Chapter 5
With Awesome’s grandmother’s ring safely hidden, Casey called General Beckman in transit, told her of Graham’s attempt to recall Sarah on the spot, and methodically made the case that a hasty exit from Burbank would breed nothing but questions and trouble.
The general took the opportunity to yell, because it was due, but she agreed on the matter of prudence, at least. Back at the apartment Casey dialed Beckman on the videoconference, who in turn called Graham and they were finally all on a much-dreaded call together. Graham made noise about travel as soon as the feed became live, and the general suggested that if she could spare Major Casey long enough for a wrap up that did not draw any more undue attention, surely Graham could do without his agent for a few more days as well.
Graham made to object, again, but Beckman wasn’t quite done. If Graham’s transport officer had managed to extract Chuck without pulling a tail, Lizzie might have been picked up and questioned in the aftermath instead of dying in a confrontation with Agent Walker at the scene. So no, the operation did not end as smoothly as she wished, but at least the asset was safely secured and one more Fulcrum operative off the street. Her IT staff were already mining Lizzie’s life for Fulcrum contacts. The best they could do now was not throw any bigger spotlight than necessary on Chuck’s departure and that required patience and discretion and not yanking both agents out of their established covers with unwarranted haste.
At the jab about Longshore, Casey watched Graham’s incendiary stare flick to Sarah, even though his agent hadn’t made a move or spoken a word.
Casey felt the temperature in Graham’s office climbing from two thousand miles away. The director nodded stiffly, and his objection died before he could voice it again.
“Every last camera, I want them all running,” Graham growled. Someone was going to obey him, about that at least.
Casey nodded. “Everything’s up except the external feed that belongs Buy More Plaza security. The CIA team cut that line before the trucks arrived, so it’s down until the landlord fixes it.” Casey massaged his temples and sighed. “When we bagged the body, I realized Lizzie had Ellie’s engagement ring. Musta stole it from Chuck’s locker. There’s a lot I can’t fix here, but I’m not sacrificing Ellie’s ring to that little witch, so I ran and stashed it in a Herder for the cops to find. Best I could do.”
“That’s…considerate. I have no issue,” Beckman said.
Sarah could feel Graham’s stare without looking and could not tell if his ire was only that she went to the extraction and argued about leaving town, or if he suspected more of her than that. With time to review the timeline and collect data, he surely would have things to say. Sarah counted the floor tiles, took long breaths through her nose and prayed for someone to cut the feed.
Mercifully, Graham growled an order for an update at 5 p.m. and disconnected. That left Casey and Sarah alone with Beckman.
Sarah quietly cleared her throat. “The family doesn’t need to be left with questions about us, too, so thank you ma’am.”
“Don’t thank me, Sarah. He’s not dumb. Someone will end up paying for that dogpile and it will probably be you.”
Sarah clenched her teeth. “Yes, ma’am.”
Sarah’s shift at Weinerlicious started in two hours, so she called in sick, which was closer to the truth than not. She and Casey said and little to one another as he readied for work. He left her to man the feeds and Sarah napped fitfully on Casey’s sofa in between fielding calls from the people who were frightened for Chuck.
The phone rang again at 4:13 p.m.
No, Sarah answered Ellie, she still couldn’t find Chuck, and she was really beginning to worry. With the same report from Ellie, Chuck’s sister revealed that she had contacted the police. The operator advised Ellie to make the report in person, and she and Devon were going.
Sarah heard what Ellie did not ask.
“Uhm, right, okay…which station?”
Ellie drew a careful breath. “Northeast Community Station on San Fernando Road.”
“Right. That’s over by…I know where that is. I’ll…meet you there? I can meet you there.” She had a go bag in Casey’s closet upstairs. Two minutes in Casey’s shower and she could be out the door.
It was the second worst hour Sarah ever spent in Ellie’s company, by a narrower margin than she imagined, because Chuck was still gone, and now they were lying to people about it. Added to which, Morgan kept calling and calling.
They made their police reports and the tears in the parking lot afterward knew no reserve. Sarah finally drove back to the Maison 23 and cried in the shower until the water ran cold.
There began the charade that Sarah insisted to Graham was necessary, where she stayed put, stayed visible, where Chuck was missing and not taken by his own government, and she was as shocked and grieved as anyone. It was simultaneously the easiest and most gutting acting job of her career.
The next day, Scooter grudgingly sold the processed food while Sarah ignored him and cried by the window, looking for something that would never come.
By day three, she gave up the scant appearance of work and spent her whole shift across the lot in the Buy More, alternately visiting with Casey about official things and mourning with Morgan about everything else.
On day four, Sarah quit the Weinerlicious in an emotional fit that had Scooter calculating the distance to the exit. Casey tapped the camera from his phone to watch it remotely. It would have been an Oscar-worthy performance if Casey didn’t know it was just Walker giving vent to her actual feelings; frustration with the pedantic Scooter, for sure, but four days after Chuck was taken, she was ready to unload, drop the mag and reload on everyone in range.
After that, Big Mike might as well have given Sarah a green shirt because if the door was open, she was at the Buy More. She wasn’t working of course, but neither were most of his other employees. But for Scott and Skip, who quietly corrected some of the mis-stocked items, the rest of the staff drew straws for who had to speak to the next customer through the door.
Sarah and Morgan had a shaky start in Burbank. Sizzling shrimp aside, Morgan had been childish and bizarrely possessive of his time with Chuck. But they were best friends since the age of six, and Sarah had to grant that kind of longevity was rare and meaningful, even if Morgan was…Morgan.
