A/N: More Brarah. Very few, if any, fans of that pairing, I know. However, he was part of her life, so I have to include this. I believe, based on canon, Bryce played a role in her development. My take on it, anyway.

The only reason I know I even slept at all that night was the nightmare I was sure I woke from in a cold sweat. All I could remember of it, as I sat bolt upright in my bed, was the echo of screaming…and flashes of blood.

I had terrible nightmares for almost a month straight after my Red Test…but they gradually decreased in frequency, until they almost didn't bother me anymore. It's sickening to explain it…because what made them diminish was the increased frequency of the assassinations I was assigned to do. I got used to the killing, or at least, my brain figured out the most efficient way to numb me on the inside so each act weighed on me less and less.

To be honest, I think a lot of people live numbly that same way. The path of least resistance seems to always be the path most traveled. The world is full of all different kinds of novocaine…something as benign as watching television all the way to illegal drugs. Faced with pain that has no endpoint, no hope of relenting…novocaine, in all its forms, can be almost too tempting to refuse.

For all the misery in his life, both before and after I met him, Chuck never went as dark as he could have, never succumbed to any of the various versions of novocaine to which he had access. Our lives were similar on the surface, even if for very different reasons. I at least had my father until I was 17, however limited that relationship actually was. My life was a mess, but I lived around it, only slightly affected…until my father was arrested.

The reality of Chuck's life was actually different, but something he didn't learn until many years after I met him. As he perceived it—his mother abandoned her entire family when he was nine. His father checked out, leaving his 12 year old sister to take care of both her father and him. When Chuck was just a teenager, still in high school, his father left them alone–disappeared and never returned. He was younger than me—alone with just his teenage sister.

He knew how to hack computers and had been doing so since he was 16. He could have turned into a cyber criminal, but he didn't. I can't begin to imagine the pain of his early life—and he lived it, anesthesia free. His sister was a huge part in that, I know. Ellie is one of the most emotionally strong people I have ever met, and I'm sure it started there, even as young as 12. But the rest—Chuck has an enormous heart and a deep-rooted system of values and morals that he adheres to, unwaveringly, with passion. I admired him for that, way before I could ever tell him so, for a variety of reasons. It remained a source of doubt—why someone like him would ever think I was worthy of his love. I know I don't sound worthy here—and, at this time, I assure you, I wasn't. I had to change in order to be, even though he swears that's not true. Part of that change began before I ever met him. Lucky for me, he is the most understanding man I've ever met.

At this point in my life, I had become so efficient at being numb I no longer needed anything additional–just my own brain, shutting everything off almost without conscious thought. I stayed away from the mirror, though, terrified of seeing what I looked like…the blankness in my eyes where my soul had once been.

The Temmer mission had shaken me…somehow pounding a dent into the armor in which I had encased myself. Normally, I would have been on a plane an hour or so after my task was complete. The nature of this mission, and now its extension, left the same backdrop instead of a changing vista. I couldn't run away from the memory, surrounded by the total ambiance and absorbing it with every sense.

My cold sweat caused me to shiver and shake, despite the balmy air streaming in through the window on the patio door. I felt sick, nauseated—imagining I smelled the same scents I had noted in the room where I had killed Temmer—stale cigarettes, sweat, blood…

I ran into the bathroom, just barely reaching the toilet before I threw up. I banged my knees against the porcelain and scratched my arm on the exposed screws on the side of the tank. My eyes watered and my throat burned. Retching changed to sobbing almost without me even noticing. I don't even remember the transition—how I went from kneeling in front of the toilet to curled up in a ball on the floor in front of the shower.

I don't know how many times Bryce knocked on my door, or how long he waited in the hallway while I didn't respond. I don't know if my hysterical crying was audible to him…or if my earlier vomiting was. He had to have had some idea, because he did wait, however long…I have no idea. I wasn't looking at a clock, only noting it was still dark outside. I pulled myself onto my knees and crawled out of the bathroom. I tried to stand, but my legs were shaking and I felt dizzy.

