A/N the First: Gotta tell you, sometimes it's a relief to actually understand NFL rules so that I can give these chapter titles things that mean something. Also, thanks to everybody who's still reading and for all of the congratulations. I won't be abandoning all of my fanfic, but I will probably write less of it. Thanks also to my awesome beta reader.

First Down

"Okay, that's it."

Ellie's voice cut through the kitchen, breaking up what could have been a potential bout of fisticuffs over a dice roll in Candy Land. Chuck, who had his hands over Violet's ears to at least filter out some of Casey's profanity at not getting the color he wanted, looked over at his sister in surprise. He recognized the tone. Hurricane Ellie was about to blow through and lay waste to everything in her path.

"What's up, babe?" Awesome asked, speaking for all of them at the table.

"We're getting out of here."

"We've been in the cabin less than twenty-four hours," Chuck said. He realized that he was still holding Violet's ears, so he lowered his hands and put them back on his computer keyboard. He wasn't playing Candy Land, as he had his laptop open and was fiddling with a bit of code, but it seemed prudent to be around to referee, and he wanted to give Sarah some space to hunt for any bugs that the government might have planted without their knowledge.

Of course, if there were bugs outside, after that little snow make-out, they were probably screwed. He was trying not to think about it, and by not thinking about it, he was only thinking about it more. As a result, he felt jumpy and needy and vaguely embarrassed to be around so many people. That was why he had the computer.

Ellie pointed at Casey and Morgan. "Those two are arguing already, and that is not a good sign, Chuck. Not a good sign. So tonight we're going into Carson City and going to a casino, like actual adults."

"Except for Violet, who is, in fact, a small child," Morgan said.

"Yes, thank you, Morgan, we're aware of that," Ellie said.

"But I'm gonna be an adult soon," Violet said in a whisper to Morgan.

He patted her on the head and she glowered.

"We can't all go, somebody's got to stay with Byt—I mean, Megabyte," Chuck said.

"I can stay by myself," Violet said. "I'm almost twelve."

"Nice try," Ellie, Chuck, and Awesome said together, and Violet pouted a little.

"We'll draw straws to see who gets to hang out with Violet tonight," Ellie said. "But this is mandatory adult night. We're not going to be shut-ins for this entire trip."

From the doorway, he heard Sarah's chuckle. She leaned against the doorjamb wearing a blue sweater with white snowflakes on the front and fuzzy purple socks. "Chuck and I don't mind staying here so the rest of you can go out, have a good time."

She gave Chuck a significant look, and he realized that the cabin must be bug-free after all. His heart-rate picked up quite a bit.

"Yeah," he said. "We don't mind at all. That's cool."

"Nope," Ellie said. "You two get plenty of alone time in L.A., you can suffer through one night of going out and being adults with social lives. So we're drawing straws and we're going to be adults, got it?"

"I really don't mind," Chuck said. "Really."

"Nope," Ellie said again. She pulled toothpicks out of the drawer and broke one in half, holding out a handful. Reluctantly, Chuck sighed and selected his toothpick—a long one. He was going to the casinos tonight, apparently.

"Okay," Ellie said, "now that Morgan's got the short straw—"

"No, I don't," Morgan said.

"I do." Sarah held up the broken toothpick.

Ellie stared at it. "Drat," she said. "I thought I'd rigged that better."

"I'm so happy about losing all of Chuck's money at the casino that I'm not even going to take offense to the fact that you wanted to leave me behind, Eleanor," Morgan said.

"I don't know, I think I might take offense to that," Chuck said, frowning at his sister.

"Does that mean it's just going to be you and me tonight, Sarah?" Violet asked.

"Looks like. Chuck, you got a moment?"

"We're going to discuss this trying to leave Morgan behind thing," Chuck said, pointing at Ellie as he climbed to his feet. He closed his laptop.

"Can't wait," she said, and because she turned away, he had to figure she was rolling her eyes.

He did the mature thing and stuck his tongue out at his sister as he followed Sarah out of the kitchen. After the door closed behind him, he said, "What did you want to talk about—oof."

He didn't know if it was some spy trick to grab belt loops and yank, but it definitely caught him off-balance. He stumbled forward into the little hallway between the living room and the downstairs washroom, bumping right into Sarah so that they kind of crashed into the wall together. His entire system kicked immediately into overdrive, which only intensified when she kissed him. It took him a second to adjust from playing a board game with his family to being pressed up against Sarah in the hall with her lips on his, but thankfully, he'd always been a quick study. He kissed her back, the hand that had been planted against the wall sliding into her hair so that his fingers teased her neck.

