Sorry to those who've already heard this. When I was talking about the last chapter, something that I hadn't actually said OUTSIDE of my head before came up, that being that given who Mary was (Frost), if she wanted the best for her kids, I could quite see her creating an exercise program and getting them started in gymnastics, athletics and martial arts in the form of a game from when they were toddlers, and instil the regime in them so that they'd continue it as they got older. That way, by the time they were teenagers they'd be WAY ahead of any normal people, which would in turn make it logical for them to blitz the toughest training there is, putting them even further ahead of 'normal' folk, seems only natural to me.
Also, as I set up early in the story, Ellie and Chuck got near perfect memory from Frost the way Sarah did from her father, so they'd pick up things far faster than most because once they saw something, they had it, which it would make it easier for them (and Sarah) to master most things.
BTW: This chapter will have some of you reaching for the brain bleach, you have been warned.
Usual disclaimers for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed, and the real world's back there somewhere, on the left I think.
Chuck wanted to tell Emma and the girls about the wedding, but Sarah suggested that they wait until they had a better idea of the date, so they agreed to sit down with Ellie and sort that out first.
The look that Ellie gave them when they asked if she could help basically said 'Do you think I'd let you try to do this without me?' Given what they had on their plates, she told them to leave the wedding running around to her, as she had more free time since she'd handed in her notice at the hospital.
When Aunt D had told her about what was going on, and asked whether she wanted to have her name changed from Eleanor Bartowski to Eleanore LaBelle as well, she'd jumped at the chance. She immediately handed in her notice at the hospital, telling them that she had to get away from Los Angeles as everything there reminded her of Devon. With the amount of leave she'd built up, she pretty much finished when she handed in her notice, as she only had a few things left to wind up, and she spent much of her time working in the Dungeon, which cleared her slate for the wedding planning and she went into overdrive as soon as they gave her the go ahead.
With that out of the way, they did go to tell Emma and the girls, and they were thrilled, well it was all moving too quickly for the girls at first, but Sarah asked to have a private word with them and once she'd explained that she didn't want to do anything to change the way things were between them and their father, and asked them to be her bridesmaids, their hesitation disappeared.
Chuck was concentrating on putting together the case for the Intersect Project as a largely independent body, and Sarah was staying in the office to avoid worrying Chuck, and because Auntie Di had a point, they didn't know what Graham would do.
They did have one trip to make, though, as they were both summoned to D.C. when Aunt D shared the news that they were getting married with the President among others. Sarah was a little sad that the fantasy she'd had of them getting the SR-71 for the flight to D.C. wasn't realised, because she'd dreamed of a flight in that plane since she started flying jets, even more so after what Auntie Di had told her about Chuck and Ellie, but the F-15E that they took was still the fastest plane that she'd ever flown in.
When they arrived at Edwards, Sarah could see that Chuck was quite well known and respected, to the point where the men were all polite and respectful to her, without blatantly checking her out, which was a pleasant change, that behaviour continued at Andrews, and once they'd changed from their flight suits to their uniforms, they were chauffeured to the White House in a limo.
At the White House, the group that was waiting for them in the Oval Office intimidated Sarah, with the President, the Secretary of Defense, the DNI, the Joint Chiefs, their NSA, CSS & Cyber Command boss and a few other senior military people, Aunt D was reserved as she was the junior person in the room after them. Sarah was nervous about the attention she was getting until the President grinned and said "Yeah, I guess I can see how she landed him when Jenna and Barbara couldn't get anywhere with him."
After that, the tone of the meeting was more relaxed, though it was still made clear to Sarah that she was being tested to determine whether she was good enough for their top military and intelligence asset. Sarah held her breath when Chuck's response to that was that they had two options, they'd have both of them, or neither, and he pointed out that if they left, others on their team might possibly leave as well.
Aunt D spoke up then "You'll almost certainly lose Commander LaBelle, Commander Burdon, Commander Barnes and Lieutenant Wu, and probably lose myself, Lieutenant Colonel Casey and Lieutenant Colonel Mills as well if Captain Carmichael and Major Walker are pushed into the position of leaving, and we WILL be expecting you to uphold that last order you signed sir!"
"Can't you people take a joke?" When Chuck fixed him with a look the President sighed. "OK, OK, it wasn't altogether a joke. Miss Walker, we've all been relying on your fiancé and his sister a great deal for fourteen years now. While they can't be given the public honours that they deserve, they're very much a national treasure, so I believe that it was understandable for us to be concerned to hear that one of them was getting hitched to someone of your, shall we say, rather formidable reputation? and want to meet you for ourselves?" Sarah nodded "I must apologise for the way I put it though, that was unfair and impolite, but we wanted to talk to you and find out what you're like, and if things came out OK, see whether it can be arranged for us to be at you wedding?"