"Sarah?" I heard Bryce ask through the door.

I wanted to answer him, but my throat was still raw from expelled stomach acid, as well as crying. Instead, I dragged myself along the carpet in the area near my bed, pulling my robe from the foot of the bed and wrapping myself in it, covering my nightgown. I clung to the side of the bed, in the process of pulling myself onto the mattress when he opened the door.

I spun quickly, surprised that he had just let himself in, sure I had locked my door, forgetting in the moment that he was a spy after all, and locked doors were but a mere impedance when entry was needed or desired. He looked hesitant, standing on the threshold, like he knew he was trespassing, but still moving forward just the same.

He seemed to find me in the darkness and rushed towards me. I felt his hands on my shoulders, pulling me upward with a firm grip and sliding me to sit on the mattress. "Are you all right?" he asked, a formality, for I was certain just a quick cursory glance would tell him that I wasn't.

"What are you doing here?" I finally asked him, alarmed at how raspy and shaky my voice sounded.

He kept his hand resting on my back as he smiled hesitantly. "I couldn't sleep. I was headed for the balcony…but I heard you…through the door…and…" He pulled his hand away, and I found I missed the warmth from his fingers through the thin fabric of my nightgown and robe.

Restless, suddenly uncomfortable with that feeling, I rose, tightening my robe, and walked out onto the balcony through the door in my room. We were in a modern hotel, but the architecture gave it an older appearance, adding to its charm and allowing it to blend in with the older buildings close by. Archways framed with delicate pillars repeated the entire length of the building side. The sky was velvet black and each pinpoint of light sparkled like a diamond as I looked toward the horizon. The moon was just a thin sliver, like the majority of the satellite had been sliced away. The lack of moonlight made me feel encased in darkness, like somehow the night could seep inside me and steal what little light was left there.

What was happening to me?

Leaving behind the drugs and alcohol…and Carina…had been better for me, I knew. But, all I had done was go from one type of novocaine to another. I was starting to believe I was losing my ability to feel anything. Was that why I had done what I did with Bryce? I was just so desperate to feel…anything…that I let myself behave the way Carina would have, if she had been on this mission.

Was this all there was? All there would ever be?

The world always looks bleaker in the middle of the night, when one is sleepless and full of despair. I knew this. I even told myself to just go back inside and lay down, even if just for another hour's worth of sleep…tell him I was fine and just tired. However, I had such a hypnotizing view of the ground as I peered over the edge of the balcony, I stayed there, thinking morbidly. From fifteen stories up, hitting the ground would kill me–the impact breaking my bones, splitting my skull open and splattering my internal organs on the pavement below. Even at just half of that height, about eight stories, the fall would still kill me.

How would anything ever get better?

It seemed my entire life had been forfeited for penance for how I had lived when I was younger and had no choice. I was older, and still, I had no choices of my own. In the beginning, I had tried to tell myself that me doing my job made the world a better and safer place. Every day I lived I believed that less. I had given every last piece of myself away…for what felt like nothing at all.

As tired and desolate as I felt, my mind was also racing and making connections it wouldn't have if I was well rested. Bryce kissed me. He was attracted to me, just as I had been attracted to him. I offered him sex, and he took it. Free prostitution, I thought, cringing, knowing it was very close to the truth. That situation had been 100% within my control. I did what I wanted. I did it because I needed that brief flutter of warmth across the tundra inside me.

But now I was in new territory again. Not a mutually physical agreement…not a drunken blur. This was my equivalent of Carina in the bathroom of a nightclub. Maybe not with the same frequency, but the same intention. For just a brief moment, I had a burst of empathy for her, knowing she did what she did because the only other alternative was being completely isolated and alone. Everything about this life was isolating. Why not reach for something that could make us forget, even if just for a little while?

I grew dizzy, staring at the ground over the edge of the balcony. It was too dark, and I couldn't focus clearly on just where the ground was. I closed my eyes tight, feeling them burn, dry from so much weeping, as I tried to steady myself. All I saw behind my eyelids were Bryce's blue eyes.

