Chapter 11

Sarah stopped outside of Chuck's door. She saw that he was now curled onto his side in the bed, his head sort of buried in his pillow. She was unsure of what to say to him but knew that she couldn't leave him alone in his misery. It was her, after all, that had set up the meeting between Jill and he – even if it was at his urging.

Bracing herself, she opened the door and made her way inside.

"Leave me alone," came Chuck's muffled request.

"Chuck," she began.

"Just leave me alone, please. I don't want to talk about it."

"Listen, I know what she told you and…" she faltered, as she considered what to say to him. She knew that she couldn't tell him what Jill had revealed, but at the same time, she wanted to give him something, anything, that would provide a little comfort.

Chuck lifted his head and turned, looking at her with sad, red-rimmed eyes.

"I don't get it. Why me? How is it that I get involved or, as it turns out, fake-involved with women? Is there something wrong with me?"

Sarah walked quickly to his side and squatted down a little so that they were eye-to-eye.

"No, Chuck. It's not you."

"Could have fooled me," he said dully.

"Sometimes… sometimes people just aren't capable of giving love."

Chuck's face scrunched up in confusion. "That doesn't make sense. Everybody's capable of giving love."

"There are circumstances where it's just not possible." Sarah said as she took hold of his hand. "Believe me, it's not you. You shouldn't blame yourself. If there was a lack in anyone, it was in her."

Chuck held tightly onto Sarah's hand, willing what she said to be true. He still hadn't reconciled himself to the fact that everything that he had shared with Jill had all been fake.

The more he thought about it, the harder he found it to breathe. Squeezing his eyes closed, he released Sarah's hand.

"Chuck."

"I'd just like to be alone for a while."

She didn't want to leave him, but the quiet, pleading way that he had uttered those words made her change her mind.

He needed time. How much time he needed, she wasn't sure.

She slowly stood back up and, giving in to the impulse, brushed her hand through his hair. "I'll be outside if you need me."

He didn't acknowledge her, but she hadn't expected him to. She left the room and instead of sitting in one of the chairs down the hallway, she placed her back against the wall, slid down to the floor and buried her face in her knees.

Once again she found herself powerless to do anything for Chuck, but sit and wait… and hope.

A few weeks passed and Chuck was getting much better physically, but emotionally he had not improved at all. He refused to talk to anyone, about what happened in that dark interrogation room, or with Jill.

He wouldn't even talk to Sarah.

Finally, a week before Chuck was scheduled to be released Casey came to visit him. Casey had been finishing up searching the Fulcrum location and tying up all of the loose ends. He was fairly confident that he and the team had found everything that there was to find.

Casey entered Chuck's room to find Sarah sitting rather forlornly in a chair on the far wall and Chuck sleeping in his bed. Looking at Chuck, Casey saw that although the bruises had faded and the bandages had been removed, Chuck still suffered. He could see it in the way that he restlessly moved in his sleep, and would, every so often, let out a quiet moan or whimper.

Seeing this strengthened his resolve to do something that he thought that he would never, ever do. Ignore protocol and break procedure.

He approached Sarah and signaled to her that he had something to say. It had been weighing heavily on his conscience ever since he had discovered it.

"I know how Fulcrum found Chuck."

"What?" Sarah asked.

From his pocket, he removed a single sheet of wrinkled paper and handed it to the other agent.

Curious, she opened it.

She recognized Chuck's writing instantly, and as she read the words in the letter, her throat closed up a little bit.

"I found it, along with an old textbook at the Fulcrum location. The book has a Stanford stamp on it."

She read through the letter again and said nothing for a long time. Finally, she whispered, "She kept it".

Casey was about to ask her what she thought that they should do with the information, when Chuck's voice cut through the room.

"Who kept what?"

Sarah and Casey stared at each other a moment after Chuck had asked the question. She waited, her eyes silently asking permission. When Casey nodded slowly, she made a decision, one that went against all of her training.

After her conversation with Jill, and knowing Chuck, she knew that he should see what was in her hand. She had struggled with telling him of the things that had come up in her confrontation with Jill, as she knew, deep down, that it wasn't right to have him think that everything that was, hadn't been real. She finally had something tangible to give him.

"Jill," she said in answer to his inquiry.

She approached Chuck's bedside and saw that his face had become pinched upon hearing Jill's name.

She put her hand on his shoulder.

At her touch, his eyes opened and she could see the hurt that still lingered there. Knowing that this was the right decision, she handed him the piece of paper.

Momentarily confused, Chuck stared at it blankly. Finally, he unfolded the paper and began to read. He recognized it immediately and he found that the pain that had been gnawing and twisting at him began to ease.

"I thought I threw this away."

Casey, in the background, gave a dry laugh. "You remember when you wrote it?"

"You always remember when you tell someone that you love them for the first time. Even if it's in a letter that you never thought they'd see."

As the words left his mouth, his heart gave a squeeze as the full realization swept through him.

She had found it. More to the point, she had kept it after all of these years. She had lied to him that day in this room. It had meant something to her… he had meant something to her.

Chuck held it to his face, his vision slightly blurry as he traced his own handwriting on the paper, almost longingly.

Sarah stared at Chuck as her eyes started to film over. Her heart gave a small squeeze of its own as she saw the faint flicker of light that came into his eyes, a light that had been missing for a long time.

It's still there, she thought.

As Chuck held the paper to his face, she noticed the writing on the back.

"What does it say here?"

Chuck flipped the paper over to see the random zeros and ones written on it in Jill's handwriting.

Recognizing it for what it was, he started to laugh, relief and something more filling him. His laughter turned into tears, but not the kind that made him ache, but the kind that soothed the ache that was there.

Casey looked at him like he was crazy, but Sarah leaned in further to take another look.

"It's not gibberish, is it?"

"No." Chuck shook his head, his hair falling into his eyes. Sarah fought the urge to push it aside.

"It's binary code." He swallowed hard. "It says 'I love you too'".

A/N: I had to end Chuck's suffering… I put him through the ringer in this story and I think he deserves a little bit of closure/happiness. I hope it wasn't too cheesy. I also wanted to tie in the letter that was discovered in the first chapter. Hope you enjoyed it. As always, reviews and feedback are welcomed and appreciated!