Chuck vs. the Third Omaha—Chapter 1
~Disclaimer: Chuck belongs to NBC and Warner Bros., not me. If it is for sale, please let me know so I can buy it. However, until then, I make no money from this. Please don't sue me!~
Chuck braced himself for the oncoming flash, and hovered the mouse over the file, half excited, half terrified about what he might find (the last time he did this all that came up was a photo of a corpse). He did not, however, expect nothing do happen. Which is what happened. Nothing. He glanced up at the monitor on the wall and, frowning at the sea of black bars, transferred the file onto his desk screen for a closer look. To say he was disappointed at the outcome would be an understatement. To him, the past week of searching for leads on the structure of the Intersect had been like wandering around in the desert; and this was like finding an oasis with nothing in it. Looking more closely at the file, which was now residing on his desktop monitor, he scrolled up to look at the cover page, and his frown deepened. There was no indication of what organization had redacted the file; in fact, there was a large black box cover what he presumed was the seal of whatever agency had created the file. Still frowning, and mildly considering at the back of his mind that this was probably not good for him, he leaned across to the phone, still on the wall, and called the Director.
"Agent Carmichael?"
"Yes, Director," he began, "I've stumbled on a file pertaining to Project Omaha, however it is entirely redacted, I thought I had full clearance?"
"You do. There should be nothing in the database that you cannot access. What agency redacted the file?"
"I can't tell, the seal is redacted."
"That is," the Director paused, and Chuck could sense his tension even from the other side of the floor, "disturbing. Leave it with me, I'll see if I can get you that file."
"Thank you, Director." Chuck said, before disconnecting the line and leaning back in his chair. The Director of the CIA—'Agent Williams' was the longest name he had ever been given—was a busy man, but he seemed to desperately want this new Intersect project to work; that Chuck had been given full clearance to the entire CIA/NSA database spoke to that (even disregarding the fact that, with the thing in his head, it would not have been any use trying to hide it), so Chuck had no worries about getting the unredacted file. What was intriguing, however, was why an agency had gone through such lengths to cover up its involvement in Project Omaha; it was almost as if they were ashamed.
|CHUCK|
The CIA Central Field Operations Center was probably one of Sarah's least favourite places in the world. It was a vast space, spanning an entire floor of the top secret wing of the headquarters in Langley, and her office was right in the middle of it. As the CIA's best field agent, she had earned herself an actual office in the CFOC, rather than the cubicles other agents got. At least this gave her some privacy, and people were not ogling her all the time. Still, she was back in Washington with Chuck, taking a break from the hellish never ending mission she had been chasing round the globe. After the debacle with the EMP factory, the mysterious weapons trader had moved production elsewhere, and, following a week of getting nowhere, the General had finally given her some down time whilst, to quote Beckman, "we find out what the hell is up with this weapons dealer." As she tapped idly on her keyboard, scanning over satellite images of the factory she and Casey had just raided in Hungary, she realised how bored she was. Momentarily, she cursed the CIA's ruthless over-efficient security for not letting her go and see Chuck in his office, then she remembered what had kept him (and less importantly, she thought, her) alive for the past three years. Chuck, whose official title was 'Director of Human Intelligence Technology', was located in the same wing of Langley as the CFOC, but on a different level. This meant Sarah, as a lowly field agent (even the best one in the CIA) could not get up there unless he called her, and setting up a standing order to allow her in would be too suspicious, apparently. Still, she mused, she would not give up being a field agent for a desk job. She knew it did, to a certain extent, suit Chuck better—especially now that he was back on the team—but she would hate it. Suddenly, she was woken from her thoughts by the buzzing of her intercom.
"Sarah?"
"Chuck," she said, smiling, "what's up?"
"I've found something interesting on Project Omaha, can you come up and take a look?"
"Finally," Sarah thought, "something to do." She voiced her assent and got up, leaving her office and stepping out into the main hall of the CFOC. As she made her way to the lifts in the centre of the floor, she noticed another agent striding towards her; confident, cocky and with a smirk. "Crap."
"Agent Walker," he drawled out, as Sarah realised who he was. Agent Sanders, another field agent and massive pain in the arse, "it is wonderful to see you back at Langley."
"What do you want, Agent Sanders?" Sarah sighed the words out, she was not in the mood for this idiot and his pathetic attempts at trying to get her naked.