He hadn't been a nameless dance partner pulled into a bathroom stall. I didn't know him…but, when I forced myself to admit it–I didn't know anyone, least of all myself. He was a dashing and handsome spy…who understood my feelings and my experience. Bryce hadn't come out and asked me if I was lonely, though. He had just assumed it and acted accordingly. Bryce's default setting was making assumptions. I barely knew him, but I knew more about him than almost anyone else.

"Sarah? Are you alright?" I heard a whisper to my left as I stood at the balcony.

"Bryce…" I said, huffing, surprised that he had just followed me.

"You didn't answer me," he said softly. He meant about me being alright.

"I'm not," I replied, wondering why I was being so honest. "Does it ever get easier?" I asked him, still fully turned away. I bit my lip to stop more words, sorry for even saying that.

I heard him sigh, then watched as he leaned on the railing of the balcony, angling himself into my line of sight. His facial expression was strange…almost like a parody of himself, trying to be the dashing spy, even here. Strange because it didn't match what I could see in his eyes…serious scrutiny and genuine concern.

"Eventually, you learn to bury your feelings inside. They affect you less," he sighed.

"But then everything is gone. I'm tired of being numb," I whispered. "Like the novocaine from the dentist lasted so long I've chewed a hole through my lip."

He lost the suave look, retaining only the questioning in his eyes. "Did you feel anything before? When you were with me?" he asked, taking a step closer. I didn't answer, afraid if I just answered that he would know more than I wanted him to. I felt him breathing over my shoulder.

"It's what Carina would have done," I muttered. "Fucked you in the elevator." I choked just saying it. "I…never wanted to be her…to be that."

"Why are you here?" he asked me.

I looked at him like he was crazy. "Because of my mission," I said sharply.

"No, not here, in Lisbon. Here…in the CIA," he proclaimed.

"For the same reason you are," I snapped.

"I don't believe that," he countered. "I went to school for engineering…but I was screened with a psychological profile that indicated I could excel at intelligence work. It was exciting…much more exciting than being an electrical engineer or an accountant. This life suited me…and my lifestyle. I found out I was good at it. I like being good at things." I sensed the myriad meanings in that last sentence, feeling his eyes on me as if he were touching me. "You, Sarah Walker, don't like being good at what you do at all, do you?"

I didn't answer him, too afraid that he had seen through me so clearly. I turned the tables on him. "So you wanted to be a spy when you grew up?" I sneered.

"Something like that," he replied, smirking. "Superman, James Bond, Batman, Luke Skywalker…you know."

I was genuinely confused. "No, actually, I don't." He studied me like he couldn't believe what I'd said.

"I can't figure you out," he whispered. "Why do this, when it does this to you?" he asked.

"Does what?" I bounced back at him.

"Makes you sleepless…crying…throwing up…fucking men you don't know," he retorted. It sounded like a barb, but I heard the sympathy there. He was not trying to hurt me. He wanted to understand.

"I seem to remember you fucking me in the elevator as well," I jabbed back at him, struggling to keep my voice steady.

"I'm James Bond, remember?" he replied, smirking again. "And you're changing the subject."

The dent in my armor seemed to have rusted, and more emotions were seeping out, uncontrolled by me. "I never had any dreams…or hopes…or anything. This job saved my life. That's why I'm here." I said it plainly, but I heard the tragedy in my words.

He didn't ask me another thing. Somehow, that answer sufficed. I know it shocked him, and he stopped smirking altogether. He was an intelligent guy. Did he make all the deductions? This was my best option–doing a job that was killing me a piece at a time.

"You've been alone too long, Sarah," he whispered. He slid his arm around my waist, tucking me against him loosely. I spun to face him. His eyes were so intense in the dark I had to blink, then look away. He kissed me when my eyes were closed.

The next hour, alone with him in my hotel room, changed my life forever.

