Hi there. Just adding the latest chapter to the story. I'm trying to go at a slower pace, not crowding the chapters up with too much material. As a result, something I had planned to have in this chapter was pushed back to the next chapter. A few things in this story will rely on how the last few episodes of Chuck go. (and how quickly I get over my depression about the show ending)

Like several of the stories I've done, it seems like the ideas hit me all at once. I wrote the majority of this chapter in one sitting, then went back and cleaned up a few items to make it more readable.

Once again, thanks to BDaddyDL for giving me a few ideas, including a reference you'll see at the beginning of the next chapter. Also, thanks to everyone who has reviewed this story thus far. Authors always appreciate when you leave comments.

Thanks for reading!

Langham Hotel, London
March 19, 2033
6:15 AM GMT

John bolted up in his bed at the sound of the ringing gComm. His head darted back and forth taking in the room before the events of last night came crashing down and he remembered what was going on. He almost fell out of bed in surprise when he heard the pounding on his hotel room door. He opened the door to find Casey, Verbanski, Jimmy, Alex, Carina, and Samantha champing at the bit to get in. All of them entered, Casey and Jimmy carrying a slew of equipment with them.

"It's ringing, it's ringing," John said as his breath came hard and fast.

"OK, OK," Samantha replied as Casey and Jimmy quickly laid out their computer equipment. "This is what we've been waiting for. Just relax. They'll guide you through it."

Jimmy pulled John towards a chair he placed next to the gComm and handed him a set of headphones similar to the ones Casey was passing out to everyone else.

"OK, just ask them who they are, answer their questions honestly, then when they set the ransom, demand proof of life," Jimmy told him. "And obviously don't tell them about us."

Casey looked at everyone to make sure they were ready and then pointed at John to answer the gComm.

"Hello?" John asked, completely unable to get the fear out of his voice.

"Mr. John Bartowski, our organization has taken your parents into its custody. They will remain unharmed and be released provided you follow our directions to the letter."

Jimmy ran the trace through the voice recognition software on his computer, which looked like an old-school laptop but was twenty times as powerful as even a gComm. Casey began his signal trace on a similar laptop.

"Who are you?" John asked the voice.

"That is irrelevant to our discussion. But if it helps, you may call me Mr. Joshua."

Jimmy rolled his eyes, and John gave him an odd look. I'll tell you later, Jimmy mouthed to him.

"Why did you take my parents, Mr. Joshua?"

"Our purpose will be explained momentarily." John shuddered at the cold, professional detachment of Mr. Joshua's voice. "For now, let me advise you to not contact the police, the media, or anybody else. Do not tell your friends or your relatives. Do not even tell your sister, Emma."

Casey's eyes widened as his tracing program located the signal. He quickly wrote something on a piece of paper and held it up.

San Antonio, Texas.

Jimmy quickly jumped out of the way to allow Alex to type in an authorization for a Homeland Security directive to the HBT unit of the San Antonio Police. She held up three fingers, indicating the HBT team would be at the location in three minutes.

"OK, I won't contact anybody," John told Mr. Joshua. "What do I have to do to get my parents back?"

"Their company, you may not know this, produces more than just computer games. They've created some of the most advanced communication devices in the world. The one we are interested in they are giving to the government to work with a very sophisticated computer program called the Intersect."

John looked up, uncertain what to say. What's the Intersect? Jimmy mouthed to him.

"What's the Intersect?" John repeated to Mr. Joshua.

"Irrelevant to your current situation. Your job for the moment is to recover the Comm unit your parents were developing for the government. You have twenty-four hours to retrieve it. Once you have it, you will contact us, and we will give you further instructions."

"How…how am I supposed to retrieve it? I don't even know where it is!"

"I suggest you start making discreet inquiries into your parents' company. I'm sure if you do enough research, you can find out where it is."

John looked up, wondering what he should say next. Proof of life, Casey mouthed to him.

