A/N Hey! I don't really have that much to say minus a quick response. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed and happy reading!

Ll: Thanks! And I totally understand. Life is just the pits sometimes for Chuck.. especially when it comes to him actually succeeding in life! Lol. Hope you enjoy the next chapter!

RECAP

"Sarah, wake up!" Chuck shook Sarah, trying to get a response from her. Panic engulfed him. He couldn't lose her, not like this. He jumped up and grabbed his cell phone, pressing speed dial #4.

"This is Dr. Woodcomb," Devon answered in his official-hospital voice.

Chuck was on the verge of a breakdown, but he managed to choke out, "Hey, bro, I need your awesomeness."

Chapter 4

Waiting for Captain Awesome to arrive was the longest fifteen minutes of Chuck's life. Fearing that he might hurt Sarah more, he had carefully moved her to the recovery position on the floor and covered her with a blanket. Devon had said not to do anything else until he got there.

Devon had actually sounded pretty calm when Chuck hung up. He hadn't dropped the phone, cussed Chuck out, or even made any weird noises as Chuck had explained the details to his brother-in-law.

"Devon, this is going to sound really weird, but Sarah is at my house.."

He was interrupted by Devon's, "Awesome! I knew she'd come back. It's a Bartowski thing."

Chuck impatiently continued, "She's here, but she's in shock from a gunshot wound, and I can't take her to a hospital. Look, can I explain it when you get here?" Chuck managed to rush out in one breath.

"Dude, bro, two words: gunshot wound. Are you serious? You're not bringing her in?"

"She specifically said that I couldn't. Look, you know how I used to always be gone with Sarah and Casey? It has a lot to do with that. Just… can you help or not?"

"Chuck, you can be a serious dork. You need to call an ambulance…"

"NO! Do I need to ask Ellie? Because I'm sure she can help if you can't," Chuck bluffed. He really didn't want to involve his sister. She wasn't awesome enough to handle something like this.

"Give me one good reason, other than she 'can't go to the hospital' that I shouldn't call an ambulance right now."

Chuck paused on the other line. On the one hand, it would be nice to have someone in his family know about his secret. On the other hand, he was pretty sure Beckman would kill him if she ever found out. Screw Beckman.

Taking a deep breath, Chuck blurted out, "Sarah and I are both CIA agents; Sarah more so than me right now, but that's beside the point. If she goes to a hospital, she'll blow her cover and who knows what would happen after that. Please, Devon, please be awesome and don't freak out."

A few moments passed."Devon?" Chuck asked. He was afraid his brother-in-law might have flipped on him.

"I'm coming."

Chuck had finally quit pacing and sat down next to Sarah. She was still breathing, and the blood flow had slowed to a trickle. That was good, right?

He mulled over what he had learned from Sarah. She was under-cover; she had been captured, and now she was at his house. He still had no idea how she had gotten to his house, who her partner was, who the new asset was, or why the man who still haunted his dreams had said she was in love with someone else. Sarah was here, with him. Didn't that mean that she still loved him?

Chuck did not like being clueless.

Chuck heard the front door slam shut and Devon's footsteps pound up the stairs with a huge backpack overflowing with medical supplies trailing behind him. Turning around, he saw his brother-in-law's flushed face stare at him then at Sarah.

It took him a few minutes for Devon to compose himself, but he soon winked at Chuck and said, "CIA? Awesome, bro. Totally awesome." He went to Sarah and checked her vitals.

"Man, your girlfriend is one tough chick. She's got to be in some serious pain," Devon said as he injected Sarah with some morphine. He cleaned the gunshot area, grabbed a medical instrument that looked like tweezers and started towards Sarah's arm. Chuck muffled a groan.

"You don't have to watch, you know." Chuck took that as an invitation to get up and leave the room before he fainted. Needles were bad enough; the tweezer thing looked ten times worse.

Chuck sat in the hallway and waited for Devon to finish up. Not even a half-hour later, Devon called him back in.

"So I'm not too sure what we're going to tell Ellie.." he began. "I was thinking along the lines of she was like this when she showed up?"

Chuck grinned. "I'm sure we can come up with something. Listen, I really owe you one. Your country owes you…"

Devon held up a hand. "Need to know only. Awesome as it is that you're going to stop bumming around the house, I really need to get back to the hospital. Surgery, you know? I'll have my pager if anything should happen."

He paused before he left the room and then added, "You should clean up your room." Devon smacked Chuck on the back and hurried back to work.

Chuck surveyed his room. The lamp was shattered; there was blood all over the floor, and Devon's surgical tools were scattered elsewhere. The only good thing was Sarah asleep in his bed. Sure she was unconscious, but that was a minor detail. She was there. There was hope that he could clean up the mess.

Sarah's head was foggy as she came back to the real world. Without opening her eyes, she took in her surroundings. She was on something soft, and she was warm. She started to move, but stopped when she felt pain shoot up her arm.

That wasn't there before.

On closer examination, she felt a sling around her neck. She internally groaned as she fought to remember what happened. Was she in a hospital? It felt like she was in a hospital gown, but on closer inspection, she concluded it was an over-sized t-shirt.

