Doubt yourself and you doubt everything you see. Judge yourself and you see judges everywhere. But if you listen to the sound of your own voice, you can rise above doubt and judgment. And you can see forever. — Nancy Lopez
1 FEBRUARY 2008
CASTLE: DOWNSTAIRS
21:09 PST
All in all, it should have been harder to crack Castle’s security. Chuck wasn’t sure who to pin that one on, Laszlo or the people that had taken over after Laszlo had been caught by Team Bartowski and sent to a lovely resort-slash-asylum up in the mountains—where he would have plenty of time outdoors (Sarah’s orders, Chuck had found out later). This sort of sloppiness didn’t strike him as Laszlo’s work, so he put that blame squarely on the government’s shoulders as he thumbed the space bar, hitting play on Beckman’s briefing with Sarah. On the screen to his left, Sarah continued her assault on the doomed Frank, never slowing, the rage never ebbing.
It made Chuck’s heart thump a bit as he used the keyboard to fast-forward until he and Casey had left the room in the debriefing earlier. While Casey was out in the hall, wondering at Chuck’s attitude, Sarah stood with her hands behind her back, at parade rest despite the casual jeans and shirt.
He wondered if Beckman could tell that she was tensed, by the slight shift in her shoulders. He doubted it.
“Agent Walker, thank you for staying after.”
“No problem, General.” Though Sarah’s tone was mild, Chuck recognized an undercurrent of annoyance that he also doubted Beckman heard. “What is it you wanted to speak with me about?”
“I wanted to check on your progress.”
Sarah tensed further, or at least Chuck thought she might have. It was hard to tell on slightly-grainy security footage. As though adding insult to injury, the audio was out of sync on the b-camera, too. He’d have to fix that whenever he remembered it.
On the left screen, Sarah landed a roundhouse that ensured Frank would never have children, even if it were at all possible in the first place. Chuck winced.
On the right screen, Sarah said, “Progress, General?”
“Don’t play coy with me. You were given an assignment when you took the position on Prometheus, and I want your report on it.” Beckman paused, her lips thinning so much that they almost disappeared from her face. “Though I hardly doubt I need the report, with Bartowski’s behavior tonight. Clearly, you’ve been completely unsuccessful.”
“I told you this would take time, ma’am.”
Chuck’s head popped up. Bartowski’s behavior? What the hell did that have to do with Sarah? The last time he’d checked, he was responsible for his own actions. It had been one of the things, Ellie had told him at twelve or thirteen, that marked him as a grown-up. Why he would think of that now, he had no idea.
What the hell was going on?
“I see,” Beckman said, only deepening Chuck’s confusion as he stared at his computer screen. He leaned in closer, as though that would provide him some clarity. It didn’t.
“To be fair, General, the situation is...delicate,” Sarah went on.
“Delicate, Agent Walker?” Beckman startled Chuck by giving an honest-to-God snort. “I know I’ve been out of the spy game for a few years—” That was putting it kindly, Chuck felt. “—But it seems like a bikini and alcohol would solve this problem.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sarah said, and Chuck recognized the tone of her voice. He’d only heard that particular tone once. It had been on the train, he thought. The train on the way to Moscow, when she’d grabbed him by the front of his parka and hauled him upright. Holy hell, he couldn’t help but think. If Beckman were there, Sarah might actually deck her.
He’d put money on Sarah in a heartbeat, but he wasn’t an idiot: Beckman would probably make the fight a tough one. She looked like a scrapper.
“Normally,” Sarah went on, “I’d agree, but Ch—Agent Bartowski is a special case. I can’t simply use the same methods on him that I...”
Chuck didn’t hear the rest of her sentence. He could see her lips moving, categorized that that was her voice in some distant part of his brain, but everything just stopped as the pieces fell together. They were talking about him. They were talking about him, and alcohol, and bikinis, and Sarah’s assignment.
You were given an assignment when you took the position on Prometheus, and I want your report on it.
The assignment was him.
Chuck’s hands began to shake.
On the screen, Sarah’s audio seemed to cut in and out like a bad receiver, though the computer was probably working fine. “Agent Bartowski is hardly some spoiled playboy with mother issues I have to manipulate in order to get to his rich daddy, if you don’t mind me speaking frankly, General.”
Of course I’m not. And it’s all been...
A lie, Chuck realized.
Every smile, every moment where she touched his arm, or his hair, or left her hand on the back of his neck or his shoulder, was a lie.
He didn’t know what to think. Couldn’t think. Had stopped being able to think ten seconds before, ten minutes before, ten years before. It didn’t make any sense. It made all too much sense. How much of it was a lie? Why had they given Sarah this assignment? Why him? Oh, God, why him?
“When I spoke with Agent Montgomery, he led me to believe you had done exceedingly well in his class. One of his brightest pupils, even.”
