Fortune Favors Fools 03: It's Time You Unbecame

now does our world descend
the path to nothingness
(cruel now cancels kind;
friends turn to enemies)
therefore lament, my dream
and don a doer's doom


create is now contrive;
imagined, merely know
(freedom: what makes a slave)
therefore, my life, lie down
and more by most endure
all that you never were


hide, poor dishonoured mind
who thought yourself so wise;
and much could understand
concerning no and yes:
if they've become the same
it's time you unbecame


where climbing was and bright
is darkness and to fall
(now wrong's the only right
since brave are cowards all)
therefore despair, my heart
and die into the dirt


but from this endless end
of briefer each our bliss-
where seeing eyes go blind
(where lips forget to kiss)
where everything's nothing
-arise,my soul;and sing


- ee cummings, now does our world descend

It's Time You Unbecame

4 APRIL 2006
COORDINATES REDACTED
05:32 EAT

The factory was supposed to blow in twelve minutes.
There were going to be a lot of disappointed people, Sarah thought as she eased around a corner, automatically checking for any enemy targets before doing so. There were the people in the nearby villages, for whom the factory had destroyed their way of life and polluted the water supply. Her boss, because his two top agents had failed in their secondary task. Her partner, because he liked video games and to, as he put it, "blow shit up." And herself.

This was going to be yet another failed mission in a string of failed missions. Sure, with a little luck and skill, they would accomplish their primary goal, but leaving another mission incomplete would smart for days, possibly weeks.

The corridor was clear. "C'mon," Sarah said to her companion, even though he didn't understand a single word of English. She figured the head jerk was universal for "follow me," though, and set out, trusting that he would follow her. He had introduced himself as "Imani," and he had been their entry into the factory, a driver that had been willing to smuggle a couple of CIA operatives in exchange for asylum and a one-way ticket to America for his family.

The problem was, Bryce spoke the local dialect, and she didn't. She'd been focused on the blueprints and infiltration of the building, while Bryce had taken point on language since the plan wasn't ever for them to split up. No plan, however, survived first contact with reality, and the first thing that had happened had been Bryce getting separated from Imani and Sarah by an ill-timed guard going on his break. Sarah and Imani had been forced to keep going, which meant that Sarah was now alone in this giant factory with a man who didn't speak a word of English, French, Russian, Urdu, or Spanish, they were seven minutes behind schedule, and she had no idea where the hell her partner was, which meant that no way in hell was she blowing this building.

The corridor was clear of guards. They made it to the end, Sarah's boots just as silent as Imani's bare feet on the linoleum. She wasn't kitted out with her full gear for this op—just the minimum amount of charges that she would need to place at key points in the infrastructure, a suppressed S&W in her thigh-holster, the unfamiliar, also-suppressed Jericho 941, and a "Just in case" MP-5. Though she wanted to, she didn't look up at the security cameras in the corner and smile. It wouldn't be visible through the mask. If things were going to plan in at least one area, those would be nicely looped right now. It made her heart flutter in ways she didn't want to acknowledge to know that she was maybe being watched in one location, hundreds of miles and continents away.

Dammit, Walker, focus.

"This way," she said needlessly, turning down yet another endless corridor.

She had memorized the map of the building thanks to the scant forty-two hours of prep work they had received on this mission, but blueprints and layouts never failed to portray just how boring a building could be. The factory was a complicated layout of assembly rooms where the workers were paid too little and worked for inhumane amounts of time, with the offices set above all of that down a series of long, fluorescently-lit hallways. There weren't even motivational posters on the walls to break up the monotony. Most of the office workers hadn't arrived for the day, but Sarah knew, according to his schedule, that the head of the company would already be in. He might have been killing the local wildlife and population with his factory's pollution, and funding some very nasty arms deals, but George Hedare apparently believed in keeping a very strict schedule.

It would make his assassination so much easier.

