Gramma Vero's Attic

The two-story house was austere and non-descript, not drawing any attention to itself by color, keep, or foot traffic. Casey expected as much from a document forger working both the black and white market. Trista Vero, while supplying new identities to criminals, had also supplied new identities to dozens of witnesses under Federal protection where conventional protection programs failed. Because the criminals were notably white collar and non-lethal, the indiscretions were overlooked by the government. It was no stretch to believe that Emily's identity and papers had found their way through here, since identities were easier to recycle than create. It was the photo that Casey wanted to ask about. The photo and the tattoo that Chuck had flashed on. A seasoned forger like Trista Vero would know better.

There was no getting out of the castle without Agent Walker, and Casey didn't trust his own sanity enough to go on his own anyway. They were tracking two possible targets – one who shot poison darts, one who shot bullets – and he needed the back-up. Plus, without serious violence, there was no way to prevent Chuck from blabbing anyway, and he needed the kid's intel.

"Should we be here?" Chuck asked uncertainly. "Don't the people that come through this house want to keep their secrets?"

"You could wait in the car," Casey shrugged.

"Learn from past mistakes," Chuck said dryly, opening the door, letting in the bitter cold. They were parked on a steep hill in the mountains just north-east of the valley. There was no driveway and the cars were wedged in bumper to bumper on a street that barely qualified as two-way. Casey had pulled in front of a fire hydrant half a block from the place, but it offered an easy escape if they were being chased and they were far enough from the target to avoid any surveillance, if there was some on site. It was significantly colder at this altitude, and Casey reached into the back for his jacket and, since he had the cover, a few more guns.

"Chuck, stay behind me," Sarah warned as they made their way up the block.

A few dozen broken, concrete steps led up to the rickety, wooden porch. White paint chipped off the trim, but the blue paint on the house looked fresh. A kicked in screen door dangled from its hinges and the front door looked like it had been broken down and boarded up a dozen times over. The shininess of the nails in the plywood spoke to how recently the last board had been placed. In the upper right hand corner of the door frame, etched into the wood, was the symbol Chuck had described – the dove, the tear drop, and the numbers 873. It wasn't the house number.

"Do you want me to knock?" Walker prompted.

Casey released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. The plan was basic reconnaissance, and with no current signs of danger, they would play this out with minimum violence. Forcing himself to release his holstered gun, Casey shot Sarah a withering look and knocked.

Chuck picked at his fingers, managing to make himself annoying while they waited. Casey curled his lip but suppressed the growl of irritation he felt stirring. Nothing was happening.

Chuck reached for the handle on the screen door. "Try the –"

Casey grabbed his wrist harshly, and pushed him back. "It's customary to check for traps before letting yourself in."

"Right," Chuck nodded, swallowing hard. "Well, that would make sense. Why don't you check for traps and I'll wait …"

He looked back to the car, but settled for off the wooden porch and half way down the steps. With a nod, Casey and Sarah split, checking around the house for any sign of things that would scatter their limbs across the block, or do something equally unpleasant. Nothing about the house made it conspicuous. He wouldn't have even guessed minor misdemeanors occurred in the vicinity of this place. The emptied trash cans were lined up at the side of the house; a garden hose was disconnected from the spigot, but hung neatly on a hook; a dried Christmas tree had been de-boughed and lain in the back yard, looking like it was waiting to be chopped into fire wood. Were it not for the symbol on the front door, Casey would've thought they had the wrong place.

"Looks okay," Walker said, coming around the house from the other side. She had her weapon in hand, but not at ready.

"Let's go in," Casey said.

-----

"Federal agents. Make your presence known," Walker said loudly, as she went room to room, gun cocked. Casey could hear her going through the lower floors as he went up the stairs, both yelling 'clear' as soon as they'd established the relative emptiness of every nook. The inside of this house had plenty of places to hide, which made Casey nervous, and he would've called for back-up, except that they hadn't briefed General Beckman on this side mission of theirs. To do so would have involved hinting at the hallucinations, the self-extraction, and the question of Casey's sanity. Rather than presenting the questions and asking for permission, Casey figured he should wait for answers and ask for forgiveness. He'd given Walker that leniency often enough that she would return the favor without arguing.

The inside of the house was only in slightly better repair than the outside. It looked more like a hotel than a home, with a few thematic decorations and no personal photos. The only thing Casey could tell about the decorator was that they liked stenciled wood. Everywhere he looked, lining the door frames and walls, different shapes were stenciled.

"Ground floor is clear," Walker said by radio.

"Up stairs, too," Casey agreed. There were four rooms on the second floor. Two were small bedrooms, as austere and lacking in personality as the rest of the house. The third was an office with the basic home utility bills, random books, and post-it notes that any civilian would have. "I have a computer up here. Bring in the nerd."

