You taught me precious secrets

Of the truth withholding nothing

You came out in front and

I was hiding

But now I'm so much better

And if my words don't come together

Listen to the melody

Cause my love is in there hiding

"A Song for You"

The Carpenters

June 3, 2012

Echo Park, Los Angeles, California

"Sarah?" Chuck called groggily, as he reached beside him reflexively, somehow always unconsciously aware when she was away from him while he was asleep. The blanket was folded back, the bed empty next to him.

He glanced up quickly in the dark, out of fearful experience checking the window, remembering when only a few days ago she had climbed out while sleep walking. He lunged out of bed, stuffing down the internal panic as he contemplated the fact that she could be sleepwalking again. She had gone a few days' stretch of time without a nightmare, but after the long talk with Dreyfus last evening, he had prepared himself for their eventual return. His plan, as he'd explained to Chuck after he had already expounded to Sarah, was to elicit the nightmares, bring them forth, to help unlock her repressed memories. All along, he had been preparing himself to deal with such a situation again.

He saw the time on the nightstand as he moved into the hallway, just shy of four in the morning. In the living room, he saw the faintest of lights, one tiny table lamp creating a halo just around the sofa. He saw the back of Sarah's head, tilted forward. She had pulled her legs up to her chest and was resting her head on her knees. Easy, he told himself. The ever-present urge to run, comfort her was there, but he pushed it down, burying it in his chest. It was second nature to protect her, it always had been, even when he had been completely ill prepared to do so, even when she had been the one protecting him.

All of this kept the facts of his worst failure in that regard very close to the surface. And now, there was no way to protect her from what was left inside of her, no way to help her other than be here, listening, supporting, while she walked through her darkest nightmares on the way back out to the world of the living. Had she just gotten up because she couldn't sleep? Was she sleeping right now? Always fighting inside, searching for the perfect balance of holding her close and letting her free, never quite sure what it was she needed now that everything had changed so much. He stepped closer, walking silently, knowing inside she would know he was there. She had always known when he was approaching, even through a closed door. He had never been able to really surprise her.

When he reached the side of the sofa, he heard the softest sound of her sniffling. He stepped around the arm of the sofa. She turned her head, resting her cheek on her knees. He saw her eyes, misty pink, the cerulean blue of her eyes glowing in the soft light. "What happened, Baby?" he asked, holding himself still, fighting his only instinct to get closer to her.

She sighed, beckoning with her hand for him to sit next to her. Relieved, he sank down, shaking the cushion gently. "I woke up suddenly. I couldn't fall back to sleep," she told him softly.

"Bad dream?" he asked, brushing the hair from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear.

"I don't remember any really. Just waking up and then my mind started racing. I was afraid I was going to wake you," she said quietly, smiling though her eyes were sad.

"You not asleep up against me is what seems to wake me up the most," he smiled in return.

The softness in his expression made her eyes sting again. She turned her head, looking forward into the darkness that surrounded them in the room. "I know Dreyfus wants you there, today, again, but…" Her voice trailed away, as she swallowed over the ache in her throat. "I just…"

He reached for her, brushing the backs of his fingers across her cheek. She turned back to face him. "I'm just worried. Almost scared. And I don't get…scared. At least I didn't used to."

"No, no, you really didn't," he said. "You always managed to keep me calm, no matter what."

"I'm not scared for me," she said quickly. Her eyes glazed with tears again. "I don't want to hurt you anymore."

He reached out his arm and pulled her against him. She was rigid at first, reluctant, but she slowly relaxed against his chest in his arms. "You aren't hurting me, Sarah. Something happens to you, it happens to me. That's how that works. We were both hurt. And I think the only way it's going to get better is if we talk about it. Work through it. You know?" he said sympathetically.

Maybe she wasn't the one at fault. But there was no mistaking how much pain he was in, every time she looked at him. Even so, many moments of real happiness, snatched back from the jaws of misery, she now had in her heart, though they weren't always reinforced with memories she could share with him. What would it take for that pain to go away? she thought to herself. Maybe it never would, she thought as well, the pressure in her chest making it difficult to breathe.

But it could get better, couldn't it, even if it never completely disappeared? Their lives had been disrupted, time stolen, dreams derailed. None of that could ever be undone. But the more time she let it take from her, from them, the worse a travesty it became. In the end, that was the only way she could fight this. To reclaim the time, the dreams, the life that slipped away, and continued to slip away every moment she spent like this, allowing the gulf between them to swing wider.

