I do not own Chuck. If I did, I would never have made that awful fifth series!

Chapter 1

Helmand Province, Afghanistan September 2012

Senior Airman Chuck Bartowski tried to get comfortable on the hard-backed seat in the unit's Ready Room. While a quiet morning was great because it meant that no-one out there was getting shot or blown up, it wasn't that fun for the on-call rescue crews. Particularly not for SrA Bartowski. Because it gave him time to think.

It was just under five years now since he'd joined up. Four and a half years on from that year in Burbank which had changed his life. Five years from when he'd met Sarah and Casey for the first time.

Sarah Walker. It had been a few days since he'd last of thought of her consciously. Sometimes (most days) she had a way of sneaking into his subconscious. He wondered what she was doing now? He hoped she was safe. And happy.

She as much as anyone else had given him the confidence to embark on this next stage in his life. She had always believed in him. She'd told him when she left that she still believed in him. That he could do anything he wanted. Maybe she thought he'd go into software design or engineering. He didn't think she meant the Buy More!

After her and Casey left, he'd had a proper sit down and think about what he was doing. He didn't want to work in a Buy More for the rest of his life. The experiences that he'd had with Sarah and Casey had showed him that not only did he enjoy making a difference, but that he also enjoyed being part of a team and an organisation that was bigger than him. They'd also showed that he was competent and that he could solve problems, but he was realistic enough to know that he'd be better at that with a bit of training.

A show on TV about Iraq had concentrated his mind. Here was a job he could do. Helping people, not just in war zones, but also in the US as well. All-round training, and they only took the best of the best. He'd needed to get physically fit but Awesome had helped with that.

Ellie had taken some convincing. She wasn't wild about him putting himself in harm's way. Given he'd already been in harm's way for much of the previous year (which she hadn't known about, and still didn't) he didn't think it was much of a stretch. But he'd sold her on the saving people thing. After all, who was she to object to that?

The training had been brutal. His eight week basic training had seemed like a cakewalk compared to it. Over 85% of the starting class had been washed out. But he'd actually enjoyed it. There were elements he wasn't so wild about, like the guns and shooting, but it turned out that he was quite a good shot and he'd just focused on his technique. God knows, he'd needed it here and in Iraq. He'd been nervous about the parachuting but once he'd done it, he understood why Awesome was always raving about it – it really was awesome! And he'd aced the Rescue-EMT-Paramedic part of the course. His ability to think and react under pressure, his memory retention and his compassion had seen to that. He'd graduated among the top three in his class.

And then he'd been deployed to Iraq.

And that had thrown all of his romantic notions out of the window. Dealing with gunshots, IED injuries, shrapnel, burns in a war context had put everything in perspective. Actively having to protect himself, his team and his patients. Having to shoot to kill. He'd found he could do it if he was protecting someone. He didn't like it, but he'd done it and he knew he'd probably have to do it again. The first few weeks had been brutal and he'd wondered if he'd be able to cope. But then, gradually, he'd adapted. The boys had helped him and there was no doubt that Papa Bear had made a big difference.

The Master Sergeant was the First Sergeant of their squadron and a 20-year veteran of rescue missions. And he'd taken Chuck under his wing. He'd been a shoulder to cry on, a stick and a carrot, encouraging Chuck when needed, kicking him when necessary. And he'd turned into a mentor for the young PJ. So much so, that when Chuck found out that Papa was transferring to a different unit that was deploying to Afghanistan he'd been first in line to volunteer. And that's how Chuck came to be in the 406th Expeditionary Rescue Squadron on his second operational tour.

They'd been deployed to Camp Bastion, the British-operated base in Helmand province. Although the Brits were now in a minority in this province, they still operated the base and the hospital. A few of their units still manned forward operating bases and patrol bases, but most of the mobile units out here were American now. Although the war had bogged down, there was still lots to do for the PEDROs and MERTs assigned to this base and it had been a busy tour so far. And a busy few days, and he was looking forward to some time off at the end of this shift.

