A brief Christmas story. It starts a bit dark, but there is joy to be found. Set at Christmas 2012.
The airport was the last place Chuck wanted to be on Christmas Eve. And yet, here he was, watching the snow swirling in the wind through the windows as he waited at the baggage claim conveyor belt.
Originally he had only wanted to stay for a few days, leave midweek, and get back to California. He would have only needed a carry-on, not the luggage he was anxiously awaiting. But, as his sister had lamented, she missed him, to the point that she asked that his gift to her be his staying in Chicago until New Year's.
Being away from Ellie for as long as he had been was difficult for him as well. She had left for Chicago at the beginning of February of this year. Chuck and Ellie's mother, present on the periphery of their lives, concentrated her family time in Chicago with her sole grandchild, leaving Chuck by himself in California.
Ellie had not meant it as abandonment, especially when Chuck himself had insisted she go for her family's sake, but her departure had left him desolately alone, in a way he had never been before.
Alone. So completely alone…after Sarah had finally gone.
Stop! he ordered himself. Crying in an airport on Christmas Eve is not an option.
Six months later, he was still crying, aching for Sarah, gut shot. Christmas was everywhere—colors, music, scenery…making the wound hurt worse.
Last Christmas had been awful, their holiday disrupted by Daniel Shaw and his evil plot. They had salvaged it, saying their first Christmas together as a married couple was still wonderful, and those days would only get better. The day and the night, the actual holiday, had been one of his happiest because of that, because they were together and resolved on a future. He was married to the love of his life, with hope and plans that included starting a family.
One year later he was alone except for Morgan and Alex. All of his dreams were broken or burned out, like bulbs on a string of old Christmas tree lights.
The thought of seeing his sister again soothed the pain, just a bit. He wasn't even sure why he had been reluctant to stay for so long in Chicago, when he knew nothing would make him feel better than being with Ellie again.
Except that being alone in California shielded him from questions, from sympathy, from having to look into the eyes of the people who loved him and know they were hurting because he was hurting. Of course, there was still Morgan doing much of the same in California. But it wasn't nearly as bad or as smothering.
At least Chicago didn't remind him of Sarah. Maybe it would help to put some distance between his memories and himself, take a break from the emptiness and misery that had consumed his life once, despite their most valiant effort, Sarah had decided it best if they separated two months after she had told him on the beach she would try to start over, to work on her memory that never seemed to get any better, that would not return.
He kept his promise and let her go, reassuring her he would always be there if she needed him. He had left it up to her, when and if they spoke. She called him on their anniversary, on his birthday, days Chuck was sure Ellie reminded Sarah about, or when Sarah woke in the middle of the night with a memory fragment she wanted him to clarify.
He would let her hang up, holding in his pain, leaving his plea for her not to hang up unspoken. He tried to assess her emotional state each time, but Sarah without her memories was harder to read, less known to him, though he still comprehended a part of him knew what she was feeling by the sound of her voice, no matter how he tried to convince himself otherwise.
She sounded sad more than anything else.
There was nothing more heartbreaking to Chuck than knowing Sarah was sad. Because he knew how she had been when she was happy. Happy. He had made her happy, just as he'd told her when he was trying to help her remember who she was. So few things in his life he was sure of, but he was sure of that. He had let her go, after only two months, because he thought that was what she wanted, what would have made her happy. Hell, if his being as far away from her as possible would make her happy, he would do just that, his own pain and misery be damned.
Even if he would never be happy himself again, truly happy, without her. That was how much he loved her, how much he still loved her.
Only it was so much easier, so much better, when his love for her was the source of her joy.
Nights when he couldn't sleep, he would remember the words she had said to him once they were together, that she had never felt the way she felt then. Happy, loved, fulfilled.
But now it was gone, she was gone. She stayed in touch with both him and Ellie, but it wasn't the same. The contact seemed perfunctory. He lived to hear her voice, though the gaps in between were enormous and swallowed his life, so that nothing existed but the waiting in between the brief moments when he was alive and the weeks when he was dead.
His sister had told him she thought Sarah was working for the CIA again, although he knew that wasn't true, and couldn't tell his sister why he knew it wasn't true. His sister, and Sarah for that matter, believed General Beckman had removed the Intersect he had downloaded at the Pacific Concert Hall. No one but General Beckman knew he still had a functioning Intersect. It was safer, allowed Chuck to integrate into normal society again, have a normal life, without the need for round the clock surveillance and protection. Chuck worked as an analyst for the NSA, in their cyberterrorism division, a job Beckman had offered him because of his computer skills. The Intersect was not necessary for him to perform his duties as the government required.
