Chapter 14: The Kite Affair

California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 24th, 2007

Chuck, although a little belatedly, opened his mouth, pressed his hands on his hears and waited for the explosion. Which didn't happen.

After a few seconds, he felt Sarah roll off him and quickly crawled into the closest bush behind the low wall in the yard. A few more seconds later, he crouched and peeked over the wall.

Sarah was staring at the thing that had dropped down next to them. It was a padded case - he recognised the model - for shipping small, fragile items with postal services that handled them with their usual care. Meaning, the drop wouldn't have damaged whatever was in the container.

"I don't think it's a bomb," Chuck told her. "It would have exploded on impact, otherwise, wouldn't it?"

She glanced at him with an annoyed expression, and he hunkered down a little more behind the wall. It hadn't been him who had overreacted, had it?

She looked at the sky - Chuck couldn't hear the RC helicopter any more - then turned back to the container. After a moment's hesitation, she knelt down and opened it, revealing a mobile phone. As soon as she picked it up, she dropped it again.

"Sarah?"

"It vibrated." She cocked her head. "A message arrived."

He stood and walked around the wall towards her. It wasn't a bomb. If whoever had sent the phone had wanted to kill him, they could have replaced the container with C-4. Enough, as Chuck knew, to completely destroy the yard and kill anyone inside it. So, it was safe to pick up the phone.

He still felt more than a little nervous when he reached Sarah. At least she didn't send him back, so she must have agreed that it was safe. Relatively.

Crouching down, he picked up the phone. "Locked," he told Sarah.

"There's no note with the code in the container."

Chuck didn't need a note. Not with that model. He pulled a screwdriver from his back pocket and turned the phone around. A minute later, he had disabled the lock and could read the message.

Kite Affair.

He closed his eyes and swore under his breath.

"'Kite Affair'?" Sarah looked at Chuck. He was muttering curses and had his eyes squeezed shut. He obviously knew what that meant, but didn't react.

"Chuck?" she tried again. No reaction. "Ellie will be wondering what we're doing." It was a low blow, but they were exposed here. And she wanted answers.

He blinked, looking lost for a moment, then nodded. "Let's go inside."

They entered his flat, and he went straight to the kitchen, grabbing all their bread. "That should be enough, right?"

She looked at him and, after a moment, he sighed. "Kite Affair." He sighed again. "When I was eight, I got one of those complicated kites for Christmas. You know, the Chinese-style. I don't know any more why I wanted one, but I was over the moon.I spent all of Christmas Day putting the thing together. And on Boxing Day, we went up Kingman's Bluff - that's a cliff overseeing the sea and Sunnydale. Well, only the sea, now. There was almost always a breeze there. I let the kite fly, saw it rise - and then it broke apart and fell into the sea, leaving me holding the string. I was devastated for the rest of the holidays. Ever since then, my family has called it the 'Kite Affair'."

Which meant that whoever sent him that message was probably his father. Orion. Sarah didn't say that, of course. She didn't have to, either - Chuck knew that already. "So," she said instead, "we need to go to Kingman's Bluff?"

"On Boxing Day," Chuck confirmed. "It's the only thing that makes sense, I mean. Same day, same time."

She nodded in agreement. "Back to Sunnydale?"

Chuck's face showed a mixture of emotions for a moment. Apprehension, loathing, longing. Then he shrugged. "Back to the bay, actually - Sunnydale doesn't exist anymore, after all."

It still haunted him, though, Sarah knew. Him and probably every other survivor. At least those among them who knew the truth. She hugged him.

Sarah was so… Chuck sighed as he held her. How did he deserve her? She had realised that Orion was his father while he had denied it. And she wasn't rubbing it in. He didn't deserve her. But he'd do everything to be with her.

He took another deep breath. He wouldn't cry. Couldn't cry. Ellie would notice and wonder what was wrong. And she couldn't know about Dad and the CIA. "So… let's go back before Ellie sends Devon after us."

She released him and nodded. "Let's go. We can make plans tomorrow."

"We need to tell Casey, though."

