I still don't own Chuck. I'm not sure who does at this point.

Okay, so the weather outside is frightful. Seventeen inches of snow last night. But inside it's so delightful. So since I've no place to go… I wrote another chapter. :)

One of the decisions the show made that I really didn't care for was Chuck promising Ellie that he would leave the spy life, then breaking that promise and lying to her about it. Not only did it make Chuck look bad, I think Ellie and Devon were far better characters when they were part of the team. If their point was that being a spy meant you had to make sacrifices in your personal life, well I like that. But I do think there were better ways to make that point. The sacrifices should be real… and maybe ultimately not worth it.

If you enjoyed this or any of the stories on this site, please take a second and send the author a review. It only takes a second – and it really, really makes a difference. That's probably more important than ever now that the series has ended. If you want to keep the Chuck fandom alive and continue to read about these characters, you really need to think about rewarding the people whose hard work make that possible.

The Note and the Nerd

x-x-x-x-x

"I am so kicking his ass. He promised me."

Sarah grabbed her best friend's hand. "He felt terrible lying to you," she said softly. "You have to know that. I don't blame you for being upset. But he felt terrible. We both did. We talked about it all the time."

"Then why did he?" Ellie demanded. "Why did you?"

Sarah paused for a moment. "Do you want the short answer?" she finally asked. "Or the long one?"

Ellie finally remembered her assignment… and how important it was. So she clearly took a moment to take a deep breath and calm herself. It would be an exaggeration to say that she had a smile on her face. But there was no longer anger flashing in her eyes. "Let's start with the short one," she said. "We can work from there."

Sarah took her own deep breath. "He really did quit," she finally began. "For a while anyway. That part wasn't a lie. Then he got a message that your dad had set up before he was killed. It turns out that your dad has been looking for your mom for the past twenty years. He asked Chuck from the grave to take over the search for him. How can you turn down a request like that? He felt like he had to do it. He didn't want you to worry. Anyway, the only way to have the resources to be able to find your mom was to get back into being a spy."

"He's looking for Mom?" Ellie asked, clearly surprised. "I've almost forgotten that I have a mom. Where is she?"

"We don't know," Sarah admitted. "Chuck might be getting closer. All the CIA knows is that she was captured on a mission some twenty years ago."

"A mission?" Ellie asked. "Are you telling me that my mom used to be a CIA Agent, just like you? Who captured her?"

In spite of the tension, Sarah smiled. "Being a CIA Agent isn't something that you ever 'used to be', she said. "Once you become one, it's sort of a lifetime thing. At best, they can sometimes allow you to become inactive, at their sole discretion. Ellie, take a deep breath, clear your head, and listen to me for a minute. I'm not exaggerating one bit. So hear what I'm telling you. Joining the CIA isn't like joining the PTA. Things like morals or rules don't mean all that much to them. Things like right and wrong are, at best, a grey area. They fully expect that you complete whatever assignment they give you, no matter what that means you have to do, no matter what the personal cost. If you don't, they will find some creative way to punish you. And they're not above using your loved ones as part of that punishment. You were joking about using sex. Ellie, sex is the least of it. That's something that maybe you should carefully consider before getting too chummy with General Beckman. When you get involved in this life, you're involving Devon and your marriage if you want to or not. He should get a vote."

"I understand," Ellie finally sighed. "I already know what his vote is going to be. Devon is a good, good man. He loves Chuck just as much as I do. You're right. He deserves to hear the risks plainly and object if he wants too. But by your logic, I'm already involved in this life. I'm your and Chuck's loved one. I don't remember getting a vote."

Ellie saw the devastated look on her face and smiled to let Sarah know that she was mostly teasing. "For the record," she said. "I really wasn't joking about the sex. You still owe me some stories."

Sarah returned Ellie's smile in relief. She was so clearly trying to lighten the mood. "I understand," she said. "Don't worry. Your best friend is going to come through. I'm not going to cheat you out of any lurid detail. I think that's something that needs to happen after a few drinks. So it will have to wait until Chuck is safe." Then she turned more serious. "You asked who captured your mom," she continued. "We don't totally know yet. But a lot of signs are pointing to Alexi Volkoff."

