Four of the usual suspects deserve thanks for beta-reads: Arathorn, Go-Chuck-Go, kayla101blue and nattylovesjordy.

All mistakes are my own, probably from trying to combine so much good advice at once...


Scene LI – Griffith Park, Road

A mind goes strange places when you're about to die.

Chuck found himself thinking about, of all things, a Japanese game show.

Long before Sarah Walker made her first appearance at the Buy More, he and Morgan had stumbled across the program while flipping through the higher channels late one Friday night. They had watched with glee as the show somehow convinced contestants to shove themselves into metal trash cans and roll down a hill. The contestants were miked; the flimsy aluminum made a horrible racket as gravity did its work, mercilessly spinning the trash cans and their hapless occupants.

Rolling down a hill in a car was much like that, cacophonic noise and all. The difference was that every quarter roll or so, it felt like somebody took a giant hammer and smashed the car with a bone-crunching, teeth-clattering blow.

The game show in his mind disappeared, replaced with a kaleidoscope of oddly skewed images of tall grass, evergreen trees, and the cheap interior of the car. The hammer would smash the car, the image would change, and his neck or ribs or feet would snap or strain or flop about helplessly. A millisecond later, the seemingly infinite loop would begin anew.

Lather, rinse, repeat – the car tumbled endlessly down the hill.

Throughout it all, Chuck was strangely at peace. The Los Mellizos henchmen were getting it worse than he was, and somewhere above him on the road, Sarah was safe.

Sarah was safe.

The car left the ground. The stranger with the hammer took a particularly good whack at the car. Blackness overtook him.


Sarah brought the car to a halt at the spot where the Riptide had surreally missed the turn. She almost wondered if she had imagined it. From her vantage, she could see nothing to indicate that the car had really gone off the road.

The fading din of mangling metal disabused her of that notion.

She yanked on the emergency brake. In her haste to exit the Audi, she dropped the clutch. The car stalled and tried to follow the Riptide down the hill, leaping forward a few inches before the emergency brake could take hold.

Sarah made it to the edge of the road in time to look down the hill and see the car pop into the air, spinning door-over-door until meeting a gloriously stout pine tree. The tree bent and gave serious thought to snapping off near the base of its trunk, but held. The car's momentum was blunted as it was forced to pivot around the tree before crashing back to the ground, sliding the last thirty feet to the bottom of the hill on its roof and coming to a rest in a clearing near a dry creek bed.

"CHUCK!!!" she heard herself scream.

In an instant, she plotted her entire path down the hill. She threw herself into the ravine, dashing down the hill at a breakneck pace. Patches of thick brush grabbed at her feet. She quickly found herself panting from the exertion; her chest was tight with concern for Chuck, and the tightness made it difficult to breathe.

Sarah stopped a dozen feet from the car; she stared at the wreck in horror. The Riptide was a crumpled shadow of its former self, stripped of a fair bit of its paint and glass and any dignity it once had. The car was in the last throes of automotive death spasms: three of the now-unbalanced tires spun at different speeds while, deep within the engine block, compressed air hissed as it left the engine block. The Riptide had struggled through its last mile.

As the wheels slowed to a stop and the hissing diminished to an erratic set of last gasps, the dim clearing became eerily silent. Naked brown branches in the surrounding trees pointed towards the wreck like emaciated arms, their bony fingers waving in the breeze.

There was no sign of any movement inside the car.

The agent inside Sarah warned that she should ensure the Los Mellizos henchmen were secured. The woman inside her insisted that she go to Chuck.

It wasn't close. Sarah ran to the driver's side.

She knelt on the ground and bent over to peek through the window. Chuck's seat belt suspended him upside-down; his arms hung limply above his head. A trickle of blood ran into his hair from a cut in the center of a wicked-looking bruise on his temple.

"Chuck? Chuck?!"

He didn't move.

She stood up and pulled at the door. The weight of the car had sunk it a few inches into the ground, so the top of the door caught on dirt and underbrush. Sarah desperately yanked at the door several times; the earth finally yielded and the door swung open.

She knelt down again. Chuck was still as death.

"No, no, no, NO!" She checked for a pulse in his near wrist; it was there, but she couldn't tell how strong it was.

One of her knives escaped her lower back sheath and was quickly cutting him loose. She only realized her mistake when the seat belt gave and she could only slow his fall to the roof of the car.

