A/N No Carmichael Industries here, so no embarrassing performance on stage. They'll have to go to SAFE™ for a different reason.

"We shouldn't be doing this."

"The bounties, of course."

"Chuck's got a plan."

"So we do."

In Castle…

General Beckman visibly gathered herself together on screen, as Casey fought to keep from shrinking into the seat he was standing behind. "Let me see if I've understood this story, Colonel," she said, in her archest, driest tone. The tone that could mean she was amused, or could mean hamburger, if she decided to turn him into some. "Agent Bartowski was ordered, by me, to remain out of the field pending mandated therapy. He decided, intelligently, to put this downtime to good use, using primarily electronic resources to eliminate a remote enemy asset while in the safety of his own home." She slid a piece of paper in front of her and adjusted her glasses, a purely theatrical gesture, since he'd just finished briefing her on these very topics. "In spite of this, he somehow found it necessary to travel, with a civilian, to a location where you and Agent Walker were engaged in a mission of your own. With the civilian in tow, he infiltrated the enemy compound, there to tackle an enemy combatant–"

"Who would have killed me," said Casey to the table top.

"While leaping to capture an enemy artifact containing sensitive information–"

"Agent Walker had launched it as a missile against the previously-mentioned combatant, unaware that Agent Bartowski had a plan that used it and the previously-mentioned civilian to deceive and distract the enemy."

"Really, Colonel, you're not helping," said Beckman. She made a show consulting her notes. "And lastly, he threw himself off a cliff. With the civilian watching." The fact that the previously-mentioned civilian was Chuck's own sister was left unremarked-upon, but Casey picked up on it anyway.

He pushed himself upright. "She insisted on being there, as Agent Bartowski's doctor," he said, attempting to salvage some dignity. He was willing to take the blame for his own screw-ups but not someone else's. "And she wasn't watching. Agent Walker and Ellie were on their way back to Ellie's car at that point, to return to Burbank while I retrieved the chip."

"While Agent Bartowski was flinging himself off a cliff." The General seemed to like saying that. "All according to a plan his sister was quite familiar with, since she briefed Agent Walker on it during their return to Burbank." The outcome of that briefing was unknown, Casey hadn't stayed around long enough to find out, but they could guess.

"While cliff-diving, ma'am." A distinction Casey hoped would mean more to his commanding officer than he expected it would to his partner. "It's simple ballistics, as Agent Bartowski pointed out to me after I retrieved him. I asked him if he'd flashed and he said he didn't need to."

Beckman slid the paper to one side. "Has he ever done it before?" Such things might be in the CIA training curriculum, but somehow she doubted it.

Sarah hadn't had any heart attacks that Casey knew about, so… "Not to my knowledge, no."

"Then I doubt there was anything 'simple' about it." Aside from the running and the jumping. Clever of Agent Bartowski to set it up so that jumping off a cliff was the simple and obvious solution, to everyone except the guy with the gun. Then all he had to do was just do it, no thinking or choosing involved.

Casey never got to see the cliff, except from the bottom. That looked bad enough. "No, ma'am. Bartowski said his pants were wet before he hit the water."

She scowled at him. "Is that a joke?"

Not one of his. Not funny enough. "You'd have to ask Agent Bartowski, ma'am. I'm simply reporting the nature of his comments at the time."

"Mm-hmm. Save it for a footnote, I'm sure there will be many, for a fiasco of this size."

"Fiasco, ma'am?" asked Casey. "We achieved multiple objectives simultaneously, with no loss of life."

"I caught the words 'civilian' and 'cliff' even if you did not, Colonel," said Beckman. "The fewer committees on Capitol Hill that I have to explain your reports to, the better." She slid another piece of paper in front of her. "Not to mention reports I received from the LA office. Apparently the police were called to your target's mansion, responding to reports of explosions and shots fired, and discovered a hoard of stolen artworks, many from other countries. The art world is understandably excited." She slid the art world and its excitement to join the first paper. "This is not what is meant by 'keeping a low profile'."

Casey took the hint, and kept his profile low. "No, ma'am."

Beckman took her glasses off. "As I see it, there's only one thing to be done."

Casey often shared his superior's vision. This might have been one of those times. "Two, ma'am."

Or maybe not. She looked at him funny. "Really, Colonel? What did you have in mind?"

In Echo Park…

The room was dark, and finally still.

Morgan was thankfully absent. Casey had made it to safety. The room's soundproofing had held up. A determined spy could have trained a laser on the Morgan Door and gotten a signal, which would have been interpreted as 'oh god' and many variations thereof, but nothing actionable.

The two bodies in the bed were pressed together as if they wanted nothing more from Eternity than to be pressed together. Even their feet were interleaved, cold-warm-cold-warm…Their bodies pressed, back to front. Chuck felt her arm pressed against his own, her hand in his. His finger curled around hers.

Even the most determined spy wouldn't have heard the small sound that escaped from him, and she didn't, even pressed up against him as she was. She felt the warmth of him, holding her…A wall at her back, protective, enfolding. Confining?

Chuck felt Sarah stretch out a hand and let go, trailing his fingers across her skin as she stretched. ?

Sarah's hand grew cold, lines of fire drawing themselves down her arm. "Don't worry, Sarah," said Daniel Shaw from the driver's seat. Eve Shaw, sitting next to him, nodded. "We'll be home soon." She reached for Sarah's hand. Sarah pulled her hand back, her fingers sliding under Chuck's once again. She wrapped them around her own with spasmodic intensity, fingers interleaved.

Chuck felt his finger being pushed down under the force of a will not his own. The Bridge. Shaw. His trigger finger pushing down and red spots appeared. "Ahh!" he shouted, sitting up in the bed.