"Wait a minute," Ellie said, eyebrows furrowed deep in thought. "Alexei Volkoff? Isn't he the one who Beckman thinks is behind capturing Chuck? Who is he?"

Sarah grinned at Ellie's perceptiveness. "You're right," she said. "He is. Here's the deal. Beckman doesn't know what we know about your mom. No one does. Your dad kept his search all to himself. So she had no way to make the connection you just did. I'm not sure how much to tell her. For now anyway, I think I'm going to keep this from her."

"Why?" asked Ellie, honestly surprised.

Sarah paused for a long moment. "Didn't you just hear what I told you about the CIA?" she asked. "Ellie, I wasn't kidding a single bit. Beckman has her own agenda here. I'm not saying that she's bad necessarily. But she would do whatever it takes to advance that agenda. In doing so, Chuck's safety simply isn't high on her list of priorities. By the way, neither is our safety. If we want to protect Chuck, we're going to have to be the ones to look out for his best interests. Sometimes that means keeping things from her."

That got a grin. "You're totally lovesick," Ellie teased. "You keep proving it over and over. You want to play the role of this bad ass cold CIA Agent without rules or feelings? Give me a break. We both know that's bullshit. This is your best friend standing here. That means you actually have a best friend. You just choose Chuck over your duty. He's what is most important to you."

Sarah was forced to smile back at how totally Ellie had just nailed her. "Okay," she admitted. "Gloat about it if you must. It wouldn't have been true when you first met me. I know you don't believe that… but it's true. I'm not even exactly sure when it happened. But it was a long, long time ago. Now Chuck is what is most important to me. I'll admit it. I'm totally lovesick. This is a new feeling for me… one that I'm not even sure how to deal with. And, yes, I now have a best friend. It's also a brand new experience for me. Are you happy now?"

Ellie's grin broadened. "I'm very happy," she said. "About that anyway."

Sarah fought for a long moment to gather her composure. "Me too," she finally sighed. "But, Ellie, we have to be smart about this. Beckman has her own way of finding out things. If she gets a whiff that we're holding out on her and stops trusting us, things could get really nasty, really fast. I'm not trying to be a downer here. But I just don't want you to get your hopes up for a happy ending with your mom. That's one of the main reasons that Chuck didn't want to tell you about her. It's been twenty years."

Ellie paused for a moment then nodded. "So where is John in all of this?" she asked. "He'll be here any minute. Do we have to hide things from him?"

"Here's the deal," Sarah said with her grin returning in full force. "In his own gruff, emotionally stunted way, Casey is just as lovesick as I am. He'd just rather die a gruesome grotesque death than admit it. So no, we don't have to hide anything from him."

"That's good," Ellie said. "I'll take your word on him being lovesick. So what do we do?"

"We have to assume that capturing your mom and Chuck are related in some way," Sarah said thoughtfully. "It also probably has something to do with Chuck being the Intersect. You asked about Volkoff a couple of minutes ago. That would take more time to explain than we have right now. Even I don't know all that much about him. But he is one of the richest, most powerful men in the world. Big surprise, he's not very nice. The CIA has been after him for as long as I know about. He's very politically connected. Taking him on will be dangerous. Especially when we don't have a clue what he's specifically after."

"So right now, I think we have to depend on Chuck to get us some Intel."

x-x-x-x-x

Jill led Chuck on the ten minute walk to the hotel. Maybe 'led' wasn't the proper word. It was more like she dragged him there. The very second that they were in the hotel lobby, Chuck flashed on the place. The Baltimore Hotel Monaco. Pretty swanky. And a long way from home. It must have taken some time for them to transport me and Casey all the way to Baltimore undetected. This was clearly well financed and planned. Sarah must be frantic.

Chuck stayed silent until they were safely in the room. One thing was for sure, there was no way in hell that Jill Roberts, the college student he knew ten years ago, could ever afford this room. 'Room' was actually not even all that accurate. This was a high-roller luxury penthouse suite; complete with flowers, fresh fruit, a king bed, a huge TV that covered one whole wall, and an even bigger hot tub. He knew that Jill would expect him to quickly call her on that. It was also a major screw up in their mission planning. That huge LED television hadn't been invented ten years ago. It would be interesting to see if she could explain that apparent hole in the plan. "This is your room?" he asked. "Jill, how can you possibly afford something like this?"

