BEFORE

I turned on the radio

To find you on satellite

I'm waiting for the sky to fall

I'm waiting for a sign

All we are

Is all so far

"Somewhere Out There"

Our Lady Peace

March 27, 1951

Palo Alto, California

Chuck stood in the doorway of his dorm room, staring at his packed luggage: two large suitcases, side by side, in an otherwise empty room. Everything he had arrived with in 1946 was returning with him. Defeated now, he thought the net gain of those five years was zero.

No, he scolded himself. The net gain was not zero. Simply because his gains were intangible did not negate them. He had five years of higher education, two undergraduate and two graduate degrees. His diplomas were tangible, a symbol of five years of hard work and sacrifice, due to arrive at his house in Massachusetts in the summer, after the end of the semester. He had even been able to finish his degrees early, at midterms, because of his decision to work through last summer.

But he hadn't planned to return to Massachusetts until May. His early return was the result of the rest of his life imploding. Net gain zero…or perhaps, net gain was negative after all, a net loss; he was leaving with less than he had when he had arrived. Too many things inside him were broken, perhaps irreparably broken, the direct result of his time in California.

Inside the suitcases were his clothes and toiletries, everything he had come to California with last August. In his pocket, the now-useless diamond ring he had purchased for Jill in October jangled against his loose change. Trying to be practical, even in heartbreak, he had told himself he could pawn or sell it once he was back in Massachusetts, that it was more valuable in the Northeast than in northern California. Regardless, it was worth less than half of what he'd paid for it, now that it had been worn, then cast off, by his ex-fiancee.

The word stung. Ex-fiancee.

A new designation for Jill. The extra two prefixed letters had only been added four days ago. Five days ago, he had believed he was on the verge of a new life. And then four days ago, while working in the Stanford Library on an errand to the closed stacks on the fourth floor, he had discovered Jill and a then-unknown male (his name was Derek, Chuck had later learned), half dressed and locked in a passionate embrace, so enraptured in each other it had taken Chuck slamming a large book on a table to disturb them.

Ex-fiancee.

Trembling with rage, his knuckles sore from their collision with the table top, he had only been able to speak two words: "Goodbye, Jill." The darkest part of him wanted to rage, call her a tramp or a slut, though he was sure, technically, neither term applied.

She had chased after him, leaving her…friend…behind. Holding her blouse closed with one hand, she called his name. He stopped, but didn't turn, didn't address her. She never apologized, not in the way he might have expected. "I'm sorry you found out this way ." It wasn't a real apology, merely a way to soothe herself for her betrayal of him, the deliberate pain she had caused him.

"No, you're not ," he had growled at her. "You wanted me to see you. I never thought you were a coward."

After a long pause, he had turned to regard her. She continued to hold her blouse closed, and had lifted her chin defiantly at him. "Who's the coward?" Her eyes had burned with a shockingly hateful fire. "Marrying me because you were afraid to be alone. Don't deny it."

Their contention, their endless debates…all along had this undercurrent of resentment, even malice, that he had only now truly seen. That nagging suspicion about Jill snooping through his things…suddenly seemed highly probable.

How could he have been so close to her…and never notice the gulf between them? Their thoughts, feelings, intentions…everything. His fiancee became a stranger in a matter of a few minutes.

"How does it feel?" Jill had mocked him. "Realizing you don't matter at all…to someone you were willing to share your life with?"

He had backed away from her and her vitriol. Her words and the way she had said them finally broke through. Revenge. She wanted to hurt him in exchange for how she believed he had hurt her. How she believed. Seething as he stood there, he couldn't imagine their pain was the same. What he had perceived in her as strength he now knew was hardness, her heart of stone. He had wounded her pride, and in return, she had wounded his heart and humiliated him.

Willing to…

Not wanting to, needing to, hoping to. Willing to. A favor, a bargain. A campaign promise. It was all a calculation, what she was willing to do, to trade, for what she thought she would gain.

Her net gain. She had handed her ring back to him as he stood there, pressing it into his palm until the prongs jabbed him. She gave back his diamond, his life…and yet managed a net gain.

