"Hope" is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I've heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
- Emily Dickinson, "Hope" is the Thing with Feathers
26 SEPTEMBER 2007
BUNKER 77142135
06:22 OMST
"Sarah?" Chuck blinked heavily a few times, his eyes still wide. "Sarah Walker? What are you doing—"
"Where is he?" Sarah asked, surprising herself. The confusion at seeing Chuck had slammed into her, allowing her to feel the metallic aftertaste of her own exhaustion after hours of being in constant motion. The words came out harsher than she intended.
Chuck blinked. "What? Who?"
What the hell did he mean, who? "Where is Bryce, Chuck?" she asked. "I know you were helping him with this."
Chuck only looked more deeply confused, which made Sarah grit her teeth. "Helping him with what? Why on earth would I know where Bryce is? That's your job! You're his partner, not me."
That wasn't entirely fair, as Sarah had always considered Chuck an equal part of their team, even if they didn't use his services on every mission. She shifted her grip on the gun. Usually by now she would have lowered it slightly, as keeping the gun up grew tiring, especially on top of everything she had been through. But anger and frustration gave her extra strength right now even despite the exhaustion. "Two weeks ago, you sent him heat-scans from a satellite of a classified area in Washington D.C. Why did you do that?"
Chuck's eyebrows drew low over his eyes. The dimmed lighting in the bunk room made it hard to see, but she didn't see any of the tells that meant he was lying "For your mission, duh," he said, as if she should already know. "You mean, he didn't show them to you? He said they were for a mission he was working on, so I just assumed you were involved."
"Did he say I was involved?" If he had, it looked like Chuck might not be the only unwitting accomplice—assuming, Sarah's agent half reminded her, that that was what Chuck was. Just because he hadn't given any signs that he was lying didn't mean that he wasn't a practiced liar.
"What?" Chuck's bafflement seemed real, at least. She could see him actively searching his memory. "No, I don't think so, not outright. But then, I didn't ask." His eyes cut down to the S&W in her hands. "Jeez, why are you pointing a gun at me? Sarah, what's going on? Why are you here? And where's Bryce?"
She ignored the panic, though it was difficult. "Has he contacted you?"
"What? No, of course he hasn't—" Chuck broke off in the middle of his sentence. His eyes widened. "He sent me an email. Yesterday."
Something in his voice sent cold fear coursing through Sarah. She swallowed, and hoped it wasn't obvious. If Dave was right… "Did you open it?"
"Of course I did! It's an email from my best friend. I opened it on my break, if you're worried about me wasting Uncle Sam's dime—"
At any other point in time, she might have found his affronted look adorable. Right now, she had to fight a sinking feeling in her stomach. "I'm not," she said, interrupting him. "I need to see that email, Chuck."
"Sure, no problem." He shrugged. "You can, uh, you can put the gun away. I won't try anything, I swear."
She wanted to believe him. She was trained in recognizing lies and falsehoods, and Chuck hadn't displayed a single thing but honesty and confusion. But there were still too many unanswered questions that were now preying on her mind, so she kept the gun pointed at him as he led the way back to the office. If Bryce was in the bunker and had somehow managed to find a hiding spot, well…Sarah might need a hostage.
She didn't think about that too deeply. She couldn't.
The instant Chuck touched his computer keyboard, his body language changed. He had squared away from her when she had pointed the gun at him, unconsciously providing the smallest target, but the minute his fingers tapped the keys, he seemed to forget that she was in the office with him, quite a feat given just how crowded it was with both of them in there.
She had to clear her throat to get his attention. "What is it?"
"My hard drive! What the fu—" Chuck seemed to explode into life and motion; he tapped keys, checked cable connections on various machines, and lunged over to check a series of dials on the wall opposite her. Sarah took a half-step back. Even if she was still pointing the gun at him, there was a chance he would just forget about her and stampede right on through. He pushed a hand through his hair, which was longer than she remembered and curling faintly. "There wasn't a heat surge in here, and I just serviced that unit, which means something must have gotten onto my hard drive. But that makes no sense, I modified that virus protection software myself and—Bryce."
Though she got the distinct feeling he wasn't even talking to her, Sarah asked, "What about Bryce?"
"I opened the email—it was just a line of text from a video game we used to play back at Stanford. I thought it was just a game, honestly, but then there were all these pictures…" Chuck trailed off with a frown, not looking at her.
