The apparently offensive part of Cats has been slightly amended to better describe the process that I know from personal experience can evoke the reaction described.
Usual disclaimers for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this ain't the real world, no way, no how.
In the morning, they were surprised by how comfortable they felt, waking up with the three of them intertwined as they were, nothing had happened, but Chuck and Zondra at least were expecting things to be a little awkward. It wasn't though, Zondra came awake, draped over Chuck with him gently rubbing her back as he quietly talked to Sarah, and just felt relaxed and good.
Sarah laughed as Zondra opened her eyes and looked sleepily at them "Morning, sleepyhead!" Zondra tried to growl, but she had to smile at that, she felt too good to do anything else. Just then, there was a knock on the door and Ellie came in with four coffee mugs, Zondra tried to jump up, but Chuck just held her there with a gentle but firm hand on her back, kissing her on the forehead and saying that it was alright. Sarah added "Relax Zee, my sister in law does this every morning, the first time I slept with Chuck, I woke up to find her here, talking to Auntie Di and my mother!"
Zondra looked at Chuck to let him know that she wasn't trying to escape, but wanted to sit up, so he moved his hand, giving her a gentle squeeze as he did so. She thanked Ellie for the coffee, but looked confused as she turned to Sarah, saying "Auntie Di?" She jumped and spilled a little of her coffee on Chuck when the screen lit up and Aunt D said "That would be me, Zondra."
Chuck assured Zondra that it was alright when she tried to apologise for spilling coffee on him "After all, it was my Godmother's fault, we've really got to talk about boundaries, Aunt D!"
"Look, since that one time with you and Sarah, I won't look until I'm sure that it's safe, but you know this our best chance to get things organised for the day, Charles."
Zondra went to go, but Chuck stopped her, his hand low on her belly, saying "No, you don't need to go anywhere Zondra, we're just talking about operations, and you're part of this now." His hand, and the way he was rubbing his thumb across her belly, was making Zondra flushed, it was nice, but it was bringing back memories of that first night and what he'd done to give the Bimbo the wrong idea about what they'd been doing in here.
Ellie took this in and brought over his and Sarah's coffees with a smile. When they sat up to take their coffees, Sarah whispered in his ear to tell him what he'd been doing (as she'd picked up on Zondra's reaction too) and his eyes widened, whispering an apology to Zondra, she just nodded, embarrassed that they knew. Sarah leaned over to kiss her on the cheek and murmur that it was fine.
Aunt D could see that something was going on and decided to jump into the business at hand "We've just recovered a deep cover agent who disappeared a while ago when investigating a Fulcrum cell, but by all accounts he appears to be brain dead, burnt out."
"We've consulted with your father, Chuck, and he's confirmed that the description of his condition matches the state of the early Intersect test subjects after they were submitted to the testing, so it appears that Fulcrum is trying to develop an Intersect, and you know how dangerous that would be if they had any success in that. We've been trying to keep you out of this, what with everything else you've been handling, but with the Intersect angle and your special knowledge, I'm afraid that there's no-one else who can deal with this like you can."
Chuck nodded with a sigh "What's the plan, Aunt D?"
"We were already making arrangements to procure a house in the street where the agent was based, so we'll insert you and Sarah as a young married couple to find out what's going on there."
"No! It would be better if I went in as a single guy so I can engage people more freely."
Zondra heard a growl from Sarah that she hadn't heard since the CAT Squad days, and she was startled, as she hadn't realised until now how much it was like a tigress getting ready to pounce.
"Don't you dare try that! We're a couple, remember, 'until death do us part'? There's no way I'm going to let you go into something like that without me! And do you want to elaborate on 'engage people more freely'? I thought we were BOTH out of the seduction game!"
Aunt D barked "Sarah!" When she turned to glare at the screen, Aunt D was glad that she was on the other side of the country, but she continued "Stop it! You know very well that you're the only woman he's slept with since that Roberts bitch and you're the only one he wants to ever sleep with again! He just wants you to be safe! And if you want to question that he hasn't slept with anyone since Roberts, talk to Lieutenant Wu, she spent five years pushing for it to no avail!"
