Day to day

Where do you want to be?

Because now you're trying to

Pick a fight

With everyone you need

"See the World"

Gomez

July 7, 2012

St. Louis, Missouri

Sarah sat in front of the computer, tilting her head backwards to talk to Chuck. "Before I do this, I'm just reminding you first. Your sister loves you. I'm sure she has an explanation. You might not like it, or agree with it, but she was never trying to hurt you. All she ever wanted to do was help you."

He sat on her sofa, out of view of the camera. She saw the pinched worry on his face, and tried to reassure him with a smile. Chuck jumped when he heard the computer beeping, signaling that Ellie was initiating the contact. Sarah clicked on the computer.

"Hi, Sarah," Chuck heard from far away, trying to remain neutral and unbiased, but feeling deep inside very betrayed.

"Ellie, before you say anything, there's something I have to tell you," Sarah said.

"Are you all right, Sarah?" Ellie asked in concern.

"I am," she offered. She didn't say anything else, just stood in front of the camera, backing up so that her full body was visible.

She sat back at the computer. "I'm due in September. It's a boy," she said.

Ellie looked away briefly. "I know, Sarah."

"What do you mean, you know?" Sarah said sharply.

"Because I'm a doctor. Your face was puffy, you sounded congested from the increased blood flow, your fingernails were growing like crazy, your hair was thicker...Sarah, I knew, ok?" she said.

"Why didn't you say anything? If you knew?" she asked.

"Because I knew my brother didn't know. That was the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life, you know. Not tell him. It wasn't my place. I just kept hoping that as you got better, you'd be less afraid to tell him." Her eyes narrowed, as something seemed to occur to her. "But you're telling me now."

Sarah watched Ellie's green eyes, at first wide with disbelief, slowly change, as the realization took hold, and the regret and sadness clouded her face. She looked away from the camera, crossing her arms, putting her curled index finger over her lips. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out, like she was thinking but couldn't form any words. Finally, she cleared her throat, and asked, "Is he there, right now?" She looked down at her watch, a questioning look on her face. Sarah looked over her shoulder, seeing him, a fist pressed against his lips. He nodded to her.

"Yes, he is," she admitted. "He can hear you," she added, to clear the air, trying to erase the dishonest haze that seemed to surround them.

Her eyes shone, enormous and full of pain. "Chuck!" she yelled over Sarah's computer. "Come here so I can see you."

He stood, walked to Sarah and put his hand on her shoulder. She reached up and placed her hand over his, left it there. Ellie's eyes went back and forth-to Sarah's face, Chuck's hand on her shoulder, finally to Chuck's face. He was understandably both hurt and angry. "I'm sorry, Chuck."

"How could you do this? After everything that's happened, how did we end up back here, like this?" he lamented.

"Chuck, you don't understand," she argued. Her eyes reddened as she fought tears.

"You're right, Ellie, I don't," he said, gesturing with the hand not touching Sarah. His voice had an edge that Ellie wasn't used to hearing. "Explain it to me."

She paused, looking like she was pacing in front of her computer. "First, I want you to know, I am not helping the government rebuild the Intersect, or create an army, or anything like that. I told Beckman I wouldn't do it unless she guaranteed me that."

"You can't trust them, Ellie. They lie. They tell you what you want to hear so long as they get what they want. If they want you to help them rebuild it, you won't have a choice," he argued.

"Is that what you did, all that time? I seemed to remember you being better than that, helping people, you know?" she snapped back.

He forced the breath he was holding out through his teeth, looking away. Changing the subject, he started, "If they aren't building another one, then what do they need you for?"

"It's complicated, you know?" she offered.

He actually groaned out loud, turning away. God, he hated that word. She continued, "Devon told me you were away for a few days. How did this all happen?"

She was changing the subject, and Sarah saw from his eyes how frustrated he was. She interjected, "I called him about a week ago. I needed some help interpreting a dream that only he would have known about."

"Beckman knew about Sarah. And she contacted me, once she knew where Sarah was. If you knew, why didn't Beckman?" he countered.

"General Beckman isn't as involved in the day to day as you think. She set it all up, got Devon and I those job offers. The jobs were real. Devon works heading the cardiac department. He has nothing to do with this. It just happened that my first research grant was from the NCS. I report to Jane Bentley."

"That doesn't make me feel better, El. That woman manipulated you into working on Dad's laptop. Did you forget that?" he asked.

"Chuck," she said, a sudden desperation in her tone. "Dad is one of the reasons why I agreed to do this. Sarah was the other."

