Author's Note: First, the apology. I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to update this story. There were a lot of reasons for this delay, but I won't get into them here. My only concern is that this story is now so outdated and the show has changed so much since I left off from this story that I'm not even sure Chuck vs. Project Omaha is even relevant anymore. Also, considering recent events on the show (Chuck vs. The Dream Job in particular) I guess this story can now be considered AU. Second, big, huge, ginormous thanks to Go-Chuck-Go who made this update not only possible, but also readable. Fortunately, this chapter was already quite long so I broke it up into two parts, which means it won't be another 8 months before I update again. Heh.

I hope you guys enjoy!


April 23, 2008

Chuck scrambled on his hands and knees to get behind the gray, large, very cheap metal desk as the bullets continued to fly at him. He leaned his back against an oversized file drawer and took in huge gasps of air. The desk occasionally pinged and dented as a bullet came especially close.

They had grabbed him outside the apartment as he waited for Casey for their morning carpool to work. He had been up unusually early and he hadn't wanted to pester Casey about leaving ahead of schedule. He was having enough problems keeping up appearances with the surly NSA agent hawkishly watching his every move that he didn't need to draw his attention even more by irritating him and disturbing his morning ritual. He repeatedly circled the fountain in the courtyard, his head down and his iPod softly playing in his ears. He needed the music to think.

He was shivering but felt like his skin was on fire and that his eyes were going to boil in their sockets. Every joint and every muscle ached. He felt light-headed and unattached to the ground, yet his legs moved like they were encased in concrete as he moved erratically in an attempt to dodge the ricocheting bullets.

His back had been especially acting up that morning. He had barely been able to move at first, but he had become used to the stiffness and dull ache that he awoke to every morning and was well prepared. Four aspirin and a tall glass of water later, and he was able to shower and get dressed. He stepped outside, the sun already shining and the day warm. He looked over at Casey's apartment, wondering how long he had to wait, and then started his music.

Shooting pains were rocketing up and down his back. He could feel the onrushing tidal wave of a panic attack, and had no idea how to stop it. He was terrified and confused. It felt like thoughts were bouncing around inside his head at the speed of light, making it impossible to hold onto any thought for very long. He was pretty sure that the warring drugs coursing through his system were mostly responsible for his current state, but he couldn't deny that even if he wasn't pumped full of chemicals he'd still be freaking out.

He had put his iPod on shuffle, not caring what song came up. The song wasn't important, only the distraction. He had needed something to keep his mind off the knowledge that he was getting worse, that any day now the façade would end, that he might have to say goodbye to Sarah forever. The music allowed him to think of more pressing matters, of meeting up with Tor later on in the evening, of figuring out just what the NSA's game was, of saving his life.

This was not happening, he repeated over and over in his mind. Why did this stuff always happen to him? Why couldn't this happen to some other poor bastard? Why couldn't he just have a normal life? He chanced a look around the side of the desk to see what was going on. He barely had time to pull his head back behind cover when a bullet hit the desk just where his head had just been.

If he hadn't been listening to the music, he might have heard them coming. If his back and neck and shoulder joints weren't randomly locking up on him, he might have been able to fight them off enough to get to Casey. If he hadn't been blinded by fear, he might have understood that there was a reason why Casey wasn't saving him. When the needle plunged painfully into his neck, Chuck realized there were a lot of if's in his life and very few certainties. His last thought before he woke up in the chair had been that "Mad World" was an oddly appropriate song choice for his world going dark.

Bryce jumped and tumbled over the top of the desk to land in a heap of limbs right next to him. Even the jumbled mess that was his landing couldn't stop him from still having the presence of mind to immediately return fire as soon as he hit the ground. Chuck screamed and almost crawled out into the open in an instinctual fight or flight response. When he realized it was Bryce and not one of the alleged CIA agents chasing them, he relaxed just enough to begin hyperventilating.

