A/N1: I'm old. I forget things. Things like who owns Chuck. But I do trust you guys to remind me.
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They had had a delightful dinner. Chuck and Sarah had made a big pot of chicken and sausage jambalaya with rice and beans on the side. The recipe they were using called for okra, but Chuck insisted it be jettisoned (he thought it was slimy). A nice crisp salad accompanied the entrée with some crusty bread to soak up the sauce. The dinner guests were Stephen (although, as he was living with them, maybe he didn't really count as a guest), Ellie, Devon, Casey and Zondra. Casey and Chuck had made liberal use of the habanero hot sauce on the dining table. Many bottles of ice-cold beer and several bottles of a crisp white wine had accompanied dinner. Conversation was lively and fun and didn't touch on any elements of their covert lives. After a dessert of one of Casey's fruit pies, Chuck caught Ellie's eye.
She nodded and said, "Thanks for dinner, guys. Come on, Dev. Spy stuff about to start and we're not cleared for this bit."
"Oh, ok. Thanks for dinner, Chuck and Sarah. It was awesome. But I still can't handle it as spicy as you guys," he said with a laugh, gesturing at Chuck and Casey. With hugs and cheek kisses, they left the others to the more serious business. If they were offended by their having been excluded from certain spy stuff, they gave no indication.
The remaining folks moved to the living room area with their coffee. Chuck and Sarah sat next to each other on the couch holding hands, with Zondra on the other side of Sarah. Casey and Stephen settled into two easy chairs across from the coffee table.
"Alright, Charles. I guess you're going to brief me on something. What's going on?" asked Stephen.
Taking a sip of his coffee, Chuck said, "Dad, you were right. You were right about Ted Roark. He's a pretty bad guy."
Stephen let out a hummmfff noise and said, "I know I was right. Of course, I was. But what does that have to do with you guys? With national security?"
"We just conducted an investigation. We have proof that Roark is the leader of Fulcrum," said Chuck.
With a frown, Stephen said, immediately, "No, he's not."
Chuck said, "Yeah, Dad, he is."
Sarah, with a frown of her own, said, "Why do you say that?"
"Because Fulcrum is a political organization at its heart. Far right. Ted Roark doesn't have a political bone in his body. No way."
Casey said, "Nine-eleven radicalized a lot of people, Stephen. Moved a lot of people somewhat to the right on defense and national security stuff. Why not him?"
"John, I agree that folks have been moved politically in response to the attacks, but I'll eat my hat if it happened to him. He doesn't give a darn about anyone or anything except Ted Roark. Not the country, not its security, not the people in the Trade Center buildings or the Pentagon, and not society in general. I just don't buy it. Sorry," Stephen said, shaking his head.
Team B glanced back and forth among themselves. Could they have misunderstood Fulcrum's goals? Problem for tomorrow, they silently decided.
"Dad, we traced money from a Fulcrum account to Roark Instruments. And we have him acting as the Sachem, their leader, at a pep talk meeting. He's the guy."
"Ok," said Stephen. "Ok. Look, I hate the guy as much as anyone does, probably more, but I still maintain he's not political. A horrible person and a scumbag? Yup. A right-wing zealot eager to overthrow the government? Nope. Not the right guy. If I were you, I'd look to see who's bankrolling him. If he can make a profit off political instability, there's nothing stopping him from doing so. No morals or ethics or principles. But he'd rather use other peoples' money to get it done if he could."
"Ok, Dad. How about this? How about you tell us what you know about Ted Roark. We know you believe he stole from you, but not too much of the background," said Chuck. "Give us the story. Fill us in."
"Ok. Sure. It was 1970 and I was getting my second PhD from Cal Tech..."
"Your second? How many do you have?" asked Chuck.
"From anywhere, or just from Cal Tech?"
"From anywhere," said Sarah.
"Five, but only three from Cal Tech. Anyway, the sixties had just ended. Vietnam was still a big thing. Sex, drugs and rock and roll. Woodstock. The Manson family. Bell bottoms and long hair on men. Free love. Women with no bras. Peace marches. The whole sixties thing hadn't yet quite morphed into the seventies yet.
"I was young for the program, the program at Cal Tech, but, like most of the students there, had used the academic exemption to avoid the draft. Not that it would have mattered to me really, as they'd have just stuck me into a lab someplace anyway, if I'd have been drafted, I mean. But there I was, studying computer engineering.
