A/N Okay, story deadlines met, taxes done. Now back to the fun stuff. Lots of stuff to set up.

"I'll the take the hit on that one."

"Everybody applauded."

"The Force is with us."

"You'll know."

"We lost Sneijder."

"Was Bartowski involved this time?" asked A tiredly.

"No," said C, annoyed with Bartowski and his team for not acting as he wanted them to. "Some new team took point, but Gertrude Verbanski is already claiming the bounties."

"She's extremely professional," said B. "We won't be getting him out of her custody."

"Beckman was clever, bringing her in," said A. "Whatever crumbs fall off the government's table, she'll be right there to snatch them up."

"And all the while, Bartowski is doing what?" asked C rhetorically. "Something huge, I'm sure."

"We lack data," said A. "Something happened in Paris, and we need to know what it was. If we have no resources on the ground, reach out to someone who does."

"I would recommend Mats Zorn," said B. "He's not one of ours, but he is notorious for digging up secrets some people don't want dug up."

"Including our own, if we give him that chance," snarled E.

"So?" said B. "Don't give him the chance. I'm sure Beckman would be glad of the opportunity to deal with him for us."

Speaking of General Beckman...

"I have enemies of the State to deal with, Colonel Casey," she said rather severely, from her position on the big monitor in Castle. "I have no time to be dealing with your personal romantic crises. I wasn't even aware that you had personal romantic crises."

Casey thought back to Ilsa Trinchina, but she had never been all three at the same time. "Blame it on Bartowski, ma'am," he said. "I do."

Agent Carmichael had been nowhere near SAFE. "You selected her, Colonel."

"You said you wanted the best, General."

"I said I wanted someone who could plausibly cover for the actions of your team." And it took an entire army to do it, too. Damn Shaw! And thank God none of this was coming out of her budget.

"Like I said, you wanted the best." The 'but don't tell Chuck I said so' went unspoken. "He's got his flaws, and God knows right now they're fault lines, but Chuck knows how to get the job done."

"Even his snafus are legendary," said Beckman, in some sort of agreement. "And how is your second team doing?"

Casey sighed. "They're living down to that reputation, ma'am."

"That's good, I suppose, but not for them," said Beckman. "Try not to get them into trouble they can't be expected to get out of on their own." Because sometime soon this aspect of the mission would be over, and Casey's crew of losers would be on their own again.

"They've already survived their first job," said Casey. "That's one more than I expected them to."

"Will anyone accept that they could be the team behind the screw-up at Jean-Claude's mansion?"

"Not yet," said Casey. "However much of a screw-up it may have been, it was a successful mission. This team has to have one of those, first, and it has to be the right kind of screw-up."

"Get them there ASAP, Colonel, and then cut them loose," said Beckman. "Leo Dreyfus left for LA last night, and I don't want any more impediments to putting my finest team back in the field, when the time comes."

Later that morning, in a certain bed...

Sarah didn't even open her eyes. "Another bad dream?"

"Okay, a) it wasn't bad so much as weird," said Chuck, entirely too awake, "And b) how the hell can you know that when you just woke up?"

"I felt you wake up," said Sarah, "But this time you didn't sit up or anything, didn't try to get out of bed so you wouldn't–" she made air-quotes with two fingers of her free hand right in front of his face, like almost clawing his eyes out but not "–disturb me."

Color me disturbed. "Me trying to get out of bed without disturbing you disturbs you."

"Mm-hmm," said Sarah. "You weren't even breathing hard. And I knew that you would of course have woken me up if it was anything bad, but you didn't, and a fine fiancée I would be if I wasn't prepared to accept your judgments about things." She lifted her head from his shoulder, finally opening her eyes. "Sometimes."

"Yes, Shaw was there," said Chuck instantly. "But I didn't, we didn't kill him."

Uh-huh. "So what did we do?"

"That's the weird part," said Chuck. "He was delivering an order of Zamibian food. I had some money in my pocket, and you...gave it to him."

Sarah wasn't buying it. "See, now this is what I mean by 'sometimes'."