"Bartowski!" The speaker was the aforementioned Papa Bear, standing at the door. Master Sergeant Matt Todd was over 200 lbs of muscular black man packed into a six foot two frame. The first time Chuck had met him he'd been petrified but, like many people who worked as PJs, Todd was actually a gentle giant. It was one of the reasons that Chuck felt so at home in this unit; even though all of the guys were trained commandos and were pretty badass, for the most part they were all extremely compassionate and really cared about what they were doing and the people they were helping. Papa Bear reminded him a bit of Sugar Bear in his gruffness but he was quite a lot more demonstrative than Casey and a good communicator in words, as well as in grunts.

"Yes, Master Sergeant?!" Chuck shouted, coming to attention.

"At ease, son," Todd told him more quietly, "Something's come up and the Old Man wants to speak to you. Follow me."

Chuck grabbed his sidearm off the table, clipped it into its holster and followed the Master Sergeant towards the TOC.

"Bartowski! Good." Lieutenant Colonel Hal Christenson was the commander of the 406th. A former CRO, he was well-respected by the men of his unit, a respect which he returned. When this unit was selected for deployment he'd been parachuted in to command it. He'd chosen Papa Bear as his First Sergeant since they'd served together on three recent occasions.

When Papa Bear requested to bring Bartowski from his old unit Christenson had automatically been well-disposed towards the kid. None of his experiences since had disabused him of that view. Todd has described Bartowski as a future officer in the making and Christenson saw that on display every time he had dealings with the younger man. Bartowski was great at his job and was well-liked by all his colleagues, not just the other PJs, but the pilots, gunners, aircraft mechanics and everyone else in the unit. The kid was always interested in learning what the others did and he always bigged up the oft-forgotten other members of the team when there was some praise going around.

Which was pretty impressive because even now, so early in his career, SrA Bartowski was building up quite a reputation. Awarded the Bronze Star during his last tour for abseiling into a minefield to treat some trapped soldiers under fire and already under consideration for an additional bravery award during this tour for single-handedly protecting a group of injured marines from a Taliban counter attack, Bartowski was almost religious about helping people and saving lives.

While any of his PJs could operate independently if the situation occurred, Bartowski and Todd were the best-suited for this mission in his eyes. He looked at the two men – young and old, but both experienced and both experts in their field.

"A special operations chopper's gone missing in the mountains near Nauzad. There's a three-person team of operatives on board plus the flight crew. The terrain is too mountainous to use choppers for SAR. We need you guys to go in, locate the team and call in air support. The most important thing – AVOID CONTACT if at all possible. Questions?"

Lieutenant-Colonel John Casey grimaced as he tried to shift his injured leg and push himself further back against the rock he was lying against.

Well, this is a clusterfuck, he thought. He knew he needed to put as much distance between the downed chopper and himself but, with a shrapnel wound in his leg as well as abdominal and arm injuries, he wasn't making much progress. So far he'd managed about three hundred feet, and that might as well be three feet, he mused. Especially given the trail of blood makes it obvious which direction I went in.

He grunted at that thought. And then he had to smile. When he'd left Burbank the kid had told him that he'd identified 17 separate grunts that Casey made. Those were good times. He'd never asked or expected to ever have a long-term protection mission. And he'd never expected to think of a CIA skirt as a friend or have a token of respect for an idiotic civilian. But he had, and he did. Leaving Burbank had been tough because the idiot Bartowski and his sister had done something that Casey never believed possible. They'd got under his skin. Their stupid lady feelings had made him soft.

He hadn't seen Walker again since the mission ended, but they exchanged emails through secure accounts about once a year. And last year when he'd been on leave he'd toyed with going back to LA. He'd told himself it was to check on Kathleen and see how she was doing, but he knew that if he had gone, it would have been as much to check up on the moron as anything else. Unfortunately that Fulcrum mission had come up a couple of days later and his leave had been cut short.

