Scene IV – Buy More Home Theater Room

The trio of Sarah, Casey and Chuck stood in a line in the darkened Buy More media room giving their report to General Beckman. All three still wore their outfits from the mission, with Chuck's a little worse for his tumble onto the sidewalk.

Chuck stood slightly hunched over from the pain in his side. The shot to the crotch had thankfully been a glancing blow, but the kidney punch was a solid hit that would likely cause Chuck to carry a bruise for a couple of days. He made little eye contact with anyone, risking only the occasional peek at Casey and Sarah. Sarah was unreadable, but Casey couldn't hide his smile.

General Beckman apparently didn't find things quite as amusing; the plasma screen highlighted every detail of her disappointment. "Really? You let a programmer escape?"

At the general's words, Casey's grin faded for the first time in hours. "Yes, sir. The suspect had black hair, slicked back, and was wearing a black jacket and blue jeans. He was about 5'4", and weighed, what, a-buck-40, Chuck?" Casey turned to look at Chuck, a smirk on the side of his mouth facing away from the general. Sarah looked down, fighting successfully to control her expression before lifting her eyes back to the general.

Chuck's face flushed and he jerked his eyes back to the wall beyond the television. Even though Sarah didn't telegraph what expression she was hiding, there was only one thing it could be.

General Beckman looked up from where she was taking down notes. "And remind me, Agent Casey, why you didn't catch him?"

At the implied reprimand, Casey lost the rest of his smirk. "Sorry, general. We thought it was just the two men; the third was in another part of the office and managed to slip out the back door. By the time I got outside, all I saw was Chuck's attempt to detain the suspect. I had to check on the Intersect's status, and pursuit was not possible."

The general frowned more than usual. "So, if I understand correctly, we truly have no idea who this other person is, or what his involvement was … which makes it a little tough to track him down. And to top it off, you two left the Intersect vulnerable, and he was attacked."

Sarah interjected, "Chuck would have been perfectly safe had he stayed in the car." Chuck hoped his expression looked more neutral than it felt; he was about done with being mocked and reprimanded for the day.

Sarah continued, "As for the other man, we can interrogate the two captured suspects to find out about the third."

"Maybe, but we should have had this wrapped up tonight. Very sloppy work, people." She shook her head critically to emphasize her point.

Casey, chastened, stood at attention as he said, "Yes, General."

"Did you find anything interesting at the scene?"

Sarah said, "We confiscated a few computers, their business files, and all the notes we could find. Chuck didn't flash on anything, but there were a lot of documents to go through. We'll continue to sort through it all."

"OK. Interrogate the suspects. Find out what you can about the mystery third man. Have our experts start going through the computers to see what they can figure out." With a final reproachful look, the general signed off.

With only the quickest of glances at the other two, Chuck immediately headed through the media room door. Sarah shot Casey a dirty look as she started to go after Chuck.

Casey's grin returned in spades. Despite the general's reprimand, he seemed pleased. He cleaned up the mission briefing materials from the table. "Good day," he said to himself.

Out in the store, Sarah called out, "Hey, Chuck, wait up!" Chuck had been hoping to escape the store without further conversation. His head slightly down, his pace towards the door didn't falter. At the moment, all he wanted was to lock himself in his room and hide from both his worlds for a while.

Sarah wasn't so easily dissuaded; she broke into a jog so she could catch up with him. She slowed to walk alongside him, saying, "Chuck, don't take it too hard. We all have days like this."

Chuck clearly didn't buy it. He stopped so he could turn to look directly at her. "Really? You have days when an unsuspecting, unarmed suspect half your size barely broke stride as he disabled you, proceeding to escape?"

Sarah's face became sympathetic; she almost winced as she gave the only answer she had. "Well, no, not quite like that."

"Well, like what then." Sarah's face twisted as she tried to come up with an answer. When it became clear no response was forthcoming, Chuck resumed walking towards the front of the store. Sarah took a couple of quick steps to reposition herself alongside him.