"Yes," she agreed. "And we need a story to tell Bane."

"Yes." He opened the door and found himself face to face with Caridad.

"Road trip?" the Slayer asked with a grin. "You can tell Bane that it's another classified mission!"

Slayer hearing. Chuck should have expected this. Although that was a good idea. He blinked. "You want to come with us?"

"I have to, to maintain the cover, haven't I?" Her grin grew. "And I might even catch a few demon cultists!"

"Demon cultists?" Sarah asked.

"Oh, yes. Some demons make pilgrimages to the 'Lost Hellmouth', as they call it."

"They worship the site?"

"Yes. Sometimes - well, often - with sacrifices and the whole stuff." She nodded. "You'll need me."

Chuck hadn't known that. And he wished he had never heard of it.

California, near Sunnydale Bay, December 26th, 2007

"Most demons do their thing at night so we should be pretty safe during the day," Chuck said as he checked the map. He had grown up in the area, and he had taken a trip to Los Angeles often enough as a kid, but he hadn't been back to Sunnydale in years. At least Ellie had accepted his explanation that he wanted to show Sarah where he had grown up - she had done something similar with Devon. Once.

"You'd be safe in the middle of the night under a full moon - you're with me!" Caridad announced from the backseat.

"How often do you patrol here, anyway?" Sarah asked.

"Oh… once or twice a month, usually. On the days suitable for rituals, according to Phil," the Slayer replied.

Which meant that any demon cultists had free reign of the area most of the time. Well, the Hellmouth was closed, and the town had been buried in a sinkhole before the ocean had filled the new bay - there was a limit to what even determined demons could do. At least Chuck hoped that this was the case.

"We might not have trouble with demons," Sarah said, "but that doesn't mean we'll be safe."

Caridad's snort left no doubt about how little she thought of the threat by spies.

Chuck clenched his teeth. She should know better than that. Matter of fact, she had been quite appreciative of… of course. He almost groaned. This was aimed at Casey - who wasn't with them in the first place.

"Can you detect a sniper half a mile away?" Sarah asked.

"Why would they want to meet Chuck in Sunnydale if they want to kill him? They could do this at home," Caridad retorted.

Chuck winced. It might be true, but no one liked to hear how others could kill them.

"They might think that it's easier to take us out and kidnap him there instead of in Los Angeles," Sarah told her.

"Ah…" Caridad obviously hadn't thought of that. "Why are we going there, then?"

"Because it probably isn't a trap," Chuck told her. "And because the only one who'd know about the Kite Affair would be my dad." Although this whole meeting looked like it was set up by a spy with all the secrecy. Of course, if Orion was behind this, he'd have to be an experienced spy, or he'd have been caught long ago. But was Orion Dad? Chuck probably would find out soon. Either he'd meet his dad, who'd be alive, but hiding from everyone, including his family. Or he'd meet someone who knew something no one but Chuck's family was supposed to know.

He felt Sarah's hand on his thigh, gently squeezing. He must have let his emotions show on his face, he realised as he smiled at her in return. Well, with her, he could face this.

"Do you have another sandwich? I'm running on empty here."

Leave it to Caridad's appetite to ruin the moment.

California, Sunnydale Bay, Kingman's Bluff, December 26th, 2007

The place hadn't changed, Chuck noticed as Sarah stopped the car a little below the top of the cliff. Not that there was much to change, of course - there was just grass and a very deep drop. The view, though… Where once, you could have seen the entire town below, now you only saw the almost perfectly circular bay. Geologists were still arguing with conspiracy theorists about the whole incident.

He stepped to the brink - well, not too close; he wasn't a fool. Dad had taught him better when they had come here.

"I'll do a perimeter check!" Caridad announced. A moment later, she was running down the slope.

"Did she learn that term from Casey?" Sarah asked, looking around - once the Slayer was too far away to overhear them.

"No. Xander taught them," Chuck told her. "Well, the Slayers who were activated here in Sunnydale." The day the town had been destroyed.

