So can you smell disaster?

Can you feel it in your bones?

I don't feel like I'm a lover

And I don't recognize her foe

"Model Homes"

In-Flight Safety

September 27, 2021

Westside Medical Center, Los Angeles, California

Ellie walked into the examination room with a wide smile, the laugh lines around her mouth standing out. Her forest green eyes were warm and bright as she smiled at her nephew. Chuck could tell she was forcing it, but it was so subtle he was sure he was the only one who could tell. He had known his sister all his life, and in many ways she was more like a mother to him than just a sister. He had seen that look plenty of times-when she was being brave so he wouldn't worry.

"So you guys are all set," she said brightly. "I'm assuming your Dad told you all about what all those tests I ran showed, right, Stephen?"

"Sort of, yeah," he answered quietly.

"Is there anything else you wanted to ask me?" she added, another bright smile on her face.

Ellie traced her eyes back and forth, looking at both of Stephen's parents, noting how heavy the air in the room seemed, how much was not being said. She raised her eyebrows, an unspoken question on her face, trying to understand what had happened while they had been in here alone. Chuck answered that with a severe scowl and minute head shake, telling her to leave the situation alone. As nonchalant as Chuck was attempting to be, Sarah had to have noticed the silent communication.

"I'm gonna go get some water," Sarah said gruffly, pulling herself to her feet with her grip on the armrests. "I'll be right back," she said, flashing a watery smile to her son and husband before she moved out the door.

Ellie scowled again, her mouth open as if she were going to ask a question out loud now that Sarah was no longer listening. Chuck shook his head again, looking up at her with eyes set like stone. Questioning, but letting it stay for now, she turned back to Stephen. "So, your Dad told you what the Intersect is?"

"Yeah," he answered. "It's my super power," he added with a giant smile.

The smile on Chuck's face was genuine, warm and wide and wrinkling the skin on the bridge of his nose. The roiling anxiety Ellie had been containing evaporated and disappeared. She smiled in return, chuckling gently at the comment. "It certainly is, young man," Ellie told him. She stepped closer, touching her nephew on the shoulder and patting him softly. "There isn't anything that you could think of to ask that your Dad doesn't already know. Your Dad and I are experts. But I did want to say something. You know, be Dr. Woodcomb for another minute instead of Aunt Ellie." She pulled the hand back, standing up a little taller. "The most important thing that you need to know right now is to keep this a secret."

Stephen looked between Chuck and Ellie, waiting for more to be said. When nothing was forthcoming, he said, "A lot of people already know, Auntie."

"Your family-yes. Your parents, Uncle Morgan and Aunt Alex, your grandmothers, Uncle John, me and Uncle Devon. We all know. But we also won't ever talk about it. We all know that it needs to be a secret. You have to do the same, Stephen," she finished seriously.

"I might have to lie? Is that what you mean?" he asked.

"No, Stephen," Chuck said, remembering the conversation they had just had about Sarah's real birthday. "Not lying. Keeping a secret is different. It's keeping things private, so that things like that stay with your family. Your family understands. Other people might not. You know?" Chuck asked. He could have added the need to keep others safe, but for a child it was just another reason to worry. Keeping his son from worrying-from growing up before he needed to-was paramount in his mind.

"Like Clark Kent," Stephen said with a huge grin. "You know, Auntie, Superman," Stephen told her.

Ellie laughed. "Exactly. Just one other thing. You're getting older, and the things that you fl-zap," Ellie corrected herself, "about are getting more important. Like the one about the water plant. When something like that happens, you need to let your Mom or Dad know, right away."

He nodded his head, looking up at his father with wide eyes. There was a question on his face, something he couldn't quite put into words. Ellie saw it, and thought it was safe here to explain. "Your Dad's job-that's what he does. He works with computers, but he's helping find bad people who are trying to do bad things with computers. When he flashes, he can tell Uncle John or General Beckman so that they can do something about it. Now you can help him," Ellie said, cautiousness making her words come out slower than normal.

"Really?" he asked excitedly, turning to regard his father before he let his excitement take over, looking for some cue as to how Chuck felt about what Ellie said.

"Really," Chuck breathed. "Always tell us. Letting us know is important. And once I know, I can fix it. Or at least try to."

