Chuck vs the Rewind

by DarkLordHufflepuff

It's been five years since Chuck Bartowski graduated from Stanford and started working towards becoming a CIA Agent. He's done a lot of good since then, despite spending the last three years assigned to a cabin in Northern Alaska. But all of that changes when his old friend Bryce turns traitor and blows up a top secret project.

Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck or any of the characters in this story.

A/N: This is my first attempt at a Chuck fanfiction. It was conceptualized as an AU in which Chuck finished Stanford and joined the CIA. The beginning was inspired by the beginning of Frea O'Scanlin's fanfic 'What Fates Impose' and other aspects of the story were similarly inspired. I hope you all enjoy, and without further ado I present:

Chuck vs. the Rewind

Episode 1: Chuck vs. the Database

25 September, 2007

CIA Safe House 70.09 N, 149.06 W

Chuck Bartowski was awakened rather rudely by the incessant beeping of his alarm clock at six o'clock, just as he had been every morning for the last 1,024 days. His 1,025th day in the cabin had a couple key difference when compared to the other days, first he had a blinding headache, and second he was lying on the floor where he had apparently slid out of his desk chair the night before.

The beeping of his alarm clock certainly wasn't helping his headache so Chuck got to his feet as quickly as he could and shut off the alarm before he stumbled down the hall to the bathroom where he rooted around in the medicine cabinet for some Aspirin. It took him a few minutes to find the little bottle since he hadn't turned on the lights and there were far more bottles of pills in the cabinet than would be seen in most medicine cabinets, one of the perks of running a CIA Safe House was that there were always plenty of drugs on hand, from painkillers to antibiotics and antivirals. Most of the bottles had never been opened, and Chuck seriously doubted anyone would ever need some of it.

As he waited for the Aspirin to take effect he was glad that the sun still wouldn't rise for another hour and a half as he was certain the light would have been all but unbearable. The days were getting rapidly shorter, and by this time next month there wouldn't even be eight hours of sunlight. That was just one thing that Chuck had needed to adjust to since he had arrived here nearly three years ago. When he had arrived in December of 2004 the sun had already set nearly two weeks earlier and wouldn't rise again for more than a month.

His headache dealt with for the moment, Chuck set about getting himself ready for another day of solitude. He turned on the water heater, and while it set to work preparing enough water for his shower he shaved using cold water from the sink. After his shower he put on a pair of well-worn blue jeans a t-shirt and a heavy flannel shirt. He had no intention of going outside today, but Safe House Policy was to keep the thermostat set at 65 to keep from burning through propane too quickly. That was the one part of living in Alaska he had yet to adapt to, the cold. This far north the cold was a constant almost year round and there were only a handful of days when the temperature rose above 60 degrees. For a man who had spent the first 22 years of his life living in California Alaska was all but unbearable.

As he was finishing drying his short curly black hair Chuck was roused from his thoughts by beeping once again, this beeping was different than the beeping of his alarm clock though. Something had tripped the outermost proximity alarm. Acting on instinct Chuck immediately went to the control center of the Safe House. As he was putting on a white parka the beeping increased in tone and volume, the second alarm had been tripped, whatever was coming it was moving fast. Most animals would have taken three to four minutes to trip both alarms if they were traveling straight for the Safe House, but whatever was coming had tripped both in half that time. If whatever was coming didn't slow down he had less than two minutes before it would be right at his front door. A quick check of the display screen indicated that the first and second alarms had registered only a single contact, so whatever, or whomever, was coming was alone, and that fact gave Chuck some degree of comfort. Just then the last alarm was triggered, Chuck immediately grabbed the rifle hanging next to the control center door, slammed in a clip of ammunition and worked the bolt action to chamber a round before moving as quickly as the confined space of the cabin's interior would allow him to the front door.

When he opened the front door he brought the rifle up to his shoulder and began searching for whatever had tripped the alarms. He didn't have to look for very long before he spotted a single person walking toward the Safe House. The individual had clearly come on the snowmobile that was stopped about twenty yards from the front door. Chuck immediately began cataloging everything he could determine about the person who was currently approaching the Top Secret Safe House. The first thing he noticed was that he or she was of medium height, maybe a few inches short of six feet, he or she appeared to have a slim build, but it was difficult to be certain with the heavy white parka he or she was wearing. The next thing he noticed was the silver 9mm pistol the figure was carrying. Chuck immediately brought the rifle around to aim at the approaching stranger, but before he could say anything the figure reached up with its left hand to pull down its hood. He immediately lowered his rifle and clicked the safety on.

"Sarah," he called out, equal parts happy and surprised to see Sarah Walker letting her long blonde hair out of the confines of her parka's hood "what are you doing up here? When you called yesterday you said you wouldn't be coming until November." Without waiting for her response he turned around and walked back into the cabin "Hurry up and get inside, it's freezing out there." He told her as he leaned the rifle against the wall. When he heard the door close behind him he turned around, only to find himself face to face with the most terrifying thing he had ever seen in his life.

Sarah Walker was pointing her gun right at his face. "Chuck, we need to talk." Sarah said pointedly as she motioned with the gun for him to go into the cabin's kitchen.

Carefully, making slow and deliberate motions, Chuck raised his hands and turned around and walked into the kitchen. He turned back to face Sarah once he was all the way into the kitchen "What's this about, Sarah?" Chuck asked, failing to keep the note of panic out of his voice.

Sarah gestured for him to sit down in one of the kitchen chairs, and he immediately complied. "Last night Bryce Larkin went rogue and blew up a joint CIA NSA intelligence project." She said, pain evident in her eyes.

"And you want to know if I had something to do with it?" Chuck asked, barely keeping his voice under control, though his surprise was still evident. "I swear on my life Sarah, I didn't know anything, and if I had I would have reported it to someone. You can ask Bryce! Sarah you have to believe me!" Chuck implored.

