A/N1 Back at it, such as it is. Such as I am.

A difficult couple of weeks. My dad died. The funeral was Monday. I wrote to keep myself occupied during downtimes, but I wrote in an altered state, I admit. Not sure this gets done what I wanted. Odd chapter (title, etc.) for me to be writing just now.

Thanks for reading, reviewing and PM-ing me. I appreciate it!

Don't own Chuck.

Too Old For This

CHAPTER TEN

Family Curse

"Rider?"

Frost ran to her grandson and took him in her arms. He collapsed as she did so. Holding him tightly to her, she turned, sweeping his legs up with her other arm, and carried him. Casey took the moment and put the laptop in his hand into his backpack, checking to see if anyone had noticed. No one had. All eyes were on Frost and her grandson.

She carried him to Sarah, who was still kneeling by Chuck, though she was turned toward Frost and Rider, her eyes dark with worry. Frost gently put the boy on the ground beside his father. She put a hand on his forehead. Sarah had taken Chuck's hand and was rubbing it, all the while watching Frost and Rider anxiously.

"Rider's burning up, Sarah."

Sarah nodded. "He's been sick for more than a day now, I think. We need to see if there are meds in camp."

Frost looked up at the men around them. "Well, you heard her! Find me some meds. There must be some here. No one would come to stay in this damned damp inferno for any time without meds!"

A sudden explosion served as the exclamation point on Frost's words.

The explosion came from inside the central building. And, although it was violent, knocking those who were not already on the ground to the ground, the stones of the building contained much of the explosion.

A flash, a wave of palpable sound. Then nothing. Dust settled.

A moment of quiet, eerie quiet, no bugs, nothing: and then the jungle began to resume its night sounds. The flaming debris had mostly burned itself out or been smothered finally in the wet vegetation.

Frost was up, on her feet, first, growling. "Dammit. Wheelwright."

Sarah had thrown her body across Chuck and Rider. She got up second.

"Don't see how," Casey said, getting up third, and putting his backpack on. "When I saw him last, the spiders had made him their bitch, their Miss Muffet. They were having their whey with him. Curdled my stomach." Casey shuddered but the hint of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth. Muttering something about no one ever thinking he was funny, he started toward the smoking building. A couple of other men joined him, and Frost sent the others to search the tents for meds.

Frost reached for the radio hanging from her hip and tried to call the helicopter. Her eyebrows went up a fraction when she got an answer. "Explosion must've damaged Wheelwright's disrupter…Old Volkoff tech."

She explained the situation. The helicopter pilot told her he would only be able to maintain position for a while longer, then he would have to return to refuel. One of the men returned from a tent with a first-aid kit. Sarah quickly took it and found the pills she'd been hoping to find. She had moved over to Rider and she bent down and roused him enough to get him to take the pills and swallow some water, slowly, heavily. But then he slipped back into unconsciousness. Frost was checking Chuck, aided by one of the men.

"His vitals are stable, Sarah. What's wrong with him?"

Sarah shot Frost a glance full of confusion. "Don't know, but Wheelwright found some way to tap into Chuck's Intersect. And he has…Revoltium."

Now it was Frost's glance that was confused. "Chuck's…Intersect?" Sarah nodded, looking carefully at Frost's face. Frost seemed genuinely surprised. "Does his sister know?" Another nod from Sarah. "And…Beckman?" Another nod. "Damn it. When do the secrets end in this family?"

Sarah's gaze hardened. Frost had returned to the CIA. Neither her son nor her daughter, no one knew where she was most of the time, as had been true since before Chuck vanished. She was here when they needed her, but it seemed to have been an accidental rescue. Before Sarah could censor herself, she blurted it out: "It's a family of spies. Some of you are still spies. Intersects. Secret basement spy bases. How can the secrets ever end?"

A pall of pain slid across Frost's face. She started to speak. Stopped.

Her radio crackled. The helicopter would be in position in a minute. They would lower a basket. It was large enough for both Chuck and Rider to fit in it.

Frost got some of the men to help and they carried Chuck and Rider into position. When the basket was lowered, they were just able to put father and son into it. Sarah stood beside it as it went up. Her whole world was in that basket.

Frost took Sarah's hand. "They'll be ok. We owe each other a story…".

Before either woman could begin, Casey came walking up, coughing, shaking his head. "The lab's gone. Everything's slagged. BBQ'd spider everywhere. But no Revoltium. It all went up in the explosion. Canisters are blown apart." Casey stopped but did not seem like he had finished. Sarah gave him a look. "Wheelwright's body ain't in there." Casey's voice grew slightly incredulous. "Like I said, when I saw him last, he was, um, all spidery. Now, no trace of him. I don't know how he could have lived…"

Frost's radio crackled again. Lines were lowered for the three of them. She walked away for a moment and gave orders to the men to collect anything they could find and to search nearby for Wheelwright. But she told them not to follow him into the jungle.