"Whoa, Dad," Stephen said, almost bouncing off the table. "I knew you worked with computers. But that is so awesome!" For the third time in his life, Chuck was pleasantly amazed by a reaction from someone he cared about. Stephen visibly calmed himself, adding more quietly, "I will do that, I promise. And I won't tell anyone else. Especially not Abby."

Ellie and Chuck shared a laugh. "Speaking of Abby, go get dressed, kiddo. We have to go get your sisters at Uncle Morgan's to get home in time for dinner."

He jumped down off the table, running around them and into the bathroom to change back into his regular clothes. Chuck watched him go, still smiling, feeling his sister's eyes on him as he did, waiting for her to start once they were alone.

"What's going on, Chuck? Ellie asked delicately, stuffing her hands down into her lab coat pockets.

He sighed, covering his face with his hand. Cutting to the point, he huffed, "How can he remember things from when he was a baby? Is that the Intersect too?"

"What...uh...what did he say to you?" Ellie asked, tapping her fingers over her mouth nervously.

"Very specific details," he said harshly, wanting an answer rather than another question. "About..." He couldn't finish. His inability to even speak the words shook Ellie, emotion rising into the discussion she had wanted to keep mostly clinical.

Ellie swallowed hard, almost gulping, nodding and looking at the floor uncomfortably. "I almost said something before, but I didn't want to go there. You know, distract from the main point. But part of my investigation was hypnosis, just like I did with Sarah and Morgan."

"You can hypnotize children?" Chuck asked curiously, a soft dread under the words.

It was like turning a switch, and the doctor stood before him, patiently explaining. "It's actually easier than with adults. They think differently than adults. That's how I know how far back he remembers. But just because he doesn't remember flashing before he was three doesn't mean he didn't." She lifted her chin, looking away so Chuck couldn't see the film of tears slowly accumulating. "The phone…the call…you know, unlocking and dialing. It wasn't an accident. He flashed. That's how it happened."

The memory rose, unwelcome, unbidden….Vivian's blouse, two tiny bloody hand prints on the sleeve…

He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut like he was bracing himself for a blow. Ellie looked on, her eyebrows furrowed in concern. Whatever had passed over him dissolved slowly into a thunderstruck expression, as he opened and closed his mouth, no words forming. It lasted many seconds, as the knowledge soaked into his mind. Without warning, he jumped to his feet, flailing, his voice shrill with panic as he asked his sister, "Oh my God, does he remember that now because you hypnotized him?"

Grabbing onto his arm, Ellie said intently, "No, Chuck. Whatever he described to you, he remembered that all along. He just never brought it up before. He was just a baby. He has pictures in his memory but no language. He didn't understand it back then," she reassured him.

"He told me I looked sad...like I did...when that happened," he said weakly, the strength draining from his voice. He fell back down sitting, huffing out his breath at the same time.

"Chuck, he doesn't remember it all. Not like you're thinking," Ellie said, leaning back down to position herself in front of him, as he had turned his head away.

Fresh tears in his eyes as he re-established eye contact, he said vehemently, "He remembered what Bolognia was wearing! He remembered what I was wearing!"

Changing to a more pedantic tone, Ellie said, "Chuck, that ability to remember minute details but not all of the sequence of events—that's trauma induced. Except for how he described…having Sarah's phone in his hand…it was all trauma. He has no memory of Sarah like that, or Vivian even being there for that matter. He definitely blocked that out. It's buried somewhere in his subconscious, but I wasn't digging. Not now, not like this."

In a severely broken voice, speaking as if his mouth was full of ground glass, he asked, "I never stopped worrying...it would come back somehow...nightmares...or...or..."

Ellie rubbed her hand across the shoulder closest to her, trying to offer comfort. "Things like that sometimes manifest as phobias when we get older. You know, fear of things we can't rationalize, because we don't remember the initial cause. He is a little claustrophobic, Chuck. MRI's are hard for most people, but we did have to sedate him. I'm only speculating, but that could be the cause."

Replying in a monotonal drone, almost under his breath, he offered, "When he was smaller...when he'd play hide and seek with the girls. He never hid in the closet. He wouldn't even look for them in the closet. So they always would hide in the closet, and he could never find them."

"Even if it did manifest like that, it's pretty mild, Chuck. It doesn't affect him seriously. When you and Devon took all the boys camping, he was fine in the tent, right?" she asked, knowing if anything serious had happened she would have heard from her husband or her sons, even if Chuck had never said anything.