"Deeper breaths, Chuck." Bryce raised his right hand over the top of the desk and fired three shots at their pursuers. His head kept bobbing up and down over the top of the desk like the mole from a game of Whac-a-mole. The disturbing image of what would happen to Bryce if someone actually managed to hit him in the head sent Chuck into a fit of uncontrollable laughing and coughing. Bryce used his free hand to smack Chuck's back hard and then push his head toward the ground in between Chuck's legs, but Chuck instinctually resisted the motion. "Deeper, damnit!"

Who are you?

What is your name?

"I'm sorry – I – I can't – help it!" Chuck let out a strangled groan and finally forced himself to put his head between his legs and breathe slower and deeper. This was not happening!

Where is Linus Tor?

What do you know about Project Omaha?

Bryce ejected the clip from his pistol and slammed in a new magazine, spinning on the balls of his feet to fire twice at a man that had suddenly popped up to their right from behind a cubicle wall, sending him crumpling to the ground with two shots to the chest, and then spun back around to again fire three more times over the top of the desk. The entire maneuver took about three seconds, and that more than anything calmed Chuck down. It was shame that did it, the shame that he was freaking out while Bryce was calmly being Bryce and saving the day once again.

Have you told anyone about the Intersect?

What does Agent Walker know about Linus Tor's relationship with Bryce Larkin?

Chuck took measured breaths and felt the panic building inside him ebb away. He still was fuzzy on why he was being shot at, but he knew with Bryce around he'd at least have a chance of escaping alive. Bryce was a super agent; he could, after all, do anything. Carefully, very carefully, Chuck got on his knees and peeked out from behind the edge of the desk to look back into the large office space where Bryce and he were taking cover. He could see at least three men ducking out from cover and back again; could hear multiple voices yelling back and forth directions; he became fixated on why people would choose rhododendrons as an office plant.

Chuck had always worried that someday he'd end up in a padded room. His life hadn't been sane for a very long time so he figured it was only inevitable. When he had woken up strapped to a Tim Burton inspired dentist chair, an IV in both arms and his eyes forced open, his first thought was that this was normal, that it was expected. That's when he was sure that he'd finally lost his mind. It wasn't until the voices started and he could no longer hear the music in his head that he realized that he wasn't in the midst of a delusion.

The violet flowers (rhododendron ponticum, he had no idea how he knew that) were spread all throughout the very large office. Along one long wall was a round, bronze shield. On either side of the shield was a depiction of ancient Greek soldiers in phalanx formation. Above the display were large, frosted glass letters forming the company name. The shield was the size of a child, and Chuck briefly wondered what would happen if the current gunfight caused the shield to fall. Would it break? Could he hide behind it? Could Bryce use it as a weapon? He stared at the shield, transfixed, and briefly contemplated running for it, but knew that he was in no shape to dodge and weave around the many cubicles in his path.

According to Bryce and what few thoughts he could properly tie down, they were in the corporate office for what was supposed to be Aegis Securities, a tech company that developed security and encryption software for database programs. In reality, it was a CIA front, used primarily for the acquisition, detainment, and interrogation of "persons of interest". They had locked Chuck inside his 6' x 6' cell and strapped him to the embodiment of every nightmare he'd ever had as a child about going to the dentist.

The drugs they had him on dulled his ability to track time. He felt like he slept when he should have been awake and was awake when he should have slept. They didn't feed him, and the only contact he had with any human being beside the voices in his cell were the nameless technicians that changed his IV bags. The one upside to the situation was that he was too messed up to feel pain.

