Author's Note: God, the exposition on this story is taking for-flipping-ever. I promise you, the exposition will end soon, and we'll get into the real meat and potatoes.
Chuck took Sarah's father back to their house with him and the kids. When Mark Reynolds offered to just crash on the floor of the living room, though, Chuck nearly had a seizure.
"There is no possible way, sir," he said. "I insist that you take the master bedroom. I have a highly comfortable couch in my office that I've fallen asleep on on more than one occasion."
All of the other out-of-town guests had gotten rooms at the Days Inn a mile from Chuck's house, at Coldwater Canyon and Ventura. Though Chuck had been happy to be hospitable, he was secretly relieved that he didn't have to host anybody outside his own family.
Chuck lay down on the couch in the Nerd Cave just before 9:00 PM. The kids were in bed, and his father-in-law had kindly offered to take care of them should one of them wake up during the night.
Chuck was exhausted. He had been up for probably ninety percent of the prior forty hours, and his brain was shot. He needed something to fall asleep to.
Getting back up, he slipped the first Firefly disc into his DVD player, and lay back down. "Serenity" started up.
The last thing Chuck remembered before falling asleep was Wash saying, "Mine is an evil laugh!"
7:50 A.M., Pacific Daylight Time
March 9th, 2012
Studio City, California
The insistent ringing of the doorbell penetrated through to Chuck's subconsciousness, pulling him kicking and screaming from his dreamless state of sleep.
As his sleep-encrusted eyes cracked open, Chuck could smell coffee brewing, and then the doorbell stopped ringing. A moment later, there was a knock on the door of the Nerd Cave.
"'s minute," he slurred. He was having a difficult time waking up.
Standing, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror on the wall. He looked frightening. His hair had gone from funny animal shapes to Noah's entire Ark. There was dried drool running down from the left hand side of his mouth. His eyes looked like the Sandman had poured an entire bucket on him.
"Eh, to hell with it," he muttered. He pulled open the door, to see his father-in-law, Sam Tyler, and Art Graham standing there.
The current and former CIA directors looked at him. "Wow," Sam Tyler uttered. "That may be the most disturbing thing I've ever seen."
Chuck gave Tyler the evil eye. "What do you want?"
Art Graham spoke up. "We want you to go take a shower, so that you're feeling more human when we talk to you. In the meantime, we'll go have a cup of coffee with your father-in-law. That alright with you?"
"Whatever," Chuck grumbled. He was too tired for this bullshit.
As Chuck stood under the stream of hot water, he listened to KROQ. It was Friday morning, which meant Kevin and Bean. At 8:00, though, Doc came on with the morning news. When he mentioned a Congressional investigation surrounding the ECOMCON protocol, Chuck's eyes rolled back and he flashed on the ECOMCON documents again.
When the flash ended, he rubbed his face with his hands, and then reached out and shut the radio off. "I am so sick and tired of this," he muttered.
After showering, Chuck looked in the mirror and started to shave. As he shaved, he decided he was going to leave his goatee and mustache alone. After three days without shaving, they had started to grow fairly thick, and he wondered how they would look – what Sarah would think of them.
Toweling off, he went into his bedroom, pulled on an Atari t-shirt and a pair of jeans, and headed out to the kitchen. Graham, Tyler, and Sarah's dad all sat there, drinking coffee and talking current events, of all things. Lisa and John sat in their high chairs, alternating eating Cheerios and throwing them at each other.
A fourth coffee mug sat on the table, full and still steaming. "I'm assuming this is for me," Chuck said, picking it up and taking a sip. "Ahhhh…"
He turned his attention to Sam Tyler and Art Graham. "Okay, what do you want?"
Graham looked uneasily at Mark Reynolds. "Anything you have to say to me, you can say in front of Sarah's father," Chuck said. "I don't actually hold a clearance myself, remember?"
Graham and Tyler looked at each other. Tyler shrugged. "Go for it," he said.
Graham sighed. "Alright, Chuck, here's the deal. The President is in the process of ripping out the NSA's guts. We believe that every federal intelligence agency is still penetrated by Fulcrum agents at one level or another. We need to construct a small inter-agency force that is not strictly within the government's purview that takes on sensitive tasks that the government doesn't necessarily want to be associated with."
"Like Rainbow," Chuck interrupted.
"Like what?"
"Rainbow," Chuck said again. "You know, Tom Clancy? The book? Video games?"
Graham and Tyler both looked back at him, neither understanding. "Torchwood?" Chuck tried.
"Ah," Tyler said, nodding, but Graham still looked confused. Chuck thought hard, trying to come up with a comparison that the Senator would understand.
"The Foundation of Law and Government?" Chuck tried.
"Oh, I get what you're saying," Graham said, the Knight Rider reference registering. "Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Now, given your involvement with the government and your personal business success, Sam Tyler and I think you would be the ideal person to be in charge of it. You and your entire team would be well compensated, of course."
Chuck nodded. "So we'd be mercenaries."
Graham winced at the term. "Well, not per se…"
"We'd essentially be independent contractors, correct?" Chuck asked. Graham nodded. "And we'd be performing potentially dangerous tasks, and being paid for them, correct?" Graham nodded again.