Chuck really didn't seem to mind. Neither did Alejandro, whose battered and broken body lay below the front seats and helped to cushion Chuck's fall.

She pulled him out of the car and away from the wreckage by his arm pits. Sarah had an irrational need to get him away from the people who had threatened to hurt him and inadvertently succeeded. So irrational was her need that she lost her focus and her balance on the third pull. She tumbled backwards into a sitting position; Chuck's head landed in a pile of brown leaves and sticks in front of her. A small cry escaped her lips.

She scooted over to him and propped him up, sliding underneath him so she could pillow his head in her lap. He was so still, so very still.

"How could you pull a stunt like that?" she cried. "You're the Intersect! You're too important!"

He didn't respond.

She stared down at his face. It was so peaceful, with just the slightest hint of a smile. She brushed some bangs away, carefully avoiding his injury as she set strands of hair into their proper places. The familiar gesture comforted her only briefly; her sad expression quickly returned. "You're too important to me," she whispered intently.

A small sound rolled from the back of Chuck's throat, only to be muffled in his closed mouth. As if confused, his tongue slipped through to explore, licking his lips. Content with what it found, he seemed to decide it was OK for him to open his mouth, and his eyes as well.

His eyes took a moment to focus. "Sarah?" he asked hoarsely.

She nodded, afraid to speak.

He cleared his throat. "Are you all right?"

She half laughed, half sobbed, "Am I all right? My trip down the hill was a little easier than yours."

He moved gingerly, adjusting his back to try to get comfortable. "Best in-class rollover protection," he said with a wry grin. "Guess Consumer Reports wasn't kidding."

Sarah laughed the giddy laugh of a woman who had feared she had lost everything, only to unexpectedly be handed another chance. Her face broke into a smile that threatened to tear her cheeks asunder. She stared into the pools of his eyes. The cloudy sky at the top of clearing reflected in them, highlighting her silhouette in white.

Her fingers gently explored his face, something that she really had never had a chance to do and, but for a fair bit of luck, never would have. She marveled at the warmth of his skin.

Chuck stared back up at her, watching her with a strangely tender smile. Normally she found herself utterly self-conscious when she caught him looking at her that way, but at the moment, she found it didn't bother her so much.

She wanted to sit there forever, but a groan from the car brought her back to reality. Involuntarily, she looked over before quickly looking back.

Chuck's eyes followed hers. "I know," he said. "It's OK. Go."

Her agonized frown turned into a grateful smile. Still, she wanted to say something. She needed to say something.

The words came of their own accord. "Chuck, I promise you: the job won't always come first."

His beautiful smile almost eclipsed the nervousness she felt. She hadn't made a promise to anyone in a long time, and she hadn't meant to make one to Chuck. Promises weren't a luxury an agent could afford; they were broken far too easily. Still, the fluttering in her heart when his smile grew made her glad that she did.

She silently vowed to find a way to keep this promise.

A mercenary groaned again. Sarah gently shifted out from under Chuck, lowering his head carefully to the ground. She dropped to one knee so she could kiss his unblemished temple; his eyes closed gently as her lips pressed to his forehead.

Her smile assured him that she would be back as soon as she could. She hopped to her feet and picked up her knife, just in case. Her shoes rustled through dead leaves as she strode to the other side of the car.

Focused on checking the largely unconscious henchmen, she didn't see his smile turn bittersweet. "Yes, it will," he said softly, sadly, to her retreating figure.


"Well, this is a fine mess."

Bartowski stared at Casey in disbelief from where he sat on the clearing floor. A medic finished work on the wound on his forehead while other members of the clean-up team tried to figure out what to do with the wreck and the Los Mellizos henchmen. "No, really Casey, I'm fine."

"Jesus, Bartowski, if not for sheer dumb luck–"

A look from Walker cut him off. Clearly, she wasn't going to tolerate his usual routine, and he supposed she had something of a point. Bartowski had put himself on the line twice that day. Still, this wasn't the end of the discussion; not as far as he was concerned.

The medic handed a cold pack to Bartowski. "Keep this on your head for twenty minutes. As often as you can for the rest of the night, apply cold to the bruise in twenty minute increments, with at least twenty minutes off between treatments."

"OK."

