September 1, 2004

It was the difference between a written test and a practical, the difference between writing the instructions for an experiment down and following those instructions to a meticulous tee. It was the difference between telling Ellie he was leaving and actually getting on the plane. It was the difference between hand-to-hand combat with Bryce and hand-to-hand combat with Sarah.

It was the intellectual knowledge versus the application.

Chuck ducked down a stray alley, grateful that, despite Bryce's protestations that they wear boat shoes or flip-flops to fit in as the tourists they were claiming to be, he'd decided to wear his Chuck Taylor's anyway. It had enabled him to put some distance between him and his pursuers. And the fact that he had led them through a chase that was at least semi-public, it prevented them from pulling out their firearms.

Their real, honest-to-God, gunpowder and hot lead firearms.

What had Bryce said last night? "Should be a piece of cake, right?"

He had said that about the training mission where Sarah had tranq'd the both of them. And the mission where a door had exploded and almost knocked them both out. And the mission where the ceiling had fallen on them. It was their version of "I have a bad feeling about this."

Bryce had even grinned after saying it.

Now Chuck was ducking down alleys while Bryce took to the rooftops, both attempting to get to their "In-The-Very-Slight-Circumstance-Things-Might-Go-A-Little-FUBAR" meet-up location.

Bryce had protested the ITVSCTMGALF meeting point. "Chuck, you said so yourself that it's a milk run."

"Until you can make sure a room is clear without me getting shot by tranq darts, I'm setting up back up plans."

Somewhere between June and November, he had lost something. A sense of levity, perhaps.

He saw Bryce, a few hundred yards off in the distance, leap over a small gap between two buildings and kind of wished he still had enough of a playful side to him to want to stick his tongue out at Bryce and say "I told you so."

He only barely picked up on the video game gun shot noise of his pursuer's silenced Glock. Obviously, the abandoned state of the alley had emboldened the man to try to take a shot. Even despite his training, Chuck flinched at the noise. When he didn't start gushing blood like a Mortal Kombat character, he redoubled his efforts, using his long legs to put a safer distance between himself and the shooter.

He'd played poker last night.

A few hours after Bryce had turned the lights out in their room at Naval Station Rota, a few of the guys had snuck in and tried to abduct Chuck. He had heard them. He didn't sleep through much of anything anymore, least of all seven members of the United States Navy attempting to sneak into a room. Instead of finding someone to black bag and drag out of the room in abject terror, one of the guys, Connor, had practically screamed when a Nerf dart had connected with his forehead.

Chuck had bought the Nerf gun at the NEX.

It had reminded him of his old life, in a way the people from his old life no longer could.

Further in the distance he detected a follow-up retort from the shooter's pistol. The man must have stopped in an attempt to line up the shot, but the distance Chuck gained from increasing his speed paid had off. He ducked down another alley, one that meant he was now taking his third-choice route to the meeting spot.

If Chuck had been forced to narrow it down to any one thing that had tipped off the realization that he was in a foreign country, it hadn't been the flight into Rota Naval Station. Nor had it been being surrounded by military personnel carrying weapons, heavy and light. It hadn't been the meetings or briefings, the occasional forays into Spanish or the mission parameters.

It had been the smell.

The smell was richer and earthier than any he could remember. He had never been out to visit Morgan's family in the Midwest, so he couldn't say with any certainty that the farmlands and plains didn't compare, but the air of the coastal U.S. was almost non-existent compared to the grainy, almost tactile experience of the smells of southwest Spain.

Now, the smells made things real in a different way. Even the acrid stench of the combustible gases from the firearms that were shooting at him seemed to linger. His whole nasal cavity felt warm, taking in the heat from the friction of his sneakers against the pavement. And the salt of both the nearby shore and his own sweat hung heavy and bitter. All of them mixed together into something that clearly told Chuck that he could die here. Today.

He didn't have a fourth-choice route.

