Author's Explanation:

I've worked on this for several years—since part way through season two. I finally got more than a little tired of working with the inconsistencies in Chuck, with trying to rewrite to accommodate them, so at some point, I simply quit trying and went with the story I had going. As someone not a fan of OCs, I'm not sure why this route worked for me, but it did.

For those of you not old or into bad eighties television shows, Adderly was a Canadian-produced television show in the late eighties about a spy who worked for an organization called ISI—International Security and Intelligence. V. H. Adderly, once ISI's top agent was assigned to Miscellaneous Affairs after losing the use of one of his hands, and his operations tended to turn into meaty assignments: send him to be a mailman, as he put it, and he could well find the world's most wanted spy. I noticed a lot of parallels with the show and Chuck, so it came into play. Since the show was coy about some details about ISI, I made them up, though I tried to be logical. A few details about V. H. come from Elliott Baker's 1971 novel Pocock and Pitt, on which the show was based. You don't have to have seen it, though, or read the book.

Finally, there will be language, there will eventually be material meritorious of an R or possibly NC-17 rating, and based on a comment from LJ, you are warned there is a significant age gap between the two major protagonists.

Thanks, too, to sunshineali for the encouragement. I wrote this mainly for my own enjoyment, but she's provided consistent, positive feedback and encouraged me to post here.

Disclaimer: Would I be as poor as I am if I owned the show or made money from this?

Forging a Life-1

Major John Casey knew it would come to this sooner or later. If he hadn't been facing a superior officer—albeit on a monitor—he would have ground out a disgruntled growl. Instead, he remained silent and waited to hear what his bosses had decided to do about the latest rumor.

"They're asking questions about you," said the man on the monitor. To make it worse, the man speaking was the Director General of a Canadian-based security agency few people knew existed and with whom Casey had to make nice. Normally, making nice was not a problem with this man since he and Casey were old friends, but this wasn't normally. Since International Security and Intelligence had become a party to the Intersect after a choice bit of Canadian intel dropped out of Chuck Bartowski's mouth, the Director General of ISI had become another superior who occasionally briefed Casey and Walker.

In all honesty, he really had known it was only a matter of time. He had tried to explain to General Beckman that having him dog another man's footsteps, work where he worked, live in the same apartment complex he lived in would raise questions, especially since he was a single man of a certain age who had never married, but she hadn't listened, had assumed Walker's presence would stop the inevitable.

God, he hated this job.

It wasn't just the sitting around with a metaphorical thumb up his ass he hated, either. It was the fact that a tremendous amount of government resources were being expended to protect a single man, a man who would soon be obsolete. It was the fact that that one man was an annoying little nerd who couldn't mind his own business or mind his handlers. It was the fact that Casey was sidelined from any real assignments for as long as Bartowski was the Intersect. It wasn't his place to question why, though, so he waited, grinding his teeth together.

"We're concerned that your cover is compromised," the man said again. "So we're sending you a little help."

That rankled. "I don't need any more help," he bit out. It was bad enough he had Walker; he could only imagine what having a Canadian following him in lockstep would be like.

"Yes, Casey, you do." The man shuffled paperwork a moment, and even through the monitor Casey could tell that color ran up under the other man's skin. "There are questions about your sexuality rising to the surface, and you don't need those kinds of questions. We're sending an operative to pose as your girlfriend. She'll be able to give you some down time and to allow you to put a little distance between you and the asset."

"V. H.—" It was a calculated risk to use the other man's name—or what passed for his name—but it didn't pay off.

"No discussion, Major. The decision has been made. The file is on its way. She'll be there tomorrow evening. Be so kind as to meet her at the airport."

And with that, the screen went blank. Casey was left to wonder if the other man had lost a coin toss given V. H. had failed to meet his eyes, so to speak, when he delivered the news.

He complained to General Beckman, but she firmly backed ISI's director general. She had, however, lightened the sting a bit with the promise that an additional operative on the job would free him up to occasionally take time for a more meaty assignment. It hadn't mollified him much, but he'd had no choice but to give in.