"Wait, wait. Why should I do anything if I don't even know my parents are alive? I want you to prove you have them and they're unharmed."

"Mr. Bartowski, perhaps I have not made our organization's purposes clear. We are looking for a device your parents invented, and you are going to retrieve it for us. If you need proof, should I cut off your father's foot and mail it to you so you can identify the Converse Chuck Taylor shoes he wears every day? Or perhaps I'll send you your mother's arm so you can see the little charm bracelet she wears, a gift your father gave her that your grandmother once owned. Yes, we know all about your family, and we could easily kidnap your little sister from her trip if we so desired. So I suggest you take our demands seriously."

John shook in fear for a few seconds before a thought crossed his mind. He made a 'cut' gesture across his throat, and Casey muted the gComm.

"What?"

"Why is he keeping us on for so long?" John asked. "If they're as smart as they say they are, wouldn't they assume I was somehow trying to trace them?"

Casey, Jimmy, and Alex stared at each other for a brief second. "They are," Casey said in a panic as Alex got on the computer to send an abort to the San Antonio Police.

Casey un-muted the gComm. "Mr. Bartowski?" Mr. Joshua's voice called out.

"I'm here, I'm here," John replied.

"Yes, and you are also not alone. Despite our insistence that you do not contact anybody, it appears you already have. I'm sure the thought crossed your mind why I had little problem staying on the line with you. Surely, someone would have traced this call by now. But of course, it is also possible we would anticipate that. After all, your parents know some very talented, very connected people. Perhaps they are sitting with you right now. In that case, all of you will now know what the result will be if you do not cooperate."

There was nothing but dead silence for several seconds. Suddenly, an explosion came across the comm lines loud enough for everyone to wrench off their headphones.

Everyone stopped in shock for a moment. Alex and Casey tried to get through to the San Antonio Police while Jimmy prompted John to put his headphones back on.

"Well, Mr. Bartowski, twelve members of San Antonio's HBT unit have just paid the price for your deception. And it makes us wonder if you really want your parents back. We'll call if we feel you'll cooperate. In the meantime, let your conscience wrestle with the fact you've just murdered twelve people."

The line went silent. John tore the headphones off of his ears and started hyperventilating.

"Oh, God," he whispered. "No…please…"

"John…" Alex began.

"No!" John staggered out of his chair and fell towards the door. "Get away from me! Stay away!"

He threw the door open and bolted out of the room. Samantha ran out the door and chased him down the hallway.

"John, stop!" Samantha sprinted down the hallway and got in front of John as he tried to get to the elevators. He tried to push past her, but she grabbed him and held him up against the wall.

"Please listen to me!" Samantha pleaded.

"I killed them," John said as he still had difficulty trying to breathe. "I killed those people. They're dead…they're dead, I did that…"

"No you didn't!" John tried to break away from Samantha, but she had an iron grip on him. "You did exactly what you needed to do. There's no way you could have known they would do that."

"I can't…I can't do this…"

"Yes you can. They won't harm your parents; otherwise they would have done that already. They need that IntComm, so we have time. We'll figure this out."

Samantha steered him to a bench in the hallway. She held him in her arms. "All of us were shaken up by that, John. I was on the brink of losing it myself. And everybody else? You could tell they were traumatized, and they've been dealing with this most of their lives. Most people would have folded if they had to deal with what you have in the last twelve hours. But you can get through this. All of us are here to help you."

Samantha took John's face in her hands so he was looking directly into her eyes. "Can you trust us? Can you help us?"

He stared at her for a moment. Despite how overwhelmed he was, he gave a gentle nod. Samantha pulled him to her and held him tightly.

"We'll get your parents back, John," she whispered gently into his ear. "We'll get them back."

