Chuck was reviewing the dailies on his computer when he was alerted by a knock on his door. "Come in," He called out, sending his report and turning to greet his guest. "Good afternoon Dr. Covington, what can I do for you today?"

Ellie was still getting used to the cover persona she was known by for the sake of the rest of the staff at the substation her family worked out of, "For the sake of avoiding confusion, please just call me Lisa," Ellie gave her brother a soft smile, "As to what I came by for, I need you to come back to the lab with me. I want to get a start on your tests."

Chuck nodded and rose from his desk, straightening his time out of nervous habit. He gave a passing thought to pulling his suit jacket back on but figured Ellie would just have him take it off again anyhow, so he left it where he'd draped it over the back of his office chair. "What kind of tests are we talking about here?" He inquired as they walked toward the clinic area of the back office.

"MRI, CAT scan, maybe a PET scan and an EEG," Ellie shrugged, opening the door to her lab which had been sectioned off into units. There was the general treatment and medical bay which held two exam and treatment rooms. A surgical suite was next with all the tools, monitors, and equipment Ellie and Devon had requisitioned. Next was the office that was shared by the Doctors Covington. Last was the imaging and radiology lab which housed a large doughnut shaped contraption with a movable table, as well as what looked to be a dentist's chair with a monitor facing the chair as well as one next to the chair connected by wires to an odd looking cap with a Velcro strap. Separated by a partition was a desk with a computer hooked up to three monitors and a window looking into the imaging suite.

Ellie guided her brother into the imaging suite's monitoring station, "Okay remove any and all metal from your person and set it on the side table there," She pointed to a small table that sat beside a comfortable looking love seat. She waited until her brother had fully complied with her instructions before guiding him into the main area of the lab instructing him to lay on the bed with his head toward the large doughnut looking machine, "I was able to get your scans from six years ago when that pitcher from U-Dubb beaned you in the head with that wild pitch. Of course, you had to get hit in the head when you were two states away in Seattle, where I couldn't get to you, and not when you played against UCLA."

"I really didn't have much of a choice in the matter, Elle," Chuck arched an eyebrow at his sister's rant. "Besides they wouldn't have allowed you to work on me, anyhow."

"Don't cloud the issue with logic," Ellie groused, "Now, stay still until I tell you it's okay to move."

"Okay," Chuck huffed a sigh and laid down as instructed, trying to stay as still as possible even when he felt the table start to move. He heard the machine whir and several loud thunks before the table began to move again.

"Okay, that's done, now go sit in the chair over there," Ellie pointed toward the dentist chair.

Chuck nodded and meandered over to the chair and took a seat, giving his sister an expectant look. "You gonna give me a cleaning?" He joked, "'Cause I just had my exam last month."

"Don't be a smartass," Ellie rolled her eyes and picked up the cap with wires attached to it and began fitting it over Chuck's head, "You really need to get a haircut, your hair is making animal shapes again, I think I just saw a llama."

"Sarah likes my hair like this," Chuck countered, earning another eye roll from his older sister, "So what's up with the cap? Are you planning to wire me for sound?"

"No," Ellie shook her head as she turned on the monitor next to the bed, "I am going to do an EEG. I want to get a baseline first so we're going to sit and talk for a while, I'll ask you some questions and then after a while, I'm going to show you some images on your monitor," She nodded toward the monitor that faced him, "So I can see if there are any changes that occur when you flash."

Chuck nodded his head and sat patiently as his sister did her experiment. Answering questions when asked and flashing when needed. It took around a half hour before Ellie was unstrapping the cap from his head and telling him he was free to go because she needed to take time to evaluate the data she had collected that day.

On his way back to his office, Chuck stopped in the restroom to run his fingers through his matted curls before continuing on his way. As he passed Sarah's office, he saw her speaking on the phone. She looked up and noticed him, waving him in and gesturing for him to take a seat in one of her guest chairs, "Hey, Chuck just walked in, so I'm going to put you on speakerphone."

Sarah smiled at Chuck as she pressed the button on her phone for speaker, "Okay Kate, what were you saying?"

"Looks like Tommy is going to be staying with Gibbs for a little longer," They heard the female NCIS agent report, "We found the Staff Sergeant, but he's in bad shape. Turns out he was mistaken for another man who was in deep with some connected loan sharks. They beat him pretty bad over the past several days and dumped him off at a local mission. The Sisters of Charity found him there and one of them noticed his dog tags. Bathesda got a hold of the director who told Gibbs. They put him a medically induced coma to let some of his more serious injuries heal."

"Oh my God," Ellie gasped from the doorway. She'd been on her way out to meet up with Devon when she heard the familiar voice of Sarah's friend from DC.

"Who was that?" Came the female voice on the other end of the line.

