Title: When All Love is Lost
Characters: Chuck, Casey, Sarah
Pairings: implied Chuck/Sarah
Spoilers: all episodes
Warnings: (past) near-death experiences, amnesia and maybe a bit of language. Horrible things are approaching
He wishes there was something familiar to calm his nerves—anything, really, to convince him that this isn't a living nightmare. It definitely doesn't help that he can't recognize the dark-haired, bleary-eyed doctor that tells him she's his sister or the shorter, edgier man that says his name is Morgan. There's another man that seems to be made of stone—tall and strong and menacing—but he talks in low tones that sound less frightening than he actually looks. He certainly has the capability to be intimidating, but the effort to be civil is there and he—the patient—feels somewhat safer in his presence.
When the blonde woman returns she tells him his name is "Chuck"…or "Charles" really—Charles Irving Bartowski. They hope his name will trigger a memory but he all he sees is a flash of someone's 'student ID card number' with his picture posted on it. The name 'Dr. Flemming' flickers by, as well as a copy of a Degree in Electrical Engineering (which, somewhat vaguely, feels oddly delayed).
He hates these flashes.
The flashes only serve to remind him that there's something still inside his head, something that he has absolutely no control over accessing. It's frustrating.
Depressing.
'Chuck' would love to pull out his hair right now but his injuries prevent him from moving much. The doctor tells him he broke five ribs and the humor in his left arm; he fractured his left knee, his right wrist and two places in his right tibia. He also cracked his skull where his head connected with the pavement. There was massive internal bleeding where his broken ribs punctured something important (Chuck can't quite remember what it was—pancreas, lung or spleen?), but it was the blow to the head that worried the doctors the most. Chuck had been in a coma for nearly two weeks and showed little signs of waking up.
They expected him to die.
Well, he didn't die—thank God—but his amnesia was expected. They said the chances of him recalling all of his memories were unbearably small but if he tried hard enough he might be able to salvage something.
And so Chuck tried.
It didn't get him anywhere.
"What are you?" Chuck asks one day when he feels energetic enough to speak. He spends most of his days sleeping or lying in a daze, heavily drugged by all the medicine they doctors proscribed him. Sometimes he feels as though a truck ran over him. Today…not so much.
The blonde woman (—'Sarah') and the beefy guy (—'Casey') look at him simultaneously with the same solemn look they've had the last few days. 'Casey' pokes his head through the veil of curtains around them to see if anyone is around before he returns his attention to Chuck.
"What do you mean?"
Chuck would shrug if he could move. The bed is slightly elevated so he can sit up (sort of), but he can't do much of anything else without assistance. "I mean…she says she's my girlfriend. What are you?"
"Your neighbour."
"Oh…"
Of course. He was guessing 'estranged uncle' but that would've been weird...
"Chuck…" The blonde woman stops short as though something's caught in her throat—Chuck hopes she's doesn't start crying again. He feels like tearing-up himself when the waterworks start and it physically hurts to sob. "…there's something we have to tell you."
"Okay." Chuck replies quietly. He likes it when people tell him things. Each little thing feels like a clue to his past life. This life feels like prison. He's trapped in a hospital bed… "Tell me anything."
Casey grunts. "You think he'll believe us?"
Yes...No. He's not sure. If he knew what to believe he wouldn't be in a hospital bed.
"Do I look like I'm in a position to disagree with you?" He asks quietly and it would appears as though the man has nothing to say to that.
"I work for the Central Intelligence Agency." Sarah tells him. "And Casey works for the National Security Agency, Chuck."
His explicit memories might've flown out the window, but the implicit memories concerning facts, data and general experiences have stayed with him. That's what the doctor told him. It's why he can still understand English—why he can vaguely remember fixing sixty computers in one sitting but not Ellie's birthday or Morgan's favourite sandwich. Memories tied solely to emotions have no real footing is his mind right now.
It's why he can understand that Sarah and Casey both work for the government.
They're spies.
Killers...
Deep breath. Don't panic.
"Oh God…" Chuck murmurs, disappointed with himself that he does panic, and he glances at the IV stuck in his arm in alarm. "The nurses overdosed me, haven't they?"
Casey sighs wearily. "No, Chuck. You're not hallucinating."
But he wishes he was. Drug induced hallucinations end eventually; reality doesn't.
Well…not until you're dead, at least.
"We were sent to protect you." Sarah continues. Her voice sounds stronger now…'freer', as though telling the truth helps her fight the grief.
