So we get another visit from Douchbags of Christmas past, Carina learns to be a mother and Chuck tries to work out how to handle being there for the son he never knew he had. NB: If you've never been in that position, it's a trip down the rabbit hole.

Usual disclaimer, no rights to any characters, yada, yada...

Charlie's DNA results came back to confirm that Chuck was his father, as expected, and it was no surprise that his placement test results were right up there, almost as high as Yvonne and Zach's, as his mother was a head case, but brilliant in her own right. Charlie was academically challenged, as he'd never been to school (being dragged around from flop house to flop house will do that to you), but luckily at his age it wouldn't be that difficult for him to catch up. Chuck had used his influence and money to get Charlie into the appropriate classes for his level, and they all spent a lot of time working with him to help him catch up. They felt guilty that he wasn't being given the time to just be a kid, but he hadn't had that before, either, and he was happy spending his time with people who were being nice to him and who seemed to care about him, getting excited when he reached his goals on each piece of work, so he put a lot of effort in so he could make them happy, and basked in all the hugs and kisses he was getting. It really was the happiest he'd ever been.

One thing that he couldn't understand at first was why Carina called him Chuckles, like she did Uncle Chuck, he asked her why one day while she was happy and distracted and she automatically answered that it was because he was so much like his father, before she realised what she'd said. She changed the subject to distract him (being a top spy is a good skillset to have as a parent, who'd have known?), and sent him to play with the kids before going over to Chuck and Sarah's to talk about the slip-up she'd just made. Chuck's face dropped when she told him but Sarah laughed, Chuck asked her how she could laugh about this and she just said that it had to come out sooner than later, as it was obvious who's son he was. Chuck's face made it apparent that it wasn't obvious to everyone so she dragged him over to the window to look at the kids playing outside, pointing out that Charlie had his hair, his eyes, and his nature, Charlie was a bigger version of Piotr with slightly darker skin tone, so much so that most people would pick Charlie as Piotr's brother over Zach. Chuck looked at her and asked if she was upset about that, but she shook her head, reminding him that his mother's sins were her's, not his, and he was a wonderful boy who deserved to know his father. That led Carina to broach another sensitive subject, whether Charlie could call Chuck Dad if he wanted to? Chuck looked at Sarah and she nodded, saying that of course she didn't have an issue with it, he was his son, so Chuck gave her his Sarah smile and hugged her, telling Carina that that would be fine if he wanted to.

They called Charlie in and sat him down to discuss the matter with him, trying to explain why things had happened without letting their feelings about his mother come out. Charlie looked up at Chuck and asked tentatively what he should call him, so Chuck knelt down in front of him with a smile and said that he could call him anything he wanted, Chuck, Uncle Chuck, Dad, it was up to him. Carina interjected from the side "But not Uncle Daddy, please, that's just too much like an Appalachian cliché." which made Sarah crack up as Chuck glared at her. Charlie just looked confused and Chuck grinned at him, telling him that Carina was being silly as he gave him a hug, kissing him on the top of the head when he wrapped his arms around his neck.

Now that Charlie had been told who his father was, they sat their kids down to try to explain that Charlie was their brother, he had another mother and he hadn't been in their lives before but he was living with Carina and Jeff now and she was going be his mother. It was more difficult than it had been with Charlie as they were younger and hadn't been forced to grow up too early like he had, but they accepted that they had another big brother readily, and there were tears in Chuck's eyes as he saw the happy confusion on Charlie's face when they ran up to hug him and proudly tell him that he was their brother.

Things settled in for Charlie after that, it didn't take him long to decide to call Chuck, Daddy Chuck, and that made it an easy step to Mommy Carina and then Mommy for Carina, but the one who was possibly the most touched was Jeff when Charlie started calling him Daddy, he had tears in his eyes as he hugged the little boy.