Almost a year ago had been paintball. Now cobblestone boulevards and sandstone brick replaced autumn leaves and evergreen trees, but he was still running from an enemy he couldn't see. A comfortable running form had replaced his awkward and stilted gait, but he was still mostly just hoping he wouldn't be shot.

And lead had replaced paint.

This mission was supposed to be easy. Go to Chipiona, grab information from a few informants, get back to the base. It was just supposed to be, in official terms, a retrieval op. It was just supposed to be, in nerd terms, "Find the green key."

Another gunshot, this one even further off. Were they shooting at Bryce now?

"Nice day, isn't it? Not too many clouds out." The two informants, Spanish nationals who were assisting the U.S. with documentation exposing corrupted officials in the U.S. embassy in Spain, had chosen clouds as the code word.

Bryce had leaned back, his classic rakish grin crossing his face. "I like cloudy days." Bryce kicked back a chair. "Take a seat, guys."

Chuck had narrowed his eyes without looking over at Bryce. If you don't treat a situation with the proper respect, the situation will treat you the same. It had been one the few maxims from Agent McKenzie that Chuck had bought into.

The shorter of the two informants, Ruiz, had seemed nervous and twitchy from the moment he had approached. Chuck had noticed the way he had wiped his palms against his pants and the way his eyes shot around, looking back and forth not frantically, but often enough where the description was almost apt. At first, Chuck had chalked it up to the same sense of foreboding and imminent danger that he himself had been experiencing. It had been a bit like looking in a mirror.

As he heard one of the men following him begin to ascend the same fire escape he had just toppled, Chuck shook his head ruefully. Another one of Bryce's "piece of cake" missions. Don't treat a situation with the proper respect, and the situation will treat you the same.

If Bryce said something was going to be a piece of cake one more time, Chuck was probably going to just eat his own gun.

He jumped across a few rooftops, noting somewhere in the back of his head how he did so now without hesitation. The first time he'd been asked to jump across rooftops, it had been a training exercise. He had only been able to think two things. That it had been an enormous drop, and that the only other person who would have been crazy enough to try to convince him of this situation would have been Captain Awesome.

"Look, can't we start with something a little less fatal?" he had pleaded.

McKenzie had laughed caustically at that, and Chuck had only barely resisted the urge to point out that he hadn't been joking.

Now, his legs were thick and toned from a year of intense physical training and he used them to push off from the ledge of a building, in the hopes of landing on another ledge at least ten feet away. He used them to launch himself over a fatal drop, without doubt, as natural as if he were walking.

Adrenaline, it seemed, overrode higher brain functions.

"Raise." He'd said that a lot last night.

The truth was, that poker game last night was saving their lives now.

It had been like a crash course in body language. He'd stared across the table at the naval officers, noting the way their eyes flickered, the nervous tics of their bodies. He had watched how they folded their hands and how they adjusted their cards. The biggest tell isn't an uncharacteristic moment, he had remembered McKenzie telling him, it's a repeated characteristic that you've figured out the meaning of.

Connor had smirked a lot, good hands or bad, rags or pocket aces, but his smirk had turned different ways depending on the flop. Lindhurst's dark sarcasm had retreated just the slightest bit when his hand had looked good, and then had returned if he hadn't made his straight or flush draws. The jokes Sanchez had constantly told continued, but they had become dirtier the worse his hand had been.

A gunshot, suddenly very close, caused Chuck to duck behind an air conditioning unit for just a moment. He put his hand to his pistol, his emotions flying into debate once his flesh touched the gun's surface. As soon as his fingers clenched around the grip of his firearm, time seemed to jolt to a stop, and a cavalcade of moral quandaries shot through Chuck's head.

Was he actually considering shooting someone?

Was he actually considering not?

Maybe just a warning shot? His stomach lurched.

Time sped back up with the next gunshot. Split-second, he thought of Chipiona's map, laid out before him just as it had been when he and Bryce were planning their ITVSCTMGALF escape routes. Using a nearby hotel as a landmark to determine his location, Chuck quickly made up a fourth route, one that would hopefully lose his tail.