Sarah woke up too, as one will when someone shouts in their ear. "Chuck," she said, half-pulled around as he pulled her hand up with him before letting it go. She sat up and put a hand on his chest as he panted harshly.

"I'm sorry, Sarah," said Chuck, reaching up to touch her hand while staring at his blanket-covered feet. "I didn't mean to do that."

"Didn't mean to do what?" she asked, knowing her man very well. "Have a bad dream, or wake me up so I could help you get through it?"

"Oh, ah…ha-ha, have the bad dream, obviously," said Chuck, flashing her a nervous smile. "If I had a bad dream and I didn't wake my girlfriend to do her girlfriend-ly duty, she'd probably kick my ass."

"No 'probably' about it," promised Sarah. If he'd been left to his own devices, she'd most likely have found him in the morning out in the living room, his fingers sore from playing some game all night. "No 'girlfriend-ly duty' about it either. I'm your fiancée, more wife than girlfriend, and helping you deal is not exactly a duty, definitely not a pleasure, and hardly a privilege. Your dream was a thing–"

"My thing."

"Our thing," said Sarah. She hadn't dreamed about Eve Shaw for a long time, too many other bodies on the pile, but now she was back and reaching for her. Sarah leaned in to hold him, his heartbeat sounding in her ear. "I slept terribly before I met you."

"My–" No, not a pleasure. "Yeah."

"Yeah," said Sarah. "When I took my Red Test there was no one there for me. They didn't want anyone there, for any of us, so I really don't know what to say to you." She'd channeled Chuck to Jones, back in that Paris hotel room, but who could she channel to Chuck? "I know how killing Eve felt to me, but I'm not you. You've already shown how much you can love strangers and forgive enemies, something I would have a hard time doing, if ever." A fatal empathy, for someone. "I had to choose, and I chose Jones over him…"

"You think he would have killed her?"

"I know he would have killed her," said Sarah. "I'm pretty sure he wanted us to stop him."

Good word, 'stop'. "Suicide by spy?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Kind of hard on the spy."

"Spies," corrected Sarah. "You acted on my say-so."

"I chose to act on your say-so," said Chuck. "No way I'm leaving you to take this on yourself."

"Okay, fine, you caught me," said Sarah, sinking back down on the bed and pulling him along with her. "I don't know why everyone says you're so dumb."

The next morning…

Chuck and Sarah stood in front of his neatly-made bed, fully dressed, pictures straightened, no evidence whatsoever of last night's shenanigans for Beckman to see when she called in, in five, four, three…

Chuck turned to look at Sarah. "Who says I'm dumb?"

Sarah burst out laughing just as the screen beeped, and she struggled to compose herself, silently vowing retribution.

Somewhere, on a highly-secure conference call…

"C, what is the status of Operation Bartowski?" asked A.

"No progress," said C. "I expected some action on any of a number of fronts, but nothing. This level of subtlety is unexpected."

"Be glad of that, C," said B. "We suffered a major setback last night, a courier and his package."

"Could Agent Bartowski and his team have been involved in that?" asked A.

"Unlikely," said B. "He and his team are all consummate professionals. Not even Shaw could blunt their edge. Last night, on the other hand, was a shambles, a herd of bulls in a very expensive china shop. One of the agents attempted to escape off Jean-Claude's balcony, probably with the chip. Jean-Claude acted very unprofessionally, costing us the chip and bringing official attention down upon himself. The body has yet to be recovered and probably never will be."

"Chicken feed," said E. "Last night one of our most important financial assets went dark, taken down by a computer attack of incredible complexity and skill."

"That engineer we recruited…?" said A.

"Wrong skill-set," said C. "Not to mention he's in DC, so far as we know analyzing the weaknesses of our Cipher component. I will of course secure a copy of that report once it's completed."

"Who else could have taken down our asset?"

"E, send me whatever you have," said C. "We'll analyze the attack pattern, comparing it to known operators."

"We don't have anything," snarled E. "This guy is good. We need to find him, and kill him."

"That's data by itself," said C. "How many hackers are so good they leave nothing behind?"

In DC…

Beckman noticed that both of her agents seemed to be in reasonably high spirits, as her screen lit. Chuck had his hands clasped together in front of him, and she could see the twist-tie still on his finger. Sarah's hands were not positioned to she could see anything. "Colonel Casey will not be joining this meeting. Last night's actions require…careful handling."

"Careful?" said Chuck. "Casey?"

"It's all in the context," said the General. "Speaking of context, let's discuss the nature of your actions against Roger Bale…"

In a darkened auditorium…

Casey stood in the back of the room, at home in the shadows, like most of the people there. Up on the stage, the latest presenters were making a hash of things. Crappy graphics, no style. They couldn't even handle the gizmos. They may have made good spies, but spies weren't the things people looked for at the Security and Firearms Exposition, and these guys hadn't learned that yet. No one in his right mind would take a chance on those losers.

Of course, that all depended on the context. The lights came up, and the losers walked off the stage to the pathetic clapping of the paid shills in the audience. Casey looked down to check the schedule, see who the next presenters were. He wasn't about to stand here all day and–

The lights went out. Casey instinctively ducked and shifted his position, feeling for a weapon that wasn't there. He saw targeting lights moving all over the people in the room, settling on no one in particular. Dark shapes rappelled down from the space above the stage, dropping at lightning speed to seize the space, projecting threat all over the room.

The lights came up, and the lead started her pitch. He barely listened to her spiel, already knowing half of it. Hopefully those losers in the front were listening and learning. She was perfect.

And doesn't that suck.

A/N2 I've never tried to do two separate dream sequences in the same scene. This is definitely turning out to be the hardest story I've ever written. I hope you'll all help me get through it with some supportive commentary.