Chapter 12

Family Reunion Pt. 1

A/N

Hi.

I

1964

"DIANE!"

The crash of the glass and the quickly-stifled sobs had awoken him. With a few heavy stomps, he cleared the broken-down apartment, towering over the pathetic, weak little child.

"I'll give you something to cry about," he sneered.

II

The nightmare had plagued her practically daily for sixteen years, until finally vanishing one day… that fateful moment when she read the message on the screen.

When she found out her daughter was alive.

Four years later, almost to the day… the nightmare returned.

The Deafening screeches. The infant wailing and bawling from somewhere below. The frantic descent. The vision of her ex, holding their baby, frightened but undeterred….

Chuck… how could you…

Stark jolted up in a cold sweat.

She had no idea where she was. The last thing she remembered was being treated for her eye. The things that Markwind guy did to it… she remembered the doctor saying he wasn't sure it would heal properly, that she might never fully get her sight back. And then…

She tried to look around. It was dark, and her vision took a moment to adjust. Obviously she was in some sort of bed – apparently no bigger than a single – but past that...

Eventually she perceived a large red EXIT sign in front of her. Well, when she focused on her left eye, she saw a red EXIT sign. From her right she just saw a blotch of bright color in the void.

Focusing on the light, she noticed the room was narrow, with only little more than a door's width. The fourth wall was right behind her. Was she in a cell?

"Finally up?"

She flinched at the old, raspy voice coming from her left. Stark knew exactly who it was. She bolted out of bed and reached for her weapon – but it was gone. Frantically she searched, but as it turned out, none of the weapons she normally had on her person were there.

Suddenly, light flooded the room, blinding her once again.

"Sorry," Betelgeuse took advantage of Stark's temporary stupor to fit some words in. "For some reason… our cells' lights can-can both be controlled by my switch. Yours p-probly works too, I-I-I dunno for sure."

"What do you mean cells," Stark, hand planted firmly over her eyes to keep the light out, called out. She swung her free hand toward the source of the voice; it didn't make it an inch before bumping hard against the glass wall to the left of the bed.

"Six-six inches of glass… could probably withstand a claymore. And yet… our voices carry. A-almost as if they're telling us to-to-to… to talk it out."

"I have nothing to say to you," Stark returned curtly, finally composed enough to open her eyes, though still not fully adjusted to the blinding light from above.

"Really? You… you don't wanna talk about… about your daughter? About why we to-took-took everyone underground?"

Stark bore into the blurry visage of Betelgeuse, rage in her eyes. Betelgeuse shrunk back in spite of the thick barrier that protected him.

"L-l-listen," he continued, "you don't understand what they were doing, what the threat was, what the threat still is. We we we had to get rid of of of everyone we…

"We would've taken you too, but Chuck's-Chucks research… Chuck's experiments proved you wouldn't be a viable candidate for them…. M… Morgan… Morgan couldn't…

"He he he said you you weren't going to to to go underground and and and…" Betelgeuse trailed off.

Stark's rage grew with every word. She wanted to laugh at the sheer absurdity of the situation. If only it wasn't her daughter who had been taken from her.

Her words cut savagely. "Do not even try to come up with an excuse for what you did. Do not even try to tell me you didn't work with Chuck to STEAL HER FROM ME."

"…

"Steal her? I-I… we didn't…"

"You and your asshole of a son had no right making me fear for her life for sixteen years. And honestly, you must be senile to make me believe you were 'protecting the world' from the Guardians' Intersect plans after you hid her in the CIA.

"I DIDN'T!" Betelgeuse exclaimed, wounded pride on full display. "I didn't… she wasn't supposed to… not the CIA of all things… I—

"Wait…

"CIA?

"Six… sixteen years?

"You know… You… you found her, didn't you?"

"My contract work keeps me tapped into many government networks, without their knowledge of course. I knew the moment Beckman let her run a phony search for her parents."

