A/N Combining pieces of the Tooth episode with Role Models in this chapter.

"May I respectfully request that that identity be retired?"

"I did the right thing, though, didn't I?"

"What makes you think I don't like you?"

"This one's got a Bengal tiger on a leash!"

"He's got a what?"

"You heard me, Dirtnap. A tiger, a large cat with stripes and a bad attitude, on a very long leash."

They'd better not have dragged him out of his suddenly very interesting interview for nothing. "I know what tigers are, Stampede. What I want to know is what you expect me to do about it. You allergic, or something?" I'm late for work, and the second floor men's waits for no man.

"Well, obviously we need you to get over here and wrestle the damn thing into submission. Or get some heavy-duty tranqs for us. Your choice."

Ellie's eyes bugged out, not that Chuck could see it. "On a leash? Can you do that?"

"Legally, yes," said Chuck, rubbing his eyes, not that she could see it. "Physically, you'd need balls of brass and skin of steel, or really good track shoes and a sniper on staff. This big guy-"

"Don't be sexist."

"Fine, this guy or gal is probably kept tranqed most of the time, at least a little bit."

Not good enough. "I'd have him tranqed a lot."

"Don't be sexist, sis."

She could hear him smiling. Ellie made a face at the speaker, threw herself back in her chair. "Fine, him or her. Unconscious. In a zoo. I'd visit on weekends."

Chuck grinned, glad she couldn't see him. She sounded a shade petulant, like she always did when she got hoist on her own petard. "Yeah, well, you probably wouldn't need to sic him on someone, every now and again, to prove what a bad-ass and fearless software developer you are. That didn't sound right."

"Oh, so only you're allowed to be a bad-ass nerd, now?"

"Your Earth bad-ass is not like our nerd bad-ass, human female. This guy offends me so much, I may just have to get all fractal on his geometry."

Ellie laughed, a delicious sound even truncated by the speaker's frequency limitations. "You're such a nerd." Her smile faded. "How's your head?"

"Did I hear you correctly, Colonel? A Bengal tiger?"

"Could be worse, General."

"Explain the logic underlying that conclusion."

"Could be a Siberian. They're about twice the size, if I'm not mistaken."

"And what are your plans? You're not going to shoot it, I hope. They're both endangered and majestic." In her closet at home was a keepsake from her childhood, a toy stuffed tiger. She'd named it Spot. "Plus, a horde of animal-rights activists is the last thing we need right now. Or any time, really."

"Roger that, General." Casey's voice held traces of a fervent desire to put those animal-rights activists in front of a rampaging Bengal tiger and let them find out what 'bleeding heart' really meant. "I'm on my way to get some animal-grade tranq darts and a rifle to deliver them. Then I'll mop a few floors and break for lunch."

"You seem to be putting more of yourself into your cover than I had originally intended."

"By 'lunch' I mean I'll catch Grimes at his ceremony and debrief…I mean, brief him appropriately about this Coburn issue."

"Good. The sooner that nonsense is behind you, the sooner you can support your teammates properly."

Nonsense. Heh. "Understood."

"Chuck, this isn't working."

"You're telling me?" he moaned into his microphone.

The doctor made a decision with the sister's full support. "Stop flashing. Don't look at any pictures, just lay back and close your eyes while we get some scans. The upload hasn't changed, so whatever's causing this pain has to be with you."

"Okay."

She opened a new line. "Manoosh?"

"What's up, boss?"

He was there. Of course he was there, he was always there. Whatever would she do without him? "What's your status with that Ring material?"

"I broke the encryptions on the flash drives a long time ago, trying to figure out what the stuff on them was supposed to do. The disc is much harder, I couldn't hack the password so I'm brute forcing it."

"That will take some time, I'm guessing?"

"Yeah. I'm focusing on the drives for now while the program runs. What do you need?"

"I'm bringing up the scanner on the Host. I could use another set of eyes."

"I love the scanner. Bring it on!"

He was such a goof. "Your gallant sacrifice in the name of science and our nation's security is appreciated, Manoosh. Bringing it on, now."

The speaker sighed appreciatively.