And wasn't Fulcrum a clusterfuck? For starters, the beta insect had been blown up, and Graham with it. But they'd already taken the Intersect out of Bartowski. That was fucking stupid. Why not remove the Intersect from Bartowski only after the new one was up and running? Graham had been too arrogant for his own good.

But he paid for it. And we did as well.

And they had. Because an Intersect in a human civilian was better than no Intersect at all. And, at the end of the day, Bartowski might have been fucking annoying, but he got the job done. He might have done it in a way that no self-respecting agent would ever consider, but he got it done. And their job had always been about results, not methods.

They'd finally taken Fulcrum down, but it had taken years. And many good men and women had died because of that. Many more than needed to die. And we didn't even get all of them. And they hadn't, which was why he was on this mission to track down Fulcrum remnants meeting with the Taliban. And it was why he was probably going to bleed out on this damn rock before help could get to him.

Twenty years of combat and undercover missions, and I bleed out on a damn rock in Afghanistan. Iran, Iraq, the Balkans, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, 10 European countries, the US, Latin America…and this is where it ends. Given away by some mole in the NSA and shot down in the middle of nowhere.

He'd already checked on the rest of his team, before he'd pulled himself out of the helo. The flight crew had been killed on impact. Of his team, Captain Victoria Read seemed to have taken shrapnel from the missile and had lost half of her head, and Matt Simmonds, their analyst, had bled out from his wounds while John had held his hand and tried to comfort him. Simmonds had reminded him a lot of Bartowski in the year they'd worked together – in his keenness and enthusiasm. But he wasn't as good as Bartowski, and he couldn't think outside the box they way Chuck had been able to. And who would've thought that years later he'd look back and wish that someone could think outside the box the way Bartowski could? That-

Casey snapped to alert at the sound of stones moving behind him and jerked his gun up in his right hand. He could barely grip the pistol and, anyway, everything was getting hazy. He knew this was it as a voice came from behind him.

"Papa, the blood trail ends by this rock."

"OK, be careful kid, don't want to surprise anyone." They're American, thought Casey. His vision was greying out, but something about the first voice nagged at him. It was familiar.

"Hey," came the first voice, "You OK buddy?" He knew that voice wouldn't hurt him and let the gun fall back at his side. He tried to speak but it came out as a raspy cough and he could feel blood dribbling down his chin. As if from a great distance, he heard the familiar voice, "CASEY?!" Then he heard nothing else.

It could be a bit of a lonely life when you were off duty, Chuck Bartowski reflected. A lot of the other guys had young families who they were always checking in on. Sure, he had Ellie and Devon and their kids, and Morgan as well he supposed, but no soulmate. Of course, he had had a soulmate, but like a fool he'd let her go and hadn't fought for her.

Well, now he'd learnt to fight for what he believed in and if he ever fell in love again, he'd fight for it. Not that he was ever likely to do so. Once you'd had even a cover relationship with Sarah Walker, any other woman kind of paled in comparison. And the thing was, he knew she'd cared for him as well. He sighed. It just hadn't been the right time in their lives for either of them.

He'd tried to put her out of his thoughts. And then John Casey had come back into his life.

It had taken him and Papa Bear nearly 10 hours of searching to locate the felled special operations helo. They weren't expecting to find any survivors after that long, but obviously John Casey didn't do normal. He'd barely been conscious when Chuck and Matt had got to him. He'd leaked a lot of blood and Chuck had had to put in an IO needle to get fluids into him. While Matt checked the helo for other survivors and pulled any classified equipment and papers, Chuck had done all he could to stabilise Casey but, by the time the chopper arrived to take them back to Bastion, he was barely hanging on.

Still they'd got him to Bastion alive and he knew that if anyone could keep him alive it would be the medical team at the hospital. 98% of the people who went in that door came out alive, and he'd hoped Casey would be fine. After all, he was certainly hoping to introduce Papa Bear to Sugar Bear!

