A/N I guess in some ways I wrote this one season as a conflation of all three seasons, 3, 4 , and 5. The Piranha is in here, the glasses from the finale are here too, after a fashion. I never intended to write anymore of these stories, once I finished season 3. When I did write season 4 (something of a dare, to see if I could make the story of Frost more coherent), I dragged Pink Slip and some bits from Other Guy that I didn't use here into it, so I guess it all balanced out.

"Where the hell are we?"

Did Chuck just say 'hell'? Carina looked up at his tone, then around the rest of the room in which they'd taken refuge. "I don't know," she said. "It had a door with no holes in it, that's what mattered to me at the time.

"It looks like a lab," he said, absently offering her a hand up.

She took it, not that she needed to, just because it was Chuck. "What kind?"

"The kind they didn't want to shoot at."

Oh. That kind. "You think they'll blow it?" Just to keep it out of enemy hands, especially since it was already in enemy hands. She went to check desks and other repositories for useful and portable intel.

"I'm pretty sure they would if they could, so they can't, since they haven't." He didn't sound so concerned about the possibility of dying, his attention focused on the equipment, the controls, and the data displays. "Where have I seen that before?"

She looked over at him, as he was eyeing some horizontally-mounted clear panels arranged in an arc over the table. Considering the vaguely human shape of the outline on the table, they were meant to be positioned over someone's face. "What's that?"

He twisted himself sideways, and moved his head closer, and suddenly recoiled. "Ah!" He looked over at her sudden movement, waved her down. "I remember that now. The Fulcrum Intersect used panels like these, only I was sitting in front of them. Interesting, no straps, but they still have those spiky eye things. Was their victim expected to just lie there, or did they solve–?"

"The Fulcrum version? The one they made me steal?"

"Exactly," said Chuck, his voice showing none of the recrimination hers did. He had no time or interest, he was tracing cables from the projectors back to – "What's that? All these projectors are getting their feed from that."

She stopped glaring at the panels to follow his pointing finger, kneeling to look where he directed. "It's a box." She pulled it out, careful of all the cables running into it. "It says 'C Filter' on this label." She looked up at him. "What's a C filter?"

"Nothing I know. Ah, there we go!"

She looked at him, to see what he was looking at, but his eyes were fluttering and she knew he wasn't looking at anything she could see. "Chuck? What's going on?"

His face settled, into lines of shock and surprise. "I just flashed."

"Could use some of Frodo's help right about now," said Casey. Ring agents monitoring their words immediately started cross-referencing known operatives code-named Frodo.

"He's in a lot of pain, Casey. They'd only activate him for special missions." In other words, 'I don't wear them all the time, they make my fingers hurt.'

Casey grunted his understanding.

"Don't you guys have any backup?" asked Ellie.

"I am the backup," snapped Casey. Morgan and especially Alex had never arrived, from the look of it, which was both good news and bad. "No one else knows where we are."

"What about Gandalf?" asked Ellie suddenly.

That name sounded familiar to Casey. Someone in authority. Beckman? "Who?"

"You know, the wizard behind Frodo."

Oh. Chuck. "Who was the bad guy in that movie? His name started with 'S'."

Shaw. "Sauron? Saruman?"

"Right. Sauron raided Hogwarts and took Gandalf away. We're on our own." Neither Sarah nor Ellie smiled at the slip, but only Ellie looked like she was working at it.

Justin smiled, and gave the order to proceed.

Ring agents took no chances with prisoners simply because they were supposedly cuffed, not since Chuck had disabled two while unconscious. They were just as aware as Casey of the many techniques for slipping free, and entered the room expecting them be free, armed, and ready.

Which they were not.

By the time the minion entered the cell, each prisoner had two guards with weapons aimed as a third released the chains. He affected to be shocked. "What, no anger, no bargaining? I admit despair is a good look for you but I didn't expect it so soon."

Casey couldn't be bothered to sneer at an underling who would never see his anger coming. Sarah just couldn't be bothered to sneer, while Ellie had the usual reaction to having guns aimed at her, which also didn't involve sneering.

"This way folks."

Casey went first, as always, while Ellie took middle position simply because Sarah couldn't walk that fast.

Justin sighed, and pointed at her feet. "Remove those."

"Sir, Leader ordered us to put them on."

"Leader also ordered us to put these prisoners in the Kill Box ASAP. Are you willing to carry her?"

No, he was not willing to carry her. Bad things happened to male agents who came into any sort of contact with female prisoners, Leader was both weird and brutal like that. Instead he knelt and removed the shackles as ordered.

Sarah stepped meekly into place behind Ellie as he backed away safely.

Justin was done even pretending to be polite. "Let's go."

The Ring agents monitoring the cell brought up the hall cameras as the clot of guards and prisoners moved toward the door. Justin and his team were in the hall receiving the three prisoners from the group still in the room when the building shook, and the lights flickered. Several monitors cut out and were a few seconds slow in coming back up from the battery backups.

The hall was littered with guards, none of them upright. Precious seconds were lost attempting to regain the prisoners on any screen. "Sound the alarm," growled the senior man, over the sound of the alarm.

