CyberChuck2077

Chapter 2 – The Apartment

The apartment fell quiet again.

For the first time since Sarah had dragged her bruised, blood-soaked body through the shattered window of the law firm, the world had gone eerily still. There was no rattling roar of heavy machine-gun fire, no high-pitched shrieks of corporate alarm systems, no screaming, and no armored gunship hovering in the tempest outside, threatening to convert high-end architecture into pulverized concrete.

Only the steady, low-frequency hum of the budget air-conditioning unit mounted high on the wall.

And the rain, drumming against the bulletproof glass of the condo. After the front door clicked shut, Sarah sat motionless on the microfiber couch for several seconds, staring into space. Her head was tilted slightly, her ear tuned to the heavy oak paneling. She tracked Chuck's footfalls down the carpeted hallway outside.

One.

Two.

Three.

Then, nothing. The corridor swallowed the sound completely.

Sarah’s gaze drifted slowly toward the deadbolt. The lock had engaged automatically as the door closed. She had watched him gather his jacket and step through that door with a bizarre, casual ease—no hesitation, no cautious backward glance, no strategic sweeping of the hallway perimeter. He had simply walked out of his own home on a Saturday morning to buy clean clothes and hot food for two strangers, one of whom had just held a combat knife to his throat.

Sarah didn't like it.

She liked it even less because she couldn't categorize him. Unpredictable targets were dangerous; unpredictable civilians were an absolute liability.

Pain tore through her abdominal wall the second she tried to stand, a sharp, white-hot reminder that her body was held together by fresh thread and sheer force of will. Her hand flew instinctively to her left flank, her fingers pressing lightly against the bandage.

The gauze held firm. So did Chuck's surprisingly neat sutures.

She looked down at herself, staring at the faded gray T-shirt swallowing her frame. Not hers. None of this was hers. The couch, the apartment, the expensive-looking equipment scattered across the tables. Not even the awkward guy who'd pulled her out of the kill zone.

Sarah pushed herself to her feet and spread her stance when the room tilted around her. She waited a moment, blinking until things settled, then checked the room.

Her priority was perimeter security. She moved to the heavy front door and inspected the lock assembly. Standard mechanical deadbolt paired with a basic digital pad—easily pickable, but intact. She checked the windows next, testing the frame seals and scanning the drop down into the wet, neon-lit alley below.

No emergency extraction routes. No pre-rigged escape lines.

Next came the sweep for surveillance. Sarah systematically checked the room's corners, ceiling light fixtures, air vents, and power outlets.

Nothing. No pinhole optical lenses, no acoustic bugs, no hidden hard drives, and no electronic monitoring gear sophisticated enough to belong to an intelligence handler or a corporate purger team.

The condo was painfully, almost offensively ordinary.

Almost.

Sarah’s eyes settled on the long folding table tucked against the far wall. That, she noted, was a glaring anomaly.

She limped toward the workstation, her eyes scanning the chaotic spread of circuit boards, half-disassembled handheld terminals, and cannibalized diagnostic interfaces. She reached out and picked up a heavy, custom-built handheld unit.

She flipped it over in her palm. The casing was brushed magnesium, completely stripped of manufacturer serial numbers or corporate branding. She noted the hand-soldered bus ports, three distinct data interface connections, a stripped drone processor, and a custom-flashed field intrusion module.

This wasn't hobbyist gear. This was high-level, military-adjacent breach hardware.

Sarah placed the device back onto the anti-static mat in the exact spot and orientation she had found it.

As her hand retreated, she noticed a framed photograph resting on a narrow bookshelf beside the desk. She stepped closer, her sharp eyes picking out the details.

The picture showed Chuck. Younger—considerably younger—standing inside a brightly lit, sterile corporate office surrounded by a group of smiling, suited executives. He looked virtually identical to the man who had just left: same unruly mop of hair, same broad shoulders, the same slightly awkward, self-conscious posture.

But his expression was different. He was smiling with genuine, unburdened pride.

Sarah’s eyes narrowed as she leaned in. Resting directly behind the glass frame was a polished brass plaque.

EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH — CIKEN SYSTEMS ANALYTICS

Sarah stared at the plaque. Then at the younger Chuck in the photo. Then back at the plaque.

The ghost of a smirk twitched at the corner of her lips. Almost.

"Of course," she murmured under her breath—a middle-tier corporate cog.

She went to set the frame down, but her gaze caught a second photograph partially hidden in its shadow. This one was older. Considerably older.

It depicted Chuck standing on the paved courtyard of a towering corporate monolith, wearing a formal dress jacket that looked a size too large for his frame. Hanging around his neck by a dark blue ribbon was a heavy, blackened metallic cross.

