Title: When All Love is Lost

Characters: Chuck, Casey, Sarah

Pairings: implied Chuck/Sarah

Spoilers: all episodes

Warnings: near-death experience

Summary: Chuck could never be a real spy; a real killer. Life—his friends and family—are just too valuable to him. He treasures every memory of them…

For a moment, there is nothing but peace. No sight; no sound…just a dark, endless abyss and a calm, pleasant silence.

The muffled noises in his ears break past the barrier before the world stops whirling and comes into focus. The ceiling moves above his face and there are people leaning over him, all decked in white; clean and sterile. He knows he’s in motion and he realizes dimly, through the haze, that a dull pain has erupted in his chest.

He’s in the hospital.

For a moment, Chuck tries to interpret what one of the nurses is saying to him in a loud, even voice. Something along the lines of ‘stay with me!’…it seems unimportant. Chuck can’t stay awake, even if he tries.

As he dives back beneath the waves of oblivion, he strives to remember what happened; how he came to be there. He recalls (quite vaguely) having an argument with Sarah. It started with Casey (—which doesn’t come as much of a surprise to Chuck—) before Sarah stepped in to take control, chastising him for endangering both himself and his small “team”.

He’s not cut out for the spy-business.

He hates the spy-business.

Growing up, he never had the urge to be a spy. He wanted to be an astronaut, a firefighter, a doctor, a games-designer, the ice-cream man—a whole myriad of things that tickled his fancy up until he was in high school and actually had to make a decision. He never wanted to be a spy then and, although he’s gotten used to living life on the edge, he’d never want to be one now. The sooner he can get rid of the Intersect, the better.

“You have a responsibility to yourself, Chuck!” Sarah yells in the back of his mind, mimicking their previous argument. “If you die…”

She grew quiet at that point in the conversation, probably because she had orders not to discuss “death” with the retainer of the Intersect. Casey grumbled something behind him; Sarah nodded. She began to cross the street as Casey grabbed him roughing by the arm and led Chuck to his car.

That’s when the shooting started.

Ever since coming to terms with the fact that his life was constantly at risk, Chuck thought (should he die) he’d met his end with a stray bullet.

As plausible as that sounds, it’s not what happened.

Casey yelled at him to get in the car, whipping out his gun and firing back at the unknown assailant as Chuck made a beeline dash toward Sarah. She was standing in the middle of the road with her gun in her hands, legs planted shoulder-width apart as she turned to help Casey out—she couldn't see the car that was coming up behind her.

The man in the black SUV stepped on the gas and came hurtling toward her like a runaway train. Chuck noticed their assailant’s accomplice immediately but he had little time to warn Sarah.

…Chuck’s never been much of a hero. ‘Hero’ was another profession he never felt like adding to his childhood list. Heroes have to hide all of the time, and they constantly put their friends in danger…

Chuck loves Ellie and Morgan too much to endanger them.

Then again, he loves Sarah too.

He’s fairly certain he has adrenaline to thank for the sudden burst of courage and stupidity. He couldn’t think; he just acted. One second he was standing on the sidewalk, screaming at Sarah to move—the next, he’s out on the road, shoving her aside as the driver of the SUV slams on the break.

There was a moment of intense pain.

Then nothing.

He’s roused a second time as they lay him out on the operation table. Someone is cutting his shirt open as someone else applies pressure to the nasty little wound where his ribs are broken; he can’t feel his left leg. Someone else is tending to his head; it hurts; there’s blood in his hair.

When he passes out again, Chuck returns to the blessed darkness and doesn’t dream.

He doesn’t remember anything.

The third time he wakes, it’s to the sound of gentle voices. A man is talking: “It’ll take some time, or it might not happen at all…It’s a miracle he’s alive, and that’s more than we could’ve hoped for.”

Someone else is standing to his right, squeezing his hand gently. When he blinks, he hears a faint gasp and the hand that is holding his slips away.

Blonde; beautiful; beaming…Those are the three words he’d use to describe to the woman smiling down at him. There are tears in her eyes and she looks caught between standing in place beside him and leaning down to crush him in a hug.

“God, Chuck…” She sobs, taking his hand up again.

The doctor looks solemn.

He can’t speak and he can barely move, but he’s relieved to be alive. He feels a moment of happiness and contentment before he realizes there’s something terribly wrong...

He can’t remember her name.

The doctor turns and reaches for the curtains surrounding his bed, preparing to talk privately with him and this unknown woman.

He’s terrified.

He feels trapped; isolated. And as hard as he tries to think, he can’t remember a thing—there’s a sudden flash, chalk full of information he can’t make head’s or tail’s of, and then nothing.

He’s become a prisoner of his own mind.

Silently, he screams.

“Absence from those we love is worse than death, and frustrates hope severer than despair.”

-William Cowper

A/N: Sorry if it’s a bit angsty. I always thought it would be ironic if Casey and Sarah spent months (maybe even years) protecting Chuck’s life from rouge spies and criminals, only to lose him in a car crash or something else mundane. I’m not trying to be morbid. I just needed to get this off my chest.

Please don’t kill me (hides).

On a side note, which would you be more willing to lose? The life of a loved one or all the memories you ever had of them?