CHAPTER 22

It was two days before the New Year began when Chuck received another delivery, this time housing a watch and a small thumb drive which held instructions on how to disassemble the government issue GPS watches and transfer the tracker into the new one. In his room he put the watch on and felt a trickle of electricity run up his arm and through his body until it all reached his brain. Putting it on felt like removing weights from every synapse in his brain while drinking an ice cold slush on a scorching hot day. He couldn't help but sigh in relief he didn't know he needed, falling back to sit on his bed as he told himself he would never take this thing off as long as he could help it.

It turned out Orion had likely taken so long on the watch because he made it specifically to have a small slot for the GPS tracker to be easily removed and inserted. Included with the instructions was a message from Orion making it clear that while he knew Chuck had to work with the government and seemed to trust his handlers, there would be times he needed to ditch them, which was why he made it easily removable. As much as he wished that wasn't the case Chuck imagined he'd be happy for it eventually, especially if things went bad with Graham.

During the first day of the new year Sarah came over asking him to come to Casey's for a meeting. He'd expected a briefing but found Casey sat at a table instead of at his desk, and Sarah showed him to the seat across from him while she stood between them and dug something out of her bag. The men exchanged glances, Chuck jumping slightly as a thick pile of papers hit the table between them, then a second pile landed beside it along with a third in Sarah's hands.

"So this is just the first draft of our business plan," she said taking her seat.

Chuck pulled one of the booklets to him and smirked seeing it was a full on report with a cover page. "You actually kept working on it?"

Sarah looked confused until she realized he'd assumed she stopped after everything with Bryce and how angry she'd been during the whole Lon Kirk mission. It hurt more than she'd admit that he thought she'd given up or forgotten, but she understood why he would think it. So to make up for making him worry she decided to let them know more than she'd planned.

"I say this is the first draft, but that's not true," she said flipping open the report. "This is just the first I thought good enough to present."

"Seems a bit much for a cover business proposal," Casey noted looking at the stack of papers about a thick as his thumb.

"Well I also go over what I think we need to do for Chuck's cover as well."

"So it won't really be me who owns it?" Chuck asked failing to hide his disappointment.

"On paper it will be you, but everything digital that can be tracked will have Carmichael. I've also considered establishing a new cover for the business since we've used Carmichael on missions, though it would also help us establish a firmer cover for Carmichael."

"If it can't be Chuck Bartowski who owns the company it should be Carmichael," Chuck said shaking his head. "I can explain that to Ellie. She knows I used to joke around about being him once I graduated."

"That's fine," Sarah nodded. "I just wanted to make sure you know it's an option. Besides, if we think we need to separate them later we can make new covers for missions."

They were going over how they'd function as an actual business, the types of jobs they could do to establish themselves and the type of customers they should be looking for when Sarah spotted his watch. Frowning she pointed at it asking, "Chuck you're supposed to wear the watch we gave you all the time."

"Huh?" He glanced at it and laughed nervously. "Oh, well, it's fine, I-"

"Something could happen at any time, Numbnuts," Casey said with a grunt. "What if we were called away on a mission and that's when someone comes to take you?

"Calm down, guys," he said holding up his hands. "I put the tracker and panic button on this watch."

"What?" asked Sarah while Casey growled asking, "Did you destroy government property again?"

"More like dismantle," Chuck offered with a shrug. "I removed the tracker and panic beacon and put them in this watch I bought."

"If you wanted to change the look you should have told us." Sarah sighed. "We could have requisitioned one for you."

"Yeah but now it's mine," said Chuck. "The other one is the governments, this one is mine. Is it really that big a deal?" It wasn't a great excuse and definitely not the reason for the switch, but it was also technically true.

"No, but you need to tell us before making choices like that."

"Should I ask you guys how many times I should wipe too?" Chuck muttered. Seeing their glares he sighed. "Fine, jeez. I won't do it again. Can we focus on this now? Because I really think we should consider hidden walls with fire poles that lead to the underground base."

"It's not the Batcave, Moron," Casey said shaking his head.

"But it could be a Chuckcave," he countered with a grin that only grew when Casey growled as he hoped he would while Sarah smiled and rolled her eyes.

When Sarah left to return to her apartment that night Casey held Chuck behind, so they said their farewells at Casey's door. Once the door was closed and Casey watched her head to her car he turned to Chuck. "Beckman agreed to getting the parts for your detector and reflector for our team. She'll send the parts here and you'll have to build them here, but we can set up a work bench for you."

Casey didn't need to tell him Beckman wanted the construction in his apartment so it could be recorded. If Chuck was going to die and the devices worked out they wanted to have a way to make them.

"That's great!" Chuck grabbed Casey's shoulder but swiftly pulled his hand away when Casey glared at it. "Sorry. I'll make a list of stuff I should need and start as soon as I can."