"If he went in there at night, in his condition, he's never coming out." Finally, she gave an order to inject Cunnings with the anti-venom in the med kit. "If she lives till the 'copter comes back, bring her. If not, leave her body to the bugs. At least she'll feed something, the sick bitch. I'm sick to death of chasing her."

Three ropes came down, two with harnesses. Frost still had hers on. They clipped in and got pulled up into the helicopter.

ooOoo

Frost contacted Beckman once they were in the air and explained the situation, although she offered no explanation for her presence. Beckman's reply was relieved and happy, but Sarah could hear a sharp note of exasperation with Frost in Beckman's voice, an exasperation both personal and professional.

They were being flown back to the village, so Beckman let the conversation end but it was clearly not over. Frost frowned to herself as the call ended. She seemed as exasperated with Beckman as Beckman was with her.

Sarah felt Rider's head. He felt cooler, she thought, although still feverish. Chuck was still unconscious, but he had no obvious injury, did not seem ill. He was just...not conscious. Frost had touched Chuck's face, staring at him, her concern evident.

"What did they do to you, son?"

She looked up at Sarah. Sarah told her in quiet tones all that had happened since Chuck had gone missing.

When Sarah finished, Frost shook her head. "So, Rider followed you to the safe house, and again into the jungle?" Frost reached over and rubbed Rider's curls. "You are some kind of kid…" Her tone was equal parts love, respect, and frustration. Sarah understood; she smiled weakly and rested her hand on Rider's chest. His breathing was deep and regular.

Sarah kept her eyes on her son and her husband, but she spoke to Frost. "So: your story?"

Frost hesitated. Sarah recognized the hesitation. She'd almost gotten past it herself, almost: that old reticence, the impulse not to share, not to tell. She'd carried secrets herself for so long, pretended for so long, denied herself and her real feelings for so long, that a gulf had opened between what she knew, what she felt, and her expression of it.

One of the things she loved most about Chuck was that what he knew, what he felt, found immediate expression. Chuck's problem wasn't sharing, it was not-sharing. Like his stories about the beautiful, deadly spy and the nerd who loved her that he had told Rider as bedtime stories. While he hadn't named Sarah or himself, he couldn't keep their story to himself. Chuck loved their love story. No doubt that had come through and been part of the reason Rider had realized that the stories were about his mom and dad.

Of course, Sarah loved their love story too, but she told it to no one else, except herself. But she told it to herself often; it always made her happy. It made her feel safe, safe and...at home in the world.

Frost finally quit her hesitation. "I've been chasing Robyn Cunnings…for weeks. I had to go dark to do it; the CIA did not want anyone to know she was on the loose. Major embarrassment. I got the op because they knew I had a…grudge. What she tried to do to you and Chuck, Ellie and Devon…". Frost's eyes glinted dangerously in the dark, but she took a breath. "The whole thing was a clusterfu…" Frost shot a look at Rider, "well, it was a mess. It turns out she had stolen millions and had managed somehow to keep the money hidden. We think she had help in high places, maybe help that was also involved in her escape. I still don't know. It made her hard to find, hard to run to ground." Frost gave her head a disgusted shake.

"I had no idea she had contacted Wheelwright until a few days ago. I knew she was after someone, something…a weapon. I took it to be Wheelwright's Revoltium, but evidently, there was something…" she glanced at Chuck, "…someone else. More." She paused, thinking. "So, Chuck downloaded the Intersect again? Good God, why, Sarah?"

"No, Mary, he still has the one he's had since he was a boy, about Rider's age…Ellie thought it would be dangerous to remove it. He convinced her not to tell anyone she hadn't removed it."

"The first one? Stephen's prototype? But if it was dangerous to remove it, why keep the fact that he had it a secret?" Frost was clearly stunned.

Sarah was about to go on, to explain what Beckman and Ellie had told her, when Casey, who'd been sitting quietly in the dark of the helicopter, spoke up.

"Um, Sarah, about Rider." Sarah turned to Casey. "He…well, I found him in the central building, looking at a computer. He had a look on his face I've seen before, on another face." Casey glanced pointedly at Chuck. "It was the Intersect-look."