Charlie hadn't managed to escape his past, though, he had terrible nightmares most nights, Carina often woke to hear him screaming and ran in to comfort him. There was a name that he often called out in his worst nightmares and it chilled Carina's blood, Bryce. This happened a number of times before Carina tried to ask Charlie who Bryce was. Charlie clammed up when she mentioned the name, only saying that he was his mother's boyfriend who had been around quite a bit and that he hadn't been nice when Carina tried to prise more information out of him. Carina dropped the subject and comforted him when she saw how upset he was about it, but went to see Chuck about it the next day when Charlie was at school. Chuck's reaction to the name and the context it came up in was pretty much the same as Carina's. The first thing he did was to call Sarah and Casey into the discussion, then they called the General to ask if she had any knowledge of Bryce returning after he was taken from the Intersect facility, and when she said no, basically asked her in code to give him leave to do a clandestine investigation of the systems to find any records relating to Bryce. She got his point well enough, as if she started asking questions openly, any off the books actions or records would be buried too deep to find, so she agreed on the proviso that anything found would be shared with her.

Chuck immediately started searching all systems that he could get into for any references to Bryce, part of his concerns were about Bryce and the personality changes that Charlie's fears seemed to indicate, but he was also concerned about his father. He talked to Sarah about it when they were alone and they agreed that Bryce, Shaw and his father all seemed to have changed when they were brought back, Bryce had moments where he seemed like he was, but generally he was more arrogant and erratic and, well, less human than he'd been back at Stanford or when Sarah had known him. Shaw had been hard to read before he was told about his wife, and worse afterwards, but when he came back he was basically a delusional, psychotic robot, hardly sane or human at all. When his father came back he was more erratic than before, but he was closest to what he'd been than the others were, especially after they suppressed the Intersect and took that load off him.

What it seemed to come down to was that they were all affected by the revival process, and in the back of his head Chuck thought part of that may have been related to how long they were "out" before they were revived, the first time around, Bryce had to be extracted and taken back to a Ring facility to be revived, Shaw spent an unknown time in the river before he was found, recovered and brought back to be revived, while his father was killed right at a Ring facility, that could have all been planned with the equipment ready and waiting for Shaw's stage show, so the delay from when he was shot to when he was revived could have been a matter of minutes rather than hours like it probably was for the others, which could well explain why the affect on him seemed far less than it had been on the others. The fact remained though that there were notable changes, and Chuck worried about him. Given that they still thought he was the Intersect at that point, it was conceivable that the Ring would have revived him, but what Bryce would be like now after two of these experiences (if it was him) was very much a worry, he could be something far worse than Shaw had been, and if so he would have to be dealt with.

What Chuck found was that Bryce had obviously been revived again, as there were records of him in the Ring files that Chuck had stored, as well as elsewhere in other systems. The references to him indicated someone who was unpredictable and violent, and most were afraid of him. When the Ring was believed to be taken down the first time, Bryce took advantage of the confusion to disappear, and resurfaced as a freelance enforcer for the various mob families and cartels, always in demand due to his reputation for brutal efficiency and ability to always achieve his goals. There were also records to show that that was where he re-connected with Jill, as she'd been doing "work" for some of the same organisations, and he'd probably helped her track them down (he was a far better spy than she ever was). With confirmation that he was back, and he was obviously as violent as Charlie remembered him to be, the question of what to about him came to the fore. They had a brief discussion with the General, hampered by the exposure of discussing it over government controlled systems, and then came up with a birthday party invitation as an excuse to send a plane to pick up her and Roan so they could attend.

When they sat down in the bunker conference room, the mood was grim, most of them knew what the inevitable outcome would be, even Chuck, he wanted Bryce locked up to protect others from him, but knew that that would be a difficult and costly exercise, and keeping him locked up would be difficult, Bryce had been a top spy, and he still had all those skills, but without any shred of sanity or humanity to control his actions any more. They knew that the only viable choice was to eliminate Bryce, but Chuck was still scrabbling for an alternative because, well because he was Chuck. He asked if they could talk to Jill to see if they could get any information from her which may affect the decision, and went cold when the General started evading, then said that that wouldn't be possible as she'd been killed in a fight at the prison. He just looked at her, knowing that Jill had been eliminated as a loose end, probably at her orders, and then stood up and left without a word. He was angry at himself, that he still believed that better solutions could be chosen over the expediency of the permanent solutions that the intelligence community had always preferred, and knew that they wouldn't be in this position if his wishes hadn't been factored into Jill's treatment the first time, but it was a slap in the face to be reminded that even those who he regarded as family were making these calls to clean up the situations around them.

