And when the stars are shining brightly

In the velvet sky

I'll make a wish, send it to heaven

Then make you want to cry

The tears of joy for all the pleasure

And the certainty

That we're surrounded by the comfort

And protection of the

Highest powers

In lonely hours

The tears devour you

"Truly, Madly, Deeply"

Savage Garden

May 27, 2012

Echo Park, Los Angeles, California

Morgan kissed his girlfriend, Alex, as she stood at the door in their apartment, on her way out the door to leave for work. She was dressed up, black dress pants and a light blue blouse, while he was in a plain t-shirt and jeans. "I'll see you when I get home, Honey." She said with a smile, her hand touching his bearded cheek gently as she pulled away.

"Someone has to work, right?" he teased with a smile. This was the standing joke between the two of them.

She was about to respond when she was distracted by noise coming through the door from the courtyard. Alex opened the door, just a crack, to see Chuck and Sarah, dressed in exercise clothes, running and laughing in the courtyard.

Sarah stopped at their apartment door, laughing and out of breath, calling back over her shoulder, "I beat you!"

"You cheated!" Chuck called after her as he came up a few paces behind her, collapsing against the door beside her. He reached for her waist, tickling her. She bent over his arm, laughing, at the same time Chuck opened the door. He kissed her, and they stumbled inside, still locked together.

"Morgan, did you see that?" Alex asked him in wonder. An enormous grin on her face, she asked her boyfriend, "Did Chuck say anything to you yesterday?"

Having watched over her shoulder at the door, Morgan found himself smiling, shaking his head in amazed disbelief. "No, nothing. Although, he did kinda seem a little extra peppy. Even when I dropped the dresser on his foot," he mumbled as an afterthought.

"I can't remember the last time I heard him laugh," she said wistfully. "And I know I haven't seen Sarah laugh at all since…you know, all that. This is good, Morgan. So good," she added gleefully.

"You can ask them about it tonight, you're gonna be late for work," he said quickly, pecking her again and giving her a gentle shove out the door. Once he was alone, Morgan still couldn't get the goofy grin off his own face. He had planned to see Chuck, but looked at the clock, thinking and hoping that he should wait, at least a good hour, before he knocked on the door.

XXX

"Good morning," Morgan called as he entered Chuck and Sarah's apartment. "Welcome to Day 105 of the Chuck Bartowski unemployment plan," he teased, seeing Chuck seated at the table with a cup of coffee in his hand and a bowl of cereal in front of him on the table.

"Ha ha, Morgan, very funny," Chuck quipped in return, after he had swallowed his sip of coffee.

"Where's the little woman?" Morgan asked, lowering his voice.

"Still getting dressed. And if she hears you call her that, she'll kick your ass," Chuck informed him.

"Noted, noted," Morgan replied, sitting in front of Chuck at the table. "So," Morgan said after a short pause, drawing out the word, "what's with the goofy grin, Chuck?"

"I don't have a goofy grin," Chuck retorted defensively, at the same time he found himself forcing his face to neutral. "Ok, well, maybe a little," he admitted.

"Don't get me wrong, I am not knocking it at all. That is one thing that's definitely been in short supply around here. Just wondering what happened, that's all," Morgan said sincerely.

"We're back in the same room," Chuck told him, sotto voce, a slight tint of pink on his cheeks as he looked at his bowl of cereal.

"Dude, that is awesome!" Morgan yelped, raising his hand for a high five.

"What's awesome?" Sarah asked as she walked into the kitchen. "Hey, Morgan," she added with a smile.

It was Sarah's smile that distracted him, something about it that made him come up short, and actually focus. She looked different. The smile was genuine, unforced, and so reminiscent of what he referred to in his mind as "old Sarah" it shocked him. Losing her memory hadn't changed her personality, he understood, but it had created an awkwardness, an added strain. Mostly Morgan thought it was because she was always trying to be someone, or something, that she thought everyone else was expecting, instead of just relaxing and being herself. That was it, he thought. That smile, that was just Sarah, smiling at her husband's best friend. The faint hopefulness turned to relief, as he acknowledged this positive development.

