A/N: Guess I got in the zone with writing this chapter and finished it a whole lot sooner than I had expected, though I did have to borrow a few lines from the first two episodes. As has become custom by now: a huge, huge thanks to the readers, the followers and the reviewers. Publishing a story can be daunting, but it fuels my inspiration and drive to write to see how much traffic this story has been getting.
JustMyLuckiness: Who knows?
Joe-El: Thank you once more for pointing out a gross oversight on my part. I have tried to correct it in this chapter, and I hope I succeeded.
fezzywhigg & tshdow: Glad you're liking/enjoying it.
As always, reviews are most welcome and very much appreciated... Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own 'Chuck'.
Though it was nothing more than a simple cover date, the initial awkwardness between them seemed to evaporate as dinner went on, and he even got her to laugh a few times. Each time it had caused his heart rate to go up a little and the room temperature to rise a little as well. Conversation had become a lot easier now that he knew to keep it at general topics. As long as he kept things shallow, and did not go digging into her more private life, things would be just fine.
It did not mean that he was not curious about her, but the choice was left to her. Whatever she wanted to share with him, he would take it but he was not going to pressure her and with that ruin the fun part of the evening.
"I know you work as an analyst slash agent for the CIA, that you live in Bakersfield," she began hesitantly as if to work up the courage. "That you're assigned to protect me, your cover job is a Nerd Herder, and you have to pretend to be my boyfriend."
He was not sure if it was all that smart that she was giving a summary in such a public place, but he did not stop her from doing so either, sensing that she was working towards asking him something more personal.
"Back in Bakersfield... Is there someone waiting for you?"
A slight smile began to play on his lips: "Like a real girlfriend, you mean?"
"Or boyfriend, I won't judge."
He burst into merry laughter. His best friend Morgan was waiting for him to return to Bakersfield, but explaining their friendship would require a lot of time, something they did not really have tonight.
"Uh, yeah... Yeah, actually... Well, back in college, there was someone," he began, only to kick himself mentally.
Did he really want to run her off with lengthy stories about Jill and him? He kept quiet for a short moment, trying to gather his thoughts before continuing: "Actually that's all over with now, and her restraining orders are pretty specific."
So maybe he should have taken another moment, waited with delivering the punch line until she had swallowed the sip of her drink she had just taken, because now he was on the receiving end of a spit take.
"Sorry," she uttered between a cough and a laugh.
"Entirely my fault," he remarked. "So... Anything I got, I most definitely deserved," he added with a big grin while he made a big show out of cleaning up with his napkin.
It paid off when he heard the laugh he had hoped to draw out.
"I like you, Chuck," she blurted out.
He immediately looked up at her face and was met by an expression that told him that she could not believe it herself that she had just said that. For some reason he did not want to acknowledge, he grinned from ear-to-ear.
"Here we are on our date at the Buy More. Is this all part of a plan or a chance for us to clock in some overtime?" She queried with a wry smile.
"We have a plan... There's a doctor coming to see you, Sam. He worked on the neural integration of the Intersect, and he's coming to examine you," he divulged.
She simply nodded.
"The doctor is our best shot at helping you... It's what you want, right? To get the secrets out of your head? To be rid of the Intersect and get your old life back?"
"Yeah... Yeah, of course."
He lead her to the home theater room and checked it for a final time before he pointed at the couch.
"I've rewired the home theater room for this test," he explained to her after she sat down and faced the TV-screen. "When the images start, just say what they are ." he said, holding out a headset to her.
"That's it?" She asked, surprised by the simplicity of the test.
At that moment, Casey stuck his head in: "The doctor's here."
"When do I get to meet him?"
"You don't," Chuck answered with a strict voice. "It's important that he doesn't see you... You're too valuable."
"Thanks," she muttered. "That's... reassuring."
"It'll be fine, Sam. It's to determine your level of retention," his voice had taken a reassuring tone but it did not mask the faint tremble in it.
She furrowed her eyebrows and looked at him inquisitively. Was he nervous? Well, she was but that made sense. But why was he?
Upon first sight of doctor Zarnow, whom he only knew by name, and without warning upfront, he felt that too familiar tingle, then the tug at the back of his mind, followed by a blindingly excruciating pain in his head. He doubled over, pressing his hands against the temples and grinding his teeth in a successful attempt not to cry out in pain. Dinner decided to come up instead of staying down but he managed to keep it in.
It was a side-effect of an Intersect malfunction, one if he had known about beforehand, he would not have agreed to have the computer in his mind suppressed. He had agreed to recruitment into Project Omaha by the CIA because he was extremely suited for it, but as the pain slowly ebbed away, he realized once more that he might not have been any more than an expendable lab rat.
He stood up straight once the pain had been reduced to manageable and was met by suspicious looks from his gruff partner and doctor Zarnow.
"Is he the Intersect?" Doctor Zarnow asked the NSA agent with great interest while he pointed at him.
Casey snorted with obvious contempt: "Yeah, right. Do you really think the government would sink millions into this project to have it end up in the head of a glorified desk jockey?"
