There is never a time to say

'Cause it seems to me we've lost our way

So we carry on, down the road

And we live our lives haunted by

All the things we say and do

Keep on missing, when I'm alone with you

"Never a Time"

Genesis

October 12, 2021

Los Angeles, California

"What am I supposed to say?" Hannah asked softly, breaking the long and tense silence filling the inside of the vehicle. Cole twitched slightly, swerving the wheel gently as her voice suddenly startled him.

He sighed, thinking of all the people she could have asked for advice about it, he was the least equipped to actually help her. He had almost no relationship experience at all—merely a long string of casual dalliances, encounters that filled time between missions. He was technically old enough to be Hannah's father, so he was also resigned to the fact that would be all he ever had. He had never met someone who had affected him the way Hannah had affected Jacques.

"Tell him the truth," he offered, suddenly inspired. As a spy, he understood the value of the truth. It was reserved for the purest of interactions.

"Why? When he lied to me…the entire time we were together. Everything was a lie," she hissed. Cole could see her knuckles turn white as she clenched her hands in her lap. She shifted in the seat, crossing and uncrossing her legs nervously.

"He lied to keep you safe, Hannah. He couldn't tell you the DGSE sent him to investigate if you were working for the Ring. It not only would have compromised his cover, but Chuck's and even Sarah's as well. The easiest thing in the world he could have done was leave and make his report. He didn't do that, did he?" Cole questioned.

She stayed silent. He could hear her breathing, straining, as if she was having an asthma attack. He looked at her quickly, concerned, only to see she was struggling to not cry. "He needed to know for sure, right?" she wheezed. "He stayed…to make sure. He…seduced me…to make sure," she added as her voice broke.

"That isn't true, Hannah," Cole affirmed, raising his voice over the sound of her weeping.

"You don't know that," she snapped. "He's a spy. He lies for a living."

"You believe he stayed with you for eight years, helped you raise your children… as his own…and it was all a lie? He meant none of it?" Cole challenged.

"What if he thought Chuck was my twins' father? Wouldn't it have made perfect sense?" she almost screamed, the real fear nagging under her words. "He stayed to protect them as assets."

"He walked away to protect them… and you. Gave up everything he had…and ran…because he wanted a normal life with you," Cole argued.

Have I broken through? he thought. He watched the color return to her hands as she released her grip. She turned, her green eyes focused sharply on his face. He knew that face. She was thinking, pondering.

After a long silence, she asked, "Like Chuck and Sarah?"

"Sarah was willing to leave…for him. He became a spy…for her. And then, yes, they both left. For their children," Cole explained. He let those words hang in the air for a while before he continued.

"The DGSE staged a car bomb to make him think you and your children had been killed, Hannah. They wanted him back and they were willing to do anything to make that happen. He could never have told you the truth in the beginning. You thought he was dead all this time. He thought he was responsible for the deaths of everyone he loved," Cole explained, fervor in his tone as he struggled to make her understand.

He glanced at her quickly, watching as she tilted her head and squeezed her eyes shut, wincing as if he had jabbed her with a needle. She'd had to process so much information in such a short period of time, he wanted to make sure she didn't lose focus on the most important thing.

Cole was driving her back to Carmichael Industries, the safest place where he could arrange the meeting between Jacques and Hannah. The office was empty at this time, the only people still there would be Chuck, Vivian, and Carter, as they were working on tracking down the financial trail of the Sentries in the U.S. Jacques was waiting for her there as well.

He pulled into the parking lot, his vehicle easily visible with so much of the parking lot empty. He could hear her starting to breathe more heavily, almost hyperventilating as his car slowly rolled towards the main entrance to the building. Jacques had been waiting, standing in the glass vestibule, watching for the car, for the second the car approached the sidewalk, he burst through the door and ran out onto the sidewalk. The closer Cole got, the more hysterical Hannah became. Also, the closer he got, he could see Jacques' face, how emotionally overwrought he was.

It was not the face of a man who had been pretending to feel anything for her.

