The way that BrickRoad and I wrote a lot of The Long Brick Road is that one of us would come up with an idea for a scene in an email. Often times, the scene was far ahead of where we currently were in the story but that didn't really matter. The other would add something to it, make some changes and send it back. After about a thousand iterations of that, we would finally have a scene that we would put away to use later in the story. Almost every chapter had at least one scene that we had written long ago via email. I bring that up because quite some time ago now my friend, Lucky47 and I wrote the last part of this chapter that same way. I hope you have as much fun reading it as we had writing it. At the time it was hard to see how it would fit in the story, but we're here now.
I think I'm going to start posting on Thursdays now and only occasionally on Mondays. That's just the way my schedule seems to work out.
Warning: Just like the show, there are going to be significant character deaths still coming. I don't want to spoil any specific chapters so I'm going to post this warning in every chapter.
Anybody who knows me from the forums knows that I was always in favor of killing off Devon. Not that I don't like Devon, I do. It's just that I always thought the writers could do so much more with a single Ellie. You could trot out various love interests for her. You could have Chuck be more protective of her. You could play Sarah and Ellie as closer. And you could play up Morgan's crush on her that they seem to have forgotten about. I'm not sure why I bring this up. Only if you're handicapping who the next death might be… Of course you could accomplish the same thing by just breaking them up.
I don't own Chuck. Actually, I don't own much of anything.
If you enjoyed this or any of the stories on this site, please take a second and send the author a review. It only takes a second – and it really, really makes a difference.
Full Speed Ahead
x-x-x-x-x
Sarah and Misty just stared at each other for a long moment with wide eyes. It probably hit them at pretty much the same time that they were in basically the exact same situation. They had chicken frying on the stove while their best friend, who was off someplace hurting as much as they ever had in their life, needed them.
Casey was the unfortunate one who was standing there at the time. So he was quickly recruited to finish cooking the meal. Naturally, he was eager to help in any way he could. "Are you crazy?" he asked in abject horror. "I've never cooked anything as hard as fried chicken in my life. Do you want to burn the house down?"
But Misty didn't let him off the hook. That was fortunate since she was probably the only one on the team who at that point could sweet talk him into almost anything. "Look, Casey," she said breathlessly. "The chicken is already cooking. Let it go for seven more minutes, then turn it and let it cook another ten minutes. In twelve minutes, pull the biscuits out of the oven. We'll be right back."
As soon as they left the kitchen, they ran into Chuck who was coming out of the family room. "Hey," he said with a smile. "How's the cooking lesson going?"
"No time," Sarah said breathlessly without stopping. "Go help Casey in the kitchen."
"Huh?" was all Chuck could respond. "What's wrong?"
"Just do it," Sarah snapped, much more harshly than she intended. "I'll explain later."
When Chuck entered the kitchen he saw Casey standing there looking confused. "Hey," he said. "Why are you doing the cooking?"
If he was looking for a calmer response from Casey than he had just gotten from his wife, he was sorely disappointed. "Why do you think, moron?" Casey growled. "They left me here. Help me figure out how to turn this chicken."
Chuck looked at the water dripping from Casey's clothes. "What happened?" he asked in typical Chuck fashion.
"Did you catch fire checking out Misty and they had to hose you down?"
x-x-x-x-x
Ellie was pretty easy to track. All Sarah had to do was to follow the wet footsteps. They quickly led her upstairs and to her bedroom. When she got there the bedroom door was still half open. Ellie was just standing there numbly. She was still dripping.
Sarah didn't give her time to react. She stepped right up and wrapped her arms tightly around her sister. "Sweetie," she said. "I'm so sorry. Why didn't you come and find me?"
But Ellie didn't flinch. "You have to stop acting so sad," she said as she gently rubbed Sarah's back while doing her best to not get her soaked. "Otherwise you're going to get me crying, and then we have problems. It's going to be okay."
"How can you say that it's going to be okay?" Sarah asked incredulously. "You broke up with Devon. That's the worst thing I've ever heard."
Ellie pulled back to look at Sarah in the eyes. "If that was just intended to cheer me up, you failed miserably," she said with as much smile as she could muster. "Look, I understand this is hard. But it had to be done. I'm doing this for Devon's sake. The thing with Cole was driving him crazy. I'm hoping that without the pressure of feeling like he owes me loyalty, he will take a couple of days, think it over, and conclude that he's willing to forgive me."
"What if he doesn't?"
"Let's cross that bridge when we get there," Ellie said. "I'm sort of trying not to think too hard about that right now. Wow, you really do suck at this cheering up thing, don't you? Did you bring me some Hemlock to drink?"