Apparently that was enough to convince her of his innocence as Sarah immediately sat the pistol down on one of the kitchen counters. "Bryce is dead Chuck. He was shot trying to escape after he blew up the project." After letting the information sink in Sarah continued "Chuck, when was the last time you heard from Bryce?" She asked calmly.

It took Chuck a moment to answer, as his mind was still swimming, trying to come to terms with the idea that Bryce Larkin, his friend of nine years and former roommate, had become a traitor, and he had died for it. "Ummm, a week ago he called-" the words weren't even out of his mouth before he realized they were wrong as he finally remembered why he had woken up on the floor that morning "wait, no, yesterday, he sent me an email…"

24 September, 2007

CIA Safe House 70.09 N, 149.06 W

Chuck woke to the sound of his alarm clock like he did every morning. He immediately reached over to turn it off before getting up out of his bed. As he was making his way from the water heater to the bathroom he heard his satellite phone ringing in the cabin's office. He made his way to the office to answer the incoming call even though he was unsure who would be calling him first thing in the morning.

"Hello," he said into the phone as he let the call go through.

"How's my favorite nerd doing?" Sarah Walker's voice came through the phone speaker.

"A lot better now that I have someone to talk to." Chuck replied as a genuine smile crossed his face for the first time in weeks.

"That's good to hear Chuck," Sarah's voice responded "just wanted to call you and wish you a happy birthday. Did you get my care package?" Sarah had been sending him a care package every other month for two and a half years now, the care packages usually contained many of the comforts of home that he couldn't get his hands on in the general store twenty miles away.

"I did, I'm assuming the bottle of Johnny Walker is my birthday present?"

"I figured you might be getting tired of Jack Daniels."

"Well thank you, I really appreciate it."

"No problem Chuck, you totally deserve it after the help you gave us in Venezuela."

"It was no big deal, I was glad to help. Hopefully they'll assign someone else to this little frozen hellhole soon and I'll be able to come into the field to assist you and Bryce." Chuck said longingly.

"Well in the meantime I'm sure you'll be glad to know that barring a national emergency I'll be up there for Thanksgiving weekend. I don't know if Bryce will be able to make it but I'll be there."

"I look forward to it Sarah."

"Well in case I don't get a chance to call before then I'll see you in a couple months, let me know if you need me to pick anything up for you."

"I will, bye Sarah."

"Goodbye Chuck."

The day had passed relatively quickly, Chuck had spent most of it at his desk reading emails, looking through tech support requests from every CIA station within 1000 miles before sending off recommendations either to the station in question or to Langley when replacement equipment was required, or playing Call of Duty while he waited for new requests to come through. He had even spent an hour helping one of the guys from TechOps in Langley with some hacking work on a server in Serbia as payment for sending him a prototype video card for his computer a few months back.

Chuck had just finished heating up a microwave pizza for dinner, care of Sarah, and was about to put on one of the DVDs that Sarah had included in his latest care package when he heard the alert from his computer that he had a new email in his inbox. Chuck headed back to his room and sat back down at the computer and popped open his work email. He looked through it while munching on his pizza and was confused that none of the emails were new, so he switched over to his personal email, even though it shouldn't have given him an alert, and to his surprise there was indeed a new email from Bryce.

"Huh, finally remembered my birthday, buddy?" Chuck asked aloud. When he opened the email there wasn't a message, just an attachment. As he looked at it the dot zork extension on the file gave him a smile as he thought back to the hours he and Bryce had put into reprogramming the old text-based adventure game when they had been roommates in Stanford. When he opened the file a new window appeared with a line of white text against a black background.

"The terrible troll raises his sword." Chuck read aloud. He finished what was left of his pizza as he tried to decide how to respond. Finally he typed in 'attack troll with nasty knife' and hit enter. The instant he hit the enter key his screen went blank for an instant before it started to flash a long series of seemingly random and innocuous images. The moment Chuck saw the first image his whole body seemed to freeze and he was completely unable to move or even blink. The pictures continued to flash for what seemed like hours until finally the series reached an end and the computer simply shut itself off. Chuck didn't move consciously until his alarm clock went off the next morning, though by that time he had already slid out of his rolling desk chair.

25 September, 2007

CIA Safe House 70.09 N, 149.06 W

"The email was weird, it was just an attached file, at first I thought it was just an old zork file," Chuck explained, Sarah nodded so he knew that she understood the reference, she remembered Chuck and Bryce discussing the text-based computer game. "But then it started showing me all these pictures."

"Chuck did you see all of the pictures?" Sarah asked, cutting off any further explanation.

"Yeah, but what why does that matter?"

Sarah began pulling Chuck up out of his seat the moment he had had responded in the affirmative. "Because it changes everything, I don't have time to explain much, but we need to get you and your hard drive to Langley as quickly as possible."

"Wait, what was the plan before this?" Chuck asked as Sarah began pulling him toward his room.

"There's an NSA team on their way here to bring you to Washington, but Director Graham sent me here ahead of them to make sure you complied with them. We can't afford to wait around for them anymore though because if Bryce was working with anyone they might know about you and this facility, and if they know they could be here at any time. So, we need to run. Once we get you to Langley we'll sort everything else out." By this time Sarah was pushing Chuck into his room. "Pull all of your hard drives, assume the site has been burned. Where are the keys?"

Chuck immediately set to work opening his computer's casing "Are we taking the Sno-Cat or the Jeep?"

Sarah had to stop for a moment to decide, because there was significantly more to the question than simply what their mode of transportation would be. The Sno-Cat would be faster across open terrain and there was an airport less than twenty miles away. The Jeep on the other hand would get them across the open country to the highway easily enough and would be significantly better on the highway than the Sno-Cat. So the question was which way they would go, take the shorter, faster, but more obvious route that would leave them sitting in the nearest airport for a few hours waiting for a flight, or put more distance between themselves and the Safe House before considering taking a flight. In the end her decision was made simpler by two thoughts; one, if Bryce had been working with someone and those people caught up with them things would not end well, and two, while she faced death on a semi-regular basis there was no fucking way that Sarah Walker was going to die in an airport in Deadhorse Alaska.

