A/N: More of the second section.
I've assumed readers know that this takes place in the present. Sarah's history is similar to the canon's but not the same. Differences will be revealed as we move along. One difference, the main difference, is already clear — she's five years younger than in the first episode.
Here, as capable as she already is, she's not yet the battle-hardened 'tip of the spear' that she was at the beginning of vs. The Baby.
Patriot Tours
Chapter Eight: Heart and Habit and Home
Sarah's heart imploded even as her mind accelerated.
The way Chuck's staring at me!
Sarah had been vulnerable on missions. Often, she had been in deadly harm's immediate path, that harm bearing down on her.
Sarah's mission before Bordeaux, before Marcuse, had been in Turkey, in Istanbul.
At one point during the mission, Sarah had walked a bag full of money, a fortune, to a mark, knowing during the long trek that the mark had sharpshooters on the top of neighboring buildings, and that they would kill her if she deviated in the slightest from her stated intentions, knowing, indeed, they would kill her if anything went wrong, her fault or not.
Despite that knowledge, she had walked calmly and measuredly to the contact and handed over the bag, never letting the fact that she was visually crucified in multiple crosshairs distract her, break her concentration, or make her stumble.
That vulnerability had been physical. Merely physical. It required only bravery.
But now, finding herself in the bus seat, nailed to the crosshairs of Chuck's deep hazel stare, she suffered an internal collapse, her emotions like an old high-rise rubbled instantly by demolition.
She had not felt so emotionally vulnerable since she was a small girl, since her parents had separated. Ten years or more now she had spent running from her own emotions, first with her father and then under orders from Langston Graham. Each con and each mission, each alias and each cover, all seemed to increase her distance from herself and her emotions. From the suffering they required.
She honestly believed she had finally outrun them, outrun vulnerability. Honestly.
'Honestly'? What right do I have to use that word? All the lies that are my life. And all my lies begin at home, false home truths, lies to myself.
The Arcachon drizzle and her resulting midnight depression should have tutored her otherwise, but Chuck's gaping stare was an utterly convincing lesson.
A true home thrust.
Sarah's emotions had caught up with her. Caught up and body-slammed her.
She had gifted Chuck enough of herself that morning for him to be able to hurt her. Bad.
He wasn't trying to hurt her now — but that look!
Better never to have seen him again than to have him look at me like that!
And then it struck her: if Chuck knew of her five years in the Agency, there would be worse looks yet to endure, looks that would vaporize her, not merely reduce her to rubble. Looks that would erase her from existence.
But habit and adrenaline kicked in, and kept her going. Agent Walker's mind was racing, clipped, efficient, ignoring the dust and rubble of her heart.
Refocusing, she dropped her eyes from the mirror to the road ahead, scanning, calculating. Thinking while driving.
Marcuse had known she would be at the Smithsonian, known when she would be there. How?
She had ordered her ticket and booked her tour online — using her new Agency computer, the one Graham had requisitioned for her and that she picked up as she exited Langley.
The computer. Marcuse might have found her, known her plans, some other way. Possible but not probable. And the spyworld was a world of probabilities, coldly calculated.
Calculating them correctly had kept her alive for the past five years.
She would operate on the assumption that her computer was compromised. Was it Graham? Was it someone in Tech? At the moment, it did not matter. It would later but for now Langley and everyone in it had to be under suspicion.
Someone there was working for Marcel. Until she knew who, she had to suspect all. Even Graham.
Sarah stared at the road ahead, deciding what to do.
The bus was large. Patriot Tours was painted on both sides in red, white, and blue letters. The bus driver or someone at the Smithsonian, — that other woman, the brunette, that Jill, would call the police. Maybe someone already had. Maybe Jill had.
Sarah might as well have hijacked a lighthouse. The bus would be ludicrously easy to find.
And it would not just be the police searching, but Marcel and his henchmen, too, and maybe with an assist from inside Langley.
The students — Sarah could see them yelling at her or Chuck or banging on windows and trying to get the attention of other drivers, although Sarah was blocking out all the sound — would make the search for the bus intense, massive.
Parents on television.
Her eyes flicked to the mirror
If only I could block out Chuck's gaze.
She needed a place to hide the bus, another way to move the students. A place where they would be safe.
Dropping her eyes to the road, she noticed a sign, hit the brake, spun the wheel sharply, aiming the bus toward the freeway.
Chuck's hand was suddenly gripping her shoulder. She tensed. But his grip, while tight, wasn't aggressive.
