A/N: Part one of Helicopter. This is far less of a deep dive, far less dialogue, although still some. More thoughts, less rewriting the show. More original thoughts and explaining about post finale time, which is also original. Also picking out what I think is important, as well as little bits here and there that I want to make sense of. Here goes.

John Casey.

I could write a book just on what I don't know about John Casey. Or Alex Coburn, I should say. In the course of our partnership in the joint Black Ops team, Chuck and I learned, through the Intersect, that Alex Coburn was Casey's real name. Amazingly enough, that is literally almost all we know of him before we met him, even now, almost 20 years later. Granted, Casey is an entirely different person today than that man Chuck and I confronted on the rooftop of the building when we were waiting for extraction. But the change was within the parameters of what we knew, which was next to nothing.

Alex Coburn was a marine. I assume he enlisted when he was 18. Most gung-ho military types without college degrees usually do. He was stationed in Central America in the 1980s. In 1989, he was training and testing for Special Ops with the Marines in Nicaragua. He failed to make the cut during that trial and was due to be shipped back with his regular unit. Colonel James Keller was his commanding officer.

Apparently, Keller saw something in Coburn that the Special Ops commander did not. He offered Coburn a chance to be part of a special Black Ops team. The only stipulation? Coburn had to fake his own death and assume a new identity. Alex Coburn chose to do so…and John Casey was born on the same day Coburn died.

Alex Coburn was engaged to a woman named Kathleen McHugh. Taking up Keller on his offer meant leaving her behind, letting her believe he had been killed. Casey chose that as well. What Casey didn't know was that Kathleen was pregnant, in the very early stages. Casey told us he thought she was trying to tell him the last time he spoke to her, but that Keller hung up on her before she could finish what she was saying. Either way, Casey didn't know. I honestly believe if he had, there is no way John Casey would ever have existed. No matter what else, John Casey would not shirk the responsibility of being a father just for the sake of his military service. That just isn't how he's built.

I sometimes wonder how a man who supposedly loved his fiancée as much as he loved Kathleen could have willfully put her through what he did. She grieved for him, mourned him, and we found out later, for a very long time. Longer than was healthy, longer than she should have before she tried to move on. Somewhere in his mind, I guess, Casey rationalized that it was for the greater good, for his country, and that it was for a noble purpose. At least, that's what I tell myself, because trying to actually figure out John Casey's emotional state and motivations is more than the job is worth. He's an enigma. But we love him like family.

We don't know where he grew up, if he had any siblings or friends. No idea if his parents were alive or if he even had any. It is possible he enlisted in the marines because he had no family. A lot of orphans and wards of the state do…it's sometimes the only feasible option when opportunities are limited. The military provided shelter and food and a means to support oneself financially. All in all, not bad, so long as you were willing to trade every day of the rest of your life for it. That may be a little dramatic, but at least when I think of Casey, that's honestly what I feel he did.

Casey chose that. He was red, white and blue, all-American as apple pie. God, honor, duty, Corps, in that order. He naively assumed that everyone in any form of public service–military, police, government officials–was doing so for the same reasons. He often berated me for not "honoring the sacrifice I chose to make" when I jeopardized our missions, early on, because of what I felt for Chuck. He learned later that I had that choice made for me…and that I wasn't in the same category as him, and never had been, even on my best day.

Whatever he did or didn't have when it came to family and friends in 1989, he left them all behind when he became John Casey. Fast forward 18 more years and there was the burn-out Graham had warned me about on the phone. Cold school killer. That was John Casey. He made the choice, but that didn't mean the choice was easy, or that he never regretted it, or thought about what it was he gave up. I'm speculating, because, let me tell you, Casey would be the first one to say he didn't care about his own feelings, most certainly not sharing them. All I know is someone as dead on the inside as he was the day I met him has something they are forcing down inside to a place that no one can touch. I was there myself, and I would have continued down that path ten years removed from his plight had I not met Chuck. Fortunately for Casey, Chuck transformed literally everyone he came in contact with.

