Published: 12 Jan 2011
Here're a few things you should know, in case you forgot.
Ellie clasped Devon on the shoulders. "Spill it. Is Chuck spying again?"
-X-
"So this is not the first 'Greta', Devon? Thanks for confirming I picked out the agent." Greta's eyes visibly widened. "Oops. Cover blown by the pregnant lady. Don't worry. I'm here to deliver a package to Chuck. Or what was that name, Devon? I remember. Agent Carmichael."
-X-
"... I have determined that the Ring's Intersect has gone into a feedback loop, periodically dumping its database on the screens at random intervals."
-X-
"... Your sister caught frat boy getting the backup governors, and he spilled the beans. Somehow, she talked her way past the new Greta and managed to get to the Intersect room. The two of them looked through the window right as another Intersect image cycle started. I walked up just in time to catch Ellie at the end of the download."
Chapter 4 – 5
The Burbank Buy More
"Chuck, what the hell is going on?"
Chuck moved quickly. He flipped open the case and pulled out both watches. The first went immediately around the wrist of his pissed off sister. The second was passed to his groggy bro-in-law who was still rubbing is hand over his eyes trying to shake off the download.
"It'll be ok Ellie. I promise I'll fix this, and I promise I'll explain everything," Chuck hastily replied. "Unfortunately, I have to do something first."
"Chuck!"
"Ellie, I have to get this process started right now. It's going to take a few hours once I start it. It has to be done before I can fix what happened. You'll be just fine. Sarah will keep an eye on you."
"Chuck!"
Chuck focused on Sarah. A silent conversation seemed to pass between them. After a moment, Chuck turned back to his sister. "Please, Ellie. I'll be back as soon as I can." With that, he raced off.
Without Chuck as a target, Ellie focused her angered confusion on Sarah. "Sarah, what's going on?"
Sarah tried to remain as calm as she could. "Ellie, are you feeling ok? Can I get you something? A water?"
"Sarah."
"Ellie, Chuck asked me to wait, but I'll tell you part of it in a minute. I'm going to get you a water, and I'll be right back."
Sarah stood and gave Morgan a glare. He visibly reacted with a wide-eyed look and then slowly nodded. With that confirmation of understanding, Sarah hurried out of the conference room.
Morgan became Ellie's next target. "Morgan!"
"Listen, Ellie. I'd love to tell you everything. But Sarah told me to wait, and she scares me sometimes."
"I'm right here, so I know she told you no such thing. Chuck didn't say to wait either. I just want to know what's going on!"
"Please calm down and breathe slowly." Morgan started to reach to pat Ellie on the arm, but wisely chose to respect the no touching policy that was established long ago.
Sarah called from the other room, "Morgan! I could use a hand!" Morgan jumped up and scampered out of the room to help.
With no one left to me mad at, Ellie sat there bewildered. She couldn't believe everyone had just left her and her husband, by themselves, in the middle of what appeared to be some sort of CIA command center. So far, she wasn't that impressed with the security. Meanwhile, she noticed her husband was not doing awesome. His grogginess had been replaced with a wild, worried expression of panic.
"Devon, are you ok?" Devon didn't seem to hear her.
Just then, Sarah and Morgan reentered the room. Morgan handed Ellie a water bottle and placed a small plate of crackers in front of her. Sarah wheel an IV stand over to Devon and set up a line.
"Sarah, what are you doing?"
"I'm giving him a sedative. He's not handling this as well as the rest of us."
"So you're drugging him?"
"I'm keeping him calm until Chuck fixes this. It's also good for the cover," Sarah added casually. "Morgan?"
"Right. On it." Morgan step over to a keyboard and started working away.
Meanwhile, Sarah pulled out her phone and dialed. With a distinctively Southern Californian accent, "Hi there. This is Betsy over at County General. We had a Dr. Devon Woodcomb over here after a fender bender. ... He's all right, but one of the EMTs gave him a mild narcotic so Dr. Woodcomb's surgeries for the next few days will need to be reassigned or rescheduled. ... No, he's been released into the care of his wife, a Dr. Bartowski-Woodcomb. ... No, I didn't know she was that pregnant. ... I just heard one of my office mates talking about the doctor that was not to be messed with. ... Thanks for passing along the message, and you have a great day."
Sarah hung up the phone and turned to Morgan, returning to her normal accent. "Are you done, yet?"