She almost nudged him with her gun to get his attention. "You saw them? And then what?"
Oh, God. Please let Digital Dave be wrong, she thought.
"I passed out. I don't know how long I was out. When I came to, my boss, Mr. Carver, he wanted me to report and asked if I needed medical attention, but I got a call from Bryce and—"
Sarah jerked. "You got a what?"
"Bryce, he called me on the satellite phone—" Chuck broke off as Sarah swore.
The timing, Sarah thought as she switched to a one-handed grip and picked up the phone, the same one Bryce had brought to the bunker nearly two years before, was too perfect. That meant that Bryce had somehow found a way to monitor the bunker's communications, or he'd known all along exactly what Chuck would do.
It was too much to hope that Bryce might have left a number, but she swore anyway to see "Number Blocked."
You really couldn't make things easy on anybody, Bryce, could you? She sent one vicious curse winging his way through the ether and turned her attention back to Chuck, whose panic had eaten through his anger about the broken computer.
"Sarah, what's going on? Ever since I opened that email, I've been having these, these spurts of, I don't know, insight or something. And I know things I shouldn't know about some very, very bad people. Why do I know that?"
And he gave her a look full of trust and terror. Face it, Walker, her brain piped up. You never really believed he was intentionally involved with Bryce's plot. You stupid woman. All of the anger and Agency training in the world couldn't hold up against Chuck Bartowski. She was a fool, and an idiot, and there was no way in hell this was ever going to end well.
She lowered the gun. Chuck wouldn't have helped blow up a building, not if it could lead to casualties. She knew that. She'd known that since the minute Dave had told her who had sent the email, and thinking differently had nearly caused acid reflux. Or it would have, if she'd stopped even long enough to be sick. Her hands shook as she shoved the gun back into its customary spot at her back.
"Chuck, what I'm about to tell you is top secret. I had to call in a lot of favors to keep this suppressed, so I need your word that you'll keep your mouth shut."
"Done," Chuck said. "Now tell me what the hell is going on!"
Sarah took a deep breath. The time for reckoning had come. She looked up into Chuck's face, and knew that the agent part of her was all but about to groan aloud at her possible naïveté. "Bryce Larkin is a rogue agent wanted by the CIA."
"Since when?"
"Since he broke into a secure facility twenty-four hours ago. He bombed a supercomputer the NSA and the CIA are calling the Intersect—it's a computer powerful enough to encode subliminal data into messages that can be cross-referenced by both agencies. There've been rumors that they're going to use it to send intelligence agents into the field, and Bryce destroyed not only the computer, but all of the files as well, but not before he downloaded them and sent them to you. He's since gone off the grid, though he may be injured."
She saw outright disbelief in Chuck's eyes, but he just swallowed hard. "I watched the pictures. Why would he do that?"
"I don't know. I was sent out to find him and to secure the copy he sent you." It was best, Sarah thought, not to let Chuck know that she wasn't entirely sanctioned at the moment. There were other, more important things to deal with, like the fact that Chuck had just become something that was supposed to be only highly theoretical, according to the briefing. She forced herself not to think about that yet. "Was that the only copy?"
"Yes, I have a program that automatically downloads my emails to my hard drive and deletes them off the server." Chuck pushed both hands through his hair, and she got the feeling he had just rattled off a bunch of computer talk without even remember who he was talking to. "It doesn't make any sense, Sarah. Bryce loves his country. He'd give up his life before he would turn rogue or traitor or whatever. There's gotta be something else going on here."
"There's not," Sarah said, though she had no definitive way to know that. "There's not. But Bryce has successfully managed to make it so that you've now become a super-computer—and property of the United States government."
Chuck, thankfully, did not stare at her like she had grown an extra head, though she was positive she would have deserved it. Instead, he did something much worse. The blood drained out of his face, and he shot a look of such pure horror at her that Sarah felt her stomach churn. "Oh, God." It was a moan. "They're going to stick me in an underground bunker. Again. My term was up in two months! It was almost done!" Desperation threaded his voice and he swung around to look at her, almost accusingly. "What the hell? Why would Bryce do this to me?"
She didn't have the first freaking clue. "Right now," she said, "it looks like you and Bryce were in this together."
