CHAPTER 12

Night turned to morning and Chuck was still driving. It became clear pretty quickly that he had no destination in mind, driving in circles around the city until he had to stop for gas and starting it all over again.

It was six in the morning when he got a text from Ellie asking: Where are you?!

Pulling into an empty spot on a street, Chuck groaned when he saw the text and quickly replied: Bad day. Morgan stuff. Driving around. Might visit grave. Love you. At least three or four of those weren't lies. He felt bad using Morgan like this, but he'd understand.

It was barely seconds before he got a reply of: Okay. Here if you need me. Be safe. Love you too.

He called into work and left a message saying he had an emergency and wouldn't be able to make it in before driving again, glancing in his rear view mirror to the Porsche following thirty yards behind him. Chuck couldn't help but smirk at the memory of when he stopped for gas at two in the morning and she pulled into the pump three down from him but didn't say a word.

Part of him was disappointed, but he appreciated that she was giving him some space. She wasn't trying to force him to do anything, so when he saw her pull into a gas station at seven thirty he made a U-turn and pulled up to the pump beside hers despite still having a quarter of a tank left.

Sarah's eyes widened seeing the Herder pull up, her shock turning to a grin as she watched him get out and top off his tank with a nod. Closing her gas cap, Sarah chuckled and shook her head, swiping her card and leaning around the pump to look at him leaning against the car.

"Nice weather, huh," he said with a smirk.

He saw her shoulder bob as she backed toward the car. "Good night for a long drive though."

"Tell me about it." Chuck closed his cap, paid his bill and led her out of the station again.

Sarah watched him drive a few blocks away before parking again. This time he got out and went into a store, coming out minutes later with a few bags. Rather than go to his car he looked both ways and ran across the street, making his way to where she was parked a block behind him.

Rolling down her window she leaned her head out, watching him slow to a stop and squat beside her car. A smile took his lips as he held up two bags for her. "I don't know what you like so I got you a croissant and a couple different drinks."

"Thank you," she said taking the bags and setting them in her passenger seat.

Chuck patted her door and shook his head before meeting her gaze again. "I'm going to Morgan's grave and I'm going to be there for a few hours. I already called into work. I'll give you fifteen minutes to eat and drink, then I'll head there. I promise I'll stay right at his grave, so you can take a nap or something. I'll wake you up before I leave."

"Chuck," she started, but he stood and turned, quickly looking both ways before running back across the street and making his way back to his car.

With a sigh Sarah watched him get back in his car, which sat still. Shaking her head she looked into the paper bag and smirked as she pulled out the chocolate croissant, peeling a piece off before reaching into the bag for a drink.

She was finished well before the fifteen he gave her, but once they were up he pulled out and led her to the graveyard again. Pulling into a spot beside his, she watched him get out and head inside still holding his bag around his torso. Getting out of her car a minute later she made her way to the gate and smirked when she saw him walking backwards toward Morgan's grave. When he spotted her he raised a hand, pointing her back toward her car and raising his brow like a parent warning a child, which she ignored, leaning against the gate to watch him sit in front of the grave, his back to the stone as he watched the gate where she stood.

After a few minutes of him staring at her she rolled her head dramatically and mouthed, "Fine!" Going back to her car she got in the driver's seat and sat back intending to just wait an hour, but before long she was fighting and failing to keep her eyes open. The day had drained a lot emotionally.

Once she was out of sight, Chuck waited five minutes before looking around the graveyard and pulling the laptop from his bag. He connected his phone to it, piggybacking off the phone's internet again to reactivate his searches. He let them take the bulk of the processing power, but pulled a little aside to track the human traffic buyers and run through what information he could find about them.

Some of them were so obviously human garbage it was honestly a wonder someone hadn't figured it out beforehand, but others were harder to tell. He had to dig through their financials, track their electricity used, social media, all kinds of stuff for gaps. They all were there, they wouldn't have been in the trafficker's books if they weren't guilty, but he still needed to know. Not only for himself but so that he had information to give people, actionable information.

With his phone's limited internet speed he barely confirmed four people were involved with the trafficking ring before his power supply on his laptop was almost gone. Thankfully his automated searches were doing better, at least in quantity.

He checked the G-Men first but again none were Joe Chill, but then he was still running searches through their criminal databases, wasn't he? Galina was still pretty much a bust, though apparently she was a Johnny Depp fan. Fulcrum and Orion were still busts, which made Chuck both appreciate and dislike the use of code names. Maybe instead of the Piranha he should have gone by the name The Thing or Some Guy. No one would ever be able to track him, especially if he went full conjunction as The If.