That actually got Sarah to finally smile. "I'm all out of Hemlock," she said as she blinked away the tears that were forming. "I'll have to settle for giving you a sharp stick to poke yourself in the eye with. I'm sorry that I'm so bad at being a friend."
Ellie squeezed her. "I never said you were bad at being a friend," she protested. "Stop saying that. You're the very best friend, just maybe not so strong at the nurturing thing. That's okay. It's not your style. You're more the 'tough love' sort of friend, the friend who takes whoever who would be so stupid as to bother me and shoots him in the head – ten to twelve times. I'm sorry, sweetie, but there is nobody here to shoot… not yet anyway. I'll let you know."
"Okay," Sarah said in now mostly fake annoyance. "But why am I just hearing about this? I'm the first person that should have found out, not the last."
"You were busy," Ellie said. Then responding to Sarah's skeptical look she added, "okay, and yes, I was a bit jealous of you and Misty. I admit it."
"Jealous," Sarah sighed incredulously. "Come on, Ellie. Seriously? Do you know how stupid that makes you sound? I thought that Chuck was the only foolishly jealous Bartowski that I would have to deal with. Is this a family thing? Is Dad like this too? It makes you sound worse than Chuck. It's actually a little offensive."
Ellie smiled again. "Yeah," she said. "Don't worry, Mrs. Tough-Love. You don't have to sugar coat it, not that you were or anything. God forbid that you should lose your standing as a badass. In my defense I will say that I haven't been having the best couple of days."
"That's all the more reason that you should have come to me," Sarah said, just as insistently but with more of a smile. "I thought that's what sisters are supposed to be for."
"Yes," Ellie said with a sigh. "That's what sisters are for. You're totally right about that. I get it. I was being stupid."
"Very stupid," Sarah agreed as she finally broke into a grin at Ellie's overt teasing. "It's never to happen again. Agreed?"
"You'd better get back down there," Ellie said. "You don't want to leave in the middle of a lesson. Your teacher might fail you."
"I don't think you have to worry about that," Sarah said. "The teacher left at the same time. It seems she was just as worried about her best friend as I was."
"You were in the middle of cooking dinner," Ellie said in alarm. "Who is frying the chicken?"
"Casey," Sarah casually replied. "I think Chuck might be helping. I'm not sure."
"Oh my God," Ellie said as she headed for the door. "We have to get down there before they burn the house down."
x-x-x-x-x
Naturally, the meal was beyond wonderful. It was the best chicken that Sarah had ever tasted. And just as naturally, Chuck and Casey were falling over each other claiming full credit even though they really didn't do much. They were just starting to think about turning the chicken when Ellie and Sarah came back and took over. They even claimed credit for the biscuits which they also hadn't actually touched.
Dinner was honestly a little tense. Devon chose not to eat with the rest of the team to give Ellie a break from any awkwardness. Misty took him some food out to the barn where he was working out.
Steven did insist that he come in and attend the team meeting. It was a little awkward, but the team made sure they sat between them so they didn't have to make eye contact. As usual, Steven wasted little time getting to the point. He turned directly to Sarah. "Have you made a decision?" he asked.
"I think so," she said. "We feel like we have no choice but to fight. There is just no way to raise a family underground."
Steven tried hard to hide his reaction, mostly because he wasn't sure what his reaction actually was. He was so tired of fighting. He was even more tired of seeing his family in danger. But the fact remained that they were in danger. Fighting… and winning was probably the only short term way to fix that. "Okay," he said. "Does anybody feel differently?" It was a question that was directed towards the whole group. But it was hard not to look in the direction where Devon and Misty were sitting.
Misty knew full well that the question was actually mostly directed at her. She wasn't really offended. How could she be? He didn't know her at all. But she also wasn't going to back down either. Sarah had told her this morning that they had adopted her into the family. Well, she had already adopted them right back. For better or for worse, this was now her family. There was no decision to make. "No, sir," was all she said. But it was enough. Her meaning, and her resolve, was clear.
"Are you sure," Casey asked softly. "This isn't your fight. They don't know you at all. You can go back to your life."
Misty looked at Casey… and smiled. She thought before that they might have had a connection. But now she was positive. He wasn't at all like the man she always imagined herself with. He certainly wasn't the smooth pretty boy type that was always hitting on her. But Casey was different. He was real… honorable… faithful. And he was a true hero. Truthfully, he reminded her of her dad… and those sexy eyes… oh god. "I'm sure," she answered as she locked eyes with him. "Of course I am. This is my life now."
