A/N Okay, 100% of the responses (all three of them, yay team!) wanted Ellie to be in on the action, so here she is.
"So many witnesses."
"No rest for the wicked."
"Garbage in, garbage out."
"This is too easy."
On the road…
"We shouldn't be doing this," said Ellie, staring out the window as the road flew by.
"Well, you're half right," said Chuck. He was concentrating on the road and the car and the wheel, since it was Ellie's car and he was driving, but she wouldn't let him flash.
"I guess that's true," said Ellie. "I shouldn't be here either."
"Ha ha," said Chuck. "This is serious business, El. You could get hurt."
"I think we can agree on that," said Ellie, and Chuck knew he was in trouble. "So tell me, little brother, what was your first 'serious business'?"
Chuck tried to look for traps in the question, beyond the obvious ones, but he was too busy. "Casey told you, didn't he?"
"How could he?" asked Ellie. "He couldn't tell me how you met, any of you, but having heard about Bryce and the pictures and all of that, I can guess. They came to get it back, and found it in your head."
"Not exactly, no," said Chuck, reluctantly. Ellie was a doctor, his doctor, and only the truth would do, even if it was pretty certain to get Casey into trouble. "Sarah met me first, figured I didn't know anything, and fell in love with me while she was doing it. Casey just came to kill me, but she wouldn't let him. While we were trying to escape we ended up on a helipad overlooking a hotel, and I had my first big flash."
'Big' as opposed to what? Ellie filed that question away for another time. "Which was?"
"A bomb in the hotel," said Chuck, "And yes, we went to stop it."
"Why 'we'?" She didn't sound surprised.
"I had the layout of the hotel in my head. I knew who the target was, and where he would be. It would have taken them too long to figure out where they had to go."
"Mm-hmm. So you ran into the room with a couple of trained spies. Were you trained in any way?"
"Spy-trained? Hell, no," said Chuck. "But I was Nerd-Herd trained, which is what we needed. The bomb was computer-driven, and I used a porn virus to kill the computer."
Uh-huh. "Anything else, Mr. Kettle?"
Chuck sighed. "No, Dr. Pot. But if you're gonna do this, we need a different name for you. I've put a lot of effort into keeping the Bartowski name out of the papers. We need a whole cover story."
Perhaps as a mute. She'd never been good at lying and didn't want to start. Well, that was his business now. Hopefully he could come up with a lie that allowed her to tell the truth. "You're the spy," she said tentatively.
"Sucks, doesn't it? You have no idea how much it hurt all those months. You may have hated hearing us say it's complicated all the time but at least it was true." He puffed out a breath, staring out the window, watching the road pass around them. "Okay. Knowing what I know, and knowing Sarah and Casey the way I do, I think I have some ideas about what they've come up with. It'll be vague, but that's the good part. We'll just have to fill in the details. Tell me what you think…"
In the display room at Jean-Claude's mansion…
Sarah looked at all the guns that Jean-Claude's men weren't quite pointing their way. "Good evening, Jean-Claude. Shouldn't you be off setting up an alibi somewhere?" She set the vase back down on the pedestal to free up her hands. Just in case.
He seemed much less afraid of her this time. Private armies tend to do that. "Not at all, Miss Pink. As I said, nothing is happening tonight, certainly not the theft of a priceless artwork." He gazed upon them critically. "I must say, your previous attire was much more flattering. This seems a rather elaborate ruse."
Sarah didn't like filling out the role of 'Miss Pink'–being 'Agent Walker' was bad enough–but she was glad to be wearing the character right then. Agent Walker didn't mind getting her hands dirty, in fact that's why she'd been created, but Miss Pink had minions. "Not a ruse, exactly. A default technique, in the absence of more complete notes. Alas, I can no longer have a word with Miss Prince about them." That damn Shaw!
"Miss Prince knew to bring the real artifacts with her, to conclude our business amicably," said Jean-Claude, annoyed to be considered a note on some underling's desk. Something to be thrown away. "I find myself wondering if you do in fact have the original with you. Perhaps in your vehicle, left waiting by my garden wall, hmm?" He smirked at them. "My treasure, to be taken away with your own?" He gestured, and the guns came up.
Sarah put on an air of boredom. "A mere clerical error, I assure you. I would not tolerate such a thing from an underling, and my superiors are not as forgiving as I am."