“I wouldn’t make the same claim. But, look, General...” Why the hell did Sarah sound sheepish? “I don’t think I’m Agent Bartowski’s type.”
What?
“What?”
Chuck’s head snapped up again, and he realized belatedly he’d dropped it onto his hands when he couldn’t make a heads or tails of anything. And if he was confused before, he thought, it had nothing on now. On screen, Sarah looked actually abashed, or as close to the emotion as he’d ever seen her get. Her jaw was also clenched, a sign that she was pissed off and trying to hide it.
He didn’t know how he felt about that.
“Explain yourself, Agent Walker.”
“I mean that, General. I don’t feel that Agent Bartowski sees me in that way.”
“His psychological reports—”
“Show deference and affection. They do not show sexual feelings, nor is there really any transference that I’ve been able to determine.” Sarah’s voice went sharp now, as Chuck blinked and shook his head, as though to clear water from his ears. This conversation, already shocking, had taken a very surprising turn. “Agent Bartowski has been through a lot during his time with the government. I have been doing my level best to keep him grounded well enough for your Intersect project to function, but Bartowski has made it clear that in no way does he view me as a candidate for a sexual partner.”
He didn’t view Sarah as a candidate for a sexual partner? What the hell? Sure, he’d wanted to move slowly, but that didn’t mean he was dead.
“I suppose that would explain his behavior tonight,” Beckman said, while Chuck stared.
“I will of course speak with Chuck,” Sarah said, shifting her stance from parade rest to her arms folded over her chest. She was telegraphing embarrassment, though he hadn’t the first clue why she would do that. Hell, he didn’t know anything at this point, except that his heart was beating too quickly and he felt both sweaty and too cold and his hands were shaking. “Events like this evening won’t happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Agent Walker,” Beckman said, almost hesitantly. She tapped her pen against the table in front of her in obvious agitation once, twice. Chuck had no more idea of what to make of that gesture than he did the rest of the conversation. He felt like he’d stumbled into one of those absurd game shows where everybody but him knew what was going on, and he would have to improvise along and hope he didn’t somehow end up trying to play a football star at a dog show or something weird like that. “Have you even kissed the man yet?”
It struck Chuck very, very late that this conversation was a bit overly personal. For some reason, it also inspired the need to laugh hysterically, though he held it back.
“No,” Sarah said, and Chuck’s heart stopped. “No, I haven’t, General.”
What the hell?
Chuck’s confusion only expanded when Sarah looked down on the screen, once again projecting embarrassment. “Well,” the agent went on as Beckman’s stare bored into her, “okay. Once.”
“And?”
“He rebuffed me.”
“What?” Chuck said aloud. “I did not!”
“Didn’t what?” Sarah asked.
Confused, Chuck looked at the screen, but Sarah hadn’t spoken. What...
Oh, hell. The screen on the left showed an empty dojo.
Slowly, he turned. It really was possible to feel a thousand things and be unable to decipher any of them, he discovered. His stomach was in his throat, and he had no idea if it was the anger or the fear or the confusion or just indigestion.
Sarah stood in the doorway. After the sheer amount of fury and rage in her beat-down of Frank earlier, Chuck would have expected an angry look at the very least. But no, even though she still wore the workout gear—and the sweat—her expression was mildly happy, as though pleased to see him still there.
That expression died very quickly when her eyes tracked over his shoulder, landing on the briefing that was still playing.
Chuck reached behind him and tapped a button. The briefing stopped. “Hi,” he said, without really knowing why.
That shutter fell over Sarah’s features, so familiar and yet so foreign because it had been months since he’d seen her expression close off like that. Without a word, she spun on her heel and stalked out.
Warily, Chuck pushed out of his chair and followed.
Normally, he would have paused before following Sarah into the locker room. She was the one that was less shy about these things. Hell, she’d all but stripped down in front of him on their first day on the job together. But right now, Chuck didn’t care. His head was beginning to split in two from confusion and he just couldn’t figure out why, why the bosses would be so interested in his sex life, or why Sarah hadn’t thought to tell him about any of this, or why she would lie to Beckman. And the locker rooms didn’t have cameras or bugs: a perfect time and place to talk, evidently.
So he padded in after Sarah. “What the hell is going on?”
“I could very well ask you the same question.” She didn’t look at him, didn’t even seem to acknowledge him other than the fact that she was addressing him. Her movements were oddly jerky as she opened up one of the equipment lockers and threw her gloves inside, ignoring her usually fastidious filing system. Instead of looking at him, she stared hard into the locker, as though she could make it spontaneously combust. “What the hell, Chuck? You were spying on me?”
“No,” Chuck said. “Well, yes, but not for—”
“And how long has this been going on?”
“How long have you been lying about me being your assignment?”
Sarah flinched. “Guess there’s no need to ask how much you heard,” she said, her voice surprisingly bitter. She finally looked away from the locker. As much as he’d expected her stare to be piercing, it wasn’t. She just looked tired. “It’s not what you think.”
