We're reeling through an endless fall

We are the ever-living ghost of

What once was

"No One's Gonna Love You"

Band of Horses

July 8, 2012

Chicago, Illinois

Chuck was still in the process of catching his breath when Sarah asked, "Ellie, what does that mean?" He turned to see her, unblinking, frozen stare.

"I need to start at the beginning," she said softly. "Chuck, do you remember when you broke your wrist, when you were nine? After climbing that tree in the backyard with Morgan? It was only a few months after Mom left."

"Yeah. Morgan ran in the house to get Dad, and...and...what does this have to do with anything?" he asked incredulously.

"Do you remember Dad, taking you to the emergency room, insisting that they run an MRI on you? He kept telling them you hit your head. I even tried to correct him in front of the doctor. You were crying, but I knew you didn't hit your head. That was the only time in my life I ever remember Dad yelling at me to be quiet," she said pointedly.

"That I remember," he said. "That giant machine, I was freaked out when they strapped me in. The nurse couldn't understand why I needed my 12 year old sister to calm me down when my father was there." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mary dip her head, as if this knowledge had hurt her somehow.

"Chuck, you downloaded the beta version of the pristine Intersect when you were nine years old. Do you remember that?" she asked, knowing the truth, and yet still not quite believing what she was asking was so.

Sarah's mouth hung open, no words coming out.

Chuck gasped, and looked away. "Yeah, I do, El." He looked sideways at his wife, saying to her, "I never told you that, even before." He turned back to his sister. "When the Intersect was failing, after Shaw took the governor. I couldn't flash. Shaw knocked me out while we were fighting in the Buy More. I had a flashback, a memory of that. When Sarah was trying to revive me. When I woke up, it was realigned, and I could flash again without that migraine feeling. Dad told me I was special," he said, his voice still catching, as those had been the last words his father had ever said to him.

"Right, Chuck. Right," she stressed, her own eyes moist. "You broke your wrist two weeks after that incident, from what I could tell. Dad kept the records. He used your brain as the map. To build the Intersect."

Still bewildered, Chuck almost shouted, "Dad never wanted me to have it! He helped me get rid of it, and he was so upset and disappointed when he knew I had the 2.0."

"He didn't build it for you. He built it using your brain. He thought overlaying an Intersect mapped after your brain would correct the mistakes he made with the first one. He was only trying to help Hartley stop being Volkoff. That was his only intention, all that time. The government corrupted it for their purposes, which explains why Dad was so distrusting afterward. One of the reasons, anyway. He felt betrayed by all of them," she said, seeing the understanding nodding from her mother.

"Why me? El, I don't understand," he said softly, emotions still at the surface.

She clicked a few keys on her computer, and an image of a human brain appeared on the white board. "I didn't know this was your brain, Chuck, for months. I had to compare so many files. Once I figured it out, everything made sense."

"For those of us who aren't neurologists, can you explain what the heck I'm looking at?" Chuck asked, gesturing toward the projection.

"The Intersect works in the hippocampus, in concert with the amygdala and the hypothalamus. Long term memories and emotions are all regulated in this pathway. In the male brain. This is you at nine years old. You have almost 500 times higher brain activity there, you know, detectable connections, than an average nine year old boy. And you would have only acquired more as your brain developed. At 30, it's probably 10 times that by now." Thunderstruck, Chuck could only stare at her. "Dad meant it, Chuck. You're special."

Sarah's arm reached around his shoulders from behind, a brief squeeze for support. "I was right, too," she whispered to him. He grabbed her hand, held it briefly, before he let it go.

"How did I not know this? How did no one know this?" he asked finally, confusion still clouding his expression.

"In the hospital, back then, they were checking for subdural hematoma or some other evidence of trauma. The doctor would have seen a normal brain. I knew what I was looking for. No doctor, unless they were specifically doing research, would ever look that closely."

With a quick thought, Chuck asked, "So if Fulcrum hadn't interfered, and Bryce had actually downloaded the 2.0, what would have happened?" he asked.

"It would have failed. How, no one knows. He may have forgotten who he was. He may have had memory loss or worse, like Morgan and Sarah. But his brain couldn't maintain it for any extended period of time," she said.