Sarah's tone was a little patronizing as she said, "Look, your role isn't to…"

Chuck stopped again, interrupting her sharply, "It doesn't matter what my role is. We all have to be able to step up and contribute when needed. And I can't take out any suspect more dangerous than a girl scout."

Casey walked past the pair, case files under his arm. "I'd take even money on the girl scout."

Sarah let out an exasperated, "Casey!"

Casey continued towards the exit, shaking his head subtly and chuckling, "Such a good day."

Chuck stared after Casey for a brief moment. When he looked back at Sarah, his expression was a little desperate. "Isn't there some type of self-defense training you guys can put me through? You know, a karate class, a judo tutorial … an Internet course on Indian burns? Anything?"

"I just don't think that's a good idea, Chuck. It takes years of training to get good at fighting, and frankly we want you to stay…"

"'Stay in the car'?"

"I was going to say stay out of the fighting."

Chuck still looked defeated. "I'm going home."

He started to turn for the door, but Sarah stopped him with a gentle hand on his arm. With a softer voice, she asked, "Weren't we supposed to be out on a late date tonight?"

Given the last couple of hours, the 'date' had completely slipped his mind. In case the mission ran late into the night, it gave Chuck a plausible explanation about where he would be. "Sorry, I forgot about that. But I think we've been 'dating' long enough that people will buy that I just wasn't feeling well and wanted an early night."

"Come on, grab a bite with me. It'll help to talk things out." Her tone was insistent, but her face was strangely hopeful.

Chuck liked the idea of spending time with Sarah a little too much right then, especially the way she was smiling at him. But if he went with her, inevitably she would talk about their cover and the kiss on New Year's Eve, and he would just be reminded all over again that nothing was going to happen. That would be the capper on a very bad day.

As much as Chuck didn't want Sarah to worry about him, he just didn't have it in him. "I'm afraid I wouldn't be very good company tonight. Rain check?"

Sarah's response of "Sure," lacked much force or conviction. "Look, don't worry too much about today. None of us did particularly well on this mission; it happens. Nothing's changed; you're still really good at your job."

"If you say so."

Sarah, forcing Chuck to look at her, said, "You are." Chuck managed a bit of a smile at that.

Chuck thought Sarah was going to say something else, but instead she simply said, "Good night, Chuck." With a slightly hesitant turn, Sarah walked to the exit, giving a look back and a small smile as she pushed open the door.

His smile disappeared as soon as the door shut behind her. His side throbbed, a reminder of his earlier ineptitude. Would he be any good at his job without the database of government secrets in his head? The rational side of him started pointing to various examples, from capturing Minh to re-directing a missile to disarming two different bombs. But Chuck really didn't want to listen to his rational side; he was too busy feeling sorry for himself.

Waves of self-pity washed over Chuck. He knew he was acting badly, but he couldn't help it. All the more reason to go home and shut out the world for a while.

He sighed, cursing again under his breath. Day one of the New Year wasn't turning out to be such a great day for his resolutions: he had broken every last one of them.

He shut off the lights.

Scene V – Sarah's Hotel Room

Sarah entered her overly formal hotel room, aggressively tossing her keys onto the table next to the alarm clock. Today hadn't gone as planned. At all.

She speed-dialed Casey.

"Casey here."

"Walker here. What the hell was with you tonight?"

Casey's tone began as sarcastically genteel, and gradually shifted into just plain sarcastic. "Nice to speak with you, Agent Walker. Mind telling me what the hell you mean?"

"Why were you goading Chuck tonight?"

"You mean the Intersect?"

"What, you want to be semantical? Fine. You were goading Chuck, which endangers the Intersect."

"'Endangers'? Please, these were just computer programmers. He was never in any danger."

"This isn't just about tonight; it's about future missions, too. Besides, it's not like you to underestimate a mission."

"And it's not like you to get so emotional about a subject."

"What do you mean?" she asked defensively.

"What, you want to be semantical? Fine. You told me you were going to fix things with Chuckles."

"And I did."

"So what was going on at midnight on New Year's Eve? Things didn't exactly seem 'fixed'."