Sarah looked at Chuck when he said that and he signed her that the choice was her's, all her's. Both she and Aunt D had tears in their eyes at that and she nodded, saying "It would be an honour to have you at our wedding Mr President." He hesitated before saying "Thank you, but when I said 'us', well there's a few of us!" With that he handed a list to Aunt D, who's eyes bugged out before she brought it over to Chuck and Sarah. Sarah's eyes bugged out as well when she saw how long this list was, and that she recognised many of the names, she forgot the others in the room for a few minutes as she asked Chuck about some of the other names, some of which were obviously foreign, and he explained that they were mainly prominent military and intelligence figures from around the world.
In the end, Chuck sighed, saying "So much for a small wedding, are you sure you're OK with this?" Sarah nodded and he gave her a quick kiss before turning back to say "Very well Mr President." It was only then that it occurred to Sarah that they'd been ignoring the President and other important figures in the room while they'd been talking, and she blushed. The Secretary of Defense spoke up then "We have one other request, if we may, Chuck?" Chuck looked at him "Yes sir?" "That it be a military wedding, you see your friends and admirers would like to be able to give you the military honours that you're due." Chuck looked at Sarah and she nodded with a smile, but he didn't look happy as he responded. "Very well Mr Secretary, but I have a request for uniform dress standards, and that's for everyone in uniform who's not in the wedding party to wear the least ornate and colourful form of mess dress possible, preferably blues, with no more than miniature ribbons and rank insignia. I don't want our wedding photos to look like a three ring circus, it's bad enough that I'll have to look like a clown for my own wedding." A couple of the senior military people looked like they wanted to say something at that, but they were stilled as the Secretary nodded "Very well Chuck, we'll make sure that everyone honours that request." The Commander of Special Operations Command spoke up then "Will you allow us to put on a couple of sabre arches Chuck? We have far too many officers from all four branches who want to honour you for one arch, for that matter they'll be rather bigger than regulation with two." Chuck nodded "Yes, sir, that would be alright, though I'd appreciate it if you could ensure that their presentation is uniform." The Commander nodded "Of course Chuck! We wouldn't do anything to take away from you and Sarah's big day."
Chuck looked at Aunt D then "With the majority of the people based here General, it would make more sense for the wedding to be over here, do you think you could find someone who can assist Commander LaBelle in locating a suitable venue for the wedding here General?" She nodded with a smile "We can do that, Captain, yes." They went went back to getting to know Sarah after that, and there was considerable interest when Aunt D dropped the bombshell that Emma was Sarah's mother. Sarah was surprised by the amount of respect that at least half of these men obviously had for her mother, but she was confused and concerned about the cryptic questions and answers that went back and forth at that reveal, and the musing looks she was getting after that.
After those discussions were done, most of them made their goodbyes and left, so it was just the President, the DNI, Aunt D and them left in the Oval Office. That was when they discussed the proposal to get the Intersect Project out from under the control of the CIA and NSA, Chuck didn't have much more than half of it completed so far, but he had the overall arguments and primary evidence to justify the argument, so they went through those. With what they had to tell them, especially Sarah, it wasn't hard to convince the President and the DNI that this needed to go through, so their main question was how long would it take Chuck to get all the documentation together?
The President's schedule dictated that their discussions couldn't go on for too long, which was good as they had to cram a lot into their visit east. They changed out of their uniforms and headed straight to the restaurant where Carina was having lunch with someone they wanted to talk to, Pete. Carina had told Pete that a couple of friends would be joining them, so he was a little uncomfortable when they were there alone at first, as he knew Carina Miller's reputation, but she wasn't looking or behaving like the infamous Carina Miller and when Sarah came in with someone, he felt much better.
Chuck was comforted by the way that Pete looked around and asked Sarah if it was safe for her to be seen here when they arrived, as he was showing genuine concern for her, that didn't stop him having a little fun before he let Pete know that he was the Piranha, though, as Pete had no idea who the Piranha, or Roscoe, or the Lotus for that matter, actually were. They'd helped each other out when they needed it for nearly a decade, but they'd never shared names, it was only Chuck's superior skills that had uncovered the Mongol's true identity.
As they were still pressed for time, once they'd greeted each other, Chuck got down to the reason for organising this meeting, Sarah's suggestion that they invite Pete to join them. Pete was all for the idea, but didn't think that the CIA would release him. While they could have gone down the same route as they did for Carina and Sarah, Chuck didn't want to overplay his hand before Sarah was safely out, so he asked Pete how he felt about being arrested and thrown in a black site for hacking into highly classified and sensitive military systems? Pete laughed, then looked dubious when he realised that Chuck was serious about the 'arrest' part, then laughed again at the thought of how audaciously simple it would be to pull this off. After he'd stopped to think about it and realised that they could pull this off, he asked Chuck if he could use more people?