He was panting, suddenly back in that room with Bryce as he was dying. He had made a quick decision in that moment, one that had changed everything forever. It had signified the end of his quest for a normal life as he called it. How ironic, now, knowing the choice he made at the time was the only possible outcome. It made him think about destiny or fate, in a strangely comforting way.

"Mom, the suppression device you used on me in the base Dad built under the house. What was that?" he asked, turning to face her.

"Your father built that for Hartley. It failed for him. I knew it would work on you. And it did. I knew all of this, what you are talking about, a long time ago. It took a while for me to know about you actually having the Intersect, though, Chuck," she explained.

"The government has suppression devices, too. Quinn had one," he said questioningly.

"We're getting ahead of ourselves," Ellie said flatly. "When Mom did that to you, you could still almost flash, right?"

He nodded. "Yeah. It would start, but then fizzle out, like a car that won't start. Rye thought my anxiety over Sarah was causing it."

"Morgan's Intersect was totally suppressed. So was the 2.0, by Decker, for that matter, in you. Morgan never had the same experience that you did," Ellie elucidated. "And you didn't either, did you? Until you downloaded the 3.0." It was a question, but also a factual statement. He only nodded.

"Sarah's too," Chuck added. He watched as his sister and Bentley exchanged a look of alarm, and dread too, from his sister. Seeing it, he asked, almost shrilly, "What? What aren't you saying?"

Bentley stood, walked to a cabinet in the front of the room. She pulled out a small plastic box, the top grayed, as if to shield the contents from light. She placed the box on the table, off to the side. She spoke. "The CIA, NSA, and NCS all tore apart Quinn's base, everywhere he could have been. We found these, but nothing else. He was never in possession of a suppression device."

Chuck opened his mouth to question, skepticism and bewilderment at the front of his brain. Sarah did not have the Intersect, of that he was certain. Before the words left, he was interrupted by his mother.

"Chuck!" his mother called, to get his attention. He had been so focused on what Ellie and Bentley were saying, he momentarily became unaware of Sarah. His mother had seen her, the moment the box was on the table, her eyes fixated on the wall, staring at nothing. She was shaking, sweating, so agitated that she couldn't sit still.

Alarmed, Chuck reached for her. "Sarah, what's the matter?"

She screeched, backing herself away from him, reacting like a wounded wild animal. Her chair fell over sideways as she backed up hard, stumbling, and fell into a sitting position, then scurried to the wall like a crab trying to crawl back under a rock. "Sarah! What is it?" Chuck begged, reaching for her hands. She was stiff, shaking violently, and seemed almost unaware of his presence.

He thought his heart would burst as it pounded like a drum against his breastbone. His sister appeared, clearing all three of them away from Sarah. "Give me some room," she ordered, turning from his caring sister to a trained physician.

Chuck watched in horror as Ellie knelt in front of Sarah, and yelled, "Sarah, it's Ellie. I'm here. What you are thinking is happening isn't real. It's a memory. You are here with me and Chuck and you're safe. Can you hear me? Sarah?"

It took almost two minutes before Sarah's eyes lost their glaze, and she seemed able to focus on Ellie's face. "Good. Watch me. Breathe. Slowly. In," she mimicked the breath. "Out," she said as a pause. She continued, for what seemed to Chuck like forever. Sarah seemed to come out of her fugue, almost sobbing. "Mom, can you take Sarah out of here? Get her walking around a little?"

Mary nodded, helping Ellie pull Sarah to her feet. "Come on, Sweetheart. Let's go get some water."

Chuck moved impatiently to follow her, but Ellie put a hand on his chest to stop him. "No, Chuck, let her go."

Once Sarah was out of the room, Ellie looked at him, the clinical detachment gone like she had flipped a switch. "That was a panic attack. Post traumatic stress, I believe. Seeing those must have triggered it. Damn, I should have realized that was a possibility." Touching Chuck's arm, and addressing him directly, she added, "Walking will help clear it. I know you're worried, but I have to explain. And it's better if I explain while she isn't here."

Sick with dread, he fell into his chair. "What is that?" he asked, pointing with an open palm to the box that had triggered her attack.

