Summary: After grievous injury and a rapid sequence of disasters, team Bartowski is forced apart and Sarah enters a war on two fronts: against The Ring and against herself.

Author's Note: The following season 3 AU story spawns from a "rearrangement" of the sequence of events in the season three premiere, "Chuck vs. the Pink Slip." What if Chuck had lasted a little while longer in spy training before being handed the titular pink slip? What if Chuck hadn't been there to interfere with the operation at El Bucho?

(Insert standard disclaimer about not owning 'Chuck' here.)

Chuck, it's your sister again. Please, please call me back as soon as you get this. Or- or text me. Anything. Just please let me know you're okay.

Are you still in Europe? I know you're maybe keeping your phone off. I know the international rates can be terrible. I… I thought you might have come home early. Call me. This is important. I'll even pay your bill if you need me to…

Chuck. I'm sorry for leaving so many messages. I just really need to talk to you. There's something really strange going on around here. I don't know what to make of it… and, and no one will tell me anything. I'm scared and I'm worried. Where are you? Please, just call me back.

Chuck? I… I just really need to hear your voice right now. Call me. Please.

Chuck… th-they told me I couldn't say anything… that I shouldn't tell you, but I'm just really scared right now and I don't think they can hear me. Please, please, please call me. It's Sarah. She's… I have to go. Call me.

xxx

Day 1

Casa Bartowski, Echo Park, CA

Somewhere in the past two years, Chuck Bartowski realized that he didn't particularly like whiskey. Previous to this period of his life, few occasions ever rose where whiskey became an issue. During this period of his life, he drank more of it than the previous twenty seven years of his life combined… and he hated it. It was still a relative rarity, but rare was still more than never. The complex blend of flavors that he didn't have the palette to discern meant nothing to him. To Chuck, it simply tasted like burning pain. Casey introduced him to this vile stuff. Black label for the normal bad stuff, blue label for the really bad stuff. Chuck knew Casey drank the Johnnie Walker to numb the pain and blur the particulars of his sins. He didn't want numbing and blurring for himself, however. He thought the burn might be a decent punishment for his mistakes.

Blindly slapping his hand across the coffee table, Chuck's hand nearly knocked the bottle over as he groped to find his glass from his splayed position on the couch. He steadied the bottle and settled for grabbing it instead. Chuck sat up and took a long swig from the bottle of black label. He held it in his mouth for a moment as he lowered the bottle.

"Chuck?"

The door to the apartment slammed open. Chuck started out of drowning his sorrows, spluttering, choking and spraying a mouthful of Johnnie Walker Black across the coffee table. Ellie Bartowski charged through the doorway, crossing her living room in a rush to haul her brother to his feet and envelop him in a vise-like bearhug.

"Oh my god, you're okay," the tears began welling in Ellie's eyes as she clung to Chuck's shoulders. "You're okay, you're okay…"

Chuck blinked several times in hazy confusion. "I uh… I came back early. I uh…"

Ellie sniffed and caught a strong whiff of alcohol, then her demeanor changed before Chuck could formulate a coherent response. She shoved him out of the hug, punching him in the shoulder in the same motion. Chuck's inebriated state caused him to stumble backwards and land seated on the couch again.

"You've just been sitting here drinking?" Ellie grabbed the whiskey bottle off of the coffee table and stared at it in shock. "Half the bottle? It's not even seven in the morning. Chuck? What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I uh…" Chuck started lamely. "It's much later in Prague?"

"Chuck!" tears shone more brightly in Ellie's eyes, threatening to finally spill over. "Why didn't you answer your phone? I've been calling and calling… I thought you might have been hurt or-or arrested… or dead."

"Wha- why?" Chuck grabbed his phone from the table, fumbling with it as he turned it back on. "Twenty eight missed calls…" Chuck slowly lifted his gaze to meet his older sister's watery eyes. "Ellie, what's wrong?"

"You really don't know what's been going on?" Ellie cautiously ventured.

Chuck merely shook his head in response. "I just got here from the airport an hour ago…" He buried his face in his hands for a moment, futilely attempting to quell the whiskey's effect on his brain. With a heavy sigh, the vaguely-slurred outpour began. "I came back early because I messed up. I blew it, Ellie." He meant that in more ways than one, and he desperately wished he could explain that to his sister. Over the past two and a half years, his skills had lying and otherwise obfuscating the truth had grown. Nevertheless, alcohol had a way of loosening most untrained tongues. "I failed..." Chuck frowned, taking a brief moment to rein in what he nearly said; he failed at becoming a real spy and General Beckman sent him home with a proverbial pink slip and a bleak outlook for his future. "...and I think I lost Sarah... the girl of my dreams, and it's all my fault."

"Chuck..."

"I thought I was making the right choice and that she'd see that... but god, Ellie, I really hurt her. I never imagined I was even capable of doing that to her..."

"Chuck..." An edge was starting to creep into Ellie's voice as she attempting to interrupt her brother again.

"She's not answering my calls or returning any messages. I don't even know where she is... probably somewhere exotic like Caracas or... or Jakarta... or..."

