A/N Hard to pace everything to come out in the right order. Since Sarah could hardly claim to be part of the problem I had to put her conversation with the General to a different use. A very minor exercise in dramatic irony, one of my least favorite literary techniques.

"Are you prepared to do your best?"

"Not something a spy would wear."

"I'm trying to keep it cool."

"Did you just say something?"

"Excellent work securing the weapon," said General Beckman, looking at the disc-shaped object in the gold suitcase, and the three people clustered around it. "Where is Agent Carmichael?"

"He's resting, but listening in, General," said Sarah, with a wave to where Chuck lay on a cot, out of range of the camera. "Whatever gas that was in the vault, he minimized absorption by slowing his breathing and pulse, but he took a broad-spectrum anti-toxin when we got back, just in case."

Sarah's statement was a bit of a lie, since Chuck was not actually listening in to the meeting. So far it had gone as he expected, only the General's claim that the nature of the weapon was above their pay grade provoking the slightest quirking of his eyebrows. As a nerd he was curious, but as a spy he'd learned to put that nerd in a box at need. He just wished that sort of 'need to know' could be applied to the Intersect. At the moment, there was something else he was far more interested in knowing.

In the vault he'd had to turn his mind and thoughts inward to save his life, at the cost of being unable to pay any attention to what Sarah said to him as she was taking more effective steps to the same end. Now he was trying to recollect whatever parts of her speech had made it into his all-too-perfect memory. Unfortunately, Casey had been making a speech of his own at the same time, and his words overlapped and cancelled out hers. It was very frustrating.

He went deeper.

"Very good," said Beckman. "But it's the only thing that is. Explain to me the failure in the vault."

She wasn't angry, not yet. Not as long as they understood their error and took it into account in the future.

"I believe it was the dust, ma'am," said Sarah, who had been there. State-of-the-art security systems include roving lasers, which are invisible, so infiltrators use fine dust to reveal them. "It settles slowly, and our agents move slowly. Agent Carmichael, however, moved quickly. I believe he disturbed the dust until it no longer revealed at least one of the beams."

"The gas attack also appears to have been unexpected," said Beckman. "I expect this to be a lesson to you all. Agent Carmichael's skills are no excuse for poor tradecraft. Do not weaken yourselves."

"No, ma'am," said Casey. "We already spar with Agent Carmichael on a daily basis, to develop his control."

Sarah nodded. "By the time his skills would be developed enough to hurt us, he should have mastered them enough not to hurt us."

"Good, but not enough. Agent Walker, Colonel Casey, once Agent Miller is on her way with the case, I expect you to make a full and detailed analysis of his abilities, and how they may intersect with our standard procedures. Dismissed."

His cot vibrated, and Chuck opened his eyes. Casey, Carina, and the gold case were gone. Sarah was tapping the leg with her foot. "Agent Carmichael," she said. "If you're feeling up to it, it's time to train."

One short walk to the dojo later…

Sarah selected a staff from the rack and tossed another to him. "Flash on the bo, Chuck."

She barely waited before attacking him, and he defended himself with his native, if rudimentary, weapons skills. Not good enough. "Attack me, Chuck," she ordered.

"I don't want to hurt you, Sarah."

She tapped him lightly in the belly. "I know you don't, Agent Carmichael, but someday someone will, and I need to know what to do about it."

"Ah," said Chuck. "Me whetstone, you knife." He flashed, and the bo became a living thing in his hands. He started out with a more basic set of defensive moves, spins and blocks, but those morphed into attacks very easily, and soon he was matching her blow for blow. Then he started speeding up, and she couldn't match that. She tried to retreat, to disengage, but the Intersect moved to follow her, and he couldn't make it stop. "Sarah, help!"

She planted her bo and pole-vaulted into his chest, knocking him into the wall. He let go of the bo and slid down the wall. "That was great, Chuck," said Sarah, reaching down a hand to help him stand.

"What do you mean, great?" he asked, rising. "I could have killed you."

"No you couldn't, Chuck," said Sarah. "The Intersect would, but it can't. Unlike us, it can't switch disciplines that fast." She made a note of that weakness as she readied her staff again. "You will, with more practice, but by then you'll be in charge. Don't worry, nothing will go wrong."

