A/N: Chapter 50! That's a milestone or something, right? Thanks to everyone sticking with me through 50 chapters and literal years or writing this fic. Kind of insane, isn't it? Phew.

So I'm going to be repeating this a lot in the author's notes, but it's important to me so I hope folks actually read these and don't just scan over them. (begging hands) As this story moves forward, there will be big plot things I've been planning and working on, fine-tuning, editing, and legitimately suffering over for literal years. (You finally got here, SC! You did it! 10 years later, but still, you're here.) This isn't chastising anyone who's reviewed in the past, because I appreciate y'all getting so excited you burst with thoughts about what might be coming next. It's very encouraging and I appreciate it so much! But I have to request, as we move forward with the plot from here, that you don't make predictions or guesses about plot or character in your review. I'd love to get PMs from you about it! And I'll actually respond when I see it. I just don't want others to see potential spoilers in the reviews. It'll steal the impact of what I have planned from someone else, and that would bum me out. So I'm genuinely asking, please please please, if you wouldn't mind just sending a PM if you want to make a guess about what I'm doing with a plot point or characters or whatever else.

As always, this fic is about finding bits of light within the seemingly unending depths of the darkness, grabbing onto that light, and using it to put one foot after the other. I hope it inspires even just one person reading this. Um, and also, hold onto your butts.

Disclaimer: I don't own CHUCK or its characters.

Last time: Sarah and Chuck got stuck behind a couch for a few hours. Patrols have morphed LA into a police state. The band must decide how to move forward.

It happened on the second day of hiding out in the rooms Casey had booked for them.

They'd spent days sending members of their party out to retrieve food for everyone else, one by one. Checking on the Buy More, on their homes, carefully picking their way through the rubble of a city that was a bustling marketplace just a few days earlier, and now had most people hiding in their homes, crippled businesses trying to continue as though life hadn't taken an ugly turn.

Patrols had calmed somewhat, and for all intents and purposes, they seemed to be patrolling the way they did before the rally, making their rounds, stalking the streets with their rifles slung at their backs.

But everyone knew it had changed. There would be no pause on pulling the trigger. They hadn't heard from the mayor or any of the elected officials since before the rally. They were hiding too. The major periodicals had not released a new paper since the morning of the rally.

And there was no word from the palace in Washington.

It was an unnerving feeling, as if they were cut off from the world.

Everyone was on edge.

There was a nervousness in the air both within their rooms and outside on the streets.

Casey had left on that particular afternoon to see if the mail service was up and running yet, and to make sure Morgan was still taking care of the Buy More. The machine man had trouble comprehending the severity of what had happened, and seemed to be unable to figure out that there was a different air to everything, that there was change. He just did his daily tasks per usual, Chuck had informed them. "And perhaps," Chuck had said as they all sat having coffee in the room he shared with Casey and Devon, "it is for the better that he doesn't understand. That he keeps to his daily schedule and doesn't see that something is wrong. Worry, concern…nerves… I don't particularly like the idea of his suffering from any of those afflictions when he doesn't have to."

But this time when Casey had come back, his face was ashen white, anger sparking dangerously in his eyes, his jaw clenched.

Sarah seemed to be the only one who'd recognized the change in his appearance, his unnerving silence. He had something to say but didn't seem to be able to make himself say it.

"It seems like things are getting back to normal somewhat," Devon said as Casey walked in, smiling tentatively from over the book he was making notes in. "People starting to come out of their homes…"

"It's still eerie," Ellie muttered. "Like people emerging from their shelters after a storm has passed to survey the damage…"

Casey slowly made his way to the nearest chair and gripped onto the back of it, sitting heavily in the seat so that the chair's legs creaked under his weight. Sarah climbed to her feet and stared at him. "Casey…?"

Chuck caught on then, too, staring at the bounty hunter, confused. "Casey, is something wrong? Did…something happen?"

Ellie and Devon went rigid then as well, turning to look at him.

When he felt everyone's gaze on him, he slowly raised his head to let his eyes swing over every single one of their faces, and then he stopped on Chuck.

"It's the shop."

}o{

Nobody stayed behind.

With the way Los Angeles seemed to be slowly and tentatively easing it's foot back into some semblance of normalcy, in spite of the unpredictable menace of the patrols in the streets, Sarah thought they would be safe enough cramming into a carriage and pulling the drapes to cover the windows as Casey drove them.

