Chapter 6 – Wrong

A/N: This chapter I wanted to flesh out the character and background of Laszlo a bit. It gets a little dark.

Thanks for all the great reviews!

Casey approached the Bartowski residence with his gun in hand, held low. He'd gotten a panicked call from Walker minutes ago saying that Chuck was missing and surveillance of the area had been compromised. He didn't expect a threat when he got to Echo Park, but he knew he couldn't be sure. What he didn't expect was to find Walker in the kitchen, cleaning up messy pots and muttering to herself, "one uninterrupted meal, is that too much to ask?"

"Walker," Casey ventured forward, glancing around for any sign of a struggle and seeing none. "What happened?"

"Where've you been," Sarah spat out at him, scrubbing burnt food from a dish.

"Setting up for Chuck's training. What happened," he asked, moving into the room and tucking the gun away in his back holster.

"Surveillance was interrupted a half hour before I got here," Sarah gritted through her teeth as she tried to grind out the set in stains. "Point of entry was through the Morgan Door. We need to put a lock on that damn thing. Dinner was being cooked, thoroughly. And Chuck was gone. Only thing out of place is that card on the table."

Casey stepped over and took a look at the card, using a kitchen knife to turn it over.

"Prints?"

"Don't know. Check it at Castle. I have to get this mess cleaned up before Ellie or Awesome gets home," Sarah snarled, attacking the dish with renewed vigor.

Laszlo sat on the curb on the street, looking at the lighter in his hand and flicking it open occasionally, just to watch the fire burn.

… I was born with the wrong sign

… In the wrong house

… With the wrong ascendancy

… I took the wrong road

… That led to the wrong tendencies

Music from the open door to his father's car drifted through the periphery of his focus on the world, stirring up old memories.

7-year old Laszlo stood by his mother's bedside, clutching her hand in his. He was no stranger to the Seattle Mercy Hospital and neither was his mother. When the nurses asked what happened, the automatic response rolled off his swollen, split lip.

"She fell down the stairs," he'd whisper as his father stood behind them, staring at the boy.

When the next month rolled around and his father had more bills he couldn't pay, vodka and a clenched fist were the source of relief. The nurses would worry about how "clumsy" Mrs. Manhovski was, but the police couldn't interfere in a personal dispute when they were met with silence and lies.

In those times when Laszlo's mother was in the hospital, he could find ways to get a respite from his father for a few hours. In the hospital, he couldn't be touched. When they returned home, he would run to the library, soaking up knowledge from the minds of Einstein, Oppenheimer and Tesla, while reading the philosophy of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Hegel. But it was the drive home in the front seat of that '69 Buick where there was no place for him to escape. No refuge to take comfort from the drunken caresses and angry blows. It was on the battered, worn seat of that relic that a monster was born.

Casey ran the card through a dusting and found that there were no prints on the card at all, giving them no leads, but ruling out that it belonged to one of the Bartowskis.

A quick search through the government databases regarding the Queen of Hearts playing card and known terrorist organizations, criminal operations and government operatives yielded no connections or leads as well.

With a groan, Casey pushed away from the computer desk and cracked his knuckles. For once, he wished Chuck was here. The kid was a whiz with this technical mumbo-jumbo. Even if he couldn't flash on the connections, he could sit down at the computer, whip up some code for a program that would track down the information he needed. Chuck had the skills that the team put their trust in.

Casey, he put his trust in his gut. And his instincts were telling him that Laszlo having escaped recently, again, was no coincidence. Rising to his feet, he smiled at the comforting sound of the slide on his gun cocking back as he pulled up Laszlo's file. Casey had his own skill set.

13-year old Laszlo had been making his father's meals for the last year. After his mother's latest accident, she fractured a few bones in her hip and lost a good portion of her mobility. Sure, she could still get around the kitchen and was happy to make meals for her husband, but Laszlo insisted. He was proving to be very helpful in the kitchen and his mother eventually left it up to him entirely. The couple times he broke a glass, his father would curse and punish him for it, but there was a glint in the boy's eye. A determination that each punch helped concrete. He always cleaned up the broken glass, making sure he got every broken piece.

By the time Laszlo turned 14, his father was starting to have his own health problems. He never questioned where that broken glass was going. He certainly never suspected the boy was grinding it into a fine powder and mixing it in his food.

As Laszlo stood at his father's funeral holding his mother's hand, he was glad the simple-minded fool was gone. Over the years of watching his father's abuse of his mother, he began to suspect that something was wrong with her. She was broken inside. Watching her cry with grief, he thought of the medical journals he'd read about behavioral modification through the application of medicine. His mom always said he could become a doctor.

"Don't worry mom," he said consolingly, putting his arm around her shoulders. "I'll fix everything."

