A/N: Readers, thank you for your patience. And a thank you to Zettel for pre-reading as well.
Take another piece of me
Give my mind a new disease
And the black and white world
Never fades to gray
"Long Way Down"
Goo Goo Dolls
December 8, 2012
Zurich, Switzerland
The elevator ride back to the fourth floor was silent. Chuck could see Casey out of the corner of his eye, unable to keep his eyes off of Sarah. Chuck himself hadn't recovered fully from the shock of Sarah's presence, fighting the constant urge to pinch himself, testing the reality of his circumstances. Less than one hour past that epiphany, Casey was still thunderstruck.
Chuck's emotions still whirled inside him, unsettled and turbulent. He focused himself with his inner monologue, telling himself once they just had a minute, when he could stop and think, process, he would be back in control of himself. At least, as much control as he could muster now.
The elevator door opened to reveal more trouble. Ciel stood at the nurse's station, vehemently arguing with a nurse in French. Aside from David's name, Ciel words streamed by too quickly for his brain to recognize the few French words he knew.
Sarah had comprehended, because she stepped past Chuck to intervene. But then Sarah was speaking to the nurse, in the same rapid-fire French. Ciel turned plaintive eyes, red-rimmed with fatigue towards Chuck.
"They're moving him," Sarah said as she turned back to Chuck.
"Moving him where?" Chuck asked her.
"It isn't safe to move him!" Ciel cried, in English, her eyes passing between Chuck and Sarah. "If a clot dislodges into his bloodstream, it will go straight to his lungs. There would be nothing they could do to save him if that happened in an ambulance."
Fortunately, the nurse spoke English too, and replied after she had heard it spoken. "The orders came from the Hospital Administrator. Mr. Travailleur is being flown to London in a highly sophisticated medical transport, at the behest of a Mr. Hammersmith." The nurse looked down at her paperwork. "He's paid for everything in advance."
That was the final word for the nurse. She flipped the papers on the chart back into place, set it on the desktop, and then moved away, down the nearest corridor.
Ciel appeared shocked at the mention of Hammersmith's name. "It's the same type of aircraft that carried Sarah to Zurich." Her trepidation had eased with that information. "It would make sense that Hammersmith would have that type of craft at his disposal."
"Maybe your information was out of date…that he's gone underground?" Chuck asked.
"I don't dare contact him directly, especially if he's in danger as well," Ciel said intently.
"How do you think he knew about David?" Chuck asked.
"I saw it on the news," Sarah offered. "Whoever struck him was careless, considering it was in broad daylight on a busy street. They were broadcasting the incident, looking for information."
"Hammersmith monitors international news in Europe. It's standard practice," Ciel explained.
At least it made sense. Perhaps moving David wasn't ideal, but it was the best option, the least dangerous course of action. It was like needing to move someone with a broken neck out of a burning building.
"Chuck, who is your…friend?" Ciel asked, pointing behind them at Casey, who had been silently observing the entire time.
Chuck had forgotten as well. "Ciel, this is John Casey. And he is a friend."
Ciel's eyes narrowed. "A friend who worked in the CIA with you?"
Chuck sighed. "It's a long story, but he worked for the NSA. Now he works for me. Or…he used to." Chuck's company had been abandoned when he had decided to leave Burbank and chase down Quinn and his cohorts.
"I'm here to help," Casey asserted. Everything else was inconsequential.
"If Hammersmith is taking care of David, we just have to wait for Blaser. It's worth questioning him."
"Chuck, he wasn't exactly…forthcoming. Although, if he sees Sarah, he may be more cooperative."
"Why?" Sarah asked. "He's the man Amsterdam sent me to see."
"He knows who you are. He's known you for a long time." Chuck spoke carefully to his wife.
"I knew that, when I saw the shop. I knew what it looked like inside…" Sarah said softly.
"Sarah, do you remember Molly?" Chuck asked cautiously.
