Title: Crossing the Line

Author: Night_Lotus

Rating: R for this chapter, and NC-17 in later chapters

Word Count: 2,294

Chapter: 2/?

Disclaimer: I neither own Chuck nor its marvelous characters, but because of the creative genius of Chris Fedak and Joshua Schwartz, I have the opportunity to play in their sandbox.

Summary: Ellie accidently intercepts an email meant for her brother, Chuck, and is left with the Intersect computer embedded in her brain. She and her NSA handler, Major John Casey, are tasked with a delicate operation by General Beckman.

Author's Note: AU, but takes place mostly within the Season 2 timeframe of "Chuck." Any errors and/or omissions are mine and mine alone. Thanks for joining me on this journey.

Ellie set the champagne-colored bag down on her dresser, fingering the delicate lacy ribbon tied in an elegant bow around the handles. Nestled amidst the clouds of pearly tissue paper filling the bag was the "sexy" that Casey had so cockily requested earlier that day.

She started laughing. Laughing at the completely unbelievable situation she found herself in. In the space of about a year, she'd unwillingly had a top-secret super computer filled with classified government intelligence crammed into her brain, watched her relationship with Devon disintegrate before her eyes, started spinning outrageous lies to her family and friends, had her life threatened more times than she cared to count and finally accepted that she was hopelessly in love with her tall, dark and snarky handler.

Somewhat akin to the images that she experienced when she flashed, Ellie started reliving the past.

A little more than a year ago…

Even after a particularly tedious 12 hour stint at the hospital, Ellie was positively bouncy as she turned the key in the lock and opened the door to her apartment. It was Friday night, and she had the next two days off. Better yet, Devon was in Baja for the weekend, cliff diving with a passel of his adrenaline-addicted bros and Chuck was working a couple of extra shifts at the Buy More to earn some pocket change for his upcoming trip with Morgan to Comic-Con. Finally, some blissfully quiet time alone to do whatever she wanted.

She had just crossed the threshold, flipped on the lights and set her purse down on the dining room table, when her cell phone rang. She fished the phone from her purse, glancing at the name on the screen before flipping it open as she walked down the hall toward the bedroom.

"Hi Chuck. What's up?"

"Hey, Sis, I need a favor."

"Where are you?" she questioned, disgusted by the obnoxiously long and loud belch that erupted in the background.

"Oh, me, Morgan and some of the guys are competing in an after-hours Call of Duty tournament against a few of the Large Mart employees."

"Naked keg stands for whoever loses the first round. I'll prime the pump!" Jeff slurred in the background.

"Chuck!" Ellie warned, her jaw jutting out in response to her mounting frustration.

"Sorry, sorry!" Chuck apologized. "Jeff, why don't you help Lester set up the Xboxes in the home theater room?" Chuck suggested out of the side of his mouth, motioning with his head toward the home theater room.

Ellie sighed, using her ear to pin the phone to her shoulder as she removed her tennis shoes, resting them on the shoe rack inside the bedroom closet. "What do you need Chuck?"

"Yeah," he said, returning his focus to the call. "El, can you go into my room and check my computer for an email from Morgan? He sent me a cheat code last night for the game, and I forgot to forward it to my work email address."

"Isn't Morgan there with you? And really, Chuck, haven't you learned your lesson about cheating?"

"No, he's on a grape soda and nachos run, and he isn't answering his cell phone, and it isn't really cheating, well, not really…" he trailed off, laughing nervously. "Anyway, do you mind El?"

"Okay," she said entering his bedroom, picking up a stray pair of socks lying on the floor next to his computer desk and tossing them in the hamper out of habit.

Since Chuck always left his computer in hibernation mode, it only took a simple tap of the mouse for it to come back to life. Ellie clicked the email icon and sat down at the desk, waiting for the inbox to load. As soon as she spotted the email from Morgan, entitled "Mondo Cheat Codes," she opened it.

"Okay, Chuck, are you ready?" she asked, her eyes scanning down to the bottom of the message where Morgan had included three separate codes comprised of a combination of letters, numbers and symbols that looked like senseless gibberish to her.

