A/N: Much hinted at before, this is a sad chapter. Important for the story.

BEFORE

You and I were friends from outer space

Afraid to let go

The only two who understood this place

And as far as we know

We were way before our time

As bold as we were blind

Just another perfect mistake

We were stars up in the sunlit sky

No one else could see

Neither of us thought to ever ask why

It wasn't meant to be

Maybe we were way too high

To ever understand

"This Ain't Goodbye"

Train

May 10, 1951

Worcester, Massachusetts

Mother's Day.

Over the years, that Sunday, that holiday, had become a day Chuck dreaded. The world would turn all pink ribbons and roses, warm sentiments and celebrations. Chuck had never felt part of those sentiments or celebrations. He knew he had been included, at some point in the past, while his mother was still alive. But no longer.

The only memories of Mother's Day that persisted were of the cemetery. Of feeling left out in art class, making pink construction paper cards covered in gray hearts, but addressed to no one. As a child Gertrude had taken him to visit his mother's grave on Mother's Day. Jack had taken Sarah to her mother's grave sometimes; more often, Sarah had come with Chuck and Gertrude, when Jack was busy, as Sarah's mother's plot was close to his parents' and sister's. The older Sarah had gotten, the more frequent Jack's absences.

Sarah was home from school at last. Jack had gone to Wellesley yesterday to pick her up. When Chuck had said goodnight to Jack at work on Friday evening, Chuck had instructed Jack to have Sarah call him the minute they were back in Worcester on Saturday. Chuck waited, so anxious he couldn't sit still, not able to eat his dinner. Finally, Casey had reported Jack's car was still not in his driveway. Casey had driven to drop off donations at St. Ann's, a few hours after dinner, and passed Jack's house.

Gertrude had offered excuses, telling Chuck that Jack and Sarah must have run late, and that, after a certain hour, Sarah would have politely chosen to wait until morning. He never fell asleep, first wishing, and then imagining, he could hear her climbing up the trellis outside his window. An old wish, an old memory, an old taboo he missed more than anything.

After that sleepless night, it was Mother's Day.

The Mother's Day sky was gray, matching the granite tombstone he stood before. Everything blended together into the one colorless color. Like the gray hearts on his undeliverable homemade cards. Address unknown.

"Chuck!"

He spun quickly, startled by the sharp cry that shook the stillness surrounding him.

Sarah.

Before he had completely turned around, she was there, grabbing him, holding him, after the blur of pastel pink and blonde hair torpedoed at him.

"Sarah," he gasped, his arms slow to respond as she leaned her weight against him, hanging from his neck.

She smelled the same, like wildflowers and lavender. Her hair was incredibly long, longer than he'd ever seen it, loose and flowing down her back almost to her waist. Her golden tresses felt like silk under his hand as he held her.

Alarmingly, as he rested his hand on her back, beneath her hair, he felt every rib, every sharp protuberance of her spine. Protectively, he pulled her closer, held her tighter, even as he feared her new, inexplicable delicacy of frame was too weak to withstand the pressure.

She weighs next to nothing, he thought with dismay.

"I'm so sorry about what happened with Jill," she said, close to his ear, still clinging to him.

He choked, almost losing his breath. Concern for him and his heartbreak, before anything else, after almost two years apart. So like her, to care about him that way. His heart liquified, rushing into his veins with his blood.

"I missed you," he whispered, emotion surging inside him. He couldn't hold her close enough, never wanted to let go of her. The embrace lasted until it was almost awkward.

She released him, stepping back and crossing her arms.

Finally able to see her face, he reeled, almost stumbling backwards in surprise before he regained his balance.

He almost didn't recognize her.

What he had felt beneath his hands, her drastic weight loss, was evident on her face. Her cheekbones were sharp, her cheeks hollow. She was frighteningly pale, each deep blue vein on her forehead and neck glaringly bright through her translucent skin.

The pain in her eyes lanced through him. The sky blue of her eyes, always reminiscent of summer, had nearly changed to the dismal gray of winter, such a dramatic transformation it hypnotized him, making him unable to look away. Her blue eyes were almost the color of the gray sky, the granite, the gray hearts.

Her eyes were red-rimmed and her cheeks looked raw, fresh from crying.

"No, it's…that doesn't matter. Sarah…" he breathed, pain in his chest. "My god, I'm so sorry about everything. I'm sorry I wasn't here."

He twitched, suppressing the overwhelming urge to touch her face or her hair. She averted her gaze, wrapping her arms around her middle, wincing as if she were in pain.

"It's ok," she whispered, looking up at him again. "I understood. I wasn't here anyway," she replied slowly, miserably.

He could feel her anguish, tangible, claws sunk into his heart. His empty arms ached to pull her back against his chest, even if it only brought her few seconds of relief. Everything seemed wound tight inside her, buried, clutched close; the arms she wrapped around herself served as an impenetrable shield.

Losing Bryce had done this to her, shattered her into a thousand pieces, pieces that she was barely holding together with her own two arms. A jigsaw puzzle trying to reassemble itself. He silently wished he was better comfort, that he could help her feel better. But grieving was a process, a long process. No magic could shorten it. Senseless, tragic loss was worse, shocking, and caused a kind of grieving almost never finished. Even now, 13 years after he had lost his family to senseless tragedy, his grief could still tear through him, incapacitate him.

