LifeTimes

This is absolutely the last original thing I'm writing. Unless the mood strikes me really hard or I have to sit in motel rooms while my best girl interviews with stodgy old guys (like me) for a teaching position. I promise, I'll finish the GEG and Kappa and Flashback. APR

Ring R&D Laboratory
March 2010

"Bartowski, any time now!" Casey spoke into his mic, trying to keep his balance on the narrow platform that was slowing retracting into the wall below the blast door they'd been trying to escape through. His partner was frantically keying in the sequence to open the blast door but there was still no power to the unit.

"Casey, the main power line into the service modules is fried and a 6 inch section of the heavy cabling is just…gone. I can't find anything to bridge it. There's nothing here I can use. How much time do you guys have? I can try and find a maintenance room or something to…"

"Thirty seconds, Bartowski. Then it won't matter. It's a six-story drop. Use your head, do something!" Chuck knew it was bad if Casey sounded panicky.

He made the only possible decision.

"I love you, Sarah. There's only one thing to use."

The pair heard the a crackling in their headsets and then the lights came back on, the platform stopped receding into the door frame and the keypad blinked, demanding an entry code.

"You did it, Chuck. We'll meet you in the van. I – I do too." She'd never said it before. She thought it a lot but never came right out and said it. He'd said it a lot. Lately, he seemed disappointed and even surly when she nodded or looked away, unable to say those three words he wanted to hear.

Casey smirked. Well, finally. He looked at his partner and then frowned. The moron should have come back with some girly sound, a squeal perhaps? "Bartowski? Bartowski, respond!"

The blast door slowly rose and then abruptly stopped as power died out as suddenly as it had been restored. The partners rolled under the gap into the hallway. It was a tight squeeze for Casey but he finally wiggled through. All he thought about was 'what if the door dropped?' It was a powerful motivator. There was no telling what other surprises this death trap might have.

"Walker, Chuck's not responding. Did you catch what he said?"

"There was nothing he could use to bridge the gap. The room was empty…Oh, God!"

She shouted his name into the mic as if she could prompt a response by the volume and panic in her voice.

They ran to the power room but it was too late. He'd grabbed the severed ends of the cable and used his body to bridge the gap, holding on long enough to get power to the service modules before losing consciousness.

And releasing his hold on the cable ends.

And dying.

The NSA medics got him breathing again on his own and bagged his burned hands and transported him to the hospital. Ellie was called and the cover was that John Casey and Chuck had been installing a server when it was hit by a power surge and Chuck was burned. It was quickly backed up by suitable entries in the various job logs for the Burbank Buy More.

Burbank General Hospital
Burbank, CA

Sarah stood in the doorway to his room. He wasn't allowed visitors unless they were masked and gowned and there wasn't anything she could do when she was in there anyway. He was unconscious and being prepped for surgery on his hands. Ellie had explained it but she was really too upset to comprehend most, OK, almost anything she said.

"Sarah, he's going to be fine. In a way it's a blessing he's unconscious. The pain from his burns would be horrible for him to bear. The neurologists are trying to figure out what's happening in that brain of his. He's got activity so there's no brain damage but we won't really know that for sure until he wakes up. He should be awake by this time tomorrow, I'm sure."

Sarah just nodded her head and worried her thumbnail. He looked so…frail and pale and she wanted him awake so she could tell him her secret since she hadn't had the guts to tell him over the comm unit.

Casey had reported the incident to General Beckman and he wasn't a bit surprised at the General's response.

"As soon as he regains consciousness, test him. Make sure he's still holding on to version 2. Now, report back to me via email daily. Have Agent Walker maintain a 'vigil' and then prepare for reassignment if the prognosis is poor or he doesn't respond to treatment. You will maintain a presence, use guilt as a reason, and perform due diligence. That is all."

She hung up and Casey cursed the woman out. 'Unfeeling' was the kindest adjective he used.

