A/N When I did episode one of the previous season I went into it thinking it would be six chapters. I really wanted to put a lot of detail into the story, turn it into a extra-long special episode. This time I wasn't planning to, but I may have to do it again, with Chuck dealing with Ellie and Bale, while Sarah and Casey are taking on Jean-Claude in a scenario we only saw the end of. There's also the little matter of bringing Ellie up to speed, in some way I haven't already done before.

"Sarah and I are engaged."

"It used to."

"Is that a twist-tie?"

"A 'nice little snack'."

Ellie walked across the courtyard, a little hesitant. Casey and Sarah had gone away, someplace they called Castle, where they would do whatever spies did–and she knew a lot more now than she ever would have wanted to know about what spies did–to prepare for their mission. Leaving Chuck and her behind, and alone.

Alone in the dark.

She looked at the place where she'd hidden herself just a few days before, when she'd had so many questions about Casey. The answers hadn't exactly cheered her up, but at least she knew that no one else was hiding in those same bushes tonight. She looked across the walk to the window on Chuck's side, brightly lit and welcoming. Still, she walked up to the front door rather than around to that portal that had let her into so much chaos in his life. "Chuck?" she asked, pushing the door open a little bit.

"Hey, sis," he called. "Come on in."

"Is it safe?" she asked. Casey said he'd insisted Chuck take 'proper protective measures', whatever those were, but she had a pretty good idea of what Casey would consider proper.

"Trap doors are off, the leopard is in its cage," said Chuck.

She came in and went to stand outside his bedroom door. He was typing furiously and didn't look up at her. In other words, nothing looked different. "Very funny."

"You should have seen what I had to put up with before I became an agent," said Chuck. Then he stopped typing, looking down at the twist-tie still on his finger. "Well, no, actually it's better you never saw that."

"John told me about the surveillance." He also showed her some of the recordings, including parts of her own room. Not many, since it was less exposed to the outside, and the cameras were aimed at those points of access, nowhere else. He didn't watch the live feed from those either, relying on something he called facial rec and motion alerts.

Chuck shook his head, and went back to work. "And you let him live?"

"I was angrier for your sake," said Ellie, coming to stand behind him. She didn't waste time looking at the screen. It never meant anything to her before and it still didn't. "They had no business taking over your life like that."

"Well," said Chuck diffidently, the way he always did when he was about to say something she wouldn't agree with. "They had business, they just had no right. Bryce Larkin trapped all of us between a rock and a hard place. We had to reach an accommodation or something would have had to break." Still, it was embarrassing that he'd let them get away with so much, early on. If Ellie had been there she would have gotten him a much better deal.

Ellie stared at the screen, code blocks shifting like her thoughts. Casey hadn't mentioned Bryce, but he wouldn't, would he? Not if Bryce was mixed up in whatever this was and Casey didn't have permission to talk about any of it. The only time she could even get him to admit looking at the recordings from her room was the night he claimed she was poisoned, years ago. All she could remember of that night was that Sarah was wearing purple, and something about peaches, but Casey had at least part of it recorded, from when she burst into Chuck's room. It had nothing to do with them, but if they hadn't been there, especially Chuck giving up the antidote for her, she would have died. Like Bryce had died. "He was a spy, too?" She began to get angry again. Was her brother's life ruined as part of a…a…conspiracy? Some kind of plan?

"Even back in Stanford, if you can believe it," said Chuck lightly, oblivious. "Getting me expelled? Spy stuff. Jill? Not his fault, but still spy stuff. Oh! And speaking of spy stuff, there are papers over there for you to sign." Chuck pointed without stopping what he was doing. "If you want to hear about all this stuff, that is."

Her brother was willing to–had–forgiven Bryce? No surprise. He was always more forgiving than she was. Giving and forgiving. Both Casey and Sarah gave up their lives for Chuck, that day in the hospital, and he gave it up for her.

That was a thing.

Those two wouldn't give up their lives for anything. They'd offer them, trade them if they had to, but only if the safety of the nation depended on it. On Chuck. Thinking back, she could hear it in Casey's voice tonight. He must have used the word 'mission' twelve times, but only once did he ever say 'the mission'. Chuck was the mission. And he would have thrown that away for her.

She might have to kill her brother tonight. "I do." Ellie went over to the pile of documents and started to read.

One bit of quickie mission-prep later…

Sarah sat in the back seat of a limo, rubbing her thumb over the twist-tie on her finger. Chuck and I are engaged!

Casey, playing the chauffeur as usual, looked in his rearview mirror and didn't like what he saw. "Get your head in the game, Walker," he said. "Your name's not Bartowski yet." Then he frowned. "It better not be, you couldn't have slipped that into the last hour."

"Ellie would kill me," said Sarah.

"Ellie would pout," said Casey. She had a killer pout. "Jean-Claude will kill you, if you give him any reason to suspect that you're not the Ring agent he expects to show up at this shindig."

"What makes you think I'd do that?"

There was no traffic on a straight road, so Casey felt free to roll his eyes. "The grin, for one. The doodad on your finger that you keep fondling, for another."

Sarah put her hands in her lap, her face settling into a steady and serious expression.

"Better."

In the Casa de Bartowski y Grimes…

Ellie signed the last paper and slapped the whole wad onto the table next to Chuck. "Tell me about the mission," she said, sitting down next to him.

Chuck help up a little gizmo in his hand. "First, stick this on the window and press the button."

Ellie did as instructed.

"Good. That makes the window vibrate randomly," said Chuck. "Anyone trying to use a laser to read the vibrations off the window can't. No eavesdropping."