Her face was blank for a second, but she closed her eyes, and once they were open, recognition showed on her face. "The baby…I brought a baby into the violin shop…my sister…" Both a statement, but also a question.
Chuck nodded, heartened by her recall. "You ran from Budapest to Zurich…because she needed papers to leave Europe. You brought her to California, to your mother."
Chuck didn't expect the reaction those words caused. Sarah's eyes were wide, but her face shone with such genuine emotion, such adoration and admiration, Chuck had to look away. She was remembering all of it, what she had promised, what he had promised in return. What he had done for her. Only now, he felt undeserving.
Would she still look at him the same way, if she knew everything he had done in the months they had been apart? It was eating away at him. He knew at his next opportunity, he needed to talk more to Sarah. Her memory was sketchy, but he had to start somewhere. He needed to find his way back to equilibrium, if it was possible. Sarah was the key. He didn't know if it was possible at all, but he knew for sure it was unattainable without her.
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The moment Sarah had seen Blaser's face, she remembered all of her association with him in the past. Molly, but also when she had attempted to run with Chuck when he was training in Prague. Her past, before Chuck, and saving Blaser and his family from what she had believed was a coverup operation, Graham sending her to "fix" something that implicated him in some way.
The man's gratitude was still apparent, as was his palpable relief at seeing her alive, after Casey had told him she was dead.
They were gathered in the backroom of the shop, six people both uncomfortable to fit in the tiny shop and drawing undo attention. Rarely was there more than one customer at a time, Blaser had explained.
Nothing meaningful was mentioned until they were all safe in the hidden room.
"It is good to see you survived your injuries," Blaser said as he looked at Chuck. Sarah's heart clenched, knowing intellectually that Chuck had been shot, though the grave danger had been only hinted at.
"Your decision to follow me ended up saving my life. Why did you do it?" Chuck asked, disregarding his apprehension in order to satisfy his need to know.
"The truth? I was worried. You looked…troubled. Haunted. Not the way men look when they come seeking what you sought. You invoked her name," he said, gesturing to Sarah, "so I knew, if nothing else, you mattered to her. I knew she would have wanted me to make sure you were safe."
Blaser paused. Chuck shifted uncomfortably under his gaze, warmed by Sarah's hand as she touched his shoulder, seconding Blaser's assessment.
"The man who shot you is dead."
"I know." Chuck's voice was gravelly and harsh. He could feel Sarah's grip, tight on his shoulder, sensing his increasing distress.
"One bullet through his head, assassination style," Casey added.
Chuck spun dramatically, reeling. "What are you talking about?"
"You didn't kill him, Chuck. Quinn did." Casey's confidence radiated from him.
Chuck covered his face with his hand. It was splitting hairs, parsing the truth. Quinn had killed Parsons before the lethal dose of truth serum could work its way through his system. Like hanging a man after he'd been shot. Who was to blame? A coincidence couldn't excuse it. Quinn had eliminated him because he must have known Chuck had questioned him. Parsons had said as much during the interrogation. Chuck had accepted that truth, telling Parsons his fate was his own fault.
Was that still true? Chuck had said that believing he would dose the antidote before he released Parsons. More parsing, more excuses.
Blaser observed the dynamics between the group, silently assessing.
He continued. "Quinn killed Parsons. Halmstad apparently met with Dresden in Zurich, but they were followed. Dresden and Halmstad separated. Dresden attempted to make contact with Halmstad again, but instead another operative, Vienna, found him. It was after that meeting that Quinn hunted them both. He struck Dresden. From everything I could gather, he knows Dresden survived. But he is also hunting for Vienna. She has information, which complicates things. He won't kill her straight out…but he'll torture her for that information."
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Casey had also updated them with the intelligence he had learned from Gertrude. There were still giant holes in their knowledge, but Chuck felt like they knew enough that they could at least formulate a preliminary plan.