“Really? Because it sounds like Beckman sent you out here to keep me...” He searched for a word, but all he could come up with was, “Complacent.”
“She did.”
Hearing it straight from her was somehow worse, much, much worse than hearing veiled allusions and then outright accusations over a video conference. For one thing, Beckman was one of them. She was a Boss. They were supposed to lie and manipulate; some part of him knew that and even respected it a little. But Sarah was his...Sarah was his girlfriend.
He actually felt like he might retch. Chuck sat down hard on the locker room bench.
“But that’s beside the point,” Sarah said. “You were spying on me!”
“Once,” Chuck said, his voice strained. That same voice continued on without permission from the rest of him: “And I fail to see how that’s worse than lying to me. For months!”
“I never lied to you.” Sarah turned back to her locker, her shoulders so tense that he could count the individual muscles beneath her skin.
“You lied to me about everything! This whole time, this was nothing but—nothing but an assignment? Everything you’ve said and—”
“Don’t be so melodramatic. Of course it hasn’t been.” Sarah yanked out a towel and slammed her locker shut. She gave him a wide berth going by on the way to the showers.
How the hell could she possibly be so flippant about any of this? He had video proof, evidence, in fact, still queued up on his computer, to the contrary!
“You’re not the one I’ve been lying to, you should know,” Sarah went on from behind him, and he turned.
“What?”
“Beckman and Graham gave me this assignment because some asshole stuck you in a bunker for years,” Sarah went on, and the language made Chuck blink. Possibly as a concession to his own overwhelming modesty, she stepped behind the shower curtain. A second later, her sports bra was flung over the top of the stall. “And you developed a case of, well, considerably mild—given the circumstances—agoraphobia as a result. Not a big deal except that Bryce screwed you over once again, surprise-surprise, and the psych tests they did on you showed that you of course had a dependence on me. Understandable, given that I was the one to go into that goddamned bunker and finally get you out of that mess, and you saw nobody you could trust but me for over a week, but you know how the bosses are.”
The water turned on.
“You know how they are, Chuck. They’ll use whatever means they can to control every opportunity they possibly can.”
“But what about—”
“And lucky me, I got to be the means,” Sarah went on, bitterness still rampant across her tone. She sounded farther away; she’d stepped under the spray of water, Chuck figured. How she could blithely take a shower in the middle of their—well, it wasn’t really an argument, was it? As much as he wanted it to be one, Sarah kept deflecting, and talking. “Just another way to be used and discarded.”
He nearly yanked aside the curtain to give her a boggled look, but remembered only in time that she had once claimed she didn’t shower in clothing. And his brain was already muddled enough as it was. “Sarah, are you even talking about—”
“So I told Graham and Beckman yes, I’d do it, whatever it takes to be on Prometheus. Does that make me a bad person? Probably.”
“I don’t think—”
“And like clockwork, they ask for a report. Never when I expect it, no, but it’s clockwork in that they’ll always ask when I’m not expecting it, you know? How’s Agent Bartowski? Are you holding his hand enough? How’s the seduction coming along? Is he the docile little agent we need him to be for this ‘experiment’ to work? How about you? Feeling enough like a robot yet?”
For the first time, Chuck got the feeling Sarah had forgotten that he was even there. Oh, and that something might be wrong. “Um, Sarah?”
“And you know what? I’m not a fucking robot.”
“I—”
“And I don’t really appreciate the idea that my own feelings are tools that I have to use against you, of all people.”
“What on earth does that mean?” Chuck said, loudly enough to be heard over the water. “And for the record, are you okay?”
“Never mind.”
Chuck threw his hands up and wondered if being confused was just part of being in a relationship—a relationship, he remembered belatedly, he had no idea was real or not, thanks to the fact that his girlfriend had apparently been put on his government-run team in order to seduce him into following orders.
He wondered if there was a support group for this sort of thing. Probably not, unless you were Macbeth or something.
“You know what? No, I want to talk about this.” The curtain twitched open and Sarah appeared. Thankfully for Chuck’s nerves and sanity, she only poked her head and a shoulder out. Water streamed off of her hair and the one exposed ear, dripping down to the tiles below. “So yeah, now you know the whole story. I’m the honeytrap in your life. Congratulations, honey.”
Even an unwise man could sense there was quite a bit going on under the surface here. Chuck could tell he needed to tread carefully, though he had no idea why. “Are you?”
Instantly, Sarah’s face went through about five different emotions, three of which he couldn’t figure out. But shock and anger, he recognized those. “How dare you ask me that?”
“You just said—”
“How on earth could you of all people believe that about me?”
“I don’t know what to believe! All I know is what I saw in the briefing—”
“While spying on me,” Sarah said, scowling.
Chuck looked to the ceiling for guidance. Finding none, he threw his hands up yet again. “I only did it because I was worried.”