"Go!" Chuck responded, shouting above the booming base and sounds of hip hop blasting through the Buy More. Ellie proceeded to read the codes to Chuck and had her finger poised on the mouse button about to minimize Chuck's email client, when an animated envelope whizzed across the screen announcing that Chuck had a new email from Bryce Larkin.

"Bryce Larkin? she boggled, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear, a mix of astonishment and ire pervading her tone as she peered more closely at the screen.

Back at the Buy More, Chuck's grip on his phone involuntarily tightened and his eyebrows shot up in surprise as his eyes widened. "Wha…Bryce Larkin? What made you think of him all of a sudden, Ellie?"

Not hesitating, she opened the email. "That's just it, I didn't. You just got an email from Bryce and all it says is 'The terrible troll raises his sword,' and there is a textbox underneath with a blinking cursor." Her hackles and her suspicion were rising. "What is this about, Chuck?"

"Oh my God, I haven't thought about that in years!" Chuck muttered, more to himself than to her.

Ellie continued to fret, chewing nervously on her lower lip. "I don't like this Chuck. What does it mean, and why are you hearing from Bryce now, especially after what happened at school?"

Chuck paced back and forth in front of the Nerd Herd desk, trying to process what was going on, while trying to filter out the cacophony of the belching contest taking place in the background. He snapped his fingers three times in rapid succession, a huge white-toothed grin breaking out on his face, signaling a moment of eureka. "I've got it. Okay, Ellie, type this in the text box: 'Attack troll with nasty knife.'"

"Honestly, Chuck? Explain to me what's going on. Now!" Chuck cringed as Ellie's mom voice pierced his eardrum through the phone. "Honestly, sis, I don't know. I haven't heard from Bryce since I got kicked out of Stanford, but there's obviously something important he needs to tell me, otherwise, he wouldn't have used an encryption question only he and I know the answer to, just to access a simple email. "The question and answer are from a version of the game Zork that Bryce and I created when we were roommates," Chuck explained.

"Well, let's find out what he wants," she said as the words 'attack troll with nasty knife' filled the text box as she typed. She clicked the "Ok" button under the textbox, and at first, nothing happened. Then, suddenly the computer screen was filled with pulsing images that flickered in front of her eyes so quickly that she did not fully comprehend what she was seeing, yet she was unable to look away. Pictures of beautiful blooming flowers and bright orange goldfish were overlaid with photographs of bloody, dead bodies, bomb schematics, explosions and missiles.

She started feeling sick to her stomach, and the next thing she knew, she felt a hand shaking shoulder and heard Chuck's voice repeating her name over and over again from very far away.

"Ellie? Hey, c'mon Ellie, wake up," Chuck pleaded. She cracked her eyes open and lifted her head, which felt like it was the recipient of a world-class hangover. "What – Chuck – how did I?" Unable to finish her thought, she rested her head on her arms and closed her eyes again.

"No, no, no, don't do that." Chuck shook her shoulder again. Only receiving a small, pitiful moan in response, he picked her up from the chair and carried her out of the apartment to the Nerd Herder parked outside. As he buckled her into the passenger seat, Ellie started regaining consciousness again. "Chuck, why am I in your car, and where are you taking me?" She looked around and groaned as a sharp pain lanced through her skull.

Chuck put the car in reverse and looked over his shoulder as he backed out. "I'm taking you the emergency room. El, it took me almost five minutes to get you to acknowledge me and speak in incomplete sentences. I got worried after we got disconnected earlier and you wouldn't answer your cell phone when I called back, so I came home to check on you. I found you lying face down on my desk in a puddle of your own drool."

The look of confusion on her face was quickly replaced by one of fear. "The last thing I remember was trying to open an email from Bryce Larkin. After that, everything is blank." "It's going to be okay, El," Chuck soothed, covering her hand with his as he sped toward the hospital.