None of them seemed to care about whether or not it was safe, that being said.

Sarah felt on the edge of despair as she stared across the small space at Chuck. He had his forehead pressed against the felt-covered wall of the carriage interior, abject worry in his features.

All they had to hear was that something had happened to the Buy More, and Chuck was pulling his jacket on and striding for the door. Everyone followed as if drawn to him magnetically.

And now here they were, rushing through the streets towards Chuck's shop.

Ellie was smashed into the seat next to him, her hands clutching his arm so tight her knuckles went fully white. What could she say?

What could any of them say?

They didn't know until they saw what Casey had seen. And Casey didn't seem to be able to say what he had seen. She'd never seen the bounty hunter so shaken up in the months since she'd known him. Not even when she and Chuck told him about the Intersect.

To say she was concerned was an understatement.

A dark cloud of nervous energy hung over all of them, and even Devon was silent beside Sarah, frowning, his lips pressed into a thin downward-turned line.

When the carriage finally started to slow, a "Whooa…whoaaa…" in Casey's gruff voice sounding outside of the oppressive box they'd been in for the last fifteen minutes, Chuck grabbed the door handle and swung it open before the carriage had even stopped.

"Chuck…" Ellie tried, but he was gone.

Sarah had to watch as Ellie scrambled out after him, Devon following right after but turning to help her down from the carriage as she was still sore in places. She rushed past him, not stopping until she spilled into the Buy More behind Ellie.

She had to stop once she got inside. Her feet had stopped working, her hands flying up to cover her mouth. She lowered them back to her sides just as quickly, her heart lodged in her throat so she couldn't even speak.

They all just stood there, taking it in, eyes roving the shop—or, rather, what was remaining of the shop. Sarah slowly crossed to one of the tables that had been stacked with toys. They'd drawn her to them the first time she stepped foot in the Buy More. Smooth painted wood and metal, cogs, springs, happy faces painted on the animals and people. They were scattered on the floor, some of them broken, others just tipped on their sides…as if someone had come through with their arm and had swept them off the table with one violent push.

She knelt down and let her finger run over the brass head of an elephant he'd fixed with a clock. It's once rounded skull had collapsed inwards, revealing the intricate mechanisms inside.

Turning to look over her shoulder, she scanned the room for Chuck. He wasn't there. Immediately concerned, she stood to her full height and moved past everyone else still surveying the damage, all of them in utter, speechless shock.

And she pushed past the front counter, shouldering the door into the workshop open. One lone lamp was flickering in the room. It was eerie, watching the tipped chairs and desks illuminated and shrouded in dark again, illuminated again, dark again…

She went to the lamp to turn it up, an orange glow running through the workshop.

That was when she saw him.

Chuck was in the corner of the workshop, half-crouched by the large plank that his automaton friend leaned against when he was charging…

When her eyes flicked up to the plank, she felt her breath leave her body.

Morgan was still leaned against the plank, the plug still connected to his metallic body, but the plate covering his midsection had been violently yanked away, the gears and cogs inside of him crushed, crooked, spilling out. It was as if someone had taken a blunt object and viciously slammed it into the automaton.

"No," came the broken mutter from over her shoulder. Ellie stepped up so that she stood shoulder to shoulder with Sarah. "God, no…"

Chuck's shoulders were tight, pulled up towards his ears, his chin was down, hands pulled into fists. Sarah couldn't see his face, but his body looked on the verge of snapping, or even exploding, it was so tense.

Ellie took a step closer as her brother's hand slowly stretched out and oh so gently touched a button on the suit jacket Morgan was wearing. The button swung limply from where it'd been yanked away, connected by one mere golden thread.

"Why?" the nurse asked, her voice thick with tears. "Who would—?"

There was a gruff curse, the only sound that let Sarah know Casey had finally entered the room. "Patrols."

Sarah didn't look away from Chuck for a moment, though. It wasn't until Chuck knelt down to scoop Morgan's bowler up from where it'd been upturned on the floor, brushing it off with his sleeve and slowly putting it on the automaton's dented head, that she felt the tears come. They fell down her cheeks.

Devon's arms rounded Ellie from behind and she spun to dive into his embrace, her shoulders shaking silently. Sarah met his blue eyes lined with tears of their own for just a moment before she turned back to Chuck.