Back to line one. "Chuck?"

The speaker snored at her.

"Not the only one with a late night, was I, little brother?" She turned it down. Time to bite the bullet and inform the boss.

"Okay, Ellie, thanks for keeping me in the loop." Sarah pocketed her phone with a sigh.

Carina spared her a glance as she drove. "Something wrong with Chuck?"

"He can still flash, but now they cause him a lot of pain."

Carina went from It never ends to how do you stand it? in the blink of an eye, but managed to keep all such comments behind her teeth. "Is that a symptom of something?"

"No one knows," said Sarah softly, looking down at her hands. "None of the other test hosts stayed sane long enough to tell."

"Sounds like a good reason to put this case to bed and get you back to him."

Sarah ran her fingers over the charms on her bracelet. "Yeah."

Casey stored the special rifle and the box of darts, their dosage carefully calibrated for the tiger's estimated mass, safely in his trunk before racing to the driver's seat. He'd learned far more than he would ever need to know about tiger habits and anatomy—"Just tell me where to shoot, dammit!"—he still hadn't taken care of the second floor men's, and now he was running late for the ceremony. After the flashing of his badge, the dropping of a name, and the telling of a small lie ("Charles Bartowski is my code name"), he was shown to a seat reserved for guests of the guest of honor, where he was seated next to a young lady named Alex, whose code name was apparently Sarah.

"I hope you and Mrs. Bartowski enjoy the ceremony," said his escort.

Casey froze the poor junior agent with a look. "Does this woman look like my wife?"

Alex stood up and gripped Casey's arm. "Now, 'Dad', don't scare him. You look so young, Mom told you this would happen." She glanced over at the paralyzed escort, and whispered, "This is the part where you run away."

He sketched her a salute automatically. "Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am."

Alex tugged on Casey's arm as the young man fled back up the aisle. "Come on, 'Dad'. Stop staring like that or you'll frighten all the Generals."

Casey allowed himself to be tugged down into the seat, furious that he'd almost blown his cover's cover. "Nice save, that was quick thinking. They teach you that at the FBI?"

She shook her head. "Shopping with Mom. Guys would come up to her all the time and act as if they thought we were sisters."

That would never have flown. Kath always knew who and what she was. "Isn't that supposed to be a compliment?"

She sighed. "A lie is a very poor way to say hello."

Or goodbye. Casey shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Like mother, like daughter.

"Maybe that's why I like Morgan so much."

Suddenly Casey wished he could tell her the truth, just to shut her up. No father needed to hear that. But he couldn't, so he pounced on something else that was true and threw it out there. "Say what you like about the little twerp-and I could say a lot, believe me-he's as honest as the day is long."

She gave him a dirty look. "I hope you and all his friends realize just what a good man he is." Don't call him twerp. Especially when he's getting the Medal of Valor.

"I'm not really his friend. I'm Chuck's friend. I mean, I wouldn't have ever met Morgan if it hadn't been for Chuck. They're something of a package deal. He sort of grew on me." Like a fungus.

"Who, Morgan or Chuck?"

Casey grunted. "Both."

"Yet here you are."

He shrugged. "Chuck couldn't be."

"Why don't I believe that?"

"What, that Chuck couldn't be here?"

"That that's why you're here."

Suddenly the lights over the podium brightened, saving Casey from the need to reply.

Clad in black leather, the two ninjas approached the edge of the roof and jumped off for a balcony fifty feet below, landing on stiletto heels with catlike grace. One knelt at the red balcony door, lock picks in hand, but the other had her car keys out and speared the lock first. The living room was deserted, light flickering from the big screen TV as Frankenstein's Monster rampaged through the lab

–flicker–

as Christmas-suited aliens strangled and fell.