Casey called it "going soft." He swore that Chuck had caused that in both himself, me, and General Beckman. I don't disagree. What I disagree with is the connotation that "going soft" is somehow a bad thing. I again can't speak for Casey, but I prefer feeling soft and melty inside to feeling hard and frozen. It's good to feel your own heart and what flows from it. Being frozen solid is unsustainable, a sure way to guarantee an early grave. The problem with being frozen is that an early grave sounds like a blessing instead of a curse.

Today, Casey is a part of our family. As I have mentioned before, he is Morgan's father-in-law, grandfather to Morgan and Alex, his daughter's, children…as well as a substitute grandfather to Chuck and my children as well, considering my own father is much too capricious to partake in the family life we have. Casey worked with my husband and me at our cybersecurity firm, Carmichael Industries, until a year ago, when he retired. He was our head of security, and he also sometimes moonlighted as a member of his girlfriend, Gertrude's, security firm as well. Casey actually left Burbank right after I lost my memory, which was really hard on Chuck at the time, but my husband was the first one to say he was glad Casey had found someone who made him happy, who he loved, and Chuck was happy for him, wishing him well and letting him go.

He spent almost a year in Germany with Gertrude while Chuck was helping me remember our life together. He kept in touch through Morgan and Alex, who lived together in Morgan and Casey's old apartment. He hates when I use the word "sweet," but he was very sweet during that time. His sole purpose was keeping tabs on how much and what I remembered, never failing at any opportunity to tell me what an outstanding human being Chuck was, as if I didn't already know even after just being with him for a few days.

Casey came back to Burbank when I was three months pregnant with our first child…after Gertrude Verbanski was killed on a mission. He never talked to me, ever, about what happened over there. I know he told Chuck, which blows my mind thinking how awful that must have been, how hard it was for Casey to show that kind of emotion. But Casey trusted Chuck like a brother, and over the transition from just team member to friend, Casey had learned Chuck was a good listener and could provide expert emotional support, something most men just failed at. I do know that Chuck told me it was the only time in 20 years that Chuck ever saw Casey with tears in his eyes, wet eyelashes and the whites of his eyes pink. The closest thing I remember was at our wedding, when I saw a glimpse of him while Chuck was saying his vows.

I believe from very generic information that Chuck did tell me, Gertrude died protecting Casey. It seems like he was there with her when she died, which is the most traumatic. Chuck's own father died in his arms and he was never the same afterward. Casey came home to be with his family, which was the right thing to do for him, it seemed. We all grew closer. More of my memories came back once he was there every day.

Casey was slow to heal, but he did heal. Morgan and Alex getting engaged and planning their wedding helped as well. Mostly because he ended up spending a lot of time with Alex's mother, Kathleen, his former fiancée who had mourned for him for 20 years. Just like I don't know how someone could justify hurting someone they profess to love, I don't know where Kathleen found the strength and grace to forgive him for letting her believe the love of her life was dead for 20 years, but she did. I mean, she did probably know him better than anyone, so she could understand it at least. Once Casey knew that, the two of them getting together again was easier.

I once told myself it was because he was available again, but I have to remind myself that when she first found out that he was really alive, he was available–that is, not in a relationship with anyone. He wasn't, however, available, not like that. That emotional awakening in him came later, coincidentally after Chuck and I were married. Casey was actively getting relationship advice from me, if you can believe that. Shows you how inept he really was in the beginning. Which also shows what enormous strides he made during that time.

Kathleen came to our wedding with her boyfriend, but that was the last thing they did together as a couple. Alex never told her father what was going on, feeling it was just too awkward. Casey found out when he returned that Kathleen had been single for a while. Their love bloomed from there…flowers once dead on the vine but resurrected just the same. Honest to goodness true love never dies. You don't get over it, instead you learn to live with it inside your heart…even while it slowly kills you with no outlet and no way to reciprocate. That was how I felt when Chuck and I weren't together. More of that later as well. Just know that once his heart was open, he could love Kathleen again, the way he had always wanted but thought that he couldn't and do the job he wanted to do. That was only possible because of Chuck in his life. I hear the "Ugh" now, but he just does that to deflect. We know the truth.

