A/N: Warning – The next couple of chapters will include sexual references/situations, and while not particularly explicit in description, it will be inferred. i.e. If you've done it before, you will know exactly what is going on. Sexual wording is limited to fall more into a Teen rating. Minor offensive language warning.

Chapter 21

Hospitalized

Chuck followed the gurney as far as he could. Watching as they hurriedly hooked up the prepared IV's while in transit to the operating room. They stopped him at the operating room doors. He stared through the small window in the swinging doors until a nurse pulled Chuck aside and handed him a stack of forms.

"For her admittance", the nurse said.

Before he had a chance to drop his bewildered expression, another nurse walked up and took the stack of forms from him while she pulled him into an examination room. Slowly looking at the hand that had held the clipboard, Chuck simply shifted his dumbfounded expression from his now empty hand, to the nurse that was trying to sit him down on a bed. She was saying something but it took a moment from for his brain to focus.

"Are you taking any drugs? Sir, are you taking any illegal drugs or on any medication?"

Realizing she was talking to him he shook his head no. He could've sworn he heard her mumble something about possible shock or brain damage. Either way, he didn't really feel like listening. Instead he settled on watching her pull instruments and carts in towards where he sat.

It took him a moment to appreciate the fact that he didn't exactly look too great. Looking down at himself he noticed his shirt was ripped in several places, he still had bruising on his shoulder and bruises had begun appearing on his chest and left side where he had been thrown into the Herder. Of course, that was inconsequential compared to the large amount of blood covering the front of his shirt and pants, not to mention his face, hands and arms. It was all Sarah's blood, but the nurse didn't know that.

He suffered through her poking and prodding for what felt like forever. Once she was satisfied the blood was not his they insisted on checking him for other trauma. He didn't appear to be in shock, although he did have a higher than normal heart rate and his blood pressure was up. This was normal for the current situation. Checking his chest, it seemed a little sore but it wasn't overly painful. They suggested that he might have a couple of cracked ribs and should take it easy for a while. Nothing else was noted in the check up, so he was given a pass on his bill of health, at least for now. He could be checked more thoroughly once he finished the paperwork.

Looking the paperwork over, now larger, as they had added his and Casey's to it, he realized he knew nothing about them. He wasn't sure what to write for any of it. He sighed in frustration. He made a mental reminder to ask them what he should be writing on these hospital reports before the next mission. That's if they had a next one.

He hadn't noticed the woman in front of him until she cleared her throat. Standing before him was a reasonably decent looking nurse in her mid 40's. She could easily pass for some aging soccer mom. She looked him directly in the eyes and held out a hand. It took him a second to catch on.

"Wow. You guys are efficient, aren't yah." He said, recognizing her as an agent.

Her eyes darted to the left and right, scouting for nearby ears before she responded. "We try." she said, while giving him a terse smile before taking the pile of forms from him.

With the forms out of the way he was going to have to check on Casey. A worried glance towards the operating room doors was about all he could do for Sarah.

--

The Doctor never let go of his briefcase after taking it off his desk. He carried it with him on the way to the helicopter. Mary stayed close, albeit a step behind the Doctor, and eyed his briefcase several times on their quick walk to exit the facility. Just before they took the elevator to the rooftop helipad, the Doctor stopped at a room labelled Incinerator. Punching his key code, he entered the room. May waited patiently outside. When he exited the room a moment later, he was no longer carrying the briefcase.

As he stepped towards the elevator, he failed to see May's slight smile as she knew he had followed Office protocols to destroy all on site data that was all ready forwarded to the Office via the server connection. That meant her changes to the Doctor's server files would never be noticed, unless the Doctor was later contracted to perform some kind of follow up mission on the same subjects.

While the chance of a follow up mission was extremely small, she already had contingency plans for that.

--

Casey was easy to find. They hadn't taken him far in the emergency wing and Chuck could hear him giving the nurses a hard time, well before he even got to the close to Casey's room. Apparently Casey had nothing broken, but he was pretty banged up. Casey saw Chuck smiling and leaning against the door frame of his room. He chased the nurses away with the premise that he needed to use the washroom and he could damn well do it by himself. As soon as the nurses were out of the room, he motioned Chuck to come in.

"Chuck, I spoke to the agents on clean up. The Herder and all your little driving stunts have been taken care of. Well, all of them except for the mall of course." As Casey says this, he gives Chuck a look that one would only give someone they think is a little unstable. "The cover story we were going to go with was that we had a flat in the industrial area of the city. We stopped a little too close to some gas tanks and things went boom."