At first they had left him alone. But then they started asking questions and all signs of disinterest disappeared. He never saw who those in charge were or where they were, but they asked him questions over a speaker in the cell. The voice had been artificially enhanced to sound like a cheap impression of Barry White, and they had asked him a number of questions he had no answers to. They wanted to know about Linus Tor; what he was working on, how much had he told him about the Intersect and Project Omaha, where was he? They had asked about the Intersect; not who it was or where it was but how much did he know about its construction? Then they had started asking him about what he'd been doing for the last month, what did he think about his handlers, was he compromised? When he didn't answer their questions about what Protocol Mnemosyne and Algorithm 42 were, they started pumping him full of drugs. The drugs didn't help (because he barely knew anything and certainly nothing about stuff he'd never even heard of) and he kept answering no to the same questions. So they stopped giving him food and stopped letting him sleep in the hope of making the drugs more effective (Chuck also believed they got a sadistic thrill from torturing him).

How do you feel about Agent Walker?

What does your sister know about your work for the NSA? What does she know about Linus Tor?

If Bryce was to be believed, he'd been locked in that cell for over eight days. It had felt much longer, it had felt so long that Chuck thought it'd been weeks and not only days. When Bryce had busted the door to his cell down, haloed in the doorway by the light from outside, Chuck had thought he was seeing things. He thought they had finally let him sleep and he was now dreaming. He thought the drugs had made him crazy, that there really were five lights instead of four. It wasn't until Bryce released him from the chair, his arms wrapped around him as he half-dragged, half-carried Chuck out of the room and into the harsh fluorescent light of the hallway that Chuck began to think that maybe what was happening was real. The fact that if he'd still been dreaming he'd have conjured up another rescuer entirely was the last factor he needed to be convinced that this was really happening.

He had spent what few lucid moments he had thinking about Sarah. He focused on her smile, the way it made him feel. He thought about how much he hated lying to her, but he hated even more that she put him in a position where he had to. Mostly, he thought about the still outstanding kill order on him and what it would do to Sarah if she ever had to carry it out. In his non-lucid moments, when he thought Sarah was standing next to him in his cell, he told her he loved her (every time he did so felt like the first time).

Bryce had injected him with a syringe full of amphetamines and started to lead Chuck to the exit. It was when they stepped off the elevator at the ground floor that everything went to hell. An alarm finally sounded, the stolen radio at Bryce's side exploded into angry voices, and the guards started appearing. The first two, Bryce simply disabled. The next two, Bryce shot one in the leg and the other in the shoulder. It wasn't until they were running down the hallway to the large office space Bryce had offhandedly referred to as the "Bullpen" (where they were now trapped), an unknown number of guards behind them that Bryce gave up pretenses and stopped holding back. If Chuck actually had the ability to think straight, he might have wondered what killing supposedly real CIA agents meant for Bryce, but his jumbled mind allowed him to only care about getting out of this whole mess alive.

The Bullpen was a large workspace where most of the apparently legitimate business of Aegis Securities took place. Primarily filled with cubicle offices, desks with computers, phones, personal paraphernalia, water coolers, plants (rhododendrons), as well as more private offices along the side of each wall, the bullpen proved a haven of potential hiding spaces for Chuck and Bryce on their run to the front exit. There were two exits to the bullpen, one north of them (where they had first entered the large room) and the second south of them. They had had a running gunfight to reach the last row of cubicles setup near the south exit. Bryce had kicked down the cubicle dividing wall surrounding the desk they were currently taking cover behind to provide better fields of fire. The downside was that they were no longer hidden from view so everything they did attracted more bullets.

Chuck felt a rough smack to his shoulder and spun around to face Bryce with wild, buggy eyes. The smack had snapped his focus back to his surroundings. He could feel his pulse pounding rapidly and felt the sweat bead on his forehead. He constantly had to wipe his hands against his pants to dry them. God he felt terrible. Like he wanted to vomit and sleep and devour a 10-course meal and float amongst the clouds all at the same time. Bryce smacked him again and Chuck forced himself to focus on his companion. "What!?"

What is Protocol Mnemosyne?

What happened to Yuri Petronovich?

Bryce glared at him, like what was happening was his entire fault, and Chuck was suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to punch the man that was saving him. The only thing that stopped him from doing so was the buzz of a ricochet coming dangerously close to his head. It was amazing what imminent death could do for your concentration.