Sarah stepped closer, her eyes fixed on the small, silver-engraved plate beneath the image.

DISTINGUISHED 4 YEAR SERVICE — 4th CORPORATE WAR

The room seemed to grow cold. Sarah’s expression hardened, and every trace of lighthearted amusement evaporated.

The Corporate War wasn't a team-building exercise or a regional business dispute. It had been a brutal, unacknowledged meat-grinder. Entire subsidiary companies had been vaporized in night raids; orbital data hubs had been detonated over ocean trenches; black-budget purge teams had cleared out whole office towers in broad daylight while local governments looked the other way.

And Chuck Bartowski had been in the thick of it.

Sarah studied his face in the second photograph. He didn't carry himself like a hardened mercenary or a cold-blooded company assassin. He looked miserable. He looked uncomfortable, deeply pained, and utterly embarrassed to wear the heavy piece of metal resting on his chest.

She swept her eyes over the small apartment again. The chaotic mess on the workbench suddenly took on an entirely different context. It wasn't the random junk of a tech enthusiast. It was the tailored kit of someone who knew precisely how corporate networks worked, how they broke, and how to survive when they failed.

She stepped toward the active monitor on the desk. A diagnostic terminal was quietly scrolling lines of raw system code. Sarah couldn't decipher the script's complex architecture, but she recognized its function: a deep-level network sniffer silently monitoring local corporate frequencies for ping spikes and security flags.

She reached for the keyboard, paused, and slowly drew her hand back.

Not yet.

This apartment had no military trophies. No weapons mounted on the walls, no tactical webbing hanging in the closet, no framed mission commendations, and no classified dossiers left out on the coffee table. Just a quiet, cluttered home belonging to a man who possessed far more lethal technical capability than he let on.

Sarah looked back at the Employee of the Month plaque, and then at the Corporate War medal—two entirely contradictory identities coexisting in the same space. Neither made sense.

A soft rustle of movement sounded behind her.

Sarah turned smoothly, her hand dropping toward her waist out of sheer habit before she remembered she was disarmed.

Lisa stood in the doorway, wearing oversized flannel socks bunched around her ankles. The little girl looked at the framed photograph in Sarah's hand, then raised her eyes to meet Sarah's cold gaze.

"That's Chuck," Lisa said softly.

Sarah looked down at the image of the young man in the dress jacket. "I know."

Lisa nodded sagely, her expression unbothered. "He won."

Sarah raised an eyebrow. "Won what?"

Lisa offered a tiny, indifferent shrug. "Something."

Sarah felt a small, involuntary breath through her nose. "Helpful."

Lisa offered a serene, almost conspiratorial smile.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Meanwhile, three floors down inside the massive, cavernous retail concourse of the Liandri & McKay Tower, Chuck Bartowski was suffering a quiet, existential breakdown.

He had made one catastrophic, fundamental error in judgment: he assumed buying basic domestic supplies would be much easier than breaching a secure twenty-third-floor law firm.

It wasn't.

Breaking into the law firm followed logical rules: predictable code, laser grids, and electronic bypasses.

Shopping, on the other hand, involved choices. Infinite, paralyzing choices.

Chuck stood frozen in the middle of a brightly lit, automated convenience hub, staring down the clothing aisle with profound, helpless dread.

"This is objectively harder than the lasers," he muttered.

He reached out, grabbed a generic gray cotton shirt, looked at it, and put it back immediately. He picked up another. Too small. Another. Horrifyingly bright neon orange.

"Okay," Chuck whispered, pressing two fingers against his temple to stave off an impending headache. "She is approximately… what? Five-seven? Five-eight? Tactical posture, lean build, highly likely to snap my neck if I get this wrong."

He stopped, staring blankly at the metal shelving. He didn't know her size. Of course he didn't. He had known her for roughly twelve hours, and approximately eleven of those hours had been spent amidst high-explosive ordnance, airborne shattered glass, grand theft auto escape, bedroom surgery, and some minor rest. Not counting the incident with her magical knife.

Chuck looked down at the plastic basket resting in his arm's crook.

Two plain shirts. A pair of gray drawstring sweatpants. A warm fleece jacket for Lisa, small pants, T-shirts. Socks.

Then his eyes drifted to the next display rack. Chuck stood frozen in the middle of the brightly lit apparel aisle, feeling as though he had wandered directly into a psychological landmine engineered specifically to break his spirit.

Underwear.

It was a simple, everyday necessity of human civilization. Yet, standing here in the middle of the automated concourse market, faced with the sheer, suffocating volume of options, Chuck felt a cold sweat break out on the back of his neck. The problem was not Lisa’s.