I preface the next chapter with this, because it seems very strange when you think about Casey the way I explained him from the day I started protecting Chuck. But like I said, he's a different person. I went to sleep in the morning in my hotel room and then went back to the Buy More posing as a customer, to check on Chuck.

He had gone to work after not sleeping at all, which was admirable, in my opinion. While I was sleeping, Casey had gotten himself hired at the Buy More in his role as one of Chuck's protectors. We were supposed to be working together, but I didn't trust Casey at all. I had been the one who convinced Graham, and I'm sure Graham worked on Beckman while Casey protested the whole time. I also believed any time he could, Casey would continue to make the case again for bunkering Chuck, leaving him free to leave and stop baby-sitting. If he was this close to Chuck at all times, I had to make sure I was just as close, so that Chuck was never just pulled out from under me the way I knew Casey could do if I didn't pay attention. Casey had no allegiance to anyone or anything other than his role as assassin.

Graham informed me later that evening that he had secured me a job interview in a fast food restaurant in the same plaza as the Buy More. It was called the Wienerlicious, a German style hot dog restaurant, although I use that term loosely. When the government did stuff like that, they doctored a resume or application to fit the job description to a t, or if that failed, intentionally sabotaged any of the other applicants for the same position. The uniform was ridiculous–a short circle skirt, a black corset, and a white peasant top, low cut. I even had to wear a plastic hot dog on a chain around my neck. The only way I could get out of wearing my hair in pigtails was if it was super short, which my hair was not. The manager, a young guy named Scooter, who took his job way too seriously, hired me on the spot. I told him I could start the next day.

Let me also state for the record that I am a horrible cook, in a restaurant setting, or in my home. Chuck cooks and I wash dishes and clean, although he helps sometimes, as he will say, for sometimes the Bartowski's cleaned when they were stressed. He started teaching our kids to cook too, which is the most adorable thing I know. My oldest two children, nine and seven, can do everything except cook in a frying pan and cut with a knife. The younger two, five and three, are great helpers and can set the table.

My first day on the job at Wienerlicious, I burned three batches of corn dogs in rapid succession. I was a master spy and top notch assassin…who couldn't deep fry a corn dog to save her life. This frustrating start to the day preempted me from telling Chuck why I was there and what I was doing. I ended up seeing him in the parking lot while I was cleaning off the outside table at the place. I think Casey was chasing a shoplifter and he was thus chasing Casey. I know Casey had the pleasure of telling Chuck that the CIA decided our cover was boyfriend-girlfriend. He grunted at me when he told me. It scared me a little how that made me feel, the situations that I imagined could transpire with that cover, and then where my mind was wandering. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before, and I was out of sorts.

In that same conversation, Casey also told me the NSA had an Intersect scientist they were making contact with, someone they were confident could extract the intel that Chuck had in his brain. It made sense. I did contact Graham and went over it all with him, because, like I said, I didn't trust Casey. I asked him why NSA. Graham gave me a cryptic answer, explaining that the CIA's Intersect experts were unavailable. I learned later that there were two of them…Howard Busgang, who had already been turned by Fulcrum at that very point in time, and Orion, better known as Stephen J. Bartowski, who had expunged his records and disappeared when Chuck was 16.

What worried me more, and what I kept to myself, was the original reason why Graham had sent me. Elimination, just like he had suggested on the phone. If this scientist could extract the Intersect, what happened to Chuck? Was the CIA just going to let him go back to his life, pretend nothing had happened at all? Graham made it sound like that would never happen, but I was wary. I knew better. I tried to take everything one moment at a time.

