck, leaning toward him to whisper. "You're sweet, Chuck. And it's Walker. My last name."

He nodded to her and then looked at Dan, who was moving the group again.

Sarah took advantage of Chuck's shift of attention to snuggle down into the hoodie a little, to allow Chuck's scent to encircle her. She felt toasty.

That was good because Sarah caught a glimpse of Jill behind them — and Jill's gaze was frosty, sub-zero, a killing look.


"So," Sarah began lightly as the group moved around the Hall, she and Chuck trailing a step or two behind the others. "The Beach Boys banter makes me think you must be from California?"

Chuck huffed a laugh. "That's me. Pet Sounds. Yes, I'm from Burbank, although I'm in school at Palo Alto, Stanford. This is the middle of my junior year. What about you?"

Sarah looked ahead for a second. "College drop-out, I'm afraid. Working stiff." She said the word 'stiff' and then regretted it. A bad pun, given the kind of thing she actually did for a living, and the frequency of corpses involved. "I've not had any vacation for a long time, and although I technically live in DC, I've hardly ever gotten out and about in it, seen the sights."

Chuck gave her a quick but searching glance. "You technically live in DC? That sounds sad, if you'll forgive me for saying so. I have a hard time imagining you only technically alive…"

Sarah grinned, unsettled by the odd compliment, the way Chuck had picked up her words and turned them in an unexpected direction. "Thanks, but it's true. Doesn't someone write about people living lives of quiet desperation?"

"Yes, Thoreau," Chuck said as he nodded. "He thinks that's often the kind of life people live."

Sarah simply mirrored his nod.

"So, how could a girl — a woman — like you lead a life of quiet desperation?"

"A girl like me?"

Chuck lifted an eyebrow but, after a quick breath, went on. "I've never seen anyone more beautiful." As he said it, he held her eyes, as if determined to keep himself from weakening his compliment or his ownership of it by glancing to the left or right.

It was a courageous act and it touched Sarah.

"Thanks, again, Chuck. But whether or not I am beautiful, and whether or not beauty is only skin deep, beauty is certainly no guarantee of happiness or fulfillment."

The group had stopped and Dan was lecturing again, this time about the creation of fossils, the passage of time, and immense geological pressure.

Chuck was silent, thoughtful for a moment. "That's true. I'm guilty of imagining that if someone's beautiful enough or handsome enough or rich enough, then life's a breeze for him or her. But I know that's silly. We all have twenty-four hours a day to live through, we all have to contend with necessities, daily duties, minor annoyances, petty grievances, mindless routines, empty hours, and irksome trivialities. I'm sorry if I presumed…"

"It's okay, Chuck. I'm guilty too. I look at you, smart and handsome and attentive, a student at a terrific school, with friends and parties to attend, and I imagine your life must be wonderful, free of worry or discontent."

"I suppose if other peoples' lives are not populated by our demons, we believe those lives must be populated only by angels. We forget other peoples' demons." He paused, ducking slightly. "But my life…It's actually pretty ordinary. A few demons, but…pretty ordinary." He stood straighter. "Although I thought I heard the word, 'handsome'?"

The edges of his ears reddened as he quoted her, despite the studied unconcern of his question.

"You did, I'm almost certain…" Sarah said with a devilish smile, not now considering her demons or Chuck's, and she deliberately faced Dan and began to listen to what he was saying.

But she kept track of Chuck's reaction from the corner of her eye, and it pleased her to see his wide smile.


They moved on to the second floor.

As they were about to enter, Dan stopped and turned.

"This is a new exhibit. It's called, Lights Out: Recovering Our Night Sky. I like to call it Embracing the Dark. It's an exhibit designed to force us to reflect about the ubiquitousness of light pollution in our experience, about how disconnected we have become from the dark.

"Through over one hundred photographs, nearly two hundred and fifty objects, interactive experiences, tactile models, and a theater program, we will discover why dark nights matter, rekindle your connection with the night sky, and consider how much light at night is enough—for whom, for what purpose, and who gets to decide?"

Sarah looked at Chuck, hoping that her dismay did not show. She was not in any hurry to embrace the dark. She was at the Smithsonian in an attempt to rekindle her connection with light and life. She had been long enough in the dark. The Neanderthals.

Chuck leaned toward her, talking softly, as a conspirator. "Dan likes to pretend he's the one who came up with that introduction, but it's on the museum website. Points for memorization, I suppose."

His comment made her laugh. But dread welled up inside her when Dan opened the door to the exhibit and she could see no light inside.

Sarah glanced back, delaying. The two men were at the foot of the stairs starting up toward the exhibit but talking to each other.

She took a longer look than she had before but she did not recognize either one and could not hear what they said.

She turned and walked into the dark.


As Sarah crossed the threshold into the dark, a moment after Dan closed the door behind her, Sarah acted rashly and recklessly.