"We'll take the Jeep."

"Keys are on a hook just inside the garage." Chuck told her without looking up from where he was disconnecting his hard drive. "GPS tracker inside the front passenger wheel well, and a remote shut-off attached to the battery." He continued, before she could ask her next question about any surprises the CIA may have installed on the Jeep.

"Once you've got the drives grab any supplies and IDs you've got on hand and join me in the garage." Sarah ordered him as she left him to his work.

Ten minutes later Chuck walked out into the garage with a cardboard box and a blue parka just as Sarah finished removing the shut-off and laying it neatly on a workbench, right next to the GPS tracker she had found exactly where Chuck had said it would be.

"Change into this." Chuck told Sarah as he handed her the parka. At her raised eyebrow he elaborated "Nobody wears a white parka unless their Special Ops. If we're going on the run you'll stick out like a sore thumb wearing that. Besides, you're not supposed to wear white after Labor Day." He concluded with a goofy grin.

Sarah gave an annoyed sigh as she quickly shucked her white parka before putting on the blue one Chuck had grabbed, but Chuck clearly recognized the slight difference in the sigh from her usual sigh of annoyance, as he only grinned wider. Normally when she was annoyed, usually with Bryce, her sigh was lower, closer to a growl, but this one was higher, breathy, and almost theatrical. It was the sigh she usually only ever used with him, usually when he countered her plan then explained why in a manner she couldn't refute. It was a nice bit of normalcy for them, suddenly they weren't running from unknown enemies for unknown reasons, now they were on just another mission, and Chuck was finally in the field, doing the job he had trained for before he had been shipped off to this frozen hell for nearly three years.

"Sarah, what is this all about?" Chuck finally asked as he climbed into the passenger seat of the late model Jeep Wrangler.

"Buckle up." Was her only response. Chuck complied but the moment his seat belt was fastened he fixed her with a look that clearly stated that he was still waiting for an answer. "What do you know about the Intersect?" She finally asked as she pulled the Jeep out of the garage.

"Not much," Chuck replied "just some chatter about a joint intelligence database. Supposedly designed to hold all the intelligence ever collected by both the CIA and the NSA."

"There was more to it than that though." Sarah told him as she stalled for time to decide how much to tell him. In the end she decided that he deserved to know as much as she could tell him. "The intersect held all of the intelligence ever collected and cross referenced it to look for imminent threats that neither the CIA nor the NSA could see coming. It was stored in the form of thousands of images encoded with all that data, designed to be uploaded directly into a human brain using subliminal image reception. The idea was that an agent could be given all of the information related to whatever mission he or she was assigned to and have perfect recall of that information in an instant. Last night Bryce broke into the secure room at the DNI where the Intersect was stored. He then downloaded the entire database before blowing up the Intersect. Before he could be stopped he sent a copy of the database to you. Now the only remaining copies of the Intersect database are on your hard drive… and in your head." When she finished her explanation she looked over at Chuck to see how he was taking all of this. He clearly wasn't taking it well, he was white as a sheet and his hands were starting to shake. "Chuck, are you okay?" She asked, unable to keep a hint of the worry she felt from seeping into her voice.

"That son of a bitch." was all Chuck said for a moment. Sarah had rarely heard Chuck swear, and never in reference to his friends. "When he called me a week ago he asked me to dig up the security specs on the DNI building. Told me it was a security test requested by Director Graham, even sent me a copy of the orders when I asked for them. He lied to me, tricked me into helping him commit treason, and then he dumps all of this in my lap."

Sarah felt her stomach drop, as if things couldn't have gotten more complicated. It was now more important than ever that they make it to Langley as quickly as possible.

25 September, 2007

Jeep Wrangler, Alaska 11 South

The black Jeep Wrangler sped down the empty highway, racing south as fast as was sanely possible. Chuck and Sarah had been on the highway for two hours after a thirty minute drive across the open country to the south-east of the Safe House. They were making good time too, thanks to the aftermarket modifications the CIA had installed, Sarah's excellent skill behind the wheel, and her total disregard for posted speed limits they had covered nearly three hundred miles already.

The ride had been almost completely silent since Chuck had told Sarah about Bryce's request for the DNI building security specs, not that Chuck had noticed, he had been busily working on the laptop he had kept in the Jeep's glove compartment. It was at this point that Sarah apparently decided that they were far enough from the Safe House that she didn't need to split her focus between driving and watching for incoming hostiles.

"What are you working on?" Sarah asked.

"Trying to get another look at the file Bryce sent me." Chuck told her as he closed the laptop and disconnected the hard drive he had taken from his computer in the Safe House.

"Learn anything?"

"Only that Bryce is a bigger bastard than I first thought." Chuck all but growled before lightening his tone to continue. "The email and file were more complex than I originally thought. There was a subscript in the email that caused my computer to give me an alert even though it was sent to my personal email rather than my Agency account. That isn't too strange in and of itself he could have had that set up years ago in case he ever needed to contact me while he was undercover and needed immediate support. Then I looked at the file, I originally thought he had simply attached the intersect database to the game file because it was the quickest security he could create when whatever he was doing went south. Attach the file to the database and no one would be able to access it unless they knew the appropriate response to continue the game. When I tried to look at the file though I saw that he had done more than just that though, he had totally rewritten the script. Upon responding correctly the game was told to open a directory that had been hidden in the file and then display every file in the directory before destroying them. Considering Bryce's level of programming knowledge it would have taken him days to design the changes, not the minutes he may have had during the break in."

"So he intended to send it to you all along?" Sarah clarified.

"It would certainly seem that way. At the very least I was his back-up plan if he couldn't get away. And he definitely intended for me to end up with the entire database downloaded into my head." Chuck said as he closed his eyes in frustration and leaned back in his seat. "So now I have all the government's secrets locked away in my head and one of my best friends has gone to considerable lengths to implicate me in treason. Hopefully we can get this all straightened out soon."