In the middle of closing out the programs he watched his screen go black and groaned. It wouldn't be much of a problem, but it shutting off despite having around five percent of the battery left meant it was dying. He'd have to-

CHUCK

The words on screen made Chuck furrow his brow. "What... the-"

LANGUAGE CHUCK

Chuck looked around but saw no one around, which meant they were using the camera on the monitor. "Orion?"

GOOD GUESS

His eyes locked on the camera lens. "Who are you?"

A FRIEND

His face darkened as Chuck said through grit teeth, "You're the reason my only friend died."

I'M SORRY

I NEVER MEANT FOR THEM TO FIND YOU

"What am I to you? What are you to them?"

I KNOW WHO YOU ARE

OR RATHER

I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE

Feeling his chest tighten, Chuck took a breath. "What do you mean?"

I KNOW YOU'RE THE INTERSECT

"What? How?"

I MADE IT

"You-" Chuck cut himself off as he watched the screen shut off, the power finally giving out. Shock turned to panic as he gripped the monitor. "No, no, no, no!" Like all those people who thought they were the Fonz, he hit the side of the screen, as if that would help anything. If he actually ever got his degree he'd be an embarrassment to it.

His head falling in defeat, Chuck closed the laptop, put it back in his bag and exited the graveyard. If Orion really made the Intersect then it was too much of a coincidence. It meant he'd been indirectly involved in this since he was a teenager. It felt both more complex and simple having it all be tied together. The problem was he had no way to do anything about it now. He needed more information and had no way to contact Orion, he'd have to hope for him to reach out again.

He found Sarah sat back in the driver's seat of her Porsche, sleeping until he gentle knocked on the window. He almost laughed at how her eyes snapped open and she turned to him while reaching for her gun, only to stop and smile when s he saw it was him.

Turning on the car she lowered the window and he grinned. "Nice nap?"

"Guess the day caught up to me. How about you?"

"Tired. Think I'm gonna go home and rest for the day. I've got an interview tomorrow for the assistant manager position, assuming some agents don't come to throw me in a bunker while I'm sleeping."

Sarah shook her head, reaching over to put a hand over his on her door. "Chuck, that's not going to happen."

"I'm glad you think so." Looking over to the empty paper bag he smirked. "I'd offer you lunch, but I hope you'll settle for the rest of the day off since I promise not to leave Ellie's until I have to go to work tomorrow."

"You promise?" she asked wryly.

She pulled her hand from his as he raised it and held out his pinky. "Pinky swear."

Sarah snickered, giving an approving nod as she wrapped her pinky with his. She followed him back to to Echo Park and watched him go back to Ellie's, giving her a wave before he went inside, watching her pull away and head back to Maison23.

Inside Chuck reached into his bag and turned on the detector to scan for bugs as he walked through the apartment, and to his utter shock there wasn't a buzz to be heard, not even in his room. Standing beside his bed he looked around and let out a breath, smirking as he unpacked his bag and plugged in his laptop, letting it recharge while he went to shower.

Though he'd planned to nap and just try to force himself to sleep later, the lack of bugs was too exciting a prospect. Once he was clean and sent Ellie a text that he was back home and taking the day off, he opened his still charging laptop. Though disappointed it wasn't still connected to Orion, he wasn't surprised and didn't mind much.

Leaving the searches for now he focused on the traffickers. As expected quite a few of them had an abundance of income, it was the ones who didn't that surprised him, but then he supposed slave labor was cheap. Once he found as many of their accounts as he could he prepared his information on them all but held off on sending it to the authorities. Instead he did a search for Alex Coburn's fiance Kathleen McHugh.

Chuck found himself jealous of her in a way. She'd made a decent life for herself after the loss of her fiance. She hadn't sunken into herself like Chuck had, she put herself through school a bit later than he had but came away with a degree, worked a job with decent pay, owned a house. She even…

"Oh shit," he said upon seeing the links to Alex McHugh, whose age made it easy to work out that she'd at least been conceived before Alex Coburn became John Casey.

His fingers bouncing off the keys in thought, Chuck gave himself a firm nod and went to work. He did his usual routine for draining accounts into others, leaving a thin trail to make sure those who looked knew what he'd done. But somewhere in the transfers from one account to another, two hundred thousand dollars disappeared. There was no record of them being transferred, but those dollars were gone from the transactions and appeared within a brand new one, which was transferred to another in a similar way until Kathleen and Alex McHugh received emails to the new accounts in their names and instructions on how to access and use them safely, along with an assurance that they were a private donation in remembrance of the service of Alex Coburn, and a hint that it was from a friend of his. He'd spent an hour just going over it all to make sure their accounts couldn't be linked to the ones he drained.

With the traffickers information sent to the authorities, Chuck started to look for the Piranha's next meal when he heard a knock at the front door. With practiced speed he closed the laptop and tucked it under his bed before unplugging it and shoving the wire behind it. Exiting room he heard another knock and called out, "Yeah, yeah, I'm coming!"

