Author's note:

I'm intrigued that the negative reviews are almost always by anonymous users. That's a shame – the negative reviews are usually the more interesting and useful ones.

Constructive criticism is one of the rewards from putting so much effort into this story. I want to know what people don't like as much as what they do, so feel free to tell me where you feel I'm going astray.

Thanks again to Baylink for helping me out.

Dominic's Westwind I was an older but immaculately kept plane. The walls of the cabin curved from ceiling to floor, a graceful union of form and function. A cleverly lit white ceiling provided the illusion of greater height over the three pairs of high-backed tawny leather chairs. From a seat in the middle row, Sarah stared out a window, listening to the intermingled drone of engines and rushing air. She tried to shake off the vague unease that had settled within her.

Things were working out as well as could be hoped. She had secured her anonymous plane ride out of Los Angeles. Dominic would make all the contact with flight control personnel, and his name would be on all the official documents. Even if somebody tracked him down, he would only have the fake contact information she had given him.

She was off the grid. Untraceable. Not even Graham knew where she was. On top of that, she was on her way to meet up with Chuck, who by some miracle still trusted her. Still, once she was on the plane she had no distractions, nowhere to hide from a difficult truth – she didn't have a clue what to do once she found him.

Protocol demanded that she notify Director Graham. He already suspected that he couldn't trust her; he had made that clear when he sent agents to spy on her and Casey. If she didn't report to him shortly after meeting Chuck, her career would be over.

If she did report in, Graham would make a call. Fulcrum was too close to let things go back to the way they were, so for the greater good, Chuck would be gone, either by bunker or bullet. The thought ripped her apart inside. Chuck had done nothing wrong, far from it, and his life would be over because he had trusted her.

But what was the alternative? Take Chuck into hiding? Neither of their lives would ever be the same. He would need to give up everything and everyone he loved so much. She would be throwing away her career to protect a national security asset, a deserving one, but one with knowledge as dangerous as it was powerful. If Fulcrum ever found him, the ramifications would be terrible for everyone, especially Chuck.

Nor could she trust her ability to make a rational decision. Her feelings were getting in the way, and she had no way to filter them out. Sarah cared for him, no doubt, but she had never had any kind of real relationship before. She had no way to know if this thing with Chuck could last. She had no way to know if she could make this work.

Back and forth she went. She had sworn to protect her country. She had promised Chuck she would protect him. She would be throwing away her career. She would be throwing away any chance with Chuck.

There was no good answer.

A call from the cockpit rescued her from her thoughts. "Come keep an old man company," Dominic said cheerfully.

Sarah wasn't entirely fond of the idea, but the distraction was welcome. She needed to stop thinking about Chuck for a while. Besides, it was the least she could do in return for forcing an old man to float the cost of a load of fuel without receiving a dime in return.

She navigated the narrow aisle leading to the cockpit. Dominic flashed her a wide smile, as contagious as one of Chuck's. She smiled in return as she slid into the co-pilot chair. She strapped on the seat belt out of habit.

"Thanks," Dominic said in his raspy voice. "These long flights get boring."

"Seems like an odd career choice if you don't like long flights."

"Oh, I'm just used to a little more excitement. I flew for the Navy for most of my career."

"You were a fighter pilot?"

"Helicopter, mostly. I started flying fixed-wing after my service was up."

She glanced back at Dominic's jacket where it hung from a hangar on a hook, skimming for more information. The panels held numerous decals and pins, some military, some commercial.

A pair of pins on the left lapel caught her eye. Emblazoned on one pin was a bright blue wolf, breathing crimson flame and holding a black trident. The second pin was almost identical, except the wolf was red. A shock ran through her body when she identified the emblems. "You were a Seawolf and a Red Wolf," she said.

He gave her a penetrating look. "And by the way you identified those crests, I'm thinking you're not your run-of-the-mill repo woman."

Sarah wanted to kick herself in disgust for making such a rookie mistake. "I don't like to talk about my past."