He was staring. The silence between them was heavy. Not awkward, but full of unspoken thoughts and feelings. He had felt so out of sync with her for so long, he was relieved that wordless communication seemed possible again, that they could relate without language again. It was a shame it had taken a tragedy to recreate that connection.

One of her hands reached up to her neck, her fingers pinching the silver pendant on the chain around her neck. He watched, fascinated, as she twisted the silver oval in her fingers nervously. She was wearing the locket he had given her for her 14th birthday.

"You still wear that?" he asked, pointing to the necklace. He cringed internally, chiding himself for blurting the question in the midst of an emotional moment. But her wearing it touched him, the sentiment of it, the simple gratitude he felt that she still valued it.

She jumped, startled, like she had forgotten the significance of what she was wearing, or what she was doing. "Yeah," she said, her voice cracking. She opened her mouth like she wanted to say more, but instead swallowed hard. She patted the locket with her fingers, pressing it against her skin like a secret treasure.

As she did so, he could see fine lines of dirt beneath her fingernails. "Were you planting flowers?" he asked, still focused on her hand. He chided himself again for another blurted question.

But she answered. "Lilacs," she said, her voice still trembling.

The flowers that her mother had loved, Chuck remembered. It was Mother's Day, after all.

"I missed Mother's Day last year, so I wanted to make sure I came today," Chuck said softly, trying to adjust his tone better to the moment, to stop asking questions.

She squeezed her eyes shut tightly, causing the tears to run down her cheeks in two single tracks.

He sucked in all his breath and grabbed her, tugging her into his arms again. He was as gentle as he could be, but fumbling because he had surprised her and their orientation was off. She sagged against him, pressing her face to his shoulder.

"It's killing me, seeing you like this," he whispered. "I wish there was a way I could help you."

"You are," she whispered hoarsely in response. "Just being here. I missed you too…so much."

He cupped his hand on the back of her head and stroked her hair. "I'm worried about you, Sarah. You're so thin."

He felt her trembling against his chest. "It's….just been a really hard year." She turned her face to look up at him. "For both of us, it seems."

She had taken the brunt of that bad year, he thought. He was angry, disillusioned…but not devastated. He was ashamed of himself, but he had accepted how insignificant his feelings for Jill ended up being, how all of the pain of the break-up was over his humiliation rather than the loss of Jill.

"Can we start over?" he asked very carefully. "Be friends?"

He heard the faintest whimper that she tried to silence. "Always," she whispered.

He sighed with relief.

"Sarah, I know Casey and Gertrude can't wait to see you. Come back with me to my house," he suggested. "We're celebrating Mother's Day."

"Oh, that's family time," she protested, still encircled in his arms.

"I know," he said, rubbing her shoulder as he held her.

She whimpered again, louder this time. "Thank you," she whispered. "I…don't feel like being alone today." She released him, leaning away.

This time he did touch her face, resting his curled finger under her chin, unable to resist the urge for contact. "I never want you to feel alone. You have us, all of us. You always have."

She closed her eyes and nodded, gently smoothing her hand down the placard of his shirt, overwhelmed, unable to answer him.

He took her hand in his and guided her back to his car.

{}{}{}{}{}{}{{}{

Sarah was quiet the rest of the day. Quieter than normal, quieter than he was used to. Perhaps even quieter than she was comfortable being around him; he hated the film of awkwardness that seemed to cover everything.

He would catch her eyes randomly, noticing how distracted she was. He originally thought she was outside herself, so removed from the situation that mentally she was elsewhere. The longer he watched her, though, the more he realized it was the opposite—she was so far inside herself it was like she was alone, even in a room full of people.

Maybe it was a little of both.

He missed her smile, missed the sound of her laughter.

Chuck understood loss. He knew the pain she was carrying with her, the chilling grief that felt like flood waters. When he had felt helplessly alone, bereft of everything he had ever relied on, she had been there for him, so young she couldn't have consciously made the decision to be what he needed, or to even try to be. No, she had somehow just understood, and acted in kind. She had seen the holes in him, and done everything in her power to fill them. Effortlessly, so subtly he couldn't pinpoint the times when she had done it, she had helped mend those holes, helped heal him.

He wanted to be for her what she had been for him. He argued with himself, first saying it wasn't the same—losing parents or a sibling, and losing a lover. Then he would tell himself loss was loss, and the path back to the sunlight from the shadows was the same.

He only knew the path…because she had shown him long ago. Summer skies forever peaceful in the eye of a hurricane.

Casey and Gertrude had been thrilled to see her again, glad he had invited her for the day.

Sarah's dreadful state had caught Gertrude's attention immediately. At first cooing, one look at Sarah had sobered Gertrude immediately and to a degree Chuck had never seen. The older woman had paled, studying Sarah relentlessly, almost rudely.