"We weren't. Sarah, I wouldn't. Ever." Now instead of terrified or confused, Chuck looked hopeless, which was much worse. "Okay, so yeah, maybe the CIA wasn't exactly what I thought it would be when they recruited me at Stanford, but I still love my country. I did this to protect my friends, my family. I'm not a traitor."
"I believe you," Sarah said.
"You—you do? Really?"
It was heartbreaking just how shocked he looked, so she tried to focus past it. "Really. But now we have problems."
"Like?"
Like the fact that she hadn't managed to forget him over the past two years, which made everything stickier. Sure, she had pushed him from her thoughts for days, sometimes weeks. Once for an entire month. But it was going to cause problems, she could tell that already. And the fact that that bothered her more than her partner's alleged treason was one of those problems.
"Proving to the government you're innocent," she said, letting agent mode take over. "Normally, my word would be all that they would need, but with Bryce's betrayal…" And the fact that she had dropped off the grid within an hour of said betrayal hadn't helped, but it was better not to mention that to Chuck. He already looked panicked enough, hunkered forward with those strange weights hooked to his odd mummy-like wrapped shirt. She forced herself back onto the subject at hand. "Right now, you're unprotected in the middle of nowhere."
And she had not packed enough bullets for this.
"And when they figure everything out…I'm going back into the bunker for the rest of my life, aren't I?"
Over her dead, cold, and napalmed body. Sarah nearly blinked at the vehemence of her reaction, hoping that her face didn't give any of the fury away. "One thing at a time, Chuck," she said. An agent couldn't make promises.
Perhaps she should have. Her words had absolutely no affect on Chuck, as he sank into the desk chair, his eyes wide and once again hopeless. "The only way I've been able to stay here was because there was an end. I can't do this again, Sarah. I can't let everybody else live life and stay locked up for forever. I'll—I'll kill myself before that happens!"
Sarah's heart stopped. Instinctively, she reached out and grabbed his chin, which would have made her blink if she'd been in full control of her facilities. She immediately regretted it; he looked frightened, flinching away from her touch. "Chuck, one thing at a time, okay?"
He seemed to believe her. Or at least, he stopped flinching. Sarah made sure to keep her movements slow when she drew her hand away from his face, though inwardly she was cursing. The man had gone for two years without human contact, and here she was, practically mauling him.
And the limited space in the bunker was going to make things intensely difficult.
"Okay," Chuck said, his voice shaking only a little.
She had him go through what had happened to him from the minute the email had arrived, and had him repeat his conversation with Bryce several times. It was an agent trick, or a conman trick, used to catch somebody in a lie. The fact that Chuck's story fluctuated a little with each rendition soothed her, but it wasn't enough. She was in the middle of Siberia with a man who had futuristic technology in his skull, technology that belonged to the government of the United States, which meant it was now her job to protect him at all costs.
But the bunker didn't have any firepower, and she had only her back-up piece on her and one extra magazine. They were essentially sitting ducks. Sure, the properties of the bunker meant they could hide in and wait out a siege, but she had no idea how much food Chuck had left.
An idea started to form at the back of her mind. A risky, horrible, horrible idea. Was it possible? Could she pull it off? She'd burned through most of her extraction plan already, but she had failsafes in place. Did they have enough of a head start? Was she strong enough and smart enough to stay a step ahead of whatever Bryce had planned? At times, she had felt like a mouse in a maze during the ops he had planned, and she had never been able to best him at chess. Game theory had always been Carina's strength, not hers.
But the more she thought about it, the less of a choice it seemed she had. And she had one thing on her side: her own natural reticence. Bryce could try to outthink her, the government could throw one psych eval after the next at her, but Sarah had showed neither her full hand, ever. She had Jack Burton to thank for that.
But could Jack Burton's daughter keep Chuck safe? Damn it.
"And then you showed up, and here we are," Chuck said, finishing his story.
Sarah pushed the lump in her stomach down. She had to keep Chuck balanced; intelligent conversation seemed to do that, so she would appeal to that side of him until she had a better plan. "None of that helps me much," she said, "except it confirms that Bryce intended you to open that email. Otherwise he would have made the code harder."
"I agree. And thank you, for not making fun of me for playing Zork."
At least you have a hobby, Sarah wanted to say. She'd spent her last day off watching soap operas and wondering what the point was.
She gave him a small smile, which faded quickly. It wasn't a day for smiling. "It doesn't help that Bryce made you an unwitting accomplice. I'm not sure how secure this station is, or who to trust. This is big, Chuck."
