A/N: Warning, this might be a trigger for some people. If you want to skip it, I completely understand. I wrote this for me, to get it out, but I thought someone might like it. I give you a fictional tale of a night I will never forget as long as I live.
Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck
"CASEY!" Chuck screamed, looking at the destruction in front of him. Lighting streaked across the sky and for a moment, Chuck could clearly see the house…or what was left of it. The tallest part of the house that was left standing was three foot tall at best. "GERTRUDE!" he screamed, horror in his voice, his body shaking.
When he had pulled up to the house, he thought maybe everything was fine. The barn was illuminated in his headlights, but when he looked off to the left where Gertrude and Casey's house was….there was nothing left. "CASEY!"
}o{
Earlier that day.
"You got any animals at your house?" Lou asked, filling Chuck and Sarah's tea. They had just gotten back from their honeymoon, and what a glorious honeymoon it was. Chuck was still smiling stupidly, and Sarah had to shake her head many times as if getting thoughts out of her head.
"Nope," Chuck chirped. "We just landed in Louisville a few hours ago, and wanted to have dinner here."
"You have heard about the weather we're supposed to have tonight, right?" Lou asked, concerned.
"Something about thunderstorms and possibly tornadoes? In December?" Chuck snorted. "If it was May, I'd be worried, but December."
Lou didn't say anything for a minute. "There's a weird feeling in the air, Chuck." She shrugged and headed to wait on another customer. Chuck looked over at Sarah, who was on her phone. She looked up at him, concern on her face.
"How bad?"
"I mean…" she trailed off and handed Chuck her phone. He read for a few minutes and then handed it back to her. "What do you think?"
"I don't know," Chuck muttered. "Hopefully they're wrong." Chuck suddenly didn't feel like his meatloaf any longer.
}o{
12:00 AM that night
Chuck hung up the phone and shook his head. "Everything okay?" Sarah asked.
"No," Chuck replied. "There was a tornado in Western Kentucky. It was on the ground for over two hundred miles and four hours. It destroyed a factory with people inside. There's a lot of people dead, Sarah."
"Oh my God," she muttered, looking at him in shock. "In December? What the hell?"
"I don't understand it," Chuck replied. "That was a vet I know from down there, and he says it looks like a warzone in some places."
"It's just hard to process, you know?" Chuck said, shaking his head.
"Yeah," Sarah replied. "How much longer is the watch in affect for?"
"Another two hours or so," Chuck told her.
"You're not sleeping until this is over, are you?"
Chuck stood there a second, seemingly lost in thought. When he spoke it was a low tone. "We had a watch here a few months after we moved here. I had never dealt with tornadoes before. We had wildfires and earthquakes, but tornadoes…no." Sarah walked up to him and slid her arms around his stomach and put her chin on his shoulder as he continued talking.
"And with the tornado came hail, and lighting and thunder, and God, Sarah." He trailed off, shaking his head. "I was nine and scared out of my damn mind."
"I can imagine," she said softly. "I can imagine." He leaned his head over a bit, his head touching hers. "Well, why don't we turn on the local channel, turn the volume down, and you find that guy on-line that tracks weather around here and we'll watch, just to be safe."
He squeezed the hands that was wrapped around his. "I love you Sarah."
"Love you, Chuck."
}o{
Two hours later.
"You know, I'm gonna take some stuff down into the cellar just to be safe," Sarah said, looking a bit embarrassed. "I mean, you never know, right?"
"Not a bad idea," Chuck agreed. He didn't see Sarah turn and stare at him. He had always kidded her in the field about being extra cautious when they worked on an animal. Not that Chuck took chances, but he sometimes thought her way was a little dramatic.
"What's wrong?" she asked, and he heard it in her voice.
"I don't like the way that cloud is heading this direction." He opened the front door, and looked outside. The lightening was flashing in the distance. "I don't like the way the air feels, and after what happened earlier tonight on the other side of the state…"
"Right," Sarah said, and moved quickly, gathering safety supplies and taking them downstairs. She back came up, when she heard something hitting the roof. Her eyes went wide as she looked at Chuck. "What is that?"
"Hail," Chuck said. "Head downstairs, I'm right behind you. Peaches! Lassie! Cellar!" The two dogs quickly followed Sarah downstairs as he grabbed his cell phone and dialed a number, praying Casey would answer. "Come on, come on," he muttered.
"What?" came the sleepy, grumpy voice.
"Casey, get to the storm shelter now!" Chuck said urgently into the phone as he headed downstairs.
"Are you serious?" he heard the big man mutter.
"Casey, trust me," Chuck said.
"Alright, alright, no need to get your shorts-"
"Casey there was already a tornado on the other side of the state that has killed a lot of people, please, get to the shelter," Chuck pleaded.
He heard a commotion on the other end. "We're going now, Chuck," he heard Gertrude say.
"Okay, I'll call you after it's over, okay?"
"We'll be fine," Gertrude promised, and hung up.