The worst was having to acknowledge that, only four days later, he was far more angry than sad. He didn't miss her the way a devastated ex-fiance would miss the woman he had wanted for his wife. At the core of her warped thinking, Jill had been right. It was like looking through the backside of a mirror, seeing the entire world reversed, nothing oriented the way he thought it should be. Left and right changing places.

He thought he genuinely loved Jill. He had convinced himself of it over the course of their courtship, never dwelling on the need for the convincing in the first place, on what it suggested about the reality of his feelings. He had never realized how skilled he had become at deluding himself until he understood that Jill had been with another man for a long time, and he had no idea. Not a glimmer of suspicion. Apparently wearing blinders on purpose, but blinding himself to his blinders. He had twisted himself into unrecognizability.

He had written Sarah a letter, telling her of his engagement…and almost at the same time, she had received word that Bryce had been killed.

His insensitivity boggled his mind, bruised his insides when he contemplated her pain. Flaunting his good news while her world collapsed on top of her, and while she was alone, was awful, even if the messages crossing had been a coincidence. His current misery was penance, he was tempted to believe. Knowing he had hurt Sarah was worse than anything he felt for himself.

Net zero. Net loss. Loss.

But no, that wasn't true, he reminded himself. In one of those suitcases sat a bundle of letters, an inch thick, from Sarah, dating from August of 1949 to only a week ago. He had her life, in written form, to compensate for the emptiness, his loss.

His offer to talk to Sarah after Bryce's death had never been accepted. He hadn't heard her voice since June. The letters she wrote to him were long, pages and pages, the most communicative she had ever been. Knowing her, he understood it must have been easier for her to write her feelings than to talk to him about them.

And she did write her feelings. Her letters had brought him to tears, despite the fact that she had explained the tragedy of Bryce's death with the detachment of a wartime journalist. It was everything else she chose to tell him that clued him in to her despondency–dead birds, dried up flowers…endless rain and blinding snow. Symbols of misery even if she would not write the word. It made him ache to hold her, even as he wondered if she would accept any comfort from him now.

Why Jack had insisted she stay away at boarding school after her boyfriend's death, Chuck had no idea, other than to think it was the same old Jack, putting his welfare ahead of his daughter's. Jack wouldn't have understood; he had never been there for her at any time she had needed him. But Carina and her other friends, even Casey and Gertrude, could have been the support she needed to deal with the tragedy. She had danced around any direct statement but he knew she hated being away, hated being alone. And yet, she stayed at school, even though she was only 45 minutes from home.

You asked if I'd made any friends here. I wish I could tell you that I had. But I don't belong here…and everyone knows it. I feel like something is wrong with me, like I have a disease. An incurable but communicable disease that they will catch if they get too close.

There is one girl, named Katherine, who is kind. I can talk to her about things, and she listens to me, even if she couldn't really ever understand. She always tells me she doesn't have to understand everything to listen to me. Talking to her makes me feel better, so I guess she's right, in a way.

I think I was spoiled when we were growing up. You used to understand me better than I understood myself. I was, I am, a mystery, especially to myself. But you knew who I was without me having to say a word or explain. You always knew, even if you did not always know what I was thinking or feeling. You knew me . But that's so rare, so rare it's almost magical, mythical, like a unicorn. I wonder sometimes if I imagined it all, romanticized how things used to be because I miss that time so much. But would I keep going back, wishing for it, if it hadn't been real? I don't know anymore.

If you don't know me anymore, then I fear I don't know who I am, that I'll never know. Maybe that's why I feel lost here…because I need to find that out.

All I know is that I want you to know how happy I am for you. I should be home in time for your wedding. I'm looking forward to seeing you again. I realized when I was going through my photographs that I don't have any of you older than 16 or so. You don't look like that now…and I worry sometimes that I'm forgetting what you do look like, even though I know deep down I could really never forget that. I know you, too.

I hope Jill knows how lucky she is…and that she tells you that everyday.