At the next corner, she bit her tongue over the desire to ask Imani if he was still doing okay, as the Sudanese national wouldn't understand anyway, and allowed herself a moment to take a deep breath, tightening her grip on her S&W. From this point, there was really no going back. It was a straight shot to Hedare's office. Time to commit.

She edged around the corner, gun at the ready—and bit back a combination of a yelp and a swear.

"Miss me?" Bryce asked. He leaned against the wall idly, looking entirely out of place in his black fatigues and mask.

Sarah lowered her gun, glad that her reflexes were faster than her nerves, and glared. "God, Bryce, I nearly shot you!"

"But you didn't."

"I should have," Sarah said.

"Just keeping you on your game."

Sarah had to fight back the answering sigh. Bryce's games and tricks had been old six months ago. "How did you beat me here?"

"You have the charges bag, so I had nothing to do but wait." Bryce leaned around her to smile at Imani through his mask, and said something Sarah couldn't translate. Imani's return chatter was rapid-fire.

Sarah ignored the guide. "You didn't think that maybe since you had so much time on your hands, you should have taken out Hedare?"

Bryce shrugged. "You've got the murder weapon."

Sarah wasted no time in shoving it toward him. "I have no idea why we decided I'd be carrying all of the damned gear on this op."

Bryce patted the MP-5 hanging from a sling on his back, ignoring the other MP-5 in his hand. "I'm the muscle, you're the finesse, remember? Want me to take Hedare?"

"Yes." She made sure to keep her voice nonchalant. She trusted Bryce as her partner, but the less the CIA found out about her abhorrence of these assassinations, the better. "I'll cover you."

"Always excellent to have you at my back, Mrs. Anderson."

"Don't call me that."

"Aw, come on. A few more minutes of this and then we get to go back to being the Andersons. Might as well get into character now."

At least some part of their partnership was still intact, Sarah thought, in the way that Bryce told Imani to stay put and they set out together down the corridor in perfect formation. It felt so much better to be carrying her S&W than the Jericho, the weapon of choice of Hedare's second-in-command, ex-Mossad officer Ari Gidon. She ignored Bryce until she saw him glance over his shoulder at her. "Are you okay?"

She was annoyed, but other than that, she was fine, and she said so.

"Really?"

"I'd really like to get on with killing Hedare now, if it's all the same to you."

"Fine by me," Bryce said. They turned the final corridor that led to Hedare's office, which wouldn't even be guarded by a secretary at this hour. The man thought he was safe in his own factory. It was nice of the CIA to prove him wrong, Sarah thought.

Bryce paused just inside the executive suite, a few paces from Hedare's office. "You know what?" he said, looking seriously at her for the first time since they had come into the factory together, smuggled in on Imani's truck among boxes of chemicals. "You're no fun anymore, and I can't figure out why that is."

Sarah scowled and opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, Bryce slipped away with the Jericho to go kill Hedare.


4 APRIL 2006
COORDINATES REDACTED
05:41 EAT

"It's too dangerous," Sarah insisted for the fifth time.

"Quit being such a downer." Bryce had been scowling ever since he had slipped into Hedare's office and back out of it a moment later. Killing a man in cold blood would get to anybody but the most classically trained sociopath. "It'll be fine."

"You said that about the mission in Belize."

"And it turned out fine."

"Define 'fine,' Bryce."

"We're not dead, right?"

"We got four people killed. Excuse me if I'm a little less cavalier with other peoples' lives."

Bryce rolled his eyes. Sneaking behind him, Imani looked between the two CIA agents, his mask strangely out of place with his factory uniform. He couldn't understand the words, Sarah figured, but the situation was universal. Two partners arguing.

"Look, the mission is two-fold," Bryce said, his voice taking on that strained patient quality that Sarah hated because it always seemed to insist that she was being an idiotic female. "Kill Hedare and blow the factory. We're still here, we haven't been blown—pun intended, ha, ha. We can complete this mission."

