A/N: This story is structured in three parts: Before, Now, and After. We switch back and forth as the story progresses and more is revealed. I debated about whether to include my chapter-heading song lyrics, since for this story, they are anachronistic. Lyrics are poetry, and where I find much inspiration, so I decided I would. This is FanFic, after all.

BEFORE

The first time ever I saw your face

I thought the sun rose in your eyes

And the moon and the stars were the gifts you gave

To the dark and the endless skies, my love

"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"

Roberta Flack

November 5, 1938

Worcester, Massachusetts

Chuck walked through the foyer of Jack Burton's house. His soft soled shoes scuffed against the white marble tile floor while his gaze trailed up the grand marble staircase spiraling down from the crystal chandelier. The cold clung to him as he scuffed into the warmth of inside. His young mind could focus for more than a few seconds only on how much he hated November. This situation was nothing new, he thought, even though nothing old as he understood it existed anymore, at least nothing that affected him on a daily basis. November had always signaled an end…end to beauty, warmth, even light. The chill of October was tolerable with the beauty of colored leaves overhead, the smell of spiced apples in his kitchen, and the warmth of a crackling fire against his legs. November was frigid and dark, all the beauty withered to a rusty brown everywhere he looked.

This year was worse. The storm, The Storm as he heard everyone say, had blasted away all that gold, red, and orange too early, howling autumn away in one night and heralding the beginning of winter, the still-standing trees wounded and bare and lifeless before the beginning of October. Everything was dead.

November had invaded him now, it seemed, occupying him. A November six weeks old with no end in sight. The darkness lodged itself in the space between where his heart beat and his brain fired.

He recalled the words he had heard, whispers between adults when they thought he couldn't hear. The boy is in shock. He needs to process it. He needs to grieve.

He didn't understand, didn't know what that meant or what else he needed to do that he hadn't already done. He knew what grief was, intelligent and precocious for his ten years. His mother had explained a few years ago, when her own mother had passed away. A natural process, the circle of each life, directly proportional and equal in weight to the love felt in life… that loss in death—that was grief.

But what happened when it wasn't natural? When parents buried their children, parents died too young, or young children were orphaned? Grief seemed too meager to express something as monstrous as that. It was far too weak to describe what had happened inside him once he had lost both of his parents and his sister on the same day, at the same moment.

Shock. That had been the word Gertrude had used, whispering to her husband, John, in the kitchen of Chuck's house. Yes, he had been in shock. Unbelieving, denying, barely in his own body…plummeting into an abyss of despair and hopelessness each time he tried to fathom his now ruined life. Grief meant tears and sadness. He should have been there, had started there, grieving, but all that he was given was numbness, darkness, as if the grief had shorted itself out in him, like an overtaxed fuse.

Funerals. So many funerals. He had never been to one before, too young and too innocent. Untouched by death before that day. All three caskets together, two large and one small…everyone and everything he loved. Boxed for the earth. Not two months later, he could barely remember the details. So, yes, shock.

All he knew was everything that had been inside him before—spring, summer, autumn and all their dazzling days and nights, a thousand different colored hours and minutes—all that was in the ground, buried under six feet of earth. All that was left was winter. Not the beautiful white blanket of winter. It was the ugly, brown, dried up despair of November…here forever now. Come to stay. Early winter, perpetual winter. Every waking moment, every moment of his dreams.

He had been walking, not aware of his surroundings. John Casey, walking in front of him, his hat in his hand, turned and motioned quickly, since Chuck had lagged behind. "Come on, Kid," he urged.

Casey always called him "Kid." It wasn't condescending or impersonal, just his way. He had called Chuck that from the moment Chuck's parents had hired him and his wife Gertrude to keep their house and grounds.

"What kind of name is Chuck anyway?" Casey had always asked.

The answer, a memory in his own voice, replayed now and the burning behind his eyes threatened again. My sister couldn't say Charles when I was a baby…she was only three…it came out Chu. So they called me Chuck.

So you're Charles?

No, I'm Chuck.

As if by keeping the name, he had kept a piece of his sister no storm or illness could ever from him.

The lawyers, doctors, clergy, friends and relatives…they all referred to him as Charles. Even his father had always called him Charles. His mother and Ellie had called him Chuck. Casey and Gertrude called him Chuck. But they understood. They were the only ones alive who did.