"Your typing doesn't do that?"

Chuck shrugged. "It might, but why risk it? You know what Casey would say."

Ellie'd just spent five days listening to Casey talk. "Yeah, I know what Casey would say. I also know he said 'the mission' earlier. What is 'the mission', Chuck?"

"Um…Me?"

Most of the time Ellie was happy to be right. This was not one of those times. "How?"

"Dad…figured out a way to use the human brain like a computer, and Bryce used it on me?"

Ellie fell back into her more maternal mode. Dad? How could he be involved in all this? "Are you asking me or telling me?"

Chuck tried to keep the whine out of his voice. "I'm telling you so that you'll know it wasn't at all my fault."

She watched his fingers flying across the keyboard. They always did that when he was upset. "I doubt Bryce Larkin just walked up to you and said, 'hey Chuck, let me put a computer in your brain.' And how'd he do that, anyway?"

Fingers slowed. "He sent me an email, with a line from our game."

Treacherous bastard. "And of course you opened it…"

"He tricked me!"

"I thought Bryce hated you."

"So did I," said Chuck. "We found out the truth when I went back to Stanford that one time. He was really trying to protect me."

"From what?"

"From people in the government who wanted to use my brain like a computer."

What? "So to protect you from them he did it himself?"

"Five years later," said Chuck. "Better technology. And to be honest I'm not sure he ever meant for me to use the stuff he sent."

"Why not?" asked Ellie. "What did he send?"

"Government secrets encoded in a visual format. He stole them on my birthday, some rogue group of spies was after them, so he sent them to me."

"Why you?"

"Storage, I think. I had the highest retention level ever seen in my class. He knew that."

Ellie pounced. "How did he know that, Chuck?"

"One of my classes tested for it. They said I was at 98%. They would have conscripted me somehow."

Until Bryce accused him of cheating and had him expelled. "Just storage?"

"Probably. Most computers will freeze up if the data takes up too much space. Most of the agents who saw even parts of this data died."

Well, duh. Of course they died. The brain is used one hundred percent, just not all at the same time. Ellie couldn't just sit anymore, so she got up and paced. "He could have killed you."

"It was everything we had, he had to take that chance," said Chuck. "Fortunately he got lucky."

You got lucky. "Only until I get my hands on him."

"That's what I mean," said Chuck. "He's dead. Twice over, now."

Hmmp. Ellie crossed her arms angrily. "So how's Dad mixed up in all this?"

"He invented the encoding technique."

"Of course he did." Ellie sighed, and smacked Chuck on the head.

"Ow!"

"What were you thinking, giving me that antidote!" she snapped. "If you had died all those secrets would have died with you."

"They would not," said Chuck, rubbing his ear. "The data just would have been in its original form, until they rebuilt the computer and recoded everything. Until that happened they had to keep me alive. I knew they would make every effort for that, but I didn't think they'd make every effort for you."

Ellie considered that. "Yeah, I guess so," she said sadly. "I mean, I'm nobody."

Chuck stood up, gripped her by the shoulders. "Don't ever say that. You are my sister. You are everything to me."

Ellie reached up and rubbed the twist-tie on his finger. "Not everything, little brother," she said. "Not anymore."

In the limo…

"We're almost there," said Casey. "Do we need to do a character check?"

"I'm good, Casey."

"You'd better not be," he snapped back. "You're a high-level Ring operative. They're demanding, dictatorial, and they always look the part. They aren't good."

Sarah looked down at her outfit, a white dress white dress wedding dress bridal gown wedding married honeymoon limo! She giggled.

"Take it off," snarled Casey. "Now."

Sarah didn't untwist the tie, absolutely not, she pulled it off like a real ring and shoved into a protective side pocket of her clutch, next to the gun and her explosives, glaring at Casey the entire time.

He was actually happy to see it. "Don't blame me," he said, pointing out the window. "Blame him."

Sarah looked forward and saw a large bearded man standing at the entrance to the large house, shaking hands with guests as they entered. Casey ignored the various servants as they tried to direct him to a safe spot, putting the limo right in front of the entrance. Those same servants approached the door, only to pause as Casey got out, a scowl on his face and a hand tucked inside his jacket.

Jean-Claude came down from his perch, waving off the minions as Casey opened the door. A long shapely leg slid out, and a hand reached up. Casey took the hand and held it rock steady as a beautiful blonde got out of the car. The promises of her body were nothing compared to the promise in her gaze, of pitilessness in any action she took.

Jean-Claude came to a halt, a jackal in the presence of a lion. "I was expecting…someone else."

"Miss Prince overreached herself," said Sarah calmly, as Casey closed the door. "She won't be joining us for the rest of her life." She reached out a hand.

Jean-Claude took it. "And who do I have the pleasure of meeting?" He bowed over her hand, lifting it to his lips.

Sarah pulled it back. "Whoever you like. Miss Prince will be replaced and I can't imagine we shall ever meet again."

Jean-Claude smirked. "Miss…Pink, then."

Sarah carefully constructed a smile upon her face, lips curving just so, remembering at the last minute to include her cheeks. It was utterly artificial and wholly ghastly. "Darling," she crooned at Jean-Claude, stepping forward us he took a step back, seizing his arm. "It's been just too long."

"Yes," said Jean-Claude, nervously. He gestured toward the house. "Shall we go in?"

Sarah took him by the elbow. "Let's." As they walked toward the house, she added, "Oh, and driver?"

Casey grunted. "Yes, Miss Pink?"

A more genuine smile came over her face. This did not make it better. "Weapons free."

A/N2 Still trying to get away from being an info-dump.