A/N: Since it took so long to get the last chapter up, I figured I'd rush production on this one. Of course, the fact that my excellent betas, KathGrangerPotter and sgafan360, didn't feel the need to slap me around as much about this chapter also helped.

A clarifying note: Remember that this jumps off before the Office Season 5 finale, so all developments starting with that episode have not occurred. One big one in particular.

Housekeeping: If you're interested, I've posted a poll on my profile asking what you'd like to see me write next. It'll have no impact on this story at all, but if you're enjoying this one and would like some influence over what else you get to read, I'd love to see your votes.

To the people who own awesome television shows like Chuck and the Office, our last best hope in an age where reality television and Jay Leno have far outpaced scripted entertainment, I renew my pledge of not owning your stuff.

Chapter 4: Vacation

Three hours after discovering that Jim and Pam's neighbor was a Fulcrum Elder, Chuck had yet to recover from the resulting daze. Sarah had immediately called Casey, informed him of the situation, and asked him to set up a video conference with Beckman later in the evening. Chuck had wanted to go home right away, but Sarah had reminded him that neither of them had anything resembling a plausible work-related excuse, and that they'd agreed to come over barely an hour before. The chances of damaging their cover by backing out were far too high. They'd have to act as normal as possible and get through the evening.

Chuck had never been so grateful for Cover Sarah's presence. She and Pam had spent most of the evening talking excitedly about each other's wedding plans, leaving Jim and Chuck barely able to slip a word into the conversation. Which was good, because hanging out next door to a high-ranking member of a domestic terrorist group had resulted in Chuck completely freaking out.

He had finally calmed down to some extent when they'd met Casey back at their apartment. The two agents had immediately withdrawn to the kitchen to discuss the situation. After retreating briefly to his office to record the full details of his flash, Chuck allowed himself to decompress on the living room couch. Unfortunately, that state of affairs hadn't lasted long.

"Well done, team. We've been looking for Mr. Grich for a very long time," said the face of General Beckman as it appeared on the television in the living room. Sarah and Casey hurried in to join Chuck for the briefing.

"How should we proceed from this point, General?" asked Sarah.

"I will be placing an FBI SWAT team under Colonel Casey's direct supervision," Beckman announced. "With their help, you will apprehend Grich, along with any other Fulcrum personnel in the area, and bring them to the nearest secure detention facility for interrogation."

"And when should all this be accomplished?"

"As soon as your team has developed a plan that everyone is comfortable with, Agent Walker," Beckman replied dryly.

Sarah nodded, and appeared to be satisfied. Chuck was not.

"General, Grich lives next door to two people who work closely with Sarah at her cover job. Isn't it likely that they'll notice if she's involved in a major operation next to their house?"

The NSA director paused to consider that. "Agent Walker, you and Mr. Bartowski should ensure that your coworkers will not identify you as part of the mission. Do whatever you have to." The screen abruptly went black.

"All right, Bartowski, I need all the information you have on the house." Chuck nodded and left the room. "Walker, you up for a late night planning session?"

"I trust you to handle the tactical aspects of the mission, Casey," Sarah answered. "Right now, I need to figure out what we're going to do with Jim and Pam."

Casey lifted a bemused eyebrow. "What's hard about that? You two head over there tomorrow night and spike their drinks, we do the takedown while they're out."

Sarah glared at her partner. "That would keep them from picking us out as part of the mission, but tranquilizing two of our coworkers wouldn't exactly be good for our long-term cover. Which demonstrates why I need to talk to Chuck about this instead of you."

Sarah's preferred conversation partner returned to the room at that moment, carrying a sketched blueprint of the house that featured every available piece of information about its security systems. He handed it to the NSA agent. "Let me know if you need anything else, Casey."

Casey studied the plans briefly. "This should be enough, I think. It's a one-story house, right?" Seeing Sarah's nod, he stepped toward the door. "Then I'll bid you two lovebirds goodnight."

Sarah turned to Chuck. "We need to figure out how to deal with Jim and Pam."

Chuck gave her a strange look. "Okay…"

"It's not an easy problem, Chuck," she said evenly. "We have to keep them from seeing the takedown without giving them any hint that we're trying to keep them from seeing anything."