What Chuck knew for sure: Vivian Volkoff had infiltrated Quinn's base in Japan, and helped his mother rescue Sarah and their child. His mother had accompanied Sarah to Zurich and then disappeared. Vivian had left Japan with the baby…only to resurface in Zurich three days ago to meet with David. Without the baby.
Parsons had told Chuck Quinn had spared Sarah's life, because of the child she was carrying. Vivian knew where their baby was.
Quinn was searching for their baby. He was searching for the last piece of the key. Quinn had been in Zurich and could still be. Quinn had killed Parsons, then attempted to kill David.
Hartley had assured David was safe. But what about Vivian?
Knowing what he knew, Hartley had to know that Vivian was in peril. It seemed likely that she had hidden the child, but her personal safety had to be Hartley's primary concern.
Chuck was trying to connect the dots, create the diagram in his mind that would connect what he couldn't. It needed to be discussed, talked out with people who would understand and contribute.
The problem…Chuck had been reluctant to mention Vivian by name to Sarah. A complicating factor was that Ciel had no idea that one of the men she trusted most had been Alexei Volkoff in another life. Ciel blamed Quinn, and rightly so, for the death of her family. But Ciel was also aware that Quinn had been working at the behest of Volkoff at the time.
There were some difficult conversations upcoming.
Casey and Morgan had opted to stay in Zurich, awaiting contact from Chuck in Montreux. While still in Zurich, they were searching for evidence of Quinn's movements. Blaser offered to help as well, as he continued to reach out to Halmstad, hoping to make contact with the mysterious network leader.
Chuck decided going back to Montreux with Sarah and Ciel was best. He could work on the computer, and he could have time and the privacy needed to explain more of what he knew.
December 8, 2012
Undisclosed Location
Mary woke in the dark to the sound of footsteps. Heavy, booted, angry footfalls that filled her with dread.
She didn't know how much longer she would last.
As Frost, she had been the best of the best, one of the CIA's finest. What that entailed–a heartless, brutal determination to succeed at all costs. She had spent 20 years at the right hand of one of the most blood-thirsty, evil men who had ever lived. It mattered not that the man was a fabrication, an imagined mega-monster created in a room full of power-hungry men. Stephen's arrogance and his short-sightedness had brought the monster to life, and let it loose into the world.
For 20 years, she had acted as a buffer, wishing she could have done more to subvert the evil emanating from Alexei Volkoff. It was sickening to accept that as death-ridden her history with the man had been, it would have been far worse had she not been there, running interference when she could.
She had inflicted countless rounds of torture on both the guilty and the innocent. The CIA had trained her, and she had become the ultimate torturer for her master. The very mention of her name made men tremble. Of course, part of that mystique was the belief that she was Volkoff's lover. In his demented sickness, Mary knew he had feelings as such, though it was the exact opposite of love, more about possession than emotion.
In the years before Volkoff, she had endured almost as much torture as she had performed. The CIA had trained her for that too, how to withstand the most brutal assault on her body.
Perhaps when she had been young. But she was older, a grandmother now. Two grandchildren, she thought with dismay. The need for survival had kept her senses sharp, her body in peak condition.
But even the best, the strongest, the most determined, could not hold out forever. Each person had a breaking point. After over a month (at least that was what she believed, counting her days by the number of beatings she endured) she was at the end of her endurance.
Her only hope was that they killed her before she gave up any information that would put her family in any more danger.
The footsteps got louder and then the door to her cell swung open. A flashlight, blindingly bright, shone in her face. Only one eye hurt; the other had swollen shut weeks ago.
"Good morning, Mary," Quinn said in a diabolical sing-song. "Are we ready for another discussion?"
"Go to hell," she muttered through her cut, swollen lips. The inside of her mouth burned from dehydration.
"Someday, maybe, but not today. Not yet." He laughed, the laughter not quite sane.
He held the canteen to her lips and tipped it back, filling her mouth with water. She drank, consumed by thirst, always thankful that it was just water, and not noxious poison. At least not today. If she told him what he wanted to know, she wasn't sure how he would kill her. Too many possibilities.