Chuck looked at him and just asked "Who?" "Haxman, The Krait and Gimli." Chuck smiled at that and said he'd definitely be interested if they wanted to come over. Pete spent the next fifteen minutes on the phone, and grinned at Chuck when he finished "They're in!" Chuck matched his grin and laid out the communications they'd use, either between Carina and Pete, or via their traditional links. With that, Sarah and Chuck had to leave, but when they said that they had to get down to New York to talk to Vera Wang about the dresses before they headed back to L.A. Pete froze.
Sarah had to laugh at his expression, but she didn't want to torture him, so she told him that she and Chuck were getting married, and someone in the family had managed to talk Vera Wang into doing the dresses for them, but this would be their only chance to see her. They had a round of hugs and kisses, as Pete had to get back to the office as well, and Pete's whispered "I like this new you!" in Carina's ear meant the world to her.
They flew the F-15 down to New York, and Vera came down to meet them at LaGuardia, as Aunt D's family was VERY well connected and she'd told her as much as she could about the happy couple to intrigue Vera. When she saw the Air Force F-15E land at LaGuardia and the aircrew climb out to hop onto a cart headed towards the building where she was waiting for them, Vera somehow knew that this was the couple that she was here to see, and sure enough, it was the same pair that walked in a few minutes later, apologising for keeping her waiting and thanking her for seeing them.
She wasn't surprised to hear that they had ideas about what they wanted, most couples did, but she WAS surprised how clear those ideas were, and how much merit they had. Up front, the bride to be laid out the measurements and numerous pictures for herself, the maid of honour, the bridesmaid and the two junior bridesmaids, saying that she wanted all of them to be shown in the best light. Her fiancé also provided pictures of himself and his groomsmen in their dress whites to so she knew what the bride and her bridesmaids would be standing up there with.
The fiancé also talked about the bridesmaids' hair colour and skin tones, with some good ideas about what colours would complement them. He started to say something about the dress designs, but stopped himself, saying that Vera, as the designer, and Sarah, as the bride, should decide that, but Vera asked him to continue, quite interested to see what he'd come up with, and Sarah all but begged him to show them. The ideas he sketched for his bride to be and her attendants' gowns were simple, elegant, and flattering, making the most of their tall, slender frames.
Sarah grinned and said "I know!" when Vera murmured "This one's a keeper!" to her, and Vera couldn't help matching her grin. Vera had to ask him though "How does an obviously straight military man have such wonderful insight into what suits women?" He smiled, saying "I was mainly raised by my sister", pointing to the picture of the maid of honour "according to her idea of what a proper gentleman should be, and I try to keep up with what's going on with my daughters", waving at the pictures of the two junior bridesmaids. Vera frowned at that and looked at Sara, thinking that it sounded as though he'd pushed her to have his sister and, daughters? No, that wasn't possible! Why would he say that? as most of her bridal party. Sarah saw this going through her head and shook her head, smiling "No, it was my choice, I didn't tell him about it until after they'd agreed, you see I knew Chuck and Ellie when we were young and she's like a sister to me too, and the girls, well I love them and I wanted them to be part of our wedding, because they're part of my family now too." She saw Vera still looking from the pictures to Chuck with a disbelieving look on her face and gave a little laugh "Oh, they're his girls alright, they're just as endearing, and their mother assures me just as frustrating as he can be!"
Vera shook her head with a smile "Well it's a tall order, but I think that you two are officially the most extraordinary couple that I've ever worked with. I do believe that I'm going to enjoy this." She confirmed all of Sarah's measurements, took some more pictures to make sure she had her colouring correct and sorted out all the final details. Then they said their goodbyes and Vera went to the window to watch them return to the F-15, climb in and leave, stopping to wave up at the window there she was from the cockpit, she got pictures of that as well, but understood that those pictures would have to be kept locked away.
While this was going on unbeknownst to him, Director Graham was getting frustrated, because with all of the resources he'd had tied up for months now, searching for Devon Woodcomb and Emma Blake, no-one had found a sniff of them. The only positive outcome of these hunts was that they'd located Jill Roberts and brought her in, confirming that she'd had no involvement with Devon Woodcomb whatsoever. Unfortunately, in the process of the 'questioning' about Woodcomb, she'd also confirmed that she knew far more about his operations than he was comfortable with and he'd had her disposed of. Larkin had somehow found out about what happened to Roberts and he'd gone dark, so HE now had to be added to the list of those that Graham couldn't find to quiet.
