A/N: I'm back at last. Busy with lots of stupid stuff. Anyway, our story continues. Thanks again to nevr for reviewing this chapter. I'm hoping to get back to vsHL and the Role Models chapter. I haven't been able to sit and watch Chuck forever and I can't wait. Thanks everyone.

The sun wakes me.

My face must be angled towards the window. I feel an almost unbearable brightness just beyond my eyelids and their thin slits. Not fully aware, I lift a hand to shield my eyes.

It takes a few seconds before I remember that I'm supposed to be blind and the sunlight shouldn't bother me.

I take quick stock. I'm alone in the bed…but the last thing I remember was falling asleep next to Chuck. Where is he?

I flail, rolling over, ready to call out, when I see a shadow. The definition between light and dark is pronounced. And there is no mistaking what I see. A tall silhouette. It's Chuck.

"Sarah, are you seeing the sunlight?" I hear him ask excitedly, hopefully. I see the shadow move closer. The edges blur. But I reach and touch him, not a blind probe, but a reach specifically for his arm. "Sarah?" He is even more surprised, animation in his voice.

"The light and the shadow…are much sharper," I say slowly. I am straining, trying to see color or more definition. But I'm straining with a purpose. My need to see his face, to look at him, overwhelms me.

"That's very encouraging." He sounds hopeful. "You…ripped off the bandages last night…" His voice is now somber, recalling my nightmares and my helpless wailing.

"Thank you," I rush to say, trying to relieve his awkwardness. "For trying to help. For staying here with me." I'm still hanging on to his arm. "Were you able to sleep?"

"I'm ok," he says softly. He's brushing my hair back, off my face. It's so tender, so gentle it makes my heart ache, inexplicably. He was so afraid to touch me…did my sleeping on his chest ease some of that discomfort?

It's like my thoughts are audible. He pulls his hand away quickly, like my skin burned him. Like he didn't realize what he was doing until he was in the middle of doing it.

"I have drops to put in your eyes. I can rebandage them afterwards. My sister is coming back in a few hours." The words rush together, a nervous ramble. He jumps to his feet, moving away from me.

I hear him walking and I watch his silhouette as he moves. All of the light is blocked as he leans over me. I feel his hand on the side of my face as he uses his fingers to brace my eye. The drop burns and I blink rapidly. He repeats it with the other eye.

"I know it sounds awful, but it's a good sign that they burn. The drops. At first, you couldn't feel them at all."

I remember from last night that my tears had burned as well, and they hadn't right after I was blinded.

Am I getting better? Will I be able to see again? I don't want false hope…and at the same time, I know what I want my vision for most is to see Chuck's face. I only remember what he looked like, sad, regretful, and ashamed.

I see the light wink out, replaced by the bandages that he carefully affixes over my eyes. He's so careful to not snag my hair, to ensure my comfort at all costs. The warmth bubbles up from the darkest depth inside me.

I have a flashback, recalling the moment he refastened my blindfold after our sexual encounter.

I promised myself last night that I needed to find a way to talk to him about it. Now, before Ellie is here, seems my best opportunity.

"Chuck, I need to talk to you…" The sentence is incomplete, the dangling "about" and what follows heavy between us.

"I have to get you breakfast. But afterwards, I promise, you can talk to me."

Is he stalling? I'm not sure. He is so focused on my health, to almost the exclusion of all else. But he's nervous. There is no doubt.

"I'll be right back, Sarah." He leaves and returns.

"Sit up," he instructs. He fixes the pillows behind me and guides me back. "Here." He lifts my left hand and inserts a cold glass into it. I feel the plastic straw touch my lip as he guides it. "Drink."

It tastes fruity, like a smoothie. There is an aftertaste, like there is protein powder or vitamins mixed in. I'm hungry and thirsty and the drink is satisfying. I'm silent, but he talks, like the silence is uncomfortable.

"That's Awesome's recipe. Pineapple, mango, yogurt, and spinach with a protein vitamin blend in."

"Awesome?" I ask. He said it like he was referring to a person.

Chuck laughs. My heart feels like it's caving in, for how badly I want to see him laugh, not just hear it. "My brother-in-law. Devon. Otherwise known as Captain Awesome."

I giggle with the straw loose between my teeth. My God, how long has it been since I've done that? I don't honestly know. How awful is it…that I may not have laughed for real since I was a child…and I'm 28 years old.

"Everything he does is awesome. Adventure sports, rock climbing…flossing."

I giggle again.

"He swears by this. He said it was the perfect thing to help you get your strength back."

I finish the glass and he sits on the bed, waiting. He remembers that I wanted to talk. The silence drags and intensifies as I struggle to find the words.

"I want to talk to you about what happened. When you were under cover."