Chuck raised his eyebrows. "Uh, Casey. Isn't that a bit lame? It sounds like something a 10 year old came up with."

Casey grimaced. "That's exactly why we're not going to use it. Sometime after we arrived here the facility blew up. I assume to cover their tracks. We're just going to modify the hospital forms a bit to say we came in after the explosion. We can say we were too close when it happened, and that's how we got hurt."

Chuck grinned. "Well that's much better." He snorted.

"What the hell do you want Bartowski! Tell people the local Buy More geek drove his secret nitrous, rocket powered Nerd Herd car through a mall to save his agent buddies from certain death!?"

Chuck paused for a moment, and then said in a surprised voice, "Agent Buddies?"

Casey froze for the briefest of moments as he experienced deja vu, before he realized his mistake, too late to stop Chuck's reaction.

Chuck with a huge grin on his face he loudly pronounced, AH..HA! I KNEW IT!

Casey's face shifted from annoyed to pissed, as Chuck has drawn the attention of everyone in the hallway.

Grabbing Chuck under the arm, he roughly pulls him further into the room and out of sight of everyone. "Bartowski, get over here and shut the hell up!"

Chuck, slightly wide eyed at his reaction, "Okayyyy. No need to snap."

Casey could barely hold his annoyance in check as he analyzed Chuck's face. Whatever happened in the car, Chuck seems to be over it; whatever it was. He is definitely back to being an annoying pain in the ass.

Biting off the words, Casey responds, "We'll fine tune the details as we go. Now get your ass out of here and go check on Walker. I don't need help to use the bathroom."

"Right!. I'm on it big guy", giving Casey an exaggerated wink as turned to walk away.

Casey decided he needed something for his headache and the pain he was developing in his ass.

Chuck was pretty upbeat on his way to see Sarah. All things considered, things were going pretty well. Sarah was going to be fine; he avoided the thought that she wouldn't be anything other than fine. Casey was back to his old grumpy self and he felt great. His smile faltered a little as sudden jolts of pain laced through his left side causing him to stumble slightly as he gasped. The hallway was empty at the moment and no one was there to see him falter, for which he was glad. They would find some obscure reason for him not to check on Sarah. Of that he was sure.

A momentary flash of weakness spread through him, like he lacked the energy to do anything before it disappeared as quickly as it had come. He had almost forgotten about the Doctors experiment. The pain associated with it came back with the memories. It started in his chest and spread to his joints before moving everywhere else.

He thought about turning around to get Casey and tell him about what was happening, but before he could even finish his thought, the pain and weakness was gone. It had never done that before.

Shrugging it off, he figured it is most likely his side causing the problems. He did hit the Herder pretty hard. Like all injuries, they seem to build to critical mass sometime after the initial injury.

Looking back at Casey's room, he decided that it was better to check on Sarah first. He would tell Casey later and get that follow up, the nurse recommended, on his ribs right after talking to Casey. He would mention the injections they gave him again at the facility and see what Casey thought about it. He should have covered that with him a few minutes ago, but it didn't seem as important anymore.

At least not in comparison to having Casey pissed at him. The thought of avoiding Casey's wrath brought a slight smile to his face, but it faded just as fast as he saw the surgeon that was in charge of Sarah, exit the operating room and approach him.

--

The Doctor and Mary had disembarked the helicopter immediately upon arrival.

"Mary, after you get yourself cleaned up, confirm the facility's destruction went as planned and meet me at the limo."

"Yes sir."

As the helicopter lifted off, Mary and the Doctor separated and entered separate rooftop doors to the high rise building.

--

Chuck hadn't expected to see her come out of surgery and the recovery room quite this fast, but looking at the clock on the wall, it has been over 4 hours since their arrival. Between the paperwork that he didn't know what to do with and the exam they insisted in performing on him, time had zipped by.

Knowing that the man walking towards him held news on Sarah's condition made his heart jump into his throat. Unwilling to control and unable to hide his concern he asked, "How is she? Is she ok?"

With his focus on the surgeon, he doesn't notice that Casey had followed him and is standing only a few feet behind when the surgeon begins to speak.

The surgeon had long ago become accustomed to worried loved ones and his responses where simple and blunt to minimize potential misunderstandings. Giving Chuck a small tired smile, he began. "She is doing just fine. We were able to stop the bleeding fairly quickly once we got in there. She has been given blood to cover what she lost and is sleeping now."