Jill grinned as she leaned in to give him a quick peck. "Of course not, silly," she said. "This isn't my room. It's our room."

"Okay," Chuck said in frustration. "So how can we possibly afford something like this?"

Jill already had the phone in her hand. She held up a single finger to tell Chuck to wait until she was off the phone. Even hearing only one side of the conversation, Chuck could tell that she was plainly ordering room service.

"Baby," Jill said as soon as she ended the call. "I know that you're confused, maybe even scared a little. That's perfectly understandable. They messed with your head. I promise to tell you every single detail. But we're safe now. Can we maybe just calm down for a minute and enjoy this moment? Please? I've really missed you. I was afraid that I would never see you again. So relax as much as you can and trust me a little."

Chuck knew that she had just pressed his button. Trust was the card she was going to play to control him. And it would have been a good strategy. So he nodded.

"Thank you, baby," Jill said with an even bigger grin. "I just ordered your favorite meal. While we're eating, I'll tell you the whole story. After we eat, we can get in the hot tub. The short answer is that we have a very rich, powerful friend. He saved us from the CIA. He's making sure that we're going to be very well taken care of. Yes, we have problems. But they have unwittingly turned you into a very powerful person. That makes you incredibly valuable. If we play our cards right we can end their evil plot, do the right thing for a lot of people, and live like this for the rest of our lives."

"That sounds good, doesn't it?"

x-x-x-x-x

Casey,

I unlocked your cuffs. Not sure yet what their end game is. They think that they took away 10 years from my memories. Jill Roberts is part of the plot. She's telling me that we're engaged. I'm playing along for a while to see if I can find out what they are up too. They definitely want me to capture or kill Sarah. Others may also be trying.

Protect her at all costs.

Tell her not to worry about me and that I love her very, very much. Give me a couple of days.

!10v3$ r h

Sarah looked up from reading the note that Casey had just handed her. It really contained far many more questions than it did answers. "This is all you have?" she asked. "Exactly what did Chuck say to you?"

Casey was clearly as frustrated as Sarah was. "I haven't talked to him," he said. "Best I can figure, we must have been tranqed. When I woke up, I was alone with my cuffs unlocked. I went looking for Bartowski and found his note in my pocket. When I contacted Beckman, she told me to come here. You now know everything that I do."

Sarah quickly briefed Casey on what they had learned from their captive who was currently taking a nap courtesy of the drug Ellie had injected into him. For the first time, Casey's smile was relaxed. "Now our boy really became a man," he said. "Bartowski is a spy."

Sarah's mind immediately flashed back to the first time that Casey told her that, in Shaw's cell. In spite of the tense situation, she couldn't help the smile from taking over. "I know," she said. "I don't think that I've ever been prouder of someone." Her smile turned a little evil. "You're not going to tease me that I picked a good one? Finally? Casey, you disappoint me. You're impressed with his growth as a spy? I'll gladly tell you all about his growth as a boyfriend. It's equally impressive."

Casey's face turned noticeable red at her overt teasing. "No thanks," he said. "My stomach is a little upset as it is." He quickly changed the subject. "What is that stuff at the bottom?

Ellie quickly looked at the note that Sarah had just handed her. Then she glanced at the two spies just looking at each other without an answer. "Nerd code," she said simply.

Ellie laughed as they as one turned their confused looks towards her. "Chuck and Morgan play this game all the time," she explained. "They encrypt their emails. You have to know the password to read them. He made a password that is cryptic, yet easy to remember. It means that he is going to try and send us an email."

"How is this easy to remember?" Casey asked with a growl, his brief good mood now gone. "It looks like random garbage to me."