"He sounded like a veteran soldier," Sarah commented. And she'd know that he had been a classmate of Chuck - and hadn't served by the time all this had happened.

"It's complicated," he said. It wasn't his story to tell. "But he's got the experience." And, Chuck realised, Xander had been - probably still was - very popular among the new Slayers. Was that part of the reason Caridad was after Casey? It didn't make sense, though. The two men were very different. Casey was a hardass, overly-serious soldier. Xander was cracking jokes all the time and incredibly laid back. When it wasn't about killing demons, of course.

"I don't see anything out of…" Sarah trailed off as Chuck once again heard the sound of an RC helicopter. No, something bigger. "A drone?"

"He would be checking for an ambush," Sarah told him.

"Ah." Or, Chuck knew, this could be the ambush. But no bombs were dropped on them, nor were more phones to redirect them to another spot. The drone disappeared after circling for a while. He was actually relieved - even though no one had mentioned it, the real reason Caridad was with them was because this could be a trap by a demon wearing Dad's face or body. Not a vampire - it was closer to noon than to dawn.

Then they heard a car.

For a moment, he thought it would be their old car. Dad had always used the same car, as far as Chuck could remember - a worn Ford Escort. But they had sold the car, after his disappearance. And, of course, such a car would stick out these days.

It was a Ford, but a Pickup. F-series. Not the latest model, nor the most expensive. One of the most common, though. Easy to blend in, but not too generic, unlike the ubiquitous FBI cars in the movies.

He was thinking like a spy, Chuck realised. Then the pickup stopped, the door opened, and Chuck wasn't thinking anymore.

"D-Dad?"

The man's - Dad's - face twisted into a sad and embarrassed smile. "Hi, son."

Before Chuck could say anything, Caridad appeared right behind Dad, sniffing. "Clean," she announced, and Dad jerked, startled, whirling around. "What the…?"

The Slayer grinned. "Just checking if you're a threat."

"How… You're the Slayer!"

That surprised Caridad, and her grin slipped. Chuck was surprised as well. "You know about Caridad?" he asked.

Dad shook his head. "I didn't know it was her."

Chuck blinked. How could he not… 'it'? "The Initiative. You've read their files."

Dad smiled in a very familiar way. As if Mom had just caught him sneaking a few cookies before they had properly cooled down. "Guilty as charged. Though they didn't have the Slayer's identity on record."

They should've had it, as far as Chuck knew. Though perhaps they hadn't passed on all information - or not everything had been entered into computer data banks.

"And you've hacked our files," Sarah spoke up.

Dad inclined his head. "A necessity, given my circumstances. They've learned not to save or use anything electronically, but sometimes, they slip. Like when Beckman was talking to you about me in a video call."

"That's the reason you contacted us?" Chuck asked, feeling hurt. Would he have been left thinking his father was dead if they hadn't started searching for Orion?

"I was going to anyway, but this accelerated the process." Dad smiled. "I knew I couldn't send the money to Ellie without starting… this."

"You knew Chuck is the Intersect," Sarah said.

"That secret isn't as well-protected as it should be," Dad replied. Chuck couldn't tell if he was angry or merely annoyed. Or if all of it was an act.

"No. You knew because you arranged it."

"What?" Chuck looked at her. She was glaring at his father.

"Others who tried to integrate the Intersect died. Chuck didn't," she went on. Tense, he noticed. As if she was about to attack.

"He's my son; we have very similar brain structures."

"And out of all the possible people, Chuck is the one to whom Bryce mails it? In a form that would trigger the neuro-optical interface?" Sarah shook her head. "Too much of a coincidence."

That was… it made sense. In a disturbing way. "You knew Bryce," Chuck said.

Once more, his father nodded. "I contacted him once I realised both of you were targetted for recruitment by the CIA."

"You told him to keep me out of the CIA?" Chuck asked.

"To keep you safe."

"And in exchange, you helped him," Sarah said. "He was promoted very quickly thanks to his many successful missions - missions he accomplished with your help as a hacker. And while he was promoted, you had a mole inside the CIA who would gain more and more power. Someone who was able to sabotage the Intersect."