She yanked the door handle, jumping out before Cole even brought the car to a complete stop. He heard the anguished noise that came from her, her husband's name, so mangled as she broke down it was only partially intelligible. She left the car door wide open and took off running, nearly knocking Jacques over as she grabbed him around his waist. Her husband was almost as tall as Chuck, and she reached only to the middle of his chest. He pulled her against him, then sank to his knees slowly, gradually pulling her downward.

All of the hurt and betrayal evaporated the instant she was in his arms. The scent of his cologne made her dizzy…that long lost scent left lingering on the few pieces of his clothing she'd kept after his apparent death, now strong and comforting as it surrounded her. Her head against his chest, his arms around her back, his hands on her waist…everything was as she remembered, as she had dreamed for two years, never believing she would ever be able to be like this again.

"Je suis desole," he muttered repetitively, elevating his voice for her to hear over the sound of her weeping. I'm sorry.

They both knelt in front of each other. Jacques pulled his hands upward, cupping her face and looking into her eyes. "Oh mon Dieu, tu m'as manque," she gushed, the words broken in her weeping. Oh my god, I missed you.

"Je t'aime," he said the moment before he kissed her. Hannah forgot everything else–where they were, who was watching…absolutely everything but her husband's lips against hers, his breath against her face.

Cole understood French, unable to not hear and understand the tender and passionate exchange between husband and wife. No, he was sure, what he was witnessing was real…pure, raw emotion.

Cole parked the car, purposely waiting in his car to give them time to themselves. He eventually got out of the car and walked towards the entryway. They were still in the same position as he approached. Jacques noticed Cole's approach first, pulling back from his embrace with Hannah and reaching out his hand to grab Cole's.

"I know I said it before. But thank you. For everything you did. For seeking her out, getting her to safety, against your orders," he affirmed.

"I was just…doing an old friend a favor. I asked myself…what would Chuck have done," Cole said with a crooked smile. He watched as Hannah lifted her head from Jacques' shoulder, turning to smile at him though her face was streaked with tears. Then he looked back at Jacques. "Chuck was right, wasn't he?" he asked him, winking gently in his wisdom.

Waiting for the moon to come and light me up inside

And I am waiting for the telephone to tell me I'm alive

Well I heard you let somebody get their fingers into you

It's getting cold in California

I guess I'll be leaving soon

"Daylight Fading"

Counting Crows

October 12, 2021

Carmichael Industries, Los Angeles, California

Vivian's face was pinched with worry when she cautiously made her way into Chuck's office. The air in the room smelled of stale coffee. She saw his desk, usually neat with minimal piles of organized clutter, looking as if someone had torn through all of his things in a frenzy and left a jumbled mess. He had both computers working, one keyboard unevenly balanced on a pile of papers to access both of them. His head was bent over his work, his hair a disheveled mess. He had rolled his shirtsleeves halfway up his forearms, exposing his wrists.

He was distracted at first, but eventually he looked up at her. The look on his face, the exhausted stress, almost took her breath away. She forced the words out, trying to keep the tone she had wanted to start with. "Cole is taking Hannah and Jacques back to the safe house…so she can explain to her children. And they can see their father again. Thank god that all worked out like that. Such a tragedy…but everything is alright now."

"I'll take all the good news I can get," he mumbled, his eyes shifting away.

Her smile faded as her face fell. She was the representative for everyone–Morgan and Alex, both of her parents…even Chuck's mother and sister. She thought quietly, searching in her head for the right words, then realizing the best way to approach it was to just be honest. It could be harsh, but it needed to be said.

"You know…we're worried about you, Charles," she said softly.

"Did Morgan ask you to talk to me?" he asked, more sharply than he had intended when he'd started speaking. His patience had worn thin in his perpetual fatigue.

"We…uh…arm wrestled about who was to come and talk to you…and I won," she said flatly, a feeble attempt at humor that he didn't even seem to notice. Her worry increased, the lines on her forehead creasing. "Please, Charles, can I just talk to you, even for a moment?" she implored.

"I'm fine, Viv, really," he sighed.

