As of 28.07.12, I don't own any of the characters from the television show 'Chuck' et al.

The 'nun' joke comes from Blackadder Season 4.

My wife and I would like to thank all who have expressed their best wishes via this and other means.

And obviously, I would also like to thank all of the staff at the Royal North Shore hospital, without their help, this story would be different.

From the bottom of my heart (sorry, couldn't resist that), thank you.

John Casey, Serious As Cardio-Myopathy.

Chapter 2

In the end, I was in hospital for just shy of three weeks. On the Tuesday of that third week, I was given an angiogram. Fortunately for all concerned, they chose to go in via the wrist. As it was, I had a bald patch on one wrist for a long time.

From some of the horror stories, the alternative option can have consequences. One nurse, Kate, from way down south by her accent (Takes-us, maybe?) talked as how her father had had three hernias from not staying still when he was supposed to after his angio. Stay still when told to, got it.

The angio proceedure was fascinating to watch. I was offered 'something to take the edge off' which was described as being like a half a glass of wine. I think they mixed up my dosage, or didn't notice my weight, 'cause I didn't feel no edges come off.

Not especially comfortable, but I've had worse. The feeling of the thing moving inside my armpit was….. different. When they injected the dye, my heart on the x-ray screen lit up as the stuff was released. With each pulse, the dye moved and was diminished. Something you don't see every day.

Even I could see that the coronial arteries were fine, no blockages.

Wednesday was an MRI scan. Whoever wrote that scene in one of Bartowski's cartoons, Incredibles, or Invincibles or something, had been for a ride in one of these. Anyway, that scene where the hero, Mister Incredible, that was it, was being ejected out of the flying manta ray, and they kept bouncing him to get him inside the circular hatch of the escape capsule? It was like that. Almost.

And it was only a tight fit because of all the crap they rested on my chest.

But inside, it was no more claustrophobic than SCUBA diving. And some recorded bimbo telling me to 'breath in, breath out, now hold it, and relax.' The process made me think about John Glenn and the rest, genuine heroes, and what was done to them, to be selected for the Mercury Project.

Compared to that, holding my breath the wrong way for fifteen seconds was a piece of cake.

One of the more fragrant tasks I was given was a twenty four hour urine collection. The drugs still had me peeing like a fire hose, so that container became my new best friend. And then something went wrong in the pathology lab, so that changed from twenty four into forty eight hours when they gave me a new bottle. Plus I still had to record totals. A bit of double handling there, since there was a measuring scale imprinted on the side of Yuri, my collection bottle. Yuri, get it?

After they zapped my heart back into normal rhythm, I really felt better. I was certainly the healthiest, youngest and fittest in my room. The guy diagonally from me, Charlie was in his late eighties. He had asbestosis from when he worked in the navy yards during the forties and fifties as an electrician.

He was due for a pace maker, but the bright young things from med school kept coming up to check out his asbestosis. I guess that's a disease that's not as common as it used to be, and think about that for a moment…..

God love him, I hope I'm as good as he is at that age, he would bait the med students. He would earnestly look at them and tell them that he used to smoke. But that he gave it up when he was nineteen… most of them just blinked at that, not sure what to say.

Currently on my right was a retired nun. This room was supposed to be male only, but they needed the bed. They keep her curtain closed, most of the time. When she was brought in, her profile made me think she was Mayor O'Rielly. Except the liver cirrhosis ward that he opened and was named after him (since he was its first occupant) is on another floor.

During one of their visits, while we'd adjourned to the TV room so we could talk, Bartowski found out about the nun, his eyes lit up and he told us that Morgan's father was a nun.

She fell for it straight away. Cripes, I could see it coming, and I'm in hospital.

"Chuck, don't be silly. Morgan's dad can't be a nun."

"But Sarah, when we were in school, and the teacher would ask about his dad, he'd say….. nun…"

He was so proud of that.

After a moment, Walker asked me in a dangerously sweet voice, "John, do you mind if I borrow your dinner tray? I need to clobber someone with it."

The bed across from me was in high rotation. The most memorable incumbent was the one that absolutely pissed the tall blond nurse, Susan, off.

He was moved in sometime during the wee smalls, waking me up. And apparently he had a low threshold for pain. I listened to him get a catheter inserted.

I don't suppose I can pass judgment, not having had one, but three others, including the nun, in this room had had one at some stage had one in or out…. None of them made the sounds he did…. None of them had, in fact, made any sound.

Afterwards he kept pressing the call bell, and since he'd evidently had some surgical procedure earlier, he couldn't be given much in the way of pain medication. And he had to wait another two hours before they could give him some more brand name ibuprofen. Within fifteen minutes, he was calling again.

I think she gave him the morphine out of sheer frustration. And he made a contented yummy sound as the dragon settled down. It made me wonder if he knew about morphine and how it felt…..

Really, he should learn to be careful about a peeved nurse armed with a syringe full of morphine…..

She was still pissed with him when the morning change over came, and she briefed the day staff.

-o0o-

I was released on Saturday night. The resident Devon had assigned to me had to change paperwork three times. So I spent from three in the afternoon until after five sitting in civilian clothes for a nice change, waiting. And waiting. Then they gave me a bunch of pill bottles, instructions and that was that.

I took a cab back to Echo Park.

When I got home, Bartowski's sister had made dinner for me. There was no way they would let me just go home. If this was a sample of what Walker had to put up with from Chuck and his family… She was stronger than everyone thought.