And it looked like the reunion might be on because Casey had survived the first night and had been stabilised at the hospital. Now he was being prepared for a transfer to the US via Germany, but the word had come down to the unit that Lieutenant Colonel Casey wanted to meet the PJ who'd saved his life. And since Chuck was off duty, he'd been told to go along. So long as he was back in two hours for the start of his next shift.

As he turned in his weapons at the hospital reception he reflected back on his loneliness. He filled in a lot of his free time with reading and programming. He was making great progress on a game that he hoped to release in the next year. Olivia Todd, Matt's wife, had taken him under her wing as well. He was a regular guest at their house and he got on well with the Todd's two teenage kids, Rob and Sophie. Their family was his surrogate for Devon and Ellie when he wasn't on leave and it was nice to have a family unit to be part of.

Livvy was always on his case to date but he didn't really see what the point was. He didn't think he'd ever find someone as great as Sarah and he didn't want to settle for second-best. He was happy doing his job, helping people and having good friends. For now, he didn't need anything else. It didn't help the loneliness though. He'd had a few dates here and there but they'd all been short term things and he'd never met anyone who even came close to filling the Sarah-shaped void in his life.

By now he'd surrendered his weapons and was striding into the hospital. He jumped out the way as a British MERT doctor and paramedic came through the emergency doors with two patients on stretchers on their way to Resus. Both acknowledged him with a "Hi Chuck".

There was a mutual respect between the MERT and PEDRO teams. They both saved lives but with a slightly different remit. PEDRO could go into hotter landing zones than MERT but mainly dealt with smaller incidents, while MERT could handle multi-casualty attacks and carried a full-on doctor so they could deal with more complex wounds in the air.

He liked the way that the British rank structure was really flat in the hospital. In an emergency situation there was no separation between officers and enlisted. People called each other by their first names. It was just people helping each other to save lives. The Brits often asked the off-duty PJs over for barbeques and were, in turn, asked over to the Pedro teams' tents as well.

The British army hadn't impressed the US forces overly much in either Iraq or Afghanistan, but their medical services certainly had. He knew a lot of US Marines who were convinced that the British MERT crews walked on water and he knew that if anyone from MERT went anywhere near any Marine base in the US they wouldn't ever have to pay for their drinks. Mind you, they felt that way about the PJs as well. The Army and Marines weren't that respectful of the USAF as a rule, but for PJs they were willing to make an exception. And they did. On one of his leaves after his first tour he'd joined Morgan in San Diego for Comic Con. After talking to a waitress in a bar one evening he'd been stunned when the manager had come over to where he and Morgan were sitting, nursing their beers.

"Excuse me, sir?" the manager had asked. The tall, dark-haired woman was a total knock-out and Morgan had immediately perked up, "My colleague told me that you're a PJ?"

Chuck hadn't said that he was a PJ. Morgan had made a fuss about him being a serving member of the military, as his friend was wont to do. His friend seemingly never missed a chance to try and big Chuck up with members of the opposite sex, even if Chuck told him repeatedly that he didn't want or need the attention. The server had asked what he did, and Morgan had said that he jumped out of helicopters to save lives. Chuck had glared at Morgan and told the stunned server that it wasn't like that at all and that he just worked with the Air Force's air ambulance.

Shooting another glare which totally failed to faze Morgan, he had confirmed that he was. Following which he hadn't been allowed to pay for a drink for the rest of the night. It turned out that Carly the manager's brother had been injured in Iraq and his life saved by the PJs. He'd been introduced to the man in question, hobbling on a stick, and his best friend, also a Marine, who'd happened to be at the bar that night. The next night Morgan had had to go back to Burbank and Chuck had been hijacked and taken to a Marine bar…needless to say, it had been quite a major hangover…but Chuck had been massively touched by the reception from the Marines.

By now his legs had taken him to outside the intensive care ward. It was a big room with lines of beds against the wall. Most of them were filled with injured soldiers, but a few held locals, mostly kids. He approached the nurse on duty who he happened to know.

