This is more angst then humour. That will change soon I hope. Having trouble working on funny doing doubles this week. Extra time to work on this during the lulls, but no promise that it is any good.

Again I really own nothing, and this possibly funny piece of fluff makes me no money, and I honestly am not sure of who owns anyone, so please no sue me.

Percy, CP Scott and Virginia are mine, same with Dr Short from before. Rest are owned by others. Big scary others. Anybody got a Casey doll to protect me?

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Day one – minus 14 months (give or take a day)

0630

(buzz)

"Ugg – Percy secure"

"Graham…. Oh crap - what are you doing calling me at this hour? Wait a minute why are you calling me at all."

At the sound of Graham's name the other agent was wide awake and a worried look came over her face. Something major was wrong. Her hand reached up and yep, her weapon was still safely under her pillow.

"Ok, I'll head over to the hospital. Did they sedate him already?"

"I'll call later. You owe me another one. There is a reason we are trying to retire you know."

Percy jumps up and starts changing from his star wars p.j.'s into his scrubs. "We have a wayward agent that Graham wants off grid ASAP. Sounds like he might have been tortured and escaped. Check to see if there is any unusual chatter on the lines please. Apparently this agent knows some scary stuff that is at our level and Graham wants it contained"

---------

In the back of the ambulance, Bryce Larkin was not in good shape. Between crying and screaming out something which the medic's bet was 'oh crap' in various languages, no drug they administered had been able to calm him down. Any more he probably OD.

He was found having a seizure in a public park just outside Sydney. At first the cops thought he was attacked by wild animals. Rabbits they joked. If these cops thought that, then the person committing the sudden rash of assaults lately must a knight who said Ni! More likely this was just a junkie who shook so much the needle ripped parts of his skin clean off.

"Oh crap indeed", he chuckled, "that could be an interesting police report to read. Druggie attacked by killer bunnies"

They were on the way to a small nearby hospital when they received instructions to turn around and go to the Sydney hospital, a good extra 90 minutes round trip in the opposite direction. A doctor will be waiting.

The truck pulled into the bay, they saw Dr. 'Hawk' Percy pacing around, trench coat pulled tight around his body. Most of the crews knew him. He spent at least one day a week traveling with with a random ambulance service 'just for fun'. He got the reputation of being at the right place on the right truck as the majority of "good" trauma's seemed to happen when he was riding along. Some kid that he is causing all the gunshot cases himself, just to keep busy on long shifts. But no one really took it seriously.

"Hi Hawk, you know this guy?"

"Nope, but he is a friend of a friend, and I owe that friend a lot"

------------------

Three hours later

"Agent Larkin, can you hear me?"

"lalalalalal" was the only reply

"Agent Larkin, you have been overdosed with an experimental truth serum that Fulcrum has been developing. I've come up with something that should help get it out of your system, but it will take time, you'll recover in a couple of weeks. I'm going to give you something in your IV to help you sleep, but first I need to know what happened and who did this to you?"

Bryce grabs the doctor with a wide eye look of a kid at Christmas "OH CRAP…CHUCK" and then passes out.

"What the heck?

Adding the medication to the iv and securing his IV hand to the cot to make sure he doesn't pull it out, the doctor reaches into his pocket and pulls out his blackberry.

"Percy Secure"

"Larkin cried out the name 'Chuck', do you have any idea where he came from. There may be another agent missing?"

"Ok there is a Fulcrum safe house about 10 minutes from there, can you come over and watch this guy while I take a look"

"Yes I know you are closer, but these four walls are driving me nuts and I haven't seen action in almost three months."

"No seriously, my arm is completely healed. It was a small caliber and it went clean through. You worry way too much."

"Fine, fine. I yield, go and I'll wait for you here."

Percy gets up and walks over to grab a cup of coffee when he hears the agent call "Sarah"

"How the heck, I gave him enough drugs to knock out a horse. This new truth drug must be some piece of work"

"Agent Larkin, who is Chuck and Sarah. Are they your partners? Have they been captured?"

Bryce starts what sounds like a cross between laughing and crying.