Sarah took a deep breath to compose herself and responded "I'm well aware of that, General, but I'm also aware that my HUSBAND just implied that he wanted to go in alone so he'd be free to use whatever methods he had to to get the intel out of the women there. THAT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN, and nor is he going into a situation like that without me!"
Aunt D addressed Chuck "Captain Carmichael? It appears that Colonel Carmichael is not prepared to budge on this issue, will you comply with her requirements or do we need to scrub this operation?"
After an exasperated "FUCK!", Chuck didn't say anything for a couple of minutes, he just looked into Sarah's eyes, eventually he nodded as she came into his arms, and he said "Yes" resignedly.
They held each other for a while and she kissed him, then she turned to face the screen "Auntie Di? I think you got a little mixed up there, the highest rank I have is Major, not Colonel."
Aunt D relaxed, now that the tense moment was past "No Sarah, we just got word back that the submissions that Chuck made have been signed off, Major Walker has been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and Captain Franco was promoted to Major, as was Captain Burton, though Lieutenant Commander O'Connell is still the same rank. You're also now listed as a Senior Air Force Pilot and Senior Army Aviator and have a few more medals."
Sarah looked at him as she said "I didn't realise that he'd submitted anything, we talked about this on the plane but that was the last thing I heard about it."
Aunt D could see that they were getting close to another issue so she pushed on "Well you should know by now that when he says he's going to do something, he does it, don't forget, he has several hours more a day to work on things while us ordinary mortals are sleeping."
She saw Sarah's shoulders slump in resignation and knew that they were past the issue. "Yeah, I'm coming to see that, it just takes a little getting used to I guess."
With that, they went back to the arrangements for this mission, Chuck and Sarah were going in as the Powers, with Casey in there for an indefinite period as the handyman they brought in to fix the hundred and one things they weren't happy with around the house.
Sarah had supposedly taken a week or so off work to get them settled into the house, so she and Casey would be there during the day while Chuck was 'at the office'. It didn't take long for the alarm bells to start going off, because the first day that Sarah and 'Johan' were at the house, it was inundated with visitors, and they were getting a VERY strange vibe off them.
She called Chuck a little after lunch, as the neighbours were very insistent on meeting and getting to know Sarah and her husband, to the extent that she'd been pressured into putting on a 'getting to know you' barbecue that night, so Chuck HAD to be home in time! On the other hand, these supposedly bored and neglected housewives didn't give Casey, who got most women going, a second look. That worried Chuck as well, because it was definitely suspicious behaviour "How about I invite my boss Mike and co-worker Rick, and their wives Zondra and Vicky, to the barbecue, they'll be over all the time anyway because we live in each other's pockets, so it would be a good chance for them to meet the neighbours."
It would have taken someone who knew Sarah like he did to pick the relieved note when she laughed "Yes dear, that would be lovely, I haven't seen Zondra and Vicky since the wedding, and they can help me get all this ready, you're not getting out of your duties on the barbecue though, the man of the house has to man the barbecue!" but carrying on the act like that meant… "There's someone there listening to you now, isn't there?"
"Yup, so you won't forget to pick up the meat and the things on the list I texted you, and NOT stop at the bar on the way home?" "How many are we catering for?" "Well, with the guys from your work and Johan, he's doing such a marvellous job Honey, it wouldn't be right to leave him out, maybe thirty?"
"Got it, we'll be there by 5:30, love you"
"I love you too sweetheart! See you when you get home."
After he got off the phone, he looked at it for about a minute with a worried expression, and then hit the button for the PA system "Mike, Zondra, Vicky, Rick, my office please!"