Casey nearly spewed coffee all over the monitor when he finally downloaded her dossier and saw her name. No wonder the other man wouldn't meet his gaze. She wasn't just any operative. Mariah Adderly was the daughter of ISI's director general. Forget that she was young enough to be Casey's daughter as well and that he had a rancorous past with her mother. This had disaster written all over it.

Her father had been a legend, Beauty One, ISI's top covert operative until a mission in East Berlin in the eighties left him with a ruined left hand. Adderly had refused to let the surgeons amputate it, had, in fact, threatened the life of the doctor who had intended to do just that. He had preferred to keep the useless hand as a reminder, and V. H. had worked hard to make sure the loss of the hand hadn't impeded his ability to do his job.

Casey had come to admire Adderly, despite the fact the man only followed procedure when it was expedient and the fact he was prone to improvising. It wasn't that Adderly didn't know what the proper procedures were: the man could quote them chapter and verse from the ISI operations manual when he was reprimanded. He simply chose the most expedient way to complete the mission, often over the objections of his superior officers. It wasn't Casey's way, especially since he had been taught early to obey orders. Casey's admiration came from the fact that V. H. Adderly was highly effective, and while Casey would never run an operation quite as loosely as Adderly frequently did, nor would he willingly include civilians, he had learned that sometimes an agent had to play things by ear and go with the opportunities that presented themselves.

It had been tragic what happened to the older man, how he lost his status as ISI's top field agent and was relegated to Miscellaneous Affairs and routine, dull assignments. Some of those dull assignments had turned out to be vital operations, and on one of those, Adderly had had the pleasure of seeing the man who'd crushed his hand killed in Montreal. On the same mission, Adderly had been left naked and handcuffed to a bed by an agent from the other side. Unlike others, Casey didn't laugh about that, having been found himself in similar circumstances in Prague. Adderly's indiscretion had demonstrated the opposing sides of the operative: calm, cool, competent agent who could sometimes be distracted by a pretty face, especially a French-speaking pretty face.

Casey studied the daughter's picture, looking for any resemblance to either the legendary agent or her mother, a famous singer. Truth be told, she favoured her mother slightly, which was enough for him to not think too highly of her. She was a pretty enough girl, he supposed, brunette rather than blonde like her mother, blue-eyed with fairly ordinary features. As he read through her dossier, he realised she was relatively inexperienced as an agent despite several years with ISI. That irritated him even as he acknowledged that her greenness and non-descript looks might keep anyone from recognizing her and blowing either of their covers.

She had worked mostly in ISI's ICOM office, and what fieldwork she had done had been almost exclusively done in Canada, he read, and took special note that she had run an unnamed asset in Quebec. That sparked a memory of a pretty little redhead he had once seen through a sniper scope there. He'd been in Montreal to take care of a young Québécois turncoat, but the redhead had done his job for him—and taken out two others while she was at it. There wasn't enough detail in the dossier to know if she was the same woman, though as he read the rest of her file, he doubted it. Her record didn't exactly demonstrate the level of competence he'd observed in the redhead. Adderly's daughter had taken a bullet in the Yukon over a year ago, and she had a job recently go south in Edmonton. He also noted there were some interesting gaps in her service record, and he wondered if they had been redacted or if she had been MIA for some other reason.

He noted she was within spitting distance of thirty, but in her photograph, she looked very young. She might be twenty-eight, but she could easily have passed for a teenager—assuming that was a recent photograph V. H. had helpfully included with her dossier. He was a little concerned he would go from looking like a crazed stalker to a dirty old man, and he wished that if they had to send him a fake girlfriend, they would send him someone with a few more years on her. For a moment, he thought fondly of the recently widowed Isobel Gerrard with whom he had also once worked and who was also on ISI's payroll. Izzie would have at least made sure they had a little fun, though Casey remembered a few times when Izzie's fun had come at his expense.