Casey had reached a closed mahogany door. In the corridor outside, two soft upholstered chairs were positioned with a small cherry finished table, potted fern atop it, angled in between. This was Mr. Burton's house, but it felt like Chuck was waiting to go into the principal's office at school. His own house had an area similar to this, he knew, considering both his father and Mr. Burton were wealthy businessmen who could not always leave work at the office. At his own home, he had never had a reason to stay in that corridor for any amount of time.

Yesterday, Chuck had overheard his guardians talking in his kitchen while he paused at the base of the stairs. Gertrude had argued with her husband, telling him that Chuck should have stayed at home, his presence not needed for this discussion, whatever that meant. Casey had argued back, telling her it was the Kid's whole life and maybe he was too young to understand, but Casey would give him a chance to fight as well, even if he was only ten. Something about coddling…and the words had gotten lost as he'd covered his ears when they started shouting. There was nothing Chuck hated more than the sound of arguing.

Chuck nervously shifted from one foot to the other as Casey knocked on the door. It was strange, Chuck thought. At his house, Casey would have answered the door and brought a visitor to see his father. Mr. Burton had no such person at his home, it seemed.

Chuck recognized the man who opened the door. Roan Montgomery, his father's lawyer. He was tall, almost as tall as Casey, but much not nearly as bulky. He wore an expensive brown suit and cordovan shoes that gleamed with polish. He had a polished smile too, but kind eyes. "Nice to see you again, Mr. Casey. I'm sorry it's under these circumstances," Roan said, taking Casey's hand and shaking it.

Roan tilted forward, leaning out of the door and noticing Chuck as he stood in the corridor. "You brought the boy?" Roan said, as if Chuck were furniture and incapable of hearing or comprehending the words.

"Chuck has a right to be here," Casey said, stressing Chuck's first name. The winter inside Chuck warmed, if only for a split second, when he absorbed Casey's faithful defense of him.

"Surely we can come to an agreement," Roan said diplomatically, gesturing for Casey to enter. "Have a seat, Son," Roan said with an indulgent smile.

Chuck backed up and sat clumsily in one of the chairs, bumping into the table and causing the plant to shimmy on the surface. Fortunately, nothing fell. Roan's familiar address, "Son," was what his father had always called him and hearing it again, like that, made him feel nauseous. His eyes burned as he struggled not to cry…not here, not like this.

He fidgeted in the chair while his fate was being decided behind the door. Inside, he knew, were not only John Casey and Roan Montgomery, but Jack Burton and his lawyer, Diane Beckman. He wished he understood more of what they were talking about. All he knew was his parents had left legal documents that gave John and Gertrude Casey custody of him and what they referred to as custodial access to his trust…and Jack Burton, his father's best friend and business partner, had contested his parents' will, trying to take custody of Chuck away from the Caseys. This meeting was a mediation, an attempt to avoid having to go to court.

All of the swirling sickness and anxiety inside Chuck was doing damage. Chuck wanted to stay with John and Gertrude, in his house, the only place he had ever lived. He liked Mr. Burton, when introduced to him at his father's office or Christmas parties and the few other times he had interacted with him. But he didn't want to live with him. He barely knew the man…and the uncertainty just stirred the anxiety each time he thought of it.

He tried to listen to what they were saying, but the door was thick and heavy and the only sounds he heard were muffled. He could tell when the speaker changed, and who it was that was talking…Casey, Mr. Montgomery, Miss Beckman, or Mr. Burton…but their voices sounded like disharmonious music instead of words. After only about five minutes, he noticed their collective voices had raised. Every once in a while, he could hear phrases or even sentences as they were shouted, though still hard to place in a cohesive conversation.

Another ten minutes, and everyone was shouting, enough that Chuck could hear everything, almost word for word.

"I'm only thinking of the boy! He's alone in the world. I can't believe that Stephen and Mary would have willed custody of their son to the gardener and the housekeeper!"

"You look at him and you see dollar signs! You can't wait to get your hands on his money!"

"I have my own money, Mr. Casey. Half of that business is mine."

"And the other half belongs to Chuck! He's only a boy, but he inherited it all and I'm not going to let you take any of that from him!"

"Gentlemen, please! Mr. Montgomery and I are acting as mediators. Shouting at each other solves nothing."

"The final will and testament of Stephen and Mary Bartowski has been drafted and on file with my office for over nine years. What grounds do you think you have to prove this document was drafted under duress?"

