I’m sorry, I should’ve warned you I would be updating the next freaking day, I didn’t mean to scare you guys. Chances are if you’re reading this you didn’t see the notice that I updated Chapter 28 yesterday so GO BACK AND READ CHAPTER 28 IF YOU HAVEN’T!! that’s very important. It was a Josh POV, if that helps you remember if you did or not. Thank you! So yeah, here’s Chapter 29 (only 2 more after this!!) and I’m gonna upload 30 on Tuesday and the epilogue on Wed or Thurs, just as a warning. I did say I would quickly. Okay, thanks, and please enjoy this chapter, and vote and comment loads :)

Gracias!! <3 vb123321

Chapter Twenty-Nine



♥ Astrid ♥



I was still in that cell, still tied down on the board as the cloth covered my face and water dripped onto it. I was still drowning, still suffocating from the onslaught of images that were rushing through my head. Only just managing to keep it together, I convinced the doctor that I was healthy enough to leave the hospital room the morning after Josh visited me, although in reality I had never felt worse. He looked like he was sympathizing more than agreeing with me as he checked me out of the hospital wing.



“Come back if your arm or head starts to hurt,” he said as I left the room without looking at him. I made an acknowledging gesture in his direction and turned down the hallway, the whiteness even brighter in the fluorescent lights.



My mind was wandering, heading towards that hospital room whose silence was broken only by the beeps of machines that were lending life to his body – no, to Charlie. I wanted to go see him, I wanted to sit at his side until he woke up and talked to me, even if it took forever and ever, but I didn’t know where to go. An agent coming down the hall informed me that I wasn’t allowed to be meandering around the hospital unsupervised and directed me to a room where he said Josh and Joel were.



It took me several minutes to find it, since I was so spaced that I had difficulty following the directions. When I did, I stood in the doorway and looked around at the desk, wooden chair, couch, and armchair that filled the small office-like area. Josh was seated in the armchair, tapping his fingers on the armrests and saying something to Joel, who was sprawled on the couch with a bored look. As I stood looking at them, they registered my presence and turned to face me with identical expressions of surprise.



“Astrid!” Josh sprang to his feet, grinning as he came forward. He made as if to give me a hug, catching himself just in time and saying, “How are you?”



“Better,” I replied, relieved that he hadn’t gone for the awkward tact that he had the night before. “Doctor finally let me go.”



“That’s good.”



He was looking at me closely, clearly wondering if I were about to go to pieces or something, but I didn’t meet his eyes, instead looking over at the couch and Joel. He looked so much like his brother that it made my throat burn and something jump in my stomach, even though I had thought about Jay’s words. Fourteen or not, emotions were difficult to get rid of. Joel’s blue eyes flickered up to my face, and though I could still glimpse some anger and confusion and grief in them, I was pleased to note that there was a gleam of humor as well.



“Thanks,” he said, and I gave him a weird look. “For helping me improve my rep. Now I can tell all my friends I’ve been arrested and handcuffed!”



A smile found its way to my lips, tugging the corners of my mouth up as I said, “No problem. Glad I could help.” And then I hugged Josh with one arm, burying my face in his shoulder for a moment and taking a deep breath, because the smile on Joel’s face was so familiar that it was almost too much to bear. He hugged me back, his presence warm and reassuring, and I had never been so glad to have him as a best friend.



As we broke apart, I walked over to the couch and shoved Joel’s feet off the end of it, sitting down and trying to look as reserved as possible though I felt like screaming. I wanted to ask how Charlie was, wanted to ask if there had been any developments, but I was so afraid to hear bad news that the words couldn’t come out of my mouth. Josh remained standing with his hands in his pockets, and when he looked at me, I could see he knew what I was dying to ask.



“We just have to wait,” he said quietly, and I nodded. I had known that would be the answer, but it didn’t make it any easier to accept it. My lungs felt sticky and heavy, struggling to breathe as I tried to remain calm, forcing myself to think about Joel. He would probably lose it if I showed any panic; the kid had already been through too much. Charlie was still alive – he would hang in there – but Jay was already gone.



