AN: Not really much I can say. My deepest apologies for the delay/abandonment. There are a lot of new people in the fandom since I last published anything. I hope my writing can still hang with the other great authors here. You'll probably want to reread the entire story. I know I had to. I'm determined to get this done before I go back to school on Aug 30th. Well, I hope you enjoy. It hasn't been beta read, so I'm sure there are mistakes I missed. Let me know of any shameful ones. Here we go...
Chapter 11
When Two Years Feels Like A Second
CIA FACILITY
Somewhere in Maryland
The sound of Chuck's screams startled Casey so greatly that he left tire marks on the pavement in his haste to stop the SUV. Sarah, on the other hand, was transported back to a dark cell in the hills of Russia. Just like all those years before, Sarah was helpless to stop the screaming. It crashed into her ears and refused to stop until it had split her heart in two. Her guilt ridden mind couldn't discern the differences in the tone of the screams or the methods of restraint. She had never wanted to die more in her life.
"Walker. Snap out of it. Damn it," Casey said, putting the car in park and unfastening his seat-belt. Casting a glance toward the backseat, he saw that Chuck had maneuvered into a fetal position. The kid's howls of pain had dulled to heavy moaning and some mumbled nonsense about colors. He wasn't above a comforting pat on the shoulder, but Casey knew that only Sarah Walker could calm Bartowski in his current state.
He knew better than to touch an absentminded agent, so he once more used his booming voice to break through Sarah's fog. "WALKER!" he yelled, laying on the horn at the same time.
Casey saw awareness flood back into his partner's body and said a silent thank you to the movers of the universe. "Walker, we're in Maryland and Bartowski is in the backseat. We're not in whatever hellhole you were just revisiting. You need to get it together," he said, attempting to draw her further into the present.
Seeing that she was still a bit disoriented, he continued, "Chuck needs you, Sarah. He's hurt."
That did it. Walker slowly drew her eyes away from the windshield and cast them on Casey's face. The moisture filled eyes and pained expression were nearly Casey's undoing, but he refused to let his former teammates finally get to his soft side.
"Chuck?" Sarah questioned.
Casey nodded his head and then jerked it backward. Sarah followed his suggestion with her eyes. A gasp filled the SUV when she caught Chuck's writhing form. She immediately tried to jump to his rescue, but the seat-belt held her back. Still somewhat unaware of her surroundings, Sarah furiously pushed and pulled at the offending material. Her frantic noises penetrated Chuck's pain and he too began to struggle.
Casey would have laughed if the situation weren't so serious. His teammates really were a match made in heaven. If he didn't do something soon, they would both injure themselves before the fighting even began. Knocking Sarah's hands out of the way, he unbuckled her seat-belt and tossed it to the side. Once she realized that she was no longer impeded, she slithered into the backseat and pulled Chuck's upper body onto her lap.
"Chuck," she whispered. Her voice came out shaky and rough due to the overwhelming volume of emotions she had experienced in the previous ten minutes. Clearing her throat, she tried again. "Chuck, sweetie, it's Sarah. You're safe. Please come back to me," she pleaded.
Realizing that he was no longer watching a CIA agent protecting her asset, Casey refocused his attention on the flaming building in front of him. The scene behind him was that of a woman comforting, perhaps for the last time, the man she loved. Casey would not be moved by the scene. He refused.
Chuck could feel a shaking but soothing hand making its way down his face and through his hair. Only one touch had ever comforted him so. "Sarah?"
The words startled the female agent out of her detached routine of soothing motions and encouraging words. "I'm here, Chuck," she assured, pulling him in for a fierce hug. He was too weak to return her affection. When she pulled back from the embrace, she noticed his eyes attempting to open. She ran her thumb along the arch of his brow.
"It's OK, Chuck. Take your time."
"What happened," he wondered, finally managing to take in the blurry image of her tear-stained face.
Sarah opened her mouth to speak, but fear chocked off her words. Vocalizing their situation would make it all the more real. Chuck's eyes changed her mind. He needed her. He needed her to be honest, but most of all, he needed her to be strong.
"I'm getting worse aren't I," Chuck said, beating Sarah to the punch.
"Yes," she confirmed. Chuck's eyes closed in frustration, and Sarah felt an urgent need to reassure him. She grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her.
