A/N Trying to get this story back into something like the canon line. Somebody wanted to know what Sarah said to Beckman, but the best I can offer here is what she has to say to Ellie. Maybe soon I can offer Beckman's take on what Sarah had to say.

"That's called a handoff."

"Minimal violence."

"That bad, huh?"

"Girl time."

Chuck stood outside the door to his sister's apartment, not entirely sure how he got there. He looked down at the twist-tie wrapped around his finger. Engaged? What? How did Ellie manage to do these things? He caught a whiff of his shirt, still damp with that awful tea, and gave a small prayer up to the gods of tea that she didn't like to drink that one.

Not that he had any intention of trying to get out of anything. The only thing stupider than trying to break an engagement to the smartest, funniest, most beautiful, sexiest woman in the world, would be trying to break an engagement to a professional assassin. Besides, he didn't want to. It may not have been one of his many and multi-layered, some would say overwrought, plans, but he wasn't about to complain about the outcome.

"Bartowski!" snarled a familiar voice, and sure enough, there was Casey standing in his doorway, glaring at him. "Lose that idiot grin and get over here. Help me move all this stuff back where it's supposed to be." Chuck followed. 'This stuff' was Casey's sensory and signaling equipment, all of which had been moved into his bedroom as part of a mission. "With Shaw out of the picture there's no reason to deny myself a decent night's sleep."

Shaw was 'out of the picture' because Chuck had killed him, but to Casey that was simply a fact, neither condemned nor condoned. Chuck had a different view of the matter. "Sarah and I are engaged," he said, showing Casey the twist-tie. Not exactly what he planned to say, but those were the words that came out.

Casey had already had time to think about that. "And your bedroom window is opposite my bedroom window," he said, his face twisting with disgust at some anticipated experience. "Switch rooms with Grimes."

"Okay, now that may be good tactics," said Chuck, sounding doubtful. Maybe it was the fumes from the tea, but his brain seemed to be slipping sideways. "But it's bad strategy, since a) that room used to be Ellie's, so there's no way he'll give it up willingly, and b) he's currently dating your daughter." So putting him, and therefore him and her, closer to her father's bedroom window, might not be the best idea in some circumstances.

"Ugh," said Casey. He got up real close and poked his finger into Chuck's chest. "Well, then you'd better keep it down, or I'm gonna come over there and keep it down for you. Understand?"

"I'm sure Sarah will, when you explain it to her like that." Sarah and I are engaged!

Casey backed off. "Just move the gear, moron," he snarled. "The sooner it's set up, the sooner the General can send me back into combat." He sniffed, and looked down. "What's that smell?"

"Devon's tea," said Chuck.

Casey backed away, to his chest of drawers. He pulled one open and pulled out a green object, so flat it was almost compressed. "Lose the robe, change the shirt." He tossed the T-shirt, but Chuck was too surprised to catch it. "Close that hole in your face. I've seen scrawnier guys than you in their skivvies. Make sure you bring that back to me clean and folded."

Chuck changed his clothes. "How do I look?"

It didn't hang on him too badly. Spy school had been good for him. "Green," said Casey, shoving a monitor into Chuck's arms. "Let's get to work."

Across the courtyard…

Sarah and Ellie watched the door close behind Chuck, after he'd walked in a bit of a daze out into the world. "Oh," said Ellie, raising a hand to her mouth, "I hope I haven't spoiled it for you."

"Spoiled what?" asked Sarah, trying to extricate her arm from Ellie's grasp. The only 'girl time' she knew involved hand-to-hand combat.

"His proposal," said Ellie. "I'm sure he would have come up with something far more…um…" Her face clouded as she began to realize what sort of proposal her brother might have come up with on his own. And when.

"Far more um?" said Sarah. She sat down, but Ellie sat with her. "Ellie, you've just described the worst marriage proposal in the world. Something I would pay money to avoid."

Ellie smiled, relieved. "Oh. Well, congratulations, then."

Sarah decided to seize the day, or in this case, the hand. "It was my parents'."