"Okay," he muttered under his breath, his eyes wide as he stared at the wall of packaged intimates. "Okay, don't panic, Chuck. You have a degree from Mironov-Ji. You solved complex data-encryption matrices before breakfast. You can figure out basic female attire."

Except he couldn't. Because the options weren't logical. They were an absolute chaotic nightmare.

He reached out a trembling hand, hovering over a rack of delicate, black lace-trimmed pairs. He snatched his hand back as if the fabric had bitten him.

Lace? he thought, his brain spiraling into overdrive. Why would anyone wear lace under tactical gear? Is lace aerodynamic? No, of course it’s not aerodynamic! What if I buy her lace, and she thinks I’m making a move? What if she thinks I’m being inappropriately romantic with a woman who literally held a six-inch combat blade to my neck twenty minutes ago?!

He shifted two inches left, his eyes falling on a display of seamless, minimalist thongs.

Chuck’s throat went bone-dry. He stared at the packaging in absolute horror.

"Oh, God, no," he whispered frantically, darting a paranoid glance over his shoulder to see if any passersby were watching his internal collapse. A thong?! If I hand a lethal, highly trained corporate operative a pair of satin thongs, she won't just refuse them—she’ll execute me on principle. She’ll use the thong to strangle me! It’s practically a weapon in a professional's hands!

And then came the secondary, even more terrifying layer of the crisis: the sizing.

Chuck picked up a package and squinted at the small grid on the back. Small. Medium. Extra Small.

He stared at the letters, his mind churning through terrifying scenarios.

If I buy Extra Small and it’s too tight, it’s going to compress her abdominal wound, tear out my meticulously placed sutures, and cause her to bleed out on my carpet again. But if I buy Large…

Chuck shuddered as a cold chill ran down his spine.

If I buy Large, she’s going to look at the label, assume I think she’s out of shape, take it as a profound personal insult to her elite physical conditioning, and snap my collarbone in three places.

"There is no statistically safe choice here," Chuck whimpered, pressing his palm flat against his forehead. "Every single option leads directly to severe bodily harm or death."

He stood there for two full minutes, paralyzed, holding a box of silk briefs in one hand and a pack of basic cotton hipsters in the other, debating whether it would be less dangerous to go back to the apartment and tell her he'd failed the mission entirely.

And then, his gaze drifted past the lace, past the silk, and landed on an adjacent display three pegs down in the activewear aisle.

A mannequin’s bust sat under a bright LED spotlight, wearing a seamless, moisture-wicking charcoal-gray sports bra paired with high-waisted, stretchy athletic compression shorts.

Chuck froze.

His eyes widened. The metaphorical lightbulb above his head didn't just turn on; it detonated like a flashbang.

"Wait…" Chuck breathed, stepping closer as if approaching a holy artifact. "Wait a second."

He stared at the athletic wear, his brain rapidly running through the parameters.

She wasn't a civilian going to a cocktail party. She wasn't looking for luxury or delicate fashion. She was a machine—a high-velocity, combat-hardened weapon currently recovering from a major traumatic injury.

"Sports stuff," Chuck whispered, a manic, triumphant grin slowly spreading across his face. "Of course! Athletic gear!"

It was the ultimate, flawless tactical solution.

First: Fit. Sports bras and high-waisted performance shorts were made of heavy elastane and spandex. They stretched! They had forgiving, flexible sizing parameters! A 'Medium' in performance activewear had a variable margin of error that could accommodate a wide range of athletic builds without insulting anyone's intelligence or anatomy!

Second: Functionality. High-waisted athletic shorts wouldn't dig into her waistline. They would sit smoothly over her bandages, providing gentle, firm support to her lower core without irritating the surgical thread holding her flank together.

Third: The Vibe. It was entirely, beautifully, unequivocally non-creepy. It didn't scream 'romantic gesture' or 'awkward civilian guess.' It screamed: I acknowledge that you are a dangerous professional who needs to move quickly and comfortably while recovering from a shrapnel wound.

"It’s perfect," Chuck declared softly to the empty aisle, a wave of profound relief washing over him. "It’s practical, it’s functional, it’s non-threatening, and most importantly, it significantly lowers the statistical probability of me getting stabbed in my own living room!"

Feeling like a genius who had just cracked a zero-day security exploit, Chuck reached out and grabbed two pairs of seamless performance shorts and two high-impact, racerback sports bras in flexible athletic sizes.

He dumped them into his shopping basket with a triumphant thud, brushing his hands together with absolute satisfaction.