Carina was probably the only one who truly picked up on the moment that Casey and Misty was sharing. And she hated to end that, but she finally couldn't keep the thought in any longer. "I think we all want to fight," she said. "But can we win? What is your plan?"
Steven smiled in spite of the tenseness in the room. "The key is getting to the President," he said. "We have to get to him before the Ring can kill him. If he is still in control of the military, we have a chance to ambush them. But we have to get to him… and convince him without anybody knowing."
"Why can't anybody know?" Ellie asked.
"They would just abort their plans," Steven said. "They would go back underground and wait a few months for their next chance. We might be fooled into thinking they would go away, but they wouldn't. Then we'd be right back to where we started. And next time, they would have surprise on their side."
"How could we possibly get to the President of the United States without anybody knowing?" Carina asked. "That doesn't sound too easy."
"And how could we convince him of anything even if we got the chance?" Ellie asked. "He would just think we're crazy. I'm not so sure that he wouldn't be right."
Steven smiled at his daughter. "That would actually be the easy part," he said. "He knows all about the exploits of the human Intersect and his badass blonde handler. He would love to meet them. Sarah was on the Secret Service detail once. She knows how to talk to him. Besides, and please don't take this the wrong way, but can you imagine Sarah smiling at a man and him not giving her the opportunity to a least explain herself? Once he was convinced that Chuck was really the Intersect, he would at least listen." He then turned to Carina. "Actually, Carina, you're absolutely right," he said. "Getting to him is not going to be easy at all. It's going to take multiple prep type missions. We're going to have to do some dangerous, distasteful things." Then he put a picture on the monitor. "Sarah, do you recognize this man?"
Sarah already had a fairly good idea where this was headed the second that she saw the picture. "Of course," she answered. "It's Jeff McKnight. He's the chief officer in the President's Secret Service detail. I know what you're thinking, Dad. Okay, you're right. He would probably be fairly easy to seduce. He's pretty much always on the prowl and I think I still may have a complete set of his fingerprints on my butt. But compromising one agent isn't going to get us anywhere close to the President. I was on the Presidential detail for a year. He is protected by several rings of agents."
"You're absolutely right, Sarah," Steven answered. "That's definitely true, here in the States. But the President is going to the G6 meetings inLondonnext week. He will take his six person personal protection detail with him, but while he's there all of the perimeter security will be handled by MI-6."
"Cole," Chuck said, more to himself than anybody. "Oh my God, Cole could get us close."
"Exactly," Steven said. "If Cole Barker could get us through the outer layers of security, having McKnight in our pocket could pay off. But we can't contact Cole through any official channels. Tell me, Sarah. You had an intimate personal relationship with him. Would Cole trust you enough to commit treason and help us off the record?"
Sarah bristled at the inference he was making, especially with Chuck sitting right there. "I did not have an intimate relationship with Cole," she snapped. "Why does everybody think that? Ellie had more of an…" Then she trailed off. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. Devonwas sitting right there too.
It was Chuck that jumped in and saved her. "Yes," he finally said. "Cole is our friend. Once we explain the situation, he will help us."
Steven turned a pained look towards Sarah. "I'm very sorry if you're offended," he said. "I didn't mean anything like that. Your loyalty is not in question to anyone. Not to your husband, not to our family, and not to the team. Anyone who doubts that simply hasn't been paying attention."
Sarah needed to change the subject. "Okay," she said. "But Dad, we have to find another way. Sure, it would be easy. This guy knows me. He's expressed an interest on more than one occasion. He has never been afraid to let me know how much he is interested in not so subtle language. It's one of the reasons that I finally asked for a reassignment out of the Secret Service. And what you're talking about would almost certainly require some long term intimacy. Okay, yes, I could have him in bed inside of an hour." Then she looked at Chuck and shook her head. "I just can't do it. I'm sorry, Dad. I know that it's important. But I really can't do that kind of mission anymore. I'm married now. That part of my life is over. We're going to have to find another way."
"Relax, Sarah," Steven said with a smile. "You're absolutely right. Your seduction mission days are over. It can't be you. For one thing, even if you were willing, I wouldn't be. Besides, he knows you. He knows you're rogue. It would tip him off right away. We can't allow him to ever see you. I'm not crazy about using these tactics in the first place but it has to be Carina. Carina, what I'm asking, I have no right to expect. If you object, I wouldn't hold it against you in the least."
"Why would I object, Steven?" Carina asked with a grin. "I'm not married to anybody. Besides, I was always better at this than Blondie here. It's my specialty."
"Way more practice," Sarah muttered under her breath.
"You can't go alone," Steven said, ignoring Sarah as he put another picture on the monitor.