Skin grafts were performed and his hands appeared to be accepting them and his condition stabilized but he was still unconscious after six weeks. Sarah was ordered back to DC for reassignment. Her skills were too valuable to be wasted waiting for the host to recover. It wasn't going to happen.

"Well, partner, I never thought I'd say this to a CIA agent but I'll miss you. You were a good partner. I'll watch over him until I'm reassigned. I'll give you progress reports via email. You'll be back where you belong in no time at all."

She couldn't speak, just nodded her head. She didn't trust herself not to fall apart (again) in front of her ex-partner. She'd already done that daily for the past few days as reassignment loomed.

Ellie received a letter setting up a 'blind trust' in the amount of $300,000 established by the insurance company that 'covered' Buy More employees. She finally folded and had Chuck transferred to a long-term care facility (read 'nursing home' or 'hospice') for coma patients. It was the hardest thing she'd ever done in her life. She felt like she was turning her back on her brother but had no choice.

Casey was reassigned after three months. His skills were needed elsewhere. Thee was no point at all having an over watch on something that could best be described as a vegetable that breathed.

Two weeks and 3 days later, the sleeper awoke.

Ellie was called and got stopped twice by the CHP on her way upstate to Chuck's hospice. Both times she was told to keep it under 90 and let go. She obviously wasn't lying and had the medical credentials to back up her claim.

Mountain Home Long Term Care Facility
Carmel, CA

"Chuck, I'm so happy to see you're finally awake. Don't talk, sweetie. Just nod your head. I know you're confused and scared but it's going to be all right now. We'll get you home and into physical therapy and you'll be right as rain before you know it."

He 'remembered' parts of what had happened but nothing except vague images. He'd experienced those images and countless others again and again the entire time he'd been 'asleep'.

The doctors were thrilled to see Chuck go. Not that he was a bad patient. He was no different than the other sleepers and had required only minimal care.

He was one of the rare instances where a comatose patient actually 'awoke'. His doctor wrote up the discharge orders and handed them to an overworked charge clerk who pulled up Chuck's records and began entering the information when a Code Blue interrupted her work and she rushed to be of assistance. She closed Chuck's folder and put it on the pile and rushed to the ward.

While she was assisting a doctor, another clerk saw the pending entries and pulled up the next folder and entered the patient's date of death and disposition of the remains. The cause of death was 'systemic failure'. She finished her entry and then left the workstation to the returning clerk. Neither were aware of the error and neither one was paid enough to bother verifying the data.

An NSA analyst responsible for monitoring the condition of agents in medical facilities entered the hospice computer where 'Bartowski, C' was being treated and noted the date of death and disposition of the remains.

Insurance benefits were paid out to his next of kin and his file closed out and transferred to the inactive database. Dead agents were indeed inactive.

When Eleanor Bartowski received an insurance check for $100,000.00 she was confused but then remembered that Casey told her that Chuck was maxed out on the Buy More disability and other arrangements were being made. She assumed these were the results and endorsed the check over to her brother. It was his money.

Casa Bartowski
Burbank, CA

Chuck was plagued by things he couldn't understand. He just knew things. Strange and sometimes wonderful things but skills and traits and abilities he'd never had before. He also couldn't remember a damned thing that occurred after his birthday in 2007. Ellie told him it was both normal and expected. Those memories would return. He just needed patience and time.

"But Ellie, three years, almost three years! What happened to me during that time? This is bugging the crap out of me. What did I do for three years?"

He'd never mentioned Sarah. Not once. It was like he was ignoring her absence. She decided not to mention her to him. If he chose to handle her absence by ignoring her existence, so be it. It was better than mooning around pining for a 'Jill'. She was just so damned glad he was alive and back home.

Ellie had purged any signs of the presence of 'Sarah Walker' from their apartment before Chuck came home. A cleaner team couldn't have done better.