"Take that, corporate espionage," Chuck muttered happily, wheeling his cart toward the frozen pizza aisle. "Chuck Bartowski: 1. Terror-induced awkwardness: 0."

He reluctantly put the lacey items back, kept four sports ones, and let out a long, defeated sigh. "Whatever. She can execute me after she eats."

He pushed toward the automated grocer section, his mood brightening slightly when he spotted the thermal food units.

Pizza. Lisa had practically cheered at the word. That was a safe variable.

He grabbed two large frozen pizzas, the ones with the chemical heater in the box. The ads were at least true on these; they get backed in and pretty fast. Then he paused, remembering the terrifying amount of energy she could have expended while bleeding through her shirt. He grabbed a third.

He hovered over the display, his fingers twitching over a fourth.

"She looks like she could easily polish off a fourth pizza," Chuck reasoned softly. He paused, recalculating. "Or she'll murder me before the crust cools. Either way, extra calories are a net positive."

He dumped the fourth pizza into his cart.

As he headed to the self-checkout kiosks, Chuck's anxious mind drifted to his sister.

That was the absolute worst part of his life hitting a chaotic bump: whenever something completely insane happened, his brain instantly summoned the ghost of Ellie’s reaction.

What would Ellie say if she knew he was currently harboring a wounded, high-caliber operative and a quiet, mysterious child in his sublevel apartment? What would she do if she found out he had spent his Friday night using surgical thread to stitch up a gunshot victim on his living room floor?

He could practically hear her voice echoing in his ear, crisp, stern, and terrifyingly sharp: ‘Chuck! You brought an armed, bleeding fugitive into your home?!’

Chuck winced, ducking his head as he scanned his items at the kiosk.

“Technically, Ellie, she brought herself through the window of an office I tried to rob. I just handled the logistics.”

A teenage store clerk stocking shelves nearby gave him an utterly bewildered look.

Chuck offered a tight, polite smile and leaned over the scanner. "Just… double-checking the math. Carry on."

He imagined Ellie walking into his condo, finding the dark bloodstains in the bathroom sink, the ruined tactical vest shoved under the counter, the medical wrappings, and the lethal woman sitting on his couch summoning a fuckin’ combat knife out of thin air.

She wouldn't just yell at him. Yelling was manageable.

She would give him The Look. The heavy, soul-crushing, big-sister disappointment look that made him feel like he was eight years old again and had accidentally set the kitchen curtains on fire.

Chuck shuddered, grabbing his receipt as the kiosk beeped.

"Okay," he muttered, hauling the heavy, stuffed shopping bags onto his shoulders. "New rule: Ellie never, ever finds out about this. Ever."

He stepped into the concourse, the heavy plastic handles digging into his fingers. Left the armed story security guys. The thought of Ellie nagged at him, leaving a sour taste in his mouth. Ellie was the one person in his life he shared everything with. He didn't do covert secrets. He was a bad liar, a terrible actor, and an awful fugitive.

He stared down the tower's long, gleaming corridor.

"Great," Chuck sighed softly. "Now I have a big deal of black-ops secrets. Just great."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Back in the apartment, Sarah stood in front of the bookshelf again.

She had found a third frame tucked behind a stack of technical manuals. This one was different from the corporate awards and the war medal.

It was a candid shot of Chuck and a young woman with dark hair and sharp, expressive eyes. They were standing on a sunlit pier, his arm slung casually over her shoulders.

‘Love U, bro. Ellie’ was written with a faded Sharpie on the frame.

Sarah studied the image carefully. Chuck's eyes held an absolute, unfiltered warmth as he looked at his sister—a fierce, quiet protectiveness that required no military training or tactical armor.

It was the same look she had caught on his face when the heavy machine gun had opened fire through the window of the law firm, the split-second before he had thrown his body over Lisa to take the impact himself. It was the same look he had given Sarah before she passed out and he dragged her bleeding, unconscious body into the safety of the fire stairwell instead of running for his life.

Sarah set the photo down slowly, as if it hurt.

A cold, dangerous realization crystallized in her mind.

Chuck Bartowski wasn't brave because he was reckless, nor was he fearless because he thought he was invincible. He was brave because he had a fatal, unyielding instinct to protect people—an inability to abandon anyone in distress, regardless of the cost to himself.

That was terrifying.

Sarah had known people with that trait before. In her world, those were the operatives who ended up in unmarked graves, sacrificed to cover someone else's clean getaway.

Lisa wandered back into the living room, holding the modified gaming controller by its cord. "Chuck's coming back."

Sarah turned her head slowly toward the door, her hand resting near her flank. "How do you know?"