At least around his best friend, Sarah felt completely free to miss Chuck the way a girlfriend ought to. Morgan proved to be Chuck’s staunchest supporter in the store; there was no end to his worry, or his contempt for anyone nearby who believed anything but the best of Chuck Bartowski. Sarah found odd, unexpected comfort in sharing the little bearded man’s unwavering faith in Chuck.
It wasn’t until after Chuck was gone and Sarah spent so much time with Morgan in their mutual grief that she understood him better. But for his father walking out when he was eight years old, life hadn’t required much of Morgan, and he more or less responded in kind. He sold appliances for the most indolent retail manager on Earth. He paid his mom a little rent, daydreamed about women and played video games. Owning a car by Morgan’s reckoning was too much responsibility. He ran behind in many metrics the culture would use to assess his adulthood, so he was easy to discount.
But Morgan still had enough sense to look at his best friend and recognize merit for what it was. Morgan saw the gaping hole in the world where Chuck should be; a whole universe of people whose lives were less for his absence. Everywhere Morgan looked, he saw a problem Chuck would solve just by his steady, kind, long-suffering presence. The whole store, up to Big Mike, was caught in a stupor. Ellie struggled to get out of bed. Awesome had forgotten how to laugh.
Big Mike, who battled with the concept of Chuck as a traitor to the store, complained that their vigil at the Nerd Herd desk was dragging the whole place down and banished Morgan and Sarah to the break room. They spent the afternoons there together in quiet, mutual, utter misery.
It turned out that Morgan Grimes was perfectly capable of reflection.
“I see now how much Chuck gives, you know? All the time…to everyone,” Morgan told her as they sat on the little sofa in the break room. “This place is a lunatic asylum, and Chuck holds it all together…puts up with everyone…puts up with me. He’s this great guy…and he finally has you, and that’s awesome. And what am I doing?” Morgan’s eyes were huge and tearful. “Giving him crap about not playing enough Call of Duty with me,” he answered with a shrug. “I did the math. He played video games with me like ten hours a week for twenty-one years, and that’s like, seriously conservative, and I’m adjusting for Stanford, and really, once he got home he more than made up for those four years.” Morgan shook his head in wonder. “Duck Hunt and Zelda and Miss Pac Man, Mario. Street Fighter, Final Fantasy II…” he sighed and wiped his eyes. “Eleven thousand hours, easy. And he made jokes to distract the bullies at school and let me stay over a million times when Mom was working late shifts and he did my geometry homework. All along I just…I always expect Chuck to be Chuck.” Morgan’s voice sounded like it was dragged though broken glass. “I’ve been so ungrateful and I can’t even tell him I’m sorry.”
Sarah was staggered, and at the same moment wholly ashamed of herself for it. Morgan’s heart was breaking and nothing could be done. He also kept talking about Chuck in the present tense, like at any moment Chuck would walk through the break room door.
She reacted a beat too late and Morgan was halfway to his feet before she caught his arm.
“I haven’t been here long,” she began, fighting to keep it together. “But it’s plain how much Chuck loves you, Morgan. You and Ellie are his whole world. You’re his family. He’s not waiting for an apology. He wouldn’t think you owe him one.”
Morgan looked down where Sarah’s hand rested on his arm. “You talk about his world, Sarah, but you gotta know you’re right at the center of it. He loves you.”
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
It played over and over during her waking hours. Sarah could scarcely sleep but when she did, she saw it there, too. Felt the wash of the rotors, saw the way his hands strained against the edge of the door, tears streaking down his face. How even as Longshore drove the punishing blows into his back, Chuck’s gaze on her never faltered.
I love you.
Sarah squeezed her eyes shut. “He’s got a lot of love to give, you know?” Her eyes welled up and she gripped Morgan’s arm. “And I know…I rely on him too much.”
Morgan started to object and Sarah didn’t let him. “No, Morgan, really, I…ask a lot of him, maybe…monopolize his time, even with Ellie. And that…that’s on me.” The next words poured out of her on no more than a breath because they were true and the sound wouldn’t come. “I don’t have anyone else…and with Chuck it was just…”
“New and wonderful and amazing?” Morgan supplied with a sad smile. “It’s not like he objected, and I totally get it. Because seriously, if a woman like you walked into the store and decided she loved me? I’d forget my own mother.”
Past tense. Sarah decided to stop trying to track it. She also didn’t know how to respond to that sentiment and grabbed a napkin from a pile on the nearest table to wipe her eyes. “I…that’s sweet…I think.”
Morgan nodded earnestly. “Take it for the compliment it is.” He held out his hand and Sarah passed him a napkin.
“I don’t believe it, all the crap we’re hearing?” Morgan sniffled and wiped his nose. “It would be laughable except it’s so awful I can’t breathe good.” Morgan flattened a hand to his chest and shook his head. “Chuck would never, not ever, in a million billion years do whatever they’re trying to say he did, definitely not of his own free will. Not a chance. Not for any amount of money. And I don’t just think that. I know that. In my soul I know that Chuck’s a better man than that and nothing’s gonna change my mind.”
Sarah nodded earnestly. “Me, too,” was all she could force past her vocal cords.
“Everything’s all wrong now,” Morgan said softly. “I don’t know what to do.”
Sarah didn’t either and she went easily when Morgan pulled her into a hug.
He sniffled and took another deep breath.
“You said you don’t have anyone else, Sarah…and maybe that’s how you showed up here. But you have people now. Chuck would want you to hear that.”
Twenty-six years. For the first time in that long Sarah could see it, the shape of a life where she could look in any direction and see someone who might love her. But the surest and best of them was gone, and in a few days, she would be, too.