They were all there within five minutes, looking concerned at the expression on his face. He started without any preamble "The neighbours have been coming around all day and pressured Sarah into 'volunteering' us to host a getting to know you barbecue tonight, she and Colonel Casey are worried about the vibe they're getting from these people, because for one thing none of these bored housewives are paying any attention at all to the hot handyman. Zondra, Mike, are you two OK with coming as a couple to this barbecue?" Zondra's "Of course!" and Mike's "Yes, Sir!" overlapped each other "Rick, Vicky, are you two OK being a couple again?" they just nodded "Thanks, OK, Mike is Rick and my boss, and you two are their wives. Weapons need to be low key, but come armed! It's a barbecue, so dress is casual, we're out of here as soon as possible after 1630. Rick, could you pick up the meat etc for a barbecue for thirty, please?" Rick looked confused, so Mike laughed and said "I'll handle that." Chuck nodded "Thanks Mike, you take Casey's Crown Vic, Rick, you take the Honda, and I've got that Volvo, so don't bitch about what you have to drive!"
They could all tell that he was worried, so to distract him from that, Zondra leant forward "OK Chuck, Sarah isn't here, so what ARE you doing with that Porsche?" He looked at her, he knew exactly what she was up to, but he appreciated it, so he brought up the big screen behind him and threw up images on it. "It's going to be a full on RSR Cabriolet. It went to a major Porsche race shop I know, they got it registered and then stripped it right down to the bare chassis to remove anything unnecessary and strengthen the key points. They're replacing the plates under the soft top with carbon fibre panels, and putting in carbon fibre seats as well, the bodywork and mechanicals are all RSR, they're getting a works drive train, suspension, brakes and wheels and carbon fibre body panels, air dam and wing sent over from the factory. Then, when they've got it all together and sorted it's going to a custom shop they're affiliated with to be made pretty."
Zondra, Vicky and Rick were drooling as they looked at this, it was going to be an incredible machine. Zondra said "If I know my girl, and I do, she's going to love it! I just have to try and work out how to get her to let me drive it! So, when will it be ready?" "Waiting for the bits to arrive from Germany and making up the custom carbon fibre parts is taking up the most time. They're saying about a month."
He killed the images and said "So we all know what we're doing? 1630 on the parking level, Zondra and Vicky, if you're OK with it, could you see how hot you can be and stay inside respectable casual, please? If the guys ignore you when you're making an effort, we'll know that Sarah and Casey are right. Rick, can you do the same please?"
Mike spoke up with a grin, "Hey, what about me?" Chuck grinned back at him "Sorry Mike, but Rick's just hotter than you are!" Rick decided to get into it then "You all heard that, this is sexual harassment, he wants me to wear tight clothes because he thinks I'm hot!"
They all filed out laughing at that, but Zondra hung back "Are you OK?"
"Yeah, just worried, this is why I didn't want her in on this, she and John are out there with no backup at the moment and the wolves are circling, it anything happens to her I'll burn it all to the ground!"
Zondra stepped in to wrap her arms around him, saying "She'll be fine, she can take on anyone out there!"
"One on one, or even three or four to one, yeah, but there's ten to one odds now and it'll still be three to one when we're all there."
"If you're that worried, send Sydney, Alex, Mei-Ling, Ellie, Carina and Anna out now with full gear to stand by close enough so that all Sarah and Casey need to do is hit the panic button and they can be there in minutes."
"Yes! That's perfect, thank you!" He picked her up and kissed her, rushing off to organise that. The CCE van was armoured, so short of coming up against heavy military weapons they'd be safe enough in there and they could get to Sarah quick enough for support. Ten minutes later, they were on their way and he called Sarah to tell her.
When they met up on the ground floor of Quixote House, Zondra, Vicky and Rick all did a twirl and asked Chuck if they looked hot enough, he grinned and said that that should work, but told Vicky that she'd looked hotter in her chauffeur's uniform, Vicky went bright red at that, of course. Zondra was looking confused, but Mike murmured "I'll explain in the car" and she nodded subtly.
Mike and Zondra stopped to pick up the meat and other things he'd ordered, and as he got back in the car, he handed Zondra his phone with the image of Vicky and Alex leaning back against the Continental at the wedding, their jackets had only had one button holding them together below the navel and were cut to be open, so they showed an almost unbroken display of bare skin from head to toe.
