A/N I decided to go with Sexy Ellie rather than Annoying Ellie. Shoot me.

"Don't touch it, Agent Bartowski."

"You did good work today."

"This better have been worth it, buddy."

"Is that stupid, or what?"

"She's gonna kill me," said Chuck into the microphone. "And it'll be all your fault. I just want you to know this."

"Sorry, Agent Carmichael," said the pilot. "But do you know how many courtyards have fountains in Echo Park?"

"More than one, I'm guessing." Chuck got out his phone, sending a signal. On a roof not too far away, above a fountain in a courtyard, a smoke flare ignited, spewing a green cloud into the air.

Ellie Woodcombe was looking for her broom when she thought she heard something go thump upstairs. "Did you hear that?"

"Kind'a busy here, El," said Devon, instructions in one hand and some unfamiliar tools in the other. Neither of which prevented his ears from working, but they gave him a plausible excuse. The sound of the helicopter passing overhead was harder to ignore.

"Sonic baffles engaged," said the pilot, a little late.

Chuck readied himself to drop down on the far side of the apartment complex where he lived, before giving the pilot one final glare. "I'm leaving your name and address in my will." Then he was gone, dropping rapidly to the ground.

He uncoupled from the line but didn't bother putting on his jacket, an unnecessarily formal affair for the place and time. He ran around to the entrance of his housing complex, unable to hear the sound of the machine flying away, finally.

The courtyard was empty, the cloud of smoke above invisible to those who weren't looking for it, and Chuck went swiftly to his door and let himself inside. He lifted a pair of classes to his eyes and scanned the place, not seeing any heat signatures, and relaxed. Morgan was out, his fortunes and his night life having gone on an upswing of late. Chuck didn't know why that should be, but it made his life easier, with all the coming and going at odd hours.

He walked across the living room in the dark, and let himself into his own bedroom. Only after he'd closed the door did he turn on the light. He turned around. "Ah!"

"Dude, you gotta tell that pilot of yours to land someplace else," said Devon.

"And you gotta stop hanging out in spies' bedrooms," said Chuck, pulling his equipment case out from under his bed. "I'll make sure to tell the next Hollywood mogul hosting a party with a questionable guest list to wrap up early so I can be home on time. How's that?" He started unbuckling his harness.

Devon got up to help Chuck divest. "There's a limit to how much I can cover for you, bro, especially tonight. It's our anniversary."

Chuck folded up his harness, opened the case and threw it in, on top of the passports. "You've been married, what, three months?"

Devon stared, a little boggle-eyed, at the casual display of gear. "Not that anniversary, Chuck. The anniversary. Our anniversary."

Medical School, day one. Chuck winced. "Not the broom closet story again."

"Not if you hurry over and hang that TV like you promised." Devon gave Chuck a sly wink. "We were gonna start with our wedding video and work our way backward."

Chuck groaned, getting out his casual wear and his tools. "Devon, I can't hear that. Or more importantly, un-hear that." He pulled out the shirt-tails and unbuttoned the shirt, exposing the dark material of his body armor.

Devon looked a little more boggled at this evidence of the less awesome parts of Chuck's secret job. "Whoa, dude, if that's what I think it is, you should leave it on. El's about ready to blow."

Chuck looked at his brother-in-law sadly, unstrapping his armor. "Seriously, Devon, if Ellie's 'about to blow' over some little thing that I have or have not done, you haven't been doing your job right."

Chuck kept his face firmly hidden behind the TV, not needing the instructions to do the job he wasn't being paid to do. The only thing more disturbing than Devon being all man-to-man was Devon being all man-to-woman, especially when the woman was Ellie and he was suddenly aware of his own lack of awesomeness toward her. Not something Chuck wanted to see. "Almost done."

"Oh," said Ellie, partly moaning, partly panting. "That's wonderful, Chuck. I take back everything I was thinking. You're a genius."

Chuck risked a look. Ellie was sitting in her favorite chair, getting a foot-rub from Devon. "Mm," she groaned, "With these hands he could have been a masseur."

"Heart surgeon will do," said Chuck. "Ready to fire her up?"

"Too late," said Ellie.

Chuck clapped his hands over his ears. "Ellie!"

Her head lolled in his direction. "You can go home now, little brother."

Hands came down. "I meant the TV."

Devon left off his manipulations, picking up the remote for the TV. "Yeah, we know what you meant, Chuck," he said with a laugh.

Ellie frowned at her brother. "I hate you, Chuck."

Devon clicked the remote and the screen lit up with a local news broadcast. Apparently some person of importance had fallen ill at an embassy function somewhere. Chuck and Devon both paid attention to what the lady at the desk had to say, for different professional reasons.

The condition, cardiac and quite serious, was still of less interest to the news than the man who had it, a foreign leader named Alejandro Fulgencio Goya. Many photos of him in his earlier days as a communist insurgent had apparently been declassified.

Chuck flashed on the still-classified ones, a history of violence that made his head spin and fists clench with a need to fight someone over something. Since only Devon and Ellie were in the room he decided this would not be a good idea, forcing himself to look away from the screen.

"Chuckster?" asked Devon, who knew only a part of Chuck's involvement in the spy life, the part that had nothing to do with the intersect. "Are you okay?"