He wasn't surprised to find Casey there when he answered, the knock was heavy and firm enough to either be him or the police. The NSA agent stared at him for a moment before holding out a manila folder.

"What's this?" Chuck asked taking it from him.

"Persons of interest in the murder of Morgan Grimes." Chuck stopped opening the folder to look up at Casey. "It's based on the descriptions the cops got, so I doubt it's anything useful, but I wanted to make sure you saw it in case whoever was behind it slipped."

To Casey's surprise Chuck smirked as he looked through the pictures of people he'd seen years ago when he hacked into the LAPD's servers to go over Morgan's case files. Still it was a nice gesture, so he looked up asking, "Want to come in?"

Casey nodded, following Chuck inside and closing the door. "I'm guessing he's not in there?"

"No, but we both knew he wouldn't. If he ever was in there someone would have removed him."

Casey stood across from the kitchen table and crossed his arms. "What makes you sure this guy was an agent?"

Gripping the back of a chair, Chuck took a moment to think. He couldn't say because he looked like an extra off the X-Files or a younger G-Man from Half-Life. "If you saw someone do you think you could tell they were an agent?"

"Depends on how good an agent they were." Casey shrugged. "Best ones don't stand out, they seem like everyone else."

With a laugh Chuck shook his head. "No they don't." Seeing Casey's questioning gaze Chuck pointed to him. "You and Sarah stick out like sore thumbs, Casey. Maybe you're not obviously an agent, but you're definitely military. And she's… Well she's probably a super model or something, but she's definitely not like everyone else. Neither of you are."

Casey snorted his indirectly saying they were the best. With a nod he lowered his arms and sighed. "Look, Chuck, I-"

"I'm sorry."

The words on his tongue died as Casey blinked in confusion. "You're sorry?"

Chuck nodded. "I shouldn't have thrown the bugs on you. I shouldn't have raised my voice like that. I shouldn't have…" He couldn't bring himself to admit he'd look at Casey's file, not yet, even if he knew he had to give Casey the chance to know his daughter. "I'm just sorry it all happened like that. I didn't want that. All I wanted to do was prove that I could be a real part of the team, not the mascot you guys dump whenever things get serious."

"You're not the mascot, Moron." Casey shook his head. "Look, you're valuable. Because of the Intersect alone you're the most valuable person on the planet behind the President, and even then I could see an argument for you being above him. It's one thing if a mission goes ass up and we have to improvise, but we need to make sure you avoid bullets as much as possible. All it takes is one stray bullet in the wrong spot and you're gone. Not just the intersect and all the money and manpower that went into it, but you, the untrained citizen. You, who has a sister who worries about him not coming home at night even though you have a girlfriend who looks like a supermodel."

Chuck snickered, then groaned. "You tracked our phones?"

"Yours," Casey assured. "The only reason any of those bugs were in her room or the bathroom was because they are places you could go. And I made sure they were audio bugs."

"Thanks, I guess."

"This isn't an easy job we do, Bartowski. You're smart enough to know that. We kill people. Sarah is an assassin, I'm a soldier. Sometimes we have to hurt people in ways we don't like but know it's necessary to make sure good people stay safe. Your sister, she's good people. Devon too. We want to keep them safe as much as you, but sometimes that means doing stuff we don't like, even to good people."

"I get that, I do, but we don't need to go that far with them." Chuck sighed. "Look I'm not saying don't put any bugs outside. I want them outside. I get it if we're dealing with some bad guys, do whatever we have to with them, but she's my sister, not some arms dealer. Can't the lying be enough? If we have to kill someone to protect her or Devon then yeah, we'll go there, but there has to be a line, right?"

Casey's brow sank as he caught the 'we' before kill someone. "You'd kill someone?"

"For Ellie? Yes," Chuck said firmly. He would never have her blood on his hands, even if he had to have someone else's blood on them to stop it. "If they try to hurt her I'll do anything to stop them, even if I hate myself for it afterward. She's all I have left. More than Devon, more than you, even more than Sarah, she's the most important person in my life. I won't let what happened to Morgan happen to her. I'm already a big enough stain on her life as I am. If I had to choose between her and anyone in the world except for maybe Devon, you or Sarah then the choice is always her. Always."

Casey's eyes narrowed. "You don't include yourself on that list."

"I'm not as important as she is, not to me."

It was oddly unsettling how much his words reminded Casey of his own thoughts when he was much younger. Casey's hands found the back of a chair as he leaned forward, looking into Chuck's eyes. "And the rest of us?"