The man gave Chuck a once over, noting the bloody, torn shirt and able to see some of the dark bruising beneath. "You must be the young man that brought her in?"

Chuck was a little sheepish with his response, "Yah, she seemed to be hurt pretty bad and I didn't want to lose her."

"Well I'm sure she will be grateful you did. That little piece of shrapnel was stuck in a very bad spot, causing considerable blood loss. If would've arrived just a few minutes later, it probably would've been too late."

Chuck's face flashed a look somewhere between relief and being ill. Recovering quickly, Chucks face lit up like a Christmas tree as he quickly realized he would be able to see her. "Can I see her?" The surgeon couldn't help smiling at such unrestrained enthusiasm.

"Yes you can. She is in room 13. We're keeping her for observation and recovery for at least a day before we release her. You can see her for a bit, but don't tax her too much, she will still be very weak from the blood loss and the medication from surgery."

Chuck was off running before the doctor finished talking.

Casey, still watching, emits a strangely satisfying grunt before turning back to his room. Walker is going to be alright. That's one less problem he thought. Strike that. Two less problems, if you count the way they interact when the other is down and out.

Hoping for some down time, was out of the question. A brief message from HQ stated that he is still on duty and currently the only active agent to protect Chuck. Due to the volatile nature of the location, it was determined that he would not receive any more agents for protection, as any moles might use it as an opportunity to grab him.

While cleanup crews could fly under the radar, extra agents assigned to protection meant more attention on the location.

Crap.

He slowly turned to head down to room 13 to keep an eye on Bartowski. Last thing he needs is somebody to snatch him from the hospital and start a repeat of the restaurant incident that got them into this mess. Room 13 is at the other end of the emergency wing and Bartowski is already out of sight. No surprise there.

He shook his head as he walked, wondering how Walker had ever planned to get Chuck to hide his feelings for her. Making it worse was that she was almost as bad as Chuck. The constant touching, smiling and unnecessary talking, not to mention the over the top concern for each other. As bad as he thought it would be, it's better if they are dating.

At least he knows where they are and where he finds one, he finds the other.

Casey smirked as he limped to catch up to Chuck.

--

Mary and the Doctor are sitting inside a large stretch limo. The car is moving, but the windows are all heavily tinted and neither passenger is looking at the scenery. Mary is seated directly across from the Doctor but she is looking down at an open laptop that is sitting next to her. The Doctor is holding a glass of what appears to be alcohol and is watching Mary.

She begins speaking without looking up. "The facility was destroyed as you requested. There will be no trace of our involvement. On another note, the subjects survived the explosion and were able to make it out and get help."

The Doctor does not appear to be paying any particular attention to what she says; instead his eyes are skimming up down her body before he responds. "Mmhmm. It's of no consequence. They know nothing about us and have no leads to follow."

Mary knows he is preoccupied studying her. She has been around him long enough to know what he will want next. In the meantime she continues to probe for a slip in the conversation in hopes of determining who was paying him. That would be the first step in retrieving her share of the money owed.

Keeping her eyes down, she asks, "We were indeed fortunate to stumble across such a good set of subjects to test the toxin on."

Finishing his drink he leans to the side, pulling a bottle of whiskey out of the minibar to refill the glass. Shrugging he says, "Well, its behind us now. I believe we have adequate data on those conditions to proceed in other directions. In the mean time, notify our overseas contacts and inform them of the new drug for sale.

She nodded and typed a few commands into the laptop. "I have the office secure site up. What do you want to list it as?"

Taking a swallow of his drink, he pauses to think. Breaking in wide grin he begins dictating.

"List it as a truth enhancer. Bullet points will be,

a) Pain without medieval torture methods,

b) Known pain killers will not work and the subject cannot be drugged to sleep in order to wait out compound expiration,

c) Experienced and expensive torturers and supplementary equipment is not required,

d) It is completely biodegradable for easy disposal or if spilled,

e) The pain is not localized to the injection point but instead affects the entire body,

f) Does not require multiple injections per subject,

g) It is completely untraceable once injected,

h) The affects will dissipate as it breaks down naturally in the body within 24-48 hours

i) Tangent usage can include:

+ Untraceable assassinations – get revenge or teach that particular someone a painful lesson through over dosage. Multiple doses may cause insanity before death. Multiple doses given at the same time do not extend compound life. Extended times, provided subject lives through initial dose, can be done by staggering doses.