"Yeah, I got all of that." Seeing that she wasn't planning to acknowledge the need to talk about anything else, Chuck shrugged. "Okay, so we need them out of the house long enough for us to pull this off. Why don't we invite them to New York for the weekend?"

Sarah pondered the idea. "That could work – we slip back here on, say, Saturday night, do the job, and they're none the wiser."

"Won't Beckman want us around after the mission, though? Interrogation and paperwork and all that?"

"Good point," she conceded. "So we leave New York Saturday night, and leave a note at the hotel desk saying that someone died, or is having a baby, or something, and we had to go. That gives us our excuse to be away from the apartment on Sunday too."

"That should do it then, at least as long as they accept the invitation. Which I don't expect to be a huge problem."

Sarah nodded her agreement and began walking toward the bedroom.

"Sarah, wait… isn't there anything else we should discuss?"

She kept walking. "Chuck, I really don't want to talk about this tonight."

Chuck stood to pursue her. "I understand that, but will you at least listen about it?"

Sarah glanced back at him and sighed. He was giving her his endearing sad look, which meant her options were limited: either give in now, or give in after a few minutes. "Fine," she huffed.

Chuck nervously drew a deep breath. "Look, I'm really really sorry that I brought the cover back into things. That's not what I wanted to do at all. You have no idea how great it's been, being with you. It's like a dream." He paused, hoping for a response that didn't come. "I guess… part of me keeps expecting to wake up, or is afraid that one day you'll figure out how much better you can do. And that part of me really wanted to hear you say 'yes' to that particular question, even if it wasn't real."

She still said nothing, just giving Chuck a sad look of her own.

"I know I screwed up. It won't happen again. I mean, I'll probably screw up again. But not in this particular way. I'm really sorry. Please forgive me?"

Sarah rolled her eyes slightly. "Come here."

Chuck smiled nervously as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him toward her… and then recoiled as she slapped him on the back of the head. "Hey!"

She grabbed his shirt and tugged him down threateningly. "You are never to doubt my feelings for you again. Understand?"

"Yes," he squeaked.

"And you are never to expect someone better for me to come along," she continued. "Because unless you make a habit of pulling crap like this, that is not going to happen. Understand?"

"Yes."

She released his shirt and eyed him warily. "Do you really understand that, or are you just saying you do so I won't kill you?"

Chuck grinned ruefully. "I'm still not quite sure why you ended up with me. But I trust you."

Sarah contemplated that response before giving a single decisive nod. "Fair enough."

"So…"

"So I'm still mad at you, and you're on the couch, probably for a few days. But you don't have to sleep in body armor."

Chuck nodded solemnly and retrieved his pillow and a blanket. As he prepared for bed, he jumped upon hearing a final comment drift through the bedroom doorway.

"Oh, and in case you're wondering, I expect a real proposal at some point."

"So, a weekend in New York. What do you think?"

Jim shrugged. "We don't have anything going on, and they're paying for most of it. They're a fun couple. Sounds like a good time."

"Plus, it's a chance to find out more about our mysterious new acquaintances," Pam suggested.

Jim chuckled lightly. "All right, they seemed a little off last night. But they just got engaged. I know I was out of it after proposing to you."

"Still don't believe me? What's it going to take to convince you?" she challenged.

He shook his head bemusedly. "We'll see how the weekend goes."

Beckman had approved the general structure of the plan to capture Robert Grich, leaving Casey and the SWAT team to refine the specific tactical approach. Meanwhile, Chuck and Sarah had packed up and headed for New York immediately after work on Friday. They'd recommended that Jim and Pam drive separately, in case the couples decided to split up during the weekend.

Friday night had been occupied by dinner and dancing. The biggest surprise was the fact that Pam had kicked off the dancing portion of the festivities by asking Chuck. Sarah and Jim had quickly followed. A few songs later, the four friends had switched back to their normal couplings, which remained intact for the remainder of the evening.