"So-so-so you…"

Betelgeuse sighed. "Believe me or don't believe me or or or whatever… I never intended to 'steal' her from you. I-I never… never intended for you to be in the dark about your daughter's safety. I… I don't know what… what Chuck did…

"I… I'm sure he had a good…

"I don't know… but…

"but honestly this was so much bigger than that. The threat… I never intended Beckman to have her; I didn't even know she had anything to do with this until… until a few days ago. And I-I-I don't know how or why she she managed not to give Robin up to the Guardians, or how she's even—"

"Her name is Rachel. You don't even know her goddamn name!" Stark's rage had not subsided in the slightest, but she wasn't blinded by it either. She saw there was truth in Betelgeuse's ramblings. "I don't have time to figure out what you or your son or Beckman or whoever was thinking twenty years ago right now. I have to get out of here."

"How-how come…" Betelgeuse, frustrated and confused, couldn't let up with the questions. "How come you didn't… didn't take her once once… once you found her?"

Stark, focusing on the light fixture above her for her way out, replied absentmindedly: "Like I said, I was tapped in. I knew about the Guardians, what they were doing – hell, I had my own private contract missions fighting against them… and I knew Beckman well enough to know her role was a cover. She was protecting Rachel. I had to protect that cover until the time was right."

"Really?" Betelgeuse was unconvinced. Perhaps he was motivated by an opportunity to wound Stark's pride like this whole situation had basically destroyed his own. "Really. So spending… spending years out-out on your own, thousands of miles away, while… while your daughter took up Spy Training in in in an agency compromised by terrorists… not not not to mention, letting her believe her parents were… were dead…"

"Oh, I see," Stark snarked, pulling the light cover off the ceiling but pausing her work to lash back. "You think questioning my parenting is somehow going to make up for your mistakes? Because based on what you've told me, you never even had her in the first place, did you? Who were you watching? Whose poor, innocent child did you orphan in your pathetic attempt to 'rescue' my daughter?" She turned back to her work – slow with the partial blindness. "I guess you'll have to ask Beckman sometime," she muttered.

"Y-you know," Betelgeuse continued, pushing harder after the fresh blow from his former daughter-in-law, "I read about Rachel, or 'Robin Miller' as the CIA… calls her… when…. When I was preparing my rescue op for Julia, I looked into her. Did… did you know she almost died a few months ago? D-during this… 'Ramirez Homicide' investigation. Someone… cornered her. She was all alone.

"Where were you?

"Whose fault would it have been if she hadn't managed to outwit her attacker?"

Betelgeuse hit the spot. Stark tried to control her ire, but yanked a barely-unscrewed screw out with enough force to strip a fist-sized hole out of the light fixture. She refused to look at Betelgeuse while she calmly answered: "Once I get my daughter out of here, I'm going to find Chuck. I presume his pathetic ass isn't coming out of hiding on account of me, and I'm pretty sure you are the only one who knows where to find him. Think about what that means for your future."

"Do you really think," a third voice interrupted, "the CIA is stupid enough to install air ducts large enough to fit a human being over the lights in our cell block?" From the arguing, the eye, and the work on the ceiling, Stark somehow didn't notice Director Beckman had entered her cell.

She pulled back to face the petite yet rigid Director, but fidgeted deliberately with the screw she had removed. "Director, I understand that you managed to keep her safe for twenty years, in spite of the threat from within this very agency, but don't think for a moment that I've forgiven you for keeping her from me for that time. That said, given our long history, I may be willing to—"

Beckman put her hand up. "We don't have time for death threats, negotiations, or whatever else is on your mind right now. Your daughter is still in danger."

Stark softened up, while Betelgeuse, seething at the Director's presence, interjected: "If you touch a hair on—"

"Shut up," both women spat back in unison.

Beckman continued: "Last night, Shaw ordered me to keep the civilian – Julia. He plans on constructing an intersect of our own and installing it into her."

"But that's preposterous, he'd never have enough time before his term ends to build one from scratch, even with Betelgeuse's help."

"I would NEVE—" a murderous look from Stark shut him up.

"That's not all," Beckman continued. "The new congress is looking pretty much unanimous on impeachment right now. Shaw tried to hide his involvement as a Guardian, but no one's convinced he was innocent in all this. Some are even talking about a lame duck session before the new year. No matter what, he should be out of office by the 3rd.