Ellie snapped out of her blissed-out daze. "Chuck?"

"I'm okay, sis," said Chuck immediately. "Just a little light-headed, is all. I'll go home and eat something, fix it right up."

"I'll get you some leftovers," said Ellie, and she marched off into her kitchen.

As she left Chuck's phone went off, followed almost immediately by Devon's. "They're calling us in," said Chuck, looking at his screen.

"Me too," said Devon. He looked up at the TV, but the story had moved on to something involving puppies and cuteness. "You think–?"

"Seems a little coincidental, if you ask me," said Chuck. "Keep me in the loop?"

"Absolutely not," said Devon, loyal to his patients above all.

"Didn't think so," said Chuck. Only the best for his sister, and the best took their oaths seriously. "I won't tell you anything either."

Devon grabbed his doctor version of a go-bag. "Sounds good."

"Devon?" asked Ellie, coming in with a goodie-bag for her brother. She saw Devon's duffel and pouted. "No wedding video?"

Devon shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, El, but duty calls, and so did the hospital. Probably that Goya guy. Don't wait for me."

"I don't think I can."

Chuck grabbed the bag and fled, hands over his ears. "La-la-la-la, I'm not listening!"

Chuck didn't know when he'd enjoyed a briefing more. As he'd expected, the topic of the day was Premier Goya, leader of the island nation of Costa Gravas since forever. The criticality of his condition didn't seem to be a cause for concern to some of the people in the room, for whom his continued existence was both a personal and professional embarrassment. For a brief second Chuck's natural concern for the welfare of others, enhanced by his proximity to two doctors, warred with his own professional satisfaction at a win they didn't have to work for.

Of course it wasn't that easy, otherwise they could have just called him at home and given him the day off. "Premier Goya was in this country to announce that he was going to open up his country to free and democratic elections," said Beckman, and that put a whole different spin on things.

Any system anywhere has people who benefit from it, and those people have a natural interest in seeing that system continue, no matter who else suffers. Most of those people would kill to make sure of that. Some of those people, on the other hand, if they're smart, recognize that no system will continue forever, and plan ahead, handling the change rather than trying to prevent it. Goya, it seemed, was one of the second kind, and someone of the first kind was taking steps.

Casey tended to be one of the first kind himself. His only real objection to the whole situation was that someone else had gotten there first, while his plan to retrieve his perfect record needed him to do that. "Do we believe this?"

"We do," said the General, and Casey bent his head to finish assembling his weapon, muttering "Nuts" under his breath so softly only Chuck heard it. Beckman wasn't fooled. "We are going to prevent anything from happening which might interfere with this plan. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Casey.

Sarah put down her plate of leftovers, and wiped her mouth with a napkin. Party missions always made her hungry, no matter how much she ate beforehand. All that dancing. Given the suddenly laid on nature of this meeting, and the fact that the sight of roast beef was making her hungry, Beckman had chosen to overlook the activity down in that corner of the screen until Sarah drew attention to herself. "Are we assuming this was an assassination attempt, ma'am?"

It certainly looked like one. She could easily have staged it herself, although she preferred bullets in general and especially in this case. Poisons would have required her to get close to him, and he looked like the sort to get handsy. He'd also been the Premier of his nation for over thirty years, and that kind of life takes its toll, no matter how much of a military man he might have thought himself. Given his notorious fondness for cigars, one of Costa Gravas' main exports, and the way his uniforms were no longer quite so flattering, a convenient heart attack would have looked completely natural.

"We're assuming nothing at this time, Agent Walker. Your team will assume a protective stance but you will stand by until we can get the Premier's medical records and determine the true state of affairs. This brings me, finally, to the point of this meeting, which is your next assignment…"

Oh no…

"The generalissimo is being treated at–"

"Let me guess," said Chuck, the closest he could come to being polite in this context. "Westside Medical?"

Devon Woodcombe, the man of the hour, strode the halls of Westside Medical like the god he resembled, studying the basics of the case as people scrambled to get out of his way. As he walked in the door, a soldier was telling someone to make sure to tell all the General's followers that he was of course alive, and would stay that way. Other soldiers hovered with weapons as nurses and aides removed the General's clothing. "Don't worry," he said as calmly as possible, which was pretty calmly, "The doctor's here."

An irritated Beckman contented herself with an arch look over her glasses. This one was coming pretty close to home, especially for new agent, however qualified. "Correct."

"I don't suppose I can recuse myself…?" Feeble hope.

Feeble joke. "Are you a judge?"

"No." He wasn't even the jury. He, like Casey and Sarah, was the executioner. "He won't tell us anything. He shouldn't tell us anything. He's a doctor, he took an oath."

"And so did you, Agent Bartowski. Get the data. That is your responsibility." The screen went black.

The soldier with the attitude said, "If anything happens to this man, I am holding you responsible."

Devon had held men's hearts in his hands. It took a lot to impress him. "If anything happens to this man, God and the AMA will hold me responsible," he said. "And my wife, and possibly the US government, so you're just gonna have to take a number. Right now, you and your men are the biggest things in my way."

The soldier nodded respectfully, and stepped aside.

A/N2 Devon's a bit more awesome than he was in canon, too. I hope you'll drop me a line and tell me what you think of this rewrite so far.