Sarah and Frost gasped together. "No!" Sarah said, a harsh sigh, a cry, of disbelief. "No. John, Tell me you're joking…"

Casey wouldn't, couldn't meet her gaze; he opened the backpack at his feet, showed the laptop. "I took the computer Rider was staring at. I got it when I got him. I thought maybe it would help. I'm…sorry, Sarah."

Sarah's eyes filled with tears and then ran down her face. She remembered their earlier encounter with Cunnings years ago, and Chuck's worries then about The Bartowski Family Curse. She had told him there was no curse.

A tear fell from Sarah's chin, landing on Rider's cheek.

ooOoo

Even in the helicopter, there was silence. Casey left the computer in the bag. He was looking at his feet. Frost gazed out the window, into the darkness. Sarah wiped at her eyes.

Chuck suddenly sat up. His eyes were glassy, unfocused. He turned in Sarah's direction. "Spiders. Spiders in my head..."

Then his eyes softened, focused for a moment. He gave Sarah that grin, the one he reserved for her, goofy, lovesick, and gobstruck. All these years, and he still grinned at her like that every morning, still. That grin was her dawn. It lit her up inside. It made her feel hot-cold, happy-barfy. Like the first time she saw him in the Buy More, then again dancing on their first first-date. She had then thought it was anxiety about Chuck, and about Casey and his men. She knew better now. She had already been reacting to Chuck. Viscerally reacting, as she always had and still did. Still.

But then Chuck's grin disappeared. He spoke, spoke at her, not exactly to her. His voice was strained and hushed, reverent: "…Beautiful, surpassingly beautiful…but her loveliness did not lie in her features. It lay rather, if it can be said to have had any abiding home, in a visible majesty, in an imperial grace, in a godlike stamp of softened powers, which shone on that radiant countenance like a living halo. Never before had I witnessed what beauty made sublime could be…"

Sarah reached across Rider and took Chuck's hand, but he slumped back into unconsciousness.

Frost boggled. "What was that, Sarah? Has the Intersect….?"

"No," Sarah replied, a shy smile slowly splitting her worry and exhaustion, backgrounding her tears. "That last was all Chuck. Well, all H. Rider Haggard, I guess. It's a passage from She. Chuck and Rider love that book, and he has read it to Rider repeatedly. I almost always overhear; well, I listen too, to be honest...In the passage, the…complicated woman of the title, She, Ayesha, unveils herself, reveals who she really is.

"Chuck's never admitted it, but She makes him think of me. Not that we are the same. Anyway, he's never explained it to me and I've never asked. She's tragic…cursed. Men love her and fear her." Sarah sobered and fell silent for a moment. She swallowed hard "But the spiders, that's not H. Rider Haggard." Sarah mused for a moment again. "The spiders at the camp, they were being…controlled, herded somehow. I think that was Chuck."

ooOoo

"Dad?" Rider's voice.

"Mom?" Rider's voice echoed in Chuck's head, calling Chuck back from the chanting, murmuring darkness. From a vision of…Ayesha? No. Not Ayesha…someone else. Her.

"Mom?"

"Rider?" The voice seemed nearer.

"Dad, Dad, is that you?"

"It's me, Rider. Where are you?"

"Here, Dad. Nowhere. With you."

"How? Rider, where are the spiders?"

"Spiders? Oh. Not here, Dad. Gone. I heard them leave…leave you alone."

"How's this possible, Rider? How can I be talking to you? I don't see you. I don't hear you exactly."

"I don't know, Dad. I was sick…I am sick. Mom was taking care of me. I ran into the camp to try to help. You weren't there, but your picture was on the laptop screen…"

"My picture? You could see it?"

"Yeah, how could I miss it? Why was your picture on the laptop, Dad?"

"Did you see anything else? Do anything else?" Even in the nothing, Chuck's voice echoed urgently.

"I pushed 'Enter'."

Silence. Silence in the Nothing, the Nowhere.

Chuck's voice at last, shrunken. "Oh, no, Rider. No. You didn't..."

"...I did. I saw lots and lots of pictures, pictures in your picture…and pictures in those pictures. Pictures all the way down. What was it, Dad?"

It took Chuck a while to respond. "The Intersect, buddy. It's called…The Intersect. A computer interface with the brain. My Dad…invented it. I saw it by mistake…downloaded it…when I was about your age. And then again, later, a new version, just before…I downloaded it just before I met your mom."

Rider could connect dots; he was their son. "Oh, so that's how the nerd met the beautiful, deadly spy! You never did explain that, Dad."

"I couldn't tell you about the Intersect…Wait, wait, you knew? That the stories were about me and your mom? All this time? And, wait, do you think I couldn't have met your mom on my own?"

