A/N: Huge thank you to Zettel for pre-reading. Again, thank you for your patience.

And through the grief and pain

I'm half insane

I give an inch, you take a mile

You throw away the key

Ignore my plea

You cut me down without a trial

"Hanging By A Thread"

Mike and the Mechanics

November 28, 2012

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Chuck had checked into the Westin Hotel under the same name he had given Tsetse, then checked out immediately after he had shot the same man with a tranquilizer gun in the parking garage of the hotel. He had disabled the security cameras ahead of time, making certain that he remained a ghost, that no one could view him in security footage, the way he had found everyone he had been tracking so far.

He had left the Westin and headed to the Marriott, a hotel that abutted both the Harvard University campus as well as the Charles River. He checked in under yet another alias. Chuck spent the rest of the day and the night, into the early morning hours of the next day, hacking from his hotel room.

Through the window, he could see out into the night. The city lights danced on the water's surface, competing with the multitude of stars in the sky and their tiny pinpoints of light. He felt enveloped in sparkling light, a bright, painful contrast to the darkness residing in his chest. His eyes were tired, burning, blurring the sharp edges on the dark horizon.

He sat forward and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, feeling them water and itch at the pressure. His eyes had been abused over the past month, his age more noticeable as his capacity for long bouts in front of the computer was less than when he had been a teenager and could spend 12 hours hacking then go to school the next day unfazed. An echo of memory, his sister appealing to him to take breaks, never knowing what he was doing, but still worrying he would harm his eyes or even go blind.

Thoughts of his sister intruded and distracted him. Chuck worried for her safety, praying Casey had done what Chuck had asked and made certain she was protected, lest Quinn threaten her, take her, apparently as he'd planned to do before he took Sarah.

Chuck had been monitoring Quinn's accounts, the ones he had emptied, waiting for the silent alarm he had set in place to trip. Surprisingly, so far as Chuck was aware, Quinn still had no idea that his accounts were empty, inaccessible. Each day, each moment was borrowed time for Chuck. Once the alarm tripped, all hell would break loose, of that Chuck was certain. A war was headed straight for him. It made no difference if the battle consumed Chuck with it, so long as it also consumed all that Chuck sought to destroy. He knew how it might happen, but not where, not when.

The brief respite from the computer screen was welcome. A search was running in the background, a final, complex algorithmic program Chuck had written earlier in the evening, all of his factual information now entered and amalgamating. Chuck closed his fatigued eyes as he waited for the program to work. His physical exhaustion was palpable, now that he had nothing else upon which to focus his thoughts. He drifted to the edge of unconsciousness and then back, over and over, a drunk driver unable to stay in his lane.

Chuck experienced bits of micro-sleep, seconds of unconsciousness that were filled with faces and voices, memories that burned in his brain as they permeated it. Ellie and Morgan, but also Sarah.

Sarah.

God, how he missed her.

Drained, empty, too exhausted to rage, his sadness took over. He startled himself awake, jerking before his head collapsed to his desktop. The water in his eyes mixed with genuine tears. He sat forward, rocking himself back and forth, though it offered no comfort.

She never would have wanted this. His sister's voice, though she spoke for everyone, telling him about Sarah. They knew Sarah, they were her family, but no one knew her the way Chuck had. Sarah would have done what Chuck was now doing, had the situation been reversed. Done what he had done, and worse, the darkest of deeds Chuck knew she was capable of meting out. He understood such things. Sarah, who inhabited Chuck's soul, deepest of all, would understand the way he was now. Paradoxically, she could never have witnessed this, but she would understand it.

The exhaustion weakened his conviction, however, making him worry that might not be the truth, merely his warped view of it. He didn't know exactly what he believed, and the complex, drawn-out tragedy of the past year had never forced him to decide for himself. Was Sarah in heaven, or was she just gone, her essence snuffed out like a candle flame? It was easier to believe in the former, giving him some hope that some part of her lived on, though whether it was in any place, or a place he could ever follow her, remained uncertain. Easier until he wondered if he was condemned, for seeking vengeance instead of offering forgiveness, for choosing to destroy instead of reaffirming life.

What did it say about him that Sarah's reaction mattered more, more than eternal judgment? She had always been the biggest part of him, all the pieces of himself grown into the parts of her embedded in his heart and mind and soul.