Because he always did his duty and because he accepted he was stuck with Adderly's daughter, he found himself in LAX waiting for her flight late Friday night, mentally rehearsing how to play this since both Walker and the Intersect had insisted on accompanying him. In Bartowski's case, Casey was certain the younger man wanted to assess how insane a woman had to be to take him on. Walker likely tagged along so that she could report back to her bosses at Langley about whether it was a real relationship or not. The documents with the dossier providing a barebones cover made it clear he was not to admit to the others, Walker included, that Mariah Adderly was in the business. He wasn't sure why they weren't just open about her status with ISI, especially if she had to step in as one of Chuck's guardians, and at some point, he knew, they would have to own up that she worked in intelligence as well. He had reluctantly told the lie he'd been given, though, that since it looked like he was going to be in L. A. more or less permanently, his live-in girlfriend was coming to join him.

Walker hadn't believed him; he could read it on her face. Casey was fairly certain the CIA had told her exactly who was coming to stay and why. Chuck, though, had been disgustingly happy for him, and Casey's teeth ground every time the Intersect pried for details, details he steadfastly refused to disclose until he could meet the girl and work out a suitable backstory. Casey would have thought after the Ilsa debacle that Chuck would wonder how he could pine for Ilsa one minute and introduce his supposedly long-standing girlfriend a few months later. Chuck, apparently, hadn't considered that in the least inconsistent and hadn't even berated Casey for anything other than not telling him he had a girlfriend.

As his gaze searched the crowded terminal, he almost missed her, especially since he was looking for a brunette and she turned out to have dark blonde hair instead. He'd also been looking for a woman more typical of the female spies he knew: model-tall, athletic. Beautiful didn't always go with spy despite what novels, movies and television might make people think. He'd met fewer Walkers in this business than people might expect. After all, a good spy was invisible rather than someone who would draw attention.

Mariah Adderly was considerably shorter than he expected, somehow, perhaps only five-five, and slim with it, slimmer, in fact, than Walker was. The girl was downright skinny, actually. He was going to look like some hulking behemoth next to her, he realized as she spotted him and lifted a hand. As waves went, it looked more apprehensive than enthusiastic, though he supposed she was probably no happier than he about her assignment to Burbank. He strode toward her, wondered how friendly a greeting to give her, but she took the guesswork out of it by dropping her carry-on and reaching up for him. He put his arms around her, heard her hiss as though she were in pain, and then she breathed in his ear, "Call me Riah." Or at least that's what he thought she said. Her soft voice was almost completely lost in the noise of all the people around them.

"John," he whispered back, loosening his hug enough to kiss her briefly on the mouth. He brusquely introduced her to Walker and to Chuck as "Mariah Taylor," remembering to use her mother's surname as he'd been instructed and to call Walker by her first name, and then he helped her sort her luggage out, impressed that she only had two fairly large bags and the carry-on with her. Most women he knew couldn't go overnight without considerably more luggage.

"You travel light," Chuck said, echoing Casey's thoughts as he took hold of one.

"The rest is being shipped," she said lightly, shouldering the carry-on she'd set down when she greeted Casey. Casey had a moment where he imagined his apartment covered in floral fabric and other feminine fluff. He suppressed a shudder. The only thing worse would be a cat. No, scratch that, he thought. A cat would be more welcome. Cats didn't need anything much from their humans. Women, on the other hand, required far more maintenance than food and the occasional stroking, and the shit one often had to shovel with women was far worse than dealing with kitty litter.

When they had loaded her luggage into the Vic's trunk and were on the road, Chuck asked, "So how did you and Casey meet?" Casey only just controlled the urge to snap at him.

Mariah turned to look back at Chuck and Sarah from her seat next to Casey in the front of the Crown Vic and answered. "In Montreal," she said lightly. "John was there doing what he does, and I was living there to perfect my French. Our paths crossed, and they kept crossing. Eventually, he took me to dinner, and, well," she shrugged, "things happened."