"Your word of honor?" said Jean-Claude, amused.
Sarah smiled her 'Miss Pink' smile. "If I was going to betray you, you wouldn't even feel the knife going into your back, much less see it coming." She indicated the minions, who all took a step back.
Pride in a job well done was something Jean-Claude could understand. "Then you should have no problem with waiting as the men I sent to check your vehicle do their job."
"How many men?" said Casey, suddenly.
Jean-Claude ignored him. "Madam, control your dog."
"I am," said Sarah, looking over to Casey as if he was barely worth the time. "You must have a reason for the interruption, driver. Tell it to him."
Casey turned to her. "I want full credit."
Miss Pink laughed. "You shall have it." She turned to Jean-Claude. "See, Jean-Claude, the means of my control. How many men?"
"Six," said Jean-Claude, looking nervous in spite of his control of the situation. If only she would stop smiling like that. "What credit?"
Something exploded, beyond the gardens, beyond the wall. Casey took a step forward at the sound and punched the nearest guard, taking his weapon as he fell. He took a step back, his gun aimed, one against a lot more than one. "The bounties, of course," said Sarah. "Normally we discourage open violence–"
"You did say 'weapons free'," said Casey.
"I did, didn't I?" Sarah wiggled her fingers dismissively. "My bad."
"'Your bad'?" said Jean-Claude. "You just killed six of my men!"
"No," said Sarah. "You did."
"As you've killed yours." He raised an arm.
Sarah reached for the vase. "I suggest you change your mind. Do that and you'll never get this."
"You know what? I have changed my mind," said Jean-Claude. He lowered his arm. "Throw them both over the cliff. Let her masters send someone more polite."
"They won't send anyone–"
"I don't want to hear the sound of your voice anymore," said Jean-Claude.
Sarah looked at Casey, Casey looked at Sarah, and Jean-Claude watched them both with utter satisfaction.
The earpieces in both agents' heads crackled, Chuck's voice speaking soft, low, and very welcome into their ears. "Flashbang in three, two..."
As they both thought one, something small and hard broke through the glass of one window, falling somewhere on the floor. Everyone started to look for it and didn't notice the prisoners shield their eyes.
The room went white, the sound of the explosion almost covering the sound of glass breaking as Chuck came into the room from the back. He tranqed the guards from the back as Casey and Sarah dealt with them in their own ways from the front. Blinded as they all were they weren't much opposition, except for one. The guy Casey knocked down got up again, taking a gun from a fallen guard and taking aim at Casey. Sarah, too far away to attack directly, took a page from Chuck's book and used her powerful kick to send the fake vase hurtling toward his head.
Chuck launched himself into the air and landed on the guy, not to save him but to catch the vase.
"What?" shouted Sarah, too caught up in her several different cover identities to know what words to use.
"That's what I want to know," said Jean-Claude, his gun at Casey's head. "Why go out of your way to save a worthless piece of glass?"
"Because it's not worthless," said Chuck. He looked over to the broken door and called, "Miss King?"
Ellie stepped into the room, walking calmly and confidently across the broken glass, stepping over the bodies in her way.
"You have something to say, Miss King?" asked Sarah, once more in character, before Ellie got too far into the room.
"Just that the vase is genuine, Miss Hyde," said Ellie. "When Miss Prince went dark, the asset Bale panicked, and sent the chip to be mounted on the real one rather than wait for the fake to be completed."
"Well," said Sarah, sounding only mildly surprised. "Thank you, Miss King, you may go now." She didn't wait for Ellie to leave. "Jean-Claude, it looks like we're back in business, unless you prefer for this be a lose-lose scenario." She nodded at Casey.
Jean-Claude looked at his vase, in some clumsy guard's gloved grip. "What do you propose?"
Sarah checked the room. A simple exchange was out of the question, with the smell of burning bridges in the air. "We will go to the door, with the vase. You will come to the door with my man, at which point we will make an exchange."
Jean-Claude considered the offer. "I accept."
"Guard," said Sarah to Chuck, and he circled around the floor toward the door with her.
Casey and Jean-Claude followed. "That's far enough," said Jean-Claude. "Send your man forward." He released his grip on Casey's collar.