"Mike, why are you showing me pictures of Vicky and Alex in stripper costumes?" He chuckled "Because THAT's the chauffeur's uniform Chuck was talking about!" Zondra whipped her head around to stare at him "WHAT?" "Sarah and Ellie decided that it would be fun to wind the guys up and got these outfits made for Vicky and Alex, most of us knew about it, but Chuck didn't, flick back a few pictures to see his reaction." Zondra did so hesitantly, but she was pleasantly surprised to see that it was more 'WHAT THE FUCK?' than excitement at the undeniably hot display he was looking at, like probably 99% of guys would have shown.
She shook her at that, but thought about Chuck and asked "Do you think that Chuck's going overboard with the way he's panicking?" He looked thoughtful "No, he worries about her, probably more than she likes, but if it is Fulcrum there, they have no scruples, they'll use or destroy however many it takes to get what they want. Sarah and Casey are the best I've seen after Chuck, but at the moment they're potentially outnumbered ten to one or more and they're severely limited in the armour and weapons they can have to protect themsleves, so they're in a position of great risk, and he's worried about both of them, not just her."
She nodded "Yeah, I learned that in Rio, he jumped down my throat when I told him that he had to hold off coming in after us and follow the rules on the engagement." He glanced at her "Aren't you glad that he didn't follow the rules there?" She shuddered "Oh yeah! I didn't think that there was anything anyone could do to stop that psychotic bitch from carving Sarah up until he burst in like an angel of vengeance and took them all out. Afterwards, he was making sure I was OK as much as he was her." She was quiet as she remembered "I was shaking because I was certain that I was going to be raped again from what they were saying, and being helpless like that, tied to the chair with my dress just about torn off, it was bringing it all back, I couldn't control it."
Mike reached over to take her hand at that, and she clung to his hand until he indicated that he needed it to drive, but he took her hand again when he could. She had her game face on again by the time they reached the house, but before they got out of the car, she kissed him to let him know how much she appreciated that act of kindness, finding that she liked how comfortable it felt with him, it didn't evoke the passion that Chuck had, but it was nice, as was the way he held her, so she gave him another kiss for luck. With that, they helped the others unload the meat and things from the car and take them into the house.
Chuck saw that she was upset and stepped in to give her a hug, whispering in her ear "Are you alright? You don't have to do this if it's too much for you." She hugged him for that, saying "No, I'm fine, I just remembered things about Rio etcetera when we were talking on the way over" She kissed him and turned to grab a tray of meat. Vicky said "Hey, where's my hug?" and stepped in, asking "Is she OK?" in his ear. He whispered back "Yes, just memories of Rio and other things." She gave him a kiss and turned to grab some bags and head inside.
Sarah was so happy to see Chuck that she flew into his arms, but she quickly recovered enough to tease him "What's with the lipstick Chuck?" "It wasn't anything! Zondra and Vicky just kissed me for appearances!" She smiled and gave him an earth shattering kiss then, just inside the boundaries of what could be easily explained as newlywed behaviour. After that, she pointed at the meat and told him he had a lot to do, so go get changed and get to work!
After a hug and a kiss with Zondra and Vicky, for appearances as well as to get the story about why they kissed Chuck, they got to work preparing everything. She gave Zondra a squeeze when she explained her reason, but had to grin at Vicky's answer "Well it would have been expected, since Zondra did, and more to the point, if Zondra got to kiss him, I wasn't going to miss out!"
As they were all taking things out and circulating, it was clear that Sarah and Casey were right, all the 'husbands' were coming on to Sarah non-stop, and the 'wives' were all over Chuck, but they totally ignored Zondra, Vicky and Rick's flaunting and flirting. When the preparation was done, Sarah had to circulate, and because of the mission she had to play nice with the sleaze bag 'husbands', which made it look like she was getting friendly with them.
Unfortunately, this played into what they realised that they'd have to do once they discovered a bug on a tray that had been brought by Sylvia, the rather aggressive cougar from across the street, and Chuck identified it as belonging to Fulcrum. The guys back at Quixote House had also dug up records that showed deliveries of a lot of heavy duty computing equipment to that address, so these things together meant that they had to get into the house to check it out, and the most believable way to do that was to cast Sarah as a cheating wife and have Chuck looking for payback.