Immediately before he took action, he wondered what the hell an engineering student from Stanford was doing here in southwest Spain, facing double agents and dodging stray bullets.

Th third gunshot pinged off the air conditioning unit, probably from a few rooftops away. At the sound of metal against metal, Chuck pushed out of his hiding place, his feet pumping, adrenaline pumping, his muscles burning with lactic acid, and jumped off the edge of the building over the yawning street chasm.

It might have looked like suicide.

He wasn't entirely convinced it wasn't.

His legs were spread, one far out in front of his body and the other a mirror reflection behind, in a wide long jumper's arch that mimicked the trajectory of his jump out into the open air. The smell, the thick smell of Spain that had initially warned him that this was different, mixed with the nearby saltwater breeze, lingering in his nostrils longer than the chemical stench of the shooting range. Cars, both parked and moving, littered the ground, technicolor against otherwise static earth tones of the city's architecture.

The fire escape on the building grew larger in his vision as it came closer, a sort of dramatic, fish-eye camera trick but in real life. It had only been one, maybe two, infinite seconds that he'd been in the air when his leap reached its terminal arch and he began his descent. He didn't have the bravery to look down, but he knew it without looking.

He wasn't going to make it.

"Do you ever wonder, like, why you're doing this?" He'd asked Sarah that question during one of their last training missions.

She had finished taking a drink from her water bottle before looking at him. "What do you mean?"

Her hair had been, as always, tied back in a tight ponytail. Only the few golden wisps that had escaped due to movement had given any indication that she'd done something more strenuous than running up a flight of stairs. She had taught him to focus on something on his opponent that wouldn't change, so he could better notice the things that would. For her, it had been her hair.

"I mean, I know what brought me here. So I guess, in that sense, I know why I'm doing this." He had shrugged. "But, like, what's my motivation moving forward?"

Sarah hadn't said anything to that. He hadn't noticed.

"I mean, I guess they're related. I wanted to do this because I thought that..." He had trailed off. "I don't know, that I could help? That... this... would help? I'm not sure I know what 'this' is anymore."

Chuck had looked at Sarah then. His gaze stayed mostly on her eyes but still by force of habit, he focused a bit on her hair that somehow looked more disheveled than it had just a moment ago. She had looked thoughtful or worried or confused or all three.

"I gave up a lot," he had said. "No, I gave up almost everything for this. I sacrificed so much. And I don't know if it was worth it." His smile had been self-deprecating. "I mean, I guess we all go through that, right? Bryce has sacrificed his family, for the most part. And you, right? I'm sure you had to sacrifice something for this. Why'd you do it?"

She had hesitated, for whatever reason, her breath drawing up uncertain and exhaled loudly, almost drowning her words. "I didn't have to sacrifice much, actually."

"Really? What do you mean?"

She hadn't been looking at him as she had dryly smirked, her gaze had been at the far wall or maybe beyond that. "It's complicated."

Chuck had seen something in her then, something true, despite the ambiguity of her response. The biggest tell isn't an uncharacteristic moment, McKenzie had taught him, it's a repeated characteristic that you've figured out the meaning of. That moment was the first time he realized that Sarah Walker was kind of sad.

The ascending arc of Chuck's jump had lasted forever in a few seconds, but the descending arc seemed to happen all at one point in space-time. The moving cars that had seemed stationary and motionless, winding through Chipiona's thin streets seemed to hurtle both along the road to their destination and up towards him, while the various platforms of the fire escape seemed to be flying past him in an almost comical manner, like watching a cartoon elevator shoot downwards with the bad guy trapped inside.

Ruiz had sat with his legs crossed. It was something to focus on that didn't change. It was a repeated characteristic. It was the same sort of tell he'd seen on Connor and Sanchez, the same sort of tell he'd seen on Sarah. For the most part, the man had sat with his left leg crossed lazily over his right. Every once in awhile, though, Chuck had noticed that Ruiz would switch legs, and his eyes would scan the shore for something, a reflection of how Chuck had earlier been watching for Ruiz and his partner.