“Well, you could have just asked me about it!”
“And suffer the same fate as Frank? I don’t think so.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Sarah gave him a look somewhere between hurt and pissed off before she disappeared behind the curtain again. “I wouldn’t hurt you. Ever.”
“I know that,” Chuck felt the need to say, “but it’s a different reality when you go all ‘I am Woman, Hear Me’—you know what? Not really helping my case. I was worried, you know. You only go into beat-down mode when you’re pissed and upset.”
Which was clearly the case now, but he also knew better than to mention that.
“And if Beckman said something to you about me, then, well, there’s some nasty viruses in my computer vault with her name on them. So I hacked the conference. I wasn’t out to spy on you. I just wanted to know what was wrong.” Because he hadn’t known which way was up since that damn briefing had started playing on his computer, Chuck indulged himself and pounded his forehead into the wall by the bench a couple of times. It didn’t provide clarity; it only gave him a headache. “Just as a matter of curiosity, why the hell didn’t you just tell me any of this was going on?”
There was silence for a long time from the other side of the shower. Chuck held his breath until sparks exploded at the edge of his vision. Just after he exhaled, he heard Sarah say, in an impossibly small voice, “And give you more reason to doubt me?”
“What?”
“Never mind,” Sarah said again, too quickly.
Chuck lifted his head away from the wall, his eyes narrowing. Was that...had he just heard...? He climbed to his feet and approached the shower with all of the caution a man usually afford to nearing a lion’s den. “Ah, Sarah?”
There wasn’t an answer. No noise, but the shower running.
“Is everything okay?”
“Look, I—just go away. I’m sorry and I’ll apologize later, but go away now?” Real desperation laced her voice. “Please?”
“I, ah—”
Now thoroughly perplexed, Chuck shrugged to himself and turned to do so, thinking it might be good just to get away so that he could think again, but a noise broke through: a sniffle. He swiveled in place, uncertain that he had just heard correctly, but another, damning sniffle broke through, just like the first.
Chuck froze.
It was just like the Grand Canyon all over again. Oh, sure, the tears had been mostly silent then, but he recognized this sheer terror, the raw metallic taste of it, all too well. In that moment, he had no idea what to do. Sarah had made the decision for him at the Grand Canyon, all but burrowing into his side while she cried.
Now, she’d asked him to leave her alone. In addition to that, she was naked.
There wasn’t a lot he could do, but he couldn’t leave.
Maybe he should go fetch a glass of water or something. No, that was stupid; she was already in the shower where there was plenty of water. And nothing else he could think of would help, either. In the end, he sighed, grabbed a towel, and threw himself to the wolves. Holding the towel in front of him, almost like a shield, he edged past the outer curtain to the shower stall, squeezed his eyes shut, and said, “Um, I got you a towel, even though you’ve already got one somewhere, I think. But yeah, I couldn’t just leave and—oh.”
He cracked open one eye when he felt something wrap around his torso, halfway to convince himself that Sarah hadn’t somehow turned into a sea monster and attacked him with tentacles, as that was what it kind of felt like.
But no, she was still human and even better, she hadn’t attacked. She had, however, ignored the towel, so that it was trapped between their bodies, sort of flapping limply between them so that one edge nearly dragged on the ground. Chuck got quite the eyeful before he cursed whichever deity that loved and hated him at the moment and looked at the ceiling. At least Sarah wasn’t sobbing. Or at least he didn’t think she was. He couldn’t see her face, as it was currently soaking the shoulder of his T-shirt.
“Are you okay?” he asked, and valiantly tried to pull the towel up and around her. With everything going on, it seemed cruel to test his self-control, too.
“M’fine,” Sarah said, her voice muffled by his shirt.
Even though his clothes were now hopelessly soaked by the mostly-naked woman clinging to him (patience of Job, Chuck thought, patience of Job), he carefully reached around and shut off the shower, wincing when the spray pounded his forearm. She’d apparently been trying to scald her skin off. He almost made a lame joke about tears of pain, but again stopped himself.
It was probably wiser not to say anything. So he stood there with his arms around Sarah, feeling like some kind of moron, in the little space between the two curtains in Castle’s shower stall. Sarah stayed quiet and refused to look up at him, probably a sign that she was still crying, and that moment was the first time he had had to process anything that happened, and he didn’t know what to think. The cynical side of him pointed out how easily he could be manipulated by anybody, by the bosses, by Sarah, even by Casey. The rest of him wanted to shout no, not Sarah. Sarah had told him a thousand times to trust her. Sarah had been the calm and patient one from the beginning, guiding him out of the bunker, beside him in LA the entire time, past the Heartbrake Hotel and all of the heartbreak that had gone with it, throughout DC, and even now. And he didn’t want to believe any of it was a lie, put in place by Graham and Beckman. He didn’t know what to think.
In the end, he didn’t think. He just let Sarah hold onto him and held on back, long after the shower steam had evaporated, just like the tears.