"You just proved my point! Casey was a vagrant, unemployed steelworker that the Bartowskis hired out of pity. Six months later they give him custody of their children?"

"I promised them, when they asked my wife and I, that I would take care of both Chuck and Ellie if anything were to happen to them. I don't break my word. No idiot mouthpiece is going to get me to go back on my word."

"The Bartowskis trusted the Caseys, even after just that short amount of time. They could have asked you, Mr. Burton, but they didn't. It may be harsh, but it's true."

Every word they were shouting was audible, even through the hands pressed firmly over each of Chuck's ears. His eyes were pressed closed, hard, wrinkly puckered lines with eyelashes askew.

The soft grip on his left wrist, from a small hand, startled him. He had heard no one approach. He jerked, surprised, his hands falling away as he turned in the direction where the touch had come from.

A girl stood next to his chair, blonde and blue-eyed. She was younger than he, probably closer to six. He remembered his parents talking about Mr. Burton's daughter, though he had never seen her before. Her hair was wild, sloppily braided on each side with tendrils sticking out in every direction. She wore a blue dress, a deep rich blue that was the same color as her eyes, the color of the summer sky. The dress was clean, but hopelessly wrinkled. She wore white socks and shiny black patent leather mary janes, scuffed along their sides. She had a blue stuffed animal; it looked like a dog but with long floppy ears, and she clutched it in her arms tight against her chest.

"Come on," she whispered, reaching for his wrist again and pulling. "I hate it when they shout, too."

Casey had been firm, adamant, that Chuck stayed in the chair and waited. Gertrude had already thought bringing him was a bad idea, and his wandering off could only make matters worse. But he found that he had almost no will, no strength to resist the little girl's call, her summer eyes.

He stood, surprised at how tall she was, even for six. At ten, Chuck was gangly, much taller than any of the other boys his age. He was used to towering over other children. But not her. She turned to run, beckoning him to follow. His long legs allowed him to keep up with her in a fast walk, following her through an adjoining room, down another corridor, and into another room.

Chuck thought he was in Sarah's bedroom. The walls were pink, the carpet a deep mauve. The curtains on the windows were frilly white lace. In the center of the room was a tiny table with two tiny chairs, on the surface a porcelain tea set. One wall was lined with stuffed animals, the other with shelves of books. Not a doll in sight, he thought, thinking of his sister and the toys she had always played with when she was younger.

Ellie…

Whenever he thought of his sister, which was often, it was like the winds that had scarred his world found their way inside him, stripping away everything and leaving a November landscape.

He wasn't sure what his face showed her, but Sarah had sensed something, some change that had descended over him. "My name is Sarah," she told him plainly, leaning in front of him, studying his face.

"Chuck," he responded, the blue in her eyes grounding him, a clear sky from horizon to horizon.

She wrinkled her nose and smiled. "That's a funny name."

"It's short for Charles," he told her.

She smiled again. "It's better than Charlie. I like it." She reached down and took his hand. "Come on," she urged, pulling him gently.

In the corner of the room, Sarah had made a tent, a light blanket stretched over the posts on her bed and another chair. She dropped to her hands and knees and crawled inside, then spun and sat on her knees, waiting for him to climb in with her. It was a tight squeeze, but he fit beside her, pulling his knees up to his chest.

The light shining down on the blanket from above tinted everything inside pink. As close to her as he'd needed to sit, he could see the tiny flecks of gold mixed with the blue of her eyes. He couldn't remember ever seeing eyes that looked like hers.

Chuck perceived beauty as a child would: innocence and symmetry, comfort and safety.

His mother had been beautiful, even his sister. But he loved them, enough that the pictures of them in his mind were fuzzy, aglow like paintings hanging in a museum. He didn't comprehend the beauty he saw in Sarah's face, only that he couldn't look away from her, each moment lost more in her eyes and further from the troubles that weighed him down.

"We're safe in here," she whispered. After a pause, she asked him, "What were they arguing about? Do you know?"

The ease of the interaction was unusual, startling. Chuck was quiet by nature, finding it easier to listen than to talk. Tragedy had shut him down, turned him mute, as he had heard Casey or Gertrude explain it. Now, he just talked to her, answered what she asked, because somehow he just knew she wanted to know. He wanted her to know, wanted to answer her.

"About where I'm supposed to live now," Chuck said as simply as he understood it.

"Why do you have to change where you live?" she asked.

"Because I'm an orphan," he told her, saying it out loud still a shock to his system.