"And infiltrate Fulcrum," Dad confirmed her accusation. With a lopsided smile, he added: "You're like me, Chuck - you love smart women. Of course, I already knew that after fourth grade."

"Fifth grade?" Caridad asked.

"A crush," Chuck shut down the tangent. No one needed to know about his brief, immature pre-teen crushes on teachers. "So, you wanted me to have the Intersect?"

"Not exactly," Dad replied. "I wanted it destroyed, but I told Larkin a little too much - mainly to stop him from trying to assimilate the Intersect himself. He was willing to do almost anything to root out Fulcrum. He must have figured out that you'd be able to do it."

So, it was, once again and still, Bryce's fault.

Chuck's father sighed and leaned against the car. "I didn't know what Larkin was planning, or I would have tried to stop him. Or, at least, erased all traces of his mail to you so that the CIA wouldn't have been able to find you." He shook his head. "I should never have accepted to work for them. If I had known what it would cost me, us… I wouldn't have done it, but when I realised what they wanted me to do, what I had to do to avoid that, it was too late."

Chuck felt the urge to walk over and hug him but suppressed it. "And you thought leaving us in Sunnydale would be a good idea?"

Caridad snorted at that but didn't comment on it further.

"I didn't know the truth about the town, Chuck. By the time I found out, you and Ellie had already left for Los Angeles." Dad shook his head again. "If I had known about vampires, I'd have taken you out of there, even if we would have had to hide afterwards."

For a moment, Chuck wished his father had done that. Had taken them away from Sunnydale. Stayed with them. But only for a moment. Their lives wouldn't have gone well, he knew.

And he wouldn't have met Sarah. Or, worse, he would have met her as an enemy.

"How convenient that Bryce is dead and so he can't contradict your claim," Sarah said with a flat stare.

And, Chuck reminded himself, having Sarah as an enemy would be terrifying.

"Do you honestly think that you would have found Chuck if I had arranged for him to become the Intersect?"

Though, apparently, not terrifying enough to unsettle Dad. He met her eyes calmly, Chuck saw.

Sarah pressed her lips together but didn't retort.

"So…" Chuck said after a moment, "what happens now? Will you, uh, stay around?" He licked his lips, unsure what he wanted to hear.

Dad sighed. "I wish. But my presence would endanger you. You and Ellie."

Ellie. Chuck could handle Dad being Orion. He wasn't a spy, but he had some experience by now. And friends who could handle it. Ellie was a civilian. And Devon was awesome - but not a spy.

"Your identity might be compromised anyway," Sarah pointed out. "If we can deduce it, so can others. And headquarters is aware of our speculation."

Dad nodded. "I'm aware of that. That's another reason I wanted to meet you, Chuck."

"Another reason?"

His father chuckled, but it sounded sad rather than amused. "I wanted to see you and talk to you, after all these years. And there are a few things you need to know about the Intersect. But, a little more urgent, I want to arrange a decoy."

A decoy? Chuck frowned. What did he mean?

As usual, Sarah was quicker on the uptake. "You want to frame someone as Orion. Probably to fake your death."

Whoa! Dad wanted to kill someone to save his cover? That was… Chuck blinked. Sarah didn't seem to be appalled.

"There are a few thoroughly disgusting people among Grover's clients," Dad replied. "It wouldn't be too hard to make one of them appear to have been behind an attempt to replace his computer specialist with you."

"What?" Chuck shook his head. "Why would a criminal want to recruit me? And why would they go through Ellie?" Wouldn't they contact him? Probably with a sexy woman tempting him into a life of crime?

"Leverage. If Ellie's using dirty money for her wedding, she can be framed for laundering money. What would you do to save her from that?" Dad asked.

"Oh." That made somewhat sense. "But why would they pick me? I'm not exactly what people would consider top recruiting material."

"Talented computer specialist, expelled from Stanford for cheating? Working a dead-end job in a mall?" Dad shook his head. "That's a good fit for many organisations."