"Huge. So how can we know who to trust?"
He was already looking to her to lead, which was a mistake, especially with what she was considering.
"All of my usual contacts are out. I don't know if Bryce was working with any of them, and I don't have time to check and keep an eye on you." She took a deep breath and finally gave in. "We're going to have to run."
26 SEPTEMBER 2007
TRANS-SIBERIAN EXPRESS
12:48 YEKT
Sarah slid open the compartment door with some difficulty, both because she and Chuck had managed to get the one compartment with the tricky door and because her hands were full. She didn't have to be a spy or even particularly observant to see the way Chuck jolted and took a deep breath, as though she were coming in to torture him rather than feed him. He'd stuffed himself back into the corner of the bench, close to the window but far away from the door. Thankfully, they had a private compartment on the Trans-Siberian Express. Otherwise, Sarah would never have been able to leave Chuck alone, not with him reacting the way he was.
To be fair to him, he recovered quickly now. "You came back," he said, sounding surprised.
"Of course I did." Sarah made sure to keep her voice nonchalant. Chuck trusted her—he probably trusted her too much—but there was a long way to go before it would become a natural belief, and she needed that from him if this plan was going to work. And that meant constant reassurance delivered in an everyday way, like she regularly took agents-turned-intelligence-assets off the grid and on the run through Russia.
She kept her movements slow as she unwrapped the silk scarf she'd used to cover her hair. Thanks to her bone structure, she blended in better in Russia than most other places, but she figured it was best to obscure as much as possible, which meant covering up her blonde hair, which would stand out on security surveillance footage. She would make it harder for the analysts or Bryce to find them however she could.
She set the bags she had bought on the bench, still moving slowly. Outside of the bunker, exposed in natural light, Chuck's pallor was startling, but it wasn't as bad as the fact that he jumped at everything, which was only putting her on edge. She had to keep reminding herself that it had been three years since he had done anything like this, that everything was a new experience for him.
If this was scary for her, it was a thousand times worse for him. He had a computer in his head, he had been ripped away from everything he had known for three years, and neither of them had the first clue about who they could trust and who they couldn't.
It made Sarah want to hit something. Instead, she just sat down opposite Chuck, careful to keep eye contact. She held out one of the sack. "Here. Eat it while it's hot."
"What is it?"
"A shawerma."
"Uh, bless you," Chuck said uncertainly. He took the sack from her, careful not to let his fingers brush against hers.
"They're like gyros," Sarah said, unwrapping her own. "You'll like it, I think."
"Oh. Well, thank you. What are all the other bags for?"
"It's a long ride to Moscow. We'll get hungry again and I don't really want to leave you alone any longer than I have to."
"Oh." Chuck didn't say anything more than that, but then, he didn't need to. He hunched his shoulders inward a little bit, and she could practically read the emotions across his face: intense relief that she wouldn't leave him alone again, followed by shame and embarrassment that he would feel that relief.
Maybe, Sarah thought, she should have taken him out onto the platform with her, but she knew better. Though she had changed into nondescript clothing, she could see that Chuck didn't want to abandon the odd mummy-shirt and the pants he'd worn in the bunker. He'd taken off the parka and hung it neatly by the door, which meant he looked less like three years of constant MREs hadn't done him any favors, but thanks to the pallor, the jumpiness, and the odd shirt, she really needed to keep Chuck in the compartment as much as possible. She was dreading the moment she would have to ask him to change, to give up the last remnants of the bunker.
He took a tentative bite of the shawerma. Sarah nearly reached for her gun when his eyes widened, but Chuck just took a bigger bite. And Sarah watched in awe (and fear for his fingers) as Chuck devoured the pita sandwich.
"S'good!" he said, looking surprised. "S'really good!"
It had been the first warm, fresh food he had had in three years, Sarah remembered. Wordlessly, she held out another sack to him.
The caution returned. "What's this?"
"Seconds. They're pretty cheap, so I bought a few."
"Oh." Chuck took his time eating the second shawerma, and Sarah's stomach settled down to let her enjoy her own. She wondered what it was like, eating the exact same thing for three years in a row, so that a cheap sandwich bought off a vendor at a Russian train station inspired that sense of wonder.
It made her want to shoot something. Or cry. She was more comfortable with the first option.
