Thud.

Shawn opened his eyes - he hadn't even realized that he'd had them closed – and tentatively surveyed the scene before him. The six enemy agents lay unconscious on the floor, with Renaldo lying directly at his feet. I really am telekinetic! he thought for a split second, eyes brightening with adolescent glee. Then he noticed the blunt trauma injury to the back of Renaldo's head, and the barrel of the gun that matched it, held high by a man with a bulletproof vest and a chiseled jawline who definitely hadn't been there before.

"You just saved my life, didn't you?" Shawn looked up at the man in awe. It was like Scott Seaver all over again, except this time Jules wasn't dating the handsome bastard. At least, she'd better not be. He looked over at Jules. Nope, she definitely didn't know this guy. Thank God.

The man merely grunted in reply, accompanied by what may have been a tiny nod.

Sarah, however, was less thankful.

"Casey, where the hell were you? What took you so long?" she demanded. She knew she should probably be glad that he had shown up at all, but to see him arrive after these amateurish cops – well, it was embarrassing.

"I'm sensing…" Shawn put one hand to his temple, the other was preoccupied with applying pressure to his aching jaw "… that he was a bit busy getting us out of these high-tech fancy schmancy handcuffs." In the aftermath of the attack, Shawn had noticed that the cuffs that had bound him were nothing like the ones he made a game of swiping from Lassiter at every available opportunity, which were of the regular lock-and-key variety. These were different, electronic or something, and since Shawn knew he wasn't telekinetic, they must have been triggered from the outside.

"That's right." Chuck continued. "ELM74.1 handcuffs. Electronic Locking Mechanism 74.1. They operate on a radio frequency – 74.1 Hz. I recognized them because they're in the…" Chuck's voice trailed off as he realized that he had just come dangerously close to revealing that he had the Intersect to a room full of complete strangers. "…the Complete Idiot's Guide to Being a Spy. I memorized it when I was a kid." Casey let out a low guttural laugh despite himself. If there was ever a target audience for a book like that, it was Bartowski.

"Is that true, Casey?"

"Yeah, I caught on pretty quick to the fact that Chuck's little speech back there was mostly for my benefit. I would've had you out sooner had these two idiots not tried to arrest me." Casey gestured toward Lassiter and Juliet, who had been silent throughout this entire exchange.

"Hey, watch who you're calling an idiot!" Lassiter glared, then turned to Shawn. "About that, though… when you're debriefed by Chief Vick, would you mind leaving out the part where we accidentally tried to arrest a CIA agent?"

"It's NSA." Casey growled. Yup, definitely idiots. The lot of them.

"Sure thing. Anything for you, Lassikins." Despite his cheerful demeanor, Shawn was visibly wincing with pain.

"Shawn, you're hurt. We should get you to a hospital." Juliet spoke up with audible concern.

"Actually, I can take a look at that for you." Chuck made his way over to Shawn. "I share a house with two doctors, I've picked up a few things over the years." he offered by way of explanation. He hoped that the Intersect contained more than just 'a few things' on medicine, like how to identify a broken bone, for instance. Fortunately, it did.

"You're lucky bro, you took a hard punch, but it looks like the bone's not broken, just bruised. You should ice it as soon as we get out of here to keep it from swelling." Bro? Where had that come from? It unnerved Chuck just how much he sounded like Captain Awesome when he was playing doctor.

"Thanks, man." Shawn tried to smile, but it hurt too much.

---------

As Shawn stumbled into the back seat of Lassiter's Crown Victoria, he realized that there was one nagging question at the back of his mind which still hadn't been answered. Actually, there were a lot of questions, but only one which was really worth posing to Lassie and Jules.

"Hey guys…" Shawn mumbled as Juliet helped him into the car.

"Yes, Shawn?"

"How did you ever find me out here? I mean, I sensed that Gus ratted me out, but how did you track me to this warehouse?"

"Through good detective work, of course." replied Lassiter as he turned the key in the ignition. Juliet rolled her eyes.

"Actually, we got lucky. When Gus called us, he sounded pretty worried, so we figured you were probably up to no good. He remembered that your first call had been from Burbank, and you mentioned wanting to try something called 'sizzling shrimp.' It was a long shot but that was all we had to go on, so we Googled it." Lassiter sighed, the way O'Hara told it made things sound much less impressive.

"Turns out some guy named Morgan Grimes has a whole fan site dedicated to this stuff. Pointed us right to the Bamboo Dragon, and we tailed you from there." Lassiter cut back in.

"Anyways, the important thing is that you're safe now, Shawn." Juliet turned around to face him in the back seat of the car. "Shawn?"

But Shawn had not heard a word either detective said, curled up as he was in a slumbering ball in the rear of the Crown Vic.