Ellie ignored Casey's gruffness. She was pretty used to it anyway. "That's because you don't understand Chuck's system," she said with a grin. "You replace key letters with special characters and numbers. An 'S' becomes a dollar sign, an 'O' becomes a zero, an 'I' becomes an exclamation point… stuff like that. What it really says is 'ilovesarah'… sweet… in a kinda lovesick puppy dog, almost sickening way."

Ellie watched the grin growing on her friend's face as what she was saying sunk in. Now it was her turn for the smile to turn evil. "You might be competent spies," she said in faux resignation as she shook her head sadly. But you totally suck at being nerds."

"It's a good thing I'm here."

x-x-x-x-x

Not they would ever realize it, but Clyde Berkshire was currently only two floors below Sarah, in his own suite. There was a group of men listening intently to him as he was on the phone.

"Jill ordered room service," Berkshire said with a grin as soon as he ended the call. "She ordered a Greek salad with extra beets. That was our code that everything is perfectly on track with Bartowski. She is playing him like a violin. She was exactly right. She's going to be able to get him to do anything she wants."

"Frank is missing," one of the men said. "And that Agent Casey escaped. What do you think that means?"

Berkshire's grin faded considerably. "I don't care much about Agent Casey," he sighed. "We were going to kill him anyway. But that Walker bitch is going to be a real problem. She must have Frank. We have to assume she now knows what we did to Bartowski. Fortunately there is no way that she could have gotten Frank out of the hotel without being seen. So she must still be here someplace. Send somebody to the front desk with her picture. Nobody who looks like Walker could check in without the clerk remembering her. Once you find her room, send a couple of men."

"Yes, sir," the man replied. "Should we kill her?"

Berkshire rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Not yet," he said. "Not unless you're forced to. She might come in handy. Rough her up a little and bring her here."

"I'd like to have a little chat with her."

x-x-x-x-x

Chuck had to admit one thing. For clearly being an evil bitch trying to manipulate him into killing Sarah, Jill really was good at ordering room service. And she still did know his favorite meal. The prime rib simply melted in your mouth. And since he hadn't eaten in, well who knew how long, he was starving. So he attacked the meal with a furor that surprised her.

"So let me get this straight," Chuck said, ignoring Jill's ever growing grin at his appetite. "CIA Agent, Bryce Larkin stole a government project to protect it. His partner killed him hoping to claim the project for her own and sell it to the highest bidder. But before she killed him, he sent it to me in an email. So now, I have all these super powers. That means that she is looking for me… to kill me."

"Exactly," Jill said. "Except she probably isn't looking to kill you. That's going to be a very last resort for her. She wants you alive. I keep telling you, Chuck. You're very valuable. We're going to use that to our advantage."

"Okay," Chuck said as he pushed away from the table and walked over to the TV, inspecting it closely. "What is this? I've never seen anything like this before."

"I keep telling you," Jill said with a touch of annoyance. "We have a very rich friend. This is all research stuff. I knew that you'd be interested, so I asked for some toys. You see this computer? It's ten times faster than anything you've ever seen before."

Jill's voice finally showed more than a hint of annoyance. "Baby, I want you to play with your new toys," she said. "I do. After all, that's why I asked for them for you. But, come on, I haven't seen you in weeks. Can't you wait for a while? We still have to plan how to deal with this Sarah Walker bitch."

Chuck had already had his fill of being called 'baby.' He never really cared for the term ten years ago anyway. And in this situation it was starting to grate. "Okay," he said with a pout as he returned to the table. "You know that I can't kill anyone."

"I know," Jill sighed. "And actually we don't want to kill her. She's pretty valuable as well. Our new friend would like a chance to rehabilitate her. We'll need to capture her."

"How are we going to do that?" Chuck asked skeptically. "She sounds pretty bad ass. We don't even know where she is."

"Don't worry, baby," Jill said. "She is very, very bad ass. But she is no match for you. She knows that better than anyone. Once she realizes that we're on to her, she wouldn't even try and resist. She'll quickly surrender. And we don't have to know where she is. She's going to find us." Jill's look definitely turned icy. "I won't deny that I'm going to enjoy seeing you slap the cuffs on her. She's caused me a fair amount of pain. I'd definitely like to turn the tables a little."

"Payback is a bitch."

x-x-x-x-x