"You'll have a nasty looking bruise for a couple of days, and your rib cage is probably going to hurt like hell where you were thrown against the seat belt. I've given you a shot that will help with the pain over the short term; when that wears off, go with acetaminophen."

"No anticoagulants. Got it."

The medic looked a little surprised. "Sister's a doctor," Bartowski said deprecatingly.

The man nodded. "If you'll excuse me, your passengers aren't in as good a shape as you are."

"Thanks," Bartowski said. He put the cold pack into place as the medic packed his bag.

The man wasn't exaggerating. The Los Mellizos henchmen were strapped onto gurneys and were barely moving. Without seat belts to protect them, their bodies had taken a terrible pounding.

"Are they going to make it?" Bartowski asked.

"Probably," Casey replied. "They both have internal bleeding and a bunch of broken bones, but their condition is serious, not critical."

Relief flooded onto Bartowski's face; he clearly didn't like the idea of killing anyone. "What a day."

"It's not over yet. There's the small matter of you nearly killing yourself for no good reason."

"There was perfectly good reason. It was our only move."

Walker said, "This isn't a game, Chuck. You're more important than both of us put together."

His eyes narrowed at the statement. "Let's say you're right and I am as valuable as you two keep insisting I am. On a chess board, that would make me, what? A queen?"

"Seems about right," Casey said wryly. Walker shot him a dirty look.

Bartowski said, "Well, if you know you're going to lose your queen, you don't just go ahead and throw away a knight. You don't let your opponent take other pieces as you futilely try to find a way to save the queen. You sacrifice your queen, especially if you can find a way to take out a couple of enemy pieces along the way."

Walker's face showed how strongly she disagreed. "Chuck, you're the Intersect. It's worth sacrificing the life of an agent or two even for just a chance to get you free, no matter how slim."

"You're one of the CIA's top agents, Sarah. You're a powerful piece in your own right. That's not a sacrifice worth making. I was done. I was pinned. I was forked."

Casey interjected, "If you don't drop the chess analogy, you really will be 'forked'."

Bartowski ignored him. "The only way out was to do something unexpected, something rash. They had their seat belts off, so they were effectively out of commission as soon as the car left the road. Odds of me getting seriously hurt were low."

"Unless a branch came through a window, or a tree trunk caved in the driver's door. Or if they just shot you."

At the last, Bartowski's face went ashen. "I hadn't considered that," he admitted. "Still, you can't tell me that those odds didn't make sense. Two bad guys gone. One great agent saved, and a pretty good chance I'd be fine as well. You'd take those odds in a heartbeat, Casey."

"I'm not the Intersect."

"You took those odds with the Intersect. Remember the jump off the hotel balcony into the pool, with the two of us strapped together? I'll certainly never forget it."

Casey refused to admit anything, not to Bartowski.

Hard brown eyes fixed on the agent. "Fine. Tell me that the CIA or the NSA wouldn't take me out if I fell into the wrong hands and they thought the chance of rescue was slim. All I did was the exact same thing: I wasn't going to fall into the hands of the bad guys. I think I should be commended for that."

Casey couldn't deny that logic, especially since the NSA had long talked of the exit strategy for Operation Bartowski being a single well-placed bullet. It suddenly seemed very unfair that Chuck, who had never asked for any of this, had turned into somebody who could put his life on the line twice in one day only to have an agent like Casey take his life in the end.

A loud noise behind the group saved Casey from having to respond. A large truck worked to pull the wrecked Riptide into its bed with a winch and cable, and the car screeched like an angry child that didn't want to leave his mother.

"Oh, Ellie's car," Bartowski groaned. "She's gonna kill me." Another screech elicited another moan.

Walker said, "Well, we'll have to do something about that."

She pulled out her cell phone, scrolled through her address book and picked a number. She put the phone to her ear and waited patiently for somebody to pick up.

"Agent Walker here. I need a replacement vehicle ASAP." She paused. "A 2001 Skoda Riptide, dark blue."

She pulled her phone away from her ear and stared at it as the sound of hysterical laughter escaped the speaker. Her face became annoyed as she put the phone back to her ear. "No I'm not kidding."

Scene LII – Casa Bartowski

Chuck lay on the couch in the living room of the apartment. His head rested in Sarah's lap, his eyes closed and a pack of ice pressed firmly against his temple. Sarah watched him carefully, idly playing with his hair with one hand.

