I do not own Chuck

Chapter 2: Old enemies

Casey was hard-pressed to contain a grin as the kid's jaw dropped open. It was just like old times. What wasn't like old times was the distinctly old-fashioned glare that the paramedic then sent at his old partner. He couldn't resist a grin then. A huge shit-eating grin as he winked at Bartowski.

"It's OK Prof," he told his former colleague, "We know each other. OK Chuck?"

"I should have known they'd send out the big guns," the paramedic observed, "Is it reasonable to assume your partner's here? I tried to leave a message before I went in, but…"

"Oh yeah, she's here," he told the younger man, "And if I were you, I wouldn't take off that vest!"

"Pissed?" a grimace.

"Uh huh," he nodded.

"Uh oh."

"Quite," he grinned, "rather you than me."

"So, maybe I'll just do the debrief and then I'll head to the hospital?"

"We might need you to stay. Slight lack of tactical medics around this morning. Sorry." He grinned at the younger man, not sorry at all.

"So let me get this right?" the younger man asked, "Your partner – just about the most dangerous woman we both know – is pissed with me. She has access to knives, guns and even heavier weapons. And you want me to stay here? Do you want me dead?" he added incredulously.

"A few times over the years – yes!" he joked, "But I'm sure she'll control herself til later." He broke off as the other occupant of the trailer coughed, causing them both to look at him.

"Sounds like you know each other quite well?" the Captain observed mildly.

"Yeah," he told his friend. They'd been marines together and kept in touch after they'd both left the Corps. He'd worked with Prof a couple of times when they'd needed tactical support on operations in Washington DC. His friend knew he didn't work for Homeland Security, as evidenced by his "So what agency are you with this time?" question after he'd finished swearing when Casey and Walker had interrupted his briefing with his subordinates.

Although, talking about swearing, Prof's language had been nowhere near as colourful as Walker's when she'd found out the identity of the paramedic that Metro PD had put on the inside!

"We worked together for a while," he explained to the Captain, "and Chuck's saved my life a few times."

"That goes both ways," the younger man volunteered, turning to the Captain, "You know this relic, Captain?!"

He was jerked out of his memories as Prof spat out his coffee and began spluttering with laughter. "Damn, Bartowski!" the Captain observed, "Manny was right – you are good people! Yeah," he carried on, "I was a marine with Johnny. And he's cropped up a few times over the years. Like a bad apple."

"Yeah, know how that feels," the younger man muttered.

"Relic - love it!" chortled the cop.

"I'm only two years older than you Prof!" The NSA agent felt compelled to state, "And as for you Bartowski…"

Now it was the younger man's turn to give him a shit-eating grin, "You don't scare me any more, Casey. Once upon a time – yes. Now," he gave a toothy grin, "Not so much."

"Fuck you Bartowski!" He'd noticed that the kid wasn't so scared of him any more. He enjoyed their new relationship; it was much more one of equals. He admired what Bartowski had done with his life. How he'd pulled himself up from a shitty situation. And he especially admired how the kid had devoted his new life to service. Particularly given that he had enough money that he'd never need to work again.

And he respected Bartowski as well. It had been starting to come when he'd left Burbank, but as he'd gone back and thought of his time on the Intersect mission in the intervening years he'd realised that Bartowski had contributed a hell of a lot to their missions and maybe he should have cut the kid some slack at the time. He truly believed now that if Bartowski had kept the Intersect it would not have taken five years to defeat Fulcrum and The Ring. The kid was just that special. It was why he'd tried to recruit him again for the Joint Taskforce and why he'd carry on trying. His country's intelligence agencies needed Bartowski. He knew General Beckman agreed. She'd been extremely impressed with how he'd behaved on the mission to rescue Casey and Sarah from Colombia.

The Captain obviously decided to let his friend off the hook because he gave a wry grin and then got the conversation back to business, "So, you said something about a bomb?"

All levity dropped out of the kid's face and he was suddenly all business. This was the Chuck he'd seen in the jungle, in the helicopter, in Curacao.

"Yeah, do you have the building plans?" he asked Prof, moving over to the table.

"Here," the cop told him, standing as well, as the three men moved round the table to pore over the plans.

"OK, so they've got shooters here, here and here," Chuck explained, pointing out positions, "They're putting motion sensors on this door…"

Dave was impressed with Bartowski. Manny's recommendation counted for a lot, so he'd been well-disposed to the kid anyway. His easy rapport with Casey also endeared him to the younger man, and the way he teased the former marine was gold dust as far as Dave was concerned. And his report had just put the icing on the cake.

Chuck had accounted for 20 hostiles in the bank, what weapons they were carrying and any equipment he'd spied out as well. He had been able to show where all the remaining hostages were. He'd differentiated clearly between actualities and his observations and impressions and, all in all, it had been an impressive report.

About halfway through the briefing the door had cracked open behind him and Casey's partner had slipped through. Not disturbing the briefing, she'd gone to stand against the wall. He'd only spent a little bit of time with the woman when she and Casey had arrived earlier. Tall, blonde and all-business. She had seemed aloof from a distance but had been pleasant and professional with him and his team. Not like many Federal Agents who seemed to look down their noses at local police. Perhaps she took her lead from Casey on that or perhaps she was just being practical – Casey had indicated up front that their team should stay involved to provide back-up to Casey's own Tactical team in any assault.