His composure never changed, her words bouncing off his thoughts and barely registering. Chuck leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and hands over his mouth. "He saved her life, Ellie. I thought, you know…" His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. "But he actually saved her life," he whispered.

Ellie looked at him, blinking to keep the tears from falling. She had broken down in the moment before as she'd talked to her nephew, knowing the truth at last. She and Chuck had just wanted the Intersect gone-to fulfill their father's wish. But it had ended up being the very thing that had saved Sarah's life. Ironically, Ellie had known, having lived such a dangerous life, and the closest she had ever come to dying had nothing to do with that life at all. So quietly he had to strain to hear her, she said, "As worried as you are, as upset as you are right now, it was the Intersect that saved her. He has his mother right now because he has that. His mother and two younger sisters. You still have your wife. Try and put that in perspective, Chuck."

He was still processing the information, his mind spinning as he sat before her. Ellie watched him close his eyes again, his face horribly pinched, as if the scene playing behind his eyelids was unbearable to watch. Only for a split second did she see it on his face before he disguised it again. Guilt, she thought with astonishment. How he had looked, nine years ago in her research lab in Chicago, after he had learned the truth about what Quinn had done to Sarah after she had been taken in Japan. How he had looked, sitting next to her on his bed as they had spoken about feeling culpable in their father's death. How she knew she must have looked to him once she discovered Stephen's predicament was in part due to her actions.

"Chuck," Ellie began cautiously. "That was eight years ago…"

Initially startling himself with the volume of his voice, he retorted sharply, "Why does that matter?"

She pulled back slightly, not expecting anger to erupt so intensely. "Did you ever talk to her about it?" she asked.

"Ellie, I can't do this right now," he hissed, looking over his shoulder, anticipating his son and his wife's return at any moment.

"I bet that's what you've always done. Put it off," she said, nodding her head as if she agreed with her own sudden assessment. She sighed, lightly stamping her foot in frustration. "Chuck, you blame yourself, don't you?" she asked, dumbfounded by her realization.

The face he turned up to her radiated with so much anguish it took her breath away. She actually had to break eye contact with him to protect herself from the intensity of his pain. "It was my fault, Ellie," he said in a lifeless tone.

"No, it wasn't," Ellie insisted, bending forward for emphasis. "Things like that are just tragedies. No one is to blame."

Chuck shook his head side to side, at the same time trying to clear the image in his own mind. A blue smock, a pair of denim capri pants. So saturated with blood he could have wrung them out as he'd thrown them away in the emergency room.

Angry, his nerves frayed beyond his ability to cope, he blasted back at her. "The fact that she almost bled to death in front of my infant son and couldn't reach me. That was my fault."

Both Ellie and Chuck turned quickly at the sound of the door opening and shutting. Sarah stood there, smiling, though her eyebrows were far up on her forehead. "Is everything ok?" she asked gently, the tension and emotion thick in the air like a fog.

Before he could answer, the noise of his son bounding out of the bathroom fully dressed with his shoelaces untied distracted them all. "Can we go guys? I'm starving. What's for dinner, Mom?"

"Tie your shoes and we can leave, ok?" Sarah said with a smile. "Oh, and because he was home, your Dad made chicken pepperoni in the crock pot. It should be ready when we get home."

"Uhh," he whined. "Can't we have tacos?" he quipped, evoking a smirk from Sarah. Ellie flashed Sarah the phoniest smile she had ever seen. A quick look at Chuck and she saw him, pulling himself together like he was about to walk onto a stage. He smiled, but his eyes were vacant and haunted, the smile on his face stiff and cold, leaving his eyes dark.

"We had tacos two days ago," Sarah told him. "It's not that bad, is it?" she asked, the side of her mouth twisting up slightly. "At least not in the crock pot, right?"

Chuck crazily stifled the urge to scream, irritated that he was listening to them talking about dinner, when his insides felt shredded and mangled. He never took his eyes off Sarah, as she stood with her arms crossed, watching Stephen tie his shoes. She's here, and she's fine, and she's talking about dinner because she's fine, he told himself, repeating it like a mantra to calm his agitation. Feeling him stare, she looked up, startled, uncertain as to why in the moment he seemed so troubled.

"No, it's all right, I guess," Stephen grumbled, standing quickly from his crouched position. "Is there still leftover cake?"

"Yes," Sarah sighed.

He ran to the table, grabbing his video game. "Oh, Mom, I left my iPod in Aunt Ellie's office!" he fretted.

