A Holiday Double Header. Going home and won't be posting for a while.

Day 155

Medical Facility
Winter, Nevada

Chuck awoke to the sound of a heart monitor and the gentle snoring of his wife who was lying against him in the…hospital bed? Oh, crap!

"Jill, wake up, honey. What happened this time? This crap is really getting old. C'mon, babe, wakey-wakey."

She woke, leaned up on one elbow and glared at him.

"You broke your promise to me, Chuck. You went out alone and ran…in this heat…5 miles. You passed out and when you didn't come back to the apartment I panicked and sent out an alert. They found you on the road behind the clubhouse, unconscious. Damn it…"

"You wouldn't wake up and besides, it was a memory! I didn't pass out…well, OK, maybe I did but it was a memory, Jill, and if anyone should be angry it's me."

"You? Why the hell should you be mad at me?"

"Walker defected. Walker shot me. Walker made us lose the baby! You lied to me, Jill. What else have you been lying about? She's turned to Fulcrum and she led us into a trap!"

"She turned rogue, baby. She was hoping to sell you to the highest bidder and retire and go dark. She's not Fulcrum, I swear to you. She's not. Fulcrum wouldn't have her. She's too damned unstable."

"So where is the bitch? I want to kill her for what she did to you."

"Last anyone heard, she'd gone deep and no one's heard a thing from her. Casey's got a hit team scouring the planet looking for her but she's the best at what she does. She'll slip up someday and then either we'll get her or Fulcrum will take her out for us."

"But…"

She laid a finger on his lips and smiled. "Let's get the doc to unhook all this crap. You're good to go. We were just waiting for you to wake up from your nap. See, sweetie, I told you that you'd get your memory back and I was right. Another piece of Chuck Bartowski has been restored."

Day 165

DEA Safe House
Laredo, Texas

The Cartel provided Fulcrum with the safe haven known as 'Winter, Nevada' and demanded a rescue in exchange for continued use of what was fast becoming the main operations center for Fulcrum in North America.

Time was of the essence since the DEA was notorious for moving prisoners constantly. The Cartel provided the location and staffing of the safe house and so the assault team flew into Laredo, Texas to rescue one-each son of one of the Cartel heads. Once again, Chuck climbed into a windowless van for the trip to the attack site.

The mission was simple: attack a DEA safe house and extract the prisoner being held for questioning. It was a simple and straight-forward smash-and-grab but somehow someone forgot to tell the agents who were interrogating the prisoner.

Chuck had been 'briefed' that the DEA had plucked out one of the CIA's deep cover agents and his identity couldn't become known or his operation would be blown so they were sent to 'rescue' him and dump him back into his cover in Mexico.

"Chuck, you stay with me and don't do anything crazy, please? This shouldn't even be our task, damn it! You're too valuable to risk on something this damned stupid." He'd had two more sessions of hypnotherapy supported by the downloaded CGI images.

"Jill, I'm fine, honey. The docs gave me a clean bill of health. No more blackouts and the headaches are gone, too. Just chill, will ya?"

"I told them you're still in recovery but does Casey listen to me? No! Please, stay with me, Chuck. Promise me?"

"OK, I promise, Jill. Jesus, I don't know why you're making a big deal out of this. There are six of us and only two of them. We got the firepower and the element of surprise. We'll just gas 'em and then truss them up and take the target back to his hide site. No sweat."

"The orders are to leave the DEA agents unharmed. Remember that. No matter what happens, we don't want the DEA getting and come sniffing around our mole's cover. Anonymity is his best weapon, Chuck, so don't get excited and put a cap into the wrong ass, OK?"

"That was an accident! Jesus, it was his toe, not his ass! He never mentions it so it's no big thing."

Their mole had provided them with the tale of how Casey lost his toe, or his widdle piggy as her husband laughingly referred to it. Jill didn't even notice that the mark had become her 'husband' in her thoughts. Compromise was so subtle.

"I know, baby, but just this once, be a little more careful? I got a bad feeling about this op." She loved ragging on him, especially about this particular incident but she did have serious reservations about using Chuck in such operations.

"Fine. Shrew."

"Butt head."

They introduced the knock out gas through the air conditioning system. It was very hot in Laredo even at 2AM and it ensured an even distribution throughout the small Spanish style house. They waited 20 minutes then the entry team put on their masks.

"OK, let's go. We'll go in the through the garage and then into the house. Make sure you trank the DEA agents and then the target. We don't want him screaming and yelling and waking up the whole neighborhood. We want to be in and out in 2 minutes. Go!" The team leader had been given specific instructions that 'the mark' was not to enter the dwelling.

Jill and Chuck were watching the patio from the back lawn when Jill heard a commotion around the side of the house and went to investigate. They didn't want the DEA agents to make an escape. They didn't want anyone to know that the Cartel hadn't rescued the target.

"Stay here, Chuck, and don't shoot me when I come back, OK?" He could hear the smile in her voice as she whispered her warning and then slipped off to investigate the noise.