Looking at what was on the table at the moment, and how little of it was favourable to his plans, made Graham come to a decision. Walker's father wasn't much of a card to play, but he was all he had to use at the moment and this was what he'd kept the idiot alive for, to use him as a last ditch measure, so he kicked off the contingency plans to have him released ASAP. If he managed to bond with his daughter and was grabbed again, he may prove useful in bringing Walker back under control, if not, he could always be disposed of. On the day of his release, Graham went to see him, he told Blake that his daughter was doing pretty well for herself with a rich mark in L.A. and gave him her phone number. He also told him that he better go straight and not get himself sent back here, knowing that throwing down a challenge like that to Joe Blake (or rather Jack Burton as he was incarcerated as) was like waving a red rag at a bull, with his misplaced confidence in himself, Blake would be trying to work cons before he got to L.A. and he'd HAVE to go there to try and work his daughter's mark, just to prove he could.
As he left the prison, Graham laughed to himself, Blake made a crap conman for the same reason he was a crap agent, his overblown confidence in himself, he was a legend in his own mind, but in the real world, he was a joke. That was how they'd located Walker in San Diego when she was finishing high school under the name of Jenny Burton. She'd somehow managed to make him go straight for nearly a year, so they'd stayed off the radar for that time, but he'd once again decided that he was smarter than her and the authorities (Graham snorted at that, he wasn't even sure that her mother, the Fox, was smarter than Walker), so he'd started trying to work his cons again, leading everyone to him, and her.
Just after he'd released 'Jack Burton', something else happened that cheered Graham up, they got a lead on the cipher that apparently disappeared with Larkin's body after Beckman's Pitt Bull shot him. He'd pulled strings and got powerful people to push to rebuild the Intersect computer after the Intersect files he had Larkin steal ended up in Bartowski's head and all his plans went to shit, arguing that an unstable civilian couldn't be trusted as the repository of the nation's secrets, and the new computer was almost finished now. The problem was that the cipher was a key component for the Intersect computer, and Beckman had insisted that the scientist who'd created it had been one of those who'd been killed when Larkin blew up the Intersect facility. Since Larkin had reappeared and taken off though, rumours had started surfacing that Fulcrum were acquiring the cipher, presumably from Larkin, to get their own Intersect working.
As Beckman's Human Intersect project was being touted as the premier team of the United States Intelligence Community, they were the logical choice to send after the cipher, and the best part was that Beckman couldn't argue with the order. As soon as they'd been assigned the task of recovering the cipher to Beckman's team, Graham started organising a groundswell movement to insist that the civilian Human Intersect represented too great a risk to the security of the United States to leave walking about with the nation's secrets in his head once the Intersect was in the heads of REAL agents, using the worrying incidence of prisoners being removed from federal detention facilities to forestall any proposals to just lock him away once the new Intersect was up and proper Agents were imprinted with the Intersect.
He made sure that all his ducks were in a row, so that as soon as the Intersect Team recovered the cipher (and they would, he'd never admit it to anyone else, but they were proving to be by far the best team in existence), they'd get the order issued for the risk that Bartowski represented to the security of the nation to be eliminated, and it wouldn't even look like it came from him, as it would be coming down from the concerned big brass! He'd have just what he wanted then, as he'd make sure that HIS agents were the ones who were imprinted with the Intersect and get his techs to take a copy of the files just before something happened to 'corrupt' all the master files. On top of that, as soon as Beckman's Human Intersect was eliminated for the good of the country, he'd get Walker back, yep, he'd been wondering whether he'd get past these setbacks for a while there, but everything was coming up roses now!
Graham briefly entertained having 'Jack Burton' arrested and put back in prison, but decided that it'd be more fun to let him run for a while before he grabbed him, he'd be easy enough to pick up later and it'd destroy him more if he had a chance to start believing in the illusion of freedom. It would also be interesting to see whether Walker had forgiven him enough to make him worth hanging onto for leverage, so he'd let him contact her and see how that played out.
When they had the briefing to send them after the cipher, Chuck could see that Graham was excited about something, but Aunt D was worried, so he hauled everyone back to his room and initiated a new, REALLY secure link to Aunt D, and when it came up said "Alright Aunt D, tell me what I'm missing here!"
That was enough to snap Sarah out of the happy daze she'd been in since they came back from New York, and their meeting with Vera Wang, for God's sake, to make the dresses for her impending wedding. Taking in what was on Auntie Di's face now, she kicked herself, this wedding was ruining her as a spy! On her worse day before this, she would never have missed this! Casey wasn't much better, swearing at himself for missing this when Chuck picked up on it while he was excited about his upcoming wedding!
Aunt D explained that the cipher was effectively the artificial brain of the Intersect computer, the key component, that was why she hadn't been worried about them building a new Intersect computer, because it was useless without the cipher. They'd presumed that it was destroyed in the explosion when they couldn't find any trace of it when they were sifting through the wreckage, and she'd listed the identity that Stefan was using when he built the cipher among the dead from the explosion, so as far as anyone knew, there was no way of creating another cipher.