Lisa shrugged, matter-of-fact. "He's Chuck."

Sarah stared at the child. It wasn't an answer—not an operational one, at least. But to Lisa, it was an absolute, unshakeable truth.

A second later, the front door lock clicked, and Chuck stumbled into the entryway, laden with enough brightly colored shopping bags to survive a minor siege.

"I have returned!" Chuck announced, his voice echoing loudly in the quiet space as the door shut behind him.

He froze mid-step.

Sarah was standing by the bookshelf, watching him. She held a photograph of him in his dress uniform.

Chuck’s eyes locked onto the frame. Then they shifted to Sarah's calm, unreadable expression.

A heavy silence filled the room.

Chuck swallowed hard, his goofy demeanor faltering for a fraction of a second. He slowly pointed a thumb toward the picture. "That… Huh… that one?"

Sarah said nothing, her blue eyes tracking his every move.

Chuck cleared his throat and set the heavy bags on the floor with a soft plastic rustle. "Before you ask… yes. That's me."

Sarah's gaze drifted down to the silver inscription on the plaque. "4th Corporate War."

Chuck looked at the medal in the photograph. For a single, fleeting heartbeat, the goofy, civilian light behind his eyes vanished, replaced by a dark, heavy shadow—a glimpse of something old, exhausted, and deeply buried.

Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the shadow evaporated. The familiar, easygoing Chuck smile snapped back into place.

"Yeah," he said softly, offering a quiet, self-deprecating nod. "A long time ago."

Sarah studied the subtle shift in his posture, filing the information away.

Chuck turned to the little girl sitting on the rug and lifted one of the heavy thermal bags with a flourish. "So… who's ready for pizza?"

"Pizza!" Lisa cheered, sprang to her feet, and ran toward the kitchen counter with genuine childhood glee.

Chuck smiled and followed her to unpack the boxes.

Sarah stayed by the shelf, eyes fixed on Chuck's back as he pulled paper plates from a bag.

The apartment suddenly felt much smaller than it had twenty minutes ago.

For the first time since he dragged them out of the storm, Chuck realized Sarah hadn't spent her morning resting on his couch. She had been hunting through his past.

And Sarah realized that Chuck Bartowski had just risked his life, his home, and his quiet existence to buy food and clothes for a pair of ghosts he didn't know.

Neither of them said a word. The silence between them had shifted—they were no longer strangers, but something far more complicated.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Chuck nudged the cluster of plastic shopping bags across the counter, setting them down with a soft rustle right beside Sarah’s arm.

“I brought clothes,” Chuck said, his tone casual, though his eyes darted nervously to the faint smudge of dried blood lingering along her jawline. “You should probably take a shower. Wash off the… you know, high-rise demolition grime. You’ll feel better.”

Sarah didn't immediately reach for the bags. She looked down at the dark plastic, then raised her eyes and fixed Chuck with a sharp, calculating stare that could have bored through steel plating.

Chuck cleared his throat and pointed a thumb over his shoulder toward the short hallway. “Go ahead. Shower. I’ll get the pizzas ready with Lisa.”

Sarah remained completely motionless. She didn't flinch, didn't shift her weight, simply watching him with an intense, unreadable focus.

Something about the way this man operated was deeply, profoundly unsettling. Standard operational procedure dictated that a civilian thrust into a black-ops crossfire would either panic, demand answers, or attempt to negotiate for their own safety. Chuck Bartowski had done none of those things. No interrogation. No furious demands. No desperate attempts to extract tactical information from her. He had simply walked out of his own condo, bought a wardrobe’s worth of clothes for two absolute strangers, and returned laden with enough hot food to feed a small militia.

“Why are you doing this, Bartowski?” Sarah asked softly.

Chuck paused. For the first time since she had opened her eyes on his couch, the quick-witted, nervous rambling vanished. He had no joke ready. He had no awkward deflection.

He rubbed the back of his neck, his shoulders slumping slightly. “I honestly don't know.”

Sarah’s eyes narrowed into thin, dangerous slits, searching his face for the subtle twitch of a liar.

Chuck offered a small, helpless shrug. “Look… if I hadn't been in that office building last night, we wouldn't be standing in my condo right now.” He paused, his gaze drifting to the floor where Lisa quietly stacked plastic cups. “Any of us.”

Sarah studied the subtle rise and fall of his chest, the genuine fatigue etched around his eyes. “What were you doing there in the first place?”

The shift in Chuck’s posture was instant. His shoulders squared, his jaw tightened, and the open, transparent warmth in his eyes locked down behind an impenetrable, guarded shutter.