Fleeting sadness and a nagging anger she squashed, allowing the tenderness she felt for him float to the surface. She promised herself at that moment to not let anything else be stolen from them. She leaned into him, reaching up around his neck and hugging him. "I love you, Chuck." She shifted gently in his arms, leaning her head back to look at him. "I know this is going to take some time to get through. But once we do, once we can put this behind us. Then we should talk about…about our plans."

She watched the curious look cross his face. "You mean about Carmichael Industries? We're sort of doing that ri–"

"No, Chuck," she interrupted. "Us. Our family," she said, emphasizing the words.

One corner of his mouth turned up. "One thing at a time, Sweetie," he said, easing into the words, at the same time he felt the emotion surge like a tide inside him. "You're still so…cautious about all of that. I understand that, I do," he told her.

"It wasn't fair to ask you to give up something you wanted so badly," she said softly.

"Sarah–"

"Chuck, it's ok," she reassured him, seeing the words he was going to say in his eyes before he continued. "I know you never thought I did that. And I wouldn't lie to you, tell you I felt something I didn't to appease you. You know that too. But it's been on my mind. Ever since you told me about…what happened."

"I just think we need to concentrate on you, getting you better, first," he said, leaning his head against hers as he nuzzled into her.

"I know. I never meant now," she told him. Her voice shook when she continued, "But I know if nothing had gone wrong, I would most likely be pregnant right now. You know that, right?"

He closed his eyes, feeling his stomach turn with nausea, hearing her say out loud what he had been thinking inside all this time, something he had to make himself forget to keep the helpless rage at bay. She listened to his breath, waiting for the harsh sound it made to quiet before she expected a response. "We're young. And we've only just been married a year. When it's right, it will happen. I have to believe that, Sarah." Anything else was useless worry, enough to drive him insane when he dwelt on it.

She heard his heartbeat against his chest where her head was resting. The most precious thing she had ever found, ever known, was his heart–a rare jewel. And he had given it to her, unworthy as she was. She teetered on the edge of sleep, peaceful inside a fluttering thought.

Her mother's arm, so newly comforting, around her shoulders…her mother's voice, so full of love, reminding her of how blessed she was despite the difficulty of her life…turning to watch the child she had saved so long ago, and the man who had saved her right afterward, sitting together on the floor…She giggled, he laughed…It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Until he looked up at her, his love for her glowing in his eyes, the emotion crashing into her like a tidal wave. Hadn't she known that, the moment she had met him? How perfect he was? The father of her children…fulfillment of her impossible dreams there in his eyes just the same as she saw now?

She shifted ever so slightly, feeling him lean back as she reclined against him. He was letting her sleep against him here, because she was comfortable. Murmuring, almost unaware that she was speaking, she said, "I made it to L…but you wanted Stephen…after your father…"

He knew what she was remembering, gulping over the strangled sound his emotions made in his throat. "Do you remember my father?" he asked her, not able to speak above a whisper.

"From your sister's wedding, while we were dancing. Factual things. Not much else," she said, fighting sleep to continue talking to him.

"There wasn't that much else, Sarah. Just a few days, really, that you ever talked to him," he told her, the pain of loss making his voice heavy.

"You can be what he never was able to be for you. You told me that," she said sleepily.

After he had found her, looking at baby names on the computer when she couldn't sleep back then. His heart was pounding too hard for him to sleep now, he knew, stimulated by her admission of this loose memory. He felt the limpness of her limbs, heard the soughing of her breath against his neck, pleased that she had been able to fall back to sleep in his arms, despite her racing thoughts. He just hoped it wasn't the last peaceful night she would have after today's session with Dreyfus.

XXX

"That brings up a good point, Sarah. Something we could discuss here," Dreyfus said, glancing back and forth between Chuck and Sarah as they sat on the sofa across from him.

Chuck's grip on her hand was fierce, but strangely enough, his palm was dry against hers. No matter how nervous he may be, Sarah had infinite faith in his strength, strength he was currently radiating. She knew she had always felt safe with him–this only fortified the feeling.

"Sleeping together. And by that, I mean, unconscious side by side sleeping together," Dreyfus stated, a small crease of his lips visible, as if he had been amused by his own word play.

"Yeah?" Chuck asked, confusion on his face.