A look passed between Bentley and Ellie, knowing this was more emotional than Bentley was comfortable with. But Ellie's determination made her relent. Ellie pulled a chair over, and sat in front of her brother. "We took Sarah's memory loss at face value. We all did. She was deteriorating so rapidly once you called me from Japan, I know, we all assumed that those days in between she just flashed to the point of all of her memory being gone. Then Quinn somehow brainwashed her afterward with false information. That isn't what happened."

Ellie could see him starting to panic, frantically unable to sit still. "It isn't easy, Chuck, but you have to know." She took several deep breaths, hoping it would calm him a little. "Let me ask you first. Do you know what fractals are?"

"Yeah," he answered warily. "What does that-"

"Not important. It took a lot for me to understand. I was just checking. If you know, that's good, easier for me to explain. Those cards are three dimensional fractals. Like the biochemistry books that have three dimensional pictures of molecules, you have to focus a certain way to see them. We don't know how he did it, but he made those cards in order to force Sarah to flash. They are designed to remove memories, specific memories of hers. He erased her memory, Chuck, using the Intersect." It was what she didn't say, what reflected back at him from her eyes that made his heart freeze like ice.

He raised his hand to his mouth, fearing he would vomit as he sat there, he felt so sick and helpless. It was almost three minutes before he could speak, and when he asked, his voice failed twice before he had enough strength to make it audible. "Flashing caused the migraines on the train…" He was remembering how much pain she had been in.

Ellie started crying. She could only nod, having no voice herself. "Oh, God," he groaned, forcing the bile in his throat back down with almost all his remaining strength. Four days, when he couldn't find her. The thought was more than he could bear and the guilt filled him, like water in his lungs. He put his head down on his hands on the table top, losing his composure, silently weeping. He had known this, from his conversation yesterday with his sister, but seeing it like this, seeing Sarah unravel in front of him, branded the horror directly onto his brain.

He felt Bentley pacing behind him. Ellie watched her walk silently, admonishing her with her eyes to not press him further. Surprisingly compassionate, yet still ruthless, she said softly, "He died too easily for all the suffering he caused." Ellie was sworn to heal, by nature and profession, and yet, she couldn't help but find herself silently agreeing.

Eventually, he lifted his head, wiping at his eyes. He sat up quickly, making a very obvious effort to get himself under control. "Ellie, if he removed memories, how has she remembered anything? Let alone everything she has?"

Ellie smiled through her tears. "It's only a theory I have, and it requires another explanation, but I think the Intersect, in its own way, actually saved her, Chuck. She still has it, and it's not suppressed."

At this point, he was so dumbfounded, he felt nothing could have surprised him. He was almost numb. He knew there was an important question he needed to ask, but it sunk into his boggy pool of thoughts. The only thing that shook him out of his state was his mother's voice, calling in the door, softly, "Ellie, you need to come out here. Something's wrong. With Sarah."

Chuck almost knocked them over as he bolted out into the hallway.

XXX

Sarah stopped shaking, suddenly acutely aware she wasn't in the same location she had been. She looked up quickly, to see Mary, handing her a cone shaped paper cup full of water. "Are you ok, Sarah?"

"What happened?" she asked, gazing around her, befuddled.

"You had a panic attack. It's ok," Mary said compassionately, fully aware, more than Sarah herself, what she had been through.

Sarah leaned her head back against the wall. She didn't feel nervous anymore, she thought. Her eyes were suddenly full, the effort required to hold back her tears making her jaw tremble and her throat throb. This is a memory, she thought. It began to play like a movie behind her closed eyelids.

March 24, 2010

Maison23, Los Angeles, California

She had tried four separate times to record her log, but had to pause and erase each time, because she had broken down to the point of not being able to talk. She lay flat on her bed, staring at the ceiling. Maybe if she just said it out loud first, as a practice run, she could just get it all out, clear her head, and then make her recording, before she was too tired to talk anymore.

"So Chuck is a spy. He followed through, killed the mole, like I asked him to do. I saw him do it," she choked. "It felt like he shot me, you know? Every day I lost a little more of him, although, I guess, he wasn't really ever mine. Or at least he hasn't been for a long time. But now I have to face the truth. That he can't ever be, never again. It started when he burned Manoosh, probably easier than I would have thought he could. Casey thought that was good, but he would. Casey thinks the less sensitive you are, the better. I think that's probably true. It's so much more difficult to do this work when you care."