“Well…” Chuck said, his voice dropping into a quiet, firm register. “That’s my business.”

Sarah caught the subtle wall going up. It was understated, but to a trained operative, it was as bright as a signal flare. Ever since she had pulled a knife on him, Chuck had been nervous, talkative, and almost painfully transparent. Now, for the first time, he had actively drawn a boundary.

Sarah didn't push it. Not yet. Information extraction was a game played over time, and right now, her physical reserves were running on fumes.

She reached out and snagged the handles of the clothing bags.

“Fresh towels are in the cabinet under the sink.”

Sarah walked past him, her boots making almost no sound on the floorboards. She paused for a fraction of a second beside the bathroom cabin’s doorframe, casting one last backward glance into the living room. Chuck was already leaning over the counter, opening the first of four steaming pizza boxes for the little girl.

Sarah stepped inside, and the automation closed the heavy framed door. The latch clicked into place with a definitive metallic snap.

A moment later, the harsh, rushing hiss of hot water echoed through the plumbing.

In the kitchen, Chuck stood, listening to the running shower through the drywall. He let out a long, slow breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, then looked down at Lisa, who sat patiently on a barstool.

“Well,” Chuck said softly.

Lisa tilted her head, looking up at him with those impossibly calm eyes. “Pizza?”

Chuck managed a faint, genuine smile. “Exactly. Pizza.”

XXXXXXXXXX

Chuck crouched beside the low coffee table in the living room, opening the pizza boxes one after another like a grand reveal. The savory, rich scent of melted cheese, garlic, and toasted crust flooded the room, cutting through the sterile hum of the air conditioner.

“Okay, Lisa,” Chuck said, fanning his hands over the steam. “We have options. Which one should we officially start with?”

He lifted the first cardboard lid with a flourish. “Option A: Pepperoni and salami.”

Lisa leaned forward slightly, watching with quiet curiosity.

He lifted the second. “Option B: Ham and mushroom.”

A tiny flicker of interest crossed her face.

He lifted the third lid. “Option C: Hawaiian style. Pineapple and ham.”

Lisa’s serene composure instantly broke. Her small nose wrinkled in absolute revulsion, her lips curling into an unmistakable expression of disgust. “Eww! Pineapple!”

Chuck pulled back, genuinely offended. “Excuse me? What was that?”

“Pineapple is gross,” Lisa declared flatly.

“Pineapple is a culinary masterpiece!” Chuck argued, pointing an accusing finger at the golden yellow chunks resting on the cheese. “It provides a sweet counterbalance to the savory acidity of the tomato sauce!”

Lisa shook her head, absolutely convinced. “No.”

“Yes.” he nodded with a grin.

“No.”

Chuck let out a grand, dramatic sigh and shook his head in mock defeat. “Fine. More pineapple for me. It’s your loss, kiddo.”

He shoved the Hawaiian box aside and opened the final one. “And Option D: Vegetarian with extra black olives.”

Lisa stared at the array of steaming food resting on the table. Chuck rested his elbows on his knees and studied her quiet demeanor.

“So,” Chuck asked gently, “what’s your absolute favorite, Lisa?”

The little girl went quiet for a long moment. She reached out a tiny hand and traced the corrugated edge of the cardboard box, her brows drawing together in quiet contemplation.

“I’ve never eaten it,” she said softly.

Chuck froze mid-reach. “What?”

“Pizza,” Lisa repeated, her voice small and entirely matter-of-fact.

Chuck blinked, staring at her. “You’ve never eaten pizza? Ever?”

Lisa shook her head slowly.

“Wait a minute…” Chuck frowned, and pointed toward the Hawaiian box. “If you’ve never eaten pizza, how do you know you don't like pineapple on it?”

Lisa looked up, meeting his eyes with an unblinking, serene gaze. “I remember.”

Chuck stared at her. Something about the way she delivered that line sent a subtle, icy chill trailing down his spine. It wasn't the answer itself—children said bizarre, imaginative things all the time. It was the absolute, eerie simplicity of her delivery. No hesitation. No childish uncertainty. Just a calm, unwavering statement of fact: I remember.

He glanced toward the hallway. The shower still roared behind the second door.

Chuck turned back to the child, tilting his head. “You’re a little strange, you know that?”

Lisa offered him a tiny, mysterious smile.

“How old are you, anyway?” Chuck asked.

Lisa paused, her small face scrunching up as if searching through a vast, complicated archive of information to find the right number.

Chuck tilted his head. “Four or five?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Chuck smiled warmly, trying to keep the tone light. “But which one is it?”

The girl looked at him with striking seriousness. “Four.”