"Did Sarah ever tell you about that before?" Dreyfus asked. He obviously knew, something Sarah had told him, but something she had no idea if she had ever told him. There had been so many things recently that she had told him that were previously unknown–as she filled in the gaps in their shared present with facts from her past.

"What about it?" he asked, looking back and forth between them both. Sarah looked at the floor, her cheeks pink.

"You can tell him, Sarah," Dreyfus coaxed quietly.

She fidgeted for a moment, but looked up at him. "That I only ever did that with you."

He almost laughed at how strange it sounded. "What? Sleep?" he asked, his smile slowly fading as he realized how serious she was in the moment. She looked away again, her cheeks burning.

"Sarah was a spy, Chuck. Spies don't let their guard down. It can cost them their lives. Being asleep, intoxicated, unconscious–unacceptable vulnerabilities. You can understand that, despite your…unorthodox history, can't you?" Dreyfus asked genuinely.

"I guess," he said, conceding the point but still confused. "But everyone has to sleep."

"Right. But alone, and like a cat, with one eye open. Always," Dreyfus stressed. He opened his eyes wide, regarding Chuck silently as his words sunk in.

He thought quickly, his mind scrolling back again. She had stayed overnight in his bed in his sister's apartment the night Cole Barker had been taken by Fulcrum. He hadn't slept, for very obvious personal reasons, but, as he now acknowledged, neither had she. But the motel in Barstow–when he had been essentially relying on her for protection, she had fallen so soundly asleep she hadn't been aware she had curled against him during the night, or that she's been stroking his hand in her sleep. He'd had to wake her up by nuzzling her neck.

Paris, the train, every other night after that when they were together. Had he really taken something like that for granted? Of course he had. He had never had to live the way she did–and once he had been sucked into the spy life, she had been there to keep him safe. No, she had never told him any of that before. And it surged like electricity in his blood, acknowledging it now like this how very special all of that had actually been. She felt him squeeze her hand tighter.

"The reason I brought this up. I just want to stress the fact to you that, despite how troubling this seems, it's because of trust that any of that is possible. She feels safe when she is with you. A very basic need–secondary only to things like air and food. Sarah only ever had herself to fulfill any of those needs, even when she was too young to have to do so for herself. Being a spy, living that life, kept that cycle spinning, like a giant feedback loop. Once she felt safe with you, everything else became possible. Even dealing with this. However frightening this seems, as we work through this, remember, Chuck, it's only possible because she trusts you. That's why I asked you to be here," he concluded.

Even now, that so much was missing? he thought first. It was a gut reaction, the bitterness simmering beneath the surface. Not directed at her, never at her. Nothing about this situation was her fault. She had taken an enormous leap of faith when she had agreed to stay with him on the beach. No, the bitterness was aimless, directed at whatever force in the universe had seen fit to reset his perfect life back to the beginning, just to satisfy the perverse pleasure of seeing if miracles could be duplicated.

She's here, now, because, despite everything, they had been able to do just that. Their love was not just a miracle, it was a force of nature. Undeniable. It was only at this moment that he realized that bitterness had dissipated; he was now almost smug in knowing nothing, absolutely nothing, was stronger than their feelings for each other. And for that, he was here, ready to face anything, walking beside her in hell, to guide her out.

He felt her relax her hand, but not letting go of his, as she settled back, waiting for Dreyfus to speak again, now that his notebook was wide open, his pen perched in anticipation. "This isn't hypnosis, Sarah. Just searching in your memory. Dreams and nightmares. This is a form of meditation."

Chuck listened as Dreyfus instructed her, telling her what to picture, where to start counting. He let Dreyfus' voice relax him, focus him, a calming hush in the room. It had taken almost ten minutes, he realized, when they had completed the introduction.

"Where do we start?" Dreyfus asked her.

"The phone," she said, her voice flat. "Chuck was calling me back…only…it wasn't Chuck." Her voice became unsteady, troubled. Once Quinn grabbed him, he knew the demands had been made. Of course, calling her on his own phone had been effectively jarring. He hadn't seen his phone again to see the call, but it made sense. "I left him alone, asleep," she continued, tears creeping into her voice. "Quinn wanted the Intersect glasses. For Chuck's life."

"Is that all, Sarah?" Dreyfus asked after a short silence.