Without warning, he spun and kicked a stool so hard it took to the air and landed a few feet away with a splintering crash. Sarah jumped at the sound, followed by a furious cry from the inventor. And then his body curled in on itself as if he was assailed by a great pain, his hands clutching at his stomach. And he folded over, his knees hitting the floor. His fingers tangled in his hair as he let out another cry, this one dripping with anguish.

Sarah didn't think twice.

She closed the distance and dove down to her knees beside him, ignoring the twinge of pain in her still healing body. She didn't know what to do so she just laid a hand on his back between his shoulders. There was no indication from him that he'd even noticed she was there.

And when Chuck let out a choked sob, his hand reaching out to grab onto one of Morgan's rounded metallic feet, Sarah felt everything inside of her break. She curled herself over Chuck's form and wrapped her arms around him, holding onto him tightly. He turned to press his face into her collar and she felt his tears, his shoulders heaving.

Shutting her eyes tightly, she stayed like that in spite of her legs burning in pain, her muscles tired, overwrought. She rubbed the back of his neck comfortingly, not knowing what else to do. This automaton, this machine man Chuck had built himself, years of work, of growth…it was all gone now. Taken away by violent men hiding behind corrupt badges, false vengeance. They'd taken a hammer to Morgan, and as much of a genius as Chuck was, she didn't know how he would bring Morgan back to what he was when he'd plugged himself in to charge for the last time.

She didn't know what kind of pain Chuck was feeling. She couldn't know.

It wasn't that she didn't know loss. She knew loss. She knew worse loss than anyone could ever truly understand.

But whatever bond this man had formed with his machine…she didn't know what Chuck was feeling. Loss of years of work and progress? Or loss of a friend? Both?

She pushed her hand through his hair and held on tighter as he clung to her as though she was his last lifeline, the one thing keeping him from crumbling altogether.

}o{

The room was wracked with silence. Loud, cacophonous silence.

And as much as they'd all told him to sleep, he couldn't. His mind wouldn't quiet. His heart wouldn't stop hammering painfully in his chest, so violently that he could feel it in his fingers and toes, every damn second.

There was pain behind his eyelids. A stinging sensation behind his ribs.

It had been over a decade since he'd felt this.

He hadn't gotten out of bed for days then. He couldn't afford to do that this time. There was a world potentially ending outside of this room. Or at least, that was how Los Angeles felt. He wondered if it was just his own world ending.

He rolled over onto his back with a shattered sigh, opening his eyes and blinking back more tears as he peered up at the ceiling, the light from a nearby candle flickering against the wooden beams above him.

"Can't sleep?"

Chuck just barely kept himself from jumping, and the only reason he didn't was because of the gentle softness in her voice. He cast his amber-colored eyes over to the plush chair where she sat, one leg pulled up under her long, powerful body, her head leaning back tiredly. She had rings under her eyes, and they were rimmed in red. She'd been crying. Silently. Sitting in that chair at his side.

He shook his head. "It won't come."

It hadn't before. It wouldn't again.

She nodded just slightly. "I understand."

"Have you been here long?" he asked. He hadn't heard her come in, and he knew he'd walked into the room, tugged his boots and jacket off, and flopped onto the bed all alone.

"Few hours maybe." Her blue eyes flicked down to the floor. "Are you hungry?"

"No," he said immediately.

Sarah nodded again. "I didn't think you would be."

Everything had gone numb after he'd found Morgan still plugged in, unresponsive, his insides smashed, yanked out, his head bashed in so that the gears were visible, one of his eyes drooping halfway down his metallic face, his clothes torn. After he'd managed to compose himself enough to function, he'd gathered every bit and piece of Morgan he could find scattered on the floor, every screw, every cog and spring, bits of jagged metal, and gently put it in a large trunk someone had set near him. He'd refused to leave him there for scavengers to pick at. What he'd do with all of it now, he still didn't know. He just had to get it all out of there.

And he'd done it all in a daze. A tortured daze.

Because unlike before, there were pressing matters. He couldn't just keel over, roll into a heartbroken ball, and cry until his chest hurt, his tears dried, his voice died. He couldn't. And he couldn't kick the door down, stalk into the street, and find the bastard who'd ransacked his shop and murdered his best friend. There were too many patrol. He'd never find those responsible. And vengeance just wasn't in his blood.