The door crashed inward under the impact of Casey's booted foot, and neither man had time to sound any warnings. Casey went for the nearest, head butting him as he rose from his chair and hitting him hard with his knee as he fell back in. Sarah swirled around Casey, taking out the other guard with her newly-freed feet.

"Ellie?"

"Coming," said the doctor, shouldering her way into the room with Justin's keys in her hand. "Picking pockets while cuffed isn't as easy as they make it look on TV."

"No complaints, doctor. Just wanted to make sure you were okay. That was good work out there." He held out his hands.

"Sarah first, John, she's shorter." Sarah held out her hands, and Ellie fumbled the key into one of the holes. "It was an accident, anyway. I just wanted to keep Justin off you, I didn't mean to knock him out."

"Pansy had a glass jaw," snarled Casey. "He should be glad it was your accident and not mine."

Once freed, Sarah released Casey and then Ellie herself as John collected weapons and restrained the fallen guards.

"How'd you know, Bartowski?"

Sarah accepted a weapon, but checked the load herself. "Low power cameras. The receiver had to be pretty close, and this room is centered geometrically." They went back to the cell, collecting guns and dragging guards into the room, locking them in.

"Now what?" asked Ellie nervously.

"Up," said Casey.

"Down," said Sarah. "Leader had to come from somewhere, and that's where she's probably going."

"Up," Casey said again. "Whatever that was, and I'll lay even odds Grimes had something to do with it, it sounds like they blew a hole in the front door. If Alex is with him…" Casey lifted his gun.

"If she's with him you have to go to her," agreed Sarah. "But I have to get the world's foremost authority on, uh, football out of here, and that back door is our best bet. All the guards will be headed topside, in any case."

Casey smiled.

Sarah smiled back. "Happy hunting."

Carina stood up. "You just what?"

"Flashed."

So that's what it looked like. "How? You're not supposed to be able to do that out of the lab."

Chuck looked around, found the glasses and picked them up. "My father's code must have reactivated everything." He put a hand on the table as he stuck them in his pocket. "A Zamibian scientist, Dr. Kowambe, performed illegal experiments on cell regeneration and passed them to the Ring when he was here as part of a diplomatic delegation last month."

"And you're thinking…?"

Chuck wasn't thinking anything. He saw it all as clearly as the beauty on Carina's face. "Shaw. He fell, but no one found the body. They could've repaired it, and at the same time put the Fulcrum Intersect into him. That's how he knew Sarah killed his wife, that information must have been in their version. I know it's not in ours."

He wasn't supposed to know what was in the Intersect. "Chuck, I have to get you out of here. Until the data is removed you have to be kept safe."

"I have to save Sarah."No whining, no pleading. Just stating a universal truth.

Of course you do. "Chuck, we don't even know that Sarah is anywhere near here."

Chuck looked over her shoulder, eyes wide. "Yes we do," he said, nodding at something.

She turned. On the monitor was a scene in a room somewhere, Ellie, Sarah, and Casey sitting, clearly restrained. Dammit. Carina folded her arms, tried to go for her tranq gun as casually as possible.

The door crashed open, Showtunes and the rest of the men falling back in good order through it. Carina looked but didn't see–

"Where's Dimples?" asked Chuck.

"That guy got him!"

"What guy?" Captain? Commander? Sole Survivor?

Carmichael shouted in Shaw's voice, "I know you're in there, Bartowski."

"That guy! He came outta nowhere, covered in blood, and we couldn't hit him with a single shot! Dimples went hand-to-hand to buy us time, but this guy moves as fast as you."

"Come out, Bartowski. I can kill this man easily but I'd rather kill you. If I have to fight my way in there every death will be on your head."

Carmichael wouldn't want to kill an innocent man, would he? Chuck could no longer say. He looked to Carina for any suggestions, but she was coming up as empty as he was.

"You gotta save Dimples, Tough Guy, you're the only one who can."

Chuck nodded. "A janitor's gotta do what a janitor's gotta do." He took off his guns and his grenades, anything that might slow him down, and handed them off to Carina.

"Take him down, Chuck. Take him all the way down."

Chuck's brave front faded as he stepped through the doorway. He could kill Carmichael easily, but what of Shaw? How could he condemn two men to the same death for completely opposite crimes? Could he even kill him at all? Carmichael could, but Chuck was not Carmichael, never wanted to be him again, so limited in what he could do or even wanted to do. "You will let him go, Shaw. Now."

"Of course I will, Bartowski, I have no argument with good men." Carmichael pushed Dimples to one side. "Why give you any advantage?" He raised his weapon.

Chuck walked slowly, circling toward his boss as Carmichael circled away. "I already have the advantage, Shaw. There's nothing you can do that I can't do better."

"I am not Shaw. I am Charles Carmichael." He fired.

Chuck evaded the bullet easily. "Please," Chuck sneered, "No one's Charles Carmichael, least of all you. You're a caricature, a joke. You should go away now."

"You'll have to kill me."

"Nah. I've already killed you once. It wasn't hard. I'm surprised Shaw hasn't done it already, you being so protective of Sarah Walker and all." He helped Dimples rise and move out of the way.