"No bugs, I'm guessing?" he asked, pulling back just a fraction.

Sarah gave him a less-than-patient look.

For some reason, it only made him grin. "Or are there bugs and we're both risking treason? Because I won't lie, right now I find that incredibly hot."

"We should get your head checked."

"It's full. There's an Intersect in there and everything."

Sarah made a strangled noise that almost sounded like a laugh. She unhooked her fingers from his belt loops and grabbed his face instead, her fingers digging in insistently as she hauled him down for another kiss. Just like that, Chuck found their positions reversed as Sarah backed him into the opposite wall. His shoulder blades bumped into what he was pretty sure was a painting of ducks or something, and any thoughts of teasing her about her urgency promptly abandoned him. So did most of his thoughts, actually.

If anything, really, he was just as urgent, his hands roaming all over her body or fisting in her hair as they kissed. Two months of secret looks, stolen kisses, and clandestine touching. Of the frustration of having everything he could possibly want right there within reach—hell, usually in bed next to him because appearances had to be kept up—and held back from him by red tape and orders and the thing in his head. When Sarah moaned, he wanted to do exactly the same. He dragged his fingertips along the strip of her skin where her sweater and jeans met as he kissed his way down her neck. Her little shudder in reply made him smile against her skin.

Sadly, though, she leaned back and hooked her arms around his neck. She was breathing just as hard as he was. "I've been wanting to do that all day."

The look on his face was probably entering dopey territory. He didn't really care. "You realize I'm never going to be able to concentrate if I know you're thinking about this kind of thing, right?"

"Maybe that's why I told you in the first place." She tilted her chin up to give him a dainty kiss on the corner of his mouth. "All part of my evil plan."

"Oh, god, that's pure torture," Chuck said. He leaned his head back against the portrait and closed his eyes, which was really his way of trying to gain more self-control. If he looked at Sarah, just stood there and looked at her, he was going to forget again that on the other side of the wall were five very sarcastic and mouthy people, one of whom would be scarred for life if she witnessed this little tableau. He could actually feel his heart pounding in his ears, which made him smile a little. "Hopefully we'll at least be able to give my concentration a proper burial, since knowing that, it's really not long for this earth."

"I've got a few ideas," Sarah said. She kissed him slowly this time, deliberately, her tongue teasing his so that he was the one groaning.

No, wait, that sounded more like a grunt. And it wasn't coming from him.

Chuck froze. He felt something suspiciously like a chuckle coming from Sarah's midsection before they broke the kiss. "Can I help you, Major?" she asked.

If he didn't open his eyes, then maybe this wasn't happening, Chuck decided. But "Oh, crap!" seemed to fit the situation.

There was another grunt, this time even more annoyed, and Chuck finally ceded to the inevitable. He opened his eyes to see Casey standing at the edge of the hallway, looking like somebody had scratched his beloved Crown Victoria. His massive arms were folded across his equally massive chest. "Are you trying to eat the Asset's face, Walker? There are easier ways to kill him than giving him cardiac arrest by taking off your shirt."

Chuck's eyes crossed briefly at the vision. "What a way to die. Ow, no hair-pulling."

Sarah gave him a briefly contrite look before she turned her glower on Casey. "I am going to ignore your comment about my killer abs, Casey—"

"Did you just make a pun?" Chuck asked, gaping.

Sarah sighed. "Did you need something?" she asked Casey.

"I thought," Casey said, glaring hard enough that Chuck reluctantly dropped his hands to his sides (Sarah did not relinquish her hold on his neck), "you two had stepped out to discuss security detail for this evening, but given the…sexual deviancy in this hallway, I'm assuming you've swept the cabin for bugs."

"Yup," Sarah said.

"Walker, for Patton's sake, unhand the nerd."

Sarah raised her eyebrow and for a moment, Chuck actually worried that it might come to blows. But she let him go and crossed her arms over her chest, mirroring Casey's stance. "Did you want something, Casey?"

"Look, I got nothing against you two knocking boots, but do me a favor and keep it behind locked doors. Walker, you've got the midget tonight?"

"Is midget really an appropriate term here?" Chuck asked.

The spies ignored him. "Yes," Sarah said to Casey.

Casey's silence made Chuck squint at him suspiciously, but eventually the NSA officer nodded. "Good job rigging the toothpicks."