"Ellie, I think I need to see a shrink. Really. I'm having the most vivid dreams about stuff I can't possibly know about and I'm afraid the accident fried more than my hands." He worked his hands using dexterity and strengthening exercises while they talked. Feeling had returned and he was managing to run the entire sequence of dexterity and strength exercises every day. A very good thing. He just couldn't feel pain in his hands or arms, none at all. He still could feel by touch but pains such as shots or IV insertions went unfelt. 'A really good thing' from his point of view.

"Really? Well, you can afford it. Is it counseling or therapy or just need someone to talk to, little brother? I can't remember the last time you had a date and you haven't left the house since you got here. Try getting out and meeting people again. If things don't improve, I'll talk to someone in the Psych department for a referral."

Large Mart Plaza
Burbank, CA

Things did improve. A lot. He cautiously drove Ellie's car to the plaza and walked into Lou's. He saw her and had a brief moment of total disorientation but then he knew her. He knew everything about her. He knew they'd dated and that she hated him for something he couldn't quite remember.

She saw him and after a flicker of recognition and a huge smile, she walked over to him and grabbed him by the shirt collar and pulled him down to her level. "I heard you got hurt, Bartowski, and I'm glad to see the rumors are wrong. You're not a carrot in an institution. You're a welcome sight. C'mon, I'll make you our world famous 'Chuck' for old times' sake."

They dated 'exclusively' after the first month. After three months' time, Chuck moved in with her. The dreams hadn't stopped but she'd offered an astonishing solution: write them down and read them to her. Together maybe they could figure things out.

He wrote a long and rambling story that went all over the place but basically told the tale of a guy who hacked into a government database and learned things he shouldn't have. He got caught but someone smart figured they could use his skills and so they partnered him up with a pair of spies named…he couldn't remember their names or see their faces. It was frustrating. He knew he knew them but he couldn't 'see' them. Oh, but he could hear them just fine.

"Bartowski, you fucking moron, get over here!" Or "Chuck, damn it, stay in the van."

He knew the voices. He just couldn't see their faces or remember their names. He made names up for them. The man was Jackson Macy and the woman was Serena Cole. For some reason he hated the name Cole but figured if his subconscious suggested it, it would fit.

They were in bed and Chuck had finished his first 'dream chapter' and was listening to his naked little editor critique his work. He tried to concentrate but he was a guy and she was definitely a girl with nice and soft...

"Chuck, pay attention. You can play with them later. Concentrate." He grinned and she pulled the sheet up over her shoulder in an attempt at changing his perspective.

"Chuck, except for the fact that you ramble on and take forever to make a point, this is great stuff. You could break this up into chapters and add your next dream or two and have a damned novel ready for the publisher. This is great dialogue and interaction, honey. It's real and visceral but the nerd and the spy gal? Not possible. It's not believable at all but the rest is so real!" Ellie had begged her not to mention Sarah Walker to Chuck. It would just be a dagger in his heart since he couldn't remember any of the past years.

"You really think so, Lou? I mean, I don't mind you saying it's crap if it is. But those are the dreams and I don't want to change any of it. It just feels incomplete if I leave out the spy chick."

"Fine. Have it your way." She tossed the stapled pages onto the floor beside their bed. Dropping the sheet and smiling seductively, she leaned over him. "Go ahead, big boy. Play." She giggled and rolled onto him, reveling in what could only be termed 'foreplay' and anticipating the main event. They were good together.

Two weeks later

It turned out that Lou knew a guy who knew a guy who was a fledgling publisher. He was a failed writer (among other things but we'll get to those) but got things published for others. His shortcoming was that he didn't have the capital to launch a proper book sale.

She called the guy and then had Chuck email excerpts from his writing for the publisher to read over and tell him what he thought. They didn't hear a thing from him for a few weeks and Chuck just kept pounding out more 'dreamstuff' as they both laughingly called it and neither thought more of it. His outlook on life seemed more positive and his attitude was so much better. There were no more long introspective silences that used to scare her.

APR