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Bryce's father used to say that the world would be a very boring place if nothing ever changed. And, as with most things, his father was right. Almost as far back as Bryce could remember, change was constant. From his mom redecorating their house with whatever whimsical style caught her attention that month, bringing in a revolving door of the bright, colourful and quirky, to the gloom that settled over the house when she was gone. Technicolor and surround sound replaced with a silent movie, the colour leeched out of the world like the joy from his father's eyes.
Even the silence changed, in time. Bryce's father laughed again, smiled again. Found his passion in reenactments, his work and Bryce. Not always happy but not constantly sad either, melancholy moments pairing with times the joy lit up his eyes, his smile as infectious as ever.
For the world outside their little house, Bryce learned how to fake it. Pretended happiness until what he felt was close enough. Modelled openneness and friendliness until he was consistently the most popular kid at school, never really letting anyone in enough to see beyond the facade. His dad still saw the real Bryce; the too sad, too serious little boy turning into the sci-fi, computer nerd buried in Star Trek and obscure textbased video games. More than just the track star he appeared at high school, running like he could outdistance the darkness haunting his mind.
Just when Bryce thought he'd adapted to the worst changes he'd have to face in his life, the universe threw him a doublewhammy. The end of highschool, college, earning a track scholarship to Stanford. Walking on air, looking around at the little town that was all he'd ever known, knowing that he was destined for something more, something greater. He'd achieved this, on his own, and he was going to be something more than he'd ever dreamed.
It was supposed to be one of the best summers he'd ever spent. Working extra shifts to get some extra cash to see him through the year. Packing up eighteen years of his life. Taking a road trip out to Palo Alto with his dad, a final bridge between the life he had and the life that was waiting for him. What Bryce got was shattering glass, a knock at the door, his dad gone to a reenactment he'd never make it home from. He didn't suffer, they said, like it meant something, like it helped. Cold comfort in a world already made of ice.
Bryce mourned his father that summer, as well as any loving son ever could. Then fall came around and Bryce put himself together, piece by piece, patching over the parts broken beyond repair, and set off to make his dad proud.
Stanford was exactly what Bryce needed. Sprawling and daunting and perfect. It was all so different. He felt alive in a way he hadn't for a long time, challenged by professors, matched on the track. College coursework and schedules for freshman had to have been dreamed up by sadists, but Bryce adapted. Learned how to get by on catnaps, developed what he'd soon be told was an unhealthy dependency on caffeine. Bryce thrived.
And then be learned to smile again.
Meeting Chuck changed his life. Like the universe was making up for all the hell it had put him through. It gave him this goofy, nerdy, truly good guy that made Bryce laugh so hard he snorted coffee through his nose. Chuck learned Klingon with him because he thought it was a good idea, came to Bryce's track meets, coded Zork with him into the middle of the night. More than that, Chuck gave Bryce a family again. He took him home with him on Thanksgiving, introduced him to angel that was Ellie Bartowski, made him a part of his life. Made him whole again, even if Bryce didn't quite get it at the time.
Everyone who was old enough knew what they were doing on the turn of the millennium. Bryce was no different. He was at Ellie's party, holding a glass of cheap champagne, watching Chuck and Morgan bicker about nothing at all. Ellie was holding court with her boyfriend of the minute, her voice clear and excited as she led them in the countdown.
In a change from most other new year's of his dating life, Bryce had showed up solo. There was no one special enough to be the person he wanted to kiss in the new millennium with. But as they cheered out the countdown - 5! … 4! …3! … - Bryce looked up and there was Chuck, grinning wide and happy, red solo cup in hand, cheering out the numbers. It wasn't a lightning bolt, an earthshattering realisation, it was warm and comfortable, like coming home. In that moment, Bryce realised that he hadn't brought a date because there was no point - the only person he wanted to kiss at midnight tonight or any other New Years was standing a handful of steps away, utterly oblivious.
Betraying Chuck was a change Bryce never saw coming. Even more so than joining the CIA. At least joining the CIA had been understandable, rational. What twenty-one year old didn't want to be James bond and have their country single them out as being special, capable of doing the things that needed to be done to keep innocents safe. But betraying Chuck had been the farthest thing from rational. A pure, emotional response. To paraphrase Spock from The Gallileo Seven, it was a hopeless situation from all angles, so he'd been forced to resort to an act of desperation. Chuck was too good to be tainted by the CIA, and far too gentle-hearted to face a military operation. Kill or be killed anathema to him. Any way Bryce looked at it, the only way Chuck would be leaving the Omaha Project was in a body bag and Bryce refused to let that happen.