The blinking red light on his computer screen ended his metaphysical musings.

It worked.

Before him, scrolling quickly in a green blur of letters and numbers, was a detailed digital trail not only of Nicholas Quinn, but all of his associates connected to the base in Japan. This was all seven, all the ones confirmed by Beckman's team after the base had been raided and intelligence gathered. A month-long trail, spread out like in an elaborate web to reach around the globe, starting in Japan, the day after Beckman had confirmed Sarah had been killed.

It seemed they traveled together, or at least in groups, not alone. Quinn was never without at least four of his men, but the other three stayed together, with the exception of Parsons, the man Chuck had tracked from his contact information provided by Tsetse. By far, Parsons had the most side excursions, most likely looking for ways to supplement his income the way he had before the base had been raided.

Multiple trails led to the places where money had been hidden, the money Chuck had stolen from the group. Yet, none of his silent alarms had been tripped, which meant inquiries, if they were made, were done in person, not electronically. Chuck remembered the Bank of Macau and its mercenary nature, sure that some of these institutions were much the same and existed primarily to protect the criminals that utilized them. A minor miscalculation on Chuck's part, something he should have remembered, though there was little he could do about it now.

The time Chuck thought he had on his side perhaps had been only an illusion.

Chuck studied all his information again. All signs pointed to Europe. The activities concentrated around Barcelona, Paris, Berlin, and Zurich. There were a handful of other European cities as well, though the traffic was more mysterious, harder to comprehend. While it was true much of Quinn's money had been concentrated in European banks, it was also true that none of that money was physically in any of those banks any longer. Based on the information at Chuck's disposal, Quinn knew that now as well. Yet instead of coming after Chuck, in America, he was still traveling through Europe.

Parsons was the easiest to track, because most of his sojourns were solo. Right now, Parsons was in Berlin. There were no funds left for Parsons to access in Berlin, and the man had to know that.

This went beyond just the money. But to what exactly, Chuck had no idea. Yet.

He bought a ticket over the computer, using yet another alias, to Berlin.

November 28, 2012

Boston, Massachusetts

"Damn it, Casey, he's at the airport!" Morgan exclaimed as he clicked through the satellite images on his computer. Casey had called in the request, asking Beckman for satellite access, in the hopes of narrowing the search for Chuck in a large city like Boston. Chuck had been in the city less than 24 hours and now was on his way to somewhere else.

They were hopelessly behind.

"What terminal?" Casey asked sharply as he moved for his phone, hoping to call a team to intercept Chuck. Casey and Morgan were over an hour's drive from the airport in city traffic.

"International flights," Morgan said after a pause, his voice quickening with urgency. "International? Damn it, Casey, we're never going to catch him!"

"No quitting, Grimes. You found him before with almost no effort. You can track him again."

"Casey, that was different. He was running away with Sarah then." Casey heard the wistful sadness in the younger man's voice, tamping down a mirror reaction in himself.

"Running from the government with the Intersect."

"I know that was what it seemed like to you. But he was looking forward with hope. Now, he's looking back with…I don't know…hatred, guilt, anger…none of the things that I could ever believe he would be capable of. I don't feel like I know him anymore. And it feels awful and scary."

The closest friend Casey had ever had was Chuck. He had never told Bartowski so, but Casey always believed Chuck knew it just the same. For Chuck, Morgan was his closest friend. For Morgan to say that, someone who knew Chuck better than he knew himself, was troubling.

The phone connected just as Morgan watched Chuck move past the ticket counter through the gate. "Berlin, Casey. Delta airlines. He's headed to Berlin. We lost him again."

"Do you have the flight number?" Casey barked. Morgan nodded. "Download the information and send it to Beckman. She can coordinate with the CIA, get a team on the ground in Brandenburg to intercept him before he gets off the plane."

Morgan complied even as he continuously shook his head back and forth.

"What, moron?" Casey asked.

"We need kryptonite. This isn't kryptonite."

Casey got the reference, vaguely recalling that for Grimes that was grape soda. Odd memory, he thought. It made Casey feel nostalgic again, yet a more troubling indication of his softness, which was the last thing he needed right now.

"He's on a plane. There's nowhere to run, Grimes. We're done."

"What if he resists?" Morgan asked, his voice shrilly. "Do they have shoot to kill orders?"

That was worrisome, because Casey didn't know. He doubted it, but with Beckman, he was never completely sure.