Most of Saturday was spent sightseeing. It was Chuck's first visit to New York, and Sarah's first unclassified one, so the Scranton natives led the tour. They'd ended up at a bar near their hotel. Sarah and Chuck departed at a relatively early 11:00, claiming exhaustion from the tour, although Jim and Pam suspected other, more intimate reasons behind their desire to return to the hotel room. They'd followed the same path soon after, and for the same reasons.

An hour and a half (and several reasons) later, Jim and Pam relaxed contentedly in their bed. Pam rolled over to face her fiancé. "I wonder what Chuck and Sarah are up to."

Jim smiled. "I imagine they're probably done by now."

"If that's why they left in the first place…" she said, her voice taking on a suggestive lilt.

"You're still on this, aren't you?"

"Come on, just humor me for one more night and I'll let it drop. I promise," Pam pleaded.

Jim wished, not for the first time, that he could develop the capability to stand up to Pam someday. But as she stood from the bed and began searching the room for her clothes, he realized that today had no chance of being that day. "Fine. What do we do?"

"I'll go down the hall and wait outside their room. You call the room phone," she instructed as she pulled on her shirt. "I should be able to hear what happens."

"It's one in the morning!" Jim objected.

"So the worst case scenario is that they lose a little sleep."

"Them and everyone else in this hallway." Pam shot him a look, and he sighed his surrender. "Okay."

"I'll be in position in two minutes." She giggled slightly and left the room.

Two minutes later, Jim dialed the phone. He waited through several rings, with nobody answering. Pam returned to the room shortly after the ringing stopped.

"Nothing. No reaction at all," she proclaimed.

"So maybe they're deep sleepers," Jim guessed.

That earned him a skeptical look. "Or maybe they're not in there."

"Why wouldn't they be in there?"

Pam rolled her eyes. "Why would he plan a proposal in a movie theater parking lot?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "So what's our next step, Detective Beesly?"

"Knock on the door."

"If they didn't answer the phone…"

Pam interrupted. "Then they probably won't answer a knock, I know. But there's a third step."

"And what on Earth would that be?"

A wicked grin creased Pam's features. "This."

"A room key?" Jim queried.

"Chuck's," she clarified. "I swiped it while we were dancing."

"Well aren't you just a naughty girl," he teased.

Her smile grew. "I think we've already established that tonight. Shall we?"

"What the heck. Let's break into someone else's hotel room." Jim and Pam walked toward the door.

Knock knock knock.

"Chuck? Sarah? You guys awake?" Jim called softly.

Pam listened for a moment. "I don't hear anything." She pulled out the key card and slid it into place. Jim quietly opened the door and peeked into the room.

"They're gone. Guess you were right."

Pam's eyes held a concerned look as they scanned over the room. "Their suitcases are gone, too. I think they've left entirely."

"That doesn't make sense," Jim objected. "Why would they leave without telling us?"

"Come on." Pam tugged Jim out of the room. "Let's go check with the front desk."

The clerk working the night shift was grateful for the diversion. "342? Yes, that couple checked out about an hour ago. You must be the people they left this note for."

Pam practically lunged across the counter grabbing the sheet of paper. "Jim and Pam, we just heard that Sarah's dad had a heart attack. We're heading back to Scranton to wait for more news and to decide whether we need to fly out to see him or not. Sorry we left without telling you, but we didn't want to bother you in the middle of the night. Feel free to enjoy the rest of the weekend, it's still on us. Hugs, Chuck and Sarah."

Jim nodded knowingly. "Parental health problems. How nefarious."

Pam looked guilty. "We should go. They could probably use to have friends around."

"And how do you plan to explain our early arrival?" Jim queried.

"We called and knocked, didn't get an answer, and went to the front desk to check on them. Which is exactly what happened," she replied with a threatening glare.

Jim laughed. "All right. We'll pack up and drive back now, get a little sleep, and go see them first thing in the morning."

"So what's the plan, Casey?" Chuck asked as he hopped out of the car with far too much exuberance for someone who'd just finished a two-hour drive at 2:30 in the morning.

Casey grimaced. "God, you're excitable. Walker, did you inject him with espresso or something?"

Sarah chuckled. "He's just happy to get away from my lecture about the necessity of maintaining hotel key card security."