Exit relieved smile. "Condolences." Ellie looked for a ray of sunshine. "Hopefully the marriage was more successful…"

Sarah shrugged, tightening her grip. Really, she didn't know what was wrong with Casey. "If my father isn't in prison he probably should be, and I fully expect to never see my mother again." Maybe he just liked to suffer.

"…So I'm guessing a small wedding would be best," said Ellie, trying to let go of Sarah's hand with no success.

"I'd say so," said Sarah, keeping her tone light with professional skill. "I wouldn't have enough guests to fill one pew on my side of the aisle." Those pews in that cathedral held what? Seven people? "And half of them would be telling me I was making a mistake."

"Your life sucks," said Ellie.

Sarah looked at the door Chuck was on the other side of. "It used to."

"I don't suppose you're going to tell me how you met my brother either." Casey had already shot her down on that line of questioning.

Sarah turned to her sister-in-law-to-be and let go of her hand. "Not without authorization." She touched Ellie's arm lightly. "I can't say it doesn't matter, but we're a team now, and I'm here to make sure Chuck stays safe."

Ellie stared at Sarah for a while, flexing her fingers. "Are you armed? Right now?"

Sarah curled toward Ellie, in a friendly, confidential sort of way. Her robe slipped, revealing a brace of knives strapped around her leg. She popped the top off her ring to show a needle. She pulled something on her watchband and unspooled a length of wire. She let go and it retracted. A twitch of the robe and Sarah was Sarah again. "That's until I could get the robe off."

"Please don't," said Ellie, raising a hand. "Save the floor show for Chuck."

"I do."

"Save that for the minister." Ellie tried to laugh. "Officiant. Whatever." She looked at Sarah for a bit longer. "Casey said they tried to break you?"

"Did he tell you how?" If he did she would break him.

Ellie shook her head. "He said to ask you."

Of course he did. "An old government program, benign originally…"

"Aren't they all?" scoffed Ellie.

"No, but this one was. People aren't naturally killers. It takes experience, it takes practice, it takes need, and even then most people will mess it up." Sarah waved a hand. "Anyway, by the time I took it, a test to see if agents could kill had become a program to get them to kill."

Envelope-pushing. "Making monsters."

"Yeah," said Sarah. "Until they made me. The second thing I killed was the program."

Ellie put her hand over Sarah's. "Sweetie, you're no monster."

Sarah looked at her hand. Their hands. "For a long time I believed I was. Is there a difference between believing yourself a monster and being one? I thought myself worse than Frankenstein's Monster, since I still had my soul and acted like a monster anyway." Something itched on her cheeks. "I thought I was damned."

Ellie wiped the tears away. "Do I have to guess?"

"No," said Sarah. "Chuck happened. He showed me that I wasn't Frankenstein's creature, but Jekyll's."

Across the courtyard…

Casey brought out the last item, the Presidential Cigar Box still mostly full of pre-revolutionary Costa Gravan Double Coronas. He was setting it back in its former place of honor when the monitor beeped. "Clear out, Bartowski," he snapped, as Chuck went to stand in his usual spot. "You're not presentable."

The screen lit as Chuck stepped out of range. "Colonel Casey," said the General, "I trust Agents Bartowski and Walker have arrived safely."

"You may as well start calling them the Agents Bartowski, General," said Casey, with a sigh. "Ellie told the moron to propose, and he did."

"About time," said Beckman with a sniff. Then she frowned. "And you found out how?"

"I told him, General," said Chuck, sticking his face and hand into pickup range as Casey hung his head. "See? Sarah and I are engaged!"

"Agent Bartowski!" Beckman recoiled from the close-up view of his manic grin. "Is that a twist-tie?"

Chuck nodded, wiggling his finger. "That was Ellie's idea. She wanted to talk to Sarah alone and gave us these."

"Clever," said Beckman, amazed that it worked. "And why are you not standing with Col. Casey?"

The grin went away, thank God. "He told me not to."

