Chuck vs the iPhone.

A while back, Aerox2109 (and his pseudo-pseudonym) wrote a serious, dark and brilliant fiction that referred to the Kübler-Ross stages of grief. For some reason, the concept of the five stages struck a chord with me, and wouldn't let me go.

Could you apply Kübler-Ross to something other than dying? Falling in love, for example. Or other traumatic and life changing moments…..

In June of this year (while I was in hospital – a big building with patients, but that's not important right now), my wife upgraded us both to iPhones. The transition was relatively easy for us, because she'd received one for work earlier in the year. That transition, on the other hand, did not go smoothly. And for two fun filled weeks, she let me know of her displeasure with the new stupid work phone. And anything associated with the new stupid work phone. Including people who've just picked the new stupid work phone up to look at it…..

-o0o-

Summary: By the start of season 2, all of team Bartowski were using new iPhones. How this happened was never explained. This is a tale of those dark and terrible days.

As of one of my 'birthdays with a naught in it,' I don't own Chuck, et al.

-o0o-

I feel fine.

This can't be happening to me.

1. Denial

-o0o-

1903 hours Tango, Tuesday July 15, 2008.

"General, thank you, but we don't need replacement cell phones. The ones we have are fine."

'Major Casey, these new iPhones have significantly greater onboard storage. And I'm told, they now have Internet access. Our techs have preloaded them with apes that they assure me, you may find very useful during missions. And I'm told they are very user friendly. Good day, team.'

The screen went dark as soon as Brigadier General D. Beckman (USAF, and current head of the NSA) stabbed her finger on the cut-off button, preventing her from hearing Chuck Bartowski mutter, "She does know its apps, not apes, right? I mean an application of apes might be dangerous. And itchy."

Sarah Walker, the beautiful CIA agent to Chuck's right smirked a little, which was sort of Chuck's intention.

"Not to mention, messy," Chuck concluded after remembering a YouTube video clip involving chimps.

Saying that Chuck was attracted to Sarah, was like saying 'the Large Hadron Collider owners manual is a little heavy,' and despite her protestations that their fake relationship was fake, and just a professional cover to protect him, Chuck sometimes felt she was attracted to him.

Hence his efforts to amuse her.

The larger and older man to Chuck's left did not smirk. Or smile. Ever. Major John Casey (USMC, currently on a sequestered tour with the NSA), muttered under his breath, "I like my Nokia," as he turned from the pair, stomping away. Well, he wanted to stomp away, but the clandestine teleconference with their section chief(s) had been held in what would normally be the living room of Casey's apartment, aka, his base of operations.

Base of operation, because, most living rooms don't have the surveillance gear and spy-y gadgets that Casey had decorated his with, rendering it something reminiscent of the bridge of an Ohio class submarine. So, Casey stomped off to the kitchenette. From his expression, it seemed to appear that, as far as Casey was concerned, stomping off to a kitchenette of any description, wasn't quite as satisfying as, say, stomping off anywhere else.

"Well, I've been meaning to change up to an iPhone. That'd mean I don't have to carry a phone, and an iPod. And if I had my headphones in, and you," Chuck indicated Sarah, "called me, I wouldn't have to take my headphones out."

"This is a high tech piece of government issued equipment, Bartowski. You're not going to fill it with your whiney, girly rap-crap from bands that no one else has ever heard of," growled Casey from his kitchenette.

"So am I," argued Chuck. "High tech. And governm….. okay, that didn't come out right. But I have a computer in my head. And not all of my music is from indie bands," he turned to say quietly to Sarah as an aside, "I know he has Pink Floyd. I've heard 'Learning to fly' belting out of here sometimes."

Then he said a little louder, "And if you can find an eight track adapter, you could play yours in your car."

Chuck looked at the Terminator-esque expression Casey was burning at him, and he leaned over and without taking his eyes off the evidently angry man in the kitchenette, asked Sarah quietly, "Too much?"

As it was in her job description to protect Chuck Bartowski from harm, she protected him. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, Sarah picked up the two packages containing the his-and-hers iPhones, and she then dragged him to safety, across the courtyard and into Casa Bartowski.

-o0o-

She looked at her asset, happily opening the 'his' box like a kid under the Christmas tree. His innocent enthusiasm was adorable. And just a little contagious. They'd set themselves up on the couch, in front of the TV, while Devon thawed out some left-overs for them to eat for dinner – Ellie was on nights this week.

"Sarah, no! Peeling the film off the screen is a momentous occasion. It needs to be done with a sense of ceremony….. arrrrrgh! You're killing me woman! Not like a band-aid, but with mmmmmmphhh…."

She looked, apparently pleased with the effect that stretching the film across his lips had. Sadly, it didn't stick to Chuck as well as it had the phone. "So, what now?" she wanted to know, after she released him.

"Plllllbbbbt. Okay….. if its anything like my iPooo-oodsss….. pretty sure we have toooooo….." Chuck dragged out while he read the quick start guide, "Yeah, here we are. Charge for four to six hours. You wanna charge it here, or go home and charge it there?" he asked her.

"Charging it here would mean staying the night," she said as she then placed her hand on the back of his, and whispered, "You okay with that?"

"A new iPhone, and my amazing," his voice also dipped to a whisper, "fake," before resuming normal broadcast, "girlfriend stay over. Or a new iPhone. Hmmm….. Decisions, decisions….."

"Okay, smarty pants," she smirked as she took the charger and cable from the box. Holding them out to him, she said, "Outlet me."