Armando, the other contact, had made small talk with Bryce as he had slid the thumb drive over, and the pair had looked connected in some way to Chuck. The two confident men, Bryce and Armando, looked natural in this environment, in a way Chuck had figured he never would.

Bryce had pocketed the thumb drive while taking a sip of water, and at that exact moment Ruiz had switched which legs he had crossed. The man's eyes had focused in on one point on the shore and Chuck hadn't even needed to look to know that he and Bryce were going to have to go all Bourne Identity chase scene.

Before Ruiz and his partner had been able to make a suspicious move, Chuck had grabbed Bryce.

"Doubles," he had said at Bryce's shocked, incredulous gaze.

"What? No, you're craz-" Bryce had let the sentence stop suddenly as the both of them had turned back just to see Ruiz quickly bury a knife in his partner.

It had seemed to Chuck that Bryce's moment of realization was just then, as his friend's easy expressions had darkened and hardened. They had looked at each other and spoke silently: See you at the rendezvous. Chuck had only just managed to stop from rolling his eyes to add, hopefully.

Chuck reached up in his descent, his arm waving madly and his hands grabbing feverishly for something that would stop his momentum, for anything that would keep him from breaking about three quarters of his body on the ground.

Suddenly, his hand closed around something metal, and out of instinct he flexed his fingers tightly around that grip. For the briefest of moments, a flood of relief shot through his body. Then, the physics of momentum followed through and he couldn't stop himself from crying out in agony as he literally felt the ball joint of his humerus slipping out of its socket, the muscles around his shoulder going violently into spasm. His fingers lost their grip in the pain, and he fell again toward the ground, his body an awkward crash dummy as it fell the remaining seven or so feet.

He landed, only just avoiding his now-dislocated shoulder. His body kicked up dirt and dust that glinted in the late afternoon sun like seemed for an impossible moment suspended, though it was likely a delusion from the violent, twanging pain shooting through his arm.

Determined or scared or out of instinct, he forced himself to his feet, quickly accelerating through the door of a nearby hotel. He didn't bother trying to look inconspicuous as he pushed people out of the way with his right arm, trying to ignore the agony in his left, which hung loosely and uselessly at his side.

He scrambled through the lobby, ignoring the yells of the hotel staff as he flew into the stairwell. With his arm dragging him down, Chuck wasn't able to ascend the stairs with anything approaching normal speed, and he worried that one of his pursuers might catch up to him. His fall might have helped him in that way; he doubted anyone seeing his crash landing would expect for him to start jumping roofs again.

The hotel's roof was one of the higher points in Chipiona's cityscape, and when Chuck reached it, it allowed him an excellent 360 degree view of the city's skyline.

It was devoid of other human life.

He let out a stressed, mangled breath he didn't know he had been holding in.

It took him more than ten minutes over the time he had budgeted himself to reach the rendezvous point, but his arm slowed him and made his roof jumping more careful. After the adrenaline wore off and the pain set in, he just didn't have the energy for Aladdin-style street-rat chases.

The rendezvous was an abandoned warehouse in the industrial district of town. It had been where they had stashed their car coming into town, far away from their meeting point. They had made that decision so they could identify and lose any tails on their way from the meeting point to the car.

That seemed a little ironic now.

The third lap around the warehouse finally convinced Chuck that he wasn't being followed, and he allowed himself the luxury of acknowledging his pain. Instead of attempting to hold his shoulders a bit more square, he let his left arm hang properly, wiggling like a pool fun noodle. He frowned and grit his teeth as he hoisted his right arm up to open the door, trying to mentally manage the pain.

Bryce, of course, was already there. It seemed he had even had time to set up some of the empty crates into a makeshift recliner, his feet spread out lazily. Chuck kind of laughed as whatever clever welcome Bryce had prepared died on his lips as soon as he saw Chuck's arm.