His breathing changes. He sounds like he's suffocating again. "Ok…" His voice wavers, uncertain.

"You're…agonizing over it. And it wasn't your fault, Chuck."

"Sarah, you were drugged." The pain in his voice cuts into me. "I was in control. I—"

"No, Chuck." I am adamant. "That's not true."

He is on his feet, pacing. Agony is layered in his tone. "I know you don't blame me for it…but I can't excuse it. It was no different than the rest of the horror you endured."

"Chuck!" I'm shouting, trying to break through. "Listen to me!" I wait until I hear him stop pacing. "You didn't rape me."

"Sarah—" He's weeping. I can't bear it, knowing he's in so much pain.

My heart is racing and I'm out of breath. I lose my grip on the empty glass and it falls, spilling cold droplets on my arm. My head feels light, like it's floating off my shoulders.

There is a blip in time that I slowly realize means my consciousness is fading. The glass is no longer in my hand or on the bed. Chuck was pacing, but now he's close, sitting beside me on the bed. He's touching my face, holding my cheeks.

"Sarah? Sarah?" He's calling my name, the desperation increasing as I don't answer.

I feel the warmth of his fingers pressing on my wrist. He's taking my pulse. His breathing gets heavier and then those fingers shift to my neck. He's still checking my pulse…was it too weak in my wrist?

"Chuck…" It takes almost all my strength to create the hoarse whisper. What's happening to me?

"Easy, easy." He is forcing calm, projecting a calm I know he doesn't feel. He's worried. Very worried.

Am I having a heart attack? Impending cardiac arrest? Didn't Ellie say I was at risk?

Am I going to die?

I rail in desperation—I am full to overflowing with emotions I can't put into words, emotions that I can't express. I'm crying, unable to speak, my bandages soaking. I can't die without telling him…only what that is, I don't have words for.

The only thing I want is for him to hold me again and I can't even ask him…

Another blip in time…only this has been a lot longer. I'm lying down and not sitting up. I feel the tightness of medical tape on my arm and the pinch of a needle in my skin. I palpate the tube. IV? Or something else?

I'm no longer out of breath or dizzy. Only sleepy again, groggy. The fatigue overwhelms me and I surrender to it.

I wake again, unsure of how long I've been sleeping. But I feel energized, recharged like a battery. I hear voices again outside my room. Chuck and Ellie.

"Just once a day, for seven days. Take them all."

"Ellie—"

"Sarah told me. It's alright. Ok? It's alright."

He caught something from me. She is explaining the treatment dose.

Pain arrows through me.

"You're really lucky. And so is she."

I am? I feel like screaming. I'm lucky? Lucky?

I'm lucky that the infections I've contracted are treatable with antibiotics. Maybe I am. I don't know anymore.

"Ellie, how much trouble will you get yourself in…bringing all that with you?"

"I broke protocol, but it's ok. I didn't steal anything. All of it will be returned…and it was your blood, so…"

His blood?

The needle in my arm, the tube…a transfusion. Ellie figured out a way to infuse me with blood, the blood I needed after losing so much. She used Chuck's blood. His blood is inside my body.

The warm rush of tenderness I feel at that knowledge brings tears to my eyes.

"She should feel better right away. Not so weak and worn out. You need to get her up and moving, helping her exercise her hand. You couldn't do that when she was so weak she couldn't lift her head."

"I know, El. I will. I don't want to rush her. But helping, really helping, means she can be self-sufficient."

I feel an uncomfortable pull when he says that. It makes perfect sense. I'm helpless. He saved me…and he is doing everything he can to help me…help me to go back out into the world. This is transient. Of course it is. If I hadn't almost died, I would already be on my own again.

God, why does that hurt so much to acknowledge? Worse than my lacerated skin, my burning eyeballs, or the memory of torture…

Ellie has been talking, but I stopped listening. I focus again.

"Keep up the drops, make sure she takes her medicine. Start the physical therapy on her hand as soon as possible."

"Ok…" Chuck agrees but he sounds unsure.

"What, Chuck?"

He stutters over his words. "I know what you said about…not touching her. Not traumatizing her. But…she…it's like she's…attached herself to me. I don't understand it."

Ellie is teary. "It's impossible to know for sure, but she suffered so much trauma…it's like she's fixated on you as her protector. It's rare, but it can happen sometimes. It's a reaction to PTSD, which I'm certain she is suffering from. She's spent her whole life taking care of herself and she isn't used to needing anyone. But for whatever reason, she sees you fulfilling that need."

"Like the Nightingale effect?"

"Sort of, in a backhanded way. Maybe. I just don't know." She sighs heavily.

I wonder haphazardly why Ellie knows anything about me or my past, that she could say it so accurately.

The door opens and they both walk in.