"I'm almost empty, Chuck."

Chuck stared at Bryce with incomprehension. He stared at the gun in Bryce's hand. So? "So?"

"So I'm almost out of ammunition!"

Bryce sounded very pissed off. Chuck didn't really understand. What did Bryce expect him to do about it? Materialize more bullets out of thin air? "I'm sorry, Bryce, I left my magical wand in my other pants." Chuck started to laugh maniacally, despite how much he wished he could just shut up.

Bryce rolled his eyes. "Man, you are really out of it."

Chuck shook his head and wiped the sweat off his forehead before running his moist hand through his limp hair. Time to focus. Being out of ammunition was bad, right? This was not happening!

Where is Nikolai Ivanov?

What is Algorithm 42?

Bryce ejected the clip from his gun and did a quick check of the number of rounds he had left. He pushed the clip back in and hurriedly looked from Chuck to the exit and then back again twice. A determined look came to his eyes, his whole body tensing. He grabbed Chuck's shoulder with an iron grip. "Listen to me, Chuck." He smacked Chuck once across the face. "Concentrate on me!"

Chuck took deep breaths, exhaled, took more deep breaths, exhaled. He concentrated on Bryce's face and his eyes and his words. Everything else faded away.

"Good, Chuck, good." Bryce paused to shoot twice at a man that had tried to outflank them. He missed but the man ducked back into hiding. "Listen to me very carefully. Are you listening?" Chuck nodded. "I only have a few rounds left. We can't stay here. You can't stay here." Bryce's own voice became a little wild. "I have to get you out of here. I need to get you out of here." Bryce fired once over the desk. "So this is what I want you to do. When I count to three, I want you to run to the door. Do you understand, Chuck? Run to the door."

When Chuck was younger, his father liked to tell him stories. In these stories, a young knight (Chuck had insisted that the knight be a Jedi despite it being anachronistic) went on a quest to a faraway land. While there, he partook in many adventures, none more important than the rescue of a beautiful princess. When Chuck was around 12, he asked his father why he no longer told him any stories. His father, in a rare moment of clear-eyed engagement, had looked Chuck straight in the eye and told him that fairytales never came true, the brave knight didn't get the girl, and heroes always died in the end. Chuck had never thought much about his father's cynicism at the time (he was only 10, he didn't understand), after all the abandonment of his wife was still rather fresh, but sitting in that chair, a cocktail of drugs coursing through him, his father's words had echoed loudly in his mind. He had never wanted less to be a hero.

Chuck's eyes wandered to said door. It seemed so far away. Chuck didn't think he could run very fast with all the conflicting impulses coursing through his body. Bryce shook him and he snapped his eyes back to Bryce's worried face. "What about you?"

"Don't worry about me, Chuck, I'm going to be covering you as you run." Bryce breathed deeply and loosened his grip on Chuck's shoulder. "I will draw them away from you. Once you get out that door, you keep running straight down the hallway. It will lead you to the reception area and the front exit." Bryce reached into a pants pocket and pulled out a set of keys. "Take these. You'll know the car when you see it, trust me."

Bryce was expecting him to drive? Chuck was too overwhelmed to really say anything. He just took the keys from Bryce's hand with a blank look on his face.

"Hey, are you still with me?"

Chuck nodded and swallowed harshly. "Y-yeah. But I don't understand, Bryce. What car? What about you?"

Bryce ignored him. "You wait for me for two minutes, Chuck. Two minutes only. Not a second more. If I'm not there after two minutes you start that car and you go. Promise me you'll leave, Chuck."

Chuck shook his head, and fidgeted. "No! I'm not going to leave you here!"

"Promise me, Chuck."

Chuck felt like he had swallowed his tongue. He licked his chapped lips and forced himself to answer. "Okay, I promise." He was too out of it to put up much fight. He just wanted out of this place. He wanted Ellie. He wanted Sarah.

