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

The rumbling

The sound of the collective crumbling

Around to the ground

Surrender the town

I call out the numbers

The rumble of collective thunder

"Mystery Hours"

The New Pornographers

November 24, 2012

Montreux, Switzerland

" Boule de poils."

Dr. Grisel opened the door at the sound of the specific code word. The voice was familiar, but she would not deviate from her standard procedure, especially now.

Standing on her front step was the courier, David. In his arms he held his white Persian cat. He stepped inside, shut the door behind him, and placed the cat on the floor. The locale and the company were familiar; the cat, named Blanche, rubbed against her leg before it sauntered off.

" Bonjour, Mer," he greeted her.

She smirked, then hid it quickly. He insisted on calling her by that nickname, the French word for sea. Her first name, Ciel, meant sky in French. Sea and sky. Clever, right? he had chuckled.

He wanted greater familiarity, the kind the cat enjoyed, the rubbing kind, but still Ciel resisted. Even now, after five years of working with him.

Her home, and her veterinary practice, she routinely screened for listening devices, and none had been detected. There was always a chance, however, that someone was still watching or listening. Ciel switched to English, the way to let him know of her precursory sweep without saying it. She was cautious always, in all things, never letting down her guard.

"Anything?" Ciel asked.

David shook his head, clicking his tongue. "The woman, my contact, is a ghost. CIA, from what I understand. Not that she ever told me that, but…sometimes, only sense makes sense." He sat in one of the chairs positioned at her small dining table, the change in posture suggesting both a shrug and a question. "You told me you had more to tell me. What?"

Ciel crossed her arms, looking nervously over her shoulder for a moment before sitting beside him. "The woman you left here," she said, sotto voce. "She…she doesn't know who she is."

David looked confused. "What does that mean?"

Ciel huffed in frustration. "Amnesia. Whatever you call it. She has no idea who she is, what her name is, how she ended up here with me… nothing. She's a blank — at least to herself. "

"Mon Dieu," David said under his breath.

"The woman who contacted you… she knew this woman, no?"

He shifted in his chair. "I was never told a name. Only a place to meet, equipment needed, and instructions to bring her to you." His brow furrowed in thought. "I doubt my contact knew of this…amnesia. She was beyond thorough. If she had known, she would have told me."

"She was in a coma, David," Ciel explained. "I doubt she was conscious at any point before she woke up here two days ago. At least not since whatever happened to her… happened." Ciel shuddered at the thought of that whatever. It must have been a horror.

"So you need me to find my contact, is that what you're asking?"

"I don't know what else to do," she fretted. "The woman's sedated right now, but it's not healthy to keep her repeatedly in such a state, considering the circumstances."

"Is she CIA, the woman?" he asked himself, considering there was no way she would know. "Seems most likely, don't you think? Why else hide her here instead of bringing her to hospital?"

Ciel thought hard, gnawing her lower lip between her teeth. She did not take patients with questionable backgrounds—criminals, underworld dwellers and their ilk. She had trusted David to filter her clients, to honor her wishes for those she chose to treat in her back room.

"The roots of her hair are blonde. Her hair was dyed, but it's growing out. She has many old scars—knife wounds, bullet wounds. Probably 12 spots on her scalp that look like burns, like she had some device attached to her skull. Bald spots, scarred. I don't know if it has anything to do with her memory loss or not. I'm no neurologist."

"Well, what happened when she woke up? How did you figure all this out?" David asked.

Ciel's pale blue eyes widened at an unpleasant memory. "Her first instinct was to attack me," she said quietly. "I was only defending myself…and then she sort of realized that she didn't know why she was attacking me. We were speaking in French. She had almost no accent. I asked her if she was French and she said she didn't know. But David," she said, sitting up straight and touching his arm for emphasis, "she not only speaks French, but English, Spanish, German, Italian, Polish, Swedish…and even Japanese, from what I could tell."

"CIA would make sense, then, don't you agree?" he asked.

Ciel nodded vigorously. "The way she moves…she could have killed me in two seconds with her bare hands." She shivered, the chill in her voice palpable. "I mean, I've dealt with that type of person before. It just…shook me, because every other time, whoever was here knew I was only trying to help. Her first instinct was to defend herself…which makes me think something horrible happened to her. She may not remember the profound trauma she suffered, not mentally, but her body does; it's all stored physically inside her, below the scars."

He took a deep breath. "In Zurich, my contact led me to believe that your patient's survival was miraculous, that she had been close to death, that she should have been dead…but was alive by sheer force of will. If she had no memory of her past at all…" He sighed, clicking his tongue, his voice trembling slightly. "How hard it must be to fight so hard to live…when you don't even know why."

Images and sounds assaulted Ciel, memories from the few days she had been here with Madame X, as she now called the woman. Ciel could feel David staring at her, sure some of her dismay showed on her face. The puzzle was challenging; enlisting him to help her seemed prudent.

"She has faint tan lines on the ring finger of her left hand. Like if she had worn a thick wedding band in the sun. She's not wearing it now. If she's CIA…it's…unlikely she was married. Maybe a cover…I don't know. It's just…" She took a deep breath. "She cries in her sleep, making these agonizing sounds, not fear so much as loss, the sound of loss…but she doesn't remember anything about her dreams or why." She paused, thoughtful. "Someone must be looking for her…even your contact. Wouldn't she have followed up with you? It doesn't make sense."

"Ciel, what about–"

David had started to ask, but Ciel's brief shriek cut him off. She had heard the footsteps behind her, turning to see her patient, standing in the hallway that connected Ciel's living quarters with the exam rooms. Madame X staggered, leaning against the wall. She was pale and shaking.