Chuck and Sarah exchanged glances. Chuck watched her struggle to stay together as she spoke. "Dad is gone. The Intersect ruined his whole life, tore our family apart. I can't imagine what it must have done to him, knowing something he created hurt so many people, when all he was trying to do was make the world better. And to know that it cost you the person you loved most in the world...I couldn't let that stand. Not when I was the only person left in the world who could fix it."

Crying now, she added, "I had to do something besides make pancakes, you know?"

XXX

January 29, 2012

Echo Park, Los Angeles, California

The only reason Chuck knew he had slept at all in the morning was the hazy memory of a nightmare, desolation and dark images that he could no longer hold onto as the sunlight began making sparkling patterns on his bedspread. The slightest motion caused screaming pain in his back and his bruised ribs, a sharp and unpleasant reminder of yesterday's horrors.

The effort required to drag himself out of bed seemed impossible. It was only the fragrance of burning food that made him worry, his brain slowly focusing on the memory of his sister's promise the night before about coming to make him pancakes. Just thinking about eating made him feel nauseous.

Chuck had known loss, an enormous amount of loss for someone his age, he knew. His mother's abandonment of him and his sister, then his father's only seven years later. All those years wasted in between, keeping them apart. Finding his father again, only to watch him killed, shot to death. Some days Chuck still could feel his father's body in his arms.

But all of that paled compared to what he had lost now. Even after his complete breakdown last night after he'd watched her walk away, it still had a surreal quality to it. His brain just couldn't accept that she was gone. He was in denial. Vague memories spoken by a counselor years and years ago about the stages of grief, that it applied to all loss, not just death.

Wallowing in that grief, he was only jarred when he heard the loud blare of the smoke detector. He dove out of bed, charging into the kitchen. Ellie stood in the kitchen, fanning the smoke detector with a newspaper in one hand, dumping a pan full of blackened material into the trash basket with the other. "Is everything ok, El?" he asked.

She turned quickly, not having heard him approach. He gulped, looking away quickly in embarrassment as she regarded his face-he knew she could see his devastation in his bleary, puffy eyes. She turned away quickly, Chuck hearing her heavy sigh. "I was a little distracted, and I...uh...burned the first batch. I'm sorry," she said, much too brightly, forcing cheer.

He smiled gently, glad her back was still turned, knowing his eyes were dead despite the toothy grin. The pan hit the stove top with a clatter. "Do you...uh...do you remember when I tried to make you pancakes, the day after Mom left? I burned them really bad, worse than this," she rambled, a stiff chuckle underlying her words, though there was no implied humor.

"You were only 12, El. You did the best you could," he said, warmed at the memory she had evoked, despite the tragedy behind the same.

Her back was still turned to him. "Right. I taught myself. So when Dad left, you know, I could make a decent batch then," she said shakily. He saw her hand reach up to cover her mouth. His own eyes misted when he saw her shoulders shaking up and down, a telltale of her tears, though they were silent. "I wish there was something else I could do, besides make pancakes. When the world falls apart, you know? But that's what we do. Make pancakes," she said through gritted teeth.

She spun to face him, her face awash with pain and sadness like he had never seen before, not even after she had seen their father killed. Heavy broken sobbing coming from his usually emotionally sturdy sister undid his composure. The sadness seemed to pass between them like an electric current. "I'm so sorry, Chuck," she whispered, sincere sympathy saturating her voice. "I was trying to be strong, but…" She covered her face with both hands, then felt Chuck pull her into his arms, squeezing her hard. It wasn't comfort, only mutual grieving, for he started crying as well. They clung to each other, holding each other up. Chuck remembered being like this only once before, actually after the first burnt pancake incident, only then, their father had grabbed onto them both, gruff but comforting, telling them it would be ok, as long as they had each other.

They were older now, and though they still had each other, things had gotten so much more complicated. The moment Sarah had pulled the gun on Morgan in the Intersect Room he had started falling, and he was still falling, no bottom in sight to end the hopeless misery. Time seemed to stand still, as they stood weeping in each other's arms.

"What am I going to do?" he managed to say, in utter desperation, pulling his face off of her shoulder, rubbing the wetness from his face.

She pulled her hands from around his back, resting them on his chest, giving him a gentle pat before removing her hands and wiping her cheeks with her palms. "I think you just have to keep going. One day, one minute at a time if you have to. And just know...that it will probably be a long time before you feel better."

It sounded empty and hollow, but he knew she was doing the only thing she could. Telling her the truth here, that he knew for sure he would never feel better, would only make her feel worse. "I already told Devon last night. We're not leaving, Chuck. We're turning down the jobs in Chicago."