Ellie's frustration with Chuck's rambling finally reached its peak. "Chuck!" she exclaimed sharply, "Shut up!"

Chuck's mouth snapped shut mid-sentence and he stared at his sister for a moment. She almost never spoke to him like that. Finally, he began to see past his own worries and remember the frazzled state Ellie was in. In a softer tone than before, he simply asked, "What is it, Ellie?"

"Sarah's here, Chuck." Ellie suddenly felt as if she had been hit by a wall of exhaustion. She sunk down into the couch next to Chuck, finally succumbing to the stress and lack of sleep. Her voice took on a distinct weariness as finally gave her brother the vital secret she had been holding onto for hours. "She's at the hospital. Someone shot her last night."

xxx

Chuck was on his feet in the space of a heartbeat, causing his head to swim. "What? Last night? How could you wait so long to tell me, Ellie?"

"I tried, Chuck!" she snapped. "Your phone?"

He paused for a moment until Ellie's point processed through his brain. "I-I'm sorry. You're right. God, oh-god-oh-god-oh-god this is all my fault... Just tell me, Ellie. Is she okay?"

Chuck's question went unanswered. Instead, Ellie just looked at him for a moment. She had so many questions that she was desperate to ask him, but she hardly knew where to begin. However she was nearly sure of one thing: Chuck could fill in all of the blanks about this mystery woman that up until eight hours ago Ellie thought was nothing more than her brother's sweet, shy girlfriend.

"Ellie," Chuck pleaded, not able to cope with even a moment of silence from her, "Tell me Sarah's okay."

Ellie sighed and regarded her panicking brother with a grave gaze. "I can't, Chuck. I'm not going to lie to you. It's... it's bad."

Chuck froze in place, mentally turning Ellie's words over and over until they finally sunk in. It's bad... It's bad... It's BAD! He snapped into a state of scattered panic. "Oh god. I have to get to the hospital..." He spun away from Ellie and the couch, tripping over the coffee table in the process. Ellie jumped to her feet and grabbed his arm, steadying him again. Chuck attempted to pull away from her, but Ellie merely tightened her grip. "Ellie," he pleaded, "I need to see Sarah. There's so much I need to say to her..."

Ellie stepped in front of her brother, grabbing his other arm too. She gave his upper arms a quick squeeze, though she wasn't sure whether the gesture was one of intended comfort or her own frustration leaking out again. She pushed her own emotions down for a moment and replaced them with all of the clinical rationality she could muster, "Chuck. I need you to listen to me." Chuck regarded her with a wide-eyed stare, desperation still very evident in his brown eyes. "You have been drinking. I can't bring you to the hospital like this."

"But it's Sarah..."

"And she has been in surgery all night. I don't know if she's officially out of the OR yet, but Devon is with her. Ok?" Ellie could feel some of the tension dissipate from Chuck's arms when she mentioned the name of her husband. "She's not alone. John Casey has been hovering over her like a stubborn guard dog." Staring into his eyes, Ellie searched her brother's face for some reaction to Casey's name. She wasn't sure what to think when he didn't seem to have one. Nevertheless, she continued speaking with deliberate calm. "She's going to be in recovery for a long time. It's going to be hours before you're allowed anywhere near her."

With a step backwards, Chuck pulled himself out of Ellie's hold on his arms. He could feel his own self-control slipping, "I have to go to her, Ellie!" he demanded. "I can't just sit here and wait while she's hurt." He turned to head for the front door.

"Chuck, please!" Ellie's clinical tone dissipated as her desperation began to match that of her panicking brother. "Just listen to me. Please." She only finished her sentence in her head: Because I am so tired and I can't handle you right now. Chuck turned to face her with his hand on the doorknob. "You can't see her right now and you can't see her like this. We have time. Go take a shower and sober up a bit. I'll make some coffee, ok?"

Releasing his hold on the doorknob, Chuck nodded and gave a sigh of defeat. "I'm sorry," was all he murmured as he trudged towards the bathroom, trying not to trip over his feet as he went.

Ellie pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and glanced at it as she headed for the kitchen. Her brow knitted in worry over the lack of updates from Devon, but she gave herself a tired reminder. "No news is good news." She could hear the water turn on in the bathroom as she pulled the coffee and filters out of the cabinet. She let out a deep breath as she sought out the empty coffee pot. She had endless questions rolling over and over in her head. Something was terribly wrong, something far more than what met the eye, but no one would explain. Why was the Westside Medical Center ER swarming with federal agents? What did Sarah Walker have to do with them? Why was she with John Casey? What was Chuck's role in this mess? However, in seeing her little brother in the state that he was, she couldn't bring herself to ask anything. Not yet. Answers could wait.

After filling the pot with water she paused and listened. Ellie realized she could hear the distinct sound of retching through that of the running water. She cringed.

Unexpectedly, her cringe suddenly turned into a single sob. What was left of her calm shattered and all of the exhaustion, stress, frustration and fear she accumulated over night hit her at once. At that moment, all thoughts of coffee left her head and Eleanor Woodcomb leaned heavily over the kitchen sink and finally, after eight hours of holding back, began to cry.

xxx

To Be Continued...