"What's awesome? This is awesome," he said, gesturing at the both of them. "You guys. Happy." The smile returned, wide and beaming, only widening as Chuck looked over his shoulder at her and smiled in return. Thank god, he thought to himself. "Alex is making a pot roast tonight. Just in case you needed another reason to be happy," he kidded.

"Would you like some coffee, Morgan?" Sarah asked as she poured herself a cup.

"No, I'm good, thank you," he replied. "But it is a nice segway into my alternate motive for this early morning visit."

Sarah sat next to Chuck, closer than Morgan had seen her sit to him in a very long time.

"Do you have any, you know, plans, Chuck?" Morgan asked. At Chuck's confused face, Morgan added, "You know, vocationally speaking?"

Chuck felt Sarah looking at him, waiting. "Uh, not specifically. Still just kinda winging it," he said flatly, his smile slipping. It wasn't ridiculous that Morgan was bringing this up, but it was a touchy subject just the same.

A little over three months ago, they had been on track to shift the purpose of his company, Carmichael Industries, from private security to cyber security. Sarah had found an office space, Morgan and Casey had been on board. Because Sarah had wanted to start a family. In fact, it had been her excitement over all of it, waking up early and full of anticipation, that had started the whole tragedy of her downloading the Intersect in the first place. His entire life and future had been put on hold, and now his life was just day by day, little things, always full of the hope that someday, he could focus on the long term again.

Chuck spent his time with Sarah, but Morgan, he knew, was going stir crazy.

"Morgan, we were lucky that Beckman was able to unfreeze those funds when she did. Four thousand dollars a month times four, just in interest. That's a pretty good unemployment plan, don't you think?" Chuck expounded.

"Times four?" Sarah asked, her confusion evident on her face.

Morgan saw Chuck react, how he suddenly seemed nervous, like he had made a mistake, saying something out loud that he shouldn't have. But he kept talking, wanting to answer and explain for his wife. His voice was hesitant when he replied. "Morgan, obviously, and me, obviously. I wire the funds to Casey in some black account somewhere in Europe, since he's been cavorting with Gertrude all this time." He swallowed hard. "And yours in a separate account, you know, just in case," he added, glancing at her quickly, then looking away again.

Morgan watched as she pulled back from him, turning her head slightly, her eyes enormous. Chuck's face flushed, and Morgan could see him squeezing his hands closed, knowing instinctively Chuck's palms had to be sweating. The third wheel feeling, although much rarer in recent times, suddenly assaulted him. Something was up, and he knew he should leave them alone.

"Well, look at the time," Morgan said, jumping to his feet quickly. "I need to, uh, do, uh, some stuff or, you know, whatever. I'll just, you know, uh…see you guys later," Morgan continued to ramble as he backed out of their apartment, waving and smiling nervously as he shut the door after him.

The moment they were alone, Sarah spoke. "Chuck, why would you do that?"

"Because it's yours," he insisted. "We were equal partners in the business."

"We're also married. Everything was always just…together, wasn't it?" she asked.

He put both hands over his face, resting his elbows on the table. When he finally pulled his hands away from his face, there were tears standing in his eyes. "It was. But then things changed. You needed time to think," he sighed.

He didn't turn his head, but he saw her cover her mouth with her hand. "I had no idea what you were going to do. I went to the beach that day, to let you know that no matter what, I was always there for you. But the thought of you needing to leave again, that was very real. Even when you said you'd stay, back then every day I would wake up and think today could be the day that you just thought it was too hard. And if you needed to start all over, that you would need that, you know–"

Her tight but clumsy grip on him, as she launched forward and grabbed him, stopped the melancholy outpouring of words. "Chuck," she whispered, pressing her face against the side of his head. "Every time I think you couldn't possibly amaze me more than you do, I find out I'm wrong."

"I left it there…I still, you know–"

She could hear the tears in his voice, as she reached up and cradled his head against her with her hand. "I don't need it," she whispered. "I'm here, with you, for good. Because this is where I belong. I love you," she said, an impassioned accent on each word.

He gently extricated himself from her arms, reaching both hands up to her face and pulling her to him, kissing her firmly yet tenderly.

The kiss lasted, intensified. She pulled away, smiling, touching his cheek and brushing the tears from his face. "Morgan is right, though," she said with a soft smile. "We've been puttering around for months. I know why. But we need a plan. A long term plan. Living off interest isn't a life."