"Good," Casey said with a glance toward the courtyard, "we need to talk about bringing Sarah in on the Graham thing."

Chuck tilted his head. "Didn't we already agree to?"

"Chuck, you know what they call her, don't you?" When he shook his head, Casey crossed his arms saying, "She's Langston Graham's wild card enforcer."

"You think she'll side with him?"

"I don't know. Not enough to not consider it. I don't know her story but people have always said she was loyal to him. I just want us to be ready in case we tell her and things go south. You need to be ready for that."

"What do you think she'll do? I mean worst case."

"Kill us both," Casey answered with a shrug.

Chuck wondered why he'd expected something else. "Okay. How about fifth worse case scenario."

"Probably still kill us."

"Okay then let's pull back to where death isn't a factor."

"Torture."

"Further back."

Casey grunted. "Look, if we tell her there's a chance she'll be a double. She might act like she's with us, but will get information to Graham."

Chuck was about to say she wouldn't, but saw in Casey's eyes this was serious. So instead Chuck shook his head and said, "It won't happen."

"Chuck-"

"If we do this then we're going to be sure, right? We're not going after him for nothing. We're not even going after him yet, just looking into stuff. And we're not even the ones doing that."

"Which is why we could still hold off."

Chuck walked toward the couch, his arms crossed and much to Casey's surprise and relief he seemed to be honestly considering it. It was a few seconds before he turned to Casey shaking his head. "We have enough secrets on the team."

Glaring at him, Casey asked, "You have secrets with her I should know about?"

"Not that I can think of," Chuck shrugged, "but I know you two don't tell me stuff. I get it, you're the agents and I'm the asset, but I don't want to be the cause of any rifts between you two. I'm already screwing up her life by making her give up her boyfriend so she can sit around babysitting me. I don't want to be the reason she has to doubt her partner."

Casey shook his head in disbelief of how stupid someone so smart could be. Still, he had to figure it out himself, so Casey kept it to himself. "Okay. How about we wait until we have another briefing with just Beckman and bring it up, see what she says about Graham missing and go from there?"

"Sounds good to me."

It didn't take long for the opportunity to present itself. Chuck had sent Jeff away after he went searching through the Grand Saville's database and started flashing on over a list of people including Ilsa Trinchina, who turned out to be Casey's ex-lover. It was even enough to make Sarah reallocate CIA resources just to look into her. But not enough to warrant Graham joining in their briefing after Casey sent the list in.

"So you want us to infiltrate the Grand Saville?" asked Sarah as they met in Casey's with Beckman on the TV screen.

"The hotel's bar has been booked for a private party early this evening."

"Fine, I'll clear my schedule," Chuck said playfully, "but just 'cause it's you, General."

"Mr. Bartowski, it's up to you to tell us what these criminal agents are all doing in Los Angeles. You and Agent Walker are going undercover. We need you to press some Russian flesh, see what you can flash on. And, uh… good luck."

Once the call disconnected Chuck turned toward Casey to try and ease into bringing him along to meet his former lover, but found the NSA agent looking from him to Sarah. Clearly Casey had another conversation in mind, so Chuck held off on his. "Wow, another meeting without Graham, huh?" He said turning from Casey.

Sarah furrowed her brow, turning to him. "What?"

"Well, it's just, uh, weird, isn't it? Why is he absent so often? If he keeps it up we'll have to send a truancy officer."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "He's the Director of the CIA, Chuck, not a teenager cutting class."

"But aren't we important?" Chuck asked as she went to the desk where Casey's computer was setup. "Isn't he worried about the CIA losing their foot hold here? I mean you're the only one representing them, but still have to follow Beckman's orders."

Sarah looked past Chuck to see Casey leaning his shaking head back. That along with Chuck's almost stilted tone which reminded her of his performance for Lon Kirk made her walk back around the desk where she crossed her arms. "What's going on?"

"It's nothing, I swear-" Casey hit Chuck's back making him slump forward and change his tune. "We think Graham's up to something."

Sarah frowned, looking to Casey. "I thought we were past this kind of thing."

"What are you talking about, Walker?"

"This inter-agency rivalry stuff," she said motioning to Chuck. "I know I wasn't around a few days, but I didn't think you'd spend it turning him against the CIA."

"It was his idea," Casey said slamming a hand on Chuck's shoulder. "He was the one who brought it up. I said the same thing about his absences, but Chuck brought up some other things."

Sarah's arms returned to their crossed position, turning her frown to Chuck. "What? Do you think he's Fulcrum? Because he's-"

"Not, I know" he cut her off. "It wouldn't make sense. But just because he's not Fulcrum doesn't mean he's not still corrupt."

"Graham isn't corrupt," she said quickly.