He had stood and stumbled forward, absurdly stopping at the wide yellow Standee line at the end of the aisle, and had lost his balance and fell toward the windshield when she braked.
He had grabbed her shoulder to steady himself.
"Sarah, what the hell?" he asked in a fierce whisper, lowering his head to her ear.
She could smell him again, like in the museum, that scent of him, his hoodie, the one he was now wearing, that she had earlier worn. The scent was distracting.
She faced him for a second. Smiling and reassuring him was what she wished to do. But she was too full of adrenaline, too frightened by what she had done and by what might happen. To all of them. To Chuck.
"Sit down, Chuck. I'm driving, not talking."
Her tone was a razor, a knife's edge.
It wasn't deliberate but she was (almost) in mission mode, no longer on vacation.
No longer emotionally vulnerable.
Not much.
She turned to the road, biting the inside of her lip.
Not really.
Chuck snatched his hand back as if he had been burnt after Sarah snapped at him.
He was lost. Bewildered. His heart beat wildly in his chest.
He turned to the students, forcing himself to gulp in a breath, stepping toward them, holding onto the back of the first seat
"What the hell is going on?" Gammon asked before Chuck could speak. "Where's she taking us? We're supposed to be going to the War Memorial! Kidnapping!"
Little Tim was crying, tears running down his face, but he was making no sound.
"No, no, not kidnapping. Something else is going on. Sit still, please. Give me a minute."
He turned back to Sarah.
His eyes met hers in the rearview mirror. He forced his face to harden. He leaned down again, once again whispering fiercely. "Sarah, I'm not asking. Drive — but tell me something. The kids are terrified. Tim needs a vomit bag."
"Chuck, look, I'm…law enforcement. The man outside the bus, the one I fought with, he's a dangerous criminal, a killer, Interpol's Most Wanted. I've had a brush with him before and he wants to kill me because…I know what he looks like…"
Chuck stared at his shoes for a second. "But I know what he looks like, the students know…"
She faced him again for a moment. "I know, Chuck. So does he."
Chuck suddenly knew how Tim felt. "Shit, Sarah, that means — " He stopped his question.
Sarah's eyes were back on the road but she nodded. "You are all now in danger. Trust me, Chuck, I had no idea anything like this would happen…"
At the word 'trust', Chuck recoiled.
Sarah noticed. "Chuck, I'm the good guy. I mean — you know what I mean. Right now, I need to get this bus out of sight."
"Why?" Chuck blinked. "We should go to the nearest police station."
"No. Not yet. The situation is complicated. We will go to the police, or to someone who can help, as soon as possible, but, right now, I'm not sure who to trust. Marcel was not alone at the museum. He has long arms, henchmen, and allies hidden in unexpected places."
She merged the bus onto the freeway. Chuck saw that the weather had darkened; the sky bellied down with black alarm.
"I need a few minutes to think, Chuck. Right now, I need your help. I need you to take the students' phones."
Chuck shook his head. "No need. They don't have them. Did you see any inside? All the phones are locked in that box beside your seat, all off. One of the keys on Madge's keychain opens it. The Smithsonian discourages phones with underage tour groups. I fought that battle before we left Patriot Tours. I won — but it didn't go well. A sign of things to come…"
Sarah nodded, exhaling in relief. "I am sorry, Chuck. Tell them I'm law enforcement and that I won't let anything happen to them. To you."
Chuck saw Sarah's body tense as she resisted looking at him when she added him.
The students were restless, the quiet Chuck had purchased with his plea vanishing. Chuck turned to the students again.
"Okay, please, be calm. Sarah Walker is law enforcement," he gestured to her, "and the man outside the bus is a wanted criminal, one she crossed paths with before. I can't explain it all to you right now. But sit tight. We're trying to find a place where we can park the bus, out of sight. Sarah's promised — I promise — nothing will happen to you. You aren't being kidnapped, you're being protected."
The bus was silent for a minute, then Anong spoke. "She's not law enforcement. She's a translator. She speaks Central Thai perfectly. How many policewomen do that?"
Chuck turned again, feeling a bit like he was dancing. But Sarah had heard Anong; in fact, she seemed to expect Anong's comment.
Sarah spoke while staring into the rearview, forcing herself into a brief, slightly self-mocking smile, outwardly hoping to alleviate the students' anxiety but inwardly annoyed with herself for having revealed as much as she had to the cheerleader. When am I impulsive?
