Dr. Ronald Zinn leaned back in his chair, and looked across the office at the two people facing him – both CIA analysts, or so he’d been led to understand in the husband’s case. She was a former deep-cover operative who’d made the mistake of falling in love.
And now, there was potential for a very large complication.
“Agent Walker, Mr. Bartowski,” he began, “I’m seeing some things here, warning signs, that I really don’t like the looks of. We need to take preventative measures immediately, or there may be complications.”
Sarah’s face went white and Chuck’s eyes widened at the sound of that. “What do you mean, complications?” she asked.
“I mean, I’m seeing a disturbing amount of damage to the tissues around your uterine walls, and I’m concerned that you might go into labor prematurely,” Dr. Zinn replied. “I’ve been over your records, and I think it’s a result of injuries you suffered in the plane crash in 2006, and then again when you were shot in 2008.”
Chuck looked at Sarah. “What plane crash?”
“I’ll tell you later,” she replied.
“I’m also concerned about complications that might arise if you give birth naturally,” Dr. Zinn continued. “Even though you’re a tall woman, your abdominal cavity is not very large. Those two fetuses are in very close quarters in there, and I’m concerned about possible entanglement of their umbilical cords during childbirth.
“So, I want to schedule you for a Caesarean section,” he finished. “Your due date is November 25th, so let’s set it for five days before that – the 20th.”
He took a deep breath. She wasn’t going to like the next thing he had to say. “Now, as far as preventative measures go, I’m going to confine you to sixteen hours-per-day bed rest.”
“What?!” Sarah objected. “Sixteen hours a day in bed?!”
Dr. Zinn nodded. “That’ll give you eight hours a day to do with as you please, though I’d prefer it if you spent as much of that time as possible seated, and no more than four hours a day at the CIA’s offices.”
Sarah turned to Chuck. “You’re not going to agree with him on this, are you?”
Chuck raised his hands. “I am so not going to argue with a man who has an MD on what measures we need to take to keep you and our children healthy.”
That answer did not appease Sarah. “Look,” Chuck said softly, taking her hands in his. “You know that there’s nothing, nobody in this world I love more than you. In a month and a half, you
and I are going to be the parents of two beautiful children. But I want them to be healthy, and I don’t want anything to happen to you. Please, please, just listen to what Dr. Zinn says.”
“Thank you, Mr. Bartowski,” Dr. Zinn said, as Sarah closed her eyes and nodded. “Now, since this hasn’t been discussed yet – for whatever reasons – do you want to know what gender they’re going to be?”
“No,” Sarah said, just as Chuck emphatically said, “Yes!”
They looked at each other. “No!” Sarah insisted.
“Come on, Sarah!” Chuck replied. “I want to know so badly it’s not even funny!”
Dr. Zinn started laughing. “Okay, how about this. I’ll go out in the hallway with you, Mr. Bartowski, and tell you.”
Sarah glared at Chuck. “Just remember, buster, I still know over a hundred ways to kill you.”
Chuck rolled his eyes and laughed. “Yeah, yeah. I’m not that stupid.”
The two men left the room, and came back two minutes later. Chuck had a grin on his face that stretched from ear to ear. “Are you SURE you don’t want to know?”
Sarah looked at him, and then smiled slightly. “Number one,” she said. “Gun.”
Chuck laughed, remembering that day at Pacific Park, more than two and a half years before. “Number two,” he replied. “Knife.”
Sarah started to laugh, and Chuck leaned down and kissed her.
“Oh, one more thing,” Dr. Zinn said. “I want you to avoid sexual intercourse the rest of the way.”
Chuck leaned back, as a look of murder grew on Sarah’s face. The release had been one of the things keeping her sane.
“What?” she growled. “Are you KIDDING me?”
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Zinn replied, “but I just think there’s too much of a risk. No sex.”
Sarah took a deep breath, keeping her temper in check. “Fine,” she finally spat out. “Am I still allowed to… um, take care of things myself?”
Dr. Zinn shrugged. “I don’t see why not. Just keep it in check. I don’t want you flooding your body with hormones and adrenaline on a regular basis.”
Sarah sighed. This last month and a half was going to take forever.
That afternoon, when they got home, Chuck went out of his way to make sure that Sarah would be comfortable for the last month and a half. He called the Buy More, and asked them to deliver a few things to the house. Two hours later, a Buy More delivery truck pulled up to the house, John Casey at the wheel.