The only time that her mask had cracked was when he'd explained about sending Chuck in to scope the location out.

"How qualified is this paramedic to make tactical observations?" Casey had asked.

He and Manny had exchanged looks. "He's a former PJ," Dave had explained, "impressed the hell out of me. Manny knew him from Iraq." He gestured at his subordinate.

"He saved my life in Iraq," Manny confirmed, then clearly looking to big up his friend, "Abseiled into a minefield." The twitch that the Blonde gave caught Dave's attention and the look the agents exchanged immediately suggested to him that something was up.

"What's his name? This PJ?" asked Casey after making calm down motions at his colleague.

"Chuck," replied Manny blithely, clearly not having noticed the Feds' reactions, "Chuck Bartowski."

"Shit!" exclaimed the Blonde, "Fucking asshole! What is it with him?" she muttered, "Just can't stay in the fucking car. Has to find a way to put himself in danger..." She continued to curse quietly under her breath.

He shot Casey a questioning look and the older man gave him a half smile. "We've worked with Chuck before." He'd leaned over to talk to Walker, whispering in her ear, and she'd decided she needed to be somewhere else, but as she'd left he'd noticed her fingering her gun and still chuntering under her breath.

Now she was back, and he worried about young Bartowski's future health. The kid hadn't noticed her yet, so absorbed was he in the exchange of information but, given his and Casey's prior interaction, Dave was rather looking forward to the experience. One thing was for sure, Bartowski certainly brought his own entertainment!

His attention was drawn back to the debriefing as Chuck asked Casey, "Do you have someone in there under cover?"

The older agent looked up at the younger man steadily, flicking his eyes to his partner leaning against the wall. She flicked her eyes towards Dave and raised her eyebrows questioningly.

"Prof, could I ask you to step next door? We've gotta have a little classified discussion." Casey asked as Bartowski became aware that there was someone standing behind him and twisted round.

"Sarah?" he choked out.

Damn! He'd really been looking forward to the showdown and now he'd have to sit it out. But hopefully he'd get the gen from Casey afterwards. Nodding, and smiling at his friend to show there were no hard feelings, he left.

Sarah Walker was pissed. Very, very pissed. Actually she was beyond pissed. Incandescent with rage would be a better description. And her rage was directed solely at one man. The object of her rage was her boyfriend, Charles Irving Bartowski.

In the back of her mind she'd accepted that the boyfriend who meant so much to her had to, as was the nature of his job, put himself in dangerous situations from time to time. As a PJ she knew he'd worked in war zones and she knew from working with him in Burbank and from reading his medal citations that he was an amazing guy who often put other people's safety ahead of his own.

But now he was in the Air Guard and only worked as a PJ for a few weeks a year, she'd thought he'd be safe. She'd thought that working as a paramedic in DC wouldn't be a dangerous job. All he'd have to worry about would be lousy driving and drunk people. He wouldn't have to be exposed again to her world, where death could come at the drop of a hat. Which meant that she wouldn't have to worry about him and his well-being.

Well, if she'd thought that, she'd reckoned without Chuck Bartowski. Because her boyfriend had once again gone and volunteered to go into a situation where he put himself into danger. The sort of danger that meant you might not come home at the end of your shift. The sort of danger she'd tried to protect him from time and time again in Burbank.

Given her lack of success then, maybe she shouldn't be surprised about his predicament now. When she'd heard that he'd volunteered to go into a hostage situation, she'd struggled to contain her anger and exasperation such that Casey had actually asked her to go and brief the Tac team in order to give her something to do. At least she'd managed to find something else to focus on for a while, but then had come the news that the leader of the robbers, or terrorists as she and Casey knew them to be, had allowed the injured to leave.

And she assumed that the paramedic would be allowed to leave as well, so here she was to listen to his debriefing and then give him a piece of her mind. And possibly her right fist as well, depending on how apologetic he was! To be fair, she did have a missed call from him from earlier and he had left her a WhatsApp message. But Sarah didn't have any interest in being fair just at that moment and she was going to need quite a lot of grovelling from him before she let him off the hook.

Chuck was busy debriefing Casey and the Special Tactics Captain from Metro PD. Apparently Casey knew him from old times and had vouched for him. "He knows what he's doing" was like a five star, rave review from her partner. He'd seemed competent in the limited interactions that Sarah had had with him.

Then Chuck asked whether they'd had someone undercover. Unfortunately, that was a whole new conversation. Trust Chuck to open up a can of worms. Casey signalled her with his eyes and she replied that they should lose the cop. It was at that time that Chuck became aware of her.

"Sarah?" he asked, twisting around to see her and giving a nervous half smile.

"Chuck," she acknowledged as the cop left, closing the door behind him. She was pleased that she managed to get her tone beyond chilly, as far as sub-zero, for her reply and Chuck winced.

"Hi," he offered, grimacing at her nervously.

She didn't reply, continuing to stare at him and letting him know he'd have to do better than that.