"I bent the truth, Anong. I'm law enforcement, but…um…international, not local, not even national. Mostly, I work overseas. I have worked in Asia. The man beside the bus is French and — "
"Sarah's Interpol," Chuck interjected excitedly, clearly taking himself to have put the pieces together. Sarah did not contradict him. Anong tossed her head, looking less than fully convinced. Tim had stopped crying and was staring at Sarah like she was a superhero. Corday shook her head inscrutably, a sphinx smile on her face. Natalie stared at the back of the seat in front of her. Gammon glanced at Natalie and then back at Sarah.
"Everyone, please. Just stay in your seats and be quiet. I'm sorry you're all involved in this. It was an accident."
"More like a mistake," Corday offered, continuing to shake her head.
Sarah worked to remember Washington roadways. It was odd: Washington was technically her home but she had better and more accurate memories of roads in other, distant cities: Paris, London, Prague, Hong Kong, Istanbul. Maps in her head for these were precise, accurate, but Washington was a vague, unscaled spider's web.
She turned her arm as she held the steering wheel and checked the time. It would not be long until police cars were on the roadways, police choppers in the air.
She pressured the accelerator, pushing the bus forward, just over the speed limit.
"We need our phones," Anong said after a moment of silence, "our parents will be scared to death."
"Soon," Sarah said coolly without any backward glance into the rearview.
Anong flinched. It was time to establish some control of the students, the situation. Of Chuck. If Sarah was going to protect them, she needed to fully harden herself, shake off the spell of the Smithsonian once and for all, the weakness she'd shown in Embrace the Dark. Forget the butterflies. She needed to isolate herself inside her old automatisms, her armor — the very things that had created her recent, derisive, Langley-hallway moniker — the Ice Queen. On missions, she had an uncanny ability to let her body and its habits take over while letting her conscience dim, a dreamer asleep on the back of a tiger. She needed to stop worrying about anyone's feelings — especially hers.
She impasted her face with her familiar mission impassivity. Tried to. Anong seemed to see it and she shifted her eyes away when Sarah glanced up.
Chuck had turned. He was still standing toes to Standee line, hunched down so that he could see out the windshield. Tall, he's tall.
"Do you have your phone?" Sarah asked him. He shook his head, glancing at the lockbox beside her. "No, I put mine in there. With the students'. Hoping to establish solidarity…"
Sarah pulled her phone from her back pocket. It was unbroken, undamaged. She turned it off and handed it to Chuck. "Keep it for me but leave it off until we find a place to hide." She wasn't sure why she handed the phone to Chuck. Turning it off made sense; she should have done it sooner. But giving it to him…
Solidarity.
He slipped it into the pocket of his hoodie.
She shook her head, frowning, and forced herself to consider the buildings alongside the road. Ahead, on the right, she saw an auto repair shop. Below the shop logo, Axle Roads, the sign had changeable letters that announced: Closed for Christmas 12/19-12/26.
Sarah could not believe her luck. She resisted her desire to smile at Chuck.
She slowed the bus and turned into the lot, pulling around the building to the partially full parking lot in the back. For a moment, the number of cars panicked her, but then she realized that they were there for repair. All showed body damage, at least minor. She pulled the bus up to the garage door. It was down and padlocked. After shutting the engine down, Sarah stood up and patted her pockets, keys in her right hand.
Damn. Her jacket, she realized, was still on the floor in the Butterfly Pavilion.
"Does anyone have a hairpin?" She asked, only realizing when she looked up that everyone on the bus was staring at her, waiting for her to speak.
No one moved.
And then Natalie raised one hand, fishing in her jacket pocket with the other.
"You don't have to raise your hand," Sarah said.
Natalie shrugged and then produced a hairpin.
Sarah took it and faced Chuck. "Stay on the bus." It was an order.
She opened the door and got off the bus. She walked to the garage door, checking the outside of the building for security cameras. There were none. The door was one that had narrow, long, pill-shaped windows in it. The windows were grungy and the darkening sky made seeing inside difficult, but Sarah could see room inside for the bus. Sarah checked the height of the garage entrance. It would be close but she thought the bus would fit through it; if not, she could deflate the tires until it did.
Kneeling, she went to work on the padlock. As she concentrated, she heard footsteps and looked up.
Chuck had gotten off the bus. "Need help?"
She shook her head, annoyed and a little amused but suppressing the amusement. "No, I'm good at this. Better than anyone in my class."
"Interpol school?"
