A/N: Hi, guys. I'm back. *uncomfortable laugh* Sorry. It seems I had to choke this chapter out. Anyway, this couldn't happen without the help of two people: One, LittleBloodyJ- the queen of all angst and second, my beta-ish *drumroll*: hhooppyy aka Jaime. So thank you, dear readers, for waiting for this chapter.

"Hello, Agent Casey. Interesting predicament we're in, isn't it?" Shaw queried as he stood in front of the trussed up agent.

With a calculating eye, Casey quickly surveyed the room before somberly looking up at the towering figure of Shaw. Still the same… except the stench.

Shaw paced in front of him and gestured to the dark, damp room with a hand. "How do you like your accommodations, Colonel? Comfy?"

Casey gave him a noncommittal smile and a shrug. "Considering the other hellholes I've been in? This is a 5 star hotel. However, I seem to smell the stench of a traitorous bastard. Is that a new perfume your bosses have invented or is that just your natural smell?"

Stiffening slightly, Shaw's smile fell just enough to give away how much the comment affected him. Quickly recovering, a gloating, sarcastic smile soon covered his face as he pulled back his arm and with no warning, unleashed a vicious punch to Casey's stomach. Caught unexpectedly, he disguised his pained cough with a hoarse laugh as his shoulder's slumped slightly forward.

"Is that all you've got?" He challenged him. He saw the anger bubbling in Shaw's eyes. Hell, he's already pissed. Why not have some more fun? Shaw approached him with a grim smile as his hand settled above his gunshot wound and squeezed his leg with a grin.

Casey closed his eyes briefly and swallowed that expletive that was bound to let out. "I didn't know you swung that way." With an obvious strain to his voice, he threw one last barb at his torturer before spitting blood out of his mouth.

"What's wrong, Colonel? Had enough? But we're just getting started." Shaw whispered to him.

~0~0~

Your sister was a spy.

The words echoed throughout the room-mocking him with the truth he had been unwilling to see-until, with it's vicious hand, silence gripped the sound and snuffed it out.

Silence was a thing Chuck had grown accustomed to after he'd become the last member of his family still breathing. Of course, there's a large difference between liking something and being used to it. It's like when you're physically wounded: just because the wound seems to have stopped hurting doesn't mean that it's any less serious. Maybe it's even worse to be numb than to be physically aware of it. Numbness dulls you to the reality of your situation but there is only so much pain the body can take before it shuts down.

That is what Chuck's consciousness did to help him survive.

When he couldn't cope anymore, he shut down like a faulty computer-his eyes flickering until whatever was lighting them up was gone. He'd done the same when his parents had passed away.

Whilst he had never really recovered, having Ellie made him try- even if that meant learning to hide the depths of his pain from her.

It was the first time he ever lied to her.

When she died, it was as if the world had gone dark around him... unforgiving of his pain. Everything became irrelevant because all he wanted to do was curl up in the cold and unforgiving soil beside her: to be held by her for one last time.

Dying would have been a welcome relief.

Eagerly waiting for the day that death would take him, Chuck never bothered to try and recover from Ellie's death. He was not going to give up, but that doesn't mean that he was going to truly go on living, either. And that became his perpetual state since then.

Sometimes, living for the sake of living can be worse than dying.

The pencil in Chuck's pale hands snapped without a noise before its small splinters stuck into his flesh, reminding him to breathe as his suddenly distant eyes remained focused on the blonde.

The blonde remained silent as she looked back into his face, curious as to what reaction was being hidden under the shield of his flesh. She'd seen enough suffering in her time to know when someone was suffering- but she also knew that the further down it was being hidden, the bigger the storm it was causing.

Chuck remained silent as her eyes remained focused on the blank canvass of his face, waiting for something, anything, to happen. Chuck gently swallowed the bile-like substance that had formed in his throat, his shaking hands tightening around the broken wood and his heart racing as his all too clever mind asked him as to why of all the emotions swirling inside of him, shock wasn't one of them.

He wasn't shocked because he knew Ellie would have done anything to make sure people were safe. She would never have hurt anyone; there was no doubt about that. If he even started to question that, he'd have to start questioning everything he ever knew about her and he knew that there is only so much a person could handle. If he questioned the good in Ellie, then what is left to be certain of? He couldn't cope with losing Ellie again... because if losing her once didn't kill him... losing her twice would.

Ellie had been the person who had been his only support for many years and she had been the person who had picked him up when he had fallen. She had been forced to grow up before her time so that Chuck could get a chance to be a kid. She had to become a mentor to her own brother about life because nobody else would do it.

She had been the only reliable person in his life and she had been the one to teach him everything. She was a spy.

She was everything he had ever believed in. She was a lie.

She was his best friend and everything he loved. She was gone in a flash of red and ashes.

Chuck kept himself silent as he felt the warm, sticky liquid crawling lazily down his hand and falling- the little red drops leaving small marks on the floor near his feet where they dared to fall. His face remained the perfect mask of calmness as he continued staring into the blonde's eyes, daring her to take her words back.

Sarah looked away once again, his gaze unsettling her as she shifted in her seat, struggling to find what to say in a way that went against her training. She gently let her mind go over the look in his eyes as she would an enemy agent to try and work out what he was thinking.

She didn't need to analyse him to know he wasn't an enemy because everything she needed to know was hidden in those eyes.

He was in so much pain that it hurt to consider. That was the first thing that hit her. She'd seen people under constant torture that weren't in half as much pain as the young man watching her was.