They sat there for several moments holding each other. There was something comforting about it for both of them. John never realized before now how shielded he had been from the real world. The closest he came to anything tragic was when Grandma Emma passed away four years ago from a long illness. Nothing, however, compared to what he had been put through in the last few hours. He was having a hard time handling it, but he couldn't even contemplate how bad it would have been had everybody not been here with him.

He had never given much thought to it before now, but no matter what happened to him in life, there were always people around he could rely on, whether it was his father helping him with calculus or Uncle Casey picking him up from Pop Warner football practice when his parents were stuck at work or Uncle Jimmy renting two skyboxes at the Staples Center for his tenth birthday and impressing John's friends by getting everybody mini-basketballs signed by every member of the Lakers. He remembered his mother coming into his room to hold him whenever he had nightmares or was awakened by a bad thunderstorm. Sometimes he would wake up in the morning, and his mother would still be in his bed holding onto him, making sure nothing bad would happen to him.

One of his teachers once told him, when he thought his parents were being insufferable and too demanding, something Mark Twain once said that resonated with him. When I was sixteen, my father was the most ignorant man in the world. By the time I reached 21, I was surprised at how much he had learned in five years. John chuckled at that thought, given he just beat Twain by three years.

John and Samantha turned when they heard someone gently clearing their throat. Jimmy was standing a few feet down the hallway from them.

"Alex got in contact with the San Antonio Police," Jimmy said quietly. "Their team got out. One person is in the hospital with severe third-degree burns and two others broke limbs when they were thrown clear of the warehouse where the signal was traced. But nobody was killed."

Both John and Samantha relaxed at that thought. "We just have to wait for them to call again," Jimmy continued. "But they will. In the meantime, I'm going to take Alex to meet her plane back to D.C. Casey, Gertrude, and Sam's mother will stick around here to see if you need anything."

"Jimmy," Carina called out from behind him. Everybody turned to look down the hall. "Michelle just called. Connor is on his way back to the hotel."

"What?" John was shocked.

Jimmy checked his watch. "Dammit, 7 AM. That's when Connor was supposed to get the call. He must have taken a taxi back to the hotel."

"We're cleared out of the room," Carina said.

"OK, you two get back in there and send Connor on his way," Jimmy said as he bolted down the hallway to get out of sight.

John and Samantha ran down the hallway back to the room. Samantha slammed the door and kicked off her shoes.

"What the hell are we supposed to…" John started but froze in shock as Samantha took her blouse off and quickly stepped out of her skirt.

"Gawk later, will you?" Samantha said in a rush as she ripped John's shirt open and went to work on his belt. "He thinks we were having sex last night, remember?"

She pulled the blanket out on the bed as John tried to take his socks off. He was having too much difficulty keeping up. Both of them heard Connor's voice down the hallway.

"You're too slow!" Samantha said with a growl. She grabbed his arm and pushed hard, tripping him over her leg and onto the bed. She pulled his pants off in one fell swoop and tossed them on the floor. She then jumped on top of him and grabbed the blankets to cover them.

An alarm bell went off in her head. "Oh shit," Samantha said as she quickly unhooked her bra and threw it on the floor in the open. She then reached down to remove John's boxer shorts and threw them on the floor as well just as they heard the beep from the door lock. She pretended to sleep in John's arms and John took the hint, closing his eyes.

"I just got some…satisfaction…" Connor sung as he opened the door. "John, you'll never guess what…"

Connor went silent as he saw Samantha asleep on top of John. "OK, you can guess some of it," he whispered.

"Shhhh!" John hissed. "What are you doing?"

"Stud muffin!" Connor whispered in triumph at John. "Told you we'd have a good time."

"Why are you here?"

"I just got a call. I got that scholarship to ND," Connor tried to keep his enthusiasm in check in order to not wake Samantha. "But they need me in South Bend by Monday to fill out everything. I gotta get back to L.A. Dude, I'm so sorry to bail on you like this, but you look like you're in good hands already."

"Great, Connor. Congratulations. Do you mind?" John said as he gestured to the sleeping Samantha.