On a couple of missions, not recent, Sarah had worked with Interpol personnel; she was acquainted with details, the kind that make lies seem real.
"Yes, I took the initial training here, then more at the Global Complex for Innovation in Singapore."
Chuck nodded, impressed. She could feel him studying her. A moment later, as if to substantiate her lies, the padlock opened. Sarah handed it to Chuck. "Open the door; I'll drive the bus inside."
As she got back on the bus, she heard the door slide upward. She sat down and started the engine. She moved forward carefully. Chuck had gone inside but he came out and stepped to the driver's side of the bus, watching the top of it. She gave him a look and he gave her a thumb's up. It would fit. She pulled it inside. By the time she had turned the engine off and gotten out, Chuck had slid the garage door down. He had found a metal rod inside that allowed him to hook the bottom of the door and close it.
"Hey," he said, approaching her, the rod still in his hands, "there's bottled water in a cooler in a side compartment. The key that opens the lockbox opens it. Why don't you open it and I'll give it to the students. Maybe it'll distract them and give you a minute to think."
Sarah nodded and found the compartment lock. She opened it and Chuck pulled the cooler out. Red, white, and blue, predictably. "We usually give them these before we start the War Memorial…"
"Okay, well, keep the students quiet and still and — on the bus," she stressed the last three words and his ears reddened, "I'm going to take a quick look around, then I'll figure out what to do." She handed Chuck the keys. He stared at them, then at her.
He pocketed the keys and bent down and opened the cooler. Sarah walked deeper into the garage. The bus was in one of two bays. Alongside the other, empty bay, was a wall. On one end, the wall became windows, and on the other side of the windows was a TV and chairs and couches, a vending machine.
A waiting room.
Farther along the wall was a door marked Office. Sarah walked to it and turned the knob, expecting it to be locked. But the knock turned. Inside the small room, near the center, was a large desk strewn with papers, tools, and engine parts. A desk chair, old, covered by gray strips of duct tape, and leaning back as if it might fall, was next to the desk. A computer and printer were stationed on another, smaller desk, the desk pushed up against the wall, and a blue plastic chair was shoved beneath it. She closed the door.
The whole garage reeked of diesel fuel; every non-work surface was coated with thick, greasy dust, not quite granular, not quite viscid.
Sarah went inside the waiting room, closing the door behind her. The room smelled less of diesel, dominated instead by the burnt, acidic odor of overcooked coffee. A coffee pot stood in one corner, and a glowing red button showed that it had been left on. An inch of ichor-dark coffee stewed in the pot. Sarah clicked the button and the glow disappeared.
She walked to the TV, picked up the remote from the seat of a chair beside it, and turned it on. Quickly, she cycled through channels to one showing local news. She stood for a few minutes, watching, but there was no mention of the bus, the students, or any incident at the Smithsonian. There was a decent chance they had made it to the garage without being especially noticed. At any rate, there was no acknowledged manhunt yet. She clicked the TV off and returned to the bus.
She heard voices as she got nearer. Singing? It couldn't be singing. But it was. The interior lights of the bus were on and Chuck was standing, leading the singing.
It was a Beach Boys song. Sarah stood and listened, her mouth open in shock.
…Wouldn't it be nice if we could wake up
In the morning when the day is new?
And after having spent the day together
Hold each other close the whole night through
Happy times together we've been spending
I wish that every kiss was never-ending
Wouldn't it be nice?
Maybe if we think, and wish, and hope, and pray
It might come true
Baby, then there wouldn't be a single thing we couldn't do
We could be married
(We could be married)
And then we'd be happy
(And then we'd be happy)
Wouldn't it be nice?
Chuck sang beautifully, full-throated, and even more surprising, given the morning, non-ironically. Each of the students was half laughing at him, half mumble-singing along with him.
Sarah shut her mouth and let herself simply stand and watch, listening to Chuck sing. She hadn't known anyone like him. It was an inspired choice — singing to pass the time, calm the students, and singing that song, sacrificing himself to lampoon to keep their minds off what was happening. It might not be carrying a bag full of money to Istanbul, but it was brave. It might not be harsh suffering, but it was voluntary. He was vulnerable and invincible all at once. How's that possible? And then the final verse arrived, and Sarah felt it come home:
Maybe if we think, and wish, and hope, and pray
It might come true
Earlier, the words of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star had come to her mind: I wish I may, I wish I might…
Her eyes dampened and her throat closed. She dropped her head and once more tried to re-establish her self-control.