Chuck confronted me inside the Wienerlicious, watching me throw out that third burnt batch of corn dogs. Everything he said made sense. The CIA and NSA had much better things for us to do than cook corn dogs and sell barbeque grills. I just had to sell it to Chuck, get him on board. It wasn't hard, considering how much turmoil Chuck was in just 24 hours later, feeling his life was spiraling out of control. I posed it as another fake date, smiling as genuinely as I could. He accepted, but seemed almost too happy about it…like it was real. He was a little awkward, a little nervous, and then just went back to the Buy More mumbling under his breath. I called Graham and let him know it was a go.

The man's name was Jonas Zarnow. I had read his entire file, the parts that weren't redacted. He seemed to have been working with the Intersect, or at least the idea of it, way before September 11th, what Graham had explained had prompted the initiation of the computer in the first place. Reading that file, it seemed that the Intersect had been adapted to that purpose, rather than created because of it. There were a few random mentions of Omaha, which further solidified my thinking that the original project had been an early version of that computer.

I asked Chuck to meet me outside when I told him I would pick him up for our fake date. He was literally standing on the sidewalk outside the apartment complex. He was dressed very similarly to the way he had been dressed on our first date–button-down shirt and jeans. Casual, but it suited him. It made him look comfortable. I liked thinking of him as comfortable.

I had ended up purchasing a car…a newer model of the Porsche I had been renting when I arrived in Burbank. It didn't exactly fit with my cover–working at a fast food restaurant and driving an expensive sports car. Working for the CIA had a few perks, if you will. I didn't have a rent or mortgage, almost all my expenses were covered as work expenses, everything I owned fit in one suitcase. I had almost nothing that I needed to spend my money on just for me. The car was a luxury, but something that I really liked. It was easy to justify it to myself.

Chuck commented on my extravagant vehicle the moment I arrived. I was trying to keep everything neutral, reminding myself that I had no act to put on, no one I needed to pretend to be. All I had to be was sympathetic and calming, handling him, so to speak, so that I ensured he did what I needed him to do. There was actually very little manipulation involved when it came to Chuck, at least in terms of that. He was very high on the agreeable scale. He asked about what we were doing, although he knew it wasn't a real date. I hadn't explained before, just in case he might have been a little nervous about it.

My driving made him nervous. I sort of already knew that from the other night, but that had been defensive driving at the CIA best. My casual driving, foot the floor, zipping in and out of other cars, had him white-knuckling the door handle. He didn't say anything, but I heard him gasp a lot, when we were what he thought was too close to another car or I was going too fast to stop at a safe distance, or what he gauged safe, anyway.

I took him to the Buy More, which had been the agreed upon neutral location for Zarnow to examine Chuck. We also agreed that in no way should Chuck's identity be revealed to Zarnow. The less people who knew Chuck's status, the better. At this point in time, there were only four other people who knew that Chuck Bartowski was the Intersect–me, Casey, Beckman, and Graham. Sure, there were some higher-ups in the DNI, generals and that sort, but so far removed from us it didn't really matter. Inside the Buy More, I explained what it was that we thought was going to happen.

The mention of a doctor freaked Chuck out. Chuck has what is clinically known as trypanophobia, intense fear of needles. That was the first thing he asked me, if needles were involved. I tried to keep him calm, smiling, telling him this was the best way for him to get the Intersect out and get his life back. That was motivating enough, it seemed, to work to try and conquer that fear.

We sealed Chuck inside the Home Theater room, having previously rewired that room as a defensive location because of the surveillance necessary at Chuck's place of work. It was minimal and meant to be short-term, as the plan was to remove the Intersect as soon as possible.

Casey seemed fine with Zarnow. I don't know if it was because he knew Zarnow was NSA, just like him…seems likely. I thought he was a little too eager to see Chuck, insisting that it was no problem for him to see patient X as he called him. There was no reason aside from morbid curiosity for that, and I held firm that he was not to be revealed. Casey backed me up when Zarnow asked more questions, which was heartening. At least he was following orders, regardless of anything else. Casey was always best at following orders.