"The workers are going to start arriving in ten minutes," Sarah said.

Bryce paused at the corner to check for any guards. "Plenty of time," he said, looking over his shoulder to give what she felt might have been a ghost of his cocky grin.

"Two of the charges haven't been set."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because I had problems blowing the building if I didn't know you were still inside it." Sarah glared.

Bryce glared right back. "This complicates things. How long will it take to set those?"
Sarah brought up her mental map of the facility, calculated distances, considered the guards' schedules. She had neglected setting these charges because these charges were the farthest out and could theoretically not be detonated with the others. The building would still fall down around them, but it wouldn't be the complete job the CIA wanted.

"Seven minutes, tops," she said. "Perfect scenario would be four."

"Make it six, and meet us in the transportation bay."

"What are you going to do?"

"My job."

God, she wanted to punch him in his smug mouth sometimes. Why was it so impossible for him to give her a straight answer?

Bryce must have caught the murderous glint to her expression, for he sighed. "Imani and I are going to go warn the workers who have already arrived. Hit the alarm on the way to the transportation bay to let us know you're on your way. We should have been out of here already."

Shut up, Sarah wanted to tell him. But she just nodded and split off, heading to set the charges. This time she did look up at the security camera, but she didn't smile. She told herself it wasn't for some sort of assurance.

She was lying.


4 APRIL 2006
COORDINATES REDACTED
05:49 EAT

No matter how many times she heard it, there was always something new and startling to the sound of gunfire. She didn't have time to marvel at this highly philosophical observation before the Agency training took over; Sarah crouched and flattened herself to the side of the corridor, her S&W swinging up and her eyes tracking, looking for the source.

Nothing. The corridor was empty.

They weren't shooting at her, Sarah realized.

Shit. So much for their clean escape.

She launched herself from a crouch to a full run, the adrenaline kicking through her system and sharpening the world into that odd clarity things seemed to take when danger appeared. Colors brightened. Time seemed to stumble in fits and starts. And Sarah ran. She tucked the S&W back into its holster as she did so, swung the MP-5 up, checked her ammo, switched off the safety, and prepared to round the corner. She had no idea where the shooters were in relation to herself, but she was ninety-five percent sure they were shooting at Bryce.

After all, she knew very few other people in this factory that would have pissed the guards off enough for gunplay to be involved.

The corner led to a short hallway that intersected with a corridor parallel to the one she had just been traveling. She saw Bryce almost immediately. He and Imani had taken cover in a little alcove across the hall from her corner, and they were facing something off to her right, crouched down. Imani's eyes were huge and white, stark against his dark face, but Bryce seemed pissed off beneath his mask.

He swung around to look at her and quickly jerked the gun away before he could flag her too badly.

Sarah signaled. How many?


Two. Northeast corner. Semi-automatics.

If it was two now, it would be more soon. They'd need to move quickly. Sarah signaled that she was ready. Bryce held up three fingers, lowered one, lowered the second. On three, he sprang out, providing a quicksilver target. Sarah waited a split-second and then rolled out. It took two squeezes of the trigger. She imagined that she could hear the bullets hitting her targets, but tried not to think about it.

"C'mon," Bryce told Imani, also ignoring the man's lack of English. He took point, gun trained ahead of him, trusting that Sarah would bring up the rear. "You get the charges planted?"

"Planted and armed."

"We're going to need a way out of here."

"The guards' scheduled routes are going to be messed up now." Sarah took a breath. "Call Chuck."

She saw Bryce fumble for the sat phone with one hand. "This wouldn't have happened if you had planted the charges when you were supposed to."

"Ass," Sarah muttered under her breath.

Imani looked over his shoulder at her, wide-eyed. Apparently, Sarah thought, some English words were universal. The three of them were all but running now, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the two dead guards. They'd been lucky so far, but it was only a matter of time until they ran into another set. This time, they wouldn't have the element of surprise on their side.

