A/N: Into the abyss. Part one of the in-between. This chapter covers only the night after the final scene in The Ring until the discussion between Chuck and Sarah in Castle. Two more chapters, one between the end of this and the train station. And then another between the train station and the El Bucho. And it gets worse from there. It happened, so it'll happen. We'll get through it as quickly as we can. I'm dying to get to some Charah in this story! Only a few wtf, considering this whole chapter is only based on that one conversation. Lots of dead people in Castle. It would make sense that Sarah got Bryce's spy will. She tells Shaw about his ashes and his wishes, so it makes sense she would have read it there. They really are crap communicators, huh? She says all the wrong things, and he is too blitzed to understand. They get better, right? Lol. Here goes.

Much of that night and into the next day isn't clear in my memory. I don't think it ever was, so restoring my memory only ever brought this back to its original fuzziness, choppy and incomplete.

For the first time in my life, I was in shock. Not medically speaking, like after physical trauma, but more than just the idea of surprised disbelief. In between those two, there is psychological shock. Trauma-induced, like the mind's inability to cope, mind and will overloaded.

That was the only time I ever experienced it. It had always taken a lot to rattle me. But never before had so much upheaval invaded my life in such a short period of time.

I know that Casey called tactical, too late of course. He secured every living prisoner on the premises. I remember pleading with Casey to help me find Bryce's body. I believe I got hysterical, irrational and uncontrollable, Chuck needing to hold me back after Casey left the room.

That's probably the strongest memory of that time, being in Chuck's arms in that room that was so white it was making my eyes ache.

Chuck had never seen me like that before, that I know, and only a handful of times since in over 20 years. I had always been a master at hiding my feelings—from everyone, but most importantly from him. Bryce's death was only a small contributing factor to my dismay, but it created this idea in Chuck that fueled his doubt. The most affected he had ever seen me, he thought, was because of Bryce.

Whatever Bryce had told him that I knew nothing about until much later, it was overshadowed by my reaction, what Chuck perceived as grief and loss over losing my chosen one. The truth was nowhere in his thinking at that point.

Like all memories of trauma, what we focus on is distorted. I don't remember what was said, who was there, time or place. But I remember what it felt like, being in Chuck's arms while he restrained me. He had this way of holding me, firmly but never too firmly, like he was unable to cause me even the slightest physical discomfort.

He was absolutely numb, blindsided and reeling from what had just happened to him. He was almost feverishly warm, but trembling in a cold sweat. His knees almost buckled as I struggled. And all he kept saying, over and over, was that he was sorry.

I'm almost positive I collapsed because I don't remember anything after that until we were in Castle. In my mind it's like I just dematerialized and rematerialized in a different place, like Star Trek, one of Chuck's fandoms, as he calls them.

You must be thinking that Chuck knew what happened, that I could have asked him and filled in my memory holes. I actually did ask him, far removed from this time. He doesn't remember either, but for different reasons.

The Intersect Chuck had downloaded had quadrupled the amount of data as the original. Three times by this point, he had downloaded information—and been debilitated after doing so. This was the whopper of all Intersects—and though it drove him to his knees, he stayed conscious after this upload. He knew if he passed out, we were doomed, so he fought unconsciousness with all of his might. But that came at a huge cost, both physically and mentally.

His experience of this time was similar to mine, though a different kind of shock than what I experienced. And his memory was just as spotty. He would later tell me his only clear memory of that entire night was the conversation he had with me, when I asked him if he would run with me.

Casey was the hero of that night, holding the two of us together at the seams. How busy he was distracted him from what was really going on with us. Casey thought my reaction was over Bryce, too. He called Beckman. She commandeered a military flight to LA from DC.

We were instructed to wait for her. Six hours, waiting in Castle while the world was burning.

Castle was overrun with dead bodies. We ran out of room, the area looking more like a morgue than a spy base. There were seven dead from the reception hall at the church, all three of Casey's marines that Miles had killed, Ted Roark, the three guards from the Intersect lab, the Ring agent Bryce had killed, and Bryce. Sixteen bodies.

I asked Casey where Bryce was. Casey, being Casey, told me he had separated the bodies. Good guys and bad guys. Stack the garbage with the garbage. The good guys with decency, like they deserve.

He whispered in my ear that Bryce's body was in a private cell, in case I wanted to pay my respects.

I originally had the intention of just quickly seeing him, grounding myself. But Casey was intently talking to Chuck about what Beckman's plan was, what she was on her way to set in motion. Already barely treading water, listening to the changes I knew were coming made me feel like I was drowning. So rather than face it, I sat in that room with the body bag almost the whole night.

I talked to Bryce's body like I would have if I was making a video log recording. It was the deepest, most honest conversation I'd ever had with him—only he was dead. Tragic and ironic.

