A/N: A few more historical notes. In the 1950s, pre-Vatican 1960, suicide was considered almost an inexcusable sin. Not as bad as the 16 or 1700's (stake through the heart in an unmarked grave,) but less compassionate. Not every suicide victim got a Christian funeral or burial. St. John's is an actual Christian cemetery in Worcester. Casey's musings would have been a legitimate concern in 1952. St. Ann's orphanage, almost mentioned here, was also a real place.

NOW

When the singer's gone

Let the song go on

It's a fine line between the darkness and the dawn

They say in the darkest night

There's a light beyond

But the ending always comes at last

Endings always come too fast

They come too fast

But they pass too slow

I love you and that's all I know

"All I Know"

Art Garfunkel

April 18, 1952

Worcester, Massachusetts

Chuck was only partially aware, fractionally alive, half awake, as he stumbled through the kitchen door of his home in the early morning light. He had little memory of the car ride, or even his steps from the driveway into the house. The sense of a waking dream, like sleepwalking, something he had done repeatedly in the first few weeks after losing his parents and sister, would not leave him. He was here, present, but also not, instead observing from afar, his mind and his body connected but existing on separate planes.

Each individual piece of the scene seemed to float around him, disjointed and unconnected, capturing his attention only for a second. Gertrude was silently caretaking, holding in her questions…pulling off his wet jacket, preparing hot tea and toast. The sweet scent of strawberry jam, normally appetizing, nauseated him, the thought of food too much to contemplate. He was too tired to argue, to decline her ministrations. There was nothing in her manner, her purpose, but kindness; his bruised spirit could not refuse kindness in any form, so rare as it seemed to be to him. Still, he had to force the food down, swigging a mouthful of tea with every bite to keep from gagging as his stomach churned against the food. Yet after several bites, his stomach calmed, proof of her wisdom about how to help.

Eventually, Chuck registered that Gertrude and Casey had started talking, to each other and then to him, but he couldn't focus on anything long enough to answer them. The memory of what they had said, even seconds later, dissipated like fog, intangible, unknowable. They too had been up all night, Casey at one point driving to the Burton home, only to be turned away by the local police. Gertrude fretted about Chuck's wet clothes, his lack of sleep and food, and, with a sharp gasp, the blood on the cuffs of Chuck's shirt. Because of Casey's exploratory trip, they were aware of Jack's death. Chuck was thankful for that small favor, the idea of having to explain everything to them completely overwhelming in his current state.

Chuck heard movement behind him as he sat at the table, the soft shuffling of Gertrude's slippers and the heavier thumping of Casey's boots. They had moved from the kitchen into the hallway beyond, for privacy, Chuck thought. He listened to them talking. How much of his life, how many things that he knew, did he know only through overheard or eavesdropped conversations he had never been meant to hear? More than what seemed normal, or right, but almost all that he knew.

"May God have mercy on his soul." (Chuck could see the rapid-fire sign of the cross in his mind's eye.)

"What kind of man would do such a thing…to his only child?"

"The same man who stole from his best friend and tried to take custody of his best friend's son just to gain full ownership of the business."

"Hush, you. The man isn't even in his grave yet."

"I never liked him, Gert. Always so charming…but never quite sincere. Watching that poor girl grow up like a ragamuffin broke my heart. I hate to say it, but I wondered whether he ever had one to begin with."

"He loved her, I guess the only way he knew how. People break sometimes, like a toaster…or an automobile…only there's no one to fix them. They only partially work. I always thought of him like that. Broke. I tend to think Mr. Bartowski probably did, too." (An angry grunt.)

"He was always good to Chuck."

"How much of that was real…how much was manipulation, so he could get what he wanted?" (Another angry grunt.)

"You need to rest. We'll talk more later. It's been a long night."

After several seconds, Casey returned alone and sat at the table across from Chuck. "She was very worried about you, you know," he said gently. He gave no outward sign that he even suspected Chuck could have heard anything he and Gertrude had just said. He sighed, a huffy grunt. "But now she's upstairs. Tell me." Casey faced him.