Her stomach burned, the acid churning up into her throat. "Not that long ago, he had a hard time even sparring with me in the dojo, afraid he might hurt me. But when he was pretending to be Rafe, he kicked me across the room almost without flinching. And I don't know how much of that staged fight with Shaw for the sake of the assassins was really Chuck just wanting to hit him, you know, like he was fighting over me like a boy in high school. Although, it had to have hurt him, to hear me tell Shaw my name, when I never told him. I don't know what came over me really, other than what I told him. That Chuck was disappearing. And I felt like he was taking me with him. He was the only thing that was keeping me existing, and if he disappeared then...then so would I.

"I keep thinking about finding him in Kathleen McHugh's house, ready to kill that man with his bare hands. And I think he would have, if I hadn't stopped him. The Chuck that I used to know...that I used to love...would never have done that. But he's not the man that I used to love. Chuck is gone, and I was the reason. I turned a kind, gentle, compassionate man into a killer, and now I have to let him go."

Her body shook with sobs, and she covered her face with both hands. She cried herself to sleep, never taking the time to actually record anything.

April 2, 2010

Maison23, Los Angeles, California

Sarah signed off her computer for the last time as a member of Operation Bartowski. She had only said one line, "This concludes my stay in Burbank. I'm leaving for Washington D.C. this evening to start the Ring task force with General Beckman." She could have sat here, droning on and on, but, in the end, all it would have been was more self-therapy, and she didn't have time now. She needed to pack her room and clear out.

Her hands wouldn't stop shaking, though, as she started pulling her things out of her dresser. She had done this before, once, thinking she was going to Prague to run away with Chuck. That wasn't even a year ago, she realized, and it felt so long ago it was from another life. She paused and looked at her reflection in the mirror, no longer able to see the woman who had packed back then, thinking she was running towards the best thing this life had ever given her, instead of running towards the hardest thing she had ever had to do. Both times, he had broken her heart.

It's still broken, she thought to herself, understanding why she thought she looked so different.

She could still feel the way his lips felt against hers, as he'd kissed her in Castle, after the nervous speech he gave her, telling her four separate times that he loved her, that he always had. Of course he had, she knew. A part of her had always known, had fought it all this time, had even tried to give in to it. The thought of hurting him, of leaving him the way he had left her, was almost more than she could bear.

But what choice did she have? She felt as if something inside her had been shattered. Everything Chuck had done since he had come back from Washington was meant to win her back, she knew. The irritation with him was forced, covering the swelling sadness that she had been hiding from Shaw. He had asked her point blank if she still loved Chuck, and she'd told him no, not anymore. It was always more complicated than just a few words, but something she was not willing to share with anyone else, even him. The problem, at the root, was that she loved someone who no longer existed. He was too different now.

She still had to remind herself consciously that she was with Shaw now, whatever that meant. The feelings that rose inside her when she thought of him were, like she had tried to explain to Chuck on their last stakeout, different.

Different? Was that the right word? No, she thought, her mind coming to a halt like a car with its tires screeching. Chuck was the one who was different, different than anyone else she had ever known. Chuck had made her feel different. While she cared for Shaw, she knew all of their interaction still transpired on the surface, outside of the shell that encased her. Chuck was, and had always been, the only one she had ever let inside. The only one she had ever given the power to hurt her, and hurt her he had. Only not deliberately.

Even now the thought of leaving here to be with Shaw was tearing her in half. She wanted to go, she wanted to stay. She could kiss him, sit with him, even sleep with him, but she could not traverse the wall between them. Even a one time, frantic, anxious attempt at coupling in the shady little motel in Barstow with Chuck made her feel more than all of her time with Daniel combined.

Give it time, she told herself, not really believing that any amount of time would ever actually fix it. Maybe she needed to heal completely before she expected so much from herself. She also did not believe that time would heal anything inside her, either.

July 8, 2012

Chicago, Illinois

Sarah felt like she was breaking the surface of deep water as she aroused from that scrolling recollection. Sad, bitter memories from when she and Chuck had not been together, a time she now understood had been one of the hardest in her life. So odd, she thought, to remember those instances.

Her ruminations stopped as she sat forward, breathless from a sharp pain she felt in her abdomen. She felt Mary, quietly asking if she was all right, then watched her hustle away, to grab Ellie, she thought in apprehension.