"Why, thank you, Casey. I was not expecting to hear a compliment from you." Sarah broke off with a puzzled frown. "Ever. I don't think you'll have to worry about security detail too much tonight. Though you might want to stay out of the cabin."

"I did not want or need to know that," Casey said, rubbing a hand down his face. He pointed at Chuck. "If you leave me stranded with the gnome, you will owe me one, do you understand me? And I wasn't kidding about the locked doors."

He stomped away.

"Wh-what is he talking about?" Chuck asked. "Stranding him with the gn—oh, he's talking about Morgan. You know, people around here really need to start respecting the man with the beard."

"He's a good man to have on your side in a snowball fight," Sarah said. She pushed her hands through her hair and finally gave him an almost shy smile. "Hi. Sorry for the—you know, attacking you."

"Uh, no, really, it was my pleasure." And truthfully, he was counting the seconds until it could happen again, but if the universe had created a better buzzkill than John Casey's glare, Chuck had yet to see it. So he stuffed his hands in his pockets and gave her one of her dopiest smiles in return. "What's Casey talking about?"

"Probably about how you're going to hang around for twenty minutes at the casinos before you get a text from me that Violet's not handling being away from home without her daddy," Sarah said, shrugging. "I figure that's an excuse Ellie will find acceptable."

Chuck felt the ambient temperature in the room rise a couple dozen degrees. "Miss Walker, you're trying to seduce me," he said.

"Well, yes." She raised her eyebrow at him and leaned against the opposite wall. Chuck's mind went a little blurry at the thought, but apparently Casey's glare-as-buzzkill was still in effect for her, too. Neither of them made a move toward the other. "But more importantly, we don't really want you running loose in a casino. With the sort that you find in these places, there's a higher risk you'll flash on something."

He blinked a couple of times. "Oh. Huh, I didn't think of that."

"And if you do, we're honor-bound to at least investigate, and we don't have the structural support up here, plus there's a heightened risk of your sister and the others finding us out."

It was true that he tended to flash in public places, which had led to some pretty zany adventures over the past few months. But he hadn't realized that Casey and Sarah might find that just as annoying as he did. "Huh," he said again. "Does that mean I get a week of staying at the cabin and hanging out with you?"

"I'll make it worth your while," Sarah said, and Chuck was busy coughing when the kitchen door opened and a small face peeked around the corner.

"Hi," Vi said. "Uncle Awesome wants to know if you're taking Major Casey Sir's place in Candy Land, Sarah. Or you, too, Daddy."

"Or are they too biz-zay?" Morgan sing-songed from the kitchen.

"Morgan!" Ellie, Awesome, and Chuck said together.

Sarah ran the tips of her fingers down Chuck's arm, giving him one last smile before she dove at Vi, making the girl giggle. "Is Major Casey Sir in the lead?"

"He's in last place." Vi dodged out of the way, shrieking a little. Her grin was positively sunny as she leaned forward and whispered, "I think that's why he left."

"Casey? A poor sport? Imagine that," Chuck said, and all three of them looked over as the man's namesake suddenly rolled over, one ear flopping dramatically over his head. Sir regarded his three humans—for there could be no denying that that's what they were, with Sarah taking him for his morning run, Vi being his human, and Chuck being the schlub that took care of everything else—with a cocked head for a moment. And then, like an elephant slowly lumbering to its feet, he rose and padded over, straight to Chuck. He rested one massive paw on Chuck's knee.

"Your turn," Sarah said, as that was Sir's symbol for ‛It's time to commune with nature now, please.'

Chuck groaned. His stuff was still mostly wet from the snowball fight earlier, but there was no turning down the two smiles aimed at him. "Oh, all right," he said to the dog. "But you owe me one, buster."

Sir gave him a doggy grin and raced for the mudroom.

Chuck and Morgan had gone to Vegas once, just after their twenty-first birthdays, while Chuck was on a break from Stanford and Morgan still had his old rattletrap car that had ultimately wheezed its last, obnoxious wheeze on the Mojave Freeway outside of Victorville. He remembered thinking it was dingy and kind of dark, permanently trapped in amber like some dinosaur from the sixties and seventies.

The Carson City Nugget casino was worse.

"Ellie wanted us to go here why?" Morgan asked, frowning as he adjusted his jacket.

"Well, technically, Ellie wanted you to stay home with Vi," Chuck said. He'd had words with his sister about that, about how Morgan was basically a part of the family now as Violet's uncle and how the sabotage was really uncool. Ellie had just given him a Look.