It was for Joel’s sake that I tried to remain sane during the next few days as we waited for the doctor to tell us the words we wanted to hear. It was like that French doctor’s place all over again, when I had first found Charlie again and had thought he was dying, but that had been only two days. How was I supposed to survive so much longer when I had barely survived those forty-eight hours? And his condition was so much more critical now, the doctor’s words ringing in my ears and refusing to leave…



A daze seemed to fall over me during those long days as I slipped between sleep and wakefulness, barely conscious even when I was in a room full of people. My own body was healing while Charlie’s didn’t seem to be undergoing any change, that guilt pressing on my mind as I relived the scene over and over again, the bullet slamming into his chest and the red spreading everywhere. The bullet that had been directed at me, should have hit me – it should have been me on that white hospital bed.



Josh consumed himself in agency matters, disappearing somewhere with Wulf or Stephen and coming back much later with a thoughtful or angry or exhausted look in his eyes. Part of me wondered what went on behind those office doors, hearing snippets about capturing the scattered remains of Cloying’s group or Young’s decision on the AWOL. Once Josh returned and pulled me aside, telling me in a stiff voice about what Young had said to him, that the whole thing was being considered as another assignment.



The anger in his eyes was evident as he told me, his fingers curled into fists and his muscles taut, but I found myself strangely detached once more. It had been an assignment, of course – Young had even said so to me when he had ordered me to kill Jay. Why did it matter? Sure, Young had lied to us and twisted his words and made us into puppets in his games – but how was that new? He had been doing that for years – Jay had been right all along, with all his talk about hating Delta and Young and what he was doing to us…but now it didn’t matter. The AWOL had never been, or if it had it now was lifted, and in my eyes that meant only one thing. Charlie’s life was saved.



How ironic that even as that was true, it had never been held in more jeopardy.



Joel reminded me of a lost puppy again, floundering his way through the world of spies and secrets that he had entered into, his eyes huge at every new thing that happened in that Omega building. Some older, motherly agent had taken him under her wing, showing him what she could and distracting him from the situation. Whenever I saw him, he spoke excitedly about codes and weapons and judo moves, the old spark coming back in his eyes.



I wished I could be like him, immerse myself in the new excitement of the agency and watch the world slip away, but that was all old to me. It had been seven years since I had first discovered it, first met Charlie and become friends with him…to go back to that was more than I could wish for. Even though I tried to be interested in the agency, tried to act like I cared what was going on around me, I couldn’t stay concentrated on anything but that white, white room and the beep of the machine that echoed his heart.



Those January days slipped by, night and day spinning into one until I lost all sense of time. A sort of insomnia sunk in, denying me sleep so that I simply lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling, thoughts turning over and over in my head. During the day, I ignored the fatigue wearing me down and pretended like I was all right, talking and trying to laugh with Joel and Josh as we did the only thing we could: Wait.



It always seemed to come back to that, the thing I hated more than anything – waiting. I had never been good at it, but it had never been harder for me than it was then. Doctor Harry Neil forced me to check in with him every morning and prescribed me sleeping pills that I didn’t take, insisting that I needed to stay healthy. It hurt to care so much about myself when Charlie’s life was hanging by a thread, and at some point I told him to concentrate all his effort on Charlie and leave me alone.



He looked at me quite calmly through the lenses of his glasses and said, “And what do you think he would say?”



And I found I had nothing to argue. Because of course Charlie wouldn’t let me do what I asked the doctor to – he never thought of himself first, only me – it had taken me so long to see it, but he had always wanted the best for me. The guilt inside of me intensified, a fire burning inside my chest, and I realized that I wanted to be able to return to him what he had always done for me. I told the doctor this, and he said that of course he would concentrate on Charlie.



“But you need to be healthy, too,” he added gently, “for him.”



