A/N: We knew this was coming. Short chapter, a way to explain the time in between. Next chapter they are together again, after a lot of talking. Let's get this over with.

The rest of that evening resides strangely in my mind now. Some parts are totally missing, some so vivid, when I remember, I can feel like I'm there again, living it. The rest of that evening was only a few hours—but it changed my life irrevocably.

Just as the few hours before it had, being with Chuck the way I had been.

I drove home feeling happy. I know that because it was so new, so rare, and I was so full of hope. The radio and all its various love songs permeated the air around me.

My mind meandered over my thoughts.

Chuck loved me.

I kept reliving the moments in his back seat, feeling all of it again, knowing how he felt. I could still feel everywhere on my body where he had touched and kissed me. His kiss, his touch, his sweet restraint and then wild passion—all because he loved me. It boggled my mind, and yet, I was sure that was the truth.

My own heart's hammering beat made me start to wonder. I thought of him…and my heart felt like it was about to burst. I dwelt on his smile, his laugh, everything about him that I had never seemed to notice consciously before. I missed him already, though we had only parted ways an hour ago.

And while the physical sensations while we had sex were amazing, I couldn't stop thinking about how it felt to be so close to him. So intimate. When I thought about him, I wanted to be in his arms, no space between us.

My words of comfort to him were truthful. When he was inside me, we were connected, our bodies fused. We belonged together, like a lock and key.

Did that mean I loved him? Was I starting to fall for him?

My giddiness at the random love songs told me yes.

I continued to daydream about him, thinking that if my father was still away, we had all day tomorrow alone. The back seat was cramped and awkward, our coupling a desperate, rushed encounter, even if that very nature had made it more exciting. Tomorrow, I could invite him into my bed. We could take our time. Make love as slowly as we wanted, over and over. The thought made me shiver in anticipation.

And then I noticed my words. Make love. Sort of outdated, not really a term I equated with any of the activities the girls I knew engaged in. Rutting under the bleachers or being plowed while bent over the bench in the locker room weren't conducive to the term.

Making love was grown up. Serious. But it was what I wanted. More importantly, what I know I had already done with him.

I was falling in love with him. Every thought I had only reinforced the idea. I wanted to talk to him again so badly. I told myself I would wait until I was home, snuggled under my covers. It would be easier that way.

I never got the chance.

When I pulled up to my driveway, I saw my father's car. When he was away like he had been, he usually returned in the morning. I had only been out for a few hours, which meant he had returned late at night. Highly unusual.

Stranger still, the house was completely dark, but I could see errant beams of light bouncing around off the walls. A flashlight. Did we lose power? I glanced quickly and noticed the neighbors' outside lights were on on both sides. A power outage didn't make sense. What was he doing?

I started to worry, seized by a nagging sensation that something was wrong and it wouldn't go away. I was trembling when I walked into the house.

Out of the darkness, a dark figure rushed at me and pushed me hard against the door I had just shut. The cologne, the stale cigarette smell, told me it was my father.

"Dad, what are you—"

He clamped his hand over my mouth, hard, to stop me from talking. I searched the darkness as my eyes started to adjust. What I saw made my legs turn to rubber.

His eyes were wild, panicked like I had never seen. His eye was bruised and his lip split. He had a gun in his hand.

I knew he had one. Criminals always kept at least one for protection. But in 17 years, I had never even seen it, let alone in his hand. Certainly not pointed at anyone—and never, ever at me.

"I'm sorry, Darlin'," he said in a rapid whisper. He lowered the gun. I was still shaking. But so was he.

"What are you doing?" I asked, suddenly alarmingly aware of the bag I held, and its contents.

Instead of answering me, he ripped my phone from one hand and the bag from the other. He rushed away into the kitchen. Before I could even protest, he smashed my phone to pieces with a hammer.

I was still confused, but I felt like he'd smashed me apart instead. Like I was in a million pieces all over the floor. I was still in shock, unaware of him opening the bag from the drugstore.

"Jesus Christ!" he exclaimed. "What the hell is this?"

I wondered if he could see me blushing in the dark. I was mute, in shock.

"You're smarter than that! What would we do if you let some guy knock you up? That's the last thing I need!"

My throat was closed up, my eyes burning as I fought tears. I would not cry in front of him. He had broken me of that long ago, telling me when I was small how crying was weak. I should only use my tears as a weapon, a trick of the trade.

"Go bag. Now! We don't have time. Just make sure you take that pill!" He turned away, rushing into the kitchen. "Move!" he shouted.

I couldn't move, my feet rooted to the ground.

We were running again…now?!

Oh, Chuck…

It was that moment, standing amidst the shattered pieces of the only way I had to contact him, that I was sure I loved him too.

Because my heart completely shattered.

"Tell me what the hell is going on!" I demanded, angry. He was ruining my life—I deserved to know why.

He sighed impatiently, but he told me. "One of the marks…turned out to be an international terrorist. Big time. Like CIA, HSI…big time. I made a mistake, Darlin'. We need to go…right now. Untraceable like we've never been. No phone, nothing. We can start over, just like we always have. Hurry up, Angel."

Every pet name he ever used for me, juxtaposed with the harshest consideration for my feelings I could ever remember. However, it was the perfect depiction of my father.

I was reeling, sure the ground beneath my feet had slanted and I was sliding out of control.

I know I must have gone upstairs, but my next memory was me in the bathroom, standing in front of the mirror with the pill in my hand.