They sat in silence for twenty minutes before a rustling sound caught Chuck's attention. Looking over to Sarah he saw that she had managed to remove her parka without slowing the Jeep down more than ten miles per hour. Now that she had taken off her parka he could finally see what she was wearing. The tight, high-necked, maroon sweater seemed familiar to him. He had definitely seen her wear it before, and then it hit him. He knew when she had worn that sweater, and he had a pretty good idea of what it meant that she had worn that specific sweater to come bring him in. If it had been anyone else Chuck would have thought it was a coincidence, but not Sarah Walker. Sarah would remember, Sarah remembered just about everything, and Sarah always took plenty of time picking exactly what to bring on a mission.

"Chuck, what's wrong?" Apparently Sarah had noticed his reaction to her sweater.

Chuck took a deep calming breath before he turned fully in his seat to face Sarah. "Your sweater," he started. Chuck immediately saw the flash of worry in her eyes before she schooled her features into her normal cool demeanor. "It took me a moment, but I realized why it seemed familiar."

"Chuck…" Sarah tried to speak, but Chuck interrupted her.

"The last time I saw you in that sweater, was in January."

"Chuck, please…"

"I don't know how I didn't recognize it immediately. It's the sweater you were wearing that night… the night we almost…" Chuck found he couldn't finish his sentence, couldn't put words to what had happened, or almost happened, that night. No matter how much he had thought about what had happened during the intervening months he still couldn't define it, and he wasn't sure he wanted to. He had simply kept it in the back of his mind, using it as a motivation to do his best work, so that when his contract was up in a few months he'd be able to leverage his record into a field posting, specifically with Sarah.

"Chuck, let me explain…"

"I mean, holy crap, Sarah! You were going to play me. You were going to use my reaction to the memory of that night to manipulate me, to get me to do what you said. How could you do that?" Chuck realized that he had let his guard slip completely, but at the moment he didn't particularly care.

"I couldn't Chuck!" Sarah's voice cut clean through his thoughts. "I put on the sweater in my apartment thinking it would give me an edge in dealing with you, if nothing else it might keep you calm. I hadn't even started my car before I started to think that it was a mistake, but it was already too late. The entire flight to Alaska I was trying to decide what to do, even as I was riding out to the cabin I was trying to convince myself that keeping you from doing anything stupid was important enough to do what I had planned. But the moment you came outside, you were so excited to see me, just like every other time I came up here…"

Sarah took a deep breath before she could continue, and Chuck could see how hard this was for her to say, even as she tried to focus on the road and maintain her game face. "At that moment I realized that one of two things was true, either you were still the same Chuck Bartowski I met two and a half years ago, or you were a traitor who had been lying to me for god knows how long. If you were still the same Chuck I knew I couldn't bring myself to play with your head like that, and if you were a traitor I wouldn't have been able to stop myself from beating you into unconsciousness."

Chuck saw something in Sarah's eyes that he had never seen in her before, vulnerability. Maybe it was the result of learning that one of her teammates was a traitor. Maybe it was having to admit that Chuck had somehow gotten under her skin to the point where she couldn't even contemplate trying to manipulate him. Maybe it was exhaustion, she probably hadn't slept the night before, and while Chuck knew that Sarah could go as long as three days without sleep before her performance was adversely effected she had never been this emotionally involved any time that she had gone without sleep on a mission. Maybe it was all of the above, but whatever it was Chuck knew that what Sarah had just said was the unvarnished truth. While some field agents might be concerned about working with an agent who had just reacted like Sarah had it actually made Chuck feel safer than he had since Sarah had pointed a gun in his face three hours earlier, because now he knew that he could trust her. She wasn't doing this for herself, she wasn't trying to prove that she had nothing to do with Bryce's plan, and she certainly wasn't working with Bryce toward some nefarious end. She was doing this to protect him, the only way she knew how. Just like he had protected her so many times, even if it was from thousands of miles away.

Chuck reached out and touched Sarah's arm, when she turned her head to face him he looked her right in the eyes "Okay, I trust you." Sarah's features immediately softened so Chuck decided that he should probably move the conversation on to something more pressing "So what exactly is the plan from here?"

"We cross into Canada and then back into the States, then we either head for a major city and catch a flight or drive straight on to Langley. There are pros and cons to both choices but committing to either course of action makes us predictable. The most important thing is that we get ourselves to Langley, or everyone will assume we were trying to escape from the government and we'll have a hell of a time proving otherwise. For now though we just need to focus on the border crossing, what do you have in the way of passports?"

"Just my civilian passport and my Agency issued cover."

"Both of those will probably be flagged for detainment at the border the moment they realize we ran." Sarah said with her brow furrowed. "Alright, my white parka is in the back seat. In one of the inside pockets is a pair of passports."

Chuck immediately turned around in his seat and began rummaging through the pockets of the parka. The passports were easy enough to find and as Chuck settled back into his seat he took a look at them "Charles and Sarah Bennet?" he asked out loud.

"Oh yeah, probably should have mentioned that I finally managed to get you transferred to field work. I was going to tell you when I came up for Thanksgiving." Sarah said flashing him a small smile.

"And our cover is a married couple because…?" Chuck asked with a sly grin.

"Purely practical Chuck. It was supposed to be you, me, and Bryce, and Bryce was better suited to handling a solo cover." Sarah explained.

"And you were getting tired of having to sleep on the floor."

"That only happened twice." Sarah told Chuck with a glare. Her response caused Chuck to shoot her a big grin. Bryce had at one point tried expand his working relationship with Sarah and things had gotten rather tense for a while when Sarah had turned him down. Having to share one bed hotel rooms as part of their cover certainly hadn't helped. Neither had Bryce's refusal to be a gentleman and take the floor in response to Sarah's 'issues' over sharing the bed with him after he had made a pass at her. That had been two years ago, but Chuck still liked to bring it up, mostly to rub it in Bryce's face that the suave and charming Bryce Larkin who had been able to get any girl he wanted at Stanford had struck out with Sarah.