"No, you are most certainly not," she insisted, crossing her arms belligerently. "You aren't eating…and you certainly look as if you aren't sleeping."

In truth, he had barely slept at all since returning from England. Sarah hadn't been able to sleep, constantly tossing and turning, sometimes getting up to wander around their house in the middle of the night. When she was restless, he was restless. "I'm fine," he lied, unable to resist the work on his computer as it pulled his attention away from a conversation he didn't want to have.

She felt her heart breaking as she watched him. Everyone was counting on her to talk to him…to get him to admit that he needed help. She realized the task was harder than she had originally thought. Steeling herself, she stepped forward quickly, reaching across his desk and grabbing his right hand by the wrist to stop him from typing. He looked up at her, annoyed, and tried to pull his arm free. She tightened her grip fiercely. "You're going to listen to me, one way or the other. This is important, Charles."

He huffed in frustration, pushing the keyboard away in an exaggerated flourish, almost like Vivian had thought his children might have reacted when told to put down a video game controller. "Go ahead," he challenged.

"I've seen this before. I think you know when. I'm trying to stop you from having a complete breakdown again. You're dealing with too much, Charles," she told him.

"Maybe I am. But life is too much right now. For all of us," he argued.

"It isn't all up to you to fix, you know. Your mother-in-law's health, your sister-in-law's recovery, your son's therapy, work, family, this entire NSA investigation with all these loose ends…Sarah," she added, sighing, using just his wife's name to signify the entirety of his problems.

"Emma just got out of the hospital two days ago. She was in no condition to do anything, let alone deal with Molly's acute trauma from being kidnapped…and everything that she saw," he explained. "Stephen hasn't slept at all in almost a week. He keeps waking up with…screaming nightmares. The girl's don't understand…just thinking we're not giving them enough attention…and acting out accordingly. We fell so far behind our regular work at CI we were in danger of losing some of those clients…and we still haven't figured out the rest of this, so my family is still technically in danger…"

She saw the anxiety build as he continued down the litany of problems, just the mere mention making her feel tired for him. He dropped his head down on top of his folded hands on his desktop. Sarah…was on the verge of a nervous breakdown…and had completely shut him out…

"It's too much, Charles," she insisted again. "We're here. Carter and I. My family. Morgan and Alex. Your mother and your sister and her family. For god's sake, you need to let us help you. This is like after Sarah…you know, when Sarah was so sick before. Only then it was just taking care of her and your son, plus work."

"I did this. I let Sarah believe I was dead…and she…" His voice broke, and he covered his mouth with his hand.

"You saved your sister-in-law's life. You had no other choice. She knows that," Vivian argued. "Your sister already offered Emma and Molly to stay with them while she's recuperating. Let Ellie do that."

"Molly needs more than Ellie can do for her," Chuck sighed helplessly.

"That may be so. But your sister knows what to do, how to get her the help she needs. You have enough to deal with right now with just your immediate family. Work is fine. Carter, Morgan, and I can handle all of this. You don't need to be here. You need to be home with your family," she stressed.

What she was saying made perfect sense. He could pay the attention he needed to his daughters, while at the same time getting his son the same type of help he needed to help him cope with his own trauma from his recent experiences and the horrors he had witnessed. The devastation came in a wave as he accepted the main reason he was here, and not home, was because of Sarah. The thought that he was avoiding her was almost traumatic, something he would never have thought he was capable of doing. But he was nonetheless.

She needed him. But for whatever reason, she wouldn't let him help her. She wouldn't talk to him. It was almost as if she were dealing with clinical depression, having withdrawn so far into herself she was just a blank presence in their house…in their lives. His children noticed something was wrong, but were too little to know the full scope or what it meant. It just worried them, and they were already unsettled to begin with.

"I don't know what to do, Vivian," he whispered as his eyes filled with tears. "I don't know how to help her…I don't know what she needs and I…I feel like I'm letting her down."

