Chuck hadn't got round to setting his alarm before stumbling back to his room and collapsing onto his bed, still in the same clothes he wore at the club last night. Blinding sunlight shone through a small window, which was covered by a set of blinds that only did a half-assed job of blocking it. His eyes flickered open briefly. His head was aching and his tongue felt like sand paper. Is this what the morning after usually feels like? Thoughts of the previous night brought a smile to his face. It had been a while since he had done something crazy and enjoyed it.

"Why must it be Tuesday?" Chuck muttered with a yawn. Dusting his hands off, he laid back in his bed, not wanting tot get up at all.

Damn that sun! Couldn't it have picked up a better time to rise? Or better yet, not risen at all? One of these days he was going to find some way to turn it off! It always seemed to rise at the worst time. Grunting slightly, he slowly sat up.

As the brown-haired youth began to regain cognitive thoughts, he stretched himself out and jumped out of bed. Slowly but surely, Chuck Bartowski got up and made his way towards the bathroom, albeit with a stumbling gait.

"Another day, another dollar." Chuck sighed. It was just another day in his new life and not much had changed. He wasn't living the high life he dreamed of back at Stanford. He didn't get along with 80% of his colleagues. His seniors were becoming unbearable as they didn't know half the stuff they were talking about. Chuck often corrected their mistakes, a habit rewarded with a position at the top of his boss' shitlist. Courtesy of his privileged situation – Ha! – he couldn't be sacked for anything short of a capital offense. Which frustrated certain people in positions of authority to no end. As a result, he usually felt lonely and vulnerable.

Yes, he had come a long way since his wrongful expulsion from Stanford, but there was still much to be desired in his view. In the rat race that was life, it felt like being stuck halfway and not knowing how to free oneself and continue moving forward. His training program – as physically and mentally demanding as it was – was no catch-all problem-solver. Chuck was still saddled with unresolved personal issues. Things that stopped him from having a social life. With that weighing on his shoulders (not to mention his pariah status), he preferred to work alone. Especially with Lou gone. Although not as hung up on her as he thought he would be, he definitely missed having a companion / confidant. Now he felt somewhat lost and distracted.

Suddenly the picture of his parents, stationed on the top of his drawers, grabbed his attention. Chuck closed his eyes and took a deep calming breath. He focused for a moment, looking both inward and outward, picturing his parents while his mind, body and soul searched for something.

Something he had been dearly hoping to find out ever since he opened that god damned case.

Answers about the sudden disappearance of his parents.

After a second or two, he sighed.

"Still nothing..."

There was not even a hint of what he had been looking for. How depressing.

'It' must have some information about them. I just need to find the right trigger.

He shook his head and slapped himself on the cheeks to get out of his minor funk. It would be best not to dwell on it. There was always tomorrow, right? Right.

The shower began to steam and Chuck stepped in. Whether he liked it or not, he still had a long day ahead of him, with yet more office trouble, no doubt. And then he had to prepare himself for dinner with a very beautiful and sophisticated woman, who was a Harvard graduate, worked as a special consultant for FinCEN, and owned a bloody Porsche. Though Sarah didn't seem like the judgmental type, he still wanted to live up to her standards and not make a fool of himself. The fact he had no idea what they'd do that evening wasn't helping.

And yet, in spite of his misgivings about that, Chuck was happy. Today was going to be a good day, he could feel it.

...xxxxxxxx...xxxxxxx...xxxxxxx...

Chuck yawned. His head rested on the table and he was tuning his current assignment out. Which involved assessing, evaluating and extracting elevation data from stereo imagery. He and his colleagues also had to submit long and detailed reviews for the products created by contractors and co-producers. It wasn't like his opinions would make that much difference; they were only trying to get the general consensus from the analysts in order to ensure that final products were engineered to meet the stringent accuracy requirements specified. He found some of the Motion Imagery Processing software interesting, but the rest of the survey was quite tedious.

Just type the first words which come to mind. Which wasn't a big problem for him. He was only dealing with some pretty basic stuff, so he didn't need to think thoroughly about any of those. He wore his usual careless expression as he moved from one slide to another.

He wasn't the only one. Most of his colleagues groaned alongside him. Deepak Manoosh stifled a yawn before leaning back in his chair, giving him a look. "Tired?"

"Was it that obvious?" Chuck sighed, once again trying and failing to bite back a yawn.

Deepak raised an eyebrow, adding with a mischievous smile, "You look about ready to pass out. I even saw your eyes dim for a few seconds. It seems you went all-out with a smoking hot bombshell last night. I gotta admit Chuck, you are a fast learner."