"Back to the passports though. The Bennets shouldn't be on record yet since they haven't gone active yet, but they will still probably trip an alarm somewhere when we cross into Canada, so we'll need to be quick about getting back into America." Sarah said, getting them both back on focus.

"If we fill up both the main and reserve tanks before crossing the border we should be able to make it all the way to Seattle before stopping for gas." Chuck supplied.

"Okay, that's what we'll do then. When this is over though, if they ever let you out of a secure housing facility the first thing we are doing is getting you an off-book cover." Sarah told Chuck.

Chuck felt his heart skip a beat at Sarah's words. Secure housing? That was just a nice way of saying stick you in a bunker in the middle of nowhere. "Sarah, is that really a possibility? That they would lock me away?" Chuck asked, failing horribly at keeping his fear out of his voice. Chuck tried to focus on calming himself down but his hands were shaking and his breathing was shallow and erratic and the more he thought about being locked away in a windowless room for the rest of his life the worse it got.

"Chuck," Sarah said, reaching over to take one of his hands in her own and Chuck immediately felt himself begin to calm. "I'm not going to lie to you, even if they believe that we weren't working with Bryce it is still possible that they'll decide that the safest course of action will be to keep you in protective custody, but I will do everything I can to make sure that doesn't happen Chuck."

"Okay, but I know where we need to go now to catch a flight to Washington."

25 September, 2007

Chevy Escalade, Alaska 11 South

Major John Casey was seated in the passenger seat of the black, government issued SUV as he looked over the file of Charles Irving Bartowski, CIA Agent. The file painted an interesting picture and the more of it Casey read the more he came to a simple conclusion: either Charles Bartowski was a traitor or a patriot. There simply seemed like there could be no middle ground it seemed.

Bartowski had attended Stanford and graduated with high honors with a degree in electrical engineering. While attending Stanford one of his professors had recruited him for the CIA. Both the professor's name and the reason for his recruitment had been redacted from the file that Casey was looking at, but that was a minor detail. With Bartowski's skill set TechOps would seem to be the perfect fit for him, but instead he had requested to join Field Agent training at the Farm. In order to qualify for the Farm Bartowski had joined the Air Force on the recommendation of his professor. After six months of OCS and Flight School First Lieutenant Charles Bartowski had spent nine months flying medevac choppers in Afghanistan.

After fifteen months in the Air Force Bartowski had been promoted to the rank of Captain and moved to Air Force Reserves. Once stateside again he had begun training as a Field Agent. He had apparently completed training, though notes attached to the file suggested that he had barely obtained passing scores in certain key exams, but as the training file was not part of the documents he had been given he didn't know for certain which exams.

Once he was out of training he had been assigned to a series of individual field missions, but because of his original skill set he had been pigeonholed into the role of on-site tech support for field teams. He had never actually seen any action as an Agent and then suddenly he gets assigned to run a CIA Safe House in Northern Alaska. Even in what should have been a dead-end assignment Bartowski had somehow excelled. He had taken on further responsibility, becoming the primary Tech Support for all of the CIA operations within an eight hour chopper flight from the Safe House. He had also done work for TechOps when his own workload was low and had functioned as remote Support for multiple field operations, including a few for the NSA and the DEA. Despite multiple requests to be transferred back to field work Bartowski had been kept in his position. His continued level of excellence made things pretty clear, either he was a patriot who wouldn't let a crap assignment stop him from doing his best to serve his country, or he had been trying for years to dig himself out of the hole he had been stuck in and became disillusioned with the Agency he worked for.

Most importantly for Casey though was the work he had done with Agents Walker and Larkin. After four months in Alaska Bartowski had begun doing Operations Support for Larkin and Walker and had played at least some role in every mission the two Agents had completed since then. Agent Walker's mission reports often referred to Bartowski as a third member of the team and tended to highlight his contributions to successful missions while she attributed most failures to the fact that the team was limited by one of its members being thousands of miles away. The fact that Walker had spent every day of leave time she had accrued during the last two and a half years in Alaska suggested that they were significantly more than teammates. CIA Director Graham insisted that Walker had not been involved with Larkin's plan to destroy the Intersect, and while Casey had his doubts about the Directors objectivity it was clear that Walker and Bartowski were definitely on the same side. Which side that was would be determined when Casey finally caught up to them.

Despite the holes in Casey's understanding of Bartowski he felt he had a general understanding of the situation. When Walker had arrived at the Safe House earlier today she and Bartowski had gone on the run. Their reasons for running were inconsequential, Bartowski and Walker had either been involved with Larkin or they felt that some external threat had required them to go off book. Whatever their reasons Casey knew that his only chance to catch them was to get ahead of them, Walker was an excellent agent and would have no trouble disappearing completely. So the only option available was to find where they would need to go before dropping off the grid completely. Casey was pretty sure he had found exactly what he was looking for.

Bartowski's only known family was an older sister who lived in the Los Angeles area. Both Bartowski parents had vanished without a trace before either of the kids had finished High School. Phone records from the Safe House showed that Bartowski had remained in regular contact with his sister. If he was going to contact anyone it would be the sister, and Casey was willing to bet he would do so in person.

25 September, 2007

Jeep Wrangler, Alaska 11 South

"Chuck it's a bad idea." Sarah said as she realized exactly what Chuck had in mind.

"I know that Sarah, but if there's even a possibility that I might end up locked away… I can't do that without saying good bye to Ellie." Chuck explained pleadingly "I can't just disappear without a trace, not after my parents did that to us. Ellie can't have that happen to her again, it would destroy her." Sarah was beginning to fold under Chuck's pleas, and perhaps Chuck had seen that as he began to lay out a more logical reason to head to Los Angeles. "LA is the best place for us to get out of in a hurry too. We could get a flight out of LAX or Burbank or Long Beach, even Santa Ana if we need to get further from LA. Besides if all else fails I can get us on a military transport out of Edwards."