Casey stepped away, as Chuck stepped forward, holding the vase with both hands. As they passed each other, Jean-Claude lunged, pushing Casey forward and grabbing Chuck's wrist. "Look at that," he said. "I have your man, my vase, and my gun. Sounds like a win-lose situation to me."
Chuck tossed the vase into the air and broke right, shouting "Run!"
Ellie, waiting right outside, reached into the room and grabbed Sarah and Casey, pulling them back. "Don't hit me," she said, before they could turn to do exactly that. "Don't hit me. Chuck's got a plan."
From inside the room they heard the sound of porcelain shattering. "I'll kill you!" shouted Jean-Claude.
Casey looked around the frame, seeing an empty room. "You two go," he said to Sarah. Obviously Ellie had to have her own car. "I'll get the chip and the moron."
"But the van…?"
"Claymores. The van's fine. Get going."
Out on the patio…
Chuck ran toward the railing at the edge of the cliff, grabbing the end of a coil of rope from a table as he passed it. Jean-Claude came out onto the patio and saw Chuck leap up onto the rail and jump off, the rope uncoiling noisily. He aimed at the rail where the rope was tied to the rail and fired. When the rope went taut, it snapped and fell. Jean-Claude went to the rail and looked down, watching the rope spin down to the rocks and surf so far below. "Good riddance."
On the other side of the inlet…
Casey pulled the van to a halt by the side of the road, where the tracker told him Chuck was. His partner emerged from the bushes and opened the door. "You're soaking wet," snapped Casey. "Get in the back." He reached down and turned up the heat back there.
Chuck got in the back. "Kind of hard to cliff dive and not get wet," he said. "You got the chip?"
Casey grunted an affirmative. "Hard on the vase, though."
"Who cares, it was fake," said Chuck, running his fingers through his hair. "I saw the real one listed in a manifest, and figured Jean-Claude would be expecting a switch."
"So you came riding to the rescue with your sister in tow? Who's bright idea was that?"
"Hers," said Chuck, taking off the wet shirt. "She's a doctor."
Casey looked straight ahead, away from Chuck's shirtless torso and forward to an endless stream of days with Ellie in them. "Chuck me."
In Echo Park…
Ellie was waiting for them when the van drove up. "You'd better have it," she snapped at Casey, since he was the only one visible.
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder as Chuck opened the side door, and stepped out. The door hadn't even finished closing before Casey was driving away at high speed. "Is something wrong? John seems to be under a lot of stress lately," said Ellie. "Where's he going?"
"Castle," said Chuck. "To secure the chip and report to the General. Where's Sarah?"
"In your apartment. I'd be there, keeping her company, but she's scaring me."
Oh, boy. "Don't worry, sis. I got your back." He started trudging forward to meet his fate.
"That's not the only thing you'd better have," said Ellie to his back. He waved at her without turning. She almost took a step forward, but ultimately fled back to the safety of her own place.
Chuck opened the door to his place. "Sarah?" he called. "Sweetie?"
"Cliff-diving, Chuck?" She was waiting for him in his favorite chair.
"The physics were sound," said Chuck. "It's just the experience which is terrifying, although not as terrifying as having someone shooting at you."
Sarah stood up. "Or as terrifying as hearing that you're cliff-diving for the very first time with someone shooting at you."
"At the rope, technically, that's why it was there. I was over the edge by then."
"Not. Helping." She wrapped herself around him.
She was trembling. "Hey." He touched her back, gently. "I know what you need."
"What's that?" said Sarah into his shoulder.
"This," said Chuck, sinking to one knee, holding up her looped twist-tie. "Although I really have to get something better than a kitchen widget."
"I don't want anything." She made a fist, to feel it on her finger.
"I know, you're a romantic," Chuck said, standing, "But so am I, and I really want something in the scrapbook that we can tell our grandkids about."
She pulled him into her arms again, not trembling anymore. "Have to have kids first."
"Why, yes, soon-to-be-Mrs. Bartowski." Chuck lifted her in his arms. His bedroom was empty, and they had the place to themselves. "So we do."
A/N2 It's too early for kids but never too early to practice, right?
I really wanted to use Chuck's heroic dash and fall from Bale's window in my last S5 rewrite, but it didn't fit, so I'm glad to get it in here. I hated the way they merely escaped Bale, so this time the Piranha squished him, even if it was only off-screen.