"I get that. There are days I'm not too fond of mine."

"Seems like you should be proud. There can't be many pilots that were both in both units."

"There weren't. Just a handful, a few of us who volunteered to help found the Red Wolves after Vietnam."

"You must have been good."

"One of the best." He said the words without a hint of ego, and oddly enough, like it was more a curse than a blessing. There was more there, far more than he was saying. She didn't press. It didn't seem right to open old wounds.

She looked at his jacket again. Conspicuously absent were any signs of the medals the US must have awarded him. Given how he talked about his past, the decals and pins on his jacket seemed nothing more than bumper stickers implying where he'd been and what he'd done. Only the specific locations were missing. Central America? Africa? Vietnam, for sure, and Vietnam alone was enough to leave most people scarred for life.

His fantastic smile ebbed but didn't disappear. It seemed nothing more than another faded decal, an echo of the man he used to be, slapped on out of habit to hide the emptiness beneath. Dominic was a man hard-used by life. Despite his service to his country, here he was, with nothing to show for it but his pins and his decals and his plane with the three missed payments. And now, his country was using him again, coming to back to take some of what little he had left, as if determined to make sure he had nothing left to give in the end.

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. "Knowing what you do now, would you do it all again?" she asked.

His smile brightened again, concealing the truth beneath. "Of course."

"Really?"

"I said I'd give my life for my country," he said. "In a way, I guess I did. Seems like it would be wrong of me to regret the deal now."

It was hard to argue the logic, but there was nothing logical about the way Dominic's life turned out. Only when it came time to reckon the account did the full price of the bargain become clear. In a way, it may have been fairer if a bullet had taken him on his last mission.

Neither Sarah nor Dominic liked talking about their pasts. Their futures didn't look much better. So they sat in the silence, grateful for the moment, where Dominic still had his plane and Chuck still was free and the hope still was there that somehow, some way, everything could still work out to the good.

Casey decided central Texas looked much more attractive at night. As darkness fell, all flaws were concealed. Long stems of grass looked the same blowing in the breeze, whether they were a sun-parched brown or a verdant green. Ramshackle buildings, once thriving because of their proximity to the highway and now abandoned because of it, regained a semblance of their former selves when seen as back-lit silhouettes. Things certainly seemed more attractive, but that may have simply been indicative of a shift in his mood now that Bartowski was in his sights.

Tracking Bartowski had been a trivial matter. Rental cars were all equipped with GPS tracking systems. It wasn't particularly difficult to disconnect the trackers, but if you did, the security company paid to watch the car would put out a BOLO for both the car and its registered drivers. Chuck couldn't afford that. So, once Casey's team penetrated Bartowski's smokescreen of false trails, Casey had a perfect read on where Bartowski really was.

According to the tracking app on Casey's phone, Bartowski had been roughly fifty minutes ahead when Casey left the airport. He had slalomed through the post-rush-hour traffic, figuring he would shrink the gap between them quickly enough. Bartowski had to be careful not to attract attention, so he couldn't drive much more than seven or eight miles per hour over the speed limit. Casey had a get-out-of-jail-free card in the form of his NSA badge.

His thinking proved fairly accurate. He had made up twenty minutes in the first hour, but only ten in the second, largely because he got pulled over twice, including one local sheriff who would be lucky to have his job the next day. Still, the gap was closing quickly enough.

Just north of Austin, Casey's other advantage kicked in. Chuck had stopped to get something to eat. Casey had no such need – Fulcrum had inadvertently seen to that. He might, however, need to stop and pick up some lotion and a big bottle of water. The sides of his neck and the middle of his back were starting to itch, and he had been unable to slake his thirst with the bottles of water from the plane. The side effects of the poison were getting worse.

That wasn't Casey's only concern. Truth be told, while Casey was looking forward to capturing Bartowski, he wasn't sure what to do next. It was one thing to steal a confidential file from an NSA cabinet. It would be another to let Fulcrum try to extract the Intersect from Bartowski's head, and while Casey wasn't familiar with the particulars, it had to be an unpleasant process. Killing Bartowski would be a kindness.