Sarah had to admit that he had a point about LA being the perfect place to catch a flight. They could book flights under different aliases at different airports and then catch a transport from Edwards Air Force Base to Andrews Air Force Base. The NSA would know about the flights and would probably be waiting for them at Dulles, but if they went to Andrews instead they could slip past the NSA and be inside the CIA before anyone realized they were on the East Coast.

"Okay, we'll head for LA, but when we get there if I say it's too dangerous to meet with Ellie you don't argue. Got it?" Sarah finally relented.

The car was silent for nearly an hour before Sarah started to feel the effects of her lack of sleep. She had been on the move since she had received a call from Director Graham late the night before telling her that Bryce Larkin had emailed the Intersect to Chuck. It had taken her nearly an hour to convince Graham that she was best suited to bring Chuck in without a fight. The decision to send her to Alaska ahead of the NSA team had led to a late night flight to the airport in Deadhorse where she had picked up a CIA snowmobile from a supply cache. All told she hadn't slept in twenty-eight hours, and that combined with the emotional exhaustion of learning that Bryce had been a traitor was starting to catch up with her.

Sarah decided to turn on the radio to give herself something to listen to so she wouldn't fall asleep. After twiddling with the dial for a minute she settled on a talk radio station. Twenty minutes later a news story came on about General Stanfield's visit to Los Angeles scheduled for the next few days.

"The General is expected to arrive later today." The voice of the newsreader claimed.

"He's already in town." Chuck contradicted.

"What?" Sarah asked, she was surprised to hear Chuck say anything as he had gone back to working on the computer.

"Stanfield's been in LA for a couple of days. His security people like to get him places at least 48 hours ahead of schedule to get him settled in and secure before anyone starts looking for him." Chuck elaborated.

"How do you know that?"

"Dunno, the radio mentioned Stanfield's arrival, and then suddenly the information was just there." Chuck explained, his face scrunched up in thought.

Sarah quickly realized the only plausible explanation for Chuck's sudden insight was the massive database now residing in his brain. "It must be the Intersect starting to interact with your brain. Any headache, nausea, or fatigue?" She asked, listing off some of the possible symptoms she had been told to look for if Chuck had accidentally downloaded the Intersect. When she had been sent to bring Chuck in the possibility had seemed remote as the concept of a Human Intersect was still months away from preliminary testing. Clearly that fact hadn't stopped Bryce from intentionally downloading it into Chuck.

"Um, no…" Chuck replied uncertainly. "Just a little light-headedness when it happened."

26 September, 2007

Jeep Wrangler, Interstate 5 South

"Okay Chuck, you can meet with your sister, but we only have a few minutes and we can't meet her at her apartment or at her job." Sarah told Chuck as they passed a sign indicating that they 10 miles from Los Angeles.

Chuck was moderately impressed that they had made it to LA as quickly as they had. According to the internet the trip should have taken nearly three days of non-stop driving, but by disregarding speed-limits, avoiding high traffic sections of highway, and occasionally cutting across open country they had managed to cut that time in half. True they hadn't stopped more than necessary for fuel and food, their longest stop had been fifteen minutes in Seattle when Sarah had picked up a change of clothes for both of them and Chuck had bought Chinese take-out for dinner.

Now that Sarah had agreed to let him meet with his sister before Chuck began making plans to ensure that this stop wouldn't backfire on them. After ten minutes of sitting in traffic Chuck had an idea. "Sarah, who's leading the NSA team that was supposed to take me in?" He asked as he began booting up his laptop, glad that he had kept an extra laptop battery in the Jeep since the original battery had given out on him around the Washington-Oregon border.

"Major John Casey, why?"

"If I can pull his phone number from the NSA servers I can use his cellphone to track his location." Chuck explained as he hooked a portable satellite antenna to his laptop.

"Won't they be able to track you if you break into their servers?" Sarah asked without taking her eyes off the road.

"No, I'll be sending a bot to break into their personnel files. If they even notice the attack they'll only be able to track it back to a server farm in the Ukraine. The server farm is privately run by some very discreet people, and even if the NSA already knows about it the most they'll learn is that someone from the CIA was behind the intrusion." Chuck explained, trying to sound more confident than he really was. Sure he had done something similar a few times to gain access to secure files, but he had never tried to break into US Government files without authorization before.

Ten minutes after he had sent the bot Chuck logged into the Ukrainian server farm and found that the bot had come through for him. Skimming the file Chuck found Major Casey's phone number and typed it into a cell tracking program on his laptop.

"Crap," Chuck swore as he got back the results "he's at the Burbank Airport."

"I guess he thought we'd use the Bennet cover again after we got through Canada without any trouble." Sarah said, clearly a little worried that their pursuers were so close.

Chuck really shouldn't have been that surprised that Casey was in LA. They had booked flights out of LAX, Burbank and Long Beach under different covers, using their real names for the flight out of LAX, an official CIA cover for the flight from Long Beach and Charles and Sarah Bennet for the Burbank flight. Since all three flights were scheduled to arrive at Dulles airport at roughly the same time they had thought the NSA would move their focus to catching them on their arrival, but it had always been a possibility that they would try to catch them before they got on a plane.

"We should be fine, I'll set my phone to give me an alert if Casey gets within two miles of us. We should be able to slip away with that much warning and still be able to catch our flight." Chuck finally said.

Thirty minutes later Chuck and Sarah were walking out of the alley where they had parked the Jeep. The alley was dimly lit and provided excellent cover for the Jeep and it also ran behind the coffee shop where they were going to meet Chuck's sister Ellie in a few minutes time. As they stepped onto the street Chuck froze up. The street was well lit and very busy. As he looked around he saw hundreds of people, walking along, standing around, sitting in restaurants, or any of a dozen other things. In his first visual sweep he saw more people than had lived within fifty miles of the Alaskan Safe House. Then he realized something, any of these people could be NSA Agents, or they could have been working with Bryce. If even one of them was after him Chuck would have no way of picking them out of this mass of people. His hands began to shake uncontrollably as he stood there rooted to the spot. Sarah had continued walking but turned around after a few steps and looked at him. She immediately walked back and took one of his shaking hands in her own. Chuck immediately began to calm down, he wasn't alone here, he had Sarah and she wouldn't let anything happen to him.