Chuck and Casey unloaded a 42” plasma screen TV, which went directly to the bedroom, where they mounted it facing the bed. A mini-fridge was unloaded – that went next to the bed. Sarah would not be lacking for cold water while stuck in bed.
A one-hundred disc DVD changer and a small 5.1 channel sound system were then hooked up to the TV. Chuck loaded the DVD player with several sets of TV shows – all the discs from every season of Firefly, Friends, and Scrubs, plus a handful of movies – Back to the Future, Gone in Sixty Seconds, The Matrix, Moulin Rouge, Ocean’s Eleven, Office Space, Serenity, Star Trek IV, Star Wars, and Superman Returns. To top it all off, he loaded in CDs of the Rolling Stones entire catalog.
“Okay, how did you find out about that?” Sarah asked him. She never had gotten around to telling Chuck that the Rolling Stones were her favorite band.
“Fair trade,” he replied. “You tell me about the plane crash, and I’ll tell you how I found out.”
Sarah sighed. “Alright,” she replied. “You remember, back in July of 2006, when Israel and Lebanon went to each other’s throats, because Hizbollah got crazy?”
“Yeah, of course,” Chuck said. “I thought the entire Middle East was going to explode.”
“Well,” Sarah continued, “Bryce and I were sent over there as observers. While we were there, we took a trip to the border, and we started getting shot at. The Hummer we were in was equipped with several light anti-tank missiles, so I popped up through the turret, and fired one at the van that was firing on us.
“Turned out that that van contained a Hizbollah commander, and the people around it managed to get a picture of me. They put a ten thousand Euro bounty on my head. The Mossad insisted that I get out of the country right then, and we almost didn’t make it – the Hummer and our driver were blown up two minutes after we boarded the plane.
“On final approach to Reagan National Airport, a sleeper terrorist fired a Stinger missile at the Learjet we were in. It blew off the port engine, and our plane almost crashed into the Jefferson Memorial.”
Chuck’s eyes went wide. “I remember seeing that on the news!” he exclaimed. “That was YOU?!”
Sarah nodded. “I was pretty banged up, but it could’ve been a lot worse. Hizbollah actually sent in a strike team to finish the job, but an anonymous guy, who Bryce was pretty sure was the sleeper himself, having an attack of conscience, came roaring up in this old Pontiac GTO, and pretty much saved the day.”
Chuck shook his head. “Unbelievable,” he uttered. Then it dawned on him. “The day we left for our honeymoon,” he said, “and you talked about being chased halfway around the world by terrorists – that’s what you were talking about, isn’t it?”
Sarah didn’t say anything, just nodded her head.
“Wow,” Chuck whispered. “I married the female James Bond.”
Sarah laughed at that one. “Okay, now fair’s fair,” she said. “How’d you know about the Rolling Stones?”
“Bryce told me,” Chuck replied. “He told me once that he really regretted not paying closer attention to the little things in your relationship, and he didn’t want me to make the same mistakes.”
Sarah smiled and shook her head. “Let me tell you something, Chuck. You have done a FAR better job of paying attention to the little things than Bryce EVER did.”
He smiled back. “Well, I’m pretty sure I got the better deal between him and me – he’s still out hunting down Fulcrum, and here I sit, in a house in Studio City, married to you, with our two kids on the way.”
Despite the small things, despite everything Chuck did to make Sarah comfortable, the sixteen hours a day bed rest was still miserable. She ended up having to spend four hours every weekday downtown, doing CIA analysis work.
She dedicated a fair part of her little remaining time to shopping for baby clothes. Of course, she didn’t know what gender the two were going to be – but Ellie did. Chuck had told her, so Ellie made sure to go shopping with Sarah.
Of course, one day it happened – they were at Topanga Plaza, looking in incredulity at the price tags on baby clothes at Neiman Marcus, when Ellie’s water broke. Her eyes widened. “Oh, shit.”
As the Beast went flying north on Topanga Canyon Boulevard and then east on Roscoe Boulevard, racing toward Northridge Medical Center, one very pregnant woman at the wheel and another going into labor in the shotgun seat, Sarah called Chuck.
“You better get to Roscoe and Reseda QUICK,” she ordered him. “Ellie’s baby’s on the way!”