Upstairs, Carina had exited the Orange Orange with the case, but before she could get to her car her spy senses told her that something had gone wrong. She ducked between the mommy-mobiles, scanning the lot for enemies.

One of Karl's SUVs was driving slowly through the lanes. She heard the words 'tracking' and 'Burbank' through the window. Dammit! She had a bug on her, one of Karl's loving protective measures, no doubt. No time to find it, she had to lose the case before they got her. No way to get back the OO, she had to go forward, into the Buy More, and get to Castle that way.

Except the damn Home Theater room was occupied. She went around the edges of the store, in case Karl and his thugs came in. Then she saw him, that short bearded guy, Chuck's friend, what was his name? "Martin?"

As always, he looked at her like he'd just picked up a winning lottery ticket, even though he tried to act cool. "Yes, Miss…?"

There they were. One stayed by the exit while the others went up the aisles, so she pulled back behind the display case. "My laptop is broken," she said, holding the case out. "Get this to Chuck, will you? No one else."

"I will," he said, taking the case, "Provided you go to my party tonight." He held up a flyer.

She grabbed the paper, not expecting to be alive tonight but at least the objective was secure. "Fine. Remember, Chuck and no one else." She ran past him, past the bathrooms and into the employee break room, and from there to some kind of an exit.

The door opened onto the store floor, and with her luck today, they were looking at her when it did. She closed it and turned to go elsewhere, but…"Hello, smooshie," said Karl, blocking the other door and spinning a gun on his finger far too casually. "You haven't been returning my calls. I'm beginning to think you've got cold feet."

Moments later she was alone in the back of Karl's SUV with the man himself. "What's going on?"

"Yesterday, someone stole something very valuable from me," said Karl. "So now, I'm thinking you're not who you say you are. I'm thinking, you're a spy."

"A spy? That's ridiculous," said Carina. "This is me, Smoosh. The woman who loves you."

Karl looked doubtful, but determined. He reached into his pocket, and pulled out a thumb drive, plugging it into a slot in the roof of the car. A little monitor lit up with an image, a man, sitting cross-legged on a chest with clouds of gas rising. "You remember him, don't you?"

"Yes, but what does this have to do with me? He's my friend's boyfriend."

"Speaking of your friend, your best friend, you'll never guess what the microphones picked up." Karl touched a dial, spinning the volume to max. "I'm not like Carina," said Sarah's tinny voice. "Not some cold-hearted spy that throws words like 'love' around…" Karl dialed it down.

"She didn't say I was a spy, Karl," said Carina. "Sounds to me like she's a spy, but not the kind who uses words like 'love', the way I do. God knows she's heard me throw it around a lot, ever since I met you, smoosh."

"Maybe," said Karl. He held up Morgan's crumpled flyer. "And maybe I'll go have a talk with this Chuck. Then, after I kill him, maybe I'll kill your friend Sarah. And then, maybe I'll kill you."

The airport reported her missing. The car rental place hadn't received her car. That was still in the parking lot upstairs. "What have we got, guys?" asked Chuck.

"Every branch of the entire US Intelligence community is looking for her," said Sarah.

"Uncle Sam's best and brightest are on the case," said Casey.

"So we got nothing." Chuck's phone rang. Morgan. Right, party. "Kind of in the middle of something right now, Mor–what about Carina? She's there in the apartment right now?"

Casey called up the surveillance while Sarah reported in to the General. The monitor showed Karl and Carina sitting on the sofa, not looking at all relaxed as Karl's goons tossed the apartment. A real waste of time, thought Chuck. They should have just let the Buy More crew inside for two minutes.

"No, Morgan," shouted Chuck, still on the phone. "That would be dangerous…ly uncool. Women like her crave the mystery, you know what I mean? Stay away, stay far away. Good, yeah, well, that's…sort of what I meant." He turned to the rest of the team. "That won't hold him long. Let's go."