"Just wondering where you were rushing off to. I thought we could have some coffee, catch up." By the way he said the last sentence with a suggestive hint to his voice, he clearly had more than just talking in mind.
"I have a meeting with Director Carmichael. And the last thing I'd ever want to do is 'catch up' with you." Sarah managed to time her rejection perfectly with the lift arriving, and she wasted no time in striding into it, leaving a pathetically stunned Agent Sanders behind. She smirked once she was out of sight; it was not often she dropped Chuck's new title, but when she did it usually got people out of her way. Everyone knew about the mysterious new Director who was promoted from the Field Office after single handedly uncovering a mole, but no one had ever seen him. He was to the CFOC as Sarah was to the analysts of the low security wing: something of a legend.
The corridor leading to Chuck's office was very similar to how Chuck's office looked when he first arrived; with plush red carpets and oak panelling on the walls. As Sarah pushed open the heavy wooden door into Chuck's office, she noted how little the setting suited him, before being engulfed by Chuck. "Mmm… you're going to have to invite me up here more often," she said, before pulling back and looking more seriously at him, "so, what do you want me to look at?"
Sarah leaned in to inspect the file on his computer, frowning when she saw how completely redacted it was. "Have you spoken to the Director?" she said after a while.
"Yea, he said he'd get back to me. Still. I wanted a second opinion."
"Well, whatever agency did this clearly wanted not only to cover up what it did, but their entire involvement. What could have gone so badly wrong that they felt they had to do this?"
"That's exactly what I was thinking…"
Sarah carried on standing next to Chuck's seat, and he looked at her for a while.
"Hey," said Chuck, looking over at her in concern, "what's up?"
"Am I that easy to read now?" Sarah replied jokingly.
"Only to me," Chuck smiled back, before pulling her down into his lap and kissing her, "what's up?"
"It doesn't matter."
"Sarah." Chuck replied with a warning tone in his voice that would have landed anyone else in hospital.
"It's just. Well." She stopped and took a breath before rushing out, "doesitbotheryouthatIhaven'tunpacked?"
"Does it bother me? That you haven't unpacked?"
Sarah nodded and blushed gently, before leaning onto Chuck's shoulder.
"No. Why would it bother me Sarah? It's not weird; you're always going away on missions and things. There wouldn't be much point in you unpacking anyway."
|CHUCK|
"It's totally weird, right?"
"So weird."
"It's almost as if she'd rather be on a mission than at our apartment with me."
"It's the Achilles' Heel, Chuck."
"The what?"
"Every relationship has one. The single thing that can't be overcome; you have to live with it, or your relationship will unravel."
"Morgan."
"Yea Chuck?"
"Don't be ridiculous." It felt weird to Chuck, talking to Morgan over the phone from the other side of the country. He was used to Morgan always being there (literally, always, even when he did not really want Morgan to be there. Like this one time, with Sarah…), and even if his advice was almost always useless—unless it was food related—he felt odd without the bearded fellow tagging along behind him. It had been almost two months since he had last seen Morgan, and Ellie or Awesome for that matter, "I really ought to visit them…" he thought, as Morgan babbled on about some new game that was being released, and something else and something else and…
"Chuck!" Chuck came back to reality with a start, "What's that buzzing? Is it the phone?"
"Huh," Chuck looked around his room and saw the source of the noise: his intercom "Shit. Morgan, I have to call you back."
"Okay, whatever dude, duty calls et cetera. Just remember what I said!"
"Nice of you to finally answer the intercom Agent Carmichael."
"I'm sorry Director, I was on the phone to an old friend."
"I have news about that file you sent me. The agency that redacted it was the British Secret Intelligence Service."
"What, like MI6?"
"Technically they are the SIS, but yes. Congratulations Chuck, you're going to England."
Chuck stilled for a second, getting more excited by the millisecond. He was going to go to England, and meet real James Bonds! Then he remembered what the General had said when he first got his 'promotion'.
"I thought I wasn't allowed out on missions?"
"This is different, this is not a covert mission. It's a fully sanctioned intelligence transfer, in a friendly country. Besides, Agent Walker will be accompanying you."
"Sarah's coming?"
"Well, I haven't informed her yet, but she does seem a little bored, what with the weapons trading leads drying up as we run after them. I thought you could tell her yourself."