It sure didn't smell like a hospital. It smelled like cologne and pizza. She strained her ears to hear anything abnormal. Was that voice.. Chuck?

"Yes, General, I know where their location is… No, I don't plan on invading on my own, I'm not crazy. They have crocodiles!... She's unconscious, but recovering… No, no hospitals were involved... She didn't say anything about what happened to her team… Right, okay thanks, talk to you when she wakes up. Oh and General…you have a lot of explaining to do."

Chuck hung up his phone and tip-toed in from the hallway to see if Sarah was awake. Devon had said it would take two to three hours for the morphine to start to wear off, but it had been four, and she was still dead to the world.

He sat down at his desk to work on his controller, wondering if he should get a new one, but tossed the idea as soon as he thought of it. It was nice to have something basic to fix.

While attempting to reconnect the circuits, Chuck thought about how glad he was Casey hadn't changed his personal number; thankfully, Casey still had the General on speed dial. Chuck stifled a laugh at his last memory of the General. His emotions had, after all, been what stopped the intersect from working.

After Chuck had been expelled from spy school, Beckman had lost her temper, slightly, causing her face to turn a lovely shade of purple. She told Chuck that she wouldn't be in contact with him again until he learned to control his emotions.

Looking back on it, he reasoned that he could have been a bit more cooperative to work. Fighting back at everyone and everything that had tried to train him wasn't the best way to pass spy school, but, as he recalled, he had been very put out with the spy-world at the time. Putting saran wrap over all the toilet seats had been enjoyable, though.

Chuck was soon absorbed by his controller, but his concentration broke when he heard her ask, "What are you working on?" He all but jumped out of his chair to her bedside where she was struggling to sit up.

Chuck noticed, and grabbed a pillow from his spare chair to put behind her. She looked up at him, gratefully.

"How are you feeling? Do you want anything to eat? I have some leftover pizza," he said, nodding his head in the pizza box's direction.

"Some water would be nice," she hinted. "I can smell olives," she said, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

"Oh, right, I only ordered olives on my half of the pizza. I don't forget that easily," he said grinning. "I'll move it to the hallway, though" he grabbed the pizza box and a water bottle from his night-stand, throwing the bottle on the bed and carrying the box out of the room.

Sarah looked at the water bottle, glanced down at her arm, and sighed. Life with one arm was going to be interesting. At least she wasn't a lefty; that would have been fun.

Chuck walked back in and saw her staring at the un-opened water bottle. Wanting to slap himself, he walked over and took the bottle from her, easily opening it and handing it back. "Sorry, I, um, forgot about the whole arm thing," he added sheepishly.

Before she could respond, Chuck's television screen lit up. Beckman peered at them from beneath her glasses, removed them, and then smiled. "I'm glad to see you're doing better, Agent Adams, or I guess it's Agent Walker again now." Her smile faded back into her normal self, "It would be very enlightening to know how it was possible that the asset was kidnapped from under three of our best agents?"

Sarah opened her mouth to say something, but closed it. Looking put-out, she said, "Not before Chuck and I get some answers."

The general looked the couple over, sighed, and then said, "Very well."

General Beckman took a deep breath, took her glasses off, and began to speak.

"Before I say anything that is a breach of confidentiality, I want you to know that your partner managed to make a clean escape with the asset, Sarah. They both sustained much less damage than you."

Sarah visibly relaxed at this news. "Thank you for telling me, General," she said.

She paused for a moment, and then continued, "I owe both of you an apology. Chuck, I know you think that you've failed everything, but that's not entirely true. You reacted just how I expected you would."

Chuck had been angry, livid really, when Beckman started speaking. Chuck hadn't forgotten the night in Prague that easily. Now, though, he was just surprised at what she said. Looking over at Sarah, he saw she was confused, too.

"Mr. Bartowski, even though you don't necessarily handle missions like an orthodox spy, you always complete the assignment. I took this for granted, but when the intersect stopped working, the CIA nearly went to pieces; we were completely without an inside scoop on the bad guys. Now that you have started flashing with the 2.0, I think that you can at least pretend to protect the government's secrets."

Beckman paused and smiled, slightly. "As much as it pains me to admit it, your emotions make you a useful spy in a completely different way. It's recently come to my attention that I have a certain mission that can only be accomplished by a spy who can feel empathy for others."

By this point, Chuck was more than confused. Who had abducted the real General and what had they done with her?

"I'm glad that you have found some use for me, General, but I'm still confused. Why did you send me to spy school at all if you wanted me to keep my emotions?"

Beckman rubbed a hand over her eyes. "The past year has been… difficult, to say the least, for the CIA. We had several breaches of security, many agents turn rogue, and far too many civilians were killed because of a project that we let get out of hand. When I first sent you off to learn to be a spy, I needed more agents like Sarah and Casey. Now…"

She stopped, trying to decide if she should continue or not. Deciding she should, she asked, "Do you know anything about the PGMA program?"

Okay. I'm officially at a standstill. I have two ideas and two different chapters written for the next part, but I don't know which one to choose! The next chapter will pick the course for the rest of the story. Option A) involve Casey's daughter, Alex, or Option B) create a new character that will be significantly younger than the show's characters. I can see pros and cons for both, but I don't see any way to combine the two. Suggestions?