"But we're going to fight it. We're going to do everything we can to solve this," she said, reassuring herself and Chuck at the same time.
Chuck gave her a small smile in acknowledgment.
"Aren't we, Casey," she said, raising her voice to bring her partner back into the fold. It was time she stopped dwelling on past hurt. She needed to take charge and Casey was the only one she trusted to help.
"Absolutely. Can't let you check out early, Bartowski," Casey answered, using his trademark humor.
"I'm sorry I allowed myself to be distracted," she said. It was a calculated statement to reassure Casey that she was prepared to carry out their mission. After searching for something in his partner's demeanor, he grunted and turned forward to restart the car. He was ready to walk back into the fire with Sarah Walker watching his six.
"Get us to Langley as fast as you can," Sarah ordered.
"Aye, aye," Casey joked. Putting the car into drive, he floored the pedal and moved toward the main drag. Chuck groaned at the jolting movements. Sarah was about to comfort him when she sensed the car slowing down. They had barely traveled three hundred feet.
"What's going on," she asked.
"We've got company," he said, gesturing outside and to the right of their vehicle.
Sarah carefully leaned over Chuck's still prone body and stretched to see what had captured Casey's interest. Shock overtook her mind, and she rubbed her eyes to be sure of what she was seeing. About ten yards ahead of them, Greg Swan was limping away from the destroyed CIA facility. The set of handcuffs she'd ordered Chuck to use still dangled from his leg. There was a smear of blood on his brow, and he was covered in dirt but otherwise unharmed. What really concerned her was the gun clutched in his right hand.
Sarah gently eased Chuck into a sitting position behind the driver's seat. Whispering a few words of reassurance, she moved to exit the vehicle. Casey handed her the gun she'd lost during her fight with the seatbelt. She tucked it into the space between her back and waist of her pants. No sense in going out guns blazing she reasoned. The analyst already thought she was a traitor who had left him inside the building to die.
"Cover me," she said to Casey. He nodded his agreement. "I don't think he'll try anything. He's just an analyst, but sometimes they surprise you," she joked, casting a mischievous smile Chuck's way. His head was resting against the window, but he opened his eyes enough to roll them. The part of him that wasn't wracked with pain appreciated her humor.
Sarah opened the passenger door and exited the vehicle. Casey rolled down the SUV's windows so he could be aware of any developing trouble. He didn't want to let Walker out there alone, but he knew an unfamiliar face could easily spook the distressed analyst. As things stood, she had a pretty hard sell to make.
Sarah's thoughts mirrored those of her partner. Swan would not readily accept her story no matter how truthful. Knowing this, she shut the car door and walked forward with her hands in the air. She wanted to show the young guy that she wasn't a threat. He didn't need to know that she had a gun at her back and knives at her thigh.
"I'm glad you made it out," she started.
The younger man snorted in disbelief and wiped sweat from his eyes. "You left me there to die!"
Sarah shook her head in disagreement. "That was not my intention. Fulcrum executed an attack on the facility."
"You mean you attacked it," he interrupted, raising his gun.
She heard Casey growl in disgust, but she dismissed him with a wave of her hand. "Come on, Greg. You're not really going to shoot me."
Greg tightened his grip on the weapon and disengaged the safety. "I may not be a field agent, but I certainly know how to put a bullet between your eyes," he spat.
Sarah was having none of it.
"No! I am not part of Fulcrum. There are things going on that even I don't understand. I'm being set up. I had to get Chuck out of there. I'm sorry we left you behind," she said, trying to soften her words. The last thing she needed was to get shot by a fellow desk jockey.
Greg lowered his gun slightly and glanced at the SUV. "Is Chuck okay?"
Sarah almost smiled. Chuck's uncanny ability to make friends would never cease to amaze her. It appeared that he had won the loyalty and respect of the chief analyst behind the Beta Intersect program. They could certainly use the help.
"Relatively. He had a major attack of pain and disorientation, but he is lucid now." She let the state of Chuck's health sink in for a moment before dropping her bombshell.
"We think that Bob Smart is behind the virus and a member of Fulcrum," she explained.
Greg physically deflated. His gun wielding arm dropped to his side, and his grip loosened. It was not the reaction Sarah had anticipated. She expected Swan to become even more aggravated and demand an explanation for her ludicrous proclamation.