He knew the life that he wanted, the one that she had told him she wanted as well, before she forgot everything they had planned. Every day, he approached with infinite patience, knowing it was only one day at a time, before he could ever tell her about forever. Or his deep, hidden fear, that those dreams had been a specific byproduct of a very unique set of circumstances that might not ever be repeated. It was troubling, gnawing at him at times, but he consoled himself with the fact that no matter what dreams he may have lost, his most important one, being with Sarah, having her in his life, was still his.

"You don't remember anything, at all, about that?" he asked, always unsure if a stray memory had returned without him mentally noting it.

She just looked confused. "I don't remember very much from when we were married. I wish I did, but it's very sketchy," she told him. Ellie had been right in that regard as well. Not only were memories associated with strong emotions easier to recover, but longer term memories as well. With the exception of the carving on the wall inside the house, everything she had remembered had been years old.

He nodded, sadly acknowledging it yet again. Searching for the perfect words, trying diligently to not overload her with anything, he parsed out what he would say. "We, uh, we kind of decided, we were going to stop spying. It was getting too hard, the competition was too brutal, we were in danger of going under and it was just…too stressful." Because of the house, and the dog, and the baby…or babies. It was clear, like a spoken sentence in his thoughts, that he left unsaid.

"If we've been living off interest, then there must be a large sum of money still in the bank, right?" she asked, chastising herself for not asking him this information before now. She knew he wasn't hiding anything from her, just keeping the flow of information controlled, doing as his sister had advised him.

"Forty-two million dollars," he told her. "With interest from the government for six months, which was another million." At her blank, wide-eyed stare, he explained more. "Roger Bale. We were trying to get access to Roger Bale's account, because he swindled people who hired us to get it back. But Decker froze the funds at the time, and it took Beckman a while to cut through the red tape."

She was looking away, at the floor, when she said softly, "You…jumped through a plate glass window…on the second floor…onto a moving vehicle."

He sat up straighter, amazed that she could pull the memory forward, just from his explanation. The more he talked, the more it seemed to jog her memory. He made a mental note, to keep explaining things, whenever he could, as frequently as he could, without overwhelming her. "Yes!" he said with a smile.

The pain on her face wiped the smile away. "I thought you were dead. You know, you asked us to check, after you jumped. I was terrified. How could I keep going if you were dead?"

He pulled her closer, feeling her nuzzle her face against his chest. "I'm sorry, Baby," he said softly. "That everything seems to hurt for you to have to remember it. I'm alive now, a thousand times over, because you saved my life. Directly or indirectly. And by indirectly, I mean, making sure I always had a reason to live."

He heard the soft cry, from deep in her throat, acknowledging the truth in his words. "You will always be my why. We just have to figure out a how. We can do that, right?" she asked.

He laughed, touched at her words. "Of course. Many more days of unemployed Morgan and Alex will make him move in with us."

XXX

Sarah was dreaming.

Her hands bleeding…her eyes stinging, gritty with sand and salty sweat, and tears…More tears than she had ever shed in her life…Feeling the hole inside her, empty and aching, a black desolation that was swallowing all the light left in her life, all the light that she could ever hope to have. She had found him, but the fear blasted its way through the heart of her at the thought that she was too late, that the most important thing in her life, the only thing that mattered to her–was gone. He was cold to her touch, thin and weak from his ordeal, and she held his face in her hands, pleading with him to wake up, to come back to her, to not leave her alone. In a world that was new, vibrant and alive, but doomed to perpetual darkness if he wasn't there with her.

She cried his name, and it echoed uselessly into a silent well…

She came awake slowly, the separation between reality and dream still muddled, time ticking slowly forward as she felt the bed beneath her, the blanket covering her. Her eyes adjusted to the dark, and the comfortable surroundings, all the outlines of shapes familiar in the dark. Inside her chest, the gnawing pain behind her breast bone remained, carried from dream to awakeness, making it painful to take a breath.