"How're you feeling, Sarah?" she asks.

"Better. Much better. Refreshed…even though that sounds stupid."

"Oxygen. It's a wonder drug." I hear the smile in her voice. "Courtesy of my brother's red blood cells. Luckily he was a match."

"I don't know how to thank you…" I mean Chuck, but I direct it at them both.

"I'm just glad I could help." I hear him swallow loudly. "And…I'll wait outside while you…pull that thing out."

He was squeamish about needles? Really? He threatened an armed drug lord without batting an eyelash…but he's needle-phobic? It blows my mind. It makes me aware of the line between what I know about him, and what I don't. It dawns on me that, at the very least, I know the most important things.

We're alone. Ellie takes out the needle and bandages my arm. "I'll help, but let's get you cleaned up."

She helps me out of bed. My feet touch the floor. It's rough, gritty hardwood, a rustic cabin floor. My feet are bare.

"Slippers." She holds my hands and slides the slippers towards me. I hear them scratch.

Standing….standing! Outside of my quick interactions with Maria, I haven't stood in forever. My legs are wobbly, unused to my body weight, but they aren't weak.

I realize how much I was suffering from blood loss…because the transfusion has cured it, in just a few hours. I imagine my blood mixed with Chuck's, pumping through my heart.

The lightness in my head isn't from my anemia any longer. It's that same feeling that makes no sense—and that knowledge eases the ache, though he's not here.

Ellie guides me into the bathroom. She turns on the water. The room grows humid as the running water heats the room. Ellie helps me undress.

I'm not shy, for she is a doctor. But without the scrubs, I feel the bandages all over my body, covering the lashes from the whip.

"How bad?" I ask her. She makes a tiny noise, like she's confused. "The cuts…how bad?" I feel the need to explain. "I blacked out while it was happening…and I can't see…"

I've gotten used to Ellie's clinical voice, the doctor in her projecting professionalism to keep her neutrality. She removes the bandages from my eyes. I'm prepared for the light this time and the sight of her silhouette. One by one, she removes the bandages. She's careful not to hurt me. Carefully, she traces each wound with her fingers and describes them.

By the time she is finished, her voice is no longer clinical and detached. I have over 15 individual bandages. There is a nine inch gash on my hip, a six inch gash on my right thigh, and another six inch gash on my stomach. These three are the deepest. Twelve more cuts pepper my body, all on my front.

"More scars that will never heal," I murmur, surprised by my maudlin tone, when I feel so energized.

Ellie ignores my self-pity. "You'll have scars, but they'll fade over time."

My body was already scarred, long before Diaz ever touched me. I had been shot and stabbed and even burned in my career with the CIA before partnering with Bryce. Bryce had even touched some of them–silent, untender caresses in the dark during sex doing the discovering. He never inquired—I never offered information.

Without another word, she guides me into the shower and I hear the shower curtain close. The water is hotter than I'm used to…but it feels so good that I sigh pleasantly. My cuts sting, but the luxury of warm water and soft soap feels incredible.

Cleaning myself requires a strategy. My right hand, my dominant hand, is almost useless. I must do everything with my left. The flow of blood from inside me has slowed, but I still feel it. It must be tinting the water pink.

I dry myself off and then Ellie helps me dress. A fresh pad, fresh bandages and a fresh pair of scrubs.

"Sarah, you tested positive for chlamydia and trichomonas. Infections that I'm treating with antibiotics. Everything else is negative, thank God."

"What about Chuck?" I ask, certain it's not my business, but unable to keep my silence.

She casts aside concern for her brother's privacy and doesn't even hesitate to answer. I wonder why as she's talking. "He tested positive for trichomonas. Based on the…contact you described, it makes sense. Considering how many different…" She can't think of the word. She wants to say partners, but it isn't right. She leaves it unspoken and continues, "It's almost a miracle that it was only that."

She sighs and her voice is unsteady when she continues. "There's no way to know how long you were infected. Chlamydia is usually asymptomatic but it can cause infertility and ectopic pregnancies."

Probably what she had been referring to before. Does it matter? I will never be a mother. I've known this since I was young.

She guides me back into the other room. I'm strong enough to sit up, using the bed like a sofa. Chuck tells me he's walking his sister out and he'll be right back.

When he returns, he has lunch with him. More stew. I'm strong enough to feed myself with my left hand. He sits in the room with me, eating the same food.

He finishes first, more nimble than me with my awkward dexterity. While I'm still eating, he surprises me by brushing my hair.

No one has done this since my mother, when I was just a little girl. He's so unbearably gentle I'm almost melted into a puddle. My scalp tingles and it sends shivers all over my body.

"Your hair is beautiful," he says softly as he sets down the brush.