"I graduated from Stanford," Chuck retorted. Late, and only thanks to the CIA, but he had graduated.

"You hadn't when you first caught their attention."

What?

"You already arranged a cover story," Sarah said.

Dad inclined his head. "Nerf Herd has a number of people with ties to organised crime among their clients."

"And you had Chuck take those jobs," Sarah accused him. "Probably by manipulating the call for tech support. Or arranging the exact problem so he would be the only one able to handle it."

Holy shit! He had arranged all of this already? Dad was a spy.

Orion had manipulated Chuck's life for years, starting at Stanford with Bryce. And now he was using his own son to save himself. Sarah knew the type - Orion was a spymaster. She narrowed her eyes at the man but refrained from showing her feelings more clearly.

"Contingency plans," he admitted. "You don't evade the CIA for years without planning ahead."

"And what would you have done if the criminals you set up had decided to recruit Chuck for real?" she asked.

"I'd have put a stop to it, of course," the old man replied.

"Plans don't always go according to plan," Caridad pointed out. The Slayer had been remarkably quiet so far, in Sarah's opinion.

"I've got some experience with such setups," Orion retorted.

Sarah believed him. This wasn't the first time he'd have done that.

"You've done this before?" Chuck had come to the same conclusion. And, apparently, didn't like it.

"Yes, Chuck." Orion sighed, looking weary. Or acting like he was. "Only people who deserved it, though. Mob members. Drug lords. Murderers."

"Oh."

Sarah hoped Chuck didn't think that his father was some sort of vigilante.

"Arranging this deception won't take much," the man went on, "and it'll put a dent in the local drug trade - for a while, at least."

"Good," Caridad chimed in. "Drug dealers gave us some trouble before I killed Melvin."

"A vampire who ran a drug dealing organisation," Chuck explained.

"Oh. I wasn't aware that demons were involved with that," Orion said.

"You don't know much about the supernatural, do you?" Sarah asked.

"More than most, I would wager," he retorted. Was that some annoyance she could hear?

"But not enough!" Caridad said. "If you want to hang out near Chuck, you'll need to know more."

Sarah pressed her lips together. She didn't like the thought of Orion learning more about demons nor his presence near Chuck. But, she realised with a glance at him, she wouldn't be able to keep the man away. Chuck wanted his father.

And to think she had wished for this reunion to happen.

"Well, there are things you need to know as well," Orion replied. "About the Intersect."

"Oh?" Chuck blinked. "Right. As we found out, no one really knows much about the Intersect. At the CIA, I mean."

Sarah suppressed the urge to point out that the NSA didn't know anything, either.

"I was quite thorough when I erased the information before I quit," Orion said. "Helped along by the secrecy on which the CIA insisted, of course."

"And by the coincidental deaths of most of the core team," Sarah said.

Orion winced. "I told them not to attempt any upload without me, but they didn't want to listen to an outsider."

He sounded sincere - but anyone who had survived ten years on the run from the CIA would be able to lie convincingly.

"What happened?" Chuck asked.

"The Intersect is patterned after my own neural structure - I used myself as a model," the older man explained. "That means the optical interface will overload most people's brains."

"Ew." Apparently, Chuck's imagination was a little more fertile - and more gruesome - than Sarah's.

"Yes. It wasn't pretty, or so I found out." Orion shook his head. "It can be adjusted, but that requires special knowledge - I never wrote those steps down."

"Insurance," Sarah commented. And leverage.

"Exactly." He nodded at her. "And as it turned out, I was wise to prepare such insurance. Otherwise, the CIA would have uploaded the Intersect to many agents - including members of Fulcrum and other moles."

"That… would have been bad," Chuck said.

An understatement, if Sarah had ever heard any.

"Worse," Orion said. "The Intersect isn't just a database with an advanced algorithm to filter and connect information."

"What?" Chuck and Sarah said in unison.

"It ties much deeper into your central nervous system," Orion said. A moment later, he was holding a gun.

And before Sarah could blink, Orion was on the ground, with Caridad on top of him, holding the gun. "Hah!"