"He...grabbed your hand, and jumped into the fountain, you know the way things can move in dreams, it was right behind him," said Chuck. "I grabbed your wrist and held on until he let go and fell into the water."

"Deep fountain," said Sarah, aiming for a light tone. She'd seen Shaw go over the wall, seen Chuck holding Agent Jones' wrist. Not a thing she could do to help. Not a thing she could do, period. "What's with the Zamibian food?"

"Probably that thing we saw on the news last night," said Chuck. "Their president is coming here and seeing a concert, or something. I don't remember, I was wiped out."

"I know," said Sarah harshly, not at all content with merely cuddling. "I blame the tiger." And an unexpectedly inconvenient cat allergy. He hadn't had his nose plugs in when the animal control people finally opened the limo door, and the reek had been intense.

"Works for me," said Chuck. He scanned the length of her barely-covered body, the part not under the blanket. "I feel much better now..."

"Do you?" cooed Sarah, leaning down.

"I do," breathed Chuck, lifting his head up.

The phone rang.

Sarah's hand immediately flashed to her thigh, but unfortunately it was a) under the blanket, and b) didn't have her knives strapped in place. "God-dammit," she snapped, snatching up the phone. "What?" She puffed out a breath, and looked at the clock. "Fine. We'll be there." She rolled out of bed and started taking her clothes off.

Chuck lay back and enjoyed the show. "Dreyfus?" And soon, too. They didn't have to spend hours getting lost in each other, they just liked to.

"What else?" said Sarah. She gestured at her combined nudity and verticality. "I'm not doing this for my health."

"No," said Chuck, getting out of bed too. "You're doing it for mine."

Verbanski Corporation headquarters...

Gertrude actually lived in the building, so it was a short commute to work. Once she'd had a genuine compound, but she'd lived there too, so it was still a short commute. With modern technology they could fit the entire operation, skill training included, inside a single building, in a much more accessible location. She still had the compound, for storage and the occasional war game. It wasn't the real thing, but it would do.

"Anything of interest?" she asked her aide as she approached her office.

Her aide was well aware of what interested his boss. "The bug you planted on Colonel Casey went through a Large Mart, an Underpants Etc., a couple of liquor stores, a gun shop, and a local Buy More, where it stayed for a few hours before travelling to a local landfill," he said, as he opened the door for her.

"So you're saying he twigged to it."

He went to get her coffee machine ready. "Unless he had actual business at the Buy More."

"John Casey?" said Gertrude in astonishment. "No, the rest I can understand, but dropping it at the Buy More is just rubbing our noses in it." She shook her head. "Round two to him. What about the bounty claims?"

"They've been made, no responses as yet," he said. "I expect those will be coming in later in the day. It could be a while before the dust settles."

"Not our concern," said Gertrude. "They can fight over him all they want after they've paid us." She thought about it a moment. "Let them know that Sneijder has offered to pay us as well."

"He has no funds." The government froze them all.

"True, but they don't know that." Gertrude laughed. "Casey's team is probably a group of highly-trained commandoes, but they really looked like a bunch of desperate, hapless losers. I have to hand it to him, his cover is perfect."

"If it fooled us," said the aide diplomatically, "It should fool anybody."

"Exactly," said Gertrude, appreciating his tact. "As far as anyone on the outside knows, Sneijder should be perfectly capable of buying his freedom."

"You've never done that." That was why he liked working for her so much, even though others had offered him more. She was a mercenary that cared.

"There's always a first time," said Gertrude, with a wink to soothe his ruffled feathers. "Especially if they piss me off."

"Yes, ma'am." The aide didn't make a note, he was very good at remembering her orders. "We also received that call you were expecting, the appointment is in your calendar."

Her favorite task: recruitment. "Excellent," said Gertrude, checking the entry. "Round one may yet go to me."

Back in Echo Park...

Chuck came out of his room, fully dressed and ready to face a CIA psychiatrist. Which was good, because that's what he was planning on doing. To his surprise he saw Morgan just getting out of the shower. "Hey, bud, aren't you gonna be late?"

