Ellie's brain felt as if it were in a whirlwind so much had happened, and yet so much remained unclear. She felt as if her life was spinning out of control as she exited her car and slowly made her way into the courtyard. Not even the soothing trickle of the fountain could grant her an ounce of peace.

"Well, this is lovely," Her mother's calm, and slightly impressed, voice was akin to nails on a chalk board to her in that moment. "You seem to have done well for yourself, Ellie."

"Are we really going to play this game?" Ellie gave her mother a sardonic look, "Where we pretend you give a shit about my life?"

"Watch your language," Mary scolded.

Ellie rolled her eyes, "I think we're a little beyond you correcting my language, don't you think, Mom?"

"Eleanor, she's still your mother," Stephen pointed out gently, "She deserves a little respect."

"Respect?" Ellie spat, "She abandoned us when I was fifteen years old, sent you into a depressive cycle so deep that it fell to me to raise my nine-year-old brother, and you have the audacity to stand there and suggest she is deserving of my respect?! That's really rich."

"Don't talk to your father that way," Mary reacted sternly.

"I will talk to him any damn well I please," Ellie countered, "He was no better than you. Shut himself in his study day and night after you left as if him losing his wife meant he no longer had children who depended on him. Then he up and left, himself! Granted, he at least waited until I was eighteen and could legally be seen as Chuck's guardian so that we weren't separated by social services. From where I'm standing neither of you have earned, nor do you deserve my respect. You're lucky I even told you where I live and am giving you the opportunity to explain yourselves."

"What is going on out here?" The deep rumble of John's voice announced his presence in the courtyard as he closed his door behind him. It only took a moment for him to find her, casting an evaluating glance over the older pair in the courtyard, he made his way to her, "Are you okay?"

"No," Ellie sighed, with a shrug, "But it's just par for the course at this point. John, these are my parents, Stephen and Mary Bartowski. Mom, Dad, my neighbor, John Casey."

Ellie may have missed the brief glimpses of recognition cross her parent's faces at the mention of John's name, but Casey did not. "Your parents?" He arched an eyebrow before lowering his voice so that only Ellie could hear, "I thought they weren't in the picture any more, do you need me to help you get rid of them?"

"They're not, and I appreciate the offer, John," She gave him a soft, thankful, smile, "But they claim they want to have a few moments to explain themselves."

"You brought them home to where you live? Are you sure that was the best idea?" He couldn't let go of the protective impulse that still surged through him, which was calmed slightly when Ellie placed a hand on his forearm.

"Better than having it out in the middle of the hospital or some random diner," Ellie shrugged, "At least this is private, or will be once we go inside and stop airing our family's dirty laundry to the whole complex."

John nodded his understanding, "Well, you know where to find me if you need me." He offered and waited for Ellie's understanding nod before turning back to his unit, pausing briefly to acknowledge the older couple with a soft "Sir, Ma'am" and disappearing inside once more.

"We should probably go inside before more than just John comes out to figure out why there are people yelling at each other in the courtyard," Ellie sighed and gestured toward her apartment. At Stephen and Mary's understanding nods, she led them to her door, which she soon had unlocked and held open for them, instructing them to have a seat and offering them drinks like the good hostess she was.

Once she had returned with wine for herself and her mother and a beer for her father, she looked at them expectantly, "So, what was so important that you two felt it was acceptable to abandon your children?"

Ellie listened as her parents told her their story, some of which she'd heard as a child in a slightly edited context. How her father was a professor and researcher at MIT where he was developing a program with the intention of helping those with cognitive degenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's and dementia, or those who had suffered massive head trauma. They told her about how his program had caught the attention of the powers that be in Washington, who then sent her mother to recruit him to work for the country's intelligence services as a contractor with her as his handler. They told her how they had eventually fallen in love, eloped, and had her and eventually her brother.

She learned that the project continued to develop, they were moved to a larger research facility in the LA area. Soon, scientists from not only the US intelligence services, but a former operative turned scientist from the British Ministry of Intelligence, a man she had known in her youth as 'Uncle Hartley,' had been added to the project. As it turned out, as time went on, the intelligence services began to push for the program to deviate from its original intention and instead be developed to implant information, specifically a personality matrix into the head of an operative to make their covers relatively unbreakable.

Since they were dubious about experimenting on volunteers, not knowing how the upload would affect cognitive function or the natural workings of the human brain, the two main researchers, namely her father and uncle Hartley had taken it upon themselves to act as guinea pigs. They found the personality matrix would only last a short time, usually no longer than 24 hours before it began to fade. Their governmental benefactors began to put pressure on them to produce a working prototype around the time that Ellie was 13 or 14 years old. They had developed a prototype that they believed would last at least a week before beginning to degrade, and Hartley volunteered himself for the initial trial since it would need to be tested in real-world situations and, with his background as an intelligence officer, would have the skills needed to supplement the programming when it began to fade.

The plan was for him to upload the personality matrix and try to infiltrate a Bratva gang in Russia. He was to send a signal to the team once the programming began to degrade, but a week, and then two, and three passed. After a month's time, Mary was sent to retrieve Hartley, assuming he had not been killed. When she arrived, she found that the program still had a strong hold on her friend, she tried to deactivate the programming, but it failed. She was then told she had to stay with Hartley as his handler until a new deactivation program could be developed or the program turned off on its own.

What no one expected was for the programming to infiltrate and poison its hosts brain, turning kind, soft spoken Hartley into the cold, manipulative, sociopath, Alexei Volkoff. Since Marry was under orders to stay with Hartley, she was never able to return home. However, she still stayed in contact with Stephen who was still working on the programming in hopes a solution could be found. Until then, the program had been redesigned to operate as a data collection and storage database.

Alexei, who all the while had risen in the ranks of the Bratva and had several lieutenants beneath him. With the permission of the Pakhan, he had branched off, taking his lieutenants with him and established a business that eventually overshadowed the Bratva. He had also fallen irrevocably in love with Mary and, after finding out she had still been in contact with her husband, put a hit out on Stephen so as to remove what he saw as a barrier between he and Mary being together. Luckily, Alexei did not know about Mary and Stephen's children, and so they were safe, so long as Stephen was not near them. Mary alerted Stephen who then went underground, never to be seen again until he and Mary reunited to turn up at Westside Medical that evening.

Ellie listened to the story her parents were spinning, her reactions ranging from shock and surprise to outright disbelief, "Okay, so let's just pretend that all of what you have told me is the truth. Why now? Why come back after so long?"

Stephen decided to field the question, "Well you see, even though I wasn't physically here, I have been watching over you, protecting you, not that your brother made that easy for me, but that's neither here nor there. I put a flag on your names in every emergency service and aid rendering group in North America. When I found out your brother had been seriously injured and was in a coma, I contacted your mother who found a way to come home, however temporarily, and make sure you two were okay, or as okay as you can be in such a situation."

"But why now, and not when Chuck's appendix ruptured and he had to have emergency surgery his freshman year of college?" Ellie challenged.

"Well, while having one's appendix out is an emergency, it's still a routine and relatively safe surgery." Stephen explained, "He also did not hit his head, suffer potential brain damage, and slip into a coma back then." He hesitated as if questioning if he should continue before speaking again, "I also have reason to believe your brother may have accidentally downloaded some of the base programming I'd been working on not too long after your mother had to go. I think that programming may have something to do with why he is not waking up. However, Hartley was the neurologist on the project before, and he is clearly unavailable for obvious reasons, I will need your help, Eleanor to, for lack of a better term, fix your brother."