Chuck sighed theatrically and said to a higher power that evidently lived in the ceiling, or at least to the surveillance equipment, "Been a year, and she still doesn't get nerds." He sighed again and then pointed to his chest, "Nerd." And then pointed over his left shoulder, in the direction of his bedroom, "Fourteen different iPod connections. Well, I lie," he shrugged, "fourteen might be an exaggeration. But more than three, anyways."

She tilted her head for a moment, considering him, and then leant forward and whispered into his ear, "Why Chuck, are you saying you know more than three ways to …. plug …. me …. in?"

She sat back, as she smiled and batted her eyelashes at him, as she judged the effect on him.

Chuck would later swear that there was a long, loud wet, fritttttttzzzy sort of zap sound. But at the time, he sat there, only able to blink slowly, and swallow. Eventually he remembered he needed to breath.

Before the goose bumps subsided, Chuck stared hard at the woman opposite, who was projecting an aura of beatific innocence. Eventually he was able to ask, "Do you enjoy doing that, missy?"

Sarah laughed, "Oh, you have no idea, mister Bartowski."

Devon called out when the last meal went ding from the microwave, "Food's ready guys. Dig in!"

-o0o-

At 0309 hours on Wednesday, June sixteenth of 2008, sensors indicated that an occupant of the Intersect host's place of residence left the spare bedroom, noted in the floor plans on file as bedroom two, and proceeded to the bathroom located on the ground floor.

Facial recognition software, GPS tracking and later visual verification of the composite night vision and white light recordings showed that the Intersect host urinated and was absent from bedroom two for three minutes, twenty two seconds. Subject hesitated for a further seventeen seconds after reentering bedroom two before climbing back into bed.

Chuck stood in the dim light, gazing at the woman occupying the middle of his bed.

When Chuck was a kid, back when his mom and dad were still around, Chuck had a cat. Or, as any cat owner will tell you, there was a cat who accepted food and adoration from the family that happened to live in the same house that the cat owned. Even as a child, it amazed Chuck how a small creature like Miss Kitty could occupy so much of the bed.

The heavenly creature currently sleeping à la starfish with only one shin under the sheet, having kicked most of the sheet off due to a southern California summers night, was considerably larger than Miss Kitty. Even allowing for the king sized bed, Chuck now seemed to only have about six inches remaining on his side of the bed.

She'd come into his life some nine months previously and turned it completely and totally upside down. Being told your ass now belongs to the government will do that. In order to keep things secret, she, or rather, they pretended to his family and friends to be lovers.

She kept denying it was anything more than pretend. And then, one day in November last year, the pair of them had stood in front of what looked like the biggest bomb that Chuck had ever seen, keeping in mind that Chuck watched a lot of movies.

And with only a smattering of seconds left to live, she kissed him. She. Kissed. Him. One toe curling, hell of a kiss, by the way. It would have been a nice way to go, if you had to go. Only they didn't die. The contents of the thing they'd stood kissing each other hungrily in front of had turned out to be a figurative bombshell. But it wasn't Semtex, and they'd lived.

Chuck had worked in retail long enough to know that when a customer was complaining, and when they made the complaint into a personal attack, then the customer was in the wrong, and they also knew that they were in the wrong. The fact that Sarah denied that the kiss meant anything, and then angrily told him it was a mistake, one that she'd never make again, was in someway, was something approaching the best news he had since… well, for roughly the last five or six years. There was something under the undercover.

Chuck wished he could turn the bedside light on, so he could see her face. He didn't, because she'd probably wake up, and he wanted to just look at her. She looked so peaceful and innocent when she slept. Chuck knew that Sarah and her aliases weren't innocent by just about any definition. But, the Sarah, his Sarah, in his bed, right now, at this moment, the look on her face when she slept in his bed, her slight smile, even the way her fingers curled, there was something that made him want to gather her up into his arms and protect her.

Chuck sighed and got back into bed, clinging grimly onto the edge of the bed remaining for him. He wanted to pull the sheet up, to cover himself, but knew that Sarah would complain in her sleep, and just pull the sheet off him without fully waking up.

He did love that little sleeping protest she'd made when he'd gotten out. He thought it made her sound like a real girl.

Software recognized that, based on the breathing patterns, the Intersect host achieved stage two sleep in three minutes nine seconds and then stages three and four sleep seventeen minutes and twelve seconds after getting back into bed. The other occupant of the bed had stirred when the host alighted from bed, but she did not fully awaken.

This was the third time on file where one of the occupants of bedroom two was awake, watching the other occupant sleep.

-o0o-

At the Buy More, Morgan enthused over Chuck's new phone, "Oh, man, these are great! I wish I had one! Call someone, I want to see the picture you have when you call them."

That was the moment when Jeff roused himself, "Yeah….. ring blondie, your weiner chick ho. I wanna see what photo you have of her…"

"Jeff, eww. Not gonna happen," Chuck told the older Nerd Herder. "And maybe back up a skootch. Have a breath mint while you're at it?"

Chuck gazed down at his new cell phone. He realized there was a small problem. "Ah, right. Sorry Morgan, I ahhhh…. I don't know Sarah's new number….. in fact….." Chuck broke off, and peered around the store for Casey. Right. Casey wasn't rostered to start until later in the day.

So, how to find out his new cell number?

'I'm a professional nerd. This shouldn't be a problem.'

Chuck opened the panel, and after taking it out, looked at the micro SIM. It was blank.

Someone, probably the CIA, had removed the number.

-o0o-