"What does that mean?" she asked, leaning forward to gaze into his face. Her eyes were wide and curious, questioning.

"I don't have parents…anymore," he answered, almost choking on the words as they came out.

He swore he saw the color of her eyes change, like the blue of the sky darkening when a cloud passes over the sun. "Did they have polio?" she asked, struggling to pronounce the last word, like she was pulling it from memory spoken by someone else.

It was strange, out of nowhere. He still answered her. "The hurricane. My parents…and my sister…went to close our summer cabin for the season. The ocean came…up…farther than it ever did…when the hurricane came through." His stomach churned, sadness and anxiety nearly gagging him. The words were benign, relatively speaking, but the pictures in his mind were horrific, there for eternity after he had eavesdropped when Casey had told Gertrude what had happened…the waves breaking the house apart and pulling everything into the ocean, including his parents and his sister.

His storm seemed mirrored suddenly in her widening eyes, and it seemed to surround them both as they hid in the blanket fort, battering it. "My mommy…died from polio. Last year," she admitted, a sad tremble in her voice when she spoke the words.

A vague memory…his mother telling him Mr. Burton's wife had died at the end of last summer. Vacation at the lake…two weeks later she was gone, Mary had said. That, and a warning to him and Ellie to stay away from the water for that very reason.

The water. Always water. Nothing lived without water…everything was dead…because of water. Water gives and water takes.

He was too young to understand what it was that passed between him and Sarah…two wounded children hiding in a blanket fort. He couldn't intellectually understand it, but he felt it. Understanding. Casey and Gertrude, Roan Montgomery, even Mr. Burton…they cared, but they didn't understand. None of them had lost what he had, none of them could ever begin to understand what it felt like to live his life. But Sarah did, at least a bit. Sure, she had her father still, but she understood the emptiness inside him that nothing would ever fill for as long as he lived.

Sarah leaned against him, still tightly wound inside herself, but seeking the slightest bit of comfort just the same. They didn't say anything else, not for a long time.

When she spoke again, it startled him. "His name is Bunny," Sarah told him, holding out the blue stuffed dog she had been clutching to herself.

"But…he's a dog, right?" Chuck asked.

She smiled hesitantly. "He has…floppy ears, like a bunny." She rested the toy across the top of his knees. "Maybe he could visit you, for a while. He helps me sleep when I feel sad."

He fought to keep from tearing up again. "Don't you need him?" Chuck asked, whispering as his throat ached.

"You can bring him back when you come again," she told him. "I think you might need him more than I do."

He took the stuffed toy in his hands, squeezing it in a soft hug. She smiled tentatively.

"I promise I'll take care of him for you," he assured her.

"Chuck!"

Casey's voice, calling him, perturbed, obviously because Chuck had gone missing when Casey had told him to stay. He tucked the stuffed dog under his arm and crawled out from under the blanket. He felt Sarah scrambling behind him. In the doorframe, Chuck saw Casey, red-faced and sweaty, standing next to Mr. Burton. It had been a little while since Chuck had seen Jack Burton, but he looked almost the same. Tall, not quite as tall as Casey, but tall, with thick, wavy salt and pepper hair that he wore longer than was currently fashionable. He had a crooked but dazzling smile.

"What were you doing, Darlin'?" Jack called to his daughter as she stood behind Chuck.

"Making a friend," Sarah replied without hesitation.

Jack's smile was fluid, changing from amusement to…something else Chuck didn't quite understand. "Well, your friend has to go home now."

Chuck hurried to cross the room to Casey's side.

"Darlin', he has Bunny," Jack said softly. "Don't you need him back?"

"Chuck can keep him for now," Sarah replied. "So he can feel better."

Casey's lower jaw pulsated as he clenched. At first Chuck thought he was still angry, but it wasn't quite right. Casey wasn't angry any more…he was almost biting his tongue, the same way Chuck did when he tried to not cry in front of anyone.

"Come on, Kid," Casey said in a gentle tone Chuck had almost never heard from the man.

Chuck followed Casey down the corridors and out of the house, back into the biting November wind. This time, Sarah's toy insulated him, keeping his chest warm beneath the fuzzy blue plush.

He fell asleep in Casey's car on the drive home, clutching Bunny to him, dreaming of the summer sky…as it had appeared in Sarah's eyes.

A/N: A quick thank you to Zettel for pre-reading this. :) Thoughts? Love to hear from you.