Carmichael flinched. "Her name's not Walker, it's–it's–my wife. Carmichael. Sarah Carmichael."

Chuck's brows rose in pretend surprise. "Sarah Walker? Your wife, Shaw? Now why can't I believe that?"

"My name's not Shaw!"

"Whatever. But I'll tell you this. If you really were Charles Carmichael, you'd agree with me about one thing."

"What's that, Bartowski?"

Chuck looked past him, at Carina and the others watching by the door. "I have to save Sarah." He turned and ran down the hallway Shaw had come from.

"Chuck!" yelled Carina, and she took a step after him, but Carmichael turned on her, gun raised. Dimples leapt between them.

"Bartowski is mine!" Carmichael backed down the hall, making sure the others didn't move.

Only after the sound of his running feet faded in the distance did Carina push out from behind Dimples. "I'm going after Chuck."

He tried to stop her. "Are you nuts?"

She shrugged him off. "I have to. When Sarah's in danger, Chuck's the most dangerous man in the state." Dimples nodded his understanding as she backed away. "I need you to stay here and clean up this mess, starting with that room."

"How?" he shouted at her back.

"You've got C4, don't you?" Then she was gone.

"C4, she says. No, I don't have any C4," he muttered, "That stuff's dangerous." He turned to his crew. "You guys remember what common household chemicals can be mixed to make high explosives? 'Cause we need a lot of it."

Ellie was much better suited for creeping and skulking than she was for running flat out. "Remind me why we're doing this again?"

Sarah was annoyingly in-of-breath. "Hey, at least this time we know there's an exit down there. I'd hate to be Leader right about now."

(puff)(puff) "Why?" (puff)(puff)

"An explosion up above and Daniel Shaw down below? She looks like the type that likes to have a fallback position."

And now she doesn't? "So why are we running?"

"Because I really doubt–" (puff)(puff) "–that the emergency exit from this base only leads to another base." (puff)(puff) "There has to be a second exit, and that's where she'd be going." (puff)(puff) "That's one of our two advantages."

"What's the other?"

"Speed. I doubt she can run."

Leader rose from her chair, cursing her feeble body for not being faster. It forced her to plan ahead but she longed for the days when she could respond quickly to emergencies. Soon, soon. With her usual unhurried and unhurriable steps she went to her private elevator.

Carmichael sped along the tunnel, not as fast as he wanted, keeping an eye out for whatever devilish traps Bartowski might throw in his way. When he came upon the side tunnel he spared it a quick glance to make sure Bartowski wasn't inside, then closed the hatch and shot the controls. No one would be getting the drop on him from there.

Ellie practically ran into Sarah's back as she drew up short, hissing her frustration. "Somebody's coming. In there, quick." There being another storage room. They stepped inside, Sarah closing the door while Ellie got the lights. The darkness was a relief to Sarah's eyes.

Whoever it was, they were in a hurry. And alone. Not reinforcements, then. Even so, Sarah was more than willing to let one enemy agent go by if it meant getting Ellie to safety. Let Casey take care of this one.

The footsteps faded away, and Sarah stepped away from the door. Grasping the knob firmly, she twisted silently and opened it.

The door pushed against her hand as something flew into the room with a clatter, and then the door pulled shut again.

"What the hell–?"

"Ellie!"

The room erupted in bright light as the flashbang went off. Sarah's eyes were doubly stricken, and she could barely hear the sound of the door slamming open, pushing her into Ellie. "Freeze!...Sarah?"

Sarah tried to remove her hands, but her eyes weren't happy even with the normal light spilling into the room behind him. "Chuck, is that you?" she asked, wincing in pain.

"What's the matter, Sarah?" He moved forward, making it worse.

"You just blinded us, Chuck," shouted Ellie. "She has a minor concussion, and she's sensitive to light."

The silhouetted shape turned and closed the door most of the way, cutting off most of the light. Sarah felt Chuck's arms go around her, and she settled gratefully into the shadows he cast there. Warm, firm and gentle, like a bed she wanted to lie in forever, but she couldn't wrap her arms around a bed.

"I'm sorry. If I'd only known it was you–"

"How'd you know we were here at all?" Sarah asked his chest. Lub. Dub.

"Door shut, lights out. Neither of them standard Ring practice," he said, as if it was obvious, and maybe to him it was. "I fla-uh, remember Shaw's data."

"You what?" Sarah raised her head, blinking. "You can't–"

"Yes I can," he said over her. "Dad fixed the…thing, but now I remember a lot more than I used to."

"How?" asked Ellie.

"These," said Chuck, pulling the glasses from his pocket. The rest was obvious.

Sarah dropped her head to see what he was holding. "Gimme!" She plucked the dark glasses from her husband's grasp.

He chuckled. "Sure, take 'em, I was only going to give them to you anyway."

"Of course you were." Just like him, always had what she needed. She put the glasses on.

The earpieces detected to pressure of her head, but the sensors in the frames had already validated Chuck's retinal patterns and were not programmed to do so a second time. Upload Two initiated.