"Tell you what, Casey?" Chuck asked, the sound of his own voice, so hoarse and weak, surprising him.

"I've known you your entire life, Kid," Casey said, his voice low and gravelly. "On top of everything else, and despite her trying to calm you down, you were anxious as hell while Gert was tending to you. There's something you need to tell me. More."

"Sarah blames me for it," he groaned as he blurted it out. He rubbed both palms over his eyes. "I have never seen her look at me like that…how…angry she was at me. Casey, she threw me out of the house."

Chuck listened to the sound of Casey's studied breathing for what felt like forever. "I can't imagine what that poor girl must be feeling now. I'm sure she was in shock," Casey eventually said, gently, an odd and unusual tone to hear from the man.

"She was absolutely hysterical. They had to call the doctor to sedate her. But I know she must have known…at least a little bit…what happened, at least enough to know that…that…the investigation was my idea, my request," he choked.

Casey leaned forward, reaching across the table for him. He felt Casey's hand, strong, squeezing his shoulder. "That may be true, but he's the one who stole and cheated. Sarah has to understand that. She will, you know, once the shock of all of all of this wears off. You didn't do anything wrong, Chuck."

Chuck groaned out loud, his head still in his hands. "I could have talked to him first, or given him an opportunity to explain, or…" He swallowed, the sound audible. "I just…I didn't know…it was as bad as it really was, and once I did…it was too late. Everything was already in motion. I never thought…it would end like this." Not that it would not end, because everything ended, and in Chuck's experience, ended too soon, before it was expected, before it was natural.

Chuck's thoughts tumbled like dice, shaking inside his head but erratic, unreadable. He was too tired to focus on anything, other than the rest of the story he couldn't have told in front of Gertrude. "I stayed all night, in the driveway, because Sarah was alone in the house. I didn't care if she sent me away. Eventually, Diane Beckman showed up. I think she's still there now."

Chuck lifted his head, fixing his eyes on Casey's face. "I don't know what it means, but Daniel Shaw showed up at Jack's house. It was the middle of the night, Casey. Something…worse than what we thought is going on."

It took a lot to rattle Casey, Chuck knew, and yet Casey went pale, his blue eyes open so wide the whites were visible all around his irises. "Did he see you there?" Casey asked, alarmed.

"He saw the car," Chuck answered. "I don't know if he actually knew it was me, mine."

Exhaustion claimed Chuck. He could barely keep his eyes open, the emotional stress of the night compounded with his lack of sleep too much in the moment. Still, he had to explain at least a little to Casey, if for no other reason than to share the weight of his knowledge with another soul. "Morgan found…too many irregularities with the books…for it not to be criminal. The District Attorney's involved. And with Shaw there, involved somehow…It's worse than anyone knew." He dropped his head back into his hands. "We may be on the verge of bankruptcy…that's how bad. And I'm not sure all of the…creditors…are on the up and up."

"Jesus Christ," Casey muttered, wincing as he heard his own epithet, only venial sin but one his wife still abhorred.

"I'm scared, Casey. I don't know what this means for me, for the business, for Sarah…" HIs voice broke with her name.

The silence in the room was heavy, thick like a fog. When Casey spoke again, it startled Chuck. "We'll find out in the coming days, I'm sure…probably more than we ever wanted to know. Thank god your parents had enough sense to keep that trust of yours out of his hands."

Chuck thought of what he'd told Beckman, his suspicions of Jack from long ago, what Casey believed, what was the truth. Chuck didn't know and he was too tired to sort it now. He had a sick, twisting feeling in his stomach when he thought the money left in his trust may be all that he had left to his name, thanks to Jack Burton.

Chuck felt Casey's hand on his forearm, a pat followed by a gentle squeeze. It was odd, unexpected. Chuck raised his head, wondering, waiting. "I know you're bone tired, Kid, but…there's something I have to say…something I need to say." Chuck held his gaze and waited.

Casey shifted, uncomfortable. It was disconcerting to Chuck, who couldn't remember another time when Casey had looked the way he did now. "We all…thought…you know, you always thought of Sarah…like family."