He didn't care what I did or who I did it with. So long as I didn't get pregnant and ruin his plans.

How could I leave now…and not tell Chuck? The reality of my situation—that I would never see him again—tore my heart to shreds.

I couldn't make myself take the pill. I could get pregnant, and then he would have to stop running. Or I could get away from him. The thought that I was pregnant, or at least that I could be, knowing Chuck would be the baby's father, filled me with an insatiable longing that was so intense, so unexpected, that it frightened me.

I tried to muster my courage, thinking of what I would say, what I would do. It was crazy, desperate longing. We were 17, almost children ourselves. I couldn't just have a baby and live happily ever after. I couldn't just walk away from my father. I didn't even know if Chuck would even still want to be with me at all if he knew the truth.

My father's footsteps echoed on the stairs, rushing. He banged his way into the bathroom. "What are you doing?" He rushed forward, took the pill from my hand and forced it between my lips. He pushed the water glass against my lips and poured, almost drowning me. I had no choice but to swallow.

Wiping my mouth and choking, I saw he had already packed my bag. I knew it was only essentials, nothing that would remind me that I had ever lived in Burbank. He grabbed me and pulled me down the stairs, out the door, and into his car. I barely had time to take in what I was leaving, looking for some last image to imprint on my mind. I was in denial, dumbstruck and reeling.

He was even leaving my car behind.

The fine line I always walked with my father snapped. I felt cold rage freezing my insides, turning everything I felt for him to hate. I couldn't even cry. I just sat, numb, as each mile took me farther from the life I wanted, and from Chuck. I silently begged him to forgive me, though I would never know if he would.

My father droned on in the background, telling me how important it was to lay low, because the people he had conned were dangerous, probably the most dangerous people he had ever interacted with, and he had underestimated them.

What happened to 'a good conman can leave town whenever he wants?' I wanted to say it, so badly, but I was too angry, and I thought just letting it all loose while we were running for our lives was irresponsible.

Chuck wouldn't know why I left, where I went, why I didn't say goodbye. He didn't even know where I lived to maybe see the house in disarray. He would wake up tomorrow and call me—and never get an answer.

I still worried that he was uneasy about our night, about going too far too fast. What would he think now that I just disappeared? Would he blame himself?

My chest hurt so badly I couldn't breathe. I was stupid and selfish and careless and I had hurt him, maybe irreparably. My heart turned to lead, sinking deep down into me, where it would stay for a decade and a half after the fact.

We ended up in a small town in Montana. It must have taken days, with my father driving all through the night. He stopped somewhere, maybe Wyoming, and swapped his car for a different one.

I was in double distress. Sick and cramping from the contraceptive, for it was a high dose hormone that stimulated my cycle to start. I was bleeding heavily and so uncomfortable it was hard to sit still. My heart ached more than I had ever known it could; I imagined it had liquified and I was bleeding my heart out with the remnants of Chuck still left in my body.

Those first few weeks, I was completely numb. I didn't eat, I couldn't sleep…I was restless and angry. I would walk for hours in the cold, through the mountainous woody terrain so I could cry without my father seeing.

We weren't Sarah and Jack Walker anymore—this time we were Jack and Jennifer Burton. I was used to using an alias, but I had a hard time remembering to respond to Jennifer. Inside, I was still Sarah. Because Chuck had called me Sarah.

I still dreamed of him, almost every night. Sometimes I would wake up, mid-orgasm in an intense dream about being with him, and cry, hugging my pillow and missing him so much it felt like my chest would cave in.

I was completely alone and isolated like I had never been in my life. It made Chuck's absence from my life more apparent. My depression lingered, and became a part of my personality. My father questioned it at first, wondering why I couldn't just snap out of it, like I always had. He enrolled me in school, but I didn't go. I gave up. All I did was what he told me—for his con or his next theft.

And when I wasn't stealing with him, I was drinking his alcohol and watering it down so he didn't notice.

Drinking was the only thing that helped me sleep. But soon I needed it to get up as well. My father had no idea I had a problem; he wasn't home enough to observe me. I worried sometimes, thinking about the people we had run from, wondering if he cared that he left me alone so much. He knew I could take care of myself, even though I would have preferred him at least trying to take care of me. It just wasn't who he was. But I suffered because of it.

I tried not to think about what was happening in Burbank. The fact that I was gone from the school, vanished, would hopefully keep Chuck from thinking I had run from him. Heather and her entourage would have questioned what happened to me, too. I was horrified, wondering if Chuck had asked Heather if she'd heard from me.

I had broken his heart, his sweet, pure heart. He was the only person who had ever genuinely loved me, and that was the repayment he got. I would vacillate between telling myself that my leaving wasn't my fault, no matter the consequences…and hating myself for not telling him the truth about me. Worse, because I had the opportunity to tell him and I'd delayed, because I wanted to have sex so badly I disregarded the long term consequences.

As time passed, I couldn't resist checking on him, the little that I could, which had to be at a distance and anonymous, for his protection as well as ours. I looked on the internet for general information, things he was involved in as part of a group. Newspapers, the high school's website.

I knew he graduated first in his class. He went to Stanford University on a full scholarship.

He got engaged to a girl named Jill Roberts his senior year in college.

I searched and searched, but as far as I was aware, he never graduated, and he never got married.

The last time I checked, when we both were 22, he was nowhere. Ellie's apartment was rented to someone else, and both she and Chuck vanished, much the way that I had seemed to four years before.

I saw him again, completely by accident, when I was 32.