He thought he'd heard a door slam eventually as he'd worked to gather the pieces of his friend, Ellie calling Casey's name…now that he was a bit more lucid, thinking back, the older man had charged out of the side door of the workshop. And nothing Ellie could've said or done would've stopped the bounty hunter. What he'd done once he left the shop, Chuck didn't know. He didn't much care either.

Because as he took Sarah in, strong even as she sat slumped in the chair, he belatedly remembered something else from a few hours ago. Another set of hands skimming the wooden floor, picking at the cracks between the floorboards to get even the smallest pieces out from where they'd been wedged by the viciousness of the violent attack on Morgan. She must have knelt there on her hands and knees helping him for…he didn't know how long. But she hadn't stopped until they'd gotten everything.

And the way she'd folded Morgan's jacket, so neatly and slowly, before she laid it in the trunk over him, pushing the dent out of his hat and setting that inside as well…

The tears came to his eyes again and he shut them tightly, turning onto his side so that his back was to her.

He tried to fight the rush of anguish back, the ache in his chest almost debilitating.

"Do you want to be alone?" he heard her ask quietly.

Chuck shook his head no as best he could without using his voice. If he used his voice, he'd break. He knew it.

The pillow under his head was wet with tears, but he'd finally collected himself again a few minutes later as he reached up to swipe at his eyes with his sleeves, sniffling quietly. "Sorry," he breathed, swallowing thickly.

"Please, Chuck. Don't apologize."

He nodded, sniffling again, and finally rolled onto his back once more, pushing his hands through his hair and letting out a long sigh. "I have nothing," he said quietly. "Everything I had is—That was all I had, Sarah. That shop was everything."

"Ellie and Devon collected anything that wasn't damaged and put it in their basement. It's locked up. There's still some left, Chuck. They didn't destroy everything."

Chuck tried to fight back the spike of anger at himself that he'd just been lying here fighting to sleep while his family toiled at the shop to salvage whatever they could of his work. He should've been there. He should've been doing that. Not them.

But there was no use thinking that now. It was done.

"It can't have been much. They did a thorough job." He had the image of Morgan, his midsection shattered, in his head again and he blinked rapidly to try to force it away.

"Chuck, I'm so sorry." She must have read the look in his face, and he struggled to keep the tears from coming back. "Everything you've worked to build for years…and…of course…Morgan."

He slipped his hands over his face, let himself have just a moment of unfiltered anguish that she couldn't see, and then he huffed and dragged his hands through his hair again, before he finally pushed himself to sit up against the headboard of the bed. "He'd been…He was charging. He didn't even have the chance to defend himself. He was defenseless."

Sarah tentatively sat up, unfolded her long leg she'd had tucked under her, and stood, carefully crossing to sit on the bed next to him, folding her hands in her lap, looking both sorrowful and uncomfortable at the same time.

"I don't want this to sound cruel. I don't…even know if I should say it…"

He watched her closely. "Say it."

She looked unsure as she sighed and nodded. "He was… well, his version of unconscious. Which means he didn't even know. He didn't…feel it."

Sarah was right. He knew she was right. But it still felt like the dagger jammed in his ribcage had been twisted. "I-I know. I just… He plugged himself in, powered down, and that…that was it. The end. If I'd only known. Maybe I could've…"

"What, Chuck? This isn't your fault."

"I told him to take the day off, to let himself charge."

"And what if he hadn't been charging? What if he'd been walking around the workshop cleaning, like he usually does?" she asked. "Have you…taught him what to do if someone attacks?"

That hit Chuck like a brick slamming into him right between the eyes. His jaw fell open. "No. It never—It just wasn't something that occurred to me. I taught him to speak…words, how to think critically, conversation, improvisational speech patterns, tasks like cleaning, shining, working on my projects with me, reading, card games… Why would I teach him to fight? To defend himself? It just…never occurred to me he'd have to. He's—He was…" His throat closed and he hung his head, resting his chin against his chest. "He didn't have human impulses. Defending himself. Fighting, attacking. Running from danger. He was…a machine. At the end of the day."

He could say that, he decided, but it didn't mean he believed it deep down. And maybe he was out of his mind for it.

"You don't have to say that in front of me. It isn't true. And you know it." He found her hand settling on top of his knee. "Morgan…That machine man was more human than a lot of the real, actual people I've met in my lifetime. Maybe he wouldn't have known how to defend himself or fight because you didn't program that into him, but I've never met anyone with so much inherent curiosity in my life. I wanted to smack him sometimes, he asked so many questions." Her small, warm smile turned into a wince. "Before I'd realize that it was just how he learned." She squeezed his knee. "And he was kind. Which makes sense because you're the one who programmed him. You taught him everything he knew."

