A/N: Back to work here — and back to Chuck's POV.

Bite the Hand

Chapter 5: Bleak Midwinter?

Chuck at last lifted his eyes to look at Mandy. The ashy, bitter aftertaste of his words lingered on his tongue.

It made no sense, the way he felt, sitting there, having dinner with a former CIA agent and his current kidnapper, talking, joking, revealing things. Things he hadn't even revealed to his sister, though perhaps Ellie had guessed them. He ought to have been terrified of Mandy still, as he was earlier, or angry at her, or plotting escape from her, or something hostage-y, — but instead the depression and demoralization, the bleak atmosphere swirling around inside him as he left the Buy More had returned, intensified. He wasn't depressed or demoralized by being kidnapped by Mandy; he was depressed and demoralized by his life.

His dark night of the soul, but one that had stretched on for months, years.

And he was sharing the fact of it with his kidnapper while eating room service in a fancy hotel and seated next to a fantasy balcony of twinkling lights. Stars. Dad. God, I am lonely.

Maybe Stockholm Syndrome can be instantaneous, like love at first sight. Do I believe in love at first sight?

He did not answer his question; he looked at Mandy. Chuck realized that a smile was frozen on her face, her hand behind her ear, and a lock of hair moved; she seemed caught in a gesture she no longer believed in. It must have been what he said: he didn't know why he said it, why he said it aloud to her since he had never said it to Ellie.

Not just not to Ellie — I've never said it to myself.

The Buy More had come to seem more and more like a prison to Chuck. Entombed in green and gold. Big Mike used Chuck shamelessly; Buy More Corporate seemed as distant from the Burbank store as — as Kaitain from Arrakis.

Jesus, Chuck, he whined to himself, Dune references?

Chuck had met Jill because of Dune.

There'd been a David Lynch retrospective at Stanford Theater, and Chuck had gone to the screening of Dune. He saw Jill there, sitting alone before the lights went down and she saw him. He knew her from an Economics course they were taking. She had smiled at him from across the classroom a few times, but he had not taken it to mean anything, other than that she was nice, pleasant. Fascinating dark eyes in a pretty face.

She smiled at him again in the theater and then, as if chasing her smile down the rows, she got up and came to sit beside him. Another smile. They'd hardly had time to exchange a proper greeting, or names before the movie started. But, after it ended, they'd walked around campus together, excitedly dissecting the movie and arguing about the economics of the spice melange production on Arrakis, and about the real-world semblance of the Fremen.

The next day of class, she smiled at him again, moved to an empty desk beside him, and asked him if he wanted to go to lunch. By dinnertime that day, they were a couple.

It happened so fast he should have known it would not last.

Mandy's eyes had shifted, from close and inviting to distant and puzzled. She had taken a moment to eat another fry while the silence between them lengthened, crinkle-cut.

Finally, she sighed, now visibly saddened by his words. "Why would you give up on yourself as a father, Chuck? Have you got kids, messed them up?"

He shook his head. "No, no, nothing like that. None. I just…I expected things of myself, a different sort of life than the one I have. I had potential once, and then it slipped away from me. Mojo, you know. That's a stupid word, but…Anyway, I lost it. No grit, no gumption. I should be a Stanford graduate; I should own my own company. Hell, I should own a sailboat, and have been on the cover of Wired." His voice had grown loud with self-disgust and he quieted it before he went on. "Have you ever thought about how potential can roadblock potential?"

Mandy shook her head. "I'm not sure," she said truthfully.

"Everyone telling you about your potential starts to pressure you, starts to stress you, makes it harder to meet the potential you're supposed to have." He dropped his voice further. "It's like you cockblock yourself."

Mandy choked on the remains of her fry and had to take a drink of water before she could respond.

"Sorry, Chuck, I know this is serious, but that was not an image I expected, particularly not from you. And, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure how to imagine it."

Chuck could feel the heat on his face. It was true: he never talked like that, not even when hanging out alone with Morgan. Never around a woman. Ellie would have slapped him — with a hand if she were close enough, with a look if out of arm's reach.

He wasn't sure why he chose that phrase. Mandy strangely affected him — the woman, not the kidnapper. Can they be separated? Had he separated them?

"But," Mandy went on, her tone growing more serious, acknowledging Chuck's mood, "I understand you even if I can't," her nose pinched in a cute smirk, "or won't, picture it. But all you have to do is relax, right, stop putting pressure on yourself, stop expecting things, and, well, let them happen, ride the moment?"

"Ride the moment? Is that how you live?" Chuck asked her, catching her eyes with his and holding them.

Mandy's expression became guilty, self-condemning. "No, not at all. Call me a hypocrite. I'm a planner. No, I'm the planner: Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, all the way to Plan Z. The whole alphabet of backup plans." She paused, and took stock of herself, her gaze becoming internal. "Or I was until…recently when I found out that sometimes you…have to be decisive without a plan."

"Your retirement," Chuck stated, intuiting a connection.

Mandy stared at him. "Yes." She shifted in her chair and pushed her plate back. She seemed to have made a decision simultaneously with the gesture.