"I think I'd prefer to stay home, almost," Morgan said, side-stepping a man in a cowboy hat and honest to god leather chaps (thankfully he had jeans on under them).

Chuck thought of Sarah and the particularly searing look she'd given him before he had been bundled out the door with the others. "Me too."

Casey's grunt essentially translated to: "Ditto."

The three men stood by the entrance to the casino together, hands shoved in their pockets. Chuck was deliberately not looking at any faces, as in precisely thirteen minutes, he was going to receive a text message from Sarah with news that Vi wasn't handling Tahoe well with just Sarah around, and Chuck's presence was needed immediately. And a mission was not going to get in the way of that, not if Charles Irving Bartowski had anything to say about it.

A glance at Casey's face told him that maybe he had bigger things to worry about than a mission, though. It looked like absolutely nothing that would prevent Casey from tagging along if Chuck decided to make his excuses and leave early. And it was going to be hard enough to get some alone time after Vi went to sleep. Adding a gigantic dog and a curmudgeonly NSA agent seemed like a recipe for catastrophe. Morgan would probably tag along, too, come to think of it.

This was not happening.

Abruptly, Chuck straightened up, a new plan in mind. Casey first, he decided.

"Sweet, poker," he said, trying to look enthusiastic. Casey would pride himself on being able to read people or intimidate them out of their money. "Care to make a side-bet, Case? Twenty says I can make more than you."

Casey snorted. "My job matters too much to allow you to make sucker bets."

"Uh, what?" Morgan asked.

"You know what? I'll go get us some beers," Chuck said. "First round's on me. Meet you over at the table?"

He split from Casey, heading for the bar, but Morgan chose to trail after him, hands still in his pockets. He had one of those patterned caps with the flaps on, even though the casino was almost overly warm. "That dude is weird," he said once Chuck had placed an order for Casey's favorite brand of beer. "Are we really sure he's actually related to Sarah? Something definitely went either incredibly wrong or incredibly right in that gene pool."

"Hey," Chuck said.

"I have eyes, Chuck. Do you expect me to deny that the woman is the hottest thing since Zatanna?"

"It's the principle of the thing." Chuck handed over cash for the beers and pushed one to his friend. For a moment, though, neither of them left the bar. Casey had somehow managed to find a table that was full-up, which meant no room for Chuck or Morgan, and Chuck didn't really mind.

One problem down, he thought as he dropped the beer off at Casey's elbow. The size of the pot in the middle of the table made him wince.

"Where to now?" he asked Morgan, and winced when he saw the look on Morgan's face. He recognized that bright-eyed shine of adoration.

"You know it calls to me," Morgan said, already lurching in the direction of the roulette tables. It wasn't Chuck's game—he didn't have anything against it, per se, but he always bet on black because of Wesley Snipes and Wesley Snipes had let him and the IRS down a few too many times for comfort. "I can hear its sweet symphony, humming my name. Morgan Guillermo Grimes, Morgan Guillermo Grimes."

Chuck clapped his best friend on the shoulder. "Then you should answer that call, my good fellow. Though, uh, keep it under fifty, maybe?"

"And always—" Morgan said.

"—Bet on black," Chuck finished with him. "Go with God, my son."

Morgan folded his hands in front of him in a steeple and gave him a short bow. "Aye, my good man. Aye."

"That was surprisingly easy," Chuck said aloud as Morgan bounced away. He immediately cringed. He could practically feel the weight of the words in the air, tempting fate. But when nothing happened for a full minute, he checked his phone—no text from Sarah yet—and with a shrug, headed to the rows of slot machines. He had a few quarters in his pocket and some time to kill and Vi's college fund wasn't going to grow itself, after all.

Ten minutes later and five dollars richer, he sat back and pulled out his phone again.

And right on time, there it was.

"Excellent," Chuck said. Now he had to find Ellie and make his excuses to her, and he could head home to his incredibly tired child and Sarah. A glance at the poker tables told him Casey was up two hundred dollars and wouldn't want to leave. He'd planned this all incredibly well.

Chuck slipped one last quarter into the machine and grinned when the flashing pears promptly handed him twenty dollars in quarters as somebody sat at the slot machine next to his.

And then he heard a feminine clearing of the throat and his entire world froze.

As if confirming his worst fears, the woman followed it up with, "Chuck?"

Chuck turned. "What are you doing here?"

A/N the Second: Jill? WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN LAKE TAHOE, YOU DON'T BELONG IN THIS UNIVERSE.