"Because, I guarantee you, that's what it's going to take. Chuck doesn't give up. You know that about him. I think that's the only thing left about him I can count on. And it's scaring me to death."

Damn it, Casey hated when Grimes was right.

November 29, 2012

Berlin, Germany

"Welcome to Germany, Herr Green," the stewardess said to Chuck, in heavily accented English, as he tottered through the gate. Jet lag was ravaging him, to the point where he was nauseated. It was akin to the after effects of being tranquillized . Noises were distorted, his entire surroundings felt dream-like and disconnected from his presence. He had flown overnight across the Atlantic Ocean; he was six hours ahead on his watch, though nine hours had passed in flight.

It took him an extra minute to react, to acknowledge that the stewardess was speaking to him. "Thank you," he muttered, smiling though he saw the confusion on her face.

Looking over the woman's shoulder, he saw the dark-clad figures moving through the crowd beyond the gate. They were dressed as quasi-military and blended well with airport security, but Chuck recognized a tactical team when he saw one. Their firearms were contained, a necessity in an area overrun with civilians who could panic.

A tactical team meant this was Beckman, orders from her or someone adjacent to her authority. His hacking into the Intersect computer had triggered this, he thought. Beckman was the best case scenario, the best hope for leniency, for mercy. Not every director or deputy director they had dealt with in the past were as beneficent as Beckman. If this tactical team was sent on the order of someone like Clyde Decker, Chuck was in peril.

It made no difference, Chuck reminded himself. Whether it was Beckman or someone else, he wouldn't let them stop him. He was too close. Logan International. Someone had tracked him on camera, Chuck guessed. He had done everything in his power to shield his face, not able to access the security footage with his computer packed away in his carry-on bag.

His head was foggy, his thinking sluggish, and he was slow to react. He needed a diversion. He turned away, pulling his baseball cap farther down over his face. As he spun, he counted eight men. They were scattered, but moving steadily towards Chuck, and at the same rate. An overhead page sounded, followed by a garbled bit of German speech, paging over the loudspeaker. Chuck didn't understand German, so he couldn't translate it, but he noticed when it ended, a group of teenagers, accompanied by a handful of adults, rose from their seats and started moving away from the gate. The group was headed straight towards Chuck.

He waited, careful not to hurry, careful not to attract attention to himself. The group of people provided a natural shield between him and the tactical team. Effortlessly, he blended into the group, matching his gait to one of the adults, immersing in them to obscure himself. He walked with them until they were exiting the airport, on the way to the taxi stand.

Chuck looked over his shoulder, through the window, noticing the tactical team was still swarming around the gate. They hadn't noticed him. As long as he could evade them here, in the airport, he could make his way to the hotel undetected. Once in the hotel, he could reconstruct the digital walls he needed to continue his tasks in secrecy.

He moved farther down the sidewalk and scooted around a waiting vehicle, jumping into the back seat of the taxi and saying only the name of the hotel where he was going.

The taxi disappeared into Berlin's morning traffic.

{}{}{}{}{}{}

When Chuck arrived at the hotel, he tried to set up his computer and start working again. But after five minutes, Chuck's fatigue became insurmountable. He pushed the computer aside and climbed, fully clothed, beneath the covers of the bed. Sleep claimed him almost instantly.

When he woke, it was dark outside his hotel window. It took a moment for him to orient, especially because he had been in multiple hotel rooms in the past few days. He was less tired, but not refreshed. He recalled advice not heeded, that the best remedy for jet lag was to adjust to local time, not to sleep. Now Chuck was…off. But, he had been off for a while now. This was just more of the same.

Everything went off when Sarah died.

He sat up, rubbing his hands over his face, scrubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He reached for his computer, his thoughts drifting as he waited for everything to load. The CIA had tracked him to Berlin. Did that mean Casey was tasked with finding him, bringing him back? Beckman had done that before, when Chuck had run with Sarah.

The memory of that time was almost painful, like a headache, and he had to close his eyes until the feeling passed.

The sadness this time gave way to the anger, the rage. It simmered as he started hacking again. He needed to find Parsons. The man was still here in Berlin. First, though, Chuck decided he needed to understand why Parsons chose Berlin, what his business was here. It would be easier to corner the man if his actions in the city were predictable, trackable.

Chuck got to work.