Bryce seemed to agree because he ducked into one of the rooms rather than continuing. "We'll get Chuck to figure out a clean way out of here," he said, and Sarah did her level best not to roll her eyes. She wasn't some green first year trainee who needed to have a simple plan explained to her.

Before she could make a biting retort, however, Bryce's attention shifted to the phone. "Chuck! Hey, buddy!"

Sarah kept herself from jerking in surprise by inching the door open slightly and keeping a look out. They'd picked a storage room, filled floor to ceiling with boxes, for their hideout. It wouldn't be long before the guards started searching all of the rooms, but for a temporary fix, it was as ideal as it could be. Imani was short and skinny enough to hide in one of the boxes, and she could possibly do the same if she recalled her contortionist training properly. Bryce, she wasn't sure, but hopefully Chuck would have some kind of solution.

"No, it wasn't my fault," Bryce said into the phone, and Sarah rolled her eyes. She wanted to ask him whom the guards had started shooting at first, but she wasn't sure she wanted to resort to that level of pettiness yet. "Seriously! It wasn't. Things happen. You got a way out of here, buddy? We're looking to avoid any more...ah...entanglements. Sure, but be quick about it, okay?"

Sarah held up a hand for silence as a group of guards ran by the door. She let out a breath when they just kept running.

It had been six months since the bunker. Not even six months. Five and a half months. And in that time, things had become strained, almost to a breaking point; they just hadn't meshed as well as they had before he had changed their Cabo plans. Sure, she'd made a couple of mistakes with Bryce—adrenaline, alcohol, and near-death experiences never mixed well—but thing shouldn't be this off, even three months after those mistakes had occurred. Bryce had to move on at some point, right? It was like there was a gulf of space and distance between them, and she had no idea how to fix it. She didn't want to give him what she knew he wanted, and he should have gotten that message by this point. She just wanted her partnership back, without all of the sniping and infighting and bickering.

She wanted to be good at her job again.

A small noise made her look away from the door in alarm. Imani, their stalwart guide, who hadn't protested the change in plans when everything had gone belly-up at first, was standing against the wall. He was staring down at the palm of one hand in horror.

From even by the door, she could see the slash of bright red blood against his hand.

"Bryce!" she snapped as Imani seemed to buckle back against the wall.

"What is—oh, God." Bryce, without having to think about it, threw the satellite phone to her and seemed to teleport across the room to where Imani had crumpled. Sarah caught the phone automatically. "I didn't know he was hit," Bryce told her before he turned to Imani, switching to the man's native tongue.

Sarah could believe it. Shock affected everybody in different ways. She and Bryce had been through the same training, so they both knew the stories of agents who had gone on for hours without realizing they had shrapnel lodged in their bodies after explosions.

"Is it bad?" she asked, wincing in sympathy. She'd been shot a couple of times when she hadn't been fast or smart enough to duck.
"Thigh," Bryce said tightly. "Give me a minute."

"Hello?" The sound of Chuck Bartowski's voice in her ear nearly made Sarah drop the phone she had forgotten that she was holding. "Still there, Bryce?"

"It's me, Chuck," Sarah said, looking from the door to their injured comrade.

There was a pause. "Sarah?"

"In the flesh. So to speak."

"Wow, it's been ages." Chuck sounded a bit gobsmacked, which made her stomach flutter—or maybe that was just an aftereffect of adrenaline and Imani's injury. "How are you? You okay?"

"I'm good," Sarah said. "You've got a way out of here for us?" She paused. "And, um, how are you doing?"

She could practically hear his smile through the phone. "Better now," he said, and Sarah actually forgot how to breathe for a nanosecond. Thankfully, she had turned away from Bryce. She could feel a damn blush beginning to spread across her cheeks. Oh, hell. "And have I got an escape route for you."