"She is," he said, automatically, hearing the painful, contradictory words in his head. She used to be.

"No, Chuck, I mean, you know…like a sister. You were like a brother to her. You were so young and you spent almost every waking moment you weren't in school together until you were teenagers. But…it's more than just that, isn't it?" Casey asked, like he was asking himself at the same time he asked Chuck, realizing the answer as he asked the question.

Chuck dropped his head all the way to the table top, his forehead resting on his folded hands. "It doesn't matter anymore, does it?" he groaned helplessly.

As if Chuck hadn't even spoken, Casey continued. "Gert used to tell me all the time…soul mates, she would say. You and Sarah. I never knew what that was supposed to mean, all that silly romance novel nonsense. I was quick to dismiss it, when she would talk like that, romanticizing it all. It made me blind…to what was right in front of me all along."

"It doesn't matter, Casey," he moaned, defeated, the threat of tears audible in Chuck's voice.

"I can't believe I am the one who's saying this to you," Casey huffed, "but I'm sure that's the only thing that does matter."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Chuck asked, his voice muffled as he spoke with his head still resting on his hands.

"It's been Sarah first, everything else second…almost since the first day you met her," Casey said.

Each word seemed to hammer inside his head, painful. His wits were slowed, but he knew what Casey was saying. It wasn't anything he hadn't heard before, from almost everyone he knew. Chuck had always found a way to dismiss the conjecture, the questions.

Love.

Because of the circumstances of their meeting and the nature of their subsequent interactions, nothing was as straightforward to him as it may have been to others. Sarah and he just…were. Coexistence, symbiosis. Like the tree in Sarah's backyard under which they had sat together so frequently. He automatically thought tree, singular, because it was, to anyone else observing, just one tree. Only, it wasn't one tree. It was two trees, originally planted too close together as saplings, now years later, fused together under one layer of bark, their branches and roots so intertwined they were no longer separate entities. They had flourished together, bending towards the sunlight, and they would perish together, starving, their shared, desiccated roots in waterless ground.

Did he love her? That question was more definitive than he ever asked when he did allow himself to think. Whatever was inside him now had grown like wildflowers sprouting through the cracks in city sidewalks. Each broken part of him had healed to fit her in it, changing him, fortifying him in ways he had only gradually become aware of over time.

Nothing was real until she knew it. Nothing was visible until he had seen it reflected in her eyes. Nothing made sense until she explained or understood it. The entire world shrunk to a pinpoint, like before the big bang, until she was there…and the universe exploded into being around her so time could move forward again.

Was that love? It seemed too simple…and too complex at the same time. Why had he never just focused on himself, examined his feelings, instead of coasting along on the waters of his life, unreflective, waiting? It seemed cliche, that he should prove the adage–he hadn't known what he'd had until he'd lost it. But that wasn't really true, was it? He knew exactly what he'd had, what he'd lost. The entire universe, expanding and contracting in each moment his heart beat in her presence. It didn't matter–the pain of the loss was the same. Everything was…everything. Sarah was everything.

This wasn't the time to have an existential crisis, or philosophize about his life and his love. He was delirious from fatigue, and while his thoughts about Sarah were perhaps less self-deceptive than usual as a consequence of the fatigue, he could not act on them. It was too late.

Chuck huffed bitterly. "All I know is…she hates me now. And if Shaw was at Jack's house in the middle of the night, Sarah is in danger. I know it. I've seen the way Shaw looks at her. It's disgusting…frightening, even. She's not safe, Casey. I have to do something. I just don't know what."

Casey grunted. "All I know is, you said Beckman is with her. She's safe for now, at the moment. You need some sleep or you aren't going to be any good for anything. While you're asleep, I'll get in touch with Montgomery. He's as useless as tits on a bull, but it's a place to start, at least where all this money craziness is concerned."

"Before you do that, could you call Mrs. Miller?" Chuck asked him. "I know Carina is at school, but…Carina and her mother should both know what happened. Sarah's in no shape to talk to them, and even if she was, she wouldn't ask for help. And she needs it. Beckman can't stay with her forever."