"Wait!" The older man groaned - she had him in an arm lock. "I was merely going to demonstrate the advanced capabilities of the Intersect."

Sarah blinked. That meant… "You have the Intersect in your head as well!"

"What?" Chuck said.

The man laughed, if a little forced. "Of course. I wouldn't let anyone risk their mind without testing it myself."

And, Sarah thought, he wouldn't let himself miss out on all the advantages it offered.

Dad had the Intersect in his head. Chuck couldn't believe it. Wait - of course he could. Why wouldn't Dad do this, if he had built it? That would have been worse than building a high-end custom computer for a customer without trying it out in the Home Entertainment Display Room after work! But… "Advanced capabilities?"

"Can I get up?"

Caridad growled.

"Please, let him up," Chuck told her.

The Slayer did so - but with obvious reluctance. "He better not try anything like that again."

"Of course not. Apparently, Slayers are even more formidable than I thought."

That made Caridad grin, as expected. It didn't make her look much more friendly, though.

"Anyway, I've got an early version of the Intersect in my head. Most of the information isn't up to date any more," Dad told them, rubbing his shoulder after he got up. "But the skills work."

"Skills?" Chuck repeated. Did he mean…

"Shooting. Fighting. Athletics. The 'spy package', as I like to call it." Dad grinned. "The CIA wanted a way to turn the most reliable agents they had into the perfect spies without having to train them for years."

"A spy is more than just a collection of weapon and fighting skills," Sarah said. She was looking decidedly unamused, Chuck noticed.

"Oh, yes. I never said the CIA's order was very smart. But those skills certainly help any agent - or anyone trying not to get disappeared by them."

Oh. Chuck blinked - he had almost forgotten about that.

"May I demonstrate the Intersect's secondary function?"

Caridad growled, then slowly nodded. "Fight me."

"Err…"

"She won't hurt you," Chuck was quick to say.

"Alright…" Dad rubbed his shoulder again, then suddenly lunged at the Slayer.

Who easily evaded the strike, as well as the follow-up swing. And the next combo.

But even as the Slayer demonstrated why every demon with half a brain feared her, Chuck realised that his father knew Kung Fu.

After a few minutes, Dad stopped, panting. "Did that suffice?"

"Yes," Chuck said, nodding.

"You've got the skills, but not the endurance. And probably not the muscle tone, either," Sarah remarked.

"Yes," Caridad agreed. "You fought like someone possessed by a warrior spirit - all the knowledge, but your body isn't used to it, so you don't reach your potential."

"It's a little hard to go to a gym when you're on the run," Dad said. He sounded a little defensively, in Chuck's opinion. "But it certainly is an advantage against any normal enemy, isn't it?"

Definitely, Chuck agreed. "There's just one question," he said. "Why can't I do that?"

"I don't know the exact reason, Chuck," Dad told him. "It could be that the skills package was cut out - though I don't think anyone would have known enough about the Intersect to be able to do that. Anyone except me, obviously. I don't think Larkin would have been able to do that. But I would need to examine you to find out for certain - and with rather expensive and bulky medical devices."

"Like, scanning my head?" Chuck felt a little queasy. What if something was wrong with his brain? He hadn't been examined, not medically. There had been that examination in the Buy More, but that had been more like a test, with questions and pictures, without the doctor actually seeing him. This would be an actual examination. And what if something went wrong? What if he had some metal in his head and the scan would send it whirling around inside his head? He hadn't, to his knowledge. But what if they found out that he had cancer?

"Well, sort of." Dad smiled reassuringly. Just not reassuringly enough.

"Is it dangerous?" Caridad asked.

"It shouldn't be, though you can never be a hundred per cent certain."

So Dad hadn't lost the habit to be a little too precise and honest for his own good - and for Chuck's peace of mind. This was almost as bad as the time they had been to Disney World, and Chuck had asked if the roller coaster was safe. He hadn't gone on any roller coaster for years after hearing about everything that, theoretically, could go wrong.

But Chuck had to know if there was something wrong with his Intersect. Or with his head. He nodded. "Alright."