"Wonderful. Hold on just a second?" Sarah lowered the mouthpiece of the phone so that it was against her neck. She would have covered it completely, but she needed her other hand for the gun. "How is he, Bryce?"

"It missed the femoral artery. It'll hurt, but he'll be fine if we can get him to a hospital." Bryce had his eyes narrowed, but not at Imani; he was eyeing her. She immediately felt her stomach drop. Did he suspect something? "Does Chuck have a way out?"

"I'm going to have to guide you around the guards," Chuck said, apparently having heard his name. "Are you three okay?"

"We'll be okay if we can get out of here," Sarah said.

She heard Chuck blow out a shaky breath. "Wow, no pressure or anything. Okay, wait a few seconds, there's a couple of guards going by, and then you're clear."

"Perfect." Sarah used the opportunity to sling the MP-5 onto her back, pulling her S&W out once more. She'd either need to stay on the phone with Chuck to get them out of there or she would have to support Imani, but either way, it meant she would be shooting one-handed. It didn't matter to her: she was just as lethal with the Smith & Wesson as she was with the Heckler & Koch. Deeper inside the room, Bryce was hurriedly fashioning a bandage for Imani's thigh. "Thanks for your help with this, Chuck. I don't know what we ever did without you."

"It's what I'm here for." The smile was back in his voice. "Okay, shh, they're coming."

Sarah's grip tightened on the gun. She could hear the thump of combat boots against the linoleum now. Though she didn't need to, she held up her hand for silence from Bryce and Imani, the latter of whom was grimacing and sweating.

Every second was an eternity in its own right as the guards tromped past, though the analytical half of her knew that time was passing normally, that the guards were actually in a bit of a hurry. Sarah didn't dare breathe, however, until the sound of their footsteps, which had echoed loudly in the stillness, had finally receded.

"Okay, you're clear," Chuck said. "Go!"

Sarah jerked her head at the other two. Without missing a beat, Bryce slung Imani over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, leaving a hand free for his PT92. "Which way?" Sarah asked, yanking open the door.

"Your left. You've got thirty seconds before another set of guards shows up, I'd suggest booking it."

"Got it." She took off, trusting that Bryce, even weighted down, would keep up. He really was the muscle, as he had claimed earlier. The slim look was quite deceptive with him, as it was for her. Neither one of them would ever need help lifting heavy things. "Which way next?"

"Corridor coming up, hook a right."

She trusted Chuck's directions. In the beginning, she had been a bit nervous, putting her life in the hands of a man behind a computer in Siberia, but Chuck had proven time and again to keep a cool head whenever they faced danger. She had wondered at times if he ever viewed navigating them through various enemy compounds like one of his video games, and couldn't be sure how she felt about that. Unlike a video game, life lost in this situation was permanent, but according to Bryce, Chuck was supposed to be a video gaming master.

He proved that now by leading them right out of the facility, almost directly under the noses of the guards. It was quite a distance; by the time they reached the transportation bay, where they would hijack one of the company vehicles, Sarah was panting and Bryce was almost gasping for breath. And the second half of the trip was punctuated by the loud shrilling of the fire alarm, as Sarah had pulled it to evacuate the building.

Bryce dumped Imani in the first truck by the door. "You're faster at hotwiring cars than I am," he said between pants. "Give me the phone. I'll talk to Chuck."

Sarah's hand tightened reflexively around the phone, and she was just a hair too slow in handing it over. And she saw, clearly, the way, Bryce's eyes tracked both movements. He met her gaze for the briefest of instants, and his look was a thousand different things: hurt, confused, upset, annoyed.

And then that moment ended, and she raced to pop the hood and hotwire the car. If she'd had time, she would have closed her eyes or pounded her head against something. Just one more damned stumbling block for them to get over before the partnership could be back to smooth sailing. If that ever happened.

But there wasn't time. Sarah got to work.