"I tried to call you, you know?" he told her, continuing, "They needed someone PDQ and it was a job I could do well," he looked down, "Sorry if I worried you."

"Hmpf," she grunted, channelling Casey. It wasn't like anything he said was a lie, but it was her job to go into danger and his job to stay safe. Why couldn't he see that?

She hadn't moved from her position against the wall and Chuck looked at her worriedly again, subsiding slightly in his chair and then facing Casey. "So, is Joe Morris under cover?"

"You spoke to him?" She couldn't control the words, they just dropped out of her mouth. Despite wanting to continue raking him over the coals this was important, so she moved towards the table to better take part in the conversation.

"Yeah, he reached out to me," Chuck replied, not really looking at her, "I'm not sure if he knew I was a plant or not but he mentioned the word 'Fulcrum'…"

"Shit!" Her and Casey exchanged glances.

"What about this bomb you saw?" her partner asked.

Her boyfriend chewed his lip briefly. That was bad news – he only did that when he was really worried about something. "Yeah," he replied, "They brought it in from the loading bay. It's big – about six or seven foot tall and three to four feet wide. I saw C4 and the bomb's surrounded by cylinders. Do you know what sort of bomb it is?"

"Joe was under cover as a leading expert on chemical weapons," Casey responded.

"Shit."

"No kidding. Did the terrorists use any names when you were there?"

"The leader is Alex. That's about all I got," Chuck replied.

"I'm gonna show you some photos. Can you tell me if you saw any of them in there?"

As Chuck looked through the photos the number of terrorists he IDed mounted up. In the end he'd identified all 12 of the photos they showed and there were still an additional eight terrorists.

She looked a Casey grimly. "Well at least now we know."

Her partner grimaced in reply as Chuck asked, "What?"

"Those pictures were the last outstanding Fulcrum and Ring agents that we haven't captured. It looks like they're planning some sort of last hurrah," she explained.

"Did Joe tell you anything else?" Casey asked.

"There was always someone around us. It was really strange - he was with them but not with them if you know what I mean. He wasn't armed and there was always a kind of chaperone with him. It was difficult to speak…" Chuck trailed off looking pensive. "He did use some words out of context though, now I think about it."

"Which words?" Casey beat her to it.

Chuck wrinkled his brow as he tried to remember. "Scorched was one. I remember he went through a really convoluted way to get burnt into the conversation… Um…maybe topsoil…" He tailed off, obviously trying to understand what message the undercover agent had been trying to convey, "Oh shit!" Chuck's exclamation caught her by surprise. She'd been focusing on the words herself as he continued to rack his brain.

"What?" she exclaimed.

"Topsoil's another word for earth isn't it?" he asked, and she nodded. "In Babylon 5 - Scorched Earth. Presid- well the bad guy, anyway. He was defeated and he turned all the missiles against Earth. If he couldn't have it, no one could."

She wordlessly exchanged a look with Casey who just raised an eyebrow. Her nerd had done it again. Taken what had certainly been a deeply coded exchange, a last chance for an undercover agent to get a message to the outside. Then analysed it and interpreted it in less than 30 seconds. She would not have been able to make the link so rapidly and, from the looks of it Casey hadn't either, and here was Chuck doing it in seconds despite not having the Intersect.

"What sort of range would a chemical weapon have?" Chuck asked, as though dreading the answer.

"Depends on what elevation it's detonated at, size, prevailing wind speeds. Could be 30-40 miles." Casey replied.

"You'd better get the President out of DC then, hadn't you?"

"What?" she gasped.

"Well it's obvious isn't it? Your revolution didn't happen. You're down to 20 people. Might as well go out with a blaze of glory and blow up the opposition's seat of power. You can take out the President, Congress, the CIA and NSA in one fell swoop. You don't win, but they don't either."

She looked at Casey. "I'll call Beckman. You get working on a plan to breach."

Please review if you get a chance! Thanks to all who reviewed the last chapter.

A/N1 Sorry for not putting this in the first chapter but for those readers new to me, this is the third published story (actually the fourth chronologically) in my Green Feet universe, which started with Chuck vs The Green Feet and Sarah vs The Green Feet. It would probably be best to read those first because they explain a good bit of the back story. There's also a chronology of this AU timeline on my profile page.

A/N2 Some questions about Casey being with Homeland Security. I know it didn't come out in the series but NSA is one of the most secret and secretive intelligence agencies. It's not known as "No Such Agency" for nothing! No NSA agent would admit to being such to non-spooks in most situation. In addition, CIA doesn't have a mandate to operate in the continental US. Hence the cover as Homeland Security for Sarah and Casey.

A/N3 In terms of Joe's relationship with Fulcrum, I'm kind of thinking a bit of the Lewis Collins character in Who Dares Wins. He was kind of a consultant but not trusted by the terrorists. If you haven't seen that film from 1982 it's well worth a watch if only for the brilliant scene where the SAS storms the US embassy. There've been other great scenes made since but that one really stacks up, especially given how long ago it was made. Fair warning, it's quite violent!

A/N4: Just to manage expectations, because I know there were a few disappointed people last time around, this fic has four chapters.