Still, what was one man's life in the scheme of things? Pentagon decisions, by necessity, were based on cost-benefit analyses and statistical projections. The goal was always to minimize – not eliminate, but minimize – collateral damage. If Beckman knew that killing Bartowski would result in successful completion of a significant mission, she would do it in a heartbeat. And that's what Fulcrum was promising Casey. Turn over Bartowski, get the antidote, and start completing missions that made a difference again.

The miles ticked away, and Casey was still no closer to a good answer. An answer would need to wait. The rental car was parked just ahead.

On the west side of the highway, an island of light appeared in the semi-gloom. A flat red-and-white roof covered several rows of gas pumps, some empty, the rest replenishing fuel for an assortment of vehicles, everything from a motorcycle to a thirty-foot RV. Behind the gas pump was a broad well-lit building. Neon signs indicated a cafeteria, a central area for truckers, and a mini-mart easily large enough to belie the "mini" appellation. A second, taller red-and-white roof protected a set of pumps reserved for eighteen wheelers on the back side of the building.

Casey took the next exit. He directed the car up the small hill and, after a rolling stop at the intersection, took a hard right onto the frontage road. A hundred feet later, he swung into the truck stop parking lot. He wove between a car and a couple of people to slot his car next to the rental, a small red subcompact with a Superior rental company logo on the rear bumper.

Time to end the hunt.

He got out, briefly surveying the parking lot before shutting the car door and heading inside. The nearest door led towards the cafeteria area, separated from the rest of the complex by tall wooden planters done in dark wood to match the tabletops and chairs. The place had a homey feel to it, from a breakfast bar area with stools fixed to the floor to the rotating dessert refrigerator at one end of the counter. Tempting as the desserts looked, Casey wouldn't have had an appetite for the huge portions of pudding or pie even if Bartowski weren't here.

Casey frowned. Actually, Bartowski wasn't here. He scanned the tables, looking for a telltale set of dishes for a patron who might have left to hit the head. The tables were mostly clean and empty; only a few that were actively in use. He was about to turn and start searching the rest of the building when a face caught his eye. Along the back wall, Mei-Ling Cho sat at a two-seat table, watching him, waiting to be noticed.

Deep inside Casey, a low rumbling began, slowly spilling out of him as his face twisted into a sneer. His knuckles cracked as his fingers tightened into fists. Casey had been hoodwinked. Again.

The whole pattern became clear, only now that it was too late. Casey had expected to find mistakes, so Bartowski created some to be found, first with the Herder, then with the false trail to Stanford. Once Casey had learned that Chuck wasn't going to make an obvious mistake, Bartowski had created subtler ones. The lack of trails heading south from Dallas. The credit card subterfuge. The rental car. He had played on Casey's prejudices, knowing that he expected Chuck to be alone and to panic. Instead, Bartowski had recruited help and worked methodically.

From the start, Bartowski had played on Casey's prejudices, and Casey had swallowed every piece of bait whole. Now Bartowski could be anywhere.

Slowly, deliberately, Casey unclenched his hands. "She may have information about Bartowski," he said to himself. "I can wrap my hands around his scrawny neck sooner if I get some information." He repeated the sentences three more times, as if they were mantras, and then walked across the restaurant to Cho's table.

"Agent Casey," she said. Her accent made her English thick and slow. "You seem … irritated."

"Miss Cho. Didn't think I'd see you again, unless your sewing circle happened to be harboring members of a sleeper cell."

"What is a 'sewing circle'?"

"It's … never mind." This just wasn't his day.

"Please sit down."

He warily cocked his head to one side. "You're not going to try anything rash, are you?"

"Do you really think Chuck would ask me to do something to you?"

"No, but you might take matters into your own hands."

"I am here to repay my debt to him. That means I will honor his wishes – as long as *you* do not try anything rash."