What happened over the next couple of hours was a story that sounded like a CIA fairy tale.

Hawk has seen it before - The Vulcan Factor. 'Super Agents' that instead of trying to come to grips their emotions suppress them until they burst out into an emotional wreck, or burnt out and hopefully don't have a 22 caliber sandwich close.

Between lack of sleep and the powerful drugs that he has been given lately, Larkin burst. He got the life story of Chuck, Sarah, Jill and even had some stories of bumbling fool called Morgan.

Larkin was really broken up over this Sarah and what he did to his best friend Chuck. In between fits of laughing and crying, Hawk pieced together that he had seen them recently, and obviously things went bad from Larkin's point of view, since Sarah chose to be with Chuck over him.

When the phone rang he was really glad for the break of listening to this tragic triangle.

"Percy secure"

"Ok, are you sure that no one escaped?"

"He killed them all when he was in that shape?"

"No, I am sure that there was no other agents to find."

"How many days worth of tapes?"

"Are you sure that there are no copies."

"No I am not telling you how to do your job. Just being careful."

"I'll make popcorn,"

----

Somewhere around four weeks later

"Agent, here are your new passport and plane tickets. Director Graham requested that you head back to Columbia, there is a car on route. You will be briefed by him and a General Beckman from the NSA once you arrive at your safe house there."

Bryce gets up to shake his hand "Thanks for everything Hawk, I needed the rest a lot more then I thought I did. I haven't felt this good in months. Do you ever think I will remember anything over the last few weeks"

Percy waves off the handshake "The good news is that the new truth drug seems to stay in the blood stream so it is kind of acting like a 'flu shot'. But that also seems to stop short term memories from forming when it was at its peak. There is a chance but unlikely."

"Did I said anything while I was… recovering."

Percy grabs his trench coat and gets up to walk Agent Larkin to his car.

"No worries Agent, you had some screams on the way in, but the medics knocked you out and you were out the entire time you were under the Fulcrum medication. Director Grahams directions was followed to the letter. The cleanup crew found nothing at the site to indicate you have anything to worry about.

"The only name that came up was Sarah. I assume that is your girl. You repeated it in your sleep. We did an extensive search just in case it was another lost agent but found no evidence that she was there."

At the mention of her name, he visibly stiffens. "She was at one time. Now she is in love with my best friend. I hope someday that I can understand how that happened, I know that I have done some ... well crappy things to the two of them, especially my friend but I always thought that she would come back to me. After all that is one thing we do for the greater good, I thought as agents we all understood that, but sometimes... I don't know anymore.?"

Hawk stops and looks at the agent and for the first time in years Bryce Larkin actually found himself caring what another person was going to say next.

"I have been doing this for a long time now. At the farm they teach you how to read people by reading only the physical indications a person gives off. That will keep an agent alive. But to really know someone, then first you need to know yourself first, and then walk a mile in their shoes. When you do that, people will usually surprise you.

They walk to the rest of the way to the car in silence. Bryce nods and drives off into the sunset.

Percy reaches into his pocket and pulls out his blackberry.

"Percy secure"

"Graham.. are sure you want to go down this road? Orion will not be happy that his kid is involved you know?"

"You don't trust the NSA I get that, and Beckman's file makes her out to be the typical military–by–the-book–that-is-200-years-out-of-date person. Do you think she will go that far?"

"A little sister, really?"

"By the way, thanks for not telling me about your backup plan before you made me the scape goat. When you were down for Christmas you could have mentioned something?"

"Virginia will fly out next month and will report as your new personal assistant. I have to spend time off grid soon. A group calling themselves the ring. I think they will be trouble later on."

"Take off eh?…. if I can live through your bad coffee then I can survive this."

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End of Ch 3

Ok, I know enough with the back story, bad puns and coffee jokes...

My lifelong dream is to own a Tim Hortons coffee shop close to where Sid the Kid grew up!

Enough with prolonging the pain – I just hope that what I finish off with will be worth the wait.

Next up – Chuck and Casey have a bonding moment.