"Chuck's sister," Sarah responded, meeting Ellie's eyes and indicating for the older woman to take the seat next to her brother, "She works with us as a medical contractor."

"Oh, right, of course," Kate chuckled.

"So, what's going to happen to Tommy?" Ellie asked.

"He's going to be staying with my boss until his father is able to take care of him again," Kate relayed, "It was Gibbs' idea, and that wasn't even the most shocking part. Abby and I offered to help Gibbs get Tommy situated, got some sheets, clothes, toys, the whole nine. When we got to his house Gibbs and Tommy were upstairs, painting. When we found them, they were in a room paining over pink walls. Turns out that Gibbs is, or was, a dad."

"'Was?'" Sarah frowned.

"Yeah, it's really sad," Kate sighed, "His first wife and their daughter were murdered while he was on his last deployment. He wound up hitting it off with the lead NIS agent who was investigating their deaths and was eventually recruited to his team. I'm pretty sure Ducky knew about his wife and daughter, but the rest of us were surprised. I think Abby had an inkling that he had been close with a child at some point, but she thought it was a niece or nephew of one his ex-wives, not his actual kid. It does help to make sense of how good he is with kids, though."

"But how is he able to keep Tommy?" Sarah asked.

"Gibbs is apparently full of surprises," They could practically hear Kate's eye roll, "He's a registered emergency foster parent, keeps his license current and everything. He works directly through Child and Family Services here in DC so he doesn't have to deal with the agency middle men. That way if he needs to take in a kid during an investigation, he doesn't have to jump through a bunch of hoops to do it, so long as he stays in contact with the case worker assigned to the child. It doesn't happen very often, Tony's been on the team a couple years longer than me and he says this is the first time he's known of Gibbs taking in a kid. Ducky said it's happened a couple times but it usually no more than a day or two. This is going to be the first time he's had a long-term placement."

"At least we know Tommy is safe until his dad is healed up," Ellie admitted.

"Let us know if there's anything you guys need," Chuck added.

"We will," Kate agreed, they heard a female voice in the background, "Hey, I got to go, Abby just got here and we're heading out for a girls' night."

"Alright, Kate, thanks for giving us an update," Sarah smiled toward the phone, "You and Abby have fun, and be safe."

"Always," Kate agreed, "I'll talk to you later."

"Bye," They chorused before the call disconnected.

"That was nice that she gave us an update," Ellie mused.

"She knew we were concerned," Sarah nodded, "She's pretty good at keeping me in the loop when our paths cross, especially if an investigation or case is involved. Although, she's more reluctant when it comes to her love life. I'm pretty sure she has something going on with her partner… or at least wants to have something going on with him."

"Isn't he a bit old for her?" Chuck arched an eyebrow

"Not Gibbs," Sarah scoffed, "Tony. Kate and I have been friends for a few years now, and let me tell you, she is definitely attracted to Tony, and if I'm not mistaken, he's attracted to her. If they don't have something going on that they are trying to hide from their boss, there's something that is holding her back from starting something with him."

"I guess he's kinda cute in a flirty frat boy kind of way," Ellie mused.

"Which, as evidenced by that ring on your finger is your type," Chuck teased.

"Shut up," Ellie rolled her eyes, "Technically it's Sarah's type too."

Chuck and Sarah looked at her, shocked.

"Really, you are both going to play this game?" Ellie gave them both an incredulous look, "Chuck you were a frat boy and the amount of flirting you and Sarah do on a nearly hourly basis is ridiculous."

"But I'm not the stereotypical 'frat guy,'" Chuck protested, "Not like Awesome and Agent DiNozzo."

"Nerdy frat guy is still a frat guy," Ellie pointed out.

"And I kinda like my nerdy frat guy," Sarah winked at Chuck, making him blush.

"And on that note," Ellie stood, "I'm meeting Devon for dinner after his shift. You two at least try to control yourselves until I'm out of the building."

"Love you too, Elle," Chuck rolled his eyes, "I got some work left on that security upgrade Beckman asked me to look at for the intranet servers."

"Sarah, please take him home at a decent hour," Ellie gave her brother's girlfriend a knowing look.

"I'll try," Sarah shrugged, "Are you and Devon still on for Saturday night?"

"Yeah," Ellie nodded, "There's no way we could turn down sushi."

"Great," Sarah smiled, "We'll see you there, if not sooner."

"I may still swing by tomorrow or Friday, depending on how long my rounds are," Ellie shrugged, "I really want to have time to evaluate Chuck's scans see if I can't find that screw that came loose."

The women chuckled as Chuck sent them a fake hurt look, "If you two are just going to insult me all night, I'm going to go back to my office."

"You know we love you, little brother," Ellie smirked.

"Yeah, yeah, love you too," Chuck rolled his eyes as he stood, "The intranet upgrade shouldn't take me more than an hour or two, if I haven't come back before seven, come get me."