Casey was too worn out to spar any more, so he decided to take Cho at her word. He pivoted above the chair opposite her and lowered himself down carefully. "I don't suppose you're going to tell me where he is," he said.

"No, those are not my instructions."

"So what are your instructions?"

"Chuck wanted me to tell you that he is sorry, but that you left him no choice."

Casey couldn't argue that.

She said, "He also wanted me to thank you."

"For what?"

"For protecting him. For all that you taught him. For the confidence you gave him."

He started to growl, but stopped. Coming from a regular agent, pointing out that Casey's own teachings had been used against him would have been a grave insult. But this wasn't a regular agent. This was Bartowski, and he didn't do that kind of thing. Casey couldn't help but be a little proud of how far Bartowski had come.

Casey asked, "How else did you help him?"

"I am not at liberty to say."

"By not telling me, you are aiding and abetting a fugitive."

"So you claim. I could just be here for the pie."

"I could run you in."

"To what end?"

"To get the information you have."

"First, you would need to subdue me, which given your tired state seems unlikely. Even if you win, you would then need to deal with the aftermath of the fight in a very public venue. Then, you would need to successfully torture me."

"Everybody talks."

"Yes, but not right away. The trail would be cold by the time you got anything of use. I do not believe it prudent strategy to torture what little I know from me."

"But it might cheer me up."

"You would need to explain to your superiors why you tortured a key Chinese defector. It would be career suicide."

"Well, you're certainly an expert on that subject."

She looked taken aback. She recovered quickly. "I served my country well until my country did not serve me."

"You threw away a career to rescue one person."

"That one person is my brother. He did not deserve to die because of who I am."

Casey pressed. "You made a choice to serve your country. When you took the job, you knew the risks. Not only did you end your career, but you turned traitor."

"My country turned traitor first!" With a great deal of effort, she composed herself, looking around to make sure her outburst hadn't attracted undue attention. One customer in a flannel shirt and a trucker's cap glanced their way, but continuing to watch her and Casey seemed to demand too much energy, and his head dropped back down.

Reassured, she said, "I warned them for a week that my brother was in danger, and they chose to do nothing. After he was taken, they chose to do nothing. Their choice, not mine."

"What were they supposed to do? Trade the TRIAD prisoner for your brother? He is just one person."

"Just one person? Really?" She eyed him curiously. "Tell me, Agent Casey. Do you believe it makes you noble to be willing to write off somebody you care about?"

"I believe it makes me a better agent."

"Then you truly have given up everything in service of your country."

He smiled a little smile. "Funny – that doesn't sound like a compliment."

"If there is no line you will not cross, you are nothing but an unthinking weapon."

"If you mean I follow orders, then yes, you are correct."

"And what happens when you must make a call in the field?"

"I assess the relative strategic values of the options, and choose accordingly."

She leaned in. "So you have never made a decision in the field based on something other than the mission parameters?"

Casey's eyes widened. He could tell from her coy tone that she knew. Somehow, she knew about Belarus. She knew about the mission gone bad, and the little girl, and the way Casey had taken matters into his own hands, to the detriment of the mission and his career.

Approval and even a bit of warmth crept into her countenance. Both looked strange on her. "Do not be so quick to judge others," she said. "And do not be so harsh on yourself. Distancing yourself from your job is often necessary, but there are no absolutes. We are better when there are lines we will not cross, and better still when there are things that will compel us to act counter to our duty, no matter what the consequences."

With that, she stood up and gave him a parting smile. She left him at the table, hunched over and deep in thought.

She strode between two rows of well-worn tables and then pushed through an aluminum-framed glass door into the cooling night air. Out of habit, she checked her surroundings. The highway was across the road and down a slope, far enough away that the noise of traffic wasn't enough to muffle the sounds of three kids screaming delightedly in the back of a family SUV, or the couple having a mild argument two pumps over.

