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As of 15.09.11, I don't own Chuck et al.

Caution: There are no nudity and sexual themes. The first chapter in this story to do so...

(Sorry)

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Sarah's week.

Thursday

Westside Medical, Los Angeles CA, USA.

March 17th 2011.

1107 hours. The pain from her eyes was too much and she closed them at the unreasonable glare, moaning from the agony. She hurt. Everything hurt.

There was the sound of movement in the room. Even that hurt. The sound of a door opening and closing as someone in rubber soled shoes left the room.

The smell of clean, and the feel of the bed linen told her she was in either a cheap but good hotel, or more likely a hospital.

After a few moments filled with only the sound of her own blood pounding in her ears, there was a muttered conversation outside the door, and a different pair of shoes came into the room.

The woman's light perfume and voice were familiar.

"Hi, I'm Ellie, your doctor. Do you remember?"

She tried to nod, but wasn't sure if she had.

She could hear the smile in Ellie's voice "Listen, my brother's busting to come back in here. I'm pretty sure you'd like to see him to..."

Chuck...

"... and we need to check you out a bit first, OK? You've kind of made some history around here... I need you to open your eyes... sorry, it'll get better... OK track my finger... good... Now, squeeze my finger... hard as you can... that's good."

She decided Ellie had a nice smile. But naturally she would. She was Chuck's sister.

"Do you know where you are?"

'Hospital' she tried, but nothing came out. "Hospital" she tried again, barely a croak. "LA, I think..."

"Good. What day is it?"

"...Thur... Thursday?"

"You're doing great. What's the last thing you remember?"

"...Car... I found you... and Chuck found me..."

"Yes, that's good. We'll have a talk about that, later. Do you remember your name?"

"..."

"Sorry?" Ellie whispered.

"...arah..."

Sarah found herself being hugged by Ellie.

Ellie straightened up after a bit, and clearing her eyes, she whispered "Thank God."

-o0o-

Chuck sat in the briefing like a dog sitting in the chilli patch. He desperately wanted to be elsewhere. There was a hospital bed he needed to hover beside.

He'd bluffed his way past the guards at her door at some stage during the wee smalls. Ellie found him, and shooed him out. She let him know she'd told the guards he might come past.

She'd looked so small in the bed. Her hair gone. Tubes feeding her oxygen, plasma and antibiotics. She'd been shaved down past her sculpted eyebrows, and had a small turban of bandages wrapped around her head. He remembered Morgan's interpretation of a slurred "A brain... I mutht find a brain, for my mathter..." but couldn't smile. Not now. This was too... close. Too important...

She was alive. That was important. No matter who was in there, he loved her. And would spend the rest of his life looking after her. He prayed Sarah was in there. Even if it was just a little...

"Mister Bartowski, did you hear me?"

Was she Sara... "Sorry?"

"Mister Bartowski, I understand you are concerned for your charge, but we need to get through this. The quicker we get through this, the quicker you can get back to her. Now, you lost comms with Agent Walker after she left the warehouse. What did you do then?"

"The feedback from their jamming signal was only part of the problem. Because we'd flown out from Reagan... Christ, yesterday morning ... she'd been plugged in for five hours when we got to LA. We should have gone military... or a charter. We lost at least four hours of mission time..."

He'd lost more than mission time. He'd very nearly lost her. He might still have...

He wiped tears from his eyes. "...anyway, after thirty minutes without comms from my Agent, I followed protocol for a compromised mission. I found an internet caf..."

"Yes, we have the logs. How did you sister become involved?"

"I was returning to base when the call came through, Ellie was insistent. She's like that." He smiled half-heartedly. "That was the first indication I'd had she... that Agent Walker was alive."

"Yes, we'll get to Dr Bartowski's transcripts in a moment..."

The debrief officer, Wong, was sympathetic, but she needed to get her job done. This would be the only time to fill in the blanks, while things were fresh. It was a shame. He looked like a nice guy, but he was gone for his Agent. She hoped for both their sakes, she survived.

The debrief ran for ninety minutes. Chuck fidgeted through it all. He should never have left. If he'd just waited...

"Do you know anything about her condition? Is she Sarah? Is she OK?"

Wong answered "Agent Walker is the only known Agent to survive past the twelve hour limit. Two... we've had two agents previously exceed the limit... their bodies were recovered. We don't know about their mental condition. Both had been shot. This is just a situation we don't know about."

She sorted out a thick pile of paperwork "Now, moving forward, we need to sort out Agent Walker's future..."

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Ellie told him she was Sarah when she found him in the corridor. Chuck held his sister tight for close to five minutes.