"Good, good, okay listen; this is the most important thing. If you forget everything else, don't forget this: Find Sarah, Chuck. Don't trust Casey, only Sarah. Do you hear me? Only Sarah."

He didn't understand, but he nodded his assent. Chuck could no longer maintain his crouched position, the pain in his legs and back was too great, and he settled onto the floor on his knees. He let out a shaky breath. With the drugs they'd had him on starting to wear off, he knew he was going to be in for a hellish next few hours. He forced himself to ignore his pain as best he could and refocus on Bryce. He knew that somewhere in his mind were the reasons why he couldn't go to Casey but he was too exhausted at the moment to dedicate the necessary computing power on why.

Bryce gave his shoulder a friendly squeeze and then grinned confidently. "Don't worry about me, Chuck, I'll be right behind you."

Chuck nodded his head and moved slowly, like an old man, back into a crouched position. He evened his breathing and got ready to run.

"One."

Bryce moved into a crouched position as well, his entire body tightly coiled.

"Two."

Chuck could do this. He was going to get out of here. He could run. Running was something he was actually good at. He was going to be safe. He pictured that he was on a track and moved his feet into his imaginary starting blocks. He turned his head to smile at Bryce. "Thank you."

Bryce just nodded his head and then stood up, in plain sight. "Three."

Chuck took off with an uncoordinated bolt, almost tripping over his feet. He could hear Bryce firing behind him, and he only looked back long enough to see Bryce running west, toward the shield and waiting Greek soldiers, as he shot off the last of his rounds. Bullets whizzed by his head and dug into the wall in front of him. He burst through the closed door; almost knocking it off its hinges he hit it so hard. He didn't slow down though and was already halfway down the hallway toward the building's front anteroom by the time the door swung close behind him. His lungs burned at the sudden exertion and he quickly felt the nausea building up, but he continued to push himself.

Where is Linus Tor?

What is he doing in L.A.?

To his surprise, there was no one waiting for him on his way out of the building. Either Bryce had drawn them all toward him or he had already taken care of the front guards on his initial way in. Chuck figured it was probably a combination of both. He looked over his shoulder to see if Bryce was behind him, he wasn't, but he still exhaled loudly in relief when he saw that at least nobody was following him.

Before he knew it, he was pushing the glass doors open and stumbling into sunlight. His legs felt like rubber, his lungs felt like they were full of lava, he felt more light-headed than he had in the Bullpen, and he still wasn't sure what the hell was going on, but he was tasting sunlight and breathing fresh Southern California air. He heard yelling voices behind him and stopped standing in front of the doors, taking off into the parking lot. He ran up and down the rows and rows of cars, looking for what Bryce was sure he would recognize.

What the hell kind of car was he supposed to know on sight? Had Bryce come in a Nerd Herder? Was he driving a Crown Vic? Chuck could feel the panic inside him build. He didn't know what to do! How could Bryce leave him in the dark like this? This wasn't happening!

And then he saw it. He honestly could not believe his eyes. Three rows over and ten cars down, he saw it. Sarah's Porsche. Bryce had come in Sarah's Porsche. He laughed in disbelief.

Chuck went crashing to the ground when the building behind him exploded. Glass from the front windows and doors showered out into the parking lot hundreds of feet. Smoke wafted into the air. The entire front face of the building, up to the third floor, had been blown away. Chuck could hear sirens in the air, hear car alarms blaring, could hear people yelling and screaming as they tried to understand what was going on. For the briefest of seconds, Chuck thought he had been transported to the destruction of Cyberdyne Systems, but he shook his head clear of that thought. Disoriented, he tried to make his way to Sarah's car. He made it halfway and then collapsed back to the ground. His head was killing him. He turned his head and vomited. He managed to crawl forward just enough so that when he collapsed, he didn't pass out in his own vomit.

Can you construct an Intersect?

How long would it take you?