"There were four of us doing the same thing in the PhD program that year and the professors told us to make two teams for certain projects. I was paired with Ted Roark. I liked him. Tall guy. Wavy brown hair. Huge smile. Handsome. He's quite charming and charismatic really. Much more outgoing than I am. Really than any of us were in that program at that time. We were a bunch of nerds and he was this gregarious, funny, friendly, happy guy. At least that's what I thought at the time. Anyway...
"A few of the guys gravitated to him to help them score girls. He seemed to win girls over easily, and, of course, bragged about it afterwards. All his conquests. What he'd done with each of them. I didn't really like that part, seemed sort of creepy to me, but I overlooked it. You know, you tend to forgive your friends' bad qualities." Stephen started to chuckle. "It never bothers you that your spouse squeezes the toothpaste from the middle of the tube, until it does." His chuckles stopped abruptly as a memory intruded. Almost visibly shaking himself, he re-commenced his story.
Addressing himself to Chuck, he said, "Your mom never liked him. I really should have listened to her. She had so much better judgement about people than I did. But he had become my best friend by then. She only saw him sometimes because, in those days, she had a job that called for a lot of travel."
Chuck asked, "So you were already with Mom by then? You weren't one of the guys using him to get girls?"
"Oh, God, no. I'd started seeing your mom a couple of years before I met him. Your mom and I were a committed couple by then. Your mother was never impressed with him. She always thought he was just a blowhard. In hindsight, I should have listened to her." Again, at the mention of his wife, Stephen paused and looked sad.
"But, you know I didn't. As we worked together on projects, we became closer and closer. He was my best friend and was the best man when your mom and I got married in '72."
"Wait. What?" asked Sarah. "Ted Roark was the best man at your wedding? Seriously? What the hell?"
"I know. Right?" said Stephen. "One of my worst enemies was my best friend at one time? Pretty insane, but there we are. And like I said, Charles, your mom hated the guy."
"Wait. Did he hit on Mom?" asked Chuck, a little uncomfortable with the question. He wasn't too sure he wanted to know the answer.
Stephen chuckled. "Oh, yeah. He certainly did. The fact that she was engaged to me didn't matter to him at all. She shot him down pretty hard though. Painfully, actually." Stephen laughed out loud at the memory. "He never tried anything like that with her ever again. But the fact that he tried once should have been a warning to me. That he would hit on his friend's girl.
"Professionally, in terms of the science, we were working on our projects together. Hanging out. Drinking beer. Doing a ton of brainstorming. I would take an idea and talk about it. He'd shoot holes in it. Don't get me wrong, I hate him, but he was pretty smart. He'd come up with an idea and I'd shoot holes. It was what we did, testing our ideas and theories against each other. If we came up with something neither of us could shoot down, we'd head to the lab and see what we could do.
"I don't know how much you know about science, but there are basically two types of scientists, the theoretical guys and the experimental guys. Ted was always a theoretical guy. Put him in a lab and he'd just break shit and make a mess. Total disaster. But not me. I was more of an experimental guy. A tinkerer. He was comfortable with a pencil, a bar napkin and a pitcher of beer. I was comfortable in a lab surrounded by a boatload of half broken circuits.
"We were a good team. Of course, not all of what we worked on was part of the assigned team stuff. A lot of what we talked about was purely conjecture and bullshit. Some of that stuff was part of the individual projects we were doing for the degrees we were there for, but not all of it. That was the first time I realized something was wrong. I'd already gotten my degree and was on my way to the next one when I noticed it. The project that he used for his dissertation, the individual project, was one of mine. Was one of the ideas I'd had and shared with him. He took it and used it for his doctoral project. Never gave me credit or recognition.
"I was shocked. I mean, I guess I shouldn't have been, right? We had talked about it and I didn't think to tell him to give me credit. I mean, who'd think of saying that? It sort of goes without saying. Just decent ethics. Or maybe even good manners. But he pulled it out and I didn't hear about it until later. Your mom told me it just confirmed that he was a douche.
"Of course, I confronted him and he just smirked like an asshole and said, something like 'all's fair.' I told him I was pissed off and he had damaged our relationship. The prick just laughed and said he didn't really care too much about that, as he'd gotten what he wanted from me anyway."
"What did he mean by that?" asked Zondra.
"What he meant was my notebooks. All my life, I've kept notebooks with my ideas. Not jotted down in any organized fashion, just the thoughts as they come to me."