I knew he was right, and so from then on I made an effort to take the sleeping pills and eat as normally as I could, but I couldn’t help feeling like I was doing nothing. The doctor said they were doing all they could for Charlie, that only time would tell, and I wanted to be angry with him for not healing him immediately, though I knew it wasn’t his fault. I just felt so helpless and frustrated that I wanted to scream.



Three days after we had arrived there, Josh approached me to say that Charlie’s mom and sister, Sadie, would be arriving at the Omega agency, as Young had told them what had happened. I was thrown back to Delta, when I had just returned from France and met with them there, but it was different this time. So much different.



We met them in the lobby. As soon as Mrs. Gallagher entered the room, she hurried forward and enveloped me in a massive hug. I clung to her, my throat hurting and tears squeezing out of my eyes as I drunk in her comforting presence. Her body was shaking, one hand moving reassuringly over my back, and she whispered, “He’s alive,” over and over.



“I’m so sorry,” I said as I released her and saw the tears running down her own face. “I should have told you –”



But she just smiled, a tremulous little smile that tugged at my heart because it was Charlie’s smile and Charlie’s eyes…and then she said, just as she had said months ago, “He loved you, you know.”



And this time I whispered, “I know.”



Josh was hugging fourteen-year-old Sadie, rocking her back and forth and saying something that was making her laugh and cry in the same breath as she held him tightly. I thought about the face Charlie would have made if he had been there and almost broke down completely. When they broke apart, Sadie came over and embraced me as well, and as she said, “Thank you for bringing him back,” I had never felt lower.



“Did Young tell you?” I managed to ask as Sadie stepped away.



Mrs. Gallagher’s lips were still trembling, her eyes shiny. “We know. The doctor told us what happened. We came to see him.”



“He’s going to get better,” said Sadie staunchly, crossing her arms over her chest, and my heart ached at her faith. Josh threw an arm around her shoulders, his eyes affectionate.



“That’s the spirit, babe.”



I smiled a little. “I guess I should take Charlie’s place and tell you to leave her alone?”



Josh grinned at me. “That’s a thought – maybe we should go to his room and try it. He might get so pissed that he’ll wake up.”



Sadie made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob, pushing her dark hair out of huge grey eyes as she looked at her mother. Mrs. Gallagher was barely keeping her tears in check, looking so scared and desperate that I wanted to run out of the room. I gestured towards the door, saying, “We can go see him now, if you like.”



Josh held Sadie’s hand as we walked through the hallways to the hospital wing, agents giving us curious looks as we passed. I walked next to Mrs. Gallagher, wishing I could say something to take the anxiety out of her eyes, but how could I when I didn’t even know how to reassure myself?



Charlie’s room seemed even more unnerving than usual, his face white like the walls and the sheets and the pillowcase, the machines humming and beeping, the only proof that the deathly-still body was actually alive. Josh and I paused in the doorway as the Gallaghers entered the room, walking slowly as if they were in a daze. Charlie’s mother half-fell into the chair next to his bed, clutching his hand in both of hers and staring at his face.



“He really is alive,” Sadie breathed, sinking to her knees beside the bed and gently brushing the dark hair out of his still face. I could only see part of her face but didn’t miss the single tear track down her cheek as she gazed adoringly at her older brother. Mrs. Gallagher was crying silently, still holding his hand tightly, and the sight brought a lump to my throat.



“Why did I ever let you enter this damn agency?” she murmured, her voice breaking, and I had to turn away.



The Gallaghers opted to stay at the agency until Charlie recovered – until, the Omega director had said, not if. I only wished I could be that positive, have the certainty that Sadie had as she spoke about what she was going to tell Charlie when he woke up. They moved into a room near mine and often went to Charlie’s room with me. Although I felt guilty to admit it, even to myself, I preferred going alone because it gave me the chance to tell him all the things I had always wanted to but hadn’t.