It is worth saying here that I didn't love Bryce Larkin, but I did care about him a great deal. I can say that now because I know what love really is…and what I had with Bryce was not that. Maybe in another life it could have been…but in any other life, I wouldn't have met him, either. I never once told Bryce that I loved him. I was in love with Chuck for three years and still I had difficulty telling him so. I was dishonest in almost everything else that I did, because it was my job. My word was never as good as my actions. I was a doer, not a talker. Saying it was never as important as doing it, not to me.

I thought I had always made it fairly clear to Bryce that I wasn't in love with him. He never once said he loved me—I never expected it and never wanted him to. He would have scared the hell out of me if he'd said that. Fast forward to that same night in 2007 that I referenced before–Thanksgiving night at Echo Park after his miraculous return from the dead. The first moment I was alone with him, I was afraid, thinking I might have to shoot him in Chuck's bedroom–someone I had cared about, but felt I no longer knew. He made a proclamation–that he thought I was still in love with him.

Still in love with him? When had I ever given him the impression that I was ever in love with him in the first place? Had it just never occurred to him that I didn't, that I couldn't? Had he done what he always did—assumed that I did because we were together the way we were for so long? It bothered me in that split second between him saying it and him pulling me into his arms and kissing me.

In 2007, that kiss in Chuck's bedroom was only about 48 hours after I had kissed Chuck for the first time, the first real kiss, when I thought we were about to die. My kiss with Chuck was the only other kiss I had between Bryce's, bookended before he went rogue and then. Bryce's kiss melted me the way it always had since the very first time in the hotel lobby in Lisbon, but I recovered quickly, freshly reminded of how…different…kissing Chuck had been. Nothing was the same once Chuck was there for comparison, in anything. But in November of 2007, I could still react with muscle memory. Bryce and I had been exclusively with each other for almost 18 months before all of that. It was hard to not give in, even just for that split second.

Asking how Bryce felt about me…that's much harder. As I explained—he never said he loved me. I also think he knew better than to tell me he did, regardless of how he felt. First hand knowledge tells me you can both love someone and that person doesn't know, as well as love someone and not know it yourself. I know he cared about me, as much if not more than I cared about him. Always with the caveat that we were spies, and regardless of how we felt about each other, the mission took precedence. Our feelings weren't allowed to interfere with the mission—ever. That left us closing ourselves off, burying our true selves and emotions from each other.

In terms of this night in Lisbon, it was the beginning of me thinking about sex in terms differently than I ever had before. The regularity of my encounters with Sam put them in perspective. It was akin to waiting for your favorite part of the day, using that looking-forward moment to help endure the worse parts. Driving my muscles to the point of screaming exhaustion during training was doable…so long as at the end of the day, I had the exquisite release of tension in an explosion of pleasure that would allow me to sleep. The impersonal nature of those encounters ensured that was all they ever were to me.

"We…we have to work together tomorrow," I protested lamely.

"We can work together…right now," he said seductively, leaving no doubt in my mind what kind of work he was referring to. I could see every line of his frame, the sleek lines of his muscles. I felt drawn to him, attracted to him in a way I didn't expect, especially not after that mindless rutting we engaged in during the elevator ride. I reached for his chest, smoothing my hand across him. He pulled me close to him, kissing me hungrily and pulling at the sash that held my robe closed. My body reacted automatically. He walked me backwards until we reached my bed.

I imagine the scene that followed was probably the most normal thing that most people experience when they have sex. Nothing that had ever happened before this moment in time was normal, I was well aware. This was full of passion and lust…only this experience was sensual, the most sensual thing I could ever have imagined. Kissing him…touching him…feeling him kissing me and touching me. All of it felt good, every sensation that I absorbed hungrily, like I had just been let out of a sensory deprivation tank that had in actuality been my entire life before this moment.