4 APRIL 2006
COORDINATES REDACTED
05:49 EAT

The explosion, when it happened, was a little less than inspiring.

More like an implosion, Sarah thought, stomping so that the gas pedal kissed the floor. Bryce had the better medical knowledge and he wanted to see the explosion, so she'd taken the wheel of their stolen truck. The ground rumbled, tilting the truck a little, as the building collapsed in on itself. Dust from the surrounding desert flumed up. Sarah pushed the gas pedal harder, glancing constantly in the rearview mirror to make sure that they weren't being followed more than to watch the explosion. There were fresh bullet scars in the hood and along the sides of the truck, but thankfully, they'd surprised the guards enough to get away.

"We're clear," Bryce said, and Sarah wasn't sure if he was talking to her or the phone. He cleared that up by saying, "Thanks, Chuck. Couldn't have done it without you, buddy."

There was a pause as he listened, and he laughed at whatever it was Chuck had said. "No, I didn't take a cell phone video of the explosion to send to you. I'll have to remember that next time." Another pause. "Yeah, sure, I'll tell her. Bye, Chuck."

He set the phone on the seat between them and stared out the windshield for a moment. "Chuck says to tell you good-bye for him," he said at length.

"Oh." Sarah kept her gaze focused forward as well, though she checked the rearview mirror constantly for signs of anybody following them. It didn't look like the guards had mobilized fast enough to follow the truck. "That was nice of him."

"Yeah," was all Bryce said to that, before he climbed into the backseat to check on Imani's wound.

Sarah kept her gaze fixed on the road.


4 APRIL 2006
EN ROUTE TO KHARTOUM
15:02 EAT

The back of the company car felt more like a church, Sarah thought, or a cathedral or someplace large and quiet, where the air barely stirred even for the people inhabiting it. Realistically, Sarah knew Bryce was only a little over a foot away, sitting on the other side of the backseat, but he sat as still as a marble statue, and just as cold. Which had been, Sarah thought, the way it was since they had arrived at the embassy together that morning. He hadn't said a word to her beyond what was necessary, and he hadn't looked at her. Hell, it was like she wasn't even in the same room with him anymore.

It was making her feel very small, and as a result, annoyed. Mostly at herself—why the hell was Chuck Bartowski so permanently lodged in her thoughts?—but at him, as well. It wasn't like it was something she could control. Otherwise she'd have flushed Chuck from her system a long time before. It wasn't like it was convenient, having these thoughts about a man literally stuck in the middle of nowhere.

Damn it.

She watched the desert pass by outside the window, grateful that she had remembered sunglasses this time. She didn't want this marble statue of a partner sitting next to her—though the description was fitting, as Bryce was rather classically handsome, like one of the Greek gods. She wanted her old partner back, the man who had convinced her to stay up late at that dive bar in Laos so they could compare Farm horror stories, the one who had understood just when she didn't want to talk and when she did. She hated being at odds with him all the time. She hated knowing that they weren't being the best because they were too absorbed in stupid little stuff.

Why the hell hadn't they just gone to Cabo, had a week of passionate sex on the beach, and settled into a mindless romance? It would be so much easier than this turmoil.

The statue beside her cleared his throat, the first sign of life she had seen or heard from him in an hour. Sarah half-turned in acknowledgement, but slowly. She didn't want Bryce to think she had been waiting eagerly for his first move.

"I've been thinking," Bryce said, and Sarah nearly teased him about hurting himself. The timing, however, was awful for that.

So she just lifted a brow. "About?"

"When we get back to DC." Bryce didn't look at her. "I'm going to request a transfer."

Sarah's hands went cold. Even though the day outside was boiling hot, the air conditioning inside the car had been blasting. Before Bryce's announcement, it had been pleasant, but now Sarah's hands felt as though somebody had simply plunged them into a bucket of ice. She blinked a couple of times, both unsure of Bryce's meaning and understanding all too well what he had said.

"To?"