When the singing stopped, Sarah got on the bus. Corday pointed to her and piped up. "She's why that song came to your mind, Pet Sounds. I know what you wish for."
Chuck's ears reddened again but he said nothing, he just rotated and looked into Sarah's face, pointedly ignoring Corday. "So? What have you decided?"
"Wait," Anong broke in before Sarah could answer, "I want proof that she's with Interpol. That she is who she says she is. This could be a kidnapping. My father's always worried about that happening to me. He's rich. I'm rich. We're rich. How do we know she's not lying, Chuck? Maybe the whole thing at the museum was staged? A ploy to keep us in line?"
Sarah's patience for Anong was stretched. She looked at the girl. "A ploy? — "
Natalie interrupted Sarah. "Anong thinks the whole fucking world turns around her. She can't imagine a scene she's not the star of. This has to be about her." Natalie began looking at Sarah but whipped her head around to Anong. "Isn't that right, O Captain, My Captain?"
Anong jumped out from her seat and into Natalie's seat, clawing at Natalie's face.
Tim chased Anong into the seat, his small hands fisting in Anong's hair. He pulled it with his arms like he was in a tug-of-war. Anong screamed. Natalie smacked Anong's face mid-scream. The scream did not end but it changed pitch.
"Stop!" Sarah shouted. All her years of training and experience manipulating marks and assets came to her aid. In a refrigerated voice, she went on. "Enough. That's enough. We need to cooperate, not fight. This is no kidnapping, not of Anong or of anyone else. I'm going to keep you safe, not ransom you. Chuck believes me."
Sarah said the last and glanced at Chuck but while she did not see outright doubt in his eyes, what she saw was not the confidence she expected. He did believe her but his belief was not a strong flame. It flickered.
And that hurt. Despite her repeated attempts to armor herself, despite her momentary hardening, Chuck could wound her, and by nothing more than being less sure of her than she hoped he would be.
The girls stopped fighting and Tim loosed his hands from Anong's dark hair. She glared at him and he cowered back to his seat.
Gammon stood. "I'm getting off here. I've had enough." He scowled quickly at Natalie as he passed her. Anong smiled as if she had provoked the response she wanted but Natalie's handprint was visible on her face, dark red.
Sarah spoke again. "Okay, there's a waiting room over there." She pointed to it. "Go and sit there but leave the TV off. I need to talk to Chuck. We'll join you in a minute and then we can all talk about this, and check the TV together. This will be over soon."
She stepped out of Gammon's way and he led the students off the bus. Natalie brought up the rear.
Together Sarah and Chuck watched the students enter the waiting room. Chuck blew out a breath and glanced sideways at Sarah.
He was obviously confused. She could feel how drawn he was to her in part because she could feel the answering draw in herself. Her hand twitched toward his but she made it stop.
There was a reluctance in him too, and she could feel it as well. It was his attempt to remain objective where she was concerned.
Maybe he can tell I'm lying. Why am I so responsive to him, responsiveness I can't control?
The desire she'd felt in the Smithsonian bubbled up and over, a different La Brea of her own, sticky and warm, completely inappropriate and inopportune.
But even then and there, the wafting diesel fumes and the coating of dusty grease, a part of her badly wanted to explore her responsiveness to him, to discover its effect when his hands were on her. She shuddered.
His eyes returned to the waiting room, the return requiring exertion. Chuck took the safety of his students to heart — so much so that he was resisting his heart where she was concerned.
Sarah took a long, slow breath. Chuck faced her. The vulnerability she'd been warring against overran her as his hazel eyes softly invaded hers, searching deep for answers.
She whispered to him. "I need you to believe me. I'll tell you the truth, Chuck."
His shoulders hunched as he braced himself for disappointment. Sarah knew she was about to provide it.
Wouldn't it be nice? Yes — but the Beach Boys sang about a world Sarah did not inhabit, had never known. An innocent, sun-bright, wave-washed world.
Sarah's world was guilty, a world of fury and mire.
Past Chuck, she could see snow starting to fall heavy outside, the low black clouds emptying white.
A/N: Love to hear from you about the story!
More next week, probably. — I'm busy with various projects, so I'm not promising updates on any schedule. I posted a de-Chucked and somewhat remastered version of Heaven and Hell on Amazon, under my pseudonym, Newton Priors, if anyone's interested in that story. I've also recently finished the final pre-publishing edits of The Vanishing Woman. That will be published in November. I'm also eight chapters into the sequel to Big Swamp.