"Chuck…" I'm surprisingly breathless, jittery, uncertain why I've spoken, what I plan on saying.

The words tumble out, uninhibited in the vulnerability I am showing him.

I find the strength to tell him the truth. "What happened before…when you were pretending…nothing like that had ever happened to me before. I'd never felt like…that…ever, in my entire life."

"I…I don't…"

I'm not making sense, I'm not being clear. I have to be direct. I have to make him understand.

"It wasn't just the drug." He's stopped breathing, waiting for more. "I promise you, the way I…reacted to you…it wasn't just the drug."

"Sarah…" A sad, anguished whisper. He doesn't believe me. Not that he thinks I'm lying, but he thinks I'm delusional. His Nightingale effect…or my PTSD…or whatever else Ellie told him. She would know, right? Why am I so certain that none of that is right?

Oh, but I am certain. The memory of his forehead resting against mine, when he let me wipe his tears and I could see his eyes, how they burned…how his pulling away from me felt like something inside me was being ripped out…no drug, even Diaz' cocktail, could make me feel like that.

I have to try again, to make him understand. Tears threaten to strangle my words. "The first time he drugged me…Diaz was testing the dose. I lost control of my body…moaning, disgusted with myself for…" I'm sputtering, "enjoying what he was doing to me. For thinking I didn't want him to stop." I can't hold back the tears. "I tried to kill myself after that. He stopped me…but I wanted to die…then…and every other time it happened…"

He's crying, shuddering, at my outburst. He is still seated beside me, closer, close enough that I feel the warmth of his body near my bare arm. I don't dare shift closer, but not doing so takes an enormous act of will.

"But not you," I affirm. "You did that—something that you abhor—because you were trying to save me." My voice softens. "I felt safe. I felt…human…again…when you were there like that. You gave me hope. I found the strength to keep going…knowing for certain that you were coming back for me."

My hand slides along the sheet until I find his hand, and I grasp it. The squeeze I feel in return is reassuring. He doesn't let go. It's only his hand but I feel connected to him. Does he feel that?

What he says next makes me wonder even more. "Sex…means something to me. It's about the person. I…hate myself for losing control." He growls low, fueling his tears to anger, a kind of strength. "I let it…be about the act itself and not the person. I don't…I mean…" I imagine his skin burning with embarrassment.

"I know." I do. I couldn't explain why I know, but I do. Thoroughly decent, innately good, just as Bryce told me. He was incapable of hurting anyone for selfishness' sake.

"It did mean something to me," I whisper. "It wasn't the drug. I'd been drugged over and over…but that only happened like that when I was with you." This talking in circles, unsure of words, avoiding the blunt description, is still confusing things. I don't mean physically, but the strength to just say that eludes me.

He was close, but he's moved away. He starts pacing again. He's thinking of what his sister said, about my attachment to him. He's connecting the two things—my trauma and my thoughts about our encounter. My intuition tells me this is true.

I feel the urge to contradict him. But why? What do I say instead? How can I explain the way I feel when I don't know myself?

All I know for certain? Every inch of my body recalls unwanted touch, the most intimate parts of me remembering every knife-like penetration. And yet, I feel better when Chuck is close.

"Ellie thinks it's PTSD. I heard her say it," I tell him, directing my voice to the general direction I believe he is. "The nightmares…I mean, I don't think she's wrong about that part. But all I know is…letting Ellie–a woman, a doctor–touch me…was hard for me. I don't feel that, at all, when…it's you."

My face has to be red, burning with embarrassment so that I feel the heat on my skin. Those few sentences were an effort, and not nearly adequate to explain everything that's inside me.

Perhaps, at least for now, that little bit is enough. He stops pacing. He sits back down next to me and he is close enough that I feel him against my side. His whisper is like a caress on the side of my face. "I'm here. You aren't alone anymore."

A promise? Or just reassurance? I don't know; I'm afraid to ask. But hope flickers like a candle flame in my heart.

"Here." He places what feels like a firm rubber ball in my injured hand. "Squeeze it." He's waiting, so I try. The motion, though I summon all my strength, is almost imperceptible. "You have to start somewhere. Just that little bit. Ten times, then rest. Two sets."

The entire session is pathetically weak, but understandably so, and he never stops encouraging me. I touch his mouth with my left hand, tracing the outline of his smile that I ache to see.

"What?" he asks gently.

"The first thing I want to see…if I ever see again…is your smile."

All I hear in the following silence is my own heart and the sound of his breathing. Bravely, I lean forward, resting my head against his chest. He doesn't hesitate now–just wraps his arm around me.

We sit this way; for how long, I don't know. Time has no meaning when we're like this, safe and comfortable.

I'm still wondering, if by some strange twist of fate, that I am in fact…in heaven. I can't imagine feeling better than this.