Chuck tried to smile. He felt her words warming his chest. But he was hurting in the worst way, and all he could manage for her was a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth. "He was made out of metal and gears and was powered by something that was decidedly not a heart or a brain, but he felt alive. He felt real." His eyes welled up and he tried to blink it away. "What am I to do now?" He felt helplessness rise in him and he couldn't beat it back, not even in front of Sarah Walker. "I've lost my shop, my prized invention but more importantly my greatest friend. I don't have anything here anymore."

"We can't stay. We gather up whatever we can manage to take with us, everything we need, and we move on. Together. All of us."

He lifted his gaze up to her. "We move on?"

"Devon has a theory, and the more I think on it, he might be right." He furrowed his brow. "The patrols knew that march was led by the Coalition. Your sister's Coalition. And they knew she was in a leadership position because she's one of the women who went to the city to get the permit and let the patrol know ahead of time that the rally was happening. They probably have gone after anyone else they thought was a ringleader after the riot that happened that day instead of the peaceful rally that was planned."

"It was that Inquisitor mess. It wasn't us!" he argued.

She shook her head. "What do they know of the Inquisitor? Unless that movement has members on the inside of the LA patrolmen… which, at this point, wouldn't be too out of character, would it?"

Chuck raised his eyebrows and shook his head. She had a point. "So…Devon thinks they connected me to Ellie, found my shop, and destroyed it. Is that it?"

She nodded and he decided silently that it wasn't a bad theory. He might've even come up with it himself by now if Morgan…

Morgan.

Chuck hung his head again and huffed, feeling Sarah move her hand to his back and rub comfortingly again. He didn't know how to tell her to keep her hand there, to keep doing that, without sounding like a needy child, so he kept his mouth shut. "I left him alone all these days, locked up in that shop. We could've kept him here with us."

"Nothing has ever led you to believe that shop wouldn't be safe, Chuck. This isn't your fault."

No. The first time, it wasn't his fault. This time, he could've done something. He could've done anything besides abandoning his friend to his fate, locking him up plugged in at the shop when he had to know the patrol would go after Eleanor Woodcomb and her family. They'd taken out his entire business, and even though they couldn't have known just how important the machine they'd found in the workshop really was, part of him still wanted to take a hammer to the bastard who did that to Morgan's stomach while he was sleeping.

Most of him knew it wouldn't do any good. It wouldn't bring Morgan back.

Chuck didn't think anything could bring him back at this point.

"They aren't going to let us go back to our lives peacefully, are they?" Chuck asked. "We've got a target on our heads. Ellie, Devon, me…If we go back to the shop, to our homes, if we try to start over here…"

"It isn't just the patrol, Chuck. Whatever this…Inquisitor business really is has reached Los Angeles. I don't want to know what would happen if this…cult…found out about the Intersect. Bryce seemed debilitatingly terrified of it in that letter, Chuck. And even though I'm not apt to give that bastard credit, I do know that it takes a lot to scare him. I might not trust him in anything else, but we have to trust him in this." He looked up at her and watched as she met his gaze seriously, leaning in close. "We need to leave. We need to run."

A chill went through him and he nodded. He saw something in her eyes then, a softness as she took him in. It wasn't pity or sympathy. But he thought maybe…maybe she wanted to put her arms around him, and this whole situation was too much for her, overwhelming to the point that she didn't quite know what to do, what he might need her to do.

So he decided to go out on a limb and make it easy for her.

He tilted to the side and fell into her body, rounding her torso with his arms and pressing his forehead to the crook of her neck. She wrapped him up in her embrace immediately, pulling him in tight, and he felt her lips against his head, through his curls.

She didn't let go even when his tears came back and they dripped onto her skin by her shirt collar. She just shivered and held him closer, and he let himself be held.

}o{

The room was silent.

She felt the heaviness in everyone. It was a direct contrast to the way these people had felt when she'd first met them. There was joy in and between these people in spite of the world seeming so devoid of it in general. They were full of life. It had made her feel a sense of hope for the first time since she was a child.

This felt different.

They were all in mourning.

