omg. Chuck is my favorite show of all time, and I can't believe it's taken me this long to write a fic for it.
I'm mostly a fan of season 1 and 2, so this is going to take place in mid-season 2 (when Emmett is assistant manager, if that helps). One of the things I wished for was a better way for Ellie to find out Chuck's secret. So this is going to be an Ellie finds out story :)
Hope you guys like it and hope the characterizations are all right!
~cosette141
Chuck sighed, tossing the clipboard back to the Nerd Herd desk.
He was running on a few hours of sleep; he, Sarah and Casey had several missions back to back, and yet, his Buy More job wasn't going anywhere. If only he got a paycheck from the missions, he could at the very least go down to part time.
Currently, he staring at the call log on his cell phone.
Last night's mission was a last minute one, and he was supposed to have plans with Ellie. A brother-sister dinner that she's been trying to plan for them for weeks. Something they used to do twice a month. But these days, he was lucky if he managed to give her one every six weeks.
Except this one he promised to be there.
By the time he'd gotten home last night it was well past three o'clock in the morning, and Ellie was asleep.
He sighed, guilt twisting his chest as he re-read the texts from her last night, asking where he was, missed calls, voicemails that hurt to listen to.
It was the last text that he couldn't tear his eyes away from, though.
I miss you.
Chuck tossed his phone on the desk. He rubbed a hand over his face.
He'll make this right.
Tonight, he'll order her favorite everything, and he'll make it up to her.
But he had a horrible feeling that another mission was going to drag him away from it like they always did.
It would just be so much easier if I could tell her the truth.
The phone at the desk rang, and Chuck let out another breath before answering. "Buy More Nerd Herd, how can I help you?" he asked in bored monotone.
"UPS," said a man on the other line. "Can I get someone to sign for these packages? I pulled up to your loading dock, got quite a few of them. TVs, by the look of it."
Chuck's brows lifted. "I thought we already got the shipment for—" But Chuck just rubbed his tired eyes. He barely paid any attention to the Buy More all week; he could have forgotten easily. Chuck sighed. "Nevermind. I'll be right there."
Chuck hung up the phone, and headed back toward the loading dock. On his way, he caught sight of Casey dusting a few consoles with the feather duster that reminded him that he needed to get a picture of that, as well as Morgan switching around every price sign Emmett was putting up for the sales displays while his back was turned.
Oh, why couldn't one of his jobs be normal?
The door fell shut behind Chuck as he walked into the loading dock.
It was silent. Usually the delivery people would come in first to ensure the packages were going to the right place—they didn't need another Large Mart incident. But there didn't seem to be anyone here. He poked his head around the storage cage. "Hello?" he called.
He was about to check outside when he heard the distinct, metallic cock of a gun behind him.
Chuck froze.
"Turn around. Slowly."
He did.
The moment he saw the man, he felt the Intersect almost buzz to life, like it did every time he flashed.
Agent Thomas Bradford.
Fulcrum.
The flash ended as abruptly as it started, the information hitting him with the familiar, strange sense of deja vu it always did.
Flashes will never become a normal feeling.
It left Chuck with a feeling of dread that he hasn't felt with many flashes.
This man felt like an unstable bomb.
Chuck's heart beating fast in his throat, Casey's name on the tip of his tongue. "Uh," stammered Chuck. "That doesn't look like a TV," he gestured nervously to the gun.
The man standing behind him was dressed in a UPS uniform, the gun aimed at his chest. He smiled grimly. "Chuck Bartowski," said the man, drawing out his name as he flicked his eyes from Chuck's nametag, back to his face.
"Look," tried Chuck, fear trailing down his spine. "I'm just an employee, I—"
"Perhaps Chuck Bartowski is," said the man coldly. "But Charles Carmichael?" The smile disappeared, and Chuck's blood ran cold. "You've caused Fulcrum a lot of trouble." he said, emphasizing Fulcrum in way that seemed to hold some other meaning.
Chuck swallowed. Hard. "Trouble? Me? I… I didn't—Look, uh, do you think this is something you and I can work out together? You know, man to man? Or, UPS guy to—"
"Shut up."
"Shutting up," mumbled Chuck with a nervous smile. Eyeing the gun nervously, and wishing he could hit the panic button on his watch without the Fulcrum agent seeing, he attempted to stall. "Look, we, uh, we don't have to go that far, do we? Huh?" His heart slammed against his ribs, right where his gun was pointed. The man's finger poised on the trigger.
Where the hell is Casey when I need him?!
"We've had an eye on your team's movements for quite a while. So I'm going to ask you one question," he said lowly. "And your life depends on giving me an answer." A beat of silence passed, and Chuck was certain the man could hear his pounding heart. Then: "Who is the Intersect?"
Chuck went rigid.
Stall, stall, stall…
"I… I don't know," he tried. "I'm just an analyst, I swear, I don't know anything," stressed Chuck. "I just stay in the car, that's all I—"
"You know what?" said the agent suddenly, brows narrowed with something akin to fury. "It's not worth it." And before Chuck could say anything else, he fired.