Chuck nodded slowly, accepting the answer. “Four. Got it.”

He filed the information away in his analytical brain, processing the variables: Four years old. She had never eaten pizza and claimed to remember things she apparently had never experienced. And somehow, through a terrifying night of explosions, heavy machine-gun fire, an armored gunship attack, and a high-speed escape in a hijacked cargo hauler, she had remained completely, unnaturally composed.

Chuck cast another long, quiet look toward the bathroom cabin.

“And what’s her story?” Chuck whispered.

Lisa didn't answer. She picked up a plain slice of pepperoni and took a tiny, careful bite.

The shower kept running in the background.

Chuck lowered his voice to a bare whisper, staring at the closed bathroom door.

“That’s pretty much what I’d like to know, too,” he said, grabbing a slice of the Hawaiian pizza.

XXXXXXXXXX

The water beating down on Sarah’s back was almost painfully hot, turning her fair skin a deep, flushed red. She stood with both palms braced flat against the cool, white subway tile of the shower enclosure, her head hanging low as thick clouds of steam billowed up to fill the small room.

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, the world had stopped moving.

No deafening gunfire tearing through drywall or heavy combat boots pounding down concrete corridors. No tactical radio chatter buzzing in her ear canal: no target markers, no mission parameters, and no cold, unfeeling briefing packets.

Just the rhythmic, roaring cascade of water.

She closed her eyes, but the dark brought the memories flooding back in violent, fragmented flashes: The sleek glass walls of the law firm. The blinding flash of the entry charge. The gravocopter rising from the abyss like a mechanical nightmare. Lisa clutched tight against her chest. The metal doors failing. The searing, blinding agony of tungsten shrapnel tearing through her ribs.

And then… Chuck.

Sarah opened her eyes and watched the water swirl down the chrome drain beneath her feet.

Chuck Bartowski.

A civilian. Supposedly.

That word grated against her instincts like glass on metal. Nothing about the man fit neatly into the standard definitions of a non-combatant. He had breached a high-security corporate law firm using custom, un-serialed hardware. He had stitched up a deep arterial laceration on a living room rug with surgical precision. Then, without a single trace of cognitive dissonance, he spent his Saturday morning sitting on the floor, playing geometric video games with a four-year-old child.

Either Chuck Bartowski was the most bizarre, impossible civilian she had ever encountered—or he was a master operative playing a character so absurdly well that even her trained eyes couldn't spot the seam.

Sarah reached for the small bottle of soap, her mind shifting gears with cold, clinical efficiency.

She needed to get Lisa out. Immediately. Far from Miami, far from Downtown Nexus, and far from whatever corporate cleanup crew had been deployed in that gunship.

Cuba, she calculated, mapping out transit vectors in her head. It was close enough to reach by boat without attracting high-level maritime traffic, but distant enough to sever local tracking signals.

No, Nassau would be better. Nassau offered high-density tourist traffic to blend into, and from there, Costa Gravas was a short charter flight away.

And Costa Gravas had people. Old, deep-cover contacts from her former life. Individuals who still owed her life-debts. If any of them were still breathing, they had the resources to procure a clean, high-grade passport for the child—something legitimate enough to pass deep biometric scans at a border checkpoint. Something that would grant Lisa entry into the Latin American Confederation.

A clean slate. A new identity. A real life.

For Lisa. Not for herself.

Sarah knew the dark mechanics of her world too well to harbor naive fantasies about her own survival. Targets like her didn't get happy endings or quiet retirements in the suburbs. But Lisa wasn't a target yet. Lisa could still disappear.

That was the only parameter that mattered.

Sarah lifted her face into the hot stream, letting the water wash away dried crimson blood, concrete dust, the acrid smell of burnt cordite, and the grime of the subterranean escape.

For a few fleeting seconds, she simply stood there, absorbing the heat.

Then, out of sheer habit, her hand drifted down to test her left flank. The thick gauze dressing was completely soaked through, heavy with warm water. That wasn’t a good idea, but Sarah didn’t step right away.

“Damn it,” Sarah muttered through her teeth.

She shut off the shower valves, the sudden silence in the small bathroom feeling deafening. Stepping carefully over the edge of the tub, she grabbed a thick white towel and pressed it firmly against her flank, holding back a hiss of pain as the raw tissue beneath the sutures protested the movement.

She set the towel aside and turned her attention to the plastic shopping bags resting on the sink counter.

She pulled out the first item: a charcoal-gray athletic sports bra made of heavy, moisture-wicking elastane. She raised an eyebrow, noting the high-impact design and wide racerback straps. Practical. Surprisingly practical.

