NOW

You may be rich

You may be poor

You may have nothing in this world at all

You may be black

You may be white

You may be a prisoner in your own times

You may be lost

You may be found

You may have been beaten up and knocked to the ground

You may have belief, suffer from deceit

Or you just might be blind

"Absolute Reality"

The Alarm

May 3, 1952

Worcester, Massachusetts

"Morgan, enough, ok? I…I just need a break," Chuck sighed in exasperation, running his hands down his face as he sat at his desk. The surface was covered with papers: messy, uneven piles of assorted bills, invoices, and reports. For the last few hours, he had been trying to comprehend what Morgan was explaining. The facts were not difficult to grasp, but their repercussions were profoundly troubling. Chuck's problem-solving skills had been overwhelmed, as revealed by his inability to find a solution.

"Chuck, I know you wanted me to explain, but…this is too much right now. This is still my responsibility," Morgan explained sympathetically.

Morgan sat, balanced on the edge of his chair, across the desk from Chuck, in Chuck's office. Morgan was still composed, a contrast to his boss. Chuck had removed his jacket and tie, unbuttoned the top two buttons of his white dress shirt, and sloppily rolled up the sleeves.

"Just tell me your financial recommendation," Chuck requested. "I trust your judgment, Morgan." Chuck regarded his friend, appreciating by the compassion he saw on Morgan's face. Chuck understood his employees' anxiety; he appreciated how Morgan genuinely put Chuck's welfare first, and his own job's status second. Chuck was lucky to have a friend like Morgan, a friend he had met as an adult. He had known him for only two years, though at times it felt like forever.

Morgan sat back, his blue eyes large as he struggled to deliver his advice. "My financial recommendation?" He blew out his breath through his lips, making a gentle flapping sound. "Chuck, you need to get married."

Chuck pulled his hands away from his face, his curly hair askew after his fingers raked through it, and gaped at Morgan, shaking his head. "In this version of reality, Morgan," he said slowly.

Morgan became animated. "Look, I know it's not what you want to hear, but Burton Carmichael cannot wait four more years. The only money you have left to your name, aside from maybe selling your house out from under yourself and the Caseys, is that trust." Morgan started speaking more quickly, stuttering under his breath, facing Chuck's hopelessness. "You could always, you know, live with me, but John Casey scares the hell out of me…and if he was sleeping on my couch–"

"Alright, Morgan," Chuck interjected. "Let's be clear. That option's off the table. I'm not selling my house and we're not moving in with you."

"Then you need to get married, Chuck," Morgan said plainly, insistently.

Chuck shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Morgan, that's ridiculous!" Chuck retorted. "Who am I supposed to marry? Agnes?"

Morgan shook his head vigorously. "No, Chuck. You marry the girl you're in love with," Morgan explained matter-of-factly. At Chuck's open-mouthed, raised-eyebrow stare, Morgan added hastily, meekly, "That would be Sarah."

Chuck paled. "Morgan–"

Morgan was not deterred by Chuck's sharp retort. "Don't try and deny it again, Chuck. Ok? This is me, your friend. I have seen the way you look at that girl. Everyone has." He took a deep breath, mustering his courage, then boldly challenging, "Tell me you don't love Sarah."

Chuck sighed heavily, the breath slowly becoming a growl. Words like those would have prompted vigorous denial in the past, but after his epiphany in the cemetery, Chuck was unsettled, unsure. "It's complicated, ok, Morgan? We aren't together like that…we never were. She was younger than me and…" He stopped, listening to his explanation as if hearing it for the first time, like he was finally admitting it to himself. "I left," he whispered, all at once comprehending. "And then she was with Bryce…until he died in Korea. And at the same time, I almost married someone else."

Those thoughts had always been in Chuck's head, just perhaps never arranged in such precise chronological order, so that the cause and effect, the progression of events, had been so clear. Was it really that simple? Maybe when it came to his story, but he had to refrain from attributing motives to Sarah without understanding. Chuck knew she cared about him, but he had never believed she felt anything deep for him.

Even after that all too brief moment in the garden on her 16th birthday…her kiss and her request…

Even then, he had convinced himself it was the wine, her generalized loneliness, that had caused the situation, never once believing it had anything to do with him as a man or her harboring romantic feelings for him. The long train ride back to California two days later had been full of confusion, fogged by the memory of her lips against his, and his surprising reaction to them. He arrived at Stanford untethered, lost, wondering what had happened and why, still almost able to taste her.