"He's in his skivvies, General," said Casey quickly. "It was pouring rain when they arrived. There's more, but I'll save it for a footnote."

"I look forward to it," said Beckman, straight-faced. "Agent Bartowski, on the advice of a CIA psychiatrist with clearance enough to know the particulars of your case, I am directing you to read your sister in to the Intersect project. Hopefully she can help more than your father has been able to.

"Also I have arranged for you and Agent Walker to see him. His details have been sent to your computer, but he won't be able to see you until he arrives in a few days. In the meantime, we have a number of missions for your team, low-level fallout from the capture of Prince's base. Nothing that should require either flashing or violence. Have fun."

"Have fun, she says," grumbled Casey, after the screen went dark. "With no violence?"

Across the courtyard…

"You lost me," said Ellie.

Sarah tucked the robe in more tightly around herself. "My father is a con man, and raised me to be a con man just like him."

"You're right, he should be in jail," said Ellie, because that's what Sarah said before.

Sarah shook her head, staring at the floor. "Anything else and I probably wouldn't have met Chuck," she said, "So I'm willing to let bygones be bygones."

"Except…?" prompted Ellie, because there had to be one.

"Except that I was nine!" snapped Sarah. "Each day, every day, I'd hear it, see it. 'Love is for suckers.' Never feel sorry for the marks. They all deserve it. If they weren't trying to cheat they couldn't be cheated."

"Oh my God," said Ellie, reaching out to hold her sister-to-be. Nine! To do that to her, so young… "He turned you into Hyde." Or kept her from developing into Jekyll. Same thing, in the end.

"Not quite," said Sarah into her hair. "He loved me."

"Not very well." Like a cactus.

"More than the CIA." Sarah sniffed. "I wanted out. I was going to graduate, have a real life, a real future. Then they came…"

"And finished what he started."

Sarah took a deep breath. "Somewhere inside me is a little girl, surrounded by a very high wall, trying to get out," she said. "She wants her life back, and I want to give it to her. If the CIA was afraid of me before, wait until they see me now."

"No," said Ellie, with a sharp squeeze. "You don't want to be that."

"No," said Sarah, relaxing into the embrace. "I don't. But they don't know that."

Casey stood on Ellie's doorstep, wondering what the hell he thought he was doing. He tapped, gently. "Who is it?" asked someone from within. The door opened and Ellie was there, looking at him funny. "John?"

"Ellie," said John politely. Very politely. "Is Sarah still here? I need to speak with her."

"You're cutting into our girl-time, John," said Ellie.

"It has some bearing on that, Ellie," said Casey quickly. "General Beckman has cleared us to read you into the mission."

Ellie pushed the door open. "So, which of you has the honor?"

"Eh, Chuck does," said Casey, as Sarah came over. "In addition to the authorization, she also gave us a pile of missions, little ones, until a company shrink can get out here."

"You're going on a mission, and leaving Chuck behind to brief me?" asked Ellie.

"Not exactly," said Casey. "He's taking one mission that he can do himself, doing it now, actually. He'll take care of your briefing, while Sarah and I take care of another mission of our own. I told you, they're small. We'll probably get through the whole pile in just a couple of weeks."

"What's Chuck going to be doing?" asked Sarah, as Devon came up to his house and stepped around Casey to go inside.

"Relax, he's staying in his room," said Casey, moving aside. "No field work. All he's doing is use his computer to look into some Ring money-man named Bale." Casey grunted, confused. "Called him a 'nice little snack'."

"Oh God," said Ellie. She latched onto Devon's arm as he passed.

Casey smiled at her reaction, and said to Sarah, "Anyway, you and I are going after a courier, some guy named Jean-Claude."

A/N2 I kept thinking of Chuck pulling an 'I am Groot' bit, saying 'Sarah and I are engaged' no matter what he was thinking. Since this version has no Morgan-sect arc, I'm putting those episodes to a different use. Bale was a pretty weak villain, and Jean-Claude never got much screen time.

This will probably be the hardest story I've ever written. I hope you'll all help me get through it with some supportive commentary.