A/N: Thanks so much for the reception to this story! This chapter is probably the most angsty, but it's still swift. As hard as it is to see here, there is a happy ending, perhaps a bit less than what I've written before, but still happy. A thank you to Zettel for pre-reading!

This place is always such a mess

Sometimes I think I'd like to watch it burn

I'm so alone

Feel just like somebody else

Man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same

But somewhere here in between the city walls of dying dreams

I think her death, it must be killing me

"One Headlight"

The Wallflowers

November 21, 2012

Echo Park, Los Angeles, California

Ellie Woodcomb approached the door to her apartment, consciously keeping her eyes looking forward, resisting the urge to gaze back at the door of her brother's apartment.

An apartment he still legally rented, but had not set foot inside in over a month.

All the months Sarah had been missing, Chuck, along with Casey and Morgan, had repeatedly traveled back and forth across the globe, following every lead, every shred of intelligence that could have narrowed their search or helped pinpoint Sarah's whereabouts. During that time, Chuck had kept the place like a shrine, leaving everything the way it had been when Sarah had left early in the morning on the day Quinn kidnapped him.

Now, beyond the door, the place was in shambles, unlivable even if Chuck could have bourne to stay inside the walls. Broken glass, toppled furniture…a trail of broken objects that mirrored the broken dreams they represented. Destroyed by her brother as he had raged in helpless despair before Ellie took him away from the place.

Chuck stayed in Ellie's spare room now. There, and only there, almost never setting foot outside the door. He stayed alone, reclused, burning his eyes out in the dark as he worked on his computer in unhealthy bouts of time–sometimes 48 hours straight–before crashing for a day at a time.

He had told her it was the only way he could sleep–drive himself to the brink of exhaustion with the hope of collapsing into a dreamless sleep. The same with partaking of meals–skip entire days so he had any appetite at all to eat what Ellie brought to him in his room.

Inside her apartment tonight were Morgan and Alex, waiting for her return. Her extended maternity leave allowed her precious time with her daughter, but also now left her as her brother's primary caregiver. These days an offer from another to babysit her daughter included an offer to keep vigil for Chuck. For his own safety.

It made him sound like a nursing home resident, a psychiatric patient. Although, that was sadly closer to the truth than Ellie wanted to admit.

Chuck continued to be medicated with antidepressants, though he was still in the adjusting phase, their effects not fully manifesting. Because of that, he had been prescribed supplemental tranquilizers which prohibited driving. Ellie and Devon, Morgan and Alex, and even John Casey took turns watching Chuck, at his doctor's recommendation to not leave him alone. Basically a suicide watch, Ellie thought, an involuntary shudder shaking her body at the idea.

Another suggestion of the psychiatrist was an inpatient stay. Chuck had become agitated at the first mention, an unexpected flare of passion in his otherwise numbness. It had seemed like there was almost some kind of context there, that Ellie didn't know, but Chuck had been so adamant that Ellie had agreed to keep him home.

When Ellie walked in, she found Morgan and Alex seated side by side on her sofa, murmuring in a private conversation.

"Hi, guys," Ellie sighed, shutting the door behind her. She didn't smile, couldn't smile. It was like those muscles in her face no longer worked.

Sorrow hung in the air like a fog, as it always seemed now. It was like the chill of winter, inescapable, engulfing their entire world. She dragged her feet as she trod to the kitchen.

"Clara is sleeping, Ellie," Alex assured her.

After a pause, Morgan asked, "Any word yet from your mom?"

Ellie sighed in frustration, the story too convoluted to tell in her current state of exhaustion. Ellie pushed aside her initial irritation, telling herself Morgan meant well, and was acting out of concern for his friend. "I know she's working again, you know, spying," Ellie grumbled. "Which means she's very hard to contact."

Ellie had last spoken to her mother right before Halloween, when she'd broken the news of Sarah's death and upcoming memorial service. Mary hadn't attended, hadn't even spoken to Chuck since then. Ellie gave her mother a wide berth, fully aware Mary's relationship with her adult children was less nurturing than it could be, a consequence of her past that she could not escape.