"Of course, I knew, Dad. I mean, not at first, but after a story or two, I was sure. And, no, I don't mean that you couldn't have met Mom on your own. You two would have found each other, eventually. No matter what. When you went missing, Mom told me that you two find each other, that it is sort of your thing. That's what she said…That includes when you first met, or that's what I think."

"You think we would be together if there were no Intersect? If I didn't have it? Never had it?"

"Yeah, Dad. I see you Mom look at you when you don't know it. I see you look at her when she doesn't know it. I'm lucky, Dad. I know my parents love each other, really love each other."

Rider waited but Chuck did not immediately respond. When he did, his voice was a little choked. "Thanks, son."

"So do you think we can…talk...like this because of... the Intersect?"

"Yes, Rider, I do. The man who took me…Wheelwright…did something to the Intersect to make it possible for minds...to meet. But that also involved Revoltium. He didn't gas you did he, Rider?" Chuck's voice grew panicked.

"No, Dad, I don't think so. I don't feel good, but I've been sick. Like I said. I've had a fever."

"Huh. Maybe...the fever is...mimicking the effects of the Revoltium, and allowing the Intersect to…link…us.

"Rider, promise me, you will let Aunt Ellie get the Intersect out of your head. It shouldn't be in there. I think I finally understand what my dad did, was trying to do. He didn't make the Intersect for me. He made it in the image of me. I didn't get it then. Or for a long time. Really until just a little while ago.

"When I downloaded it, Dad was terrified. He was checking me, to see if I was alright. When it seemed I was, he told me I was special. I thought he meant that I was special because I had done it, downloaded it. But that's not what he meant. He meant that he made it as he did because I was special. He wanted the Intersect to help other people to be...special too. But somewhere along the line that early vision got corrupted…"

"You really thought he meant you were special because you could download the Intersect, Dad? Really?"

"I know. I know. I can be a colossal idiot. Thank God, you take after your mother. You are special, son, and not because of the Intersect. Never forget that or get confused about it, even if I did."

"I won't. And I take after you too, Dad, and I am glad I do…"

Rider's voice began to fade, but as it did, Chuck suddenly had a flash of images, scenes of Sarah looking at him when he was focused elsewhere, scenes Rider had witnessed. Rider had given him the flash, a chance to see what he couldn't see.

The light of love in her eyes…Not for the Intersect, for him.

He really was an idiot. She loved him anyway.

He needed to find his way out of the Nowhere. He needed to find a way home.

ooOoo

They'd landed and gotten Chuck and Rider into the house they were using as headquarters. Carina had pitched in to help, since Sarah was completely exhausted, emotionally and physically. Beckman oversaw the process. Frost was on the phone. The helicopter left to refuel; it could not get them all the way to Cuiaba.

Once inside, after making sure that Chuck and Rider were comfortable, Sarah sank heavily on a chair, putting her elbows on her knees and crossing her arms in front of her. Her hair, damp and leafy, hung limply around her face. Frost pulled up a chair beside her, after conferring with Carina and Beckman.

"Chuck and Rider are both ok, as far as we can tell. Rider's fever broke. I think he's out of the woods...or the jungle. We can deal with the Intersect once he's stronger. Chuck is still unconscious, but otherwise, he seems fine. I called Ellie about it. She thinks he needs time for the Revoltium to leave his system since he was almost certainly dosed, and dosed repeatedly."

Sarah looked up, her voice heavy with worry. "Does Ellie think he'll be ok? Be the same? After so much of that stuff?"

Frost frowned and shrugged, both reluctantly. "She didn't know. Unfortunately, we don't have any of it to analyze. We'll just have to wait and see. Ellie thinks we should let him rest here. See what happens.

"Beckman's put in a call for medical help. I'm adding my resources in. Someone should be here in the morning. If nothing's changed, but Chuck and Rider are still stable, we'll head home tomorrow night."

Frost started to stand, but Sarah's hand reached out and took Frost's wrist in a gentle but firm grasp. "Why, Mary? Why are you still working for the Company? Why are you still a spy?"

Frost sat back down, leaving her wrist in Sarah's grasp. Sarah let go. Frost sighed. "You are asking for Chuck, aren't you?"

Sarah nodded. "Mary, some part of him cannot let go of my having been Agent Walker, and I know that one reason is that there's an earlier, darker shadow on his heart…" Sarah looked directly into Frost's eyes.

Frost spoke the monosyllables icily. 'Me. Frost."