What had happened to the life I thought I had finally found? So close. Two words away…but now everything was ruined. Ruined!

Why? Why did he do it, Bryce? Did you ask him to? You knew my dream, what I wanted. Why did you let Chuck take that dream from me, when it was the only thing he kept telling me he wanted?

It's gone now! He could have anything he wanted…he was free!…but he chose the Intersect again. Not me.

Helpless, frustrated, devastated ramblings spoken to a dead man, outside of logic and reason.

I unzipped the body bag. I had to. I needed something to shock me, scare me, wake me from this hazy nightmare. Casey had closed Bryce's eyes, and his gunshot wound was hidden beneath his jacket. He looked like he was only sleeping. Peaceful.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, my throat aching. Too little too late, but all I had left to give him.

I touched his cheek. The cold, clammy feel of his skin shocked me, though I should have expected it. Tears blurred my vision.

Don't give up, Sarah. You could always figure out a way.

Bryce's voice, in my head. Imagined, conjured from grief and pain and exhaustion. I don't know if it was a memory or a hallucination. But it shook me awake just the same.

Somewhere in that cloud of confusion, Casey knocked on the door. He said nothing, just handed me a small compact file, like a cardboard wallet.

Bryce's spy will.

He left it to me.

I don't know why that shocked me, considering I was as close to Bryce as anyone. I read it four or five times, and I couldn't seem to make the information contained therein stick. A lot about Fulcrum and Orion. Things I thought Chuck would have liked to have known. I thought I could tell Chuck later.

But…there was no later. They were sending him away! I might never see him again. Hadn't I cured this, fixed this? Staring at him at Ellie's wedding, I swore this kind of pain was over and yet here it was again.

My eyes skimmed to the last paragraph.

You told me a long time ago you did this work because you had no choice. You were the best of the best, so even if you didn't choose it, it chose you. But I knew a long time ago you had real feelings for Chuck. The kind that could set you free from this life.

Chuck's the greatest person I ever knew. I wish I could have told him that. I should have told him that. Stupid how insecurities got the best of me. But you always knew that about me. James Bond, remember?

Don't be afraid to go after whatever it is you want. Even if it's Chuck. Life is too short to waste time.

You reading this is proof enough, isn't it?

After that, only his final wishes were explained. He left the will to me, with these instructions, because he trusted me to follow through. I owed him at least that. And in the end, it was the only thing left I could do for him.

Other than do what he'd asked me to do. Go after what I wanted. Chuck.

We had come too close to the dream to lose it now. There had to be a way.

If I had been in my right mind, I might have handled it better. But as I've already explained—I was missing time and had spent hours talking to a dead person. No right mind available.

I made my way out of the room and away from Bryce's body. Standing in Castle, trying to look busy, I listened, eavesdropping on both a conversation Casey was having on the phone with Beckman, and as Casey talked to Chuck as well. Beckman and Casey were arguing. She was livid once she knew what had happened. Casey stuck up for Chuck, explaining that Chuck had no choice, that he'd saved everyone by acting as he had. In the end, Beckman decided they were sending Chuck to a red site facility in Prague for training.

I was standing right behind Casey when he explained it to Chuck, what was happening and what he should tell his sister so she wouldn't worry.

She was sending him away? Without us?

I thought my heart almost stopped beating. But of course we wouldn't be together. My last mission, the one no one even knew I had refused, was now over before it had even started. Zurich was supposed to be the CIA Intersect substation, but no longer. The training facility in Prague was different, more extensive. It made sense Beckman would send him there.

Chuck didn't say anything. He was in a complete daze. I heard Casey tell him what to tell his sister. Casey mentioned traveling in Europe, something about what Chuck had wanted to do before Graham and the replacement Intersect had blown to bits.

I didn't know that until I heard Casey say it and watched Chuck nod.

Chuck was going to ask me to travel to Europe with him that night when our date was canceled?

Oh, how I ached to go back in time! If only that had happened, none of this would be happening now!

Of course, like I've said, I didn't know the reason Casey knew that because he was in Chuck's apartment ready to eliminate him that night. Chuck was really in a bad way—because he didn't question how Casey knew that either.

Chuck finally spoke, something about his sister. She was leaving for her honeymoon. Couldn't he say goodbye? When would he see her again?

Overwrought—I was instantly, outrageously jealous…of Ellie. Chuck was concerned about her, no thought for me at all, or so I thought.

Casey gave him a long phony explanation he could give his sister via phone. Chuck was too exhausted to do anything but nod along.

Thoughts of Europe wouldn't leave my mind. Was there a way? I knew Prague. What if I just went there? Could we run?

To this day, I believe if I had slept and eaten and maybe waited a day, I wouldn't have proposed what I did to him. My rational mind would have won out. But, I didn't. Desperation had seized me. I saw only one way out and I was going to take it.