"Casey's covering for me this morning," said Morgan, from behind his door as he got dressed. "He may be all high and mighty out here, but he's also my lieutenant assistant manager, so...I guess that makes him pretty high and mighty everywhere. Alex and I have an appointment today."

"House hunting already?" asked Chuck.

"Hey, keep it down, will you, Chuck?" said Morgan, pulling open the door and making frantic shushing gestures. "Casey may say there are no bugs but he also says he doesn't mind me seeing Alex, you know what I mean?" He scanned the ceiling. "No hunting, no new apartment. That lady Alex was talking to last night wants to see us both today."

And Alex thinks they should go? Who was this lady? "Why both of you?" asked Chuck, horribly aware that he was looking for spy motivations behind probably innocent events. On the other hand, this was a lady who according to Alex had come to see Casey, which was suspicious right on the face of it.

"I don't know," said Morgan, going back into his room. If Alex thought they should go, he would go. "Maybe she has a tiger."

"Somehow I doubt that," said Chuck, as Sarah came out of the room, ready to go. "Well, good luck, whatever it is."

In the office with Leo Dreyfus, not sitting on a couch...

"Tell me about these dreams, Chuck," said the Doc, in his slow gravelly voice. He'd made sure the chairs his two clients sat in were far enough apart that they couldn't touch each other. They tried, and they failed, but they didn't seem to notice either one. They just sat and...squirmed.

"Okay," said Chuck, pulling on his jacket like it was too tight. "What do you want to know? The first dream wasn't even really mine–"

"It was mine, Doctor," said Sarah, shifting in her seat.

"You share dreams?" asked Leo.

"We shared the event," said Sarah, straightening her skirt. "I dreamed about it, and I guess my dream triggered his dream."

"Please, Sarah, don't say 'triggered'," asked Chuck, putting a hand to his head.

"Sorry, sweetie," said Sarah, reaching out to touch his arm as Leo chuckled.

"Do you 'share' all your dreams?" he asked, watching as Chuck touched the twist-tie on Sarah's hand before they separated again.

"No, Doc," said Chuck. "The second dream was all mine. It woke me up, and I guess that woke her up, but she wasn't having a dream of her own or anything, at least not a bad one."

"I used to have nothing but bad dreams," said Sarah. "Not anymore. Whenever I'm with you–" She suddenly seemed to remember Leo was in the room. "When I'm with Chuck, I...don't."

"Interesting," said Leo, making a note. "But about your dream, Chuck. Was it the same, the second time around?"

"No, Doc. It was pretty weird, actually. They didn't have much in common at all."

"You think so?"

"You think they do?" asked Chuck. "I haven't even told you what the dream was about."

"Well, that's the thing, Chuck, I think we all know what the dream was about," said Leo. "What you haven't told me are the contents of the dream. The details. And I think I can describe some of those, at least in general."

"You do?" asked Sarah.

"Certainly," said Leo. "I would expect Shaw as a threat, and you and Chuck acting together to end that threat."

"Shaw showed up at our door with a bag of Zamibian food, and Sarah and I...paid him," said Chuck. "In reverse. I had the money, and she gave it to him. It didn't end the threat, though. He grabbed Sarah's hand."

"Like he grabbed Agent Jones' hand?"

"Yeah," said Chuck. "He was really after Sarah, not Jones."

"Hmmm," hummed Dreyfus, making more notes. He looked up. "Why Zamibian food?"

"Uh, news reports, we think."

"I disagree, Chuck," said Dreyfus. "Out of all that's happened to you in the last few days, your mind selected a news item about Zamibia to process."

"You think it's meaningful?" asked Sarah.

"I think your partner has the Intersect, and hasn't been flashing," said Dreyfus. "I also think he was a very clever man before that." He looked at his other client. "Chuck, I'm going to give you a mission. I want you to investigate the Zamibian connection, but no flashing. No Intersect. I want to see what Chuck the man is capable of."

A/N2 I very much doubt that a real psychiatrist would move quite so quickly as he did in canon, but they had to get the story moving quickly.