It was Sarah's last letter, still echoing in his imagination, heard in her voice. Wishing him well in the midst of her own misery. The letter had come the day before he and Jill had broken up, five days ago. He never wrote back; once he made his mind up to leave, he knew he would reach home before his letter, his sad explanation that felt too exhausting to even contemplate, let alone write.

Telling her in person about his broken engagement seemed more important. Foolishly, he had told her initially in a letter. Jill leaving him seemed trivial in the face of Sarah's devastating loss, the black cloud that had been hanging over her since October. He had known her long enough, despite her sad worries otherwise, that he knew she would insist on comforting him before she allowed him to comfort her. But they were friends, always. His greatest hope was to rebuild their relationship, to return them to some semblance of what they had been before Bryce and Jill. Friends again, however that friendship looked.

Chuck heard the distant chiming of a clock, the wall clock in the common area, announcing the top of the hour. It shook him out of his reverie. He had a train to catch, he reminded himself, and all the helpless thinking could wait for the agonizing ride back home.

He reached down and lifted his luggage, jerking as he found they were heavier than he expected they would be. Net zero, net loss…and yet, a heavier burden all the same. Or…maybe part of that net loss was his strength. Lost, bobbing on the ocean like a sad, unread message in a bottle, he was helpless to stop the drifting.

Even if, eventually, he drifted home.

April 11, 1951

Worcester, Massachusetts

Chuck read the same memo four times before he told himself he needed a break; he was tired and he had a splitting headache. He dropped the paper on his desk, overwhelmed by the laundry list of managerial tasks that he had been trying to finish.

Last night, Chuck's sleep had been disrupted by shadowy nightmares. No memories or images remained in the morning, other than being jarred awake almost every two hours. The awakenings were the only proof that he had slept at all. He hadn't had any nightmares like those for a long time, imageless but full of the dread and horror of the hurricane that had killed his family. He equated the nightmares' return with his dismal state of mind.

He had been back in Massachusetts for a little over two weeks, and today was the first day he thought of himself as really working, managing Burton Carmichael as he had been destined to do since Casey had made that agreement with Jack about Chuck's role in his father's company. Three summers Chuck had worked long hours, learning everything he could while still studying.

As Casey had predicted when Chuck was only ten, the engineering aspect of his role came easily; the business side of things was more of a challenge. He had advanced degrees in both fields, and as a consequence was competent in both fields. There was, however, a distinct difference between something that came naturally and something he had needed to study. He had an engineering mind, something that could not be taught. Chuck believed he inherited his engineering mind from his father, something Jack told him all the time.

The brains versus the brawn.

Jack used that phrase a lot. Chuck never felt right correcting him, but he also thought Jack was overstating his role. Stephen had been the brains, while Jack had been the face, the personality. "Brawn" was not a word Chuck associated with Jack. Casey, maybe. But not Jack. Jack's greatest skill was making it appear he had used strength or intelligence to solve a problem, when in actuality, all Jack had done was talk his way through a problem, making the people involved believe Jack had solved it, when it was the people involved who had actually solved the problem. Jack somehow made it seem otherwise, as if all his talking had provided the real solution.

Chuck's angry disappointment in Jack because of Sarah's neglected childhood had matured, grown more temperate. When he was younger, all Chuck had noted was the difference between how Casey and Gertrude had cared for him and how Jack seemed to not care for Sarah. Older, and wiser, Chuck now had a broader sense of Jack, and Chuck had his own calculated cause-and-effect scenarios to substantiate the whispers he had heard when he was young.

Chuck remained disappointed, but he harbored no ill-will towards the man. Jack had been his father's friend, and Chuck was sure his father had been intelligent enough to see Jack for exactly what he was. Stephen Bartowski still chose to be Jack Burton's friend, despite what he must have known. Chuck felt in his heart that he was behaving as his father would have wished him to behave–understanding, and not judgemental.

Before today, Chuck had been settling back into his life. Not that much had changed since he'd left. The worst of it was the cold–he had grown soft in California, where the early spring was milder. Late March and early April could be quite winter-like and even brutally cold in Massachusetts. Today the temperature had climbed above 50; the men in the factory were outside smoking in shirtsleeves like it was the middle of summer. However, the chill, the inability to get warm, would not leave Chuck. He shivered as he looked at the men.