+ Relationship testing – determine if your subject is compromised or involved with someone.

+ Extremely low dosages administered to high tolerance personnel can act as a simulator – subject cannot pass out or fall asleep from any known drug or toxin. Two fold increase in resistance to asphyxiation.

Contact the Office directly for more information on any and all topics."

Mary finishes typing almost immediately after he is done speaking. "I will notify the usual contacts. Will we be including the standard government agencies as well?"

"Of course. A customer is a customer, and the world governments are exceptional ones at that."

He takes another swallow of his drink before he continues. "Remember to offer 1st world customers the option for exclusive rights for a set amount of years. The last few compounds sold exceptionally well to the CIA for an exclusive 10 year contract. I'm very inclined to believe that they will be receptive to another such offer."

"I have included them. I just need the base bid price and I will post it immediately."

Finishing his drink again, he looks wistfully in the glass before looking at Mary. "Would you like a drink?" He turned to pour himself another.

"I'm good thanks. If I may so, you seem to be enjoying it for both of us."

"That I am. I received some big news today. Life changing, you could say." He is quiet for a moment, staring out the window before he turns back to Mary. "List the bid as open, but amend the bid notice to include the following phrase. Unreasonably low opening bids will be rejected and bidding parties will be banned from further auctions for one calendar year, starting from the date of the low bid."

Mary's eyebrows rose as she typed. This was something he had not done before. He always placed a starting bid price. Of course, since he also received a commission on the sale, the more money it sold for, meant the more he got. The higher the sale, the higher the commission, up to a maximum of 30. Anything over 100 million fell into a special bonus category. She didn't know what that was exactly, but it was supposed to be better than just money.

No wonder the bastard was so happy.

She made a quick and dirty mental list of the known income sources he had coming in.

He was skimming money from her on the main project. He was using her as a resource while running multiple side projects for which she was getting nothing. Now, he had manipulated the opening bid to ensure maximum return.

None of the larger bidders will pass up on this drug. No one, specifically the largest 1st world customers will bid low. If the last minor auction went to the CIA for 10 million on an exclusive contract it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that this major item would fetch a 150 million opening bid on a 1 year contract. This would trigger his maximum commission plus the bonus. She mentally filed the information away for later examination.

"Done and posted." She smiled as she closed the laptop. "Now I could definitely use that drink, if the offer still stands."

The Doctor laughed loudly. "Well done Mary. And to answer you, yes it does, but before I pour your drink, I have another offer for you." He moved to sit beside her.

"You see Mary, I think I'm going to retire after this. Would you consider the possibility of staying on with me, now that I am independently wealthy?" He placed his hand slightly above her knee and slide it under the hem of her skirt to stroke the inside of her thigh. "I would like to retain some of your services in my retirement."

Looking down at his hand then back up to his face, Mary's mouth curled up in a teasing smile as she proceed to spread her legs ever so slightly. "The proposition sounds absolutely enjoyable. Count me in."

Splendid." Pulling his hand back he reached towards the liqueur cabinet. "Let me pour you that drink to celebrate."

With his back towards her, he fails to notice Mary's smile turn to a look of absolute disgust and loathing. With the drink poured, he turns back to give her a glass of wine, not realizing that her smile reappeared when he began to turn towards her.

--

Chuck jogged to room 13 as fast as hospital staff would allow, stumbling into the door in his rush to open it. She appears to be asleep; all traces of spilled blood gone. Looking down at her he feels strange. Almost protective. She looks so fragile and pale; her eyes have the appearance of being sunken into her head with dark circles under them.

He softly calls to her from her bedside. "Sarah?"

She stirs slowly. "Chuck?" Her voice is weak and sleepy from the drugs.

"Hey there. I'm here. I'm right here." He gently takes her hand. She grasps his hand and smiles.

She opens her eyes slowly. It takes a moment for her to focus. When she does, she begins to look alarmed and attempts to sit up. "Chuck, your bleeding..."

Chuck is quick to calm her, using a hand on her chest to hold her down.. "It's ok, it was your blood, not mine. Other than being a little excited, I'm fine."

Giving him a sleepy puzzled look she tilted her head and waited for him to explain.

Suddenly quiet and facing down he asked, "I was thinking we could get another birthday cake for when you're better."

