He felt like he was swimming upward through a mud puddle toward the sunlight.

Finally, he reached the top.

His eyes cracked open. He felt like a ton of sand was stuck in them.

Chuck brought his hands to his eyes and rubbed the guck and crap out of them, wiping it away.

"Dammit," he muttered, his head pounding. Then, he realized something was wrong.

He was not in his bedroom. He didn't remember getting here, either. The last thing he remembered was the Viper Room. Jack Johnson on stage. And now…

"Where the hell am I?"

He sat up slowly, taking in his surroundings. The first thing he noticed was the nightstand. A glass of water, and two Advil cold and sinus. A note.

Mr. Bartowski – Take these. You'll feel better quickly.

So he did. No immediate effect, but he hadn't expected it.

He looked around more. King size bed. Comfortable one, at that. All white linens. In fact, the whole room was white. The sofa halfway across the room was white. The refrigerator in the corner was white.

He got up and slowly staggered to the refrigerator, pulling it open. Water, Mountain Dew, Coke, Red Bull. Snacks. Stuff he enjoyed. Pretty well stocked.

There was a white sixty-inch plasma TV hanging from the wall, a white cabinet below it. He opened the cabinet – all his DVDs. A Blu-Ray player. A PS3 and a Wii with all his games.

"Goddammit," he muttered. "Tell me I'm not where I think I am."

Chuck went back to the refrigerator, pulled out a Red Bull, collapsed on the couch. He picked up the remote, turned on the TV.

The image of General Beckman appeared on the screen, facing away. As if she was alerted to the fact that the television had been turned on, she turned to face Chuck.

"Mr. Bartowski. Good morning."

Chuck didn't say anything, just stared.

"I trust you're comfortable?"

He still didn't say a word, raising his Red Bull in response.

"I'm sorry about the measures we had to take to get you here. Agent Walker managed to severely injure two NSA agents before we were able to extract you."

Chuck's eyes widened at Sarah's name.

"She'll be fine, Bartowski."

He crossed his arms, but still didn't speak.

"By the way, your family and friends are quite efficient. They've already reported you missing to the LAPD, and your sister and her fiancé have already gotten Agent Walker to City of Angels for a rape examination."

Chuck's breath caught in his throat, and his eyes went wide. He finally spoke.

"You fucking bitch."

"Do calm yourself, Bartowski. We wouldn't subject one of our own agents to that simply to extract an asset."

Chuck went silent once more.

"Do you have nothing else to say, Bartowski? Or is that it? Calling me a 'fucking bitch'?"

He said nothing. Then, slowly, and purposefully, he raised both hands, and extended both of his middle fingers.

General Beckman cocked an eyebrow. Chuck lowered his hands, picked up the remote, and turned off the television.

Ellie came out of the exam room into the waiting area. "She wasn't raped," she informed Devin, Casey, and the detectives.

"No sign of it?" one of the detectives asked.

"No."

"So whoever administered the Rohypnol probably did so in order to disable her so that they could abduct your brother," the other detective mused.

"Can we question Ms. Walker now?" the first detective requested.

"Actually, can I speak with both of you a moment?" Casey interrupted.

He pulled the two detectives over to a corner of the waiting area and spoke with them quietly. After a moment, one of them said, "Alright, I understand."

They walked back over to Ellie. The one who had spoken to Casey said, "Ms. Bartowski, we'll be in touch regarding your brother. We may have to involve the FBI."

She nodded. "Please, do whatever you have to," she replied quietly.

As the detectives left, Devin said, "I think we should go in and talk to Sarah a moment. John, you too."

With a puzzled look on his face, Casey walked in to Sarah's exam room with Ellie. Devin walked in behind them, shut the door, and locked it.

"Alright," he began. "I think it's time for the truth."

"I'm sorry, I don't follow," Casey said.

"You're not a Buy More salesman. Sarah's not a fast-food cashier. I think it's about time that the two of you told us what the hell is going on and what it has to do with Chuck."

Sarah looked at Casey. He shook his head almost imperceptibly, but she just shrugged.

"This all started on September 25th of last year," she started.

For the next fifteen minutes, she told a shocked Ellie and Devin the story of the last five months. Casey would occasionally interject a comment.

"And that's pretty much the whole story," Sarah finally finished.

"Yeah, except that the CIA wasn't counting on their agent to come out here and fall for the asset," Casey grumbled.

Sarah looked daggers at Casey, but Ellie cracked a small smile. "I knew you really did truly like Chuck," she said quietly.

Sarah sighed the sigh of a defeated woman. "I… I guess I really do," she answered with a shrug. "Unfortunately, that turns out to be a liability sometimes – like last night, when we were supposed to be identifying a target. When it turned out he wasn't at the night club we were at, we decided to stay – just for fun. I wouldn't have done that with any other asset, but Chuck…"

She paused a moment. "I can't look at him and just see an asset anymore. He's a person. He's… an incredible man. I've never known anybody else like him. I look at him, and I see the life I could have. I…"

Sarah stopped. She had almost said something she didn't know if she was entirely sure of, but the more she thought about it, the more sure of it she became.

"I could see myself very happily spending the rest of my life with him."

Casey groaned. "Oh, for God's sake, Walker."

"Hey, I think it's pretty awesome," Devin rebuked him.

"And yet, I'm entirely unsurprised. By both of you," Casey continued. "First of all, you think everything's awesome, Devin. And Sarah, I could see it on your face that very first night on the helipad."

Sarah didn't say anything. She didn't confirm it. She didn't deny it. In fact, as they watched, her eyes started to brim with tears, and they began to roll quickly down her face. Her face crumpled as she was overcome by guilt for letting Chuck be taken and fear that she might not ever see him again.

The door opened. Chuck looked up from the bed. He had laid down after his "talk" with General Beckman, and had just stared at the ceiling.

Two men entered the room, one with an M-16, one with a tray of food. In fact, it smelled a lot like McDonald's.

But that wasn't what interested Chuck. No, it was the open door that interested him. He got up, and walked toward the door.

"Freeze, Mr. Bartowski," the armed one said, as the M-16 swung toward him.

"Please," Chuck replied. "I'm a priceless government asset. If you shoot me, you'll be spending the rest of your life cleaning toilets in Greenland."

The agent hesitated, and Chuck walked out the door.

He had gotten no more than fifty feet down the hall, when a group of agents, accompanied by Director Graham, no less, appeared to block his path. One of the agents held a syringe.

"Oh, come on. You're going to drug me?" Chuck asked.

"If we have to," Director Graham replied.

"You mean, like you drugged Sarah?"

Graham looked at him curiously. "How did you know about that?"

"General Beckman told me that my sister had done a rape exam on Sarah, but she personally assured me that no harm had come to her. Therefore, I can only assume that somebody slipped Sarah a roofie to knock her out while you people extracted me."

Graham was quiet for a long moment. "You've got quite the mind there, Bartowski, beyond just the Intersect. So, it would be a shame for us to have to potentially damage it with sedatives."

"Oh, there'll be no need for sedatives," Chuck replied. "I'll go back to my cell without protest. I just need to do one thing first."

"And what's that?"

Without warning, Chuck's foot swung upward. His Converse-clad right foot slammed into Director Graham's crotch at a rather high rate of speed. Graham's eyes bulged, he clasped his hands to his groin, and he collapsed to the ground, doing his best not to gag.

Chuck leaned over him just a little bit. "THAT was for kidnapping me, for drugging Sarah, and for likely scaring the shit out of my family and friends."

And with that, he executed an about-face, strode back to his cell, and slammed the door shut behind him.