"No, Ellie, you can't. Please," he said, turning back to her from the counter.

"Chuck," she implored. "How can I leave at a time like this?"

Deep inside, he wanted her to stay just as much as she wanted to stay for him, but he needed to be strong, at least in this moment. "Ellie, how much more of your life do you think you owe me? You deserve to have your own life with your own family," he insisted.

"You are my family too." She left it unsaid, how this was the hardest his life had ever been. Worse than being expelled, she knew, which up to now he still considered the worst day of his life.

"Promise me that you'll go, no matter what. Ok?" he said fervently.

"Chuck, I can't-"

"Ellie, please. The Intersect has destroyed literally everything I love. I won't let it cost anymore to anyone else. Please," he begged.

XXX

July 7, 2012

St. Louis, Missouri

He remembered that conversation, his reason for asking her to go. And still, here it was again, intruding its way into his life, still causing devastation wherever it touched. Sarah had balked at the idea that he was cursed, that his family was cursed. Seemed difficult to dispute now that he found himself here.

"I just wish you'd been able to tell me the truth. I know I lied to you for a long time, about all of that. I hated it. It was so much better when everything was out in the open. I thought you thought that too," he said, the bitter disappointment evident in his tone.

She reacted as if she had been hit, recoiling backwards as if from a blow. "Do you really want me to just say it? Fine, I will," she shot out defiantly. "You were 2000 miles away from me. Did you know what it was like, getting calls from Morgan at all hours of the night? Not knowing where you were, worried that you were going to harm yourself in some way, telling me no matter what he was trying to do he couldn't reach you, telling me he thought you were slipping away? You wouldn't talk to me when I called…"

Sarah watched him drop his head into his hands as his sister uncovered the same pain she had seen firsthand the night before. "But you got better. I was scared, you know? Afraid I would push you back over the edge, and, and…"

Speaking quickly, trying to avoid another total breakdown, Sarah interjected quietly, "We're coming to Chicago, if that's all right. We can be there by late afternoon. I think we should just figure all this out, ok?"

Ellie pulled herself together, fanning her face with her hand. "I think that makes a lot of sense. I'll text you my home address. I'll see you both soon, ok?" She took a deep breath, then added, "I'm sorry, Chuck."

"Ellie, wait," he called. She stood, gazing expectantly. "I didn't want to let you go before I thanked you. For all that you did for Sarah. She's so much better, El. It was all because of you." He reached out his arm, circling it around Sarah's shoulders and hugging her against him. His lips brushed against her forehead lovingly.

Ellie stared, not sure what she was seeing was real. She looked at Sarah's hand, saw her wedding rings reflecting a rainbow prism onto the wall beside them. "Oh my God, Sarah!" Ellie gushed, even as Sarah remembered that same tone from her before, as she had sat up in her hospital bed, her newborn daughter in her arms. "Sarah, what did you remember? What happened?"

"All the things you know I remembered. I realized love him, again, if that's what you're asking me." Ellie saw Chuck close his eyes, briefly overwhelmed by what Sarah was saying. "Turns out not remembering everything doesn't really matter. I love him anyway."

"I'm not angry, El," he said gently. "How can I be angry, when you gave me back my whole life?"

XXX

July 7, 2012

Somerset, England

"Here's the paper, Dad," Vivian said, sliding it across the table to her father. "I think she responded. That ad is back. A little different, but it's here," she said, her face animated as she pointed to it again.

Hartley scanned it quickly, and he saw the code again, the letters jumping out at him in his mind. He wrote frantically fast, scribbling so badly Vivian couldn't read what he wrote. She tilted her head, trying to read right-side up, rather than upside down.

He turned the paper to her, so she could read his translation. "Come to US. I will send coordinates tomorrow. Positive proof of life."

Vivian watched his hand tremble as he put the pencil down, and then shake as if he had palsy as he put the hand over his mouth. She watched him panting, as if he had just run a great distance. Concerned, Vivian looked back and forth from the words to her father's face. "Dad, what does that mean?"

"It means pack your bags. We're going to America," he said, jumping up, fumbling with the objects on the table in front of him.

"What does she mean? Proof of life?" Vivian questioned.

She watched her father's eyes overrun with tears. "I'll have time to explain. On the way to the airport. It's a long story, Darling."

She walked up to him, grabbed both hands in her own, feeling how he still trembled. "Who does she mean?" she implored.

Hartley's voice broke as he told her, "Your mother."