Though I couldn’t stay his bedside at all hours, I visited Charlie as often as I was allowed, holding his cold hand and watching his still face, words on the tip of my tongue but not escaping because I didn’t know how to express them. Someone told me to talk to him, that unconscious people could often hear those around them, and so eventually I let the words spill out, speaking about what was happening at the agency and how I missed him and I wanted him to wake up and answer me. I would stay there for hours until my feet had fallen asleep and my eyes were itching and the nurse had to ask me to leave, just waiting for a response.



About a week after he had been brought there, I was beginning to give up all hope, my voice hoarse and desperate as I talked to him and listened to the hiss of the oxygen issuing into his lungs. Josh’s face was worn-out and resigned whenever he visited Charlie, putting an arm around my shoulders as I struggled to keep back the flow of tears, wondering if he had given up. I wasn’t far from that point.



And then one day, as I sat in a chair next to his bed and held his hand, Josh pacing the room restlessly behind me, I heard a different sound than the beeps of the machines and the drips of the IV: A gasp escaped his lips as they parted slightly, like one who had been saved from drowning. I had been sinking into despair, barely seeing him as I swam through a sea of memories, but at that noise I was shocked back to reality, sitting up straight in the chair.



Leaning forward, I fixed my eyes on his face as the lines on the heart monitor began to change slightly, swirling in my mind as a feeling of half-panic, half-anticipation rose. Josh stopped pacing, freezing on the spot and staring at me as every muscle in my body tensed, waiting…waiting…



The door opened behind us, and I jumped slightly as a voice asked, “What’s going on?”



Doctor Neil entered the room as he spoke, his eyes widening as he took in our postures, and though I couldn’t find words, he seemed to understand. Immediately he slid gloves onto his hands and walked to the other side of the bed, prepared to do anything. I was trembling, watching Charlie’s eyelashes flutter slightly as his chest began to rise and fall more fully than it had been before.



“Come on,” I whispered, “come on…”



And then those lashes were lifting, the grey eyes slowly becoming visible as his mouth gasped for air again. Something swooped in my chest as his eyes stared at the ceiling, blank and confused as they began to look around the room, fixing on the doctor’s face and Josh’s and then mine…a smile was breaking through on my face as my own breath quickened, my lips already prepared to talk to him, finding the right words…but the bewilderment wouldn’t leave his eyes, recognition absent as the grey lit upon my face.



“What…”



His voice was barely a whisper, so quiet and hoarse that it would have been inaudible if we all hadn’t been deathly silent. He sucked in air, eyes trying to look at his nose in an attempt to see what was feeding him oxygen, and his hand tugged itself out of mine, touching the tubes that he found there. Puzzlement swamped his eyes, his hand moving down to his chest as he felt the wound through the sheet.



“Charlie,” I said quietly, and his eyes flickered back to my face. “You’re okay.”



But he was staring at me as if he had never seen me before. “What happened?” he asked, his husky voice edged with panic. “Where am I? Who are you?”



I didn’t understand, the smile sliding off my face as I tried to console him. “You’re in the hospital, Charlie, but you’re going to be okay.”



“Who are you?”



His voice was cracking now, his whole body trembling under the white sheet as his eyes stretched wide and empty, so empty. I was shaking too, his words suddenly crashing over my ears as he repeated them: “Who are you?” I was frozen in the chair, unable to move as he stared at me with something like fear in his eyes: He didn’t know me, he didn’t know me, what was wrong with him?



“Charlie –” Josh stepped forward, tried to say something, but Charlie looked at him as if he were from another planet. His panic was evident in his grey eyes, a pained noise emerging from his mouth as he tried to sit up, and Josh froze again, his own eyes huge and concerned.



“Careful,” said Doctor Neil softly, holding something in his hands. “I think he’s –”



But I ignored him, saying desperately, “Charlie, don’t you know me?”



“I don’t – what happened – where am I?” His voice was quaking so vehemently that his words were garbled, rising even as it cracked. “Where’s Astrid? Is she okay?”



