DISCLAIMER: I don't own Chuck.

Alex struck up a mantra in her head. Stay calm. Stay calm. It was understandably hard for her to follow her own instructions when the cold steel of a gun nozzle was being forcibly pressed against her temple. The larger man's breath stung her nose with its foul smell as he exhaled into her face. He was grasping one of her wrists and the other was pinned under her; her natural defensive tools were trapped. Thoughts of the kids flashed through mind, the kids she was supposed to be watching, protecting. John. Melissa. Sam. Stephen. Emma. She had job to do. Her Dad would be ashamed of her right now. The Coburn blood started pumping in her veins, and a fury burned in her eyes as she stared her attacker in the face.

She didn't need to stay calm. She needed to fight with a fury. She struggled her arm out from under her and sharply elbowed the man in the nose. He reeled backwards letting out a string of words in a foreign language. One could only assume that they were the harshest of profanities.

Alex winced as blood spewing from his nose splattered onto her face. She took advantage of his lapse in focus, and wrenched her hand free of his limp grasp. She swung her arm out and slapped his armed hand onto the floor; the gun went sliding across the hall. She brought her knee up and stuck him on the chin; he fell to the side of her. She rolled away from him and scrambled up. The gun. She saw it lying beside the baseboard. Her hand wrapped around the cold steel, and it made her shiver. There were some differences between her and her father. Nonetheless, she was ready when the man stood. He stared the barrel down, eyeing her with apprehension.

"You gonna shoot me?" He chuckled in a thick accent.

"WHO ARE YOU?" Her voice shook and her heart sunk as she saw two other men appear over his shoulder. They were also armed.

"Thlee to one, beativul.. Put it down." He reached into his jacket and pulled out something that shone in the moonlight that was filtering in through the window behind her. It was a knife. "We don't vant a mess."

"There was a kid on the couch!" Another intruder called from the ground floor. Sam! Sam had insisted that John and Melissa take her room, and she'd sleep on the pull-out couch, because they were guests. Sam had inherited Chuck's chivalry.

She had to save her. She had to save them..

She blinked once, pausing for a fraction of a second before her finger pulled the trigger three times in quick succession, each shot directed at one of the large figures. No time for guilt. As she dropped to the floor, she tried to ignore the shouts and gunshots that pierced the air in retaliation; the sound of splintering wood and broken glass resonated from the place she just stood.

"NO! DON'T KILL HER! LEEEEEVRAAAGE!" The one with the thick accent roared.

Quickly jumping to her feet, she sprinted around the bend in the hall and threw open the door to Sam's bedroom. John and Melissa were sitting up in the bed clutching the sheets.

"Mommy! What was-" Alex hushed them.

"Get in the closet!" They leapt off the bed, and scrambled into the closet, unquestioningly. "Be very quiet. Lock the door after I close it. Don't come out for anyone. I love you." She placed a kiss on each of their heads, and shut the door. Alex sent a quick thanks to Sam for putting a lock on her closet, being very protective of her wardrobe in fear her mother would throw out the clothes she disapproved of.

She waited a second longer for her children to click the closet door lock into place. She started for the door, but stopped to swipe Sam's cell phone off the dresser and pocket it.

Sprinting back out into the hall, she made her target Stephen and Emma's room. Stephen's head poked out, just as she reached the door.

"Where's Em!"

"Quiet, in the bathroom!"

She grabbed Stephen around the scruff of his shirt and pulled him towards the bathroom.

"Wait! Alex, where's Em!" He struggled to push her off of him. Alex stopped pulling and grabbed him by by the shoulders, staring him in the eyes.

"They have her, I'm sorry, I'm going to get her but you need to be safe fir-" A man stumbled into the wall at the end of hall. He was clutching his right shoulder. A second man with a severe limp appeared behind him.

"GET THE BITCH!"

Alex pulled Stephen into the washroom as a bullet thumped into Stephen and Emma's bedroom door.

"THAT'S A KILL-SHOT! HE SAID NOT TO KILL HER IDIOT!"

"AUNT SHOOT THEM!" Stephen shouted at her. Alex had forgotten about the gun she was still holding.

She took two shots down the hallway, and saw one of the men fall. She slammed the bathroom door shut and locked it, then grabbed a chair from the corner and jammed it against the doorknob.

"Stephen, get in the shower." Alex directed. He quickly obeyed, and Alex pulled the curtain shut on his crouched form.

She took cover behind the sink pedestal and pointed the gun at the door. They were sitting ducks. Pulling Sam's phone out of her pocket, she quickly dialed her father's emergency line. Pick up, pick up pick up, please Daddy, pick up.

"A… a heart attack?" Chuck knew those thoughts had crossed his mind as he was lying on the highway in excruciating pain, but now that he was sitting in a warm bed with his wife sitting by his bed-side; well, the scene just didn't seem to fit into Chuck's reality very well. And yet, Devon, very professional in his white coat and clipboard in hand, stood before him declaring he had a heart attack without a doubt.