Given that Sylvia had made a point to tell Chuck that her husband was leaving on a business trip in the morning, Sarah took off for a day out with the girls soon after and Chuck waited half an hour before going to knock on Sylvia's door. When she asked about the change of heart, as he'd been adamant in his rejection of her the night before, he told her angrily that he'd seen the way that Sarah had been flirting with the other husbands the night before, and she'd spent an awful lot of time getting ready for what was just supposed to be a day with the girls, so it looked like she was going off to see someone else like she used to do. He finished with "What's good for the goose is good for the gander, if she's doing it, why shouldn't I?"
Sylvia's smile was voracious as she said "Oh, you're so right lover!" and pulled him inside. She fixed him a drink and told him to have a seat while she got ready, she wouldn't be more than ten minutes, fifteen tops! and ran upstairs. Chuck sniffed the drink, but there was no way he was about to drink anything she'd given him! He listened to make sure that she'd shut the door upstairs before he ducked into the study/office downstairs to get into the computer.
That was his big mistake, as the computer had an intersect program queued up to launch, which it did as soon as he got into it. The program that ran must have been only small though, as he'd come to within five minutes or so with a splitting headache. The computer had already screen locked itself again by then, so he quickly went to pour half of the drink down the kitchen sink and put the glass on the side table next to where he'd been sitting before calling upstairs to say that he suddenly felt sick, really bad, and he had to go, and bolting out the door.
Back in 'his' house, he grabbed his phone and checked for bugs, when it came up clean he called Aunt D and told her to mobilise the strike team, they definitely had an Intersect setup here as he'd just been hit with an Intersect program! They'd already set up the scenario, the story was that they'd tracked down a terrorist cell (based at Sylvia's house obviously), and they needed to bring the neighbours in to talk to them and find out everything they could about the terrorists. Aunt D said that she'd organise it with Bob, and he and Casey settled down to watch Sylvia's house.
Less than ten minutes after he'd left Sylvia's house, her 'husband' arrived home, obviously his 'business trip' hadn't taken him far. That just confirmed that they'd read the situation right, but things went to shit five minutes later when 'their' Volvo pulled into the drive. What Aunt D hadn't mentioned was that Sarah had been on a video conference with her when Chuck called, she'd heard everything and bolted out the door as soon as he finished talking.
Chuck jumped up and went out to get Sarah inside where it was safe as quick as he could without giving the game away, but the other side were already moving in, and they were both tranqued before they got more than a few steps from the car. Casey ran out to drag them inside, all attempts at the cover cast aside as it had obviously been blown, but he was tranqued too before he got five steps out of the house, so they were all down.
When Chuck came to, he was strapped into a chair with his head strapped in place so he couldn't move it. Sylvia and the other 'neighbours' were all working around him, setting up the monitoring and testing equipment. He decided to try playing through with the cover, so he asked in a panic what was going on, why was he tied down like this, what was this place and where was his wife? but Sylvia laughed, saying "She's not your wife, Charles, she's a CIA Agent, so I expect that you're CIA, too."
Trying to keep up the act, Chuck kept going. "What are you talking about? Sarah can't be CIA, she's my wife, what do you want with me?"
He saw Sarah, handcuffed to a chair in the next room, trying to get free, but one of his neighbours, Brad, answered his question. "You have a very special brain Mr Powers, and we're hoping for great things from you, everybody else we've tried has failed, but I'm banking on you being the one that works for us."
"What are you talking about?"
Sylvia stepped in again "What you saw on the computer upstairs was part of a program, the CIA developed it originally, but they gave up on it before it reached its true potential. We've taken what they started and we're going to show the world what it could have been!"
"OK, I'll do whatever you want, but let Sarah go, please?" Sylvia laughed again "Don't tell me you've actually fallen for her? What, did she tell you that you had a future, that she cared about you? Don't you know that it's all an act? You're just a job to her Charles, nothing she told you about her feelings for you was real!"