What would you need?

# # # # #

Chuck woke up with a wild jolt and a surprised yelp. His right arm banged into the passenger door and his left arm shot forward; his legs kicked forward as well, but the limited leg room of the Porsche's passenger side hindered his range of movement. Almost immediately there was a severe rush of blood to his head and he felt like a dog licking peanut butter as he tried to moisten his lips.

"Good, you're awake. I was starting to get a little worried."

Chuck lolled his head to his left to see Bryce, battered, dirty, and bleeding from several cuts marring his face, but alive, and driving. Chuck gaped like a fish. "Bryce!"

Bryce grinned. "Hey, Chuck."

"You're alive!"

"For the most part." Bryce winced and adjusted his positioning in his seat, putting more weight on his left side.

"H-how?" Chuck broke from Bryce's face and looked around the car, then down at his own body. "Wh-what the hell happened? How did I get in the car? How did you get out of there?"

Bryce grimaced and shifted awkwardly in his seat. Chuck gasped when Bryce's shirt straightened out and he saw a slowly blossoming red spot on his right side. "Bryce, you're bleeding!"

"Yeeeeah." Bryce shrugged his shoulders and looked remarkably nonchalant. "I'm okay, it's nothing." Bryce shifted gears with a grunt of pain and the car burst forward with increased acceleration. "By the way, you might wanna make sure your seatbelt is on."

Chuck checked to see if his seatbelt was in fact on; it wasn't. He fastened it quickly into place. "Uh why? Is everything okay?"
"Oh yeah, things are great." Bryce gritted his teeth and then smiled weakly. His eyes were narrowed and his neck was clearly tense. "It's just the whole escaping thing is not exactly going according to plan."

"Huh?"

"We're just being followed, that's all."

"Oh, okay."

"Well, more like chased really, but that's just getting needlessly technical."

"Uh-huh."

Bryce's attention was firmly focused on the busy freeway, weaving in and out of traffic, receiving many angry glares, middle fingers, and blaring horns. "You're kinda freaking out now, aren't you?"

Chuck was gripping onto his armrest with a white knuckled grip, and he was sweating profusely. He knew he was on the verge of passing out again. "No, no, why would I be freaking out? It's not like speeding down the freeway with my former best friend that got me kicked out of Stanford, being chased by angry CIA agents who kidnapped and tortured me, while having no idea what the hell is wrong with me, why I was kidnapped, why they kept asking me questions that I didn't know the answers to, and having no idea who to trust anymore, is strange or anything. It's perfectly normal!" Chuck was starting to hyperventilate again. This was becoming a distressingly reoccurring problem.

Bryce opened his mouth to say something but Chuck cut him off before he could say a single word. Chuck's words came out in staccato bursts, "And why the hell are we in Sarah's car?!"

Bryce flushed just slightly and for the first time that Chuck could remember, he saw his friend sweat profusely. Was Bryce nervous? Or was it because of the pain? "Uh, well, I knew that I might need a getaway car so it seemed logical to use hers."

"I can't believe she let you borrow her car. She doesn't even like me touching it." The jolt of jealousy that shot through him was like a bucket of ice water being doused on his head. He leveled his breathing unconsciously, too busy thinking about yet another example of the kind of relationship that he wished he had with Sarah to continue hyperventilating. He was never going to be able to compete with Bryce.

Bryce shifted gears again, slammed on the brakes, pulled hard on the steering wheel to the left, and then shifted again to speed back up. "Borrowed is not the word I'd use."

"Oh my God, Bryce, she's going to kill you." Chuck laughed and yelled at the same time.

Bryce grinned wide and true, his blue eyes bright, his pain seemingly forgotten. "No she won't. At least not once she finds out what I used it for."

"What does that mean?"

Bryce snorted and looked at Chuck with disbelief on his face. He quickly shifted his attention back to the road. "Hold on!"