"He's not a good person, Sarah," Chuck said sympathetically. "He recruits children to the CIA. He basically makes child soldiers."

Sarah's eyes widened for a second, then narrowed in such a way they made Chuck's widen. "Why do you think that?"

"Because I… There was a period a while back where I considered getting into hacking again and found a cache of information that included how the Director of the CIA had recruited people out of high school." He noticed her face darken slightly so continued quickly, "If it's true then we need to find out. He's taking advantage of teenagers to make them work for him. You know how they recruit people just like Casey does, right? Imagine making that offer to some poor kid without a home who thinks their life is ending and they have no other choice."

Sarah shook her head. "So you think because he recruits people a bit early he's corrupt?"

"No," Casey interjected, "we think it's evidence that his morals are non existent. But consider how important the Intersect is to the CIA."

"So you're questioning him because of something you read from a hacker and because he missed some briefings?"

"He didn't meet with Larkin either," Casey reminded. "I'd imagine the revival of the agent who stole the Intersect would be important enough to warrant his attendance alone, not to mention the fact that he uncovered a splinter group within the CIA. Those are the kind of thing that demand attention, which begs the question what the hell was more important?"

"I'm sure he's just…" Sarah tried to think of something, anything, but she couldn't. Missing the briefings for their own team was one thing. Sarah and Chuck were close enough the CIA would never lose their involvement with the Intersect completely so he could have just been delegating the briefings to Beckman so he could focus on other things, but Bryce's meeting was a different matter. "Maybe he knew about Fulcrum?"

"Then why didn't he tell us?" asked Casey. "If he knew and didn't then we can't trust him or the CIA. Fulcrum is after the Intersect, which means they're after Chuck, even if they don't know it. We can't protect him if we're not sure what we're protecting him from. To negate mentioning such a severe threat is beyond negligence."

"Whatever kept him out of that mission is probably something he is personally invested in to some degree," said Chuck.

"It could be a family thing."

"It could," Casey began, "except Beckman checked and he was never married and doesn't have children."

"Maybe he's gay," Sarah suggested.

"His private card and phone records prove that's not true," Casey quickly retorted.

Chuck turned to him confused. "What?"

"Whores," Casey answered, then smirked, "and not the trainee kind."

Sarah rolled her eyes at the comment, but found herself sighing as she returned to what had brought them there. "What do you think it is then?"

"We don't know. But we're telling you because if we're right then things could go south fast." Casey crossed his arms, standing a bit closer to Chuck who had his hands in his pockets as he looked to Sarah. "We need to know that if it does, if he's up to something, you'll do the right thing."

Sarah looked between the two and realized that Casey was standing ready to defend Chuck. If she tried something he was in place to throw Chuck behind him. Turning her gaze on their asset Sarah could only smile at the man who had made this old school killer ready to fight her to defend him. And Casey thought she was compromised.

Meeting his brown eyes she said, "I told you I'm on your side, Chuck."

Seeing him beam was worth the suspicious look Casey sent them. "I told him you would be."

Sarah snickered and shook her head, reaching back to hold the desk as she leaned against it. "Is that all, because we have a party full of Russian criminals to crash."

"Speaking of," Chuck said finding his chance, "what about you Casey?"

"What about me?" he asked turning on Chuck.

"I just thought if Sarah and I have to go to the hotel to press some Russian flesh, you might want to drop in on a certain somebody whose name I will not…" Chuck watched Casey grunt, turn, and run upstairs. It was shocking, almost like a teenager fleeing to their room.

"Chuck," Sarah said pushing of the table to put a hand on his back, but was too late to stop him.

"Okay, fine," he said turning to her, "I'll shut up now. Jeez, what is with that guy? He really doesn't want to see his ex, does he?"

"I doubt it," she said pointedly. "Ilsa's dead."

At least that's what they thought. But then as Chuck was busy pretending to be cousin Sasha he spotted her. It was really illuminating to see see the romantic side of Casey over the next days. No wonder she called him Sugar Bear. Of course she also turned out to be a spy on some kind of long term mission. But it felt like they grew closer with each discussion, even when Casey was drunk in his underwear, or as they fell into a hotel pool together.

After Ilsa left and Casey knocked Chuck aside, he went about cleaning up his apartment before they meet for their debrief. Once again Beckman was there alone, and neither man failed to notice how Sarah's jaw has shifted the moment the screen came on and how silent she was afterward. At least until Beckman looked up from a file on her desk with a smile.

"Oh, and before we end, I thought I should inform you that Agent Bryant was apprehended and confessed to her involvement with Fulcrum." Chuck let out a relieved sigh while Casey nodded. "Since your little experiment panned out, I'm going to suggest to those involved we run through the staff for all embassies."

"Of course, General," Casey said nodding as the screen went black.