Chuck headed downstairs, and he lead Sarah to the small room, surrounded on all sides by concrete. Sarah's eyes went wide. "What is that noise, Chuck?"
"A tornado," he replied, fear on his face. The noise grew. He had never heard a cross between a jet airplane and a train before, but tonight…tonight he had. It got louder, and louder, and louder. The single bulb that was burning downstairs, went out. The noise continued to get louder, and louder, and louder, until Chuck thought the tornado was going through the living room of his house.
And then…and then it was quiet, and all he heard was rain coming down. He looked out into the basement, and a light shined through the darkness. He looked back and there was Sarah holding a flashlight. He ran to the stair case, went up, and paused at the front door. He opened the door carefully, not sure what would be there. Everything looked fine. He used the flashlight on the phone and looked around, making sure no windows were broken. He said a quick prayer, opened the door, and went out, looking at the vehicles. Everything looked fine…except.
He looked off into the distance. He had always been able to see Gertrude and Casey's house from his front porch. There were no lights, the power obviously out, but something looked wrong. "SARAH!" he yelled, running toward his truck. Sarah asked no questions, she quickly ran after him and got into the passenger seat as he started the truck and took off.
He had hoped it would cool off after the warm day and the storm went through, and while it was now in the mid sixties, there was something in the air, different from earlier in the day.
He pulled up Casey's driveway, seeing the barn, and thinking he had been worried for nothing. He the realized he didn't see Gertrude's or Casey's vehicles. Before he could figure out what happened to them, h heard a gasp beside him, and Sarah's hand landed on his right arm. He looked over to where the house should be…it wasn't there. What stood before them was absolute wreckage.
"CASEY!" he screamed as he got out of the truck.
"GERTRUDE!" Sarah screamed.
Chuck ran to the outside cellar doors, ripped them open, and stared down in fright as there was no way down. The house had collapsed down. "CASEY!" Chuck yelled.
"We're over here!" he heard a faint yell from the other side of the house.
Chuck ran around the house and he saw a light coming out from one of the openings under the house in the crawl space. "CASEY!"
"Here! Here!" Gertrude yelled. Chuck pulled the opening to the crawlspace open and saw Gertrude, in her night gown, her hand outstretched. Chuck helped pull her out. "He's right behind me," Gertrude told him.
"I got her, go!" Sarah told Chuck. Chuck crawled back in to find Casey, he grabbed his hand, and crawled backwards, pulling out his friend.
A few minutes later they had both of them on the wet grass, shook up, but mostly unharmed. "If I hadn't gone over to that corner and made him get under that shelf with me…" Gertrude said, shaking her head. "If you hadn't of called…."
"He did, baby, we did," Casey said, holding her tight. Chuck and Sarah shared a look.
"Come on, let's get you to our house and warm you up," Chuck told them. The four went over to the truck, piled in, and he took off, taking them back home.
}o{
"Where are you going?" Sarah asked, forty-five minutes later. Chuck had taken several of the blankets he used for animals, they had been cleaned, and had put them in the passenger seat. He had a few coats as well.
"You saw their house, it can't be just them," Chuck said softly. "I've got to go help. I need you to watch them, please." Sarah nodded. "Call Ellie and Devon, see if they can come down."
"Just got off the phone with Ellie," Sarah told him. "They are on their way to check out John and Gertrude and help out anyone else they can." Chuck nodded. "Be safe."
"I will, love you," he said, kissing her. He ran off to the truck and took off.
}o{
The emergency generator had kicked in at clinic, and after Ellie and Devon had gotten there, Sarah found herself at work. Several animals had been hurt, and hard decision were having to be made. She had just put the third animal to sleep when Alex came into the back.
"Power's back," she told Sarah. Sarah nodded. "I think that's the last one. I know Chuck took care of a couple at the farms he went to, and at least one cow."
"A cow?!" Sarah asked. "What happened?"
"It got picked up by the tornado and dropped," Alex said, making Sarah shudder. "It was in agony."
"I know," Sarah said. "I just had to give a family a choice of spending over five grand for operations on the dogs legs, and not sure if it would ever walk right again, or…" Alex nodded. Many families couldn't afford five grand for a pet's operation. Around Sadie, the or was chosen most of the time. It didn't mean anyone liked the choice, but it was what it was.
"Alex, I never asked, you and Morgan, are you both okay?"
"Yeah," Alex answered. "I mean physically." Sarah gave her a look. "Morgan's is gone," she said softly.
"When you say gone…"
"Gone, Sarah." Alex shook her head. "And anything in there, Morgan is giving to people right now to use however they need to. What few coats and blankets that didn't get blown to Oz he's given away."
"He's a good man," Sarah told her.
"He is," Alex agreed. "He's not even that upset, he just keeps saying we're alive." Sarah shut her eyes. The first three deaths had already been confirmed and three children were currently missing. "They found Dad's truck today over at Mr. Roberts house."
"That's over hundreds of yards away!" Sarah exclaimed. Alex just nodded.
"Hey guys," Chuck said, coming in, looking exhausted. "Have you two eaten?"