"Unfortunately, we're going to be stuck with these for the rest of the trip. And some fruit." Sarah showed Chuck one of the sacks.
He poked inside. "Is it like Ramen?"
"Yes." She cringed inwardly. The guy's first real food in three years, and she was forcing the gastronomical equivalent of Styrofoam on him.
Chuck, however, startled her by giving her a real smile. "Awesome. I love Ramen."
Belatedly, Sarah remembered that Bryce had brought him Spaghetti-Ohs during the trip to the bunker. She should have anticipated this.
"Excellent," she said. "The station had a newsstand, too. They didn't have a big selection in English, but they did have this. It's a long ride to Moscow."
"You bought out the station, didn't you?" Chuck's grin flashed, and he seemed to relax until she opened the bag the newsstand had given her. He bolted upright. "Oh, awesome! I've been trying to keep up with this series online, but I was a little behind. Thanks!"
That was a lie, Sarah determined. He'd already read the comic book—which she had thought was a fortuitous find—online. She felt part of her deflate until Chuck picked up the comic, tracing his fingers wonderingly over the front page, simply taking in the texture.
And when they figure everything out…I'm going back into the bunker for the rest of my life, aren't I?
Chuck's words, which had played through her head through the entire morning while they'd raced to catch the Trans-Siberian Express, echoed again now. Sarah quickly looked away from Chuck and out the window. She told herself she was scanning the station for signs of trouble, and that the sunlight outside was a little bright on her face, which was why she blinked a lot.
Was she doing this, running away with Chuck, really to keep him protected? Or was it to keep him, all of him, out of the bunker for life? Where did she draw the line?
She had signed her own death warrant in blood the minute she had told Chuck to go fetch all of his things, and she had sent a text to Dave, the last communication the CIA would have from her. She had stomped on the phone and disconnected the satellite phone in the bunker, thus severing all contact. Even the agent part of her had to admit it was smart, if a bit old-school. The only person you could trust in the field was yourself. When in doubt, it was best to remember that. With Bryce's actions being so questionable, dropping out of sight was smart. It let her evaluate what was safe and what wasn't, and it kept Chuck out of the crosshairs just a little while longer.
What wasn't smart was having thoughts of never coming back, of just vanishing permanently. It was the only way to definitively keep Chuck out of a godforsaken bunker.
Why the hell had Bryce done this to him? To her? Why would he risk lives and blow up the Intersect? Why hadn't she seen it coming?
"You okay?" Chuck's voice drew her back into the compartment.
A second later, the train jerked and shuddered, a sign that they were moving again. Chuck's hand automatically shot out to grab onto the rail by the window, and even Sarah's fingers twitched for her gun. They gave each other mutually sheepish grins.
"Yeah," Sarah lied. "I'm fine."
She wasn't. Her body almost physically hurt thanks to the exhaustion and strain she had put on it by racing across the planet, but thanks to rigorous training, she knew she had a couple of days of wakefulness left in the can before it became seriously detrimental to her health and mental facilities. Stress was making her stomach churn again. The shawerma had helped, but not much.
"Hey, look." Chuck pawed through the bag from the newsstand, his eyebrows high. He waved something at her. "It really is going to be a long train ride, hmm?"
"I figured it couldn't hurt."
Chuck split open the deck of cards. "I haven't been able to play a good game of Solitaire outside the computer in years," he said. "It's the weirdest thing, but for some reason the deck in the bunker is missing the Jack of Hearts, which makes it a little difficult to play."
Sarah kept her gaze focused out the window. "Do you have any idea where it could have gone?"
"That's the strange part. I mean, it's a government bunker. There's not a lot of places the card could be, and I've looked everywhere." Chuck shrugged. "I guess it'll always be a mystery."
"Guess so."
"Go Fish for old times' sake?" Chuck asked, shuffling easily. "I figure it's probably safer than strip poker, considering how badly you cheat."
Some devil inside of Sarah made her raise one eyebrow. "Does that mean if I promise not to cheat, we'd be playing strip poker?"
Chuck turned red. "I don't think strip poker would be such a good idea, even if the door does lock. I mean, I hardly know you and—"
"I was kidding. Poker's something you only play for money."
She could practically see the relief rolling off of him. "Or nuts and bolts."
"And I'll have you know, using every opportunity is not cheating, it's just smart." Sarah grinned. "It's been awhile since I played Go Fish. You're on."