"What is she talking about?"

Both men looked to Sarah but when Chuck looked to Casey the NSA agent smirked and shrugged, silently leaving Chuck to the wolves. With a sigh Chuck turned back to Sarah, who stood confused by the silent exchange. "A while back I did something that I… don't want to say because I'm a bit ashamed of it. Nothing dangerous, just kind of stupid, I guess. But in that I kind of, accidentally, sorta… flashed."

Sarah's gaze narrowed, turning her head slightly as she asked, "What did you do?"

"I'd rather not say."

When she looked to Casey he shrugged. "I figure he'll tell us within a month anyway, so I'm not going to waste my time torturing it out of him."

"What?" Chuck exclaimed turning on him.

"Chuck," Sarah said firmly, making him turn back to her. "What did you flash on?"

"A Fulcrum agent. The thing is… It was months ago." Chuck winced seeing a disappointed frown touch Sarah's lips. "It was before Bryce so I didn't know what it was. And I didn't know how to tell you guys since she's in Spain. But I told Casey and he told Beckman he had the idea to show me some files on embassy workers since that's where a lot of agents are located."

Her disappointment was killing Chuck, who stepped forward. "Sarah I'm sorry. I know I should have said something sooner but I couldn't, I swear. I know it's hard to accept but I couldn't. Please don't be angry."

Sarah looked at him and found her lips curving up upon seeing the concern in his eyes. He clearly thought she was upset with him, but she was upset with herself. She'd pulled away from him and in those few days Chuck had taken these major steps with Casey instead of her. He brought his concerns about Graham to Casey, told Casey about his flash, told Casey about his acquaintance with the Piranha.

It was just a few days but it had cost her so much. It had cost her Chuck's trust, or rather, her place as the person he trusted most. And all because she had been taking out her frustration on Chuck. Sure, he was the source of her frustration, but it wasn't his fault either. He made her question so much, he made her want so much, but he hadn't done it to ruin her. He clearly didn't even know he'd done anything. And she had pushed him away and Casey was left to pick up the pieces when Chuck needed someone to trust.

Sarah was disappointed in herself for letting him down. Which was something she wouldn't do again. Taking a breath she declared, "If Graham is up to something then we need to know. I'll try asking a few contacts I have without tipping our hand."

"Any chance you can access his file?" asked Casey. "See if The Moron can flash on something?"

"I'm right here," Chuck said offended, staying silent about how he'd already seen the Director's file months ago.

Sarah shook her head. "Not without drawing attention."

"I have someone I can ask," Casey said thinking on his contacts. "He can pull up just about anything."

"I think it would be a waste," Chuck quickly interjected, not wanting him to waste a contact. "If anything I'd have flashed on him by now, right? No point in burning a bridge we could use later. We just need to be patient. Let Beckman look into it and just be ready in case something happens."

While they went over what to do with him, Langston Graham sat back in his home office looking at the monitor in front of him showing the video call with Agent Quinn. "As soon as you're cleared for duty I'll add your name to the candidates for the new Intersect. I've already selected a few, but I promise you'll get your chance."

"And the old one?" asked Quinn.

"Once the new Intersect is online Bartowski will be removed. Why?"

Quinn shook his head. "You know how I get. I'm just anxious to make this right."

"We will, Agent Quinn."

"And what about Orion? Couldn't he speed this all up?"

"He's still in the wind."

"And we don't have any way to get to him? No one he knows?" Quinn saw Graham start to shake his head, but then he stopped, looking off to the side thoughtfully. "What is it, Director?"

Graham let out a laugh. "Actually. There might be one way."

"There is? Who?"

Graham answered with a grimace, "Bartowski. It was before I was read in on the project, but apparently Bartowski was approached and questioned about Orion. The whole thing was cleaned up and Orion wiped it from his record so it wasn't in his file."

Quinn licked his teeth as he kept his mouth in a flat line before asking humbly, "Director, if you'd like I could look into it. See if I can track down who it was that questioned him, how they found out, see if there really is a link between them."

Clearly reluctant, Graham said, "You're still recovering."

"Only because you want to get me back to one hundred percent, but even as I am now I can do at least this much."

Quinn was biting the inside of his cheek as he watched the Director debate it, barely holding in a sigh of relief when he saw the older man nod. "Fine. This is off the books, no records. Keep it quiet."

Quinn let his lips curve into a light smile. "I'll do all I can to set things right."

AN:

When I realized how much I'd had Chuck open to to Casey, I realized it had to bother Sarah, make her feel like she'd really lost something important and all because she acted out in a poor way.

I think the main thing keeping Sarah from being more reflexively or aggressively defensive during the recruit talk is that they aren't talking about her specifically. Because it wasn't her past directly she was able to hold back from putting a pencil through any pictures.