"Have you?" Sarah asked. Chuck shook his head. "Let's go get some food."
"No, I'm not hungry," Chuck told her. "I just want to take a shower, if you don't mind."
Sarah nodded, and Chuck gave her a soft smile. He kissed Alex on the side of the head, and then he kissed Sarah lightly. He walked into the bathroom, and Sarah held up a finger for them to listen. They both heard the shower start and after a second, they both shut their eyes. He was crying. Alex turned quietly, and left. Sarah walked into the bathroom, stripped off her clothes, stepped into the shower, and held him as he cried.
}o{
It was three weeks later, all the power was finally restored to all the houses, all of the streets in Sadie reopened. Things seemed to get back to normal. Chuck was running across town to drop off some mail. He was on autopilot, driving the streets as he always had. He pulled onto a street he always used as a short cut when he saw it.
The normal neighborhood seemed to suddenly change. Houses that had been with families he had passed by for years, looked like something out of a war. There were houses with all the windows knocked out, and plywood covering the opening. There were then houses that had those problems and then parts of the roofing missing, or a whole section of the roof. There were houses that were missing the entire roof, or you could see inside because walls were missing. But the worst, the absolute worse was where there was nothing but a concrete pad and debris in the front yard that was being loaded into FEMA trucks.
Casey and Gertrude had lived with Chuck and Sarah for about two weeks, and then shortly after Christmas found a house to move into in town. Casey drove home every morning to check the livestock, and Chuck also checked it when he came home from work each day.
Everyone was trying to go back to normal…they were trying. Chuck wondered if they ever would be normal again. He was sitting in Lou's having a cup of coffee, in the middle of the day, when the train went by. He watched nearly everyone in there have a reaction, and a brief flash of fear on their face. Normal seemed a long way away.
}o{
It was six weeks and two days after the tornado, when everyone had gathered at Chuck and Sarah's for Sunday dinner. Things were slowly getting back to normal. Casey and Gertrude had paid off their house with the insurance money, and were talking of rebuilding. Casey was grumbling about Gertrude redecorating…everyone knew he was just grumbling to grumble. Rebuilding of Morgan's was already underway.
Casey cleared his throat and stood up. "We didn't have much of a Christmas this year," he began. "Didn't feel much like celebrating." Everyone murmured their agreements. "Well, we're all morons."
"He should write greeting cards," Chuck said to Sarah, making her smile.
"We may not have material things right now, we might not have houses, but you know what we have? We have a home."
"Damn," Chuck muttered. "That was good."
"You saved my life, Chuck," Casey said softly. "And you saved Gertrude's."
"You saved mine a long time ago," Chuck said shrugging.
"Yeah, because that's what family and friends do," Casey replied. "This community has been through hell, but you know what they say, If you're going through hell, keep going. And we did."
"You do know that's Winston Churchill, right?" Chuck asked. Casey frowned at Chuck, who held up his hands in surrender. "But you're right."
"And I know you, Chuck, you're going through a type of survivor's guilt," Casey added.
"Not like he thought he was responsible for this town or anything," Sarah said, taking a sip of her sweet tea.
"You literally look like that Kermit meme…just a lot prettier," Chuck replied.
"You two were supposed to be starting the rest of your lives….and then everything around you came crashing down, literately," Ellie pointed out.
"Ellie, we didn't-"
"Chuck, maybe you didn't lose your house, but you felt for everyone that did," Gertrude told him. "This thing messed everyone up. Some literally lost things, and some watched others lose everything and were powerless to do anything about it."
"Yeah, I was," Chuck said softly. "I couldn't do a damn thing."
"No one could," Ellie said. "And that's what's so scary."
"So, we just need to love and appreciate each other while we have each other," Sarah said with a shrug.
"She's right," Ellie said. "Also, her sweet tea is delicious."
"One awful night in December changed our lives forever, but it doesn't have to change who we are or what we mean to each other," Chuck said. "I love you all."
}o{
Later that evening Chuck checked the thermostat. It was eighteen degrees outside, which was ridiculous. "You know, if you're cold, you could just cuddle with me," he heard a soft voice say behind him. Chuck turned. "We are still practically honeymooning."
"It would save on the heat bill," Chuck replied, grinning at her. She took his hand and lead him toward the bedroom. "I bet you regretted marrying an idiot that lived in Kentucky that night, didn't you."
She stopped, spun, and looked him right in the eye. "In case you forgot, I said for better or worse, for sick or for poor, in sickness and in health, til death do us part, and if that was death, then so be it, Chuck Bartowski."
"I know you were kinda chewing me out there, but that was hot," Chuck admitted.
"I mean, you think everything I do is hot," Sarah replied, shrugging. "I love you, you idiot, now, come to bed."
"Yes, ma'am," he said, grinning, following behind her.
A/N: If you've read this far, then you should know, everything written about the tornado, someone in my family, or I, experienced. Thank you for reading my therapy session. Stay safe my friends. Love you all.
David