"You don't seem surprised," Sarah observed.
"I'm not. I've suspected something for a while," he answered.
Sarah raised her eyebrows in astonishment. "Why?"
"He's been using the assets strangely the last few months. Giving them unscheduled uploads and debriefing them personally. I discretely broached the subject with Susan, but she wouldn't hear it. There was nothing I could do," he reasoned.
Sarah resisted the urge to lash out at the man in front of her. If he had followed up more on his suspicions, Chuck might not be on the verge of death. So much could have been prevented. Her rational side, however, remained in control. Yelling at the person who could help save the man she loved was not tactically effective.
"We think he's planning a coup on The Agency. All this commotion with the failing Intersects caused quite a stir. The heads of every department are meeting at headquarters to discuss. We think that's where the next Fulcrum strike will be," she explained.
Greg seemed stunned to inaction. Sarah lost her patience.
"We have to go now. We need to stop the attack and he may know how to save Chuck," she urged.
Her words snapped Greg out of his stupor. A look of excitement crossed his face. "I know how to save Chuck. I figured it out," he stated.
Sarah felt a weight lift from her shoulders. She had another ally to help in her quest.
"Well, I haven't figured it all out, but I'm pretty sure I understand the nature of the problem," he rambled on.
Sarah felt Chuck's time slipping away with every word he spoke. Greg didn't have the antidote readily available, and they still had a country to save. There was no time for him to geek out, so Sarah strode up to him and removed the gun from his hand. Greg was startled by the swiftness of her action, but any words of protest died when she dragged him to the SUV. Pushing him into the seat next to Chuck, she took her spot next to Casey and slammed the door.
"Casey drive," she ordered, "Greg, explain what you discovered."
Both men followed her commands. Some of her stress was lifted by the mere fact that they were moving closer to a place where she could kick someone's ass. Any elation was tempered by Chuck's distressed face. Greg's words broke through her contemplation, and she moved to give him her full attention.
"We were essentially right with our previous postulations. The information you…uh, Bob uploaded was corrupted. We were wrong about the nature of the virus though. It didn't actively seek to destroy the host. Instead, it altered the basic functioning of a flash," he said, looking at Sarah for some sort of compliment or encouragement. She simply stared back at him with the barest hint of patience.
"Ok. Uh…where was I. Normally, when a human intersect flashes it only activates the information for a limited period of time. This virus reprogrammed that code so that the information is constantly circulating and being analyzed. The off switch has been removed. It's like Chuck said, the machines are overheating," he concluded.
"How," Sarah questioned. She tried to keep her voice even, but her insides were churning at the realization that this code treated Chuck and the other Intersects as nothing more than machines.
"I'm not entirely sure. The building was hit just as I had isolated the code," he said, sadly.
Sarah ran a frustrated hand through her hair. Casey tightened his grip on the steering wheel as Chuck's prospects darkened. "Do you have any idea what it could be or how to fix it," Sarah questioned.
Greg looked thoughtfully at Chuck. He wanted desperately to help his new-found friend. "It could be a number of things. The orientation of the images, their color, or a single embedded photo in every larger image," he explained.
Sarah felt desperation at Greg's words. The Intersect facility had been destroyed and they still weren't sure what could save the only remaining human Intersect.
Casey, on the other hand, allowed a spark of hope to form in his mind at Greg's deductions. "Did you say the color of the images could have been altered?"
Greg looked at the big man in puzzlement. "Yes. That's one of the many possibilities. Why?"
The grin the erupted on Casey's face made the analyst uncomfortable. Sarah wondered if he had finally lost his mind. Casey just basked in the glory of having figured out Bartowski's dilemma and the future possibility of gun play.
"Earlier, when Bartowski had his episode, he was mumbling something about two different colors. What exactly is the importance of the image color?"
Sarah was thoroughly confused, but Greg rubbed his hands together in excitement. "We use two different colors to code the Intersect images. One initiates the retrieval process; the other ends it. The last embedded image of a stimulus photo is always the same color."
"What are the colors," Sarah demanded, sensing that they were close to a breakthrough.
Greg searched his mind for the answer. He had two federal agents hanging on his every word and a new friend whose life depended on it.
"Brown and blue."