"Sure," said Sarah. "The Intersect notebooks that Langston found and gave to Ellie."
"Exactly," he agreed. "But those were only a few. I kept notebooks forever. I'd given him access to them. To all of my notes and ideas. When I confronted him, he just laughed and told me he'd copied those books and was heading out to the world of business and money. It's what he does. He seduces people and uses them for his own purposes. A high-functioning sociopath. He taunted me that he could make a fortune off my ideas and there'd be nothing I could do to stop him. Any time I'd complain, he said he'd hire ten times the lawyers I could and crush me. I knew he was right, at least then."
"Thomas Edison," said Chuck.
"Yes. Exactly, Charles," said Stephen.
"What's that?" asked Casey.
Chuck said, "Thomas Edison was famous as an inventor, and the fame was certainly deserved. But he was also a very cut-throat businessman. He was justifiably accused of theft of patented inventions many many times and started his own patent litigation more than once. Nowadays he might be characterized as a patent troll. He tried to steal the telephone from Alexander Graham Bell. It was only the lucky fact that Bell's father-in-law was a top lawyer and was able to push Edison back, or he'd probably have gotten away with it."
"Yes," agreed Stephen.
"What did you do when Roark told you that?" asked Zondra.
"I broke his nose and a bone in my hand." He shrugged, seemingly a bit embarrassed. "I didn't really know how to hit someone then."
"Fuckin' A," said Casey and extended a hand for a fist bump.
Stephen returned the fist bump and continued, addressing Chuck. "By the time he'd started Roark Instruments in 1981 and really began to capitalize on my ideas, you and Eleanor had been born and I had just started working for the government on the Intersect. The last thing I needed was a public fight with Roark over the credit for my ideas."
"And, to be fair, Dad, you hadn't patented them. If you had, there wouldn't be any argument," said Chuck. "That's exactly what the Patent Office is for, after all."
Stephen shook his head sadly and said, "I know. You're right, of course, Charles. If I'd been thinking ahead at the time, I certainly should have. But we were just a couple of young pals, relaxed on beer and grass and coming up with cool stuff out of thin air. Stuff that might be fun to build one day. You're right, but I just didn't think of it. Even your mom didn't think of it and she was way more practical and hardheaded than me."
"When was the last time you talked to Roark?" asked Zondra.
"Ummm, in person, probably in the late '70's when we had another screaming fight, although I didn't hit him that time. Then I sent him a pissed off letter in the '80's when I was already working on the Intersect for the Intelligence Community, but he ignored it. I'm sure he's just sitting on a pile of his billions and laughing at me. While I'm sitting, watching Roark Instruments come out with tech I thought of, and bitching and moaning to my family and friends."
"Knock it off," said Casey, harshly. "Don't make yourself sound so pathetic, Stephen. Don't. A man's contribution to the world isn't measured by his net worth or his fame. You've got two amazing children who love you. And anyway, you designed the Intersect in the meantime. That's an achievement that makes everything Roark's done pale by comparison. Really world-changing tech. I don't give a fuck that he's rich. He's an asshole and you aren't. And you can look at yourself in the mirror and be proud of what you see."
"Thanks, John," said Stephen.
Casey grunted his own response.
Zondra said, "Stephen, not to put too fine a point on it, but Orion could destroy Roark without breaking a sweat. You could go into his company's mainframe and take it apart piece by piece if you wanted to. But you never did. If you hate the guy so much, what stopped you?"
Stephen laughed softly, seemingly at himself, "Well, I guess I got distracted. I do hate Roark, and his success with my ideas annoys the hell out of me, but I've got so much else going on. I never put aside the time to get revenge. And, anyway, revenge seems sort of petty." He shrugged.
"But now that we know he's with Fulcrum..." said Sarah with a little grin.
"Yes, Sarah. Now just might very well be the time," said Stephen. After a moment, he started to laugh. Soon, Team B was joining him in his laughter.
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A/N2: My wife and I saw Oppenheimer last weekend and really enjoyed it. Among other things, it highlighted the distinction between the theoretical and the experimental physicists. Although there's a good argument to be made that Stephen is the brilliant amalgam of both, if we were forced to chose one or the other, in my opinion he's clearly a lab guy.
A/N3: And here we have the story of Stephen and Ted. Canon never covered it, except in the occasional line or two. I thought it deserved a chapter. Let me know what you think, please.