Brad laughed as well. "Don't worry, this will help you get over her, if you survive it." and with that they all moved off into the next room.
Sylvia's "husband" started something and some screens dropped down in front of Chuck, Sarah tried calling out to him but Sylvia just told her "Don't bother, he can't hear you."
Everyone in the room put sunglasses on, and they put a pair on Sarah as well before Sylvia's 'husband' initiated the program.
When the program finished, Chuck passed out, and as he slumped in the chair they all started abusing Brad, saying that this was just yet another failure of his damned program, until Chuck started to move.
At that they all rushed in and Sylvia asked him "Do you know where you are Charles?"
Chuck played their game "Beneath the Meadow Branch subdivision in a Fulcrum lab that was built to pursue the Fulcrum initiative."
"What initiative?"
"To properly develop the Intersect program."
Brad was almost jumping up and down as he said "It worked!", but Sylvia looked calculating as she asked "Do you mind if we test your wife next?"
Chuck looked at her with a confused expression, as he said "Wife? I don't have a wife."
They were all slapping each other on the back as they got him out of the chair and started strapping Sarah into it.
Chuck's plan at that point was to take them out while they were occupied and get Sarah the hell away from there, letting the strike team that was on its way handle anybody who was left, but just before he started he saw Casey sneaking towards the control console in the next room.
Chuck had his back to the Fulcrum Agents, so he winked back at him when Casey signalled that he was getting ready to initiate the program, turning to say "Before you start, I'd like to tell Agent Walker something."
Sylvia sniggered "Agent Walker, now we have a name."
Chuck leaned in close to her and whispered "Close your eyes", which made Sarah look over his shoulder to see Casey at the console with the sunglasses on, so she squeezed her eyes shut tight and Chuck pulled her face into his chest to ensure that he blocked her from seeing any of the images. When he saw Chuck pull Sarah's face into his chest, Casey hit "Enter".
Even though he'd already gotten through this OK, Chuck closed his eyes too, so he only heard the cries and crashing going on around him, but as soon as the flickering through his eyelids stopped, he opened his eyes to look around and saw all the Fulcrum people laying twisted on the floor.
When he asked Sarah if she was OK as he was unstrapping her, her response was "Yeah, are you?", looking very relieved when he said "Yeah, I think so", and as soon as he had her free she leapt into his arms.
Casey came into the room to check if they were OK, and Chuck noted his left thumb as he started to answer "Yeah, we're OK, so you actually broke your thumb to get out of the cuffs? I always thought that that was just a joke?"
That made Casey look at his hand and wince. "Well it isn't something that I'd want to do often, but it did the job."
After that they went through the facility, taking down and securing anyone else that they found in there while they were waiting for the strike team to arrive. As soon as they had control of the place, they grabbed a first aid kit to strap up Casey's hand, and Chuck searched for any instances of the Fulcrum Intersect information and pulled out any and all the drives holding that information, stashing them away in a bag. He also collected any external drives or USB sticks he could find in the facility and added them to the bag, too.
When the strike team arrived, they handed everything but the drives over to them and ordered them to secure everything in the facility and take anyone else they found in the street into custody. As soon as that was all in hand, they took the Fulcrum Intersect drives and headed back to Quixote House, with Chuck driving Casey's truck to save him any more pain with his broken hand. When they got back to Quixote house, Ellie's first order of business was to tend to her husband.
Once John was patched up, Ellie, their father and Leslie started coming up with and running an extensive series of tests on Chuck to try and determine what uploading the Fulcrum Intersect might have done to him. Leslie had been made to take over the CIA's development of the Intersect when he was brought in as Stefan's replacement, so he knew as much as any of them about it. As far as they could see though, the Fulcrum Intersect load hadn't done any significant damage to Chuck, they only identified a few minor glitches which had been introduced. They did all the Intersect testing in the Dungeon, so that nobody else knew about it, but Ellie made sure to keep Sarah in the loop about everything, to save her from worrying about Chuck unnecessarily.