Sarah came after him a few minutes later to make sure he was OK, well not OK but handling it. Roan also came up and talked over the matter with them, not trying to gloss over what Diane did, but to explain what happened when people like Jill had a chance to impact the lives of others, she wasn't as bad as what Bryce obviously was now, but look at what she'd done to Charlie, her own son. Given who she was, she would have tried to use her knowledge of Chuck and the rest of the Clan to make mileage for herself, and that could have destroyed their lives. Chuck just nodded and went to the armoury to gear up. Sarah followed him, asking what he was doing, even though she knew quite well what he was planning to do. When he responded that he would clean up his own mess this time she started to get her own gear ready but he stopped her, saying that she had to stay with the kids. They stood there at an impasse for while until Zondra pushed her out of the way and said that she'd go with Chuck, looking Chuck in the eye as she told him that he wasn't going alone. They all knew that Chuck would try to talk Bryce down first, and only take him out when he tried to kill him, but he was determined to give him one last chance before he was put down, so Chuck nodded his acquiescence to Zondra, not looking at Sarah as he walked out. Casey made Sarah look at him before he told her that Chuck needed to do this, to give Bryce a chance to prove his humanity, Chuck wouldn't be able to handle it any other way. Sarah nodded with tears in her eyes and left, to go to their room and cry.

Zondra wasn't sure why Chuck took the SUV from their garage rather than one of their regular cars, but she wasn't about to argue with him at the moment, he was on the edge and he didn't need any distractions if he was going to get through this.

When they located Bryce, he was in a penthouse hotel suite, Bryce had no trouble recognising Chuck (even though Chuck was having trouble recognising much of the Bryce he'd known), and after blatantly checking out Zondra, he just threw the other women and hangers on who were in the suite out. Chuck tried to engage Bryce in a discussion, but Bryce was having trouble keeping on the topic, it was surreal, as though Bryce was playing out the script of an old spy movie, old western, or a combination of both.

At first he hit on Zondra in the most blatant way possible, running most of the plays from the seduction school handbook on her, but it was disjointed, as though he'd forgotten that they were supposed to be options (IE: If the indicator is this, you use this play, or if this then you use the other one), and he kept pushing multiple plays at her even when they conflicted with each other. He seemed to have all the data, but the logic processes were missing or malfunctioning. The primary intent seemed to be to try and prove his dominance over Chuck by taking away the woman that he was with, and hence put him off balance, but even a moderately functional Bryce would have known that a) the plays weren't working, b) Chuck wouldn't be attached to any woman other than Sarah, and c) would have noted that Chuck was wearing his wedding ring, but Zondra wasn't wearing a wedding ring. Bryce was getting more erratic when Zondra didn't respond to his plays, and Chuck didn't falter. So when Bryce grabbed Zondra's arm and started pulling her towards the bedroom and Chuck stopped him, the situation moved into the next phase.

It was apparent that in Bryce's head, he'd gotten the proper response from Chuck and that he now had him where he wanted him. Chuck kept trying to talk him down, telling him that he couldn't go on the way he was, and that he needed to come in with them to let them get him some help, but Bryce was still trying to run the plays in his head, except that they'd apparently changed to tactical scenarios and gunfights now. It was inevitable where it was going, but Chuck kept trying, right up to the point where Bryce obviously thought he'd distracted Chuck enough and drew his pistol to shoot him, but he was no match for Chuck with the Intersect, when it was obvious that Bryce was committed to shooting him, Chuck drew his own pistol and finished him. As he looked down at Bryce's body, it was obvious that the man that Chuck, or any of them, had known was gone, what had been left in fact was a rabid animal that needed to be put down.

On the way back Chuck swung by the storage garage where the second Odyssey was stored to pick it up, he'd explained to Zondra on the way that he hadn't wanted to take one of their regular cars in there, he wanted to keep them separated from that world as much as possible, and that they'd agreed that they would be using the second Odyssey now, so he picked it up and had Zondra follow him back to the CI offices to leave the SUV there before they went home in the Odyssey. As they got close to home, Zondra asked him if he was OK, and he shook his head, but said that it had to be done, and now it was.

A/N: I realise that the Bryce/Revival segments have a distinct Frankenstein flavour about them, but that was how it panned out. damn Igor was supposed to keep an eye on that sort of thing, just can't get good assistants nowadays.