A/N: Again, special thanks to a fan fiction member that provided some priceless help and advice for this and some of the following chapters, and that would be, of course, NickyR.

She turned out to be a very smart, creative, observant, understanding ….. well, if I continue with the full list, the author's note will turn out longer than the chapter itself. Furthermore, the rest of the writers will line up for her advice as well, and since they are all better than me, I'll end up again out there in the cold.

So, shhhh, it's a top secret how good she is (wink, wink). It's for your personal Intersect only. Please don't flash on her. (no pun intended :) )

Chapter IX

Family Time, Romeo Time

Chuck had just gotten back into Casa Bartowski.

Strange, the lights were off here. He wondered what was going on with the party preparations.

Where on earth were Ellie and Devon?

He reached the couch and sat down there, without turning the lights on. He needed to take a break, gather his thoughts.

There was silence for a minute or so he thought.

But then it started.

Noises. Those were baaad, ... bad noises. They were coming from Ellie and Devon's bedroom.

Groans. And moans, mixed with 'awesome' and 'this is so awesome' exclamations.

Chuck didn't wait for the thumping or any other rhythmic noises to start. He had a pretty good idea where this was going.

He had jumped up and rushed into his bedroom. Earplugs, earplugs!

Chuck had pairs of earplugs strategically deployed everywhere around the house so that he could reach a pair in less than 2 seconds if need be.

And boy, he had needed them more than often.

Chuck was now in his bed, earplugs in place, and headphones on top of them. Just to be on the safe side.

'That's my last night under the same roof with the Tomcats, I swear!' he hissed.

Tomcats was his special nickname for Ellie and Devon every time they were making all these noises.

'I have to talk to my father,' he reminded himself again. 'He has to write a program for me, to delete those from my head! First job tomorrow!'

He was watching now the tiny green lights of his alarm clock, counting the minutes. 12 minutes later he decided to remove one of the earplugs.

Silence. So much for married life, he thought, shaking his head.

'Thank you god, that it's finally over.' He said but stayed on tenterhooks for another 15 minutes before feeling safe. He knew that sometimes there was a repeat.

Chuck got up and walked into the living room again.

There was silence now. He had headed to the lights switch to turn it on when he heard some noise again.

It was different. What was that? He approached their room. Somebody was talking inside. He had to press his ear to the door in order to discern.

'Where is Chuck Bartowski?' somebody was hissing inside. 'Don't move or you're dead!'

'We have to take the woman, ... boss didn't say anything about a man,' somebody whispered.

'So we shoot him?'

'I don't know, ... guess so. Let me talk to the boss.'

Somebody was dialing a number.

Chuck realized he didn't have any time to call for help. The Amazon division was useless anyway.

Somebody was talking on the phone. 'Yeah, OK, kill him.'

'Oh god, Ellie, Devon,' Chuck exclaimed. Then he saw some bright light, the nausea, he was staggering. Those flashes had been getting shorter and shorter recently.

'Thank god the kung fu was uploading, he had thought. 'Oh no, that was not one of those Bruce Lee movies. What was going on?'

Romeo, what Romeo? Another program had uploaded in his brain before that as well, however. It had been analyzing the audio waves inside Ellie's bedroom. There were three people and now he knew their exact location and distance from the door.

He made two steps backwards and kicked the door. It wasn't the Chuck Bartowski awkward kick. It was a Jet Li one. Somehow Chuck had missed this movie*, probably because he was studying for an exam at Stanford when it was premiered.

Chuck raced inside, making two large jumps inside Ellie's room, like those acrobats in sports gymnastics, and then a front somersault. Once his legs were ahead of him again they had reached two of the intruders, who were in black ninja outfits. With a violent scissors he kicked their guns simultaneously and was now landing a little behind them, close to the third intruder.

He used the kinetic energy of the landing to push away the gun with his left hand of the third and gave him a devastating uppercut in the chin. He didn't have time to see what happened to the poor ninja flying high in the air now.

He had immediately turned his head to see where the closest gun was and had plunged toward it. He grabbed the gun and, while still lying on the floor, shot the farther intruder who was reaching for his gun.

Then Chuck pointed the gun toward the last viable ninja and yelled: 'Don't you dare move!'

Only then did he realize that it wasn't a normal gun but a tranq. The model used only one dart.

The third ninja kicked it with a really violent kick but Chuck didn't mind that at all.

His body wasn't lying on the floor any more. It was engaged in a violent twirl with his right leg sweeping the left leg of his opponent that was still firm on the ground.

Now both ninja legs were high in the air and he was about to land almost on his head in half a second.

Chuck had all the time in the world already to stand on his left leg, still kneeling, so he jumped in the air, joining his opponent in the air, landing over him. There was no need to hit him any more as the bad guy had lost consciousness hitting his head against the floor really, really hard.

Chuck looked around. He saw the naked couple in the bed totally freaked out, but he didn't say anything to them.

Still on the floor, he pulled out his mobile and dialed the hotel reception of Sarah's hotel. Somebody answered.

The audio analyzing program told Chuck that it was Agent Specter, the one he talked to the morning after Ellie's wedding.

'Agent Specter, Carmichael here, special agent Charles Carmichael,' Chuck was shushing this with somebody's famous Scottish accent.

'We were attacked by three assailants, I disabled them but there could be more coming. I need some back up asap. Understood?'

'Yes, sir. Where are agents Walker and Falcone anyway?

They've been disabled as well.' Carmichael answered. By themselves, he remembered. 'Amateurs!' he shook his head.

'Waiting for you here, over.' Chuck hung up and looked around for the guns. He picked all of them – only one was tranq, the rest were live.

