A/N Insert comment here.

"They're afraid to go in."

"You'll understand, when you're me."

"You can't keep me safe, Sarah, no one can."

"Good night, sweet prince."

"Let me make sure I've got this straight, Colonel," said General Beckman. "You had the number one intelligence asset in the United States committed?"

No cover. No support. Well, some support but he'd be court-martialed before he'd turn to Carina for it. Suck it up, Marine. "Not 'committed'…per se…ma'am," he said facing the General squarely. "But with Doctor Woodcombe unavailable, and Doctor Dreyfus read in, remanding the Intersect to a secure holding facility under that Doctor's supervision seemed the best option for addressing the matter."

"I'm sure the distinction will be greatly appreciated by his nearest and dearest," commented Carina, without her trademark smile.

"Of course it won't," agreed Beckman. "That's why they aren't part of this meeting. I'll be speaking with Doctor Woodcombe and Mrs. Bartowski after we've finished here. That said, I do appreciate the distinction, Colonel, and I want you to make sure that the doctor and the facility appreciate it too."

"Yes, ma'am."

"While we're in a holding pattern, last night Ellie informed me that her assistant has an idea for capturing the first appearance of Charles Carmichael. I want you two to meet with him and make the arrangements, if it should turn out to be feasible."

"Yes, ma'am," said Casey again, with considerably less enthusiasm. Taking directions from that geek wasn't high on his of things to do ever.

Chuck stood in the day room, wearing his own pajamas and his own robe. "I can't believe this is happening."

"You can't believe what's happening?" asked Dr. Dreyfus, coming up to his side. He looked down at the table. "Oh. Yes, Lewis here is our reigning dominoes champion, someone should have warned you."

"Just a friendly game, Doc," said Lewis. "Nothing–" his face spasmed "–sexual."

"Nope," Chuck hastily agreed, "Just friendly non-sexual games in the day room, right guys?" No one paid him the slightest heed.

Dreyfus put a hand on Chuck's arm, turned him toward the door. "Come with me to my office, Chuck. We have a lot to talk about."

"Good morning, Sarah. Ellie, how are you feeling?"

Ellie took a determined sip of her coffee. "Sedative side-effects, General. Nothing I like, nothing I can't handle."

"Oh, Ellie…"

She held up a hand. "No recruiting."

"How's Chuck?" said Sarah into the power vacuum. "Only Carmichael could have done everything that was done last night, all by himself."

As usual, General Beckman hid her disappointment with work. She hid most things with work. "Colonel Casey discovered your husband at your house last night, Agent Bartowski, sleeping on the couch. Before they could wake him, he sat up, to give Colonel Casey the apparently serious warning–" Beckman paused to gather her strength, before pushing on "–that Daniel Shaw and Charles Carmichael were working together."

"Oh dear."

"Colonel Casey immediately subdued Mr. Bartowski and took him to a secure holding facility, where Dr. Dreyfus is evaluating him as we speak."

Sarah – Carina's Sarah – reacted instantly. "You had my husband committed?"

General Beckman blinked. No cover, and all the support was on Sarah's side. "Not committed…per se…Sarah…"

Dreyfus settled into his chair comfortably. "The first thing I need to tell you, Chuck, is that, although this is a CIA psychiatric facility, you are not a patient here."

"So I can leave?"

"No. This is a holding facility, and I am evaluating the risk you pose to the world. But there will be no diagnosis or course of treatment at this time. We'll cross that bridge if and when we come to it."

"And you're still not my doctor?"

"That is correct, in our time together you've yet to show me the need for one, although I wouldn't mind getting my hands on Mr. Carmichael for a session or two. I understand you intended him to be some sort of idealization, but he is far from ideal. He's not even a whole man."

Chuck shrugged. "He's a work in progress."

Dreyfus shook his head. "Ideals aren't works-in-progress, Chuck, that's why they're ideals. You're the work in progress, and this Charles Carmichael-shaped thing you've got in your head is much less."

"He's the perfect spy!"