There were a lot of things in the new databases that the Fulcrum Intersect added that Chuck didn't want to know, such as the details of well over a thousand ways to inflict pain and death on a person or incapacitate a body, the veritable encyclopaedia of forbidden torture techniques, the frighteningly extensive and comprehensive drug and poisons databases, which listed the effects that they and any probable combinations may have on the human body and the like, but he found that he could keep away from accessing those types of subjects so long as he was careful.
This meant that they had a significant advantage now though because, providing the team there hadn't been reporting all their plans and results, they were the only people who knew quite what the nature of the Intersect program being worked on there by Fulcrum was, and Chuck had removed all trace of those files before anyone else found them. That meant that they had all the code for the latest version of the Fulcrum Intersect, which worked (for Chuck, anyway), and which actually included some new and interesting code which added physical motor skills that could be directly actioned via the Intersect.
They also had Chuck (a coding genius), Ellie (a highly accomplished neurologist) and Leslie (who'd taken over the CIA's Intersect development) to work with Stefan to redevelop the Intersect into something that was safe. They were banking on the fact that they could fix some of the existing issues with the Intersect, and make it do far more than any of the previous Intersect versions had.
As things were settling down from the take down of the Fulcrum Intersect Initiative, word came through that the proposals to sign off the creation of the Intersect Project as a separate body with loose affiliations with the DIA, NSA, FBI and ODNI had been ratified by the controlling bodies, and around the same time, the two floors of offices at the other end of Quixote house were finished, so they emptied out the CCE and LSS offices and the bunker, stripping out all the fittings, and gave Casey the green light to 'blow shit up'.
After the explosion, the police and community were told by the FBI that it looked like it was the gangs trying to get a foothold back in the area, and that the people working there had been put into the witness protection scheme. The CIA and NSA were told that the evidence was that there had been a leak from a turned CIA agent, and Fulcrum were the ones responsible for the explosion. They were told, however, that the bunker had survived largely intact, as had a few of the access tunnels, and that the organisation that had bought the property to develop in order to expand their plans for the building next door had given in to pressure from the government to ask no questions about what was underground there, so the Human Intersect Project's operations centre would remain where it was once it had been repaired and expanded.
The NSA contractors were engaged under very strict non-disclosure agreements to erect the extension to the building, so as per usual it went up quickly. As they were still banned from the penthouse level until it was finished, Chuck, Sarah, John and Ellie were staying in the Dungeon Apartment for a while, and it was interesting to see who was trying to find out where they'd moved to, as the queries coming from parts of the CIA and NSA showed that they'd been keeping tabs on them while they were at Echo Park, but there was no legitimate reason for them to do so.
The on-going CCE and LSS customers for the business lines that they were continuing were told that Piranha Security & Technology had taken over those business lines from the Los Angeles franchise when it was shut down after the offices were blown up. As part of this exercise, Skip was brought on board as a low level analyst for the Special Projects groups and given enough background information on the operation for him to understood what was going on. The fact that they'd only used their given names when dealing with customers made it easier, as Chuck and Sarah's name changes didn't register with people, but their customers were asked not to say anything at all about them as they were being hidden from the gang who blew up their offices.
They settled into the PS&T offices quickly, they'd lost over half of their existing business workload when they dropped all the basic installation and repair business lines, so they'd have to build their customer base up again, but they were OK with that, as it gave them the time they needed to work on their Intersect Project and Special Projects workloads. When the changes to the Intersect Project were signed off, their individual contracts with the various agencies that they'd been using for the Intersect Project were transferred across to the Intersect Project, and irrevocable riders were applied to all of the core team's intelligence and military identities which ensured their right to resign immediately at any time, with no reason given if they so chose. That made them all breath a little easier, knowing that they had an out when they wanted it.
Another part of these changes was that they were moving most of the main Special Projects people to L.A. The full extent of level two was now devoted to the Special Projects group offices and whatever other facilities that were required, and ground floor and basement labs and workshops were set up for Stephen and Leslie's work, using a cover business of Novatech. There were a few Navy, Air Force and FBI Groups that had to remain in the standard installations, but they were still being managed as they had been before, so that wasn't an issue. With the extension and revisions to Quixote House, accommodation wasn't an issue either, as they had two dozen large apartments on level three and the same on level four, and most of them would be shared, so there was plenty of room.