"Nah. She's just... a friend, someone I met at Harvard. Sarah Walker. I think I told you about her once."

Deepak blinked in confusion before recalling the conversation they shared last month. He spoke out once again, his voice filled with confusion and disbelief. Frankly, he was stupefied at how and why a straight male in Chuck's position wouldn't jump at the chance to make love to her.

"Huh! You gotta be kidding me. That was the girl who invited you to her apartment for..."

"Yep, and she's a FININT special operative. She also drives a Porsche." Chuck shrugged. "We stayed at the club till four and I asked her out for..."

"A date?"

"No. A dinner between friends. She just wanted to catch up and find out what I've been up to lately. She actually suggested we head over to her apartment but I was sleepy... I had to think about the office and I was kind of drunk... a little... and... it would have been super awkward so I pitched in with the idea."

"You like her!" Deepak exclaimed, half pushing himself up from his chair.

Chuck scowled in an effort to hide his blush. He reached over and swatted his Indian colleague on the back of his head, eliciting a yelp of surprise. "It's not anything like that. She is smart, sensible and smoking hot... She is out of all of our leagues, everyone in this office combined. Besides, she recently had a nasty break-up. I think dating is the last thing on her mind right now. And if having a dinner with someone means that I like them, by that logic I should be head-over-heels for you." Chuck tried to counter.

"I didn't know you thought about me that way, Bartowski." Deepak gasped, laying a hand on his chest with a dramatic sigh. "I appreciate the thought and you are totally my type. However, I am attracted to women, you see. But don't worry, we will always be friends."

Chuck stared at him with half-lidded eyes. "You done yet, drama queen?"

"Yeah, pretty much." Deepak said, dropping the act. "No one is out of anyone's league, Bartowski. They're just looking for something different. Heck, some of them don't even know what they are looking for."

"That almost sounded deep. Are you really Manoosh?" Chuck asked doubtfully, looking fascinated, as an artist would when beholden to his muse. He grabbed his ballpen and used it to poke lightly at the former MIT grad's thighs. "An imposter, maybe?" He added jokingly.

"Hey. What's that supposed to mean?" Deepak responded in a mock hurt tone.

Before they could continue their banter, the front door to the office swung open and everything came to a sudden stop. Every analyst and IT support staff looked up to whoever decided to invade their sacred territory.

It was quite obvious he stood out from everyone else. He was dressed in brown Marine Corps service uniform, the perpetual scowl on his face promised nothing but ill intent, and last but not least, he was built like a gorilla.

Everyone was dead silent, with rapt attention being paid to him. Chuck didn't even know he'd been lowering himself within his cubicle until his sight-line stopped shifting. Perhaps it was time to make himself scarce; when a scary guy with a look that could induce fear in serial killers crashed the party, it was time to leave.

"Which one of you morons is Bartowski?"

Well shit. There goes that idea.

Every eye in the office turned Chuck's way, as if he was a giant neon sign. It wasn't quite as damning as the throwing of Christians to the lions, but the lanky analyst felt there was some credence to that kind of thinking.

Gathering all of his courage, Chuck stood up from his sitting position and walked towards the scary guy who seemed like he was ready to shoot him in the face at any passing moment. "I am Charles Bartowski, GEOINT Analyst and Computer Scientist. Is there anything I can do for you, Mister...?"

Chuck spoke out, extending his hand with some visible effort on his part.

"John Casey. Special Agent, NSA." The man introduced himself with a grunt, not even bothering to look at his hand, let alone shake it. "Admiral Kernan told my boss that you are a golden boy, top-of-the-line recruit. Prove it. You have a presentation to make at Ft Meade in two hours and my orders are to bring you in."

Casey shoved a file into Chuck's hands. The rookie analyst looked down at the green folder in his hands then back up at Casey.

"Don't I need prior notice... before taking part in something like this?" Chuck asked, still a bit shaken by the sudden appearance of this scary man.

Casey smirked. "You really are a golden boy, huh? The NSA is offering you an opportunity to prove yourself and you are trying to turn us down."

Chuck replied in a defiant tone. "The protocol requires–"

"The protocol requires nothing, moron. We don't have time to do everything by-the-book. I need you downstairs in the next five minutes." Casey stated in a dead serious tone, then marched off before Chuck could even respond, leaving the young man to bumble his way to an open desk.

He changed his mind. Now he felt today was going to suck.