"How does that not make us mercenaries?"
Graham sighed. "I guess it does," he finally admitted.
"Thank you for being honest," Chuck replied. "If I choose to take this on, you let me choose my team, correct?"
"Actually," Sam Tyler said, "we figure your entire team is already here. You need intelligence agents who are highly trained in combat – you've got three agents in town. John Casey, Bryce Larkin, Carina Hansen."
"Wait, wait, wait," Chuck objected. "Casey's assigned in town, but Carina's doing drug enforcement and Bryce is hunting Fulcrum."
"And you think your team can't do both of those things?" Tyler asked. "We take those two off the books, it becomes immediately easier for them to get away with more… extreme measures."
"You need pilots, we'll get you Commander Harrison. We'll get Major Williamson reassigned," Graham added. "Medical… you're gonna hate the suggestion, but I'd say you should talk to your sister or your brother-in-law."
Chuck stared at Graham. "I'll… think about it. Don't we need, like, muscle? Weapons and combat experts?"
"Talk to Master Sergeant Tucker," Tyler said. "I guarantee you he'd jump at the chance to get a job NOT in Moab that pays as well or better. And as far as a weapons expert…"
Tyler looked over at Graham, who looked downward and bit his lip. "Chuck," Graham said, "within the Central Intelligence Agency, there's a legend among the younger recruits and agents. It's a legend of this deep-cover operative who could do anything, anywhere. She was a rebel, but she got the job done, every time, and there was nobody better. She was like an American James Bond.
"There's a good reason why Sarah Walker is a legend, Chuck," Graham finished. "She was the best. She probably still is the best."
Chuck looked at Graham in disbelief. "Sarah Walker is lying in a hospital bed in Beverly Hills," he finally said, his voice low and dangerous. "She was shot thirty hours ago. She is currently grieving the fact that she will never again be able to bear a child. I hardly think she is the ideal individual for this sort of task."
"Uh, if I may," Mark Reynolds said, leaning forward, "if there's one thing I know about my daughter, it's that there's nothing better to get her to move her life along than to present her with a new challenge. It'll help her get back on track, to not think about whatever frustrations or problems she's going through."
Chuck looked back at his father-in-law, unable to comprehend the words that had just come out of his mouth. "Say what now?"
Reynolds shrugged. "Give her some credit, Chuck. Just because she's a wife and a mother doesn't mean she isn't still a very capable woman. She's only twenty-nine, for God's sake."
Chuck had effectively been cornered, by probably the only two men in the world who knew Sarah anywhere near as well as Chuck did. He leaned forward slowly and gently rested his head on the table.
He sat there, just looking at the table for a moment. "You say we get paid for the jobs we do," he finally said. "Do we also have an operating budget?"
"In a sense," Senator Graham replied. "We've decided to pull the plug on the Intersect project."
That got Chuck's attention very quickly. "What?!" he asked, shocked, as he sat back up.
"Not pull the plug on you," Tyler added quickly. "Just on the computer version of the Intersect. It's hopelessly bug-ridden, and nowhere near as efficient as you."
Chuck breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay."
"Anyway," Graham continued, "as far as the budget is concerned, the Intersect project is going to continue – but its annual twenty million dollar budget will be going to your team. Since you are the human Intersect, then technically, the money is not being misappropriated – it's still going to the Intersect project."
Chuck's jaw had dropped at the "twenty million dollar" part. He didn't say anything for a moment, and then finally whispered, "Twenty MILLION dollars annually?"
"It disappears a lot more quickly than you might think," Tyler replied. "But you'll also have the payoffs from the different missions."
Chuck was dumbfounded. "Twenty MILLION dollars?!"
Tyler and Graham both laughed. "Yes, we're serious here," Graham said. "So, what do you want to call this thing?"
"I have… no idea," Chuck replied. "Maybe… um, something innocuous… how about Studio City Consulting Services?"
Tyler thought about it for a moment. "I like it," he finally said. "Non-descript, innocent, easy to remember – SCCS – and you can make a snappy logo out of it, too."
"Because that's important," Graham cracked.
Chuck shook his head. "You know what… I'll do it," he said. "I always wanted to have my own K.I.T.T., anyway."
"Yeah, you don't have that kind of a budget, Bartowski," Graham replied, and then stood. "Thank you, Chuck. Sergeant Major Reynolds." He turned and left the kitchen.
Sam Tyler had begun to stand as well, and then reached inside his jacket and withdrew what looked like a brochure. He handed it to Chuck.
"You should look into this, Chuck," he said. "My wife and I can't have kids, so we decided to look into adoption. If you and Sarah really want to have another kid, well… there's thousands of babies just in Los Angeles County that are looking for a home."
Chuck looked at the front of the brochure. Three smiling babies stared back at him. He looked back up at Tyler.
"Thanks, Director Tyler," he said. "I'll talk to her about it… but I think we might want to wait a while."
"I understand," the director replied. "Just… don't wait too long. I think you and Agent Walker are really very good parents, and I wouldn't want that to change."
"It won't," Chuck promised. "Believe me, it won't."