“I’m here,” I said, my voice breaking as I fought back tears. “I’m here, Charlie, I’m right here, just look at me.”



But he wouldn’t, the panic growing in his eyes as they moved around the room, his face so white that I thought he was going to pass out again. Something moved in the doorway, Mrs. Gallagher’s hand pressed to her mouth as she stared at her son awake in the bed, and as Charlie’s eyes lit upon his mother, something flashed in them. She came forward, her body trembling as she moved to the other side of the bed, opposite me, and Charlie’s wide eyes followed her.



“Mama?” he whispered, lifting one hand weakly and trying to touch her, his face so bewildered that it hurt to look at. She caught it gently, pressing it to her lips as the tears overflowed again. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I was watching tears spill down Charlie’s face as his mother stroked his hair off his forehead.



“My baby,” she murmured, a smile breaking over her face even as she wept.



“You’re okay.” Charlie’s voice was very faint, fighting to come out as his eyes fixed on her face. “He didn’t find you.”



His mother looked a little confused but only said, “Of course not. We’re fine, and you’re going to be fine, okay?”



“Did he get Astrid?” His eyes suddenly widened, panicked. “Is that why I can’t find her? Did he get her?” All at once he was shivering again, glancing around the room, looking straight at me but not seeing me.



I opened my mouth to try again, but the doctor gave me a warning look, approaching Charlie from one side and saying, “Okay, buddy, you’re going to be okay, just calm down, all right?” And then he slid a needle into his arm, Charlie’s eyes suddenly drooping as the drug immediately took effect. His muscles loosened, his face turning into his pillow, his terror gone.



I sat in the chair, shaking and shaking and unable to stop, my eyes fixed on his face as the scream bubbled up in my throat. Doctor Neil looked over at me, his voice calm as he said, “He’s going to be okay; he just had a moment of –”



“Why didn’t he know who I was?” My voice was shrill, but I couldn’t control it. “What’s the matter with him?”



He was losing his memory…he didn’t know who I was…it was the brain damage, the doctor had said it himself, the hemorrhaging and the blood loss…Mrs. Gallagher’s worried face swam before my eyes even as she held Charlie’s hand. He had held her hand – he had known who she was – but he didn’t know me…



And suddenly I was screaming, the walls I had built around my self-control tumbling down. “What’s the matter with him? Why didn’t you make him better?”



The doctor moved towards me, the needle obvious in his hands, but I didn’t want to be injected, didn’t want to enter the sweet oblivion of the blackness, because I knew that it would only be temporary, that eventually I would have to return. I pushed the chair away from him, almost falling out of it as my breathing became hard and short, black spots dancing in front of my vision as I backed away.



Josh came towards me suddenly, and I didn’t move away from him because he was my best friend, because I knew that he would help me. He took my arms, turning me to face him and stopping the scream in my throat.



“Astrid, listen to me.” His blue-green eyes were intense, filling my line of vision. “He’s going to be fine, okay? You heard the doctor. Calm down.”



But I couldn’t obey, my heart swelling so that I thought it would explode, my chest heaving with unshed sobs as I struggled to control myself. Josh looked back at the doctor, who said quietly, “Get her out of here,” and gently he began to push me out of the room. As we moved through the doorway, I fell against the wall, my entire body shuddering for air, but I was past the point of tears; I had used them all up ages ago.



“He doesn’t know me,” I whispered, over and over, and Josh wrapped his arms around me, holding me tightly as I pressed my face into his shirt.



“It’s going to be okay,” he said, though his voice was tired and defeated, and I knew he was lying, because how could anything ever be okay again?



Who are you?



The words spun around and around my head over the next few days. Doctor Neil told me not to be worried, that Charlie had just had a memory relapse from the shock and blood loss and that it was actually a good thing that he had woken up. I clung to this piece of logic, hoping and hoping that it was right. Mrs. Gallagher was apologetic and compassionate even though she was obviously relieved that she wasn’t in my position, but I couldn’t blame her.