Chuck glared irritably at her. "No, I'm just anxious to get this over with. The plan?"

"The SWAT team and I approach the house from the rear. You and Walker sit out front in a van. Sound familiar?" Casey asked.

"Simple enough, if you're planning to be gunned down before entering the house," Chuck replied skeptically. "How are you planning on handling the surveillance?"

"What, did you lose daddy's secret decoder ring?" Casey prodded. "We don't keep you around here for your good looks, you know."

"Casey, the wrist computer can handle two, maybe three cameras at a time," Chuck explained patiently. "That place has something like ten, with a few lovely IR-sensing cherries on top."

"Well that would have been helpful information to have during our planning session, Bartowski!" Casey growled.

Chuck sighed. "We're taking a surveillance van, right?" Casey nodded. "Okay… give me an hour." He walked quickly into his small office and turned on the second gift Orion had left for him before disappearing – a laptop more powerful than anything available to the general public.

"What are you doing, Bartowski?" Casey asked from the doorway.

"Saving your ass, Colonel – or cranking out the necessary code to defeat the surveillance on the house. Whichever you prefer."

"So they won't know we're coming?" the NSA officer pressed.

"Not only that, but we'll have the unaltered feeds from the devices. Thanks to the heat sensors, I should be able to give you rough locations for all of the enemy personnel inside the house." Chuck turned briefly to look impassively at his handler. "And yes, they won't know we're coming."

"And you'll have all of this done in an hour?" The gruff agent actually sounded impressed.

"If you stop bothering me." Chuck glanced up at the older man and decided that had been a bit harsh. "This thing has Dad's special algorithm development software. You give it a sample input before you start coding, it tells you what the output is from what you've written in real time. You tell it what kind of output you're looking for, it suggests modifications. It's pretty sweet." Looking up again, Chuck saw that the doorway was empty. He shrugged and went back to work.

Sarah slowed the van across the street from the house and shifted into park. She slid into the rear area as Chuck began the first stage of his program, recording a ten-minute sample of data from every sensor in the house. "Sarah?" he asked tentatively.

"Yes, Chuck?"

"We, uhh, we should start making out," he said.

"What?"

"I know you're still mad. But we're in an unmarked van across the street from the home of a Fulcrum elder, and his guards can keep an eye on us with the house's heat sensors. We need to give them a reason for us to be sitting here, at least for the next, oh, nine minutes and 20 seco-" Sarah's lips abruptly interrupted his explanation.

Nine minutes later, Chuck pulled back. "Where were you before we started?"

"Huh?" In her thoroughly-kissed state, Sarah took a moment to catch up to Chuck's line of thought.

"You need to get back to your original position so I can cut off the recording, otherwise there'll be a jump in the feed." She nodded and got as close to her original location as she could, and Chuck began executing the second stage of his code. He keyed the radio microphone. "Casey, the surveillance should be down. You're clear to move in."

The strike team moved cautiously through the back yard of the house behind the one in question. They climbed the fence between the yards one at a time, using a tree to screen themselves from view of the house, and moved silently toward the back door. Tracking their progress, Chuck waited until the ten law enforcement agents were in place, and quietly reported the status of the people in the house. "There's one man at the back door, three at the front. Two more further inside the house."

Casey watched as his team prepared the explosives that would blow the back door into the house. "Bartowski," he whispered, "the guy in the rear, is he patrolling?"

"Kinda, yeah, he's moving around a little."

Casey got a thumbs-up from the team's explosives specialist. "Let me know when he's directly behind the door."

"Any second… now! Go!"

The door immediately flew off of its hinges, crushing the guard against the kitchen wall. The team moved quickly through the door, securing the kitchen and the dining room. "Casey, the guards from the front, they're headed your way."

Casey held back a sarcastic response along the lines of, "Think they noticed the giant explosion?" and took a position behind the dining room table. The first guard into the room was rudely introduced to three rounds from the Colonel's submachine gun. Of course, Casey reflected, the first one is the easiest; after that, the other guys know where you are.

Casey's review of the house blueprints Chuck had reproduced from his flash indicated that the building was well-designed for making a last stand around an important person. There was only one route between any two points, making it impossible to outflank the defenders. But his team was very close to establishing control of both doors, and once they did that, there would be no escape for the house's occupants.