She pulled out the second item: a pair of dark compression shorts. She checked the tag: Medium. Another eyebrow went up.

Then she reached to the bottom of the bag and pulled out a package of seamless cotton underwear. She flipped the box over and checked the size printed on the corner.

Medium.

Sarah stared at the box for a moment, holding it between two fingers. She evaluated the garment against her frame. A Small would have been a much better fit, but given that most untrained men would have panic-bought silk lace, string thongs, or completely misjudged the scale and gone straight to extra-large, she considered it a remarkably respectable logistical attempt.

"He didn't ask, though," she whispered to the foggy mirror.

A ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. Almost. At least the man had prioritized utility over absurdity.

Sarah pulled on the athletic gear, followed by a soft, oversized gray T-shirt. The clean fabric felt strange against her skin—soft, light, and completely devoid of the heavy, familiar weight of tactical armor.

She gathered her scorched, blood-stained clothes into a tight, compact bundle and shoved them out of sight beneath the sink.

Turning to the mirror, Sarah wiped a circle through the condensation, staring at her reflection. For a split second, she barely recognized the woman looking back—no tactical gear. No holsters, no weapons or armor.

Just Sarah. Tired, with dark circles under her eyes and a faint bruise blooming along her cheek, but alive.

She squared her shoulders, pushing the fatigue back down into the dark corners of her mind. Whatever came next, she would handle it. First Lisa's exit route. Then everything else.

Sarah unlocked the door and stepped out into the apartment.

XXXXXXXXXX

Chuck was standing beside the small dining table. All four pizza boxes were open in front of him, steaming hot. Each box had its own chemical heater that could turn the frozen slab into a hot meal in a couple of minutes without any flame. Lisa was standing on a chair beside him, staring down at the spread with open, childish fascination.

Chuck looked up as the door opened. “Perfect timing.”

Sarah walked in, her bare feet silent on the floorboards. Chuck’s eyes briefly swept over her clean clothes—noticing the practical fit of the shirt—before immediately returning to the food.

He gestured generously toward the spread. “Food’s hot.”

Lisa was already reaching for a slice of pepperoni. Sarah remained standing a few feet back, her posture guarded, her eyes sweeping the room out of sheer habit.

Chuck looked at her, and for once, he didn't attempt to fill the quiet air with nervous banter.

Sarah looked at the child, then at the modest apartment, and finally at the heavy front door.

Her gaze returned to the little girl happily chewing her pizza, then to Chuck’s open, honest face.

“Thank you,” Sarah said, her voice dropping into a quiet, sincere register. “For taking us in.”

Chuck’s guarded expression softened, a warm, easy smile touching his eyes.

“…But we’re leaving,” Sarah added firmly.

Chuck opened his mouth to protest, but before a word could escape, a sharp, metallic crackle echoed from the ceiling-mounted building intercom.

The quiet of the apartment was instantly shattered by a flat, synthesized automated broadcast:

ATTENTION RESIDENTS. RHINO SECURITY UNITS HAVE ENTERED THE LIANDRI & MCKAY TOWER. A FULL STRUCTURAL AND RESIDENTIAL SWEEP IS NOW IN PROGRESS. PLEASE REMAIN INSIDE YOUR APARTMENTS AND COOPERATE FULLY WITH SECURITY PERSONNEL.

Chuck froze dead in his tracks. A slice of Hawaiian pizza hung halfway to his mouth.

His eyes slowly widened in sheer, unadulterated terror. He turned his head inch by inch to look at Sarah.

Sarah was already staring back at him, her body locking into a predatory stance. Lisa looked quietly between them and set her pizza slice back on the box.

Chuck swallowed hard, his throat clicking audibly.

“Okay,” Chuck whispered, slowly lowering the pizza slice back onto the cardboard. “That… is statistically very bad.”

Sarah’s face hardened into an iron mask.

Chuck stared at the front door, then at the reinforced glass window, and finally back to Sarah.

“Well,” Chuck whimpered softly under his breath. “Looks like we’re not going anywhere.”

Sarah’s right hand moved on muscle memory, reaching behind her back to where her pistol usually rested, then remembered her waist was empty, and these were only sweatpants.

Chuck noticed the movement. He looked at Lisa, then at Sarah’s empty hands, and then down at his own trembling fingers.

For the first time since Sarah crashed into his life, the nervous, goofy civilian facade melted from Chuck’s face. Not entirely—the terror was still lingering in his eyes—but beneath it, a cold, sharp focus clicked into place.

Chuck looked up, meeting her gaze, and whispered:

“Welcome to my weekend.”