Her subsequent letters ignored the incident, a glaring omission. Sometimes he could almost convince himself that he had imagined the moment, that it had been a dream. Her omission was all the proof he had needed that she believed she had erred, made a mistake, tipsy and upset, one she regretted too much to acknowledge. He let her ignore it; he preferred to ignore it too. It was easier, less painful, to ignore, than to try and understand, or plumb her motives. When he returned to Massachusetts the next May, she was involved with Bryce. So when he returned to California the following August, he chose to pursue Jill.

It was Morgan, snapping his fingers in Chuck's face, who broke Chuck's train of thought. Morgan leaned forward, his expression significant. He planted his finger on the desktop, pointing with intention. "But you didn't marry Jill, did you?"

"Morgan, she cheated on me," Chuck reminded him, his cheeks flushed and warm with embarrassment, the scene in his mind still unpleasant, vivid.

Morgan rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, mumbling out of the corner of his mouth in an artificial voice. "Because you were in love with Sarah."

The same words, the same conclusion that had struck him at Jack's funeral, returned. He couldn't ignore it now, but at the same time, there was nothing he could do. His voice deepened, his tone of exasperation gone. "It doesn't matter, Morgan. She never felt that way about me. And now…"

"I saw her at the funeral, Chuck. She may have withdrawn from you, but she still needs you. I don't know what happens to you when you're in the same room with her…maybe you go blind or whatever…but you've honestly never noticed the way that girl looks at you?" Morgan quizzed.

Morgan, for all his conversational quirks and his odd foibles of manner, often gave wise advice. His comment was enough to make Chuck stop and ponder. Was Morgan right? He had yet to be wrong…about anything. Chuck's mind swung like a pendulum back and forth between accepting Morgan's words as truth, and believing instead what he had always told himself about Sarah—she felt friendship for him, nothing more.

"So you think asking Sarah to marry me is the solution? A girl I've never even been on a single date with?" Chuck asked, as if the question answered itself.

But Morgan nodded and gesticulated, palms outstretched, imitating Chuck's words but changing them. "A girl that you've been in love with since you were, what, 15? A girl you grew up with and spent more than half your life with, almost every day of it? There've been worse pairings on paper that lasted forever, Chuck. She's your soulmate," Morgan announced, his face solemn.

"Gertrude always said that," Chuck mumbled, as much to himself as Morgan.

Morgan huffed. "If even that woman could see it, then who are we to argue?" Morgan said, a soft smile on his face, teasing Chuck about Gertrude's fabled lack of romantic sensibilities.

Chuck dropped his head into his hands again, massaging his temples, as if to stimulate his brain to release the answers. None were forthcoming.

Out of the corner of his eye, one of the invoices spread on the desk caught his attention. He reached down and picked it up, changing the subject.

"Morgan, what is this?" Chuck asked him, tilting the paper to Morgan so he could see it.

Morgan scanned the letterhead on the invoice. "Oh, that's from the excavating company. The bill and the paperwork from the relocation."

The bill for relocating Emma's casket and headstone. Chuck had let others make the arrangements, but he had always had every intention of being present while the actual task was being done. He had lost track of the days, and had been shocked that somehow it had been completed without his awareness. Chuck scanned down the document, curious about some of the entries on the itemized statement.

Before Chuck could ask, Morgan offered, "I was going to ask you about that, actually, but, uh, relatively speaking," Morgan made a broad, sweeping gesture with his hand meant to encompass the spread of piled papers before them, "it was minor, so I thought it could wait."

"Morgan, this is almost double what they quoted," Chuck explained. "The cost never really mattered, but…what the hell happened? Did they gouge us?"

"The quote that I showed you before was for the excavation and relocation of the casket and the headstone," Morgan told him.

Chuck examined the bill again. He could see those charges clearly listed, but then two extra lines, one marked miscellaneous, and the other as marker relocation. It didn't make any sense. Muttering, Chuck waved the paper, "I don't know why Beckman rushed it like that. I told her I would take care of it…and then I get the bill and she tells me it's all been taken care of…like she did it under the cover of night or whatever." He flipped the pages over, as if he could find some other explanation there. "I wanted to make sure they didn't damage the plants. Sarah planted a lilac bush before. I hope they didn't destroy it."

Morgan shook his head. "If they had relocated any flora, I'm sure they would have billed you." He sounded apologetic.

Something else caught Chuck's eye. "Morgan, this isn't Sarah's signature…on the release form," he said in surprise, shifting the papers forward for Morgan to see.