Sarah's heart skipped a beat: she still didn't know how much Casey had seen. However, the way Casey worded the question was more probing than accusatory. She thought quickly before responding, "Midnight was a tough moment. Our cover wouldn't allow us to get around a kiss, and neither one of us was entirely comfortable about it."

"Really? You seemed pretty 'comfortable' with the kiss."

Casey was bluffing. She knew him well enough by now to know that he would come at her with both barrels if he actually had anything. He was laying a trap, and Sarah refused to step into it.

"Please. If I did seem comfortable, it's because it's my job, just like it's your job to make Chuck comfortable with his role on the team."

"What, so now I'm supposed to play cheerleader when he gets beat up? 'Way to take a punch, Bartowski'?"

"No, you're supposed to forget about the fight and help remind him that it was stupid for him to get out of the Suburban in the first place. Instead, you decided to make fun of him. Even a guy like Chuck will take that personally, and the next time he has a choice between putting himself in harm's way and doing what's right, he'll wonder about what choice to make. Tonight, he asked about taking a self-defense class, for crying out loud."

"Good. We can't be around to protect Bartowski every moment. He needs to learn how to deal with those situations, just in case. This was a low-risk situation; now he knows what he is – and is not – capable of in a one-on-one fight. That's a start."

Sarah was getting nowhere fast, and she knew it. Her frustration started getting the better of her, and she found herself attacking Casey.

"It was a stupid risk. We have no idea who that guy was. Your report made it sound like the guy knew more than a little about fighting."

"From what I saw of Bartowski tonight, he could make Gandhi look like a martial arts expert. My report was generous."

"So what do you suggest? Encourage Chuck to take an active role in the fighting?"

"After what I saw? Uh-uh. But it certainly makes sense to get him some training, don't you think?"

Sarah didn't like where this was headed; not at all. If Chuck wanted to train and Casey agreed, she was going to be outvoted. But like a deer caught in headlights, she didn't know how to escape the oncoming car. Still, she had to try.

Rather lamely, she started up again, "You don't protect an asset by teaching him how to fight."

"Oh, please let me be there when you tell Bartowski that he's an asset and not an agent. That would seem to go against what you keep telling him, and I'm a little curious how he will take that."

Sarah's face clenched; she had neatly painted herself into a corner. Still, she refused to admit defeat. "We'll talk about this again later." She hung up, letting out a cry of frustration and throwing the phone onto the bed. She stood there for a moment, hands on hips, staring off into space.

She suddenly felt very tired and very dirty. She wandered into the bathroom so she could use the mirror as she undid the bands from her pony tail.

There were a host of reasons why the idea of Chuck learning how to fight was a bad idea, but try as she might, she could not come up with a good counterargument for Casey. She replayed their argument several times, and each time she ended up in an uncomfortable corner.

The last band removed, she shook out her hair. Sarah knew she should comb it out, but she felt an intense need to get out of her vest. She slid her black turtleneck over her head and undid the straps pinning the vest to her frame. Sliding the tight garment over her head revealed a black sports bra and Chuck's necklace.

Well, the necklace that she had bought for their cover; Chuck had made it his with the note inside.

Rotating the heart pendant between her thumb and forefinger, she slowly forced the curves to reflect each of the globe lights above the mirror in sequence. Today was supposed to be an easy mission, followed by a not-so-easy conversation with Chuck. After all, she was much more comfortable with actions than with words, but there was so much to talk about.

Sarah had failed miserably in her efforts to find an easy way to show Chuck how she felt, so she had resolved to be much more direct about it and tell Chuck how she felt. Even just thinking about it, she had to take a deep breath to steady herself. She picked up a brush and started working on her hair.

She knew he trusted her; his note had told her that. She knew he still had feelings for her; his kiss had told her that just as clearly. But, like always, she knew everything about him, and he knew nothing about her. It always seemed to work that way. After all, that's just what good agents did, and she was among the best. Eventually, it just became habit.