"Just about. I'm not as fast at this as Chuck is... ok... there. The false medical report has been added to the database at County General. We better have Chuck deal with the billing and insurance stuff later."
"That's fine. If we do it now, it might look suspicious. The insurance company is not that efficient. Thank you, Morgan." Sarah returned to the table and pulled up her chair next to Ellie. "Ok, now we can talk."
"It's about time!"
Sarah was calm and serious. "First, I can't explain much about what happened to you. I don't know all of the details, yet. Chuck will be able to tell you more when he gets back. I promise you that you are going to be ok, though. The same thing happened to Morgan yesterday and to me this morning. Plus it has happened to Chuck six or seven times over the last three—no—twenty years."
Ellie tried to calm herself, but the confusion remained. "What?"
"What I can tell you is it has to do with your dad's research, with why Chuck is a spy, and with a bunch of other things that Chuck should tell you himself. However, I can hopefully answer some of your questions."
"Is Chuck still is a spy? Or is he working as a computer repairman for the CIA?"
"The computer job is just over the last month. He overhauled our electronic security after breach around Thanksgiving. Lately, he has been working as lead researcher for analyzing the Ring's Intersect computer. Again, he'll have to explain what that means. It involves a lot of technical information. To be honest, I only understand half of it, but I let him ramble because he's so cute when he gets going. You'll probably understand more."
"I don't know anything about this Intersect computer."
"Some of it is related to the work you did on your dad's laptop."
"That was related to storing information in the brain. Is that what happened to us?"
"Yes. As I said, Chuck will have to explain more. He'll explain the watches, too."
Ellie realized she wasn't going to get anywhere along that line of questions. "Fine. Back to this spy thing. Chuck promised–"
Sarah interrupted, "It's not his fault."
"Who's fault is it? Yours?" Ellie had been concerned that Sarah was still a spy and somehow that would bring Chuck back into that world. Lately, their mom also seemed to be a potential temptation to that life she didn't want for Chuck.
Sarah grimaced. "I told Chuck he didn't have to come back. As much as I love working with him, I'm more worried about his safety than you will ever be."
Ellie knew Sarah was good at hiding the truth, but that seemed genuine. "So what happened?"
"We had several things working against us. First, your dad left Chuck a private mission to find your mom. Chuck didn't even tell me about that one for several months. While Casey and I were hunting a high tech arms dealer around the world, Chuck and Morgan were doing the same to find her. Fortunately for Casey and me, Chuck and Morgan arrived at a facility in Moscow where we were held captive. He rescued us."
That story seemed less believable. But why would Sarah make up an unbelievable story? "That's why he is back?"
"No. He was actually recruited by General Beckman the week before."
"That's the lady on the screen earlier. She was in that meeting Chuck busted into last year."
"Yes, she's our boss. She changed her mind and decided she wasn't going to let Chuck go, so she blackballed him."
"She can do that?"
"She's a high ranking General in the NSA. She can."
"How?"
"I think Chuck said she used threatening calls to the interviewers and even food poisoning."
Ellie nodded in understanding. "So that is why Chuck's interviews all went bust. I thought it was the bad economy."
"Beckman never gave him a chance." Sarah sighed. "I was upset at first, but now I agree that he belongs here, working on this team. It's what he was meant to do."
Ellie frowned, "Sarah, I can't protect him if he is a spy."
"Ellie, you did an unbelievably great job raising Chuck to become the wonderful man he is. However, spy or not, you can't protect him anymore. The truth is, you don't have to. Chuck can protect himself. You saw that in Costa Gravis. When that doesn't work, Casey, Morgan, and I can protect him."
"Morgan? Seriously?" Ellie looked unbelievably at Morgan, who had uncharacteristically remained quiet throughout this conversation.
Sarah pulled back here attention. "Seriously. A few months ago, Chuck and I were captured by a mercenary group of Casey's ex-teammates and were taken to Iran as blackmail against Casey. During the rescue attempt, he was captured too. It was Morgan that rescued us all. A month and a half ago, Morgan walked into an enemy camp unarmed, providing Casey and me the diversion necessary to rescue Chuck."
"Sarah, you are not exactly reassuring me with stories of Chuck getting captured."
"First, these are stories of Chuck getting rescued. Most spies have no more than one or two stories of getting rescued. Instead, they are simply tortured and killed. Chuck is special, they won't kill him. He is too valuable alive."
