A/N The same storytelling genius that robbed us of Sarah waking to Chuck after he got the Norseman antidote, also decided to have them try to steal Jean-Claude's vase during the day while in evening dress.

"Is it safe?"

"Tell me about the mission."

"Take it off."

"Weapons free."

"Hmm," murmured Sarah in a thoughtful manner as she stood in the doorway, her hand on Jean-Claude's arm, surveying the room. Servants served, guests mingled, seeing and being seen, as unobtrusive guards kept the many treasures on display safe. "So many witnesses."

"Not at all, my dear Miss Pink, not at all," said Jean-Claude, patting her hand fondly, or at least that's how it looked to the witnesses. Sarah felt the cold clamminess of his fear. "They are my guests, as you are. Tonight is not a night for business." He stepped down into the throng, pulling her with him.

Prince's data said otherwise, and Sarah's alert level went up. She paused long enough to let him know that she was choosing to follow. Despite the thickness of the crowd and the presence of the host, Sarah had a clear space around her as she smiled at everyone. Jean-Claude had to call a champagne-bearing servant over and hand his guest a flute himself. She didn't drink any.

Jean-Claude led her straight to a pillar in the center of the room, carefully roped off to keep the crowd at bay. A number of guests were oohing and aahing the vase on display, something old and expensive because that's just the sort of person Jean-Claude was. That was the Ring's hook, but nothing in the files explained how this vase was the bait. Damn Shaw, for killing Prince like he did. Details like that were never written down.

"Magnificent, my dear, is it not?" At the sound of the host's voice many of the onlookers turned.

He wanted her to be interested. It could just be his vanity, in this context, but to her, probably not. "Magnificent," said Sarah, sounding bored.

"Perhaps you would care to take a…closer look?" asked Jean-Claude.

Too easy. "Of course," said Sarah, and the crowd melted away between her and the velvet rope. At that distance the thing didn't look noticeably better or worse, and Sarah began to wonder what he expected her to see. She walked around the display, everyone getting out of her way, even though she wasn't glaring at any of them.

The colors of the vase were a major distraction, a useful feature from a spy's point of view. A micro-dot could go anywhere and be invisible at this distance. She had to get a closer inspection. "Jean-Claude, darling, is it my imagination, or is your pretty new bauble…chipped?"

The crowd broke out in hushed murmurs, but Jean-Claude himself looked almost relieved. Sarah took note, so she could be sure to tell Chuck later that his suggested set of code words was a good one. Really, 'chipped' for an expensive vase was almost too obvious. Good thing too, since 'dotted' would have been much harder to work into casual conversation.

The host immediately stepped forward, opening the velvet rope and stepping within. "Gloves!" A minion appeared with a box and held them out so that the master could cover his hands before touching the treasured item. "Miss Pink, if you would…?"

Another minion opened the rope by Sarah, and the glove-bearer held out a set for her. "Is this what you saw, my dear?" asked Jean-Claude, touching a particular spot delicately. Sarah nodded because why not. "That is no chip, that's a maker's mark. Attend." He took one of her hands in his own, guiding it to the lip of the vase. "Hold it here, firmly," he said, pressing her fingers down against the porcelain. Inside the vase, under her fingers, she felt a hard object. "Touch the vase, here," said Jean-Claude, and Sarah touched the outside while moving her fingers around the object inside, under cover of her host's hand. "You see?"

"I do," said Sarah, wondering how she was supposed to peel the chip inside the vase off, while wearing gloves, with his hands covering hers.

"Good," he said. "Now we release, carefully, and step away." Matching him like steps in a dance, Sarah soon found herself outside the ropes again. A minion handed Jean-Claude a cloth, and he mopped his brow dramatically. "Ah, my dear Miss Pink, you terrify me."

Good. "Oh, poor Jean-Claude," said Sarah, looking amused. "Perhaps I should go. I would hate to ruin your party."

"That could never happen," said Jean-Claude, gesturing toward the door. "But if you must…" He offered her his arm.

"I'm afraid so," said Sarah, taking it. "You know what they say…" She glanced around with a smirk. "No rest for the wicked." Suddenly they had a clear path to the door.

He saw her to the exit but no farther. "I have changed my mind, Jean-Claude," said Sarah as they parted outside his door. "We will meet again soon."

"I look forward to it," he said, and he retreated to the dubious safety of his guests while she strode to her car. The driver leapt to open the door for her and see her settled in comfortably. All the minions watched their taillights with sighs of relief.

"Well?" asked Casey as they drove away.

"There's something inside the vase, he made sure I knew it," said Sarah. She rubbed the twist-tie around her finger. "You feel up to a little burglary?"

In the Casa de Bartowski y Grimes…

"I have such a headache right now," said Ellie, wincing. "Do you have any CIA-strength pain relievers?"

"Try the regular stuff I have in my medicine cabinet," said Chuck. "The CIA versions come with tracking nano-bots."

Her eyes widened in spite of the pain. "Really?"

"No, not really," said Chuck, shaking his head. "They've got so many secret projects underway, they have to buy off the shelf for a lot of the little stuff." He pointed. "Can I ask you to get it yourself? It's in the usual spot. I just can't walk away from what I'm doing." He sat back down without waiting for her agreement.