The front door shot open. Ellie's voice filled the room as she walked in, Devon in tow. "Chuck? Chuck?!"

"Oh, boy," Chuck muttered, sitting up.

She quickly spotted him. "Are you all right? What happened?"

Ellie crossed the room in three steps and was leaning over him before he could finish saying, "I'm fine. It was no big deal."

Pulling back the cold pack, Ellie grimaced when she saw the wound. "Ooh, that's got to hurt."

Devon added, "Whoa, Ouch-town, population you, bro." He leaned down to get a closer look. "Cut might leave a nice scar, though," he said hopefully.

"I took something for the pain," Chuck said to his sister.

"Not aspirin?" she asked fearfully.

"Not aspirin. No anticoagulants for a head wound."

"Good boy." She took his chin in one hand and moved his head back and forth, staring carefully at his eyes. "What happened?"

He took a deep breath and delivered the carefully prepared lie, laced with as much truth as was possible. "Sarah ran down the hill to catch up with me. I missed the turn to the picnic area, and while we were trying to figure out what to do, the driver of an Audi forced me off the road. I took a bit of a tumble, but the only real injury to either of us was when my head hit the steering wheel."

Ellie stopped playing with Chuck's face. "Are you having nausea? Headaches?"

"Only where the steering wheel gave a stern lecture to my forehead."

"You haven't seen anything like a stern lecture. Why didn't you call me? Hello, doctors!" She waved a hand between her and Devon. "We were right there!"

Sarah said, "There wasn't anything else you could have done. By the time we shook off the crash, the paramedics were there, and we both checked out. There wasn't any point in dragging you away from the party. Casey gave us a lift home."

Ellie continued her examination. "I don't see anything serious. Devon?"

"I don't see any signs of concussion. No signs of compression, either," Devon said. He stood up.

"I guess it looks like just a deep bruise with a minor laceration," she said dubiously. "Still, I'm furious that you didn't call us right away."

Her tone belied her words; she was more concerned than angry. Still, Chuck felt guilty at the need to wait before calling her. "Sorry, guess I wasn't thinking clearly." Somewhat nervously, he added, "You haven't asked about the car."

"I don't care about the car. It's a piece of crap. Even if it wasn't, the important thing is that you're OK." She was suddenly delivering a hug that threatened to smother him against the back of the couch.

There was a knock at the front door. Devon, sensing how he could help, went to answer the knock. "Yes?" he asked.

A man with a suit and a briefcase stood in the doorway. "Is this the home of," he paused, peering at a sheet of paper through his thin-rimmed glasses, "Ellie Bartowski?"

"Yes, but she's busy. Maybe I can help you."

"I understand that her brother was driving a car that got forced off the road this evening."

"That's right."

"I represent the party that forced the car off the road, and I am here to settle any claims."

Ellie's eyes shot open. She again crossed the room in three steps. "You represent the moron who ran my brother off the road?!"

"I assure you that my client realizes where the blame lies, and is most concerned that this matter be settled in the most expedient manner possible."

"You tell that client of yours that no matter what he offers, it isn't enough. We'll see him in court."

"Well, I doubt you have the evidence to track my client down, but he is not the type to take chances. Of course, I am bound to secrecy by the attorney-client relationship, so I am afraid I cannot be of any help there." The man in the suit gave her a prim look as he reached into his briefcase. He added, "Besides, maybe you should look at the offer before you judge my client too harshly." He extracted a sheet of paper with the details of the settlement and handed it to Ellie.

She boggled as she read the document. She handed the piece of paper to Devon, whose eyes widened. He let out a low whistle.

Ellie clearly didn't know how to react. She took the paper back and looked again. "That's … that's not a typo, is it?"

"For replacement value of the car, injury, and emotional distress – not to mention the most important detail to my client: ensuring this matter remains a private one. Suffice to say my client recognizes the danger your brother was in today and wishes to compensate you both accordingly." He shared a knowing smile with Sarah; Chuck was thoroughly occupied watching his sister's face light up as it all sunk in.

The reality was that the DNI was not happy about the amount of money that was necessary to cover this up. However, there was no hiding Chuck's injury, and the nearest replacement car wouldn't have been in place for at least three days. Something had to be done to keep the cover intact.

The profile of Ellie suggested that she was not going to let the matter go unless she had good reason to do so, and nobody in the CIA or NSA wanted the police snooping around the observatory any time soon. Still, Beckman and Graham thought that could be handled through channels.