"Josh Bentley," Sarah moaned. "He's even more disgusting. I definitely have a complete set of his fingerprints."
"I see you've met," Steven said. "He and McKnight hang out at one of the local bars almost every night..."
"Trying to hit on anything with a skirt," Sarah finished his statement in disgust.
"I'm afraid so," Steven said. "We need someone to go along with Carina and get him out of the picture so that she can be alone with McKnight to do her… umm… thing."
There was a lot of confusion in the room at that statement as the team looked at one another. Finally Steven turned to Misty. "Okay, Misty," he said. "You're up. If you want to fight with us, I think we have an assignment for you."
x-x-x-x-x
It had been a long night for Ellie. Sleeping alone, knowing that Devon was just down the hall hit her lot harder than she thought it would. Hopefully Devon was sleeping alone as well, but that certainly wasn't for sure. Misty had barely left his side. If that wasn't bad enough, Devon wouldn't meet her eye at all during breakfast.
Ellie was admittedly a little distracted and more than a little annoyed when she walked into her dad's room. Why was the door closed anyway? He usually left the door open. But that wasn't the main reason she was annoyed. Misty was supposed to meet with Chuck and Sarah to go over tonight's plan and make sure that she knew what to do. Okay, so Ellie knew that she wasn't needed for this. It was Misty who had the mission. Sarah was just involving her to keep her mind occupied. That was pretty obvious.
But why wasn't Misty there? She had agreed to meet. Where was she anyway? And more importantly, why did she always get stuck with these crap jobs? She was a doctor for crying out loud, not an errand girl. Why couldn't Sarah have dispatched Chuck to go look for her for once? After all, she had to let him out of her sight sometime.
Ellie knew that Misty wouldn't be in here with Dad. Normally she would just have assumed she was with Devon. But he was still there after breakfast sitting alone in the dining room moping over a cup of coffee. Misty wouldn't be in here, but maybe Dad had seen her. That's when she realized… why was he still in bed? Come to think of it, he had missed breakfast. Dad never slept in. Okay, so he wasn't expecting to meet with anybody for a few hours yet… but still. And why was the room so dark? It was well past time to get up. Was he sick?
If he was sick, it was horrible timing. The big mission was tonight, the one that had him so nervous. Ellie had to admit, him being nervous had her unnerved as well. After all, he was always the calm, reassuring one. And the team was laying it on the line tonight. Ellie didn't claim to understand all the planning and military style tactical discussions. But she knew from the tone of their voices if nothing else. This was more dangerous than it sounded. The entire team, but especially Carina and Misty, were in mortal danger. Whoever this Orion person that her dad had become was, they clearly needed him on the very top of his game tonight.
That's when her doctor instinct kicked in. If he was sick, he needed to be treated. And who better than a board certified, Emergency Room doctor, who also happened to be his daughter? Honestly, Ellie wasn't completely disappointed. No, she definitely didn't want her dad to be sick. It's just that she was feeling a little left out. Everybody else was making plans for their jobs tonight. Even Devon had an assignment. But there was really nothing for Ellie to do. Apparently there was no need for someone to take off their shirt and allow a drug lord to feel them up for a half hour… and that was Ellie's only spy experience. But a medical crisis, this was right up her alley.
The problem was that due to her haste in getting to him and the darkness of the room she didn't realize that Dad wasn't alone until she was already sitting on the edge of his bed. For her part the woman was snuggled into him, clearly trying to hide from her. They were both fairly obviously naked under the sheet which they were currently desperately trying in vain to cover themselves with. Even though once she realized the situation Ellie turned her head as quickly as she possibly could, she couldn't help but see her dark hair, and her white skin… lots of it.
Well, that wasn't totally true. All she could see for a long moment was red. The funny part was she wasn't sure who she was the angriest at. At least this meant that Misty wasn't in bed with Devon. But Ellie almost honestly preferred that to Dad. After all, Misty might very well be single… but she was younger than his youngest son. That was just sick. And Ellie couldn't pretend to understand her parent's relationship… but he was a married man. Not only was he cheating on his wife, he was cheating on her mother. How could she possibly be okay with that?
Steven must have sensed that she was furious because he immediately tried to calm her down. "Eleanor," he said. "I wasn't expecting you..."
"No kidding, Dad," Ellie said derisively as she got to her feet. "You're a grown man. You surely don't need a lecture from me about how much of a bastard it takes to cheat on his wife, especially after he goes on and on constantly about how much he loves her and how jealous of a person she is. I guess that part was all bullshit. You're clearly not that afraid of her being jealous. Or did you think that you weren't going to get caught?"