"Okay, remember you work at Forward Edge Technology in Chicago in marketing." Chuck reminded Sarah as he sat down at a table in the back of the coffee shop. This was the third time he had reminded her since he had set up the meeting with his sister, but Chuck was more than a little nervous about this meeting. "I'll try to keep the conversation off you, but I doubt I'll be completely successful, so be ready to face at least a little bit of an interrogation." He kept fidgeting with the collar of the dark blue dress shirt that Sarah had bought him in Seattle.

"Why would your sister want to interrogate me when she's seeing you in person for the first time in three years?" Sarah asked.

"Because you are one of the few people I talk about when I talk to her about my cover job. She's convinced that we're dating, and introducing you like this will pretty much confirm it in her eyes." Chuck explained, fighting hard not to blush, though he was pretty sure he had failed miserably.

Sarah bit her lip and barely contained a chuckle at his embarrassment "I'll try my best not to give her any ideas Chuck."

At that moment Chuck saw his sister enter the coffee shop. He immediately stood from the table, but before he could begin to make his way to her she had already made it halfway across the shop so Chuck figured it would be better to just stay put and let her come to them.

"Chuck, it's so good to see you."

"It's great to see you too Ellie." Chuck said as he pulled his sister into a hug. "We were in town for a couple of meetings, but we didn't think there'd be any down time before we had to fly out. But our last meeting ended early, and the flight back to Chicago doesn't leave for a while so I figured I could see you before heading back, even if only for a few minutes."

"Well I'm glad you called Chuck, I've really missed you." Ellie said as she hugged him back. "And who is this?" Ellie asked as she pulled back, noticing Sarah for the first time.

"Oh, this is Sarah, my friend from work." Chuck said nervously.

"It's nice to finally meet you Ellie, Chuck has told me so much about you." Sarah said, standing up and giving Ellie a big smile.

"So this is Sarah." Ellie said, giving Sarah an appraising look.

"How's Captain Awesome doing?" Chuck asked quickly.

"Devon is doing fine." Ellie replied with a glare, emphasizing her boyfriend's actual name. Chuck had to smother his smile, he had known using that nickname would distract his sister from Sarah. "He had to work a late shift at the hospital or he would be here too, but he wanted me to say hi for him."

26 September, 2007

Burbank Airport

Casey was getting tired of waiting. When he had been informed that Walker and Bartowski had apparently booked multiple flights out of the LA area Casey felt that his guess about their destination had been confirmed. Based on that he had felt confident that the CIA Agents would be taking the flight from Burbank, first because it was booked under the aliases they had used getting through Canada, and second because it was the airport closest to the sister's apartment.

So far they hadn't showed. The flight was scheduled to depart in an hour and if Walker and Bartowski didn't get to the airport soon they would miss the flight. Of course that was assuming they hadn't already made it into the airport. Casey's musings were cut short when his cellphone began to ring.

"Casey." He said briskly into the phone.

"You were right Sir, Bartowski contacted his sister. He and Walker are with her in a coffee shop right now."

"Keep an eye on them. I'm on my way, do not approach until I get there."

26 September, 2007

Coffee Shop, Los Angeles

Chuck was glad that he had gotten this chance to see his sister, but he knew that it would have to end soon. Chuck's phone buzzed against his hip, apparently they would be leaving sooner than he thought. Chuck gave Sarah a significant look and she nodded almost imperceptibly before she looked at her own phone.

"Oh no, Chuck we need to get going or we'll miss our flight." Sarah said as she stood up. "It was really great to meet you Ellie."

"Alright, Ellie it was really good seeing you again." Chuck said as he gave his sister a hug goodbye, a part of him wondering if he would ever see her again.

"Do you think you'll be in town again soon?" Ellie asked, her voice full of hope.

As much as Chuck wanted to tell her the truth, that this was quite possibly a final goodbye, he couldn't bring himself to do it. "I don't know, things at work are kind of up in the air. I'll give you a call when things settle down. Bye Ellie."

"Bye Chuck."

Sarah was dragging Chuck out through the front door when a new complication was added to an already difficult day. When Chuck looked down he saw a stack of newspapers next to the door. On the front page was a picture of General Stanfield, and when Chuck looked at it the light-headed feeling he had experienced the day before returned and a series of images flashed across his vision. General Stanfield, a hotel, a schedule, a blonde man, the site of an explosion in Eastern Europe.

"Sarah, we need to hurry." Chuck said as he sped up his pace, practically running for the Jeep. As soon as they were both in and had their doors closed Chuck explained the newest problem in their plan "There's a Serbian bomb maker in town who's been hired to assassinate General Stanfield. The only shot he'll have is during the General's speech at the hotel tonight, which is starting any minute now."

Sarah started the Jeep and sped out of the alley "Give me directions to the hotel. What are our chances of getting there without running into Casey and the NSA?"

Chuck pulled up the tracking app on his laptop "Swiftly approaching zero. Take the next left. Casey is between us and the hotel and we don't have time to try getting away from him. And now he's moving to intercept us."

As Chuck looked up from the laptop Sarah raced through an intersection. When he looked to the right he saw a black Escalade without plates just as it mounted the curb to make the turn and get in right behind them. He looked back at the tracking data on his laptop "And that's him right behind us."

Another Escalade turned onto the street and pulled up right alongside them. The NSA was trying to box them in and force them to stop. "Shit, we don't have time for this." Sarah swore under her breath.