… There's something wrong with me chemically
… Something wrong with me inherently
… The wrong mix in the wrong genes
… I reached the wrong ends by the wrong means

Laszlo got up as he saw his asset approaching. Without a doubt, Chuck was his greatest accomplishment. When agents of Fulcrum approached him last year following his first attempt to escape from the CIA and offered an opportunity to build a new Intersect from the confines of his bunker, he saw unlimited potential in the amount of harm he could inflict on the Agency, but putting that Intersect upgrade in Chuck's head… that was icing on the cake.

In what Laszlo found to be an ironic contrast, Chuck was wearing a black shirt, white tie and white pants. The latter did nothing to hide the splashes of red on his thighs and smears of red on the knees, as Chuck carried a large black bag over his shoulder with no hint of emotion on his face.

"Good work, Chuck," Laszlo complimented as his asset dumped the heavy load into the trunk of the car. "Any complications?"

"None," was the cold, confident reply.

"That's what we like to hear," Laszlo said, slamming the trunk down and then bouncing on it to make sure the latch caught. "That's a job well done. Kinda makes you proud, huh?"

"Yes sir."

Laszlo smiled and started walking away from the car, Chuck falling in behind him. As they reached the edge of the parking lot, he flicked the lighter on again and watched it burn for a moment before dropping it into the trail of gasoline he'd left on the ground minutes ago. Watching his father's car burn, Laszlo put his arm around Chuck's shoulder.

"You know, buddy, I think this could be the start of a beautiful friendship."

His mother's stability started spiraling downward shortly after her husband passed away under mysterious circumstances. The police didn't have concrete evidence, just reasonable suspicion based on the internal hemorrhaging that he'd suffered before dying and the record of abuse against his wife. It wasn't enough to convict her on, but it was enough to engender her suspicions against her own son.

This hostility towards him was something that Laszlo set out to study and analyze. He knew she had a fear of snakes and the placing of snakes in her bed at bedtime always elicited the expected high pitched shriek of horror and the string of obscenities she hurled at him.

As he grew older, Laszlo studied more in depth the workings of the mind and acquired a number of useful connections in the local hospital where the nurses and doctors remembered him from youth and were all too happy to help him, hoping to make some amends for the years of not taking action against his abusive father. Guilty consciences that inadvertently allowed Laszlo to take the medicines he needed from the hospital pharmacy. Medicines that he used to 'treat' his mother's condition and drive her into a catatonic state.

Watching his mother taken away to the hospital for the last time, Laszlo decided to play some games at the Santa Monica pier. What he discovered was a whole new kind of game to play.

Sarah turned as she heard the front door opening and the look of hope on her face sunk as she saw it was just Ellie coming back from work. Dropping the dirty gloves into the trash, she gave the kitchen a quick once over for any other incriminating evidence before stepping out.

"Hey Ellie."

"Well, hey Sarah," Ellie replied with a look of pleased surprise. "I didn't expect to find you here!"

"Sorry. I came by to talk to Chuck, but… he wasn't home."

"No need to apologize," Ellie said, giving the taller woman a hug. "You're welcome anytime."

"Thanks. But I… should be going-"

"No, wait," Ellie quickly interjected, grabbing Sarah's hand as she pulled back and could make her escape. "I'm glad you're here. I wanted to talk to you."

"I-"

"Come here," Ellie continued, practically dragging Sarah over to the sofa. With a soft sigh, the agent allowed herself to be led. She knew this tone by now. There were only three escape routes- incapacitate her (and thereby pissing the entire Bartowski clan off), cut off her own arm or ride it out.

"I wanted to talk about you. And Chuck. And where you see that going."

On the other hand, sharp implements were nearby. She could get out with Casey's definition of an acceptable loss.

Vincent, Laszlo and Chuck stood in the middle of a large, dark room under a spotlight. Before them, the Five Elders reviewed the mission synopsis.

"As you can see, the 2.0 performs flawlessly. The prototype is ready for full implementation in our sleepers."

"Agreed," Artemis said, looking up from her screen. "You've done well, Vincent. We have a new assignment for you. If the 2.0 is going to be fully deployed, we'll need more than the prototype. For that, we need Orion. You'll head up a task force to find him. Bring Orion back, unharmed," she said, stressing the last.

"Yes ma'am," Vincent said and stepped out of the light as he was dismissed, leaving Laszlo and Chuck there.

"Laszlo, you will head up the Janus Project now. You will report to me for missions," Artemis said, watching the man closely for any hint of insubordination.

"Yes ma'am," Laszlo echoed Vincent's sentiment, but less with precise formality and more a flippant disdain.

Yes, I'll need to watch him closely, Artemis thought as she dismissed him. The other Elders departed shortly after, leaving her alone with their newest asset. Artemis swallowed the bile in her throat as she stepped down from the platform and approached the young man before her.

Young man. She had no idea when that'd happened. In her mind, he would always be that little prince and she would be his Frost Queen. Standing in front of him now, she was full of pride on reading how much he had accomplished, and full of fear of how much danger he was in. Touching his cheek, a lone tear rolled down her cheek.

"Aces, Charles. You're aces."