"He's planning something, Stark. I don't know what it is – I know he has a vendetta against Chuck, but this seems bigger than that. I've put in a lot of work turning him against the Guardians, I can tell when he's acting mischievous."

"So what do you propose we do?"

"We have to get you all out of here. You, your daughter, the civilian, even Betelgeuse. If you can all simply lay low until he's out of office, I have pull with the VP, I can clear everything up once she's installed. And even if Shaw does manage to finish out his term, no administration will ever pursue anything related to the Intersect after this debacle. All you'd have to do is wait."

She turned to the glass screen, where Betelgeuse seethed in silence. "No one's made a move on your hideout so far. I had some hand in that, but mostly it was just not a priority. I presume you haven't sacrificed it yet, either. Do you have anything there that could help disappear the four of you, the same way you vanished the others?"

Betelgeuse nodded.

"Good. Then we just have to find a way to get all four of you out of here and over there before Shaw finds out. I… don't know how we are actually going to manage to do that, however. I suppose he is pretty distracted with the fallout of yesterday's speech; we can use that.

"These rooms aren't wired – no one knows I'm here; but the longer I'm gone, the more likely Shaw is to get suspicious, so we have to act fast.

"Julia's hospital room's security is indisposed as well. Stark, I want you to disable the security system in Robin's room, collect her, and take her to Julia's undetected. Take the air duct over your light—"

"I thought you said—"

"I lied, we are actually that stupid: take the air duct, cross over to the east wing of this facility, and look for room 742. It should be on the same level we are on. The three of you can probably use air ducts to escape the facility completely, but I'm not sure if Betelgeuse can handle that in his age. I'll have to think of a different way to get him out. Something convincing.

"Once the four of you are out, we need to get to the cabin before Shaw can mobilize an attack. I certainly don't know how we're going to do that.

"So, while I'm with Betelgeuse, I want you to strategize the rest. I'm sure you have some resources of your own."

"How are we supposed to regroup once we're out of the building?"

"Stay in Julia's room when you get there. Once I figure out how to get Betelgeuse out, I'll be coming to you: it will look like a routine visit from the Director to a top-priority CIA asset.

"And one last thing: Don't kill each other when you're out there."

With a nod, Stark used the hole she had made in the ceiling to tear the entire light fixture out (temporarily blinding everyone with sparks), leapt in, and made her escape.

While Beckman watched this spectacle, Betelgeuse finally figured he was clear to speak again. "I-I might… know a way…"

Beckman turned swiftly. "I already know exactly how we're getting you out," she interjected, pulling a long pouch from her trench coat. "I just didn't want any intervention from Stark."

She unzipped the pouch, exposing a long needle.

III

As has been discussed before, this facility is quite massive. Crawling through ductwork, furthermore, is nothing like a sprint. Thus, Stark had plenty of time to think about things as she navigated her way to the hospital wards.

But while her immediate goal was a strategy out of the facility as a whole, in reality, she couldn't stop thinking about reuniting with her daughter.

This was something she had dreamed about – yearned for – ever since she had lost her. Even the dishonest reunion just yesterday couldn't top the excitement she was feeling now. For now, she would finally be able to tell Rachel…

…

…

Excitement warped instantaneously into fear.

How would she take it?

Would she really be happy to find her mom?

Or…

Would she hate her?

Damn that Bartowski, Stark thought to herself. His words earlier only made her worry more.

What would Rachel think, after all? Not just of the pure fact that her mom had been away from her for twenty years… but that she had deliberately stayed away for the last four?

Did she need to know that?

Wouldn't she find out eventually?

If they have to partner with Betelgeuse, would he tell Rachel everything, just to hurt Stark?

The more Stark thought about it, the more she felt it might just be best not to say anything.

At least… not until everything was over.

But this felt… wrong. Manipulating her own daughter so brazenly like that… it didn't sit well.

She didn't know what to do.

Unfortunately, she had a more immediate problem: she had made it to hospital ward 742 in no time with all these thoughts storming about in her head—but no one was there.