Casey stepped out of the office and nudged open the door to the fourth room. It was empty. Completely empty. There were empty shelves tacked to the wall and outlines of dust where the contents had been. There was an open closet with more empty shelves. Indents on the carpet showed where files cabinets may have been. There were a few hairs, dust bunnies, and mud stains, but whoever had cleaned this out hadn't even left an empty file folder or torn scraps of paper on the floor.

"Walker, Bartowski," Casey barked into his radio, irked that the were taking so long. He suddenly felt the urgent need for answers on top of the sinking feeling that they'd all been stored in this now empty room.

"Something's wrong," Walker said briskly over the radio.

The sinking feeling found added weight and a deep trench to fall into. Casey ran down stairs, and recognized the look on Chuck's face as that vacant, cross-eyed thing he did when he was flashing. Only instead of lasting a split second, it just kept going. Words tumbled from his mouth, too mumbled to be understood, too persistent to be interrupted. Walker called his name, grabbing his face, trying to catch his eyes. He stood half inside the door, half out, his spine straight, his body stiff.

"Chuck, look at me," Walker ordered, but he didn't seem to hear. He was transfixed on the stenciled patterns on the wall.

Casey reached out and covered Chuck's eyes with his hands. The kid grabbed onto his fingers and forearm, but it seemed like he wanted support more than anything else. His lips kept going and his body quivered, and he tumbled when Casey pulled him the rest of the way into the house.

"It's like the computer froze," Sarah murmured, helping Chuck stay stable as Casey tucked him under one arm, keeping his eyes covered to keep him from flashing on anything else. It was nearly two minutes before the murmurings trailed off and he felt Chuck supporting his own weight again.

"Oh, my God," Chuck panted over and over, still hanging onto Casey with his sweaty palms. They might not make it upstairs at this rate.

"What did you see?" Sarah asked gently.

"Every symbol on this wall," Chuck panted. "It's somebody else. Trista Vero uses … visual … like the Intersect … oh, my …"

Chuck finally let go of Casey and sat heavily on the floor, burying his face in his hands so he wouldn't have to look at the walls. The computer ceased to matter. If Chuck was right, then any relevant information was written on the walls down here! Pulling out his phone, Casey started snapping pictures and recording everything.

"So if this is Trista Vero's place and these are her records, where is Trista Vero?" Walker asked.

"There's a room upstairs that's been cleaned out," Casey said. "There's a computer up there too."

"Chuck, can you walk?" Sarah asked.

"Do I have to open my eyes?" His response was muffled and he massaged his temples like his head ached. Casey hauled him up by the elbow, letting him keep his eyes closed.

"Did you hear that?" Walker asked, and he tensed and froze in response to her tone. Listening intently, Casey cataloged every sound, discerning the normal sounds of an old house from sounds of danger.

"What is it?" Chuck whispered, his eyes still pressed shut.

"Closet?" Casey said, nodding toward the door between the living room and the kitchen. He let go of Chuck, leaving the kid on the stair so he could cover Walker by the door. She looked back at him once, making sure he was ready, then yanked open the door.

It was somewhat anticlimactic.

The door led to a basement. Sarah leaned through to peek down the stairs and Casey came closer.

"Guys?" Chuck called from the stairs, eyes closed, hands in the air, waiting for guidance.

"Chuck, get out of here," Sarah said urgently. Casey didn't know what she saw, but he knew it was bad. He looked back at Chuck who had opened his eyes and gotten stuck in another flash, and he sprang into action, dashing across the room to retrieve his charge while Sarah flew toward the front door. Neither made it to their destination before the house exploded.

A loud blast rang from downstairs, rocking the floor above, creating a hole in the middle of the floor and a surge of flames. Walker fell through the splintered floorboards and Chuck tipped sideways nearly toppling Casey as Casey tried to maintain balance and find a way out. The concussion of the first shock rendered Casey's brain to jelly, but he grabbed onto Chuck's legs, pulling him off the stair and toward the wall where he hoped some kind of floor support remained.

"Sarah," Chuck whimpered, falling out of the flash as all the symbols triggering it were absorbed in flame. Casey wrapped his arm under Chuck's shoulders keeping low, hauling him toward the door, praying they could get out before the porch collapsed and they fell into the basement as well. There was no way he could go back for Agent Walker, and for reasons he'd never admit, that made him sad.

-----

Casey's head pounded, and acidy bile churned in the back of his throat as consciousness stabbed through him. He was in a vehicle – an ambulance he hoped, but from the smell, not likely. He was lying on his side on a broken vinyl seat, in pain, but not bound and gagged, which was good. His tongue tasted of blood, but in a dry, dusty way, telling him he'd fallen face first in the dirt at some point. He vaguely recalled that.