A few seconds later Chuck saw a match flare as someone on the patio lit a cigarette. Shit. He pulled out his trank gun and crawled forward hoping he could get in a shot before Jill came strolling around the corner and got shot by the DEA smoker for her trouble.

Jill made a noise. He heard it and so did the smoker. He watched the silhouette, black against the feeble light coming from the kitchen beyond the patio doors, stand and draw a weapon. Jill walked around the corner without a care in the world and the DEA agent aimed and fired off a single shot, dropping her in her tracks.

"Jill!" The agent turned to fire at the sound of his voice but hesitated when Chuck stood up and aimed the trank gun at her, his face lit by the light from the kitchen.

"Chuck? Chuck Bartowski? Y – you're dead!" Carina Hansen lowered her weapon in shock. He was dead. Walker had told her during a tearful phone call 4 months previously.

He fired the trank gun even as pain shot through his head making him drop to his knees and drop the pistol to cradle his head. He knew her. She was Sarah's best friend and she'd tried to seduce him after the diamond op. She told him that she and Sarah were very competitive and that she always slept with Sarah's boyfriends just so she could lord it over her.

The pressure in his head grew until he screamed and passed out.

Day 166

NSA Headquarters
FT Meade, MD
4AM

Sarah's cell jolted her from another nightmare about her lost asset. She was sweating and had managed to totally destroy her bed with her thrashing.

"Walker, secure."

"Beckman, secure. Get over here now. We've got a lead, a strong lead. We're going to go get him back."

4:30AM

Beckman's office

The General's office looked like the command post for the invasion of Normandy. Military aides were bustling around, the General was talking to someone on a video conference while other aides plotted what looked like drop zones and landing zones on a topographical map. A larger map hung on the other wall. Mexico. There was a large red X plotted near the western coast of a desert area.

"Ah, Walker. Good! A friend of yours saw Bartowski last evening in Laredo, Texas. Identity was confirmed. He was one of a group of Fulcrum operatives who liberated a Cartel member's son from a DEA safe house. Bartowski tranked her but she saw him grab his head and scream and collapse right before she passed out. It's definitely Bartowski!"

"Hey, Sarah!" Walker spun and saw Carina Hansen's image on the main screen.

"You're sure it was him, Carina?" Her heart would shatter if she said 'maybe' or any other qualifier.

"Yep. He's got a beard and scars on his head and face but it was definitely Chuck Bartowski, alive and kicking. I'd slipped out onto the patio for a smoke and had been sitting there when they slipped the knock out gas in through the A/C. I heard someone coming from around the side of the house and engaged them and fired, taking them out. Bartowski rose up from the grass about 10 feet away, screamed 'Jill!' and then aimed a trank pistol at me. Definitely him."

Sarah couldn't breathe. He was alive!

"Agent Walker, sit before you fall. I need you and Major Casey to lead the rescue team. We've plotted the route their aircraft took and kept it on radar to its terminus. One of my sharper analysts pulled the aircraft records from Tucson and did the same – and resected that aircraft's flight path back to the same location."

Casey handed her a cup of coffee. "Ah, gunplay at last. The moron's good for something at least." Sarah turned to say something ugly but saw the big smile on Casey's face and just smiled.

"We'll stage at Lackland AFB in San Antonio. The Air Force is going to lend us some troop carriers and a B-1 to drop some 'special munitions' they've been dying to test. The clock is ticking. 24 hours from now."

Same Day

Fulcrum Medical facility
Winter, Nevada

He woke up in Hell. His head hurt, his face hurt, he hurt all over.

Jill was asleep in the chair beside his bed, her left arm in a sling and it looked like she'd been through hell herself. He nudged her leg and she was instantly awake and on the attack.

"You ass! What the hell possessed you to let her see your face? We're in so much trouble, Chuck. You should have let me handle it. I swear to God, you want this to fail! You're so close to being…"

"You were down! She shot you! She was damned lucky I recognized her and tranked her instead of blowing her fucking head off! She shot you, baby, and I panicked! Sue me for giving a shit about my wife…"

He quit talking and pulled out the IV from his hand and checked his crotch to make sure he wouldn't rip off something he valued before jumping out of the bed and storming into the small bathroom, slamming the door.

She tried to open the door but it was locked. He was so…stubborn! "Damn you, Bartowski, open up this damned door this instant or I'll…I'll…" and she dissolved into tears. Damned hormones! She leaned her forehead against the door and sobbed her heart out.

They were going to scrub the entire operation and just suck his mind dry of knowledge and then kill him. She thought about just telling him the truth and letting him try and make it out on his own but she knew he wouldn't leave her behind. She had to try.

He jerked the bathroom door open and she fell into his arms, unprepared to lose her support so suddenly.

"Let's go home, baby. I need some serious lovin'. We can have makeup sex, wife, OK?" His eyebrows danced and she melted against him.

"Chuck, we have to talk."

The most dreaded 4 words in Man's English language. We have to talk.