In perfect French, Madame X gasped, "Docteur, je saigne toujours!"

"Vous devez retourner au lit!" Ciel replied, rushing forward to catch her patient before she fell.

Her patient was tall, with a solid muscular frame. Ciel struggled with the woman's weight, alarmed that the woman displayed such profound weakness.

"You were…speaking English," the patient said. As always, never an accent to tell Ciel which was her native language.

"My friend speaks in English when he visits me," Ciel explained. "I don't speak as many languages as you seem to, but living in Switzerland necessitates one to be multilingual."

Ciel walked her carefully back into the hidden exam room that had been converted into a bedroom now that her patient's stay had been indefinitely prolonged. She guided her patient back to her bed.

"You…speak French…with a Spanish accent," the patient said drowsily as she laid her head on her pillow.

The patient was correct. No one, not even David, had ever noticed the peculiar lilt in her speech. Memories stabbed at her, rising from a deep, hidden place inside her.

"Doctor, the blood…" the patient whispered, as if she had remembered why she had risen from her bed to summon the doctor in the first place.

"Not to worry, Madame," Ciel replied, intentionally vague, artificially soothing. Thankfully, her patient didn't argue or fuss. Now was not the time for elaboration.

David was waiting when she reemerged.

"Mer, what you told me after I brought her here…you didn't tell her…did you?"

Ciel crossed her arms. "No, no. She's in such a…fragile state. She doesn't remember anything, not even that. She's forgotten that she's forgotten. As time goes by she might, but…I feared telling her so bluntly would do more harm than good."

David glanced over Ciel's shoulder at the mantel clock. "I'd better be going. I'll do the best I can to find my contact. It will be difficult, you understand that. But at least I can try. I can't believe that after everything my contact endured to bring this woman here, that she would simply abandon the poor thing."

"David, please…be careful," she warned. "Not just for yourself, of course. But…whoever…hurt her, whomever your contact was running from…could still be looking for her now. Please don't–"

"I understand, Mer," he assured her with a smile. "Ne vous inquiétez pas."

Darting forward, he kissed her cheek, leaving her breathlessly speechless as she watched him walk away, scooping up his cat before he exited.

November 25, 2012

Washington, D.C.

General Diane Beckman swallowed the entire glass of scotch in one swig, grimacing as the liquid burned its way down her throat into her stomach. She rubbed her palm over her eyes, the words on the paper seared across her brain.

Good news.

Those were the words she had heard when first presented with this cache of information, the long-awaited analysis of the lab in Japan, after every test in the NSA's arsenal had been run. This was good news, the young analyst had said.

In what private room of hell was this considered good news?

Sitting here now, over a month later, Beckman could swear at times she still smelled the blood from that room. At those moments, she had to fight down an impulse to shower or at least wash her hands. Sickness blasted inside her memory of the macabre images. Their "good news" added a layer of unfathomable despair.

Duty required that she notify Chuck. Five years ago, she would have taken the same swig of whiskey and been fortified enough to deliver the harshest, ugliest news. For better or worse, she was no longer that person. Today, she was waiting for her own emotions to subside before she spoke to anyone else.

The tragedy had gutted her, the sadness of loss troubling her waking and sleeping hours. Anger roared inside her at this additional affront.

She sighed heavily, feeling the dull ache in her shoulders as she forced her chest to expand as she breathed.

The last time Beckman had spoken to Casey, she had ended the conversation worried about Charles Bartowski, a grieving man, lost somewhere between anger and depression. Colonel Casey had described a Chuck Bartowksi that Beckman thought she might not have recognized.

Like a machine, Casey had said.

For too long, she had referred to Chuck as 'The Intersect' more than a person, an individual. She no longer thought that way, and Chuck had been without that computer program in his brain for well over a year. But according to Casey, Chuck was singularly occupied by his computer, almost fused with it in real time, so that he almost ceased to exist when he wasn't interacting with his code.

Facts were facts, and it was her duty to deliver them. But in his current state, Beckman doubted Chuck's fortitude. So instead she called Colonel Casey, the most pragmatic and unemotional person she had ever worked with.

"Casey secure, ma'am," she heard on the line.

"Colonel," she said tersely. "I have news."

"Go ahead." The gentle quality of his voice troubled her.

"We have all gotten…soft, Colonel. But I need my best agent right now. I need the Colonel."

"Yes, ma'am." Gruffer. She could hear him stiffen. She sighed. Perhaps the best she could hope for.

She was direct. "There was additional information recovered from the analysis of the lab."

His silence, his tight breathing, bid her to continue.

"It was definitely Sarah's blood. But not just blood, Colonel. They found proteins and other evidence that would indicate the blood was mixed with amniotic fluid. And foreign DNA, in trace amounts. More identification is still pending."

"Good Lord," Casey whispered. Beckman heard a thud, the sound of him falling heavily into a chair.

"The good news," Beckman's voice wavered, faltered, "is that…the blood loss estimate could have been drastically overstated…due to pregnancy. Sarah's blood volume could have increased by as much as 50%."

"Why the hell is that good news?" Casey barked, dread causing the change in his voice.

Exactly, Beckman thought. But she had to tell him, to say it aloud.

"Because…she may still be alive, Casey."

"You can't tell Chuck," Casey snapped, his tone insistent. "Not unless you have something definite. He can barely deal with the situation as it is. Any false hope will just…"

"Casey, I cannot in good conscience keep this

from Chuck. Sarah gave birth while being held prisoner. Colonel, she had a child."