A/N: Normal disclaimer. I do not own any of the characters portrayed in this story. Please read and review. I am getting into new territory for me creating my own story and not following cannon. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. As always thank you to everyone who had read and reviewed my story so far.
Casey arrived at castle. He was supposed to be off with Gertrude enjoying some good old fashioned R and R, but no he was back in Burbank. Not that the place hadn't grown on him. He knew that he had changed over the past five years, and even though he would never admit it. It was for the better. As he walked down the stairs to castle he couldn't quite believe that he was back already. The last time he had left everything was coming to an end and now he was getting dragged back in. In his haste to return he hadn't even contacted Alex yet. Casey fired up all the systems and began to run a quick system diagnostic. He was sure Chuck hadn't had time to do any of this with everything going on in his life. He wasn't even sure where Sarah was. The last he had seen her she said she needed time to think. He knew he would have to get her involved eventually, but not before touching base with Chuck first.
Casey watched the monitors and was a little surprised to see Sarah's lotus pull in, and then even more surprised to see both her and Chuck climb out. I guess numb nuts was able to win her back. Good for them he thought. They were going to need the whole team to survive this.
Sarah and Chuck did a quick perimeter sweep and they only thing they found was Casey's crown vic. They entered Castle through the freezer entrance in the Orange Orange. Well at least what use to be the Orange Orange it had been closed for renovations for a while now. As they walked down the stairs they saw Casey working on the computer. "Hey Casey what's with all the cloak and dagger stuff? Aren't you supposed to be somewhere doing whatever it is you and Verbanski find romantic?" Chuck said with a little bit of a grin.
"Can it Bartowski we don't have time for pleasantries. Do you mind telling me what she is doing here?" Casey responded.
"Casey she is my wife, and we do everything together." Chuck barked back.
Casey just looked over Sarah. Their eyes were locked into each other. Finally Casey extended his hand towards Sarah. Sarah took Casey's hand and gave him a quick shake. "So what do you remember about me, because I figure you have to remember something to be running around with this nerd." Casey replied.
"I remember everything Casey, and what's with the cold shoulder?" Sarah responded
"Good to have you back Walker. I just wanted to make sure you were on board. Last time I saw you… let's just say you weren't quite yourself. "Casey said.
"Ok good now that we have all that out of the way what is all of this about Casey?" Chuck asked.
"While I was going after Verbanski someone tried to ambush me and I found these on them." Casey threw three pictures out across the table one of each of them. "I figured if they were after us our families wouldn't be save so I headed back here. This is a picture of the guy I got the intel off of. I was hoping you could flash on him and we can get to the bottom of this." Casey handed Chuck his phone with a picture of the assailant in question.
"Ow gross Casey did you have to beat him that bad." Chuck said as he looked at the picture.
"So did you flash on him Chuck?" Sarah looked at Chuck.
"No nothing. He must not be in the intersect. Which is just great where do we go from here?" Chuck had a look of defeat across his face.
"Well I will touch base with some of my contacts and see what I can shake loose. If someone is after us one of them will surely know. I suggest we lay low for a while. I was able to touch base with Verbanski and she has placed details on our families. They will keep a good distance, but will be there if anything happens. I am going to make some calls and check on Alex I will be back as soon as I can. I suggest you guys put some feelers out too." Casey said as he headed up the stairs.
Chuck just looked at Sarah. He couldn't believe of all the horrible timing how could this happen now. Here they were finally back and this new threat had to swoop in. Would they ever be able to get their normal life, or were they destine to always be sucked back into the spy life. "Sarah do you think we should reach out to General Beckman?" Chuck asked.
"I would say it is as good a place as any to start. We know we can trust her and if anyone is going to know what is going on it would be her. I will go grab a few things from the apartment and we can plan on staying here for a little while until we figure this out. I won't be gone long." Sarah reached in and gave Chuck a quick kiss. "I love you." Sarah said as she turned around and headed up the stairs.
Chuck sat in the large conference room when he heard a beep come from the monitor. That is probably the General she always seems to have a way of timing things perfectly he thought as he pressed the power button on the monitor. When the monitor finally came on it was not an image of the general standing in front of him. It was a man about his age with dark hair, blue eyes, and glasses. This man had one of those looks that just screamed evil. He was of slender build and guessing from the size of the image on the screen he was approximately six foot tall. "Good evening Mr. Bartowski. It is so glad to finally meet you." The man said with a hint of a laugh.
"Well since you obviously know who I am do you care to share with me who you are, and what you are doing on my monitor?" Chuck asked as the anger began to build up in his voice.
"Oh Chuck. May I call you Chuck? Let's not dwell on who I am right now when who you are is so much more interesting. Obviously you have already figured out that I am not in that pretty little brain of yours, and yes I know your little secret. I find it fascinating how that the intersect only seems to properly work inside of you. Fulcrum, the ring, Quinn all of them tried to control it and look where it got them. "The man paused as if to create a since of dramatic effect in the room.
Chuck just stared at the screen he didn't want to give this man the satisfaction of any kind of response. He had already started to record the conversation hoping that later he could trace anything from the recording and figure out who this man before him was.