The ninjas sneered at the movie, then pulled out their devices and located the safe built into the wall behind the Tron poster

–flicker–

behind the framed print of a Bengal tiger. They picked the lock with a piece of drugged meat and opened the door. Inside was a picture of Charles and Sarah Bartowski, the CIA's go-to couple for thirty years, their faces lined and weary with their hard life

–flicker–

inside was a collar, studded with diamonds and cell phones

–flicker–

inside was a can of Marasca cherries. They took the cherries but just then someone fumbled at the lock on the front door. The ninjas closed the safe and hid in the closet, listening as someone moved through the apartment. Suddenly one of the cell phones on the collar started to Ring, and the ninjas buried themselves in the racks of wedding dresses as the closet door exploded–

Chuck sat up, shouting. He 'd been lying on a cot in the Intersect room, lights dimmed.

The speaker started shouting, making him dizzy. "Graboid, what's happening? How do you feel?"

He felt like falling back onto the cot, but he had no comm unit there. Instead he staggered over to the station where the comm unit was. "I'm here, Ellie."

"How's your head? What were you doing in there?"

"Um…sleeping?"

"You were spiking on three different bands at the same time, Chuck."

Okay, and–? "That's bad?"

"That's impossible. It's like you were…dreaming you were a ninja and writing a computer program while totally unconscious."

"I wasn't dreaming I was a ninja."

Typical. "Chuck–"

"I dreamed someone else was a ninja."

Ellie'd had quite enough of this, thank you. "Write it down, Chuck. Write down everything you can remember about this dream. Do it now."

Well, at least he didn't embarrass himself. Or the country. Morgan stood straight and didn't fidget as the President described in suitably ambiguous detail the events that had led to today's presentation. He (Morgan, that is not the President) didn't even blush. Casey would have been proud of the kid if he hadn't been staring at Alex the entire time.

Casey naturally hung well back from any of the after-ceremony activities, especially the picture-taking. The way the news worked today, everything Morgan had ever done would be brought into the limelight. For a brief second he amused himself with the idea of the Secret Service descending on the Buy More to make sure nothing was said or done to embarrass the President. Maybe they'd just give every one of those morons the day off and staff it themselves. Nah, that'd be a dead giveaway. No one would ever believe an efficiently run Buy More.

To his surprise, Alex was right there with him. "Why aren't you up there?" he asked, against his every instinct. "This is his moment, doesn't he want you to share it with him?"

"Probably. He has a sort of boggled look right now, doesn't he? But we never discussed it and…well, everything he did in Hawaii and elsewhere is going to get brought up. He may not be safe."

Casey looked enlightened. "He's got a target on his back."

She nodded. "In the shadows is a good place to be right now."

"You don't want to be collateral damage. I can understand that." My daughter, a coward?

"No." You idiot. "Weren't you listening? He's not safe. How can I or anyone else protect him with our pictures in every photo from here to China?"

Great. Another Anna. That'll torpedo this love boat real quick. "Great idea. He's always had a thing for Wonder Woman."

"He'd hate it, wouldn't he?" Secret identities and sneaking around making Steve Trevor look like a fool.

"Well…it's not honest." He noticed her grinning. "What?"

"You sound so much like my mother just now. Next thing you're gonna tell me is that you don't respect a man's courage by sticking him in a box."

He remembered that argument, where that had been his line. "I'm gonna take that, if you don't mind."

"Go ahead, it's one of my mother's anyway. It's the least I can do for you being my father today." She gave him a quick hug. "I've never had one before. Thank you."

He watched her walk back to Morgan in silence. The pleasure was mine.

Dr. Leo Dreyfus sat at his desk, preparing for a suddenly laid-on appointment. The situation bothered him. As an orderly and methodical man, he was used to seeing his more dangerous patients in a more controlled setting than his office. Surely a meeting as urgent as this one implied an element of danger. As he busied himself preparing a chart for his mystery guest, the door opened and a man entered. Dr. Dreyfus looked up long enough to note the janitor's uniform and turned back to his papers. "Young man, as you can see, this office is occupied, and I will have a patient arriving soon. I'm afraid I have to ask you to leave now."

The man didn't reply, and the door didn't open. Instead, a thick envelope landed on the desk, right on top of the papers he was preparing, and Dreyfus looked up in surprise.

"Good afternoon, Doc," said Chuck. "I'm your two o'clock."

A/N2 No, Chuck wasn't disrespecting women with the ninja dream. It was a movie scene. Yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking with it.