And in all of that, in all rational and irrational arguments inside my mind, I never once for a split second believed that I would have been refused. In my head it was me that was the problem. Chuck wanted to be with me. He had been waiting for me to say what I wanted. Everything would be alright. Because now I knew what I wanted and it was him.

Agents were coming out of the woodwork. There had never been so many people in Castle before. All of them were here because of Chuck. Because of the 2.0.

No! No, I wouldn't let this happen! I needed a plan. I was taking that life back, the life I wanted. The one I was certain Chuck wanted.

I reread Bryce's final request. He wanted his ashes placed at the hotel where we'd stayed in Lisbon. He had already made the arrangements with the hotel. I just needed to deliver the urn.

It was my out.

I tucked the spy will in my jacket pocket and walked back out to find Chuck. He was deep in conversation with Casey again. I pretended to shuffle papers until Casey walked away. Then I moved towards him.

"Sarah, did Casey tell you? They're moving me to a training facility. I'm going to be a real spy!" He was so excited, despite how tired he was.

"I know, I heard." My tone was clipped, irritated. Why was he so excited? Did he really want to leave without me?

"Come on. What…What's the matter?" He turned to face me, his eyes soft and concerned.

I had to just lay it on the line. Chuck becoming a spy was the worst thing I could imagine. I had spent years protecting him from that. But somehow, I could no longer protect him. I was terrified. "If you do this, if you go, you're gonna be a spy for the rest of your life. Every city is gonna be a new mission and a new identity, and you're not gonna be the same person."

Being a spy had destroyed me. I thought of the girl in the mirror in Paris, gone forever once I had returned with blood on my hands for the first time. Chuck was the kindest, sweetest, most wonderful man I had ever known. He wasn't a spy, and that was the best thing about him. He was better than that, superior in every way.

"Yeah, that's a great thing." He said it like I should have known better, like it wasn't even a question. He meant, of course, a step up from the Buy More and his stalled life. He saw it as a positive move, the direction he wanted to take.

I was so sure he was wrong, disillusioned, maybe because of me and anything I had accidentally made him believe in the twisted back and forth dance we had been in all these years.

"Chuck, listen. We could…"

"We could what?" he asked expectantly.

"We could run? Together, you and me. We go now, and we never look back." It was an impassioned plea, but the words weren't quite right, my shortcomings on display acutely.

We had just tried that, not three days before. (Three days? My whole life felt like it had gone by since that morning in Barstow…but it was only three days.) How on earth were we going to run, with the upgraded Intersect? There was nowhere, no corner of the earth where the U.S. government wouldn't have looked for him.

And what about Ellie? He had just said he didn't want her to leave for her honeymoon without him getting a chance to say goodbye. Would he run with me and never see his sister again?

All of that was logical, reason to pause. I was close to insane from desperation and disappointment. Not the least bit logical. I could only think with my heart.

"Are you serious?"

Odd thing for him to say. I was no kidder. I wasn't funny. I told him that on our first date because it was true. What he meant, honestly, was I committed to the idea, or was I just testing to see if he thought it was a good idea. I didn't answer, not directly, because it never occurred to me he wouldn't be committed to it. Instead, I started rambling my plan out loud to him, thinking as I spoke.

"I have some money saved up. I'd have to get us some new identities, create an escape route. For now, go to the training facility in Prague, then meet me at the Nadrazi train station in three weeks time at 7:00 and then I can figure the rest out later."

"What are you saying?" He sounded cautiously optimistic.

"I'm saying I want to be a real person again. With you. This is what you want, right? I mean, this is it, Chuck. Will you run away with me?"

I hear myself say those words again and I cringe. At the time, it sounded perfectly fine to me. It made sense. To me. Chuck didn't hear what I was really saying. More poor word choices, and lack of clarity. I didn't say that I loved him, that I wanted to leave the spy life behind and start the real life with him that he'd been talking about earlier in the night.

Of course, I know now, even if I had told him all of that, the right way, it wouldn't have made a difference in the end. It might have avoided that scene at the train station in Prague, but it wouldn't have convinced him to run with me. Not then.

"Yeah." He breathed it out, his face lighting up with a beautiful smile. I smiled in return, hopeful at last in this night of endless despair.

That one word, his agreeing to run, lit a fire of rage inside me that burned for the six months between the train station and when I would see him again in the El Bucho on a mission. A broken promise.

Endless despair that lasted so much longer than one night. I had a brief interlude, three-weeks long, where my heart was light in my chest, planning what I thought would be the rest of our lives.

It wasn't meant to be, of course. So much more to learn, to become, before we could be together for real.

The darkness was gathering, only I couldn't feel it, until it swallowed me whole.