She rolled quickly, touching Chuck's body as he lay sound asleep beside her. Tears of relief flooded her eyes, as reality sharpened around her. It was only a dream, she told herself, calming as the desolation from her dream rescinded. She knew she shouldn't wake him, but the urge to just touch him, reassure herself he was real, overwhelmed her in the moment, as she placed her lips against his forehead. It wasn't a dream, it was a memory, she realized. Worse than what she had recalled earlier this morning. No, this was the closest she had ever come to losing Chuck.

Thailand. The Belgian had kidnapped him, nearly causing him permanent brain damage. It had taken so long for her to find him, and only with Casey and Morgan had she been able to save him, just before he had been lost. Such an important turning point in their relationship, she recollected. He knew, no matter what, after that incident, that she loved him, completely, with all her heart and soul, all of her reticence in the face of her emotions paled beside what she was willing to do for him, to keep him safe, and keep him with her.

He was still half asleep, groggy, but he mumbled against her ear, "What's the matter?"

"Thailand," she said, breathless as she finally spoke in her rapid progression of thought. "I remembered Thailand," she told him more firmly.

His eyes flew open. "I don't, I don't remember much of that, Sarah," he whispered.

Feeling like her entire body was on fire, she rolled on top of him, devouring his lips in a passionate kiss. "Do you remember what happened, once you were home?"

She lifted herself up on her hands, placing them on his chest, her hair hanging in a curtain around his face. He felt her kneel, pulling her legs up high, on either side of him, straddling his hips. "You love it when I do this, don't you?" she whispered, brushing his lips with hers. She wasn't teasing him, just telling him something that she knew, a memory that filled in a hole in her thoughts. He sighed softly, feeling her pull at his t-shirt, yanking it roughly over his head, and planting her lips against his bare chest, running her tongue along his skin to the base of his throat.

She removed everything separating them, staying in complete control of the situation. The intoxicating feeling of his hands all over her, on her back, reaching around to caress her breasts, reaching down her thighs, raised the heat inside her. She leaned down, kissing him hard, opening her mouth and tasting him, almost grazing his teeth in her eagerness. He moaned in her mouth as he felt her move, intimately connecting herself to him.

He closed his eyes, barely able to breathe, afraid to break the spell. Every touch, every place she put her mouth, every sensation as she moved against him, he knew, anticipated before it happened. Tears streamed from the corners of his closed eyes, as he understood she was remembering this. The way they were together now was different. Not better or worse, just different. This instead was familiar to him, how he knew she must have felt the first night when she had come to him in his room.

He felt her arch backward, opening his eyes to watch her, why he loved this so much, being able to see the ecstasy wash over her face. He reached up, touching her neck, running his hand across her chest again as she moaned softly, opening her eyes to see him, the most intimate connection between them amplifying like feedback. He sat upward, his mouth connecting at her throat, slowly sliding down until one nipple, then the other were in his mouth. In this position, she could take what she needed from him, over and over, until she was satisfied, while he watched her, the perspiration on her body glistening in the soft moonlight that filled the room.

Finally, she nodded, her signal to him that she was ready for him to fulfill his own needs. His eyes teared again, realizing she was acting almost subconsciously, not clearly understanding she was remembering something that passed between them like this frequently in the past. He grasped her hips, pulling her down hard against him, his complete filling of her almost painful, until she leaned down onto his chest. The rhythm was perfect, his grip on her sublimely satisfying. She almost howled, groaning, the sensation so intense she nearly lost control, complete after the feeling of the pulsating of his release deep inside her.

When he could breathe again, he whispered, "You remembered that, Sarah."

"I know," she whispered in return. She stayed connected to him, touching him. Her heart nearly burst inside her, overflowing with her love for him, this miracle in her life she had somehow been granted. His deepest pain always came from knowing she was in pain, his greatest joy from feeling her bliss. She remembered how much he loved when she did that, forgetting until it was over that the strongest reason why was because she enjoyed it as much as she did, and it was easier for him to see her and touch her.

She rested against him, waiting to fall back to sleep. The last thing he said, as he drifted to sleep, was a bleary, "Morgan was right about going back to work. But you know, I'm gonna miss these middle of the night things."

"We'll work around them," she sighed, nuzzling up against him, the comfort of sleep slowly surrounding her like a cocoon. They lay still and asleep until the morning.