1 FEBRUARY 2008
‘SKI/WALKER RANCH
22:47 PST
“You’re not going to fall asleep on me, are you?”
Sarah yawned, mightily. “No, no,” she said, looking ashamed even as she yawned again. “If I fall asleep before eating, I’ll just wake up in a couple of hours.”
“Grouchy and hungry,” Chuck said, and dodged the half-hearted swat. “Well, it’s a good thing because it’s not every day I drag myself to cook for somebody, you know. You are in a very special subset of the human race.”
Sarah wrinkled her nose. “You’re making Spaghetti-Os.”
“With a pan.” Chuck held it up off of the range for a second to prove his point. He’d changed into a spare set of clothing at Castle, and Sarah had—both thankfully and sadly—traded the towel for a sleep shirt and boy shorts. “That implies actual cooking.”
“As opposed to microwaving.”
“Which would be nuking or ‘warming something up’ if you want to use Ellie’s terms. Using a pan—that you then have to wash, which I will also do—means cooking.”
Sarah hugged one leg to her chest, resting her cheek on her knee. She was sitting at the kitchen island, watching him prepare a late dinner for both of them. Between waking up with a hangover, finding out about Ilsa, being captured by Victor Federov’s men, taking his little swan dive, the incident with Awesome’s ring, the debriefings, and the not-argument afterward, it had been a long and exhausting day. Now his brain felt as abused and wiped out as the rest of him, which had slammed into pool water after a seven-story drop. And even worse, his stomach was practically wringing itself out like an old gym towel from hunger.
Neither of them talked about the locker room. Chuck had seen Sarah start to bring it up several times, and he’d nearly done the same, but they’d both backed off the topic. It sat between them like a Pandora’s Box.
In one short conversation, Chuck’s entire perception of the bosses, of the point of Prometheus and all of the work he had been doing as the Intersect, had been altered in some way. How, he couldn’t be sure. But he’d never felt so used in his life. And below that was a simmering anger he didn’t really recognize, except that maybe it had been there all along, just hiding somewhere.
What it all meant, he still wasn’t sure.
He had a feeling that once he’d acknowledged that anger, it wasn’t going to go back into hiding ever again. He didn’t know how he felt about that. So he continued to stir the Spaghetti-Os and tried not to think about it.
“So how many people have you cooked for?”
“That survived?” Chuck asked, and Sarah laughed. “There’s a reason for the law that states I’m allowed only to cook things that come in cans. Sometimes boxes, but the law’s pretty clear it should be cans.”
“I see.” Sarah shifted so that it was her chin on her knee instead of her cheek. She looked away, and he got the feeling she was seeing something not in the actual kitchen with them. Indeed, she proved it by saying, “Do you remember that first night? In Siberia?”
Chuck swiveled slowly. Sarah never mentioned the bunker unless it was to disparage the amount of time he’d spent inside it, or a project he’d helped her and Bryce on while stationed there. They didn’t talk much about the forty-eight hours she and Bryce had spent inside the actual bunker. But he thought about it occasionally, so he said, “Sure, why?”
“Do you remember the Tang?”
Chuck’s face immediately twisted into a grimace. “Oh, geez. Don’t remind me. Bryce drags you hundreds of miles to visit me and I force that stuff on you. I’m amazed you didn’t run screaming.”
“Where was I going to run to?” A humorless smile ghosted across Sarah’s face. “You fed me back then, too.”
“Beg pardon?”
“The MREs. You don’t remember?”
“Oh, I guess.” Chuck frowned as he stirred the mess of red sauce and processed noodles in the saucepan. “I don’t know if it’s the same thing. Spaghetti-Os are far better.”
“You offered those, too.”
“And you didn’t take me up on it? Shame.”
“Actually, I remember thinking you were going to offer to go out and kill, like, a bear or something, the way you were going on.”
Chuck flinched, even while the thought of him actually facing down a bear made him laugh. He must have seemed like such an idiot. “That would’ve been a long trek to find one for you. And thank you, I think, for the idea that I can fight off a bear.”
“I find I don’t really like the taste of bear all that much.”
“My teddy is relieved.”
“I didn’t want to lie to you.”
“About my ted...oh.” Chuck looked up as he put together that they were now talking about the locker room, and the briefings, and the lying. Since Sarah wouldn’t look at him, he made it easier by not looking at her as he collected two of the nicer bowls from the china cabinet. Spaghetti-Os deserved the proper accoutrements. “Why did you?”
“You weren’t ready to hear it.”
“Oh.” Just like earlier, her blunt words hit like a fist. Chuck waited, though. Based on previous experience, now was the time where she rushed to reassure him that everything was okay, that it was all going to be all right somehow.
She remained silent.
The silence felt stifling and awful, like he was being suffocated.
“I see,” he said at length, though he did and he didn’t. “Were you ever going to tell me?”