"Look, Chuck, you can't know whether you can be a father — or a mother," Mandy added the other option, her eyes flickering to the balcony, breaking contact with Chuck's, "ahead of time. You can only know in the moment. You can't truly qualify, or disqualify yourself until you're called on to do the fathering…"

"Or the mothering?" Chuck asked, pushing — and knowing it — but feeling like Mandy had invited it.

"Right, or the mothering." Mandy blew out a breath and closed her eyes, he saw her hands clenched into fists. "I'm here because my boss, the CIA Director, Langston Graham, plotted to terminate me."

Chuck's eyes bulged as his jaw fell. "He failed?"

Mandy arched an eyebrow. "Here I sit."

"But…Why would he do that to one of his own?"

"Because…because I know something I'm not supposed to know, or the Director believes I do."

Chuck boggled. "What?"

Mandy shook her head. "I don't know what it is that I know or that he believes I know, and I wouldn't tell you if I did. It would put you in much worse danger. I shouldn't have said this much, but I couldn't let you go on…like before…about yourself."

There was compassion in her voice, his kidnapper's voice. He let the crazy dissonance of the situation wash over him, not dwelling on it.

"Wait. Let me see if I understand. You might know that you know something you shouldn't know, that the Director doesn't want you to know and is willing to kill you for knowing — but you don't know what it is? And maybe you don't actually know it, the Director just believes you do. "

Mandy's full lips twisted. "That sums it up." She was quiet then and she bit her lower lip as if she were reconsidering her action, regretful of telling him.

"But what does that have to do with mothering?" Chuck asked, returning to that topic, curious about it and Mandy concerning it. "Are you somebody's mother?"

Mandy frowned but then her frown reversed itself, slowly — a smile. "Yes and no." The blanket.

Chuck exhaled. "She rides the moment and she talks like the Delphic Oracle." Chuck mirrored her smile but allowed frustration into his voice. "She talks in riddles."

Mandy nodded. "I'm sorry. Telling the truth, direct and unadorned, about myself — that's not something I do. Ever." Chuck guessed that she meant that of her conversation with herself, not only her conversation with others. Riddling herself.

"I've spent years either not speaking or speaking falsehoods. Professionally and personally. — And, really? The Delphic Oracle?"

Chuck responded like an actor on stage, declaiming."' The Lord whose oracle is at Delphi neither reveals nor conceals, but gives a sign.' That's a fragment of the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus. It describes you."

She sighed. "You're odd yourself, Chuck. Who quotes — who was it? — Heraclitus?"

"Who kidnaps a Nerd Herder? So — you are and you aren't — a mother — is that what you said?"

"I've neither been pregnant nor given birth but, yes, I am sort of a mother. That's why I'm here; that's my story."

"So, tell me the story?"

"It's what got me retired." Mandy pursed her lips, her blue eyes darkening, navy with thought. "If I tell you this, you have to forget it, like you have to forget me. For your own good. Do you understand?" Her gaze ruled out argument; she emphasized each of the three words..

Chuck nodded; he did not speak.

He felt like any more might make her change her mind. She was divided about speaking, divided between revealing and concealing.

After a taut silence, she spoke. Chuck could tell that she was surprising herself with each word but that she wanted to speak too.

"The Director sent me to Budapest. I was to be briefed on the mission only after my arrival, briefed by another agent, a man named Ryker, who was in charge of the mission. That was weird. I work alone — almost always. No team…no partners…" her face became grim and sad, "...not for years."

Chuck felt an upsurge of sympathy for Mandy and a sudden understanding.

Loneliness was not a feature of her life; it had been her life's very form, the innermost heart of the heart of her. He hadn't noticed it before because of…well, the kidnapping and everything…but she was having trouble controlling it, its effects. Her acknowledgment of that loneliness seemed fresh as if she had only recently discovered that she was lonely. He guessed that for a long time, she had been lonely unaware, mute. But now she wanted, needed, someone. Someone to talk to, someone to listen to her. Someone to be with her. Even if it scared her, it went against habit. She had kidnapped him already in need and then he had surprised her, made her laugh, sang to her — he had penetrated the lonely heart of her, touched it.

A gentle guerilla attack on softened defenses.

Like recognized like: His loneliness reached out to hers and hers reached out to him.

Despite Morgan, despite Ellie and her boyfriend, Chuck felt alone. He had been lonely since Jill left him. Bereft. It felt like she had taken him with her, left him with no one, not even himself. He felt useless and had forever. Well-educated and brilliantly promising but then dulled to next-to-nothing: a lanky gray indifference in a white shirt and black Nerd Herd tie.

"I was supposed to help him in a…theft. To steal a 'package'." Mandy made air quotes with her long fingers. "All he told me was in which room the 'package' was to be found. Inside Forgacs Mansion outside Budapest. In the country. Trees all around. A tall, massive place, bone-white, so white it seemed to glow in the dark."

Her eyes shifted, now focused on the distance, Budapest and the past.