"Come on, we'll get it," Ellie said with another smile. "I'll send him back out, ok, guys?"

Back in the hallway, Sarah spun on Chuck once they were alone. "What did your sister say, once I left?" she demanded.

"She hypnotized him," he said, not offering anything further.

"Is he ok? Did he get scared or something?" she asked, clueless in the moment.

"No, no, everything was fine," he sighed.

"Is that why he brought that up-"

"I've been thinking about what my sister said, you know, about Beckman," he interjected, completely changing the subject.

She narrowed her eyes, cognizant of his blatant deflection, but leaving it alone in the moment. "What about it? We can trust her, Chuck," Sarah told him.

"There's someone I trust even more. And I need to talk to him first." He actually picked up his walking gait, pacing a few feet in front of her. She saw her son, running towards her, his shoes squealing as he rounded the corner.

"Slow down, kiddo," she called after him, as he zipped by to catch up to Chuck.

"Race you, Dad," Stephen called, sprinting past Chuck. Sarah watched Chuck take off after him, shaking her head in exasperation, even if it did make her feel better for a split second.

September 27, 2021

Santa Barbara, California

"Easy now, easy," Gretchen said, pulling Hannah from lying flat on her back to sitting upright on the floor.

The room slowly clarified, the fuzzy edges sharpening as Hannah gained her bearings. She could see the faces of her children, gazing over the table top down at her on the floor, concern on both their faces. "What happened?" she asked blearily.

"You fainted dead away," she said, shaking her head in reproach. "Drink this," she ordered, putting a small glass of water to Hannah's lips and tipping it for her.

Hannah took the glass out of Gretchen's hand, holding it pressed against her lower lip. "She's fine, she's fine. Just dehydrated is all," Gretchen almost hummed to the children. "Give your Mom some air. Is everything in your backpacks now?" she asked, at the same time tucking both hands under Hannah's arm and pulling her to her feet, depositing her back into the chair she had been sitting in before she fainted.

Checking to make sure the children had departed, Gretchen asked softly, "What in the blazes was that about?"

Finding herself, remembering the reason, Hannah's eyes were wild, the hand holding the glass trembling and making the surface of the water splash over the side. "The man you talked to. Did he have a British accent?" she asked intently.

"No, no…" Gretchen said, tilting her head to the side as she thought. "But, you know, now that you say that...it was almost like he was faking an American accent. The way he talked was so strange. Maybe that was why," she continued rambling.

Hannah clamped one hand over her mouth, rocking back and forth slowly.

"How did you know that? Who is he? Why was he here, looking for someone he knew didn't really live here?" she grilled the younger woman.

"Charles Bartowski. That's who he asked you about, right?" Hannah asked, pulling her hand away from her mouth and lying it flat on the table.

"Yes! That's right," she said. Shocked, Gretchen turned to her, grabbing onto her forearm. "Wait a minute. Who is that? How did you know?"

"It's a long story, Gretch. Someone I met a long time ago on an airplane. He lived in Burbank, when I knew him. But…" Her voice trailed away.

"Who came to the door? You know, don't you?" Gretchen asked. "Do I need to call the police? Is he a stalker or whatever?" she rambled.

"Did he say anything else? Anything that you remember, other than asking for Chuck?" Hannah asked, sitting forward, anticipating.

"Chuck?" Gretchen asked, her face twisted in confusion. "Oh, Chuck...like Charles," she murmured to herself. "Such a strange nickname," she mumbled, looking off to the side as she concentrated. "He knocked on the door, told me he was looking for someone named Charles...Bar...whatever-"

"Bartowski," Hannah corrected her.

"Bartowski," Gretchen repeated. "He said he had tried calling, but the number was no longer in service. He...he got the address from his friend, but he wasn't sure how accurate it was. He apologized after I said he had the wrong address. Then he said it must be the next street over. He made a wrong turn where they intersected." Gretchen was smiling, proud of herself for recalling as much of that conversation as she had.

The smile disappeared when she looked at Hannah, hugging herself, her arms wrapped tightly around her body and clamped down on her elbows. "Oh my God," she mumbled to herself, alarming Gretchen in the process.

"What the hell is going on?" Gretchen demanded, feeling more and more confused as the scenario played out.

"He was trying to warn me," Hannah gasped, her chest heaving as she felt herself start to hyperventilate. "I thought we were safe here...but we aren't."