Sarah wasn't even sure exactly what she would say if she had the chance, but Chuck had a way of stripping away the things that didn't really matter, allowing her to clearly see what did. She was hoping it would be the same, and that this time, she would have the courage to actually say what mattered. But first, she needed to get Chuck alone somewhere. Somewhere without bugs. Somewhere without Casey.

Reluctantly letting the pendant drop to the hollow at the base of her neck, she picked up her comb and started working through her hair. This wasn't how the day was supposed to go.

Scene VI – Casey's Apartment

Across town, Casey shed his own set of action gear, replaying the conversation with Sarah in his head. He smirked; pushing her buttons was so easy lately.

The Art of War said to "stir up the waters to catch fish". The idea was to use confusion to your advantage to take what you want.

Given the looks Bartowski and Walker were exchanging when he arrived at the New Year's party, there was already confusion. So Casey stirred the waters a little more, both to try to gather a little more information and create more confusion. Walker was crafty enough not to give away any information. However, pushing for the self-defense training for Bartowski would keep Walker off-balance for a bit. And he needed her off-balance with regards to the Intersect as much as possible.

Casey ultimately didn't care whether Bartowski learned how to defend himself. Were he in this for the long-haul, Casey would stand by his arguments: they couldn't be around to protect the Intersect all the time, and Bartowski should learn how to protect himself for the times they couldn't be there. However, Casey would receive his orders long before self-defense classes would have a chance to do Bartowski any real good. And orders were orders.

Having shifted into his pajama bottoms and a plain white T-shirt, Casey headed into the living room. He wasn't happy with how the mission had gone, but it had turned into a blessing in disguise. He would have to get his head back in the game, though. Despite the minimal risk to Bartowski, there was no excuse for that kind of sloppy work. Next time, it might not be a third programmer in the back of the office.

Collapsing into his chair, he put on his headphones and flipped a switch. It was time to check in on his subject.

Scene VII – Casa Bartowski

Chuck slouched on the couch, watching an old episode from the Monty Python series. John Cleese was on-screen, teaching students of a self-defense class how to defend themselves from an assailant wielding a banana.

Cleese screeched, "First of all, you force him to drop the banana! Then, you EAT the banana, thus disarming him! You have now rendered him helpless!"

Yeah, that advice probably wasn't going to help Chuck any. He stretched; the Advil was finally kicking in. It felt good to be able to stretch without pain. Or, he corrected himself, without much pain.

Captain Awesome entered through the front door, wearing a UCLA sweat shirt and a pair of black warm-up pants. He obviously had just finished some kind of work-out, probably at his gym. "C-man. What's shaking?" he boomed.

"My ear-drums," Chuck muttered, not looking away from the TV. His mood obviously hadn't improved in the last hour. About the only thing that had gone right that day was coming home to the empty apartment; that kept him from having to explain the smudges on his clothes. He had changed into his Christmas pajama bottoms and a black T-shirt that read, "L1VE 1N Y0UR W0RLD. G3T PWNED 1N M!NE."

"What's that?" Devon asked, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge and taking a swig.

Chuck recognized how unpleasant he was being; he forced himself to sit up. "Sorry, Devon, rough day."

"Sorry to hear it. Everything all right?"

"Yep. But thanks." For some reason, Chuck found himself wanting to talk to Awesome about what happened; obviously, he couldn't. Without really thinking about it, he surprised himself by asking, "Hey, did you ever take any martial arts classes?"

"You bet." Of course he did. Knowing Devon, he probably spent a summer defending a remote Asian village against the thugs of a feudal warlord. The image made Chuck smile. "You're looking at a purple belt in aikido. I was bulking up a little too much at the gym, and wanted to develop a little more flexibility."

"Yeah, I have that same problem."

"Funny, Chuck. Hey, I hear there's a great dojo over by the Large Mart." Devon tilted his bottle towards Chuck. "You should check it out."

Despite himself, Chuck started to get a little excited. The dojo was close enough to work that he might be able to slip out for a few classes without his handlers finding out. "Maybe I'll look it up," he said, trying to keep a noncommittal tone.