They'd crossed the front door and Chuck was moving on his own power at that point. Then the wooden porch had caught fire and Casey had rolled them into the hill rather than falling on the concrete steps. Then at the bottom of the steps, there was Emily. He started to speak to her and then … then what?

Peeking one eye open, he saw the back of a van with a prisoner cage between him and the front. The seat he was laying on was the only one. The other row of seats had been removed. Someone was sitting upright on the floor, leaning against the cage on the driver's side. By the way the light caught the wild mess of curly hair, Casey guessed it to be Chuck. Blinking twice, he scanned the rest of their prison, noting another form lying curled up on the floor.

Sarah!

Rolling quickly off the seat, Casey fell hard on the floor, banging his injured foot, sending pain shooting through his whole body. He heaved and vomited what little his stomach had to offer. It was minor withdraw and something he could work through, because he had no other choice. The fact that Sarah was here and breathing made him suspect he was having another hallucination, and Casey vaguely wished that he could hallucinate more desirable thing, like a destination vacation to a beach in the south pacific with Ilsa lying on top of him.

"Casey," Chuck croaked.

Ignoring Sarah for the moment, Casey crawled over to Chuck and checked him over. "Are you hurt?"

Chuck had the pads of his fingers pressed around his hairline and his hands cupped over his face without touching the skin. Casey swore under his breath and pulled away one of Chuck's hands. He'd been paralyzed in a flash when the house exploded, and probably hadn't even been able to close his eyes. Casey needed more light to truly assess the damage, but he knew it would be hard to explain when they went back to their cover lives.

"You should lie down," Casey said, backing up to give Chuck room.

"It hurts less sitting up," Chuck said. "I saw three of them before … I think he hit you. I fell when I was Tased. Dude, when Jeff got Tased, he said it wasn't so bad, but I bet he was just drunk."

"Safe bet," Casey interrupted, realizing that Chuck would just keep going otherwise. "Keep quiet 'til we know what's going on."

Satisfied that Chuck was at least well enough to sit up and talk, Casey turned to Sarah. By rights, she should be broken and burned to a crisp in the basement of that god forsaken house. Wiping the sweat from his face and fighting the haziness that came with drug withdraw, Casey looked from Chuck to Sarah.

"You see her too?"

Chuck furrowed his brow. "What?"

"Walker. Do you see her?"

Chuck shook his head miserably, pressing the heel of his hand to his face, then wincing. "It's hard to see anything. I can smell her, though. She smells pretty."

Chuck smiled stupidly, but that was sufficient confirmation for the moment that Agent Walker was really present. Casey scooted quietly across the van toward Sarah, keeping a wary eye up front. Had their captors heard him retching? Did they care?

In the dim light, Casey checked the damage to his partner. She'd been wearing a thick leather jacket which had been marred by splinters and fire, but not torn through. The ends of her hair were singed on one side and there were blisters on the palm of her left hand. Her forehead was a little red, and the collar of her jacket was melted, probably from using it to cover face.

"Walker," he whispered, leaning close and nudging her slightly.

She moved by reflex, swinging her arm, nearly backhanding him. He caught her hand easily, because he'd expected nothing less from her. Her eyes shot open, and she used his grip on her wrist as leverage to sit herself up, immediately scanning for danger and relaxing when she saw Chuck. A few seconds later came the cloud of foreboding when she realized her gun was missing.

"Mine's gone too."

"What happened?" she asked, the words inciting a coughing fit that ended with her hawking a mix of soot and mucus. At least there was no blood in the mix.

He shrugged, and backed away, taking opportunity to survey the rest of their cage. "I could ask you. Last I saw, you fell through the floor of a burning building. I'd given you up for dead."

She pursed her lips and remarked sardonically, "It wasn't my first time."

He snuck a few glances as she tested her muscles and touched the burns on her skin. Her face was pale, but she had that fierce determination in her eyes, and he knew she'd press through her injuries until they were either safe or dead.

The van hit a bump and Chuck yelped as his palms smacked against his injured face. Both Casey and Sarah froze when they heard activity from up front. Whoever was up there was concerned they were awake. Staying still and slinking to the shadows, they waited through the sounds of an unintelligible argument lasting half a minute. Then the cage rattled as one of their captors came to the back.

The form was silhouetted by the sunlight coming through the front window, but Casey recognized the outline of a weapon when he saw one. The person locked the cage once inside and looked into the darkness. A few more steps and Casey could take him out without the driver up front even knowing.

They hit a bump and Chuck whimpered again. It was all their captor needed to make sense of the shadows and raise the weapon. Casey launched forward at the same time Walker dove sideways, tackling Chuck out of the line of fire. Chuck screeched and Sarah went into a coughing fit. So much for taking out their assailant quietly.