Sarah nodded again. Frost looked at her own feet, as if pondering their past path. "I don't know why I went back. I love my grandchildren. I love Rider. I love Clara. I love to see them. But Rider has you two, Clara has Ellie and Devon. And Stephen is dead."

Frost stalled, choking back an emotion Sarah could feel emanating from Frost but see no trace of on Frost's face. "If Stephen were alive...maybe I wouldn't have gone back. Isn't that sad? 'Maybe'. That's the best I can manage. I abandoned my family once and I hated and still hate myself for it, but the best I can manage is that I maybe wouldn't have gone back if Stephen were alive…" Frost looked at Sarah with a gaze so suddenly forlorn that Sarah involuntarily looked away. "I know that my decisions, and Stephen's decisions, complicated my children's lives. But I don't know any other way to live. I'm too old for this, for ropes and helicopters and psychotic female torturers and mad scientists and...spiders, but I get restless when I am away from it. It doesn't make me happy; it...just makes me me."

Sarah nodded once. "But I can't get Chuck to see that that's you, not me. He makes me me. The way I hope I make him him. You've made your choices, Mary, and I am not trying to sit in judgment on them. I admit that early on, after Chuck and I first got together, I wasn't sure I could give up the spy life, or at least give it up without regret. But I did, I have.

"I want the life I now have, not the life I used to have. And Agent Walker is a part of me, but she isn't me, and...and what Chuck doesn't get is that she's happy with the life I now have too. She's not pining away for the Company…" Sarah shook her head in frustration. "Agent Walker was the first one to fall in love with Chuck. Because she did, she stepped aside so that Sarah Bartowski could come to be. And now I'll stop talking like I am two people..." Sarah dropped her elbows back onto her knees and studied the floor, her brows tightly knit.

Frost sat for a moment in contemplative silence. "You aren't me, Sarah. Chuck knows that. Deep down, he does. Really deep down, maybe, but he does. Still, I am part of the problem; you are right. And my continued work for the CIA goads Chuck's anxieties where you are concerned. I'm sorry. It can't go on much longer. The Director has already started asking me for retirement dates. Like it or not, the clock is about to run out on my time as a Special Agent. I really am sorry, Sarah."

"It's ok." Sarah fell silent for a little while. "The main thing is that Chuck gets it through his Intersected head that I am not in love with the damn Intersect. I loved him before I knew for sure he had it, certainly before I really understood what it meant that he had it. The Intersect is part of our….admittedly odd...'meet cute' story, but it wasn't who or what I 'met cute'."

Sarah had straightened up and was waving her hands in the air, trying to punctuate what she was saying, talking to Chuck now as much as or more than to Frost. "I met Chuck! I love Chuck. I love your son. He's...special. Why can't he just accept that? I'm not Ayesha. I'm not a mythical woman under a curse. I'm just a human woman with a screwed up past who found the man for her." Sarah dropped her elbows to her knees again.

"Have you two talked about this yet?"

Sarah looked up at Frost, tears welling. "No, no. I didn't really know it was a problem 'til I found out he still had the Intersect and kept it from me. Everyone in this family's acting like a spy, except me. And I'm the one Chuck worries secretly wants to be a spy. But what I want...what I want is Chuck and Rider, and our home, and maybe to have another child with my husband, and to raise my kids with him in peace." Sarah wiped her eyes. "What if Wheelwright...hurt him...damaged him? What if we don't get to talk?"

Frost gripped Sarah in a hug, kind and warm. "You will, Sarah. It's Chuck. Never underestimate him. He finds his way back to you. It's like he leaves a trail…"

"One silken thread?"

Frost was puzzled. "Huh?"

Sarah wiped her eyes again and forced herself to smile. "Never mind."

ooOoo

In the darkened jungle, gibbering and swearing, mouth foaming, moving in a crouch, swollen and mottled, Wheelwright was progressing toward the village. Excruciating footfall, excruciating footfall. He moved, shrouded in a cloud of insects. In his hand, he death-gripped a small canister of Revoltium.

Revenge. He would get his revenge before he yielded to the venom inflaming his veins, turning his blood to lava, before it consumed him from the inside. Revenge: the thought of it cooled his burning torment, just a little, just...enough.

A/N2 Two chapters to go, the last really an epilogue. Tune in next time for Chapter 11, "Repairing the Web". Thanks to David Carner for pre-reading and for a useful suggestion about the chapter. Thanks also to WvonB. Leave me a review before you consign me to the Nothing.

Unlike most of my other stories, I haven't said much about music in relation to this one. But I will here. As a backdrop to this chapter, listen to Elvis Costello's gorgeous *She*. You can find it on Youtube or Spotify.