Quinn stooped, reaching inside his inside pocket of his jacket. "Looky what I have." Quinn held out his hand, two separate pieces of apparatus on his palm. The key, Mary recognized. He had two of the three pieces. He knew she knew where the third piece was. Or, he thought she knew. She didn't know for sure any more.
Mary started laughing, hysterical, uncomical laughter. Was all this for nothing? Would he wring her life and her truth from her…only to find the information was useless? It served the bastard right.
"You sound like your grip is slipping, Mary." He tsked.
"The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results." She spit out the side of her mouth. "Five weeks and you haven't learned a thing, no matter how many times you do the same thing."
Then Quinn laughed. "But, don't you see? That's just it. We need the big guns. Which is just what I brought with me."
In the murky background, Mary saw the outline of a battery. Electric current. She closed her eyes, bracing herself.
"I'm going to tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a little boy…with a very special brain. And one day, when he was grown, the CIA used his brain, and him, to save the world…from people like me. And wouldn't you know…what was special about his brain…was inherited by his daughter."
Mary was too tired to not react. Quinn saw her alarm and laughed in her face, his foul breath nauseating her.
"So…I have the Intersect from Sarah. And one piece of the key that used to belong to Alexei Volkoff…or, should I say, Hartley Winterbottom." Mary's eyes betrayed her again, and Quinn added, "Clyde Decker told me all about all of that, my dear." He stood up, leaning away from her. "And I have the second piece of the key that used to belong to Ted Roark. So what's missing, Mary? Hmm?"
He moved faster than her eyes registered, slapping her hard, the pain radiating across her skin.
"The piece that belonged to your husband. And the little Bartowski whose brain is the new format. You know where both of those things are. And you're going to tell me…even if I have to run enough current through your body that you're bleeding out your eyes."
She said a silent thank you, only because she didn't know where Diane Beckman had hidden the key…and she didn't know where Vivian had hidden the baby.
The electricity crackled, arcing in the dark behind him. Her last thought before a paroxysm of pain seized her was of her husband.
Any amount of pain was bearable…if it meant she would be with him again.
December 9, 2012
Washington, D.C.
Eleanor Woodcomb was a genius. Diane Beckman had been told that in plain language from Jane Bentley, when the CIA had decided to use her to crack the Agent X code. Seeing it with her own eyes, in real time, had been nothing short of extraordinary.
Maybe that was what happened when two super spies had children, Beckman thought with a sigh. Stephen and Mary had wanted better for them, she knew, but their destinies could not be denied, it seemed.
She cringed as she realized that legacy, or that curse, depending on the angle, had been passed to another generation. Mary and Stephen's granddaughter now carried the same burden, though she was less than two months old.
Beckman looked up from the file on her desk to look into the saddened eyes of Chuck's sister. "I appreciate all your hard work, Doctor."
Ellie was visibly angry, trembling in her seat with hands clenched tightly in her lap. "I appreciate kind words, General, but you need to explain what this means. This is my infant niece you're treating like a science experiment."
"Doctor, when your father designed the first Intersect, he used a secondary device to upload the data. He used it on the version that Hartley Winterbottom was uploaded with in 1980. But then he split the key into its components and separated them, as a way to protect it. However, both of your father's partners became…less than trustworthy. The pieces are scattered. But…Quinn knows about those pieces, and he's attempting to gather them to repair the defective version he transcribed from Sarah's brain. And he needs Chuck and Sarah's daughter's brain as the template."
"And you have no idea where it is?" Ellie accused sharply.
"Oh, I know exactly where the third piece is. I had it, but I don't any more."
"But the baby–"
"That's right, Doctor. I don't know where the baby is. But someone took the baby out of Quinn's base. He's looking for her, just as diligently as we are."
"Maybe instead of hunting down my brother, Casey and Morgan should be looking for my niece. Considering he has no idea he even has a daughter."
"That's exactly what I intend to tell them. The next time they check in."