"Maybe he is, Chuck, but he's a very bad man. Even his best qualities fall far short of your most modest ones, and he has no modest qualities at all. He's a caricature." Dreyfus flipped a page on his notes, and looked up at Chuck. "Now, I've read your file, and I know he didn't start out that way. Somewhere along the line he's slipped his leash, and it's up to us to get him back in harness again, if you ever want to leave this building."

The Intersect area was dark. Neither Casey nor Carina expected that, but then, they'd never gotten there before Ellie, either. The upside was that it made Manoosh's little hole in the wall much easier to find.

"Don't you ever sleep?" asked Casey.

Manoosh was a lot less afraid of Casey after the whole Intersect Room debacle. "Kind of hard to tell day from night down here. I usually go by when the Boss gets in."

Casey grunted. "We're your alarm clock today. Ellie's out of the game for a while."

Manoosh froze. But-? She…

"Hello," called Carina, waving a hand in front of his face, "Earth to Manoosh."

"Is she okay?" asked the nerd when he'd started breathing again. "She's gotta be okay."

The two spies traded a look. "Yeah, she's okay," said Casey. "Had a bit of a bad night."

"Someone spooked her real bad," explained Carina. "The only person who could have done it is Charles Carmichael."

"Hey, no way," said Manoosh. "The Host loves Ellie, and Carmichael's part of the Host. I'd believe the two of you did it before I'd believe that."

Casey went for imposing. "You know an awful lot about the Host for someone who wants to see daylight before he dies."

"Please. The way they talk you'd think they were married, except that I've seen her husband, and believe me, the only thing that frat boy can host is a kegger."

"He's a heart surgeon," said Carina.

"Yeah, he's smart, but he's not the Host, and neither is your stalker."

"Whatever, nerd," said Casey, not about to give that show of loyalty the three cheers it deserved. "You think that, prove it. Find us another target and I'll be glad to hunt him down. But for now, Carmichael's the best bet. We're told you had some ideas about completing our intel on him, so we're here to get the specifics and set it up."

Manoosh knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end. "Tightening the noose?"

"Hey, it was your idea," said Casey, smirking. "Have a little faith."

"Oh, I've got a lot of faith." Manoosh snatched up a clipboard with some printed pages. "Sorry this isn't in crayon. Everything you need to know. Even you should have trouble screwing it up. Now, while you're trying to avoid the door on the way out, I'll be busy finding the real stalker."

"Yeah, good luck with that," said Casey absently, flipping through the pages. "Come on, Miller, let's get this over with."

She waited until they were at the car before speaking up. "What do you think you're doing?"

Casey hadn't been innocent for a long time, so he was out of practice looking like it. "What do you mean? Now he's as motivated as we are to find the real bad guy."

"You also just sicced a nerd on what has to be the second-greatest spy in the world. What do you think he can do?"

"I don't know," said Casey, starting the engine. "Trash his credit rating, eat his retirement account. The mind boggles."

Manoosh pulled up a chair, and started hunting his way, Irritating troglodyte. There had to be some reports filed, just look for the bad spelling and the short words. He'd start there, and see where they led. On his second monitor he started up a small window, with a recording of the Host's brain waves from the scanner. Something to help him relax. He moved the window with the decompiled Ring code onto a third monitor.

Orion?

Dreyfus looked up as the door opened. "Hello, Chuck, welcome back. I'm sorry we have to handle your sessions in such small increments, but my real patients are accustomed to their schedule." He moved to his chair.

Chuck sat on the couch. "It's all right, Doc."

"Chuck, this may seem like an odd question, but…if you had a time machine, is there any event in your life that you'd consider going back to change?"

That got a smile. "I used to have that fantasy, you know. Go back in time and stop my mom or dad from leaving us. Go back and find out why Bryce betrayed me, or Jill, make it not happen." The smile faded. "I don't think about it anymore."

"What about your friend Bryce? Would you stop him sending you the Intersect, stop yourself from opening that email?"

Chuck made a face. "I can't say it's been entirely a blessing, but…it brought me Sarah, so no. I wouldn't change anything that would take her away from me."