"But I'm fine. I'm healthy, I.. I…"

"Chuckster, I'm sorry. But you can't argue with the Paramedics report or the follow up tests. Do you… do you remember anything?" Awesome looked, Chuck had a hard time finding the words, awkward? Whatever expression it was, it was still awkwardly awesome. "We don't really know what happened on that highway. Me and Ellie were going to ask you sooner but.." He cast a glance at Sarah. She sat tight lipped and arms crossed, avoiding the Captain's eyes. "Well your lady was a tad protective of you. Wanted you to get your beauty sleep." Awesome rubbed his thigh gingerly and winced. "At all costs." Chuck had a feeling he had missed some altercation.

He glanced over at her. "Just how many people have you assaulted in the last 48 hours?" She shrugged.

"So um, what happened, Chuck?" Awesome asked. Chuck sighed. His head was already hurting thinking about having to drag up the painful memory from the highway. No better time than the present, he tried to convince himself.

"I was on my way home after a meeting. There was a lot of traffic." An image of the rows of red lights swam in his brain. "Car moved into my lane without signaling, moved fast. I braked, but I he was too close so I rear-ended him. Then Ellie called. Where is she, by the way?"

"Went home to change and check on Annie."

"Oh, well tell her to stay and get some rest. She looked like she could use it."

"That would be awesome for her, bro, but afterword she's headed over to yours to check on Alex and the kids."

Chuck sat up in bed. "What! Why? Are they okay?"

"Chill bro! Alex wasn't picking up is all, cell's probably out of juice." Chuck took deep breaths, trying to slow his heart rate. Sarah took his hand.

"What happened next, Chuck."

"Okay, right." He searched his brain for the rest of the story. "Um, right. I was on the phone with Ellie, when the guy left his car. And boy, you guys would have laughed at this dude's getup. It was like a biker store had barfed on him-"

"Chuck, honey, no tangents."

"Right, so I rolled my window down and he punched me." He motioned to his black eye.

Sarah stood. "I'll kill him." She said it with a tone that left no room for arguments. Chuck pondered how to respond.

"Oh that's... so sweet."

Awesome gave him a questioning look, before clearing his throat loudly. "Actually, um… he's already dead."

"What?" She asked sharply.

"Yeah his heart… it a… just stopped. Couldn't revive him. Happened earlier today."

"Oh yeah... I heard there was a code blue in his room over the speakers." Sarah said. Awesome and Chuck both looked at her with confusion.

"How do you know what a code blue is?" Awesome asked.

"How did you know his room number?" Chuck asked at the same time.

Sarah waved them off. "It doesn't matter," she said dismissively. "Continue Chuck."

"Yeah. Um… so he was, um, turning me black and blue, then I flashed, and my brain burned. Like it seriously hurt."

"You flashed?" Awesome interjected. Chuck nodded. "Then your head hurt." Chuck nodded. "Huh." He rubbed his chin. "Continue."

"Okay, so I karatead him and then my chest hurt. I picked up my phone, talked to Ellie, collapsed and that's about it." He summed up. Awesome and Sarah were looking at him, alarmed.

"What?"

"Bro, this is out of my hands. It sounds like something's wrong up there." He tapped his temple.

"With the intersect?"

Sarah took his hand. "We need to call the government."

"Oh no. No, no, no, no. I do not want to deal with the government." Chuck was regretting even mentioning the intersect. The intersect always led to the government. "Sarah, come on! You know what's going to happen, they're going to send the frikken scientist fogey who's all genius and thinks he knows every fikken thing about it. When I'm the one who's had it in my brain for like twenty years! They're going to do a bunch of stupid tests, including waterboarding, let's not forget the waterboarding!" Chuck rested his head in his hands. "Anyways, I don't have head problems, I, apparently, have heart problems, so no. No we are not calling the CIA."

Sarah wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "Chuck, we need to find out what's going on. And the government might have resources to do that."

Awesome spoke up. "And it's all connected. They why you describe it, it sounds like the flash caused the heart attack. I mean, you have none of the risk factors for heart disease, Chuckster, but something caused the attack."

Chuck remained silent. He didn't want to answer. But he knew they wouldn't stop until he did.

"I'll think about it."

Awesome nodded in acknowledgement. "You should. Okay, well, I'm gonna go home for the day, I'll see you tomorrow. I think Ellie's gonna call Sarah when she gets to your pad."

"Okay." Sarah answered.

"Take it easy Chuck." He muttered as he closed the door. Chuck leaned back in his bed. His thoughts were swirling around in his mind, and he doubted he get much sleep tonight. He looked at Sarah. She was analyzing his face.

"You okay?" He asked. She nodded, her eyes focusing on her hands.

"We haven't talked about the intersect in so long.." He waited for her to continue. "It's almost like… I had forgotten about it. Like if it didn't affect our lives, it didn't exsist."

"I wish."

"Should've I done more? Should've I taken you to more doctors?" Sarah asked genuinely upset.

"Oh, baby. This isn't anyone's fault. Except for the jackass who punched me." She chuckled and lay down on the bed with him. She started playing with the exposed chest hairs at the neck of his hospital gown. They were like that for several minutes. Surprisingly, sleep did start clouding his mind, and he felt himself start to drift into the dream abyss.

He could still feel Sarah's fingers grazing his chest, when her voice broke through his drowsy fog. "I hope Ellie calls soon. I could do to hear the kid's voices."

"Mmm," Chuck agreed.

Author's Note:

Why do such short chapters take me hours to write?