Chuck had spent years assembling and animating and teaching what Casey had called "a hunk of metal" more times than she could count in the last few months. It was an animated machine made up of metal, cogs, gears, pulleys, gears, copper and zinc, perhaps batteries. She wasn't quite sure how the hat and suit happened, if Chuck had started it or if the machine had picked up the habit by looking at the humans around it when it went into public.

In the end, in spite of it being a "hunk of metal", Morgan was kinder, warmer, and more trustworthy than any person she'd ever met. It had become a him to her. And she'd grown used to the way his metallic features didn't have to move for her to see that he was perplexed a lot of the time.

In the end, Chuck wasn't the only one heartbroken by his destruction.

They all were.

She felt it like a gaping hole in her chest and she could only imagine it was so much worse for Chuck, his sister, and his brother-in-law.

Even Casey had been fuming for hours, standing in the corner with his arms crossed, fidgeting, rage in his face. For as outwardly annoyed as Casey had been by Morgan, the android had wormed his way under the bounty hunter's skin, too.

This on top of everything else they'd all witnessed the last few days had left everyone rattled. And not just rattled, but hopeless.

Or maybe she just felt hopeless and she was projecting it onto everyone else.

She'd been so close the other morning, so close to reaching out and grasping onto happiness—whatever that even meant. A literal explosion had ripped it away from her.

Now they'd be on the run—something she was used to, something she'd thought maybe she wouldn't have to do anymore… No, she wasn't thinking along those lines. She refused to let herself do that.

Being on the run was her existence and it always would be. At least she had experience. And with Casey in tow, they'd have someone with the experience of having been on the other side—the hunter. They would be all right. As long as they all did what they were supposed to do.

"You're taking Chuck out of Los Angeles, aren't you?" Ellie asked quietly, breaking the silence. "That's what this is all about. We're figuring out how to proceed next and that's the only logical step you can think of. Taking him away from his home."

Sarah lifted her blue eyes to meet Ellie's green ones. She swallowed. And then she answered. "Yes. It isn't safe for him here."

After a long pause, Ellie nodded once. "Good."

Sarah saw Chuck look up at his sister with a double take. She hadn't been expecting Ellie to respond in that manner, either. The way she'd phrased the question made Sarah sure the other woman would protest.

"Nobody knows about the Intersect, or rather who actually has the Intersect, but the last thing we want is for them to find out. Los Angeles is verging on a police state, with the police being lawless men with masks and guns. I can imagine the rest of the empire's eyes are already pointed here. This is the last place Chuck should be." She ran her hands up and down the skirt she wore as her husband gently slung his arm around her shoulders and pulled her side into his.

"You're coming, as well," Chuck said. "Both of you. All of us." Both Ellie and Devon stared at him with wide eyes, as if they hadn't even considered the possibility of leaving yet, as if that wasn't an option that had occurred to them. "I left someone I care about behind once, while I hid away in safety, and look what happened to him." He gestured towards the trunk near where Casey stood. They all turned to look at the trunk and Sarah felt her heart sink even more. "I'm not doing it again."

"Chuck, Morgan wasn't your fault."

"Look, save it, Ellie. My point is that you and Devon will be coming with us to…wherever it is we end up going. Or I don't go."

His sister pulled her chin back at his tone, but Ellie had tact, patience, and understanding, so she didn't snap at him like someone else might've—like Sarah might've in her shoes. "Chuck, I have a responsibility here. A home. A movement. And Devon has a medical practice. He can't just up and leave everything behind, and I won't leave him behind."

Sarah watched Devon as Chuck and Ellie argued. He was staring down at the floorboards under his feet, his face thoughtful and bothered all at once. What was going through his mind? She realized she hardly knew this man, in spite of eating supper with him a few times. All she had to go on were a few meetings and everything Chuck had told her about him.

He dropped his arm from around his wife's shoulders and draped his hand over her knee, squeezing. "Ellie, wait."

The argument stopped. The room was silent again.

"Chuck is right." He turned to look into Ellie's eyes as she furrowed her brow in confusion. "Whatever is left of my practice now, I'm your husband. You think they're not going to do to my office what they did to Chuck's workshop, to the Buy More? If they haven't already." He gulped and shook his head. "Practicing medicine is…incredibly important to me. It's something I have wanted ever since I was a boy. It's more than just my calling, it's my duty. My oath. But it will never be as important as you are." He turned to look at Ellie seriously, that big grin Sarah always saw him wearing completely gone. "My family will always come first. If Chuck goes, you need to go. And if you're both going, I'll be there with you. All I need are my tools. I can practice anywhere. I can help anywhere I go. It isn't safe here for any of us. Ellie, you have a target on your back—"

"This is our home," she interrupted. "It's where I grew up, it's where I worked, went to school. Chuck and I raised ourselves here. It's messy, it's incredibly messy, but this is still our home. I have a house, a job, a…" She pushed her hand through her hair. "Well, I had a coalition. A coalition I thought was making strides. But that's hopeless now."