"Casey, the other two guys, they're on the move."

That didn't make much sense. "Toward us?"

"Uhh, no, it doesn't look like it. They're heading down some stairs, to a basement, I guess."

Chuck's floorplans hadn't included a basement – which meant Casey had no idea where the Fulcrum agents were heading. He glanced toward the kitchen and urgently waved his men forward. The first one to poke his head around the corner immediately drew fire. They were pinned down, and needed a way to shift the situation in their favor.

"Bartowski!" he demanded. "Where are the two guys in the front of the house?"

"They're around the corner from you."

Casey breathed deeply in a futile attempt to calm himself. "I knew that, moron. Where are they in the room?"

"I don't know, I'd have to… how long do we have?"

Casey swore quietly. "Not long, considering our main target seems to be heading for a basement we know nothing about." That didn't get a response, which Casey hoped meant Chuck was tapping away on his dad's magic laptop. "Walker, you better keep an eye on the front."

Chuck's voice returned to his ear. "Casey, Casey, I've got it. The first guy is directly behind the front door, about 6 feet away from it, looks like he's tucked into the front hall. The second guy, he's right up against the wall, about 5 feet away from the corner you guys are holding." Whatever Chuck had done had taken about a minute and a half.

Casey quickly removed two fragmentation grenades from his belt as he moved toward the corner of the wall, rolling the first along the baseboard for a short distance. Immediately after the ensuing explosion, he stepped quickly around the corner and fired half a dozen rounds into the body of the nearest guard, who had assumed a protective position in an effort to avoid the grenade. He then sprinted across the living room, dove behind a couch, and signaled the other agents to keep the remaining guard pinned in the front hall. Carefully avoiding the line of suppressive fire, he moved toward the guard's location. He knelt down and reached his pistol around the corner, firing three shots at roughly knee height. That earned him the rewarding sound of a body collapsing. He waved for the other agents to stop firing and advance through the rest of the house, then stepped around the corner and fired one more shot from his pistol.

"Nice work, Bartowski. How'd you pin down the locations like that?" Casey asked as he sprinted off to join the assault team.

"I, uh, triangulated the signals from multiple IR sensors, and overlaid the results with the blueprints to the house. Hey, you guys might want to hurry – the last two guys are under the front yard somewhere and-"

Chuck's advice cut off as the head of one of the two Fulcrum agents emerged from the front yard. Sarah cracked the van's sliding door open and waited for her shot, taking it after the man climbed completely into view. The shot impacted the man's right thigh, and Sarah quickly flew from the van, disarmed the gunman, and zip-tied his hands together. Then Chuck saw a second head pop up, and was hit by three seconds of incapacitating pictures and video clips representing a double flash.

The first set of data identified the new target as Robert Grich, Fulcrum Elder. The second drew an amazed shake of Chuck's head as he marveled once again at the unbelievable behavior of the new Intersect. He ejected the disc containing his triangulation code from the van's main computer, opened the sliding door all the way, and hurled the disc like a Frisbee toward the terrorist. The disc struck its target in the neck, dropping him to his knees. Chuck quickly followed the disc out of the car, rendering Grich unconscious with a kick to the back of the head.

Sarah looked over her shoulder and gave Chuck a grateful smile. Looking down at the man he'd subdued, her eyes widened slightly at the sight of his neck. Chuck shrugged. "Discus throwing."

The blond agent's smile grew bigger – and then quickly disappeared, replaced by a look of dismay. Chuck followed her line of sight across the yard. Its destination was the neighboring driveway, where Jim and Pam stood next to their car with thoroughly shocked looks on their faces. The four friends all seemed frozen, nobody having the slightest clue what to do next.

Their reverie was broken as Casey climbed from the hole in the yard. He took in the scene with bulging eyes, dropping the gun he'd been wielding in apparent shock. Recovering quickly, he drew another weapon from its holster. Ignoring Chuck's desperate "Casey, no!" he fired twice.

Chuck and Sarah watched in horror as Jim and Pam's bodies slumped to the ground.