Everyone kept things simple. And made sure I went to bed early. After eating an Ellie meal, having existed on hospital rations for three weeks….. Let's agree that I was tired.

While I was better than I was, when I went in, Devon had told me I was a rare case, where atrial flutter was spontaneous.

Short answer was, he didn't know why I'd had a not-actually-a-heart-attack-but-pretty-darn-close-to-one.

But I still had to take it easy. In the hospital, I thought I was fine, and could walk to the TV room with no trouble. But life in the real world was different. Things were further away than the toilet or TV room. I was better than before, but I was nowhere near normal.

After Ellie's dinner, Walker took me back to my place. It took me longer than I expected to cross the courtyard.

I opened my own front door for the first time in close to a month. Walker came in with me, and turned some lights on for me. Then she stood there, trying to figure out how to say it.

So, I said it for her.

"You and Bartowski. I guess congratulations…..."

She looked at me, her mouth hung open for half a second, which in spy terms is like most of a day. "How did you…. It was an acciden….. John, please d….."

I grinned, "It's not like it was never going to happen." A little more seriously I added, "And the pair of you are good for each other."

She asked and then answered her own question, "How did….. When did you know?" she finished in a resigned tone.

I really tried not to smile too smugly, "First week I was in hospital. Your body language to each other was screaming to anyone with eyes how….. relaxed…. you were with each other."

She didn't know what to say.

I said, "Let me guess, with me out of the picture and no observation on him, you were ordered to move in. I'm guessing you lasted…. what, two, three days?"

She nodded guiltily. Like a school kid caught skipping class, I thought.

"Bad?" I asked gently, suspecting I already knew the answer.

"Bad," she nodded again, now trying to outstare the carpet. "I love him. I love him like….. God, I sound like that stupid school girl vampire book." She looked straight at me, "Casey, I love him so much, it hurts. I always thought they made shit like that up, but…."

"Has it got in the way on missions?" I knew they'd had a couple of simple ones while I was holding a hospital bed down.

"Um, no….." she realized, and was puzzled over that now that she thought about it.

"Bartowski could give you the answer to that," she looked the question at me, so I explained it to her, "because in one way, nothing's really changed. You were in love before, only now you've actually done something about it."

"But I broke the cardinal rule."

I sighed, "Yeah, but it's a rule, that makes it more of a guideline than an actual law."

After a little while, she asked "What do I do about General Beckman?"

"You're gonna have to tell her at some stage. Sooner the better."

"….But….."

"Wa….Sarah, it's not like it's going to be a shock to her."

I sat on my couch, needing to sit more than I liked.

Walker repeated her, "…..But…" from earlier. I thought to myself, a bit more choke, and she might start. "….But what if they, she breaks us up? Forces us apart?"

Ah, there was the rub.

And it worried her, fairly naturally, I guess.

"I'm not saying Beckman's gonna like it, but you need to tell her. You broke a rule after all, and generals, generally speaking….." I liked that one, clever, I thought, "…..like rules. But she's also a spy, or she used to be. She might remember how this works. We're human. Spies have been known to fall in love, once in a while you know. Ever heard of Frost? Married the asset." I suggested, using the famous agent as an example. "And like I said, it's not like this is gonna be a horrible surprise for her."

She still looked worried. "Wal… Sarah, you have a chance. I don't know how long it'll last for, but a chance for something that doesn't happen to us, spies, very often. Take it."

"But he wants normal."

I half remembered some conversation that the pair had had, one that I forgot to transcribe, probably due to my nausea that the conversation gave me. "No he doesn't," I told her, "he wants you. So don't try to be normal. That's not who he fell in love with."

After she went back home, and it was genuinely home for her now, the general appeared on the video screen, "Welcome back, major."

"General…."

"Stay seat…. as you were…" she waived her hands at the camera, letting me remain seated. "I guess there'll be some changes to the missions for a while, we'll have to let you stay in the car…"

She seemed to find that endlessly amusing, from her little smirk.

"Yes general. At least I'll know how to stay in the car."

"True. Has Walker told you? About herself and the….. Chuck?"

"I let her know I was aware of the situation, and that she needed to advise you, General."

She smiled benignly, which was something that was scarier than anything else I'd seen, "They think no-one can see it. Ah well, my analysts tell me this is a good thing, the earlier it happened the less likely she would have a psychotic episode later on. Very well, sorry to disturb you John, you have a quiet night, and we'll discuss your return to duties at a later date. Good night."

What the shazbot? Did the world take nice pills while I was away?

Speaking of pills, I'm on a whole bunch, most likely for the rest of my life. There's one, called Warfarin, that's taken to prevent clotting and 'thin the blood,' as it was explained to me. I rather felt that sounded a bit like rat poison and how it worked. An anticoagulant.

Bartowski took great pleasure after he looked it up on that phone he has surgically attached to his hand that that was how it began.

So, some doctor somewhere thirty or forty years ago, probably noticed that some husband poisoned by his wife with rat killer, got better instead of dying of the inevitable heart attack he should have had, had the wife waited long enough. Bet she was pissed when she found out….

Partway through the next week, I went back to work at the Buy More.

Stupid morons, applauding and lining up as I walked in the door.

God, I couldn't wait 'til I got to the indoor range over at Castle. I needed to shoot something. Maybe blow something up, too….

-o0o-