"What happened?" Bryce practically leaped towards him, crossing the warehouse's floor in a few seconds.

"Nothing." He tried to shrug, wincing when he remembered his damn shoulder was dislocated. "We need to get in the car and go, Bryce."

Bryce hesitated, looking warily at Chuck's limp arm.

"Now." Chuck whispered with as much vehemence as he could force through the pain.

"The car's right here, Chuck. We need to reset that."

If you don't treat a situation with the proper respect, the situation treat you the same. That thought, though, was muted by an intense throb from his shoulder. He looked out one of the warehouse's windows, saw the battered, tan Volkswagen outside of it. He saw home, or at least the promise of familiar ground, familiar architecture, familiar smells. He knew that the didn't have the time to waste. Logically, their best plan was to jump in the car at that very moment, drive to Rota with the data in hand, and deal with his dislocated shoulder when they got there. Another set of nerve bundles exploded violently, making his vision go wobbly, and he nodded fiercely to Bryce: Do it.

In any other situation, Chuck would have again laughed at the serious expression on Bryce's face; his friend never looked seroius, especially not on a mission. The thought, though, kept running through his mind that Bryce was looking serious because of him. He was taking the time to reset Chuck's arm because they were friends and partners. Things between them had changed, but that hadn't.

They weren't the same people anymore, but they had changed together and that meant something.

Bryce tore off a thick chunk of his own shirt, balling it up to give Chuck something to bite down on. Slowly, Bryce raised Chuck's elbow to forty five degrees. He took Chuck's forearm and crossed it over in front of Chuck's body then, in intense, minute increments, began turning the forearm back out. Chuck couldn't, really, but he imagined he could hear and see the scraping of bone and muscle and soft tissue and he bit the cloth hard to keep from crying out. Finally, with what Chuck imagined in his head as an exaggerated snap, he felt the arm shift back into place. He cried out with relief. The pain was still there, but his muscles seemed calmed and the arm was at least mostly mobile.

Bryce smiled. "Piece of cake."

Chuck's face didn't even hate the chance to fall before there was the sudden roar of gunfire, and he watched in horror as a bullet buried itself in Bryce's chest.

A/N: So, how about those Yankees? You guys all watch baseball, right?

...

Okay, yes, I've foisted a horrific cliffhanger upon you all. But, you know what, you were getting away completely clean on the cliffhanger front for 11 chapters. I felt like you were all getting a little cocky about it. I can't count the reviews that were like "Well this story is great because there were no cliffhangers."

Okay that didn't happen. At all. It was more that the chapter just screamed for a cliffhanger, and I had to oblige. I am powerless to the narrative, I tell you! Powerless!

I have to give my beta, Ms. Frea O'Scanlin, the credit for how well this chapter turned out. I wrote about half of this chapter completely differently and, um, it was boring. And Frea called me out on it. And I was like, "Okay well now I'm shooting Bryce." And I think she thought I was joking but HA!

As always, you can check for updates on how the latest chapter of Twist is coming at Castle Inanity. The web address for that guy is castleinanity(dot)blogspot(dot)com. I also do columns there occasionally! ONTOTHEREVIEWS

xx-crispy-mnms-lover-xx: Hah! I have converted one! It's always nice to know that I'm doing my job well enough for all of the Charah people out there to actually like Jill. Thanks for the review!

alex: I think I did a review reply a few chapters back that kind of fits again here. This is the Chuck world, and I'm just playing in its sandbox. The ideas of the Red Test and how it fits into the Chuck mythos is important in the show, and since I'm working within the show's mythos, it's important to the story. Sorry if you don't like it, but thanks for reviewing!

Nautica7mk: I always love reading your thoughts, not only about your reactions to the latest chapter, but also about the characters and how they interact and what they mean to each other, even outside my little world. I appreciate every bit of feedback you give, because it's a great help and inspiration to keep on keeping on. I have to say, though, that I'm totally glad that you don't know if Chuck is going to succeed or fail; I'm hoping its in doubt up until the very end. :) As always, thank you for your wonderful feedback.