Apparently though, Larkin had taken the cipher with him after he'd downloaded the Intersect files. Casey started swearing at himself for not finding it on him after he shot him when she said that, but she stopped him "No, John, you couldn't have known, the cipher is no bigger than a medallion, or a large coin, he could have hidden it in his shoe, or even swallowed it to prevent you finding it, but the problem is that they know about it now, and it's our job to recover it." She faltered then "Chuck,..."
"It's alright Auntie Di, I know, once we recover the cipher and they have the Intersect computer working, my termination order will be signed..." "WHAT?"
He quickly turned to pull Sarah into his arms and hold her as he explained "When they have the Intersect computer working, and especially once they can imprint their agents with the Intersect, they'll be arguing that there's far too much risk in having a civilian bumbling around with all the nation's secrets in his head, and that the only way to protect the security of the nation is to eliminate the threat, to ensure that no-one can get their hands on me and use me against the nation."
He looked at the screen and Aunt D nodded regretfully "Yes, you've stated the arguments quite well Chuck, but we do have one advantage, a large part of the reason that Sarah and John were selected for this mission was that they're the nation's top assassins, and while there's considerable doubt that Agent Walker has retained enough professional detachment to do the job, no one doubts that my Pit Bull, sorry John…."
His grin had a feral edge to it "Why apologise? We've been cultivating that image for as long as I've been working for you to fool the sheep General!"
She nodded "Quite! That my Pit Bull will carry out the assignment without any qualms…. Actually, is Ellie still there? She should hear this." Chuck nodded and went to get her, but as he came back in he heard Sarah saying "But I should have seen it!" angrily, so he kissed her on the head to soothe her as he sat down.
Aunt D quickly filled Ellie in on what they were discussing, then went on "When you recover the cipher and they bring the new Intersect computer on-line, I'll be made to order Chuck's termination to protect the security of the nation, and with John's mad dog killer reputation, there's no logical reason to give the job to anyone else. You'll go off off to a friend's for the night or something Ellie and we'll stage the scene so that John is seen entering the apartment, followed by Sarah a little while later. After that, Sarah will be seen leaving the apartment with two or more large bundles and that will be the last anyone sees of any of them. When you come home you'll find signs of a struggle and lots of blood sprayed around, mainly Chuck's and John's, but maybe a little of Sarah's type too. You'll call the police of course, and we'll either intercept the call or get the evidence off of them. From the blood, the damage and the external surveillance, the obvious scenario will be that John killed Chuck, but Sarah arrived him and found him before he could get rid of the evidence. She killed him for killing the man she loved and then disappeared, taking the bodies to dispose of them, because it was obvious that their bosses had been the ones who ordered Chuck's termination, and she'd shown her hand by killing John for personal reasons. We'll put Ellie in Witness Protection because it'll be obvious that two people were killed there, her records will disappear and you'll all start again under some of your other names."
They stopped to take that in, but Sarah was the first to speak "What about the wedding?" "Well we'd have to screen all the guests and cut those who we aren't a hundred percent sure of, but it could go on. You don't need to get married now though, Sarah Walker will be gone..."
Sarah cut her off harshly "We're not getting married because we NEED to, we're getting married because we love each other and want to spend the rest of our lives together!"
Casey snorted, but stepped back smartly when she swung her death glare on him. Aunt D and Ellie were having trouble not laughing at the scene, but realised that it had gone too far when she started to cry and Chuck took her in his arms. Ellie squeezed her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek, saying softly "Sweetie, NOTHING's going to stop your wedding, I promise you, even if can't be anything but the family, you'll have your wedding!"
Aunt D said "Sarah" a few times softly before she saw a searing blue eye glaring at her over Chuck's shoulder. Obviously she wasn't forgiven yet, but she didn't expect to be. "I'm sorry Honey, I shouldn't have made a dig like that, but inappropriate humour is my coping mechanism. I'm just furious at that bastard because I know that he's sitting back in the shadows, playing the puppet master and using others to order Chuck's death. You know how I love Chuck, so you can imagine how I feel about the fact that I know that I'll be the one who's forced to actually voice the order for his termination. Ellie's right, and I'm sorry, I should have been the one to say it, NOTHING will stop your wedding, if it's just us against the world, you'll be married with your family there for you!"
Sarah sniffed a few times and nodded, then, much as they weren't in the mood, they had to get to the office, and Sarah was still so upset that she actually let Chuck drive her Porsche. While they were working, Chuck had a thought and called Aunt D to ask if she still wanted him to finish the case to split off the Intersect Project. She nodded "I think we have to, even without you, Sarah and Casey, the Intersect technology's too dangerous for someone like Graham to get his hands on!" Chuck nodded and went back to work, which mostly entailed working on the Intersect Project business case and searching for the cipher.