"Hi Dawn, I'm here to see Lieutenant Colonel Casey."

The petite, red-haired Captain looked up from what she was doing, "Oh, hey Chuck. How're you doing?"

"Good, thanks," he told her.

"You look knackered mate," she replied, looking him up and down.

He was tired, but so were most of them. The pace of operations had been pretty full-on for the past three months that he'd been deployed. He was pleased to be in the home straight now with only a month to go.

"Maybe you need to work on your bedside manner!" he told her. It was a line she'd used on him a few weeks ago in almost a reverse of this situation and she had the grace to laugh with him.

"Yeah, they do tell me my bedside manner needs a bit of work!" she told him, "Do you know the Colonel?" she queried, "he's not much of a talker but he mentioned you a couple of times."

"Oh?" he questioned, not sure of what to say.

"Yeah, when he first woke up he was a bit confused and mumbled about Bartowski and intersections and fulcrums," she continued, not seeing Chuck's wince, "but then when he stabilised a bit he said that he thought he'd recognised the medic that helped him and asked whether we knew of a Chuck Bartowski?"

To say that Chuck was flabbergasted was an understatement; he hadn't realised that Casey had even known he was there. "Obviously we do, so we told him you were a PJ. I swear you could've knocked the guy over with a feather, Chuck. He was beyond stunned. That's when he asked to see you. Colonel Roger initially refused, but he obviously has some high level contacts because the order came down that he was to be allowed to see you. So how do you know him?"

"I served with him before," Chuck told her. It was true after all, just not quite in the way she would have expected. "How is he? Where is he?" he asked.

"He's gonna be OK, they think," she replied, "He's over in the corner and the bed next to him is free. Let me come over and draw the curtains so you have a bit of privacy."

"It's OK Dawn, don't on my account," he told her with a gentle smile, looking into the corner of the room. He knew that Casey would prefer to be able to see what was around them, all the better to make sure no-one was listening.

"OK Chuck, he's all yours," the nurse told him, turning to one of the other patients who had just cried out, "just don't over-tire him. Use your common."

"Will do," he told her, moving towards Casey's bed.

The man who had always been larger than life in his memory seemed much smaller in the bed. His eyes were closed and he looked pale, an IV line jutting out of his left arm and stitched wounds visible and uncovered on his right arm and lower abdomen. A blood pressure cuff was on his left arm and various monitoring attachments dotted his chest. A life support machine beeped regularly but quietly at his side.

Chuck took the chart from the bottom of the bed. As Dawn had said, it looked like he was stable and they should be able to put him back together in the States. He replaced the chart then pitched his voice so as to be clear but not to carry too far. "Hello John."

Casey's eyes slowly opened and the ghost of a smile flickered across his face. "Chuck," he managed, "thought I recognised your voice. How are you?"

"Shouldn't that be my question?" he asked, snagging a chair and dragging it over so he could sit facing Casey.

"You already know, don't you?" the older man asked in a raspy voice, flicking his eyes at the end of the bed where the chart resided.

Chuck grinned. Should have known the sneaky bastard wasn't really sleeping. "Busted. Still a sneaky bastard, I see."

"Always," coughed Casey, and Chuck sprang to his feet to hold out the glass of water and straw next to the bed. Grimacing a thanks, Casey took a brief sip and then gestured for him to put it down again.

"I guess I should thank you for saving my life," the NSA agent ventured.

Chuck was unable to hide his shock, "How did you know? I thought you were unconscious?"

"Not quite. I recognised your voice. It's why I didn't shoot you." There was a smile in his voice.

"You couldn't even hold your gun!" he told the man.

"I'll let you have that," Casey ventured tiredly, "but thanks anyway."

"It's not like you haven't saved mine." Chuck told him, "A few times. I reckon I still owe you a couple more. But at least you can say you got some green feet now!"

There was a comfortable silence between the two of them. "Those were good times," Casey observed quietly.