But it helped, and gave Beckman an advantage she otherwise wouldn't have had. She had offered to remove the Intersect, and Chuck had refused. He had given her the same old lines he always had–he could help people, make a difference, being still the one person in which the Intersect as designed worked flawlessly. He never once told her he wanted to keep it because this version had intelligence on his wife.
Sarah wasn't CIA any longer. But, for reasons he didn't understand, every now and again, he would find bits of information about her in the Intersect. Fragments, shards.
His wife.
Yes, Sarah was still his wife. He still wore his wedding band. She didn't wear hers, she couldn't; she had given them back to him before she left, though when he asked her if she wanted a divorce, she had said no. That she would leave that up to him, if he found someone else and thought it was necessary.
Such a strange way to phrase it, such a strange thing to say. First, as if her preferences didn't matter, as if there were no question of her ever desiring to find someone else, though she was the one leaving. Second, as if he could ever get Sarah far enough from his mind and his heart to even entertain talking to another woman, let alone having a relationship with her. He didn't understand it, didn't understand her, and it hurt too much to ponder for any period of time.
So they continued, married but not married, together but never together.
And that was why he was here, alone in the airport in Chicago, waiting for his luggage so he could walk out into the frigid wind and snow to see his sister and her family again. At the very least, the joy of the season that seemed so foreign to him could be attainable, even if half heartedly. He warmed at the thought of seeing his niece again, his sister and her husband. To be part of a family again, even if only for a short time.
His compact black cloth bag had appeared, jammed into the oddly angled conveyor, making its way towards him. When it was in front of him, he stepped through the crowd blocking his way and grabbed the handle, hoisting it up and into his hand in a firm grip. He set it on the floor on its wheels and detracted the handle. Checking his watch, he saw he was only a few minutes late, and that Ellie should be waiting for him somewhere outside the security blockade.
The gate where Ellie was waiting was quite a distance from where he was. O'Hare was enormous, far larger than Bob Hope International, from where he had departed. He moved down hallways, on the people mover, for what felt like hours, walking and walking and going nowhere, like the scenery was moving and he was standing still.
Chuck realized he was rather isolated, only a few people here with him as he moved through this hallway. It was late evening, the busy hubbub from the morning much more subdued. Stores were closed, the world was silencing in the peace that was Christmas Eve. Just a few stragglers left in the airport on their way to their own peace, their own silent night.
Chuck glanced up as one of the shadows far down the hallway approached, hustling in the opposite direction.
Once he could see the man's face, Chuck flashed.
It started with a photograph, of a rosebud in a vase, and a few seconds later Chuck's head filled with images of documents and intelligence.
It was over in a few seconds. Chuck caught his breath, quickly assimilating the information from the Intersect into his working memory, as he had always done in the past. This current version, the 3.0, worked exactly as the others had, imparting him with information and skills. In his current role with the NSA, he only experienced informational flashes, having no need for fighting skills or any other expertise, with the exception of code breaking, which he used all the time fighting cyberterrorism.
Randall Fortin. Veritas.
A string of disconnected pictures pummeled his conscious mind.
Veritas. Veritas was a splinter group, an associate faction of the group of spies for hire loosely associated with Nicholas Quinn. Edgar Tipton was in charge, late of Fulcrum.
Edgar was familiar. He was the agent who had pretended to take Jill hostage. From what Sarah had explained to him on the flight to Berlin in February, he was the man who had given Quinn the first piece of the key on his private jet.
Chuck started to turn, seeing the man who had passed him pause, seeming to turn himself as Chuck observed out of the corner of his eye.
Before Chuck turned completely around, he felt something– someone–crash into him from behind, knocking him flat to the ground, covering his body at the same time he could hear muffled gunshots zipping over his head and pinging against the tile floor.
More than one gun. His mind struggled to absorb all the information. Someone was shooting at him, and someone else had tackled him and was shooting in defense of him.
He felt all the breath rush out of his body as saw the blonde hair, smelled the sweet scent of lavender and vanilla that was…Sarah.
Sarah.