"The situation was fluid — that's how Ryker described it, fast and pressurized. Breathless. No time for second-guessing. I was supposed to help with infiltration and extraction — taking the 'package' while the residents, the owners, slept in the house. But by the time I arrived in Budapest, mobsters, that's what Ryker called them, ten or twelve, had moved on the 'package', assaulted the Mansion, and Ryker was monitoring them.

"He wasn't sure what they were waiting for but they had been in the Mansion for hours. Ryker guessed that the owners were hostages and that perhaps the mobsters were waiting for a ransom. Anyway, the mission now was a combat mission, or likely to become one."

Mandy stood up, and began pacing; retelling the story made her restless, wringing her hands as she talked.

"Ryker's plan was for him to enter the Mansion on the ground floor, to secure an exit for me and the 'package'. I was to scale one side of the Mansion, enter the package' room through a window, and then exit with it via the staircase and a side door. Ryker would ensure I had a way out. He claimed that the 'package' was too heavy, too much of an encumbrance, for me to exit as I had entered, through the window, repelling back down the side of the Mansion."

She stopped pacing and frowned at Chuck; not really at him, but at her memory.

"I didn't trust Ryker — but I did trust the Director — and I was under orders — so I did what I was told. Strange though it all seemed to me.

"I climbed through the window, handguns in holsters, knife in my boot," She meant the knife in the suitcase — probably two silver guns, and Chuck could picture it in his head, his pulse racing as Mandy told her story more quickly, urgently, "when my feet hit the floor, I knew the mission was wrong. I was in a child's room, a little girl's room, pink walls decorated with rainbows, fuzzy pink rugs, a menagerie of stuffed animals…and a toddler, a girl, maybe two-and-a-half years old, standing in her crib, crying and crying and crying. Toys littered the floor, empty baby bottles. Used diapers piled in a can, overflowing onto the floor. The room reeked.

"The little girl was exhausted and terrified, her voice hoarse from screaming, crying…limp blonde pigtails and dirty tear streaks on her cheeks.

"I had been asked to be part of a kidnapping, but now I was kidnapping from other kidnappers."

Chuck forced himself not to react to her talk of kidnapping.

"The little girl stretched out her arms, reaching for me. Reaching. She was reaching for me." Mandy's voice broke, the disbelief she must have felt at the time displayed again on her face. "I reached for her, picked her up without thinking, no plan. Riding the moment. Her diaper was full, her sleeper filthy with urine and feces…," she paused, gently smiled, and changed to less medicinal terms, "with…pee and poop, leakage from a bloated diaper that should have been changed hours and hours earlier."

Mandy wrapped her arms around herself, unaware of her gesture, still alive in memory.

"I opened my leather jacket and tucked her inside it, tight against me, zipping it up so that it held her against my chest. I still hadn't figured out what was happening, or how it was targeted at me. Me and the little girl."

She took a deep breath, her voice changing, hardening.. "See, Ryker, with the Director's consent and help, had bought the mobsters, planted them there, supplied them, created the scene, not discovered it. He intended for them to kill me and the toddler and…counted on me to kill several of them.

"He planned to mop up whatever was left." The euphemism struck Chuck for the first time though he had heard it before, of course, blood reduced to a household chore. "It was to be staged so that it looked like I was in on it with the mobsters, part of their kidnapping, that we'd turned on each other, dishonor among thieves. Ryker would kill anyone left — then report it all that way, discrediting me, branding me a rogue, a turncoat, a kidnapper, and a child killer.

"But I didn't know that yet. I just kept the little girl zipped tight to me and I started out of the Mansion. The mobsters were waiting for me. I was running down a huge staircase, wide and grand, something in a Disney movie, and they opened fire. The little girl dangled from my neck, and my jacket kept her in place, and I returned fire."

Chuck stood and went to stand beside her, moved by her and her story.

Mandy looked at Chuck back in the present. Her face showed shame, and regret. A passing shadow of profound remorse.

"I'm good at killing, Chuck; I've always been…lucky…when it came to…life and death. I sometimes think — I used to think — death was the only gift I had." She bit her lip and her eyes moistened, guilty and penitent, pleading, as if he could absolve her of her damning gift.

He stepped closer to her, powerfully drawn to her, her need. Her damp eyes seemed to glow blue, but maybe that was trailing vestiges of Dune, of his recollection of Fremen.

Mandy made Chuck think of Chani. Hard and soft. A desert woman, a warrior woman.

A woman.

She stepped closer to him. They were breathing fast both of them, Mandy's past story was suspended; a present story was beginning. He could see the twinkle lights behind her; they seemed to encircle her.

Chuck stepped closer again. Mandy was looking up at him now, tear-trails on her cheeks.

"Sarah, Chuck. My name is Sarah."

"Hello, Sarah."

She put her arms around his neck and pulled her lips to his. Her lips were warm, damp with tears, her body was trembling, as if she were terrified or enraptured or both.

Chuck was in need too, a vortex of need. His heart panted.

He kissed his kidnapper. He kissed her. The woman.

Needs.

A/N: More soon. Probably won't finish this before the holiday but perhaps before the New Year.