"Are you sure?" Morgan asked, tilting his head to the side, as if another angle could show him something different.

Chuck had a response ready, waiting on the tip of his tongue. However, Morgan's talk about Chuck's feelings made him wary now, afraid to give Morgan more proof with which to argue. With the exception of only a handful of months, Chuck had been in California for over four years, and Sarah had written to him once a week, sometimes as many as three times a week. He had an old shoebox filled with her letters, each one saved, even the envelopes. The frequency of the letters meant a lot of what she was informing him about was minutiae. Little bits of her life, collected and written down, as if each moment she had spent alone could somehow be replayed for him, so he could still be part of it. Finding baby squirrels, Carina's haircuts, new shoes or a new book. It made no difference what she was explaining–he savored the letters themselves, the shape of her handwriting, each delicate swirl and loop imagined in his mind's eye. Sometimes he would hold them to his face, inhaling the faintest scent of her perfume, touching the spent glue on the envelope flap, knowing she had run her tongue over it before sealing it.

He wasn't a handwriting expert–but he was an expert on Sarah. He knew her hand. Morgan was right about him, of course. How had Chuck been so blind…after all this time? Even the memory now felt different, because he was certain of all of that–saving her letters, savoring the scent of the paper and the shape of her handwriting–was because he loved her. Letting Morgan know he was right, however, would only restart the argument, and Chuck couldn't deal with it right now. Most important though, was what he had meant to say.

"Yes, Morgan, I'm sure," he said, his voice weakening as he contended with his new thoughts.

"Why would Diane Beckman forge Sarah's signature?" Morgan asked.

Chuck looked up, confusion on his face, shocked at the drastic, but accurate, word Morgan had used.

Chuck thought for a moment. "I did tell Diane to not let Sarah refuse my help. Maybe she thought just doing it, and telling her after the fact was the best way. Maybe she didn't want to upset her further."

At the time of the funeral, Chuck had been too emotional, too overwhelmed, to think about the fact that Sarah hadn't mentioned anything to him about her mother's casket, either to refuse his help or to thank him for it. Now, it seemed, she hadn't known anything was happening. He wondered when and how Diane told her the news.

"Maybe I should ask Diane what those miscellaneous charges were. She was present when they completed the relocation," Chuck said, puzzled.

"I don't know what the actual 'miscellaneous' charge is, but that 'marker relocation'...I followed up on that the second I saw the bill. I thought they dug up something else by accident, the way that sounded. Turns out it was a granite marker of some sort…like plot demarcation or something. It was next to the headstone, and Beckman approved it, I guess," Morgan explained.

Chuck tried to remember the last time he had been in St. John's. His parents and his sister were buried there, a few rows behind Emma, in the same section of the cemetery. How long had it been since he'd stopped at Emma's grave? He tried to picture it as it had been, the headstone flanked on one side with a lilac bush, a spruce on the other. Along the base, Sarah had also planted daffodils and tulips, to keep the site alive with blooming flowers for the season. Had there been a surveyor's stone nearby? He couldn't recall.

He told himself he would stop on his way home to see everything that had been done. He would replace the bush if necessary, reminding himself the bulbs could be planted in the fall. His brain seemed disconnected for a moment, as he contemplated planting flowers and bushes while his world was crumbling around him.

He forced himself to focus on his business once more. "The next raw material purchase has to be made by May 21, in order for June production to continue, is that accurate?" Chuck asked.

"That's right. We have 18 days. Not a whole lot of time," Morgan sighed.

"If I could wave a magic wand and you could somehow have all the cash we would need to run in the black again, how much would that be?" Chuck asked directly.

"The absolute minimum, with no wiggle room, no cushion…400,000 dollars," Morgan said, clearly aware of the enormity of the sum.

Roan had told Chuck his testamentary trust was worth over 500,000 dollars. It was more than enough to correct Jack's mistakes and plug the holes in the foundering ship that was his business. Once the mismanagement was corrected, the company would be profitable again. Roan had also confirmed that.

Was it enough to settle things with Iaconi? Chuck didn't know, and there was no way for him to get those answers, at least not now. The question filled him with dread, dread he couldn't share with Morgan.

He had thought Morgan was ridiculous, talking nonsense. But the more Chuck thought about it, the more he realized it made sense: the only option he had for the immediate short term was to get married. But it was impossible.

He needed to talk to Casey, he thought. He needed a plan. He was running out of time.