It only took them four days to find and recover the cipher, and Graham was laughing to himself about the fact that Walker and Casey were working so hard to get the intel to recover the one thing that would end their team. What Graham didn't know, of course, was most of the death and mayhem he'd attributed to Walker and the brute force killings and damage he'd attributed to Casey were actually Chuck. The ones that they were coming up against in this search were generally bottom feeders, low level thugs for hire, and the things he was seeing when he flashed on them meant that all he wanted to do was rid the world of them to protect the others that they'd prey on if they could. As soon as he ascertained that they had no information of use, he'd finish them with a blade, or a snapped neck.
While they were searching for the cipher, they raised the suspicious makeup of the Fulcrum forces that they'd been discovering in the process. What they'd seen from Fulcrum had never been at the top of the food chain, but what they'd been dealing with on this mission had a distinctly disposable vibe. When they tried to bring that up in their briefings however, they were invariably shot down by Graham, telling them that their job wasn't to critique Fulcrum recruiting practices, it was to recover the damned cipher!
That in itself was confusing, because Graham wasn't an idiot, he wouldn't have been so dangerous if he was, but he was wilfully ignoring the evidence in front of him here. Chuck conceded that Sarah was probably right when she said "I think it's me, he's desperate to get the cipher back so he can have you killed off, because that will finish the Human Intersect Project and he can get me back under his control as soon as possible, but what I don't get is why he's confident that he can control me, we know that he has no idea where Mama is, so I don't know what he thinks he has to hold over me."
When they'd recovered the cipher, Sarah and Chuck were waiting in Chuck's room after the debriefing, watching for the transporters who'd be arriving to collect it from Casey, and they were discussing Graham's arrogance in the debriefing.
Sarah and Aunt D, especially, had to hide their reactions in the debriefing when Graham said "Excellent work Sarah, Casey" as if Chuck didn't exist or hadn't been a major part of their recovering the device. When Graham went on to say that the transporters would be there to collect the cipher and return it to D.C. at the earliest opportunity, Sarah asked just what the cipher was, to play the game.
Aunt D explained that the cipher was the artificial brain for the new Intersect computer, but Chuck had had to keep the expected act up, so he'd asked "The new Intersect?" Graham actually deigned to answer him for once. "We've been working on a new one ever since the original Intersect was destroyed, the cipher is the final piece."
So Chuck had to ask "What happens to me, the old Intersect?" "Tomorrow the new computer will be on-line, and Operation Bartowski officially comes to an end, you'll be done with us, no more briefings, no more missions, no more spies, enjoy the rest of your life Chuck." It was so hard to hold back their responses to the smug bastard's gloating look as he came out with this platitude to Chuck, knowing that he'd be having his termination ordered as soon as the Intersect computer was on-line.
At that moment, the transporters arrived and took custody of the cipher from Casey, and the discussion changed to the fact that they all had to disappear now as they moved from the window to the bed. It would be hardest for Ellie, as she had the most friends to leave behind, the rest of them really had no more than acquaintances. Sarah asked "Do you think this plan is going to work?"
She could feel his chin move on the top of her head as he nodded "Yes, Aunt D has read in the DNI and the President, so that they'll put up a token argument before they sign off on the termination order. Casey is the only logical choice to carry out the order, he'll put up a token argument as a matter of honour as well, and then give in to do his duty. By this time tomorrow, we'll all be officially dead or gone, I just feel sorry for Ellie, the rest of us have nearly all of our friends in the group, but most of her circle of friends are from the hospital or medical school, the majority of them are shallow skanks and douches, as she met them through Woodcomb, but she has some genuine friends that she'll have to leave behind when Eleanor Bartowski disappears."
They'd been laying there for a bit over half an hour when the screen lit up to show an angry Aunt D "That bastard's desperate to see you dead Chuck, he's already gotten the order signed off and made sure that I gave the order to have John carry it out when the Intersect Computer comes on line, or earlier if that's more workable! Is Ellie there? We need to make our plans for tonight." Chuck went to get her, and when they were all there (Casey was on a secure link from his bedroom), Aunt D continued.
"You have everything lined up for a girls' night out and staying over at a friend's place tonight Ellie?" She nodded "Good, now John will come in about an hour before dawn to eliminate Chuck, and Sarah will come in just before dawn, as per the practice she's set up recently whenever she isn't staying over. About half an hour after that, she'll come out with two rather large bundles and disappear in Chuck's work minivan, and that will be the last anyone sees of Charles Bartowski, John Casey or Sarah Walker. A few hours later, Ellie will stagger home from her girls' night out, find all the blood in the apartment and call nine one one, the Police will come and she'll be taken away to be put into the Witness Protection scheme, and that will be the last anyone sees of Eleanor Bartowski, too."
This was all quite logical and workable, but something else occurred to Sarah "Shit, where are we going to stay after that?" Ellie was thinking about the plan, trying to make sure that they hadn't missed anything and said distractedly "It's alright Sweetie, we'll stay in the Dungeon Apartment, you and Chuck can take one room and John and I will take the other." It took her a while to realise that everyone was silent after that and she looked up to see everyone looking at her, Aunt D and Sarah were staring at her in shock, Chuck was looking amused, and John's expression said "Oh shit!"