"This is our home, Ellie. It will always be our home," Chuck said.

"What if I want to fight for it? We're just letting them ransack it, destroy it." She cut herself off and shook her head. "What am I even saying? I'm not…right in the head. I need some air. I need to think and get some air." She climbed to her feet, then stared down at Chuck who sat slumped in his own chair, peering up at her quietly. "We'll go. None of us are safe. My name will be connected with that attack. We need to leave. I understand that. But it's quite a bit to take in. And I need some time."

Chuck nodded and they watched as Ellie left through the door, her heels clunking in the hallway.

Sarah didn't know why she did it. But as Devon stood up, she stood as well and held a hand out. "No, I'll go. I'll make sure nothing happens to her."

It took a moment, but he finally nodded. She saw trust in his blue eyes and it nearly knocked her over. She found suddenly that she had to get out of this room as well.

A minute later, she found Ellie outside, a cloak wrapped about her shoulders, her hat pulled lower over her face than was customary. She was trying to blend in. The simple skirt and blouse she wore would help at least.

Sarah fell in behind her, a good forty feet or so back. She could get to her fast enough to protect her just in case, but Ellie would also have the feeling of being alone. She figured that was the whole point of Ellie leaving in the first place.

She kept her eyes on the other woman's back as she moved along the side streets. In spite of everything, and in spite of her hat being pulled lower to disguise some of her face, Eleanor Woodcomb's chin was up. It wasn't pride per se, but strength. And Sarah found herself marveling at the other woman.

After everything she'd been through, this woman was prepared for anything else that might come her way. For some reason it made that protective feeling roar to life in Sarah's breast all the more.

Ellie paused then, her body going rigid, and Sarah immediately reached into her sleeve, ready to pull a throwing knife, ready to do away with the threat, her senses tingling at potential danger…

But then she saw what Ellie had. A young girl stood at the entrance to an alleyway, using a tattered shawl to block the sun from her brother's face as he sat on the ground with his eyes shut. The girl must have been eight or nine, ten at the most, and if she was malnourished perhaps older than that even. And the boy looked to be six or so. Sarah assumed they were siblings. They had the same dark straight hair, the same shape of the face… And oh no, Ellie was moving towards them.

What did she plan on doing?

She couldn't rescue every child in the streets of LA. What did she think she'd even be able to do for these kids? They lived on the street; that much was clear. Their faces were dirty, boots scuffed up, rings under their eyes.

Sarah stepped into a shadow and simply watched.

Ellie knelt down a few feet away from them, not getting too close, perhaps knowing it would scare them more than anything. Sarah knew all too well how easily mistrust of adults could seep into a child's mind when they lived on the streets. She'd lived it for long enough. She'd learned to trust no one. Literally not a soul. She imagined these children were smart enough to know that. And it seemed Ellie must've had that in the back of her mind as well because she didn't reach out or make any sudden movements.

The older sister stepped in front of her brother as he opened his eyes and stared at Ellie in fear.

Sarah couldn't hear the exchange, but the tentative hardness in the sister's face eventually eased, and she nodded a bit. Ellie stood up to her full height and moved away from them then, their eyes on her back the whole way. She went to a vendor that had steam spilling from his cart, purchased some of his food, and brought it back. Again, she stayed a few feet away and thrust the food out. The sister took hers with a shy nod, then gestured for her brother to do the same. He snatched it and scrambled back to the safety of the wall, behind his sister, taking a bite out of his sandwich.

Ellie spoke with them for a few more minutes, the sister nodding seriously to her, and then, without looking back, the nurse stepped away and kept walking. The children slinked further into the alleyway with their meal Sarah noticed as she followed Ellie, forced to walk past them.

It was a curious thing, what Ellie had just done. Sarah wondered why those children in particular had caught Ellie's eye. When she'd passed at least three other street urchins on this walk alone. It came with the scenery in any city, any town. Orphaned children who didn't want to be at the mercy of the system, slotted into large facilities run by strict headmistresses or nuns. They relied on the freedom of the streets but sometimes that meant starving for days on end.