Even if it meant forcing a change of his own. Planting that evidence, watching Chuck's desperation - his best friend, his only family, pleading with him not to have done this. Not to have ruined his life and destroyed the future they'd both dreamed of; their tech company, maybe game development, a safe and happy life. Not in the cards for bryce, maybe it never had been, not really. But Chuck, he deserved so much better. So, even though it tore his heart clean in two, Bryce never said the words that would make it easier. Never explained to Chuck that he was doing this to protect him. To keep him safe. To give him the only chance of happiness Bryce could. Bryce watched, feigning cold detachment, acted like he didn't care - as Chuck, the man who lit up Bryce's world with just a smile, packed his bags and left. And Bryce didn't let himself look back. Chuck hated him now, would never speak his name without bitterness, never look back on their memories without them being tainted. A final, irrevocable break, making Bryce the villain of his own story.
Adapting to the spy life was one of the bigger changes in his life. He'd known what he was getting into at Stanford, but actually living the spy life outside college was like living in a state of constant flux. From one week to the next Bryce could be any one of a dozen people - a cover of a boring banker, an assassin in a dark alley, disavowable and sneaking into a foreign compound, an industrialist charming his way into a swanky party to steal vital intelligence. There was never a pattern to his missions: he went where he was told, became who he was told to be. Bryce Larkin became a ghost, a role he once played when things were simpler.
Even with Sarah, who Bryce deeply cared for, he could never truly be himself. His guard was always up, masks always in place. A spy didn't care. A spy didn't fall in love. And if Bryce Larkin had, he'd learned his lesson about that very quickly. Love was a weakness a spy couldn't afford to have, it was through quickest way to a bullet and bleeding out all alone. Or, when that first death didn't stick, bleeding out while you tell the man you love to be happy with someone else.
Coming back from the dead was tricky. Learning to be Bryce Larkin again, remembering the patterns of the life he'd had before wasn't easy. And he had a lot of making up to do. Explaining to Chuck, to Sarah, opening up about everything he'd done since his last faked death. Choosing to hide from them, let them think he was dead. They were hurt and angry and they deserved to be, Bryce deserved it. But Chuck Bartowski had always been too good for what Bryce deserved and Sarah wasn't much different, they worked it out. It took a lot of conversation, a lot of yelling, and more concessions than Bryce's lone wolf spy nature was comfortable with, but they worked it out.
Chuck stared him down across the safehouse Bryce was crashing at, delivering his demands in a very Bartowski-like babble, complete with emphatic hand gestures. “You're not Superman, Bryce! You don't have to do everything alone. Sarah, Casey, me, we're here. We have your back. I know being a self-sacrificing idiot is the way you show love, but you're part of a team now, and I'm not above using Ellie to emotionally blackmail you into behaving!”
Sarah's was more of a clipped, concise “don't ever do that again” followed by the consumption of the best part of two bottles of tequila and a conversation about feelings neither would admit to in the daylight.
If the best change in Bryce's life was meeting Chuck, the second best change happened just as surprisingly. Chuck and Sarah had decided they were better off as friends and Chuck had become a near constant presence on Bryce's sofa in the apartment he'd moved into because Ellie insisted “you can't stay in a safehouse, Bryce”. They marathoned sci-fi and played videogames into the early hours, just like old times.
One evening, while Chuck was playing Tomb Raider and Bryce was trying not to look too endeared at Chuck's serious videogamer face, Chuck paused the game and half turned on the couch to face Bryce. Serious videogamer face turned to this is serious, Bryce face and with a quirk of his lips he asked “Are you ever going to ask me out, Bryce? Because I do find the whole “pining from afar and doing stupid things to protect me” attractive and all but I'd much rather just have you be with me instead.”
Bryce, when he'd pushed away the instinctive fear at being seen away, embraced the giddy joy and said “You think we haven't been dating this whole time, Bartowski? And I thought you were a spy.”
Chuck had hit him with a cushion and Bryce had retaliated, they'd chased each other around the apartment until they were slumped back on the couch, laughing breathlessly and grinning like besotted idiots.
It was the start of another perfect change: him and Chuck, partners in every aspect of their lives.
As his father said, the world would be a very boring place if nothing changed. Or as Chuck put it, with a more classical twist, nothing endured but change. A universal constant. Not inherently good and not inherently bad. Just change. And all anyone could do was adapt to it, make the most of what life threw at them. And hope that when all was said and done, the good changes outweighed the bad.
Looking forward, getting ready for a mission with Chuck - Sarah teasing them for arriving late and flushed, Casey grumping, Morgan spouting ridiculous Call of Duty based tactics - Bryce was hopeful that the enduring quality of change would keep going their way.