When she realised what she'd said, she went bright red and her expression matched John's, but she said defiantly "What? We were together for a couple of years before I took up with Devon. It started with him trying to comfort me when I was upset that my little brother was trying to service every woman on the west coast between eight and eighty…." She saw Chuck flinch at that and was immediately contrite "Oh I'm sorry Chuck, that wasn't fair, but I was angry at the time, OK, between twelve and forty."
Sarah's eyes widened when she saw that Chuck didn't bother arguing about that.
"And the comforting became more, at MY instigation Auntie Di, John didn't push it, I begged him, because I felt unappealing and worthless when Chuck had someone different in bed every time I turned around, and all I'd had were a few jocks who'd slept with any girl that they could. John was sweet, and caring, and he made me feel that I was something special, so I begged him to make love to me. It was wonderful and we kept going for the next two years or so until I stupidly took up with that tool because the wild sex with him was exciting, and John and I went back to being friends. We've only taken up our relationship again since Devon's been gone."
She hesitated then "I always thought you knew because I thought that Chuck would have said something, intentionally or otherwise." Aunt D shook her head with a smile "Oh Honey, how could you think that? You know how much he loves you!" Her smile turned to a frown when she looked at John and she just said "So we all know what we're going to do?" At everyone's nod, she cut the link. Ellie tried to apologise to John, but he just told her that it was alright. To lighten the mood, Sarah said "Maybe I should rethink this wedding, the thought of having John Casey as a brother in law is a little scary, no, hell, it's terrifying!" Most of the laughter that followed was at John's deer in the headlights look that the thought of being married and having the Ice Queen as a sister in law generated.
Ellie got out the blood they needed to set the scene from from their medical centre and took it home that afternoon. Their fridge looked a little odd, to say the least, with the food rearranged to make room for about thirteen litres of blood.
As Ellie was heading out for her night with the girls, Chuck gave her a hug and a kiss and begged her to be careful, but she told him that she'd be fine, she'd have a few drinks, pretend to be much drunker than she was and arrange to stay at one of her friend's places for the night, she certainly wasn't going to be picking up any guys and taking them home. She grinned at him then, saying "After all, I've got something far better waiting for me when I get back!" He pretended to gag at that, but grinned "Yeah, you do!"
She hesitated then and said "What Sarah said, it was just a joke, but how would you feel if it became true?" He looked at her and saw she was serious, so he gave her a serious answer "I'd be happy for you, both of you, you deserve the best in the world, and John's just about the best man I know, so yeah, it'd be great" and gave her another hug before she left.
Graham had cued up his picked agents and techs as soon as they started hunting for the cipher, so he had them all waiting in D.C. when the cipher arrived. He expected that Beckman would be have something planned as well, he wasn't making the mistake of underestimating that pint sized bitch again, so he moved his people into the Intersect facility at 0500 D.C. time to get the drop on her. His people took over the Intersect building and his techs started organising the upload. Normally Graham would have delegated like this to someone else, but this was his big triumph and he wasn't about to be denied his moment, so he entered the command and signalled the agents to remove their stupid sunglasses 'At 05:30 in the morning, inside, really? Christ!' as he put the Intersect filtering safety glasses on and smiled to himself as he punched the 'Enter' key.
When 'FULCRUM THANKS YOU' flashed up on the screen, Graham didn't have time to get more than "Oh Fuck!" out before a massive power surge surged through the entire system, totally frying everything, including the frail human bodies that happened to be in the building at the time.
Apparently Fulcrum had some competent techs, because they'd created a fake cipher that they'd put out there with fake Fulcrum agents guarding it to be recovered by the NSA and CIA. This fake cipher was hard coded to send calls hunting through the system, looking for the SCADA gateways on the system. When they found them they took them over, disabled the alarms and controls and initiated a massive power surge though system to wipe out the entire computing environment and set back the NSA/CIA Intersect efforts by a few years. The fact that the power surge also turned any human beings who happened to be in the Intersect building into crispy critters was pure synchronicity as far as they were concerned, as they hadn't considered that aspect at all.
General Diane Beckman and anyone else with any authority who was connected to the Intersect Project was rousted from their beds within minutes of the Intersect systems being wiped out at 0530 D.C. time and everyone converged on the Intersect facility. The only people left alive at the facility were the CIA agents who were on guard outside, everyone in the building was fried. As soon as she had a good idea of what had happened, she called Casey and told him to call off the fake termination and get over to Chuck's so she could talk to them together.