"No prob. Let me get my stuff." Connor quickly grabbed his rolling suitcase and checked to make sure he had everything. "So spill, man. How was last night? I want details."

Samantha gently moaned in the bed. She lifted her head slightly and started feasting on John's neck. She started kissing down his chest without opening her eyes, leaving Connor in wide-eyed shock.

"Oh, I guess last night isn't over yet. Don't let me interrupt her," Connor said as he gave a quick wave to John and exited the hotel room. Samantha popped her head up from under the blankets.

"Sorry. He didn't look like he wanted to leave, so I had to…"

"No, no I got why you…you did that," John stammered. Both of them shared a rather awkward moment of silence. "And…I'm sorry about…that," John said quietly with an increasingly red face.

"Sorry for what?"

"That," he repeated.

Samantha was confused for a moment until she moved her thigh and felt what was against it. "Oh, that?" John lay back in the bed in further embarrassment. Samantha smiled and turned his face to her. "Uh, John? First, I'm lying naked on top of you. I'd be more worried if nothing happened. And second, believe me; you have nothing to be sorry for."

"We should…we should probably get dressed," he barely managed to eke out.

Samantha nodded and got out of the bed. She slipped back into her skirt and put on her blouse. She gathered the rest of her clothes and noticed John still lying in the bed and looking away from her.

"What are you doing?" she asked with a smile.

"I'm letting you…get dressed," John quietly replied without looking in her direction.

Samantha laughed. "We just went through all of that, and you still have every intention of being chivalrous? I think your parents did too good of a job raising you."

She gently touched John's arm. "Call me if you need anything, OK?" She walked to the door. "And John?"

"Yes?" John turned his head to the door. Samantha threw open her blouse. He quickly looked away with a small growl.

"I'm going to loosen you up one way or another before you have a heart attack," she said with a mischievous lilt in her voice as she exited.

Unknown Location
March 18, 2033
9:00 AM

Sarah slowly opened her eyes and immediately winced at the painful headache she had. She blinked a few times to clear her vision and looked around. She was on some sort of bed with Chuck lying next to her, who was still asleep. She looked down to find both of them in the same clothes they had on in the hotel. The room looked like the type found in a mid-range hotel, only the windows were sealed and blackened so there was no way to tell what time of day it was.

"Chuck…" she gently shook her husband. After a moment, he slowly opened his eyes and winced in exactly the same way she did a moment ago.

"God, my head hurts," Chuck muttered.

"Damn tranq darts," Sarah replied as both of them slowly sat up in the bed. Sarah checked him to make sure he wasn't harmed otherwise. "I wonder who captured us."

"And why," Chuck added. Both of them stood up.

"They searched us," Sarah said as she checked for a few items on her person. "My gun is gone and so is my lock pick set." She checked her hair. "They even removed my hairpins. Whoever kidnapped us is definitely not stupid."

Chuck took a look around the room. "It looks like a hotel but there's no phone." He checked the data port. "No connection to the Internet possible. They left the TV, though."

Sarah took the remote and turned the TV on. She started flipping through the channels. "No local TV stations on this." She changed to the Weather Channel. "No local weather, either. There's no way to know where we are, other than somewhere in the United States."

She tried the channel guide. She saw the current day and time. "We've been out for 36 hours."

Chuck saw the bathroom. It was basic in design. "It looks like every hotel bathroom I've ever seen.

Sarah went to take a look. "No towel bar and the bar for the shower curtain is cemented into the wall. Nothing that can be turned into a weapon."

"Look at this," Chuck said as he pointed to a table near the door. On top of it was a large stack of plastic bags. The table sat next to a water cooler. Underneath the table were several sets of nondescript clothing in their size.

"MREs," Sarah replied. "Military Ready-to-Eat meal packages. Still sealed. Our captors wanted to make sure we ate and let us know they weren't planning to poison us." She took a look around. "In fact, I don't even think they'll try to interrogate or torture us."