The Porsche suddenly veered to the right, onto the shoulder, flying past cars moving into an exit lane, before suddenly shooting left across two lanes. Bryce dodged in between two semis and shot out from between them like a cannon. Chuck screamed during the whole maneuver.

"You are beyond insane!"

Bryce laughed and downshifted, setting a more sedate pace; he was now driving as if everything was normal. "Come on, that was fun."

"Sure, like spending a day alone with Casey is fun."

"I'm pretty sure we lost them after that last bit of maneuvering."

"That's great, Bryce. Now that you've embraced your inner Vin Diesel do you think you can tell me what we're gonna do now?"

"The same thing we do every night, Chuck." Bryce smirked at him. "Try to take over the world."

"Hey, no, if anything, I'm the Brain."

"I sure as hell ain't Pinky!"

"Bryce, this is stupid. We both know I'm smarter." Chuck grinned smugly at his friend.

"Ha! I seriously question that assertion. Who here got a B+ in their Discrete Mathematics course sophomore year?"

"That totally wasn't my fault! You got me drunk before the final on purpose so that you could beat me." Chuck folded his arms across his chest and pouted. He mumbled, "Should have known right then that you couldn't to be trusted."

"I didn't force you to take those tequila shots!"

Chuck merely stuck his tongue out at Bryce in response. He sighed when he realized that he was still in pain, still in the dark, and despite the current levity in the car, still totally screwed. Chuck groaned when he tried to stretch out some of his kinks. Not being able to move was seriously starting to cramp him up. "Seriously, Bryce, what are we going to do?"

"To be honest, Chuck, I'm kind of playing this by ear."

"Wonderful."

Bryce turned his head to glare at Chuck. Chuck glared right back. "Look, okay, I wasn't completely sure I'd make it out of that building with you." Bryce actually looked sheepish and Chuck felt a wave of appreciation wash away his animosity, so he dialed back his annoyance. Bryce had rescued him, had risked his own life to save him even when he hadn't known if he would be successful. The least he could do was ease up on him a little.

"That's why I told you to go to Sarah if I didn't make it. You would at least have a fighting chance with her."

"I don't understand. What's going on?"

"Do you really not remember?"

Chuck sighed and massaged his temples. "It's not that I don't remember, it's that everything is so scrambled up here that I'm having trouble just remembering what happened an hour ago let alone over a week ago."

"The drugs should leave your system soon. Things should become a lot clearer when they do."

"So why do I have to stay away from Casey?"

"Because right now you can't trust him; he's liable to kill you as say hello to you."

"But I can trust you?"

Bryce grinned boyishly, that annoyingly charming smile that Chuck often wished he could smack off the man's face these days, and didn't seem the least bit insulted that Chuck had just asked that question after everything he had done. "That's for you to determine on your own."

"Okay." It really wasn't that okay, but Chuck didn't know what good arguing or freaking out would do. At the moment he was kind of trapped in a moving car so it wasn't like he could escape. And he certainly had next to zero chance of actually disabling Bryce. It was best to just go with the flow. He figured that after rescuing him, Bryce should at least have the benefit of the doubt.

"And to answer your previous question, I think we need to meet up with Tor. I think it's our only option right now."

"But you said we could trust Sarah? Why can't we talk to her?"

"No, I said you'd have a chance with Sarah." Bryce frowned at him and reached out with a hand to give Chuck a comforting gesture. "Look, at this point in time, Sarah is more reliable than Casey, but right now that's not exactly saying much."

"Oh."

"Don't worry, Chuck, I've got your back."

Chuck snorted and muttered under his breath, "The last time you had my back, I got kicked out of Stanford."

"What?"

"Nothing, Bryce. Nothing at all."

# # # # #

"Where the hell have you been?"

"Hello to you too, Linus."

"Save the cutesy smarm for another time, Larkin. I'm not blonde and I don't give a shit."

Bryce sighed and pulled Chuck through the open doorway. "I had to see an old friend."