Sarah, her closest friend, had shut herself off from everyone, it seemed. Vivian had been hurt, but tried to be understanding. Knowing she had done the same with Chuck was almost unbelievable. It spoke to how dire the situation truly was. "Maybe she needs to talk to someone. You know, like she did…after her miscarriage," Vivian offered.

"I know she does. It's just getting her to accept it," he told her. "If Emma was 100%, I know she would be there. Tell Sarah what she should do. But she's not," he bemoaned. The truth–Emma, Molly, and Stephen all needed Sarah. Her love and her strength were things they had all come to depend on, and without it they were foundering in the darkness of the current times. His guilt, never far from him, stemmed from his knowledge that Sarah was diminished in their lives because of what he had done to her, however unwittingly.

"You…were all she ever needed, Charles," Vivian concluded. "She may not know how to ask you, but you just have to…reassure her."

"Reassure her? When I'm the cause of all of this?" he shot back incredulously.

"Charles, she's not upset with you. She's upset with herself," Vivian insisted. "She didn't say as much, but she didn't need to. I know that look. I saw it on my own face, looking in the mirror…until I realized that you forgave me…for what I tried to do to you, by harming her." Ten years removed, speaking of it could still make her eyes mist, both with the haunting specter of what she could have become, and knowing by the grace of forgiveness, she was now part of a close knit family instead.

The emotion charged the air like static electricity–heavy, waiting to discharge. He gave her a twisted, toothless grin, bowing his head gently in gratitude and understanding.

"Let us deal with the rest of this, please, Charles. Go home. Take care of your wife and your children," she said.

I miss the life

I miss the colors of the world

Can anyone tell where I am?

'Cause now again I found myself so far down

Away from the sun that shines into the darkest place

I'm so far down

Away from the sun again

Away from the sun again

Well, I'm over this

I'm tired of living in the dark

Can anyone see me down here?

The feeling's gone

There's nothing left to lift me up

Back into the world I know

"Away From the Sun"

3 Doors Down

October 12, 2021

Burbank, California

Chuck did a double take in the doorway of his bedroom, not seeing that Sarah was in the room. The room was totally dark, but as he gazed towards the window in the dormer, he saw the shadowy shape blocking out the pale moonlight. He walked into the room slowly, the floor creaking under the carpet in the usual places. She had to have heard them, but she never shifted her eyes away from the window to acknowledge him.

The closer Chuck got to her, the more definition her shape took. She sat leaning against the wall, her long legs curled up underneath her. She wore her robe, haphazardly sashed and gaping open at the top to expose her sleepwear—tonight, a purple baby doll top. Her head was pressed at an angle against the window, her arms crossed tightly across her chest.

He stopped walking, acutely aware that she was either intentionally ignoring him or oblivious to his approach. He knew if he came closer he would see the tears on her cheeks, single droplets tracing solitary tracks down towards her chin. He felt it clench inside his chest like an iron claw, despair at knowing she still lived in so much pain. Pain that he could not take from her, no matter how he tried.

"Stephen said goodnight. I…uh…I told him you still weren't, you know, feeling ok," he said quietly. She barely stirred, no recognition she had even heard him. "He would never tell me, but you know he's worried about you," he added, his voice shaking slightly. "He misses you," Chuck whispered, not trusting his voice any louder.

I miss me too, she thought sadly. Her son was so sweet and sensitive, and she knew how affected he had been by her recent, seemingly inexplicable behavior, coupled with the trauma he had endured while she had been away. She knew hiding in here, away from the people she loved, was no solution. Problem was she didn't know what the solution was. Sure, in public, with the other parents, she could fake it with the best of them. Smile, laugh, talk small talk about carpooling or archery practice or the bake sale. But it was an act, pretending, like she had done most of her life. Finding Chuck and finding her way forward in life with him—on a path that led her away from that dark life, had made all the difference in the world.

Until she had believed her family lost.

The darkest, ugliest side of her, the part of her that had been another person entirely, had roared back from oblivion, hell bent on seeking vengeance for what she believed had been stolen from her.