"All I have is Casey," she added, a keen desperation in her tone. "No other resources. Against an army, and I know that. But I don't have a choice. So I agreed to meet. It seemed off. But what else could we do? I can't lose Chuck. I can't live without him."

He felt it like a razor blade across his insides, knowing why she had done what she told him she had, once she found him on the train in Japan. Just never hearing the emotion behind it. He had been angry, upset about the fact of what she'd done, never taking the time to understand what would have driven her to do it. That feeling she's telling you about–not erased. Repressed. Why, no matter what Quinn had tried to convince her, she hadn't been able to follow through and kill him.

"Keep going, Sarah, if you can," Dreyfus coached, writing furiously as she spoke.

"We were ambushed in the warehouse, and they lied. I should have seen that. I was just so desperate to get him back. But if he's not here, then where is he? How will we ever find him?" she questioned, her voice becoming shrill. She whimpered helplessly, then continued. "Casey and I got separated, but I had the glasses. He had no egress, and neither did I. He was out of ammo. The way he sounded–he was going to cover me. I knew it. Sacrifice himself so I could get away. I couldn't let him do that. All I had was the Intersect. The same one that fried Morgan's brain." She was crying. She continued to shift between tenses–part reliving it, part remembering. "But I need Casey to live. And without Chuck, I don't care what happens to me anyway." She sniffled softly as the tears continued to fall.

Chuck tasting blood in his own mouth was what keyed him into the fact that he had clenched his jaw so tightly closed that one of his canine teeth had punctured the inside of his lip. There was a white hot rage in him the likes of which he had never known before. He had spent months, in anguished pain, struggling with her, crying a thousand tears for her agony. The only defense he had left, the only way he could continue to endure this much torture, was to let loose the anger.

In his mind, he was back in the Vail Buy More. All of Quinn's men dead as he ran from the building like the coward he was. Chuck had stopped Casey. Only now, he knew, if he could somehow transport back in time, he would go from that point and hunt the man down with every last resource he had, every ounce of his strength and shred of his sanity. To prevent this pain he could feel seeping out of her pores. Worse, ashamed at himself, he knew too it was to cause suffering–no retribution adequate to make up for what had been taken from them.

What calmed the flames inside him was Sarah, opening her eyes soaked with tears, and searching for his face. "When you were shot," she said, wheezing like she was out of breath, "Before I knew you were wearing a vest." More tears streamed from her eyes. "I thought that. I couldn't live without you. It didn't make any sense. But I did."

Dreyfus closed his eyes, nodding gently, as he concluded his notes. "Everything," he said, emphatically stressing each syllable. "Everything," he repeated, "that you felt during that time is inside you, untouched by the damage the Intersect did to your memory. That's why you're here, with him. Why you knew you still loved him. Why, no matter what you remember, you're going to be alright."

She dove at his chest, squeezing around his chest with her arms. She felt his lips against her hair. Why the dreams we had are still alive. Why, she realized , she was no longer afraid.

XXX

"What's the matter?" she asked him, drawing back, sensing how unyielding he was to her touch. The room was dark, only shadowy blurs of moonlight scattered across the floor and walls. The silence of the night surrounded them as they lay in their bed.

"Sarah," he started, crossing his arms across his chest as he lay on his back. "I just…" he started, gesturing with his hand, but unable to finish. "I feel like this is moving too fast." He turned his head to glance at her, turning it back up at the ceiling again.

"I don't understand," she said softly, dejected, forcing a lightness into her voice to disguise how hurt she felt in that moment.

Sensing that inner wound, he flipped onto his side, cursing himself for not being clearer. "No, listen to me," he implored, pulling her into his arms. "I'm just worried. You're still confused, and still dealing with a lot of stuff. We don't need to rush into anything. I'm worried that it would be too much, all at once, like you said before. I know it feels like forever, but it's only been a week and a day. The floodgates are open now, and…"

"I don't mean now," she insisted, certain she had been clear, and confused about why he had steered the conversation the way he had. "But it's just talking. Why is that upsetting?" she asked.

Because he wanted it more than anything else, and talking about it only drove home the fact that it was now a hypothetical, when it had been a truth before. Telling her that did nothing, he knew, other than adding pressure and stress to an already potentially volatile situation. But, he rationalized with himself again, not telling her was perpetuating this unhealed wound of his, one that Dreyfus had already told him to let her know about.