"Eleanor…"
"Don't even try it," Ellie angrily cut him off as she rounded to face him with hands on her hips. "And Misty, I know that you're probably pretty desperate to get laid. But come on. Even desperate sluts must have some kind of standards. He's probably older than your dad. Can't you do better than this? It's more than a little pathetic."
"Actually," came a voice from behind the sheet. "Don't underestimate your dad. It wasn't pathetic at all, far from it. Now, I'll admit it might not have been his very best effort. But that would be quite a high bar. After all, my expectations have grown incredibly high over the years. He was pretty excited and rushed a bit at the end. I guess I can cut him a bit of slack there. It's been almost three weeks. Don't get me wrong, it was still well above average. All in all, I'd call his performance most respectable… a solid B+."
Ellie's shoulders slumped in shock. "Mom?" was all she could whisper.
"Hello, Eleanor," Mary Bartowski said as she finally lifted her head. "It's nice to finally get to see you again. It's been a long time. I just have to say, you've turned into such a beautiful woman."
Ellie could still only whisper. "Mom," she said. "How are you here?"
Mary didn't answer her question. She just grinned. "This actually isn't the first time that you've walked in on us," she said. "You probably don't remember the other time, do you?"
Ellie could only shake her head, still in shock.
"I didn't think so," Mary said with her grin growing. "You were only six. If I remember correctly, you sort of spoiled that mood as well."
Ellie just stood there, unable to form any words.
"I'd really love to sit down and talk to you for a long while," Mary said. "There are so many things about you that I want to know. I'm so anxious to finally get to meet this Devon that your dad is constantly raving about. But I'm sort of in the middle of something right now. Did I mention it's been a long three weeks… for me too? Maybe you could come back in, say thirty minutes?"
Ellie just nodded and walked numbly towards the door. Mom obviously hadn't heard about the breakup. But this wasn't the time for that.
"By the way," Mary said softly, clearly now speaking to her husband… and definitely without much of the humor in her voice that had just been there.
"Who is Misty? And why would Eleanor think that it was her in your bed?"
x-x-x-x-x
Ellie walked back into Chuck and Sarah's room and basically stumbled to the bed and sat down. Sarah could instantly tell just by the look on her face that something was horribly wrong. "Ellie," she said. "Did you find Misty? What happened?"
Ellie didn't respond for a long moment. She just buried her face in her hands. "I can't believe I just saw that," she finally muttered, far more to herself than to Sarah. "I can still see it with my eyes closed. How can I possibly un-see that?"
"Ellie," Sarah said insistently as she knelt beside where she was sitting listlessly on the side of bed. "What did you see? Please talk to me. You're really starting to scare me."
"It was the worst thing I've ever seen," Ellie said. Suddenly she noticed that Sarah had her gun in her hand and was headed for the door. So she grabbed her wrist. "Calm down, badass Mrs. Bartowski," she said with the beginnings of a shaky smile. "There's still nobody to shoot in the head ten to twelve times. I wish there was. Unless it's me, of course."
Sarah couldn't help the silly grin that appeared as Ellie told them the story. "She actually graded him?" Sarah finally asked incredulously.
"She gave him a solid B+," Ellie sighed. "She said that she only marked him down because he got excited and rushed a little at the end. They both were naked."
"Oh my God," Chuck said in horror as he ran to the bathroom to wash out his eyes. "Seriously, what is wrong with you? Why would you tell me that?"
"Come on guys," Sarah said, trying hard to not give them the impression that she was laughing at them. "Do you really think that your parents don't regularly have sex? I think it's sweet."
"You would," Chuck said sarcastically as he stood at the sink with the water running vigorously rubbing his eyes. "You think everything is sweet. You think that Casey and Carina are sweet."
So now Sarah's battle to not laugh was hopelessly lost. "Care to explain to me why you are washing out your eyes?" she asked. "You didn't see anything."
Chuck paused for a long moment. "I don't know," he finally numbly admitted. "I guess it's too hard to wash out your ears. Do we have any bleach? Maybe mouthwash would work."
"How do you think you two got here anyway?" Sarah asked as soon as she could stop laughing enough to get the words out. "You guys can moan about it but I for one am very proud of them… married for that long and still so much in love that they can't keep their hands off each other. Yes, make fun of me all that you want. I still think that it's very sweet. I can't wait to meet her." Then her grin turned sinister. "They are probably in the middle of round two right about now, you know? Dad now has something to prove to her. I'll bet he gets an A+ this time."
Chuck and Ellie just looked at each other. "Okay," Ellie said sadly.
"You can shoot me in the head ten to twelve times now."
x-x-x-x-x