He'd tackled a woman, from the feel of it, and an injured one at that. She went down without a peep, dropping the weapon without him even having to grab her hand and smash. She wasn't struggling or calling for help; she just let herself be taken. His fist was half cocked to knock her out, but he froze when he saw her face.

Emily!

Gasping, he had to fight the instinct to jump off her, and as soon as her hand was free, she pressed a finger to her lips warning him to be quiet. He wasn't sure why he trusted her. Sitting back on his knees, Casey passed the look to Sarah who had caught her breath but was still wheezing.

"Are you alright back there?" the driver called from the front. Casey looked threateningly at Emily and she looked right back at him with those piercing blue eyes that he now had to convince himself were not his own.

"Fine, Tom" Emily called curtly to the driver, waiting on the floor, not demanding that Casey let her up. A part of him worried that she seemed more afraid of the driver than him. She looked irritably at the brace on her shoulder and adjusted the sit of the strap, and Casey wondered if his tackled had nauseated her or busted her stitches.

"I told you to let the burn," the driver admonished.

"You said I should kill them," she countered critically, sounding a little less afraid.

"You still should," the man up front said.

With a growl, she wriggled out from under Casey and pressed her nose to the cage at the front. "I bought their lives and I've bought mine. Now shut up and do your job."
The man laughed creepily in a way that made Casey want to pummel him for threatening his … whoever she was. Nothing was clear yet, except the simple fact that Emily had gone back into the fire to save Sarah.

-----

They had to speak softly so the driver couldn't hear. Emily gave them water, which helped clear the pounding in Casey's head, but his strength was waning fast and he had too much pride to lie down. Emily assured him they were close to their destination.

"Sorry I had to trade your rather elaborate arms collection for your lives," she said.

Casey winced for his lost fire arms.

"You're more than a sales man at the Buy More," she said slowly. "And you're more than some Los Angelino gun enthusiast stalking your neighbor. I can protect you as long as Tom doesn't know who you are."

Casey and Sarah exchanged a look.

"We're just people on the run, looking for help from Trista Vero," Sarah lied.

Emily glanced to the front of the van, then reached into her coat and pulled out Casey's NSA badge, but she tucked it away again when he reached for it.

"He'll kill you if I tell him," she threatened. Casey could see Agent Walker coiling for an attack, but he held out a hand to warn her back.

"What's the 'not killing us' option?" Chuck asked nervously.

"You need to be unconscious when he opens the door," Emily replied.

"Like hell," Sarah hissed and Chuck moaned.

"Karmen is following us in your car. The plan was to get you to this old gas station and leave you with your car. It's about three miles from the hospital," she said, then looked over at Chuck. "And trust me, your friend needs a hospital."

"Very true," Chuck agreed. He no longer cupped his hands over his face, but now he was pressing his palms against the back of his head.

"How are we getting to the hospital if we're unconscious?" Casey countered. He did not like any plan that rendered him unconscious because every time he woke up, Emily became a hallucination again and his sanity went to the blender. This time, he at least had witnesses.

"I'm sorry," she said, ducking her head timidly. "This was under control until you came along. I just wanted to destroy that house and disappear."

Casey's heart melted too much just from looking at her, and he was anchored to the past and all she represented. This had to be more than a stolen identity. She looked just like her mother. It was impossible and yet a joyous miracle and it fogged his mind so much he couldn't think.

"Come with us," Sarah offered. "We can protect you from him."

"Do I have your word on that?" Emily asked, coming to her knees as the van slowed. Casey looked at Sarah then at Emily and he nodded seriously.

"Play dead, please."

Sarah tugged Chuck so he was lying down, then she lay down in front, blocking Chuck's face because she knew he wasn't good at feigning unconsciousness. Casey lay down as well, resisting the urge to peek as the side door of the van opened and the setting sun made the backs of his eyelids burn red.

"Have you been scheming?" he heard the driver taunt. It was all he could do not to open his eyes and identify and quash the danger. He was a sitting duck.

"Tending," Emily answered. "Let's set them in their car and move on."

"I don't –"

"No! That was the agreement!" Emily demanded fervently. The rest of their argument muffled in struggle, and Casey's muscles tensed for a fight. The spring load triggered when Emily yelled "Trap!"

Casey jumped into action first, Sarah only a fraction of a step behind him. Diving out the door, he tackled the driver before the man even saw him coming. With a sharp head butt, he rendered the man unconscious. Looking around, Walker was already taking the second man out with a round-house kick. She stood over the unconscious man for a few panted breaths, and then fell to her knees, spewing soot and blood from her nose and mouth.

Three miles from a hospital, Emily had said, and just as promised, the Crown Vic was pulled up right behind the van. Finally, something had gone vaguely close to right! Panting from exertion and vomiting again, Casey staggered toward the car, clawing for consciousness long enough to save them all.

-----