He looked at the doctor again. There was something off about the man, and since he triggered a flash, albeit in failure, it could only mean one of two things. Doctor Zarnow was either good or bad, and he could not afford to bank on good.
"No. No. Of course not," the doctor agreed with a sly smile.
He needed to stall this examination and come up with a new plan, because he was not going to put Sam in jeopardy. Could he trust his disinclined partner? Thus far Casey had done very little to earn his trust and more to make his presence miserable. However if he had to work with the bearish man, maybe it was up to him to make the first gesture of trust.
Unexpectedly an idea popped into his head: "Casey, can I talk to you for a minute?"
"Make it fast," the agent grumbled.
He listened as patiently as possible while that idiot told him about his suspicions of Zarnow, and he wondered where it came from. Earlier he had read the files on Zarnow and Bartowski, with the latter's heavily redacted.
"Urgh!" He growled beyond annoyed. "You and I are going to have a serious talk real soon, moron."
"Fine, anytime you want," the CIA agent countered slightly vexed. "But right now I need your help."
"How do I know I can trust a Completely Incompetent Ass?" He groused.
"You don't, but you will have to. If Zarnow is dirty and we knew, do you really want to go down as the agent who pooched it?"
The other agent had a point there. The doctor was a little too slick, too curious about Patient X's identity. Still there was no reason for him to trust Bartowski either.
"Who says you're not setting me up to take a fall?"
"What would I have to gain by that? We're both responsible for Sa-, the asset. So if you go down, I go down too."
Again the idiot had a valid point. He nodded in approval: "Okay, what do you need me to do?"
"I want him to think I'm Patient X."
"You?" He scoffed. "You couldn't have thought of that five minutes sooner? Before I told him you weren't. Nice going, Bartowski."
"You're NSA. I'm CIA. Undoubtedly you saw my file and I know a lot's been blacked out, for good reason, so you simply didn't know," Bartowski explained. "We want him to think that I'm the Intersect. He's already suspicious of me, so... Can you deal with him alone? While I disappear from sight shortly before and during the test?"
He had to admit to himself that the CIA-nerd had thought it through so far. Plus it would save him from having to spend more time with the other agent than was really necessary. Also, Bleeding Heart could be lying to him, setting him up for the fall to gain the sole control over the asset and with that greatly discrediting the NSA. But what if the runt was right? He had to take a chance.
"Sure... Anything else?" He gave in.
"Give me a few minutes to install a voice modulator?"
He raised an eyebrow in curiosity.
"The plan won't work if the good doctor knows the gender of the Intersect," the other agent said with a hint of sarcasm to his voice.
"Smart," he admitted, though the sarcasm had his temper rise a little. "For the record, Bartowski, if you screw me over, I will hunt you down and torture you until you beg me to put you out of your misery, then I'll torture you some more and leave you to die."
The nervous swallow and the look on the CIA agent's face told him that he knew that it had no been an idle threat and that he would have every intention to follow through if it had been indeed a setup.
"Last chance to back out," he reminded him in a low growl.
Bartowski simply shook his head and went to search the aisles of the Buy More for what he needed.
"After the tone, the test will begin," Doctor Zarnow instructed his patient before he pressed enter to start the testing sequence.
A static voice came over the speakers:
"Uh, cat...
... Uh, rhinoceros...
... Coat hanger...
... Palace...
... Really ugly guy in the forest. Cardinal One is the top Moscow spy in the White House."
He listened as the asset rattled off the secrets that were in her head, keeping a close eye on the doctor. The asset went on and on, and doctor Zarnow grew more and more excited by the minute.
"Well, that's just a picture of an armadillo."
"Your patient is phenomenal," the doctor stated impressed. "We never imagined this happening again."
"What didn't you imagine?" He asked gruffly.
"One person seeing all the Intersect images. It's only been done once before. This is not the same Patient X, is it?" Doctor Zarnow inquired.
'Bartowski!' He snarled in thoughts. 'That scheming snake!' He took a minute to cool off and remembered the plan: "Could very well be. We don't know who the first Patient X was, so it's possible."
The doctor nodded in understanding. The door to the home theater room opened and the bane of his current assignment walked out leisurely. He watched closely as Zarnow smiled cunningly. The CIA operative sent them a slow smile on his way over to them.
"So... Can you remove the secrets, doctor?" Agent Bartowski asked innocently.
"Yes," the doctor answered eagerly. "I think I can."
He could only hope that his impromptu plan had worked. That the doctor indeed suspected him to be Patient X and thus would come after him if his gut feeling, sparked by the incomplete flash, was right. His partner has not been able to tell him much other than that doctor Zarnow had been impressed by the retention level and had thought he would be able to remove the secrets.
He parked the car on the side of the street nearest to the entrance to the apartment complex and stopped the car's engine.
"So did I pass the test?" She asked hopeful, turning a little to face him.
"You did great," he answered while he pulled the key from the ignition.