"You see Chuck we have been watching you for quite some time. You could say that we have been testing you. Ever since Bryce Larkin sent you the intersect we have been patiently studying everything that happened with team Bartowski. We even went as far as to nudge some groups in your general direction. You may remember most of them Fulcrum, The Ring, Decker, and yes even Quinn. We will admit that Alexi Volkoff was just an added bonus. You see Chuck my group likes to stay in the shadows. We allow groups like these to do all the dirty work so to speak. We just patiently watch, record, and manipulate where needed. We have no illusion of controlling the outcome we just stack the chips in our favor. Groups like Fulcrum they are predictable. They look for world domination and just throw a huge target on their back. We however like to avoid being the bulls eye." The man just grinned at Chuck as he finished his speech.
"You keep referring to your group and the people you work for do you have a name?" Chuck said fishing for any information that he could gain.
"Oh Chuck. There you go trying to put this on us again when really what we should be talking about is you." The man hit a button and the screen split into multiple screens. On the screens were images of all Chuck's family and friends. "You see Chuck we know every aspect of your life, and we know everyone and everything that you have come into contact with. " The screen flashed back to the image of the man, but this time the laughter and smile had been replaced with a much sterner look. "As you can see Chuck we have every aspect of your life covered. Now don't worry everyone is safe, and we don't wish anyone any harm. Like I said we stay in the shadows. All we want from you is to keep doing what you were doing. Don't stop spying just stay in the game a little longer. We have almost reached and end game bigger than anything you can imagine and you and your team are our greatest weapon." The man again paused giving Chuck time to contemplate everything he just saw and heard.
"You obviously know a lot about me, but I still know nothing about you. I kind of feel at a disadvantage here." Chuck throughout one more attempt trying to get any information out of the man.
"Oh ok. Chuck I will give you a little bit of back ground on us. You asked if we have a name and the simple answer to that is no. We have no name, no identity, and nothing to point to who we are. We work in secret even from each other. The end goal is our only commonality. You see Chuck all a name does is give people something to look for, and we can't have that. I know you started recording this conversation the minute you saw me pop on the screen. When you go to play it back you will realize there is nothing there. There is a worm embedded in this stream that erases any trace of this call the minute it begins. Now to show you exactly who you are dealing with I will let you take your phone out and snap a quick picture of me. Go ahead Chuck I quite enjoy a good picture." The man sat on the edge of a desk and posed for a picture. Chuck grabbed his phone and snapped a few shots. "Now go ahead and hit record and get a few seconds of my voice."
"Why are you giving me this?" Chuck asked.
"You see Chuck I want you to understand something. We are a ghost. We do not exist. The fact that you are even seeing me now should tell you how special you really are. I want you to run my picture, run my voice. Give it to anyone and everyone that will help you. Then as you slowly realize how alone and helpless you are, because you have nothing. You will then have no choice but to listen to me. I know that even now as we speak your brain is trying to come up with something anything to figure out what is going on. The problem is Chuck the group I am with we have been doing this kind of work long before you were born and we will be doing it long after you are gone. The question you have to ask yourself Chuck is do you want to be when you are old and grey or while you are still young and dumb." The man stopped speaking and just stared at Chuck.
"Now what?" Chuck asked trying to keep the fear at bay.
"Well now you do your research. I want you to dig and dig and dig. Leave no stone unturned. When you have looked everywhere you can think of and even the places you haven't dreamed of yet that is when I will be in touch. So Chuck try to find me and when you can't I will call you." With that the screen went black and Chuck was left in silence. Chuck had faced many threats in his life, but something about this one seemed different. None of the others knew anything about him and this man seemed to know everything. How can I fight something when I have no clue who or what they are?
Chuck rushed over to the computers and tried to pull up the conversation he had just had. "Nothing. Damn it." Chuck shouted as he slammed the chair against the desk.
"Everything ok?" Sarah asked as she came walking down the stairs.
"No Sarah. Someone contacted me. I don't know who. He isn't in the intersect and I tried to record the conversation but it is all gone. Sarah he had images of everyone. Ellie, Devon, Clara, my mom, Alex, Morgan, and even Molly and your mother. He said he wouldn't hurt them. "Chuck stopped trying to hold back the fear from his voice. He knew he needed to be strong for Sarah.
"What does he want from us Chuck?" Sarah asked
"Right now he wants us to try to figure out who he is. He challenged us to find any information about him or his group. He said when we couldn't find anything and we had exhausted every option that we had that then he would be in contact with us." Chuck said as he pulled out his phone.
"What do we even have to go on? A picture of one man that they sent after Casey." Sarah was starting to get angry.
"He had me take a few pictures of him with my phone, and even let me record a few seconds of his voice." Chuck handed Sarah his phone to reveal the man in question. Sarah looked at the images and listened to the voice but had no idea who this man was, or what group he worked for.
"Casey should be back any minute. We will run all this by him and come up with a plan as a team." Sarah replied.
Chuck took Sarah in his arms. Right now he didn't know what to think about this new threat, or what their future held. All he wanted to do was hold Sarah. Chuck gently kissed Sarah on the head and whispered "I love you" into her ear.
Sarah sensing Chuck's fear looked into his eyes "We will figure this out. We always do. Team Bartowski will come out on top. I promise Chuck. I love you and nothing is going to get in the way of the family we are going to have." Sarah placed her head on Chuck's chest. Chuck pulled her in tighter. He wished Sarah could have been there when that man came across the screen. Then she would have seen what he did. A confidence and an evil like nothing they had faced before. Yes team Bartowski had overcome insurmountable odds in the past, but would they be able to do it one more time.