"Solo work." Now Bryce did turn to look at her, but his face was just as cold and the same granite façade as it had been the entire car ride. "Something's wrong with us, Sarah. We're not working well together, and people are getting hurt. You were right today, what you said about Belize. And hell, Imani wouldn't have gotten shot today if we had had our shit together."

Sarah's first reply was to point that Imani had been alone with Bryce when he had been shot, so it wasn't any fault of hers...but she hadn't planted those charges.

So maybe Bryce had a point.

Even so, it stung, physically, right below her heart. And it made it a little harder to breathe in the back of the company car. She was grateful that she hadn't raised the sunglasses when she felt the damnable sting of tears prickle against the edges of her eyelids, though a lifetime of training ensured that her face didn't change. Suddenly, she thought, she was Sam, or Rebecca, or Jenny Burton, and she wasn't good enough or pretty enough again, and it hurt.

But all she said was, "I see."

Bryce, to his credit, didn't try to sell her with empty words about how it was him, not her, about how all things must come to an end. Though she might have appreciated the coddling, some part of her had to respect that, even if most of her resented him.

"If that's how you feel," she went on, "then good luck."

Bryce's pause seemed a little surprised, like he had expected her to fight it more. Why he would have, Sarah had no idea. He had a point. People could get hurt or killed if they screwed up, and they clearly were. Even if it pained her like nothing else to lose her partner, if he didn't want to stay, she wasn't going to hold him back.

"Yeah," Bryce said, his voice fading off a little. Sarah heard the disappointment in his tone, and that much she agreed with. "Thanks."


27 SEPTEMBER 2007
A FEW KM FROM YAROSLAVSKY TERMINAL, MOSCOW
05:44 YEKT

Ninety minutes of shuteye was nothing compared to what she had put her body through in the past thirty-six hours, and Sarah knew it, especially when the sleep had been little more than a light doze thanks to the uncomfortable train bench and the hundreds of little neuroses that had followed her and Chuck out of that bunker. Time and circumstance had ensured that it didn't matter if they were his or hers; they were there, and they had to be dealt with. She knew that was why the air seemed to tighten oddly in the compartment the closer the train drew to Moscow. She tried not to imagine that it was a noose around their necks.

Chuck toyed with a bit of string that had become unraveled from his mummy-shirt. "Always wanted to see Moscow," he said. The shake in his voice kept it from being conversational.

"Unfortunately, you won't get to see much but the train station," Sarah said.

"It still counts, right?"

She could tell Chuck was forcing himself to remain cheerful. Sarah tried to match the cheer as she picked up her bag from the floor. "It still counts," she said. She wasn't sure if she should tell Chuck that he was likely going to get sick of world travel, and more than likely her before too long. She wasn't sure he had fully grasped the concept that for the foreseeable future, they truly had nobody to trust but each other. Bryce had seen to that.

She looked across the train compartment at Chuck now, really studying him. He did not look good or healthy or even particularly wholesome. His skin was gray with travel fatigue, his hair—longer than she remembered from two years before—stuck up in some places and was crushed against his scalp in others, making him look bedraggled. The gray parka wasn't doing him any favors. As for herself, she was under no illusions whatsoever. She looked even worse. She'd gotten a good long look at herself in the mirror in the bathroom just a few minutes before. The circles under her eyes made her look like an abuse victim, her skin was even grayer than Chuck's, and no amount of makeup would fix any of that. Plus, it had been too long since either of them had seen a shower.

Chuck seemed unaware of her scrutiny, for he scooted closer to the window and carefully raised the blind. "Moneypenny," he said, and his voice took on that strange partially Scottish accent it had adopted several times over the past few hours on their train ride together, "let me tell you the secret of the world."

"I'm sorry?" Sarah asked.

Chuck glanced away from the window and at her. Unexpected, that smile flashed. "It's from 'From Russia With Love.' I know we're on the wrong train for it, but I can't help but think of it, you know?"