Chuck silently agreed with her. He was certain that Sarah would be able to get them away from the NSA team, but in the time that took the bomb would probably go off. Chuck realized that getting to Langley as quickly as possible was vital, but the bomb was a more immediate concern. So Chuck pulled out his phone and gambled that Major Casey would agree with him as he punched in the same phone number he had been tracking since he arrived in LA.

"Major John Casey?" Chuck asked as soon as the phone call connected.

"Yes." A gruff voice answered

"This is Agent Charles Bartowski of the CIA, I understand you've been looking for me."

"I've found you more like."

"True enough since you're in the car right behind me. While Agent Walker and I could easily lead you on a merry chase through the streets of LA we don't really have time for that."

"And why is that?"

"Because there is a bomb that is going to go off sometime in the next few minutes and it will kill General Stanfield and hundreds of innocents unless we stop it."

"Why should I believe you?"

"Because if you stop trying to run us off the road we'll lead you directly to the bomb. And once the threat has been dealt with Agent Walker and I will surrender ourselves into your custody for transport to D.C." Chuck said as he looked over to gauge Sarah's reaction. Sarah's face was drawn with worry, clearly she didn't like how this was shaping up, but they were running out of options.

"Fine lead the way, but how do you know about the bomb?"

"The database in my brain told me about it."

"If the Intersect figured this out how are you the only one who knows about it?"

"Because apparently whoever was running the Intersect wasn't asking the right questions."

"Fine, how do you plan on handling the bomb?"

"Have three of your men ready to go after the bomb maker, if I see him I'll point him out to you. The rest of your men should focus on evacuating the hotel while I try to find the bomb."

"I'm coming with you." Sarah and Casey both said simultaneously.

"Alright." Chuck said into the phone while nodding to Sarah. "Oh Major, just out of curiosity, did you have all three airports staked out or just Burbank?"

Casey's only response to the question was to growl before hanging up.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Sarah asked as she continued driving toward the hotel.

"No, I'm not sure, but I am sure that I'm not going to let innocent people get hurt so I can turn myself in on my terms." Chuck said as he set his face in a determined expression.

As Chuck led the way into the hotel lobby most of the NSA team broke away to start evacuating civilians in an orderly fashion. This left Chuck to lead Sarah, Casey, and three NSA Agents to the ballroom where the General was giving his speech. Chuck did a sweep of the room as soon as he entered through the double doors. He quickly spotted the Serbian he had seen when the Intersect had warned him about the bomb. He gestured toward the bomb maker, who was dressed as a waiter and was currently pushing a serving cart with a silver cover on it. As soon as the three Agents began moving toward him though the man bolted for the door and the Agents gave chase. Meanwhile Chuck, Sarah, and Casey rushed over to the serving cart.

As soon as Chuck opened the cover on the cart he began analyzing the situation out loud. "Okay, our bomb maker clearly decided to go for obscurity and redundancy to counter attempts to disarm. The laptop has five detonators attached and disconnecting one of them will most likely set the others off."

"Don't really need the running commentary Bartowski." Casey growled.

"It's more for my benefit than yours Major Casey." Chuck said as he continued looking at the bomb sitting in front of him.

"What do you even know about bombs?" Casey asked.

"Kind of a self-taught expert."

"Self-taught?" Casey growled suspiciously.

"He gets bored." Sarah explained for Chuck "Can you deal with the bomb Chuck?"

"Yeah. As I was saying we can't disconnect the detonators from the computer and there are too many blasting caps to dismantle it in the five minutes we have according to the timer. That means we'll need to crash the computer since I doubt our Serbian friend was nice enough to just let us shut it down. I don't have the time to write enough code to crash it so I'll need to find something…" Chuck had a flash of inspiration. He immediately pulled up an internet browser.

"Why are you surfing for Russian porn?" Casey asked looking over Chuck's shoulder.

Chuck stopped himself from asking Casey how he recognized the website and instead launched into an explanation "Three weeks ago TechOps asked me to examine a virus that was attached to all the videos featuring Russian porn-star Irene Demova. They wanted to know if the FSB had a hand in making the virus, but that's not important. What is important is that the virus is currently unstoppable and extremely nasty." Chuck said as he watched the virus do its work, killing the computer completely with thirty eight seconds to spare. "And we're done here." Chuck said as he stood up straight.

"So was the FSB involved?" Sarah asked as they stood in front of the hotel waiting for Casey to get reports from the rest of his team.

"Huh?"

"With the virus?"

"Oh, no. It was some fifteen year-old punk from Saint Petersburg."

"Alright we're done here. My guys caught the Serb and LAPD is on the way to handle the scene." Casey growled.

"Would you look at that Sarah, we aren't even going to miss our flight." Chuck said as he checked his watch.

"Bartowski, your last flight left ten minutes ago. And even if it hadn't you and your girlfriend certainly wouldn't be getting on it."

"First, I may not understand much about women, but as far as I know Sarah isn't my girlfriend." Chuck said looking to Sarah for confirmation on this point. She just rolled her eyes. "Just checking. And second, don't be silly Casey, we weren't going to be on any of those flights. There's a cargo flight leaving Edwards for Andrews in an hour. If we leave now we can still make the flight and meet with the bosses first thing in the morning. I just need to grab some things from the Jeep."

An hour and a half later Chuck and Sarah were seated next to each other in the back of a C-130 cargo plane. As it leveled off Chuck reached into the bag he had put all the stuff he had brought with him from Alaska in. As he pulled out the bottle of Johnny Walker that Sarah had given him for his birthday he caught the attention of the half-dozen NSA Agents riding with them.

"I figure we all deserve a drink after the last couple of days." Chuck explained as he proceeded to pull out a stack of red plastic cups.

A/N: Hope you all enjoyed the first episode. The next chapter will go into more of Chuck's history and examine some of the events of the last five years since Chuck graduated while also moving the story forward. Most chapters will coincide with an episode of the show, at least at the beginning, I may however skip, rearrange, or add chapters. As things move forward major events will start to change, some for the better, and some for the worse.