"Do you have a way to get access to such devices without risking Chuck's cover?" Sarak asked.

"I usually wait for an opportunity at various clinics," Dad replied. "When they receive new scanners who need to be tested, for example, so I can replace the technician doing that. But that isn't the case currently. Not over the holidays."

"We should be able to arrange that," Sarah said.

Chuck almost asked: 'We are?' Of course the CIA would be able to arrange such things. But… "Can we do that without Bane knowing about it?"

"Yes." Sarah sounded confident. "It'll take a little while, though."

"Oh." Chuck felt both relieved and disappointed. "So… what now? I mean… what do we do now? What do you want to do now? And what do we tell Bane and Beckman? And what about Casey?"

Dad chuckled. "Good questions."

Chuck narrowed his eyes at him with a frown. "That means you don't know." It had meant that, at least, when Chuck had been a kid.

"Guilty as charged," Dad replied with a wry smile.

Once more, Sarah stepped up. "Bane and Beckman can't know about this. Casey… in the short run, it'd be safer not to tell him, but that will cause problems in the long run. And we already told him about our suspicion of Orion's identity."

"Wouldn't he understand about need to know?" Chuck asked.

"It's about trust," she told him. "And no matter how professional an agent is or claims to be, there's always something personal when it comes to such things." She looked at the Slayer as if Chuck didn't know what she meant.

Caridad scoffed. "You should tell him. If he causes problems, we deal with him."

"He's a very good agent," Sarah retorted. "We might not realise what he has done until it's too late."

"Such as informing Beckman about my identity?" Dad asked.

Sarah looked grim. "It would allow him to save his career. Or attempt to do so."

"But would he attempt that? Knowing what he does now?" Caridad asked. A little pleadingly, in Chuck's opinion Not that he'd tell her that - he wasn't suicidal.

"We don't know. Orion having invented the Intersect is one thing. Orion being able to use it to turn people into highly-trained soldiers? That's a game changer, and Casey will realise it. Any country with that capability would have a huge advantage over everyone else. Casey might very well think this is worth betraying us. And I won't risk Chuck and his family to find out," Sarah declared. Dad nodded approvingly at her, Chuck noticed.

Caridad had a mulish expression but didn't contradict Sarah. And yet...

"Uh..." Chuck trailed off. "Won't he suspect anyway? Even with the drug dealer framing?" Which was kind of really ruthless. "Or especially with the framing? We did tell him that we thought Orion might be you, Dad."

"He's smart," Caridad said, nodding. "And if he thinks we don't trust him, he won't trust us, either."

Which meant they would push him into the very action they wanted to avoid, Chuck realised. He hated such problems in games, and there, one could usually save and redo the decision if one didn't like the outcome. Or read a guide.

"Agent Casey's file doesn't portray a man willing to put teammates over what he would consider the country's best interest," Dad said.

"Well, he's willing to join the Council," Caridad pointed out.

"The Council?" Dad looked puzzled.

Oh. He didn't know about the Watcher's Council. Chuck looked at Caridad.

"Me?"

"You're the Slayer. You know them best," he told her.

"I'm usually not the one to do exposition," she replied.

"Morgan's not here." Which, given that Dad probably still saw him as a bumbling little kid, was a good thing.

"Alright." Caridad took a deep breath. "So, there's the Slayer - one girl, now hundreds, to fight the demons and stuff. But there's also the Watchers Council. Founded before writing was invented, they are the successors of the Shadow Men…"

"...and that's basically the new Council," Caridad finished her colourful and slightly unstructured explanation.

"That…" Dad slowly started to smile. "That changes everything!" he said.

Chuck blinked. "What?"

"They can put pressure on the government to make them back off." Dad shook his head as his smile grew. "I wouldn't have to hide any more."

"Yes, you would," Sarah told him. "Chuck's the Intersect, but the CIA can still rebuild and update the database. Sooner or later, Chuck's version of the Intersect will become less crucial."