Ellie saw dishes on the counter, the food on them barely touched. Still staring at the food, Ellie changed the subject. "Did Chuck talk to you at all?"

Alex shook her head.

"Damn it," Ellie cursed softly, thumping the heel of her hand on the counter in frustration. The anger flared, but then rescinded. She covered her mouth with her curled index finger, tears filming her eyes.

Sensing her dismay, Morgan moved toward her. "Ellie–"

"We can't live like this," Ellie cried. "And I don't know what to do, Morgan! I can't help him. I feel like I'm just watching him fade away, one day at a time."

"It's only been a month, Ellie," Morgan reminded her. "I can't imagine grieving a loss like his, one he is trying to process."

"But that's just it, Morgan! He's not processing it! He just shut himself off from the world…and gave up."

She didn't want to be angry at her brother, not when he was so heartbroken, so devastated. But her helplessness quickly led to anger. At least with anger, she had strength. She was seized with it, on fire, convincing herself she was going to try and light the same fire inside Chuck. Anger was no less consuming than sorrow, but it was fortifying instead of debilitating. At least, that was what she told herself.

She quickly thanked Morgan and Alex, dismissing them from her apartment, before she climbed the stairs. She stopped and checked on her daughter, peacefully sleeping in her crib. Ellie shut the door to protect her slumber's disruption from potential noise.

Ellie knocked on Chuck's door. He didn't answer.

It had broken her heart when she had done it, but all of the sharp, dangerous objects had been removed from the room. No scissors, not even pens, pencils, or pencil sharpeners. His failure to acknowledge the knock didn't alarm her so much as it angered her.

As she was forced to do now, she opened the door anyway. The shades and blinds were drawn tight, the room pitch black but for the bluish glow from the computer screen on the desk. Her nostrils burned with the acrid stench of sweat, the unclean staleness in the air turning her stomach.

"Ellie, please…not now," Chuck grumbled, a hoarse whisper.

"No, Chuck," Ellie said firmly, flipping the light switch. "I can't do this anymore!"

She watched him flinch away from the light, squinting and shielding his eyes, his wedding ring still on his finger. He was unshaven, in wrinkled clothes that looked slept in and worn for multiple days.

"When was the last time you showered? Or changed your clothes?" she demanded as she marched into the room, almost tripping on piles of clothing and stacks of paper scattered over the floor.

As she neared, she saw his red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes, and his eyelashes crusty with dried saline from his tears. His movements were slow, inhibited…under the influence of the tranquilizers.

"I don't know…and I don't care," he grumbled, his words slurring.

Her sadness transformed to rage as she watched him crumbling to dust before her eyes. She shut the door, hoping to not disturb her daughter.

"Chuck, Sarah wouldn't want you to live this way. You're…disgracing her memory by acting like this." She clenched her hands into fists to keep them from trembling.

Chuck was on his feet at once, staggering as he stood, but blazing with anger. He jutted his chest forward, almost colliding with her. "Don't you ever say that to me again!"

Ellie winced, waiting to hear Clara crying from the noise. But she stood her ground.

"It's the truth! She would have torn the world apart for you! She would have wanted you to live, not die with her!"

"And I would have done the same!" he screamed. Clara wailed in the background. Hysterical, he continued, almost unaware that he had woken the baby. "But I didn't! We searched the world for months and months and she was probably in Japan the entire time…helpless, alone…"

The scream changed to a cry, heavy, uncontrolled sobbing that wracked his body. He sank down onto the bed, bowing his head into his hands.

It killed Ellie to see him this way, but she thought it was at least better than the blank, drug-induced stupor that was currently sustaining him. She sat beside him, pulling him into her arms as he cried.

"I can't lose you, too," Ellie sobbed, her chin resting on his head as he pressed it against her.

"Every time I try to close my eyes…I can't stop thinking, agonizing over what happened…what I don't know, what I will never know…how she died…what happened, what was she thinking when…"

"Chuck," Ellie commanded, squeezing him hard and shaking him. "You've been torturing yourself for weeks. You have to stop." Sobbing, she continued, "She loved you so much. I know she would have only been thinking of you…how much she loved you, how happy you made her."