I spent my time with Sadie, Josh, or Joel, trying to distract myself. The doctor had banned me from visiting the hospital room until further notice, lest Charlie woke up and repeated the incident. Instead, a monitor system was hooked up so that we could watch him from a completely separate room. They thought they were doing me a favor, but it was worse, so much worse, because I wanted to touch him and hold him but the screen always came between us.



And it was also hard because he was no longer in a comatose state, his mind more active and therefore his voice. Though he remained unconscious, now his head tossed and turned on the pillow and words spilled out of his mouth – snippets of Portuguese and other things we couldn’t understand; calls for his mother; and my name, over and over. I often found myself with my fingers pressed to the monitor screen, trying to reach him only to be blocked yet again.



I lost track of the days, but a glance at the calendar told me that it had been two weeks since we had arrived at the Omega agency. Doctor Neil’s report was positive, that his lung was healing quickly due to a chest tube, and his leg and ribs were as well, that there was no further sign of internal bleeding, and he was coming along nicely, but that didn’t change the fact that he had been conscious once in fourteen days. The only thing the doctor could tell us was that he thought Charlie’s brain had gone into shock from blood loss and needed to recover.



“Do you think he’s ever going to get better?” asked Sadie out of the blue one day as we sat in the room with the monitor. She was playing Scrabble with Joel and Josh; the former was a freshman like her, and so we had figured that they would get along well.



Sitting in an armchair to one side and absently watching the monitor, I took a moment to answer. The automatic reassuring answer was on the tip of my tongue, but somehow it wouldn’t come out. “I hope so,” I said eventually, digging my fingers into the armrest as they stopped playing to look over at me. I couldn’t meet Sadie’s eyes.



“He has to,” Josh put in, putting his hand on top of Sadie’s, but she didn’t look convinced as she leafed through her letter pieces.



“What about me?” Joel’s question took us by surprise; I turned in my chair to look at him. He looked a little embarrassed but determined, saying, “Am I just gonna hang out at this agency my whole life? What am I supposed to do now?”



I sighed, rubbing my eyes with one hand and meeting Josh’s. He shrugged, his expression saying that he hadn’t thought of it either. “You’ll probably go back to your aunt and uncle’s house,” I told Joel quietly. “I don’t know what else you could do.”



He nodded, biting his lip as he peered at his letters. “That’s what I figured. Do you think anyone would believe me if I told them that I’d been on the run in Europe with spies?”



Josh grinned, ruffling his blonde hair fondly. “I don’t think so, buddy. You could give it a shot, though – Emily might think it’s hot.”



Joel blushed red as Sadie laughed; she had heard enough about the famous, fabulous Emily to know what Josh was talking about. He hurriedly tried to change the subject: “What words can you make with a, x, r, e, i, l, and p? I can’t find anything…”



I sank back in the armchair, watching them play with a slight smile and feeling relieved that Joel was going to be okay. His unquenchable spark of energy and exuberance had shone through, getting him through the whole ordeal; I knew he would be okay no matter what happened to him. I wished I could come to peace as easily as he could – Jay’s face still swam in my mind every time I saw his brother’s sky-blue eyes. But Joel had accepted his death, even seemed to move on: I could see him back home in a month or two, bragging to his cousins about the adventures he had had.



Closing my eyes, I pictured another scene in which Charlie, Josh, and I had returned to the States as well and were messing around a firing range or playing Call of Duty, Josh and I kicking ass as snipers as Charlie attempted to win with a knife. It was almost like an alternate reality, the shadows under Josh’s eyes even as he tried to stay cheerful and Charlie’s white face on the monitor screen not allowing it. But maybe one day it could happen, if only –



A knock on the door, and we all jumped, whipping around to stare at it. Josh found his voice first, calling for the knocker to come in, and all of us caught our breaths as Doctor Harry Neil stepped into the room. The broad smile on his face extended to his eyes as he looked around at all of us and said the best words I had ever heard:



“He’s awake.”