For her entire professional life in the CIA, all five years of it, and despite starting so young, she was the paradigm of measure and policy: her actions were calculated and deliberate. Never spontaneous.

Whim was alien to her.

And yet, as the darkness of the exhibit enclosed her, ink-like, almost palpable, claustrophobic, she spontaneously reached out and found Chuck's hand.

A whim, a need.

Somehow, she knew where his hand was — as if she were as aware of the position of his body in the pitch blackness as she was of the position of her own. She heard his soft, sharp, surprised intake of breath, and then, after a suspenseful moment, felt him gently squeeze her hand, interlacing his fingers with hers. She smiled although no one could see it.

Dan walked past them and as he did, he clicked on a small flashlight he must have had in a pocket. A bright rope of light shone in the darkness, creating a white-yellow paten on the floor. He clicked it off

Dan started to talk again but Sarah moved closer to Chuck, whispering very softly, anxious not to stir the black around her. "Sorry, I don't like this, the dark."

Chuck gave her hand another careful squeeze. "Me, either. And don't apologize. As long as you don't mind, I don't." He sounded more than flattered by her gesture; he sounded happy. She could hear the warmth in his voice. It had been years since she had conceived of herself as capable of making someone else happy. Safe, yes, maybe even, on occasion, satisfied. But not happy. Sarah Walker had no truck with happiness, and yet, her hand in the dark had created it in Chuck.

And in her, she realized. Her heart was glowing in the dark. A small but sturdy happiness, happiness with potential. Desire she would have understood — and desire was present, strong and deep in the background — but in the foreground was happiness.

As Dan lectured in the dark, Sarah's dread evaporated. Eventually, lights came on, various lights, mostly dim and a few bright, but Sarah's heart glowed steadily. The groups came in only one at a time, so the two men, and Jill's group, had not entered.

They sat through a theater


The group was in the exhibit for a while, but it was hard to say exactly how long.

The recurring darkness seemed to make time sometimes contract, sometimes expand.

Sarah normally knew, to the minute, what time it was, but she lost track. She kept track only of Chuck. He continued to hold her hand even when the lights came up, although the first time they did, he had looked at her, blinking, expecting her to drop his hand, but she didn't.

The students quickly noticed. Anong's frown deepened. Corday caught Sarah's eye and gave her a you-can-do-better head shake. Gammon stared in disbelief. Natalie simply looked thoughtful. Tim grinned.

Dan had stopped mid-word when the lights came up and he noticed the hand-holding. It had taken him a moment to find his place again.

Sarah had decided not to worry about it, any of it.

She was on vacation, seeing the sights, and she had met someone. Not a meet in a dark alley, some assignation before assassination. That all seemed a world away, drizzling Arcachon. No, she, a girl — a woman — had met a boy — a man. She liked him and she was enjoying herself. Being happy and making happy. Even if only for a few minutes, an hour, or two. For years, she had endured her life, not enjoyed it.

She was not going to apologize for her enjoyment, her happiness, now, not as long as Chuck was happy too.

Anong would have to bear the disappointment. Chuck was too old for Anong, anyway; she needed to choose another target. And Jill was outside the Lights Out exhibit, and she only dated Chuck, she was not dating Chuck.

Ages and suffixes made a difference.

They sat through a theater program, a film, that presented the night sky devoid of any light pollution. Sarah had never really understood why stars were said to twinkle until she watched that. They did. Twinkled and twinkled, so bright. I wish I may, I wish I might…

They were lustrous white, as if a cosmic jeweler had taken each one from its spot in the sky and burnished it until it was perfect. Sitting there, it was both easy and impossible to believe most of the stars were distant suns.

Chuck held her hand through the film. Before it ended and before they were to move on to the next exhibit, before the lights came up, Sarah leaned over and kissed Chuck's cheek softly and chastely. I wish I may, I wish I might…

She squeezed his hand and then let go of it. "Thanks, Chuck."

She still had on his hoodie, so she could still smell him even after she leaned away from the kiss. Still close but not close.

"You're welcome, Sarah."


Chuck walked to the next floor, the next exhibit.

Sarah's leather jacket was on his arm; Sarah was in front of him. He kept his eyes down, since to look up was to look at Sarah's bottom — an alluring prospect, but not one his respect for her or his students' (all) watchful and (some) supercilious eyes on him made a good idea.

His cheek glowed where Sarah kissed him, not painful but hyper-aware, as if that portion of his skin were more alive than the rest of him.

He had so not expected her to take his hand in the dark.

Competence and self-sufficiency had been among the first impressions she had made on him. He knew nothing about her, really, but that much had seemed clear — and connected to the hum of electricity around her. Holding her hand had allowed Chuck to be wired into that electricity; it jolted all through him. His cheek was electrified — that was the reason for the glow. Her vulnerability in the Embrace the Dark exhibit had surprised him. But holding her hand had been a wish come true.

All he wanted to do now was take Sarah's hand again, touch her again. Have her kiss me again. Lips this time. But he had work to do, responsibilities.