She glanced back over her shoulder, partly to check her six, partly because of a thought. Casey had familiar purplish lines on his neck. He had been poisoned.

The lines were indicative of an insidious technique called "The Spider's Kiss". By placing the poison into a suspension, an injection turned viscous when it mixed with the moisture in the human body. The outer layers gradually broke away to spread through the body, discoloring arteries and veins further and further from the source as time passed. Depending on where the injection was made, this created either a series of dark purplish lines vaguely resembling a spider's web or a circle with the long lines extending, looking like a spider with long legs. Eventually, enough poison reached the heart or brain to kill the victim.

The lines had begun to appear on Casey's neck. Because he had made no effort to conceal them, he must be unaware that they were showing. She couldn't know whether he even knew about the poison, but really, that was a moot point. She would have had no way to share anything she learned with Chuck.

Chuck had refused to leave Mei-Ling any way to contact him, as he felt that was information that was worth torturing for. It was a strange place to draw the line, as she knew the names on the false credentials she had supplied him, but she had respected his wishes. It was, after all, his operation, and his life at risk.

A semi roared past towards the back side of the truck stop. Mei-Ling followed it around the outside of the building. She had to leave Chuck's car here; the car had been parked here for a long time now, and there could be others following the GPS tracker. It wouldn't take too long before she found a Dallas-bound truck to get her home, back to the life she had willingly accepted in exchange for keeping her brother alive.

Inside the truck stop, Casey's phone rang. As much as he didn't want to take the call, he had no choice. An agent didn't let a general's call roll to voice mail unless he had a damn good reason.

"Casey here."

"Report," General Beckman said.

"We still believe Bartowski is heading for Laredo. The lead O'Leary found proved negative, as feared." What he said was consistent with his last report, but at this point barely resembled the truth. Casey was walking a dangerous road. He wasn't even sure he could keep fashioning lies to support his story if the general asked any more questions.

Luckily, her mind was elsewhere. Or, as it turned out, not so luckily. "Major Casey, your orders have changed. Should you or any member of your team encounter Chuck Bartowski, you are hereby authorized to kill him, without hesitation, in whatever manner proves expedient. Director Graham has been apprised and is relaying similar commands to his agents."

Casey had known it was coming, not exactly at that moment, but sometime soon. Still, hearing the actual words caused his breath to catch. Conflicting emotions shot through him. Bartowski had done nothing but serve honorably. He was only one man. If Bartowski died, Casey wouldn't get the antidote. The DNI would lose their only Intersect. Fulcrum would be hurt. Strategically, it made sense. But a good man would die.

"Major Casey, are you there?"

He swallowed his feelings. "Yes, ma'am. Order confirmed. Bartowski will be terminated if encountered."

"Good. And Major, be sure to keep an eye on Agent Walker. She might not take the news as well as you did."

Sarah perched on one knee outside a hotel room door, pretending to fumble with something in her bag. A device resembling a credit card with a black plastic bar along one side jutted out of the card lock. A series of LEDs flipped from red to green as the device automatically found the code to the lock.

Her hand, holding her gun, emerged from her bag as the other found the door handle. The last LEDs turned green; the door lock clicked. Carefully, slowly, she twisted the handle and eased the door slightly open into the dark room. A self-closing hinge pushed the door back against her hand. She braced herself in case an attack came. None did.

She propped the door open with her toe. In one smooth motion, she retrieved the access card, dropped it into her bag and zipped the pocket shut. After one last glance up and down the deserted hallway, she kicked the door off the wall behind, planting a foot to catch it when it automatically swung back. Her gun sighted the bathroom door to the right, straight down the short entry hall, then the corner of the entry hall and the wall she couldn't see.

Heavy curtains mostly covered a bank of windows on the opposite wall. The slivers of security lights slinking in around the edges betrayed no assailants waiting in the dark. Her ears scanned the silence for any indication that she was not alone. It was difficult to hear any subtle sounds over the waterfall in the distance, but her sensitive ears picked up nothing unusual.