"Are you sure?" Chuck asked.

"Everything in here indicates we'll be in this room for a while with no visitors. They don't want to harm us, and why would they let us sleep for 36 hours if they wanted something specifically from us?"

"Then what do they want?"

Sarah sighed in frustration. "The IntComm. It has to be."

"How would they even know about it?"

"I don't know. But Alex must have everybody on this by now. There's no way she would believe we blew her off for dinner the other night."

Chuck slowly walked back to the bed and sat down on it. His head dropped into his hands. "I thought we were done with this. I never wanted to drag you back into that life. We worked so hard to leave it behind us, and then I had to listen to Alex's damn sob story about Jimmy…"

"Chuck, stop," Sarah replied as she sat down next to him. "That was the right decision. We were trying to save lives, and we thought we were doing it in the best way possible for all of us."

She took his hand. "We've been in situations like this before. And we've always prevailed. You know Alex will bring in Jimmy, Casey, and Gertrude to help. They'll get us out of this. We've always helped each other. That will never change."

Chuck slowly looked at her and nodded at seeing the confidence in her eyes. "You're right."

He gave her a gentle kiss. "This is one crazy life we carved out for ourselves, isn't it."

Sarah smiled. "I can't deny that. But I wouldn't trade it for anything."

Chuck tenderly ran his hand along her cheek, seeing those crystal blue eyes and that luminous smile he remembered from the day in the Buy More twenty-six years ago that changed his life. He gently pulled her face to his for a longer, more passionate kiss.

Sarah was right. He wouldn't trade one minute of it, either.

Langham Hotel, London
March 19, 2033
12:30 PM GMT

John sat back on the bed in his hotel room trying to keep up with everything that had happened. The people who kidnapped his parents still hadn't called. He tried to remember what Samantha told him earlier; that whoever kidnapped them needed the IntComm and that his parents were safe as long as they thought they could get their hands on it.

Someone knocked on his hotel room door, and he went to answer it. Jimmy was waiting for him with a bag in his hand.

"How are you holding up?" Jimmy asked.

"OK, I guess," John replied with almost no enthusiasm.

"Did you eat yet today?" John shook his head. "I didn't think so. And since I'm certain your mother would get on my ass for not making sure you did…"

He handed John the bag. John looked inside to find a sandwich and a bag of chips.

"Salami, capicola, pepperoni, and provolone," Jimmy said.

"Wow, you remembered?"

"There's this sandwich shop on Portabello Road I found a few years back. The owner is a riot. Alex has kept on my ass all these years about eating healthier, but I figured I wasn't going to hold you to that here. Especially given what you're going through."

"Where is everybody else?"

"Samantha and her mother are over at MI-5. We're supposed to go over there when they call. Casey and Aunt Gertrude are checking with their sources to see if they know anything. Aunt Alex will probably be landing in D.C. within the hour and she'll head right to her office to find out who the mole is in the CIA."

John poured a glass of water from the bottle in the room and sat down on the bed. "Why did that guy call himself Mr. Joshua? Did you recognize the name?"

Jimmy shook his head with a knowing chortle. "It's from an old 80's movie called Lethal Weapon. Mr. Joshua was the bad guy. You have nothing to worry about…unless one of us talks about being too old for this shit."

John smiled. "So, a Cubs fan? I should have guessed. I knew Aunt Alex was from Philadelphia, and Mom said she was as mad as she had ever seen her when the Cubs won the '24 World Series."

Jimmy smiled. "Yeah, they beat the Phils to win the pennant and I gloated way too much for her liking. But in my defense, we've been waiting for that for well over a century. We finally got to bury the four B's once and for all."

"The four B's?"

"Billy goat, black cat, Bartman, and Ball Five."

"Ball five? Oh right, the blown calls in 2015. So, why pretend to be from the Nationals? I would have thought you'd kill to pretend you worked for the Cubbies."