Beckman and Graham became more amenable when Chuck pointed out that he had spent the past five months working for the CIA without pay, and this was an opportunity to partially compensate him for his efforts and the danger to his family with no trace. Still, the two had seemed slightly offended at the idea, grumbling about the cost of keeping two agents guarding him full-time as opposed to sticking him in a bunker somewhere.

The clincher had come when Sarah had pointed out that Chuck would be carpooling with Devon and Ellie a great deal more if she didn't replace her car. That just wasn't going to work when Chuck might be called away on a mission on a moment's notice; his cover would be in real jeopardy.

"Chuck," Ellie said hesitantly, "I don't want to do this if you're not–"

"Take the settlement, Ellie. It's fine. I'm fine."

The man in the suit gave them a contented smile. "I will let you hold onto that; the offer is good through the end of the week, and comes with no strings other than considering the matter closed – and one-hundred percent confidential. Review the offer, stop by my office when you are ready, and we can trade your signed form for a cashier's check." He handed her a business card with the address of his office. "Good night all," he said to the room before turning and walking away.

Devon shut the door. Ellie kept staring at the figure on the paper. With an awed look, she said, "Do you know what this means?"

"A real car?"

"Sure, a real car, but a real wedding, too!"

"A better honeymoon. A safari, or hiking the Machu Picchu trail!"

She wrinkled her nose, but she was clearly too excited to get into details. "And maybe even enough left over to put a dent in my student loans." She threw her arms around Devon and they shared a joyful laugh.

When they separated, her face lit up with a realization. "Wait, half of this is yours, Chuck. You were the one in the accident."

Devon agreed immediately. "Absolutely, bro."

Chuck shook his head. "It was your car."

"Half of this is yours," she insisted.

"OK, so how much does five-plus years of back rent come to, anyway?"

"What?! No, Chuck."

He shook his head. "Ellie, I've always wanted to pay you back for everything you've done for me, and this will probably be my only chance. There's nothing I'd rather do with that money. And if you don't want to think of it that way, consider it my wedding gift. Or as karmic payback for taking care of your wayward brother, with interest."

She wasn't one to cave easily, but something about the way Chuck spoke convinced her. "OK, Chuck. You win. But won't you even take a little of it? Maybe you can take Sarah out for a really nice dinner, or even a long weekend?"

It was Chuck's turn to cave. His face furrowed with mock sternness. "I'll take a little bit, but no funny business."

Ellie looked back at the piece of paper, a disbelieving and joyous expression on her face. Another laugh bubbled out of her as she threw her arms back around her fiancé.


"I can't believe Ellie bought it," Chuck said. He threw his coat on his desk chair and dropped onto his bed. An expression of blissful contentment came to his face as he gently lay back and allowed his beaten body to sprawl across the covers. A pained but contented sigh escaped his lips.

Sarah explained, "Well, sometimes a big lie works better than a small one. When a lawyer shows up with a big check, it's hard to get past all the zeroes, even for someone like Ellie. Besides, it's not that hard to believe. That close to Hollywood, any number of people might have been looking to keep things quiet." She put her jacket on top of Chuck's. "How's your head?"

"I feel like road kill. That shot was great, but it's gone now."

"I'll grab some Tylenol for you."

She walked across the hall to the bathroom. After finding what she was looking for in the medicine cabinet, she tapped out four pills and filled a glass with water.

By the time she returned to the room, Chuck's eyes were closed, unbothered by the bright light in his room.

Sarah smiled fondly at him. He'd had a bit of a day.

She set the glass and the pills on his nightstand in case he woke up. She turned off the overhead light, leaving the room in darkness.

After slipping off her shoes, she climbed onto the bed next to him, not bothering to remove her red top or jeans. Her head gently searched out her favorite nook in his shoulder, careful not to disturb him or put pressure on his ribs. The two times that day when she thought he had been taken from her seemed a million miles away.

Sensing her presence, his arm instinctively wrapped around her. A deep inhalation through his nose led to a murmur of contentment, the small sound filling her heart with a wondrous joy.

If this was what normal felt like, she could see why Chuck was reluctant to give it up.

Sarah reached back with her top arm and pulled the comforter over the two of them. She enjoyed the peaceful rhythm of his breathing until she, too, fell into a contented slumber.