The sensation upon seeing her husband and her son after believing them dead for over a day was indescribable. But, as much as she had needed to hold them, breathe in the scent of them—part of her inside was still dead…the part that could not bear to tuck the covers up around her young son's chin without seeing the specter of the blood on her hands. That blood had been spilled not to protect those she loved, but in retribution for their loss.

Her children were too young to understand, and could not begin to imagine the world she had inhabited most of her life. To them, she was only Mom. She taught languages, worked part time as a translator, and worked with their father. Dad did important government work and he used computers. Sarah drove a mini van, cooked dinner and did laundry. She was an ordinary mother, though she herself was not ordinary at all, in any way. A former spy, former assassin, an intelligence agent who had given up a normal life for her work.

Who then realized what she had wanted all along was just the ordinary—peaceful and rich and happy. She had all of those things—because she had Chuck.

Chuck.

The pain howled inside, feeling him near her in the dark, but afraid to turn to look at him. With him it was worse. He knew all that she had done, and then understood who she had become—for him. To go back and be as she had been before Chuck, and now in his presence again, was excruciating agony, disappointment and failure leaching from every pore.

"It's not too late," she heard him say, rather flatly.

She picked up her head sharply, hearing it out of context in his voice startling her. "He's probably not asleep yet," Chuck said casually, though surprised at her reaction.

"I'll just let him sleep," she replied weakly, looking at the floor as she pulled her robe closed over her chest.

"Sarah, why are you doing this?" Chuck asked, more harshly than he had intended, but hopeless and afraid at the way life had changed so abruptly in the past few days, fueled by Vivian's plea earlier in the day.

"You don't understand," she murmured in defeat, turning her face to the window again.

"Then make me understand," he demanded, calm but forceful. "Talk to me, Sarah. I know it's not always easy for you," he admitted, "but this is me. You can trust me."

He heard the strangled sound from her throat, stifling a cry. Those words dug into her, reminding her of what she was doing—holding at arm's length something she needed closer, so close she wished it was inside her. "Chuck," she started breathlessly, "I know you thought you had killed Shaw. But you didn't. You'd never killed anyone…until you shot that man in the hallway."

Instantly he was glad for the dark, knowing he had to have paled, feeling the sickness churn his stomach. He knew what this was, had known all along. Deep down he had known why she was acting like this, as much as he had tried to deny it to himself. He had held the light to her before about this very subject, but looking at it from the opposite side now, he had no idea how to begin.

"I shot him…because he would have killed you. I did what I had to do to protect you," he told her, wishing he didn't sound defensive. He would never apologize for protecting her, no matter what it required of him. But, he needed to explain more, he knew. He took two steps closer, so that he stood beside her where she sat. "Sarah, you know, nothing that I did, no mission we ever succeeded at, would have worked without you and Casey doing what you did."

"That's not the point, not why I said it like that," she said in a rush. "Chuck, I joined the CIA when I was 17. And we stopped spying when I was 31. Do you know how many people I've killed in all that time?"

He had always tried not to think about it, knowing it had been part of her job, or something she had done to keep him and his family safe. Her ability to tease him about her status as a trained assassin sometimes had helped him put it in perspective. Regardless, she had stopped once she was working with him after they had children. "Sarah," he began hesitantly, no completion of the thought forthcoming.

"Chuck, how many people did you see me kill?" she asked harshly, knowing a finite number and knowing he knew the answer.

"Sarah," he said again, more sharply.

"Tell me. I know you know. Tell me, Chuck," she demanded, turning her face up to him defiantly. The moonlight illuminated her face, dispelling some of the shadows. "Chuck!" she yelled, expecting his answer, ignoring his discomfiture at her vehemence.

"Eight," he mumbled, closing his eyes and looking at the floor.

"Right," she responded, her voice trembling with emotion. "Not just Mauser. All of them. And you never forgot a single one." She raised her hands to the base of her throat, "I don't know the whole number anymore. I don't, Chuck."

Only that she had added three more to that unknown number, purely out of vengeance, even when those eight he had in his mind had been the last before those three, and they had been only to protect him and his family.