May 3, 1952

Hope Cemetery, Worcester, Massachusetts

With the sun low in the sky, creeping towards the horizon as sunset approached, Chuck knelt at Jack Burton's grave, the plot freshly deepened to include his wife's casket. Chuck patted the loose earth around the trunk of the sapling lilac bush, ensuring it was securely planted. He had first visually confirmed what Morgan had suspected–the foliage on Emma's grave in St. John's had been destroyed, the remaining scars showing that the equipment had ripped through it and into the ground. He had purchased another bush at the greenery and brought it to the grave to plant.

He still wore his work pants and his white button-down shirt, the cuffs still rolled halfway up his forearms. Not a wise choice for the sake of his laundry, or his housekeeper's disposition, but the task was more important, a tangible kindness he could do to stave off the helpless worry.

A hand, soft, on his left shoulder startled him. He spun quickly, still on his knees.

Sarah.

She removed her hand, realizing she must have startled him by her silent approach. She took a cautious step backward. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you," she said softly, a ghost of a smile on her lips.

Shocked, his heart still racing from surprise, he slowly stood. Sarah's eyes followed him as he moved, until he was towering above her. "Hi," he said breathlessly.

She looked better, he thought. Healthier and also more at ease. She wore a short sleeved lavender dress. Purple, in whatever shade she wore it, made her eyes appear almost royal blue. She wore a pair of dark glasses, but she had shifted them up onto her head, tucked behind her ears. The glasses perched atop her head added to the tousle of her hair that hung loosely down to her shoulders. His immersion in her eyes left him feeling strange again, hungry or thirsty, but without any actual craving for food or drink.

He couldn't decipher the complex expression on her face. Was it relief mixed with anxiety, or gratitude combined with irritation? She said nothing for a few seconds, staring into his eyes, before shifting her gaze downward. "Gertrude's going to kill you for gardening in your good office clothes, you know that, right?"

"What?" he asked, bewildered by her comment. He looked down at his grass-stained knees. "Oh. Yeah. Well, it's a good thing that I pay her salary then," he teased, the edges of his mouth lifting up in a half-smile. She smiled genuinely.

She was trying to break the ice, he realized with a start. Had they come to this? Awkward again, not sure of what to say to each other?

She cleared her throat before she started speaking again. "When you get home, please thank her for all that cooking she did for me. I sent her a thank you note, but it would be nice to relay the message in person."

"I will," he told her. "You look better," he offered, quickly embarrassed at the way it came out. "Not-not-not that you…you know…didn't look..or..ugh," he shook his head. "I meant…you look rested, like you feel better."

She grinned at his verbal spiraling. "Chuck, it's ok," she replied.

The sound of his name, spoken in her voice, in the unique way that she had always pronounced it, made him flush. He prayed she didn't notice.

"I did lose almost ten pounds, but I gained almost all of it back. Thanks to Gertrude. And to Carina, who practically chained me to the chair until I finished everything," she told him, her voice encouragingly light as she spoke. He smiled.

She was silent again for a long time. Finally, she looked down at the ground, twisting her fingers together, like she was nervous. "I'm glad you're here. I wanted to thank you, you know, for what you did. All of this." She stretched out one hand to indicate the grave behind him. "Even after I was so awful to you." Her voice broke.

"I'm just glad I could help. I wish there was more I could do," he said gently.

She kept her face downcast, while she pulled on her fingers furiously. "I…uh," she cleared her throat again, though it did nothing to strengthen her voice. "I didn't know about it until it was already done, or I would have said something sooner."

He couldn't resist asking. "Why did Beckman forge your signature on the form?"

She looked up sharply, her eyes troubled. She looked like she was struggling to answer, like the explanation was complicated. "She didn't think I could handle it, you know…the stress…of it." Her voice cracked on the words.

"I thought…you know, maybe she was afraid you'd refuse. That you wouldn't want my help," he explained.

"Oh, Chuck," she lamented. Before he knew what was happening she closed the distance between them, wrapped her arms around his neck, and hugged him, so tightly it was difficult to take a deep breath. Breathing is overrated, he thought, compared to how it felt to be in her arms. She didn't say anything else.

He held onto her, the scent of her perfume dizzying, but the softness of her hair against his neck soothing. "I miss you," he whispered, the ache in his chest overpowering his control of his words. It was only the truth; he feared he would upset her more.

She was still silent, the sounds of her breathing all he could hear. Her breath shuddered, then heaved, then shuddered again. She was struggling to not completely break down. He worried he was making everything worse.

"I didn't mean to push you away like that," she said against his ear, her voice trembling. "It was just…so much…all at once."