"Bartowski!"

Chuck groaned and stared at the man that had been the bane of his existence for the last two months. "This is quickly becoming the worst day of my life."

"Larkin, why didn't you tell me you knew where he was?"

"Because I didn't find out until this morning. There wasn't exactly time to call you up and discuss all the intricate details."

"Still, some warning would have been nice. I could have been more prepared!"

"Uh guys, I'm standing right here."

"He's here now, stop your bitching."

"I don't know why I ever agreed to work with you."

Chuck waved his hand around, trying to get the attention of both men. "Still here. Still standing right here, trying to figure out what's going on."

"You agreed to work with me because I was the only one who would, you stupid, stubborn, cantankerous bastard!"

Chuck's eyes widened in alarm as Bryce suddenly began to have trouble breathing. His friend brought a hand up to wipe sweat off his forehead and he teetered slightly to his right. Chuck hurriedly rushed to Bryce's side to shore him up, wrapping an arm around his waist. "Damn, Bryce, I don't think you're looking so good."

Bryce laughed weakly and shifted the majority of his weight onto Chuck. "Ha, yeah, that would probably be because I was shot. At least I think I was shot. It could be a stabbing wound, or flying glass, or an explosion, or something else really, really cool."

Chuck glared at Tor and motioned for him to come over. "Do you think you could give me some help here?" Chuck then focused back on Bryce, who was slowly swaying back and forth. "What else could be cooler than being hurt by an explosion while being shot at?"

Bryce chuckled and shut his eyes. "Good point. Maybe if I was – if I was shot by a Stormtrooper or attacked by a Klingon, that might do the trick."

Chuck put his hand on Bryce's forehead and was surprised about how hot it was. "Damn, Bryce, you're burning up." Chuck carefully eased Bryce to the cool concrete. He gently pried Bryce's shirt apart in an attempt to get a good look at the damaged area. When he saw it, he sucked in a surprised gasp. "Oh man, this is not good." Chuck looked away from Bryce to see where Tor was. "Tor, where are you? I need your help!"

Tor came rushing forward out of the darkened warehouse, a large first aid kit in his hand. He placed the kit on the ground and opened it up. He started digging inside.

Chuck was torn away from watching Tor by Bryce grabbing his shirt and forcing his head close to his. "Ylmev voq anyone, Chuck. Ghobe''ach Sarah. Ylmev jatlh vay' to anyone. Sorry. QoS. Sorry for everything. I didn't want it to come to this."

"Move." Tor pushed Chuck out of the way and quickly injected Bryce with something.

"Hey!" Chuck felt a flash of panic at not knowing exactly what Tor was doing to Bryce. "What was that for?"

Tor gruffly responded, "So that I could do this without interruption." Tor efficiently began to clean Bryce's wound.

Chuck leaned back onto his haunches, watching Tor's sure movements. Faster than he expected, Tor had the outer area around the wound clean, with only a little blood obscuring things. "It doesn't look too bad." Tor turned to the first aid kit and pulled out a pair of forceps. "You might not want to watch this part; it's not going to be pretty."

"Do you know what you're doing?"

"Not really that kind of doctor."

Chuck paled at the implication and Tor didn't wait to see if he had moved away or not. He immediately began digging around inside the wound for whatever had pierced Bryce's side. "Right. I'm going to, uh, I'm just going to go."

Chuck turned around and hurriedly scurried away.


Note: There is a method to my madness. There is a reason why this story jumps around so much in the timeline. There is a reason why I didn't immediately follow up on Chapter 8. I just hope you guys can be patient enough to see why. Also, because it's been so long since I updated, many of my ideas for this story have...matured, so I may go back and slightly tweak some of the earlier chapters to coincide better with the new story direction (so if anything in this chapter throws up potential continuity flags, that's why). And yes, I promise, I swear, there will be actual Chuck/Sarah in the next chapter (not the next part, but the next chapter).