"And this doctor guy... He can fix me or?" She tapped against the side of her head.
"He's hopeful," he nodded, hopping out of the car in an attempt to be the ever gentleman and pulled the car door open for her.
She got out, gave him a certain look and started in the direction of the complex.
He did not really know her and did not pretend to either, but that look had told him that there was something on her mind. It had been the same as the one she had given him over dinner before she had asked him about a girlfriend.
"Talk to me, Sam."
"If this whole examination thing, if it works out, then I guess, we're through, huh?" She wanted to know.
As much as it pained him to say it aloud, he had to: "Yes."
She had been so utterly stupid to think differently. How could she have been so foolish as to assume that four words could and would change the true nature of their relationship?
He was a CIA operative, playing his part in the scheme to protect her from any and all evildoers, and she was simply the asset.
It did not mean that she did not feel any less of an idiot. Had she honestly thought that the click was there, that once the Intersect was out he would stick around to pursue something real?
All that time, money and effort, it all seemed such a waste now. She wondered why he even bothered walking her to her door. 'Because it's his job,' her mind reminded her subtly. She was only a job.
"Well, good night," he told her with a faint smile.
"Good night," she muttered before she entered the apartment and locked the door behind her.
A yawn escaped her. She really need to get some sleep so her mind could rest up and stop playing tricks on her. The lack of sleep made her sloppy and incautious, and with that it made her vulnerable. She hated the idea of being vulnerable; she was not some damsel in distress in need of a knight in shining armor! Not even if that knight had striking resemblance to one Chuck Bartowski.
Luckily Bryce was nowhere in sight, which was a very good thin in her book because she was not up to dealing with his meddlesome ways right now. At least she would have until breakfast before she would be bombarded with questions on things that were none of his business.
Though she was convinced that sleep would elude her once more, she quietly made her way to her room and got ready to turn in for the night. A sad sigh passed her lips when she looked at the clothes she had worn tonight as she put them away.
She crawled into bed and made herself comfortable, only to find her mind wandering all over the place again. She groaned deeply annoyed and pulled the pillow over her head roughly. This really had to stop!
His eyes narrowed when he caught sight of someone he thought he recognized. He pulled back into an aisle and studied his target. Granted the person had aged but the tall, lanky build and the facial features were pretty much a dead giveaway. Chuck Bartowski, the thorn in his side nearly a decade ago, the young upstart with his scholarship to Stanford, was dressed in the standard outfit of the Nerd Herd.
A malicious smirk appeared on his face; he had always known that the kid was going nowhere, and it pleased him to see that he had been right about Bartowski all along. It just made his day to come back after his day off and see himself proven right.
"Are you spying on your co-workers again, Tang?" Big Mike asked when he nearly bumped into him.
"Just surprised that you rehired Bartowski, sir," he answered.
"Rehired?" Big Mike seemed confused. "He worked here before?"
He nodded slowly: "A few summers ago... Oh right, that was the summer when you left us for a stint at corporate."
Big Mike shuddered noticeably: "Worst summer of my life. They actually wanted me to do stuff... What's the point of having employees if you've got to do all the work yourself?"
It had been a good summer for him, with a store manager who had similar ideas about the store's work policies, only to turn bad once upper management had demoted Big Mike back to store manager of the Burbank Buy More and had promoted the new one to corporate. After that, everything had returned to the old, as if nothing ever changed. It had been very disappointing.
"But why didn't he say so?"
"Probably because he didn't want to admit he's a total loser," he offered with a sneer.
He rubbed the center of his forehead with his index and middle finger, willing the growing headache away, and heaved a tired sigh. Of course everything had to go sideways again and he had barely gotten any sleep before he had been called awake by Director Graham with the order to go to a crime scene, where someone had blown up Zarnow's car along with the doctor.
Now he was racking his brain as to who could have been responsible for the bombing. Casey, his reluctant partner who found joy in tormenting him, seemed to be the most likely suspect, but he was inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. Especially since the use of a NSA-incinerator and the lack of a body, or at least parts, had him thinking of another less obvious but just as likely scenario.
What if the good doctor had staged it? He had not been in the Intersect for nothing. It came as a relief to know that if that was the case, doctor Zarnow could come after him, and not Sam. She was still at risk, if Casey was the culprit. He let out a soft groan.
Either way, without doctor Zarnow, removing the Intersect from Sam's mind had become an impossibility again, if it had been possible at all. Still hope had been enough. He had to tell her the news, but was quite unsure how to since she appeared intent on giving him the cold shoulder and those glacial glares she cast at him were not doing much for his confidence either.
He knew that it was entirely his own fault; he could have let her down a lot easier and gentler than he had done last night. She entered his line of sight and he jogged up to her. Just like last night, it had to be done quick and without a second thought: "Sam, can I talk to you for a minute?"
"Is something wrong?"
"The doctor from last night, he was killed in an explosion soon after he left us."
"Wha-What?" She looked completely devastated; her hopes of being rid of the Intersect had just quite literally gone up in smoke.