"That was to make it plausible Alex and I would live in D.C. Before we got married and Alex took the job working for the President, we were traveling all over the world on missions. We became the best spy team in the business, just like your parents and Casey were when your dad had the Intersect."

John fell silent. He took a small bite of his sandwich, but Jimmy could tell the stress of the last twelve hours had gotten to him. "I keep thinking I should have done more this morning. Or said something differently. Or...I don't know."

Jimmy stared at him in disbelief. "Holy crap. Is that what I sounded like when I started out? No wonder your mother always smacked me upside the head."

"What?"

Jimmy gave a dismissive wave. "Long story, you don't want to hear it. You did everything right today, John. None of us expected that to happen. We were lucky we figured it out in time."

"But how do you do it? You've been a spy all this time? For over twenty years? You've always been cool Uncle Jimmy. Nothing ever rattled you. My parents told me you were the craziest person they ever knew. And also the bravest."

Jimmy looked down at the ground. "I haven't always been like this. In fact, when I saw you in the hallway with Sam, I was having a flashback that was chilling me to the bone."

"What are you talking about? I was freaking out in the hallway."

"I know. I was in your situation twenty-four years ago. Only it wasn't a team of cops; it was your Aunt Ellie."

"Aunt Ellie? What does she have to do with it?"

Jimmy exhaled slowly. "Your father found out Grandpa Stephen put the Intersect in me twenty years before. Hell, your father was still in grade school when I got it. A rogue group within the Agency, called The Ring, also found out and tried to capture me. Up until then your parents, Casey, and I had been able to hold The Ring off, although I got injured and ended up in the same hospital where Ellie and Devon worked. Then they took Ellie hostage, and…well, your mother and I were able to rescue her. But, having that happen to Ellie…I snapped. I couldn't handle it. I thought I hurt Chuck's family. I fell apart. What Sam did for you earlier, your mother did for me back then. If she hadn't done that, I…"

Jimmy fell silent for a moment. "Everybody here loves your parents and would do anything for them. That's because they've risked their lives to help all of us. And in my case, they were the first people I ever had in my life who actually gave a rat's ass about me."

"Really?"

John saw a chill go through Jimmy. "I…lost my mother and my sister when I was eight. My father was responsible. Drunk driving. He didn't even bother to raise me. Honestly, the son of a bitch can rot in hell for all I care. But there's no way I'd be where I am today if it hadn't been for your family. And I will do whatever it takes to get your parents back. All of us will."

John took a look at his uncle. It was a little jarring to see him this way because he always competed with Morgan in his mind for the most fun-loving uncle he had. He wasn't surprised Jimmy was a good spy. Given how his parents spoke of him, saving the world on a daily basis sounded like something Jimmy would do. But Jimmy also made sure Emma and he always had fun whenever he visited. When John got his driver's license, Jimmy gave him a luxury SUV as a present, and Emma had a hybrid convertible waiting for her in two years when she would get her driver's license. It was now clear to John that Jimmy was trying to make sure his sister and he had everything he never had. Everyone John knew seemed determined to make sure they had everything in life.

They were interrupted by a call on Jimmy's gComm. "Hello?" Jimmy said. "OK, Case. I'll let him know."

"What's up?" John asked.

"Casey found some information he's going to cross-check with Aunt Alex once she's back in her office. He thinks he figured out where the people who kidnapped your parents got their personnel. If we can find who bankrolled it, we can find who is behind all of this."

Jimmy's gComm beeped once again. He took a quick look at the screen and then went over to the phone in the hotel room. "Please have my car brought to the Lobby, bay C-14. Thank you."

He turned to John. "Better wrap that sandwich up and save it for later. Carina and Sam are ready for us. We have to get over there."

"Ready for what? Where are we going?"

"MI-5 headquarters," Jimmy replied confidently. "It's time to turn you into a spy."