The bullet whispered through the silencer, and white-hot pain ripped through his abdomen. Chuck cried out, staggering backward into the wall of the storage cage. Crimson rippled across the white shirt and his hands flew toward it.
Blood.
Lots of blood.
Woozy at the sight of blood, shock spreading, Chuck's legs gave out and he fell to the floor. He blinked through the haze of agony but the Fulcrum agent was gone.
Blood.
Pain.
"Chuck!"
Morgan's voice.
Chuck's heart froze for a completely new sort of horror.
"Chuck, man! Wednesday-Friday Surf-and-Turf, if you know what I—"
"M-Morg—" stammered Chuck but even his name alone was too hard to get out.
"Holy… holy shit," said Morgan suddenly, and Chuck felt hands gripping his shoulders. "Dude! You're… bleeding!"
Chuck's mind raced. The gunshot wound had nearly all of his attention but he was coherent enough to realize he needed to protect his cover. "C-Cut myself," he managed to choke out, giving a shaky smile.
"Wh-what do you want me to do?" asked Morgan shakily.
"Casey," Chuck gasped out.
"Don't you need a… a d-doctor or something?"
"Casey," Chuck repeated, pain turning his voice into a growl. The pain spiked again and he screwed his eyes shut, his hands firmly pressed against it in a hope that Morgan wouldn't see what truly injured him.
"Okay…" Morgan shifted. "That's a.. lot of blood… I'll get Casey. Hold on, buddy."
Sneakers pounded away and Chuck blinked heavily, exhaustion falling over him like a heavy, thick blanket. He didn't know how long he waited there when more footsteps came running in.
More hands on his shoulders. A slap to his cheek tore his eyes open.
"Shit. Morgan, call 911."
Footsteps ran away.
Another slap. Chuck didn't remember closing his eyes that time.
"Bartowski!"
Chuck opened his eyes. Casey's face swam into view. And he looked…
Scared.
"Ca…" Chuck couldn't form the word. The pain was just too sharp.
"Dammit, Chuck, what happened? How did you get shot?"
Blackness encroached on his vision. "Fulcrum... UP…S… Bradford," was all he could force out.
"Damn." Rustling. "Walker, get down here. Bartowski's been shot." Pause. "Bad."
Chuck tried to formulate something else to say when pain exploded inside him. Someone was pressing down on the wound and Chuck nearly screamed.
He tried to find his voice.
But before he could, his entire world finally became black.
Casey watched Chuck's eyes shut. His hands were pressed hard over the gunshot wound and he removed one and shook the younger man.
Nothing.
"Dammit, Bartowski!" he hissed under his breath.
Blood now saturated his nerd herd shirt. What once was white was crimson. The blood was pooling onto the floor under his knees.
"Don't you die on me, Chuck," he muttered, wondering if the tightness in his chest was his fear of losing the Intersect or the person who'd slowly become his friend.
The loading dock doors burst open.
"Casey, wh—" Sarah froze, stopping rigidly at the sight of Chuck on the floor. "Oh, my god, no," she whispered, dropping to her knees, cupping Chuck's cheek. "Chuck?"
"He's out," said Casey. "But he's alive, fine for the moment. Should be fine if the idiot Grimes called for the bus already." He gave her a serious stare. "We should preserve his cover. Grimes said Chuck told him he had a nasty cut. Seemed to believe him."
Sarah slowly tore her eyes away from Chuck and she swallowed hard. She nodded. She got up and looked around the storage cage until she located a packing knife. Every shipping box was already cut open. She grabbed a box anyway, and used the razor to leave a jagged cut at the end of the box as if Chuck had accidentally used too much force and sliced his stomach.
She cleaned the razor of her prints, added Chuck's fingerprints to it, then covered it in the blood inching along the floor. She dropped it between where Chuck had fallen and the box still on the table. It wasn't completely believable but with the circumstances and the very low IQ of the store it should work.
She returned to Chuck's side just as Morgan burst through the doors, with most of the staff of the Buy More at his heels, and a team of paramedics.
Casey gave Sarah a nod and he stood up as the paramedics came. He advanced on the group of idiots trying to get a view of the action and made them retreat with a glare and a growl.
One of the paramedics looked stunned. "They said this was a—"
Sarah quickly stood up as the second paramedic bent to put pressure on the wound. As Casey distracted the nerds she took out her badge. "I'm CIA, so is he. This is a gunshot wound and a matter of national security that we cannot blow his cover. This is a nasty cut that hit an artery." She gave them a stern look. "Yes?"
They looked at her and then each other. "Yes, ma'am."
They loaded Chuck onto a stretcher and Sarah let herself into the bus. She looked at her asset—her friend—her—
Her breath hitched. She put a hand on his arm, her thumb stroking it gently.
Please be okay.