But Gertrude didn't fuss over Sarah, despite the fact Chuck expected it. It was Gertrude's usual reaction, to show care and concern with actions, with caretaking. This time, Gertrude was pretending. Forcing happiness and calm, treating Sarah with the tenderness she had reserved for when Sarah had been a small child. Gertrude's blue eyes betrayed her inner turmoil, the tears she was holding at bay as Sarah's suffering engulfed her.

Casey ignored it, as Chuck had expected. But the ignoring was so intentional, so deliberate, he was sure Gertrude had to have spoken to him somewhere out of their sight. His usual gruffness was inappropriate, given Sarah's fragility. At any rate, the gruffness was conspicuously absent this evening.

While Gertrude was finishing in the kitchen, she had intentionally shooed Chuck onto the porch. He obeyed, finding Sarah outside on the porch swing, staring blankly into the darkness of his backyard.

"Here you are," he said softly.

She turned to him, her lips forming a thin grin, though it never reached her eyes. The grin was for him, not her. Sadness was gathered around her like the darkness.

He walked across the porch and sat beside her on the swing, careful not to crowd her. The swing moved, squeaked, reminding him of times over the years they had sat there together, often at dusk.

"I wish I knew what to say," Chuck whispered, acutely aware of the space between them. He used his feet to keep the swing moving gently.

"You always knew the exact right thing to say," Sarah sighed wistfully, joining him in moving the swing. "Or when you didn't need to say anything."

Maybe with you, he thought. He was a spiraller, a rambler in most situations, not quite able to rein in his words. Sarah could focus him, clear his head, like no one else. She clarified him to himself.

She reached for his hand and held it in the space between them, her weight loss making her fingers seem longer. "Just you being here, wanting to be here, is enough. I know it doesn't seem like it helps, but it does."

He smiled, running his thumb over her knuckles. The swing moved slowly back and forth, back and forth, squeaking in time with the motion. There were no other sounds.

Then, below the porch railing, a rustling and squeaking disturbed the quiet. Sarah stood quickly and peered over the railing, curious. "Oh, Chuck, look," she whispered, looking off the porch but gesturing back to him, her posture alive again, the old Sarah.

He complied, standing and leaning forward over the railing to where she pointed. The swing kept moving behind despite being empty.

"Raccoons," she said.

Under the foliage of the bushes, he saw the first pair of beady eyes. His eyes adjusted to see the gray and black fur, the little mask the animal seemed to wear.

"She has kits," Sarah added, her voice dropping on the last word, her intonation reverent.

He looked more closely, and counted the other eyes. Three more pairs. A mother with three babies. Of course, Sarah knew the proper name for raccoon babies. Kits.

"They're adorable," she sighed. It was as close to joy as he could have expected to hear from her, but a note of longing, of ache, was mixed in.

A distant hooting sounded from the woods. "She'd better get them in their den. That owl sounds hungry," Chuck said.

Sarah stayed quiet, wrapped in silence, nodding, but watching the baby raccoons scurrying in the underbrush.

Chuck waited and she eventually spoke. Her voice was tuned to a minor key, a sad enchantment. "You know, there was always an owl outside my window, when I was at school. Her nest was in the trunk of a dead tree. She had babies that winter. Sometimes I would see her in the morning, or at dusk…when she was supposed to be asleep…but she couldn't sleep, she had to take care of them. Mothers take care of their babies. I tried to see the babies in the nest…but I never got a good glimpse. I wish I had been able to see them."

Chuck knew how much Sarah loved owls, remembering the first time he had smiled, really smiled, after he lost his family–it was with her in the woods behind her house, as an owl had flown directly over them. That had been the rebirth of his happiness.

But now he stood with Sarah in her sadness. Even while speaking of her favorite things, her voice sounded lugubrious, the momentary liveliness gone.

Sadness was insubstantial, formless, a noun for something untouchable. But all at once he knew what it looked like, smelled like, sounded like, felt like. Sarah wore it like a second skin, a part of her.

From inside the house, Gertrude turned on the porch light. Chuck blinked; his eyes had grown accustomed to the gathering darkness. Under the weak porch light, the pink of her dress somehow seemed to glow. It colored her face, improving her complexion, even if the effect was artificial. It reminded him of her pink blanket, the one she had draped over them to keep them both safe when they were little. Being inside that blanket fort had been like being inside Sarah's heart with her. Safe.

She needed to feel safe. He wanted her to feel safe. He wished it were as simple as it had been before, a pink layer of softness to insulate them from the world, their imaginations supplying the rest.

He took her in his arms, relieved when she didn't resist. "It's going to be ok," he whispered.

Bryce had been dead for seven months…and she was still so deep in her grief it seemed fresh. In his head, he conflated her grief with her feelings for Bryce, what Bryce had meant to her, and, consequently, what she had lost when he was killed.

There wasn't anything he could say or do to take the pain from her. It was something she had to endure, struggle through, on her own. But he was here, back where he belonged, with her, beside her.

He committed himself to helping her through it, protecting her however he could. He promised himself silently, listening to the baby raccoons squeaking as their mother scooted them to safety. Chuck and Sarah stayed outside together until the night was still again.

A/N: Thanks to Zettel for pre-reading.