She nodded and walked away, perfectly able to find the medicine cabinet in the apartment she used to live in. She came back a few minutes later, already looking better, her mind clearer, and stood in the doorway, watching him. "What are you doing?" she asked. "More…you know?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Casey said you called him a little snack." She looked at the window. "Do they know?"

"Not particularly, no," drawled Chuck. "I haven't hidden anything but I haven't gone out of my way to tell them about it, either."

"Are you going to?" When Chuck didn't immediately answer, Ellie stiffened her attitude. "You can't lie to them. They're your team. You don't keep secrets from people like that." She put her hands over her face. God, I sound like Casey.

Chuck was watching her reflection on his monitor. "You were the one who told me to bury the P-man."

She lowered her hands. "You were going too far, you could have gotten arrested. You were all I had."

"I could have found him," shouted Chuck at his screen. "Found both of them."

"You did find him," snapped Ellie back. "And it took a lot more than the P-man to do it." She stared past the back of Chuck's head, at the shifting blocks of code. "His program, again?"

Chuck nodded. "Sort of. Dad was hiding from a group that wanted to use his program to make super-agents. They were the ones Sarah and Casey were protecting me from. We destroyed them, and he took the program out, but it turned out they were just a part of a larger group, that also wanted his code, so I had to put it back in again to keep it away from them, and save my team. I don't think Dad knew about them, probably why he went away again."

"Casey called it the Ring." She didn't want to think about why her father went away again. "So why are you an agent now, when you weren't one before?"

"The new program came with abilities. I can fight, bake, dance…lots of stuff."

Casey had told her about the surgery, a terrifying thought without the context. Ellie snapped her fingers, an ability not in the Intersect. "Goya's reception."

"Yeah, that was one. I actually had to work at it to trip and fall on that guy."

Ellie snorted at an old memory. "Your poor dance instructor."

"I said I was sorry," muttered Chuck. "So, 'no secrets, no lies', that's your advice?"

"Your life is dangerous enough, Chuck," Ellie said, not sounding happy about it. "I'd rather you lied to me than to them, although I'm happy that you don't have to lie to me anymore, either."

"Me, too, sis. I still may to be able to tell you everything, but at least you'll know that I'm not telling you everything. Mission security, and all that."

She had to know. "Do you go on a lot of missions?"

Chuck shrugged. "I sort of had to," he said apologetically. "Dad's program didn't work without the proper input, and the fresher the input the better the output, you know. Garbage in, garbage out. Most of the time I'm looking at pictures and reports, down in Castle."

"Or here, working right in your own room," said Ellie. "I know which one I prefer."

"You and Sarah both," said Chuck. "She was always telling me to stay in the car."

"I'm sure that worked," scoffed Ellie. "I know she was pretty happy to hear about what you're doing here, while she's away."

"Yeah, this guy Bale is nothing special, not for the P-man. Steals money from all over, keeps it moving around. If it hadn't been for the Prince data we never would have found him."

Devon and Casey had told her all about Sydney Prince. "She needed money?"

Chuck shook his head. "Yes, but no. Special acquisitions. She had a network of assets and suppliers, some more willing than others, and some of them have–wait a minute."

Ellie looked at the gibberish on the screen. "What?"

In a van, on the side of a hill, outside the garden wall…

"What?" said Sarah.

Casey lowered the binoculars. "I said what the hell happened to his party?" He resumed his scrutiny of the gardens and the grounds beyond, dim and unpopulated.

"It was a cover," said Sarah, taking a look for herself. "He wanted his Ring contact to see the vase, the party was just so she wouldn't stand out."

Good luck with that. Any party Prince would fit into, Walker would stand out from. Casey was just as glad that Chuck wasn't around to speak similar thoughts, where he'd have to hear them. "Plus he's a bit of a snob."

Sarah nodded. "Plus he's a bit of a snob." She put her optics away and put on her NVGs. "Let's get to work." They left the van and ghosted down the wall. Sarah uncoiled a rope as she ran to Casey. He caught her foot, lifted her up and threw her over to the other side. She anchored the rope and Casey climbed over to join her.

If there had been any guards patrolling the grounds, they would have heard nothing from the garden as Sarah and Casey crept through it toward the house. But there were no guards, which caused the two to go ever more slowly, spy senses twitching.

At the house, Casey disabled the alarms as Sarah made the locks roll over and play dead. Once inside the door Casey scanned the place, seeing nothing. No people, no lasers. "This is too easy."

"Yes," said Sarah. Jean-Claude must want them to steal the vase, it's the only explanation that made sense. If the ugly thing was fake, they would be doing him a favor by taking it away. The Ring would get the chip, or whatever that hard thing was, and he'd get what? Probably a big insurance payout from some tame Ring agency, one that wouldn't look too closely at the lack of safeguards, or an alarm.

She went straight for the display pillar, Casey following. He had one of the plastic containment bags from Castle ready to go, and she reached out for the vase with gloved hands, making sure that the hard thing was still inside the vase. She tilted the vase, and lifted it off the pedestal.

Lights went on, all over the room. Jean-Claude stood to one side, unarmed, his men both armed and numerous. "I was wondering when you'd show up."

A/N2 So, do I include Ellie in the mission or not? If you have an opinion, let me know in the comments.