The final exhibit before lunch was the Objects of Wonder exhibit on the other half of the second floor. Chuck began to grow excited about it. He liked the exhibit better than the others they had seen. And today he had special reason to be excited about it. The central section of the exhibit was entitled What Makes Things Blue? Having spent the morning looking into Sarah's blue eyes, he found the question pressing.

They entered the exhibit and began to look at the various objects on display, all worthy of attention. Sarah walked alongside Chuck, smiling shyly at him when he looked at her. Dan supplied his narration. The students, still subdued from the dark, were mostly quiet. Gammon was giving Tim a hard time about being too short to see. Anong seemed to be sulking. But otherwise, all was well. Corday seemed to be trying to be silent, to cope with the consequence of her lost bet with Sarah.

Dan stopped as they came to the section on Blue. He glanced meaningfully at Sarah before he began to talk. Damn, he's noticed her eyes too. After letting the glance linger, Dan cleared his throat.

"The color blue surrounds us, beside us as the sea, above us as the sky. It is one of nature's most arresting colors. It is the color of music, of moods, of royalty — of eyes. But why are blue things blue? This exhibit will answer that question for some of the blue things you know from experience…"

Sarah's eyes flicked to Chuck as if she were reminding him that her eyes were one of the puzzles in the room. What makes your eyes blue, Sarah Walker? He nodded at her. She stooped down to say something to Tim, then took his hand and began to walk along with him. He beamed at everyone else like a lighthouse.

They walked first to a display of synchiropus splendidus, a blue fish, then to a stone of blue, called The Blue Flame.

The stone contained the mineral, lazurite, an important source of pigment, especially for the ultramarine shade of blue. Chuck stood near Sarah and Tim beside the stone, Chuck on one side of it, Sarah and Tim on the other, facing Chuck. Looking into Sarah's eyes across the Blue Flame made her eyes seem like two more pieces of the stone, ultramarine and utterly ravishing. Chuck's chest tightened and he blinked, overwhelmed by the blue before him. Tim was smiling up at Sarah.

Chuck knew at that moment what it was to fall irrevocably in love.

He knew it because he did it. Irrevocable love was a blue flame, a flame that burned without being consumed.

Dan was saying something about the sulfur in the stone being responsible for the color and Chuck heard without listening.


When the group finished with Objects of Wonder, it was time for lunch.

The Patriot Tour groups ate in a staggered fashion, Chuck's group first. As the students went into the room reserved for them, Sarah stood and waited for Chuck to catch up. She had said goodbye to Tim and waved goodbye to the others. Chuck was bringing up the rear. He had fallen behind, musing, as the others walked on.

"Well, Chuck, thanks for letting me join you. I enjoyed it more than I can say." She seemed happy and sad at the same time. Chuck only felt sad. He did not know how to let her walk away.

"I'm so glad you did. Say, is there any chance that we could see each other again, maybe have dinner or something?" Chuck could not believe he had the courage to ask, but he was full of blue flame.


Sarah did not want the tour to end.

She did not want to leave Chuck. But her real life would begin again soon enough, and he would go back to California.

She had seen how he looked at her over the Blue Flame and she had a native if unpracticed sense of what the look meant. It thrilled and depressed her in equal measures.

Simply refusing his request seemed cruel, and more than she could manage, so she answered his question about dinner evasively. "Maybe. How long will you folks be at lunch?"

Chuck looked at his watch. "Forty-five minutes, then we go back to the bus."

"Well, I want to see the Butterfly Pavilion. That blue morpho in the last exhibit made me want to see others, all the shades of butterflies if you know what I mean. Here," she said, taking out her phone and pressing some buttons, typing, then handing it to him, "put your number in my phone. I'll try to catch you after you all finish lunch, or maybe I will call you…"


Chuck could feel himself being let down gently.

I should've guarded my eyes earlier at the Blue Flame and looked away.

He smiled but tried to keep resignation out of it. "Great." He punched in his number and handed her the phone.

She caught his eyes and stared into them for an eternal second — her expression suggested she was close to tears but was fighting them. Then she kissed his lips, a brush with hers. "Thanks, Chuck."

"Enjoy the butterflies, Sarah."

She took off his hoodie and gave it to him, and he returned her jacket. They stood in strained silence. To say goodbye would have been to say it was goodbye. Then Sarah dropped her head and walked past him. He stood in marmoreal silence.

She walked away and he did not stop her; he did not know how to keep her from walking away.

But he knew something about himself now, for certain, something neither Alice nor Jill had taught him despite all the time he had spent with each, something Sarah Walker taught him in a few hours — and in few words.

Unforgettable. Irrevocable — but gone.

Chuck turned and went into lunch, head down, hoping but not expecting to see Sarah Walker again, yet tethered to her.

Blue.


A/N: This ends the first section of our story. If you're eager for the second section to begin, drop me a line, please. Your eagerness spurs mine.