Chuck was still working when Casey came knocking on the door of his room, and they called Aunt D back from there. There was considerable celebration when she informed them that from what the CIA Agents told them as they were trying to talk their way out of the predicament that they were in, Director Graham and about twenty CIA Agents and techs were completely fried when the power surge went through the building, they'd have to do DNA testing on the remains to be certain, but it appeared that Graham was no longer a problem for them. Their enthusiasm was, of course, rather dampened when she told them that there were also about a dozen NSA guards who'd been tied up in the building who'd been fried as well.
While he knew that Sarah had been quite serious with her threats to anyone who disturbed her sleep, Chuck thought she'd want to know about this straight away, so he called her at 0300 L.A. time to tell her. She wasn't at all impressed to be woken at first, but when what had happened sunk in, she said she'd be there in fifteen minutes and hung up. Thinking about that, Chuck picked up his phone again and called Ellie, telling her just enough to let her know what happened. The moment she understood, she dropped her drunken slur and said that she'd be home in thirty to forty minutes.
Things were a lot quieter for the next couple of weeks, they were still processing intel for the Intersect project, but they hadn't heard anything from the CIA as the senior people had been all tied up in the infighting over who was going to get the nod as the Acting DCIA up until that person was named. They did take advantage of the CIA's upheaval in this period to send in a joint FBI and military team to arrest the four CIA techs who went by the hacker names of The Mongol, Haxman, The Krait and Gimli for hacking into highly classified military systems and drag them away to be buried in a black site somewhere.
Even though they didn't believe that anyone at the CIA was organised enough to be on top of anything at the moment, especially the old fool who'd been named as the Acting DCIA, it was decided that Sarah should keep up appearances in case she was being monitored, so she was going back to her apartment Maison23, for a while at least, most nights after work.
As she got to the apartment, Sarah was dead tired after the day she'd had, she just wanted to grab a change of clothes and slip out the back way to go to Chuck's. As she opened the door though, she sensed that something was wrong, so she'd dropped her bag and had her pistol in her hand by the time the door swung open, to reveal Bryce Larkin laying on her bed with a smug smile on his face.
Without lowering her pistol, she asked "What are you doing here Bryce?
"Close that door before you let everyone know I'm here!"
"Answer the question, what, are, you, doing, here?"
"I came across some important intel and I'm here because I'm the only one who can pull off the mission, now get in here and close that door!"
Not moving an inch, Sarah said "That doesn't explain what you're doing here in my apartment!"
"I'm deep cover, so I can't be seen getting a hotel room, that means that I'll have to stay with you Mrs Anderson."
As he said this line, his gloating smile grew wider and more lascivious, he actually thought that she was going to let him get away with this? Chuck was right, he WAS brain damaged!
"Well you may have problems getting a hotel room, but you certainly won't be staying with me!"
With that she grabbed her bag, slammed the door and ran off before he could move, sending a text to Chuck to ask him to meet her at Quixote House immediately before she jumped into her Porsche and took off.
Chuck had to close a few things down before he left, so she was already downstairs in the Dungeon when he arrived. When he walked in, he could see that she was upset and asked "What's wrong Sarah?" but he was gobsmacked when she said "Larkin's in my apartment and he told me he's here to do a mission, he's obviously set something up so that I'll have to work with him because he's too confident." He pulled her into his arms, and once she'd regained a bit of her composure he initiated a link to Aunt D. The second her image came up he growled at her "What the fuck's going on?"
She was taken aback at that, but took in Sarah's state and realised what must have happened.
"Oh no, that slimy bastard's already there, isn't he?"
"Yes, he is, why didn't you tell us about it?"
"Because I only got the information myself five minutes ago and I was informed that he wouldn't be arriving in L.A. until tomorrow!"
Chuck was still aggravated, but Sarah looked up at him and said "Chuck, stop, this isn't Auntie Di's fault." She turned her head to look at the screen.
"I was upset when I got to my apartment to find him there, and the way he was calling me Mrs Anderson says that he's set something up to make me work with him."
"I'm so sorry Sarah, but as I said, I only got this five minutes ago from the Acting DCIA and I haven't even had time to call him and tell him what he can do with his demands yet, this is what I received."
She brought up a window with the message she'd received. "Larkin supposedly intercepted intel that Fulcrum has stolen a chip with an encrypted file containing highly sensitive information that was intended to be used for a refresh of the Intersect data. That file is with this Von Hayes to be decrypted. It reportedly includes the cover identities for many of our agents"
"Obviously Larkin has someone convinced that he's the only one who can recover it and that he needs his old partner to work with him on this mission. Their problem, though, is that they obviously don't know about the mandates that are in place to ensure that they can't interfere with our team, but we're going to educate them about that with the DNI's help. Stay on the line, I'm cutting the feeds from you while I call this bastard."
A/N: According to their 'official' ages, Casey's only 7-8 years older than Ellie, that's not so significant a difference, and in my world his 'true' personality is allowed to show more, so it's not just Carina who sees what a catch he is. If people still need the brain bleach, have at it, wusses ;)