Her head is still pretty fuzzy and she doesn't quite understand what he means so she waits patiently for him to continue.

Suddenly looking up and directly into her eyes and with a hint of redness in his cheeks he says, "I was kind of hoping I could watch you eat it." He paused slightly before adding, "In private."

As he finished speaking a large mischievous burst out onto his face.

Finally understanding, she begins to laugh. Unfortunately, her side hurts quite a bit and her half laugh, half yelp, attracts the nurse's attention. Noticing the commotion, the nurse tells Chuck he will have to leave so she can get some rest. Pushing him out the door, she told him he can grab something from the 24 hour cafeteria in the hospital. In the meantime her patient can catch up on some good old fashioned sleep.

As he's forcibly ejected to the room he looked at Sarah with a small smile, "We'll talk later."

He just caught the quiet reply. "Count on it Chuck."

She watched him until he disappeared out the door. She drifted quickly into pleasant if not slightly painful slumber thinking of Chuck, cake and kissing.

Finally arriving at Sarah's room, he is just in time to see Chuck being forcibly ejected from the it the nurse. Chuck's ear to ear grin is an indication that despite the nurse's actions, obviously Sarah is doing better. Matter of fact, if his grin gets any larger he would be asking if he got "lucky".

Turning from the nurse, Chuck starts slightly as he comes face to face with Casey. "Casey! You up for a bite? They kicked me out. Said she needed some rest."

Raising an eyebrow at Chuck's sad looking shirt and bloody clothes he shrugs. "Why not! We'll start the day with some delicious hospital food."

Casey's sarcasm was completely lost on Chuck. "Have you eaten here before? Is it really good? I was under the impression from Ellie and Awesome that hospital food lacks...flavour. Either way, now that I know Sarah's ok, I can relax a bit. I'm supposed to get my bruises looked at, but they aren't bothering me any more than the rest of the aches and pains so it can wait till after we've eaten. I'm actually getting pretty hungry."

Casey gives Chuck an incredulous look. How the hell can this guy be an agent? Ok, he can give him credit for the nerd stuff, but the rest? It must've been a fluke...or is he really that good? He can hack a computer, escape from an armed facility, drive a rocket car, get an agent to fall for him and yet he's as naive as a doorknob and almost as annoying as Morgan. Casey looks up at the ceiling. Why does he always get the shit assignments lately? Only upside was that he liked Chuck. Still couldn't figure out that either. He grimaced at the puzzle Chuck presents.

"Something wrong Casey?"

"Let's go eat, Bartowski, before I change my mind."

--

Mary slipped her blouse back on and began buttoning it. "I don't want to spoil our fun, but I will have to make a few quick arrangements. Would you be terribly disappointed if I postponed the rest of our celebration until I finish my errands?"

Trying not to look overly disappointed the Doctor merely gave a small smile and nodded.

She took a small sip of wine and asked the driver to drop her wherever he saw a cab.

The driver responded immediately. "There is one behind us miss."

The Doctor watched as she finished buttoning her blouse; she nodded an acknowledgement to the driver and she grabbed the door handle as the car came to a stop. He waited till she was completely out of the car and about to shut the door before he called to her. "Mary?"

Leaning over to stick her head back into the back of the limo, "Hmmm?"

"Forgetting something?" He said as he waved towards the seat where her bra and panties were still laying.

She shrugged. "No. I only wear them at work anyway."

His smirk couldn't get any larger when he pointed at the skirt on the floor of the car by the door. "And that's only for work too?"

She looked over her shoulder and noted that anyone within sight of her was staring. Looking down she noticed that her blouse stopped just short of covering anything on her lower half. She shrugged again. "I suppose it will stop the people from staring." Casually and without a hint of modesty, she bent at the waist, picked up the skirt and stepped into it, being careful not to catch her stilettos on the material. She straightened and zipped it up while standing in the street. "Thanks. I will contact you when I'm ready."

She took a little pleasure in how the Doctor's smirk had turned into an eye bulging look of surprise and lust. He probably would have yanked her back in the limo for another round if he had the chance. Men were so predictable and people in general are such prudes when it comes to sex and naked bodies. Walk around naked and they think you're an exhibitionist. Have sex with few guys over the course of a day and right away you're a slut. Pfftt. Whatever. She worked around those labels a long time ago and was more than comfortable with them.

With that she shut the door and flagged the cabbie behind the limo. He was more than happy to give her a lift.

--