"And yet you spend every waking moment of every day trying to change yourself."

"But…I'm trying to make myself better, not drive her away. I'm only trying to be what she deserves."

"You think you're being modest but you're not."

"What?"

"It's not your business to decide what Sarah deserves, Chuck. You think you're being modest but what you're really doing is telling her that she's wrong, taking away the thing she's already said she loves and trying to replace with something you think is better. What she deserves, Chuck, is a husband and a partner who respects the choices she makes."

"Even when that choice is a Nerd-Herder, girlish screams and all?"

"Especially when that choice is a Nerd-Herder. It's easy to respect choices we agree with. I doubt she loves your screams but she probably loves that you are not afraid to scream. Have you ever asked her why she loves you?"

"We don't–that is, she doesn't –I mean she does, of course she does, and I know she does, but she doesn't…talk about it, much." My woman of action.

"I told you once before that I've seen the way Agent Carmichael looks at you, Chuck, and I seriously doubt there's anything you can do to yourself to be more worthy in her eyes. There's a great deal you can do to make yourself unworthy, though, and to be honest I think you're doing it." Dreyfus picked up a remote, pointed it at a monitor, and pressed a button.

"Have you ever interacted with Charles Carmichael?"

"No I have not, except by radio this morning, nor do I wish to."

"Why not?"

"I love Chuck Bartowski. I married Chuck Bartowski. Charles Carmichael is very focused, and very cold."

Dreyfus stopped the playback. "What's the matter, Chuck?"

He wiped his eyes. "That's…that's the first time I've heard her say it, Doc. That she loves me."

"Play your cards right–" a little further from the vest would be good "–and I don't think it'll be the last."

Sarah tried to keep the tension out of her voice. "How's it going, Carina?"

"For what it's worth, your toy-boy has his fellow nerd in his corner. Even Casey was almost impressed." Carina covered the mike as Casey sneered. "How are you doing?"

"My husband is locked up, Carina. How do you think I'm doing?" Ellie winced, and Sarah mouthed the word Sorry at her.

"Hey, don't yell at me, yell at Carmichael."

Sarah turned away, spoke softly. "Carina, I know you had to take Chuck into custody, but don't tell me that you really think he did this."

"What am I supposed to think, Sarah? You saw Shaw die."

"It was a dream, Carina. It doesn't have to be Shaw, just…something about Shaw."

Carina sighed into the phone. "Sounds pretty blonde to me, Blondie."

Which had to be Carina-speak for something. Sarah could live with that. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet, I still have to pester Casey until he gives in and does what I-Hey! He's throwing in the towel already! Score one for the girls' team. Text me that girl Hannah's number, I'll give her a call and see what she can dig up on this guy. Then we can start turning over rocks. Toodles."

Alex came to the window to find Morgan on the phone.

"So what do I do?" he asked, lifting up her waffle to the window. "Of course I remember that plan, Casey, we really showed those Large Mart goons–I'll be ready, are you gonna be ready? Sir, yes, sir!" He smiled as he handed Alex the syrup. "I love saying that. Wow! He is tough as nails, your old man."

The syrup bottle dropped, hitting the edge of the plate and dropping the whole masterpiece of edible artwork to the floor.

Alex didn't notice. "My what?"

Carina held a copy of the Kama Sutra in her hands. "You can't trust a man who has to take lessons." She put it back to join Casey in the middle of the room. "You're sure this was Shaw's penthouse?"

"According to the construction reports, it was. What do you think?"

Carina looked around, finally going to the French door and the balcony, where she looked all around, including up. Then she turned, standing in the doorway a second before going back to Casey. "Three things. First, I'd break an ankle jumping down here from that roof, even without the stiletto heels. Second–" she went to the painting and touched the side, making it slide over "–it's not Tron or a Bengal tiger, but it's close enough."

Casey nodded. "And third?"

"Someone's been in here. Recently."

A/N2 But who could that have been? And how did she know? And why on Earth did Shaw ever need a penthouse, or the Kama Sutra? I mean, it's a bit OOC for a man mourning his wife all that time.