"I can't, Sarah," he said, his breath releasing in a stuttering gush. "It makes it feel real, too real, for something that is still only just a dream."

But it was our dream, she thought heavily.

She cuddled herself against him, searching inside for the right words to say. "You were talking to my mother after dinner, while I was playing with Molly," she told him. "She was telling you about when I brought Molly to her, wasn't she?" Had that made him feel raw, in pain? she wondered.

"How she thought she was never going to see you again. After only such a short time of having you back in her life," he admitted. He certainly knew what that felt like–standing there, watching her walk away, feeling her take a piece of him with her. He had told Emma so, and they had bonded.

The wall between them was uncomfortable, unfamiliar. Just tell him, she advised herself. She could have asked him if she had told him this before, but inside she just knew she hadn't. It amazed her how much she had just never shared with him. "Dropping her off with my mother, and walking away, up to that day, had been the hardest thing I'd ever done in my life."

Was she sympathizing with him? He wondered. But she didn't stop, and he listened again in rapt attention as she expanded on the moment.

"I was with her for almost a month, in between waiting for documentation, hiding from Ryker, from the CIA, traveling. When I first had her with me, I was a mess. I'd never been around babies ever in my life. I was an only child, never babysat or anything like that, on the run with my Dad. I had to call my Mom for advice. But it didn't take long to get comfortable. To figure out what it was she needed. People would see us, think I was her mother. Ask me about her. It wasn't hard to wish I was, wish the story I was telling them was true. I fell in love with her, I really did. But I did the right thing, left her and walked away," she finished, choking back a sob, remembering the sounds her heels made on her mother's wooden steps, the vision of the picket fence in front of her blurry as the tears threatened to fall.

"I went back to D.C., to the news that Bryce was dead. Because he had broken into DARPA and destroyed the Intersect computer. I was alone again. But the alone-ness was different. I realized it hurt worse to think about the baby than to think about Bryce. It left me feeling empty. Like I finally knew exactly what it was that I wanted from life, but knew absolutely that it was something I would never be able to have. Just a useless dream for other people, normal people. Not me," she said, sighing. "And then I met you."

Those same eyes, amber in the dark but the promise of springtime green there, hidden and waiting for the sunlight, bore into her intently as she talked.

"You made me wonder, just wonder. If maybe it wasn't so useless. Maybe there was hope. I was still afraid. And I guess I stayed afraid for such a long time." She touched his face, caressing his cheek with her open palm, eventually threading her fingers into his hair at the base of his neck. "You always saw the best of me, whenever you looked at me. You made me believe that I wasn't hopeless. Those dreams weren't useless. They were real. You made them real."

She felt his lips on her forehead, his breath warm against her face as he moved his lips down her temple, onto her cheek, ending at her mouth and pressing his lips against hers affectionately.

"I need to look forward to that. Going through all of this. To get to where we want to be," she told him.

He held her against him, cradling her head into his chest. He had been bracing himself for a nightmare, and still knew as the darkness rolled into their room there was more to come. Morning was always out of reach. But her dreams dancing behind her closed eyelids were benign.

She stood in front of the sink in the bathroom, listening as Chuck shut off the water, watching his form in the mirror as he stepped out to dry himself. The white plastic pill had one pill left, she saw. She opened the door of the medicine cabinet, seeing the next pack waiting, unopened. "Chuck," she said, her thoughts starting to race as her heart beat faster. Her legs were still trembling, her muscles still weak from two bouts of lovemaking since they had gone back to their room after the newspaper delivery and subsequent discussion about quitting spying. All she had to do was not open the pack, and they had already started trying to have a baby, twice, this morning.

"What's up, Sweetie?" he asked, wrapping the towel around his waist after he had scrubbed his hair dry.

She twisted her lips to the side, his wet, curly hair in disarray suddenly almost painfully adorable. "What if I stop taking these?" she asked him, one hand outstretched to the unopened pack.

He stared, his eyes open wide, but his face warmly lit by the most beautiful smile she had ever seen. "Then we're trying to have a baby."

"We're trying to have a baby," she told him triumphantly, popping the last pill in her mouth, and ceremoniously dropping the empty holder into the wastebasket. No need to refill. She covered her mouth with two steepled fingers, laughing out in amazement, her eyes glazed with tears.

When she opened her eyes again, it was morning, and just as she'd known, the beautiful greenness of his eyes glowed in the morning light as he smiled at her.