I felt transformed. What we had done in the elevator was how I had been living all along. Being a repository for someone else's need, relying on that someone else to satisfy my own needs. He came back to my room that night, partially because of what he heard, but also because that encounter in the elevator wasn't enough for him. He was experienced with women, very experienced, but not to the way I had approached him. My assertiveness with him was met with eagerness; he never hesitated even for a second once he knew I wanted to fuck him. All the while, what he had really wanted was this.

The physical interaction was suddenly mutual in a way it never had been before—the way Sam and my arrangement would never let it be. In a very real sense, Bryce taught me what to do in that situation. The idea of putting my lips anywhere on his body but his mouth was new. I followed his lead, reciprocating whatever he did. There was a line neither of us crossed nevertheless, as we left the extremely intimate aspects of that type of kissing out. I was personally repulsed by the idea of him doing that to me, and thus, he never even brought it up with me, ever, not at this time, or any other as long as we were together. However, his neck, earlobes, even his chest, were new areas I was exploring. While I was doing so, I amazed myself at the sounds I was eliciting from him. I was no longer the conduit for pleasure, but an active participant. It made me feel powerful…like I had no idea I would ever feel without a gun in my hand.

In the elevator, my readiness for him had been questionable. I moved too fast, then had to accommodate my deficiency of lubrication while having sex standing up in a 45 second trip in an elevator. Now, like this, I was almost gushing with moisture, actually dripping wet when he penetrated me. It wasn't a turning point, a stop, something that I braced myself for. It just happened, tangled in his arms. My desire had allowed it to flow naturally.

Bryce was intense, not the least bit gentle, although not quite what I would refer to as rough either. It was an act of physical exertion to keep up with him here, and whenever we had sex. He twisted me all over the bed, moving me deliberately into whichever position he wanted. I pinned him down, exerting my control over the situation, riding him until I climaxed. I was completely silent, my breath shuddering against his mouth while it was happening. "Sarah…" he huffed out, wonder audible in his voice. He was the second partner of mine to comment on the sensation of my orgasms, and how they felt. It made me feel special—even in this imperfect situation that negated specialness in every other way.

It was a battle for dominance, though it was playful, not forceful. I was out of breath by the time he flipped me back onto my back to finish, pounding me so hard the bed shimmied on the floor. There was no emotional intimacy involved, not real intimacy, like I share with my husband. At first, we were having sex for the sake of having it, but it didn't stay that way. This was merely the beginning.

In the middle of all of that, just for a moment, he stopped, raising himself up on his hands, still inside me. He never said a word…just looked at me. His hands were on my face, stroking back my hair. I couldn't breathe. I wanted to look away, but I found myself falling into his eyes. At that moment, I felt wanted. I wasn't an empty shell…just a lonely woman in desperate need of something to fill that hole inside me. Doing this, with him, filled that hole better than anything I had ever known at that moment.

It ended up being just another poultice on the same unhealed wounds, but it sustained me for a time. It stopped me from wanting to jump from the balcony…all the remaining balconies I had yet to see at 25.

When he finished, he rolled off of me, leaving his legs tangled with mine under the sheets. Bryce made pillow talk like that, random words about nothing…chatter, like he had done in the car on the way back to the hotel earlier. He could make me smile, just for a short while, something I almost never did. He talked about the sex we had just had, the way someone would talk about a meal after leaving a restaurant utterly satisfied. I hardly had two words to say, and he joked that I was too quiet. I didn't like to talk, I told him.

He stayed beside me during this talking session. Our bodies no longer touched, only his fingers running absently through my hair as it fanned out against the sheets. I didn't just feel wanted…I felt like I mattered to him. Of course, that is relative to the time and the backdrop. I did matter to him, as much as I could have, when I couldn't be the most important thing to him overall. The job–spying–was always the most important thing, for both of us. It had to be that way. Anything less got us killed.

He kissed me and then left my room, encouraging me to get a few hours of sleep. I felt like I had just run a marathon, and the physical fatigue put me to sleep right away, which was good, because the next day's mission work would have gotten me, and probably him too, killed had I not been on my A game.