26 SEPTEMBER 2007
TRANS-SIBERIAN EXPRESS
23:17 YEKT
It was an interesting parallel, Sarah couldn't help but think. The longer they stayed in the same train compartment together, the more relaxed Chuck grew and the edgier she became. She was pretty sure she hid it well, thanks to having won paychecks off of her fellow operatives in Agency poker games for years, even if Chuck was observant and oblivious by turns. A day with very little to do but stare at the passing Russian countryside—until she had noticed that Chuck seemed uncomfortable with so much openness and had closed the curtain—was bound to wear anybody in the best of circumstances, and things were far from ideal.
She should be sleeping. After all, the first thing they were taught at training was how to catnap when there was nothing else to do, and Sarah had put her body through hell over the past…she couldn't even count anymore. She had only been asleep for an hour and a half before Dave's phone call had interrupted her dreams, and she had been in three planes, which meant lowered oxygen levels, had parachuted into Siberia, jogged ten kilometers, committed petty larceny, and taken a snowmobile several hundred kilometers. That was on top of stress and while keeping a vigilant eye out for her traveling partner, who, though he didn't mean to be a pain, presented several problems.
He was rereading the comic for the fifth time and looked like he wasn't going anywhere. She should really use this opportunity, while he was relaxed, to recharge her body.
Instead, she just sat back against the seat and stared at the wall opposite. Had Dave told the higher-ups about the email to Chuck? Were they even now on their way to the bunker, to collect him for treason and terrorism? By now, Sarah knew they suspected she was involved. Her actions in racing to Chuck without reporting in had more than cast a suspicious light on her. On the slightest chance both she and Chuck made it through the next few days alive, she would be lucky to be pushing papers in the Mount Washington Observatory. Years of service to the Agency, working toward a promotion and prestige, down the drain.
It almost physically hurt. But there was no point in wondering what she might have done differently, not when she was operating off as little information as she was. She had to trust her instincts right now.
"Hey, Sarah?"
Sarah snapped out of her thoughts. Chuck had set the comic aside and was looking at her hesitantly. It was a little heartbreaking, after remembering just how fun and open he had been on her visit to the bunker, to see just how small and shy the outside world made him.
"Yes?" she asked, hoping he hadn't had to say her name more than once to get her attention.
"Do you need the light on? I think I'm going to try and get some rest…"
"Oh. Right. Yeah, that's a good idea." Sarah rose to turn off the light herself. She tossed Chuck his parka to use as a pillow, but he put it on instead, which made her shrug to herself. When she turned to head back to her berth, however, she forgot about the bag she'd brought with her. And like a first-year trainee who hadn't cased the room, she tripped.
Before Sarah had even registered the sensation of falling or had time to curse, a hand shot out of the darkness. She blinked, and she was back on her feet. Chuck also had both hands on her upper arms. He'd literally caught her before she could nose-dive into the floor. She hadn't even heard or seen him move.
The instant he realized he was touching her, he all but yelped and nearly stumbled backwards. "Sorry, sorry—"
Sarah didn't put a hand over her belly to still the surprised nerves, but it was a close thing. "Why would you be sorry?" she asked, ignoring her pounding heart. "You saved me."
"I highly doubt that."
"Fine, then you spared my dignity. Thank you."
She couldn't be sure in the darkness, but she thought he might be flushing. Great, Sarah thought. That made two of them. "Maybe you should, ah, move the bag so that doesn't happen again?" Chuck asked.
"Yeah, good idea." Sarah kicked it out of the main pathway between the berths. "Happy to provide the evening's entertainment, I guess."
There was a pause from the other side of the compartment, which she was starting to make out thanks to her night-vision adjusting. "It's a class act," Chuck finally said, and she saw him shift about in the dark, trying to get comfortable on the bench even though there were bunks above their heads. She wondered why until she remembered that he had always taken the bottom bunk in the bunker—as if she would forget exactly what had happened to her in that bunk, ever. She didn't begrudge him the familiarity, even if it meant she was stuck on the opposite bench. "G'night, Sarah."
"Good night," Sarah replied.
She didn't sleep. She should have; her body craved real, deep rest like an actual, tangible yearning, but her mind wouldn't still long enough for sleep to come. She had only her damn near photographic memory to thank for that, as her thoughts wandered once again to Bryce. What were his motives? What could he possibly gain by blowing up the Intersect and sending it to Chuck? If he intended to sell Chuck to the highest bidder, why hadn't he collected Chuck yet? Had something happened in the explosion and she had simply arrived before him? Was Bryce chasing them through Russia even now?