After enduring the embarrassment of being worried over by a bevy of her colleagues and undergoing a host of diagnostic tests, Ellie was given a clean bill of health, but ordered by the ER chief of staff to take a few days off to rest before returning to work.

While she started feeling better almost immediately and took the prescribed time off, Ellie still couldn't shake the feeling that something was seriously wrong. An almost continuous sense of déjà vu hounded her night and day, edging along her spine, setting her composure on edge.

The first time she flashed, what happened was more than just simply unexpected. It nearly brought her to her knees. She sat at one of the computers at the nurse's station, completing her electronic charting. The three nurses working the night shift were attending to patients, and she was thankful for the quiet and the time to catch her breath before her workday ended.

Finally finished, she rose to leave, glancing at the headlines on the newspaper lying on the desk. Her eyes drifted to the picture of a well-known fugitive who was recently apprehended. Her entire body froze, her eyelids lowered, partially shuttering her eyes, and a series of rapid-fire, gruesome images flooded her vision as stone-cold facts about the serial killer's previous victims filled her mind. In reality, all of this happened in the space of a few seconds, but for her, it felt like an eternity. After it was over, she almost collapsed from the shock of it, grasping the desk until her knuckles turned white, slowly sinking down into the chair, holding her forehead in the palm of her hand.

She pulled the newspaper closer and read the article that accompanied the photograph, which confirmed everything she had already "seen" in her mind. Since she recently had a CAT scan, she knew she didn't have a brain tumor, so she must be simply losing her mind. "What the hell is happening to me and why?" she whispered.

The "what" and the "why" were explained shortly after Ellie met the sweet and friendly new blonde cashier working in the hospital cafeteria and the towering and gorgeous new patient tech assigned to her floor.

Within seconds after Bryce Larkin clicked send as he bled to death on the cold concrete, courtesy of the life-ending lead pumped into his body by the NSA assassin, the U.S. government confirmed the recipient of the email.

The NSA and CIA sent their top agents, Major John Casey and Sarah Walker, to recover the intelligence leaked by Larson and eliminate any associated threats to national security. While no evidence, data or otherwise, of the Intersect remained on Charles Bartowski's hard drive, the agents did learn through careful and sometimes confusing observation that the Intersect apparently resided within the neural network of his sister, Dr. Eleanor Faye Bartowski. After they sussed this out, Walker and Casey assumed cover jobs at the hospital where Ellie worked, forming, at first, a distrusting and uneasy alliance to protect the Asset.

Back in her bedroom, Ellie stood at the dresser, idly tracing the pale pink script lettering on the lingerie bag, slowing spelling the word "Temptations" with her index finger as she recalled the first time she met Major John Casey.

It was nearing two a.m. and the completion of what turned out to be a 14 hour shift. There was a multiple car accident on the freeway, which involved not one, but two jack- knifed semis. Broken and bleeding motorists were rushed to the ER all night long, and Ellie and the rest of the ER team were able to save most of them. One of the truck drivers didn't make it, and a female passenger in one of the cars was touch and go in intensive care. But, by hospital standards, they scored a victory that day.

Feeling the fatigue down to the roots of her long, dark hair, which was bobbing in a pony tail as she walked briskly to the staff locker room to change, Ellie hit a wall, literally. Rounding the corner, she collided with what felt like warm, contoured steel. Barely getting out a squeak of protest, she bounced off and was headed for a seat on the floor when two large hands firmly wrapped around her upper arms, steadying her and drawing her close.

Still startled, she looked up at the very handsome – no, hot – she corrected herself, face of the dark-haired scrub-clad man holding her in his arms. Their eyes met, and Ellie found herself adrift in a brilliant sea of blue. She would still be floating there contentedly had he not flashed her the sexiest smile she'd ever seen and introduced himself. It was part bad-boy smirk coupled with an 'I like what I see, too' grin, which jolted her to the core.

Still smiling, he released her from his embrace, engulfing her smaller hand in his large, warm, slightly roughened one. "Hi, I'm John."

TBC

Next: Casey and Ellie have a slumber party.