Carina watched helplessly as her awful luck on this awful held true to its awful form. She didn't know why those freaks from the party brought a tray of drinks in for people who obviously, or maybe not so obviously, weren't in a partying mood. She did recognize it as yet another opportunity to even the odds a bit between her and Karl, staging a diversion with the tall geeky one and dumping the contents of her special ring into three of the four glasses. She wasn't sure why she bothered, really, the glasses smelled pretty powerful all on their own.

Which maybe explained why Karl refused to have anything to do with them.

If the two drunken louts had simply left she might have been able to make something of the situation. Instead they apparently forgot why they brought the drinks inside in the first place, guzzled some of the doctored glasses, and promptly fell down in two smelly heaps. Well, at least the powder worked as it was supposed to.

Kind of hard to claim not to be a spy now, but Karl seemed more upset that she'd gimmicked the ring he'd given her, so she kept her peace. Out of options, all she could do was hope the rest of the team could pull some kind of victory out of this cesspool.

The goons parted, but by this time she was afraid even to look up. Someone was coming in, oh no it was that guy Martin, or whatever his name was. He looked unhappy with the situation, join the club. Wait a minute, he was mad at her?

She fought down a fit of the giggles, pretty sure that nobody in the room would take them the right way. Karl had threatened to kill her and all this 'Morgan Guillermo Grimes' saw was them cuddling on his couch? And now he was giving her the heave-ho? Who did he think he was?

No really, who did he think he was? Everyone in the room was bigger than him, but he was ordering them out. Wow. That took real…Suddenly she found the little man…interesting. Until he opened the one chest in the room that Karl's goons had managed to miss, and handed over the case. Until he took the last doctored glass and knocked himself out. Just as well, Karl was looking more than ready to kill someone and she didn't want it to be Morgan, not now. "No one's ever said no to me before."

Suddenly the courtyard erupted in screams. The goons checked the door. "Her friends?" asked Karl. They shook their heads, and he pushed Carina out the door in front of him, carrying the case himself.

The courtyard was soaked, some guy in a bathrobe carrying a hose back toward his door. The first bright spot in Karl's otherwise awful day. "Sorry to have troubled you, sir," he said genially.

Bathrobe guy grunted a surly response. Karl could sympathize.

Wait a minute. He'd heard that grunt before.

Black-clad figures leapt from the shadows. "Weapons down!" shouted one, a female from the sound of her. Best Friend Sarah with guns, and Boyfriend Chuck carrying one those, wossname, tiki-torches, like a quarterstaff. Bathrobe guy turned as well, guns instead of a hose in his hands.

"Uncle Johnny?" said Karl incredulously. "But I liked that speech!"

"I was channeling a higher power that day," said Casey. "Give it up, lover boy."

"Give what up?" said Karl. "I'm having the worst day of my life, so I don't give a–"

Chuck tossed his torch into the courtyard pool, a toxic waste dump for every noxious brew ever created by man. The flame fizzled and went out. But while the goons were looking at the torch he pulled out a flash bang and threw that at the fountain. The contents of those burn even under water, and the pool blew up. Blinded and knocked down by the foul-smelling blast, the goons were no match for the fists and feet of Chuck's team.

Only Karl remained, clutching what we valued most. And the case. "You shoot me, I shoot her. I don't care. This bitch broke my heart."

"And you think hers isn't breaking too?" asked Sarah. "You think that just because she's a Federal Agent with a job to do, that she can just shut off her feelings like that garden hose. It doesn't work like that, Karl. We may be spies but we're women too. We couldn't possibly get you to open up, get you to take the chance on love that you've so clearly taken, if we didn't feel some portion of that love ourselves."

Carina turned in his grasp, to look into his face. "She's right, Karl. At first you were just another assignment, but somewhere along the way the love I pretended became real."

Karl lowered his gun, smiling. "Really?"

Carina stole his gun, took his case, and left him unconscious in the bushes without turning completely around. "No. Not really." She looked at Sarah suspiciously. "Such eloquence, two days in a row."

"No," said Sarah, pulling out her earwig as Chuck stepped out from behind a bush, his transmitter by his mouth. "Not really."

A/N2 If you drop a cigarette into gasoline it just drowns. The torch should have done the same, but as a distraction it works very well.

I hope you'll drop me a line and tell me what you think of this rewrite so far.