“I don’t know. I want to think so.”
Chuck picked up the bowls and carried them around the island to the table, just to buy himself time. He nudged them around the table, matching them up perfectly in front of their different places. Fastidious, he knew, but it helped keep his mind busy. “But?” he asked.
Sarah stayed quiet. The silence seemed charged somehow.
“But I don’t know if I would have,” she finally said, and Chuck’s stomach sank. “I’ve been a spy for so long. Some things you just...don’t tell. You keep them close to the vest, so to speak.”
“But this was directly to do with me.”
“And you’ve got enough going on. So I ran interference.”
“I see that’s working out well for you,” Chuck said before he could stop himself.
“Yeah,” was all Sarah said. She climbed to her feet, moving a bit like a creaky old woman, and sat at the table across from him.
“I didn’t mean...” Chuck pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. The headache that had developed in the locker room was back, apparently. “Okay, maybe I meant that. I wish you’d told me, for no other reason than the bosses were hounding you on my account, and I don’t like that.”
Sarah pushed Spaghetti-Os around with her spoon. “I didn’t want you to doubt me more than you already do.”
“I wouldn’t have.”
Sarah just gave him a look.
“Okay. Good point.” Because his stomach was protesting against the lack of food for the past several hours, Chuck dug into his own bowl. The pasta tasted like medicine rather than the comfort food it was meant to be. “Did I really doubt you that much?”
“Chuck...” Sarah sighed. “It’s not a big deal, it isn’t. And we don’t need to talk about that.”
Maybe they did, but Sarah had that look on her face, the stubborn one that he recognized all too well. Fine, he thought. They’d have to come back to that. There was too much other stuff to cover, such as: “Why not make it easier on yourself? Why not just tell them the truth about us? We’re together, blah, blah, blah, you’re in control of your...whatever I am.”
“I think the term would be asset in this case, and you’re not my asset. Just like I’m not your handler. And it’s none of their damned business, is it?”
The vehemence made Chuck blink. In one instant, Sarah went from hesitant to hellfire. “I didn’t tell them the truth,” she went on, stabbing her spoon into the bowl with enough force to make Chuck worry about the good china, “because they can go screw themselves. Whatever’s going on with us has nothing to do with them.”
“But you are kind of my handler,” Chuck said, and immediately wanted to kick himself when Sarah’s face seemed to crumple. “No, no, not like that. Not that way. But...look, I can’t deny it. You have been there every step of the way, keeping me from going insane and, I guess functional is how you’d say it.”
“Well, I didn’t do it for them, that’s for damn sure.”
“I know, and I get that. But does it matter who you’re doing it for? I—”
“Of course it matters.”
“Let me finish,” Chuck said, holding up a hand for peace. “You’ve been keeping me level, and I truly appreciate that, I do. Every day, even. But doing this tap-dance with the bosses is affecting—you were crying in the shower, Sarah.”
“So?”
“So, that’s not exactly a sign that things are going well. I’m just saying, I wish you’d told me about it.”
“What would you have been able to do? You’re just as much a tool to be manipulated in this situation as I am.”
“But I’m your tool,” Chuck said, and Sarah gaped at him. He waved his hands to stop her from rebutting. “Not quite what I meant, sorry. What I meant is that we’re supposed to be partners. Even if I can’t stand up to the bosses for you, we’re supposed to be in this together, right? Isn’t that what we decided, back in DC? I can be moral support. Think of it as returning the favor for the millions of times you’ve been there for me...and I’m probably just making it worse right now, aren’t I? Please, don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying,” Sarah said, wiping furiously at the corner of her eye with her napkin. “I’m not.”
“Okay. You’re not crying. But do you see what I’m saying? Maybe you were right not to tell me at first, but that time’s past.” Chuck stabbed at an errant Spaghetti-O that had been chased around his bowl. “I don’t want anybody taking on anything like this for me anymore. I want to carry my half of whatever this is with us. I can handle it.”
“I’m sorry. I really am sorry about all of this,” Sarah said, and that awkward silence fell again, broken only by the sniffles Sarah tried to muffle.
“Should’ve chopped up some onions or something,” Chuck remarked after a long time had passed, looking into his half-empty bowl. “Would’ve been a good excuse.”
“Would’ve been, if I were crying.”
“I don’t think onions and Spaghetti-Os really mix.”
“I’m just glad you didn’t put those little hot dog thingies in here,” Sarah said.
“And ruin the perfect ratio of sauce to noodle? Sacrilege.”
Sarah nodded and took a bite. Chuck almost missed the instinctual gag. “Like it?” he asked innocently.
Sarah swallowed quickly. “Um, it’s good. Very, very...good.”
“There’s seconds in the pot if you want them.”
This time, Chuck had no trouble missing the gag. “I’ll make you a sandwich instead,” he said, and took her bowl away. “I think you have to have the palate of a six-year-old to really enjoy this Campbell’s masterpiece.”