"I don't understand."
"When Chuck was captured this last time, his captors released feelers on the black market. The starting bids were more than the going rate for two suitcase nukes."
"Oh my... Why?"
"That has to do with the Intersect and the research he is working on. Ellie, I know this sounds scary, but I'm not trying to scare you. Chuck is the most important thing to me in the entire universe. I will always do everything in my power to protect him."
Morgan broke his silence. "Trust her, Ellie. I've seen her in action. When she says everything in her power, bad guys go running for the hills."
Sarah was trying to hold Ellie's focus and was annoyed by the interruption. "Not now, Morgan."
"No, Sarah. Ellie needs to hear this. The last time Chuck was captured, Sarah went all Beatrix Kiddo. You know, from Kill Bill. You are sitting next to the no rules, pit fighting champion of Thailand. By the time she found Chuck, half of Thailand was running from her like frightened kids–literally. And that was before Casey and I showed up with the heavy artillery."
"Sarah, I don't know what to think of all of this. This doesn't sound like something my brother would be a part of."
Sarah loosely grasped Ellie's hands in her own. "Ellie, your brother is still the kindest, sweetest, funniest, most forgiving man I know. He is the only man that I have ever loved. He rarely uses a real gun, preferring tranquilizers. He still has not killed anyone, and I know for a fact he would only do so to save someone he cares about. He's also really good at being a spy. Part of the reason he is so good at it is because he really wants to help people. He also looks at things a different way than the rest of us. A better way. During the Costa Gravis coup, if we didn't have to extract you and Devon, we probably could have stopped it right there. Instead, we returned a couple days later to disarm Costa Gravis' nuclear capabilities. Casey's solution was C-4 and a possible suicide mission. Instead, Chuck ended the coup and earned us access to dismantle the facilities. He did it with some impromptu marriage counseling. No one else could have done something like that. Since I have met him, Chuck has saved literally millions of lives."
Ellie had never heard such a long speech from Sarah. She seemed to beam with so much pride for Chuck, it had to be true. However, Ellie was still concerned. "So Chuck is a spy, and there is nothing I can do about it."
"It's what he was meant to do."
Ellie was still upset. This would take some getting used to. "So now what?"
"Now we wait for Chuck. Morgan, maybe you should check on the store."
"Right, I'll make sure Casey hasn't killed Greta, and I'll let Big Mike know I'm stuck on teleconferences with 'corporate.' Bye, Sarah. Bye, Ellie." Morgan hurried up the stairs.
Ellie smiled at Sarah, a little mischievously, "Ok. You've explained why you think Chuck needs to be a spy. I might not like it, but I understand. And we have to wait for Chuck to talk about this Intersect thing. So now you can tell me what's going on with you and Chuck and your relationship?"
A little while later.
Jeff and Lester hurried up to the home theatre room's door and found it once again locked. Less than a minute before, Morgan had returned inside. As far as they knew, Chuck's sister and Devon had not exited. Of course they might have missed something when Fernando came over with the status report about the latest 'Greta'. Now Morgan was leaving and entering the home theatre room in a mysterious fashion. And the security camera to the room was still out.
Something was going on in there.
Morgan descended to Castle, contemplating his conversation with the new Greta. She was a 'typical' CIA knockout. If Morgan was not as happy as he was with Alex... No, he was not going there. The issue with this Greta was she seemed very efficient, but very naïve. That meant something. Although what it meant exactly, Morgan was not sure.
The good news was he was able to warn her about Casey before Casey got her reassigned or fired. She was still at risk, but maybe Casey would calm down before he found her. Yeah right. She'd need to go into WitSec for a week to pull that off.
Speaking of which, why hadn't Casey found her yet?
A little while earlier.
Casey was fed up with being left out. He was not going to be the odd man out of this new Team Intersect. That left one way to handle this. Hopefully he had enough time before Chuck started his diagnostic.
Just then, the Ring's Intersect computer started to whirl and images flooded the screens.
Moments later, Casey roused from his position on the floor.
A/N: Coming next… Chapter 5 – Team Intersect vs. the Mission
Somehow I backed myself into big reveal land. That's what I get for saying in Chuck vs. the Whole Truth that Ellie and Awesome should know everything. Sorry, there's a little more of it next chapter.