"From what?" Chuck asks incredulously. He was accidentally hit by an SUV while crossing the road one evening—he honestly doubts the SUV is going to come back to finish the job in the hospital.
"You have our collective database locked inside your head." Casey explains in a tone that leaves no room for argument. "It's called the Intersect, and you have the only working copy."
The only copy.
Casey and Sarah wouldn't need to protect him if there was nobody that wanted him dead.
Chuck takes a deep breath, ready to scream or shout or yell—anything to get the attention of one of the nurses but Casey's hand clamps down over his mouth to prevent him from calling for help. A menacing spark flickers in his eye that promises Chuck a world of pain if he doesn't shut up.
Chuck's head hurts from the pressure, so he abides to the man's rules and sighs in relief when Casey removes the hand.
Casey has a contemplative look on his face.
Chuck doesn't want to be here anymore. Dead or alive—he doesn't really care, just as long as he can escape this terrifying state of identity loss; no clue as to who he was and how he came to be messed up with the government. And he wonders now, considering the attention he's received from these two spies, if the accident that landed him in this hospital bed was really an 'accident' at all.
Despite all his efforts and his pains, not a single memory returns to him. He lies there silently for a moment, fighting the heavy influence of his narcotic drugs, as he tries to pluck a face or a name from any one of his lost memories. They're locked away in a vault in the back of head…either that, or they're gone forever.
"Can you take it out?" Chuck asks after a moment of contemplation. Maybe if the 'Intersect' is removed from his head, he'll have more room to remember the things that matter to him the most.
Sarah shakes her head solemnly. Apparently, they've had this discussion before.
Casey, who's as solid as a rock and every bit the soldier, reaches into his pocket for a business card. He hands it to Chuck. "I've been meaning to test this…"
Chuck glances at the name on the card. Cory H—
Black Hatter—Omega Project—Phoenix, Arizona—Cordio-missile testing in—
…What was that?
Chuck blinks, startled when he sees that 'agent' Casey has moved closer to his bed. Their eyes are locked.
Casey looks as though he's found what he was searching for.
"What…?" Chuck asks quietly, panic bubbling in his chest as Casey reaches for the bedside curtains. "What is it you're not telling me?"
"Casey—" Sarah is on her feet in an instant, following the NSA agent as he parts the curtains and strides briskly down the room toward the hallway door. The man in the section to the left of Chuck grumbles something about it being 'too noisy' before he asks Chuck to turn off his bedside lamp. It's eleven p.m. The other patients in the room would like to sleep.
Chuck presses the button on the controller near his hand, but sleeps escapes him. He's mind stumbles endlessly over images of bombers and assassins, weapons of mass destruction and mounting terrorists. And though he tries to block these images out, there's no use turning from them—they're trapped inside his head, and now that there's nothing else to occupy his mind, his brain has nothing else to focus on.
So he runs.
He runs like hell from the men that want to destroy the world and the men that plan to overthrow their government, twisting and turning between his sheets as he tries to evade these dark phantoms. His injuries hurt; his head feels worse—but he murmurs quietly and sobs under his breath so he won't attract anyone's attention. He endures the pain the whole night through, saved by sleep only after his mind is exhausted and the men in his waking-nightmares fade into the darker recesses of his mind. By then, Sarah has returned.
She looks worse than she did the day before.
She has urgent news for him. Something terrible is going to happen—
—but he's far too exhausted to listen, and when the nurse enters to give him another dose of his medicine the sedatives pull him under almost instantly. He's troubled by her pale face, but he dreams of nothing and is grateful for the peace.
Whatever it is she wanted to tell him, he doubts it can be worse than what he's going through right now. His once empty mind is full of demons that he can't escape. The drugs pull him away from them, to a distant place that is blank and quiet, but the images of those terrible men murmur behind the veil.
Chuck firmly believes he's trapped in a living hell.
And there's no escape.
"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live."
- Norman Cousins
A/N: Someone asked me why I put the word "Love" in the title, when, in all actually, Chuck lost his "memories". In my Psychology class we were debating the capabilities of the mind and examined one case in which a woman lost her memories in an accident. She went missing for many years, and, when she was re-discovered, she had no sense of love or affection for her children or the rest of her family. She had to learn to "re-love" them, almost. Chuck loves life—he loves everything, but he has no memories of those things now. To what degree does he (or can he) still love them?