“Sorry,” Sarah said, looking faintly embarrassed.
“No worries. More for me.”
Sarah rubbed her hand down her face. “That was what I was afraid of.”
Later, when there was nothing left but a few scrapings of pasta sauce and a crust, they sat on the couch, their feet on the coffee table. An old episode of some reality renovation show was playing on TV, but neither was really paying attention; Chuck had turned on the TV more for an excuse than an actual activity. He was drained, drained in a way that had nothing to do with the physical—though he was plenty tired, as well, from recovering from a hangover earlier and going through all they had with the Russians. And Sarah seemed even worse, from the way she’d curled up against his side. He’d caught her yawning a few times more, but she’d insisted that she didn’t need to sleep yet.
“That is really, really ugly wallpaper,” she finally said. “Also the curtains are organdy.”
“Say what?”
“You were wondering what it was earlier.” Sarah nudged him and nearly bumped his cheek with the top of her head as she shifted to get more comfortable. “When you asked if Carina would look good in organdy.”
“You want to dress Carina in a curtain?”
This time Sarah did hit his cheek. She also nearly fell off the couch from giggling, and possibly would have if Chuck hadn’t wrapped his arm around her middle to keep her in place. “Seriously, don’t ever let her hear you say that.”
“What, like the next time she randomly drops by, I’m going to ask her, ‘Hey, Carina, ever consider wearing curtains?’ Pass.”
“Yeah, probably not a good idea, all in all,” Sarah said, and fell asleep. It wasn’t quite the equivalent of hitting a switch like C-3PO’s, but she still sagged against him, her breathing evening out and slowing. Chuck froze at first, and then remained still out of fear of waking her. He stayed where he was long after his arm fell asleep, and the TV changed to infomercials.
Everything he knew had changed, and he was watching Bowflex commercials.
Chuck shifted just a fraction, hoping to alleviate some of the weight against his shoulder and get use of his arm back. It proved hopeless; Sarah snuggled closer, as he figured she would.
Maybe that wasn’t accurate, he thought now. Not everything had changed. The bosses hadn’t changed. If anything, they had clearly been this way from the beginning, and he had been unable to see it. Now, though, thanks to Sarah’s little breakdown and the briefing, he could see the puppet strings in every part of his life. He had always been the worst candidate for the Intersect, the broken toy the bosses were forced to keep around only because of one redeeming quality. In the beginning, he hadn’t believed the government would ever bow to his demands, even if Gwen Davenport had been on his side. Getting the operation set up in Burbank, where he could see Ellie again and be surrounded by his own life, had seemed like a victory too good to be true. Seeing Sarah again in that hospital waiting room had been a dream.
Sarah had been sent because she could manipulate—control—him. The Burbank location had been allowed because it was designed to keep him balanced and healthy enough to work the Intersect. Gwen Davenport was only allowed to stay because she bestowed a sense of confidence, but not overconfidence on him.
Well, he’d been railing against Graham and Beckman’s inability to see beyond the Intersect to the man that housed it not hours before. Maybe the only thing that had really changed was how true that really was.
When the front door opened, he glanced over and saw Ellie’s eyebrows shoot up as she took in the scene. “Sorry!” she whispered, closing the door gently behind her. “I didn’t think—I thought you’d be asleep.”
Chuck yawned. “What time is it?”
“Late.”
Sarah shifted against him, but didn’t wake. Both Bartowskis stopped moving until she’d settled. Finally, Chuck asked, “Where’s Awesome?”
“He ended up crashing in the surgeon’s lounge, but I had enough left in the tank to get home. You shouldn’t stay up too much longer.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Chuck said, just like he always had when they were kids and Ellie had admonished him for staying up too late. But this time, he smiled a little until something occurred to him, and the smile faded.
“What is it?” Ellie asked, still whispering. “Is something wrong?”
“I—do you have a minute?”
“Yeah, sure. Though we should probably talk outside or something.”
It was an interesting study in danger avoidance to extricate himself from Sarah’s grip and slip away, but Chuck managed, and followed his sister outside. Even though it was February, and chillier than it should have been, he didn’t bother with a coat. Instead, he went straight to the surveillance camera in the corner of the courtyard, pulled something from his pocket, and fixed it to the side of the camera.
“What are you doing?”
“Jamming the signal. The bosses will just think it’s a temporary glitch.”
Ellie’s brows drew together as she sat on the edge of the fountain. “Why on earth do you need to jam—Chuck, what’s going on? Is something happening?”
Chuck took a deep breath, and told her.
2 FEBRUARY 2008
02:13 PST
‘SKI/WALKER RANCH
“Those bastards!”
To his credit, Chuck didn’t blink when Ellie surged to her feet and began to pace. He’d pretty much come to expect that sort of stillness-to-movement reaction from most of the people in his life, actually. But he did glance at the camera with his improvised jammer still stuck to the side. “Ellie, shh, c’mon, keep it down.”