Stopping for every child, buying them food, providing a roof over their head, it simply wasn't possible.

Ellie seemed to know that. She'd lived in Los Angeles her whole life, hadn't she? And she'd known how to approach those siblings without scaring them away. So what about those children in particular had made her stop?

Sarah caught sight of Ellie stopping ahead of her again, and this time, she just turned on her heel altogether and looked right at her. Not knowing what to do, not bothering to try to duck her head, hide her face, or dive for cover somewhere because Ellie had definitely spotted her, Sarah just stayed put and waited for Chuck's sister to approach.

"I decided to just do away with the pretense that I didn't know you were following me," she said matter-of-factly as she stopped in front of Sarah.

Sarah huffed with a bit of a smile. "How'd you know? I'm usually better at this."

"Oh, I didn't see you. I just knew someone would follow. What with how much more dangerous these streets are, and the fact that I might have a target on my back. The fact that Devon didn't run after me told me everything I needed to know. I'm just glad it's you and not John."

They were always underestimating the Bartowskis, weren't they?

Even though she warned herself to stop, she still did it.

"I apologize. I would've made myself known, but you seemed to want to be alone. I assumed you wanted time to think." She shrugged shyly. "This whole situation is…"

"Awful? Terrible? The worst possible scenario I can think of?"

Sarah could think of a lot worse, she silently pondered to herself. But she wouldn't say that out loud. That was the last thing Ellie needed to hear at the moment.

"It's all right," Ellie continued when Sarah didn't respond. "I appreciate the space, but there's really nothing else to think about, is there?" She turned on her heel to fall in next to Sarah and threaded her arm through the taller woman's, pressing their shoulders together. "We're leaving this place."

Sarah nodded quietly as they continued walking, strolling in a way that belied the entire atmosphere of their surroundings.

"It feels so strange, imagining packing up, climbing onto a train or something, and just…going. Not knowing if I'll ever see any of this again. My home. My house. My garden. Chuck's shop." She sighed, her chin quivering. And then it stopped just as quickly. "Things had felt like…perhaps they were on the right track finally. The fight for suffrage, my right to earn a doctorate, become a practicing medical professional, a surgeon. If you'd sat at those tables surrounded by those smart women, smart pragmatic women who knew exactly which strings to pull, how to build support…" She just sighed again and shook her head. "I doubt I'll ever see anything the likes of that again, Sarah. I won't sit at that table with those women ever again. I don't even know if they're all still alive."

Sarah slipped her hand over Ellie's on her arm and squeezed, not looking at the other woman, affording her at least some privacy as she heard the beginning of tears in her voice.

She felt Ellie pulling herself together, straightening her spine, lifting her chin again.

Sarah finally decided to speak up. "My job is to protect Chuck and everything that comes with him. That includes you and Devon. I can't imagine a more dangerous place for any of you than Los Angeles at the moment."

Ellie nodded. They'd reached the peak of a hill and could see the ocean spilling out into the horizon in the distance, miles away. As if of one mind, they both stopped and just stared.

"There is no soul here anymore," Ellie said quietly. "The soul of Los Angeles has been stripped from its roads, the faces of its buildings. The streets that were once busy with people and horses and wagons and carriages and Chuck's…bizarre vehicle contraptions…" A fond smile swept over her tired features, and it was gone just like that. "It feels dead. Corrupted and soulless. We can't live here anymore." She turned and looked back over the streets that stretched behind them. "Our home is gone. We need to find a way to make one…elsewhere. Don't we?"

Sarah was quiet. She'd spent her whole life on the run. And she'd never found a way to make a home out there. Not alone. And the more she flitted around the globe, the easier it was for her to tell herself it didn't matter, that it wasn't something she needed anyway: a home.

"Yes," she said, simply. It was best to just agree. Whatever she could do to make Ellie feel better about this. Either way, they were going to have to leave anyway. It was best to come to terms with it. And then they could turn the page to step into their future.

A/N: There's really not much I can say here. I hurt. But I've had this planned for quite some time, and writing towards it, then writing it was seriously painful. Just don't abandon me. The real journey is just beginning. For all of them. I think you'll want to see what comes next.

Thanks for reading, and please review. Even if it's yelling at me. (wince)

-SC