One apartment on level four was the subject of much attention though, because Abigail, Kim and Alex were sharing that one. Just before Aunt D asked for, and got agreement for, Abigail to be added to the group when the realignment was done, Kim had been put through two terribly traumatic ordeals. The first was that she was taken by white slavers in Paris when she was there on holiday just after she'd turned seventeen, Bry had only just managed to save her, and the friend who was taken with her had died from an overdose while she was in the hands of the slavers. Then, when she and her mother went to Istanbul to spend some time with Bry and try and help her put Paris behind her, the slavers' family came after them and she had to run from them again, and then help her father escape and get to the embassy.
After going through two ordeals like that when she was seventeen, Kim was understandably shaken and insecure, so when they discussed and agreed to Abigail joining the group, Bry asked whether there might be room for Kim to live and work with the group too. The immediate answer was "YES!" they'd have to determine the most appropriate role for her, but that could be done while they were making the arrangements, she was in, there was no question about that! Then, while they were talking about the arrangements for Kim, Casey had half jokingly said "What about Alex, is there room for one more?" He was surprised when Chuck quite seriously said "Definitely! Alex is already a long way towards having all the training she needs to work with us." Casey started to say that it was just a joke, but stopped, looking thoughtful and holding up a finger as he pulled out his phone. He WASN'T joking when he asked her whether she wanted to move into Quixote House and be part of the team, and nor was she when she immediately said "Yes!"
Alexander Coburn hadn't known that his fiancé was pregnant when he was coerced into faking his death and being recreated as John Casey in January 1989, and it wasn't until Chuck stumbled across the records of the original Alexander Coburn ten years later that he discovered that he had a daughter who'd been born seven months after he 'died'. Because of Chuck's experience with his own daughters, he and Ellie convinced John that whatever happened with her mother, Alexandra deserved the chance to know her father, so he went to see them and explain as much as he was allowed to about why he'd disappeared. After the initial anger and recriminations were out of the way, Kathleen, his erstwhile fiancé, had conceded that she could understand what had motivated him to do what he did, given that she hadn't had a chance to tell him that she was pregnant.
Kathleen had moved on and gotten married to a good man who she was happy with by then, but she fully supported Alex getting to know her father, and John had been a part of her life since then. With a father like John, it was no surprise that Alex was quite competent with firearms and many forms of unarmed combat, and was an accomplished licensed pilot before she turned sixteen. She was now halfway through her criminal psychology degree and doing well, arrangements had already been made for her to join the FBI when she was done, and she'd worked part time for CCE and the project team before her father blew up the building, so as Chuck said, she was perfect for the group.
As far as accommodation went, Kim and Alex knew each other and got on well together, spending a lot of time together, so they were all for sharing an apartment. They also knew and got on with Abigail, so it was no surprise when they suggested that they all share one apartment. They were all going to university, but they could work part time with the group while they did that, just as Alex had been doing before. Of course, to fit into the military structure they had to be part of the military, so they were each commissioned as second lieutenants in their parents' primary service, Abigail in the Air Force, Kim in the Army and Alex in the Marines.
Having most of their main people living and working in Quixote House once these changes were done was expected to make things quite a bit easier. Only the team leaders (or commanders, depending on who you were talking to) of the various groups regularly needed to deal with other branches of the military or intelligence communities or the government, and as Sarah was now rated on the F-15s as well, Emma and Bry were the only Special Projects team leaders who couldn't fly themselves across to the east coast in the F-15s. Depending on how urgent the matter was, they could lay on a C-37 for them, or they could coordinate their meetings with those of one of the other four and they could fly over with them, as that was what they'd been doing since the Special Projects group began anyway. If any other Special Projects people had to attend meetings back in D.C. or whatever, they'd just do the same as they did for Emma and Bry.
As people started moving into Quixote House, the benefits of the arrangement started showing results almost straight away, as being able to work through issues face to face often resolved them much faster.