The suited goons let him in. If suited goons could smile, these ones did.

She opened her eyes at the sound of male footsteps, fighting the recent painkiller top up.

He was here! "...uck..." she managed.

It was more than Chuck could. All he could do was hold her hand when he rushed to her side. She tried to wipe his tears with the hand he held.

Eventually he was able to sob "Hi."

She beamed at him. With him here, her pain was almost gone. "Hey Chuck."

They just spent the next few moments gazing at each other. Sarah broke the spell.

"Your sister's nice. I'm sorry I scared her, I didn't know what to do." She swallowed before continuing "I think she likes me."

"Well, she thinks you're nice because I love you." He answered honestly. Her smile increased.

Not long after, the drugs kicked in, and she slept. She fell asleep smiling, because all the important things had been talked about.

Ellie found him, still there, in the afternoon and dragged him with her to the cafeteria. There seemed to be an inordinate number of large men in dark suits having lunch or coffee. They all had that 'cop face' expression.

He was worried for a moment, and then realised this was all for Sarah. She was important.

Ellie sat him down with a plate of sandwiches for each of them. She made him eat his, and then half of hers.

"Chuck, I know you're worried. That's perfectly normal. And it looks like she'll be OK."

"...El... I was so scared... I've never..."

She took his hand in both of hers. She smiled at him "I know. Nothing is scarier than when someone you love is in trouble."

"...El... I can't tell you everything about what we do, but..."

Ellie laughed a little "Chuck, I had to sign so much paperwork tod.. well, last night I guess... So. I have a reasonable idea" she lifted a single eyebrow at her brother. "I'm proud of you, little brother. What you, the pair of you, do is important" she twitched her smile sideways "And only my brother could find the most beautiful girl to fall in love with him... you know what I think saved her? You. I think she held it together just so she could get back to you."

Chuck sat for a moment before smiling. "Eleanor Faye Woodcome, you are an incurable romantic."

"Hah! You're one to talk"

They smiled at each other for a moment.

"So.. you think she'll be OK..."

"Chu-uu-ck... I don't know her from before, but she calls herself Sarah, and she remembers you. She loves you. God knows why, you bone headed idiot."

"But the operatio..."

"...was long. And delicate, trust me. We'd just opened ... opened up and these two just barged in. They said they were here to do the actual surgery. In the end, I sort of saved the day..."

"Ellie!"

She smiled a little "Well, I remembered the schematics I'd seen. I think in part those plans were why I started studying neurology... they were trying to trace every connection. God, it's beautiful. How did they put it in there?"

"Nano tech" he whispered.

"But we're nowhere near that... I guess we're nowhere near the level needed to implant ... an ... anything like this..."

Chuck said nothing, but his eyebrows betrayed him.

Ellie sat still for a moment. Secret, of course. But the potential for medicine... strokes, epilepsy, cancer even... We'll see it trickle down I suppose. GPS and the Internet started off as military or defence... "Dad really was a genius, wasn't he? Anyway, instead of removing hundred, thousands of connections, the adapter had a quick release. Those two, Brown and White seemed very excited when I showed them that. So no one has had one of these removed before, have they?"

Chuck spread his hand "I honestly don't know, but from what I found out this morning, I think I understand why not."

"What? Why not?"

Chuck circled a finger over his watch. Later.

Ellie nodded minutely.

Chuck said "Sarah will be pensioned off. Retired from the spy world. First of her kind." He still had to tell Sarah that. It should be from him.

-o0o-

When Sarah woke up, Chuck was waiting for her. He woke up at her stirring, and smiled at her. She felt a lot better, there was still pain, but it had retreated to defcon 2 for now.

"Chuck" she said his name, because she liked to.

"Hey. Well, the good news is you're you. Best news I've had for a while..."

Sarah shifted in the bed "Good news implies that there's bad news." If it was bad news, she wanted to hear it from him.

"You're being retired. They'll pay you out, and a pension, I believe. There'll be paperwork to sign tomorrow. I'm sorry Sarah, I know you loved being a spy..." he trailed off, because she was smiling.

"Chuck, I've only loved it since you were with me. I don't remember much before... when I was an ordinary agent... I think I enjoyed it, but you, you Chuck are far more important" she hesitated, there was something more. His face told her there was more.

" Wait! What about you? You're not staying with the agency are you? You can't leave me!"

He smiled. "They offered me a position. A very important long term assignment. You. I'm being paid to keep an eye on the world's only retired super agent. You. I can't leave you."

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Coming next – Friday:

Agency secrets revealed.

NOTE - You must sign the non-disclosure agreement. Click on the 'review' icon to access the NDA.

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