The second thing she noticed was how tired his eyes were. Like they hadn't had a good night sleep in far too long. The bags under his eyes proved that the presumption was correct but it wasn't just that type of tired- it was also the type of tired you feel when you're old and have stopped questioning the world around you because you already have too many unanswered questions stuck in your tired mind.

The third thing was a little harder to detect but luckily, she was trained to detect it. Natural Intelligence. His intelligence rang as true as the eyes she can't help but be suffocated by. His eyes pulled her in as his mind carefully picked her apart- studying every crevice of her being. She felt something she has never felt before... something she couldn't explain. Some sort of a psychological nudity.

How could this man, whom she have met for a scarce few minutes know so much about her and delved so deep into her subconsciousness... something even she- herself, was afraid to do.

The fourth, and worst thing that she saw in his eyes was the reason she couldn't bear to look at him for any longer.

Death.

There was so much death in his eyes that it clashed with the youthful innocence his face was carefully formed of. The death drowned out all the other emotions and turned them to a dull shade of gray as they told her how everything he had ever dared to love had been taken away from him, ripping him to shreds and leaving him to bleed.

He wasn't the lively young man Ellie had told him about. He was so...

It was because of her.

Because she couldn't keep one stupidly kind woman safe.

Because she didn't do her job.

Because she had allowed herself to be distracted.

He didn't even have the strength to want to move on because moving on would show him how little the world cares for those who died to protect it. He didn't want to move on because everything he ever had was in the past. The person he had once been was gone-left in the past.

Sarah couldn't help but wonder how lonely it was to be stuck inside his mind because no matter how much he was hurting, he was too clever. His intelligence was his curse. No matter how hard he tried to not think, his mind would force him to.

With great power comes great responsibility.

He needed to know just as strongly as he needed to drown in the past.

He was so lonely he wanted to sit in a corner and give up. Sarah Walker knew the feeling well.

Sarah swallowed as she watched another drop of blood fall from his hand as the acceptance of her words glittered in his emotive eyes. He had no reason to question what she said and she had no reason to lie.

The knock from outside the door caused Sarah to jump before frowning at Chuck's lack of a reaction. His ever-straight shoulders remained perfectly still as his mask shifted over his eyes, covering all the secrets they held with a glassy dullness.

"There's a phone call for you." Bryce's voice was resigned as he stared at the empty shell before him, his eyes looking as if he couldn't help but remember who Chuck had once been. Before Sarah's mistake.

"It's urgent."

Sarah couldn't help but think that she would have done anything to take back what happened to meet the boy that Ellie spoke of. The boy who loved geeky shows like Star Trek and would smile for no reason... not the man who didn't sleep and lived on coffee, rarely remembering to eat and spending every second either hiding from everyone around him or trying to find those who had taken his family from him

I'm so sorry.

She didn't realise she had spoken out loud until Chuck's eyes flickered onto her once again. Maybe, if Chuck had known what she was apologising for, he wouldn't have given her the look of acceptance he wore as he looked back at Jill.

"Take care of Miss Walker, please." The iciness in his voice didn't seem to shock either of the other officers, yet the look of longing in both of their eyes only increased.

They both looked at him as nothing more than a shell that was slowly cracking because of the pressure his own mind was creating.

Jill nodded as Chuck walked out of the room, stopping himself from sending another look at Sarah Walker.

~0~0~

Inside the room, Sarah looked at Jill and asked the question she already knew the answer to. "Has he been like that for long?"

"Like what?" The resignation in Jill's voice nearly matched Chuck's.

"So broken."

Ellie would have died if she'd seen what had happened to her baby brother.

~0~0~

"Patience, padawan."

Sarah looked at Casey impatiently. "Well? We haven't got all night you know."

"Technically, we do have all night." Nico interjected cheekily as Sarah promptly threw him a glare that shut him up.

"Can we please get on with the program?" Sarah sighed tiredly.

Casey coughed out loud and depressed a button under the coffee table. She watched in fascination as a hiss broke out from the table and a chart of The Ring's chain of command appeared.

"How did you get this?" She gasped in surprise as she leaned forward as she tried to remember the names and faces of those in power. She looked up at him, expecting an answer when everything clicked in her brain.

"Oh right. You're the ghost."

"Now's not the time." Casey said, nonplussed.

She stood up abruptly and threw her hands up in the air. "Damn it! We're supposed to trust each other with this! This is how my team died. Because we didn't trust each other!"

"Walker, we're not going to betray you." Nico stood up straight and considered her seriously.

"We want this as much as you do. The Ring destroyed our lives." His mouth formed a grim line. "We'll make them pay."

"Enough with this lady feelings!" Casey bellowed and he pointed to the two of them. "You two, sit!"

She muttered obscenities under her breath but otherwise, complied.

"Now, here's what we know so far: Shaw is high up their food chain and we can use that to our advantage. That guy might be a genius but he's egoistical. He had a perfect record... that is... until I came along." Casey grinned proudly.

Nico groaned out loud and addressed her. "Do you want a beer? You might want to drown in beer rather than Casey's ego speech." She smirked amusedly but nonetheless, nodded in assent.

Casey coughed and resumed his previous talk. "So here's what we're going to do, we're going to give him what he wants: me."

Sarah's eyebrows furrowed in confusion and Casey took that as a sign to continue. "He's going to 'catch me' while you go to find reinforcements."

"And where am I going to find reinforcements?"

Casey leaned back and crossed his arms in front of him. "You're gonna be meeting an old buddy of mine... Light Yagami."

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