"They seem like a lifetime ago now," Chuck stated.

"Yep," agreed Casey.

"I assume, because the world hasn't ended, that you beat Fulcrum?" he asked, not really expecting an answer but knowing that he'd never have a better chance to get one than when Casey was spaced out on painkillers.

"It was a bit more complex than that. But just about," the older man answered, "although there's always a new big bad."

"Big bad?" he exclaimed, shocked, "Was that a Buffy reference?"

"What? I wasn't hatched you know."

"I had wondered." He stated cheekily, but then he thought about his next question and wondered if he should ask it.

Casey looked at him and his eyes changed, looking more human than Chuck had ever seen him. "Go on," he prompted.

"Is everyone OK?" he asked, then, knowing he'd never forgive himself if he didn't ask, "Is Sarah OK?"

Casey smiled sadly. "Walker's fine," he stated slowly, "we keep in touch…well, once a year or so." He looked directly at Chuck, "I know she still thinks about you Bartowski," he paused, "She doesn't do wet work any more. It was difficult for her for a little while, but I think she was pleased to change direction. She's done a few deep cover assignments. Last I heard from her she was planning to accept a job as deputy head of station at the US embassy in Venezuela. It's less risky, with a diplomatic cover." He paused and Chuck could see that the relatively short conversation had tired Casey out. "Tell me about you."

Chuck had had a thrill hearing even a few sentences about Sarah, so he happily told Casey about his revelation and decision to change direction. By the time he petered out he could see Casey's eyes drooping, so he reached out his hand to the older man. "It was good seeing you John, but try to take better care of yourself in future."

The NSA agent smiled tiredly, "Stay safe Bartowski. We spent too long saving your ass to see you get it blown off out here!"

Please review if you get a chance!

A/N 1: So I'm a Brit. I've tried to use American vernacular but I'm used to writing in British English so sorry if it gets a bit confusing!

A/N 2: I'm not and have never been in the Armed Forces, so apologies if some aspects of the story are a bit light on detail. I've done a lot of research on PJs and know a lot about the UK medical services in Afghanistan but I can't pretend to be an expert. Hopefully the story is sufficiently interesting not to make it an issue. According to Wikipedia, the Green Feet tradition arose in Vietnam; after personnel were rescued that had a temporary tattoo of the green feet (signifying the Jolly Green Giant (CH-3E) chopper on their buttocks due to the fact that the Para Jumpers "saved their ass."

A/N 3: I've made up unit names used in this fic. Any similarity to existing units is not intended.

A/N 4: I totally missed Chuck when it was first released. I don't know if it wasn't shown in the UK or what, but I recently discovered it on Amazon and it's totally kept us going through the pretty depressing lockdown in the UK. This is actually the second Chuck fic I started but I've finished it first because it just wouldn't stay in my head and had to get out on the page!

Glossary of terms

2IC: Second in command

CRO: Combat Rescue Officer

IO: Intraosseous needle; a needle that drills directly into the bone to give fluids (normally blood) to grievously injured people who don't have enough blood pressure to inject into a vein

MERT: Medical Emergency Response Team – UK's air ambulance capability in Afghanistan comprising a four person medical team (doctor, nurse, two paramedics) embarked in a Chinook helicopter.

PEDRO: USAF rescue unit comprising two HH-60 helicopters crewed by pararescuemen. The call sign "Pedro," which refers to the pilots and crew, was resurrected from Vietnam for the mission in Afghanistan

PJ: Also known as Pararescuemen are USAF Special Operations Command (AFSOC) and Air Combat Command (ACC) operators tasked with recovery and medical treatment of personnel in humanitarian and combat environments. They have to go though a two-year training process known as "Superman School" which has an 80% attrition rate. They pass air, ground and sea special ops courses as well as a 37 week pararescue EMT-paramedic training course.

SAR: Search and Rescue

SrA: Senior Airman

TOC: Tactical Operations Center