"You got it, Sweetheart," Sarah nodded as her boyfriend left her office.

Ellie looked at her watch, "Oh, okay, yeah I really got to go now. I'll see you later, Sarah."

"See ya later," Sarah smiled at the older woman before turning back to her work, pausing momentarily to set the alarm on her phone to remind her to collect her boyfriend at the requested time.


The intranet security upgrade went faster than Chuck had originally expected, allowing Chuck and Sarah to be able to head out by 5:30pm. They had finally been able to move into their new apartment the previous weekend but were still unpacking here and there as they found places for their things to go.

There had been some disagreements when it came to what would be used to decorate the living room and their bedroom as Chuck was insistent on displaying at least some of his nerdy memorabilia around the apartment. After much discussion, they agreed to hang his TRON poster in the dining room on the section of wall by the pass-through to the kitchen. His Han and Chewie action figures were displayed on his bookshelf where his considerable comic book collection was stored in the bedroom. His old ComiCon passes and a few of his other action figures had been put into storage or brought to work to decorate his office.

Another issue had been selecting furniture for their new place. Since the majority of the furniture in Chuck's old apartment belonged to Ellie and Devon, Chuck and Sarah had to find a new living room set, dining room set, and furniture for the spare room. The dining set was easy enough, as Ellie was the primary hostess of the family, they chose to get a simple, solid, square oak table with matching chairs. The living room took some negotiating before the settled on a red upholstered couch with iron and glass end tables, shelf, and coffee table, all of which they knew they would probably need to replace or pass down to Ellie and Devon if all things went to plan.

The spare room was the hardest room to decorate, not because they disagreed, but because they desperately wanted to decorate it as Molly's room, but didn't want to jinx the possibility of bringing her home in the near future or buy the wrong furniture that she would either be too big for or not big enough for what they would get, and neither were willing to voice what they were thinking. Luckily for them, one of the saleswomen noticed them and approached to see if she could help. After talking to them for a while, and them using the cover of being prospective foster parents to explain their inability to decided on bedroom furniture for the spare room, she guided them over to the children's furniture section and showed them a bed that could be configured as a crib, toddler bed, daybed, or even accommodate a full-sized mattress depending on the frames and pieces used. They'd wound up purchasing it in the light brown wood along with the matching dresser and changing table and a full-sized frame. Chuck had enlisted Devon's help in building the bed into the full-sized bed configuration, storing the pieces that would serve as the sides of a crib away along with the to-be-built-later changing table in their storage unit.

"What do you want to do for dinner?" Sarah asked, hanging her purse on the coat tree by the door.

"Something simple," Chuck shrugged, "Pasta maybe?"

"Pasta sounds good," Sarah smiled, "Do you mind starting the water while I go change?"

"Yeah, I got this," Chuck gave her a small smile and a nod before watching her retreat toward the bed room, "Hate it when she leaves but love to watch her go," He muttered to himself only to chuckle when Sarah caught on to his staring and put a little hip sway into her walk.

Shaking himself from his reverie, Chuck shrugged off his suit jacket, laying it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs and rolled up his sleeves as he made his way into the kitchen. He had just added some olive oil to the heating water when Sarah returned, hair up in a messy bun, wearing his old Quantum Leap shirt, yoga pants, and in bare feet. Chuck couldn't help but stop and stare at the beauty that was his girlfriend, and dare he think it, seeing her wearing his shirt illicited a primal response in him, and by the smile on her face, she knew it.

"Hey beautiful," He wrapped her in his arms, leaning down to press a kiss to her warm lips.

"Hmm" She hummed against his lips, "Hey yourself, Handsome." She leaned back to look up at him, "Why don't you go get changed while I get the pasta and sauce going."

"Alright," Chuck nodded and made his way down the hall to their room only to return a few minutes later in a grey henley and jeans. Working in tandem with his girlfriend, he pulled out a loaf of Italian bread, slicing it open and slathering it with garlic butter before setting it under the broiler to cook while the pasta finished cooking. By the time Sarah had drained the pasta and poured the sauce over top, Chuck had removed the bread from the oven and sliced it into more manageably sized pieces before tossing the smaller pieces into a basket to set on the table. Sarah quickly plated their dinner while Chuck poured them some wine and soon, they were sitting down to eat.

They knew the novelty of sharing a meal in their home would eventually wear off and not feel as special, but for the time being they were enjoying the feeling of being in each other's company in a more permanent setting. Sticking with the routine they'd developed over the past week or so, once dinner was finished, Chuck sent Sarah off to the living room with a fresh glass of wine while he made quick work of storing the leftovers and cleaning up the dishes before grabbing a bit more wine himself and settling onto the couch to enjoy watching a little TV before heading off to bed knowing that sleep might not come for another couple hours after they'd retired for the night.