"I've never seen it."

"Oh." Chuck frowned. She could see him work to brighten up, and wanted to tell him that he didn't have to go through the pretenses, not for her, even though she appreciated the gesture. "You're in for a treat, then. You know, when we're...not on the run."

"I look forward to it," Sarah said, eyeing him. Outside the window, train tracks expanded in every direction, letting her know that they were very close to the station. She rose creakily to her feet, grabbing the railing over her head to steady herself when the train suddenly began to lurch. Chuck's hand shot out to her elbow, but she had already braced herself. Still, she gave him a grateful smile when he looked sheepish.
Sarah maneuvered him out into the corridor first. It was easy to keep a hand on his back that way, to keep the constant reassuring touch and presence up, even if it wasn't as logistically smart. Her idea proved smart; the instant other people began to fill the corridor, heading for the platform, Chuck tensed like a board. She rubbed her hand in a circle against his parka and wondered if he could even feel it through the layers. All the while, nerves danced in her belly. This was the first test. Had the CIA figured out she had taken Chuck? Had they been fooled by their ploy of sending Chuck's watch east instead of west?

She would find out soon one way or another, she supposed.

In front of her, Chuck began to tremble. "Chuck?" she asked.

There was no reply.

"Chuck? Chuck!" Sarah reached around to grab his arm.

He seemed to jolt the instant her hand wrapped around his sleeve. His expression was halfway between paranoid and guilty when he turned to look at her, but she cut him off before he could start babbling out an apology. "You okay?"

"What?" he blinked sluggishly at her. "Oh. Yeah. I'm okay. I'm good."

He clearly wasn't.

"You're covered in sweat," Sarah said. She doubted he knew his voice was shaking.

"It's okay, I'm fine." Chuck's voice rose a little in pitch. "Parka's a little warm."

"Are you sure?"

"I am. I really am, I promise." The last few people between them and the door to the platform stepped outside, and Chuck turned abruptly before she could continue her line of questions. Sarah noticed the death grip he kept on the railing as he stepped down onto the train platform, but he didn't say anything. He merely hunched his shoulders a little and looked around. There was almost something methodical in the way his head moved as he scanned the platform around them.

It took Sarah a second to realize why it bothered her so much: she was doing exactly the same thing in exactly the same way. Chuck's paranoia had apparently turned him into a model agent, which was ironic considering that he was now effectively a fugitive.

A fugitive who was apparently free enough to keep running. They weren't tackled by anybody the instant they set foot on the platform, which meant that they were still maybe a step or two ahead of the CIA. As much as she wanted to let out a sigh of relief at the thought, Sarah knew better. They weren't out of the frying pan or the fire yet.

So she laced her arm through Chuck's. He jerked in surprise, but when he looked down at her, his expression, underneath the steely determination not to show his evident fear of being outside, was merely curious.

"Don't want to lose you," she said, purposely keeping her voice light. "We've got awhile before the next train leaves."

"Next train?"

Sarah glanced around to make sure there weren't any security cameras close. "Yes," she said, turning her head away from the nearest one just in case. "We'll take the Sapsan up to St. Petersburg. C'mon, I could really use a coffee." And Chuck could use food that wasn't reheated Russian noodles.

Before they could take off, however, Chuck put his hand over hers on his arm. It was her turn to jump in surprise, but Chuck didn't say anything. The determined look somehow seemed to shift, perhaps fortified by the extra contact. It was a tacit sign, a sign he trusted her. He wouldn't outright say so, not if he wanted to save face in front of her while battling the horrible agoraphobia years in the bunker had forced upon him, but Sarah understood it. It sent a sprout of hope shooting through her, a sprout that made the hell she'd put her body through over the past two days worth it, and the hell she knew was coming over the next whoever knew who long a, little less bleakly terrifying.

It would, Sarah thought, have to do, since right now it was all they had.

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