Casey motioned impatiently, gesturing for Chuck to leave, to go upstairs and get some sleep. "I promise I will, now, go rest," he insisted. As Chuck shuffled past, Casey couldn't help but ask one more question. "What do you think Shaw is after?"

"I don't know what it was, Casey," Chuck sighed. "But now, I have an awful feeling about what it is; he's after Sarah."

Casey listened to the sound of Chuck's shoes as they scuffed along the steps as he ascended, counting the steps as a way to calm himself before he got on the phone.

Casey thought of the upcoming conversation, uneasy at the thought of speaking to Roxanne Miller, Carina's mother. The woman was, as his wife had described her, a pill. He was in no mood for that type of medication, not today.

His mind kept circling back to what Gertrude had said, and later what Chuck had said. As a Christian, Casey knew he had no right to judge Jack Burton. That was left to God; Jack had hastened the coming of said judgment, a terrible sin that Casey knew would complicate the days ahead. Emma, Jack's deceased wife, was buried in a Christian cemetery; his name was etched on her headstone, with his birthdate followed by a blank space. Would St. John's allow Jack to be interred there, once his death was ruled suicide?

Sarah would be left to deal with all of that, Casey thought, the injustice of it burning in his stomach. Jack's final act had been another assertion of his present selfishness, his failure to look beyond his own life toward any long lasting consequences. He had gotten quite a bit of a pass once he lost his wife. Chuck's parents had always spoken about that in quiet whispers, the tragedy that had befallen them. Why was it so much to ask that Jack think of his daughter, even a little bit? He could have saved many more tragedies down the line.

Would Sarah have to live through the horror of having her mother's casket relocated to a public cemetery? Would she bury them separately? That separation seemed a just result, Jack's punishment. Whether from eternal damnation or just purgatory, God might eventually forgive Jack for his actions. But would Emma have ever forgiven him? Could Sarah?

Good people.

Casey had heard this term frequently. He had called the Bartowskis that, when as a young man, newly married, penniless and friendless in the world except for his wife, Stephen and Mary had taken both he and Gertrude in, offered them honest work for a wage and a place to stay. The Bartowskis were wealthy, but not the kind that boasted behind a podium–rather, the kind who acted in small, anonymous ways…the ways that made direct impacts.

When Stephen had requested, after a very short time, that Casey and Gertrude act as custodial guardians for their children, Stephen had used that same phrase. Good people. Stephen and Mary had said that about Gertrude and Casey. Stephen had gone further, explaining to Casey that he knew about St. Ann's, the orphanage where John and Gertrude had grown up together. Stephen had mentioned his own upbringing, his lack of guidance, and the two men had commiserated. Understanding. It was a precious thing.

Never once in all the years Jack had associated with Stephen had Casey ever heard Jack referred to that way. Good people. Like guilt by association, Emma had garnered mostly pity, sometimes sympathy. It had never been plainly explained to him, but Casey had always believed the success Stephen and Jack's business had attained was mostly due to Stephen and his careful intelligence. Stephen was quiet, pensive, quirky at times. Jack was personable, charismatic…able to make connections and network. The face of the business. But Stephen was the brain, the heart. The two of them together were a formidable combination.

Once Stephen had died, Jack's glad-handing had obviously not been enough. Without Stephen's moral compass, Jack had used his skills to cover for everything he lacked…until he couldn't hide it any longer.

Chuck had only been an active business partner for two years, since he had returned from Stanford with his Master's Degree. The difference between Chuck at 18 when he had left for California, and 22 when he had returned for good, had been greater than Jack anticipated, too great for Jack to maintain his smokescreen. Chuck had been instantly suspicious, and then he had begun to intelligently sleuth, hoping to prove his suspicions were unfounded–only to learn they were true, and even worse than he had even imagined.

God have mercy, Casey thought, echoing his wife's sentiment, wondering if his lack of sincerity was a sin.

A/N: Another thank you to Zettel for pre-reading.