Were they playing right into his hands?
For the love of everything that was holy, why hadn't she seen something, some clue, anything, that would have given her a warning that this day was approaching?
Hours dragged by in darkness while her brain ran in circles. For the fiftieth time, she replayed every single conversation she could remember having with Bryce over the past six months, but once again, she came up with nothing. Even though they had been trained by the same teachers, had been partners for years, through, as they said, thick and thin, she hadn't been able to pick up a single detail that things might not be all they seemed with Bryce.
As a spy, it made her feel like a failure.
As Bryce's ex-partner, it made her feel fury like none other, sitting hot behind her chest. She felt the damning sting of tears and held her breath, hoping she didn't sniffle and give herself away in case Chuck wasn't actually sleeping.
He wasn't.
She heard his intake of breath, so she didn't jolt when he asked, "Why would he do it?"
Apparently she wasn't the only one wondering. Sarah blinked hard a couple of times to clear her eyes. "I don't know."
"I mean, the guy's like a boy scout—hell, he was a boy scout."
"Eagle Scout," Sarah said. Bryce had told her that once in Colombia, when they'd been stuck camping for a couple of days and he had been building a fire for them.
He'd grinned as he said it, just a little sheepishly.
"So why do this?" Chuck went on. "Why betray his country like this?"
Sarah closed her eyes. The fury was beginning to burn brighter, a painful heat inside her. "I don't know."
"You were his partner. Surely you noticed somethi—"
Something inside her snapped. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation, maybe it was the fact that she had raced across the planet on very little intel and was now operating on even less. It was definitely the stress. Sarah didn't know what she was doing until she had one fist buried in Chuck's parka and the other fist so tight that her knuckles striped white and pink in the darkness. "I didn't suspect a thing. I saw nothing, okay? I thought things were fine. I even went out and had drinks with him the night he stole the Intersect and, still, I noticed nothing!"
Was that really her voice?
Chuck stared up at her. In the darkness, she couldn't quite make out every single one of his features, but she could see enough to know that he wasn't even breathing. "Is it really me you're mad at?"
Oh, God. Sarah felt the blood drain from her face until she was as pale as Chuck. What the hell had just come over her? This wasn't her. She didn't snap like this. She wasn't some monster that attacked innocent bystanders. Chuck had done absolutely nothing wrong, and here she was about to pummel him with her fist.
She felt a wave of nausea as she let go and staggered back to her bench.
Chuck's parka rustled. He sat up and put his elbows on his knees, leaning toward her. Sarah had to fight the urge to tilt back, away from him. She'd all but mauled him, and yet he gave her that frank, earnest look.
"Whatever happened with Bryce, it's not your fault. He's his own person. He'll face the consequences of his actions someday. I fully believe that. But he's good at pretty much everything he's ever done, so there's no use beating yourself up because he kept this a secret. He's got skills. That's why he's Bond."
Chuck had been through hell. His best friend had sent him the Intersect, made him an unwitting accomplice, and she had pulled him away from his safe haven and out into a world fraught with uncertainty, and here he was, reassuring her. Sarah felt another wave of nausea and guilt that she had almost attacked him.
"Except," she heard herself say in a voice that was distinctly not like hers, "Bond wasn't a traitor."
There was nothing but silence from the other side of the compartment for so long that Sarah wondered if her limited knowledge of James Bond had failed her, and the man really was a traitor. But Chuck just cleared his throat after a minute. "Why don't, ah, why don't you lie down, get some sleep? I'll keep watch for awhile, make sure nobody disturbs you or anything."
And now, on top of everything else, he was being a sweetheart. Sarah felt a sad smile start to form. They really had broken the mold after they had made Chuck Bartowski. "I'm supposed to be protecting you, not the other way around."
"And I promise that if we get attacked by bad guys, my girlish screams of terror will wake you up in plenty of time."
Chuck's words shouldn't have been reassuring, given exactly what they were facing: Bryce, the government, foreign nationals that might know about Chuck. But Sarah found herself curling up on the bench anyway to humor him since she doubted she would even be able to sleep.
She was wrong. With Chuck watching over her, she was out within minutes.
No comments:
Post a Comment