A quick motion later her heavy bag had replaced her foot as a door prop and she was standing, still covering the likely points of attack. Three sidesteps and a kick of her foot later, she and her bag were inside the room. The door swung shut behind her, noiseless except for a slight squeak of a hinge and the click of the lock.

She relaxed slightly and flipped on the lights. Still nobody. The only clue anyone had been there recently was Chuck's duffel, unzipped but still mostly full, sitting on an angle on a table in the corner. She was definitely in the right room, but Chuck wasn't there. Frustrating.

More to keep herself occupied than anything else, she finished a sweep of the room, gun in hand. Fake headboards mounted on the wall framed two unused double beds covered in chintzy orange-and-red-patterned bedspreads. The room smelled faintly of stale smoke and something else that was probably left unknown. The nightstand held a land-line phone and a cheap alarm clock; it emitted a whir and a click as a fake digital number flipped down to mark the passing of a minute. A quick peek through the stained curtains revealed a ten-foot drop to some nearby bushes, useful if an escape route was needed.

She went to the bathroom and flipped on the light. The functional room had standard, if worn, fixtures. A plastic shower curtain was pushed to the back of the chipped tub. The hotel towels, permanently greyed from too many uses, were still neatly folded, save for a wet washcloth hanging from a hook on the wall. A bag with Chuck's toiletries sat open on the white faux marble countertop. His toothbrush rested nub-side down in a small plastic cup.

After sticking the gun in the waistband of her pants, Sarah left the bathroom and retrieved her bag from the entryway. As she brought the bag deeper into the room, she noticed something on the table she'd overlooked before. She set her bag on the foot of the bed closest to the window, then went to the table to afford her a better look.

On the table sat a small clear plastic box with a grocery story label affixed to the opened lid. The box held a small, strikingly familiar cupcake with dark brown frosting and a 'Happy Birthday' spelled out in pink lettering. An opened box of candles sat next to a half-used tube of pink icing, its bottom rolled up like a tube of toothpaste. Without thinking about it, she went to her bag to pull out Chuck's birthday card. She turned back and held up the card to compare the image to the cake. It would be nearly a perfect replica, once the stubby white candles were lit and the paper cupcake liner was removed. He clearly had harbored no doubts that she would figure out his clues.

Sarah had shared her birthday with Chuck when she made it the code to the vault. February 18, 1982. Chuck had played off that code in his note to her, planting key words in the second, eighteenth and eighty-second positions.

02.18. 82.

'American'. 'Falls'. 'Days'.

American Falls obviously pointed to Niagara Falls, but it had taken a bit of guesswork to figure out that "days" pointed to the name of the hotel: the Days Inn. Once she arrived, she sweet-talked the desk clerk into looking at the registry. Sure enough, she found Morgan Grimes – in room 218. Or, 0218.

He had hidden the clues where only she would find them, where only she could decipher them, using something real the two of them had shared. She was the only one who knew where he was, the only one he had trusted.

Sarah heard footsteps in the hall outside. The emotions coursing through her system stunted her reactions. It took the sound of the door lock clicking open for her to move. She spun, the birthday card fluttering to the floor a few feet away as she pulled her gun from her waistband.

The door swung inwards. Chuck didn't even check the room; he was too occupied with shutting and locking the door while managing a small plastic grocery bag. After sliding the key card into a back pocket, he turned. He pulled up after two steps when he finally realized he wasn't alone.

His weary eyes took in everything and put the pieces together. "Sorry," he said with a wry smile. "I forgot matches, and it's really not cake without ice cream."

Sarah didn't respond. She couldn't respond. She stood frozen.

Chuck set the bag next to the television. He looked at her and the gun curiously. "You going to put that down?"

"I can't do that."

He let out a small laugh. "Why not?"

"Fulcrum knows who you are, so Director Graham put out a kill order on you."

"And?" he asked, his face whitening.

She sighted him a bit more carefully. "And I'm here to carry it out."