"Come on, Casey." He sighed, reaching up to run his hands through his hair and scratch his head. "All of you do things that matter. Ellie and Devon save people's lives all the time. You and Sarah do too. You're good people. Maybe you do bad things like you said, but you're good people."

The implied opposite was what struck Casey. His features softened as he said, "You're good people too, Bartowski."

"But you're all better," Chuck said without hesitation. "Look, okay, I've done some good things in my life. I've helped a few people, but it's not my life. It's not my job. Ellie's wanted to be a doctor since she was a kid and she's the best at what she does. So is Devon, just like you and Sarah. I may be important because of the stuff in my head, but I'm still just a nobody doing nothing to add to the world. The intersect may help you guys catch the bad guys, but the most Chuck Bartowski does to help people most days is save Grandma's pictures from a virus. Chuck Bartwoski is the guy who slips through the cracks so the good people can make it to the top."

Chuck let out a breath, pushing off the chair to stand tall. "I want… I need to help you and Sarah, Casey. I couldn't help Morgan. Despite all the therapy Ellie made me take about that and our parents, I still feel like I failed him. I know logically I couldn't do anything. I've asked Ellie and Devon about it and I've looked it up myself. Even if I had training I couldn't have saved him. But I still wanted to and I couldn't. So if I can help you then I have to.

"I'm not asking you to train me or anything. I know I'll never be a hero like you guys, but I can be your Oracle." Chuck shook his head seeing him raise an eyebrow. "That's the name Barbara Gordon has when she's paralyzed and starts helping Batman as-you know what, that doesn't matter. The point is, I can be your computer guy. It's not like I'm chomping at the bit to get to where the bullets are, it's just that's where you guys are when you need some help."

Casey looked him over for a long moment, let out a sigh and nodded. "It's fine with me, but I'm not the only one who gets a say here."

Grinning, Chuck said, "Yeah, but your opinion matters a lot. More than mine at least."

"Not to Walker," Casey muttered so quiet Chuck couldn't make it out before he grunted and shook his head. "So what exactly do you want from this then?"

"I don't know. I just want to help. Maybe be considered in plans or something, or at least feel like I can contribute. I wasn't kidding about the time you guys went to help Carina. I tried to think about how I could access them on my own, but the cameras wouldn't be accessible to me unless I had some connection to their intranet, so I'd either have to be there with a relay or give you guys one."

With a thoughtful nod, Casey glanced toward the courtyard. "Walker asked me to look into your friend's case." Turning back to Chuck he clarified, "Off book."

"Thanks, Casey."

Casey grunted. "The whole thing stinks. Whoever it was that came after you might still be out there. If they were looking for Orion before and he's still out there then there's a chance they'll come for you again."

Paling, Chuck gulped. "You think so? I haven't been approached or anything since then."

"And your sister?"

"She never mentioned it."

"We still need to be careful." Casey shook his head and groaned. "Be nice if we at least knew who the hell he was with. For all we know he's part of some rogue group or one of Volkoff's people."

"Volkoff?"

"Arms dealer," Casey said with a smirk that quickly faded. "Alexei Volkoff runs Volkoff Industries. He's a recluse, like a Russian Howard Hughes, but if someone's got some weird tech that's causing problems then it's probably one of his. Wouldn't put it over him to be after the Intersect if he found out about it." Crossing his arms, Casey asked, "You think you'd be up for going over the whole Morgan case with me and Walker? We might pick up on something."

After a moment Chuck nodded. "I can do that. Can it wait a bit? It's still… raw, I guess."

"Yeah, we can do it after Halloween." Casey started to leave but stopped himself. "And sorry about the other night. Using what I heard for a joke wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done."

Touched by the sincere apology, Chuck smirked. "Well you weren't wrong about her, though I don't think I'd be a good Maverick."

Shrugging, Casey made his way toward the door with Chuck. "A hair cut, some aviators and a jumpsuit is all it would take if we ignore that foot you have on him."

"Maybe, but Sarah said she would handle costumes." He winced. "Crap, I bet I ruined that too."

"She said she handled it already. Even got me one for your sister's party."

"You're coming?" Chuck asked opening the door with a grin.

"It's my courtyard too."

AN:

I know people might balk at Chuck saying he'd kill someone, but again Morgan's death is pushing his protectiveness to be more aggressive, and with his tendency for darker thought and later mentions of nightmares, he's undoubtedly thought about people hurting Ellie and what he would do to prevent it. He isn't going full Gung-Ho Gun here, but it's something he's considered and is a bit more accepting of.

Also, Chuck saying he doesn't do anything important like the others despite his Piranha stuff is deliberate. He's almost disassociating himself from that part of his life. They are so separate in his mind that it's not the same person. Not in a DID sense, but just in that his work as the Piranha doesn't affect Chuck Bartowski.