She released him, sinking back to the ground from her tiptoed stretch to hold him. He watched her face, noting that same expression, like she was bracing herself for pain, as she let him go. Then, for a brief moment, her face relaxed, and he saw Sarah the way she had been, as he remembered her from before he left for California, when she was 14. It astounded him, left him reeling. She had never looked at him the same, once he'd gone and then returned. Gradually, a veil had been pulled into position, a fine partition between them he could no longer transverse.

He had attributed it to Bryce, though she had never explained. Whatever had originally compelled her to become involved with Bryce or whatever had changed in her after he had been killed. Chuck believed that part of her he had known was now in the ground in Arlington National Cemetery with Bryce. It still bothered him that Bryce's parents had opted for the prestigious burial ground thousands of miles away, rather than a practical memorial where Sarah could visit, nearby, like this place.

She stepped around him, moving closer to the headstone. He followed her gaze.

"They're going to add the…date to this soon," he told her. She nodded silently.

"You replaced that," she said, pointing to the bush he had just planted.

"The excavator killed the one you planted, Sarah. It was so far to the right, I don't know why they would have even had to go near it," he explained apologetically.

Even from the side, he saw all the color drain from her face. "You went…back…to…" She suddenly sounded like she couldn't catch her breath, like she had just run a race.

Her behavior alarmed him. "Just…to…check on…the plant," he stuttered, regarding her out of the corner of his narrowed eyes. "Sarah–"

She dropped down on her knees, sliding her hands to the base of the bush, patting the earth as he had just done. "That was so thoughtful of you. Thank you, Chuck," she said, too brightly. She left one hand under the bush and rested her other hand on the small, square stone Chuck had assumed was the surveyor's stone, moved along with everything else.

When she pulled her hand away, just before she moved to stand, he saw the engravement on the base of the stone. A series of numbers. 4101951.

"Do you know what that is?" he asked curiously as she moved to stand beside him. He pointed to the small stone.

"No," she said, shaking her head.

"The excavator moved it with…everything else," Chuck explained. "I didn't remember it being there and I thought…maybe…"

"I think it's just the plot marker," she muttered, oddly distracted. Quickly changing the subject, she blurted, "Chuck, the bank locked the door on my house yesterday. Diane said they're starting to seize my property to cover my father's debts. She explained it before, it's just…it's happening so fast…"

His stomach felt tied in knots, more reason for his previous conversation with Morgan to eat its way through him. He felt as if he were carrying the entire world on his shoulders.

"I'm so sorry, Sarah," he said.

"He stole from you, Chuck. He left you with nothing, too," she commiserated. She stepped forward, into his arms. She shivered, like she was chilled, but she was still once he wrapped his arms around her. He was comforted as he felt her back, fleshier, with less protrusion of bone than the last time he'd touched her.

"Don't worry about me, ok?" he told her. "I will figure something out. You still own half of the business, Sarah."

She said nothing, just leaned against him. He felt her nod against his chest.

Over Sarah's shoulder, Chuck could see the paved road in the cemetery, a glint of sunlight catching his eye. A black sedan was moving away from them, past Chuck's parked car. It was only in full view for a second, but it was the same license plate as the car he had seen in the driveway the night Jack died. Daniel Shaw.

He tensed automatically, not realizing he had done so until Sarah pulled back, obviously noticing the change. "Chuck, are you alright?" she asked.

Not wanting to alarm her, he asked, attempting to be nonchalant and ignore the question, "How did you get here, Sarah? Did you take the bus?" His car was the only one near where they were.

"Yeah," she answered, confused.

"I can take you back to Roxanne's," Chuck offered.

She accepted, still slightly confused. He walked her to his car, opening the passenger door for her, and shutting it once she was seated. He climbed in, shut the door, then started the engine.

He was pulling out of the cemetery into traffic when he said, "Will you come to dinner at my house, Sarah?"

"Won't Gertrude be upset at the surprise guest?" Sarah asked.

"Maybe. But she won't yell at me in front of you, so we're ok," he joked. She flashed a warm, beautiful smile.

He wasn't sure if she could tell the one he returned was forced. He was worriedly distracted, wondering if Shaw was following her…or him…and what that might mean. But worse, he was worried about what he might need to ask her and what she might say in answer.

A/N: Thanks to Zettel for pre-reading. The dates are extremely important, not just for historical purposes, or the juxtaposition of historical facts, but also to the story at hand. Keep that in mind as the story progresses.