He looked at the couple. The woman was unconscious, the man was checking her vitals.

His eyes went unfocused. He was slowly coming back to "Chuck' now...

'Devon, is she ok?' Chuck yelled desperately, jumping up.

'Yeah, she's fine. Pulse a little fast but that's all, don't worry, bro.' Devon had turned to Chuck.

'Bro, …. Woooooow! Where did you learn all this cool stuff?'

'It's a long story Devon, no time for this now.' Chuck was thinking. 'Put a gown on Ellie and let's go. We can't wait for the NSA people, here, we're going.'

'Where Chuck?'

'Just do it Devon, you'll see.'

Chuck still had Sarah's Porsche keys – there were also keys for the Orange Orange and the Castle there.

'I'm waiting for you two in the living room.' He said to Devon.

But first, he took all the weapons and went to one of the ninjas and lifted his mask. He didn't know him.

He sighed. Others must have been coming.

He was waiting in the living room when Devon came puffing and carrying his unconscious wife.

'Where're we heading bro?' he whispered, watching around.

'Get her in the car, I'll tell you there.'

While Devon was fitting Ellie into her car on the back seat, Chuck had gone to check on the drunken Amazons. They were still sleeping there, Sarah on the couch and the rest were in the armchairs. He entered with his hands on his eyes opening them only for a second. Yeah, they seemed to be naked so he turned around and went out.

He called the hotel reception again and told the agent that he was heading to the castle so they sent one car here to protect the sleeping agents and the other one to join him.

He got into Ellie's car and sped off.

"Where we heading bro," Devon asked again.

'The Castle, Devon,'

'Castle, what castle Chuck, are you sure you're ok? Do you mean Neverland's castle, Michael Jackson's? Wow, is that your base there now?

'No, Devon, under the Orange Orange, the Castle.'

"Orange Orange, the yoghurt shop?, "Devon was flabbergasted.

"Never mind Devon, you'll see.' Chuck was really irritated now, but not at his in-law.

He had left Sarah and the rest unprotected for several minutes, less than 10, according to his own calculations. He had locked the door of Casey's and turned the lights off. But still.

20 minutes later Chuck was parking the car at Orange Orange. He got out and unlocked the door. While Devon was carrying Ellie inside Chuck called the hotel reception.

'Specter, have your people arrived at Casey's? Chuck asked, with his heart pounding.

'Yes sir, but there was nobody there.'

'What? They were there only 15 minutes ago, 20 actually. Chuck was horrified now, watching at his mobile unbelieving.

Somebody was calling his phone so he switched. It was Sarah. Oh, God!

'Sarah are you ok?' he asked, trembling.

'Yeah Chuck and you, where are you now?'

'We are at the yoghurt shop, entering the Castle. You?'

'We thought you'd be driving to the hotel so we headed there, we are almost there now. Will take some agents with us and come to join you. Lock the doors and stay put there, OK?'

'Yeah, over,' he hung up and started opening the inside door of the shop, then led Devon to the secret passage, all the way down to the Castle.

Xxx

Carina, Sarah and her cousin didn't even reach the hotel. They had turned around and were heading to the castle.

'We have to take care of Ellie and Devon now, they can't be around until this is over,' Sarah started. 'We simply won't be able to protect them in the hospital, home, when going out, socializing …. ' Sarah was shaking her head.

'Yeah,' Carina nodded. 'We'll have to think of something. Maybe our bosses should talk to the hospital management to reassign them to a military facility or something. I mean temporarily, of course. One way or another they have to disappear for the time being, or something really bad may finally happen. We can't take any more chances.'

Sarah had no idea that Carina was behind all of this from the beginning.

First, Carina had sedated her at Casey's as she wasn't sure she would agree to participate.

Then she and Lisa had put on the second part of the drunkard show to send Chuck back there with Ellie and Devon. The three intruders were actually DEA agents Carina had asked to participate.

The bullets in the live guns were blank.

The only potential danger in the whole operation was if Ellie had got too frightened and this could have potentially affected the baby.

Carina had talked to doctors and they told her to sedate her, give her something to keep her blood pressure and pulse low, and inhibit somewhat the adrenaline formation. In fact Ellie hadn't gone unconscious in the end. A slow tranquilizer had finally gotten to her. But she had witnessed the action.

Carina and Lisa had put the first part of their drunkard show in order to get Ellie to try the wine, which contained the drug. Had Ellie refused to drink at all, Carina had plan B – to spray her lightly on their way out.

It was time for Ellie to learn the truth about her brother. Find out that he was a hero. And hopefully agree to disappear for the time being. It had become too dangerous.

The only thing that surprised Carina was that Chuck flashed on a different karate technique and performed all these acrobatic stunts. Wow. She and Lisa had watched it live as the cameras inside the Casa were on. As always. Once Chuck went out and headed to Casey's apartment she and Lisa had returned to their sleeping positions.

The other thing that surprised her was how good Lisa was. She knew that Sarah's cousin would be good, but she deserved an Oscar for this. No wonder Lisa had conned here initially with the legally blonde thing.

Carina couldn't believe her luck. She had been looking for a partner like this for years. No luck. She had almost lost hope. But now she had hit her jackpot.

"Great,' she exhaled loudly and pressed further on the accelerator even though they were now a minute away from the Castle.

"What?' both Sarah and Lisa asked, surprised what could be so great.

'Nothing, I'm just happy that Chuck and his family are OK.' Carina smiled on the outside. Inside, she was screaming, "YESSSSSSSSS"

Chuck was nowhere near to detect that this was just another of her half-lies.

Xxx