He had been anticipating seeing Sarah upon arriving at home, but Jack had not allowed it. Jack's reasons had all been plausible, but the refusal still seemed ridiculous, almost cruel. Chuck had considered defying Jack's directive and driving to Wellesley himself, even if only to shout up at Sarah through her window. Casey had talked him out of that, explaining that while Jack seemed to be acting illogically, Chuck needed to respect him and his judgment. They were business partners now, in a mentor and apprentice relationship. Respect was crucial in such a relationship. Starting off by ignoring Jack's wishes was inadvisable.

So Chuck had reluctantly sent Sarah a letter, telling her he was back in Massachusetts and why. He had secretly hoped that if she knew how close he was, she would convince her father to let Chuck visit, even if it was only once before she graduated, even if the visit was brief. The letter he received back, without an accompanying phone call, had been bizarre. Her handwriting was messy and the words were garbled, making him think she had written it while either half-asleep or intoxicated. It had seemed to ignore the fact that he was home…and concentrated on the fact that she was coming home a week before graduation.

One month from now.

Frustrated by Jack's restrictions, Chuck had tried to engage Jack in generic conversation about Sarah. Jack was…distracted, Chuck thought. That seemed an accurate assessment, though what was distracting Jack, Chuck could not guess. As the time had passed, Jack was more than distracted. He was agitated, short with people. It was a side of him Chuck had never seen, and it was troubling. Chuck had been hoping for an opportunity to talk to Jack alone, but Jack had put him off at every turn.

Chuck's reason for wanting to talk was two-fold. First, he wanted to get to the bottom of what was bothering Jack. Second, he wanted to go over some irregularities in some financial records that Chuck had been studying. Chuck was looking for clarification, believing what he saw could be easily explained by someone familiar with the business, that the discrepancies were merely hallucinated, caused by his untrained and inexperienced eyes.

Today would have been perfect, Chuck thought. Until Jack had sat him at his desk behind a mountain of paperwork, telling Chuck he needed to familiarize himself with the terminology they were using at the tool manufacturing plant, which was unique to his specific type of business. So he was here, up to his neck in paperwork, while his mind wandered elsewhere.

A staccato tapping on Chuck's open door caught his attention. When Chuck looked up, Jack was standing in the doorway.

He looked like death warmed over. That was one of Gertrude's folksy phrases, but apt. His face was so pale it rivaled the white collar of his dress shirt. He was shaking, like he'd had too much coffee, looking like he had been awake for days on end.

"I have to go, Chuck. Something suddenly came up. You can hold down the fort here, right?" Jack asked, shuffling on his feet nervously.

He wanted to ask Jack what was wrong, but Jack's body language was guarded, tense, and anticipating a probable lie as an answer, Chuck held his tongue. "Yeah…yeah, I mean, I think so," Chuck stammered. "When are you…coming back?" Chuck had a strange premonition that "going" was farther away than home.

"Tomorrow. Or maybe the next day. Diane has my power of attorney, so something happens, just give her a ring. She knows I'm heading out," Jack answered. Chuck heard the difference in tone, the resumption of the salesman voice, even if it was horribly, almost comically, forced.

Power of attorney? What the hell did Jack think was going to happen in two days?

"O…kay," Chuck answered, still dubious of the entire situation, struggling to catch up.

"That's my boy," Jack quipped, clicking his tongue and tapping the door frame as he walked away.

What was that all about? Chuck asked himself.

Jack was capricious, something Chuck had known for as long as he'd known Jack. Things like this weren't unheard of, even if this one seemed a little strange. Chuck tried to calm himself, repeating that word in his head. Capricious.

However, the slow-twisting knot of dread in his stomach would not go away; instead, it kept tightening. The shadows from his nightmares still flitted just beyond his conscious awareness, dark-winged premonitions of a terrible doom.

A/N: Thanks to Zettel, a big help for this chapter.