She glared. “I thought you said the camera was jammed.”
“It is, but I don’t want to risk it.”
Ellie threw herself down on the edge of the fountain again and continued to glare, though not at him. “Those utter—”
“I know.”
“How the hell could they do this to you?”
“If it’s any consolation, I don’t think it’s personal.”
“I don’t care if it’s personal or not. It’s wrong!”
“Yes, it is, but we can’t let them know we know.”
“Why the hell not? They’re the government. We pay taxes, there should be some kind of law or committee or something—”
“Shh!” Chuck said again. He grabbed her wrist. “Ellie, you have to listen to me. This needs to stay between all of us in Prometheus, and it can’t go beyond that.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because Sarah could get in trouble and I don’t know if we can trust anybody else. She’s already having to walk a freaking tightrope as it is.” Chuck let go of Ellie’s wrist to push his hands through his hair. Ellie’s outrage on his behalf had only served to emphasize that he needed someplace to channel his own frustration, though that wasn’t going to happen for awhile. It had been a couple of days since he’d had a good, long bout of Tai Chi: proper Tai Chi. Between Casey interrupting his work-out and his hangover, he was nearly starting to shake from the lack of routine. He pushed all of that aside to focus on the matter at hand. “And it’s already hard enough on her. We don’t need to rush into things and make it worse.”
“Chuck, are you sure this is a good idea?”
“No,” Chuck said, laughing a bit, though the chuckle was flat and hollow. “I’m not sure of anything.”
“I mean, nothing against Sarah, I really like her, but haven’t you considered—”
“No,” Chuck said more sharply. “I haven’t considered, and I won’t.”
“At all? I mean, you wouldn’t be the first guy to—”
“Sarah’s not like that,” Chuck said. “I trust her. I’ve trusted her for a long time, and that’s not going to change. She’s a victim here, too.”
“But she didn’t tell you about any of this until you caught her out.”
“And she had her reasons.” Chuck rubbed his scalp again, but it didn’t relieve any of the pressure building up in his skull and his chest. “Maybe they’re a little misguided, and I wish she’d come clean on her own, but I get why she didn’t. It’s not an easy situation for anybody.”
After all, he couldn’t help but think, the one that lost the most in the game of tug-o-war was the rope.
“And what if she is using you?”
“Then I’m a fool who gets what he deserves. But she’s not, and I’m not.”
“Well, excuse me for being a little more cautious when it comes to being involved in government conspiracies,” Ellie muttered, rolling her eyes.
Despite himself, Chuck had to smile. “I love you,” he said. “You’ve always looked out for me.”
“Well, you’re my little brother. I’m supposed to look out for you. It’s in the manual.” But Ellie still looked troubled. “Chuck, are you absolutely sure?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll trust your judgment. But if she hurts you, I reserve the right to kick her ass the way I should’ve kicked Jill’s.”
“You do realize she’s a seventh degree black belt in, like, eight different types of martial arts.”
“So?”
“Good point. You’ll pass on all of this, quietly, to Awesome?”
“Of course. Are you going to tell John Casey?”
Chuck paused and pulled on his thumb. “I don’t know,” he said at length. He glanced at the security camera and hoped his jammer was still working. “Do you think I should?”
“I think this either needed to stay between you and Sarah, or it should be something the entire team knows about. Unless you think John might be here to manipulate you and serve as a mole, as Sarah was clearly supposed to do.”
The thought had crossed his mind a time or two, which felt unfair. Though Casey’s respect was begrudging and his overtures of friendship came more in the form of insults, Chuck couldn’t help but think that maybe Casey was on his side. After all, Casey had gotten him the Dartmoor information, had stuck up for him, had taught him to shoot a gun despite all signs pointing to the fact that Chuck Bartowski should never handle a live weapon ever.
As much as Casey was a Company man, through and through, Ellie was right: this was a problem for Prometheus as a team. “You’re right,” Chuck said. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”
“I’d leave the shower details out of it when you do,” Ellie said, and she looked mildly squeamish. She laid a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry this is happening to you. If I could, I’d fly to D.C. right now and kick all of their asses.”
“I know you would. We’ll figure something out. Thanks, sis.”
“Good night.”
Chuck waited until Ellie had gone inside before he got up and carefully removed the jammer from the side of the camera. He was halfway to the door when the idea occurred to him.
“Oh, God,” he said, and ran his hands down his face. “Casey is going to have a field day with this.”
Since there really wasn’t much he could do about it at this venture, or until he talked to Sarah, he just shook his head, went inside, and gently shook Sarah awake so that they could stumble tiredly to her bedroom together. There, for the second night in a row, he fell asleep with Sarah using his shoulder as a pillow.
And for the second morning in a row, he woke up to an otherwise empty bed.
Save, of course, for the note on the pillow.
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