MickTei: I get not liking Jill, though I'd disagree that it's out of character. Remember, Jill didn't actually cheat on Chuck, and even after six years away from him and even before she found out anything about his CIA connections, she was going on dates with him and talking with friends about him. And even after everything in her story arc, she wanted to run away with him. So, I think because my story is set at the very beginning of her relationship with Fulcrum, and knee-deep with her relationship with Chuck, it made sense to me that she's be acting more like this than like she did in Season 2. Does that make sense? Thanks for the review, and I'm glad you're liking everything else!

Foxmac: Ploy? Ploy? I am aghast! I am shocked! I am... okay you're totally right. :) And you know, you might just be right about Casey. Maybe. Or maybe not. But probably. But who knows I change my mind all the time. But maybe. :) Thanks for reviewing!

supesfan18: Thanks for the thumbs up, good sir! I agree that both Chuck and Sarah have to find themselves before they can find each other, and I'm glad I've communicated that!

Joe: The gradual change of Chuck is one of the things that I've been putting the most work into in this story, and I'm glad to know it's coming across. Regarding Chuck and Sarah... Well it was probably just unconscious on Chuck's part. But, then again, who knows? :) I can't wait for Chuck and Sarah to meet again, personally. I have a lot of fun things planned for them. But, alas, you have to wade through all this tedious Bryce-getting-shot business first. ;) Thanks for the review!

BDaddyDL: Thank you so much for your kind words. The change of Chuck into a spy they attempted in Season 3, well, I've tried to improve upon with my story. I'm glad it's been working! As far as the Bryce/Orion thing, well, I'm being intentionally vague about where they are in their plans. It'll make it all the more OMGNOWAY when they're sprung, ya know? Thanks for reviewing!

Elysion1879: Foreshadowing? Here? Nahhhhh. ;) Glad you're liking the story and thanks for the review!

onesmartgoalie: I tried to make the Red Test as much my own thing as I tried to make it the show's thing, and I think that was the way to do it. I'm glad you like the idea, and I hope I can pull it off for you! Thanks for reviewing!

Pegasus0012: Awww. I'm sorry it's taking so long! I've been busy busy busy! I promise! I even gave you mission action in this chapter! :) Thank you as always for reviewing. I really appreciate it.

stayinthecar: Hey, thanks for taking some time out of your no doubt busy real life to catch up on Twist! It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, seeing the chapter reviews. I'm glad you're liking all the emotional nuances I'm trying to throw in; it's awesome to know that they're being picked up on. I hope I don't actually break your heart with the story! (Okay maybe I do ;) ) But thank you for all the reviews!

Fire From Above: You're hitting all the selling points of Bryce and Chuck and Sarah, methinks. ;) Their finding grounding with each other, even when their distance is growing, and Bryce thinking he's doing the right thing, even when it might just end in tragedy. Though I didn't think he'd think it would be his tragedy. :) Thank you for the review!

Tynianrex: Hey, Sarah the bodyguard is a great idea. I kind of wish I had thought of it before I had decided on how and where Sarah was going to appear in this story so I could use it. Thank you for your kind words on my writing, and for the review.

tw200: Your feedback is always so much appreciated, I'm glad that even as a Charah shipper you find so much to like in my story. I'm going to try to bring back Sarah as soon as possible, I promise! :) Thank you so much for your kind words and your review.

jinxed97: Glad you liked it! Thanks!

TeamBartowski: Hectic life? Suuuuuure. YOUDIDNTLIKEITDIDYOU *cries*

...

Okay I'm done now. :) I totally understand about hectic life. I apologize for taking so long between chapters recently, but my own life is hectic! I'm glad that you've found a humanity in Jill, and that you liked all the changes between the characters. I hope you're not too upset about a little cliffie! :) Thanks so much for reviewing!