Obsolete, Chuck reminded himself. As more and more data became outdated, he wouldn't be able to trust the Intersect's conclusions any more; even small errors would ruin the results. His days as a spy - or at least a spy-like asset - had an expiration date. Unless he got the Intersect's skills as well.

"You, though, built the Intersect," Sarah went on. "You can build another Intersect. For anyone. You can update the Intersect. And you can maximise its potential."

Dad looked grim now. "They won't let me be."

"No." Sarah looked at Caridad. "And even with the Council's pressure, they'll use black ops and proxies to go after him."

"They would be stupid to do that - we'd find out!" the Slayer retorted.

"They can't afford to let him go to someone else," Sarah replied. "Especially with Chuck having the most recent version of the Intersect to build upon.

Chuck winced. If he were part of the reason his father wouldn't be able to finally stop hiding and be with them again… "But they don't know it's you," he said. "What if we, uh, do that drug dealer framing and make it appear as if they had kidnapped you long ago, or so?"

"They're already looking for the creator of the Intersect," Sarah shot his idea down. "They won't be fooled by such a story."

Meaning it was a stupid idea. Chuck pressed his lips together. But he didn't want his dad to disappear again. There had to be a way to solve this.

"We can use a 'kidnapped to a hell dimension' cover story," Caridad said suddenly.

"Hell dimension?" Chuck blinked. "Oh. But fifteen years?"

"Some dimensions have a different time. A day here could be a hundred years there," Caridad replied. "Buffy had to clean up one such dimension, once - in L.A." She grinned. "And it means we could say the details are classified!"

"'Hell dimensions'?" Dad asked. "Are those what I think they are?"

"Well," the Slayer replied, "if you're thinking fire and brimstone, that exists. But mostly, they are dimensions ruled by demons."

"Like the layers of the Abyss or the Nine Hells," Chuck told his father. Dad had been playing D&D with him and Morgan, after all. Before he disappeared.

"Oh."

Caridad rolled her eyes. "Something like that. Anyway, some demons like to keep humans as slaves. A number, actually. If anyone asks for more details, we can ask Fred to fill you in. She escaped such a dimension herself."

"Fred?" Dad asked.

"She's a genius scientist. Some demon lord tried to possess her, but Willow fixed that," the Slayer explained. "Unfortunately, she's still hanging with those losers."

"Angel and his crew," Chuck explained. "They moved." He wasn't going to talk in detail about that mess. "Anyway, is that possible?" he asked Sarah.

She frowned in response. "Only if it doesn't happen too close on the heels of the current situation," she said after a moment. "And if there's a good explanation for the transactions."

Which meant frame the drug dealer was still on.

"I can make it a double-bluff," Dad said. "Make it look like Orion wanted to use the drug dealer to get closer to the new Intersect. That would also make it look like there was no prior connection between us, or I wouldn't have needed that deception."

"That might work," Sarah said after a moment.

It certainly sounded paranoid enough for a spy plan, in Chuck's opinion. "And we can explain Dad's absence to Ellie without revealing the Intersect," he added. "Willow could claim she wanted to reunite our family for the wedding."

"Willow can't lie worth a damn," Caridad said - a slightly unfortunate choice of words given the topic of conversation. "Ellie would see through her."

"I don't think that that'll be a serious problem," Chuck retorted.

"Just saying:" Caridad shook her head. "And what about Casey?"

"Good question," Chuck said, then pouted at Dad's chuckle.

"Tell him and watch him. If he betrays us, we finish him," Caridad said.

Chuck couldn't tell if she wanted Casey to betray them or not. "He's ready to work for the Council with us," he pointed out. "Even though that means Chuck will take the Intersect with him."

"He doesn't have much of a choice," Sarah replied. "Catching Orion would offer him another chance with the NSA." She'd said that before, of course.

"But that wouldn't change, would it? And sooner or later, he'll find out the truth," Chuck said. The Scoobies weren't exactly the best at keeping secrets. His whole class had known after a few months that Buffy wasn't normal.

"You know Agent Casey best," Dad added, looking at them.

Chuck looked at Sarah. She had worked with Casey before. This was her call.