Zarnow ran the test. I know it was just a series of photographs, both Intersect images and generic picture frame photos. Casey and I could hear Chuck's voice in the microphone. He was calm, casual as he started listing off what sounded like random things. When Zarnow switched to Intersect photos, it was obvious. Chuck's voice changed when he started to flash…monotone but succinct explanations in rapid fire order, bits of information firing at Zarnow faster than he could type it into his laptop.

When it was over, Zarnow was speechless. His exact words: "Your patient is amazing. We never imagined this." When I asked him what he didn't imagine, he replied: "One person seeing all the Intersect images," like I was crazy for even asking. When Casey asked him if he could remove the Intersect, Zarnow said he could.

My mind was racing. Up to this point, I think I had convinced myself of the total random accidental nature of all of this. Anyone who had seen that email Bryce had sent…Chuck, but maybe Morgan or his sister…or some other random guest at his birthday party…would have had the same thing happen, because that was what the Intersect was designed to do. It was a shock to learn that the scientist who had worked on encoding the images in Chuck's head was amazed that Chuck had retained it all. It worked better in Chuck than it had ever been hoped that it would work in anyone else, trained spies included. I would be lying if I said Omaha never crossed my mind here. That was what all the testing had been about…searching for a mind able to tolerate the subliminal messages. Omaha was mentioned in Zarnow's file.

A trained spy knows coincidences almost never happen. I don't mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist, by any means, but when something seems oddly coincidental, my senses perk up. It's the way I'm wired, and it served me well in my career. Bryce randomly sends the Intersect to the best candidate the original designers had ever envisioned? I had other things to worry about at the moment, but that thought nagged at me, never completely receding to the back of my mind, even beyond this episode.

The whole thing from start to finish took about three hours. I drove him home, telling him in case his sister asked to tell her we had gone out for sushi. I gave him the name of a restaurant we had driven by. Once I pulled up outside his apartment, he asked me about the test and how he did. I told him he did great, smiling that same smile that made my cheeks hurt, before I could even tell myself to rein it in. Before he got out of the car, he told me his sister had invited me for dinner the next night, that she wanted to meet me. His new girlfriend, the one who had kept him out until sunrise on our first date.

"Meeting the family is a big step if our relationship were remotely real," he said.

I couldn't help myself, my imagination buzzing in my head while I tried to not stare at his face, his eyes pulling me in despite my best efforts. What if I was his new girlfriend? He had told me about meeting Captain Awesome…now it seemed I was about to do just that. I liked it more than I wanted to admit to myself. I don't know what showed on my face, but I wasn't batting eyelashes…I wasn't flirting. But he looked nervous, and shifted his eyes downward into his lap.

He asked about what would happen if Zarnow's plan worked. We were through. I said yes, mm hmm, like it was nothing. He looked a little deflated, but recovered quickly. I did my best to disguise the disappointing tug I felt inside me until he was out of the car. On day four, this was one of the longest individual missions I had ever been on, and I was getting wistful about it ending too soon. More unsettling feelings that I bottled up and pushed down.

He got out of the car, then leaned back in the window. With the most charming smile I think I have ever seen, he said sheepishly, "Just so you know, this has been the best…only second date I've been on in years." I just smiled, feeling like my heart had melted like butter and ran down the inside of me all the way to my feet.

It was that much harder when I was alone again, not only dreading the end of this mission, but wondering what in the world I was going to do if Graham ordered me to assassinate him if the Intersect was successfully extracted. I had never hesitated at all with anything like that he had ever ordered me to do…but I honestly didn't know how I would be able to do it.

Before, I had been afraid of how easily I had learned to kill. Now, I was afraid of why, all of a sudden, it had become so difficult to even contemplate.