She'd given nothing away but a location, he realized and approved. Until they could build a stronger backstory, it was good enough.

"Why Montreal?" Chuck asked. "Wouldn't you go to France to perfect your French?"

Mariah laughed. "Not if you're Canadian."

"Wait—Captain America's girlfriend is Canadian?" Chuck asked, incredulously.

Casey glared at him in the rear view mirror, and growled, "Half Canadian." He met Bartowski's eyes in the mirror, and he could tell the younger man was just dying to ask which half, so he amped up the glare. "Riah's mother is American."

"So where are you from?" Chuck asked. "In Canada, I mean."

"My parents had a place in Newfoundland."

Casey knew cover stories worked best when they were as close to the truth as possible. He noticed she didn't share that she had been born in Toronto or that the place in Newfoundland had actually been her mother's. Nor did Mariah mention she had been shunted off there with her paternal grandparents after her parents broke up. Not long after their split, she had been abducted, and her father had sent her to Newfoundland to get her out of the way and keep her safe while she was growing up. Casey bit back a sigh. They were going to have to make up a history together out of whole cloth, and he wondered how they could make it mesh with what Chuck already knew about him. After all, they couldn't afford to be caught in obvious lies, and he didn't think it was a good idea to trigger any flashes on Chuck's part.

"Newfoundland? That's an island, right?" Chuck asked.

Mariah nodded. "I'm 'from a rock in the sea,' as one of our local bands would say."

Chuck suddenly went silent, and Casey looked back at him in the mirror. Uh-oh, he thought. Chuck was wearing his flash face. He looked at Mariah, who was watching Chuck. "Does he have seizures?" Mariah asked, clearly worried. Casey wondered if her father had told her anything at all about the mission.

"Sort of," Casey said, and Walker frowned at him from the back.

"Should we do something?" she asked.

Chuck came out of the flash, and started to hyperventilate a little. Walker made soothing noises, and Casey glanced at Mariah. "Nah. He'll be okay in a minute." And hopefully he keeps his mouth shut until I find out if she knows what my assignment really is, Casey thought.

The rest of the drive to Echo Park involved a rather strained conversation between Mariah and Walker, mostly about climate and favorite restaurants in D. C. Chuck finished hyperventilating and glared meaningfully at Casey in the mirror. He wasn't sure if Chuck had figured out who Mariah really was or if something else was going on, but he'd find out as soon as he could. When they pulled up at the apartment complex, Casey parked and came around to open Mariah's door. She looked mildly surprised by the courtesy but said nothing. Chuck was already at the trunk waiting for Casey to open it, and when he did, the younger man took hold of one of her cases while Casey lifted out the other one and her carry-on. She relieved him of the smaller bag.

"You know," Chuck began, and Casey had a bad feeling about what might come next. "Mariah's probably hungry. I know a great place that stays open late. We could all go get something to eat, get to know each other better?"

Casey started to reject the idea curtly, but Mariah forestalled him. "Thanks for the offer, Chuck, but it's been a long day, a long flight, and a very long time since I last saw John." She smiled up at Casey as she said it, dropped her voice to a low, sexy, register; he had to give her credit for making that last sound like he was about to get incredibly lucky and probably not be seen for the better part of a week. "Maybe another time?"

"Yeah, sure," Chuck said, and Casey could hear the shock in Bartowski's voice. As Casey sorted out the right key and unlocked his door before standing aside for Mariah and the others to precede him. "Uh, where should I put this?"

"Just set it down," Casey said. "We'll deal with it later." Only one bedroom was furnished, and Casey was going to have to sort out what the sleeping arrangements would be. He set the other case down beside the one Chuck had already deposited in the entryway.

"Listen, buddy, could I talk to you a minute?" Chuck asked, and Casey noticed a slight sheen of sweat on the other man's face.

He turned to Mariah, said, "I'll be right back," and followed Bartowski and Walker back outside.

"Her name isn't Taylor."

"I know that, Chuck," he growled. So Mariah had been in the Intersect after all.