She held him as he cried. It was the most emotion she had seen from him since Casey and Morgan had taken him home from Japan. Ellie lost all track of time as she sat there with Chuck in her arms.

He eventually broke the silence, his voice still gruff, but gentle at the same time. "Do you remember Dad's favorite episode of The Twilight Zone?"

It was so strange, so disconnected from reality, yet she was compelled to reply–the only piece of conversation she'd had with her brother in over a month. "You…you mean the one with Burgess Meredith? When he breaks his glasses?"

"Time Enough at Last," Chuck told her precisely. He had always known the episodes of shows by their script titles, a trait he had shared with their father. "'The story of a man who seeks salvation in the rubble of a ruined world,'" Chuck quoted Rod Serling, the show's narrator and creator.

Ellie felt a shiver pass over her, the eerie preciseness of his association unsettling.

"That's what I feel like. Surrounded by books with a pair of broken spectacles and not a soul in sight to repair them."

Ellie had always participated in those marathons of watching, but never as attentive as Chuck or their father. She recalled a scene in that same episode where the main character attempted to take his own life, the sole survivor after an H bomb had obliterated the world.

A very in-depth, profound examination of the story…so typical of her brother. No wonder the Intersect had worked so perfectly in him, Ellie thought randomly. His brain acted like that even without it, the program only enhanced his native skills.

And all of that together made Ellie speak again.

"What happened to her was not your fault, Chuck."

"Ellie–"

"Any more than what happened to dad was my fault," she insisted, speaking over him. "It was easy to feel guilty, to think it was my fault. But it wasn't. The only person to blame is the bastard who did it."

{}{}{}{}{}

Ellie covered him with a blanket on top of the bed, shut the light off, and left Chuck alone.

An unusual situation…feeling too tired to sleep. He had no concept of days passing, night turning to day or vice versa. His head ached and his eyes burned.

His past conversation with his sister still played inside his head. The world…destroyed by a hydrogen bomb. Was that why it had come to mind?

For his world now was a nuclear winter, the layers of misery dense and unforgiving, blotting out the sun. Even when it was shining, he could no longer feel it.

He wasn't sure when he had taken his last pill, only suddenly aware that the fog over his brain had lessened. His unaccustomed sharpness of focus was painful, the edgy awareness of his loss cutting deep into the quick.

The flickering light from his computer screen attracted his attention.

Ever since Sarah had disappeared with Quinn in Japan, Chuck had been hacking, using every computer skill he possessed to attempt to locate her. A month after her death, he was still searching. Only now he was searching for evidence of where Sarah's killer had escaped to.

The only person to blame is the bastard who did it.

Chuck wasn't sure if he could ever convince himself of that fully.

More of Ellie's words came back to him. Sarah would have torn the world apart for him. But he also knew, in the darkest part of his heart, if at any time she had failed, or come too late, Sarah wouldn't have rested until everyone involved was dead–by her hand.

He accepted the darkest parts of her and she adored the light she found in him.

That light was fading now.

He could not swallow the darkness the way Sarah had, out of necessity when she was young. Somehow he felt it made him less than who she loved, and like Ellie had said, it disgraced her memory to tarnish it, even out of despair.

As he focused harder on the computer screen, he realized that until now, even now, he had approached his coding, his hacking, the way he always had, from when he was a teenager. Technically illegal, but refusing to harm anyone, merely exploiting vulnerabilities that needed fortification.

But he knew how to do more than that. He could do more. And the darker he became inside, the easier it was to convince himself to do it. He needed only to yield to his fiery thirst for vengeance, stop fighting himself, banking the flame. He was more than skilled enough to strike with razor precision, minimizing the damage to innocents, while inflicting maximum damage to those he sought to destroy.

He looked from the screen to his keyboard.

So many keys on his keyboard, like bullets; so many ways to inflict damage…